There is nothing but water in the holy pools.
I know, I have been swimming in them.
All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can't say a word
I know, I have been crying out to them.
The sacred Books of the east are nothing but words.
I looked through their covers one day sideways.
What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through.
If you have not lived through something it is not true.

~ Kabir

First, lay down your head
then one by one
let go of all distractions.
Embrace the light and let it guide you
beyond the winds of desire.
There you will find a spring and
nourished by its sweet waters
like a tree you will bear fruit forever.

~ Rumi
[Hidden Music - Translated by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi]

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

~ Thomas Merton

It is well known and admitted that only with the help of the mind can the mind be
killed. But instead of setting about saying there is a mind, and I want to kill it, you
begin to seek the source of the mind, and you find the mind does not exist at all. The
Mind, turned outwards, results in thoughts and objects. Turned inwards, it becomes
itself the Self.

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

All doubts will cease only when the doubter and his source has been found. There is no
use removing doubts one by one. If we clear one doubt, another doubt will arise and there
will be no end of doubts. But if, by seeking the source of the doubter, the doubter is found to
be really non-existent, then all doubts will cease.

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

I went everywhere with longing
in my eyes, until here
in my own house

I felt truth
filling my eyes.

~ Lalla

Any clever man may sometimes see the truth in flashes; any scientific man may put some aspect of the truth into technical words; yet all this hardly deserves the name of philosophy so long as the heart remains unabashed, and we continue to live like animals lost in the stream of our impressions, not only in the public routine and necessary cares of life, but even in our silent thoughts and affections.

~ George Santayana
[Ultimate Religion - 1932]

On the surface of the mental lake there are waves, your normal thought forms. Below the thought forms, you have the subconscious mind, which has its own color and dirt. And, at the very bottom of the water, you have the old sediment, which you call the samskaras, or the vasanas, which you have brought from several incarnations. The Yoga practices help to still the waves of the water and make it crystal clear so that you can get a clear vision of the Self: Tada drastuh svarupe avasthanam (Yoga Sutras, 1.3). If the mental lake is made still and clean, then you can see the Self, or the Atman, because there’s nothing to color it, there’s nothing to distort the vision, and you understand what it is—it shines in its own real glory.

~ Swami Satchidānanda