Nish > Nish's Quotes

“family has always been a symbol of unity and selfless love in spite of the serious problems that have afflicted it from time to time. Arjuna’s confusion over his family responsibility is ours as well, for we have let competition and self-interest tear our families apart. Husband and wife compete against each other, parents and children compete, sister and brother compete; even the grandparents are trying to get into the act. This competitive tendency has spread from the home to the school and campus, to organizations, and of course to international relationships. It breeds distrust, suspicion, and jealousy wherever it goes. As our security increases through meditation, we find we do not need to compete, for the source of joy and wisdom is right within us. Competition has so distorted our vision that we are defensive towards even our dear ones, but as our meditation deepens, we see what lasting joy there is in trying to complete one another rather than compete against one another.”
― Eknath Easwaran, The End of Sorrow: The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Volume 1

“When Gandhi was observing his day of silence, someone once asked him for a message. He just wrote, “My life is my message.”
― Eknath Easwaran, The End of Sorrow: The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Volume 1

“To be secure everywhere is the mark of sophistication, to be unshakable is the mark of courage, to be permanently in love with every person is the mark of masculinity or femininity, to forgive is the mark of strength, to govern our senses and passions is the mark of freedom.”
― Eknath Easwaran, Passage Meditation - A Complete Spiritual Practice: Train Your Mind and Find a Life that Fulfills

“human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
― Anonymous, The Dhammapada

“Foods Uniquely Designed to Screw Up Your Brain Bagels Biscuits Cake Cereal Milk chocolate/white chocolate Cookies Energy bars Crackers Doughnuts Muffins Pastas Pastries Pies Granola bars Pizza Pretzels Waffles Pancakes White bread Milkshakes Frozen yogurt Ice cream Batter Gravy Jams Jellies Fries Chips Granola”
― Max Lugavere, Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life

“The reason why, if he were not more than two thousand years dead, he would have gladly rubbed him out is that he saw him as a prototype for the many millions of self-satisfied and truly ignorant teachers throughout history who have smugly and callously killed the creative spirit of their students with this dumb ritual of analysis, this blind, rote, eternal naming of things. Walk into any of a hundred thousand classrooms today and hear the teachers divide and subdivide and interrelate and establish “principles” and study “methods” and what you will hear is the ghost of Aristotle speaking down through the centuries—the desiccating lifeless voice of dualistic reason.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

“Accustom yourself to the belief that death is of no concern to us, since all good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death. Therefore the true belief that death is nothing to us makes a mortal life happy, not by adding to it an infinite time, but by taking away the desire for immortality. For there is no reason why the man who is thoroughly assured that there is nothing to fear in death should find anything to fear in life. So, too, he is foolish who says that he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because the anticipation of it is painful; for that which is no burden when it is present gives pain to no purpose when it is anticipated. Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist. It is therefore nothing either to the living or to the dead since it is not present to the living, and the dead no longer are.”
― Epicurus, Lettera sulla felicità

“The purpose of all knowledge, metaphysical as well as scientific, is to achieve what Epicurus called ataraxia, freedom from irrational fears and anxieties of all sorts—in brief, peace of mind.”
― Epicurus, Lettera sulla felicità

“Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.”
― Plato