Atma > Atma's Quotes

“I am the Atma abiding in the heart of all beings. I am also the beginning, the middle, and the end of all beings.”
― Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita

“Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead, here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird wings.”
― Rumi

“I am totally lost in the folds of Love,
totally free of worry and care.

I have passed beyond the four qualities.
My heart has torn away the veil of pretense.

There was a time I circled with the nine spheres, rolling with the stars across the sky.
There was a time I stayed by his side—
I lived in his world
and he gave me everything.

With the best of intentions
I became a prisoner in this form.
How else did I get here?
What crime did I commit?
But I’d rather be in a prison with my Friend
than in a rosegarden all alone.

I came to this world
To have a sight of Joseph’s purity.
Like a baby born of its mother’s womb,
I was brought here with blood and tears.

People think they are born only once
But they have been here so many times.

In the cloak of this ragged body
I have walked countless paths.
How many times I have worn out this cloak!

With ascetics in the desert
I watched night turn into day.
With pagans in the temple
I slept at the foot of idols.

I’ve been a charlatan and a king;
I’ve been a healer, and fraught with disease.

I’ve been on my death-bed so many times. . . . Floating up like the clouds
Pouring down like the rain.

As a darvish I sought the dust of annihilation
but it never touched my robe.
So I gathered armfuls of roses
in this faded garden of existence.

I am not of wind nor fire
nor of the stormy seas.
I am not formed out of painted clay.
I am not even Shams-e Tabriz—

I am the essence of laughter,
I am pure light.

Look again if you see me—
It’s not me you have seen!”
― Rumi, Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved

“We have been secretly fed

from beyond space and time. That's why we look for something more than this.”
― Rumi, The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems – Coleman Barks's Sublime Renderings of the 13th-Century Sufi Mystic's Insights into Divine Love and the Human Heart

“Love is the vital core of the soul,
and of all you see, only love is infinite”
― Rumi

“I thought, "First I will know you,
then I will die."
He replied,
"Whoever knows Me never dies.”
― Rumi

“You are the Universe in Ecstatic Motion”
― Rumi

“TIME TO SACRIFICE TAURUS

This is the night of union when the stars
scatter their rice over us. The sky is

excited! Venus cannot stop singing the little songs she's making up, like birds

in the first warm spring weather. The North Star can't quit looking over at Leo.

Pisces is stirring milky dust from the ocean floor. Jupiter rides his horse near

Saturn, "Old man, jump up behind me! The juice is coming back! Think of something

happy to shout as we go. "Mars washes his bloody sword, puts it up, and begins

building things. The Aquarian water jar fills, and the Virgin pours it generously.

The Pleiades and Libra and Aries have no
trembling in them anymore. Scorpio walks

out looking for a lover, and so does
Sagittarius! This is not crooked walking

like the Crab. This is a holiday we've been waiting for. It is finally time to

sacrifice Taurus and learn how the sky is a lens to look through. Listen to what's

inside what I say. Shams will appear at dawn; then even night will change from

its beloved animated darkness to a day
within this ordinary sweet daylight.”
― Rumi, The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems – Coleman Barks's Sublime Renderings of the 13th-Century Sufi Mystic's Insights into Divine Love and the Human Heart

“Now is the time to unite the soul and the world. Now is the time to see the sunlight dancing as one with the shadows.”
― Rumi

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love. It will not lead you astray.”
― Rumi

“Suffering is not good for the soul, unless it teaches you how to stop suffering. That is its purpose.”
― Jane Roberts, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul

“You were born into a state of grace. It is impossible for you to leave it. You will die in a state of grace whether or not special words are spoken for you, or water or oil is poured upon your head. You share this blessing with the animals and all other living things. You cannot fall out of grace, nor can it be taken from you. You can ignore it. You can hold beliefs that blind you to its existence. You will still be graced but unable to perceive you own uniqueness and integrity, and blind also to other attributes with which you are automatically gifted.”
― Jane Roberts, The Nature of Personal Reality: Specific, Practical Techniques for Solving Everyday Problems and Enriching the Life You Know

“There is nothing in the world more soft and weak than water, and yet for attacking things that are firm and strong there is nothing that can take precedence of it;—for there is nothing (so effectual) for which it can be changed.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
― Lao Tzu

“When Love comes suddenly and taps
on your window, run and let it in but first
shut the door of your reason.
Even the smallest hint chases love away
like smoke that drowns the freshness
of the morning breeze.
To reason Love can only say,
the way is barred, you can't pass through
but to the lover it offers a hundred blessings.
Before the mind decides to take a step
Love has reached the seventh heaven.
Before the mind can figure how
Love has climbed the Holy Mountain.
I must stop this talk now and let
Love speak from its nest of silence.”
― Rumi

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along. MORNING”
― Rumi, The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing

“You’ve seen a herd of goats
going down to the water.

The lame and dreamy goat
brings up the rear.

They are worried faces about that one,
but now they’re laughing,

because look, as they return,
the goat is leading!

They are many different kind of knowing.
The lame goat’s kind is a branch
that traces back to the roots of presence.

Learn from the lame goat,
and lead the herd back home.”
― Rumi

“The way the night knows itself with the moon, be that way with me. Or, alternately translated, Union is a raging river running toward the sea. Tonight the moon kisses the stars. O beloved, be like that to me.”
― Rumi

“The Heart is your Student,
For love is the only way we learn.”
― Rumi

“I want that love that moved the mountains. I want that love that split the ocean. I want that love that made the winds tremble. I want that love that roared like thunder. I want that love that will raise the dead. I want that love that lifts us to ecstasy. I want that love that is the silence of eternity”
― Rumi

“Choose love. Choose love.
Without this beautiful love,
life is nothing but a burden.”
― Jalaluddin Rumi, The Forbidden Rumi: The Suppressed Poems of Rumi on Love, Heresy, and Intoxication

“Listen, open the heart’s window
and keep looking at the Beloved.
The task of love is to open that window
so the heart can be illuminated by His Beauty.
Gaze incessantly at the Beloved's face.
That is your power, my friend”
― Rumi

“WOODEN CAGES

I may be clapping my hands, but I don't
belong to a crowd of clappers. Neither

this nor that, I'm not part of a group
that loves flute music or one that loves

gambling or drinking wine. Those who
live in time, descended from Adam, made

of earth and water, I'm not part of that.
Don't listen to what I say, as though

these words came from an inside and went
to an outside. Your faces are very

beautiful, but they are wooden cages.
You had better run from me. My words

are fire. I have nothing to do with
being famous, or making grand judgments,

or feeling full of shame. I borrow
nothing. I don't want anything from

anybody. I flow through human beings.
Love is my only companion. When union

happens, my speech goes inside toward
Shams. At that meeting all the secrets

of language will no longer be secret.”
― Rumi, The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems – Coleman Barks's Sublime Renderings of the 13th-Century Sufi Mystic's Insights into Divine Love and the Human Heart

“The art of teaching is clarity and the art of learning is to listen.”
― Vanda Scaravelli

“To relax is not to collapse, but simply to undo tension.”
― Vanda Scaravelli, Awakening the Spine: The Stress-Free New Yoga that Works with the Body to Restore Health, Vitality and Energy