Over the years, I have collected numerous inspiring quotations. Credit is given when possible as well as links to more sources. Enjoy!
Bhagavad Gita
There has never been a time when you and I have not existed, nor will there be a time when we will cease to exist. As the same person inhabits the body through childhood, youth, and old age, so too at the time of death he attains another body. The wise are not deluded by these changes.
Those who eat too much or eat too little, who sleep too much or sleep too little, will not succeed in meditation. But those who are temperate in eating and sleeping, work and recreation, will come to the end of sorrow through meditation.
I look upon all creatures equally; none are less dear to me and none more dear. But those who worship me with love live in me, and I come to life in them.
The thought manifests as the word; The word manifests as the deed; The deed develops into habit; And habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its way with care, And let it spring from love Born out of concern for all beings.
~~ Source: Loving-Kindness, The Revolutional Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. Speak or act with an impure mind and trouble will follow you As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart... Speak or act with a pure mind And happiness will follow you As your shadow, unshakable.
~~ Source: Loving-Kindness, The Revolutional Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg
Your work is to discover your work
and then, with all your heart,
give yourself to it.
~~
Metta Meditation
May I be healthy,
May I be happy,
May I ride the waves of my life,
May I live in peace, not matter what I'm given.
May you be healthy,
May you be happy,
May you ride the waves of your life,
May you live in peace, not matter what you're given.
May we be healthy,
May we be happy,
May we ride the waves of our lives,
May we live in peace, not matter what we're given.
May all beings everywhere be healthy,
May all beings everywhere be happy,
May all beings everywhere ride the waves of our lives,
May all beings everywhere live in peace, not matter what we're given.
~~ Kripalu version
Eknath Easwaran
This is the central principle of meditation: we become what we meditate on.
~~
The secret of joy lies in being one hundred percent present wherever you are all the time.
~~
What we do in meditation is remove the obstacles that hide and cover our native capacity to love.
~~
The capacity to be patient, to bear with others through thick and thin, is within the reach of anyone.
In December of 1273 when Rumi died, representatives of every major religion came to his funeral. In the midst of the crusades and violent sectarian conflict he said, "I go into the Muslim mosque and the Jewish synagogue and the Christian church and I see one alter." And he made it clear in other places that someone who considers religion or nation an important human category is in danger of severing the heart from its ability to act compassionately. This is a radical idea now, but Rumi held that conviction in the 13th century with such deep gentleness that its truth was recognized. -- source: The Essential Rumi translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. ~~
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense. ~~
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep. ~~ Drumsound rises on the air, its throb, my heart. A voice inside the beat says, "I know you're tired, but come. This is the way."
~~
We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity. We are pain and what cures pain, both. We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours. ~~
Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself
chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want
and end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others
and fall in. I should be suspicious
of what I want.
~~
On Resurrection Day your body testifies against you.
Your hand says, "I stole money."
Your lips, "I said meanness."
Your feet, "I went where I shouldn't."
Your genitals, "Me too." They will make your praying sound hypocritical.
Let the body's doings speak openly now,
without your saying a word,
as a student's walking behind a teacher
says, "This one knows more clearly
than I the way."
~~
Keep knocking
and the Joy Inside
will eventually
open a window
and look out
to see who's knocking.
-- All quotes are from The Essential Rumi translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne
St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
Buddha
Eknath Easwaran
Rumi
