Quotes
Eternal Name
The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnameable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding. – Tao Te Ching, Ch.1, interpreted by Stephen Michell
True Artist
To me, the true artist is one who lives completely, harmoniously, who does not divide his art from living, whose very life is that expression, whether it be a picture, music, or his behavior; who has not divorced his expression on a canvas or in music or in stone from his daily conduct, daily living. That demands the highest intelligence, highest harmony. To me the true artist is the man who has that harmony. He may express it on canvas, or he may talk, or he may paint; or he may not express it at all, he may feel it. But all this demands exquisite poise, that intensity of awareness and therefore, his expression is not divorced from the daily continuity of living. -Krishnamurti
Extravagant Journey
You have everything needed for the extravagant journey that is your life. – Carlos Castañeda
Living Truth
To me there is a reality, an immense living truth; and to comprehend that, there must be utter simplicity of thought. – Krishnamurti
Witness
Anything that you can look at as a witness is a dream. – Osho, Book of Secrets
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
Meet Things Anew
So to live each moment now without the burden of the past or of the present, without that crippling memory created by the lack of understanding, mind must ever meet things anew. It is fatal to meet life with the burden of certainty, with the conceit of knowledge, because, after all, knowledge is merely a thing of the past. So when you come to that life with a freshness, then you will know what it is to live without conflict, without this continual straining effort. Then you wander far on the floods of life. – Krishnamurti
True Imagination
True imagination is not fanciful daydreaming; it is fire from heaven. – Ernest Holmes
Completely
It is within the power of every man to completely change his environment and completely heal his body. Whether or not he will do this depends entirely upon his own conviction and his own determination. Nature attends him on the way and is always ready to serve; but he is an individual and nothing will ever be forced upon him. Let any one follow the Law, comply with Its nature, and consistently apply himself to right thinking and living, and he will prove to himself that life holds all and more than he has ever imagined. – Ernest Holmes
Earnestness
To remember what needs to be remembered is the secret of success. You come to it through earnestness. – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Great Door
As you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest, or sprawl wet-legged by a mountain stream, the great door, that does not look like a door, opens. – Stephen Graham
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.
Light-Wave
Everything in Nature is expressed by rhythmic waves of light. Every thought and action is a light-wave of thought and action. – Walter Russell
Pattern Integrity
Each individual is a pattern integrity. The pattern integrity of the human individual is evolutionary and not static. – Buckminster Fuller
Source of Life
We know the outer world of sensations and actions, but of our inner world of thoughts and feelings we know very little. The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness. – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Dictate of the Light
The dictate of the light says: Know yourself and what you are. The dark replies, By all means, but then become afraid. – Tanith Lee
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
Transcendent Destiny
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark. – Emerson
Create
You build the universe with your creations.
Waking State
Your thinking that you have to make an effort to get rid of this dream of the waking state, and your making efforts to attain jnana (realization of Self) or real awakening, are all parts of the dream. – Ramana Maharshi
Spirit Alone
But Spirit alone is Conscious, Law, of itself, is only a force, and matter has no mind of its own. Law is not a thinker but is a doer, while matter cannot think but is thought upon. – Ernest Holmes
Out of Control
With some tumultuous surroundings, as life introduces struggles and challenges, I’d like to try an experiment in ease. What if I can find the ease in the storm, the peace in the chaos, to just be. Everything will be figured out, and I can do it without struggle or worry. The challenge is to let go of the illusion of control, let life happen, and to know that you don’t know. We always think we know what is best for ourselves, not only that… what is best for reality. If we do this, if we act in this specific way or do this particular action, life will be just the way we want. But that’s impossible, there are truly too many factors. Life is an infinite amount of changes, possibilities, stories. The story that is best for you is out of your control. I’m not sure best is even the right word here… your life is what you make of it. It’s always been about a goal of achieving success, about looking like a success in the eyes of others, but what you do, day to day, the feelings you have inside, the love you express, the smiles you create……
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
Good Music
When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had, and never will have. – Edgar Watson Howe
Light is All
From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Pursuit
There can be no creative thinking if mind is hindered by the search for a reward, by the pursuit of a goal. -Krishnamurti
Restless Pursuit
Life is perpetually creative because it contains in itself that surplus which ever overflows the boundaries of the immediate time and space, restlessly pursuing its adventure of expression in the varied forms of self-realization. – Rabindranath Tagore
World of Shamans
The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue. – Carlos Castaneda
Cosmic Ocean
Do it as totally as possible, and forget the result. …you have to forget about the result, only then does it happen. You have to be in the act totally. The more you are in the act, the sooner the result happens. …So remember, centering is the method, not the result. The result is cosmic, oceanic experience. There is no center then. – Osho