c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Sermon of the MountsMatthew 5AND SEEING THE MULTITUDES, HE WENT UP INTO THE MOUNTAINS, AND WHEN HE WAS SET, HIS DISCIPLES CAME UNTO HIM. The multitudes, the masses, the crowd, is the lowest state of consciousness. It is a deep ignorance and sleep. If you want to relate and communicate with the masses, you have to come down to their level. That is why whenever you go into the masses, the crowd, you start to feel suffocated. This suffocation is physical and psychological, beacuse you relate to people, who functions from a very low state of consciousness. They pull you down and you become physically and psychologically tired and drained. That is why a need for meditation and aloneness arises. There is a practice in the life of Jesus that he noves into the crowds of people, but after a few months he goes to the mountains. He goes away from the crowd, to be with God. When you are alone, you are with God. To relate to the masses brings you down to their level of consciousness, but only in the presence of God, you can fly.With the crowd, you can not fly, you become crippled, and the masses will not tolerate if you do not live according to them, according to their level of consciousness.To be able to work with the masses, to be able to help them, you have to relate to them according to their level fo consciousness - and this is tiring and draining.Both Jesus and Buddha moved to the mounatins, to a lonely place, just to be themselves, and to be with God to regain their vitality to be able to come back to the masses where people are thristy. The montain is where Jesus do not need to think about the masses, where he can forget the mind and the body. In that moment of aloneness and meditation, one simply is. This is the inner being, the source of life. And when you are full again, you can share again. AND WHEN HE WAS SET, HIS DISCIPLES CAME UNTO HIM. To talk to the masses and to talk to disciples is two very different things. To talk to the crowd is to talk to people, who are indifferent. The crowd is resisting, defensive and argumentative. To talk to disciples means to talk to people, who have a basic thirst. It means that they are not defensive, they are open to listen to the heart of truth. AND HE OPENED HIS MOUTH, AND TAUGHT THEM, SAYING.Jesus escaped into the mountains from the crowd, but he did not escape from the disciples.He was available to the disciples.In his aloneness, Jesus is with God. And through Jesus, the disciples can feel God. The closer the disciple come to Jesus, the more they will see that Jesus is a silence and emptiness through which God can sing. And the more the disciple himself will become an emptiness, he will also be able to help other people. AND HE OPENED HIS MOUTH, AND TAUGHT THEM, SAYING. BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT, FOR THEIRS IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD. This is the most fundamental statement of Jesus.With this statement, Jesus has said everything. The "poor in spirit" is exactly what Buddha means with the term Shunyatta - "emptiness", no-self, nothingness.It is when the ego disappears, and you are a nobody, a silence. If you are a nobody, if you are nothing, you are God.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
That which is aware of sadness is not sad. That which is aware of fear is not fearful. The moment I am lost in thought, however, I'm as confused as anyone else.
— Sam Harris
Dan explains the trip’s itinerary, which includes trekking through the jungle, boating down the Amazon River, and to my surprise, three Ayahuasca ceremonies.
— Michael  Sanders, Ayahuasca: An Executive's Enlightenment
Time spent in meditation is as precious as gold.
— Amma
Before embarking on important undertakings, sit quietly, calm your senses and thoughts, and meditate deeply. You will then be guided by the great creative power of Spirit. After that you should utilize all necessary material means to achieve your goal.
— Paramahansa Yogananda
Letting go takes a lot of courage sometimes. But once you let go, happiness comes very quickly. You won't have to go around search for it.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
Nothing you hear or read will be of any benefit to you unless you meditate and digest itdeeply.
— Sunday Adelaja
The fact is, inner peace isn't something that comes when you finally paint the whole house a nice shade of cream and start drinking herbal tea. Inner peace is something that is shaped by the wisdom that 'this too shall pass' and is fired in the kiln of self-knowledge...
— Tania Ahsan, The brilliant book of calm: Down to Earth Ideas for Finding Inner Peace in a Chaotic World
Many people experience a sense of rage and very strong anger toward their parents and others who hurt them. Ultimately that is also a thought. It doesn’t really exist in this very pure and present moment. It doesn’t really exist. So actually what we are really carrying is nothing but a bunch of thoughts. When we let go of those thoughts then nothing else is required. We are free......Whenever you suffer, whenever you struggle, don’t go outside trying to find out what is wrong with your life. Don’t treat your life like you treat your car. When something is wrong with the car we get out, open the hood, see what’s wrong with the engine, and fix it. But life is not like a car. Life is consciousness. Life is not something outside of us. Therefore whenever we feel that we are suffering, tormented, or challenged we should always look into our consciousness. Immediately we discover that we are having a very evil affair with an evil thought. That’s all there is. Just that thought.Such thoughts always come with a specific idea and with some kind of voice: “I am good. I am bad. I am poor. I don’t have this or that. I am not enlightened.” It is always associate with a concept and a belief system. Until we are awakened to the ultimate truth we are completely ruled by our thoughts. Thoughts are always dictating reality to us. So in that sense thought is the ultimate empire of propaganda. Thought is always coloring and defining reality.
— Anam Thubten
The person who suffers most in this world is the person who has many wrong perceptions, and most of our perceptions are erroneous.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
Compassion is born out of lovingkindness.It is born of knowing our oneness, not just thinking about it or wishing it were so. It is born out of the wisdom of seeing things exactly as they are.
— Sharon Salzberg, A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness
The whole present moment was a celebration
—  it always had been
Essentially, meditation means to experientally realize that you are not an individual bubble - you are a universe.
— Sadghuru
You don't have to go on a quest to "find" silence-it's a matter of uncovering it right where you are. Think about it: if all external and internal sounds were eliminated, only silence would remain. The question is, how much silence can you bear? How deep are you willing to go below surface living to reconnect with who you truly are?
— Dennis Merritt Jones, Your Redefining Moments: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be
Freedom from the thinking mind is our underlying goal for most of human activity.
— Chris Matakas, My Mastery: Continued Education Through Jiu Jitsu
Seek knowledge, getting as much of it as you can and meditate on it, then you will become ahappy possessor of wisdom.
— Sunday Adelaja
Meditation turns from its purgatory role to recognize in self-knowledge and in the mind's images of the external world the general essences in which all things have their being.
— R.W. Southern, St. Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape
The manifestation of the free mind is said to be lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.
— Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness
I, too, chose to go out...to the mountains' resort for a long weekend of Buddists' Om mantra sound...hunting the eternal wise words...have a time in silence to contemplate the profound concepts of universal creation and see what it does to my sense of identity...
— Isabella Koldras, Om=Amen.
Only meditation on God's word is capable of changing our way of thinking.
— Sunday Adelaja
You have to work on it. You have to meditate on God’s Word, which itself will change you and transform you into the image and character of God.
— Sunday Adelaja
Contemplating the goodness within ourselves is a classical meditation, done to bring light, joy, and rapture to the mind. In contemporary times this practice might be considered rather embarrassing, because so often the emphasis is on all the unfortunate things we have done, all the disturbing mistakes we have made. Yet this classical reflection is not a way of increasing conceit. It is rather a commitment to our own happiness, seeing our happiness as the basis for intimacy with all of life. It fills us with joy and love for ourselves and a great deal of self-respect. Significantly, when we do metta practice, we begin by directing metta toward ourselves. This is the essential foundation for being able to offer genuine love to others
— Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness
Lawyers are lubricants are complicated social intercourse.
— Madam Secretary
Words have not been made to describe the state of meditation. Language allows us to bite around the edges, to nibble and taste, but never to report the essence. But still we try. Like a dream, never reported while it happens. Like an uncaged song, sweet and alive, but flying high. Like the moment of artistic creation, bright and new, unsullied. Meditation is an open window. We sit at the sill. A vista is revealed. There is no judgement, no anticipation, no memory or regret. In meditation we are without judgement. We sit alone, but there is no loneliness.
— Richard Payment, For Want of Wonders
If I am all the time measuring myself against you, struggling to be like you, then I am denying what I am myself. Therefore I am creating an illusion. When I have understood that comparison in any form leads only to greater illusion and greater misery, just as when I analyse myself, add to my knowledge of myself bit by bit, or identify myself with something outside myself, whether it be the State, a saviour or an ideology - when I understand that all such processes lead only to greater conformity and therefore greater conflict - when I see all this I put it completely away. Then my mind is no longer seeking. It is very important to understand this. Then my mind is no longer groping, searching, questioning. This does not mean that my mind is satisfied with things as they are, but such a mind has no illusion. Such a mind can then move in a totally different dimension. The dimension in which we usually live, the life of every day which is pain, pleasure and fear, has conditioned the mind, limited the nature of the mind, and when that pain, pleasure and fear have gone (which does not mean that you no longer have joy: joy is something entirely different from pleasure) - then the mind functions in a different dimension in which there is no conflict, no sense of `otherness'.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti
To the degree we give power to anything outside ourselves we become powerless
— Erin Fall Haskell
Meditation is not a religion but a scientific way to enhance the concentration power of the mind.
— Debasish Mridha
It starts with a single breath and the present moment, but where it takes you is into the vast radiance of your true nature, into a magical, spacious life.
— Narissa Doumani, A Spacious Life: Memoir of a Meditator
If you're searching for something out in the world to bring you happiness, wealth or love, then you are in for a tough journey. The key to success is never out there, but rather within. It is merely a side effect of awakening the divine within!
— Erin Fall Haskell
Channelling is your higher self streaming through in a version your limited mind can accept. There is no such thing as a separate entity, only the perception of it. You are all of it!
— Erin Fall Haskell
...after much practice and struggle, you come to feel for yourself that enlightenment is not only possible, but in process.
— Narissa Doumani, A Spacious Life: Memoir of a Meditator
To be able to die consciously, we need to prepare for death while we are still living.Only if we live consciously, we can die consciously.Only a meditator is able to die consciously as life is an opportunity to prepare for death. Meditation is a death, a death of the ego. Death is not in opposition of life, death is the finale, the crescendo of life. How we die shows us how we have been living. Death is not an end, death is a new beginning, a new life.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
Only a meditator is able to die consciously as life is an opportunity to prepare for death. Meditation is a death, a death of the ego.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
Only if we live consciously, we can die consciously.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
To be able to die consciously, we need to prepare for death while we are still living.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
If you stick with the definition of spirituality as a peaceful internal state (a.k.a. deep, dreamless sleep while awake), then you will ignore some of the hallucinatory experiences that are bound to happen when you sit in silence (studies have shown that, in such circumstances, the mind often creates elaborate experiences and stories that are reminiscent of dreams) and refrain from interpreting them as something otherworldly.
— Gudjon Bergmann, More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
Simplicity is everywhere in nature, and meditation is a natural state. Meditation is a state of peaceful equilibrium, the fourth state of consciousness, and is always available to every single human being.
— Gudjon Bergmann, Baby Steps to Meditation
We all want results and we want them fast. But, when practicing meditation, impatience is a hindrance.
— Gudjon Bergmann, Baby Steps to Meditation
Love can flow like the river, fly with the bird, sing with the crickets at night. It is in the energy of the river, the flight of the bird, the song from the cricket. There is nowhere where love is not.
— Janet G. Nestor
Once your heart overflows with love, another heart will follow. And so it goes. Yeshua: One Hundred Meaningful Messages for Messengers
— Janet G. Nestor
Imagine a time before you had ever had chocolate. Going to lectures about chocolate would have been interesting. Reading about chocolate might have increased your appetite. But only tasting chocolate would have really made you understand how good chocolate can be. Only tasting— only experience.
— Gudjon Bergmann, Baby Steps to Meditation
The moments of peace in between the mental practices are meditation.
— Gudjon Bergmann, Baby Steps to Meditation
Meditation and mindfulness are tools for working with the mind, but where they have led me is to a blossoming of the heart...
— Narissa Doumani, A Spacious Life: Memoir of a Meditator
Concentration is the doorway through which the meditative state becomes available.
— Gudjon Bergmann, Baby Steps to Meditation
Trust what is not known to your Mind. Trust what is known to your Heart.
— Tony Samara
The Beloved is Always There, Actively Seeking You.
— Tony Samara
When we understand that Peace is a state of mind we understand true Peace.
— Tony Samara
The practice is simple. Whatever you're doing, do that with total awareness.
— Tony Samara
When you deeply love someone from that space that is beyond attachment to certain projections or desires, when you love someone just deeply, totally, completely, without any games that the mind or emotions play, then that love remains eternal in the heavens forever, and that is what pulls you back to remembering that love.
— Tony Samara
The activity of loving kindness is the bridge that allows you to slowly, slowly realise the wisdom and perfection of this moment.
— Tony Samara
Satisfaction doesn't come from needs and desires or fulfilling them, it comes from being yourself, being true.
— Tony Samara
Everything is temporary but the power of Love is Infinite because it is the space, it is Everything.
— Tony Samara
In the solitude of meditation, when your conscious mind becomes quiet, your subconscious reveals herself.
— Nityananda Das, Divine Union
Spiritual practice is allowing the temple (your body) to be full of light and to live life as a total celebration.
— Tony Samara
The Divine has created this moment in time. It is a very powerful moment, where there is only one way and that way is that you completely let go. Completely let go of what is known, what is safe, and move into the space of beauty.
— Tony Samara
Wisdom is a true activity of compassion. And so, meditation is the act of loving kindness. It is the activity where loving kindness is applied on all levels.
— Tony Samara
Remember meditation is an active, deep remembrance, and that is discernment. Wherever you go, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, remember to utilize discernment so that you can hear and sense and feel the vibration of love rather than the vibration of illusion.
— Tony Samara
The way to Bliss is through Understanding, through Wisdom.
— Tony Samara
Where ego comes in, loving kindness departs. So wherever there is ego, there is very little space for true bliss and true happiness because true bliss and true happiness isn't exclusive to the attachments the ego enjoys playing with, but rather a free state of mind that is part of loving kindness and its activities inside and outside of oneself.
— Tony Samara
Relaxation is… a state between waking and sleeping, where the body is completely still and the mind is allowed to flow freely from one thought to another, or alternately, a state in which the mind becomes inadvertently calm.
— Gudjon Bergmann, Baby Steps to Meditation
The natural consequence of being connected to the depth, what I call the soul, or your essence, is the attribute of joy.
— Tony Samara
During the Meiji era, the Japanese Zen master, Nan-in had a visitor from a respected university – a professor who wanted to learn about Zen. Nan-in served the professor a pot of tea, but when the cupwas full, he continued pouring until the cup was overflowing. The startled professor watched in amazement until he could no longer restrain himself from intervening, “The cup is full and no more will go in. You’re making a mess!” “Like this cup,” Nan-insaid, “You are full of your own opinions, artificial concepts and negative speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” Like the learned professor who wanted to understand spirituality, you too must empty your cup and have an open mind and heart.
— Christopher Dines, Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
You said to your mind, "I want everyone to like me. I don't want anyone to speak badly of me. I want everything I say and do to be acceptable and pleasing to everyone. I don't want anyone to hurt me. I don't want anything to happen that I don't like. And I want everything to happen that I do like." Then you said, "Now mind, figure out how to make every one of these things a reality, even if you have to think about it day and night." And of course your mind said, "I'm on the job, I will work on it constantly.
— Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself
On a surface level, all one finds is repeated forms of shallow whispers. Having the courage to explore deeply, a wealth of buried infinite lifetimes emerge - an undeniable force.
— T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"
The only thing that seems to differ between the major schools of meditation is the point of concentration. Some traditions use mantras, others follow the breath, some have their eyes open, others have their eyes closed, some use simple words, others use prayers and the list can go on. Despite extravagant claims to the contrary, modern research has found no significant difference between the points of concentration at the beginning stages of meditation, which means it doesn’t really matter which mantra, word or phrase you choose to begin with. The main thing is to practice whatever meditation method that you have chosen; sit still and let the mind settle.
— Gudjon Bergmann, Living in the Spirit of Yoga: Take Yoga Off the Mat and Into Your Everyday Life
The building blocks of meditation are relaxation and concentration. If you cannot relax, you cannot meditate. If you cannot concentrate, you cannot meditate. No exceptions.
— Gudjon Bergmann, Baby Steps to Meditation
There is nothing wrong in being selfish provided you know where your self interest are. Once you start meditating regularly you will come to a stage where you will realize that selfish action are those which brings peace and welfare to all and not only for yourself".
— Subodh Gupta
Concentration is… a relaxed mental state, where the stream of consciousness flows in a single direction, either focusing on a phrase or mental picture, or alternately, a state in which the mind is alert and aware.
— Gudjon Bergmann, Baby Steps to Meditation
Meditation is… a state that can best be described as deep dreamless sleep while awake.
— Gudjon Bergmann, Baby Steps to Meditation
You see, meditation is not a fabricated state. It is natural. It is accessible to all. And in the same way that a person who learns how to run, can run any time they want to, or, a person who knows how to play an instrument can play music at will, once you learn how to meditate, you can create your moments of peace at will.
— Gudjon Bergmann, Baby Steps to Meditation
Whether one is remaining alert (mindfulness), focusing on a single thought or phrase (mantra), or mentally exploring ones inner world (visualization), all are one form of concentration or another.
— Gudjon Bergmann, Baby Steps to Meditation
You are what resides before, beyond and between what you think so do not be consumed by thought. It is only a fragment of your magic.
— Rasheed Ogunlaru
The mind will always take on an order conforming to that upon which it concentrates.
— Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth
Peace is not the absence of pain, but the welcoming of pain as a teacher.
— Vironika Tugaleva
As we discard a limited mind and a life of limitation to step into the grandness of vastness, we realize infinity itself to be the Guru and all that we do as grace. As we traverse through consciousness that is the Guru, we become the Guru and each thought of ours is perfect in the now, as scriptures. Consciousness is the Guru, the wisdom.
— Nandhiji, Mastery of Consciousness: Awaken the Inner Prophet: Liberate Yourself with Yogic Wisdom.
May you comfort and healing.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
No church or synagogue pew can produce a higher awareness of God than sitting at the base of a tree and observing His creation.
— Donald L. Hicks, Look into the stillness
Daily mediation is a healthy spiritual exercise.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
Universe responds to the person who meditates daily.
— Sandeep Kakkar, Seven Buckets of life
Choiceless awareness - at every moment and in all the circumstances of life - is the only effective meditation.
— Aldous Huxley
Concentration is the creation of the instrument
—  meditation is the right use of it
He no longer grasped to a strong sense of self. To him life felt more like a dream, a cascade of cause and effect that was completely up for grabs-and he was no longer separate from any of it. Because of that, he could do amazing things
— James  Connor, The Superyogi Scenario
*Breathing in, I know this is my in-breath.Breathing out, I know this is my out-breath.*It's very simple, but very effective. When we bring our attention to our in-breath and our out-breath, we stop thinking of the past; we stop thinking of the future; and we begin to come home to ourselves...Don't think this practice doesn't apply to you. If we don't go home to ourselves, we can't be at our best and serve the world in the best way... Our quality of being is the foundation for the quality of our actions.*Breathing in, I'm aware of my whole body.Breathing out, I'm aware of my whole body.*Breathing mindfully brings us back to our bodies. We have to acknowledge our bodies first because tension and suffering accumulate in the body. Breathing in this way, we create a kind of family reunion between mind and body. The mind becomes an embodied mind....We can't do our best if we don't know to release the tension and pain in ourselves. *Breathing in, I'm aware of the tension in my body.Breathing out, I'm aware of the tension in my body.*When we look at the suffering around us, at poverty, violence, or climate change, we may want to solve these things immediately. We want to do something. But to do something effectively and ethically, we need to be our best selves in order to be able to handle the suffering...*Breathing in, I am aware of a painful feeling arising.Breathing out, I release the painful feeling.*This is a nonviolent and gentle way to help our bodies release tension and pain. It is possible to practice mindful breathing in order to produce a feeling of joy, a feeling of happiness. When we are well-nourished and know how to create joy, then we are strong enough to handle the deep pain within ourselves and the world.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Good Citizens: Creating Enlightened Society
He no longer grasped to a strong sense of self. To him life felt more like a dream, a cascade of cause and effect that was completely up for grabs-and he was no longer separate from any of it. Because of that, he could do amazing things.
— James  Connor, The Superyogi Scenario
He no longer grasped to a strong sense of self. To him life felt more like a dream, a cascade of cause and effect that was completely up for grabs—and he was no longer separate from any of it. Because of that, he could do amazing things.
— James  Connor, The Superyogi Scenario
Meditation, practiced individually and as a family, helps with a different type of peace. It is not a calm absent of noise and confusion but a calm that persists in the very center of the noise and the chaos. Ten minutes daily can transform your life.
— Ann Brasco
When you have a personal relationship with God, it’s like being close friends with the most powerful and influential people in the world who have keys to open every door for you.And best of all, knowing the One helps us to know ourselves and make sense of who we are, why we’re here and what life is all about.
— Michael Mackintosh, How to Connect with God's Love: Re-Discovering Your Relationship with The Beloved
Every cloud doesn't have a silver lining but make time to look at the beauty of clouds can give you peace of mind
— CL Bennett
To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
Take the time to slow down, relax, meditate, and contemplate the wonders within. You will discover an inner calm and balance that previously eluded you.
— Joanne Madeline Moore, Love and Sex Signs: Venus, Mars and Astrology
just throw away all thoughts ofimaginary things,and stand firm in that which you are.
— Kabir
Life without challenge    is life denied any chance      for one to achieve.
— J. Benson, Haiku to Live By: Life affirming messages, to hearten your day
Can you be alone without being lonely? Can you spend time by yourself without craving noise or company of other people? Have you discovered the glory of quiet time spent alone, time spent listening to your soul? Solitude brings with it gifts that come from nowhere else.
— Steve Goodier
Every hour of your life that ticks by, there are numerous points and moments when you can choose to pause - and be aware of your mental and physical state. At any given point, you can freeze the flow that is your life, and be fully conscious for a moment.
— Kevin Michel, Moving Through Parallel Worlds To Achieve Your Dreams
This is what it means to be mindful. To watch the thoughts as they come and go without judgment while completely accepting what arises in the present moment.
— Chris Matakas, #Human: Learning To Live In Modern Times
Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence. Silence put together by thought is stagnation, is dead, but the silence that comes when thought has understood its own beginning, the nature of itself, understood how all thought is never free but always old - this silence is meditation in which the meditator is entirely absent, for the mind has emptied itself of the past.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti
Make your life a prayer. Live your mediation.
— Reba Riley, Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome: A Memoir of Humor and Healing in 30 Religions
Happiness is something we create ourselves. To our eyes, the sun appears to rise in the east every day to create a brilliant morning for the earth. The sun, however, does not create the morning alone: the earth also creates it actively as it rotates every day. We shouldn't just wait for happiness, either. Happiness doesn't come when we wait for it: we make it ourselves.
— Ilchi Lee, LifeParticle Meditation: A Practical Guide to Healing and Transformation
A cluttered mind can make the difference between a nightmare and a dream. Meditate and clear your thoughts before you sleep.
— Jenna Alatari
Meditation is mind’s vacation!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
Meditation quiets conscious thought and the physical realm, making a doorway to spiritual awareness.
— Jenna Alatari
In the same way a cluttered room becomes difficult to walk, a cluttered mind becomes difficult to think. Meditation is simply a daily housekeeping practice; therefore, put the thoughts away where they belong, take out the unwanted clutter, and relax in the space you created.
— Jenna Alatari
The universe is something like a powerful radar system that is set up from all sides to record every action and every event that may take place anywhere, even of the least intensity or momentum. Meditation, when it is properly done, is not a silent and non-interfering process of thinking by some individual in some undisturbed corner, but a positive interference with the very structure of the universe and, sometimes, a directly employed system starts working at once and the forces around receive a warning, as it were, that someone is in a state of meditation. Immediately, counter-forces are gathered by what is generally known as the lower nature and the meditation receives a setback.
— Swami Krishnananda
You are the space in which these thoughts arise, but not the thoughts themselves.
— Chris Matakas, #Human: Learning To Live In Modern Times
Morality is the foundation of sadhana. Morality is the base, intuition is the way and Life Divine is the goal
— Shrii Shrii Anandamurti
For many of us, especially being so fortunate to live in a first-world country, the vast majority of pain we experience is due to the seriousness with which we identify with our thoughts.
— Chris Matakas, #Human: Learning To Live In Modern Times
Sometimes I just need to be alone with what I believe in.
— Serina Hernandez
Meditation need not mean sitting in a special posture. Nonetheless, we can use certain physical and mental exercises to calm the noises of the mind and body, and sensitize us to the sound of the soul.
— Ilchi Lee, Human Technology: A Toolkit for Authentic Living
True oneness is found in quiet meditation with nature.
— Ambika Devi
Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead
— Tsunetomo Yamamoto
Spirituality is a way of life. it is not just doing meditation.
— Choa Kok Sui, Creative Transformation - The Golden Lotus Sutras on Spiritual Practice
Everything will be okay as soon as you are okay with everything. And that is the only time everything will be okay.
— Michael Singer
Love is not a verb. Love is a noun. Love’s activity is people breathing, cells dividing, a dove taking a flight. This grammar of life not all can see.
— Mohit Parikh, Manan
The Warrior of the Light meditates.
— Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light
The Light is always there. How much light comes to you depends on you.
— Choa Kok Sui, Beyond the Mind - The Golden Lotus Sutras on Meditation
I leave my human nature to unfold according to its destiny. I remain as I AM.
— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The space between between breaths is measured in moments. But the space between Truths..? Lifetimes.
— Brooke Burgess
Whether you’ve never meditated before or you’ve been doing it religiously for years, it is always good to evaluate (or re-evaluate) your practice. Although I’ve been meditating and teaching it for years, I still enjoy reading new information about it, learning new techniques, and checking out new meditation recordings. There is always something to learn because there are as many ways to meditate as there are people who are doing it.
— Liberty Forrest, Meditation Essentials
When we bring deep awareness to whatever's bothering us, the same things might be happening, but we are able to relate to them differently.
— Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace
Deep within ourselves, we find the inner being, the inner source of love, which is our true nature. Love is the only reality, because only love works.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
Again and again, counteract the agitation and turbulence of the mind by relaxing more deeply, not by contracting the body or mind.
— B. Alan Wallace, The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind
Nothing is born, nothing dies.
— Antoine Lavoisier
As long as we take thought, we will continue to matter".
— Vivian Amis, The Essentials of Life
Can you imagine how incredibly quiet it was everywhere, when the gentlemen from this world" — he made a vague circular gesture towards the battalions of meditating Asians behind him — "were hatching and proclaiming their ideas? Anyone who now tries to follow these ideas in order to find the road back to what they were talking about, is faced with obstacles that would have driven an entire tribe of oriental ascetics into the ravine. The world from which they felt it so necessary to retreat would have seemed idyllic to us. We live in a vision of hell, and we have actually got used to it." He looked at his statues and continued, "We have become different people. We still look the same, but we have nothing in common with them any more. We are differently programmed. Anyone who now wants to become like them must acquire a big dose of madness first; otherwise he will no longer be able to bear the life of our world. We are not designed for their kind of life.
— Cees Nooteboom, Rituals
It has never been easier to get books but never harder to find the quiet needed to study them.
— John Mark Reynolds
I suggest that if you were able to focus your attention at will, you could actually choose the universe you appear to inhabit.
— B. Alan Wallace, The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind
There is so much we just can't see or know right now, including precisely how our actions will ripple out.
— Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace
If you do not take the time to be with yourself, in your own space, you miss Plugging In to the Universe and connecting with yourself. Moreover, in that you miss recognizing all your ‘angels’ or people who will nourish and nurture your life and you theirs.
— Malti Bhojwani, Don't Think Of a Blue Ball
You can encounter the great life within you when you recover the zero point. When you encounter that great life, all limits created by the thoughts and emotions vanish and infinite creativity springs forth.
— Ilchi Lee, LifeParticle Meditation: A Practical Guide to Healing and Transformation
He captures memories because if he forgets them, it's as though they didn't happen.
— Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
The literary man re-reads, other men simply read.
— C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature
The caterpillar becomes a pupa to meditate and then becomes a butterfly
— Ankala V Subbarao
The Soul bird sang:"My beloved Jay, Look into my eyes. Look deeply, and you will remember hope.You will remember the power of your mind,The great power, big as the sky, that makes all things possible. Look straight into my eyes.I can restore to you the hope you've lost.I can enable restore to you the hope you've lost. I can enable you to meet your infinite, eternal min. That is what I can do for you.I am your soul.I, who restore your lost hope, am your soul.
— Ilchi Lee, Bird of the Soul
To seek the self, one must first have a clear idea of what one is looking for. Thus, some meditation manuals advise actively cultivating the sense of self, despite the fact that this sense is the target of the analysis. Our sense of identity is often vaguely felt. Sometimes, for example, we identify with the body, saying, "I am sick." At other times, one is the owner of the body, "My stomach hurts." It is said that by imagining a moment of great pride or imagining a false accusation, a strong and palpable sense of the "I" appears in the center [of] the chest: "I did it," or, "I did not do that." This sense of self is to be carefully cultivated, until one is convinced of its reality. One then sets out to find this self, reasoning that, if it exists, it must be located somewhere in the mind or the body.
— Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Story of Buddhism: A Concise Guide to Its History  Teachings
The good news is that you are never alone. If you are a man, you are always with your inner feminine side. If you are a woman, you are ways with your inner masculine side. However, we are often disconnected from those inner feminine or masculine qualities. Meditation helps to establish that much needed dialog and connection with your inner self. The more we get in touch with our inner self, the more we experience peace, harmony and bliss.
— Vishwas Chavan
If your golf instructor were to insist that you shave your head, sleep no more than four hours each night, renounce sex, and subsist on a diet of raw vegetables, you would find a new golf instructor. However, when gurus make demands of this kind, many of their students simply do as directed.
— Sam Harris, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion
It looks like fallen petals, and it looks like rain. It looks like the sounds the birds make at dawn. It looks like the aisle of grocery stores when a song I love suddenly begins to play overhead, and I cannot help but dance a little dance. It looks like a sigh, a kiss, an unmade bed. It looks like Cheerios in a white bowl with a bit of silence on the side. It looks like a plain vanilla cupcake in white paper, a dance with the wind, pink toenails, warm socks. It looks like a fire against the cold of winter, and a deep lake cool against a summer sky. It looks like chick flicks, books that make you cry, and all the candles blown out on the first try.
— D. Smith Kaich Jones
Observing is not just seeing. It is watching with attention.
— Ilchi Lee, Change: Realizing Your Greatest Potential
Breathe and Be RebornInto the LightnessOf your Heart and Inner Truths.Speak...in the Silence of Dreams,Knowing the wordsBring the peace into your Soul.Radiant the Love that is your True Selfand Again...Be Reborn.
— Jennifer Hillman, "Words of the Heart"
The only difference between meditation and non meditation is that when we meditate we are not grasping anything or trying to do anything: instead we are releasing ourselves to our lives, with trust that our lives are all we need. (78)
— Norman Fischer, Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer's Odyssey to Navigate Life's Perils and Pitfalls
The innumerable phenomena of life are temporary manifestations of LifeParticles.Once we know that everything comes and goes in a flux of LifeParticles, we can watch ourselves and the world with tranquility.
— Ilchi Lee, LifeParticle Meditation: A Practical Guide to Healing and Transformation
Whenever I feel ‘less of myself’, or as if I am not as productive as I can be, or abundance is not flowing into my life, or I am not laughing and smiling as much, or my relationships seem stuck and difficult, it is an indication that I am losing that connection. It is like being in a ‘bad service area’ where calls drop out.
— Malti Bhojwani, Don't Think Of a Blue Ball
My beloved jay, give me a name now. call out the name you give me, looking into the deepest place in your heart. Everytime you call my name, I'll fly to you and be your wings.
— Ilchi Lee, Bird of the Soul
At the alpha level, your imagination acts powerfully on your subconsciousness mind and therefore your imaginings are powerfully effective in producing the desired result. It is believed that our subconscious mind represents nearly 90 percent of our mental capacity, which is why influencing your subconscious mind produces such powerful effects.
— Chris Prentiss, Be Who You Want, Have What You Want: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life
Through Life Particles, the thoughts in your mind are the seeds of your present and future experiences that will blossom when given enough energy through action with your focused attention.
— Ilchi Lee; Seung Heun Lee, LifeParticle Meditation: A Practical Guide to Healing and Transformation
Think of yourself as a mobile phone and visualize the signal strength bars on your screen. Plugging In is re-establishing that connection to better your reception.
— Malti Bhojwani, Don't Think Of a Blue Ball
Sedona is beautiful, but your soul is even more beautiful.
— Ilchi Lee, The Call of Sedona: Journey of the Heart
True freedom is when all the stories, all the insights, all the realizations, concepts, beliefs and positions dissolve. What remains is what you are; a vast, conscious, luminous space simply resting in itself, not knowing a thing, at the point where all things are possible.
— Enza Vita
When you are truly awakened, you have completely stopped trying to become awakened. You simply are. You know that you did not locate awakening; awakening located you.
— Enza Vita
Only this actual moment is life.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
When you need an idea about how to do anything, get quiet and relaxed and think about what it is you need to know. Then the flow of ideas will come. Be patient and let it happen. Sometimes it takes a little while, but it always works.
— Chris Prentiss, Be Who You Want, Have What You Want: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life
All paths are valid, but in the end you will find that the realization of the ultimate truth is a pathless path.
— Enza Vita
Being enlightened ironically means realizing that there is no separate entity that can be enlightened or unenlightened.
— Enza Vita
It’s only the ego that wants to surrender the ego
—  the real meaning of surrender does not involve anything external. It means to surrender to your true nature.
Realization includes everything, the mundane and the transcendental. In true awakening, nothing stands apart and nothing is excluded. If we find ourselves in a state where something is excluded, that state, however amazing it is, is still a dualistic state.
— Enza Vita
You aren’t actually a someone, a person, who is conscious. You are the awake space of awareness itself, within which all the “thought up” entities in your world appear. Out of all these imagined entities, you have simply made the mistake of thinking that one of them is you.
— Enza Vita
Realization is not about you, the wave, realizing it is ocean. The ocean realizes itself in you and reveals itself to have never been just a wave. Nothing changes except the falling away of a false belief.
— Enza Vita
Looking forward” to what you think enlightenment might be at some grand point in the future keeps you from seeing the truth of its presence right now.
— Enza Vita
Awareness is that which is reading these words right now, whatever “that” is. You know without a doubt that there is something reading these words right now and awareness is precisely what that is.
— Enza Vita
Not knowing anything, not searching for anything, understanding that we can’t hold on to anything, leaves us with nothing — nothing except our original nature, pure awareness.
— Enza Vita
The one who believes himself to be a person needs to try to find that person. This is a solution, an antidote, offered to a ghost that thinks it actually exists.
— Enza Vita
The One that experiences itself as your body-mind is the same One that experiences itself in every other body-mind, form, or appearance that exists.
— Enza Vita
Just knowing that there is no gate to pass through doesn’t mean that we are at the end of the search, not if we are still standing outside that gateless gate.
— Enza Vita
God does not live in idols and temples either…of course, idols and temples are some of the ways that remind us of God’s existence. But as you grow up in spirituality, you need to embrace and experience God’s presence through deeds of nature and knowledge of meditation.
— Girdhar Joshi, Some Mistakes Have No Pardon
At the moment of enlightenment, everything is dropped—body, mind, all states, all things—everything. At that moment, there is no separate entity that can become enlightened, because there is no I that can experience it.
— Enza Vita
Nothing can be the total truth in the worlds of manifestation and the more solid your concepts, the more likely they are going to sink you, sooner or later.
— Enza Vita
Anything that appears and disappears cannot actually be you because it is being observed by you. By removing the attention from these things and noticing what remains, you are left only with what is permanent — the truth of who you are.
— Enza Vita
We truly help others working on ourselves. When it comes from the knowledge that the only power we have is over our own choices, we do not struggle taking responsibility for what is not ours to be responsible for. When we choose to be happy our joy works like a lighthouse. The lighthouse does never guide ships to its own light. It always leads them to the safe harbour. Yet it is their choice, whether they want to follow the light or something else.
— Raphael Zernoff
Even amazing states of bliss, peace, clarity and spaciousness have nothing to do with awakening as these are just experiences coming and going in the impersonal awareness that you are.
— Enza Vita
In enlightenment, the seer and the seen disappear. Or, more accurately, are seen through as illusions. In reality, they were never there, apart from being concept and misunderstanding.
— Enza Vita
Zen has been called the "religion before religion," which is to say that anyone can practice, including those committed to another faith. And that phrase evokes that natural religion of our early childhood, when heaven and a splendorous earth were one. But soon the child's clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions and abstractions. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. The sun glints through the pines, and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day, at the bottom of each breath, there is a hollow place filled with longing. We become seekers without knowing that we seek, and at first, we long for something "greater" than ourselves, something apart and far away. It is not a return to childhood, for childhood is not a truly enlightened state. Yet to seek one's own true nature is "a way to lead you to your long lost home." To practice Zen means to realize one's existence moment after moment, rather than letting life unravel in regret of the past and daydreaming of the future. To "rest in the present" is a state of magical simplicity...out of the emptiness can come a true insight into our natural harmony all creation. To travel this path, one need not be a 'Zen Buddhist', which is only another idea to be discarded like 'enlightenment,' and like 'the Buddha' and like 'God.
— Peter Matthiessen, Nine-Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals, 1969-1982