Learning in the true sense of the word is possible only in that state of attention, in which there is no outer or inner compulsion. Right thinking can come about only when the mind is not enslaved by tradition and memory.
Order cannot possibly be brought about through conformity to a pattern, under any circumstances.
Silence is difficult and arduous; it is not to be played with.
We are concerned, not with the development of just one capacity, such as that of a mathematician, or a scientist, or a musician, but with the total development of the student as a human being.
Begin where you are. Read every word, every phrase, every paragraph of the mind, as it operates through thought.
Merely to stuff the child with a lot of information, making him pass examinations, is the most unintelligent form of education.
What brings understanding is love. When your heart is full, then you will listen to the teacher, to the beggar, to the laughter of children, to the rainbow, and to the sorrow of man. Under every stone and leaf, that which is eternal exists.
Conflict is not in the feeling of being in love. The feeling of being in love is utterly without conflict. There is no loss of energy in being in love.
Yoga exercises are excellent; the speaker does them every day, for an hour or more; but that is merely physical exercise, to keep the body healthy, and so on.
If we could, and we must, establish a deep long abiding relationship with nature, with the actual trees, the bushes, the flowers, the grass and the fast moving clouds, then we would never slaughter another human being for any reason whatsoever.
One must know oneself as one is, not as one wishes to be, which is merely an ideal and therefore fictitious, unreal; it is only that which is that can be transformed, not that which you wish to be.
Right education should help the student, not only to develop his capacities, but to understand his own highest interest.
Happy is the man who is nothing.
All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society.
But if you have no relationship with the living things on this earth, you may lose whatever relationship you have with humanity.
What has validity is your living, not what happens tomorrow.
But if one observes, one will see that the body has its own intelligence; it requires a great deal of intelligence to observe the intelligence of the body.
When one has an image about oneself one is surely insane, one lives in a world of illusion.
The ending is the beginning, and the beginning is the first step, and the first step is the only step.
Life is both pleasure and pain, is it not? But why should we cling to pleasure and avoid pain? Why not merely live with both? If you cling to pleasure what happens? You get attached, do you not?