Organisations succumb to dictators

Let [society] band together into groups and organizations as much as it likes - it is just this banding together and the resultant extinction of the individual personality that makes it succumb so readily to a dictator.

Carl Jung in "The Undiscovered Self" page 39

The body has its own intelligence

When some difficulty arises we can always find a different movement, since the body is suprisingly able to adjust itself. It has its own intelligence and is willing to cooperate in finding a solution to any problem. One has only to approach problems with patience, care and attention.

Vanda Scaravelli in "Awakening the Spine" page 41

Awareness and Consciousness

There is an essential difference between consciousness and awareness, although the borders are not clear in our use of language. I can walk up the stairs of my house, fully conscious of what I am doing, and yet not know how many steps I have climbed. In order to know how many there are I must climb them a second time, pay attention, listen to myself, and count them. Awareness is consciousness together with a realization of what is happening within it or of what is going on within ourselves while we are conscious.

Moshe Feldenkrais, in "Awareness through movement" page 50

Stay Centred

Stay centred, do not overstretch. Extend from your centre, return to your centre.

Jack Kornfield in "Buddha's Little Instruction Book" page 69

What you judge you cannot understand

Do you want to change the world? How about beginning with yourself? How about being transformed yourself first? But how do you achieve that? Through observation. Through understanding. With no interference or judgement on your part. Because what you judge you cannot understand.

Anthony de Mello in "Awareness" page 37

To be aware of inattention

Attention is this hearing and this seeing, and this attention has no limitation, no resistance, so it is limitless. To attend implies this vast energy: it is not pinned down to a point. In this attention there is no repetitive movement; it is not mechanical. There is no question of how to maintain this attention, and when one has learnt the art of seeing and hearing, this attention can focus itself on a page, a word. In this there is no resistance which is the activity of concentration. Inattention cannot be refined into attention. To be aware of inattention is the ending of it: not that it becomes attentive. The ending has no continuity. The past modifying itself is the future - a continuity of what has been - and we find security in continuity, not in ending. So attention has no quality of continuity. Anything that continues is mechanical. The becoming is mechanical and implies time. Attention has no quality of time. All this is a tremendously complicated issue. One must gently, deeply go into it. 

J. Krishnamurti Letters to the Schools vol II, p 31

Light of the world

Let those who have no light in themselves light candles!...

You are the light of the world, you are the tree ever green...

Tertullian

Body carriage

Also let your bodily carriage be firm, and without contortions, whether in motion or at rest. As the mind reveals itself in the face, by keeping the features composed and decent, so the same should be required of it in respect of the whole body. All this, however, must be ensured without any sort of affectation.

Marcus Aurelius

You are unique

Remember you are unique

Just like everyone else

Wake Up!

Waking up is unpleasant, you know. You are nice and comfortable in bed. It's irritating to be woken up. That's the reason the wise guru will not attempt to wake people up. I hope I'm going to be wise here and make no attempt whatsoever to wake you up if you are asleep. It is really none of my business, even though I say to you at times, "Wake up!" My business is to do my thing, to dance my dance. If you profit from it, fine; if you don't, too bad! As the Arabs say, "The nature of the rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens."

Anthonoy de Mello in "Awareness" page 6

Native American Prayer

May the sun bring you new energy by day.

May the moon softly restore you by night.

May the breeze blow new strength into your being.

May you walk gently through the world and know its beauty all the days of your life.

Knowledge and Wisdom

"One who understands others has knowledge;

one who understands himself has wisdom.

Mastering others requires force;

mastering the self needs strength."

33rd Verse of the Tao te ching

A Tao-orientated life focuses on understanding yourself, rather than on the thinking and behaviour of others. You shift from the acquisition of information and the pursuit of status symbols to understanding and mastering yourself in any and all situations.

 Wayne Dyer in "Change Your Thoughts Change Your Life" page 160-161

 

Knowledge and understanding

The positive advantages of knowledge, work specifically to the disadvantage of understanding.

Jung in "The Undiscovered Self" page 6

Die today

Take it that you have died today, and your life's story is ended; and henceforward regard what further time may be given you as an uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature.

Marcus Aurelius, trans Maxwell Staniforth

Just be aware

Just be aware; that is all you have to do, without condemning, without forcing, without trying to change what you are aware of. Then you will see that it is like a tide that is coming in. You cannot prevent the tide from coming in; build a wall, or do what you will, it will come with tremendous energy. In the same way, if you are aware choicelessly, the whole field of consciousness begins to unfold. And as it unfolds, you have to follow; and the following becomes extraordinarily difficult—following in the sense to follow the movement of every thought, of every feeling, of every secret desire. It becomes difficult the moment you resist, the moment you say, "That is ugly", "This is good", "That is bad", "This I will keep", "That I will not keep."

J. Krishnamurti The Collected Works vol XV, p 85

The map is not the place.

- Korzybski

Meditation helps release patterns of behaviour

We all have deeply embedded patterns of behaviour that we act on unconsciously. We tense when the telephone rings, eat without tasting our food, or jog through the park while our mind is back in the office replaying the conversation we had with our boss or coworker. Meditation is a way of bringing these habitual behaviours to consciousness so that we can, if it's appropriate, gently release them. It helps us relax into our bodies more fully so that we are more aware of what we do and how we feel while we're doing it.

Pragito Dove in "Lunchtime Enlightenment" page 18

Paying Attention

Central to White Buffalo Woman's message, to all native spirituality, is the understanding that the Great Spirit lives in all beings, enlivens all forms, and gives energy to all things in all realms of creation - including Earthly life...

...Ancient teachings call us to turn primary attention to the Sacred Web of Life, of which we are a part and with which we are so obviously entangled. This quality of attention - paying attention to the whole - is called among my people 'holiness'.

Brooke Medicine Eagle, quoted in "The Little Book of Native American Wisdom" by Steve McFadden page 21

The Great Saints Were Eccentric

Many of the great saints were eccentric in the extreme. The fact of the matter, however, is that this has nothing to do wth anything. From all great beings you learn that personality is irrelevant. You're not with them to understand why they do the things they do, but to tap into the power from which they do them. If you try to figure out what they're doing or why, your brain will just get broken - which is not entirely a bad thing, of course. This, too, can be a stage in the process, if you keep going.

Swami Chetanananda in "The Breath of God" page 200

Liberation

It is bondage, when the mind desires anything or grieves about anything, rejects or welcomes anything, feels angry or happy about anything. Liberation is attained when the mind does not desire or grieve or reject or accept or feel happy or angry. It is bondage when the mind is attached to any particular sense organ. It is liberation when the mind is not attached to any sense organ. When there is no 'I' there is liberation; when there is 'I' there is bondage. Considering this, refrain from accepting or rejecting anything.

Kashyapa in the Ashtakavra Samhita, VIII quoted in "Forgiveness" by Gillian Stokes, page 31

The Silence of Supreme Intelligence

So in meditation there is no controller, there is no activity of will, which is desire. Then the brain, the whole movement of the brain apart from its own activity, which has its own rhythm, becomes utterly quiet, silent. It is not the silence cultivated by thought. It is the silence of intelligence, silence of supreme intelligence. In that silence that which is nameless comes, nameless is. That is sacred, immovable, it is not touched by thought, by endeavour, by effort. It is the way of intelligence which is the way of compassion. Then that which is sacred is everlasting. That is meditation. Such a life is a religious life. In that there is great beauty.

J. Krishnamurti in "Mind Without Measure"

Silence

If we can end the swing of thoughts collected by memories in the past, and the ones that have been shaped through fantasy and projected by imagination into the future, we will find silence. Invite silence, welcome silence, and slowly silence will become part of you.

In that silence we will be able to recieve hints of intuitions and sparks of perceptions from which creativity can arise.

Vanda Scaravelli in "Awakening the Spine" page 125

Smile

A smile costs nothing, but gives much. It enriches those who recieve, without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts for ever.

Some people are too tired to give you a smile; give them one of yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give.

Author unknown

The point of life

The point of life is life.

Goethe

 

Words are indicators

Words (and concepts) are indicators,

not reflections, of reality.

But, as the mystics of the East declare,

When the sage points to the moon

all that the idiot sees is the finger!

Anthony de Mello in "The Prayer of the frog" page 80

Just Listen

Just listen, because if you are capable of listening and seeing the truth of what is being said, then thought will not act. If you are in that state of listening, the fact, the truth, will act. If a seed is planted in the earth and has vitality, it will grow. In the same way, the act of listening is the soil. The act of listening is only possible when there is attention, and attention does not exist if there is interpretation, evaluation, condemnation, or judgement of that to which you are listening. If you listen completely, attentively, without any observer who is the thinker, then that very act of listening will put away what is false, and you will listen only to what is true. The act of listening is the field. In that field every kind of seed is sown, and only the seed that has vitality, energy, strength, will come up, will flourish. That’s what we are doing now. We’re actually listening, neither accepting nor disagreeing nor judging. We’re actually listening so completely that the very act of listening destroys what is false and lets the seed of truth take root.

J. Krishnamurti  The Collected Works vol XVI, pp 146-147

The human makeup

Human beings consist of a material body built from the food they eat. Those who care for this body are nourished by the universe itself.

Inside this is another body made of life energy. It fills the physical body and takes its shape. Those who treat this vital force as divine experience excellent health and longevity because this energy is the source of physical life.

Within the vital force is yet another body, this one made of thought energy. If fills the two denser bodies and has the same shape. Those who understand and control the mental body are no longer afflicted by fear.

Deeper still lies another body composed of intellect. It permeates the three denser bodies and assumes the same form. Those who establish their awareness here free themselves from unhealthy thoughts and actions, and develop the self-control necessary to achieve their goals.

Hidden inside it is yet a subtler body, composed of pure joy. It pervades the other bodies and shares the same shape. It is experienced as happiness, delight, and bliss.

from the Taittiriya Upanishad. Translated by Linda Johnsen

We cannot eat money

Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realise that we cannot eat money.

19th century Cree Indian

Words of the Buddha

Do not believe a thing simply because it has been said.
Do not put your faith in traditions only because they have been honoured by many generations.
Do not believe a thing because the general opinion believes it to be true or because it has been said repeatedly.
Do not believe a thing because of the single witness of one of the sages of antiquity.
Do not believe a thing because the probabilities are in its favour, or because you are in the habit of believing it to be true.
Do not believe in that which comes into your imagination, thinking that it must be the revelation of a superior Being.
Believe nothing that binds you to the sole authority of your masters or priests.
That which you have tried yourself, which you have experienced, which you have recognised as true, and which will be beneficial to you and to others; believe that, and shape your conduct to it.

An arduous task

To look at oneself without an attitude, without any opinion, judgement, evaluation, is one of the most arduous tasks.

J. Krishnamurti in "On Nature and the Environment" page 54