At Odds With What Is

If you think that people should be nice
to one another, then by all means be nice.
But when you project that belief onto the
people and the world around you as if
it were an objective reality, or worse still,
as if it were their job to be nice to you,
you put yourself at odds with what is,
and suffering will surely follow.

Adyashanti

The Silence Behind

We're fascinated by the words,
but where we meet is
in the silence behind them.

Ram Dass

Giving Up Trying

We may discover that giving up trying brings
exactly what has been sought all this time.
It lives in the giving up, in the acceptance.
In seeking, we're not present.
Giving up, where else is there to go?
And with that giving up, we can relax
and enjoy the weather rolling in and out.

Judy Cohen

We Are Already

No inquiry or teaching can wake us up
because we are already what we are seeking:
Experience.

Judy Cohen

Freedom

The important thing is allowing
the whole world to wake up.
Part of allowing the whole world
to wake up is recognizing that
the whole world is free -
everybody is free to be as they are.
Until the whole world is free to agree
with you or disagree with you,
until you give the freedom to everyone
to like you or not like you, to love you
or hate you, to see things as you see them
or see things differently - until you have
given the whole world its freedom -
you'll never have your freedom.

Adyashanti

Letting Go

By letting go, everything gets done.
The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try,
the world is beyond winning.
Through cultivation of the witness,
we move out of the melodrama and
into the place of pure perspective
and peaceful awareness.

Ram Dass

Two Ways of Being Unhappy

There are two ways of being unhappy.
Not getting what you want is one.
Getting what you want is the other.

Eckhart Tolle

The Beloved All Around Me

Being in love, rather than giving or taking love,
is the only thing that provides stability.
Being in love means seeing the Beloved
all round me.

Ram Dass

Silence

In the end, it's all very simple.
Either we give ourselves to silence
or we don't.

Adyashanti

Create a Space

As far as inner transformation is concerned,
there is nothing you can do about it. You
cannot transform yourself, and you certainly
cannot transform your partner or anybody else.
All you can do is create a space for transformation
to happen, for grace and love to enter.

Eckhart Tolle

The Love of Truth

If you are graced with the love of truth,
everything is possible. But if your
fundamental sense of reality is flawed,
nothing you can do will bring about change.
You can put pearls on a pig,
but you can't stop it from squealing.

Adyashanti

Speaking the Truth

The further society drifts from the truth,
the more it will hate those that speak it.

George Orwell

Exquisite Paradox

The most exquisite paradox ...
as soon as you give it all up,
you can have it all. As long as
you want power, you can't
have it. The minute you don't
want power, you'll have more
than you ever dreamed possible.

Ram Dass

Be Patient

Be patient. You'll know when
it's time for you to wake up
and move ahead.

Ram Dass

True Freedom

True freedom is to be free
from the desire to be free
from desire.

Adyashanti

All is Always Well

All is always well
even when it seems
unbelievably unwell.

Adyashanti

With All the World

We have not even to risk the adventure alone;
for the heroes of all time have gone before us;
the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only
to follow the thread of the hero-path.
And where we had thought to find an abomination,
we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay
another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had
thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center
of our own existence; and where we had thought to be
alone, we shall be with all the world.

Joseph Campbell

Learn How to Surf

You can't stop the waves,
but you can learn how to surf.

Swami Muktananda

How It Is

As long as you have certain desires
about how it ought to be,
you can't see how it is.

Ram Dass

Of Its Own Accord

Our intention is to affirm this life,
not to bring order out of chaos,
nor to suggest improvements in creation,
but simply to wake up to the very life we're living,
which is so excellent once one gets one's mind
and desires out of its way and
lets it act of its own accord.

John Cage

No Measure of Health

It is no measure of health
to be well-adjusted
to a sick society.

Jiddhu Krishnamurti

Never Stop Fighting

To be nobody but yourself in a world
which is doing its best day and night
to make you everybody else, means
to fight the hardest battle which
any human being can fight,
and never stop fighting.

e.e. cummings

The End of All War

When you end your internal war,
that is the end of all war.

Byron Katie

Give What Cannot Be Taken

If you give what can be taken, you are not really giving.
Take what you are given, not what you want to be given.
Give what cannot be taken.

Idries Shah

At War

Anger, sadness, or frustration
lets us know that we're at war
with the way of it.

Byron Katie

Can't Take Sides

The Master can't take sides.
She's in love with reality, and
reality includes everything -
both sides of everything.

Byron Katie

Unfailingly There

I trip and fall.
The floor is so
unfailingly there.

Byron Katie

A Seed, Possibly

Try and be a sheet of paper with nothing on it.
Be a spot of ground where nothing is growing,
where something might be planted,
a seed, possibly, from the Absolute.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Inner Peace

The person who has found inner peace
can no longer be intimidated, controlled,
manipulated, or programmed. In this state,
one is invulnerable to the threats of the world
and therefore has mastered life.

David Hawkins

Caring for Others

If you could only sense how important you are
to the lives of those you meet; how important
you can be to the people you may never even
dream of. There is something of yourself that
you leave at every meeting with another person.

Fred Rogers

Ends and Beginnings

Often when you think you're at the end of something,
you're at the beginning of something else.

Fred Rogers

What Love Is

Love isn't a state of perfect caring.
It is an active noun like "struggle."
To love someone is to strive to accept
that person exactly the way he or she is,
right here and now.

Fred Rogers

Liberation

How you interact with those who do not support you
shows how enlightened you really are ... Liberation
means that you stand free of making demands on others
and life to make you happy. When you discover yourself
to be nothing but Freedom, you stop setting up conditions
and requirements that need to be satisfied in order for you
to be happy.

Adyashanti

A Little Tea

People come here and listen to my dharma words
when all I really want to do is pour them a little tea.

Adyashanti

Listener and Response

When someone talks, I'm a listener.
When someone asks, I'm a response.

Byron Katie

My Only Purpose

My only purpose is to do
what I'm apparently doing.

Byron Katie

Continual Invitation

I have no need to meet anyone other that the people
who enter my life, so my life is a continual invitation.
I invite everyone and everything to come and go as
they wish; all experiences are welcome here. There is
never anything alien to the mind at peace with itself.

Byron Katie

Reality

Reality is continual creation in the moment,
brilliant in its simplicity.

Byron Katie

No Beliefs

I am content doing the thing in front of me,
since my mind doesn't conflict with what I do.
It has no reason to; there are no beliefs that
would get in the way.

Byron Katie

The Real Plan

The real plan is the way of it,
eliminating the need for any plan
I might have.

Byron Katie

No Other Way

Wherever I am, my journey is complete
and I'm a success, because here I am.
There's no other way for me to succeed
at being me.

Byron Katie

Impossible to Fail

It's impossible to fail at anything.
Your success just may not look
the way you thought it would.

Byron Katie

The Work of the Master

The Master is the woman who dented your car,
the man who stepped in front of you on line
at the supermarket, the old friend who accused you
of being selfish and unkind. Do you love the Master
yet? There's no peace until you do. This is your work,
your only work, the work of the Master.

Byron Katie

Like Water

The awakened mind is like water.
It flows where it flows, envelops
all things in its path, doesn't try
to change anything, yet in its
steadiness all things change.

Byron Katie

The Only Thing

The only thing you really ever
have to offer another person
is your own state of being.

Ram Dass

If Only

Nature is an unlimited broadcasting station,
through which God (or the universe) speaks
to us every hour, if only we will tune in.

George Washington Carver

Your Awesomeness

Not everyone can handle your awesomeness.
That's okay. Toss them a loving "Namaste,"
with peace, love, and joy, and move on.
Take your effervescence elsewhere.

Alice the Elephant (Sarah Seidelmann)

Most Terrifying

The most terrifying thing is
to accept oneself completely.

Carl Jung

The World Becomes Very Kind

There's no one to guide you but you.
There's no guru, no teacher who,
in her great wisdom, shows you the answers.
Only your own answers can help you.
You yourself are the way, and the truth
and the life, and when you realize this,
the world becomes very kind.

Byron Katie

What Is Is

The heart doesn't move, it just waits.
You don't have to listen to it, but
until you do, you're going to hurt.
And the heart says only one thing:
"What is is."

Byron Katie

Where is the Problem?

Where is the problem,
other than in someone
else's mind?

Byron Katie

The Only Freedom

A mind that loves reality
is the only freedom.

Byron Katie

Write the Other Way

If they give you ruled paper,
write the other way.

Juan Ramon Jimenez

The Reality of Our True Self

The degree to which we have not allowed
ourselves to experience the reality of our true Self
is represented by our resentment toward
those who have actually done so.

David Hawkins

Fear of Life

Fear of life is really the fear of emotions.
It is not the facts that we fear
but our feelings about them.

David Hawkins

Accepting Yourself

People are about as comfortable with you
as you are accepting of yourself.

David Hawkins

Self-Justification

Most people, when directly confronted by evidence
that they are wrong, do not change their point of view
or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously.
Even irrefutable evidence is rarely enough to pierce
the mental armor of self-justification.

Carol Travis, "Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)"

Wake Yourself Up

If you're having a nightmare,
you may want to wake yourself up,
thought it will cost you your suffering.

Byron Katie

Broccoli

The taste of broccoli -
what could be more enlightening
than that?

Byron Katie

Always at Ease

The balanced mind is always at ease.
It isn't for or against anything;
it only wants what is.
It's at ease because there's nothing
it's opposed to.

Byron Katie

Willingness

The major requirement for the journey
is a willingness to let go of the attachment
to your current experience of life.

Fran Grace

I Awoke

I awoke,
only to find
the rest of the world
still sleeping.

Leonardo da Vinci

Crumbling Away of Untruth

Enlightenment is a destructive process.
It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier.
Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth.
It's seeing through the facade of pretense.
It's the complete eradication of everything
we imagined to be true.

Adyashanti

Until You Practice Surrender

Until you practice surrender,
the spiritual dimension is something
you read about, talk about, get excited about,
write books about, think about, believe in -
or don't, as the case may be.
It makes no difference.
Not until you surrender does it
become a living reality in your life.

Eckhart Tolle

So Choice

It is so choice.
If you have the means,
I highly recommend
picking one up.

Ferris Bueller

You're Not Dying

You're not dying,
you just can't think
of anything good to do.

Ferris Bueller

What Aren't We Going to Do?

The question isn't
"What are we going to do?"
The question is
"What aren't we going to do?"

Ferris Bueller

The Bold Survive

Only the meek get pinched.
The bold survive.

Ferris Bueller

You Could Miss It

Life moves pretty fast.
If you don't stop and
look around once in a while,
you could miss it.

Ferris Bueller

Straighten Out Our Own Lives

When we talk about
settling the world's problems,
we're barking up the wrong tree.
The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out
our own lives.

Joseph Campbell

Birds Will Shit on You

As you proceed through life,
following your own path,
birds will shit on you.
Don't bother to brush it off.

Joseph Campbell

Nothing the Mind Believes

There is nothing the mind believes
that is not erroneous
at a higher level of consciousness.

David Hawkins

Change the Way You Look at Things

If you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change.

Wayne Dyer

You Must Be Ready

If you want the whole thing,
the gods will give it to you.
But you must be ready.

Joseph Campbell

Follow Your Bliss

If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are -- if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.

Joseph Campbell

It Tapers Off

His act may start out slow,
but it tapers off.

Lawrence Welk

Secret to Being Happy

There is a very simple secret to being happy.
Just let go of your demand on this moment.

Adyashanti

Truly Free

For all those whose longing to
be truly free is becoming stronger
than their desire to distract
themselves from suffering.

Robert Augustus Masters

If I Had a Prayer

If I had a prayer, it would be this:
"God, spare me from the desire
for love, approval, or appreciation.
Amen."

Byron Katie

Never Tempted

I love what I think, and
I'm never tempted to believe it.

Byron Katie

The Way of It

That is the way of it.

Byron Katie

Everything the Beloved

When you love what is,
everything in the world
becomes the beloved.

Byron Katie

Beyond Your Capacity to Judge

Could it be that whatever
seems bad to you is just
something you haven't seen
clearly enough yet?
In reality - as it is in itself -
every thing, every person,
lies far beyond your capacity
to judge.

Byron Katie

Simply By Being

The Master leads simply by being.
The way she helps people is by living
out of don't-know, can't-know,
no-need-to-know, not-possible-to-know,
nothing-to-know.

Byron Katie

He Saved One Person

The most attractive thing about the Buddha
was that he saved one person - himself.

Byron Katie

Always the Student

I love being invisible. There's no responsibility in it,
no one to save, no one to teach, I'm always the student:
open, excited, new.

Byron Katie

The Best You Could

Think of the worst thing you ever did.
With the limited understanding you had then,
weren't you doing the best you could?

Byron Katie

Without Your Story

Who would you be without your story?
Pain-free, happy, and totally available
if someone needs you - a listener,
a teacher in the house, a Buddha in the house,
the one who lives it.

Byron Katie

That Last Little Piece

The world will test you in every way,
so that you can realize that last little piece
that's unfinished inside you.

Byron Katie

Who Would I Be?

Who would I be without the thought
that the world needs improving?

Byron Katie

They Could Hear Themselves

When you become quiet,
people can hear themselves.

Byron Katie

What Else is There?

Oh stories - I love them!
What else is there?

Byron Katie

Go Where You Wish

If you're centered in reality,
you can go where you wish
without danger.

Byron Katie

Everyone Your Teacher

When you're aware of being a student,
everyone in the world becomes your teacher.

Byron Katie

Gentlest Thing in the World

The gentlest thing in the world is an open mind.
Since it doesn't believe what it thinks, it is flexible,
porous, without opposition, without defense.
Nothing has power over it. Nothing can resist it.
Even the hardest thing in the world - a closed mind -
can't resist the power of openness.

Byron Katie

No Greater Illusion

There is no greater illusion
than fear.

Lao Tzu

Fight or Flight or Reality

It's your thoughts that scare you
into fight-or-flight - not reality.

Byron Katie

I Love You the Way You Are

I don't do anything but join you
wherever you have attached to a belief,
and the only reason I do The Work
with you is that you think you need it.
I don't have any such thought;
I love you the way you are.

Byron Katie

Life is Not Difficult

Life is not difficult.
It's your thinking that
makes it difficult.

Byron Katie

Show Me a Problem

Show me a problem that doesn't come
from believing an untrue thought.

Byron Katie

The Cause of Your Suffering

The only time you suffer is when
you believe a thought that argues
with reality. You are the cause of
your own suffering - but only
all of it.

Byron Katie

The Best Way

The best way, the only effective way,
is to serve as an example and not to
impose your will.

Byron Katie

Life is Simple

Life is simple. Everything happens for you,
not to you. Everything happens at exactly
the right moment, neither too soon nor
too late. You don't have to like it -
It's just easier if you do.

Byron Katie

Kinder to be a Student

It's painful to pretend that you're more evolved
than you are, to be in the position of a teacher
when it's kinder to yourself to be in the position
of a student.

Byron Katie

Be Honest

Don't be spiritual; be honest instead.

Byron Katie

Just Notice

There are no models, no ideals; the goal isn't
to be wise or spiritual, You just notice what is.
Don't pretend yourself beyond your own evolution.

Byron Katie

People Can Find Their Own Way

When they think they know the answers,
people are difficult to guide.
When they know that they don't know,
people can find their own way.

Lao Tzu

No Problems

Problems are not possible, except
when you believe what you're thinking.

Byron Katie

Do You Really Want to Know?

I love to ask someone who sits with me,
"Do you really want to know the truth?"

Byron Katie

No Danger

No one is in danger of losing anything
but his identification.

Byron Katie

The Best Leader

The best leader follows
the will of the people.

Lao Tsu

Your "Enemy"

Your enemy is the teacher who shows you
what you haven't healed yet. All enemies
are your kind teachers, just waiting for
you to realize it. (And that doesn't mean
you have to invite them to dinner.)

Byron Katie

Open Mind

The mind open to being questioned
is the only mind that can take this journey.
The open mind is fearless in its quest
to live without suffering.

Byron Katie

What is Adversity?

What is adversity?
It's simply when your story
doesn't match reality.

Byron Katie

Let It Take You

When you know that you don't know,
you're naturally open to reality and can
let it take you wherever it wants to.

Byron Katie

We Change

Things do not change:
We change.

Henry David Thoreau

I Contain Multitudes

Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself.
I am large.
I contain multitudes.

Walt Whitman

Tired of Speaking Sweetly

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
break all our teacup talk of God.
If you had the courage and could
give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He would just drag you around the room
by your hair, ripping from your grip
all those toys in the world
that bring you joy.
Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
and wants to rip to shreds
all your erroneous notions of truth
that make you fight within yourself,
dear one, and with others,
causing the world to weep
on too many fine days.
God wants to manhandle us,
lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
and practice his dropkick.
The Beloved sometimes wants
to do us a great favor:
hold us upside down
and shake all the nonsense out.
But when we hear
He is in such a "playful drunken mood,"
most everyone I know
quickly packs their bags and hightails it
out of town.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

A War Like No Other

It's an invitation you may not be able to accept
if you want to, or decline if you don't.
It's an invitation to fight in a war like no other;
a war where loss is counted as gain,
surrender as victory, and where the enemy you must face,
an enemy of unimaginable superiority,
is yourself.

Jed McKenna

Bud vs. Blossom

And the day came when
the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than
the risk it took to blossom.

Anais Nin

Only Their Names Remain

On many long journeys have I gone.
And waited, too, for others to return
from journeys of their own.
Some return; some are broken;
some come back so different
only their names remain.

Yoda, Jedi Warrior

I Serve You; I Am You

When I don't know who I am,
I serve you.
When I know who I am,
I am you.

Hanuman (to Ram in the Ramayana)

The Truth?

Do you really want to know the truth?

Byron Katie

Such a Being's Work

You and the guru and all of the beings
who have stayed free and separate
enjoy the dance of being perfect instruments
of the will of God.
Sitting by with a deep sense of pain
at the unnecessary suffering
created by the will of man and yet,
allowing it to be.
For such a being's work is only
with those beings who have started
to reach towards God.

Ram Dass

Tell the Truth

Always tell the truth.

Neem Karoli Baba  (Maharaj-ji)

The Deeper You Go

The deeper you go,
the less you know,
the more you are.

Ram Dass

Cease to React

If you are willing to look at another person's behavior
toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship
with themselves rather than a statement about your value
as a person, then you will, over a period of time,
cease to react at all.

Yogi Bhajan

How Can He Teach What He Isn't?

Maharaj-ji:   Does your teacher have desires?
Ram Dass:    Yes, but he told me not to have desires.
Maharaj-ji:   Do you have desires?
Ram Dass:    Yes.
Maharaj-ji:   Then he didn't teach you.
                          How can he teach what he isn't?

Pointing Us to Our Freedom

Our parents, our children, our spouses,
and our friends will continue to press
every button we have, until we realize
what it is that we don't want to know
about ourselves, yet. They will point
us to our freedom every time.

Byron Katie

It Has To Be You

Peace doesn't require two people;
it requires only one.
It has to be you.
The problem begins and ends there.

Byron Katie

Truth vs. Consistency

I am not at all concerned
with appearing to be consistent.
In my pursuit after Truth
I have discarded many ideas
and learned many new things.

Mahatma Gandhi

He Inspires Them

The wise man does not unsettle
the minds of the ignorant;
quietly acting in the spirit of yoga,
he inspires them to do the same.

Bhagavat Gita: Ch. 3, Verse 26

God's Name Alone

Dancing is not for me any more.
The mind no longer plays the tune.
The vessel of desire is broken,
the gown of desire has become frayed.
Parts enough I have played;
I can act no more.
Friends and companions
have all forsaken me.
God's name alone I now have.

Kabir

One Free Miracle

Modern science is based upon
the principle:
'Give us one free miracle,
and we'll explain the rest.'

Terrence McKenna

Guru vs. Teacher

The difference is that a teacher points the way;
but the guru is the way.

The guru is a cooked goose, all their seeds are burned
and they're free, so when you're with them,
they are a clean mirror, so you only see your own stuff;
that's all you see, you don't see your stuff mixed
with their stuff, because they don't have any stuff.

With the teacher, you never know what you're getting,
because part of what you see is their stuff,
and part of it is your stuff.

Ram Dass

You in All Your Uniqueness

Never forget that if there weren't any need for
you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth,
you wouldn't be here in the first place.

Buckminster Fuller

Body, Soul

The body is the body,
the soul is the soul.

Ram Dass

Still One Light

All religions, all this singing, one song.
The differences are just illusion and vanity.
Sunlight looks a little different on this wall
than it does on that wall and a lot different
on this other one, but it is still one light.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

No Attachment to Any Level

It takes but a flick of a look in a person's eyes
to see who it is you are to them.
Which level of reality you exist upon.
A conscious being has no attachment to any level,
neither busy denying nor affirming,
neither saying "I am this" nor "I am not this" -
neither protecting nor justifying.

Ram Dass

Nothing More

Don't prolong the past.
Don't invite the future.
Don't alter your innate wakefulness.
Don't fear appearances.
There is nothing more than that!

Dza Patrul

Temporary Good is Enemy

The temporary good is enemy
to the permanent best.

Bill W.

Going Beyond and Allowing

You’d be amazed how quickly you go beyond it,

beyond anything, that you allow completely.

Eckhart Tolle

Problem Solving

No problem can be solved
on the same level of consciousness
that created it.

Albert Einstein

The Bodhisattva

The bodhisattva works to end
the suffering of all sentient beings
realizing at the same moment
that suffering is grace
and suffering is part of awakening
and suffering as a function
is part of the functional way
in which this cosmos exists.

Ram Dass

All Totally Perfect Just the Way It Is

Only when you are fully honoring the plane

at which it is all totally perfect just the way it is,

can you assume on the other plane

the responsibility to change it,

recognizing that the desire in you

to change it is part of the perfection of it all.

Ram Dass

Law of Reversed Effort

There is a Law of Reversed Effort. The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed.

Proficiency and the results of proficiency come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity, of letting go as a person in order that the immanent and transcendent Unknown Quantity may take hold.

We cannot make ourselves understand; the most we can do is to foster a state of mind, in which understanding may come to us.

Aldous Huxley