Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

Goethe

The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.

Leonardo da Vinci

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.

John Burroughs

Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work - that goes on, it adds up.

Barbara Kingsolver

Your neighbor's vision is as true for him as your own vision is true for you.

Miguel de Unamuno

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

Goethe

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.

Leonardo da Vinci

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

Albert Camus

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Jose Ortega y Gasset

I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it.

Charles M. Schulz

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

Goethe

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Susan Ertz

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.

Leonardo da Vinci

Anyone who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory.

Miguel de Unamuno

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

Goethe

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

Mark Twain

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Anton Chekhov

He who doesn't fear death dies only once.

Giovanni Falcone

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

Leonardo da Vinci

A person hears only what they understand.

Goethe

Psychological Evolution

After a million years, of fifty thousand years, have we changed deeply? Aren't we very primitive, barbarous? So I am asking if you will consider whether there is psychological evolution at all? I question it. Personally, to the speaker, there is no psychological evolution: there is only the ending of sorrow, of pain, anxiety, loneliness, despair and all that. Man has lived with it for a million years. And if we rely on time, which is thought - time and thought go together - if we rely on evolution then another thousand years or more, and we will still be barbarous.

J. Krishnamurti New York United Nations 11th April 1985

True meditation

True meditation is making everything - coughing, swallowing, waving, movement and stillness, speaking and acting, good and evil, fame and shame, loss and gain, right and wrong - into one single koan.

Hakuin

All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt.

Charles M. Schulz

People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it.

Anthony de Mello

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

Arthur Schopenhauer

All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing.

Maurice Maeterlinck

To have self-knowledge is to know the ways of your mind, to be aware of its subtleties, with all their implications; and for that you don't have to read a single book.

J. Krishnamurti

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.
Leonardo da Vinci

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.

Benjamin Disraeli

In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool.

Lord Chesterfield

Few people have the imagination for reality.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

Goethe

Thank you for your criticism of me

A monkey on a tree hurled a coconut and the head of a Sufi.
The man picked it up, drank the milk, at the flesh, and made a bowl from the shell.

Anthony De Mello in "The Song of the Bird" page 163

Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.

Carl Jung

Pay attention to episodes in nature that kindle an inner spark of awe and admiration. You don't have to discuss it with another being. If it has meaning to you, it's valid.

Wayne Dyer in "Your Ultimate Calling" page 23

Understanding comes when you investigate, when you enquire, when you search out, which requires care, consideration, thought, affection.

Krishnamurti,  Bombay 13th March, 1948

The Religious Man

But the religious man is he who, through self-knowledge, begins to discover his conditioning and to break through it; and the breaking through is not a matter of time.

Krishnamurti Poona 6th Public Talk 24th September 1958

Remembrance

The remembrance of yesterday only darkens today, and comparison prevents perception. How lovely were those red and yellow flowers ! Loveliness is not of time. We carry our burdens from day to day, and there is never a day without the shadow of many yesterdays. Our days are one continuous movement, yesterday mingling with today and tomorrow; there is never an ending. We are frightened of ending; but without ending, how can there be the new? Without death, how can there be life? And how little we know of either!

Krishnamurti in "Commentaries on Living Series I" Satisfaction

How free would you be if you just didn't care what others thought or felt about you?

Scott Shaw

Have nothing

If you want to have the whole world, have nothing. If you are always busy doing something, you cannot enjoy the world.

Tao Te Ching trans. John R Mabry

Only a quiet mind can understand

It is only when the mind is silent that we can understand anything. If I want to understand somebody, my mind must be quiet, not chattering, not prejudiced, not having innumerable opinions and experiences, for they prevent the observation and the understanding. One can see directly that it is only when the mind is very quiet that there is a possibility of clarity;

Krishnamurti

Compassion has no ideology

People are not naturally cruel. They become cruel when thay are unhappy - or when they succumb to an ideology.
If religious people had always followed the instinct of their heart reather than the logic of their religion we would have been spared the sight of heretics burning at stakes, widows walking into funeral pyres, and millions of innocent people slaughtered in wars that are waged in the name of God.
Compassion has no ideology.

Anthony De Mello in "The Song of the Bird" page 152

I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.

Michael Jordan

What one has not experienced, one will never understand in print.

Isadora Duncan

Take things as they come along

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

Carl Jung

There is no such thing as distraction

So a mind that has the power of concentration, that says it has complete control over thought, is a stupid mind. If that is so, then you must find a way of enquiring which is not merely through concentration. Concentration implies distraction, does it not? The mind takes up a position and says everything else is a distraction. It says I must think about this and exclude everything else. Now to me there is no such thing as distraction because there is no central position which the mind takes and then says: I will pursue this and not that. So let us remove both the word and the condemnatory feeling of distraction. Please experience what I am saying. Remove that word distraction not merely verbally but emotionally, inwardly. Then you will see what happens to your mind. To us at present there is concentration and distraction, a concentrated outlook and a wandering off. So you see we have created a duality, and therefore a conflict. You spend your life battling between the chosen thought and the distractions, and when you can get an hour when you are completely held by an idea you feel you have achieved something. But if you remove this idea of distraction altogether then you will find that your mind is in a state of reaction - in a state of association which you call "wandering". That is the fact, and you have removed the element of conflict. Then you are free to deal with the wanderings; you can enquire as to why the mind wanders and not merely try to stop it, to control it. Then, since you have removed the word, the feeling of being distracted, what is now operating is a mind that is attentive to the wandering, to reaction.

Krishnamurti Collected Works, Poona 4th Public Talk 17th September 1958

Remain with a feeling

Try remaining with the feeling of hate, with the feeling of envy, jealousy, with the venom of ambition; for after all, that's what you have in daily life, though you may want to live with love, or with the word `love'. Since you have the feeling of hate, of wanting to hurt somebody with a gesture or a burning word, see if you can stay with that feeling. Can you? Have you ever tried? Try to remain with a feeling, and see what happens. You will find it amazingly difficult. Your mind will not leave the feeling alone; it comes rushing in with its remembrances, its associations, its do's and don'ts, its everlasting chatter. Pick up a piece of shell. Can you look at it, wonder at its delicate beauty, without saying how pretty it is, or what animal made it? Can you look without the movement of the mind? Can you live with the feeling behind the word, without the feeling that the word builds up? If you can, then you will discover an extraordinary thing, a movement beyond the measure of time, a spring that knows no summer.

Krishnamurti in Commentaries On Living Series III Chapter 37 Aloneness Beyond Loneliness

Age

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Mark Twain

A flame to warm the heart

A woodland in full color is awesome as a forest fire, in magnitude at least, but a single tree is like a dancing tongue of flame to warm the heart.

Hal Borland

Autumn

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

Albert Camus

Reformation

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

Thomas Carlyle

Solitude is strength

Solitude is strength; to depend on the presence of the crowd is weakness. The man who needs a mob to nerve him is much more alone than he imagines.

Paul Brunton

He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

Immanuel Kant

What is it that affects you most?

Finding fame or your true nature, which appeals to you? Nature or materialism: which means more? In life's ups and downs, what is it that affects you most?
Telescopic ambition is unhealthy. Unbridled accumulation leads to unimaginable loss.
Equanimity knows no ruin. Equilibrium needs no safety-net.
Understanding these things, leads to peace and plenty.

From the Tao Teh Ching by Lao Tzu translated by Louise Milne

The facilitating power of stillness

The gentlest and softest can overpower granite. Spirit permeates even the impregnable.
Knowing this, we can see the wisdom in holding our peace, in remaining quietly unprovoked.
Only very few realise the facilitating power of stillness: the silent promise of peaceful resolve, fairness and equanimity.

From the Tao Teh Ching by Lao Tzu translated by Louise Milne

Simplicity

It is a great paradox that simplicity comes from passing through many complex stages of learning.

Brahma Kumaris calendar 19th October

The meditator is the meditation.
The observer is the observed.

Krishnamurti

The Laws of Mathematics

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

Albert Einstein

You're free to change your mind

You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self.
Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them.
You're always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.

Richard Bach "Illusions The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" page 51

Creation can take place only in the mind that is totally empty

The cup is useful only when it is empty.  With most of us, the mind is clouded, cluttered up with so many things - pleasant and unpleasant experiences, knowledge, patterns or formulas of behaviour, and so on.  It is never empty.  And creation can take place only in the mind that is totally empty.  Creation is always new, and therefore the mind is made constantly fresh, young, innocent; it doesn't repeat, and therefore doesn't create habits. I don't know if you have ever noticed what sometimes happens when you have a problem, either mathematical or psychological.  You think about it a great deal, you worry over it like a dog chewing on a bone, but you can't find an answer.  Then you let it alone, you go away from it, you take a walk; and suddenly, out of that emptiness, comes the answer.  This must have happened to many of us.  Now, how does this take place?  Your mind has been very active within its own limitations about that problem, but you have not found the answer, so you have put the problem aside.  Then your mind becomes somewhat quiet, somewhat still, empty; and in that stillness, that emptiness, the problem is resolved.

Krishnamurti in Saanen 10th Public Talk 1st August 1965

Faith

Faith is the fearless search for truth. So it is not lost when one questions one's beliefs.

Anthony De Mello

Truth is a state of experiencing

You cannot repeat truth, because truth is never constant. Truth is a state of experiencing, and what you can repeat is a static state; therefore it is not the truth.

Krishnamurti

Perfection

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

Goethe

Do not reproach another for a blemish that is in you.

Rashi

To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.

William H. Walton

Be Real

Forget 'holiness', abandon 'intelligence' and people will be a hundred times better off.
Give up 'humanitarianism', put away 'righteousness' and people will discover brotherly love and kindness.
Forget 'great art', throw away 'profit' and there will be no more thieves.
These things are superficial and are simply not enough.
People need something solid to hold on to.
And here it is:

Be real.

Embrace simplicity.

Put others first.

Desire little.

John R Mabry "The Little Book of the Tao Te Ching" page 17

Right or Wrong

The self-reliant measure right or wrong not by public rule, but by the spirit God has conferred on them.

Peter O. Erbe

Wisdom of the body

Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense.

Henry Miller

Just observe

Most people are unhappy; and they are unhappy because there is no love in their hearts. Love will arise in your heart when you have no barrier between yourself and another, when you meet and observe people without judging them, when you just see the sailboat on the river and enjoy the beauty of it. Don't let your prejudices cloud your observation of things as they are; just observe, and you will discover that out of this simple observation, out of this awareness of trees, of birds, of people walking, working, smiling, something happens to you inside. Without this extraordinary thing happening to you, without the arising of love in your heart, life has very little meaning.

Krishnamurti "This Matter of Culture"

Mysteries of the soul

The mysteries of the soul are revealed in the movements of the body.

Michelangelo

Chinese proverb

Tell me and I forget.
Show me and I remember.
Involve me and I understand.

Gravity will not allow you to stay the same

The more you use your body as it is designed to be used, the better your posture will become and the better it will feel. Conversely, poor use invites deterioration. You can get better or you can get worse, but gravity will not allow you to stay the same.

Mary Bond "The New Rules of Posture" page 12

Children of Gravity

We are children of gravity. As we age, we reach a point where we begin to yield to it. Sagging skin and organs, varicose veins, arthritis, failing hearts, these all come from the lost battle against gravity.

Ralph Pelligra

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

1 Corinthians 13.5

Become like a hollow bamboo

Relax the body completely.

Let the mind remain in its unformed state.

Become like a hollow bamboo

so that everything flows through.

Will Johnson 'The Song of Mahamudra'

We think we see but we don't

I need to talk about words and concepts because I must explain to you why it is, when we look at a tree, we really don't see. We think we do, but we don't. When we look at a person, we really don't see that person, we only think we do. What we're seeing is something that we fixed in our mind. We get an impression and we hold on to that impression, and we keep looking at a person through that impression. And we do this with almost everything. If you understand that, you will understand the loveliness and beauty of being aware of everything around you. Because reality is there; "God," whatever that is, is there. It's all there.

Awareness

When the sage points to the moon, all the idiot sees is the finger.
Jean Guiton, a very pious and orthodox French writer, adds a terrifying comment: "We often use the finger to gouge the eyes out." Isn't that terrible? Awareness, awareness, awareness! In awareness is healing; in awareness is truth; in awareness is salvation; in awareness is spirituality; in awareness is growth; in awareness is love; in awareness is awakening. Awareness.

Anthony De Mello in "Awareness" page 102

We don't want to live with what we actually are

So, can you and I, live with what we actually are? Being dull, envious, fearful,thinking that we have tremendous affection when we have not, getting easily hurt, flattered, bored, can we live with these actualities, neither accepting nor denying, but observing, living with them without becoming morbid, depressed or elated? Then you will find that one of the major reasons for fear is that we don't want to live with what we are.

Krishnamurti, Saanen, 5th Public Talk 18th July 1967

Comparison

Comparison prevents perception.

Krishnamurti

Acceptance

Time marches on, bringing change to our lives. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Some of it is welcome, some harder to take. True contentment and happiness come in accepting the people and events around us and learning to flourish in our place on this spinning planet.

Gillian Stokes

A serene wisdom

Who everywhere is free from all ties, who neither rejoices nor sorrows if fortune is good or is ill, his is a serene wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

Intelligent men learn from their own mistakes; Wise men learn from the mistakes of others.

Sorrows

Most of the sorrows on the earth humans cause for themselves.

Jack Kornfield in "Buddha's Little Instruction Book"

Your Mission

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished:
If you're alive, it isn't.

Richard Bach in "Illusions The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah"

A Blessing

The love and affection of heaven be to you,
The love and affection of the saints be to you,
The love and affection of the angels be to you,
The love and affection of the sun be to you,
The love and affection of the moon be to you,
Each day and night of your lives,
To keep you from haters, to keep you from harmers,
To keep you from oppressors.

from the Carmina Gadelica

You teach best what you most need to learn.

Richard Bach

Tomorrow means things depart

Don't torture yourself standing watch over things,
accomplishments or states of mind
you want to still possess tomorrow.
It doesn't work that way.
Tomorrow means things depart.
Time and elements wash them away
just as they came, with abundance,
as the future stands by watching.

Neil Douglas-Klotz "Blessings of the Cosmos" page 14

Translation of Matthew 6:34 from the Aramaic

Stop Wanting

The very desire to be free or to be enlightened will be the desire that prevents your freedom.

Achaan Chah

To know God

If you want to know God, then turn your face toward your friend, and don't look away.

Rumi

Open the window in the centre of your chest and let spirit move in and out.

Rumi

All is cyclical

In moments of darkness and pain
remember all is cyclical.
Sit quietly behind your wooden door:
Spring will come again.

Ching-Yuen

To Really Know

To really know. That is, to be transformed by what one knows.

Anthony De Mello

Alignment is an ongoing process

Alignment is not a static condition that we seek to create and then maintain. It is an ongoing process that may change from moment to moment. Relaxation is not a static gesture. It too is an ongoing process. The body continues to let go of tension and yield to the appearance of  new areas of sensation that continually present themselves.

Will Johnston in "The Posture of Meditation" page 56

Let Others Be

Do not find fault with others. If they behave wrongly there is no need to make yourself suffer. If you point out to them what is correct and they do not practice accordingly, leave it at that.

Jack Kornfield and Paul Breiter in "A Still Forest Pool" page 68

Cultivate sensitivity through solitude

For the total development of the human being, solitude as a means of cultivating sensitivity becomes a necessity. One has to know what it is to be alone, what it is to meditate, what it is to die; and the implications of solitude, of meditation, of death, can be known only by seeking them out. These implications cannot be taught, they must be learnt. One can indicate, but learning by what is indicated is not the experiencing of solitude or meditation. To experience what is solitude and what is meditation, one must be in a state of inquiry; only a mind that is in a state of inquiry is capable of learning. But when inquiry is suppressed by previous knowledge, or by the authority and experience of another, then learning becomes mere imitation, and imitation causes a human being to repeat what is learnt without experiencing it.

Krishnamurti in "Life Ahead" Page 14

Just let go

Do everything with a mind that lets go. Do not expect any praise or reward. If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will know complete peace and freedom. Your struggles with the world will have come to an end.

from "A Still Forest Pool" by Jack Kornfield and Paul Breiter page 73

The bottom of the sea is calm

Even in the middle of a hurricane, the bottom of the sea is calm. As the storm rages and the winds howl, the deep waters sway in gentle rhythm, a light movement of fish and plant life. Below there is no storm.

Wayne Muller

Happiness

Happiness is not a matter of intensity, but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.

Thomas Merton

A balanced posture generates alert awareness

A balanced posture requires very little effort to sustain and allows the major muscles of the body to relax. This relatively small expenditure of energy, coupled with the phenomenon of relaxation, produces a distinct feeling tone of softness, ease, and vibratory flow. It also generates a natural condition of alert awareness. This dual condition of comfort in the body and relaxed alertness in the mind is the fruit of balance.

Will Johnson in "The posture of Meditation" page 20

No self, no problem.

The Enquiry Principle

It is the notion that movement education works best when it fosters curiosity. Thus, movement work imples that the teacher doesn't assume to know the experience of the student. The teacher is himself pursuing a path of inquiry supported by genuine curiosity. This allows for the possibility that the student/client will do something new, will innovate: another way of describing the experience of self-organization.

Kevin Frank & Caryn McHose

Relaxation

Relaxation is a function of the body's ability to surrender its weight to the pull of gravity. If we are constantly bracing ourselves against the force of gravity, we cannot truly relax.

Will Johnson in "The Posture of Meditation" page39

Retire before you are too old

It would be wise if after a certain age, perhaps let us say forty or forty-five, or younger still, you retired from the world, before you are too old. What would happen if you did retire not merely to enjoy the fruit of sensate gatherings but retired in order to find yourself, in order to think feel profoundly, to meditate, to discover reality? Perhaps you may save mankind from the sensate, worldly path it is following, with all its brutality, deception and sorrow. Thus there may be a group of people, being disassociated from worldliness, from its identifications and demands, able to guide it, to teach it. Being free from worldliness they will have no authority, no importance and so will not be drawn into its stupidities and calamities. For a man who is not free from authority, from position, is not able to guide, to teach another. A man who is in authority is identified with his position, with his importance, with his work and so is in bondage. To understand the freedom of truth there must be freedom to experience. If such a group came into being then they could produce a new world, a new culture.

Krishnamurti - Ojai 4th Public Talk 4th June, 1944

The Source of the income is the Divine

Our money worries are more of a faith issue than a financial one. The Source of the income is the Divine, not just me and my hard work; I'm just the channel. If I'm really co-creating with the Divine, I can relax.

Rev. Karen Russo

Preach what you practice

Why do I try to practice what I preach?
If I stuck to preaching what I practice, I'd be less of a phony.

Anthony de Mello in "The Song of the Bird" page 91

Why are we such snobs?

Why is it that we crave to be recognized, to be made much of, to be encouraged? Why is it that we are such snobs? Why is it that we cling to our exclusiveness of name, position, acquisition? Is anonymity degrading, and to be unknown despicable? Why do we pursue the famous, the popular? Why is it that we are not content to be ourselves? Are we frightened and ashamed of what we are, that name, position and acquisition become so all-important? It is curious how strong is the desire to be recognized, to be applauded. In the excitement of a battle, one does incredible things for which one is honoured; one becomes a hero for killing a fellow man. Through privilege, cleverness, or capacity and efficiency, one arrives somewhere near the top - though the top is never the top, for there is always more and more in the intoxication of success. The country or the business is yourself; on you depend the issues, you are the power. Organized religion offers position, prestige and honour; there too you are somebody, apart and important. Or again you become the disciple of a teacher, of a guru or Master, or you co-operate with them in their work. You are still important, you represent them, you share their responsibility, you have and others receive. Though in their name, you are still the means. You may put on a loincloth or the monk's robe, but it is you who are making the gesture, it is you who are renouncing.

Krishnamurti in Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 22

The desire to be free cages us

In its yearning for freedom, with Spirit wild and unbroken, the untameable Soul cages itself in this very desire. Not before even the desire has burned away shall it be truly free.

Peter Erbe in "Garden of Gods" page 89

Spiritual Awakening

Spritual awakening is certainly a becoming not becoming what you are not as yet, but becoming aware of what you already are.

Peter O. Erbe in "Garden of Gods" page 2

The way of self-reliance

But, rather than be carried along by circumstances and manipulated by those who can see the weaknesses and behavior tendencies that we ignore, we can work with our own characteristics and be in control of our own lives. The Way of Self-Reliance starts with recognising who we are, what we've got to work with, and what works best for us.

Benjamin Hoff in "The Tao of Pooh" page 57

Brain can be fooled

As we have likely recognised by now, no two snowflakes, trees or animals are alike. No two people are the same, either. Everything has its own Inner Nature. Unlike other forms of life, though, people are easily led away from what's right for them, because people have Brain, and Brain can be fooled. Inner Nature, when relied upon, cannot be fooled. But many people do not look at it or listen to it, and consequently do not understand themselves very much. Having little understanding of themselves, they have little respect for themselves, and are therefore easily influenced by others.

Benjamin Hoff in "The Tao of Pooh" page 57

Heaven doesn't choose sides.

Return to simplicity

Let people return to simplicity, working with their own hands.
Then they will find joy in their food
Beauty in their simple clothes
Peace in their living
Fulfillment in their traditions.

John R Mabry in "The little book of The Tao Te Ching"

Just know about it

You don't need to avoid or deny anything. It is enough to just know about it. When you are busy trying to avoid something, it's still affecting you. Simply cease to be affected or impelled by anything and you'll find you are free.

Caoshan

Truth must be discovered

There is no path to truth. Truth must be discovered, but there is no formula for its discovery. What is formulated is not true. You must set out on the uncharted sea, and the uncharted sea is yourself. You must set out to discover yourself, but not according to any plan or pattern, for then there is no discovery. Discovery brings joy - not the remembered, comparative joy, but joy that is ever new. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom in whose tranquillity and silence there is the immeasurable.

Krishnamurti Commentaries on Living Series I, My Path and Your Path

Effects of Yoga

Grace, beauty, strength, energy and firmness adorn the body through Yoga. 

Yoga Sutra III.47

Don't enter into a debate

When someone doesn't accept what you say, don't attempt to make him understand you intellectually. Don't enter into a debate. Listen to his objections until he begins to find his error himself.

Dogen

Perfect Existence

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

Shunryu Suzuki

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams, who looks inside, awakens.

Carl Jung

If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?

Rumi

Meditation cannot be cultivated

If you set out to meditate it will not be meditation. If you set out to be good, goodness will never flower. If you cultivate humility, it ceases to be. Meditation is like the breeze that comes in when you leave the window open; but if you deliberately keep it open, deliberately invite it to come, it will never appear.

Krishnamurti The Only Revolution India Part 6

Insanity

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Albert Einstein

Live like the lotus

May we live like the lotus, at home in the muddy water.

Judith Hanson Lasater

Why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me?

Francis Bacon

Teach the truth as you know it

Whatever you know, teach it with all your heart, give it fully from your heart, without any reservation. Teach the truth as you know it. This is the way to create space for more knowledge to flow through you and to accelerate your own evolution. As you continue to teach, you learn further and consolidate what you know. The more you learn, the more you can teach.

Yogi Hari

Remain with the feeling

Try remaining with the feeling of hate, with the feeling of envy, jealousy, with the venom of ambition; for after all, that's what you have in daily life, though you may want to live with love, or with the word 'love'. Since you have the feeling of hate, of wanting to hurt somebody with a gesture or a burning word, see if you can stay with that feeling. Can you? Have you ever tried? Try to remain with a feeling, and see what happens. You will find it amazingly difficult. Your mind will not leave the feeling alone; it comes rushing in with its remembrances, its associations, its do's and don'ts, its everlasting chatter. Pick up a piece of shell. Can you look at it, wonder at its delicate beauty, without saying how pretty it is, or what animal made it? Can you look without the movement of the mind? Can you live with the feeling behind the word, without the feeling that the word builds up? If you can, then you will discover an extraordinary thing, a movement beyond the measure of time, a spring that knows no summer.

Krishnamurti in "Commentaries On Living Series III" Aloneness Beyond Loneliness

A cell in the body of humanity

Your lower self sees you as the centre of the universe - your higher self sees you as a cell in the body of humanity.

Peace Pilgrim

Be like the flowers

Why not be like the flowers in the field without any reason? They live, they blossom, they expand. Their perfume is swept in the air by the wind and it is not contaminated by ideas, duties, motivations. Those things would twist the flowers in different directions.

Vanda Scaravelli in "Awakening the Spine" page 87

Nothing to say

When you have nothing to say, say nothing.

Charles Caleb Colten

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.

G.K.Chesterton

A wish

You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true.
You may have to work for it however.

Richard Bach "Illusions"

Before you speak

Before you speak, ask yourself, is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence?

Sai Baba

Ritualism

Ritualism is a kind of kindergarten for spiritual novices.

Swami Pavitrananda

The meditative mind

Meditation is not a matter of being absorbed in some grandiose idea or image: that only quietens one for the moment, as a child absorbed by a toy is for the time being quiet. But as soon as the toy ceases to be of interest, the restlessness and the mischief begin again. Meditation is not the pursuit of an invisible path leading to some imagined bliss. The meditative mind is seeing watching, listening, without the word, without comment, without opinion - attentive to the movement of life in all its relationships throughout the day. And at night, when the whole organism is at rest, the meditative mind has no dreams for it has been awake all day. It is only the indolent who have dreams; only the half-asleep who need the intimation of their own states. But as the mind watches, listens to the movement of life, the outer and the inner, to such a mind comes a silence that is not put together by thought. 

Krishnamurti "The Only Revolution India Part 3"

What is zen?

Try if you wish. But Zen comes of itself. True Zen shows in everyday living, CONSCIOUSNESS in action. More that any limited awareness, it opens every inner door to our infinite nature.

Instantly mind frees. How it frees! False Zen wracks brains as a fiction concocted by priests and salesmen to peddle their own wares.

Look at it this way, inside out and outside in: CONSCIOUSNESS everywhere, inclusive, through you. Then you can't help living humbly, in wonder.

Paul Reps in "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones"

The Four Reliances

Rely on the truth the teacher teaches, not on his personality.

Rely on what he means, not on the words he speaks.

Rely on the real meaning, not on a partial provisional understanding.

Rely on your wisdom mind, not on the judgemental intellect.

The Buddha

Tibetan saying

Those who are too clever, completely miss the point.

Awareness. Attention. Absorption.

They say Buddha practiced every form of asceticism known to the India of the times, in an effort to attain enlightenment. All in vain. One day he sat under a bodhi tree and enlightenment occurred. He passed on the secret of enlightenment to his disciples in words that must seem strange to the uninitiated: "When you draw in a deep breath, oh monks, be aware that you are drawing in a deep breath. And when you draw in a shallow breath, oh monks, be aware that you are drawing in a shallow breath. And when you draw in a medium-sized breath, oh monks, be aware that you are drawing in a medium-sized breath." Awareness. Attention. Absorption.

Anthony de Mello in "The Song of the Bird" page 19

Come into the present

Drop every thought of the future, drop every thought of the past, drop every image and abstraction, and come into the present. Contemplation will arise!

Anthony de Mello in "The song of the bird" page 18

What is formulated is not true

There is no path to truth. Truth must be discovered, but there is no formula for its discovery. What is formulated is not true. You must set out on the uncharted sea, and the uncharted sea is yourself. You must set out to discover yourself, but not according to any plan or pattern, for then there is no discovery. Discovery brings joy - not the remembered, comparative joy, but joy that is ever new. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom in whose tranquillity and silence there is the immeasurable. 

Krishnamurti "Commentaries on Living Series I, My Path and Your Path"

Remembrance

The remembrance of yesterday only darkens today, and comparison prevents perception.

Krishnamurti

Cicero's 6 mistakes of man #6

Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.

Cicero's 6 mistakes of man #5

Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and study.

Cicero's 6 mistakes of man #4

Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.

Cicero's 6 mistakes of man #3

Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it.

Cicero's 6 mistakes of man #2

The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected

Cicero's 6 mistakes of man #1

The illusion that personal gain is made up of crushing others.

Have a little relaxation

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgement will be surer; since to remain contantly at work will cause you to lose power of judgement...
Go some distance away because the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance, and a lack of harmony or proportion is more readily seen.

Leonardo Da Vinci

 

A shallow mind does not become fathomless by adorning itself with knowledge and clever phrases, by quoting words of wisdom, or by decorating its outward appearance.

Krishnamurti in "Commentaries on Living Series I Chapter 53, Spontaneity"

Be the grass, grow back when you are trod upon.

Charmaine Aserappa

Liberation

Liberation, I guess, is everybody getting what they think they want, without knowing the whole truth. Or in other words, liberation finally amounts to being free from things we don't like in order to be enslaved by things we approve of.

Robert Fulghum in "All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten" page 106

Tradition

Tradition implies authority, conformity, imitation, following. 

Krishnamurti Saanen 4th Public Dialogue 3rd August 1974

The religious man

The religious man is not concerned with society at all, because society is based on acquisitiveness, envy, greed, ambition, fear.

...the truly religious man is totally outside of society, because he is not ambitious, he has no envy, he is not following any ritual, dogma or belief;

Krishnamurti Madras 2nd Public Talk 15th January 1956

Gravity

I look at nature and reflect on the existence in it of a force so silent and invisible that human beings were not aware of it till lately; and yet so mighty that the world is moved by it: the force of gravity.
Because of it the bird flies in the sky, mountains are held in place, leaves flutter to the ground,planets are kept in orbit.
There is no better symbol of God's power and presence.

Anthony de Mello in "Wellsprings" page 58

God's smile

Today a picture for you. I am sorry but I don't know who the photographer was so I am unable give them the credit.

Hell

A deluded mind is hell.

Bodhidarma

Self-knowledge

Self-knowledge cannot be gathered through anybody, through any book, through any confession, psychology, or psychoanalyst. It has to be found by yourself, because it is your life.

Krishnamurti

Osho's three steps of awareness

There are three steps of awareness.

First, become aware of your body - walking, chopping wood, or carrying water from the well. Be watchful, be alert, aware, conscious. Don't go on doing things like a zombie, like a somnambulist, a sleepwalker.

When you have become aware of your body and its actions then move deeper - to your mind and its activity, thoughts, imagination, projections... As you become more aware, there is no energy available for thoughts; they die out. When you are 100 percent aware, the mind becomes absolutely silent.

The third step: to become aware of feelings, moods, emotions.

Osho in "Maturity" pages 179 - 181

Control

Just as I should never seek to control anyone, let me never allow anyone to control me.

Today's entry on the Brahma Kumaris desktop calendar

The true essence of civilisation

The man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures and acknowledging unity with the universe of things, was infusing into his being the true essence of civilisation. And when native man left off this form of development, his humanization was retarded in growth.

Chief Luther Standing Bear

Silence is the Great Mystery

Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood is ever clam and unshaken by the storms of existence... If you ask him: "What is silence?" he will answer: "It is the great Mystery. The Holy Silence is His Voice." If you ask: "What are the fruits of silence?" he will say: "They are self-control, true courage or endurance, patience, dignity and reverence. Silence is the cornerstone of character."

Ohiyesa

Yoga should not be a training for body control

Yoga should not be a training for body control; on the contrary, it must bring freedom to the body, all the freedom it needs.
Yoga should help us to acquire the order in the body that it is necessary for it to function properly.

Vanda Scaravelli in "Awakening the Spine" page 106

Meditation

Mind is a way to understand the object; meditation is a way to understand the subject.

Osho

Negative Emotions

When you possess recurring negative emotions toward any individual or event, you allow that negative experience to be continually relived in your life. It, therefore, becomes a dominant focal point of your mindset. Thus, you are allowing the negative person or event to maintain an unnecessary presence in your LIFETIME.

Scott Shaw in "Zen O'clock" page 66

Gnosis

Gnosis is experiencing the fire directly, not prattling on about smoke. All this pompous noise about spiritual "authority" is only a way of saying to the world, "I can't see anything. Please excuse me."

Rumi

The spiritual seeker surrenders to wonder

The intellectual quest is exquisite like pearls and coral, but it is not the same as the spiritual quest. The spiritual quest is on another level altogether. Spiritual wine has a subtler taste. The intellect and the senses investigate cause and effect. The spiritual seeker surrenders to wonder.

Rumi

Meditation is not concentration

Meditation is not concentration. It is simple awareness. You simply relax and watch the breathing. In that watching, nothing is excluded. The car is humming - perfectly okay, accept it. The traffic is passing - that's okay, part of life. Your fellow passenger is snoring by your side - just accept it. Nothing is rejected, You are not to narrow down your consciousness.
... A meditation in which you need certain prerequisites, in which certain conditions need to be fulfilled, is not meditation at all - because you will not be able to do it when you are dying. Death will be such a distraction.

Osho in "Body Mind Balancing" page 138

 

Live it

However little you understand, however tiny a part, live it completely - not superficially, but deeply, fully, as vitally, as intrinsically, as enthusiastically as possible. Then, like a flower in a garden, that very living spreads its perfume. You don't have to do propaganda for the jasmine. The jasmine itself does the propaganda; its beauty, its perfume, its loveliness, tells the story. When you have not that loveliness, that beauty, you do propaganda for it, but the moment you have understood a little, you talk about it, preach it, shout it; because of your own understanding, you help another to understand, and therefore understanding spreads more and more, it moves further and further afield.

Krishnamurti, Bombay 10th Public Talk 14th March, 1948

Truth cannot be repeated, truth must be experienced from moment to moment by each one.

Krishnamurti

Wake up

Zuigan would greet himself each morning and request of himself, "Today please try and wake up," to which he would answer, "Yes, indeed I will."

Resentments are burdens we don't need to carry.
 

How can the brain be quiet?

So we are asking how does it happen that the brain, which is so tremendously, eagerly and enthusiastically active, can naturally, easily, without any effort or suppression, be quiet? I'll show it to you. As we said, during the day it is active endlessly, the moment you wake up, you look out of the window and say, 'Oh, awful rain', or, 'It's a marvellous, lovely morning, but too hot'.  You have started.  At that moment when you look out of the window not to say a word, not suppressing words, to realize that by saying, what a lovely morning, what horrible rain, this or that, the brain has started. But if you watch out of the window and not say a word, which doesn't mean you suppress the word, just to observe without all the memory of the past, just to observe.  Right?  So there you have the clue, there you have the key.  To observe without the old brain responding. Therefore when the old brain doesn't respond there is a quality of the new brain coming into being.  Are you getting all this? You can observe the hills, the mountains, the river, the valleys, the shadows, the lovely trees, and the marvellous cloud full of light and glory beyond the mountains, to look at it without a word, without comparing.  But it becomes much more difficult when you look at your neighbour, at your wife, your husband, another person.  There you have already got the images established and it becomes much more difficult to observe your wife, your husband, your neighbour, your politician, your priest, or whatever it is, absolutely without an image.  Just to observe, and you will see when you so observe, so clearly see, the action becomes extraordinary vital, therefore it becomes a complete action which is not carried over the next minute.

Krishnamurti, Saanen 7th Public Talk 30th July 1970

Maturity

Every child is born innocent, but every child is made knowledgeable by society. Hence schools, colleges, universities exist; their function is to destroy you, to corrupt you.
Maturity means gaining your lost innocence again, reclaiming your paradise, becoming a child again. Of course it has a difference - the ordinary child is bound to be corrupted, but when you reclaim your childhood you become incorruptible. Nobody can corrupt you, you become intelligent enough - now you know what the society has done to you and you are alert and aware, you will not allow it to happen again.

Osho in "Maturity" page 2

 

The Formula

The mystic was back from the desert. "Tell us," they said, "what God is like."
But how could he ever tell them what he had experienced in his heart? Can God be put into words?
He finally gave them a formula - so inaccurate, so inadequate - in the hope that some of them might be tempted to experience it for themselves.
They sized upon the formula. They made it into a sacred text. They imposed it on others as holy belief. They went to great pains to spread it in foreign lands. Some even gave their lives for it.
The mystic was sad. It might have been better if he had said nothing.

Anthony de Mello in "The Song of the Bird" page 30

Content with what comes to him without effort of his own, mounting above the pair of opposites, free from envy, his mind balanced both in success and failure; though he acts, yet the consequences do not bind him.

The Bhagavad Gita

Become quiet

You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait. You need not even wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstacy at your feet.

Franz Kafka

The Eeyore Effect

There is something in each of us that wants us to be Unhappy. It creates in our imaginations problems that don't yet exist - quite often causing them to come true. It exaggerates problems that are already there. It reinforces low self-esteem and lack of respect for others. It destroys pride in workmanship, order, and cleanliness. It turns meetings into Confrontations, expectations into Dread, opportunities into Danger, stepping stones into Stumbling Blocks. It can be seen at work in grimaces and frowns, which pull the muscles of the face forward and down, speeding the aging process. It contaminates the mind behind the face with its negative energy and spreads outward, like a disease. And then it comes back, projected and reflected by other unhappy minds and faces. And on it goes.

Benjamin Hoff in "The Te of Piglet" page 54

The scholar is retricted by his own learning

A well-frog cannot imagine the ocean, nor can a summer insect concieve of ice. How then can a scholar understand the Tao? He is restricted by his own learning.

Chuang-tse as translated by Benjamin Hoff in "The Tao of Pooh"

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

Marcus Aurelius

Meditation is the purgation of the known

MEDITATION is a very important action in life; perhaps it is the action that has the greatest and deepest significance. It is a perfume that cannot easily be caught; it is not to be bought through striving and practice. A system can yield only the fruit it offers, and the system, the method, is based on envy and greed. Not to be able to meditate is not to be able to see the sunlight, the dark shadows, the sparkling waters and the tender leaf. But how few see these things! Meditation has nothing to offer; you may not come begging with folded hands. It doesn't save you from any pain. It makes things abundantly clear and simple; but to perceive this simplicity the mind must free itself, without any cause or motive, from all the things it has gathered through cause and motive. This is the whole issue in meditation. Meditation is the purgation of the known. To pursue the known in different forms is a game of self-deception, and then the meditator is the master, there is not the simple act of meditation. The meditator can act only in the field of the known; he must cease to act for the unknown to be. The unknowable doesn't invite you, and you cannot invite it. It comes and goes as the wind, and you cannot capture it and store it away for your benefit, for your use. It has no utilitarian value, but without it life is measurelessly empty.

Krishnamurti "Commentaries On Living" Series II Chapter 52 Evaluation

When you leave Egypt, any Egypt, do not stop to think: "But how will I earn a living out there?" One who stops to make provision for the way will never get out of Egypt.

Nahman of Bratslav

Bondage & Liberation

Absence of attachment to sense-objects is liberation; desire for sense-objects is bondage. Understand this fact, and then do as you please.

Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra

As a river creates the banks which hold it, so the energy which seeks truth creates its own discipline without any form of imposition; and as the river finds the sea, so that energy finds its own freedom.

Krishnamurti

Unless each one of you is so educated that, when you leave school and go out into the world, you are full of vitality and intelligence, full of abounding energy to find out what is true, you will merely be absorbed by society; you will be smothered, destroyed, miserably unhappy for the rest of your life.

Krishnamurti

Dead people have a built-in fear of change

Dead people have a built-in fear of change.
What changes have there been in me over the past six months?
What changes will there be today?

Anthony de Mello

The world is full of God

The eyes of my soul were opened, and I beheld the plenitude of God, whereby I did comprehend the whole world, both here and beyond the sea, and the abyss and all things else; and therein I beheld naught save the divine Power in a manner assuredly indescribable, so that through excess of marvelling the soul cried with a loud voice, saying: "This world is full of God!"

 Angela of Foligno, 13th Century Franciscan Nun quoted in "Acceptance" by Gillian Stokes

Do you wish to catch a glimpse of God? Look intently at creation.

Anthony de Mello

The human mind twists teachings

Question: Have the teachings attributed to the great teachers - Christ, Buddha, Hermes and others - any value for the attainment of the direct path to truth?
Krishnamurti: If you will not misunderstand, I would say that their teachings become valueless because the human mind, being so subtle, so cunning in its desire for self-protection, twists the teachings to suit its own purposes and creates systems and ideals as a means of escape, out of which grow petrified churches and exploiting priests. Religions throughout the world, through their systems and the trickery of their organized exploitation, seek to teach man to love, to think, to live sanely, intelligently; but how can a system create love or teach you to think selflessly? As you do not want to do this, as you are unwilling to live completely, integrally, with vulnerable mind and heart, you have created a system which has become your master, a system that is contrary to and destructive of thought and love. So it is utterly useless to multiply systems. If the mind frees itself from the illusion of its own self-protective demands and cravings, then there will be love, intelligence; then there will not be this division created by religions and beliefs; man will not be against man.

Krishnamurti "The Collected Works" Volume II Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 18 May 1935

mastery

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.

Michelangelo

 

The World is Sacred

Do you want to own the World and improve it?

I don't think you can.

You see the World is sacred.
It can't be improved upon.
If you try you will ruin it.
If you try to own it,
You will lose it.

The Little Book of the Tao Te Ching page 23 

No challenge is beyond our capability; Every challenge promises new growth and a measure of serenity.

Karen Casey & Martha Vanceburg

Philosophies are mental fabrications

All philosophies are mental fabrications. There has never been a single doctrine by which one could enter the true essence of things.

 Nagarjuna

If you hold on to particular perspective, you don't have the correct perspective.

Gunpa Nyingpo

Desire for instruction is a distraction

Even a desire for more instruction is a distraction. Too many explanations without the essence is like an orchard of trees without fruit. Knowing many explanations is not knowing the Truth. Too much conceptualisation has no spiritual benefit. Only the secret treasure benefits the heart. If you want riches, concentrate on this.

Milarepa

True spirituality

People change and needs change. So what was spirituality once is spirituality no more. What generally goes under the name of spirituality is merely the record of past methods.

Anthony de Mello in "The Song of the Bird" page 11.

When you think you know who you are

Whenever you think you know who you are, run away from that self-image and embrace Him of whom nothing can be said.

Rumi

Meditation has nothing to offer

MEDITATION is a very important action in life; perhaps it is the action that has the greatest and deepest significance. It is a perfume that cannot easily be caught; it is not to be bought through striving and practice. A system can yield only the fruit it offers, and the system, the method, is based on envy and greed. Not to be able to meditate is not to be able to see the sunlight, the dark shadows, the sparkling waters and the tender leaf. But how few see these things! Meditation has nothing to offer; you may not come begging with folded hands. It doesn't save you from any pain. It makes things abundantly clear and simple; but to perceive this simplicity the mind must free itself, without any cause or motive, from all the things it has gathered through cause and motive. This is the whole issue in meditation. Meditation is the purgation of the known. To pursue the known in different forms is a game of self-deception, and then the meditator is the master, there is not the simple act of meditation. The meditator can act only in the field of the known; he must cease to act for the unknown to be. The unknowable doesn't invite you, and you cannot invite it. It comes and goes as the wind, and you cannot capture it and store it away for your benefit, for your use. It has no utilitarian value, but without it life is measurelessly empty.

Krishnamurti in "Commentaries On Living Series II" Chapter 52 Evaluation

What is life?

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.

Crowfoot

Let-go is a beautiful space

Let-go is one of the most beautiful spaces. You simply exist, doing nothing, sitting silently, and the grass grows by itself. You simply enjoy the songs of the birds, the greenness of the trees, the multidimensional, psychedelic colors of the flowers. You don't have to do anything to experience existence; you have to stop doing. You have to be in an absolutely unoccupied state, with no tensions, no worries.

Osho in "Body Mind Balancing" page 129

The one Reality

Confused by thoughts, we experience duality in life. Unencumbered by ideas, the enlightened see the one Reality.

Hui-Neng

Here it is.

Here it is - right now. Start thinking about it and you miss it.

Huang-Po

The violet can be perfect in itself

A violet can never become a rose, but the violet in itself can be a perfect flower.

Krishnamurti

The Words of the Master

The words of the scholar are to be understood. The words of the master are not to be understood. They are to be listened to as one listens to the wind in the trees and the sound of the river and the song of the bird. They will awaken something within the heart that is beyond all knowledge.

Anthony de Mello in "The Song of the Bird" page 4

We are always in a hurry

We are always in a hurry, we run, we run, we run, in order to be able to do as many things as possible: to achieve, to become, to obtain. To run is a symptom of fear, to run after something, after somebody. We are slaves not only to others, but to ourselves, to our ideas, to our ambitions, to our projects, and even to our mental projections. This is a miserable attitude that life does not deserve.

Vanda Scaravelli in "Awakening the Spine" page 121

Past, Present, Future

The past has passed already.
The moment won't stay for a moment.
The prepared for future never comes.

P'ang Yun

 

Whisperings of desire

The seductive whisperings of desire are the howls of a wolf that can tear a man to pieces.

Rumi

The quality of life

The quality of one's life depends on the quality of attention. Whatever you pay attention to will grow more important in your life.

Deepak Chopra

Life is a school

Realise that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class, but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
 

Show up

No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

Let the thing that you are watching tell its story

Let the thing that you are watching tell its story, rather than you tell it what it should be. You follow, sir, what I mean? Can you do that? Can one do that? So that it reveals everything. Like a flower, when you watch it very, very closely, there it is, you see everything in its detail, the delicacy of the vein, you know, the beauty of the whole thing. In the same way, perhaps, if we could watch this burden of attachment - I won't even call it a burden, attachment - it may contain an extraordinary beauty in it, and go, from that move. But apparently we can't do it. Why not?

Krishnamurti To Be Human-Brockwood Park 5th Seminar Meeting 17th September 1978

Simple Awareness

Question: Will you please explain what you mean by awareness? Krishnamurti: Just simple awareness! Awareness of your judgments, your prejudices, your likes and dislikes. When you see something, that seeing is the outcome of your comparison, condemnation, judgment, evaluation, is it not? When you read something you are judging, you are criticizing, you are condemning or approving. To be aware is to see, in the very moment, this whole process of judging, evaluating, the conclusions, the conformity, the acceptances, the denials. Now, can one be aware without all that? At present all we know is a process of evaluating, and that evaluation is the outcome of our conditioning, of our background, of our religious, moral and educational influences. Such so-called awareness is the result of our memory, - memory as the `me', the Dutchman. the Hindu, the Buddhist. the Catholic, or whatever it may be. It is the `me', - my memories, my family, my property, my qualities, - which is looking judging, evaluating. With that we are quite familiar, if we are at all alert. Now, can there be awareness without all that, without the self? Is it possible just to look without condemnation, just to observe the movement of the mind, one's own mind, without judging, without evaluating, without saying "It is good", or "It is bad"? The awareness which springs from the self, which is the awareness of evaluation and judgment, always creates duality, the conflict of the opposites, - that which is and that which should be. In that awareness there is judgment, there is fear, there is evaluation, condemnation, identification. That is but the awareness of the `me', of the self, of the `I' with all its traditions. memories, and all the rest of it. Such awareness always creates conflict between the observer and the observed, between what I am and what I should be. Now. is it possible to be aware without this process of condemnation, judgment, evaluation? Is it possible to look at myself, whatever my thoughts are, and not condemn, not judge, not evaluate? I do not know if you have ever tried it. It is quite arduous, - because all our training from childhood leads us to condemn or to approve. And in the process of condemnation and approval there is frustration, there is fear, there is a gnawing pain, anxiety, which is the very process of the `me', the self.

Collected Works Volume 9 J. Krishnamurti Amsterdam 5th Public Talk 26th May 1955

True holiness is completely unselfconscious

Will awareness bring you the holiness you so desire? Yes and no. The fact is you will never know. For true holiness, the type that is not achieved through techniques and efforts and repression, true holiness is completely unselfconscious. You wouldn't have the slightest awareness of its existence in you. Besides you will not care, for even the ambition to be holy will have dropped as you live from moment to moment a life made full and happy and transparent through awareness. It is enough for you to be watchful and awake. 

Anthony de Mello in "The Way to Love" page 196

Holiness is a Grace

Holiness is not an achievement, it is a Grace. A Grace called Awareness, a grace called Looking, Observing, Understanding. If you would only switch on the light of awareness and observe yourself and everything around you throughout the day, if you would see yourself reflected in the mirror of awareness the way you see your face reflected in a looking glass, that is, accurately, clearly, exactly as it is without the slightest distortion or addition, and if you observed this reflection without any judgement or condemnation, you would experience all sorts of marvelous changes coming about in you. Only you will not be in control of those changes, or be able to plan them in advance, or decide how and when they are to take place. It is this nonjudgemental awareness alone that heals and changes and makes one grow. But in its own way and at its own time.

Just observe your own mind

When the mind is occupied with the past, it is incapable of seeing something real, true, new, original, uncontaminated. A mind that is occupied with the past - the past is the whole consciousness that says, `this is good; `that is right; `this is bad; `this is mine; `this is not mine' - can never know the Real. But the mind unoccupied can receive that which is not known, which is the unknown. This is not an extraordinary state of some yogi, some saint. Just observe your own mind; how direct and simple it is.

Krishnamurti Collected Works Volume 7 Bombay, 4th March 1953

Effort does not lead to growth

Effort does not lead to growth; effort, whatever the form may take, whether it will be will-power or habit or a technique or a spiritual exercise, does not lead to change. At best it leads to repression and a covering of the root disease.
Effort may change the behaviour but it does not change the person. Just think what kind of a mentality it betrays when you ask, "What must I do to get holiness?" Isn't it like asking, How much money must I spend to buy something?

Anthony de Mello in "The Way to Love" pages 192 - 193

Be empty, that is all

Do not seek fame. Do not make plans. Do not be absorbed by activities. Do not think that you know. Be aware of all that is and dwell in the infinite. Wander where is no path. Be all that heaven gave you, but act as though you have received nothing. Be empty, that is all.

Chuang Tsu

The hardest battle

To be nobody-but-yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

E.E.Cummings