Quotes
Individualized
He must suffer, not because pain is a necessity, but because he must have experience in order to become individualized. – Ernest Holmes
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
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
Darkness
You are not what you are; You are darkness Looking for light within. – Dejan Stojanovic
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.
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.
Wonders
The whole of creation exists in you, and it is your destiny to become increasingly aware of its infinite wonders and to experience ever greater and grander portions of it. – The Power of Awareness
In Love
Be in love with your life. Every minute of it. – Jack Kerouac
Searching for the Marvelous
Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous. I want to be a writer who reminds others that these moments exist; I want to prove that there is infinite space, infinite meaning, infinite dimension. – Anaïs Nin
The Seeker
The seeker is he who is in search of himself. – Nisargadatta Maharaj
Totally
Do it as totally as possible, and forget the result. – Osho
Good Music
When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had, and never will have. – Edgar Watson Howe
The Whole
Man will be delivered from sin, sickness and trouble in exact proportion to his discovery of himself and his relationship to the Whole. – Ernest Holmes
Restless
Detach yourself from all that makes your mind restless. Renounce all that disturbs its peace. If you want peace, deserve it. – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
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
Present
The moment you start seeking you have moved away from the present, away from yourself, because you are always in the present. The seeker is always in the present and the seeking is in the future; you are not going to meet whatsoever you are seeking. Lao Tzu says “Seek not; otherwise you will miss. Seek not and find. Don’t seek and find.” – Osho, Book of Secrets
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
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
Call it Freedom
Don’t call it uncertainty – call it wonder. Don’t call it insecurity – call it freedom. – Osho
Creative Thinking
What we call happiness or ecstacy is, to me, creative thinking. And creative thinking is the infinite movement of thought, emotion, and action. – Krishnamurti
Leave Your Mind
Leave your mind alone, that is all. Do not go along with it. After all, there is no such thing as mind apart from thoughts which come and go obeying their own laws, not yours. They dominate you only because you are interested in them. – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
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
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
Be Alive
That is why humans resist life. To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive – the risk to be alive and express what we really are. Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans. We have learned to live our lives trying to satisfy other people’s demands. We have learned to live by other people’s points of view because of the fear of not being accepted and of not being good enough for someone else. – Miguel Ruiz
Sky
Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life. – Marcel Proust
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
Instinct
Trust instinct to the end, even though you can give no reason. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Limitless
Life is infinite energy coupled with limitless creative imagination. It is the invisible essence and substance of every visible form. Its nature is goodness, truth, wisdom and beauty, as well as energy and imagination. Our highest satisfaction comes from a sense of conscious union with this invisible Life. All human endeavor is an attempt to get back to first principles, to find such an inward wholeness that all sense of fear, doubt and uncertainty vanishes. – Ernest Holmes