Various Insightful Quotes

What is heart but the souls love for fire?
What is flesh but the souls love for earth?
What is breath but the souls love for air?
What is blood but the souls love for water?

Kind hearts are the gardens,
Kind thoughts the roots,
Kind words the flowers,
Kind deeds the fruit.

In the womb of your mother you were growing so peacefully. The atoms and cells merged themselves together so that they create the form of you. The elements of the Universe were added into your body, granting you life. Your spirit travelled from a distant place to find home in your body. You were brought to existence on this wondrous Earth to bask in her full glory, to honour and nurture your spirit. You were created for a good reason. So therefore, love your life and love your existence. You are not only flesh and blood. You are stardust and living force of the Universe.

Normal consciousness is a state of stupor, in which sensibility to the wholly real and responsiveness to the stimuli of the spirit are reduced. The mystics, knowing that man is involved in a hidden history of the cosmos, endeavor to awake from the drowsiness and apathy and to regain the state of wakefulness for their enchanted souls. Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement and get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

This universe, my friends, is an optical illusion. It is a dream, just as when you’re dreaming. No one can ever tell you the dream is a dream, as long as you’re dreaming.
~ Adam Roberts

If my mind doesn't go out to disturb the noise, the noise won't disturb me.
— Ajahn Chah

Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.
~ AJAHN CHAH

Brahman is the ultimate reality; it is simultaneously Saguna and Nirguna; divisions are due to ignorance. Mind and intellect can never catch hold of it; they have only one option and that is to merge with it.
~ Amit Ray

You can believe in God, it is all-right, but you MUST have the Experience. It changes the whole game. Believing and having a concept about it, without direct experience, is dry life. God-Being is the True Self within and is accessible to both the believer, atheist and Knower. Few attend to this, many just go on in non-sensical dream that they call life. It is just a dream for me, but for them, it is EVERYTHING. The real pity is the ignorance of the Divine God that dwells within. There is a million dollars on your account and you only need to open the account and you can spend your million dollars. That's all it takes. You will not die, life is for everyone eternally and is not a mortal phenomena. You, I and everyone and everything is sitting amidst God's Kingdom and are knowingly or unknowingly in Absolute Heaven. Knowing it is enjoying it consciously. This is the goal, becoming happy as we are now, without a reason or cause. It is possible and is actually natural. Have no body-mind identification and you become Formless Essence. This means that you become Godly, unreachable by senses, High Divinity.
~ Anishwaraya Sarvajnaya Maharaj

The universe is contained within us, and what we experience externally is only a reflection. Transform your world by transforming your internal state. Start by learning to let go of negative self judgment, and replace it with positive and loving thoughts about yourself. Be kind to yourself, and watch your external world change.
~ Anita Moorjani

Sunset in the ethereal waves: I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if the secret of secrets is inside me again.
~ Anna Akhmatova

Love is the greatest, unifying force of existence. Only love has the power to transform our barren desert of personal suffering into an oasis of eternal bliss.
~ Anon I mus

The nature of reality is observer-dependent; without you as an observer there can be no perceptual reality. Quantum mechanics states that by observing a particle, we can change it. The observer affects what is being observed; this is ‘action in non-action’.
~ Anon I mus (Spiritually Anonymous)

The observer cannot be separated from the observed. Any act of observation or measuring affects what is being perceived. The observer and the observed are inseparably one thing (not two, not two). No observer, no world.
~ Anon I mus (Spiritually Anonymous)

The truth that you are seeking is already seeking you. That which is being perceived is produced by the perceiver (there is no external source). Go deep within your inner spaciousness and surrender to your pure, eternal essence.
~ Anon I mus (Spiritually Anonymous)

You are one thing only. You are a Divine Being. An all-powerful Creator. You are a Deity in jeans and a t-shirt, and within you dwells the infinite wisdom of the ages and the sacred creative force of All that is, will be and ever was.
~ Anthon St. Maarten

Has it ever occurred to you that what you call your happiness is really your chain? For example, are you calling somebody your happiness? As in, ‘You are my joy.’ It could be your marriage, your business, your degree, whatever. In whom do you find your happiness? Whatever the answer is, that’s your prison.
~ Anthony de Mello (20th century Indian Catholic mystic)

The trouble with most people is they’re busy trying to fix things in themselves that they really don’t understand. Stop fixing yourself. Don’t interfere. Don’t fix anything. Simply watch. Observe. You’re OK. These things in you just need to be understood. If you understand them, they will change and you would finally see that all is well, within you and around you. This practice is a simple way of discovering this.
~ Anthony de Mello

This unity of all human beings, their interconnection and interdependence, is the primary vision of mysticism. It says that the virtue mystics practice is necessary not only because of its functional utility but because it is realistic. One should treat the other as oneself because below the surface we are all aspects of one being; the Golden Rule is not an arbitrary, culturally determined morality but an expression of the actual nature of the world.

Our continued existence as a species and our further development depend on our capacity for recognizing this reality despite the compelling influence of the object self.
~ Arthur J. Deikman

I am a bubble of Super-most consciousness. That is what my realization is. This is what I have gained. Now what I feel is that there is One, Infinite, Super-most Element. From IT, when it moves, Sound and Light come out and from that Light and Sound this creation takes place. Cosmic rays and many other types of rays come out of this Light and Sound and all this gross matter is made. So it is the Will of that Supreme Power. Everything is oozing out of IT and is merging back in IT.
~ Baba Faqir Chand

You, me and all have come from There. But, after coming into this world, we have forgotten about our Original Abode and we are completely engrossed in this world. Even though we face all sorts of difficulties, miseries and tortures, this world appears to be very attractive to us. Our desires for wealth, honour, fame and prosperity amidst all sorts of griefs and miseries continue to increase without any end. The Saints come in this world only for those who have no attachment with this world and with the creations of their own mind. The teachings of the Saints are only for those who understand that they are here for a specific period and not forever. Guru Nanak Sahib has named the Supreme Centre of Energy or the Lord of this world as ‘AKAL PURUSH’ [Timeless Supreme Being].
~ Baba Faqir Chand, Know Thyself To Know God

If you try to be anyone but yourself, you will fail; if you are not true to your own heart, you will fail. Then again, there’s no success like failure.
~ Bob Dylan

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!
~ Bob Marley

You are blessed. You are pure awareness. This awareness is your very nature; You can forget it but you cannot lose it. It cannot be stolen. It is your very center.

Relax, but go on entering deeper and deeper into yourself. The body remains far away, miles away, the mind remains miles away. You are just a silent watchfulness, a peace that passeth understanding., a bliss that no word can express.

An experience of eternity and immortality which will bring you a great feeling of dance, rejoicings, songs. Even your silence will become a song and your no-movement will become a dance.

Those who have known this source have become pure love, compassion, consciousness, purity. This is your ultimate nature. Life is only a school to bring you to this ultimate nature.
~ brahman-god-oceanoflove

At 19, I read a sentence that re-terraformed my head: “The level of matter in the universe has been constant since the Big Bang.

In all the aeons we have lost nothing, we have gained nothing - not a speck, not a grain, not a breath. The universe is simply a sealed, twisting kaleidoscope that has reordered itself a trillion trillion trillion times over.

Each baby, then, is a unique collision - a cocktail, a remix - of all that has come before: made from molecules of Napoleon and stardust and comets and whale tooth; colloidal mercury and Cleopatra’s breath: and with the same darkness that is between the stars between, and inside, our own atoms.

When you know this, you suddenly see the crowded top deck of the bus, in the rain, as a miracle: this collection of people is by way of a starburst constellation. Families are bright, irregular-shaped nebulae. Finding a person you love is like galaxies colliding. We are all peculiar, unrepeatable, perambulating micro-universes - we have never been before and we will never be again. Oh God, the sheer exuberant, unlikely face of our existences. The honour of being alive. They will never be able to make you again.
~ Caitlin Moran

The great mother is uroboric: terrible and devouring, beneficent and creative; she is a helper, but also alluring and destructive; a maddening enchantress, yet, a bringer of wisdom; she is both bestial and divine; voluptuous harlot and inviolable virgin, immemorially old, and eternally young.
~ Carl Jung, On the Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype

The secret is that only that which can destroy itself is truly alive.
~ Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy

If you take [a copy of] the Christian Bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone. Our bible IS the wind and the rain.
~ Carol R. McGrath

As I began to love myself. I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth.
Today, I know, this is Authenticity.
As I began to love myself, I understood how much it can offend somebody if I try to force my desires on this person, even though I knew the time was not right and the person was not ready for it; and, even though this person was me.
Today I call this Respect.
As I began to love myself, I stopped craving for a different life and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow.
Today I call this Maturity.
As I began to love myself, I understood that at any circumstance, I am in the right place at the right time and everything happens at the exactly right moment. So I could be calm.
Today I call this Self-Confidence.
As I began to love myself, I quit stealing my own time and I stopped designing huge projects for the future. Today, I only do what brings me joy and happiness, things I love to do and that make my heart cheer and I do them in my own way and in my own rhythm. Today I call this Simplicity.
As I began to love myself, I freed myself of anything that is no good for my health – food, people, things, situations and everything that drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism. Today I know it is Love of Oneself. As I began to love myself, I quit trying to always be right and ever since I was wrong less of the time.
Today I discovered that is Modesty.
As I began to love myself, I refused to go on living in the past and worrying about the future. Now, I only live for the moment, where everything is happening.
Today I live each day, day by day; an,d I call it Fulfillment.
As I began to love myself, I recognized that my mind can disturb me and it can make me sick.
But as I connected it to my heart, my mind became a valuable ally.
Today I call this connection Wisdom of the Heart.
We no longer need to fear arguments, confrontations or any kind of problems with ourselves or others. Even stars collide; and, out of their crashing, new worlds are born.
Today I know: This is Life!
~ Charlie Chaplin

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head… But you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.
☆Chinese Proverb☆

Why do you insist the universe is not a conscious intelligence, when it gives birth to conscious intelligence?
~ Cicero

It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.
~ Colleen Hoover

What Mind?
Many seem to think that there is a separate mind to consciousness and that is wrong view.
Consciousness alone is reality and that which we call mind arises in the space of consciousness as a train of thoughts and images and all connected to sense objects and the duality of subject object thinking.
When these rise onto the surface of consciousness they are reflected onto it and your attention gives them life with any feeling or emotion that comes with them.
If you obey the thoughts by being dominated by them, that is ‘Samsara’ but if you pull away from them or remain unconnected to them, that is ‘Nirvana’ or ‘Self Awareness’ or ‘Awareness of My Self as Awareness.’
This brings up the importance of meditation and how, eventually, meditation and post meditation become one, because the practice of ‘Empty Mind’ in meditation becomes the practice of ‘Empty Mind’ in post meditation.
What is the nature of mind?
Emptiness like the sky, and stillness too, in fact the mind is not the mind until a thought arises into the stillness of consciousness and moves consciousness, then, consciousness can be called mind, but mind as an entity does not exist of its own accord, it is simply thoughts that are the ego expressing itself as karmic messages called thought by the power of the ‘Consciousness’ that you are.
Shivohum
Om Shanti
~ Crow

Man In the Glass
When you get what you want in your struggle for self, and the World makes you king for a day;
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself, and see what that man has to say.
For it isn't your father or mother or wife whose judgment upon you must pass;
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life is the one staring back from the glass.
Some people might think you're a straight-shootin' chum and call you a wonderful guy;
But the Man in the Glass says you're only a bum if you can't look him straight in the eye.
He's the fellow to please -- never mind all the rest! -- for he's with you all the way to the end;
And you've already passed your most dangerous test if the guy in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole World down the pathway of years and get pats on-the-back as you pass;
But your final reward will be heartache and tear ... if you've cheated the Man in the Glass!
~ Dale Wimbrow, (1895 – 1954)

I once asked a very successful woman to share her secret with me. She smiled and said to me.. “I started succeeding when I started leaving small fights for small fighters. I stopped fighting those who gossiped about me… I stopped fighting with my in laws… I stopped fighting for attention… I stopped fighting to meet peoples expectation of me… I stopped fighting for my rights with inconsiderate people.. I stopped fighting to please everyone… I stopped fighting to prove they were wrong about me…. I left such fights for those who have nothing else to fight… And I started fighting for my vision, my dreams, my ideas and my destiny. The day I gave up on small fights is the day I started becoming successful & so much more content.” Some fights are not worth your time… Choose what you fight for wisely.
~ Dana Ives

The flute does not know music: it does not know ‘G’ from ‘B flat;’ it does not know tempo or emphasis, and cannot make music come out of itself: it’s just a hollow bamboo stick with holes in it! It is the musician who has the knowledge and the skill and the intention and the dexterity, and whose breath blows through the instrument and whose fingers manipulate the openings so that beautiful music flows out. When the music is ended, no one congratulates the wooden stick on the music it made: it is the musician who is applauded and thanked for this beautiful gift of music.

It is precisely so with what we think of as our ‘selves.’ We are instruments, hollow sticks, through which the Breath, the Spirit, the Energy which is Presence, All That Is, Consciousness, flows. Just as it is not the flute making the note, but the Musician making the note through the instrument, so it is the breath which is Presence which animates this mind and body and comes out through this mouth to make it seem that this mouth is speaking words.

The basic misunderstanding, the basic ignorance, is this unwitting usurpation of the role of Musician by the instrument. This inversion of the truth is spontaneously realized when the Understanding occurs. It becomes obvious that there is no individual, that there is ‘nobody home,’ no entity here to be the doer or not. Because awakening is simply the Understanding that there is no one here to awaken.
~ David Carse, Perfect Brilliant Stillness

To hear never-heard sounds, to see never-seen colors and shapes, to try to understand the imperceptible Power pervading the world; To fly and find pure ethereal substances that are not of matte, but of that invisible soul pervading reality. To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul; to be a lantern in the darkness or an umbrella in a stormy day; To feel much more than know. To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain; to be a wave understanding the influence of the moon; to be a tree and read the memory of the leaves; to be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching. To be a smile on the face of a woman and shine in her memory as a moment saved without planning.
~ Dejan Stojanovic

When the white missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
~ Desmond Tutu

The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choices words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech.
~ Edwin H. Friedman

There is only one dogma in Magic, and it is this: The visible is the manifestation of the invisible, or in other terms, the perfect word, in things appreciable and visible, bears an exact proportion to the things which are inappreciable by our senses and unseen by our eyes.
~ Èliphas Lèvi: Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual

It is amazing how clear things become when we are still before Him, not complaining, not insisting on quick answers, only seeking to hear His word in the stillness, and to see things in His light.
~ Elisabeth Elliot, Keep a Quiet Heart

I turn the searchlight of my consciousness inward, for everything and everyone is living within me!
The self—at one and the same time the self of all living creatures, and therefore my self—knows no bounds; so the entire universe is within me, and my self fills all the universe.
Everything that is — I am! In everything I love, I love my self, for the only things we think we don’t love are what we haven’t yet come to recognize within ourselves! THE SELF IS LIFE AND THE ONLY REALITY, AND WHOEVER IS INITIATED INTO THE SELF—AND IN THIS WAY HAS COME TO KNOW HIMSELF COMPLETELY — LOVES EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE EQUALLY, FOR HE IS ONE WITH THEM.
~ ELISABETH HAICH: INITIATION

God gave women intuition and femininity. Used properly, the combination easily jumbles the brain of any man I’ve ever met.
~ Farrah Fawcett

In the beginning there was void, and nothingness, a timeless, spaceless, nothingness. And into the nothingness came a thought, purposeful, all-pervading and it filled the void. There existed no matter, only force, a movement, a vortex or vibration of the purposeful thought that filled the void.
~ Emerald Tablets of Thoth

The meaning to life is a life of meaning, just as music’s purpose is simply the music itself, capturing the moment and then dissipating away with grace. The meaning that we give to our song is something that each one of us must decide for ourselves as we have all experienced different pains in life. Only after one understands and accept themselves for who they were, who they are, and who they are becoming; will they be able to find the strength in themselves to sing their song.
~ Forrest Curran

I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see. And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power.

Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel's hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country home.

And so, at this time, I greet you, not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and shadows flee away.

~ Fra Giovanni, 12/24/1513

You know why trees smell the way they do?” Murphy asked, looking up. “Sap?” Logan guessed. “Chlorophyll?” Murphy shook her head. “Stars. Trees breathe in starlight year after year, and it goes deep into their bones. So when you cut a tree open, you smell a hundred years worth of light. Ancient starlight that took millions of years to reach Earth. That’s why trees smell so beautiful and old.
~ Frances O’Roark Dowell

1. Consciousness-without-an-object is.
2. Before objects were, Consciousness-without-an-object is.
3. Though objects seem to exist, Consciousness-without-an-object is.
4. When objects vanish, yet remaining through all unaffected, Consciousness-without-an-object is.
5. Outside of Consciousness-without-an-object nothing is.
6. Within the bosom of Consciousness-without-an-object lies the power of awareness that projects objects.
7. When objects are projected, the power of awareness as subject is presupposed, yet Consciousness-without-an-object remains unchanged.
8. When consciousness of objects is born, then, likewise, consciousness of absence of objects arises.
9. Consciousness of objects is the Universe.
10. Consciousness of absence of objects is Nirvana.
11. Within Consciousness-without-an-object lie both the Universe and Nirvana, yet to Consciousness-without-an-object these two are the same.
12. Within Consciousness-without-an-object lies the seed of Time.
13. When awareness cognizes Time then knowledge of Timelessness is born.
14. To be aware of Time is to be aware of the Universe, and to be aware of the Universe is to be aware of Time.
15. To realize Timelessness is to attain Nirvana.
16. But for Consciousness-without-an-object there is no difference between Time and Timelessness.
17. Within Consciousness-without-an-object lies the seed of the world-containing Space.
18. When awareness cognizes the world-containing Space then knowledge of the Spatial Void is born.
19. To be aware of the world-containing Space is to be aware of the Universe of Objects.
20. To realize the Spatial Void is to awaken to Nirvanic Consciousness.
21. But for Consciousness-without-an-object there is no difference between the world-containing Space and the Spatial Void.
22. Within Consciousness-without-an-object lies the Seed of Law.
23. When consciousness of objects is born the Law is invoked as a Force tending ever toward Equilibrium.
24. All objects exist as tensions within Consciousness-without-an-object that tend ever to flow into their own complements or others.
25. The ultimate effect of the flow of all objects into their complements is mutual cancellation in complete Equilibrium.
26. Consciousness of the field of tensions is the Universe.
27. Consciousness of Equilibrium is Nirvana.
28. But for Consciousness-without-an-object there is neither tension nor Equilibrium.
29. The state of tensions is the state of ever-becoming.
30. Ever-becoming is endless-dying.
31. So the state of consciousness of objects is a state of ever-renewing promises that pass into death at the moment of fulfillment.
32. Thus when consciousness is attached to objects the agony of birth and death never ceases.
33. In the state of Equilibrium where birth cancels death the deathless Bliss of Nirvana is realized.
34. But Consciousness-without-an-object is neither agony nor bliss.
35. Out of the Great Void, which is Consciousness-without-an-object, the Universe is creatively projected.
36. The Universe as experienced is the created negation that ever resists.
37. The creative act is bliss, the resistance, unending pain.
38. Endless resistance is the Universe of experience; the agony of crucifixion.
39. Ceaseless creativeness is Nirvana, the Bliss beyond human conceiving.
40. But for Consciousness-without-an-object there is neither creativeness nor resistance.
41. Ever-becoming and ever-ceasing-to-be are endless action.
42. When ever-becoming cancels the ever-ceasing-to-be then Rest is realized.
43. Ceaseless action is the Universe.
44. Unending Rest is Nirvana.
45. But Consciousness-without-an-object is neither Action nor Rest.
46. When consciousness is attached to objects it is restricted through the forms imposed by the world-containing Space, by Time, and by Law.
47. When consciousness is disengaged from objects, Liberation from the forms of the world-containing Space, of Time, and of Law is attained.
48. Attachment to objects is consciousness bound within the Universe.
49. Liberation from such attachment is the State of unlimited Nirvanic Freedom.
50. But Consciousness-without-an-object is neither bondage nor freedom.
51. Consciousness-without-an-object may be symbolized by a SPACE that is unaffected by the presence or absence of objects, for which there is neither Time nor Timelessness; neither a world-containing Space nor a Spatial Void; neither Tension nor Equilibrium; neither Resistance nor Creativeness; neither Agony nor Bliss; neither Action nor Rest; and neither Restriction nor Freedom.
52. As the GREAT SPACE is not to be identified with the Universe, so neither is It to be identified with any Self.
53. The GREAT SPACE is not God, but the comprehender of all Gods, as well as of all lesser creatures.
54. The GREAT SPACE, or Consciousness-without-an-object, is the Sole Reality upon which all objects and all selves depend and derive their existence.
55. The GREAT SPACE comprehends both the Path of the Universe and the Path of Nirvana.
56. Beside the GREAT SPACE there is none other.
OM TAT SAT ~ Franklin Merrell-Wolff

The first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone.
~ George Roberts

The truth is that we are a part of God. God could not have created anything except out of his own consciousness. We’re all his dream, and our duty in life that God has assigned to us, that the universe has placed squarely in our laps, is to find out who we really are. “Gnothi seauton,” as the Greeks used to say. “Know thyself.” But to know thyself, if you trace it back, to the deeper and deeper levels, you discover that that self is not your body or your ego or your personality or your country or anything, that’s just a sack of self-definitions that you carry around with you.
~ GOSWAMI KRIYANANDA

All art is erotic.
~ Gustav Klimt

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
– Henri Bergson

The blessing you crave for will be conferred on your behalf by the Supreme Father provided you trust in Him fully and think of Him or remember Him now and then by repeating His Holy Name [Radhasoami] and thinking of His holy charan [lotus feet] – the form of the first or second stage from this side. Do not be disheartened. The affection or love (attraction) is reciprocal. The more you would love the Supreme Father, the more His compassion and grace will attend you in all your work.
~ (Huzur Maharaj, Pilgrim’s Path, A Collection of Extracts From Letters)

Observe your own body. It breathes. You breathe when you are asleep, when you are no longer conscious of your own ideas of self-identity. Who, then, is breathing? The collection of information that you mistakenly think is you is not the main protagonist in this drama called the breath. In fact, you are not breathing; breath is naturally happening to you. You can purposely end your own life, but you cannot purposely keep your own life going. The expression, “My life”, is actually an oxymoron, a result of ignorance and mistaken assumption. You don’t posses life; life expresses itself through you. Your body is a flower that life lets bloom - a phenomenon created by life.
~ Ilchi Lee

Be silent like a rock, deeply rooted and straight like a tree, bend like a reed in the wind, listen to the sounds that your ears ignore, and feel the world through your intuition. The latter will never betray you, your senses will!
~ Irina Serban, Full Circle

God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into its nest.
~ J. G. Holland

Without the projection of the mind, the world cannot exist. That world that appears to you in your dreams at night is just as unreal as the world that appears to you when you are awake. There is no difference whatsoever.
~ Jac O'Keeffe

The fear is simply because you are not living with life, You are living in your mind.
~ Jaggi Vasudev

God is the Supreme Soul (Paramatman) The Soul (Atman) is part the parcel of God- it is the real God Particle. God is the Supreme Soul (Paramatman). If God (Paramatman) was an ocean, the Soul (Atman) would be a droplet/wave of that ocean. If God (Paramatman) was the sun, the Soul (Atman) would be a ray of light coming from the sun. If God (Paramatman) was the fire, the Soul (Atman) would be a spark of that fire. Yet despite this, Paramatman (God/Supreme Soul) resides in the Atman(Soul)- "the ocean is in the drop, the ray is in the sun, God is in the Soul"- Sant Kripal Singh. "All know the drop merges into the ocean, but little know the ocean merges into the drop"- Sant Kabir. "I am not a drop in an ocean, I am an ocean in a drop"- Rumi. The Soul (Atman) resides in God (Paramatman) and God (Paramatman) resides in the Soul (Atman). So the true Self (Atman/Soul) is God in reality.
~ Jai Chandarana‎

You cannot in anyway force your mind into a state of peace. Just watch its movements as you would a bird flying in the open sky. Relax all the various judgments and censors of your imagined self until there is nothing left but quiet looking. This is your natural meditative state, free of all layers of inhibitions and anxiety.
~ Jean Klein

Kill one man and you're a murderer, kill a million and you're a conqueror.
~ Jean Rostand

The danger of civilization, of course, is that you will piss away your life on nonsense.
~ Jim Harrison

The development of spiritual consciousness begins with our first realization that what we are beholding through the senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell is not the reality of things. Disregarding appearances entirely, the first ray of spiritual illumination brings us hints of the divine, the eternal and immortal. This in turn makes the appearance even less real to us, thereby admitting even greater illumination.
~ Joel Goldsmith

Science of nature has one goal:
To find both manyness and whole.
Nothing 'inside' or 'Out There,'
The 'outer' world is all 'In Here.'
This mystery grasp without delay,
This secret always on display.
The true illusion celebrate,
Be joyful in the serious game!
No living thing lives separate:
One and Many are the same.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Eternity isn’t some later time. Eternity isn’t a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now which thinking and time cuts out. This is it. And if you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere. And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.
~ Joseph Campbell

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.
~ Joseph Campbell

Mythology is the song of the Universe, the music we dance to even when we cannot name the tune.
~ Joseph Campbell

When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die.
~ Joseph Campbell

When Life is guided by Pure Conscious Awareness [the SELF], there is ‘no mind’ to molest you and draw you into the great drama where dancing bears and juggling clowns define the parameters of your worldly experience. There ‘are’ no boundaries in Consciousness … whereas the mind is its own prison ‘and’ its own jailer having forged the bars with the conditioning that defines it. But how then to exist and function without the mind? The intricate mechanism of the body with its seemingly limitless processes, operates almost exclusively without your awareness by Consciousness. All but a few functions such a breathing and eating are totally hidden. The same infinite ‘unicity’ will provide you a moment by moment ‘flow’ that is precisely orchestrated for your highest good. You need only ‘invite’ IT to do so then remain ‘open’ – surrendered to ITs unbroken and Loving Embrace.
~ John McIntosh

The divine manifestation is ubiquitous, only our eyes are not open to it. Awe is what moves us forward. Live from your own center. The divine lives within you.

The separateness apparent in the world is secondary. Beyond the world of opposites is an unseen, but experienced, unity and identity in us all. You must return with the bliss and integrate it.

The return is seeing that the radiance is everywhere. The world is a match for us. We are a match for the world. The spirit is the bouquet of nature.

Sanctify the place you are in.
~ Joseph Campbell

When you accept every event that happens, no matter what it is, as an event that just is, and not take it personally in any way, or react emotionally because you wanted it to be another way, according to your expectations, you are learning how to move and sway with the Universe, you have been introduced to the art of detachment.
~ Judy Frenette - Rivers of Lotus Blossoms of Love

One sip of this wine and you will go mad with drunkenness. You will drop your masks and tear your clothes — destroying everything that separates you from the Lover. Once you taste the fruit of this vine, you will be kicked out of the city of yourself. You will forget the world. You will forget yourself..

I tell you: You will become a madman who wanders the streets looking for the Lover once you drink this Wine of Love.
~ Kamand Kojouri

Meditation is the process of withdrawing the attention from the world outside, and focusing it at the seat of the soul in the body, behind and between the eyebrows. This point is known as the inner eye, third eye, the single eye… In order to withdraw our attention and focus it on this point, mind must be controlled and stilled. Sit in one pose, and move not your head, limbs or eyes. Sit straight but relaxed with no tension in the body below. Sit still, please. Close your eyes as in sleep, and look sweetly, lovingly, intently into the middle of the darkness lying in front of you. You will see a dark veil. That which sees the dark veil within, without the help of your physical eyes, is the inner eye.
~ Kirpal Singh

The Third Eye in Meditation: “Close your eyes as in sleep, and look sweetly, lovingly, intently into the middle of the darkness lying in front of you. You will see a dark veil. That which sees the dark veil within, without the help of your physical eyes, IS the inner eye.
~ Kirpal Singh

The Universe is saying: Allow me to flow through you unrestricted, and you will see the greatest magic you have ever seen.
~ Klaus Joehle

Take away the right to say ‘fuck’ and you take away the right to say ‘fuck the government.’
–Lenny Bruce (13 Oct 1925 - 3 Aug 1966)

Precious light is protected, harbored in the souls of unicorns, the most mystical of all creatures. There’s no creature with more power or magic. As long as they roam the earth, evil cannot harm the pure of heart.
-Legend (1985)

God is Within: The enlightened should contemplate that his soul is endowed with Boundless Energy. Whatever is the Supreme Soul, so am I. Whatever is my essential nature is the essence of Supreme Soul. Therefore, I am fitted for meditating on my inner Supreme Soul – none other.
~ Lord Mahavira, Jainism

Perhaps a creature of so much ingenuity and deep memory is almost bound to grow alienated from his world, his fellows, and the objects around him. He suffers from a nostalgia for which there is no remedy upon earth except as it is to be found in the enlightenment of the spirit--some ability to have a perceptive rather than an exploitive relationship with his fellow creatures.
~ Loren Eiseley

If you have the idea that you are something with form, that you are limited by this body, and that being within this body you have to see through these eyes, God and the world also will appear to you as form. If you realize you are without form, that you are unlimited, that you alone exist, that you are the eye, the infinite eye, what is there to be seen apart from the infinite eye? Apart from the eye, there is nothing to be seen. There must be a seer for an object to be seen, and there must be space, time, etc. But if the Self alone exists, it is both seer and seen, and above seeing or being seen.
~ Maharishi Ramanna

No amount of effort is needed. No amount of effort will be successful. And yet, through mindful attention to the Background of Awareness inherent within the Present Moment, Awakening will inevitably dawn upon you. In that Instant you will delight in the Reality of who and what you have been all along.
~ Metta Zetty

There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind - you are the one who hears it. If you don’t understand this, you will try to figure out which of the many things the voice says is really you. People go through so many changes in the name of ‘trying to find myself.’ They want to discover which of these voices, which of these aspects of their personality, is who they really are. The answer is simple: none of them.
~ Michael A. Singer., The Untethered Soul

There may arise a profound shift in perspective where it is realized beyond a doubt always that there are there are no separate things Nor separate moments Nor any separate person apart from this seamless stream All there is is in uninterrupted indivisible symphony of perception and the simultaneous inseparable recognition of it.
~ Nancy Neithercut

To a realized master, death and rebirth is in every breath. Death is that of body consciousness, ego and limits of the mind. Rebirth is that of the cosmic mind of being the Spirit. In this realization is liberation.
~ Nandhiji

Even if you know what's coming, you're never prepared for how it feels.
~ Natalie Standiford, How to Say Goodbye in Robot

I like airplanes. I like anywhere that isn't a proper place. I like in betweens.
~ Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 7: Brief Lives

Just as the universe is born of fire and water, man must be born of spiritual fire and water in order to enter into the higher state of consciousness that we call the kingdom of God, for on the spiritual plane fire is wisdom and water is love.
~ Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion … open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.
~ Orhan Pamuk

Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.
~ Pablo Casals

Who is better able to know God than I myself, since He resides in my heart and is the very essence of my being? Such should be the attitude of one who is seeking.
~ Paramananda

The most fundamental scientific ‘fact’ is not the existence of a universe of things in space and time but awareness of such a universe. Awareness is not a ‘thing’ that can evolve from or arise out of an unaware or insentient universe of things. On the contrary all things in the universe emerge and take shape out of a universal awareness.
~ Peter Wilberg, The Awareness Principle

When a man opens a car door for his wife, it's either a new car or a new wife.
~ Prince Philip

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rama's Clarion Call
Wanted: Reformers, Not of others but of themselves. Who have won Not university distinctions, But victory over the local self.
Age: The youth of Divine joy.
Salary: Godhead.
Apply Sharp, With a commanding decision to the Director of the Universe, Your own Self.
Om! Om! Om!
~ God/Brahman/Ocean of ✻ღ Love ॐ Consciousness ღ✻

If you really want to examine your strength, see how many times a day you are disturbed.
~ Rama Swami

Consciousness has produced this play. Consciousness has written the script. Consciousness is playing all the characters and Consciousness is witnessing the play. It’s a one man show.
~ Ramesh Balsekar

The sense of duality, which is a barrier to true love, must prevail so long as the apperception of Truth has not occurred. Once individuality is surrendered, there is only total Love.
~ Ramesh S Balsekar

Whatever is manifested is merely an appearance in consciousness experienced through Maya. And Maya is a concept brought in only to prove the main premise of the unicity of the Absolute, which is pure subjectivity without the slightest touch of any objectivity or duality.
~ Ramesh Balsekar

Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.
~ Rebecca Solnit

We are told that St. Francis used to spend whole nights praying the same prayer: “Who are you, God? And who am I?” Evelyn Underhill claims it’s almost the perfect prayer. The abyss of your own soul and the abyss of the nature of God have opened up, and you are falling into both of them simultaneously.
~ Richard Rohr

Happiness is pretty simple: someone to love, something to do, something to look forward to.
~ Rita Mae Brown

Lawyers believe a man is innocent until proven broke.
~ Robin Hall

In the future, every human shall see a hidden divinity in every fellow human.
~ Rudolf Steiner

We never know an object, we only know our knowledge of the object. Knowledge is only made of knowing and knowing is only Consciousness. In this way we reduce the object into mind and mind into Consciousness, and then realise that there was only ever that. So, first of all there seem to be nouns (houses, cars, bodies, people….) then there seem to be only verbs (seeing, hearing, tasting…) then there is only Being.
~ Rupert Spira

Hokusai says:
Hokusai says look carefully. He says pay attention, notice. He says keep looking, stay curious. He says there is no end to seeing.

He says look forward to getting old. He says keep changing, you just get more who you really are. He says get stuck, accept it, repeat yourself as long as it’s interesting.

He says keep doing what you love. He says keep praying. He says every one of us is a child, every one of us is ancient, every one of us has a body. He says every one of us is frightened. He says every one of us has to find a way to live with fear.

He says everything is alive— shells, buildings, people, fish, mountains, trees. Wood is alive. Water is alive. Everything has its own life. Everything lives inside us. He says live with the world inside you.

He says it doesn’t matter if you draw, or write books. It doesn’t matter if you saw wood, or catch fish. It doesn’t matter if you sit at home and stare at the ants on your verandah or the shadows of the trees and grasses in your garden.

It matters that you care. It matters that you feel. It matters that you notice. It matters that life lives through you.

Contentment is life living through you. Joy is life living through you. Satisfaction and strength are life living through you. Peace is life living through you.

He says don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Look, feel, let life take you by the hand. Let life live through you.
~ Roger Keyes

How to Experience the Pure Consciousness?

Pure consciousness is the purest state of mind. When the mind becomes a witness and no experiences or impressions remains on the surface of the mind, you experience the mind as pure consciousness. Pure consciousness is a state of mind, where it acts like a mirror.

Anything that comes in front of the mind either from the external world or internal world, it reflects as it is. The mind as we all know, thinks, imagine things, forms perception, stores experiences, and impressions, and allows us to experience the external reality of life.

The process of mind takes place on its surface, but when you take your attention beyond the surface of the mind, you experience the mind which is absolutely pure. That is the state of pure consciousness.

In the state of pure consciousness, the movement of life energy (spirit) is easily read all the time, and even the source of life is reflected in pure consciousness. Pure consciousness can be experienced, once the dormant energy gets awakened in the body.

It’s the dormant energy that ties the mind in a way, whereby the mind remains engaged in the external cycle of life. But once the dormant energy gets unlocked inside, you free yourself from the external cycle of life and a new reality is experienced both inside and outside.
~ Roshan Sharma

Consciousness, awareness, the great potential, whatever name you want to give it, is always here. It is what everything is. There is really no personal doership. The idea of a separate person is an erroneous belief, a belief in that sense of separation. So then, who is superior? Who is inferior? What is there to be afraid of? Who do I need to hate or resent? Consciousness is all there is.
~ Sailor Bob

Drink water from the spring where horses drink. The horse will never drink bad water. Lay your bed where the cat sleeps. Eat the fruit that has been touched by a worm. Boldly pick the mushroom on which the insects sit. Plant the tree where the mole digs. Build your house where the snake sits to warm itself. Dig your fountain where the birds hide from the heat. Go to sleep and wake up at the same time with the birds – you will reap all of the days' golden grains. Eat more green – you will have strong legs and a resistant heart, like the beings of the forest. Swim often and you will feel on earth like the fish in the water. Look at the sky as often as possible and your thoughts will become light and clear. Be quiet a lot, speak little – and silence will come in your heart, and your spirit will be calm and full of peace.
~ Saint Seraphim of Sarov

You need not go to heaven to see God; nor need you speak loud, as if God were far away; nor need you cry for wings like a dove to fly to Him. Only be in silence, and you will come upon God within yourself.
~ Saint Teresa of Avila

The Tantric sages tell us that our in-breath and out-breath actually mirror the divine creative gesture. With the inhalation, we draw into our own center, our own being. With the exhalation, we expand outward into the world.
~ Sally Kempton, Awakening Shakti

Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure... that of being.
~ Salvador Dali

Without love, there is no spiritual path. The path lives in love. With intensification of love, one comes in contact with the True Sound, And like a lotus in water, abides in its peace and bliss.
– Sant Dariya Sahib of Bihar

There never was or ever will be anything but love, expressing itself infinitely.
~ Sant Jnaneswar of Maharashtra

Riches or poverty depends on the absence or presence of desires, respectively. He who has no desires is the richest, and the so-called richest is the poorest if his desires are not fulfilled. He who does not need anything is a sovereign.
~ Sawan Singh

Stories or Direct Experience? Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of our direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.
- Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

The art of concentration is a continual letting go. We let go of what is inessential or distracting. We let go of a thought or a feeling, not because we are afraid of it or because we can’t bear to acknowledge it as part of our experience; but, because it is unnecessary.
~ Sharon Salzberg, Unplug: For an Hour, a Day, or a Weekend.

To get where we are going, we go nowhere, returning to the place we never left. It is a different way of seeing that holds the key. You are whole now, Life itself. There is never any separation, only mistaken identity - hence the 'gateless gate'. You are the Presence/awareness in which all phenomena rise and fall, like the movie screen on which the frames of a movie quickly pass.
~ Soulistic Synergy

The best cure for sea sickness, is to sit under a tree.
~ Spike Milligan

HOW IS THE WAKING STATE A DREAM? By a ‘dream’ we mean something which is not real. What is Reality? That which does not disappear at any time. ow, what is there in the waking state that does not disappear? Nothing. Therefore, everything objective, connected with the waking state, is unreal. But what we have just called the unreal appears all the while. Yes. When the unreal appears as real we call it a dream. Therefore, the waking state is all a dream. But there is one thing that does not disappear in any state – pure Consciousness, the Atma (Self).
~ SRI ATMANANDA KRISHNA MENON

The first and the most important thing is to know that life is one and immortal. Only the forms, countless in number, are transient and brittle. The life everlasting is independent of any form but manifests itself in all forms. Life then does not die… but the forms are dissolved.
~ Sri Aurobindo

Infinite, we are free from death; for life then becomes a play of our immortal existence. We are free from weakness; for we are the whole sea enjoying the myriad shock of its waves.
~ Sri Aurobindo Ghose

Know that according to His will, law and plan, every moment of every day the five functions of God [creation, sustenance, destruction, veiling and Grace] will be going on perfectly and unceasingly in the universe, which is full of moving and unmoving objects.
~ Sri Muruganar (chronicler Ramana's lectures) Guru Vachaka Kovai (The Garland of Guru’s Sayings)

If you constantly think of the Atman, your mind will be purified and your ignorance will be uprooted along with the past tendencies, just as your ailments will completely disappear by your taking medicine daily. When the mind is pure, you will get unalloyed bliss.
~ Sri Rama

If without leaving it we just be, the sphurana, completely annihilating the feeling of individuality — the ego, ‘I am the body’ — finally will come to an end just as the camphor flame dies out. This alone is proclaimed to be liberation by Sages and scriptures.

Although in the beginning, on account of the tendencies towards sense-objects (vishaya-vasanas) which have been recurring down the ages, thoughts rise in countless numbers like the waves of the ocean, they will all perish as the aforesaid Self-attention becomes more and more intense. Since even the doubt “Is it possible to destroy all of them and to remain as Self alone?’ is only a thought, without giving room even to that thought, one should persistently cling fast to Self-attention. However great a sinner one may be, if, not lamenting ‘Oh, I am a sinner! How can I attain salvation?’ but completely giving up even the thought that one is a sinner, one is steadfast in Self-attention, one will surely be saved. Therefore everyone, diving deep within himself with desirelessness (vairagya), can attain the pearl of Self.
~ Sri Sadhu Om’s book on Self-enquiry

How mistaken are those who seek happiness outside of themselves, in foreign lands and journeys, in riches and glory, in great possessions and pleasures, which have a bitter end! Happiness is found within ourselves, and blessed is a man who understands this. Happiness is a pure heart, for such a heart becomes the throne of God.
~ St. Nektarios of Aegina, Path to Happiness

It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves.
~ St. Teresa of Ávila (16th century Spanish Catholic mystic)

You will find peace and happiness only if you can remember the Lord. If He is pleased, the world is pleased…. Accept all trials and tribulations boldly. Welcome them, for through them you shall surely find peace…. Know Him as your very own and you will find peace in Him…. Forget the body and its comforts; shake off the delusion of birth and death. Shake off the illusory peace of Maya and find the real peace—the everlasting peace of God.
~ Swami Brahmananda

The first movement of Supreme I Consciousness is unparalleled undifferentiated totality. And when it moves forward with the intention of creating His glory in the external world, it takes the formation of bliss.
~ Swami Lakshmanjoo

Love is our only reason for living and the only purpose of life. We live for the sake of love, and we live seeking love… it is not surprising that we keep looking for love. All of us are nothing but vibrations of love. We are sustained by love, and in the end we merge back into love.
~ Swami Muktananda

Love turns man into an ocean of happiness, an image of peace, a temple of wisdom. Love is every man’s very Self, his true beauty, and the glory of his human existence.
~ Swami Muktananda

Take a three-month-old baby, an age at which the intellect is not yet developed and cannot therefore interfere. The baby’s state is Spirit, but it has not yet awakened to its Being. The nature of Spirit is awareness and if you observe the baby you will see that it is a bundle of awareness. You will also notice that a three-month-old baby loves everyone indiscriminately. It is not that it loves a person: it is the Spirit, love itself, that loves. But you, who are the light of the world, suffer because you have forgotten that your true nature is plenitude. The love that you are seeks fulfillment in the world of name and form.
~ Swami Muktananda, Awakening to the Infinite 2015

The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightening and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not.
~ Swami Prabhavananda

Infinite you are, that Infinity you are, and as that Infinity, as it were, have created these imaginary, false illusory bodies; you have made this world like a mirror house for yourself. Take care of the One Infinite, Universal God and the same you are, that dwells and permeates this world. Om! Om!! Om!!!
~ Swami Rama

Find Your Beloved at the Seat of the Soul, the Third Eye Center. Enter into the ajna chakra [third eye center] and you will find your Beloved. God is not found in a man-made Ka’ba, but in natural Ka’ba (holy place) within your own heart or self. Turn your attention within. You should listen attentively to the reverberating Divine Sound. The Celestial Sound is coming to take you back to the Source. Remember you cannot hear this with the physical ears. When you focus your gaze within the ajna chakra [third eye center] and the consciousness is inverted inward, your physical ears automatically will close and the inner ears will open. By that power with inner ears you can hear the Celestial Sounds. The Original Sound of the creation comes from the Abode of God and it will take you to God.
~ Swami Sant Sevi Ji

Sometimes I patrol the perimeter of life, checking for holes where reality might leak in.
~ Te Toh (?)

For a lot of us if we didn’t suffer we’d be lost. Sometimes our strongest sense of who we are comes from being treated unjustly… and if we were to deny ourselves that perverse pleasure, we’d feel lost.
~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

The earth turns on its orbit for You. The oceans ebb and flow for You. The birds sing for You. The sun rises and it sets for You. The stars come out for You. Every beautiful thing you see, every wondrous thing you experience, is all there, for You. Take a look around. None of it can exist, without You. No matter who you thought you were, now you the Truth of Who You Really Are. You are the master of the Universe. You are the heir to the kingdom. You are the perfection of Life.
~ The Secret

Well, My Dear, enlightenment is kind of like flying for the first time without wings.

Of course, there's the exhilaration, the happiness, and the intoxicating sense of freedom that's almost indescribable.

But there's also the subtle shock at what you now see as the inevitability of your accomplishment. The wonderment of how you hadn't seen this so clearly before, mingled with acceptance. And the dim recognition that it's part of some distant agreement you once made.

And, at last, as you come to your senses and finally think to gaze below, upon the tiny jewel you've called home for so long, you're struck with a jolt as you see it so magically and effortlessly suspended—floating—in space, and realize, for the first time, that even there you were flying all along.

You soar,
~ The Universe

At the centre of our being is a point of nothingness, like a pure diamond.
~ Thomas Merton

Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, and fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source.
~ Thomas Merton

In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.
~ Thomas Merton

In Silence God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.
~ Thomas Merton

Let me say this before rain becomes a utility that they can plan and distribute for money. By ‘they’ I mean the people who cannot understand that rain is a festival, who do not appreciate its gratuity, who think that what has no price has no value, that what cannot be sold is not real, so that the only way to make something actual is to place it on the market. The time will come when they will sell you even your rain. At the moment it is still free, and I am in it. I celebrate its gratuity and its meaninglessness.

The rain I am in is not like the rain of cities. It fills the woods with an immense and confused sound. It covers the flat roof of the cabin and its porch with insistent and controlled rhythms. And I listen, because it reminds me again and again that the whole world runs by rhythms I have not yet learned to recognize, rhythms that are not those of the engineer.

I came up here from the monastery last night, sloshing through the cornfield […]. The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, of rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the place where men have stripped the hillside! What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!
~ Thomas Merton

Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn't already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.
~ Thomas Merton

Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.
~ Thomas Merton

So that is the process of Satsang, melting the ice, melting the mind. When the ice becomes water it is Consciousness. It becomes fluid, flowing, adaptable, will conform to any shape. Has no preference. It will always fit where ever it is. It will fit with any situation. This is Consciousness. But as the water gets nearer and nearer to the fire it turns to steam, this is Nirvana. It disappears into the Nothingness, into The Whole. So these are the three stages of the same phenomena. Ice, water and steam. Mind, Consciousness and Nirvana. This is Enlightenment.
~ Umi, This is Enlightenment

It seems to me that the life of man on earth is like the swift flight of a single sparrow through the banqueting hall where you are sitting at dinner on a winter’s day with your captains and counsellors. In the midst there is a comforting fire to warm the hall. Outside, the storms of winter rain and snow are raging. This sparrow flies swiftly in through one window of the hall and out through another. While he is inside, the bird is safe from the winter storms, but after a few moments of comfort, he vanishes from sight into the wintry world from which he came. So man appears on earth for a little while – but of what went before this life, or what follows, we know nothing.
~ Venerable Bede History of the English People, 731 AD

I put my heart and my soul into my work and have lost my mind in the process.
~ Vincent Van Gogh

Meditation is the dissolution of thought in Eternal awareness of Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity. ❤
~ Voltaire

We are here on earth to do good unto others. What the others are here for, I have no idea.
~ W. H. Auden

God is the one who is being all that is. God’s Awareness of all is this Consciousness - I-am, therefore, God has the “responsibility” to be This that I am and to sustain me. There is no demand upon me to do a thing. (This doesn’t mean that I don’t appear to do things!) There is no need on my part to worry, fret, fume, fuss or fear. There is only to go about the Father’s business of being the Father’s business - Awareness, witness of Infinity. This is my very own Identity.
~ William Samuel

Liberation is the realization of the total non-existence of the universe. This is different from a mere denial of the existence of the ego and the universe! The latter is only half-knowledge. Liberation is to realize that all this is pure consciousness.
~Yogavasistham

I've been married to a communist and a fascist, and neither would take out the garbage.
~ Zsa Zsa Gabor

We Have Forgotten About Our Original Abode

The Source of all, now, I say O Swami, is Un-utterable, Infinite, Unfathomable.
~ Unnamed [Nameless, Anami].’ (Soamiji Maharaj, Sar Bachan

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

i took dorita for a boat ride down the river. i planed to read her some poetry and declare my love to her. but when we passed the old cemetery down the river we saw dead men. they had come out their grave and were dancing, gathering flowers and waving to us. dorita was so frightened that i though she’d never accept my proposal after this ride. however, thank to the virgin of guadalupe she agreed to marry me despite everything.

It is the mind that is called the subtle body or the soul (jiva).

Even when he is still, the selfish man is busy. Even when he is busy, the selfless man is still.

As the sun rises, fog descends. Gates of heaven witness in silence, for, this moment will not be repeated in all eternity.
~ Unknown

Every person in the world has a heart. Every heart has a place within that wants to love and be loved. Let us connect with that place of love in our own heart and in the hearts of all around us. Let us take a moment now to open to the heart connection we share with all people through love.
~ Unknown

Life is eternal; all of life is ever changing form, yet the essence of life is always here in the present moment. When realization of this becomes crystal, there are no ordinary persons. The individual self is the illusion, the temporary dwelling of the creature we animate, is not the true self. There is no self, other than the perception within us each, and this is illusive. This means this life we are, has never had a beginning, nor shall there ever be an end. We endure all experience, learn of our inherent endowments, and spend all of eternity within the arms of love.
~ Unknown

If we decide that we are not separated from our heart, from our energy or our consciousness, and understand that there is no separation from the divine source, we can consider ourselves as multidimensional beings. Divine beings that exist on all consciousness planes at once.
~ Unknown

Light is one of the primary metaphors in sacred poetry, suggesting the Divine not framed within a mental concept. But for many genuine mystics, this light is directly experienced.

This sense of light is more than a brightness one might experience on a sunny afternoon. This light is perceived as being a living radiance that permeates everything, everywhere, always. This light is immediately understood to be the true source of all things, the foundation on which the physicality of the material world is built.

The sense of boundaries and separation, long taken for granted by the mind as the fundamental nature of existence, suddenly seems illusory, for this light shines through all people and things. It has no edges, and the light of one is the light of all.

Often, one describes being "bathed" in this light, and that is absolutely fitting. This light is not merely an airy phenomenon of the visual realm; it is tactile, permeating, embracing, profoundly soothing, revitalizing, healing. Some describe it in liquid language: water, fountain, lake, a shining white or golden ocean.

This light is recognized as your own Self, while simultaneously being the Self of all others. Since this light is you and, at the same time, it radiates within all, the question arises: How can there be separation? conflict? loss?