Adventure Called Spirituality
"To succeed in the adventure called spirituality one must have one's mind set on getting the most out of life. Most people settle for trifles such as wealth, fame, comfort, and human company."
— The Heart of the Enlightened
How We See People
"All too frequently, we see people not as they are, but as we are. . . .
"So sorry! It isn't you I'm dealing with but an image in my head. . . .
"The defects we see in them are mostly our own. . . .
"All that you give to others, you are giving to yourself."
— The Heart of the Enlightened
Get Out of the Way
"In your own small way you can be of service to people — by getting out of their way.
"There is the noble art of getting things done and the noble art of leaving things undone."
— The Heart of the Enlightened
Present Moment Never Unbearable
"The present moment is never unbearable if you live in it fully. What is unbearable is to have your body here at 10 A.M. and your mind at 6 P.M.; your body in Bombay and your mind in San Francisco."
— The Heart of the Enlightened
A Journey Without Distance
"The spiritual quest is a journey without distance. You travel from where you are right now to where you have always been. From ignorance to recognition, for all you do is see for the first time what you have always been looking at.
"Whoever heard of a path that brings you to yourself or a method that makes you what you have always been? Spirituality, after all, is only a matter of becoming what you really are."
— The Heart of the Enlightened
Still in Prison
"A former inmate of a Nazi concentration camp was visiting a friend who had shared the ordeal with him.
" 'Have you forgiven the Nazis?' he asked his friend.
'Yes.'
'Well, I haven't. I'm still consumed with hatred for them.'
'In that case,' said his friend gently, 'they still have you in prison.' "
— The Heart of the Enlightened
Saint Therese of Jesus
"One day Saint Therese of Jesus,
in a moment of closeness to Jesus,
introduced herself by saying:
'I am Therese of Jesus,'
and Jesus came back with these words,
'I am Jesus of Therese.' "
— Praying Body and Soul
Lending God Your Ears
"Imagine that you are lending God your ears so that God may also hear this symphony arising out of creation itself.
"Invite God to pay attention to the most pleasant sounds of the nature that God has created. Rest in the thought that God is listening through your ears.
"Listen to what God tells you in the sounds of nature."
— Praying Body and Soul
Jesus Dwells in Each One
"Put yourself in contact with Christ. Imagine yourself flooded with his light, life, and power.
"Imagine yourself laying your hands on the heads of the persons you love. Jesus dwells in each one. Ask that the love of Christ descend upon them. Wordlessly. See them illuminated by the light and love of Christ. See them transformed."
— Praying Body and Soul
Lesson of the Incarnation
"We forget all too easily that one of the big lessons of the Incarnation is that God is found in the ordinary. You wish to see God? Look at the face of the man next to you. You want to hear him? Listen to the cry of a baby, the loud laughter at a party, the wind rustling in the trees. You want to feel him? Stretch your hand out and hold someone. Or touch the chair you are sitting on or this book that you are reading. Or just quiet yourself, become aware of the sensations in your body, sense his almighty power at work in you and feel how near he is to you. Emmanuel, God-with-us."
— Sadhana
Like a Dead Body Without a Soul
"The greatest need of the Church today is not new legislation, new theology, new structures, new liturgies — all these without the Holy Spirit are like a dead body without a soul. We desperately need someone to take away our hearts of stone and give us a heart of flesh; we need a fresh infusion of enthusiasm and inspiration and courage and spiritual strength. We need to persevere in our task without discouragement or cynicism, with new faith in the future and for the people we work for. In other words, we need a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit."
— Contact with God
Show Me
"If the priest comes to the modern world equipped with every conceivable talent but lacks the direct, personal experience of God, the world will simply refuse to take his God-talk seriously and will have little use for him as priest, much as it may value him as an educator or philosopher or scientist.
"What the modern world, and in particular the younger generation, is saying to us today — 'Don't just talk, show me' — is what India has been saying to us for centuries. I remember good Father Abhishiktananda telling me, some years ago, of a holy Hindu he met in the South of India, who said to him, 'You missionaries will never have any impact on us unless you come to us as gurus.' The guru is a man who doesn't merely talk about what he has read in a book. He talks from the assurance of his own religious experience."
— Contact with God
God's Miraculous Interventions
"If in our own lives we never or hardly ever experience God's miraculous interventions, it is either because we are not living dangerously enough or because our faith has grown dim and we hardly expect any miracles to occur. How important it is that there be miracles in our lives if we are to preserve a keen consciousness of God's presence and power."
— Contact with God
Carry a Story in Your Mind
"Carry a story around in your mind so you can dwell on it in leisure moments. That will give it a chance to work on your subconscious and reveal its hidden meaning. You will then be surprised to see how it comes to you quite unexpectedly just when you need it to light up an event or situation and bring you insight and inner healing. That is when you will realize that, in exposing yourself to these stories, you were auditing a Course in Enlightenment for which no guru is needed other than yourself!"
— The Heart of the Enlightened
Hot Dog
"A family settled down for dinner at a restaurant. The waitress first took the order of the adults, then turned to the seven-year old.
" 'What will you have?' she asked.
"The boy looked around the table timidly and said, 'I would like to have a hot dog.'
"Before the waitress could write down the order, the mother interrupted. 'No hot dogs,' she said, 'Get him a steak with mashed potatoes and carrots.'
"The waitress ignored her. 'Do you want ketchup or mustard on your hot dog?' she asked the boy.
" 'Ketchup.'
" 'Coming up in a minute,' said the waitress as she started for the kitchen.
"There was a stunned silence when she left. Finally the boy looked at everyone present and said, 'Know what? She thinks I'm real!' "
— The Heart of the Enlightened
Teach a Horse to Fly
"An ancient King in India sentenced a man to death. The man begged that the sentence be rescinded, and added, 'If the King will be merciful and spare my life, I shall teach his horse to fly in a year's time.'
" 'Done,' said the King. 'But if at the end of this period the horse cannot fly, you will be executed.'
"When his anxious family later asked the man how he planned to achieve this, he said, 'In the course of the year the King may die. Or the horse may die. Or who knows, the horse may learn to fly!' "
— The Heart of the Enlightened
The Way We Meet Events
"Traveler: 'What kind of weather are we going to have today?'
"Shepherd: 'The kind of weather I like.'
"Traveler: 'How do you know it will be the kind of weather you like?'
"Shepherd: 'Having found out, sir, I cannot always get what I like, I have learned always to like what I get. So I am quite sure we will have the kind of weather I like.'
"Happiness and unhappiness are in the way we meet events, not in the nature of those events themselves."
— The Heart of the Enlightened
Splendor of a Rose
"Compare the serene and simple splendor of a rose in bloom with the tensions and restlessness of your life. The rose has a gift that you lack; It is perfectly content to be itself. It has not been programmed from birth, as you have been, to be dissatisfied with itself, so it has not the slightest urge to be anything other than it is. That is why it possesses the artless grace and absence of inner conflict that among humans is only found in children and mystics."
— There's A Spiritual Solution to Every Problem
Allergic to Ideologies
"The Master was allergic to ideologies.
" 'In a war of ideas,' he said, 'it is people who are the causalities.'
Later he elaborated, 'People kill for money or for power. But the most ruthless murderers are those who kill for their ideas.' "
— Awakening
A Method
" 'I have been four months with you, and you have still not given me a method or technique."
" 'A method?' said the Master. 'What on earth would you want a method for?'
" 'To attain inner freedom.'
"The Master roared with laughter. 'You need great skill indeed to set yourself free by means of the trap called a method.' "
— Awakening
Self-Righteousness
"Said the self-righteous preacher, 'What in your judgment, is the greatest sin in the world?'
" 'That of the person who sees other human beings as sinners,' said the Master."
— Awakening
The Greater Adventure
" 'Why do you travel so little?' a reporter asked.
" 'To look into the face of just one person or thing every day of the year and never fail to find something new in it — that is a greater adventure by far than any travel can offer,' said the Master."
— Awakening
Sense of the Infinite
"We have all but lost our sense of the Infinite operating within our lives. We no longer sense God guiding us to our destiny through our rulers, God healing us of our emotional wounds through our counselors, God bringing us health through our physicians, God shaping every event that we meet, God sending every person who enters our life, God producing the rain, God playing about us in the breeze and touching us in every sensation we feel and producing sounds all around us to that they shall be registered on our eardrums and we shall hear him!"
— Sadhana
A Love That Far Exceeds
"One married man told me that he and his wife spend an hour each morning in the form of contemplation facing each other with eyes closed. As a result, after each hour they experience a union of hearts and a love for each other that far exceeds anything they had ever known before, even when they were romantically in love. I must add these two have become experts in the art of contemplation and of silencing the mind."
— Sadhana
A Scene of Joy
"Return in some scene in which you felt joy. What produced this joy in you? Good news. . . . The fulfillment of some desire. . . . A scene of nature? . . . Recapture the original scene and the feelings that accompanied it. . . . Stay as long as you can with these feelings."
— Sadhana
Most Wonderful Hash
" 'What's so original about this man?' asked a visitor. 'All he gives you is a hash of stories, proverbs, and sayings from other masters.'
"A woman disciple smiled. She once had a cook, she said, who made the most wonderful hash in the world.
" 'How on earth do you make it, my dear? You must give me the recipe.'
"The cook's face glowed with pride. She said, 'Well, ma'am, I'll tell yer: beef's nothin'; pepper's nothin'; onion's nothin'; but when I throws myself into the hash — that's what makes it what it is.' "
— More One Minute Nonsense
Seeds of Growth
"Every painful event contains in itself a seed of growth and liberation. In the light of this truth return to your life now and take a look at one or another of the events that you are not grateful for, and see if you can discover the potential for growth that they contain which you were unaware of and therefore failed to benefit from. Now think of some recent event that caused you pain, that produced negative feelings in you. Whoever or whatever caused those feelings was your teacher, because they revealed so much to you about yourself that you probably did not know. And they offered you an invitation and a challenge to self-understanding, self-discovery, and therefore to growth and life and freedom."
— The Way to Love
