- “In Hindu parlance he had ‘realised the Self’; that is to say, he had realised by direct experience that nothing existed apart from an indivisible and universal consciousness which was experienced in its unmanifest form as beingness or awareness and in its manifest form as the appearance of the universe.” ― David Godman
- “It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death.” ― Plato, The Allegory of the Cave
- “And suddenly you realize: you are in every dot of the universe vanishing and arising.” ― Amit Ray, Enlightenment Step by Step
- “It’s ever been the way of the man of science or philosophy. Most folks stay in the dark and then complain they can’t see nothing.” – Snipes (185)” ― Ron Rash, Serena
- “Earth’s love song is the universal mother tongue.” ― Wald Wassermann
- “Within, the only place where it is created, is the very last place most pursuers of happiness are likely to go.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
- “In the last 10 years, we have seen a rise in selfishness: selfies, self-absorbed people, superficiality, self-degradation, apathy, and self-destruction. So I challenge all of you to take initiative to change this programming. Instead of celebrating the ego, let’s flip the script and celebrate the heart. Let’s put the ego and celebrity culture to sleep, and awaken the conscience. This is the battle we must all fight together to win back our humanity. To save our future and our children.” ― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
- “I don’t trust anybody who isn’t a little bit neurotic” ― Mohadesa Najumi
- “Life sucks. Enlightenment is getting over it.” ― Ari Clayera
- “The enlightened sages speak of surrender to the guru. This is not to be taken literally as surrender to some personage embodied in a teacher. Instead it means to surrender the belief that you are an individual so that you may embrace what you are as consciousness” ― Vic Shayne, Consciousness: The Potentiality of All Existence: Exploring reality and belief as a subjective experience
- “Emotional exhaustion follows fast on the footsteps of physical and mental depletion. I feel my lifeblood draining away in an oily spigot of inner turmoil. Questions abound and personal survival hinges upon sorting through possible solutions and selecting the most fitting answers. Is my pain real or simply an illusion of a frustrated ego? What do I believe in? What is my purpose? I aspire to discover a means to live in congruence with the trinity of the mind, body, and spirit. Can I discover a noble path that frees me from the shallowness of decadent physical and emotional desires? Can I surrender any desire to seek fame and fortune? Can I terminate a craving to punish other persons for their perceived wrongs? Can I recognize that forgiving persons whom offended me is a self-initiated, transformative act? Can I conquer an irrational fear of the future? Can I accept the inevitable chaos that accompanies life? Can I find a means to achieve inner harmony by steadfastly resolving to live in the moment free of angst? Can I purge egotisms that mar an equitable perception of life by renunciation of the self and all worldly endeavors? Can I live a harmonious existence devoid the panache of vanities?” ― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
- “The root of faults is nothing other than your ego-clinging, the attitude of deluded fixation, so cut the ties of ego-clinging! Cast away the fixation on enemy and friend! Forsake worldly concerns! Abandon materialistic pursuits! Engage in nothing but the Dharma from the core of your heart! Just as a seedling doesn’t grow on a stone, there will be no enhancement without removing the fault of ego-clinging. You should therefore abandon the root of all evils, ego-clinging. (p. 90)” ― Padmasambhava, Advice from the Lotus-Born: A Collection of Padmasambhava’s Advice to the Dakini Yeshe Tsogyal and Other Close Disciples
- “The true definition of mental illness is when the majority of your time is spent in the past or future, but rarely living in the realism of NOW.” ― Shannon L. Alder
- “Dream Song:As my eyes Search the prairie, I feel the summer in the spring. Whenever I pause The noise Of the village. ” ― Frances Densmore, American Indians and Their Music
- “This is the sinking womanwhose soul touched the ocean andcaused it to storm kisses.” ― Gloria D. Gonsalves, Let’s Go Dancing in the Light: A Collection of Poetry and Prose for Soul and Spirit
- “I have been at war with parts of myself for so long” ― Mohadesa Najumi
- “God always makes you accountable for your mistakes, especially, when they are related to egotistic decisions. Ignorance and sympathy are never excuses in the realm of the spirit.” ― Dan Desmarques, Codex Illuminatus: Quotes & Sayings of Dan Desmarques
- “You may possibly become rich by just caring about yourself and what you want to gain from life but you cannot possibly enrich the lives of everyone you meet that way. The pathway to enlightenment and transformation and liberation is the heart not the mind.” ― Rasheed Ogunlaru
- “The flowers of your qualities will reveal your true nature. If you have the fragrance of God, you will have the fragrance of an insan kamil, a perfected man. There will be light in your face, beauty in your heart, and sweetness in your speech. (p. 399)” ― M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh
- “I’m simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I’m saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes. It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process. It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher. And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.” ― Osho
- “The awakening process is not about ‘finding who you are’ but more about finding out about the ego, about who you are not.” ― Maria Erving
- “Speak your piece until you find your peace.” ― D.M. Timney
- “Do not encumber your mind with useless thoughts. What good is it to brood over the past and fret about the future? Dwell in the simplicity of the present moment. Live in harmony with the dharma. Make it the heart of your life and experience. Be the master of your own destiny.” ― Dilgo Khyentse, The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most
- “What is the difference between buddhas and sentient beings?’ It is nothing other than realizing or not realizing mind. The substance of the awakened state, of buddha, is present within you, but you don’t recognize it.” ― Padmasambhava, Advice from the Lotus-Born: A Collection of Padmasambhava’s Advice to the Dakini Yeshe Tsogyal and Other Close Disciples
- “To be real on this path you must be humble –If you look down at others you’ll get pushed down the stairs.If your heart goes around on high, you fly far from this path.There’s no use hiding it –What’s inside always leaks outside.Even the one with the long white beard, the one who looks so wise –If he breaks a single heart, why bother going to Mecca?If he has no compassion, what’s the point?My heart is the throne of the Beloved,the Beloved the heart’s destiny:Whoever breaks another’s heart will find no homecomingin this world or any other.The ones who know say very littlewhile the beasts are always speaking volumes;One word is enough for one who knows.If there is any meaning in the holy books, it is this:Whatever is good for you, grant it to others too –Whoever comes to this earth migrates back;Whoever drinks the wine of loveunderstands what I say –Yunus, don’t look down at the world in scorn –Keep your eyes fixed on your Beloved’s face,then you will not see the bridgeon Judgment Day.” ― Yunus Emre, The Drop That Became the Sea: Lyric Poems
- “We all have the ability to walk out of the gloomy prison of self-limiting, uncritical existence into the bright daylight of a boundless, deeply meaningful, and tremendously satisfying existence, with its attendant playful, exuberant, joyous wisdom. The infinite life is life unbound by time or space. Deaths are only doorways, transitions from one life-form to the next, just as sleep is only a passage from evening to a new day. Your every movement of body, speech, and mind arises from a beginningless past and resonates into an endless future. You are free and boundless in dimension, and also very real and unique. You are lost in oneness with the awesome infinite, yet you have infinite importance due to your total interconnectedness with all other beings. When self-centered and unhappy, you are a big problem for them, often engaged in life-and-death struggles. When enlightened, self-transcendent, boundlessly open, and truly happy, you can be the living solution to all their problems. Open your eyes and look at yourself carefully. Expand the concept of reality that you live by – your awareness of, and responsibility for, your own personal continuity. Everything you do now, your very breathing, flows from your sense of yourself as a living continuum and your drive to improve your state of being. You are a dynamic evolutionary process. There is no limit to how far you can develop positively into higher states of spirituality, understanding, love, happiness, and creativity. (p. 29)” ― Robert A.F. Thurman, Infinite Life
- “Follow both: the call of the mountain of enlightenment and the temptation of the valley of experience. No mountain without valley, no valley without mountain.” ― Stefan Emunds
- “Your life is a reflection of your thoughts and actions–what will you reflect?” ― Dr. Janice Anderson & Kiersten Anderson
- “Supplication creates blessing, and although the blessing is understood as something given to you, something that somehow engulfs you from the outside, in fact blessing really isn’t given to you at all. When you supplicate, you generate faith and devotion. That faith and devotion cause the appearance of what we call blessing.” ― Jamgon Kongtrul, Creation and Completion: Essential Points of Tantric Meditation
- “I turned to youon the fourth of July and the sky was quiet.I see the flags wavingbut I promise you,the breeze is a trick.” ― Casey Renee Kiser, Swan Wreck