c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
If you retain the joyous aftereffects of meditation throughout the day, or part of the day, you will see that this joy will correctly guide you in everything. Saints are guided by this joy, in the consciousness of which no erroneous actions are possible. Retain the acquired joy of meditation throughout the day.
— Paramahansa Yogananda
Devotion is a spiritual act of egoless surrender. When the Self blinds the spirit too tightly, then devotion expands the blinding by lifting us beyond ourselves. We get the powerful lesson that the Self survives even without constant attention.
— Anodea Judith, Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to the Self
Compulsive reading relieves the anxiety that comes from tramping through the forest of meditation in search of clearings.
— Sylvain Tesson, Dans les forêts de Sibérie
Your imagination is the vehicle to enlightenment.
— Gary   Hopkins
Rebuilding relationship requires a lifelong discipline and commitment.
— Sri Amma Bhagwan
Since the early 1920s a unique spiritual path has existed in Japan. This distinctly Japanese version of yoga is called Shin-shin-toitsu-do, and it combines seated meditation, moving meditation, breathing exercises, and other disciplines to help practitioners realize unification of mind and body. Besides yoga, it is a synthesis of methods, influenced by Japanese meditation, healing arts, and martial arts; along with Western psychology, medicine, and science. Shin-shin-toitsu-do is widely practiced throughout Japan, although it is almost unknown in other countries. Through its principles of mind and body coordination people have an opportunity to realize their full potential in everyday life.A remarkable man created this path, and he led an equally remarkable life. He was known in Japan as Nakamura Tempu Sensei, and this is his story.
— H. E. Davey
forgiveness happens when you know that the other is not responsible.
— Sri Amma Bhagwan.
Mindfulness isn’t inherently Eastern, just as electricity isn’t inherently Western. Mindfulness is a quality of presence that’s innate in all human beings.
— Shamash Alidina
Meditation is not to be on the surface of a thing or underneath it or above it, but it is to be in everywhere and to be in nowhere!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
I tell my students not to be frightened; in the history of Buddhism-for 2,500 years-no one has broken or fractured a leg because of sitting in meditation.
— Guo Jun, Essential Chan Buddhism: The Character and Spirit of Chinese Zen
To eliminate the inner turmoil we must focus our attention inward and act with loving kindness to ourselves—and each other.
— Michelle Cruz-Rosado
Silence is the door to Oran Mor. Close your eyes. Quieten your thoughts. And listen. Listen in particular to the sound of the waves. Let the Great Song sing in you. In an hour I will ring a bell. When you hear it, make a sound that resonates with the waves. Let it flow and develop, calling on all you have heard in the silence.
— Alan McCluskey, The Reaches
Choice is the doorway to our creative power. To unleash this power, we must begin from the state of beingness.
— Ilchi Lee, Human Technology: A Toolkit for Authentic Living
A healer's power stems not from any special ability, but from maintaining the courage and awareness to embody and express the universal healing power that every human being naturally possesses.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it's realistic or not.
— Deepak Chopra
When you can no longer tell the difference between being yourself and being love, you are not far from waking up.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
I can be alone without being lonely. In fact, those times of solitude are necessary respite for a beleaguered soul, set upon by the pressures of life. I need to take whatever moments I can to just be still.
— Steve Goodier
In order to know the Truth, you have to be out of your mind.
— Vivian Amis
All relaxation does is allow the truth to be felt. The mind is cleared, like a dirty window wiped clean, and the magnitude of what we might ordinarily take for granted inspires tears.
— Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment
There’s no path to liberation that doesn’t pass through the shadow.
— Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment
If you have been expending lots of energy mingling, counseling, or socializing, you need some down time to recover. Put it on your calendar so you can be intentional about it. And for an hour or so, go to a place by yourself. Read, relax, or do nothing. No one is there to talk to you for those minutes. Enjoy your blessed aloneness for a brief season.
— Thom S. Rainer
In the practice of exchanging self & other, paradoxes abound.
— Robert A.F. Thurman, Love Your Enemies: How to Break the Anger Habit & Be a Whole Lot Happier
What a miracle, that all we have to do to be beautifully loving creatures is just relax and allow.
— Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment
Thoughts appear and disappear, just like waves on the ocean. Be like the ocean of love, releasing every thought to the shore as soon as they appear.
— Yogi Kanna, Return to Love: A Guide to Inner Peace, Emotional Healing and Spiritual Transformation
Reality is non-directional, layered, and potential- all things at once and non-real in the sense that real is an unknown, so "real" is undefined and can not be experienced. Only your experience can be experienced, and that does not encompass everything or anything.
— Laren Grey Umphlett, The Power of Perception
Search not for happiness outside yourself, for nothing could be further from the truth.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
Although we may wish for more or strive to do better than we have, in these times it is enough to keep your soul.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
Part of why I love these angry, straight, white punks is that they are stripping the dharma of its bullshit, and applying it to contexts and styles that, even if they aren’t mine, are at least different from the norm.
— Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment
We are animals descended from five billion years of wanting, striving, and seeking. And life just doesn’t cooperate. So we suffer. And so the solution to that problem is to upgrade our minds, in a distinctly ‘unnatural’ way, so that the mind clings less and lets go more.
— Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment
Sometimes, sitting there on the cushion failing to watch your breath, it can feel like you’re the only weirdo weird enough to be wasting your time in this way. But you’re not! There are generations of weirdos, monasteries full of them, and we have the benefit of their accumulated wisdom.
— Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment
It is possible to refine awareness itself so much that the emptiness of things, and the role mental construction plays, becomes a directly apprehended reality.
— Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment
At the last stages of the journey, there’s no journey at all.
— Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment
Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, when asked how to strike a better balance between family, work and self-realisation says: "You need the intention, good scheduling, and you have to be creative. If you don't find time to practice, one of the three is missing.
— Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel
Since beginners can only remain in contact with the object of observation for short periods, initially one should meditate in brief sessions even eighteen times a day; in due course stability will be achieved of its own accord, at which time the session can be lengthened. It is important not to try at first to meditate for long periods; otherwise, upon sight of the meditation cushion, one will feel nausea and laziness. The session should be left while it is going well, when one still feels that it would go well if continued.
— Jeffrey Hopkins, Meditation on Emptiness
Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.
— Eckhart Tolle
When you approach something to photograph it, first be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence. Then don't leave until you have captured its essence.
— Minor White
No matter how strange things get, know that with every breath, you are becoming that which you have always been.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
Meditation is one of the most serious things; you do it all day, in the office, with the family, when you say to somebody "I love you", when you are considering your children, when you educate them to become soldiers, to kill, to be nationalized, worshipping the flag, educating them to enter into this trap of the modern world; watching all that, realizing your part in it, all that is part of meditation. And when you so meditate you will find in it an extraordinary beauty; you will act rightly at every moment; and if you do not act rightly at a given moment it does not matter, you will pick it up again - you will not waste time in regret. Meditation is part of life, not something different from life.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti, The Flight of the Eagle
As you notice your whole being, your entirety, your wise inner nature, there are messages there for you. Quietly give permission for your wholeness, your entirety, to share its deepest wisdom.
— Janet Gallagher Nestor, Nurturing Wellness Through Radical Self-Care: A Living in Balance Guide and Workbook
When there is silence one finds the anchor of the universe within oneself
— Lao Tzu
I remember sitting and meditating beside a slow flowing river in India, and I got the feeling that this river could teach me all the secrets of the mystery of life. If we learn to surrender to a stone, a flower, to a man, to a woman, or a river, it becomes a door to the Whole.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
Preach the gospel to yourself, because as you consider who you are in light of God's perfect goodness, holiness and peace, you must soften toward others.
— Thomas Brooks
The awareness that seeks to know is the very object of its own seeking.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
Most of our healing occurs during quiet moments of rest when we are in contact with unconscious feelings and experiences. I can't imagine life without the peaceful, insightful moments I have during meditation.
— Janet Gallagher Nestor, Nurturing Wellness Through Radical Self-Care: A Living in Balance Guide and Workbook
Everything you ever needed to know is waiting in the space between your thoughts.
— Simon Boylan
Meditation is an excellent habit and tool for transformation, however your ‘practice’ should eventually evolve into your natural primary state of being.
— Gary   Hopkins
Try taking five minutes for meditation. Close your eyes and in your mind picture Jesus. Watch Him turn, look at you and hear Him...
— Kyle Idleman, Not a Fan: Becoming a Completely Committed Follower of Jesus
Once I was running and there was someone on the treadmill next to me who stopped running to answer a question I asked and flew of the back of the treadmill. Being fully engaged has many benefits.
— Sakyong Mipham, Running with the Mind of Meditation: Lessons for Training Body and Mind
Our task and challenge as human beings is to appreciate, in the same instant, both the infinite significance and absolute insignificance of life.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
No knife cuts as swiftly, deeply and precisely as the blade of the Beloved.
— Tiziana Stupia, Meeting Shiva: Falling and Rising in Love in the Indian Himalayas
A spiritual man is happy with the whole existence. He says "yes" to the whole existence.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
God is not a person, God is the underlying consciousness in Existence.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
My basic profession is as an actor, and I have learnt much about life through working as an actor. Working as an actor is really a spiritual profession, since it means to create life on the stage. It means to play a role totally, while at the same time you know deep down inside yourself that you are not the role that you are playing. Working as an actor gave me early a spiritual discipline, which taught me a lot about awareness and meditation. Life is also about learning to play different roles, and learning to change between different roles with the same easiness that you change shirt.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
Bird leaves the land to enjoy the freedom
—  man leaves his thoughts to enjoy the silence. Meditation is man’s flying to the land of silence.
Love is the highest form of meditation.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
The Indians around here tell a cautionary fable about a great saint who was always surrounded in his Ashram by loyal devotees. For hours a day, the saint and his followers would meditate on God. The only problem was that the saint had a young cat, an annoying creature, who used to walk through the temple meowing and purring and bothering everyone during meditation. So the saint, in all his practical wisdom, commanded that the cat be tied to a pole outside for a few hours a day, only during meditation, so as to not disturb anyone. This became a habit – tying the cat to the pole and then meditating on God – but as years passed, the habit hardened into religious ritual. Nobody could meditate unless the cat was tied to the pole first. Then one day the cat died. The saint's followers were panic-stricken. It was a major religious crisis – how could they meditate now, without a cat to tie to a pole? How would they reach God? In their minds, the cat had become the means.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
The Awakened One sees the observer and the observed as one. The unawakened one sees the observer and the observed as different.
— Sri Amma Bhagwan.
Without awareness there is no freedom. Awareness is vital for any possibility of free choice.
— Simon Boylan
How do I recognize a real saint? Whom I shall see within me whether it is in dreams or trances or meditations, He will be the Saint to me. Because God is the only Saint in this world. He is within our bodies. When He will manifest within my body in the form of a person, he will be saint to me.
— Jibankrishna
A peaceful mind appreciates the present moment as the living embodiment of naked perfection, rather than a means to future attainment.
— Eric Micha'el Leventhal
Life's only law is change. Everything is continuously changing, evolving and developing. Hindus say that it takes 840 million lives to become a human being, which emphasises the precious gift of being a human being.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
The contemplation of consciousness—which is the contemplation of no-thing whatsoever—is endlessly fascinating. It’s like staring at a candle in a dark night—you find yourself mesmerized by something that is unchanging yet infinitely compelling. You feel drawn into something you don’t understand rationally but that your heart or soul grasps completely. You are drawn into it, and as you are drawn into it, the only thing you experience as real is the eternal or timeless nature of Being itself. You find yourself in a state of rapture, because the deepest part of yourself has been released from your ego’s endless fears and concerns, and drawn out of the time process altogether.
— Andrew Cohen, Evolutionary Enlightenment: A New Path to Spiritual Awakening
Try as a meditation, to be with a stone, a flower or a tree, and you will find that they have consciousness. If you become friend with a tree, you will find that the tree will welcome you as a friend. The tree will be happy to see you.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
When we touch the center of sorrow, when we sit with discomfort without trying to fix it, when we stay present to the pain of disapproval or betrayal and let it soften us, these are times that we connect with bohdichitta.
— Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times
Why are we such tortured human beings, with tears in our eyes and false laughter on our lips? If you could walk alone among those hills or in the woods or along the long, white, bleached sands, in that solitude you would know what meditation is. The ecstasy of solitude comes when you are not frightened to be alone no longer belonging to the world or attached to anything. Then, like that dawn that came up this morning, it comes silently, and makes a golden path in the very stillness, which was at the beginning, which is now, and which will be always there.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Meditations
[I]t is not hasty reading--but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths, that make them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the bee’s touching of the flower, which gathers honey--but her abiding for a time upon the flower, which draws out the sweet. It is not he who reads most--but he who meditates most, who will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian.
— Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
I was manipulating my inner experience rather than being with what was actually happening.
— Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha
Last night your thin walls invited me to the party next door / reminded me I am a quiet person in a quiet life.
— Drew Myron, Thin Skin
Stepping out of the busyness, stopping our endless pursuit of getting somewhere else, is perhaps the most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit.
— Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart
Those who wish to sit, shut their eyes,and meditate to know if the world's true or lies,may do so. It's their choice. But I meanwhilewith hungry eyes that can't be satisfiedshall take a look at the world in broad daylight.
— Rabindranath Tagore
A wise man need only the guidance of his own heart.
— Tyler J. Hebert
In order to do anything about the suffering of the world we must have the strength to face it without turning away.
— Sharon Salzberg, A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness
Vulnerability in the face of constant change is what we share, whatever our present condition.
— Sharon Salzberg, A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness
This is the law of nature that every person who is born has to go through certain kind of painful experiences. Thepainful issues keep coming throughout life.As you progress on the spiritual path their impact become lesser and lesser and finally a stage would come where you can achieve liberation from Stress and unhappiness forever.-Subodh Gupta author, "Stress Management a Holistic Approach -5 steps Plan".
— Subodh Gupta, Stress Management a Holistic Approach
-I have to admit that ever since I started to rip-up the lawns of rich people I have felt a lot calmer!
— Andrew James Pritchard, Circle In the Sand
Our path, our sense of spirituality demands great earnestness, dedication, sincerity & continuity.
— Sharon Salzberg, A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness
Contemplation + action = breakthrough
— Lada Ray
The intrinsic and extrinsic heart is always at odds, so which heart is yours? For one will bask in true joy, while the other lives in self-loathing misery.
— Joel T. McGrath
Observation and expansion are two elements of meditation. While a teacher may guide you to have the right posture and give instruction on following the breath, no one can teach you about the experience. It comes through practice and patience.
— Debra Moffitt, Garden of Bliss: Cultivating the Inner Landscape for Self-Discovery
Every single moment is expressive of the truth of our lives when we know how to look.
— Sharon Salzberg, A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness
Through meditation we come to know that we are dying & being reborn in every moment.
— Sharon Salzberg, A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness
There is a place where there is freedom of fear and doubt, and that is within.
— Michelle Cruz-Rosado
Meditation is a cyclical process that defies analysis, but demands acceptance.
— Sharon Salzberg, A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness
The world's an incessant transformation, and to meditateis awareness, with noclinging to,no working on, the mind.It is a floating; ever-moving; 'marvellous emptiness'.Only absorption in such a practice will release usfrom the accidents, and appetites,of life.And upon this leaf one shall cross overthe stormy sea,among the dragon-like waves.
— Robert Gray
Silence is the invisible door to God. Silence is the inner door to become one with God.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
It doesn't matter how long you're here for, or what accomplishments you have, it matters what you do with that time and the type of person that you are.
— Joel T. McGrath
Only with the closing of the eyes are we truly free.
— Tyler J. Hebert
The inner woman is the source of healing. The inner woman is the source of silence. The inner woman is the source of love. The inner woman is the source of belongingness with life. Embracing the inner man and woman is to discover our inner roots and wings.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
Unless you are silent, you will notknow your urgent heart, how it beatsbetween the thin skin of yes and no.
— Drew Myron, Thin Skin
We die unconsciously, we are born unconsciously and we live unconsciously as well
— Anatoliy Obraztsov, A Crossing or the Drop`s History
It is the mind’s job to protect and take care of you, to solve your problems and make sure you’re safe. So, if you feel a surge of emotional upset, it moves into action, trying to help, looking for the source of the upset—for the problems—and generating solutions.Under these conditions, the key to getting the mind to go on standby—to stilling the mind’s compulsive thinking—lies in recognizing, accepting, and working with the emotional upset. Once you address the emotional undercurrent, once it is no longer churning inside you, the mind can switch off and quite literally leave you in peace.
— Sharon Rose Summers, Meditation – Deep and Blissful:  How to Still The Mind’s Compulsive Thinking, Let Go of Upset, Tap Into the Juice and Meditate at a Whole New Level
Up there in that room, as I see it, is the reading and the thinking-through, a theory of rivers, of trees moving, of falling light. Here on the river, as I lurch against a freshening of the current, is the practice of rivers. In navigating by the glow of the Milky Way, the practice of light. In steadying with a staff, the practice of wood.
— Barry López, About This Life
Biking and love do not make sense without your personal experience
— Anatoliy Obraztsov, A Crossing or the Drop`s History
Sweep the broomOver sand and stone.Softly, gently,Brush away the dust.Listen to the leavesAs they sing in the tree.Peace fills the soulWhen living well.
— Teresa Garcia, Call of the Kami
I could not give up either of these worlds, neither the book I am holding nor the gleaming forest, though I have told you almost nothing of what is said here on these grim pages, from the sentences of which I’ve conjured images of a bleak site years ago. Here in this room, I suppose, is to be found the interior world of the book; but it opens upon a world beyond the windows, where no event has been collapsed into syntax, where the vocabulary, it seems, is infinite. The indispensable connection for me lies with the open space (of the open window ajar year round, never closed) that lets the breath of every winter storm, the ripping wind and its pelting rain, enter the room.
— Barry López, About This Life
The heart is the door to our inner woman. The heart is the door to our inner world. The power chakra relates to the inner man. The power chakra relates to the outer world. Irrespective of if we are a man or a woman, the inner woman is the center of our consciousness.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
When both the inner man and woman takes responsibility for themselves and lives their own truth, a joy and love begins to flow naturally between them. Through understanding both the inner man and woman, we understand that outer relationships simply mirror the relationship between our inner man and woman. This understanding gives us the opportunity to take conscious responsibility for our choices and our further steps towards spiritual maturity.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
When you eliminate the Ego's intense desire to be correct, the clarity of the moment can come through. How simple is that?
— Beth   Johnson, Thoughts From The Inside
Logic is a net to catch a „fish“ with. And the Truth is like water that can not be caught with net
— Anatoliy Obraztsov
A person is a great process, a bridge from animal to Soul. But we do not know about it
— Anatoliy Obraztsov, A Crossing or the Drop`s History
Awareness is a choiceless consciousness. Awareness is the capacity to embrace, accept and include both joy and sadness, love and aloneness, light and darkness, male and female qualities and life and death. Through saying “yes” and accepting both tendencies and including whatever aspect that happens in the moment, we meet our unlimited and boundless inner being. The inner man and woman need to find their own independence and integrity.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
The way is not clear, and it is when you do not have clarity, when this is allowed, that you will finally have clarity.
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
By becoming aware of God’s Spirit, by slowing down and paying attention to the tastes and sounds and smells of the food we make and eat, we infuse our meals—and by extension our hearts—with a sense of awe, a depth of prayer that cannot help but transform our mindless eating into moving meditations.
— Mary DeTurris Poust, Cravings: A Catholic Wrestles with Food, Self-Image, and God
When both our inner man and woman takes responsibility for themselves and lives their own truth, a joy and love begins to flow naturally between them. Healing means to develop the inner man and woman so that love can flow between them. Healing is to learn to love both our inner man and woman. It is to learn to live the truth of both the inner man and woman.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
It is when our inner male and female sides meets within ourselves that a new spark of love, joy, and wholeness arises within ourselves.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
... If there are twenty identical doors in the corridor and you need somebody to enter one of them, what would you do? That’s right, put „No entry“ sign on the right door. Visit is guaranteed
— Anatoliy Obraztsov, A Crossing or the Drop`s History
Meditation is the glue that holds our mind, body, and spirit together
— Tambré Bryant
Any point of view reflects some side of truth and must not claim that it is complete
— Anatoliy Obraztsov, A Crossing or the Drop`s History
The Glory of this life is in viewing it as eternal.
— Beth   Johnson, Thoughts From The Inside
If you find yourself unwilling to share, you are cheating yourself.
— Beth   Johnson, Thoughts From The Inside
Tightness takes more energy than the letting go.
— Beth   Johnson, Thoughts From The Inside
You necessarily have to be lost, before you’re found.
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
There are times when we stop, we sit still. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.
— James Carroll
By meditating, we´re learning to disengage ourselves from habitual clinging and disperse the defilements and obscurations that hinder our capacity to serve others, such as illusory feelings of scarcity and fears of deprivation. We gradually learn to be more conscious and make better choices. We develop simplicity instead of comlexity, open-mindedness instead of narrow-mindedness, flexibility rather than rigidity. We feel ourselves to be more available to others and to give more generously of ourselves.
— Lama Surya Das, Buddha Is as Buddha Does: The Ten Original Practices for Enlightened Living
Whenever the Christian idea of meditation is taken seriously, there are those who assume it is synonymous with the concept of meditation centered in Eastern religions. In reality, the two ideas stand worlds apart. Eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind; Christian meditation is an attempt to fill the mind. The two ideas are quite different.
— Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth
You will bring yourself the suffering you need to bring yourself so that you may awaken.
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
I don’t know where I’m going on this path. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. You had to be lost, before you could be found. These are the truths. You had to be confused, before you could find clarity; you had to suffer, before you could find peace. These were the only ways, life could happen. Of course you were confused before you found clarity. If you weren't confused, then you would already be clear. Of course you were lost before you were found. If you were already found, then you wouldn't be lost. Of course there would be suffering before peace. If there was already peace, then there wouldn't be suffering. One necessarily came before the other.
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
The person healed has an obligation to then ask why— to meditate on God's will, and the extraordinary lengths to which God has gone to realize His will.
— Stephen King, The Green Mile
Can you allow yourself to be impaled on the present moment?
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
Maybe it’s something which can’t be defined,” Enso Roshi says. “Maybe it’s a question, to be lived.
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
Fishing provides time to think, and reason not to. If you have the virtue of patience, an hour or two of casting alone is plenty of time to review all you’ve learned about the grand themes of life. It’s time enough to realize that every generalization stands opposed by a mosaic of exceptions, and that the biggest truths are few indeed. Meanwhile, you feel the wind shift and the temperature change. You might simply decide to be present, and observe a few facts about the drifting clouds…Fishing in a place is a meditation on the rhythm of a tide, a season, the arc of a year, and the seasons of life... I fish to scratch the surface of those mysteries, for nearness to the beautiful, and to reassure myself the world remains. I fish to wash off some of my grief for the peace we so squander. I fish to dip into that great and awesome pool of power that propels these epic migrations. I fish to feel- and steal- a little of that energy.
— Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World
The mind is limitless, in its creations.
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
Let whatever happens, be what needs to happen, so that I may awaken.
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
I loved Enso Roshi’s teachings. I loved learning about life. I loved life. It was a good thing to feel. I loved life, and I loved learning, and I was still learning. I was not, yet, done. At the end of our journeys, there would be an end to the journey. Maybe. If I was lucky. If providence shone down upon me gently. I would find love. I would find acceptance. Complete love. Complete acceptance. I would know, that the self, is an illusion. I would come to enlightenment, but that would also mean, there would be no ‘I’ there. I would realize that the ‘I’ was an illusion, all along, just like some great dream. This is what the wise sages say, the great teachings, the mystical teachings, not only from the East, but also from the West. The Gospel of Saint Thomas. Thomas Merton. Thomas, like I was Thomas, and also doubting, the main reasons I’d chosen the name. If nothing else, it was lovable, just as it is. My life. Even the parts I didn’t love, could I love them? The struggles. It was all part of the journey, and would I not look back fondly on this, at some time? Look at how arduous and sincere I’d been. Look at how worried I’d been. Look at how insecure I’d been. Look at how I’d struggled. Trying to find my way. Would I not look back upon myself, affectionately and fondly and with love?
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
Nothing needs to be done, and things get done.
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
It is the rub that polishes the jewel,” Enso Roshi says. “Nobody ever gets to nirvana without going through samsara. Nobody ever gets to heaven, without going through hell. The center of all things, the truth, is surrounded by demons.
— T. Scott McLeod, All That Is Unspoken
Full minds create chaos.
— David W. Jones, The Enlightenment of Jesus: Practical Steps to Life Awake
The last glow of sundown dims away. Stars appear in the east. Night encloses us. The ocean seems to enlarge. When you’re adrift at night, imagination and perception merge. They have to. You can’t see as well, as far, as deep. You tie knots by muscle memory, and you operate your reel mostly by feel. Your boat drifts, your thoughts drift. You sense the sweep of tide and water, and the boat gets rocked in turbulence just past each undersea ridgeline and boulder field. You, too, are looking up, searching constellations, dreaming. You fell again how flexible and expansive your mind can be when it’s working right. And you slip your leash to explore the vast vault of sky and great interior spaces.
— Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World
Jesus lived a life of deep meditation. If thoughts and words were physical objects, meditation would be the act of holding, examining, taking apart, tasting, smelling, listening to, and savoring in order to study and become one.
— amy litzelman
They’re close. Voices loud and fierce, Slapping faces with words. A scream … A cry … They’re getting closer.Did I lock the door? It’s too late to check. They’re coming. I barely move, barely breathe. Perhaps they’ll go away. But they’re getting closer.The door slams against the wall. My eyes squeeze shut. This curtain is not a shield. They’re here. They’ve come for me. I freeze.Metal rings clank together. My barrier is cast aside. Wearily, I look. Reddened eyes glower at one another … But not at me. I wonder.A moment of silence … Water streams down my face. Steam rolls around my flesh. I glare at the intruders And slide the curtain between us. I wait.He shrieks, “She took my glow stick!” She howls, “No, I didn’t!” I scowl. “Go tell your father about it.”They leave. I inhale the lavender mist. Slather bubbles over my skin. Five more minutes … And, next time, I shall lock the door.
— Barbara Brooke
Purification in Shinto lifts the burden from the shoulders of the individual and washes it away.
— Stuart D.B. Picken, Shinto Meditations for Revering the Earth
When we stop judging others and ourselves, our heart begins to open.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
When we develop the heart chakra, we begin to influence the surroundings with our spiritual presence. When we develop the communication chakra, we begin to influence the country with our spiritual presence. When we develop the seventh chakra, we begin to influence the world with our spiritual presence without doing anything.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
Fear and hate create separation, love and joy creates belongingness and wholeness.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
I was tired in the evening yesterday. I felt drained by the last days outer conflicts. I felt separated from life. Suddenly I heard the wind blowing through the trees outside my open window, whispering a silent and playful invitation: "Do you want to play? Do you want to join the dance?" This playful invitation again joined my heart and being with the Existential dance. I was again in a silent prayer and oneness with life.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
The greatest teacher in healing is nature itself. To be out in the nature is like being surrounded and embraced by love. Trees are also very beautiful people, who have their own innate wisdom and who are already in oneness with Existence. And the sky whispers its silent message that, beyond everything, there is only one sky. A female meditator describes it like there is a basic meditative quality in nature. She says: "There is nothing in nature that questions each others existence like people do. Everything is allowed to exist and everything is allowed to be exactly as it is – and seasons come and go. It is not strange that people love to be out in nature and experiences that they come in harmony with themselves, because, in nature, there is nothing that tries to change them. There is a quality in the air, which can be called a meditative quality".
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
During the summer I meditated outside in nature. Listening to the wind with the ears are like listening to mere noise, but listening to the wind blowing through the trees from the inner silence and being one with the wind is like listening to the celestial music.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
Meditation expands our inner being. The inner being is like a small, individual river flowering towards the Ocean. In meditation, I feel how my inner being expands into an inner ocean, which is part of everything, which is one with Existence. Through the inner being, we come in contact with the inner ocean, the undefined and boundless within ourselves, where we are one with life. We realize that God is part of life. We realize that God is not a person, but the consciousness that is part of everything. We find God in a flower, in a tree, in the eyes of a child or in a playful dog. Through discovering our inner being, we discover that we are also part of the flower, the child or the dog. We realize that God is everywhere.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
A friend of mine commented yesterday that she has experienced similar insights that I talked about that all enlightened Masters and founders of religion are actually talking about the same ocean, the same invisible life source, the same God. She also said that she worked in a Christan environment at the time that she received these insights, and when she tried to share these insights with the Christians she was accused of being "impure" and of being associated with the "Devil". Christians hold on to the idea that Jesus was the only son of God, without realizing that we are all son's and daughter's of God. By holding on to the idea that Jesus is the only son of God, they do not either to realize that all enlightened Masters are talking about the same God. Jesus did not talk about faith, he talked about trust. He talked about discovering a trust in yourself and in relationship to God. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you. In Christianity, the church has become the intermediate between man and God, and people who claim that they have found a direct relationship to God are accused of blasphemy. The Christan church has become a barrier between man and God, and anyone who has declared that he has found a direct relationship to God are immediately banned by the church, for example Master Eckhart and Franciskus of Assisi. I have always had a deep love for Jesus, but it is not the picture of Jesus that the Christian church presents. I was a disciple of Jesus in a former life, and was thrown to the lions in Colosseum in Rome as one of the early Christians. Jesus had many more disciples than the twelve disciples mentioned in The Bible. In this life, I resigned my automatic membership in the church as soon as I could think for myself when I was 15 years old. I was also disgusted with an organization that said that they preached love and which has murdered more people than Hitler. My experience with these rare and precious insights are that they expand our consciousness of reality. They are gradual initiations into reality. They may fade away, but we will never be the same again after receiving them. They will also come more and more, the more committment we have to our spiritual growth.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
Acceptance is to love and embrace everything that we find within ourselves like a mother embraces her child.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
Intuition is a trust that if we follow our heart, if we follow our love, joy and truth, the Whole becomes enriched.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
Working with people from awareness means to be available. It means to respond with the truth in the moment. It means to respond to the moment in a way that creates a fragrance of love.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
The human heart is a healer, which heals both others and ourselves.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
I was 9 years old when I had my first glimpse of wholeness. It was early Christmas morning and I was standing in my pajamas in the living room and looked out of the large windows. Outside the white snow flakes silently singled down toward a snowclad landscape. Suddenly I was filled with a feeling of being one with the slowly dancing snowflakes, one with the silent landscape. I did not understand then that this was my first taste of meditation, but it created a deep thirst and a longing in my heart to return to this natural and effortless experience of being one with the Whole.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
Healing is to be in the light of our own consciousness. Healing is an inner light, which exist as a natural radiance around a person. This inner light is in itself a healing force beyond words. This inner light disperses darkness, like when you lit a candle in a dark room and the darkness disappears by itself. This inner light exudes a subtle influence through its mere presence. The more the light in our own consciousness is lit, the more it creates a subtle effect in the world.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
I remember an insight that taught me much about life. One day I felt that I had everything that I really wanted in life. I had a creative and meaningful work as a therapist and course leader, I had a relationship with a beautiful woman, who I loved and who loved me, I had friend that I trusted and I had money to do what I wanted. But in spite of all this, I still had a feeling that there was something missing in my life. I was not satisfied. The thirst and longing in my heart was still searching for something more. It made me realize that the deepest pain in my heart was that I was still separated from the Whole and that no outer things or relationships could ease this pain.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
Our heart is the door to allowing Existence to guide us.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
Intuition means to follow the silent whispers of the inner in a basic “yes” to life.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
I have always felt deep within myself that I do not trust that I am already OK as I am, and that I do not trust that life takes care of me. But now I discover a silent place in the depth of my inner being, where I am already one with life, where I am OK as I am. It is also a silent inner place of healing and wholeness, where I can find a love and acceptance for that which is imperfect within myself.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
The human heart operates from two premises: "I Am Responsible" and "Only Love Works.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
We are basically all one. We are one being, one consciousness, one whole. We are all connected to each other. We are all parts of the same whole. How we treat others are how we treat ourselves. If we treat others badly, we are really treating ourselves badly. If we hate others, we are really hating ourselves. If we love others, we are basically loving ourselves.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, The Silent Whisperings of the Heart - An Introduction to Giten's Approach to Life
Healing is not only a specific method, healing is also to invite another person into our own inner light, to invite another person into our presence, love, joy, acceptance, humor, understanding, playfulness, meditation and silence. Healing can also be a loving word, an understanding glance, a present touch, a silent listening or simply joking with another person and making him or her happy. Humor is also one of the strongest healing powers to see our situation and ourselves in a new and creative light.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
Meditation is the way to develop our natural healing abilities. Healing comes originally from our inner being, from the inner source of silence and wholeness. In the silence, we can let go of all our problems, frustrations, fears, anger and sorrow. Healing happens when we bring everything that we find inside ourselves out into the light. Healing is to embrace and accept everything that we find inside ourselves without judgment or evaluation. Healing happens when we discover an unconditional love and acceptance for ourselves as we are with both our light and dark sides.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
Through learning to listen to our own intuition, it develops to a constantly available inner source of love, truth and wisdom. We can close our eyes, go within, and always receive the right guidance.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being
I do not belong to any spiritual group or tradition. I am just interested in exploring what it means to live with open eyes. People in spiritual organizations also tend to get caught in ideas of how it should be, and in the need of the ego to create hierachies of power, status, roles, ambition and obidience.Spiritual Masters teach on many different levels at the same time. Some people take what they can, and some take something deeper.
— Swami Dhyan Giten
Presence is the capacity to be present for another person with an open heart and to be grounded in our inner being. It is to be present for another person as a supporting light, as a supporting presence – and simply to be present with another person can help.
— Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being