Quotes
Who Am I
Give up all questions except one: ‘Who am I?’ After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are. The ‘I am’ is certain. The ‘I am this’ is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality. To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not.– Sri Nisargadatta Mahara
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.
Heart
Do something every day that advances you not in the direction of some far-off goal, but in the direction of your heart. It will not lead you astray. – Charlie Amber
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
Richness
Surely truth, or that Godhead of understanding, is not to be found by clinging either to family or tradition or habit. It is to be found only when you are compeltely naked, stripped of your longings, hopes, securities; and in that direct simplicity is the richness of life. – Krishnamurti
Everywhere Music
See deep enough, and you see musically; the heart of Nature being everywhere music, if you can only reach it. – Thomas Carlyle
Perceive
To understand is to perceive patterns. – Isaiah Berlin
Freedom
I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Sky
Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life. – Marcel Proust
Become Aware
Keep uppermost in your mind that the illusion that you experience is an illusion, that it is surrounding you for the purpose of teaching you. It can only teach you if you become aware of its teachings. – The Law Of One
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
Whole of Being
Nothing is true but if you think it. And what you think, if you think it with your whole being, becomes true for the Whole of Being. – Bob Frissell
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
The Door
Learn the alchemy true human beings know. The moment you accept what troubles you’ve been given, the door will open. – Rumi
Leap in the Dark
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal and then leap in the dark to our success. – Henry David Thoreau
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
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
Dreamlike
There is no good reason to say that yesterday was more solid and real than last night’s dream, except that we cling to our dreamlike experience of yesterday more than to our experience of last night’s dream. – 7th Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
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
Integrity
Integrity is the essence of everything successful. – R. Buckminster Fuller
Strive to Live
Be joyful, think hard, dream tough, challenge yourself and relish the pain, the struggle, the tears. This is where you get into the depth of it. Dive in deep beneath the protective layers. Strive to live. It’s not what you think, where wrong is not real – it’s bliss or struggle all the same. Forget the judgment. Who matters but You? You are It. Every hate and judge, every love and acceptance. Although they are a part of you, they are not the complete you. Your perspective is unique. You create rightness with your actions. You tie into reality with your breath, creating your own dream with your movement. What can you achieve when you realize this is true? Strive to live, your options are limitless when you remember that you are too.
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.
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
True Imagination
True imagination is not fanciful daydreaming; it is fire from heaven. – Ernest Holmes
Creative Power
The greatest discovery that man ever made was, that his thought has creative power; that is that it uses creative power. – Ernest Holmes
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
Glimpses
This is what the music does, it gets inside you, an energy that keeps you alive, always driving, riding the waves, following the sounds that make you feel. It keeps you seeking, for the truth you can hear with your soul. The music gives you glimpses of the power and light that exists in dimensions outside of our own.
The Spirit
We will think of the Spirit as the great Actor, the Soul as the medium of Its action, and the Body as the result of this action. – Ernest Holmes