Quotes
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
Creation
One little spark, of inspiration Is at the heart, of all creation. Right at the start, of everything that’s new. One little spark, lights up for you. – Figment, Journey Into Imagination
Into the Unknown
What else should our lives be but a continual series of beginnings, of painful settings out into the unknown, pushing off from the edges of consciousness into the mystery of what we have not yet become. – David Malouf, An Imaginary Life
Growing
Not guided, not guarded, not directed, not motivated, but simply growing. – Osho
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.
Centering
So remember, centering is the method, not the result. The result is cosmic, oceanic experience. There is no center then. – Osho
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
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
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.
To Yourself
Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. – Richard Bach, Illusions
Transcended
Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended. – Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
Tenacity
What is supremely important is to be free from contradictions: the goal and the way must not be on different levels; life and light must not quarrel; behaviour must not betray belief. Call it honesty, integrity, wholeness; you must not go back, undo, uproot, abandon the conquered ground. Tenacity of purpose and honesty in pursuit will bring you to your goal. – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Freedom
I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Notice
Your way out is to just notice who’s noticing… The one who notices is already free. – Michael A Singer, The Untethered Soul
Good Music
When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had, and never will have. – Edgar Watson Howe
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
Play of Life
Creation is the play of Life upon Itself through Divine Self-Imagination – Ernest Holmes
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
Sovereignty
You were born to this world with sovereignty over your mind and over your life. Your abilities to think, to feel, to learn and to love are your liberty. In you, these capacities are infinite. You have infinite worth. – Jeremy Locke
Prisoner
Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner. – Lao Tzu
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
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
Division
Let us no longer accept division, but find ourselves united in light.
Perfect Idea
The Divine Ideas are perfect, but man has the ability to cause them to appear imperfect. Through right thinking he is able to uncover the appearance of imperfection and reveal the Perfect Idea. – Ernest Holmes
Chosen Ones
They are the chosen ones who have surrendered. – Rumi
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
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