“The effect of life in society is to complicate and confuse our existence, making us forget who we really are by causing us to become obsessed with what we are not.”
— Zhuangzi
The moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace.
- Eckhart Tolle (via spirituallyminded)
One must be willing to stand alone — in the unknown, with no reference to the known or the past or any of one’s conditioning. One must stand where no one has stood before in complete nakedness, innocence, and humility. One must stand in that dark light, in that groundless embrace, unwavering and true to the reality beyond all self — not just for a moment, but forever without end. For then that which is sacred, undivided, and whole is born within consciousness and begins to express itself.
- Adyashanti
There is power in you that manifests all activities in life. It is not just your mind responsible for this. No, it is that inner power that is becoming more and more interested in itself.
- Mooji
Many people feel they are powerless to do anything effective with their lives. It takes courage to break out of the settled mold, but most find conformity more comfortable. This is why the opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it’s conformity.
- Rollo May (via spirituallyminded)
We think we listen, but very rarely do we listen with real understanding, true empathy. Yet listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most potent forces for change that I know.
- Carl Rogers
There is in all living things a strong current of energy, affection and intelligence, which is beyond words. Discover this current in you and stay with it.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
The world will ask you who you are, and if you don’t know, the world will tell you.
- Carl Jung
Just as every drop of the ocean carries the taste of the ocean, so does every moment carry the taste of eternity.
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Self-love is not only necessary and good, it is a prerequisite for loving others.
- Rollo May
That man has reached immortality who is disturbed by nothing material.
- Swami Vivekananda
The light of awareness has a welcoming wholeness to it — it sees the ordinary moment just as it sees the peak moment.
- Adyashanti
Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.
- Gandalf (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Ambition means to climb uphill. Water goes downhill, it searches for the lowest ground; it wants to be a nonentity. It does not want to declare itself unique, exceptional, extraordinary. It has no ego idea.
“That is what I mean when I say become water: drop the ego, drop ambition. Don’t struggle for the top of the hill and don’t start moving upstream.
- Osho
It is not the outer objects that entangle us. It is the inner clinging that entangles us.
- Tilopa
All societies, including the most marvellously utopian, have within them the seeds of their own corruption. To change society, you must break away from it. You must cease to be what society is; acquisitive, ambitious, envious, power-seeking, and so on.
- Jiddu Krishnamurti (via spirituallyminded)
Before the soul can be realized and lived, it must be brought to the surface of consciousness, nurtured, and chosen to be one’s own. Only then does it begin to reveal a deeper sense of meaning and direction in one’s life.
- Adyashanti
It is very easy to conform to what your society or your parents and teachers tell you. That is a safe and easy way of existing. To live is to find out for yourself what is true.
- Jiddu Krishnamurti
Man issues forth from bodily identification to assume his real form upon attainment of the great illumination. Such a man is best among men. He lives like a king - eating, playing, and enjoying women, possessions, and family, without identification with the body.
- Chandogya Upanishad 8. 12. 3.c
Thought by itself has no power. It is only your belief in a thought that gives it life.
- Mooji
My meditation is simple. It does not require any complex practices. It is simple. It is singing. It is dancing. It is sitting silently.
- Osho
At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
- Albert Schweitzer
Never try to stop the thoughts. If you try to stop the thoughts they will become bigger and greater and they will win. Because the mind appears to be very powerful. Yet in reality the mind does not exist. There is no mind. There is no such thing as a mind. So when you sit in the silence you observe, you watch, you become the witness.
- Robert Adams
We cannot give what we do not have: We cannot bring peace to the world if we ourselves are not peaceful. We cannot bring love to the world if we ourselves are not loving. Our true gift to ourselves and others lies not in what we have but in who we are.
- Marianne Williamson
The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: you create a good future by creating a good present.
- Eckhart Tolle
Take hold of your own life. See that the whole existence is celebrating. These trees are not serious, these birds are not serious. The rivers and the oceans are wild, and everywhere there is fun, everywhere there is joy and delight. Watch existence, listen to the existence and become part of it.
- Osho
Foolish people think of liberation as something entirely different from the enjoyment of the world; but whatever there is sublime and great which is heard, seen, smelt, eaten, known and touched, is good all round… The whole drama of the world is to be known as perfectly pure by nature.
- Subhashita-samgraha, 47
The greatest difficulty is the mental resistance to things that arise, and the underlying assumption that they should not.
- Eckhart Tolle
The major adventure is to claim your authentic, true being, which is not culturally given to you. The culture will not explain to you how to be a real human being. It will tell you how to be banker, politician, Indian chief, masseuses, actress, whatever, but it will not give you true being.
- Terence McKenna
The critical element in meditation practice is beginning again. Everyone loses focus at times, everyone loses interest at times, and everyone gets distracted over and over again. What is essential, and also incredibly transforming, is realizing that we have the ability to begin again, without blaming or judging ourselves, without thinking we have failed, without losing heart, we can, and need to, constantly be beginning again.
- Sharon Salzberg
Until you practice surrender, the spiritual dimension is something you read about, talk about, write books about, think about, believe in - or don’t, as the case may be. It makes no difference. Not until you surrender does it become a living reality in your life.
- Eckhart Tolle
When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life.
- Eckhart Tolle
It is very difficult to know exactly what good should come out of a particular situation. To attempt to manipulate circumstances so your idea of good can come about, is to let the ego play God-and that, as you know, can and does backfire.
- Neem Karoli Baba
By replacing fear of the unknown with curiosity we open ourselves up to an infinite stream of possibility. We can let fear rule our lives or we can become childlike with curiosity, pushing our boundaries, leaping out of our comfort zones, and accepting what life puts before us.
- Alan Watts
I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that deep within you don’t know already. All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten.
- Eckhart Tolle
I am not this body. I am in this body, and this is part of my incarnation and I honor it but that isn’t who I am.
- Ram Dass
Practice listening to your intuition, your inner voice; ask questions; be curious; see what you see; hear what you hear; and then act upon what you know to be true. These intuitive powers were given to your soul at birth.
- Clarissa Pinkola Estés
You will be free to let go of your unhappiness the moment you recognise it as unintelligent. Negativity is not intelligent. It is always of the ego. The ego may be clever, but it is not intelligent. Cleverness pursues its own little aims. Intelligence sees the larger whole in which all things are connected. Cleverness is motivated by self-interest, and it is extremely short-sighted. Whatever is attained through cleverness is short-lived and always turns out to be eventually self-defeating. Cleverness divides; intelligence includes.
- Eckhart Tolle
The best leaders are those their people hardly know exist.
The next best is a leader who is loved and praised.
Next comes the one who is feared.
The worst one is the leader that is despised …
The best leaders value their words, and use them sparingly.
When they have accomplished their task,
the people say, “Amazing!
We did it, all by ourselves!”
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Practice listening to your intuition, your inner voice; ask questions; be curious; see what you see; hear what you hear; and then act upon what you know to be true. These intuitive powers were given to your soul at birth.
- Clarissa Pinkola Estés
When man no longer identifies himself with his person nor uses it as a means of resisting life, he finds the Self is more than his own being; it includes the whole universe.
- Alan Watts
Physical penetration is sex, which is a very superficial thing. Psychological penetration is love, which is far more deep, far more significant, far more beautiful, far more human. The first is animal, the second is human. And then there is a third kind of penetration: when two consciousnesses meet, merge, melt into each other. I call that prayer.
- Osho (via spirituallyminded)
The union of feminine and masculine energies within the individual is the basis of all creation.
- Shakti Gawain
This is the message of your life and my life - it’s that nothing lasts. Heraclitus said it: Panta Rhei. All flows, nothing lasts. Not your enemies, not your fortune, not who you sleep with at night, not the books, not the house in Saint-Tropez, not even the children - nothing lasts. To the degree that you avert your gaze from this truth, you build the potential for pain into your life. Everything is this act of embracing the present moment, the felt presence of experience, and then moving on to the next felt moment of experience. It’s literally psychological nomadism is what it is.
- Terence McKenna
When conquest became the mode, people burnt the feminine out of the planet. We made it like this that the masculine is the only way to be successful, and we have compelled even women to be very masculine today in their attitude, approach and emotion. We have made everybody believe that conquest is the only way to success. But to conquer is not the way; to embrace is the way. Trying to conquer the planet has led to all the disasters. If the feminine was the more dominant factor, or at least if the two were evenly balanced, I don’t think you would have any ecological disasters, because the feminine and earth worship always went together. Those cultures which looked upon the earth as the mother, they never caused too much damage to the environment around them.
- Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev
All we need is the morning.
As long as there is sunrise,
then there is the possibility
that we can face all of our misfortunes,
celebrate all our blessings,
and live all our endeavors as human beings.
Spirituality is something that has become
necessary in these troubled times.
Yet it is inherently superfluous.
We need it to remind ourselves,
to bolster ourselves,
to integrate ourselves,
to fulfill ourselves.
If we could simply acknowledge
the mystery of night
and the glory of morning,
we would need neither civilization nor spirituality.
At its simplest, life begins with dawn.
That is blessing enough.
All else becomes fullness immeasurable.
At dawn, kneel down and give thanks
for this wonderful event.
We may think mornings are so common
they are unworthy of veneration,
but do you realize most places in the cosmos
do not have mornings?
This daily event is our supreme goodness.
Greet the dawn.
That is your miracle to witness.
That is the ultimate beauty.
That is sacredness.
That is your gift from heaven.
That is your omen of prophesy.
That is knowledge that life is not futile.
That is enlightenment.
That is your meaning in life.
That is your directive.
That is your comfort.
That is the solemnity of duty.
That is inspiration for compassion.
That is the light of the ultimate.
- Deng Ming-Dao
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
- Albert Schweitzer
We are so programmed to feel that our emotions are the most important thing in the Universe… We write, produce and act in the story of me. And then we write reviews - and read them and get more depressed. All we can do is let go, and that comes from training. And then we spend less and less time in the darker spaces.
- Krishna Das
Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others.
- Timothy Leary
As we grow in our consciousness, there will be more compassion and more love, and then the barriers between people, between religions, between nations will begin to fall. Yes, we have to beat down the separateness.
- Ram Dass
The dark primordial river of wild male shakti has nothing to do with the distorted masculine we see at large in the world today – true male shakti is very, very wild and powerful. Very strong and playful. Very direct and penetrating. It serves only Love. Many men have never given themselves permission to access this side of their being.
- Azra Bertrand
Happiness is the choice I make today. It does not rest on my circumstances, but on my frame of mind… In cultivating the habits of happiness, I attract the people and situations that match its frequency. I smile more often, give praise more often, give thanks more often, and am glad more often. For such is my choice today.
- Marianne Williamson (via spirituallyminded)
Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that other people have of you is inauthentic living.
- Eckhart Tolle (via flowgently)
Half the time you think you’re thinking you’re actually listening.
- Terence McKenna
Wild women are an unexplainable spark of life. They ooze freedom and seek awareness, they belong to nobody but themselves yet give a piece of who they are to everyone they meet.
If you have met one, hold on to her, she’ll allow you into her chaos but she’ll also show you her magic.
- Nikki Rowe (via spirituallyminded)
The truth is you can’t try to let go. Trying is the opposite of letting go. To let go is to let go of letting go. It is being deeply grateful how things are as they are.
- Adyashanti
