• There can be no culture without myth because without myth there is no understanding of life (Unknown).
  • How should I lead my life? How should I live in society? What is knowable? These three questions have puzzled mankind through the ages (Unknown)
  • It is because we don’t know who we are because we are unaware that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, that we behave in the generally silly, the often insane, the sometimes criminal ways that are so characteristically human. We are saved, we are liberated and enlightened, by perceiving the hitherto unperceived good that is already within us, by returning to our external ground and remaining where, without knowing it, we have always been. (Unknown)
  • The nature of the one Reality must be known by one’s own clear spiritual perception; it cannot be known through a pundit (scholar). Similarly, the form of the moon can only be known through one’s own eyes. How can it be known through others? (Unknown)
  • For, as all exponents of the Perennial Philosophy have constantly insisted, man’s obsessive consciousness of, and insistence on being, a separate self is the final and most formidable obstacle to the unitive knowledge of God. (Unknown)
  • O, thou thirsty for the divine intoxcation!  Empty thy heart for the purpose, for the head of the bottle of wine bows down only over an empty cup. (Kamlesh Patel, The Heartfulness Way)
  • Birth brings death, death brings rebirth:
    This evil needs no proof
    Where then O Man, is thy happiness?
    Like water on a lotus leaf
    And yet the sage can show us, in an instant,
    How to bridge this sea of change (Adi Shankara’s poem Moha Mudgaram – The Shattering of Illusion). (Unknown)
  • Fates lead him who will; him who won’t they drag. (Unknown)
  • It is the desire that links possibilities to fruition. For without desire, there is no action; without action, there is no reaction. Without action and reaction, nothing can exist. (Unknown)
  • Thou must love God as not-God, not-Spirit, not-person, not-image, but as He is, pure absolute One, sundered from all two-ness, and in whom we must eternally sink from nothingness to nothingness. (Unknown)
  • Defining God:
    Seed and source of the scriptures.
    Logic cannot discover You, Lord, but the Yogis
    Know you in mediation. (Unknown)
  • In you are all of God’s faces, His forms and aspects, in you also Direct knowledge of the Ground cannot be had except by union, and union can be achieved only by the annihilation of the self-regarding ego, which is the barrier separating the “thou” from the “That.” (Unknown)
  • 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 (Unknown).
  • Rituals are choreographed actions through which the believer communicates with the cosmos (Unknown).
  • In one way, our influence now is far from being benign. Rather than supporting the rest of life, human beings often seem to be odds with it (unknown).
  • Self-transformation is arduous work, especially at first; but each tiny change brings with it the joyful awareness that your life is gradually becoming a force for peaceful change (Unknown).
  • We rule the country of our mind and the kingdom of our life” (unknown).
  • Conventionally myth means falsehood; Nobody likes to live in falsehood. Everybody believes they live in truth. But there are many types of truth. Some objective, some subjective, some logical, some intuitive. Some cultural, some universal. Some are based on evidence; others depend on faith. The myth is the truth which is subjective, intuitive, cultural and grounded in faith (Unknown).
  • The world inhabited by ordinary, nice, unregenerate people is mainly dull (so dull that they have to distract their minds from being aware of it by all sorts of artificial amusements, sometimes briefly and intensely pleasurable, occasionally or quite often disagreeable and even agonizing. For those who have deserved the world by making themselves fit to see God within it as well as within their own souls, it wears a very different aspect. (Unknown).
  • Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Unknown).
  • The saint is one who knows that every moment of our human life is a moment of crisis; for at every moment we are called upon to make an all-important decision to choose between the way that leads to death and spiritual darkness and the way that leads towards light and life; between interests exclusively temporal and the eternal order; between our personal will, or the will of some projections of our personality, and the will of God. (Unknown)
  • The nature of the one Reality must be known by one’s own clear spiritual perception; it cannot be known through a pundit (scholar). Similarly, the form of the moon can only be known through one’s own eyes. How can it be known through others? (Unknown)
  • Only the pure in heart and poor in spirit can come to the unitive knowledge of God. (Unknown) The doctrine that God is in the world has an important practical corollary-the sacredness of Nature and the sinfulness and folly of man’s overwhelming efforts to be her master rather than her intelligently docile collaborator. (Unknown)
  • Bring me a fruit from the banyan tree.”
    “Here it is, venerable Sir.”
    “Break it”.
    “It is broken, venerable Sir.”
    “What do you see there?”
    “These seeds, exceedingly small.”
    “Break one of these, my son.
    “It is broken, venerable Sir.”
    “What do you see there”
    “Nothing at all, venerable Sir.”
    “The father said: “That subtle essence, my dear, which you do not perceive there-from that very essence this great banyan arises. Believe me, my dear. Now, that which is the subtle essence-in it all that exists has its self. (Unknown)
  • The doctrine that God is in the world has an important practical corollary-the sacredness of Nature and the sinfulness and folly of man’s overweening effort to be her master rather than her intelligently docile collaborator. Sub-human lives and even things are to be treated with respect and understanding, not brutally oppressed to serve our human ends. (Unknown)
  • When a man practices charity in order to be reborn in heaven, or for fame, or reward, or from fear, such charity can obtain no pure effect. (Unknown)
  • Supremacy doesn’t exist, it’s only a notion we have put into our mind. The only thing that would make you better than someone else is knowing that you’re not supreme. (Unknown)
  • This world is given to you as a beautiful garden.  You diminish the garden if you do not enjoy its fruits (Unknown).
  • There is space in your garden.  All of us are welcome there.  All we need to do is to enter. (Unknown)
  • The rest of us continue to ask for rewards-rewards and justifications for our behavior… doing, but doing without expecting anything..doing unselfishly. (Unknown)
  • This world is given to you as a beautiful garden.  You diminish the garden if you do not enjoy its fruits (Unknown).
  • This world is given to you as a beautiful garden.  You diminish the garden if you do not enjoy its fruits (Unknown).
  • When you are not experiencing the present, when you are absorbed in the past or worried about the future, you bring great heartache and grief to yourself. (Unknown)
  • Hear, O children of the immortal bliss! You are born to be united with the Lord. Follow the path of the illumined ones, and be united with the Lord of Life. (Upanishad)
  • As a great fish swims between the banks of a river as it likes, so does the shining Self, move between the states of dreaming and waking (Upanishad)
  • There is no joy in the finite; there is joy only in the infinite (Upanishad)
  • In dreaming, we leave one world and enter another. In that dream world, there are no chariots, no animals to draw them, no roads to ride on, but one makes chariots and animals and roads oneself from the impressions of the past experience. And, “everyone experiences this, but no one knows the experiencer.” (Upanishad)
  • Like strangers in an unfamiliar country walking every day over a buried treasure, day by day we enter that Self while in deep sleep but never know it, carried away by what is false. (Upanishad)
  • As an eagle, weary after soaring in the sky, folds its wings and flies down to rest in its nest, so does the shining Self, enters the state of dreamless sleep, where one is free from all desires. The Self is free from desire, free from evil, free from fear… (Upanishad)
  • Adam is not God but he is a spark of the divine. (Urdu saying)
  • Devotion to the personal God is the best preparation for the unitive knowledge of the Godhead. (The Vedanta)
  • The goal of mankind is knowledge.  That is the one ideal placed before us by Eastern philosophy.  Pleasure is not the goal of man, but knowledge. (Swami Vivekananda)
  • After a time man finds that it is not happiness, but knowledge, towards which he is going, and that both pleasure and pain are great teachers, and that he learns as much from evil as from good.  As pleasure and pain pass before his soul, they have upon it different pictures, and the result of these combined impressions is what is called man’s “character.”  (Swami Vivekananda)
  • No knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside.  What we say a man “nows”, should, in strict psychological language, be what he “discovers” or “unveils”; what a man “learns is really what he “discovers, by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge. (Swami Vivekananda)
  • If a man works without any selfish motive in view, does he not gain anything? Yes, he gains the highest.  Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to practice it. (Swami Vivekananda)
  • Love, truth, and unselfishness are not merely moral figures of speech, but they form out highest ideal because in them lies such a manifestation of power. (Swami Vivekananda)
  • To work we have the right, but not to the fruits thereof. (Swami Vivekananda)
  • The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity, finds the silence and solitude of the desert. (Swami Vivekananda)
  • Spiritual knowledge is the only thing that can destroy our miseries forever; any other knowledge satisfied wants only for a time. (Swami Vivekananda)
  • This world is not our habitation, it is only one of the many stages through which we are passing. (Swami Vivekananda)
  • Our first duty is not to hate ourselves because to advance we must have faith in ourselves first and then in God.  He who has no faith in himself can never have faith in God. (Swami Vivekananda)
  • No man is to be judged by the mere nature of his duties, but all should be judged by the manner and the spirit in which they perform them. (Swami Vivekananda)
  • Duty is seldom sweet.  It is only when love greases its wheels that it runs smoothly. (Swami Vivekananda)
  • Troubled or still, water is always water. What difference can embodiment or disembodiment make to the Liberated? Whether calm or in a tempest, the sameness of the Ocean suffers no change. (Yogavasista – scripture attributed to Saint Valmikii)
  • Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities (Voltaire).
  • With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. (Steven Weinberg)
  • Our task is to learn, to become God-like through knowledge.  We know so little. By knowledge, we approach God, and then we can rest.  Then we come back to teach and help others  (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • Our beliefs can be altered by the power and immediacy of personal experience.  You can begin to go understand something when you experience its essence.  Your belief becomes knowing. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • Stress is when your mind says no, but your mouth opens up and says yes. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • Love is an absolute, unconditional, and timeless state that asks for nothing in return. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • When you look into the eyes of another, any other, and you see your own soul looking back at you, then you will know you have reached another level of consciousness. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • Experience transcends belief.  Teach them to experience.  Remove their fear.  Teach them to love and to help one another. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • Only open minds can receive and process new knowledge. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • Forgiving does not mean forgetting. It means understanding. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • Love one another with all of your hearts and do not fear, do not hold back.  For the more you give, the more returns to you. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • Never lose the courage to take risks.  You are immortal.  You can never be hurt. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • This world is given to you as a beautiful garden.  You diminish the garden if you do not enjoy its fruits. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • Live in the present, not the past or the future.  The past is over; learn from it and let it go. The future is not yet here.  Plan for it, but do not worry.  Worry only wastes your time and energy. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • We are love.  Love is the energy that fills every atom of our being, and there is nothing to fear. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • Love is the ultimate answer.  Love is not an abstraction but an actual energy, or spectrum of energies, which you can “create” and maintain in your being.  Just be loving.  You are beginning to touch God within yourself.  Feel loving.  Express your love.  Love dissolves fear.  You cannot be afraid when you are feeling love.  Since everything is energy, and love encompasses all energies, all is love. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • The rest of us continue to ask for rewards-rewards and justification for our behavior… when there are no rewards, rewards that we want.  The reward is in doing but doing without expecting anything…doing unselfishly. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • Compassion, cooperation, caring for our neighbors, and our communal responsibilities are not matters of economics.  They are attitudes of the heart and cannot be legislated or imposed from outside ourselves.  They must be learned from within. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • When our communities are cooperative and compassionate, when they are responsible and kind, we can re-create a little bit of heaven upon the earth. (Dr. Brian Weiss, MD)
  • Despite all its subjective importance, we do not ever seem to experience the present moment. The processing of neural information takes time. If you feel the warmth of the fire with your hand, this perception has to travel from a particular part of your skin along various neural pathways up your arm, through your body, until it finally reaches the brain. Once the information about the temperature has arrived there, it is integrated with various other pieces of information (that may have entered via your sense organs at different times), such as the sight of the flame, or the smell of burning wood. This complex coherent representation involving objects or events and their properties will be the representation of a burning fire. Yet once this information is cognitively available to us, the moment that gave rise to it, and everything that happened during that moment is already a thing of the past. When trying to connect with the present moment, we face the same situation as someone looking at a distant star, the light of which still reaches his eyes, while the star itself has long ceased to be. The timescale involved here is obviously much shorter, but the fundamental point remains the same.” (Jan Westerhoff, philosopher and Orientals and author of “Reality: A Very Short Introduction”, Oxford University Press).
  • Michelangelo famously said, “I liberate the statue from the marble.” Similarly, my music emerges from the life all around me and the world we all share together. One is the condition of the other. (Yo-Yo Ma, cellist)
  • A tenth of an inch’s difference and heaven and earth are set apart. If you wish to see it before your own eyes, Have no fixed thoughts either for or against it. (Zen Buddhism)
  • Pursue not the outer entanglements, Dwell not in the inner void; Be serene in the oneness of things, And dualism vanishes of itself. (Zen Buddhism)
  • Those who speak ill of me are really my good friends. When, being slandered, I cherish neither enmity nor preference, there grows within me the power of love and humility, which is born of the Unborn. (Kung-chia-Ta-Shih – Zen Buddhist)
  • And when oneness is not thoroughly grasped, Loss is sustained in two ways; The denying of external reality is the assertion of it, And the assertion of Emptiness (the Absolute) is the denying of it. (Zen Buddhism)
  • The two exist because of the One; But hold not even to this One. When a mind is not disturbed, The ten thousand things offer no offense. (Zen Buddhism)
  • If an eye never falls asleep, All dreams will cease of themselves; if the Mind retains its absoluteness, the ten thousand things are of one substance. (Zen Buddhism)
  • One in all, all in one – if only this is realized, no more worry about not being perfect, (Zen Buddhism)
  • Words are not facts, and still, less are they the primordial Fact. If we take them too seriously, we shall lose our way in a forest of entangling briars.