These pages contains quotations I originally shared on the nondual quotes list. Enjoy!
In reality there are no others, and by helping yourself you help everybody else. ~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The privilege of a lifetime is to be yourself. ~ Joseph Campbell
The particular is born and reborn, changing name and shape, the gnani is the Changeless Reality, which makes the changeful possible. The entire universe is his body, all life is his life. As in a city of lights, when one bulb burns out, it does not affect the network, so the death of a body does not affect the whole. With me, all is one, all is equal. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Song Maker I MADE a hundred little songs That told the joy and pain of love, And sang them blithely, tho' I knew No whit thereof. I was a weaver deaf and blind; A miracle was wrought for me, But I have lost my skill to weave Since I can see. For while I sang -- ah swift and strange! Love passed and touched me on the brow, And I who made so many songs Am silent now. ~Sara Teasdale
Neither ignorance nor illusion ever happened to you. Find the self to which you ascribe ignorance and illusion and your question will be answered. You talk as if you know the self and see it to be under the sway of ignorance and illusion. But, in fact, you do not know the self, nor are you aware of ignorance. By all means, become aware, this will bring you to the self and you will realize that there is neither ignorance nor delusion in it. It is like saying: if there is sun, how can darkness be? As under a stone there will be darkness, however strong the sunlight, so in the shadow of the "I-am-the-body" consciousness there must be ignorance and illusion. Don't ask 'why' and 'how'. It is in the nature of creative imagination to identify itself with its creations. You can stop it any moment by switching off attention. Or though investigation. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The man of wisdom is devoid of ego even though he may appear to use it. His vacant or fasting mind is neither doing anything nor not doing anything. He is outside of volition, neither this nor that. He is everything and nothing. ~Ramesh S. Balsekar
"When mind is quiet, all is Self. When mind moves the world arises. So be Still, throw away everything and be Free." - Papaji
How can you determine whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state. ~Plato 'Theatetus'
A human being is part of the whole, called by us "universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, has thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest-- a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. ~Einstein
You know that you are. Don't burden yourself with names, just be. Any name or shape you give yourself obscures your real nature. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The World of Love Since I have heard of the world of Love, I've spent my life, my heart And my eyes this way. I used to think that love And beloved are different. I know now that they are the same. I was seeing two in one. ~Jalaluddin Rumi From "Crazy as we are," selected Rubais from the Divan-i Kebir, translated by Nevid O. Ergin, p. 8.
Alice Walker "Expect Nothing" Expect nothing. Live frugally On surprise. Become a stranger To need of pity Or, if compassion be freely Given out Take only enough. Stop short of urge to plead Then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger Than your own small heart Or greater than a star; Tame wild disappointment With caress unmoved and cold. Make of it a parka For your soul. Discover the reason why So tiny human midget Exists at all So scared unwise. But expect nothing. Live frugally On surprise.
"One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train." ~ Morihei Ueshiba
If you are not happy here and now, you never will be. ~Taishen Deshimaru
Poets are all who love, who feel great truths, and tell them: and the truth of truths is love. ~Philip James Bailey
I take a book from the other side of this desk; I hear the boys playing ball outside my window; I see the clouds blown away beyond the neighboring woods; - in all these I am practicing Zen, I am living Zen. No wordy discussion is necessary or any explanation. ~D T Suzuki
That self is empty like space; but it is not nothingness, since it is consciousness. It is: yet because it cannot be experienced by the mind and senses, it is not. It being the self of all, it is not experienced (as the object of experience) by anyone. Though one, it is reflected in the infinite atoms of existence and hence appears to be many. This appearance is however unreal... But the self is not unreal. It is not a void or nothingness: for it is the self of all... ~Vasishtha
Having realized that you cannot influence the results, pay no attention to your desire and fears. Let them come and go. Don't give them the nourishment of interest and attention. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
You can become a night watchman and live happily. It is what you are inwardly that matters. Your inner peace and joy you have to earn. It is much more difficult than earning money. No university can teach you to be yourself. ~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance, and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the guidance and benefit of others, by expressing in the world of forms - truth, love, purity and beauty - this is the sole game that has any intrinsic and absolute worth. All other incidents and attainments can, in themselves, have no lasting importance. ~Meher Baba 'Discourses'
Your journey is towards your homeland. Remember you are traveling from the world of appearances to the world of Reality. - 'Abd'l-Khaliq Ghijuduwani
If you want to love, take the time to listen to your heart. In most ancient and wise cultures it is a regular practice for people to talk to their heart. There are rituals, stories, and meditative skills in every spiritual tradition that awaken the voice of the heart. To live wisely, this practice is essential, because our heart is the source of our connection to and intimacy with all of life. And life is love. This mysterious quality of love is all around us, as real as gravity. Yet how often we forget about love.. ~Jack Kornfield
To identify yourself with your personality is more or less a reflex. You must see, when the reflex comes up, that it is a kind of feeling of insecurity; you are looking for a hold. ~Jean Klein
As the rivers flowing east and west Merge in the sea and become one with it, Forgetting they were ever separate rivers, So do all creatures lose their separateness When they merge at last into pure Being. Chandogya Upanishad
The whole world is you yet you keep thinking there is something else. --Hsueh-Feng
Transcendence implies the surpassing of two things, and the consequent attainment of a third thing. But there are no 'things' in reality, of any kind whatever: there is only the thing-in-itself, its suchness, which is Reality, revealed when the illusory dualism of inexistent qualities is dissolved. ~Wei Wu Wei
Only to the extent that person exposes his or her self over and over again to annihilation, can that which is indestructible arise within themselves. In this lies the dignity of daring. KARLFRIED GRAF VON DURKHEIM from "The Way of Transformation"
THE PRACTICE OF MEDITATION---MINDFULNESS---. is for me a practice of love. Unconscious love is an oxymoron, an impossibility. To be fully present with oneself and others, I believe, is the truest love there is. Our courage to enter the darkest recesses of our hearts and minds births a deliverance from all that has kept us tight, disconnected and loveless for so long. We forget and we remember. --Gavin Harrison Inquiring Mind, Fall, 1998
"Queen Mary, she's my friend Yes, I believe I'll go see her again Nobody has to guess That Baby can't be blessed Till she sees finally that she's just like all the rest" (Dylan - Just Like a Woman)
Do not struggle. Go with the flow of things, And you will find yourself at one with The mysterious unity of the Universe. ~ Chuang Tzu
If you look for the truth outside yourself, it gets farther and farther away. Today, walking alone, I meet him everywhere I step. He is the same as me, yet I am not him. Only if you understand it in this way will you merge with the way things are. ~Tung-shan
My greatest wealth is the deep stillness in which I strive and grow and win what the world cannot take from me with fire or sword. ~Goethe
Through Love all that is bitter will sweet Through Love all that is copper will be gold. Through Love all dregs will turn to purest wine Through Love all pain will turn to medicine. Through Love the dead will all become alive. Through Love the king will turn into a slave! Translated by Annemarie Schimmel, 'Look! This is Love'
From: AN INTERVIEW WITH ECKHART TOLLE by MICHAEL BERTRAND So hardly any of us are going to have some flashing moment of realization. Some do, but that's not necessary. Gradually a state arising that is inner stillness rather than noise, a state when mind activity becomes secondary. All the mental noise no longer has the power to grab you and to draw your attention in so completely that you're totally identified with it. You begin to be able to see thinking as just thinking, not such a big deal, and you realize that all the problems that you and most humans are burdened with are mental noise. There's no reality to any problem. I'm not saying that challenges don't exist in life. Challenges come, but the only way they can exist is in the Now and that's the only place where you can face the challenge by taking action in the Now or surrendering to what is. In either case it's not a problem. You can verify this for yourself by asking, "What problem do I have at this moment?" When you ask that question the mind becomes still and you realize this moment is actually fine, because most moments are fine. Even when they don't look fine on the surface, if you become still enough the present moment always has a deep goodness to it underneath the external appearance of what's happening in it because the very power of your being is inseparable from what I call the Now. Ultimately the Now is the power of your consciousness prior to thought, prior to forms arising out of it.
Acquire the courage to believe in yourself. Many of the things that you have been taught were at one time the radical ideas of individuals who had the courage to believe what their own hearts and minds told them was true, rather than accept the common beliefs of their day. ~ Ching Ning Chu
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