"The past has no power over the present moment." "Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge." "Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance." "To love is to recognize yourself in another." "Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment." "The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it." "Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life." "Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on." "Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are." "You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are." "Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be." "Life is the dancer and you are the dance." "You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level." "Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it." "Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists." "This, too, will pass." "Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" --- and find that there is no death." "Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness." "Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you." "A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its image-making and self-seeking. In a genuine relationship, there is an outward flow of open, alert attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting whatsoever." "The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is." "All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness" "Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it." "Time isn't precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time - past and future - the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is." "All the things that truly matter, beauty, love, creativity, joy and inner peace arise from beyond the mind." "When you don't cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought." "Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose." "Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not." "Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that other people have of you is inauthentic living." "Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within." "Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness." "Being must be felt. It can't be thought." "Humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die... If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction." "What you react to in others, you strengthen in yourself." "Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the "love" of ego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her. The bond that connects you with that person is the same bond that connects you with the person sitting next to you on a bus, or with a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs." "Don't let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment." "Always say 'yes' to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say 'yes' to life - and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you." "If not now, when?" "Awareness is the greatest agent for change." "The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life." "...the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions." "Don't Seek Happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness." "Man made God in his own image..." "If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. Primary reality is within; secondary reality without." "To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease." "Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment... The ultimate purpose of human existence, which is to say, your purpose, is to bring that power into this world." "...whenever there is inspiration...and enthusiasm...there is a creative empowerment that goes far beyond what a mere person is capable of." "Knowing yourself is to be rooted in Being, instead of lost in your mind." "Become conscious of being conscious." "Realize deeply that the present moment is all you will ever have." "Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing." "What a liberation to realize that the 'voice in my head' is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that." "Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now, and if the past cant prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?" "As soon as you honour the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love - even the most simple action." "The significance is hiding in the insignificant. Appreciate everything." "The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist." "Can you look without the voice in your head commenting, drawing conclusions, comparing, or trying to figure something out?" "You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge." "When another recognizes you, that recognition draws the dimension of Being more fully into this world through both of you. That is the love that redeems the world." "It is when we are trapped in incessant streams of compulsive thinking that the universe really disintegrates for us, and we lose the ability to sense the interconnectedness of all that exists." "'This is my secret,' he said. 'I don't mind what happens.'" "You have so much to learn from your enemies." "Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary." "The human condition: lost in thought." "With stillness comes the benediction of Peace." "Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called "God." As soon as you turn away from it, God ceases to be a reality in your life, and all you are left with is the mental concept of God, which some people believe in and others deny. Even belief in God is only a poor substitute for the living reality of God manifesting every moment of your life." "Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn't very much." "Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself." "Once you have had a glimpse of awareness or Presence, you know it firsthand. It is no longer just a concept in your mind." "Doing is never enough if you neglect Being." "I am the hole on the flute that Gods breath flows through." "You become most powerful in whatever you do if the action is performed for its own sake rather than as a means to protect, enhance, or conform to your role identity." "In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same." "Every complaint is a little story the mind makes up that you completely believe in." "The ego wants to want more than it wants to have." "Authentic human interactions become impossible when you lose yourself in a role." "All problems are illusions of the mind." "Nonresistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe." "The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science, or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction." "One thing we do know: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment." "If you identify with a mental position, then if you are wrong, your mind-based sense of self is seriously threatened with annihilation. So you as the ego cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die. Wars have been fought over this, and countless relationships have broken down." "Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it and let it be without imposing a word of mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you." "The brain does not create consciousness, but consciousness created the brain, the most complex physical form on earth, for its expression. " "Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you." "Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free." "What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone." "Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn't very much. Language consists of five basic sounds produced by the vocal cords. They are the vowels a, e, i, o, u. The other sounds are consonants produced by air pressure: s, f, g, and so forth. Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are, or the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even what a tree or stone is in its depth?" "Man Made 'God' in his own image. The eternal, the infinite, the unnameable was reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in and worship as 'my god' or 'our god'." "The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that." "You are here to enable the divine purpose of the Universe to unfold. That is how important you are!" "The moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace." "When this delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs whatever I think, say, and do, what kind of world do I create?" "That in you which recognizes madness as madness (even if it is your own) is sanity, is the arising awareness, is the end of insanity." "The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly - you usually don't use it at all. It uses you. All the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind..." "It is precisely through the onset of old age, through loss or personal tragedy, that the spiritual dimension would traditionally come into people's lives. This is to say, their inner purpose would emerge only as their outer purpose collapsed and the shell of the ego would begin to crack open. The emphasis shifts from doing to Being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, knows nothing of Being. It asks: being? What do you do with it?" "And then there is the universal role of adult. When you play that role, you take yourself and life very seriously. Spontaneity, lightheartedness, and joy are not part of that role." "Nothing has ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now; and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?" "The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not 'the thinker'. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken." "Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now, and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?" "If increased meta-knowledge is not counter-balanced by a corresponding growth in consciousness then the likelihood of psycho-spiritual dysfunction is great." "Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth." "Each person's life - each life form, in fact - represents a world, a unique way in which the universe experiences itself." "If you are in a state of intense presence you are free of thought, yet highly alert. If your conscious attention sinks below a certain level, thought rushes in, the mental noise returns, stillness is lost, you're back in time." "You may remember the paradox of time we mentioned earlier: Whatever you do takes time, and yet it is always now. So while your inner purpose is to negate time, your outer purpose necessarily involves future and so could not exist without time. But it is always secondary. Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary." "The foundation of greatness is honouring the small things of the present moment, instead of pursuing the idea of greatness." "A significant portion of the earth's population will soon recognize, if they haven't already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die." "Deny thy self!" "In today's rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being." "Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everyone is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being." "All you really need to do is accept this moment fully. You are then at ease in the here and now and at ease with yourself." "It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living." "Love, joy, and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance." "Practice presence - embrace the place where life happens." "Prejudice of any kind implies that you are identified with the thinking mind. It means you don't see the other human being anymore, but only your own concept of that human being. To reduce the aliveness of another human being to a concept is already a form of violence." "The story of the Zen Master whose only response was always 'Is that so?' shows the good that comes through inner nonresistance to events, that is to say, being at one with what happens. The story of the man whose comment was invariably a laconic 'Maybe' illustrates the wisdom of non-judgment, and the story of the ring points to the fact of impermanence which, when recognized, leads to nonattachment. Nonresistance, non-judgement, and nonattachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living." "Inner resistance to whatever arises in the present moment pulls you back into unconsciousness. Inner resistance is some form of negativity, complaining, fear, aggression, or anger. This is important because whenever you complain about what somebody else does you're already beginning to fall into that trap of unconsciousness." "True Power is within, and it is available now." "Throughout history humans have inflicted countless violent, cruel, and hurtful acts on each other, and continue to do so. Are they all to be condemned; are they all guilty? Or are those acts simply expressions of unconsciousness, an evolutionary stage that we are now growing out of?<br /><br />Jesus' words, 'Forgive them for they do not know what they do,' also apply to yourself." "When faced with a radical crisis, when the old way of being in the world, of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature doesn't work anymore, when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems, an individual life-form -- or a species -- will either die or become extinct or rise above the limitations of its condition through an evolutionary leap." "To recognize one's own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence." "On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a joyous energy behind what you do." "The quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things, people, or situations, the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes, and the more deadened you become to reality." "Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now." Eckhart Tolle