Leonardo da Vinci

"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.’"

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Siddhartha- Herman Hesse

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else … Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.” 

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Falling into Grace by Adyashanti

Adyashanti asks us to let go of our struggles with life and open to the full promise of mindfulness and spiritual awakening: the end of delusion and the discovery of our essential being. In his many years as a spiritual teacher, Adyashanti has found the simpler the teaching, the greater its power to initiate this awakening. In Falling into Grace, he shares what he considers fundamental insights that will spark a revolution in the way we perceive life-through a progressive inquiry exploring the concept of a separate self and the choice to stop believing the thoughts that perpetuate suffering: "taking the backward step" into the pure potential of the present moment; why mindfulness and spiritual awakening can be a disturbing process; absolute union with every part of our experience and true autonomy-the unique expression of our own sense of freedom.

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The Tell Tale Brain by V.S Ramachandran
The brain remains a mystery to us. How can a three-pound mass of jelly that can fit in our palm imagine angels, contemplate the meaning of infinity, and even question its own place in the cosmos? Renowned neuroscientist Prof. V.S. Ramachandran takes us on a fascinating journey into the human brain by studying patients who exhibit bizarre symptoms and using them to understand the functions of a normal brain. Along the way he asks big questions: How did abstract thinking evolve? What is art? Why do we laugh? How are these hardwired into the neural mechanisms of the human brain, and why did they evolve? Brilliant, lucid, and utterly compelling, The Tell-Tale Brain is a path-breaking book from one of the leading neuroscientists.

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Khalil Gibran

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

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Gaur Gopal Das

When we live superficial lives, dedicated to serving ourselves, we are like surfers: riding the waves, but not seeing what is beneath them. We may satisfy our own needs and concerns by doing so, but we will never be truly fulfilled. However, when we practise spirituality, we become like divers: we submerge ourselves underneath the turbulent waves to find a pleasure much deeper, beyond hedonistic ideals. That profound joy is only possible when one feels love to serve others.

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Sri Krishna says to Arjuna

It is extremely difficult to obtain the vision you have had; even the gods long always to see me in this aspect. Neither knowledge of the Vedas, nor austerity, nor charity, nor sacrifice can bring the vision you have seen. But through unfailing devotion, Arjuna, you can know me, see me, and attain union with me. Those who make me the supreme goal of all their work and act without selfish attachment, who devote themselves to me completely and are free from ill will for any creature, enter into me.

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Upanishad Wisdom

As the sun shines and fills all space with light,
Above, below, across, so shines the Lord
Of Love and fills the hearts of all created beings.
 
From him the cosmos comes, he who teaches
Each living creature to attain perfection
According to its own nature. He is
The Lord of Love who reigns over all life.
 
He is the supreme creator, hidden
Deep in the mystery of the scriptures.
By realizing him the gods and sages
Attained immortality.
 
Under the hypnotic spell of pleasure
And pain, we live for ourselves and are bound.
Though master of ourselves, we roam about
From birth to birth, driven by our own deeds.
 
The Self, small as the thumb, dwelling in the heart,
Is like the sun shining in the sky.
But when identified with the ego,
The Self appears other than what it is.
It may appear smaller than a hair’s breadth.
But know the Self to be infinite.

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Swami Vivekananda

Those who grumble at the little things that has fallen to their lot to do will grumble at everything.

Always grumbling they will lead a miserable life.
But those who do their duty putting their shoulder to the wheel will see the light and higher and higher duties will fall to their share.

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Jiddu Krishnamurti

A feeling is not beautiful or ugly, it is just a feeling. It is only when we approach it through our educated and social conditioning that we say this is a good feeling and that is a bad feeling, and so destroy the feeling or distort it. But the feeling that is not given a label as the good or the bad remains intense. It is this passionate intensity that is essential in the pursuit of the understanding of that which is neither the manifested beauty nor the ugly.

What we are insisting upon is the great importance of sustained feeling, that passion which is not the mere lust of the self in gratification. It is this that creates beauty, and since it is not comparable, it has no opposite.

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Herman Hesse

Govinda," Siddhartha spoke to his friend, "Govinda, my dear, come with me under the Banyan tree, let's practise meditation."
They went to the Banyan tree, they sat down, Siddhartha right here, Govinda twenty paces away. While putting himself down, ready to speak the Om, Siddhartha repeated murmuring the verse:
Om is the bow, the arrow is soul, The Brahman is the arrow's target, That one should incessantly hit.
After the usual time of the exercise in meditation had passed, Govinda rose. The evening had come, it was time to perform the evening's ablution. He called Siddhartha's name. Siddhartha did not answer. Siddhartha sat there lost in thought, his eyes were rigidly focused towards a very distant target, the tip of his tongue was protruding a little between the teeth, he seemed not to breathe. Thus sat he, wrapped up in contemplation, thinking Om, his soul sent after the Brahman as an arrow.

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A Million Thoughts by Om Swami

Learn all about meditation from the Himalayan mystic. Each one of us is a master of infinite possibilities at a universal scale. Through meditation we experience our own magnificence; Our true potential. Drawing on his experience of thousands of hours of earnest and strenuous meditation, renowned sage Om Swami pens a guide to help channelize unruly, futile thoughts and turn them into productive energy. A Million Thoughts shows how to meditate correctly, how to practice various styles of meditation and how to become proficient in the many yogic practices that will lead to the final stage of Samadhi ? the ultimate spiritual self-fulfillment. Brimming with firsthand experiences and references from ancient texts, this brilliant book is most suited for the modern reader who wishes to master the art of meditation!

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Adi Shankara

‘The dream state becomes unreal in the waking state, nor does the waking state exist in dream and sleep; both dream and waking state are absent in the deep-sleep state; sleep, too, is absent in waking and in dreams. Because of their mutual contradictions the three states are unreal; but the Self is the Eternal Witness of the three states and is thus beyond them; It is the one which is the nature of pure consciousness’.

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Rumi

“A pure heart, open to the Light, will be filled with the elixir of Truth.”

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Adyashanti

There’s a Zen koan—a riddle that you can’t answer with your mind, but that you can only answer through looking directly for yourself—that says, “What was your true face before your parents were born?” So of course, if your parents weren’t born yet, then you weren’t born yet, and if you weren’t born, then you didn’t have a body, you didn’t have a mind. So if you weren’t born, you couldn’t conceive of an image for yourself. It’s a way, in a riddle, of asking: What are you, really, when you look beyond all images and all ideas about yourself, when you look absolutely directly, right here and right now, when you stand completely within yourself and look underneath the mind, underneath the ideas, underneath the images? Are you willing to enter that space, the place that casts no image, no idea? Are you really willing and ready to be that free and that open?

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Comments Time

Who has inspired you the most? Who is your spiritual guru, the teacher?

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Eknath Easwaran

The Buddha called life a sea because the sea is moving constantly. All the world’s great religions remind us that we are sailing on an ocean of impermanence. Every experience is transient. Even this body, with which we identify ourselves, changes from day to day. This body of mine is not the same as it was last year. And what about the mind? In the language of Buddhism, the mind is a process, changing all the time. It is a succession of desires. If we satisfy one desire, another will follow; if we satisfy that, a third will come. No experience can bring permanent satisfaction because there is a limitless series of desires, one behind another, in the vast sea of consciousness.

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15 YEARS OF SELF-DISCOVERY: WHAT I'VE LEARNED

1. lying underground all night in order to meet death, going on a 72-hour psychedelic trip, or staying silent and meditating for 10 days without a break — is nothing. the coolest practice is to live each day so that you feel good and calm deep in your heart, even when the world is collapsing

2. both psychology and spiritual traditions essentially develop three important pillars for a harmonious life 👉 read the full post here: https://t.me/zen_psy_life/7

Zen Psy Life 🌀 — new blog uniting psychology and spirituality. Personal and professional experience, useful techniques and guides. No ads, no spam, no bullshit.
Subscribe and grow: https://t.me/zen_psy_life 

Bodhidharma

To look on life as different from death or on motion as different from stillness is to be partial. To be impartial means to look on suffering as no different from nirvana, because the nature of both is emptiness. By imagining they’re putting an end to suffering and entering nirvana arhats end up trapped by nirvana. But bodhisattvas know that suffering is essentially empty. And by remaining in emptiness they remain in nirvana. Nirvana means no birth and no death. It’s beyond birth and death and beyond nirvana. When the mind stops moving, it enters nirvana. Nirvana is an empty mind. Where delusions don’t exist, buddhas reach nirvana. Where afflictions don’t exist, bodhisattvas enter the place of enlightenment.

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Upanishad Wisdom

That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings, who is the giver of grace to all, the Supreme Soul of the universe, the limitless being
— I am that.

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