More from and about
Michael Goddart
(biographical info at bottom of page)

  

Awe is an evolving feeling that becomes more profound and more full
of wonder as your spirituality becomes focused and mature.
The answers, as inarticulate as they may be, grow with the gathering
of your spirituality. For now, feel awe if you have any
deepening convictions about your spirituality.

   

Kindheartedness is what we treasure most in family, friends, classmates, colleagues, adversaries, and strangers.  A kind heart, a loving heart, a soft heart would rather do anything than hurt another's feelings. . . . A person who is kind is gentle, considerate, and inclined to benevolent actions.  A kindhearted person is also nice.

      
When you're helping, from your limited vantage point, appreciate that person's struggles and suffering yet also respect their privacy and boundaries. Ascertain with delicacy and care the extent to which your friend may wish to open up and talk. Don't take responsibility for solving that friend's life; just be there. Let any feelings of compassion and selflessness come naturally. Watch your feelings so that, if you feel superior or prideful, you can shush your mind and tell it that it should feel grateful for the opportunity to serve. For, in serving by doing what you can to alleviate suffering, you are transcending boundaries and glorifying the One Power in us all. As you give your life to others, compassion grows; and as compassion grows, you become worthier to receive grace. Grace is what enables you to grow in you divinity and what helps you gain your true life.
  
There is a higher Will operating most efficiently in this world, although most of us are not privy to it. When we make judgments that things are not happening the way we think they should, this is the height of arrogance. This is acting as though our way is superior to the Higher Power's. We're acting as though we know better. But do we actually know the cause and effect of everything happening around us? While we may share in creative power, until we have merged our consciousness in the Creator, we are in absolutely no position to judge when and how things happen.
   

Practicing patience is an opportunity to let go and let God, and to transmute negative emotions into positive virtues.  With patience, you are relaxed and centered; you have energy and attention that you can readily draw on; and you can proceed with the assurance that things are in their rightful place, even though you may not necessarily like them.

     

Patience will keep you centered, surrendered, detached, and content to
just continue with the assurance that, "Yes, everything in its good time.

   

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"Awe" is just a word to denote a quality of spirituality that cannot be described.
It's a noble emotion of wonder. It's having your mind blown while getting
a glimmer of the unfathomableness of God. It's getting an understanding
of who you are, individually and in the larger scheme of things. It's catching
a ray of knowing the answer to where you come from and where you are
going. Getting closer to the answers of these questions is receiving a
peek of how exalted things are. And it's a promise of what can come.

   

By loving others, we get to pass on lessons in this schoolhouse of life.
Loving others is the virtue that is so hard to embody yet crucial for
advancing in our spirituality. In loving others, we elevate others
as well as ourselves and grow closer to our Higher Power. We experience
consciously that mysterious, mystical, joyful essence that is life and God.
We rise and transcend our false barriers to enjoy the Oneness that, even
if long forgotten, we still crave deep down in our cores.

   

The unabating desire for things of this world--money, sex, fame,
name, people, beauty, bodies--with all their particular insistent
requirements, keeps us revved up, falsely advertises the destination
"Happiness," and keeps us cruising down those roads. But when and
if we ever arrive, we're never there. At least not for long.

   

    
Michael Goddart began at age ten to consciously seek and practice his spiritual path. Since 1969, he has studied the teachings of Saints and practiced the disciplines given by living Masters. His spiritual odyssey and work as a consultant have taken him to over forty countries, allowing him to sojourn and study with realized Saints.
   Mr. Goddart has an MFA from the Writers Workshop at Bowling Green and his articles have appeared in international spiritual journals.

(From his website at goddart.com)

  

    

We have some inspiring and motivational books that may interest you.  Our main way of supporting this site is through the sale of books, either physical copies or digital copies for your Amazon Kindle (including the online reader).  All of the money that we earn through them comes back to the site in one way or another.  Just click on the picture to the left to visit our page of books, both fiction and non-fiction!

  

Other people:  Alan Watts - Albert Einstein - Albert Schweitzer - Andy Rooney - Anne Frank - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Wilson Schaef
- Annie Dillard - Anthony Robbins - Ari Kiev - Artur Rubenstein - Barbara Johnson - Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Franklin
- Benjamin Hoff - Bernie Siegel - Bertrand Russell - Betty Eadie - Booker T. Washington
Charlotte Davis Kasl
- Cheryl Richardson - Cristina Feldman - C.S. Lewis - the Dalai Lama - Dale Carnegie - Deepak Chopra
Don Miguel Ruiz
- Earl Nightingale - Elaine St. James - Eleanor Roosevelt - Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emmet Fox
- Frederick Buechner - George Bernard Shaw - George Santayana - George Washington Carver - Gerald Jampolsky
Harold Kushner
- Harry Emerson Fosdick - Helen Keller - Henry David Thoreau - Henry James - Henry Van Dyke
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Henry Ward Beecher - Hugh Prather - Immanuel Kant - Iyanla Vanzant - Jack Canfield
James Allen
- Jennifer James - Jim Rohn - Joan Borysenko - Joan Chittister - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - John Izzo
John Ruskin
- Joni Eareckson Tada - Joseph M. Marshall III - Julia Cameron - Kent Nerburn - Khalil Gibran
Leo Buscaglia
- Leonard Jacobson - Leslie Levine - Lucinda Bassett - Lydia Maria Child - Lynn Grabhorn - Marcus Aurelius
Marianne Williamson
- Martin Luther King, Jr. - Maya Angelou - Melody Beattie - Michael Goddart - Mitch Albom
Mohandas Gandhi
- Morrie Schwartz - Mother Teresa - M. Scott Peck - Nathaniel Branden - Nikos Kazantzakis - Norman Cousins
Norman Vincent Peale
- Og Mandino - Oprah Winfrey - Oriah - Orison Swett Marden - Pau Casals - Peace Pilgrim - Phillips Brooks
Rabindranath Tagore
- Rachel Carson - Rachel Naomi Remen - Rainer Maria Rilke - Ralph Waldo Trine - Richard Bach
Richard Carlson
- Robert Frost - Robert Fulghum - Robert Louis Stevenson - Russell Baker - Sarah Ban Breathnach
Shakti Gawain
- Soren Kierkegaard - Stephen Covey - Stephen C. Paul - Sue Patton Thoele - Susan L. Taylor
Sylvia Boorstein
- Thich Nhat Hanh - Thomas Carlyle - Thomas Kinkade - Thomas Merton - Tom Walsh - Victor Cherbuliez
Wayne Dyer
- Wilferd A. Peterson - Willa Cather - William James - William Wordsworth - Zig Ziglar

   

       
    

Yes, life can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's actually rather dependable and reliable.  Some principles apply to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning.  I use it a lot when I teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.  What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or generous, compassionate or arrogant?  In this book, I've done my best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life, writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.  Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too!
Universal Principles of Living Life Fully.  Awareness of these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration out of the lives we lead.