A Rabbit Hole of Odd 'n Ends


A Rabbit Hole of Odd 'n Ends

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

A Real Seeker

 

by René Descartes

 

If you would be a real seeker after truth,

You must at least once in your life, doubt, as far as possible, all things.

 

 

 

A Work to Last Forever

 

Thucydides (c. 460 – c. 400 BC)

Athenian historian and general

History of the Peloponnesian Wars

 

My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the needs of an immediate public,

but was done to last forever.

 

 

 

Only One Philosophical Problem

 

by Albert Camus

 

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.

 

 

 

How You Show Up

 

by Mello

 

It’s not how you arrive; it’s how you show up 

 

 

 

Observe Silence

 

by Meher Baba

 

Observe silence.

 

 

 

The Order of Things

 

by Michel Foucault

 

One day “man would be erased, like a face drawn in the sand at the edge of the sea.”

 

 

 

On Being Witty

 

by Voltaire

 

A witty saying proves nothing.

 

 

 

Adaptability is All

 

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 Black Snake of Ego

 

Ashtavakra

Bitten by the Black Snake

The Second Sutra

 

Your bondage is this:

You see the other, not yourself, as the observer and doer.

Thus has the black snake of ego bitten you.

 

 

 

When You See the Truth

 

Zen Proverb

 

See the truth, and you will see me.

 

 

 

Pride Before the Fall

 

Proverbs 16:18

 

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

 

 

 

Hope for the Best, Plan For the Worst

 

Book of Ecclesiastes, Verse 11:2

 

Store your wealth in seven, even eight places,
for you know not what evil shall come upon the earth.

 

 

 

All is Vanity

 

Book of Ecclesiastes, Verse 1:2

 

“Vanity of vanities,” saith the Preacher, “Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.”

 

 

 

Personal Responsibility

 

by Joseph Campbell

 

Your life is the fruit of your own doing. You have no one to blame but yourself.

 

 

 

Ruler of the World

 

by Napoleon Bonaparte

 

Imagination rules the world

 

 

 

Water in the Waves

 

by Thich Nhat Hanh

 

Water is free from the birth and death of a wave.

 

 

 

Greater Than Any Answer

 

by Ken Kesey

 

The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.

 

 

 

The Caprice of the Fates

 

by J.K. Rowling

 

Talent and intelligence never inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates.

 

 

 

Rough Men in the Night

 

by George Orwell

 

We sleep soundly in our beds,

because rough men stand ready in the night,

to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

or

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night,

only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

 

 

 

Saying, Asking, Wondering

 

by Tom Hanks

 

And when it was time for Tom Hanks to deliver his formal message, the script, while occasionally overwritten, rhymed with the mission. Flapping banners exalted the university motto, “Veritas,” and Hanks took up the battle cry. “The truth, to some, is no longer empirical. It’s no longer based on data nor common sense nor even common decency,” he said. “Truth is now considered malleable by opinion and by zero-sum endgames. Imagery is manufactured with audacity and with purpose to achieve the primal task of marring the truth with mock logic, to achieve with fake expertise, with false sincerity, with phrases like, ‘I’m just saying. Well, I’m just asking. I’m just wondering.’”

 

 

 

 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.