
In my experience,
we don’t make thoughts appear,
they just appear.
One day, I noticed that their appearance
just wasn’t personal.
~Byron Katie
(1942 to pres., American Philosopher and Author)
In my experience,
we don’t make thoughts appear,
they just appear.
One day, I noticed that their appearance
just wasn’t personal.
~Byron Katie
(1942 to pres., American Philosopher and Author)
We, who are a part of God,
are full of the love of God.
God is an ocean of all love.
Our soul being of the same essence as that of God
Is love.
The great saints have said
that the way back to God is also through love.
Since we are full of the love of God,
our soul is always enraptured;
it is always in bliss.
In its original state
it is always far, far removed
from any sorrow.
It is far removed from hatred, jealousy,
or any other kind of feelings
that put us in a state of sorrow.
~Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj
(1946 to pres., Author, Scientist,
Mystic Adept of Light and Sound Current Yoga,
Leader of Science of Spirituality and
International Movements for World Peace)
In comparison to emotions,
which come and go
and sometimes mistakenly lead us
into thinking there is danger,
values provide a steady hand
that reminds us about the kind of person
we want to be.
~Yael Schonbrun
(Psychologist and family therapist)
Interconnection
is the tree at the atomic level,
bird at the atomic level,
us at the atomic level.
There is no atom that we haven’t breathed,
drunk, or eaten from the planet.
We’re walking, talking Earth.
We’re not separate.
We are the Earth
that has figured out how to communicate
with itself.
~Neil Theise
(Professor of pathology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine)
For ages now you’ve been
Beguiled, entranced, and fooled by appearances.
Are you aware of that? Are you?
Right this very instant, when you’re
Under the spell of mistaken perception
You’ve got to watch out.
Don’t let yourself get carried away
by this fake and empty life.
Your mind is spinning around
About carrying out a lot of useless projects:
It’s a waste! Give it up!
Thinking about the hundred plans
you want to accomplish,
With never enough time to finish them,
Just weighs down your mind.
You’re completely distracted
By all these projects, which never come to an end,
But keep spreading out more, like ripples in water.
Don’t be a fool: for once, just sit tight. . . .
If you let go of everything—
Everything, everything—
That’s the real point!
~Patrul Rinpoche
(1808-1887, Tibetan Buddhist Teacher)
The last wolf hurried toward me
through the ruined city
and I heard his baying echoes
down the steep smashed warrens
of Montgomery Street and past
the ruby-crowned highrises
left standing
their lighted elevators useless
Passing the flicking red and green
of traffic signals
baying his way eastward
in the mystery of his wild loping gait
closer the sounds in the deadly night
through clutter and rubble of quiet blocks
I hear his voice ascending the hill
and at last his low whine as he came
floor by empty floor to the room
where I sat
in my narrow bed looking west, waiting
I heard him snuffle at the door and
I watched
He trotted across the floor
he laid his long gray muzzle
on the spare white spread
and his eyes burned yellow
his small dotted eyebrows quivered
Yes, I said.
I know what they have done.
~Mary TallMountain
(1918-1994, Native Alaskan writer and elder)
The problem in middle life,
when the body has reached its climax of power
and begins to decline,
is to identify yourself, not with the body,
which is falling away,
but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle.
This is something I learned from myths.
What am I?
Am I the bulb that carries the light?
Or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle?
One of the psychological problems in growing old
is the fear of death.
People resist the door of death.
But this body is a vehicle of consciousness,
and if you can identify with the consciousness,
you can watch this body go like an old car.
There goes the fender, there goes the tire,
one thing after another— but it’s predictable.
And then, gradually, the whole thing drops off,
and consciousness, rejoins consciousness.
It is no longer in this particular environment.
~Joseph Campbell
(1904–1987, Mythologist and Philosopher)
We are essentially social beings,
and I am only one part
of the reflection of the great mystery of God.
We are each of us simply
one fingerprint or footprint of God.
We are essentially connected with one another.
The pattern of the universe is
that we are one.
~Richard Rohr
(1943 to pres., Spiritual writer, and Franciscan priest)
It is said that God is an Ocean of All consciousness;
and our soul, being of the same essence of God,
is also consciousness.
Unfortunately, ever since the soul was separated
from its source and imprisoned in the physical body,
it has been lost in mind, matter and illusion.
We all know that in this world
everything is transitory,
and most of the possessions and achievements
that we take pride in are not lasting.
We are constantly seeking happiness,
but we are unable to find it.
The reason is that no amount of material comfort
or material gain can give happiness to our soul
which is a conscious entity.
If we want peace and bliss for our soul
saints and seers from the dawn of history
have emphasized the necessity
of developing greater and greater consciousness
until we achieve cosmic consciousness.
And we can attain cosmic consciousness
only when we are able to concentrate at the eye-focus
with single minded attention.
~ Sant Darshan Singh Ji Maharaj
(1921–1989, founder and head of Sawan Kirpal Ruhani Mission,
Indian mystic Urdu poet, Master Saint of Surat Shabd Yoga)
To receive a simple wish of love
quietly opens our minds
to an innate wisdom
that recognizes the essential goodness of being,
the intrinsic goodness of experience itself,
the joy of being alive.
It brings out the natural wisdom
that was hidden in our minds.
~Lama John Makransky
(American professor of Buddhism and comparative theology)