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

Waiting for You

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