If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future.
When you fight something, you’re tied to it forever. As long as you’re fighting it, you’re giving it power.
Another illusion is that external events have the power to hurt you, that other people have the power to hurt you. They don’t. It’s you who give this power to them.
The poor think they will be happy when they become rich. The rich think they will be happy when they are rid of their ulcers.
A nice definition of an awakened person: a person who no longer marches to the drums of society, a person who dances to the tune of the music that springs up from within.
We do not have a fear of the unknown. What we fear is giving up the known.
The only way to change is by changing your understanding.
A good teacher offers practice, a bad one offers theories .
You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something.
You will seek for God in vain till you understand that God can’t be seen as a “thing”; he needs a special way of looking similar to that of little children whose sight is undistorted by prefabricated doctrines and beliefs .
Are you your clothes? Are you your name? Are you your profession? Stop identifying with them. They come and go.
One day, a philosopher asked, “What is the purpose of creation?” “Lovemaking,” said the Master. Later, to his disciples, he said, “Before creation, love was. After creation, love was made. When love is consummated, creation will cease to be, and love will be forever.”
People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it.
God in heaven holds each person by a string. When you sin, you cut the string. Then God ties it up again. Making a knot, bringing you a little closer to Him. Again and again your sins cut the string and with each knot God keeps drawing you closer and closer.
May the peace of God disturb you always.
The Rose does not preen herself to catch my eye. She blooms because she blooms. A saint is a saint until he knows he is one.
Wisdom can be learned. But it cannot be taught .
The day you are happy for no reason whatsoever, the day you find yourself taking delight in everything and in nothing, you will know that you have found the land of unending joy called the kingdom.
Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description.
All suffering comes from a person’s inability to sit still and be alone.