Watching

You learn a great deal by watching, watching the things about you, watching the birds, the tree, watching the heavens, the stars, the constellation of Orion, the Dipper, the Evening star. You learn just by watching not only the things around you but also by watching people, how they are dressed. You not only watch that which is outside but also you watch yourself, why you think this or that, your behaviour, the conduct of your daily life, why parents want you to do this or that. You are watching, not resisting. If you resist you don’t learn. Or if you come to some kind of conclusion, some opinion you think is right and hold on to that, then naturally you will never learn. Freedom is necessary to learn, and curiosity, a sense of wanting to know why you or others behave in a certain way, why people are angry, why you get annoyed.Learning is extraordinarily important because learning is endless. Learning why human beings kill each other for instance. Of course there are explanations in books, all the psychological reasons why human beings behave in their own particular manner, why human beings are violent. All this has been explained in books of various kinds by eminent authors, psychologists and so on.  But what you read is not what you are. What you are, how you behave, why you get angry, envious, why you get depressed, if you watch yourself you learn much more than from a book that tells you what you are.

J. Krishnamurti Letters to the Schools vol II, pp 75-76

To be enlightened

To know things is to be learned.

To know others is to be wise.

To know the self is to be enlightened.

Anthony de Mello in "The Prayer of the Frog" page 192

A Way of Liberation

A way of liberation can have no positive definition. It has to be suggested by saying what is not.

Alan Watts in "The Way of Zen" page 23

Returning to the Source

You are part of the law of form in time and space, composing and decomposing. Everything in nature is returning to its Source... The question is, do you wish to participate consciously with this natural goodness, or would you rather spend your moments in anxiety and failure?

Wayne Dyer in "Change your thoughts change your life" page 110

From Arne

Theory

Before you've practiced, the theory is useless. After you've practiced, the theory is obvious.

David Williams

Words

Words can be communicative only between those who share similar experiences.

Alan Watts in "The Way of Zen" page 24

The Astonishing Light

One day the sun admitted

I am just a shadow.

I wish I could show you

The Infinite Incandescence

That has cast my brilliant image!

I wish I could show you

When you are lonely or in darkness

The Astonishing Light

Of your own Being!

Hafiz