Everyone post some favorite quotes!

[Ajay0]

Clear thinking results in correct action. ~ Nataraja Guru

 

The average man is ruled by the explosions of his emotions, and cannot think clearly. ~ Yogananda

 

Conflict is always emotional. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

 

Emotions arise from thoughts which arise, in turn, from foundational belief structures about the nature of Reality and your own innate identity. ~ Metta Zetty

 

The conflict in the world is not between good and evil, as is so often projected. The conflict is always between one man’s belief and another man’s belief, whether it is within the family or between nations. The moment you believe something, you are in conflict with the opposing belief. You can postpone it with moderate talk. But conflict is inevitable. ~ Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

 

Ego is complete identification with thought and emotion. ~ Eckhart Tolle

 

Be aware that what you think, to a large extent, creates the emotions that you feel. See the link between your thinking and your emotions. Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them. ~ Eckhart Tolle

[Sir Darius the Clairvoyent]

Deus sive natura - God, or in other words, nature

Spinoza

[Ajay0]

Absolute Reality is always present, and when the personal is active (through identification with thought) only a relative reality can be experienced. Thought takes over and perceiving becomes subjective and illusory. This relative reality creates all the unrest that exists. All global and local disturbance stems from the thoughts of "I” and "me.”

 

The common phrase living in the real world” is in fact referring to the unreal world, the world of thoughts that know no rest. ~ Jac O'Keeffe

 

It is only when without ego, and there is no individual, that the act of absolute compassion takes place through your form. From emptiness, selfless giving takes place. It is then that there is nothing personal in such actions and it is impossible not to act without love. ~ Jac O'Keeffe

 

If there is attachment to your personality, or to any story within what your personality believes to be true, then there will be desire and suffering.

You are Pure Awareness shaped into a human being. You are not a separate human being playing with levels of awareness. ~ Jac O'Keeffe

[Ajay0]

Vedanta contains eternal truths that are meant for the entire humanity. Their knowledge is neither emotional nor intellectual, but represents the actual reality that is. It teaches us that preoccupation with the past and the future makes for an agitated present. And as our actions are the greatest expression of our thoughts, it is not surprising that the world we live in is as turbulent as it is. -- Swami Purushottamananda

 

 

Emotions and even thoughts become depersonalized through awareness. Their impersonal nature is recognized. There is no longer a self in them. They are just human emotions, human thoughts. Your entire personal history, which is ultimately no more than a story, a bundle of thoughts and emotions, becomes of secondary importance and no longer occupies the forefront of your consciousness. It no longer forms the basis for your sense of identity. You are the light of Presence, the awareness that is prior to and deeper than any thoughts and emotions. -- Eckhart Tolle

 

Walk into a situation consciously and you will be able to walk out of it harmlessly. - Vernon Howard

 

Everything will turn out successfully when the mind is not agitated. - Yogar Swamigal

 

If I am agitated, I am wrong. - Vernon Howard

[Ajay0]

The state of consciousness that a great majority of humanity is in isn't natural. It's altered. We do not need to go looking for altered states of consciousness; humanity is already in an altered state of consciousness called separation. Separation is the ultimate altered state of consciousness.' - Adyashanti

 

'If as a culture, as a species, we continue to dwell in a divided state of consciousness, no matter what we change on the outside, we will continue to manifest division. But each of us who comes into the natural, simple, undivided state is making a contribution to all beings - without trying, without taking any credit, without even knowing it. When you become undivided in your own consciousness, you become part of the manifestation of unity.' - Adyashanti

 

'Without a shift of attention from concept to immediate experience and perception, spirituality tends to degrade into magical thinking, fantasy, and/or fanaticism. It is only by redirecting attention away from the surface level of the mind’s narrative, and towards the pure immediacy of the present, that we can break the trance of ego-identification and fall into conscious connection with our true nature.' - Adyashanti

[Ajay0]

Awareness is the greatest agent for change. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. Primary reality is within; secondary reality without. ~ Eckhart Tolle

 

Stop being tense about the external situations. Once the inside of a person is clean, then the outside automatically becomes all right. - Mata Amritanandamayi

 

In the realm of mind, like attracts like. If the soul is peaceful, then it attracts peaceful environment and people around it. - Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

 

Set your mind right and all will be right. - Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Ajay0]

“Life is available only in the present moment.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 

“No one has ever lived in the past or the future, only the now.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 

 

“While you are walking, smile and be in the here and now, and you will transform that place into paradise.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

[Ajay0]

Thinking is good, but excessive thinking is not. Between thoughts if there is a period of thoughtlessness, thoughts will be fresh and pathbreaking. A thinker will be able to cultivate a strain of healthy thoughts only when he pays attention to thoughtlessness also. ~ Acharya Mahapragya

 

While doing work if the mind continues to be active let it be so, but there must be at the same time a capacity for silence.
~ Sri Aurobindo

 

Reason does not need thinking. If you observe yourself making a plan you will notice that having fixed the object, the facts just keep coming, linking up into a chain of proposed action. Awareness is experiencing from moment to moment. Reason acts quickly in awareness, a thousand times faster than thought, and you do not even notice it is operating. ~ Barry Long

 

When the robot mind is mastered, undisciplined thinking ceases and is replaced by awareness. Awareness can know love. You can only experience the new when you are aware, when you are without thought. ~ Barry Long

 

 

I do not know if you have noticed that there is understanding when the mind is very quiet, even for a second; there is the flash of understanding when the verbalization of thought is not. Just experiment with it and you will see for yourself that you have the flash of understanding, that extraordinary rapidity of insight, when the mind is very still, when thought is absent, when the mind is not burdened with its own noise. So, the understanding of anything—of a modern picture, of a child, of your wife, of your neighbor, or the understanding of truth, which is in all things—can only come when the mind is very still. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

[Ajay0]

A mind that is fast is sick. A mind that is slow is sound. A mind that is still is divine. ~ Meher Baba

 

All spiritual disciplines are done with a view to still the mind. The perfectly still mind is universal spirit. ~ Swami Ramdas

 

Non-action is unceasing activity. The sage is characterized by eternal and intense activity. His stillness is like the apparent stillness of a fast rotating gyroscope. ~ Ramana Maharshi

 

When the mind is still, it gets the power to fulfill any thought. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

[blue eyed snake]

not exactly a quote...

but it sums it up nicely

 

[Ajay0]

Life is rooted in reality, not in your thoughts and emotions. ~ Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

 

Thought can be so seductive and hypnotic that it absorbs your attention totally, so you become your thoughts.~ Eckhart Tolle

 

The stream of thinking has enormous momentum that can easily drag you along with it. Every thought pretends that it matters so much. ~ Eckhart Tolle

 

When each thought absorbs your attention completely, it means you identify with the voice in your head. Thought then becomes invested with a sense of self. This is the ego, a mind-made "me." That mentally constructed self feels incomplete and precarious. That's why fearing and wanting are its predominant emotions and motivating forces. ~ Eckhart Tolle

 

"You may see that every single thought you can entertain only serves to perpetuate the personal 'I" . ~ Jac O'Keeffe

 

Following a thought is what maintains it. If you remain present without becoming an accomplice, agitation slows down through lack of fuel. In the absence of agitation you are taken by the resonance of stillness. ~ Jean Klein

 

The thought 'I am meditating’ is an ego thought. If real meditation is taking place, this thought cannot arise. ~ Annamalai Swami

[Ajay0]

'You don’t ‘have’ thoughts. You are not the ‘thinker’ of thoughts. That is not your true identity.

 

You are the vast, clear, peaceful sky of awareness in which all thought-clouds are continually allowed to appear and disappear.Thought-clouds float by, feelings emerge and dissolve, and the vastness of what you are remains, always.' ~ Jeff Foster

 

 

'Awareness is the backdrop against which all individual consciousness and experience arises.

 

As such, it is the unmoved, ever present Essence of All That Is. We may become actively involved with, or even distracted by, that which appears within the field of individualized consciousness or human experience, but even in the midst of all this mental and physical activity, our inherent, Natural Awareness remains the undisturbed constant.' ~ Metta Zetty

[Ajay0]

Thought alone, when it is no longer connected with the much vaster realm of consciousness, quickly becomes barren, insane, destructive. ~ Eckhart Tolle

 

When scientific or rational thinking is grounded in presence it has a completely different outcome. It can never be monstrous. ~ Dr. Jean Klein

 

Once you are corrupted by thought you have no sense of life, simply your own psychological process is more important than the whole cosmic dimension of the existence. ~ Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

 

Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they are there naturally. ~ David Bohm

 

 

The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately... you usually don't use it at all. It uses you. ~ Eckhart Tolle

[silent thunder]

When you read a line that is so well written, you just close the book and stare at the wall for a minute.

~Anonymous

[Taomeow]

Look thou upon my field of ****s and see that it is barren.

-- Source of quote forgotten.

 

[Mark Foote]

On 10/13/2023 at 11:07 PM, Ajay0 said:

 

You are Pure Awareness shaped into a human being. You are not a separate human being playing with levels of awareness. ~ Jac O'Keeffe
 

Me, I need an action plan, even if it's just a description of how inaction takes place.

The quote from Suzuki is one of my favorites:

 

There can… come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence.

 

... There’s a frailty in the structure of the lower spine, and the movement of breath can place the point of awareness in such a fashion as to engage a mechanism of support for the spine, often in stages 

... When “doing something” has ceased, and there is “not one particle of the body” that cannot receive the placement of attention, then the placement of attention is free to shift as necessary in the movement of breath. (At such a moment,) the flow of “doing something” in the body, of activity initiated by habit or volition, ceases ....  Instead, activity is generated purely by the placement of attention, and the location of attention can flow.

... The difficulty is that most people will lose consciousness before they cede activity to the location of attention

... When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration:
 

… there is no need to depend on teaching. But the most important thing is to practice and realize our true nature… [laughs]. This is, you know, Zen.
 

(Shunryu Suzuki, Tassajara 68-07-24 transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

(sentences taken from Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages, emphasis added)

 

Context matters, to me.

 

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Sanity Check]

"Greatness lies in doing the work, no one else wants to."

[thelerner]

This came up in conversation and merits consideration-

 Taomeow said:

 

You know what your problem is?  You don't know thyself, and that means you don't know exactly what happened to you to make you into what you are now.  And because you don't own your own developmental history, your origins, who and what and how has shaped you on a deeper inner level, you aren't conscious.  That's why you can't choose or change a thing about yourself to any depth while others can -- which is to say,  you are fully programmable.  Anyone can fill your head with any which crap.  Welcome to the machine.  

[S:C]

On 14.11.2023 at 5:06 PM, thelerner said:

Anyone can fill your head with any which crap.  Welcome to the machine. 

In my head a whole symphony orchestra plays a serenade to the quote author out of this felt resonance today. Internally I applaud, but am baffled why this feels so true. Magnificent.
 

[S:C]

„My ignorance amuses me.“

- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider 2001

[silent thunder]

I don't know.  You don't know.  Nobody knows.

But everybody talkin...

 

~Victoria Daniilidou

 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by silent thunder

[zerostao]

When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade without further introduction.

—    Mark Twain

 

Spoiler

I like silent thunder’s song selection—perhaps it’s an instant classic. 
I like classics

 

 

 

[Kojiro]

The very word Education is a tricky misnomer. The schools are not designed to educate but to domesticate. Their purpose is to train children like horses and dogs. Children are brainwashed and mind-conditioned to do the things and to think the thoughts which those in authority want them to do and to think. They are trained to accept without prejudice and to obey without question the dictates of authority. This training is so deeply instilled that only a few are ever able to recover from the effects of it, and they are smeared as enemies of civilization.

 

By Hilton Hotema

[silent thunder]

Rigid Academia and Religious threaded thinking are both comprised of and rely upon elements of heavy dogma that indoctrinate rather than elucidate.  They claim unquestionable authority and demand a similar unquestioning loyalty at the risk of excommunication for the unfaithful who think critically about proposed concepts deemed sacrosanct or beyond doubt.

[Sir Darius the Clairvoyent]

The unwise man is awake all night, 
and ponders everything over; 
when morning comes he is weary in mind, and all is a burden as ever.

 

Havamal, stanza 23