Quotes
Awakeness/Awareness
Student: I’ve made up all of it? Adyashanti: The whole thing. But the awakeness in you is not dreaming. Only the mind is dreaming. It tells itself stories and wants to know if you’re progressing. When you shift into wakefulness, you realize, “Wait, it’s a dream. The mind is creating an altered state of reality, a virtual reality, but it’s not true – it’s just thought.” Thought can tell a million stories inside of awareness, and it’s not going to change awareness one bit. The only thing that’s going to change is the way the body feels. If you tell yourself a sad story, the body reacts to that. And if you tell yourself a self-aggrandizing story, the body feels all puffed up, confident. But when you realize it’s all stories, there can be a vast waking up out of the mind, out of the dream. You don’t awaken, what has eternally been awake realizes itself. That which is eternally awake is what you are.
Chosen Ones
They are the chosen ones who have surrendered. – Rumi
Dream World
It is necessary that Soul and Body should exist, because Spirit, without manifestation, would construct only a dream world, never coming into Self-Realization. – Ernest Holmes
Knowing the Truth
MAN, BY THINKING, CAN BRING INTO HIS EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER HE DESIRES, IF HE THINKS CORRECTLY AND BECOMES A LIVING EMBODIMENT OF HIS THOUGHTS. This is not done by holding thoughts but by KNOWING THE TRUTH. – Ernest Holmes
Integrity
Integrity is the essence of everything successful. – R. Buckminster Fuller
Cosmic Scheme
The whole Cosmic Scheme must be reproduced on the plane of the individual, if there is an individual. – The Science of Mind
All Good
I partake in the nature and bounty of the All Good and I am now surrounded by everything which makes life worth while. – Ernest Holmes
Beyond the Dream
The very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory. Why go anywhere? Just realize that you are dreaming a dream you call the world, and stop looking for ways out. The dream is not your problem. Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not another. Love all, or none of it, and stop complaining. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that need be done. – Nisargadatta Maharaj
Sky
Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life. – Marcel Proust
True Imagination
True imagination is not fanciful daydreaming; it is fire from heaven. – Ernest Holmes
Play of Life
Creation is the play of Life upon Itself through Divine Self-Imagination – Ernest Holmes
Bliss
Innocence is Bliss
Prisoner
Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner. – Lao Tzu
Perceive
To understand is to perceive patterns. – Isaiah Berlin
Deepest Nature
One should be always on the trail of one’s own deepest nature. For it is the fearless living out of your own essential nature that connects you to the divine. – Henry David Thoreau
Freedom
I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Knowledge
As the Universe is run by an Infinite Mind, so man’s life is controlled by his thinking; ignorance of this keeps him bondage; knowledge will free him. – Ernest Holmes
River of Life
Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem. By flowing with life I mean acceptance — letting come what comes and go what goes. – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The One
Mental activity is spontaneous and your True Nature is also spontaneous. Your form or your acting may differ from time to time, but you are not that which is seen, but the One who sees – That you are. – Nisargadatta Maharaj
Repetition
There is nothing new under the sky. Everything is old and a repetition. And you will go on repeating for many, many lives. Beware of the repetition, beware of your boredom. Take a jump. – Buddha & Mahavira
Success
There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way. – Christopher Morley
Really Free
That he is really free, but that, in order to be free, he must first go through the experiences which will teach him how to use his freedom properly. – Ernest Holmes
What You See
What you see is built from the corners of your mind, from the years of perspectives that have created layers upon layers. Ask yourself: is it possible to see through these? A fresh palette in your vision, free from the thoughts that have come before. Colors and patterns untouched by the past, just pure light sent directly to your consciousness. Is what you see what is? When you see, how often is judgment the first thought? See for the beauty of what it is. Remove yourself, remove your thoughts, and just witness. Only for a moment perhaps, it’s hard to keep those thoughts at bay, but one moment is enough to open the floodgates of possibility. To show to yourself that it is possible to view in clarity the genuine truth of your observations and see the light within all.
Active Principle
There is the Power, the way that It works, and the result of Its operation; the Word, the law, and the effect; Intelligence, substance, and form; the Active Principle, the passive receptivity, and the relative condition. The Spirit of the Universe cannot change; the Soul of the Universe cannot change; the Body of the Universe cannot help changing. – Ernest Holmes
Love is a State of Mind
When a mood against someone or for something arises, do not place it on the person in question, but remain centered. Remember that you are the source, so do not move to the other, move to the source. And do not think in terms of relationship, think in terms of state of mind. If you are in love, this is a state of mind. This state of mind may be focused on one person or it may be unfocused – on the whole. When it is focused on one person, it is known as love. When it becomes unfocused, it becomes prayer. Then you are just in love – not with someone, but just in love, as you are breathing. So take love as a breathing of the soul. Once you know how to enter a single moment with love, you have entered eternity: time is no more. The sea and the sand and the stars, they are one with you. You are not an island, you are organically one with this universe. The whole universe is within you and the whole of you is in this universe. Unless you come to know it and feel it and realize it,…
Look
Look. Look without naming or judging, without holding on or pushing away. To look in this way, to give your attention this way, is love. – From Conversations with Plato
Creation
When we realize that we are dealing with an Infinite Intelligence, and with an Infinite Law within Intelligence, we see that there can be no limit placed upon Creation. – Ernest Holmes