The Knowledge of Good and Evil

And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to
eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you
eat from it you will certainly die."

Genesis 2:16-17

Attracting Reflections

Everybody is like a magnet. You attract to yourself reflections of that which you are. If you're friendly, then everybody else seems to be friendly too.

David Hawkins

The Nature of Life

All judgment reveals itself to be self-judgment in the end, and when this is understood a larger comprehension of the nature of life takes its place.

David Hawkins

Interconnected Universe

In this interconnected universe, every improvement
we make in our private world improves the world
at large for everyone.

David Hawkins

Removing Impediments

The simple decision to be kind, forgiving, and
compassionate to all life in all of its expressions,
including one's own self, is a scalpel that is capable of
removing the major impediments to spiritual progress.

David Hawkins

Simple Kindness

Simple kindness to one's self and all that lives is
the most powerful transformational force of all.

David Hawkins

Readiness for the Journey

The readiness to initiate the journey cannot be forced nor can people be faulted if it has not occurred in them as yet. The level of consciousness has to have advanced to the stage where such an intention would be meaningful and attractive.

David Hawkins

The Spiritual Quest Commences

At some point, the illusion breaks down and the opening for the start of the spiritual quest commences. The quest turns from without to within and the search for answers begins.

David Hawkins

Surrender is a Constant Process

Surrender is a constant process of not resisting or clinging to the moment but instead continuously turning it over to God. The attention is thus focused on the process of letting go and not on the content of the "what" that is being surrendered.

David Hawkins

Passionate for God

Be passionate for God, not for belief systems. That is the only real decision that has to be made and can be applied to any and all situations. The question is always whether to be at the effect of the world or aligned with the Truth of God instead. The search for enlightenment is different from that of seeking worldly success.

David Hawkins

What Pain Tells Us

Pain tells us that we have put our survival onto something
that is a violation of some principle of consciousness.

David Hawkins

Spiritual Evolution

Spiritual evolution occurs as the result of removing
obstacles and not actually acquiring anything new.

David Hawkins

How the World Sees Us

The world can only see us
as we see ourselves.

David Hawkins

What Love Is

Love is misunderstood to be an emotion;
actually, it is a state of awareness, a way
of being in the world, a way of seeing
oneself and others.

David Hawkins

Changing the World

We change the world not by what we say or do,
but as a consequence of what we have become.

David Hawkins

Enhancing One's Power

The only way to enhance one's power in the world is
by increasing one's integrity, understanding, and capacity
for compassion.

David Hawkins

What a Relief!

I just realized that I don't have to have
an opinion about everything - what a relief!

David Hawkins

Forgive Them

Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do.

Jesus Christ (Luke 23:34)

It's All Good

When there's no story, no past or future,
nothing to worry about, nothing to do,
nowhere to go, no one to be, it's all good.

Byron Katie

Hang Up the Phone

Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope. He goes away and works on what he has seen.

Alan Watts

Free and In Love

Ultimately I would rather be
free and in love than be right.

Ram Dass

Who Am I?

The thought "Who am I?" will
destroy all other thoughts, and
like the stick used for stirring
the burning pyre, it will itself
in the end get destroyed. Then,
there will arise Self-realization.

Ramana Maharshi

My Work on Myself

When I'm locked in a situation in a relationship with someone, it isn't that they have done something to me. They're just doing what they're doing. If I get caught up in judging, the responsibility lies with me, not with them. It becomes my work on myself.

Ram Dass

Realization

Enlightenment is the realization
that enlightenment doesn't exist.

Huang-po

Grasping a Pearl

It's not that I'm not joyful.
But it's as though I have
grasped a pearl in a pile of shit.

Tung-shan

Moving in Perfect Harmony

However wild the form of the awareness may seem from the outside, from the inside it moves in perfect harmony. The boat keeps rowing itself gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily - no dreamer, just the dream. (And not even that.)

Stephen Mitchell

In the Presence of Suffering

You and I are on earth at this moment in bodies and have a curriculum, and that curriculum has to do with doing, as our hearts dictate, what we can to relieve suffering. Ultimately, what we can do to relieve suffering is to be that which is able to be in the presence of suffering without creating more suffering.

Ram Dass

Seeing What Is

To the extent that you hold a model of
how it used to be or how it should be,
you are preventing yourself from seeing
what is.

Ram Dass

Seeking Happiness Inside

Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it.
What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.

Ramana Maharshi

Be Still

Your duty is to be and not to be this or that.
"I am that I am" sums up the whole truth. The
method is summed up in the words "Be still."
What does stillness mean? It means destroy
yourself. Because any form or shape is the cause
for trouble. Give up the notion that "I am so and so."
All that is required to realize Self is to be still.
What can be easier than that?

Ramana Maharshi

Who We Think We Are

The way I see it is that there are states of consciousness that are always available to us if we have not veiled ourselves from them through our attachment to our own thoughts. All of it is always available to all of us - but whether we know that or not (or, better, the degree to which we know it) depends on who we think we are.

Ram Dass

See What Remains

Let come what comes,
let go what goes.
See what remains.

Ramana Maharshi

Always at Home

We can travel a long way and do many things,
but our deepest happiness is not born from
accumulating new experiences. It is born from
letting go of what is unnecessary, and knowing
ourselves to be always at home.

Sharon Salzberg

Cut Off the Ego

Is it not a wonder of wonders,
the quest "Who am I?" is the ax
with which to cut off the ego.

Ramana Maharshi

Silence

Silence is also conversation.

Ramana Maharshi

Renouncing the Fruits of Action

You have a right to your actions,
but never to your action's fruits.
Act for the action's sake,
And do not be attached to inaction.

Self-possessed, resolute, act
without any thought of results,
open to success or failure.

Bhagavad Gita

Let Go

The essence of Hinduism is
"Let go."

Stephen Mitchell

Beginning of Love

The beginning of love is the will
to let those we love be themselves,
the resolution not to twist them to
fit our own image.

Thomas Merton

The Witness

The witness just sees it all happening.
The witness is not evaluative.
It does not judge your actions,
it merely notes them.

Ram Dass

Dance of Interactions

Our interactions with one another
reflect a dance between love and fear.

Ram Dass

Worrying

If you can solve your problem,
then what is the need of worrying?
If you cannot solve it, then what is
the use of worrying?

Shantideva

How It All Is

The more I center myself and meditate,
the more I hear how it all is. Even if I
don't hear how it all is, the more I am
how it all is. If there's an uneven place
in me, all I have to do is work on myself.
As I give up attachment to knowing how
it all works, then the actions come into
harmony with the Tao.

Ram Dass

Developing a Witness

The first step of karma yoga, to get free
of the attachments to your own life is
to develop a witness.

Ram Dass

Nothing Worth Holding Onto

The entire teaching of Buddhism
can be summed up in this way:
Nothing is worth holding on to.

Jack Kornfield

Letting There Be Room

We think that the point is to pass
the test or overcome the problem,
but the truth is that things don't
really get solved. They come
together and they fall apart. Then
they come together again and fall
apart again. It's just like that. The
healing comes from letting there be
room for all of this to happen: room
for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

Pema Chodron

Better to Live Imperfectly

It is better to live your own destiny
imperfectly than to live an imitation
of somebody else's life with perfection.

Bhagavad Gita

A Man of Knowledge

A man of knowledge has
no honor, no dignity, no family, no name,
no country, but only life to be lived, and
under these circumstances his only tie to
his fellow man is his controlled folly.

Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan

Hearing It Clearly

The basic institution that is between God and the world is the individual human heart. It's not a set of rules. Rules and rituals of religions are useful when you can't tune to your own heart. But they are only techniques to use along the way until you really hear it clearly.

Ram Dass

All You Would See

The only things you're seeing as
you walk down the street are the
projections of your own attachments.
Otherwise, all you would see is God.

Ram Dass

Only True Belongings

My actions are my only true belongings.

Thich Nhat Hanh

A Heavy One

You say, "Everything in my life, the highs and the lows,
are all grist for the mill of going home. I will eat it all."
And it's even farther out than that because at that point
your suffering becomes functional for your awakening.
Your suffering literally becomes grace. That's a heavy one.

Ram Dass

Just Ocean

Even when I think I'm a wave,
I'm just ocean.

Krishna Das

Who Are You?

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

Lord Hanuman, Hindu Monkey God

We Are Infinite

As souls, we are not under time or space.
We are infinite.

Ram Dass

Everyday Zen

Zen is not some kind of excitement, but
concentration on our usual everyday routine.

Shunryu Suzuki

I Saw and I Know

I saw more than I could know,
and I know more than I could speak.

Black Elk

Imperturbable

Forgiveness is the greatest weapon,
because a saint so armed is imperturbable ...
he can give up anger immediately.

Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji)

Quietness Inside

We've got to keep
our quietness inside.

Ram Dass

Hope for Treasure

Where there is ruin, there
is hope for treasure.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Everyone as Souls

From the point of view of my soul,
I was able to look at everyone as souls,
and I loved each one of them.

Ram Dass

Loving Awareness

Ego is here, in your head, which is
who "I think I am." If you see those
thoughts and then go down to the heart,
the spiritual heart, down there you say,
I am loving awareness.

Ram Dass

Like the Wind

I am like the wind.
No one can hold me.
I belong to everyone.
No one can own me.

Neem Karoli Baba  (Maharaj-ji)

I Do Not Understand

Now, at this stage of my life, I understand just enough about life to understand that I do not understand much of anything.

Anne Lamott

We Come to be Healed

I'm pretty sure that only by experiencing that ocean of sadness in a naked and immediate way do we come to be healed - which is to say, we come to experience life with a real sense of presence and spaciousness and peace.

Anne Lamott

Let People See You

The book of welcome says,
"Let people see you."

Anne Lamott

Everything We Lose

Everything we lose is Buddhist truth - one more thing that you don't have to grab with your death grip, and protect from theft and decay. It's gone. We can mourn it, but we don't have to get down in the grave with it.

Anne Lamott

The Book of Welcome

There must have been a book - way down there in the slush pile of manuscripts - that somehow slipped out of the final draft of the Bible. That would have been the chapter that dealt with how we're supposed to recover from the criticism session in the Garden, and discover a sense that we're still welcome on the planet ... We have to write that book ourselves.

Anne Lamott

Be Here Now

Remember, Now, Be Here Now
as it's not like it was before.
The past, was, Be Here Now
as it's not what it was before - it was.

Why try to live a life,
that isn't real,
no how.
A mind that wants to wander,
'round a corner,
is an unwise mind.

Now, Is, Be Here Now
and it's not what it was before.
Remember, Now, Be Here Now
as it's not like it was before - it was.

George Harrison

Mindfulness Practice

The basis of the practice is to directly participate
in each moment as it occurs with as much awareness
and understanding as possible.

Stephen Levine

Liking and Disliking

We seldom see without some sense of liking or disliking, no matter how subtle it is. We open and close from sound to sound, taste to taste, smell to smell, sensation to sensation, thought to thought, and feeling to feeling. We like the way the light strikes one side of the ball but dislike the shadow it casts.

Stephen Levine

God's Work

When you do God's work,
the work does it itself.

Neem Karoli Baba  (Maharaj-ji)

Only a Moment

The mind is in a constant state of flux.
No thought, no feeling, no sensation lasts
for more than an instant before it is
transformed into the next state, the next
thought, the next sentence. Our life lasts
only a moment. Note those moments.

Stephen Levine

Know Your Life

To know your life is to know
intimately what you are feeling.

Stephen Levine

It Changes Me

I pray because I can't help myself.
I pray because I'm helpless. I pray
because the need flows out of me
all the time, waking and sleeping.
It doesn't change God.
It changes me.

C.S. Lewis

Be Where You Are

As a psychotherapist, I can help people best
by encouraging them to be where they are.

Thomas Moore

Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Raymond Carver

The Answer to Your Prayer

The answer to your prayer is to remember that you're not hungry for food. You're hungry for peace of mind, for a memory ... You're hungry for safety, for a moment when the net of life holds and there is an occasional sense of the world's benevolent order.

Anne Lamott

We Get to Keep Starting Over

God is not a banker or a bean counter. God gives us more, which is so subversive ... God keeps giving, forgiving, and inviting us back ...We get to keep starting over. Lives change, sometimes quickly, but usually slowly.

Anne Lamott

Movement of Grace

The movement of grace from hard to soft,
distracted to awake, mean to gentle again,
is mysterious but essential.

Anne Lamott

Simple vs. Clever

When my guru wanted to compliment me,
he called me simple; when he wished to
chide me, he called me clever.

Ram Dass

A Call to the Heart

Each time we remember to be present, to be mindful,
we soften into the moment. Softening becomes a call to
the heart that it's safe to be alive in the body once again.

Stephen Levine

Love's in Need of Love Today

Love's in need
of love today.
Don't delay.
Send yours in
right away.
Hate's goin' round
breaking many hearts.
Stop it please
before it's gone
too far.

Stevie Wonder

Familiar with Doubt

It is important to become familiar
with doubt sufficiently to be able
to turn toward it instead of away.

Stephen Levine

Fourth Great Prayer

So I prayed: "Help me not be such an ass."
(This is actually the fourth great prayer, which
perhaps we will address at another time.)

Anne Lamott

A Good Time

God's idea of a good time is
to see us picking up litter.

Anne Lamott

The Voice That Will Speak for Us

Last words are as spontaneous as the life that produces them. If we speak now with care and consideration, if we use our words now to express our heart, that is the voice that will speak for us as our awareness gathers to depart.

Stephen Levine

What the Heart Really Needs

Once you see what the heart really needs,
it doesn't matter if you're going to live or die,
the work is always the same.

Noah Levine

What More Can I Give?

Saying and meaning "Thanks"
leads to a crazy thought:
What more can I give?

Anne Lamott

You Get What You Need

You can't always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes you find
you get what you need.

Rolling Stones

Gratitude is Peace

The movement of grace toward gratitude
brings us from the package of self-obsessed
madness to a spiritual awakening.
Gratitude is peace.

Anne Lamott

Fear Leans Backwards

Fear leans backwards into the last safe moment while desire leans forward toward the next possibility of satisfaction. Each lacks presence. Each is a form of attachment, whether "positive" grasping, or "negative" pushing away.

Stephen Levine

Fear of Fear

There is nothing to fear in fear. Enter it. Begin
to relate to it rather than solely from it. Do not
fear fear, soften that compulsive resistance.
Fear of fear is ignorance of fear.

Stephen Levine

When the Time Actually Comes

When the time actually comes,
what is found then will be
what is found now.

Stephen Levine

Bearing the Unbearable

You breathe in gratitude, and you breathe it out, too.
Once you learn how to do that, then you can bear
someone who is unbearable.

Anne Lamott

Misfortunes As Well

A much revered teacher once said that if his students
were going to thank him for their good fortune, then
they had to thank him for what they considered
misfortunes as well.

Stephen Levine

Wow: a Prayer

When we are stunned to the place beyond words, when an aspect of life takes us away from being able to chip away at something until it's down to a manageable size and then to file it nicely away, when all we can say in response is "Wow," that's a prayer.

Anne Lamott

Second Wind

Grace can be the experience of a second wind,
when even though what you want is clarity and
resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy
and the strength to hang on.

Anne Lamott

All You Need

In many cases, breath
is all you need.

Anne Lamott

It Takes a Journey

Sometimes it takes a journey
to come home.

Stephen Levine

Whole At Last

When the heart at last acknowledges how much pain there is in the mind, it turns like a mother toward a frightened child. All that remains incomplete seems somehow workable and an unmistakable joy arises at the possibility of becoming whole at last.

Stephen Levine

Prepare Yourself

Remember, friends, as you pass by,
As you are no so once was I.
As I am now, so you must be.
Prepare yourself to follow me.

Common 18th Century Epitaph

The Better Deal

A good marriage is one in which each spouse
secretly thinks he or she got the better deal.

Anne Lamott

Finding Happiness

I don't have to chase extraordinary moments to
find happiness - it's right in front of me if I'm
paying attention and practicing gratitude.

Brene Brown

What Matters Becomes Apparent

When you live your life as though you're already dead,
life takes on new meaning. Each moment becomes a whole
lifetime, a universe unto itself. When we realize we are
already dead, our priorities change, our heart opens, and
our mind begins to clear of the fog of old holdings and
pretendings. We watch all life in transit, and what matters
becomes instantly apparent: the transmission of love; the
letting go of obstacles to understanding; the relinquish-
ment of our grasping, of our hiding from ourselves.

Stephen Levine

Life Becomes Workable

If we take each teaching, each loss, each gain, each fear, each joy as it arises and experience it fully, life becomes workable. We are no longer a "victim of life." And then every experience, even the loss of our dearest one, becomes another opportunity for awakening.

Stephen Levine

Only Love Would Be Appropriate

If our only spiritual practice were to live as though we
were already dead, relating to all we meet, to all we do,
as though it were our final moments in the world, what
time would there be for old games or falsehoods or
posturing? If we lived our life as though we were already
dead, as though our children were already dead, how much
time would there be for self-protection and the recreation
of ancient mirages? Only love would be appropriate,
only the truth.

Stephen Levine

Standing In It

Those who insist they've got their "shit together"
are usually standing in it at the time.

Stephen Levine

Time Enough

The butterfly counts not
months but moments, and
has time enough.

Rabindranath Tagore

Ordinary Mind

The ordinary mind creates reality to suit our
misperceptions. None of it really makes sense.
The ordinary mind just pretends it does, so as
not to incite a riot.

Stephen Levine

To Tell the Truth

We hope someday to tell the truth.
But first we have to find out what it is.

Stephen Levine

Service is Joy

I slept and dreamed that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.

Rabindranath Tagore

It's Enough to Know It Works

We don't have to figure out how this all works -
"Figure it out" is not a good slogan. It's enough
to know it does.

Anne Lamott