We are destined not to go back to the level of animals that we’ve come from but to return to being by going beyond thinking.
Whenever you meet anybody, it is a holy encounter. The primary event is the energy field of presence between you and the other human being that arises. You enjoy it. There is deep joy in the meeting.
Until presence becomes your predominant state, you may find yourself moving back and forth for a while between the old consciousness and the new, between mind identification and presence.
When someone becomes transparent, then something shines through that person that has nothing to do with the person or any of his or her personal history. What is required is becoming so transparent that the self or ego dissolves.
Whereas the notion of purpose before was always associated with future, there is now a deeper purpose that can only be found in the present, through denial of time.
Vigilance in oneself is very important. Vigilance means to be alert to what happens inside, so you can catch an old, collective habit pattern.
When you always want the next thing, every human being becomes a means to an end.
Some people thought I was crazy to have let go of all the worldly things I had “achieved.” They didn’t understand that I didn’t want or need any of that anymore.
Don’t think of yourself as having a past, don’t think of yourself as having a future. What’s left?
People always form images of who others are, and they can be inflated images. People may not realize that the enormous energy and spiritual power that comes through a teacher, especially in a teaching situation, has nothing to do with that person.
And so I came to understand why some masters sometimes say, “You are already enlightened.”
I know that at the core of each religion there is the truth, heavily obscured in some cases, but it’s there.
Thought began to take over and obscured the simple yet profound joy of connectedness with being.
A short attention span makes all of your perceptions and relationships shallow and unsatisfying.
For the ego to survive, it must make time – past and future – more important than the present moment.
How many situations can be resolved with less thinking?
Through being “right”, you feel superior and through feeling superior you strengthen your sense of self. In reality, of course, you are only strengthening the illusion of ego.
To love is to recognize yourself in another. The others “otherness” then stands revealed as an illusion pertaining to the purely human realm, the realm of form.
The more you make your thoughts and beliefs into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself.
I had been anxious and depressed for years and suddenly I was deeply at peace.