Little Pearls

Patience

2011-01-04T14:31:00.001Z

Patience is not time. Impatience is time. Patience has no time.

J. Krishnamurti

2011-01-01T09:06:00.001Z

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

Leonardo da Vinci

2010-12-31T07:44:00.000Z

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

Goethe

2010-12-30T08:04:00.000Z

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

Leonardo da Vinci

2010-12-29T07:10:00.000Z

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

2010-12-28T07:11:00.000Z

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

2010-12-27T14:33:00.000Z

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

Miguel de Unamuno

2010-12-26T06:40:00.000Z

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

Goethe

2010-12-25T09:02:00.001Z

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

2010-12-24T08:13:00.000Z

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

2010-12-23T06:27:00.000Z

An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.

Jose Ortega y Gasset

2010-12-22T08:09:00.000Z

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

Charles M. Schulz

2010-12-21T06:37:00.000Z

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

Goethe

2010-12-20T07:21:00.004Z

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

Susan Ertz

2010-12-19T07:02:00.001Z

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

Leonardo da Vinci

2010-12-18T06:29:00.000Z

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

Miguel de Unamuno

2010-12-17T07:36:00.001Z

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

Goethe

2010-12-16T08:08:00.000Z

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

Jean-Paul Sartre

2010-12-15T06:07:00.000Z

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

Mark Twain

2010-12-14T07:06:00.001Z

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

Anton Chekhov

2010-12-13T08:01:00.001Z

He who doesn't fear death dies only once.

Giovanni Falcone

2010-12-12T07:00:00.001Z

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

2010-12-11T07:34:00.001Z

A person hears only what they understand.

Goethe

Psychological Evolution

2010-12-09T13:47:00.000Z

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

2010-12-08T08:24:00.000Z

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

2010-12-07T08:56:00.002Z

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

Charles M. Schulz

2010-12-06T08:44:00.003Z

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

2010-12-05T14:22:00.000Z

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

2010-12-05T14:20:00.002Z

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

Maurice Maeterlinck

2010-12-04T07:58:00.002Z

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

2010-12-03T09:00:00.002Z

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

2010-12-01T08:15:00.001Z

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

Benjamin Disraeli

2010-11-30T08:11:00.000Z

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

Lord Chesterfield

2010-11-28T06:41:00.000Z

Few people have the imagination for reality.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

2010-11-23T08:33:00.000Z

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

2010-11-20T08:44:00.000Z

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

2010-11-18T08:25:00.002Z

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

Carl Jung

2010-11-17T08:06:00.000Z

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

2010-11-15T07:05:00.000Z

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

2010-11-14T07:25:00.000Z

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

2010-11-12T08:25:00.000Z

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

2010-11-11T07:48:00.000Z

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

Scott Shaw

Have nothing

2010-11-09T07:45:00.000Z

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

2010-11-08T07:54:00.000Z

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

2010-11-07T08:38:00.000Z

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

2010-11-06T08:31:00.000Z

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

Michael Jordan

2010-11-05T08:12:00.002Z

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

Isadora Duncan

Take things as they come along

2010-11-04T08:16:00.000Z

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

2010-11-03T07:08:00.000Z

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

2010-11-02T08:00:00.000Z

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

2010-11-01T07:48:00.000Z

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

2010-10-31T08:35:00.002Z

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

2010-10-30T08:43:00.000+01:00

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

Albert Camus

Reformation

2010-10-27T07:13:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-26T08:08:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-24T17:49:00.000+01:00

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?

2010-10-23T10:12:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-22T08:58:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-21T07:01:00.000+01:00

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

Brahma Kumaris calendar 19th October

2010-10-20T07:15:00.001+01:00

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

Krishnamurti

The Laws of Mathematics

2010-10-19T14:01:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-18T08:27:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-16T06:44:00.001+01:00

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

2010-10-15T08:58:00.002+01:00

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

2010-10-14T07:46:00.002+01:00

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

2010-10-13T07:10:00.000+01:00

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

Goethe

2010-10-12T08:09:00.002+01:00

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

Rashi

2010-10-11T08:51:00.000+01:00

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

William H. Walton

Be Real

2010-10-10T10:00:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-08T08:40:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-07T08:09:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-06T07:41:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-05T06:54:00.000+01:00

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

Michelangelo

Chinese proverb

2010-10-04T06:51:00.002+01:00

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

Gravity will not allow you to stay the same

2010-10-03T15:51:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-02T08:01:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-01T07:58:00.000+01:00

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

1 Corinthians 13.5

Become like a hollow bamboo

2010-09-30T08:52:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-28T08:21:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-27T09:33:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-26T08:26:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-25T07:57:00.001+01:00

Comparison prevents perception.

Krishnamurti

Acceptance

2010-09-24T10:57:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-23T09:10:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-22T08:34:00.000+01:00

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

Sorrows

2010-09-21T07:58:00.000+01:00

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

Jack Kornfield in "Buddha's Little Instruction Book"

Your Mission

2010-09-20T07:47:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-19T08:57:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-18T08:37:00.002+01:00

You teach best what you most need to learn.

Richard Bach

Tomorrow means things depart

2010-09-16T08:42:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-15T08:08:00.000+01:00

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

Achaan Chah

To know God

2010-09-14T08:08:00.000+01:00

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

Rumi

2010-09-13T13:17:00.000+01:00

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

Rumi

All is cyclical

2010-09-12T08:57:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-11T16:55:00.000+01:00

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

Anthony De Mello

Alignment is an ongoing process

2010-09-10T08:20:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-09T07:05:00.001+01:00

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

2010-09-08T09:01:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-07T07:57:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-06T07:35:00.000+01:00

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