Love It the Way It Is

In order to love it the way it is,
we must first learn to see it the way it is.

Thaddeus Golas

Necessary Pain

Every person who understands
the necessity for enduring pain and effort
makes a difference in our human reality.

Thaddeus Golas

Delicious Solitude

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth
but delicious in the years of maturity.

Albert Einstein

You Must Understand

You must understand that the object of the dance
of enlightenment is not to lose the incarnation,
it's not to realize God and forget humanity,
for the formless and the form are two different
faces of God and if you deny your incarnation
in order to go to God, you don't know God fully.

Ram Dass

Less and Less Obvious

Everything you've learned in school as "obvious"
becomes less and less obvious as you begin to
study the universe. For example, there are no solids
in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of
a solid. There are no absolute continuums.
There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.

R. Buckminster Fuller

The Way Out

Enlightenment is not a benign form of therapy,
nor is it the acquisition of status.
It is merely the way out of this reality.

Thaddeus Golas

Gradual Abdication

And it is an open question how conscious we want to become and still continue our normal lives as human beings. Those of us who do choose to make sustained consciousness a priority should anticipate a gradual abdication from the busyness of energetic life. And when we do aim to leave human affairs, we should also be indifferent to any human value judgments about being "spiritual." It is folly to expect to enjoy the best of both worlds at the same time. The energy-minded do not need this sort of advice. They will always be busy with what they can perceive and manipulate.

Thaddeus Golas

Learning to Trust Oneself

Healing, more than anything, becomes
an exercise in learning to trust oneself.

Monica Cassani

Love Never Goes Out of Style

Kindness is timeless.
Love is so easy to give.
It just takes a moment to
show somebody that you care.

From the song, "Timeless"
by Sergio Mendes

What It Is

It is nonsense
says reason.

It is what it is
says love.

It is calamity
says calculation.

It is nothing but pain
says fear.

It is hopeless
says insight.

It is what it is
says love.

It is ludicrous
says pride.

It is foolish
says caution.

It is impossible
says experience.

It is what it is
says love.

Erich Fried

Happiness is This

Maybe happiness is this:
not feeling like you should be
elsewhere, doing something else,
being someone else.

Isaac Asimov

When Setting Out

When setting out on a journey,
never take advice from someone
who never left home.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Good Clear Footprints

Never for a moment think that you
are the only traveler on your path.
Leave good, clear footprints.

Thaddeus Golas

What We Don't Need

What we don't need
in the midst of struggle
is shame for being human.

Brene Brown

Nothing to Criticize

Fault is in the one who blames.
Spirit sees nothing to criticize.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Unlearn Something Daily

A scholar tries to learn something every day;
a student of Buddhism tries to unlearn something daily.

Alan Watts

It Makes You Human

You don't have to be positive all the time.
It's perfectly okay to feel sad, angry, annoyed,
frustrated, scared, or anxious. Having feelings
doesn't make you a "negative person."
It makes you human.

Lori Deschene

To Know Your Own Soul

The desire to know your own soul
will end all other desires.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

I Am Your Mirror

I am not here for your understanding of who I am.
I am here for your understanding of who you are.
I am your mirror. How you feel about me,
what you see in me, the thoughts that arise
from your encounter of me, the judgments
you hold about me are all reflections of you.
They have nothing to do with me.

Emily Maroutian

The Teaching of My Soul

I have been a seeker and still am,
but I stopped asking books and the stars.
I started listening to the teaching of my soul.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

The Mouse Will Not Appreciate Your Neutrality

If you are neutral in situations of injustice,
you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse,
and you say that you are neutral,
the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Desmond Tutu

Prelude to The Dance

What if it truly doesn't matter what you do
but how you do whatever you do?
How would this change what you
choose to do with your life?

What if you could be more present
and openhearted with each person
you met if you were working as
a cashier in a corner store or as
a parking lot attendant than you could
if you were doing a job you think
is more important?
How would this change how you
spend your precious time on earth?

What if you contribution to the world
and the fulfillment of your own happiness
is not dependent upon discovering
a better method of prayer or
technique of meditation, not dependent
upon reading the right book or
attending the right seminar,
but upon really seeing and deeply
appreciating yourself and the world
as they are right now?
How would this affect your search
for spiritual development?

What if there is no need to change,
no need to try to transform yourself
into someone who is more compassionate,
more present, more loving or wise?
How would this affect all the places
in your life where you are endlessly
trying to be better?

What if the task is simply to unfold,
to become who you already are
in your essential nature - gentle,
compassionate, and capable of living
fully and passionately present?
How would this affect how you feel
when you wake up in the morning?

What if who you essentially are right now
is all that you are ever going to be?
How would this affect how you
feel about your future?

What if the essence of who you are
and always have been is enough?
What if the question is no why am I so
infrequently the person I really want to be,
but why do I so infrequently want to be
the person I really am?
How would this change what you think
you have to learn?

What if becoming who and what we truly are
happens not through striving and trying
but by recognizing and receiving
the people and places and practices
that offer the warmth of encouragement
we need to unfold?
How would this shape the choices
you make about how to spend today?

What if you knew that the impulse to move
in a way that creates beauty in the world
will arise from deep within and guide you
every time you simply pay attention and wait?
How would this shape your stillness, your
movement, your willingness to follow
this impulse, to just let go and dance?

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

The Only Thing

The only thing shame cannot
possibly survive is empathy.

Lauren Golombek

You Know

Yeah, well, you know that's
just like your opinion, man.

The Big Grabowski

Love Feels Free

You must love in such a way that
the person you love feels free.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Yes, I Am Happy

"Young man," he said, "are you happy?
The young man named Jack looked startled
at this question, and he glanced in both directions
before answering, and then he spoke.
"Yes, I am happy. Things are as they are,
and I am part of them."

George R. Stewart, "Earth Abides"

The Call

I have heard it all my life,
A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.

Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper.
Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.

But always it says: Wake up my love.
You are walking asleep. There's no safety in that!

Remember what you are and let this knowing
take you home to the Beloved with every breath.

Hold tenderly who you are and let a deeper knowing
color the shape of your humanness.

There is no where to go. What
you are looking for is right here.
Open the fist clenched in wanting
and see what you already hold in your hand.

There is no waiting for something to happen,
no point in the future to get to.
All you have ever longer for is here in this moment,
right now.

You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.
Come home and rest.

How much longer can you life like this?
You hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles,
All this trying. Give it up!

Let yourself be one of the God-mad,
faithful only to the beauty you are.

Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close,
dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.

Remember - there is one word you are here
to say with your whole being.
When it finds you, give your life to it.
Don't be tight-lipped and stingy.

Spend yourself completely on the saying.
Be one in this great love poem we are writing together.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Tragic Expression

Every unskillful act,
or hurtful word,
is a tragic expression
of an unmet need.

Marshal Rosenberg

I'm Not One of Them

There are lovers content with longing.
I'm not one of them.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Love Says There Are

Lovers find secret places
inside this violent world
where they make transactions
with beauty.
Reason says, Nonsense!
I have walked and measured the walls here.
There are no places like that.
Love says, There are.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Tall Order

Unconditional is a tall order.

Unknown

Green Bough

If I keep a green bough in my heart,
the singing bird will come.

Chinese Proverb

Constantly Greater Beings

Winning does not tempt that man
For this is how he grows:
By being defeated, decisively,
By constantly greater beings.

Rainer Maria Rilke

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart's longing.

I doesn't interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

I doesn't interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon.
I want to know
if you have touched
the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life's betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn't interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to your self.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

I doesn't interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

No Authentic Self

we are all frauds.
there is no "real me."
one sense of self feels better than another,
and we call that better-liked feeling
the "authentic me."
but neither is what we are.
there is no authentic self.

Judy Cohen

What You Can Offer

After a while you come to appreciate that
what you can offer another human being
is to work on yourself to be a statement of
what it is you have found in the way to live
your life. One of the things you will find is
the ability to appreciate what is, as it is, in
equanimity and compassion, and love that
isn't conditional. You don't love the person
more because they are happier the way
you think they should be.

Ram Dass

Full on My Own

i do not want to have you
to fill the empty parts of me
i want to be full on my own
i want to be so complete
i could light a whole city
and then
i want to have you
cause the two of
us combined
could set it
on fire

Rupi Kaur

Ground to Scrape and Hoe

How will you know the difficulties
of being human if you are always
flying off to blue perfection?
Where will you plant your grief seeds?
Workers need ground to scrape and hoe,
not the sky of unspecified desire.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

A Seed Named Love

I am no lion
to overpower my enemies.
Winning over myself
if I can,
is enough.
Though I'm of lowly earth
since I nourish a seed
named love,
I'll grow
lilies of the field.
When I'm pitch-black
lamenting separation,
I know for sure
I will break through
spreading light on the dark night.
I am on fire inside
since I want to rise
like smoke through my cell.
I am a child
whose teacher is love.
Surely my master
won't let me grow
to be a fool.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Truth Has Bad Breath at Times

As you become more conscious in a
relationship, you can no longer milk
it for its romanticism, because it is more
interesting than that. It really is, but
people keep wanting to romanticize
their lives all the time. It's part of the
culture. However, the awakening process
starts to show you the emptiness of that
form and you start to go for something
deeper. You start to go to meet another
human being in truth. Truth is scary.
Truth has bad breath at times. Truth is
boring. Truth, you know, burns the food.
Truth is ... all the stuff. Truth has anger,
it has all of it. But, you stay in it and you
keep working with it and keep opening
to it and keep deepening it.

Ram Dass

The Real Sound

If you want the truth,
I'll tell you the truth:
Listen to the secret sound,
the real sound,
which is inside you.

Kabir

The Gift You Offer

The gift you offer
another person is
just being yourself.

Ram Dass

Always Alone

The lover is always alone.
Even surrounded by people,
Like water and oil,
He remains apart.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Sacred Duty

Civil disobedience
becomes a sacred duty
when the state has become
lawless or corrupt.

Mahatma Gandhi

Today I Am Wise

Yesterday I was clever, so I
wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise, so I
am changing myself.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Progress

Without deviation from the norm,
progress is not possible.

Frank Zappa

Unconditional Love

Sometimes unconditional love is not about
accepting a person regardless of any
circumstance. Sometimes it's about looking
deeply at a situation and recognizing that in
staying with someone that is hurting us, we are
actually hurting the other person as well.
Because of our "unconditional" acceptance, we
are allowing the other person to believe that
their behavior is acceptable. And this prevents
them from growing. Impeding someone's growth
is not love. Knowing when to let go is.

Raz Soos

Trust and Throw the Dice

Love is not a game of chess,
where you plan your next move,
but a game of backgammon,
where you trust and throw the dice.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Friendship Caught Fire

Love is friendship that has caught fire.
It is quiet understanding, mutual
confidence, sharing and forgiving.
It is loyalty through good and bad times.
It settles for less than perfection and
makes allowances for human weaknesses.

Ann Landers

Everything

Freedom is everything.

Byron Katie

Our Stories

We don't attach to things; we
attach to our stories about them.

Byron Katie

Only Lovers Have Peaceful Hearts

Only lovers have peaceful hearts, free
from restless striving for more and more.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Karma Means Action

Karma means action
and incidentally
that is all it means.
It doesn't mean the law
of cause and effect.
When we say that
something that happens
to you is karma,
all it's saying
is that it's your own doing.
Nobody is in charge of karma,
except you.

Alan Watts

Growth is Optional

Change is inevitable.
Growth is optional.

John C. Maxwell

Change the World

Helping one person might not change the world,
but it could change the world for one person.

Unknown

Seek a Deeper Truth

The truth for sure, when it arrives, will make you smile.
If it doesn't, you should seek a deeper truth.

Terence McKenna

Let Go of Them All

Veil upon veil,

thought upon thought.
Let go of them all,

for they only hide
the truth.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

We Are Seeds

They tried to bury us.
They didn't know we were seeds.

Mexican Proverb

Acceptance

Acceptance of the unacceptable
is the greatest source of grace
in this world.

Eckhart Tolle

Just Be Together

Let's trade in all our judging for appreciating.
Let's lay down our righteousness and just be together.

Ram Dass

Didn't You Know?

If you knew yourself for even one moment,
if you could just glimpse your most beautiful face,
maybe you wouldn't slumber so deeply
in that house of clay.
Why not move into your house of joy
and shine into every crevice!
For you are the secret Treasure-bearer,
and always have been.
Didn't you know?

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

The Best for Our People

What I do know is that elders of most cultures
want the best for their people ... If my granddaughter
is threatened by terrorism, I will resist with an alert love.
Monsters move among us.

And if my Palestinian granddaughter is
threatened by American-made rockets,
I will resist with an alert and angry love.
Monsters move among us.

And if dim-witted zealots threaten to
ravage this earth, my granddaughter's only home,
I will resist with all the love and fury I still have
at my command.
For monsters move among us.

We elders want the best for our people.

Steven Foster

Life on Fire

Set your life on fire.
Seek those who
fan your flames.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Feeling Alive

The whole mission of therapy is to
give people access to feeling alive.

Esther Perel

The Known Meets the Unknown

All our science and philosophy
form only an island of knowledge
surrounded by an ocean of mystery.
The larger the island grows,
the longer the shoreline where
the known meets the unknown.

Ralph Washington Sockman

The Witness

Everything changes once we identify
with being the witness to the story,
instead of the actor in it.

Ram Dass

Ever As It Is

The real is ever as it is.

Ramana Maharshi

Daily Life

There is no enlightenment
outside of daily life.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Two Aspects of Compassion

Compassion always has two aspects:
one is that it's peaceful and loving and caring,
but the other is that it's ruthless and not afraid
to cut through something that needs to be cut through.

David Nichtern

Not Seeking

We are being compassionate to ourselves and
others by not seeking something other than what is.
For it is in being with the challenges before us,
not trying to find a way out, or something better,
that will ease our suffering. When we want to run
away from what we judge as bad, we are constantly
running and we never really get to experience life fully.
We miss out on the beauty as well as the difficulties.

Unknown

All About Love

It is all about love ...
making someone else's
existence a little easier ...
nothing else matters,
I know this now.

Terence McKenna

Myself As Well

Doing as others told me, I was blind.
Coming when others called me, I was lost.
Then I left everyone, myself as well.
Then I found everyone, myself as well.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

The Way the World Actually Works

Rather than vainly seeking the right idea,
we can gain more confidence and good feeling
by agreeing with the way the world actually works.

Thaddeus Golas

Never Stop Being Whimsical

You must not ever stop being whimsical.
And you must not, ever, give anyone else
the responsibility for your life.

Mary Oliver

Five Minutes Ago

You're under no obligation
to be the same person you
were five minutes ago.

Alan Watts

The Way Appears

As you start to
walk on the way,
the way appears.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

From Now On

Run from what's comfortable.
Forget safety.
Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation.
Be notorious.
I have tried prudent planning long enough.
From now on, I'll be mad.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Do Better

Do the best you can
until you know better.
Then, when you know
better, do better.

Maya Angelou

New Freedom

I will no longer take responsibility
for soothing another person's anxiety.
If invited, I will gladly help another person
learn to soothe their own anxiety.

I will no longer make another person
responsible for soothing my anxiety.
I will learn to soothe my own anxiety,
asking for help whenever I feel the need.

Dan Metevier

Happy for a Moment

You were happy for a moment
and you thought the person next
to you was the source.

Joe McMillan
(from "Halt and Catch Fire")

The Way It Is

In order to love it the way it is, we
must first learn to see it the way it is.

Thaddeus Golas

Very Small

What if God is not large,
but very small, perhaps
even size less?

Thaddeus Golas

Conscious All the Time

No matter what happens,
I am conscious all the time.

Thaddeus Golas

Never Moved

Just as a mighty boulder
stirs not with the wind,
so the wise are never moved
either by praise or blame.

The Dhammapada

The Whole Trip

It's only when caterpillarness is done
that one becomes a butterfly.
That again is part of this paradox.
You cannot rip away caterpillarness.
The whole trip occurs in an unfolding
process over which we have no control.

Ram Dass

The Three N's

Nature.
Nurture.
Neuroplasticity.

Sarah McKay

Fluent in Silence

So, if you are too tired to speak,
sit next to me, because I, too,
am fluent in silence.

R. Arnold

What is Real?

What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day ...

"Real isn't how you are made, it's a thing that happens to you ... It doesn't happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time, that's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been rubbed off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Margery Williams, "Velveteen Rabbit"

Occasionally Contradict Yourself

If you don't at least occasionally
contradict yourself, your position
isn't nearly complex enough.

Terence McKenna

Reclaim Your Mind

You want to reclaim your mind,
and get it out of the hands of
the cultural engineers who want
to turn you into a half-baked
moron consuming all the trash
that's being manufactured out
of the bones of a dying world.

Terence McKenna

Any Trip

Any trip you want to take
leads to the same place.

Ram Dass

Not Experience, Bullshit

Everything I say here is a lie --
bullshit, in other words --
because anything that you put
in words is not experience,
is not the experiment.
It's a representation --
a misrepresentation.

John Lilly

Bring Out the Beauty

I have to come to drag you
out of yourself, and take you
in my heart. I have come to
bring out the beauty you never
knew you had and lift you
like a prayer to the sky.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Ability to Change

Our only security is
our ability to change.

John Lilly

Problem in Communication

The single biggest problem in communication
is the illusion that it has taken place.

George Bernard Shaw

Knowing

He who things he knows, doesn't know.
He who knows that he doesn't know, knows.

Joseph Campbell

Don't Know Enough to Worry

You don't know enough to worry.
That’s God’s truth. Who do you
think you are that you should worry?
It presupposes such a knowledge
of the situation that it is a form of hubris.

Terence McKenna

Worry is Preposterous

Worry is preposterous;
we don't know enough
to worry.

Wei Boyang

Simpler

and the more she
loved herself,
the simpler it
became for her.
and the more
complex it became
for everyone else.

JmStorm

Putting Off

Never put off until tomorrow
what you can put off until
the day after tomorrow.

Dan Metevier

You'll No Longer Expect

The real beloved is that one who is unique,
who is your beginning and your end.
When you find that one, you'll no longer
expect anything else.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Between the Two

The angel is free because of his knowledge,
the beast because of his ignorance. Between
the two remains the son of man to struggle.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

A Guide from Above

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as
a guide from above.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Culture is a Game

The shaman is a person who is able to transcend
the dimensional confines of cultural existence.
They know more than the people they serve.
The people they serve are like children within
the game of culture. Only the shaman knows that
culture is a game. Everyone else takes it seriously.
That’s how he can do his magic.

Terence McKenna

No One Knows

No one knows enough
to worry.

Terence McKenna

Liberation

You know that you know nothing.
Find out that knowledge.
That is liberation.

Ramana Maharshi

Only the Mad Are Sane

In a mad world,
only the mad are sane.

Akira Kurasawa

The Wisdom of the Body

Our bodies are incredibly knowing animals
that we've systemically learned to ignore,
shut down, and ultimately poison. Healing is
about letting the wisdom of the body re-emerge.

Monica Cassani

Listen to Them

These pains you feel
are messengers.
Listen to them.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Mediocrity

Some men are born mediocre,
some men achieve mediocrity,
and some men have mediocrity
thrust upon them.

Joseph Heller

The Person We Have Become

It isn't so much we want to
leave the person we're with,
as we want to leave the person
we have become.

Esther Perel

Not What We Are

Suffering is to the mind what pain is to the body,
a signal that something needs attending to,
a message that we have mistaken our Self
for a cluster of thoughts and feelings.
In other words, suffering is not here to thwart us;
it is not a punishment. On the contrary, it is here
to help us. It is a wake-up call.

To begin with, it is a gentle call, but in time
it gets more and more severe. Irrespective of
its intensity, the wake-up call is always saying
the same thing: we have mistaken ourselves
for a cluster of thoughts and feelings; we have
overlooked or forgotten who we truly are.

The separate self is not what we are.

Rupert Spira

A Breeze Going By

There's a breeze going by, but
it doesn't determine the weather.

Anonymous

Everything I've Got

You know I'd give you everything I've got
for a little peace of mind.

The Beatles from "I'm So Tired"

Absolutely Ruthless and Highly Indifferent

Cosmic Love is
absolutely ruthless
and highly indifferent:
it teaches its lessons
whether you like/dislike
them or not.

John C. Lilly

Nothing More, Nothing Less

All human beings, all persons who reach adulthood
in the world today are programmed biocomputers.
No one of us can escape our own nature as
programmable entities. Literally, each of us
may be our programs, nothing more, nothing less.

John C. Lilly

So Fragile

The male dominant agenda
is so fragile that any competitor
is felt as a deadly foe.

Terence McKenna

Culture Can Be Re-Engineered

The message of psychedelics is that culture can be
re-engineered as a set of emotional and spiritual values
rather than products. This is terrifying news.

Terence McKenna

We Give Everything Away

We tend to disempower ourselves.
We tend to believe that we don't matter.
And in the act of taking the idea to
ourselves we give everything away
to somebody else, to something else.

Terence McKenna

You're Actually Listening

Half the time you think you're thinking,
you're actually listening.

Terence McKenna

Have a Plan

If you don't have a plan,
you become part of
someone else's plan.

Terence McKenna

Don't Believe Anything

My technique is don't believe anything.
If you believe in something, you are
automatically precluded from believing
its opposite.

Terence McKenna

Where All the Contradictions Flow Together

We have been to the moon,
we have charted the depths of
the ocean and the heart of the atom,
but we have a fear of looking inward
to ourselves because we sense that is
where all the contradictions flow together.

Terence McKenna

It's Not Easy

It's clearly a crisis of two things:
of consciousness and conditioning.
We have the technological power,
the engineering skills to save
our planet, to cure disease,
to feed the hungry, to end war.
But we lack the intellectual vision,
the ability to change our minds.
We must de-condition ourselves
from 10,000 years of bad behavior.
And, it's not easy.

Terence McKenna

A Loaded Gun

Western civilization is a loaded gun
pointed at the head of this planet.

Terence McKenna

The Marriage to Come

Too many brides focus more
on their wedding day than
the 50-year marriage to come.

Abby Rodman

The Quest for the Weird

It was the quest for the weird
that brought me so far.

Terence McKenna

Nobody Knows

Nobody knows jack shit
about what is going on.

Terence McKenna

True Happiness

True happiness is found in simple,
seemingly unremarkable things.

Eckhart Tolle.

Queerer Than We Can Suppose

My own suspicion is that the universe
is not only stranger than we suppose,
but stranger than we can suppose.

J.B.S. Haldane

Facing the Answer

The problem is not
to find the answer,
it's to face the answer.

Terence McKenna

All of Them Make Me Laugh

Among those whom I like or admire,

I can find no common denominator.

But among those whom I love, I can;

all of them make me laugh.

W.H. Auden

Your Own Authority

I have taken you to only one place.
It is the most heretical place you can be.
It is your own authority.
Understand how profound that is.

Ra Uru Hu

A Real Guru

A real guru,
if there is one,
frees you
from himself.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Your Own Thought Forms

The way in which you perceive the other
is determined by your own thought forms.

Eckhart Tolle

Love is a Vessel

Love is a vessel that contains
both security and adventure,
and commitment offers one of
the great luxuries in life: time.
Marriage is not the end of romance,
it is the beginning.

Esther Perel

No Amount of Anxiety

No amount of anxiety
makes any difference
to anything that is going
to happen.

Alan Watts

Accepting People As They Are

Happiness is a balance between
accepting people as they are
and changing yourself so that
accepting people as they are
is less painful.

Tracy McMillan

No Better Word Than Stupid

I know words, I have the best words.
I have the best, but there is no better word
than stupid.

Donald Trump

No More Neutrality

There is no more neutrality in the world.
You will have to be part of the solution,
or you're going to be part of the problem.

Eldridge Cleaver

Leaving It Alone

As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone,

it could be argued that those who sit quietly and

do nothing are making one of the best contributions

to a world in turmoil.

Alan Watts

Waking Up

Waking up to who you are
requires letting go of who
you imagine yourself to be.

Alan Watts

Unfolding of Opportunities

I see my life as an unfolding
set of opportunities to awaken.

Ram Dass

Living Together is an Art

Living together is an art.
It's a patient art,
it's a beautiful art,
it's fascinating.

Pope Francis

Don't Take It Personally

Whatever happens around you,
don't take it personally.
Nothing other people do is
because of you. It is because
of themselves.

Don Miguel Ruiz

People Do Not Get the Message Right

All religion, all philosophy, all wars,
all pograms, and persecutions happen
because people do not get the message right.

Terence McKenna

Happiness From What Is

We cannot let our happiness be
determined by outside circumstances.
We have to live in the moment and
our happiness or feelings need to
come from what is.

Katie Meyler

Change the Internal First

If we try to change the external
without changing the internal first,
the changes will fade, revert,
and the old pattern will repeat.

Penney Pierce

What Works and What Doesn't

Like anyone on a spiritual path, I seek
to live increasingly without fear and
separatist thinking, and more from
an awareness of unity and respect for life
(of course, it’s a grand work in progress!).
To do this, I practice measuring
what I experience in my outer reality
against what I know of how
the internal universal laws function,
to see what has natural harmony
and actually works, and what doesn’t.

Penney Pierce

What We Already Have

Is it possible to want
what we already have?

Esther Perel

We Need Only to Allow

The practice was to ALLOW.
We need only to allow.
This is it. This is reality.
Allow it.

Monica Cassani

Everyday Life is the Path

What is the path?
the Zen master Nan-sen
was asked.
Everyday life is the path,
he answered.

Master Nan-sen

Only in Still Water

We cannot see our reflection
in running water.
It is only in still water
that we can see.

Taoist Proverb

Just as They Are

If you understand,
things are just as they are;
if you do not understand,
things are just as they are.

Zen Saying

Do Not Speak

Do not speak -
unless it improves
on silence.

Buddhist Saying

Leaving No Track

The path of the enlightened one
leaves no track - it is like the path
of the birds in the sky.

Attributed to the Buddha

Stay True to Yourself

Stay true to yourself,
because boundaries will
seldom be a problem
for a good person who
truly likes and respects you.

Adelyn Birch

He Had Not Yet Imagined

If he was willing to end his life,
he had nothing to lose by trying
to live ways he had not yet imagined.

Taylor Pearson, on R. Buckminster Fuller

All I Know

All I know is what's
on the Internet.

Donald Trump

Willpower

Willpower is for people who
are still uncertain about what
they want to do.

Helia

Process Life as It Is

Peace is the result of training your mind
to process life as it is, rather than as you
think it should be.

Wayne Dyer

Mind is Its Own Place

The mind is its own place,

and in itself can
make a heaven of hell,
a hell of heaven.

John Milton

Until You Step Onto It

My favorite definition of the mindful path is
the one that reveals itself as you walk down it.
You cannot find the path until you step onto it.

Kelly McGonigal, PhD

That is Freedom

To live your life without expectation -
without the need for specific results -
that is freedom.

Neale Donald Walsch

Nothing Outside You

Nothing outside you can ever give you
what you're looking for.

Byron Katie

Experiments of Nature

I think in terms of every individual
being an experiment of nature.

Lou Cozolino, PhD

The Finish Line

I think we're in a race between
global destruction and
global consciousness,
so we'll see who gets
to the finish line first.

Lou Cozolino, PhD

Fight Against Oppression

The risk with psychology and psychotherapy
is that it can lean too much in the direction
of helping people tolerate rather than
fight against oppression.

Lou Cozolino, PhD

Get At Least Somewhat Angry

In order to combat the social programming

that leads to shame, we have to get at least

somewhat angry - at both the voices in our

head and out in the world that shame us, 

disempower us, keep us from speaking up.

Lou Cozolino, PhD

Just Another Narrative

I don't think neuroscience is
more important than Buddhism -
it's basically just another narrative.

Lou Cozolino, PhD

You Wake Up

Every day you wake up,
you sacrifice the day before,
you move on, you create
a new reality.

Lou Cozolino, PhD

Having the Answer

The degree to which someone is enthusiastic
and adamant about having "the answer"
usually reflects the degree of insecurity
they have and their lack of ability to
tolerate their own ignorance.

Lou Cozolino, PhD

Just to Be Alive

The meaning of life is just to be alive.
It is so plain and so obvious and so simple.
And yet, everyone rushes around in
a great panic as if it were necessary
to achieve something beyond themselves.

Alan Watts

A Path With Heart

All paths are the same, leading nowhere.
Therefore, pick a path with heart!

Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan

Live by Acting

A man of knowledge lives by acting,
not by thinking about acting.

Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan

Completely Available

I'm completely available
because I'm not busy dictating
how the world should be.

Byron Katie

Going Outside Yourself

Maybe you're addicted to being appreciated,
to getting attention, to being right.
Ultimately you may discover that going
outside yourself in order to gain anything
is painful.

Byron Katie

Unquestioned Belief

The problem is not my
inability to find a solution;
the problem is my
unquestioned belief in problems.

Cheryl Abram

Absolutely Nothing

I truly attained absolutely nothing from
complete, unexcelled enlightenment!

The Buddha

The Kinship of the Atma

It is true that this body has no relationship
with any of you except the kinship of the Atma*
which this body enjoys equally, not only
with each of you, but even with all the trees
and foliage around, as well as with rocks,
mountains, and everything else.

Anadamayi Ma

*Source, truth, love.

Nothing Wrong with You At All

What I am really saying is that you
don't need to do anything, because
if you see yourself in the correct way,
you are all as much extraordinary
phenomenon of nature as trees,
clouds, the patterns in running water,
the flickering of fire, the arrangement
of the stars, and the form of a galaxy.
You are all just like that, and
there is nothing wrong with you at all.

Alan Watts

Respond Well to Small Moments

A good life emerges not from planning it out,
but through training ourselves to respond well
to small moments ... there is no path to follow
in the first place - just a journey we create anew
at every moment by seeing and doing things
differently.

Book jacket from "The Path: What Chinese
Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life"
by Michael Puett and Christine Gross-loh

Through the Lens

Every fragment of self-talk is a little story
in the head that goes around, and then
you look at reality through the lens
of the little story.

Eckhart Tolle

Quietly Go to Work

Quietly go to work on your own self-awareness.
If you want to awaken all of humanity, then
awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate
the suffering in the world, then eliminate
all that is dark and negative in yourself.
Truly, the greatest gift you have to give
is that of your own self-transformation.

Hua hu Ching: The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu

A Really Happy Man

If you observe a really happy man,
you will find him building a boat,
writing a symphony, educating his son,
growing double dahlias in his garden.
He will not be searching for happiness
as if it were a collar button that has
rolled under the radiator.

W. Beran Wolfe

No Point in Going

If you make where you're going
more important than where you are,
there may be no point in going.

Alan Watts

Nothing We Can Do

We aren't better because: we want to be.
There's nothing we can do to be better.

Alan Watts

Saints Need Sinners

Saints need sinners.

Alan Watts

Open to Truth

But the attitude of faith is to let go,
and become open to truth,
whatever it might turn out to be.

Alan Watts

Having Faith

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water.
When you swim, you don't grab hold of the water,
because if you do you will sink and drown.
Instead you relax, and float.

Alan Watts

Have a Good Laugh

After all is said and done,
there is really nothing left
for us to do but to have
a good laugh.

Alan Watts

Real Religion

Real religion is the transformation
of anxiety into laughter.

Alan Watts

Nonsense

Nonsense wakes up the brain cells.
If you can see things out of whack,
then you can see how things can be
in whack.

Dr. Seuss

Laughing

A Zen monk once said to me,
"If you're not laughing,
then you're not getting it."

David Russell

Full Human Beingness

The basic work of health professionals
in general and psychotherapists in particular
is to become full human beings and to
inspire full human-beingness in other people
who feel starved about their lives.

Chogyam Trungpa

You Are Home

Enlightenment is not something that occurs in the future,
after 50 years of sitting cross-legged and saying "OM."
It is right here, in this instant. The reason you're not
experiencing this state of total peace and timelessness
is because it is being resisted. It is being resisted
because you are trying to control the moment ... Let go
of anticipating the next moment, trying to control it,
trying to hang on to the moment that just passed.
Let go of clinging to what has just occurred. Let go
trying to control what you think is about to occur.
Then you live in an infinite space of non-time and
non-event. There is an infinite peace beyond description.
And you are home.

David Hawkins

Sitting Still

In an age of acceleration, nothing can
be more exhilarating than going slow.
And in an age of distraction, nothing
is so luxurious as paying attention.
And in an age of constant movement,
nothing is so urgent as sitting still.

Pico Iyer

Nothing Either Good or Bad

There is nothing either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.

William Shakespeare

I Like Your Christ

I like your Christ, I do not
like your Christians. 

Your Christians are so

unlike your Christ.

Mahatma Gandhi

Wearing Shoes, or Not

People who don't wear shoes
learn the languages of people
who do, not vice versa.

Mary Catherine Bateson

All the Possibilities

The world is not made up
of particles and waves
and beams of light with
a definite existence.
Instead the world works in
a much more exploratory way.
It is aware of all the possibilities
at once and is trying them out
all the time.

Neil Turok

Power

Power is the ability
not to have to learn.

Karl Deutsch

The Ultimate Criteria

Does not the uncertainty of our time
teach us the most important lesson of all -
that the ultimate criteria are the honesty,
integrity, courage, and love of a given
moment of relatedness? If we do not have that,
we are not building for the future anyway;
if we do have it, we can trust the future to itself.

Rollo May

More Love Than You Have Ever Known

Imagine feeling more love from someone than you have ever known. You're being loved even more than your mother loved you when you were an infant, more than you were ever loved by your father, your child, or your most intimate lover--anyone. This lover doesn't need anything from you, isn't looking for personal gratification, and only wants your complete fulfillment. You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don't have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success--none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.

Ram Dass

Giving Back

If you are a gifted person, it
doesn't mean that you gained
something. It means you have
something to give back.

Carl Jung

Truly Horrible

Some people never go crazy.
What truly horrible lives
they must lead.

Charles Bukowski

Remembering My Humanity

Before every session, I take a moment
to remember my humanity.
There is no experience that this man has
that I cannot share with him,
no fear that I cannot understand,
no suffering that I cannot care about,
because I too am human.
No matter how deep his wound,
he does not need to be ashamed
in front of me. I too am vulnerable.
And because of this, I am enough.
Whatever his story, he no longer
needs to be alone with it. This is what
will allow his healing to begin.

Carl Rogers

Not Necessarily Inferior

Not everything that steps
out of line, and thus "abnormal,"
must necessarily be "inferior."

Hans Asperger

Every Minute of Every Day

Can you use shame or humiliation
to change people or behavior?
Yes and no. Yes, you can try.
In fact, if you really zero in on
an exposed vulnerability, you
could actually see a very swift
change.
Will the change last?
No.
Will it hurt?
Yes, it's excruciating.
Will it do any damage?
Yes, it has the potential to scar
both the person using shame
and the person being shamed.
Is shame used very often as a
way to try to change people?
Yes, every minute of every day.

Brene Brown

Where's the Focus?

Healthy striving is self-focused:
"How can I improve?"
Perfectionism is other-focused:
"What will they think?"

Brene Brown

We're All in This Together

Imperfections are not inadequacies;
they are reminders that we're all in this together.

Brene Brown

The Man in the Arena

It is not the critic who counts. It is not the man
who points out how the strong man stumbles,
or where the doer of deeds could have them better.
The credit goes to the man who is actually
in the arena, whose face is marred
by dust and blood and sweat; who errs,
who comes short again and again, because
there is no effort without error and shortcoming;
but who does actually strive to do the deeds;
who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions,
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph
of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place
shall never be with those cold and timid souls
who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

No Problem

If I have a problem,
I gave it to me.

Byron Katie

A Clearing

Do not try to save the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create a clearing
in the dense forest of your life
and wait there patiently,
until the song that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worthy of rescue.

Martha Postlewaite

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves, no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Shed Your Cultural Operating System

You are not naked when you take off your clothes.
You still wear your religious assumptions, your
prejudices, your fears, your illusions, your delusions.
When you shed the cultural operating system then,
essentially, you stand naked before the inspection
of your own psyche.

Terence McKenna

No Doctrine, No Practice

The doctrine is the doctrine of non-doctrine,
the practice is the practice of non-practice
... which is the Tao.

Wei Wu Wei

Enlightenment Doesn't Care

There are many paths to
enlightenment. Some of us
who have expanded to a
degree of illumination have
thereafter preached the
dogmatic certainty of one
particular path. But
enlightenment doesn't care
how you get there. And if you
aren't going to be thinking
about it in paradise, then
don't worry about it now.

Thaddeus Golas

The Way You See It

Inside yourself or outside, you
never have to change what you see,
only the way you see it.

Thaddeus Golas

How You React

What happens is not as important
as how you react to what happens.

Thaddeus Golas

Freedom to be Stupid

Giving others the freedom to be
stupid is one of the most important
and hardest steps to take in
spiritual progress. Conveniently,
the opportunity to take that step
is all around us every day.

Thaddeus Golas

Expand or Contract

No matter what your
spiritual condition is,
no matter where you
find yourself in the universe,
your choice is always
the same: to expand
your awareness
or contract it.

Thaddeus Golas

To Be Free of It

Consciousness is not the power
to control the material world.
It is the absolute power to be free of it.

Thaddeus Golas

Consciousness is the Power

Is love the power? No.
Consciousness is the power.
But it is not the power to do
anything specific. It is
the power to push away
from itself all unconsciousness,
to remove itself from
all energy and mass entities.

Thaddeus Golas

Prolonging Your Conscious State

Expanding consciousness is not
a process of expanding like a balloon,
it is a process of PROLONGING
your conscious state.

Thaddeus Golas

Sizeless God

When we imagine God,
we imagine a vast intelligence
that also wishes to manipulate
and control, to create and destroy.
But what if God is not large but
very small, perhaps even sizeless?
And what if there are an infinite number
of such entities, who have no intentions
about energy and matter at all,
since energy and matter are
those same gods functioning differently?

Thaddeus Golas

Arguing with the Universe

We humans do a great deal of what
we might call "arguing with the universe."
We admire reputed magicians and
other entertainers who offer the promise
of evading the laws that govern reality.
This is a strange state of mind:
trying to prove the spirit exists
by contradicting laws presumed
to be ordained by the spirit.

Thaddeus Golas

Not a Problem

The further one goes in
trying to understand reality,
the more it looks like
a problem the universe
doesn't need to have solved
-- certainly not by us humans!

Thaddeus Golas

Love the Way You Are Now

There is no point in worry or wonder
about worse or better spiritual conditions,
although that game is available.
You will not be able to rise
above your present vibration level to stay
until you love the way you are now.

Thaddeus Golas

All You Need to Know

We are equal beings and
the universe is our relations
with each other. The universe

is made of one kind of entity:

each one is alive, each determines

the course of his own existence.

That is really all you need to know

to understand this book or

write your own.

Thaddeus Golas

Everything is a Consequence of This

We truly possess free will,
and we truly are equal,
no matter what appearances
may tell us. Everything is
a consequence of this,
and follows, like falling
dominoes.

Thaddeus Golas

Great and Final Disappointment

Enlightenment is the great
and final disappointment,
the dissolution of all
our egoic fantasies and grand hopes.

Chogyam Trungpa

Quest for the Weird

It was the quest
for the weird that
brought me so far.

Terence McKenna

Truth is No Respecter

Truth is no respecter
of spirituality.

Byron Katie

Exactly As It Is

All human unhappiness comes
from not facing reality squarely,
exactly as it is.

The Buddha

Not Even Close

Question your conclusions, your judgments,
your answers. Question this. If you question
everything thoroughly enough, the truth
will eventually hit you upside the head
and you will know. But here's the warning:
It won't be what you imagined. It won't
even be close.

Brad Warner

What It is Not

A way of liberation can
have no positive definition.
It has to be suggested
by saying what it is not,
somewhat as a sculptor
reveals an image by
the act of removing
pieces of stone from a block.

Alan Watts

Just Peel the Potatoes

Zen ... does not confuse spirituality
with thinking about God while one
is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality
is just to peel the potatoes.

Alan Watts

Not a Problem to be Solved

Can you imagine if you really
let it in that you are not a
problem to be solved in any
way? Imagine you knew that
anything that would tell you
otherwise is just a movement
of thought in the mind that
says "Whatever is, isn't the
way it is supposed to be." So
the biggest act of compassion
starts within. And when the
self is no longer seen as a
problem, this is called "the
peace that passes all
understanding."

Adyashanti

Not Personal

When you realize it's not personal,
there is no longer a compulsion to
react as if it were.

Eckhart Tolle

Nowhere is It Writ

Nowhere is it writ
that anthropoid apes
should understand reality.

Terrence McKenna

No One

The real truth,
that dare not speak itself,
is that no one is in control.
Absolutely no one.

Terence McKenna

No Worries

No one knows enough
to worry.

Terence McKenna

Darkness Revealed

The bigger you build the bonfire,
the more darkness is revealed.

Terence McKenna

Thou Art That

tat tvam asi
(Thou art that.)

Hindu saying

Whoa

Whoa!

Neo (from the Matrix)

Red Pill

You take the blue pill,
the story ends. You wake up
in your bed and believe
whatever you want to believe.
You take the red pill,
you stay in wonderland,
and I show you how deep
the rabbit hole goes.

Morpheus, The Matrix

Until It is Done

A cat sits until it is done sitting,
and then gets up, stretches,
and walks away.

Alan Watts

Hard as Hell

There is a transcendental dimension beyond language.
It's just hard as hell to talk about!

Terence McKenna

Face the Answer

The problem is not to find the answer,
it's to face the answer.

Terence McKenna

Nobody Smarter

Nobody is smarter than you are.
And what if they are?
What good is their understanding
doing you?

Terence McKenna

Don't Believe Anything

My technique is don't believe anything.
If you believe in something, you are
automatically precluded from believing
its opposite.

Terence McKenna

The Creative Act

The creative act is a letting down
of the net of human imagination
into the ocean of chaos on which
we are suspended, and the attempt
to bring out of it ideas.

Terence McKenna

Your Own Understanding

You have to take seriously the notion
that understanding the universe is
your responsibility because the only
understanding that will be useful to you
is your own understanding.

Terence McKanna

Chaos

Chaos is what we've lost touch with.
This is why it is given a bad name.
It is feared by the dominant archetype
of our world, which is Ego, which
clenches because its existence is
defined in terms of control.

Terence McKenna

Cost of Sanity

The cost of sanity in this society
is a certain level of alienation.

Terence McKenna

A Difference

There is a difference between
knowing the path and
walking the path.

Morpheus, The Matrix

Because You Can

At some point in life the world's beauty
becomes enough. You don't need to photograph,
paint, or even remember it. It is enough.
No record of it needs to be kept and
you don't need someone to share it with
or tell it to. When that happens, that letting go,
you let go because you can.

Toni Morrison

How Life Works

The Buddha didn’t become enlightened

by being polite. He saw how life works and

respected the guiding principles of the universe.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Check to See

What would happen
if you stopped looking for solutions
and check to see
if there was actually a problem?

Jeff Foster

Reject Everything

You have to brush
everything aside to find out.
Your problem is not how to
get something from somebody,
but how to reject everything
that is offered by anybody.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Kind of Funny

It's kind of funny when we consider
how we attempt to manipulate existence
into giving us what we want.

Judy Cohen

Loafing

It is better to have loafed and lost,
than never to have loafed at all.

James Thurber

Anything Other

Man cannot be anything other
than what he is.
Whatever he is, he will create
a society that mirrors him.

U.G. Krishanmurti

Stick to It

If you are firm in your belief
in the guidance of God, stick to it,
and do not concern yourself with
what happens around you.

Ramana Marharshi

Even One Word

When you are deluded
and full of doubt,
even a thousand books of scripture
are still not enough.
When you have realized understanding,
even one word is already too much.

Fen-Yang

What I Am Saying is a Threat

What I am saying is a threat to
society as it is presently organized.
The way I am thinking, functioning,
and operating is a threat to
the present society.

U.G. Krishnamurti

It is Grotesque

Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals,
whereas culture has invented a single mold to which
all must conform. It is grotesque.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Experiencing Life

When we see the world
through our thoughts,
we stop experiencing life
as it really is and others
as they really are.

Adyashanti

Nothing to Understand

There is nothing
to understand.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Nobody Can Teach You

You have to touch life at a point
where nobody has touched it before.
Nobody can teach you that.

U.G. Krishnamurti

No Individuality

What I am trying to say is that
there is no individual there at all.
There is only a certain gathering
of knowledge, which is thought,
but no individuality there.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Saved From the Saviors

You have to be saved from the very idea
that you have to be saved. You must be saved
from the saviors, redeemed from the redeemers.

U.G. Krishnamurti

The Great Way

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth then hold
no opinion for or against.
The struggle of what one likes and
what one dislikes is the disease of the mind.

Sosan, Third Zen Patriarch

You Are the One

Because of an innocent misunderstanding,
you think that you are a human being in
the relative world seeking the experience
of oneness, but actually you are the One
expressing itself as the experience of being
a human being.

Adyashanti

Assuming

Isn't there a kind of arrogance
in assuming that we know how
to help another human being?

Jeff Foster

Heal Yourself

Physician, heal yourself!

Luke 4;23

What We Want

If safety is what we want,
then it would pay to notice
how very much of it
we already have.

Judy Cohen

Best Interests

The mind has invented
both religion and dynamite
to protect what it regards
as its best interests.

U.G. Krishnamurti

When You Know

When you know nothing,
you say a lot.
When you know something,
there is nothing to say.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Mind is a Myth

Spirituality is the invention of the mind,
and the mind is a myth.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Your Own Uniqueness

You can't come into your own uniqueness
unless the whole of human experience
is thrown out of your system.

U.G. Krishnamurti

A Problem Out of Living

Why should life have any meaning?
Why should there be any purpose to living?
Living itself is all that is there.
Your search for spiritual meaning
has made a problem out of living.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Seeking Peace

All I am saying is that the peace
you are seeking is already inside you,
in the harmonious functioning
of the body.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Sowing the Seeds

The day man experienced the consciousness
that made him feel separate and superior
to the other forms of life, at that moment
he began sowing the seeds of his own destruction.

U.G. Krishnamurti

No Truth

There is no such thing as truth.
The only thing that is actually there
is your "logically" ascertained premise,
which you call truth.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Nothing

You'll get nothing,
and like it!

Judge Smails in "Caddyshack"

Unlearning All of It

For the first fifty years of my life
I learned a great deal.
For the next fifty I look forward
to unlearning all of it.

Rabbi Alvin Bobroff

That Ain't So

The trouble with the world is
not that people know too little,
but that they know so many things
that ain't so.

Mark Twain

Knowledge Illusion

Anything you experience

based on knowledge

is an illusion.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Spiritual and Religious Pollution

Atmospheric pollution is most harmless
when compared to the spiritual and religious
pollution that have plagued the world.

U.G. Krishnamurti

This Is It

i'm not going anywhere.
neither are you.
nothing we can do.
this is it
ah

Judy Cohen

The Nothingness of Thought

A different thought changes an entire experience.
A wanted experience becomes light and weightless.
So, how real is the experience to begin with,
if it can be shifted by the nothingness of thought?

Judy Cohen

The Very Thing

Anything you want to be free from
for whatever reason
is the very thing that can free you.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Imagination

It's our imagination that's
responsible for love,
not the other person.

Marcel Proust

Knowledge is Power

There is no such thing as
"knowledge for the sake of knowledge."
Knowledge is power.
"I know. You don't know."

U.G. Krishnamurti

Cabbages More Alive

Cabbages are more alive
than human beings.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Start Living

Stop thinking
and start living.

U.G. Krishnamurti

No Match

All that is necessary for the survival
of this living organism is already there.
The tremendous intelligence of the body
is no match for all that we have gathered
and acquired through our intellect.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Messiah Leaves a Mess

A messiah is the one
who leaves a mess
behind him in the world.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Warty Outgrowths

All the political ideologies

and even the legal structures
are the warty outgrowths

of the religious thinking of man.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Consciousness is Pure

Consciousness is so pure that whatever
you are doing in the direction of purifying
that consciousness is adding impurity to it.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Natural State

The "Natural State" is acausal;
it just happens.

U.G. Krishnamurti

No Self to Discover

The so-called self-realization is the discovery
for yourself and by yourself that there is
no self to discover.

U.G. Krishnamurti

The Battle

The body is not interested in anything
you are interested in. And that is the battle
that is going on all the time.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Natural Man

To be yourself requires extraordinary intelligence.
You are blessed with that intelligence; nobody need
give it to you; nobody can take it away from you.
He who lets that express itself in its own way
is a "Natural Man."

U.G. Krishnamurti

Never Wrong

When you are no longer caught up in
the dichotomy of right and wrong or
good and bad, you can never do
anything wrong. As long as you are
caught up in this duality, the danger
is that you will always do wrong.

U.G. Krishnamurti

That Messy Thing

That messy thing called "mind"
has created many destructive things.
By far the most destructive of them
all is God.

U.G. Krishnamurti

If You Don't Have a Problem

The plain fact is that if you don't
have a problem, you create one.
If you don't have a problem you
don't feel that you are living.

U.G. Krishnamurti

RIght Where You Are

Nirvana is right where you are,
provided that you don't object to it.

Alan Watts

Realize It Is Play

This is the real secret of life -
to be completely engaged with
what you are doing in the here
and now. And instead of calling
it work, realize it is play.

Alan Watts

Giving Up Control

What if you let go of every bit
of control and every urge that
you have, right down to the most
infinitesimal urge to control
anything, anywhere, including
anything that may be happening
with you at this moment? If you
were able to give up control
absolutely, totally, and completely,
then you would be a spiritually
free person.

Adyashanti

So Ordinary

You must go see him.
He's so ordinary!

Eckhart Tolle

The Answer

There ain't no answer.
There ain't gonna be any answer.
There never has been an answer.
That's the answer.

Gertrude Stein

Only One Journey

There is only one journey.
Going inside yourself.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Just Listen

Reporter:           When you pray, what do you say to God?
Mother Teresa: Nothing. I just listen.
Reporter:           What does God say to you?
Mother Teresa: Nothing. God just listens, too.
                           And if you don't understand that,
                           I can't explain it to you.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Loneliness is Dangerous

Loneliness is dangerous. It's addicting.
Once you see how peaceful it is,
you don't wanna deal with people.

Hedonist Poet

Inner Transformation

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

Forgiveness

Forgiveness means giving up all hope
for a better past.

Lily Tomlin

What's Happened to You?

An important question in psychiatry
shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you,
but rather what’s happened to you?

Eleanor Longden

Two Journeys

Everyone has two journeys
to make through life.
There is the outer journey,
with its variety of incidents
and the milestones ...
There is also an inner journey,
a spiritual Odyssey,
with a secret history of its own.

William R. Inge