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I'm reading Purity of the Heart is to Will One Thing, by Soren Kierkegaard, one of my favorite authors. I really relate to his ideals and experiences. This book has been very uplifting for me and I agree with a lot of it. He's a Christian writer, but this book has a lot of Buddhist undertones and in many ways is practical about coping through life and maintaining a desire to create love in the world. So I would recommend it, certainly, for non-Christians, as well. I'm about halfway through right now.
Quotes that are helping me right now:
"But here on earth, Good is often temporarily rewarded by ingratitude, by lack of appreciation, by poverty, by contempt, by many sufferings, and now and then by death. It is not this reward to which we refer when we say that the Good has its reward. Yet this is the reward that comes in the external world and that comes first of all. And it is precisely this reward which the man is anxious about, who wills the Good for the sake of no reward" (72).
"Oh, Though the Good's wonderful at-oneness with thyself that protects thee from being deceived! When, for the sake of the reward, a double-minded person only pretends to will the Good, and he seems to get the reward, nevertheless he does not get it. For that which he gets, he does not get as reward--for the Good. So far is he from getting it as reward that rather at that very moment that he receives the Good, he discovers that the reward has vanished" (73).
Quotes that are helping me right now:
"But here on earth, Good is often temporarily rewarded by ingratitude, by lack of appreciation, by poverty, by contempt, by many sufferings, and now and then by death. It is not this reward to which we refer when we say that the Good has its reward. Yet this is the reward that comes in the external world and that comes first of all. And it is precisely this reward which the man is anxious about, who wills the Good for the sake of no reward" (72).
"Oh, Though the Good's wonderful at-oneness with thyself that protects thee from being deceived! When, for the sake of the reward, a double-minded person only pretends to will the Good, and he seems to get the reward, nevertheless he does not get it. For that which he gets, he does not get as reward--for the Good. So far is he from getting it as reward that rather at that very moment that he receives the Good, he discovers that the reward has vanished" (73).
