More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Sometimes, the greatest way to search for something you want is to not search at all. When you just let it be, then you hear the watch ticking; you hear how life’s bubbling over and you see the beauty in everything.
A young monk once asked his mentor, “Master, is it a sin to sleep with a woman in the same bed?” “Not at all, dear,” his mentor replied. “To stay awake with her might be. To sleep is okay.”
Martin Luther King put it most insightfully, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
No matter where you are on the journey of life, there’s always room for exploration, for excitement. Don’t try to solve the world map. Instead, piece together the picture of
your beautiful life and the rest will fall into pl...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Find something you care about. And if you don’t have a purpose that moves you, a picture that attracts you, that means you are not looking earnestly. No one is born with a purpose, everyone discovers theirs. A life without me...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Buddha once said, “Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it.”
As you commit yourself to a life of purpose and happiness, your fears go away because nature catapults you into a much bigger play field. What you gain is a million times more than what you may ever lose. Anything that could possibly disappear from your life is not worth any more than pocket change for a billionaire. That’s what purpose does, it turns puzzles into pictures.
Simple lives are beautiful lives. This is my view. A good meal, two ticks of laughter, a gesture of love, an act of kindness, that’s what life is about, that’s what simplicity is about. It’s these small gestures, these simple moments, that make you feel complete, fulfilled.
By simplicity, I am suggesting that you take a stock of your life, mindfully. Concentrate on where you are and where do you want to be; what matters to you; are you truly living or just getting by?
I hope you get the idea. Let’s gracefully accept the things that are not in our control and work on the others that are.
If there’s any way to change your destiny then it is by working on yourself. Everything falls in place then. Gems and stones, totems and trinkets, and what have you, cannot change the course of time. If your marriage is on the rocks, then both partners have to work on it. If you are under debt, then you’ve got to cut down your expenses and increase your income.
If anyone ever creates fear in you, be that person an expert astrologer, religious authority, preacher, or swami, it’s a good time to abandon him. It is so easy to bank on fears. For your own good, if you wish to lead a life of freedom, don’t give anyone the right to instill fear in you, in any which way.
Take control of your time and act accordingly. That’s all that matters at the end of the day.
Have faith in yourself, in your god. Do the right thing, make the right choices, be compassionate and don’t give up.
The truth is, life will confuse you. You will have to make choices, make decisions. You will need to make up your mind. There’s little wisdom in putting it off. The course of history was changed by those who challenged the ‘common practices’, who refused to withstand the oppression, who decided to stand up, and not by those who kept quiet. Nothing changes unless we act on it.
When you take up a cause bigger than yourself, the whole universe summons itself to be at your feet, at your disposal. This is the irrefutable law of nature.
“A life belongs to the one who tries to save it. It cannot belong to the one who hurts it.”
Life belongs to those who love it.
You protect what you love, so you naturally try to save what you love. If you hurt life, it stops belonging to you; it ceases to be your life.
Similarly, your life has a life of its own. If you love it, value it, protect it, it would want to be with you. It will become yours. But if you are going to hurt it, it will fly away from you, far, far away. Be kind, be gentle like the prince in our story and the swan of life will come alive in your hands.
Life is frightened and hurt when you shoot arrows of jealousy, complaints and selfishness. Every time that happens, it distances itself from you. And, when your own life moves away from you, no one or nothing in the world can make you happy. Not for long anyway. By life, I’m not talking about the physical breath, but the essence of life that is, a sense of peace and bliss. No point in mistreating or neglecting your life, because nothing hurts like neglect.
It’s all about how you handle life as opposed to how your life ought to be. Life is what it is. If you deal with it compassionately, gratefully, delicately, you will discover that it’s every bit beautiful, that it belongs to you wholeheartedly.
THERE IS A FAMOUS saying: what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. It is true in most cases, except when you are really hurt and the damage is beyond repair.
When you are tired of fire-fighting, when life constantly keeps on knocking you down, when your path continues to get blocked, it often means it is a calling. A calling for change. If you resist or ignore change at that moment, the next blow will be more like a knockout punch. At that time, it will not make you strong. Instead, it may cause irreversible damage. We don’t want you to get hurt beyond restoration. It is better to gain your strength from inner peace than external resistance. You cannot change the economy, the government, your employer, your boss, your industry. It is childish to
...more
“It is simply a reminder to stop thinking and start looking. Perhaps there is nothing to figure out after all; perhaps we only need to wake up.”
In short, be mindful of your actions and reactions, work on self-purification and learn to listen to yourself.
It’s not possible to empty your memory store. However, it’s possible to drop the thought as soon as it starts to emerge. That leads to a state of non-recollection. When you hold your mind in the tranquil absorptive state, afflictions from psychic imprints start to fade.
Your mind operates on the famous computing principle of GIGO — Garbage In, Garbage Out. If you do ill, speak ill and think ill, the residue is going to leave you sick. If you do well, speak well and think well, the outcome is going to be well. Excess of anything results in excess residue. The more you eat, the greater the inventory, the bigger the headache of managing it. Imagine having a warehouse stocked up with unnecessary widgets. Your mind is a warehouse. Don’t stock it up with useless stuff. Watch what you do, say and think; transformation will begin automatically.
It’s not the thought itself that matters, it’s what you do with it.
Therefore, it’s not realistic to expect that you never have any impure thoughts but it’s quite doable to not pursue such thoughts or act on them. When you get a thought you deem impure, simply shift
your attention. Focus your mind elsewhere.
however, you start to follow the thought-trail and begin contemplating on her, her body, or being with her, the thought will rapidly gather momentum, soon overpowering your ability to think straight. A tiny, harmless flake of snow will turn into a juggernaut as it rolls down. It may nudge you to translate your thought into an action you may regret later on.
“Don’t be sorry,” said the master. “If you have tremendous feelings for me, I’ve enough discipline for both of us.”
Think of yourself as the master and your thoughts as the disciple. When they come to you, no one has to be sorry, you just have to be aware and choose a course of action accordingly. Give your thoughts the freedom to approach you, while you keep the strength to direct them.
When you simply draw yourself back to the present moment, all thoughts, both good and bad, vanish. There’s no battle then. There’s nothing to escape in the present moment. This is the simple truth.
Simplicity is spirituality.
It is a reminder that you can’t take care of the other person without taking care of yourself first. It is the understanding that you, too, deserve to do things that make you happy. You’ve as much right to life as anyone else.
life where you understand that in order to love someone, you must fill yourself with love first. To care for someone requires that you care about yourself first; an understanding that there’s only so much you can do for the other person. That, one day, they ought to take responsibility for their behavior.
A 25-year-old son, intending to marry his girlfriend, asked his father, “Dad, how much does a wedding cost?” “No idea, son,” the father replied. “I’m still paying for it.”
A relationship will be a constant burden and never a reward, unless it offers mutual fulfillment, personal space and room for exploration and expression. Yes, you should care and you should love, but it must start with yourself. Most of the life’s problems disappear if you take care of yourself and treat yourself with love. If you extend yourself the same courtesy as you do to your loved ones (or even strangers), your life will take on a whole new dimension.
the person who learns the art of self-care and self-love becomes Buddha, he becomes divine. Altruism arises naturally i...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Fill yourself with what you wish to give out, for what’s inside is what manifests outside.
The leaf that was green earlier would start to rot soon, I thought. Even though it gained freedom, because it got disconnected from its source, it lost its ability to derive nourishment and strength. It lay there lifeless. When the leaf was united with the tree, it was able to get nutrition from water and earth. Now, even though both the elements were still there in the puddle, they will no longer nurture the leaf, only decay it.
How to find out if you are still connected to the root? Going to shrines or chanting the holy names are no indicators. They are mere activities, external activities in fact. The greatest sign that you are one with the source is when you are comfortable in your own company, at peace within; it means you have mostly turned inwards; you have understood and absorbed the essence of spirituality.
What you have inside is infinitely more important than what you don’t have outside, what you have within gives you the perspective to see all that is without.
life of dignity is your birthright. Don’t discount it.
When your life has more memories than ambition, consider yourself old.
When all you have to talk about is how you did this in the past or how you did that in the past, how you were amazing a decade ago or how you were so incredible back then. When you no longer live in your present or look up to your future, when all you do is reknit the same stories in the present using yarn of the past, you are old. An unfailing sign of the one who feels old within is they mostly talk about their past.
Personally, if you ask me, I am at perfect ease with any of your belief. Whatever gives you inner strength and gives you a sense of peace, adopt that belief.
