You Are That, God Himself

“Beyond caste, creed, family, or lineage,

That which is without name and form, beyond merit and demerit,

That which is beyond space, time, and sense-objects,

You are that, God himself; Meditate this within yourself.”

~ Śrī Śaṅkarācārya, Vivekacuddāmani, Verse 254

You Are Indeed The Supreme Self

“You are indeed the supreme Self, but due to your association with ignorance, you find yourself under the bondage of the not-self, which is the sole cause of the cycle of births and deaths. All the effects of ignorance, root and branch, are burnt down by the fire of knowledge, which arises from discrimination between these two—the Self and the not-Self.”

~ Śrī Śaṅkarācārya, Vivekacuddāmani, Verse 47

What Is Within You

“If you bring forth what is within you,

what you bring forth will save you.

If you do not bring forth what is within you,

what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

~ Gospel of St. Thomas

Man Is The Architect of His Own Fate

“We are all born with a blue-print of our life, as it were, mainly prepared by our actions in the previous life. Our present acts and thoughts are the result of our past and create our future. Man is the architect of his own fate and the builder of his own future destiny. This conviction makes the believer in the doctrine of rebirth responsible for his present suffering and also gives him an incentive for habitual right conduct to build up a happy future. As he accepts with serenity his present good or ill fortune, he can also look forward to the future with joy and courage. If present suffering is the result of a past wicked action, then, in order to avoid suffering in a future existence, a thoughtful man should desire to sin no more.”

~ Swami Nikhilananda, The Upanishads: Volume I—Katha, Iśa, Kena, and Mundaka (1949)

It Is Brahman Alone

“Nothing whatever is born or dies anywhere at any time. It is Brahman alone appearing illusorily in the form of the world.”

~ Yoga Vasishta Sara (The Essence of Yoga Vasishta), Chapter 1, Verse 23

You Were Born With Wings

“You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?”

~ Rumi

Where Does Nibbāna (Nirvana) Exist?

“But where does this Nibbāna exist?” was the question raised by King Milinda. The Venerable Nagasena replied: “There is no place in the East, the West, the South, the North, above, below or beyond, where Nibbana is situated."

"Yet there is Nibbāna for he who is pure in virtue and possesses right insight, realizes it, whether he is in Greece, Alexandria, Kosala or China.” (Milinda Pañha 323–26).

Just as the fire is not stored up in a particular place but rises when the necessary conditions are present, so Nibbāna is not said to exist in a particular place, but it is attained when and wherever the necessary qualities are fulfilled. Nibbāna therefore, is not a heavenly place like the Egyptian Amenti, i.e., the West, or the Greek Elysium, or the Hebrew Paradise, or the Christian Heaven, or the Vedic Svarga.

When the deity Rohitassa asked, “Where does the world’s end exist?” the Buddha said: “It is in this fathom-long body with consciousness that I declare the existence of the world, its origin, its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation.” Thus, Nibbāna does not exist as a locality in space; it is to be realized as that which transcends the world.

~ Venerable Dr. Parawahera Vajirañana Thera, excerpt from the essay The Buddhist Doctrine of Nibbana (1971)

What Is Yours Cannot Leave You

“That which is capable of leaving you, for any reason whatsoever, cannot belong to you. A thing that is yours cannot leave you. Anything which can leave one day or the other is not yours, and there is nothing in this world which will not leave you one day or the other.”

~ Swami Krishnananda, Lessons on the Upanishads

What Have You To Do With God?

“If then you do not make yourself equal to God, you cannot apprehend God; for like is known by like.

Leap clear of all that is corporeal, and make yourself grown to a like expanse with that greatness which is beyond all measure; rise above all time and become eternal; then you will apprehend God.

Think that for you too nothing is impossible; deem that you too are immortal, and that you are able to grasp all things in your thought, to know every craft and science; find your home in the haunts of every living creature; make yourself higher than all heights and lower than all depths; bring together in yourself all opposites of quality, heat and cold, dryness and fluidity; think that you are everywhere at once, on land, at sea, in heaven; think that you are not yet begotten, that you are in the womb, that you are young, that you are old, that you have died, that you are in the world beyond the grave; grasp in your thought all of this at once, all times and places, all substances and qualities and magnitudes together; then you can apprehend God.

But if you shut up your soul in your body, and abase yourself, and say "I know nothing, I can do nothing; I am afraid of earth and sea, I cannot mount to heaven; I know not what I was, nor what I shall be," then what have you to do with God?”

~ Hermes Trismegistus, Corpus Hermeticum, Book 10. Mind Unto Hermes

We Are Never Away From Mokṣa (Liberation)

“It is only because of ignorance that we mistake ourselves to be mortal Jīvātmas. All we have to do is drop this mistaken notion. It is also wrong to think that dropping the erroneous notion will make one immortal. All one has to do is drop the wrong notion and claim that one is the immortal Brahman. The body, the world, and experiences are only appearances. Just as a child sleeping in the lap of the mother dreams that he has gone away from the mother and screams, but upon waking realizes that he was never away from his mother at all, we are never away from Mokṣa.”

~ Swami Paramarthananda, Māṇḍūkyopaniṣat and Kārikā (commentary on Chapter 4, Verse 8)

To Study the Way is to Study the Self

“To study the Way is to study the Self.

To study the Self is to forget the Self.

To forget the Self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe.

To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the Self as well as those of others.

Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever.”

~ Eihei Dogen, from Hee-Jin Kim's Eihei Dogen, Mystical Realist (2000)

To One Who Is Cosmic

“Rules apply to persons who are situated in the various levels of society on account of their different endowments and capacities etc., but no rule can be applied to one who is cosmic and has everything within himself.”

~ Swami Krishnananda, The Philosophy of the Panchadasi

To Him Who Possesses Discernment

“To him who possesses discernment, all personal life is misery, because it ever waxes and wanes, is ever afflicted with restlessness, makes ever new dynamic impresses in the mind; and because all its activities war with each other.”

The whole life of the psychic self is misery, because it ever waxes and wanes; because birth brings inevitable death; because there is no expectation without its shadow, fear. The life of the psychic self is misery, because it is afflicted with restlessness; so that he who has much, finds not satisfaction, but rather the whetted hunger for more. The fire is not quenched by pouring oil on it; so desire is not quenched by the satisfaction of desire. Again, the life of the psychic self is misery, because it makes ever new dynamic impresses in the mind; because a desire satisfied is but the seed from which springs the desire to find like satisfaction again. The appetite comes in eating, as the proverb says, and grows by what it feeds on. And the psychic self, torn with conflicting desires, is ever the house divided against itself, which must surely fall.

~ Patanjali, Part II, Verse 15, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: The Book of the Spiritual Man (An Interpretation By Charles Johnston)

This Place Is A Dream

“This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief.”

~ Rumi

There Is No Enemy

“Because there is a self, there is an enemy.

If there is no self, there is no enemy.

‘Enemy’ is that which is in opposition....

Every object with form has its opposite.

When mind has no form, there is nothing to oppose it.

When there is no opposition, there is nothing to fight against.

This is called ‘no enemy, no self.’

When self and objects are both forgotten, there is a natural state of non-activity, of no trouble, of oneness....

This is not the same as being unaware; it means no calculating thought, and immediate natural response”

~ Issai Chozan, Neko no myojutsu' (Mysterious Technique of the Cat)

The Waves and the Ocean

“When people begin to meditate, they often say that their thoughts are running riot and have become wilder than ever before. But I reassure them that this is a good sign. Far from meaning that your thoughts have become wilder, it shows that you have become quieter, and you are finally aware of just how noisy your thoughts have always been. Don't be disheartened or give up. Whatever arises, just keep being present, keep returning to the breath, even in the midst of all the confusion.

In the ancient meditation instructions, it is said that at the beginning thoughts will arrive one on top of another, uninterrupted, like a steep mountain waterfall. Gradually, as you perfect meditation, thoughts become like the water in a deep, narrow gorge, then a great river slowly winding its way down to the sea; finally the mind becomes like a still and placid ocean, ruffled by only the occasional ripple or wave.

Sometimes people think that when they meditate there should be no thoughts and emotions at all; and when thoughts and emotions do arise, they become annoyed and exasperated with themselves and think they have failed. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a Tibetan saying: "It's a tall order to ask for meat without bones, and tea without leaves." So long as you have a mind, there will be thoughts and emotions.

Just as the ocean has waves or the sun has rays, so the mind's own radiance is its thoughts and emotions. The ocean has waves, yet the ocean is not particularly disturbed by them. The waves are the very nature of the ocean. Waves will rise, but where do they go? Back into the ocean. And where do the waves come from? The ocean. In the same manner, thoughts and emotions are the radiance and expression of the very nature of the mind. They rise from the mind, but where do they dissolve? Back into the mind. Whatever arises, do not see it as a particular problem. If you do not impulsively react, if you are only patient, it will once again settle into its essential nature.”

~ Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (1992)

The Very Depths of Buddhism

“We say that the highest and the lowest come to resemble each other. Buddhism, when you reach its very depths, is like the man who knows nothing of either the Buddha or the Buddhist Law. It has neither adornment nor anything else that would draw men's attention to it.”

~ Takuan Soho, The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master to the Sword Master (translated by William Scott Wilson)

The Universe Has No Beginning or End

“This universe, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures.”

~ Heraclitus (c.535 BC - 475 BC)

The Two Paths

“There are two paths—one leading Godward, the other leading to worldly pleasure.

He who follows one inevitably goes away from the other; because, like light and darkness, they conflict.

One leads to the imperishable spiritual realm; the other to the perishable physical realm.

Both confront a man at every step of life.

The discerning man distinguishing between the two, chooses the Real and Eternal, and he alone attains the highest, while the ignorant man, preferring that which brings him immediate and tangible results, misses the true purpose of his existence.”

~ Katha Upanishad 2.4

The Transcendence and Immanence of God

“If you see yourself as God and then you come back from this state and somebody says, “Hey, Sam, empty the garbage!” it catches you back into the model of “I'm Sam who empties the garbage.” You can't maintain these new kinds of structures. It takes a while to realize that God can empty garbage.”

~ Ram Dass, Be Here Now (1971)