Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want.
When you question what you believe, you leave the world, really, and what the world believes. It puts you in a very interesting position.
If I'm okay with dying, my son is at least as enlightened as that. If I'm okay with my cancer, my son is at least as enlightened as I am.
Realizing that people should lie when they do makes me a little more open-minded, a little more tolerant, when my child or my partner lies.
When I turn the thought around - the thought that war, let's say war in Iraq, should stop - the turnaround is the war in myself should stop.
Stories are the untested, uninvestigated theories that tell us what all these things mean. We don’t even realize that they’re just theories.
I love being free enough that I can be so intimate with people, and that people are free enough that we can all be intimate with each other!
So there's only transcendence in the moment. Nobody can be transcended forever. That's why I say, "Who cares if you're enlightened forever?"
I can just talk about my world, and people relate to it because it's so familiar to them. It's them, it's not me. They're hearing themselves.
I was clinically depressed. I was paranoid. I was agoraphobic. I would have days at a time of not being able to even bathe or brush my teeth.
Low self-esteem is not possible when you understand the nature of everything. Depression is not possible. The universe is absolutely friendly.
Asking the questions - that's what changes lives. Every cell in your body is awake with inquiry. And you cannot believe the old thoughts again.
The moment it begins to question itself, the mind becomes so clear that it starts working with itself rather than with the body's identification.
I know that even at moments of apparent danger, nothing is out of order or lacking, other than our own unquestioned thoughts about those moments.
Affecting the world is obviously possible when we see people in the world who we really love and respect and we see how that they affect our lives.
If you want real control, drop the illusion of control; let life have you. It does anyway. You’re just telling yourself the story of how it doesn’t.
I have an expression I say a lot: I'm in a hurry. There's suffering on this planet that is so easy to break through if the mind is open to doing so.
I was full of rage. My self-esteem was so low that I actually slept on the floor every night, because I didn't believe I deserved a bed to sleep in.
The world will be at war as long as the mind is at war with itself. If we can't find peace within ourselves, where is the hope for peace in the world?
That's what every uncomfortable feeling is for-that's what pain is for, what money is for, what everything in the world is for: your self-realization.
I invite everyone to question their thoughts about their children and allow their children to be free. That's when we stop teaching our children fear.
It's quite an amazing experience to see the same life with and without the thought. We come to see how crazy a thought can make us when we believe it.
When you don't believe something, you can't make yourself believe it. There's nothing you can do to believe it again. You either believe it or you don't.
We all begin to do what we can do, just like we're doing now, to clean up the planet and to find solutions rather than fight. It just happens everywhere.
Here’s how a child listens: you tell him something, and he puts his own interpretation on what you said. That’s what he hears. No one has ever heard you.
I see the goodness and beauty in everyone, and everything is a gift given for me and for all of us. If you don't love it, question your mind until you do.
What I invite people to do is to look at their lives just the way that they have lived them. Not to change anything, and not to do positive thinking at all.
I realized that it's insane to oppose it. When I argue with reality, I lose-but only 100% of the time. How do I know that the wind should blow? It's blowing!
The world is as you perceive it to be. For me, clarity is a word for beauty. It’s what I am. And when I’m clear, I see only beauty. Nothing else is possible.
Every (stressful thought) is a variation on a single theme: This shouldn't be happening. I shouldn't be having this experience. God is unjust. Life isn't fair.
There is no thought or situation that you can't put up against inquiry. Every thought, every person, every apparent problem is here for the sake of your freedom.
Until you can love what is - everything, including the apparent violence and craziness - you're separate from the world, and you'll see it as dangerous and frightening.
You can’t have your daughter as long as you have a concept of her. When you get rid of the concept, you meet your daughter for the first time. That’s the way this works.
If we are in silence - in absolute silence with no thoughts - for 10 minutes, it's only a thought that tells us we were silent for 10 minutes. Our only proof is a thought.
It's difficult to seek other people's love. It's deadly. In seeking it you lose what is genuine. This is the prison we create for ourselves as we seek what we already have.
If someone says, "Katie, you are out of order," over something I've said, or, "Katie, you are wrong," if I defend myself or justify myself, then I have just started the war.
The Work: 1. Is it true? 2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true? 3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? 4. Who would you be without the thought?
The world you live in is 100 percent your own responsibility. If you don't like your world, it doesn't work to say, "Well, it's my mother's fault. She taught me how to think."
I have never experienced a stressful feeling that wasn't caused by attaching to an untrue thought. Behind every uncomfortable feeling, there's a thought that isn't true for us.
People don't need sudden revelations. They get what they need when they need it, thought by thought by thought. It's a constant thing when the mind starts to wake up to itself.
Thinking that people are supposed to do or be anything other than what they are is like saying that the tree over there should be the sky. I investigated that and found freedom.
No one told me that you could be alive and be happy. No one told me, and if someone had I wouldn't have believed them. I thought that you had to die - physically die - to escape.
When a thought appears such as "Do the dishes" and you don't do them, notice how an internal war breaks out... The stress and weariness you feel are really mental combat fatigue.
In my experience, we don't make thoughts appear, they just appear. One day, I noticed that their appearance just wasn't personal. Noticing that really makes it simpler to inquire.
To exclude anything that appears in your universe is not love. Love joins with everything. It doesn't exclude the monster. It doesn't avoid the nightmare - it looks forward to it.
Placing the blame or judgment on someone else leaves you powerless to change your experience; taking responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change them
Happiness is a clear mind. A clear and sane mind knows how to live, how to work, what emails to send, what phone calls to make, and what to do do to create what it wants without fear.
After you've been doing inquiry for a while, if you have the thought "She doesn't love me," you just get the immediate turnaround with a smile: "Oh, I'm not loving myself in this moment."
Nothing terrible has ever happened except in our thinking. Reality is always good, even in situations that seem like nightmares. The story we tell is the only nightmare that we have lived.
If people are living their lives for security and comfort and pleasure, then mind's every waking moment will be plotting those things. That's how it stays identified - as a body, as a you.