I’d take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day. (Douglas Adams)
A beggar, Lord, I ask of Thee
More than a thousand kings could ask.
Each one wants something, which he asks of Thee.
I come to ask Thee to give me Thyself. (Ansari of Herat)
Can you walk on water? You have done no better than a straw. Can you fly in the air? You have done no better than a bluebottle. Conquer your heart; then you may become somebody. (Ansari of Herat)
Would you become a pilgrim in the road of Love? The first condition is that you make yourself humble as dust and ashes. (Ansari of Herat)
The dog barks, the caravan passes. (Arabic Proverb)
He who does reverence to his own sect, while disparaging the sects of others wholly from attachment to his own, with intent to enhance the glory of his owns sect, in reality by such conduct inflicts the severest injury on his own sect. Concord, therefore, is meritorious, to wit, hearkening, and hearkening willing to the Law of Piety, as accepted by other people. (Emperor Asoka)
Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life (Berthold Auerbach)
Temperance is love surrendering itself wholly to Him who is its object; courage is love bearing all things gladly for the sake of Him who is its object; justice is love serving only Him who is its object, and therefore rightly ruling; prudence is love making wise distinctions between what hinders and what helps itself. (St. Augustine)
I can tell my hand what to do and it will do it instantly. Why won’t my mind what I say?” (St. Augustine)
Living calls for the art of the wrestler, not the dancer. Staying on your feet is all; there is no need for pretty steps. (Marcus Aurelius)
“Do you call it home now, your father’s home in Bangalore?” Kim Cheng Boey, the Australian poet, and essayist asked someone. “I don’t call it anything,” the man replied. “What does it matter, coming or going, here or there… We are only passing through, my friend.” (“The Australian Weekend Review”, September 5-6, 2009)
We all hold dear the idea that we’re in charge, and it’s a very scary feeling when we’re not. In fact, that’s what psychosis is the feeling of detachment from reality and that you’re not in control, and that’s a very frightening feeling for anyone. (John Bargh, Yale University)Living calls for the art of the wrestler, not the dancer. Staying on your feet is all; there is no need for pretty steps. (Marcus Aurelius)
What is a man? An angel, an animal, a void, a world, a nothing surrounded by God, indigent of God, capable of God, filled with God, if it so desires. (Berulle, French Cardinal)
I went from God to God, until they cried from me in me, “O thou I!” (Bayazid of Bistun)
Who is God? I can think of no better answer than that. He who is. Nothing is more appropriate to the eternity which God is. If you call God good, or great, or blessed, or wise, or anything else of this sort, it is included in these words, namely He (St. Bernard).
For my part, I think the chief reason which prompted the invisible God to become visible in the flesh and to hold converse with men was to lead carnal men, who are only able to love carnally, to the healthful love of his flesh, and afterward, little by little, to spiritual love. (St. Bernard)
When a man lacks discrimination, his will wanders in all directions, after innumerable aims. Those who lack discrimination may quote the letter of the scripture, but they are really denying its inner truth. They are full of worldly desires and hungry for the rewards of heaven. They use beautiful figures of speech; they teach elaborate rituals, which are supposed to obtain pleasure and power for those who practice them. But, actually, they understand nothing except the law of Karma that chains man to rebirth. Those whose discrimination is stolen away by such talk grow deeply attached to pleasure and power. And so they are unable to develop that one-pointed concentration of the will, which leads a man to absorption in God. (Bhagawad Geetha)
Do without attachment the work you have to do; for a man who does his work without attachment attains the Supreme Goal verily. By action alone men like Janaka attained perfection. (Bhagawad Geetha)
Those who have completely controlled their senses and are of even mind under all conditions and thus contemplate the Imperishable, the Ineffable, the Unmanifest, the Omnipresent, the Incomprehensible, the Eternal-they, devoted to the welfare of all beings, attain Me alone and none else.(Bhagawad Geetha)
Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is. (Bhagavad Geetha)
For the man who has conquered it, the mind becomes his greatest friend. For the one who has failed to conquer it, the mind becomes his worst enemy. (Bhagavad Gita)
Man is not at peace with himself till he has become like unto God. The endeavor to reach this state is the supreme, the only ambition worth having. And this is self-realization. (Bhagavad Geetha)
Renunciation means the absence of hankering after fruit. As a matter of fact, he who renounces reaps a thousandfold. (Bhagavad Geetha)
Most men worship the gods because they want success in their worldly undertakings. This kind of material success can be gained very quickly (by such worship), here on earth. (Bhagavad Geetha)
In a man brooding on objects of the senses, attachment to them springs up; the attachment begets craving and craving begets wrath. *Bhagavad Geetha)
He who gives up action falls. He who gives up only the reward rises. (Bhagavad Geetha)
Peace of mind means the end to all ills, for the understanding of him whose mind is at peace, stands securely. (Bhagavad Geetha)
Men whose discrimination has been blunted by worldly desires, establish this or that ritual or cult and resort to various deities, according to the impulse of their inborn nature. But no matter what deity a devotee chooses to worship if he has faith, I make his faith unwavering. Endowed with the faith I give him, he worships that deity and gets from it everything he prays for. In reality, I alone am the giver. (Bhagawad Geetha)
But these men of small understanding pray only for what is transient and perishable. The worshippers of the devas will go to the devas. Those who worship Me will come to Me. (Bhagavad Geetha)
He who is free from the notion of ego, whose intellect is unattached, though he annihilates all the worlds, he slayeth not, nor is he bound by the results of his action. (Bhagavad Geetha)
When your mind does not stir inside, the world does not arise outside. (Bodhidharma)
The mind is the root from which all things grow. (Bodhidharma)Whoever realizes that the senses aren’t real, …. understands the language of Buddhas. (Bodhidharma)
The mind is always present. You just don’t see it. (Bodhidharma)
The ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words. They’re not the Way. (Bodhidharma)
To the question, “Where does the soul go, when the body dies?” “There is no necessity for it to go anywhere.” (Jacob Boehme – Christian Philosopher)
In other living creatures, ignorance of self is nature; in man, it is vice (Boethius – Roman philosopher)
The aim and end of prayer are to revere, to recognize and to adore the sovereign majesty of God, through what He is in Himself rather than what He is in regard to us, and rather to love his goodness by the love of that goodness itself than for what it sends us. (Bourgoing – A French Catholic priest)
What we perceive as reality comes from the value judgments that exist in our minds. (Jeff Bridges)
The significance of Brahman is expressed by neti neti (not so, not so); for beyond this, that you say it is not so, there is nothing further. Its name, however, is “the Reality of reality.” That is to say, the senses are real, and the Brahman is their Reality. (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad)
You are what your deep, driving desire is;
As your desire is, so is your will;
As your will is, so is your deeds;
As your deed is, so is your destiny. (Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad)
As a man in the arms of his beloved is not aware of what is without and what within, so one in union with the Self is not aware of what is without and what is within, for in that state all desires are fulfilled. (Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad)
Aswala: Yajnavalkya, since everything connected with the sacrifice is pervaded by death and is subject to death, by what means can the sacrificer overcome death?
Yajnavalkya: By the knowledge of the identity between the sacrificer, the fire and the ritual word. For the ritual world is indeed the sacrificer, and the ritual word is the fire, and the fire, which is one with Brahman, is the sacrificer. This knowledge leads to liberation. This knowledge leads on beyond death. (Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad)
The promotion of reason is a necessity, particularly in a world dominated by superstition and ignorance. (J. D. Brucker)
As man developed an understanding of the cosmos, the idea of tangible heaven was erased. (J. D. Brucker)
Miracles have proven to be nothing more than supernatural reasoning behind something with completely naturalistic explanations, and that is the end of it. (J. D. Brucker)
Our very being is a testament to the integrity that is within us (J. D. Brucker)
God has always been described as mysterious, but yet he decides to only appear when convenient to him. (J. D. Brucker)
We forget that social, cultural, and evolutionary factors are what dictate our actions, not a divine individual with a key to heaven. (J. D. Brucker)
Though phenomena appear, they are empty; though empty, they appear. (Buddhist philosophy)
There are four kinds of Dhyana (spiritual discipline). What are these four? They are, first, the Dhyana practiced by the ignorant; second, the Dhyana with Suchness for its object; fourth, the Dhyana of the Tathagata (Gautam Buddha).
Hatred never ends by hatred but only by love, that is the eternal law (Sanatana Dharma – Buddha)
As an unintelligent man seeks for the abode of music in the b body of the lute, so does he look for a soul within the skandhas (the material and psychic aggregates, of which the individual mind-body is composed. (Gautama Buddha)
All we are is the result of what we have thought. (Gautama Buddha)
The mind is on fire, thoughts are on fire. Mind-consciousness and the impressions received by the mind, and the sensations that arise from the impressions that the mind receives-these too are on fire. And with what are they on fire? With the fire of greed, with the fire of resentment, with the fire of infatuation; with birth, old age, and death, with sorrow and lamentation, with misery and grief and despair they are on fire. (Buddha’s Fire Sermon)
The word myth now means falsehood, and so we have lost the symbols and that mysterious world of which they speak (Joseph Campbell).
The religious symbols are harmonizing powers. That is the whole sense of mythology, to help you to harmonize your individual life with the general, the lie of the society and the universe (Joseph Campbell)
To accord with the world nor as it ought to be but as it is. (Joseph Campbell)
The difference between a celebrity and a hero is that one lives only for self while the other acts to redeem society (Joseph Campbell)
Mythology is not invented; they are found. You can no more tell us what your dream is going to be tonight than we can invent a myth. Myths come from the mystical region of essential experience (Joseph Campbell).
Myths do not belong, properly, to the rational mind. Rather, they bubble up from deep in the wells of what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious. (Joseph Campbell)
If you don’t believe in a figure, you don’t have any worship. Now everything is lost. (Joseph Campbell – why we need idol worship)
The difference between a celebrity and a hero is that one lives only for self while the other acts to redeem society (Joseph Campbell)
Oriental wisdom and mythic themes are that we are not in exile – that the god is within you. You can’t be exiled from it. All that can happen is at you can fail to know it, that you don’t realize it, that you haven’t found a way to open your consciousness to this presence that is right within you. (Joseph Campbell)
In Buddhist literature, the universe is a great nest of gems. At each of its points of juncture, a gem reflects the light of all the others and is reflected in all the others; the accent is on what is reflected, not on the specific gem. (Joeseph Campbell)
If the Brahman is within you, why do we need the Brahmins? Sit down, and seek it yourself. (Joseph Campbell)
The earliest Upanishads (about 8th century BC), state that the Brahmins did not know much about the Vedas and rituals; they learned it from the Kshatriyas. (Joseph Campbell)
I will have nothing to do with a love which would be for God or in God. This is a love which pure love cannot abide; for pure love is God himself (St. Catherine of Genoa)
For no reason, whatever should one judge the actions of creatures or their motives. Even when we see that it is actual sin, we ought not to pass judgment on it, but have holy and sincere compassion and offer it up to God with humble and devout prayer. (St. Catherine of Genoa)
We must not wish anything other than what happens from moment to moment, all the while, however, exercising ourselves in goodness. (St. Catherine of Sienna)
We should blunt our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things; we should temper our brightness, and bring ourselves into an agreement with the obscurity of others (Tao Tse Ching).
“That is the Truth. That is the Self. Thou art that.” (Chandoyga Upanishad).
That art Thou or Tat Avam Asi (Chandogya Upanishad)
Here likewise in this body of yours, my son, you do not perceive the True; but there is fact, it is. In that which is the subtle essence, all that exists has its self. That is the True, that is the Self, and thou, Svetaketu, art That. (Chandogya Upanishad)
A conscious being alone understand what is meant by moving; To those not endowed with consciousness, the moving is unintelligible. If you exercise yourself in the practice of keeping your mind unmoved, The immovable you gain is that of one who has no consciousness. Hui Neng (Chan Buddhism)
We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. (Gautam Buddha).
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. (Gautam Buddha).
It is better to travel well than to arrive. (Gautam Buddha).
The mind is everything. What you think you will become. (Gautam Buddha).
If you are desirous for the truly immovable, The immovable is in the moving itself, And this immovable is the truly immovable. There is no seed of Buddhahood where there is no consciousness. Hui Neng (Chan Buddhism)
We should blunt our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things; we should temper our brightness, and bring ourselves into an agreement with the obscurity of others (Tao Tse Ching).
The wind bloweth where it listeth; thou hearest the sound, therefore, and can’st not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of the spirit. (Jesus Christ)
“I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me, all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Life up the stone and you will find me there.” (Jesus Christ)
Lucifer, when he stood in his natural nobility, as God had created him, was a pure noble creature. But when he kept to self, when he possessed himself and his natural nobility as property, he fell and became, instead of an angel, a devil. So it is with a man. If he remains in himself and possesses himself of his natural nobility as property, he falls and becomes, instead of a man, a devil. (Jesus Christ)
Lift the stone and you will find me Cleave the wood,d I am there.” (Jesus Christ)
Jesus said, ” I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me, all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Life up the stone and you will find me there.” (Jesus Christ)
Every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth. (Jesus Christ)
Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world. (Jesus Christ)
Split a piece of wood and I am there. (Jesus Christ)
Our knowledge is as deep as our action. (Christian Mystic)
The Mahayanist believer is warned-precisely as the worshipper of Krishna is warned in the Vaishnavite scriptures that the Krishna Lila is not a history, but a process forever unfold in the heart of man-that matters of historical fact are without religious significance. (Anand Coomaraswamy)
The great mathematical physicist Pierre de Laplace, the man who told Napoleon that he “had no need of this hypothesis” when discussing God’s action in the Newtonian universe, realized that, if all motion is mathematically determined, then the present state of motion of the universe suffices to fix its future (and past) for all time. In this case, time becomes virtually redundant, for the future is already contained in the present, in the sense that all the information needed to create the future states of the universe resides in the present state. As the Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine once poetically remarked, God the Watchmaker is reduced to a mere archivist turning the pages of a cosmic history book that is already written. (Paul Davies, physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist and writer)
Although the [Aboriginal] Dream Time carries connotations of a heroic past age, it is wrong to think of that age as now over. “One cannot ‘fix’ The Dreaming in time,” observes [anthropologist W.E.H.] Skinner. “It was, and is, everywhere.” Thus the Dreaming retains relevance in contemporary aboriginal affairs because it is a part of the present reality; the “creator beings” are still active today. What Europeans call “the past” is, for many aboriginal people, both past and present. … for the Australian aborigine, events are more important than dates. (Paul Davies, physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist and writer)
Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order. Evolution has passed this test with flying colors. (Richard Dawkins, Evolutionary Biologist)
There is no one in the world who cannot arrive without difficulty at the most eminent perfection by fulfilling with love obscure and common duties. (J. P. de Caussade Jesuit Priest)
God requires a faithful fulfillment of the nearest trifle given us to do, rather than the most ardent aspiration to things to which we are not called. ( St. Francois de Sales – Catholic Saint)
My dear Mother, heed well the precepts of the saints, who have all warned those who would become holy to speak little of themselves and their own affairs. ( St. Francois de Sales – Catholic Saint)
God did not deprive thee of the operation of his love, but thou didst deprive Him of thy cooperation. God would never have rejected thee if thou hadst not rejected his love. O all-good God, thou does not forsake unless forsaken, thou never takest away thy gifts until we take away our hearts. ( St. Francois de Sales – Catholic Saint)
God forces no one, for love cannot compel, and God’s service, therefore, is a thing of perfect freedom. (Hans Denk)
All externals must yield to love; for they are for the sake of love, and not love for them. (Hans Denk).
Ceremonies in themselves are not sin, but whoever supposes that he can attain to life either by baptism or partaking of bread is still in superstition. (Hans Denk)
I confess that I am a poor soul, subject to every weakness of body and spirit. For some time I thought I had faith, but I have come to see that it was a false faith. It was a faith that could not overcome my spiritual poverty, my inclinations to sin, my weaknesses and my sickness. Instead of that, the more I polished and adorned myself on the outside (with my supposed faith) the worse became my spiritual sickness on the inside. Now I see clearly that I cannot keep on in this unbelief before God, so I say Yes Lord! In the name of the Almighty God whom I fear from the bottom of my heart, I want to believe. Help me to believe. (Hans Denk)
“He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me”- in those who harbor such thoughts hatred will never cease. “He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me”-in those who do not harbor such thoughts hatred will cease. For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time- this is an old rule. (Dhammapada)
It is the mind which gives things their quality, their foundation, and their being. Whoever speaks or acts with an impure mind, him sorrow follows, as the wheel follows the steps of the ox that draws the cart. (Dhammapada)
We spend our days in the familiar world of our five senses, but what lies beyond that, if anything, we have no idea. (Eknath Easwaran)
There is no joy in the finite; there is joy only in the infinite. (Eknath Easwaran)
Human beings cannot live without challenge. We cannot live without meaning. Everything every achieved we owe to this inexplicable urge to reach beyond our grasp, do the impossible, know the unknown. (Eknath Easwaran)
We are not cabin dwellers, born to a life cramped and confined; we are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of our potential as human beings. The world of the senses is just a base camp; we are meant to be as much at home in the world of physical reality. (Eknath Easwaran)
The only way to influence people for the better-your family, your friends, your club, your class, your clinic, your society, even your enemies-is through your personal behavior (Eknath Easwaran)
Happiness comes when we forget ourselves, and misery when we can’t think about anybody else. (Eknath Easwaran)
Asking life to make a selfish person happy is like asking a banana tree to give you mangoes. (Eknath Easwaran)
Like flower seeds which reveal their true beauty only after they are planted and watered, the simple but profound truths of the world’s great spiritual heritage will release their transformative power only when you plan them in your heart through deep concentration and reflection (Eknath Easwaran).
Physicists do not say there was nothing before the Big Bang; they say everything came from that, and nothing more can be said. (Eknath Easwaran)
Religion has nothing do with dogma, theology, or anything else that divides. Religion is realization: making the truths of the world.’ (Eknath Easwaran)
The most awesome task a human being is capable of: the total transformation of character, conduct, and consciousness. (Eknath Easwaran)
Throughout history, men and women of all faiths and backgrounds had stumbled into a hidden path that led to the same destination, the heartland of the spirit within. (Eknath Easwaran)
“The mystics must come from the same country,” Saint Martin Wrote, “for they all speak the same language.” (Eknath Easwaran)
The supreme reality is not something outside us, something separate from us. It is within, at the core of our being – our real nature, nearer to us than our bodies, dearest to us than our lives (Eknath Easwaran)
A mind that is fast is sick
A mind that is slow is sound.
A mind that is still is divine. (Eknath Easwaran)
Mere belief or theory is not enough. We must change ourselves (Eknath Easwaran)
In theory, we would like the mind to listen to us obediently, but in fact, it will not – chiefly because we have never taught it how. (Eknath Easwaran)
The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more he is within, the more without. (Eckhart, German Philosopher).
The perfect way knows no difficulties, except that it refuses to make preferences. Only when freed from hate and love does it reveal itself fully and without disguise. (Eckhart)
The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly, its fruits will be God in nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God seed into God. (Eckhart)
Thou must love God as not-God, not-Spirit, not-person, not-image, but as He is, a sheer, pure absolute One, sundered from all two-ness, and in whom we must eternally sink from nothingness to nothingness. (Eckhart)
The knower and the known are the one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if He stood there and they here. That is no so. God and I, we are one in knowledge. (Eckhart)
Pursue not the outer entanglements, Dwell not in the inner void; Be serene in the oneness of things, and dualism vanishes of itself. (Eckhart)
Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time. And not only time but temporalities, not only temporal things but temporal affecting; not only temporal affections but the very taint and smell of time. (Eckhart)
Rejoice in God all the time, says St. Paul. He rejoices all the time who rejoices above time and free from time. Three things prevent a man from knowing God. The first is time, the second is corporeality, the third is a multiplicity. That God may come in, these things must go out-except thou have them in a higher, better way: multitude summed up to one in thee. (Eckhart)
Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love their cow for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort. They do not rightly love God when they love Him for their own advantage. Indeed, I tell you the truth, any object you have in your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the inmost Truth. (Eckhart)
Any flea as it is in God is nobler than the highest of the angels in himself. (Eckhart)
God is bound to act, to pour Himself into thee as soon as He shall find thee ready. (Eckhart)
The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if He stood there and they here. This is not so, God and I, we are one in knowledge.
God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far as you are a created being and let God be God in you. (Eckhart)
A man must become truly poor and as free his own creaturely will as he was when he was born. And I tell you, by the eternal truth, that so long as you desire to fulfill the will of God and have any hankering after eternity and God, for just long you are not truly poor. He alone has true spiritual poverty who wills nothing, knows nothing, desires nothing. (Eckhart)
Love (the sensible love of the emotions) does not unify. True, it unites in the act; but it does not unite in essence. (Eckhart)
As long as I am this or that, or have this or that, I am not all things and I have not all things. Become pure till you neither are nor have either this or that; then you are omnipresent and, being neither this nor that, are all things. (Eckhart)
A man has many skins in himself, covering the depth of his heart. A man knows so many things; he does not know himself. Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, just like an ox’s or a bears’, so thick and hard, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there. (Eckhart)
To gauge the soul, we must gauge it with god, for the Ground of God and the Ground of the Soul are one and the same. (Eckhart)
I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force. I also consider that plain living is good for everybody, physically and mentality. (Albert Einstein)
The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time gave me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty (Albert Einstein)
The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality. It alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as much remains dull in thought and dull in feeling. (Albert Einstein)
The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self. (Albert Einstein)
A man’s value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellow. (Albert Einstein)
Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts its owners irresistibly to abuse it. (Albert Einstein)
Feeling and desire are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may present itself to us. (Albert Einstein)
The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life. (Albert Einstein)
A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the labors of other men, living and dead and that I must exert myself in order to give the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. (Albert Einstein)
The ordinary objects of human endeavor-property, outward success, luxury – have always seemed to me contemptible. (Albert Einstein)
The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self. (Albert Einstein)
I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in one’s (selfish) interests-such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. (Albert Einstein)
The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. (Albert Einstein)
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