Quotes
Radiant Emptiness
When you’re really resting, you can actually feel the radiant, empty mind – not as a thought, but as the radiant emptiness of yourself, the nothingness of yourself and of all selves. – Adyashanti
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.
Everywhere Music
See deep enough, and you see musically; the heart of Nature being everywhere music, if you can only reach it. – Thomas Carlyle
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
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
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
Totally
Do it as totally as possible, and forget the result. – Osho
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
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
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
Direction of Dreams
I have learned that if one advances in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. – Henry David Thoreau
Sky
Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life. – Marcel Proust
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……
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
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
Simplify
When you reach the core that comes after allowing everything to drop, you are naturally cracked open. There is a spiritual heart in that core. You uncover not only the emptiness of the radiant mind, but the radiance and warmth of the spiritual heart as well. When you’re really resting, you can actually feel the radiant, empty mind – not as a thought, but as the radiant emptiness of yourself, the nothingness of yourself and of all selves. You also experience the radiant heart fullness and realize that the emptiness isn’t just a bland emptiness – it is heart-full. When the emptiness awakens, you know that it is also the compassionate heart. The warmth of your own spiritual heart comes alive. – Adyashanti
True Imagination
True imagination is not fanciful daydreaming; it is fire from heaven. – Ernest Holmes
Prisoner
Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner. – Lao Tzu
State of Thought
What a man has, as well as what he is, is the result of the subjective state of his thought. – Ernest Holmes
Real Freedom
Man is created and left to discover himself, and on the road to this self-discovery he experiences the creations of his own imaginations which ultimately show him the Truth and lead to real freedom. – Ernest Holmes
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.
Seek Freedom
To seek freedom is the only driving force I know. Freedom to fly off into that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to lift off; to be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a mere candle. – Carlos Castaneda, Don Juan: the Sorcerer
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,…
Create
You build the universe with your creations.
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
Idea of Health
He turned from the image of sickness to the idea of health and said, “I am perfect, no matter what the appearance may be”. – Ernest Holmes