Only the ideas that we really live have any value.

~ Hermann Hesse

Those who cannot think or take responsibility for themselves need, and clamour for, a leader.

~ Hermann Hesse

I've lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens. I've been knocking from the inside.

~ Rumi

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

~ Kahlil Gibran

True discipline is really just self-remembering; no forcing or fighting is necessary.

~ Charles Eisenstein

Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.

~ C S Lewis

If Christ were born in Bethlehem a thousand times and not in thee thyself; then art thou lost eternally.

~ Angelus Silesius

The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. "One word of truth outweighs the world."

~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn't very much.

~ Eckhart Tolle

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.

~ Gandhi

Investigate what is and not what pleases.

~ Goethe

On the exoteric level the traditions are irreconcilable. On the esoteric, experiential level of the heart reigns an eloquent, reverential silence.

~ Frederick Frank

How do I listen to others? As if everyone were my Master speaking to me his cherished last words.

~ Hafiz

Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

~ Hermann Hesse

He should not be discouraged because others have gone ahead on the path more
quickly than he, any more than he should be gratified because some have gone
ahead more slowly than he, for the fact is that the goal he seeks is already
within his grasp. He is the Overself that he seeks to unite with, and the
time it seems to take to realize this is itself an illusion of the mind. Let
him, therefore, go forward at his own rate and within the limits of his own
strength, leaving the result in the hands of God.

~ Paul Brunton

[Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 5: Self-Development > # 267]

Now an extraordinary and helpful fact is that by
making Mind the object of our attention, not only does
the serenity which is its nature begin to well up of
its own accord but its steady unchanging character
itself helps spontaneously to repel all disturbing
thoughts.

~ Paul Brunton

[Notebooks Category 23: Advanced Contemplation > Chapter 7: Contemplative Stillness > # 10]

One must be willing to stand alone—in the unknown, with no reference to the
known or the past or any of one’s conditioning. One must stand where no one
has stood before in complete nakedness, innocence, and humility. One must
stand in that dark light, in that groundless embrace, unwavering and true to
the reality beyond all self—not just for a moment, but forever without end.
For then that which is sacred, undivided, and whole is born within
consciousness and begins to express itself.

~ Adyashanti

We should come to know that there is more reality and sacredness in a blade of grass than in all of our thoughts and ideas about reality.

~ Adyashanti

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

~ Rumi

Doubt transports you to the truth. Who does not doubt fails to inquire. Who does not inquire fails to gain insight. Without insight, you remain blind and perplexed.

~ Al-Ghazali, Sufi master (1058-1111)

The solution to your problem is to see who has it.

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

The unawakened ego submits passively to the lower influences which come to
it out of the shadows of its own long past and to the sense-stirring
suggestions which come to it out of the surroundings in which it moves. But
when it has found and surrendered to the Overself in the heart, this blind,
mechanical responsiveness comes to an end and an aroused, enlightened, fully
aware, inner rulership replaces it.

~ Paul Brunton

The main thing is that you stop telling lies to yourself. The one who lies to himself and believes his own lies comes to a point where he can distinguish no truth either within himself or around him, and thus enters into a state of disrespect towards himself and others. Respecting no one, he loves no one, and to amuse and divert himself in the absence of love he gives himself up to his passions and to vulgar delights and becomes a complete animal in his vices, and all of it from perpetual lying to other people and himself.

~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Understanding and love are values that transcend all dogma.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Thought is absent in seeing things intuitively. When you perceive directly, there is no thinking. When you think you understand, you don't. You do not think that you are alive, you know that you are alive.

~ Ramesh S. Balsekar

Do not struggle. Go with the flow of things, and you will find yourself at one with the mysterious unity of the Universe.

~ Chuang Tzu

There is no single path to enlightenment. Yoga has no monopoly. Life itself is the great enlightener. I met a man once who, after the shock of hearing his wife tell him that she had ceased to love him, that she had for some time had a secret lover, and that she requested a divorce so as to be able to marry him, felt a collapse of all his hitherto confidently held values and beliefs. For some days he was so affected that he could not eat. But his mind by then had become so extraordinarily lucid concerning these matters and himself, that he experienced moments of truth. Through them he came into a great peace and understanding, an inner change. What was the morning sun which awakened him? He did no yogic exercises, entered no churches, was too intent on his worldly business to read spiritual books. This brings me back to the theme: do not submit to the pressure of those who say there is only a single way to salvation (the way they follow or teach) do not let the mind be trammelled or narrowed. The truth is that the ways are many, are spread out in all directions, are individual.

~ Paul Brunton

When we are caught in notions, rituals, and the outer forms of the practice, not only can we not receive and embody the spirit of our tradition, we become an obstacle for the true values of the tradition to be transmitted. We lose sight of the true needs and actual suffering of people, and the teaching and practice, which were intended to relieve suffering, now cause suffering. Narrow, fundamentalist, and dogmatic practices always alienate people, especially those who are suffering. We have to remind ourselves again and again of our original purpose, and the original teachings and intention of Buddha, Jesus, and other great sages and saints.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

You do not have to abandon this world. You do not have to go to Heaven or wait for the future to have refuge. You can take refuge here and now. You only need to dwell deeply in the present moment.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The Buddha was not against God. He was only against notions of God that are mere mental constructions that do not correspond to reality, notions that prevent us from developing ourselves and touching ultimate reality.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The soul is its own witness, yea, the soul
Itself is its own refuge ; grieve thou not,
O man, thy soul, the great internal Witness.

~ Laws of Manu

Do what you can
With what you have
Where you are.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

Let no man imagine that he has no influence.
Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed,
the man who thinks becomes a light and a power.

~ Henry George

Imagine the universe beautiful and just and perfect.
Then be sure of one thing:
The IS has imagined it quite a bit better than you have.

~ Richard Bach

Beauty appears when something is completely and absolutely and openly itself.

~ Deena Metzger

The world is made of rings. The hooks are all yours.
Make straight your hooks and nothing can hold you.
Give up your addictions. There is nothing else to give up.
Stop your routine of acquisitiveness, your habit of looking for results
and the freedom of the universe is yours. Be effortless.

~ Nisargadatta

We who are like senseless children
Shrink from suffering,
But love its causes.
We hurt ourselves;
Our pain is self-inflicted!
Why should others
Be the object of our anger?

~ Shantideva

You speak of doing good to the world. Is the world such a small thing? And who are you, pray, to do good to the world? First realise God, see Him by means of spiritual discipline. If He imparts power you can do good to others; otherwise not.

~ Sri Ramakrishna

The significance of that 'absolute commandment', know thyself — whether we look at it in itself or under the historical circumstances of its first utterance — is not to promote mere self-knowledge in respect of the particular capacities, character, propensities, and foibles of the single self. The knowledge it commands means that of man's genuine reality — of what is essentially and ultimately true and real — of spirit as the true and essential being.

~ Hegel

Myth is neither right nor wrong, logical nor contradictory. It has its birth in another sphere where consistency, truth, and reality are measured by other standards. This sphere is intuition and experience. . . . [which] does not mean that myth is ambiguous, equivocal, or deceptive. The incompatibility of contradictory meanings is characteristic of logic and reason, not of intuition and experience. The myth conceals many meanings, the interrelations of which may vary and appear difficult to understand. This is due to the fact that the myth stems from strata of the soul deeper than consciousness and therefore beyond the reach of our thought.

~ Ruth Nanda Anshen