In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

~ Gandhi

There is something about western modernity which really does eat away at the soul. Those things which speed us up and harden us are going to get in the way of the soul.

~ Rowan Williams

There is an essential clash somewhere. It is to do with the functional view of human beings. What are humans for? The Muslim, the Christian, the Hindu, the Sikh, would say that we are for the glory of God; so that God's light may be reflected and God's love diffused. It is never just about how we fit into the cogs of society, or about economic production. The more our education system is dominated by functionalism, skills, productivity, and the more our whole society is determined by that kind of mythology, the harder it is for the religious voice to be heard. There is a real abrasion between lots of the forms of modernity and religion.

~ Rowan Williams

This world is a bridge, pass over quickly and build no house upon it.

~ Shaykh Isa (Jesus)


[Inscription on a bridge in Lahore dating back to Mogul times]

So, Ananda, you must be lamps unto yourselves. Rely on yourselves, and do not rely on external help. Hold firm to the truth as a lamp and a refuge, and do not look for refuge to anything besides yourselves. A brother becomes his own lamp and refuge by continually looking on his body, feelings, perceptions, moods, and ideas in such a manner that he conquers the cravings and depressions of ordinary men and is always strenuous, self-possessed, and collected in mind. Whoever among my disciples does this, either now or when I am dead, if he is anxious to learn, will reach the summit...

~ Buddha

[Digha Nikaya ii.99-100, Mahaparinibbana Suttanta

Those who know do not talk.
Those who talk do not know.

Keep your mouth closed.
Guard your senses.
Temper your sharpness.
Simplify your problems.
Mask your brightness.
Be at one with the dust of the earth.
This is primal union.

He who has achieved this state
Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
With good and harm, with honor and disgrace.
This therefore is the highest state of man.

~Lao-tzu

One of his students asked Buddha, "Are you the messiah?"
"No", answered Buddha.
"Then are you a healer?"
"No", Buddha replied.
"Then are you a teacher?" the student persisted.
"No, I am not a teacher."
"Then what are you?"
asked the student, exasperated.
"I am awake", Buddha replied.

The Master was always teaching that guilt is an evil emotion to be avoided like the very devil -- all guilt. "But are we not to hate our sins?" a disciple said one day. "When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself."

~ Anthony de Mello

O seeker,
These thoughts have such power over you.
From nothing you become sad.
From nothing you become happy.

You are burning in the flames
but I will not let you out
until you are fully baked,
fully wise and fully yourself.

~ Rumi

If he is not too proud to begin at the point where he finds himself rather than at some point where he once was or would now like to be, if he is willing to advance one step at a time, he may realize his goal far more quickly than the less humble and more pretentious man is likely to realize it.

~ Paul Brunton

Zen ... does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

~ Alan Watts

But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.

~ Alan Watts

The moralist is the person who tells people that they ought to be unselfish, when they still feel like egos, and his efforts are always and invariably futile.

~ Alan Watts

Yoga is the restraint of the modifications of the mind.
Then there is abiding in the seer's own form.

~ The Yoga Sutras

Never explain - your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

~ Elbert Hubbard

After you have rejected what was to be rejected and accepted what was to be accepted, then only acceptance remains hollow. At the end you'll say, "What's this acceptance for even? I don't need it". Then you'll arrive at "Who am I?".

~ Swami Amar Jyoti

The question "Who am I?" is not really meant to get an answer, the question "Who am I?" is meant to dissolve the questioner.

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

Water says to the dirty one, "Come here."
The dirty one says, "But I am so ashamed."
Water says, "How will you be made clean without me."

~ Rumi

[Mathnawi II, 1366-7]

Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.

~ Hermann Hesse

Realise deeply that the present moment is all you ever have.

~ Eckhart Tolle

To know is not to demonstrate or explain. It is to enter into the vision.

~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery

I have known it for a long time but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my intellect, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach.

~ Hermann Hesse

The truth is lived, not taught.

~ Hermann Hesse

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

~ Hermann Hesse

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