A Rabbit Hole of Unposted Odd 'n Ends
I Am Brahman
Adi Shankaracharya
translated by Vivekachudamani
The fool thinks, “I am the body.” The intelligent man thinks, “I am an individual soul united with the body.” But the wise man, in the greatness of his knowledge and spiritual discrimination, sees the Self as the only reality, and thinks, “I am Brahman.”
No Gold is Lost
by Nisargadatta, I Am That
Imagine a big building collapsing. Some rooms are in ruins, some are intact. But can you speak of the space as ruined or intact? It is only the structure that suffered and the people who happened to live in it. Nothing happened to space itself. Similarly, nothing happens to life when forms break down and names are wiped out. The goldsmith melts down old ornaments to make new. Sometimes a good piece goes with the bad. He takes it in his stride, for he knows that no gold is lost.
The Truth is Still the Truth
by Mohandas Gandhi
Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you're right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.
More Equal
by George Orwell, Animal Farm
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Remain Still
The Ribhu Gita
translated by Dr. H. Ramamoorthy and Nome
Pure and impure thoughts are a feature of the mind. There are no wandering thoughts in the Supreme Being. Therefore, abide as That and, free from the pure and impure thoughts of the mind, remain still like a stone or a log of wood. You will then be always happy.
Glittering and Empty
by Nisargadatta, I Am That
The world is but a show, glittering and empty. It is, and yet it is not. It is there as long as I want to see it and take part in it. When I cease caring, it dissolves. It has no cause and serves no purpose. It just happens when we are absent-minded. It appears exactly as it looks, but there is no depth in it, nor meaning. Only the onlooker is real, call him Self or Atma. To the Self, the world is but a colourful show, which he enjoys as long as it lasts and forgets when it is over. Whatever happens on the stage makes him shudder in terror or roll with laughter, yet all the time he is aware that it is but a show. Without desire or fear, he enjoys it, as it happens.
That Pure Awareness
by Colin Drake
To enjoy this peace and absolute security we do not need any dogma, belief systems, rituals or practices. All that is necessary is to abandon the external search for this. We must stop "seeking for love in all the wrong places"; just recognize, and totally relax into, that pure awareness that we already are.
I Observe Silence
by Meher Baba
Man’s inability to live God’s words makes the Avatar’s teaching a mockery. Instead of practicing the compassion he taught, man has waged wars in his name. Instead of living the humility, purity, and truth of his words, man has given way to hatred, greed, and violence. Because man has been deaf to the principles and precepts laid down by God in the past, in this present Avataric form, I observe silence.
In Case We Never Meet
by Jack Kerouac
I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don't worry. It's all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don't know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended. There's nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born.
The Most Adaptable to Change
by Charles Darwin
It may or may not have been Charles Darwin who penned,
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives.
It is the one that is the most adaptable to change,”
But it is true, nonetheless.
The Timeless Dance
by Mike Jenkins
There is nowhere you can go where I am not, no thought you can think that I am not, no breath you can take that I am not, no word you can speak that I am not, no pain you can suffer that I am not, no distance you can travel that I am not and no sound you can make that I am not. For you are I are one, embracing in the timeless dance of here and now.
No Need for Understanding
by Ramesh S. Balsekar
The final understanding is the acceptance of what Is as the functioning of totality or god. However, that acceptance is not in your hands. In the final understanding, there is no surrenderer, no accepter, no seeker and no finder. You know you have understood the teaching when questions answer themselves. You know you have understood the teaching when questions don’t matter anymore and they dissolve. The stopping of all questioning is the most powerful understanding. Understanding means there is no need for understanding.
Out Beyond Ideas
by Rumi
Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I will meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Language, ideas, even the phrase each other, doesn't make any sense.
A Very Human Performance
Bokonon
a.k.a., Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
If I am ever put to death on the hook, expect a very human performance.
Beyond the Shadows
by Plato
Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed by the masses.
Entangling Briars
by Daito Kokushi
Wishing to entice the blind, the Buddha has playfully let words escape his golden mouth; Heaven and earth are ever since filled with entangling briars.
An Ocean in a Drop
by Rumi
You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.
So Goddamned Lonely
by Kurt Vonnegut
How on earth can religious people believe in so much arbitrary, clearly invented balderdash? The acceptance of a creed, any creed, entitles the acceptor to membership in the sort of artificial extended family we call a congregation. It is a way to fight loneliness. Any time I see a person fleeing from reason and into religion, I think to myself, there goes a person who simply cannot stand being so goddamned lonely anymore.
The Witnessing Consciousness
Ashtavakra
translated by Manuel Schoch
You are neither earth nor air nor fire nor water nor ether ... To attain liberation know yourself as the witnessing consciousness of all these ... If you separate yourself from the physical body and rest in consciousness then this very moment you will be happy, at peace, and free of bondage.
No Particular Path
Dattatreya, Song of the Avadhut
translated by Swami Abhayananda
A yogi has no particular path; he simply renounces imagining things. His mind then ceases of its own accord, and the perfect state just naturally occurs.
Know, Without Doubt
Dattatreya, Song of the Avadhut
translated by Swami Abhayananda
Know, without any doubt, that I’m limitless. Know, without any doubt, that I’m changeless. Know, without any doubt, that no stains can touch me. My nature is Freedom; there’s no maya to me.
He Who Renounces
Adi Sankaracharya, Atma Bodha
He who renouncing all activities, who is free of all the limitations of time, space and direction, worships his own Atman which is present everywhere, which is the destroyer of heat and cold, which is Bliss-Eternal and stainless, becomes All-knowing and All-pervading, and attains thereafter Immortality.
So It Goes
by Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
So it goes.
Tralfamadorian Proverb
Of Mind and Senses
The Amritabindu Upanishad
It is the mind that frees us or enslaves. Driven by the senses we become bound; Master of the senses we become free. Those who seek freedom must master their senses. When the mind is detached from the senses, one reaches the summit of consciousness. Mastery of the mind leads to wisdom. Practice meditation. Stop all vain talk. The highest state is beyond reach of thought, for it lies beyond all duality.
The Gift Back
by Edo
We've all been given a gift, the gift of life. What we do with our lives is our gift back.
Peace Arising
by Jac O'Keeffe
As you learn to observe with no attachment, peace arises. The only thing that can attempt to interfere with this is your identification with thoughts.
If You Listen Very Closely
by Jiddu Krishnamurti
Have you ever sat very silently, not with your attention fixed on anything, not making an effort to concentrate, but with the mind very quiet, really still? Then you hear everything, don’t you? You hear the far off noises as well as those that are nearer and those that are very close by, the immediate sounds – which means really that you are listening to everything. Your mind is not confined to one narrow little channel. If you can listen in this way, listen with ease, without strain, you will find an extraordinary change taking place within you, a change that comes without your volition, without you asking; and in that change there is great beauty and depth of insight.
Why Would You Do That?
by Robert Adams
When you think about the mind, when you're thinking about the thoughts then you're giving it energy. When you just observe and just watch and leave it alone and do nothing where does the energy come from? There is no energy to give it. So you ignore the mind by observing it. Then you will find out that there is no mind. You've been wasting your time for years observing something that doesn't exist. So why would you want to do that?
Find the Source
by Ramana
People often ask how the mind is controlled. I say to them 'Show me the mind and then you will know what to do.' The fact is that the mind is only a bundle of thoughts. How can you extinguish it by the thought of doing so or by a desire? Your thoughts and desires are part and parcel of the mind. The mind is simply fattened by new thoughts rising up. Therefore it is foolish to attempt to kill the mind by means of the mind. The only way of doing it is to find its source and hold on to it. The mind will then fade away of its own accord.
Shadows and Sun
by Rupert Spira
The self that seeks Awareness is like a shadow that seeks the sun.
A State of Bliss
by Deepak Chopra
If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It's very important to be aware of them every time they come up.
Real Truth
by Alan Watts
We must here make a clear distinction between belief and faith, because, in general practice, belief has come to mean a state of mind which is almost the opposite of faith. Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would “lief” or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on the condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go. In this sense of the word, faith is the essential virtue of science, and likewise of any religion that is not self-deception.
Ductless Glands and Viscera
by Aldous Huxley
What we feel and think and are is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and viscera.
Two Races of People
by Ray Bradbury
Playboy Interview 1996
There are two races of people – men and women – no matter what women's libbers would have you pretend. The male is motivated by toys and science because men are born with no purpose in the universe except to procreate. There is lots of time to kill beyond that. They've got to find work. Men have no inherent center to themselves beyond procreating. Women, however, are born with a center. They can create the universe, mother it, teach it, nurture it. Men read science fiction to build the future. Women don't need to read it. They are the future.
The Revelation
Agent Smith, The Matrix
I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.
The Irony and Paradox of Civilization
by Ibn Khaldun
The goal of civilization is a settled life and the achievement of luxury. But there is a limit that cannot be overstepped. When prosperity and luxury come to a people, they are followed by excessive consumption and extravagance. With that the human soul itself is undermined, both in its worldly wealth and its spiritual life.
The Advantages Animals Have
by Voltaire
Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.
A Dispassionate Eye
by Osho
Once your eye is completely clean, clean of all the dust, once it becomes a pure mirror, it reflects that which is. And that is truth, and truth liberates, but it has to be your own. My truth cannot liberate you, Buddha's truth cannot liberate you. There is only one possibility of liberation, and that is your own truth. And all you have to do is create a dispassionate eye.