Quotessence
Home / Authors / Kilroy J. Oldster

Kilroy J. Oldster Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

Famous Kilroy J. Oldster Quotes

“A life of detachment from greed and desires allows a person to appreciate the truly marvelous part of being alive. I cannot acquire the most sublime pleasures of life with money, force, or industry. I must learn to listen to the song of the wind, rejoice in the drumming patter of fine rain falling in a leafy forest, and delight in witnessing the coming of autumn when the leaves turn into orange and red flames. I seek sincerity of being. I hope to find comfort in a modest meal and cultivate joy by witnessing the birthing and playfulness of the young. I am no longer interested in the practical matters that businesspeople attend, exhibit no attentive awareness of political, cultural, or social affairs, and do not wish to inject myself into the warring conflicts of world.”

“The tangible and factual components of reality along with the intangible strands of memory and imagination constitute the framework that houses our vital life force. A person is likewise composed of contradictory and complementary forces of pain and pleasure, darkness and lightness, and clashing and harmonizing bands of thoughts and feelings. The web and root of all persons consists of both the expressible and the unsayable. Who has not held imaginary conversations with gods, devils, and spirits? Persons whom enthusiastically cultivate an inner life, ardently experience the quick of nature, and willingly immerse themselves in all aspects of everyday living will experience renewal. Analogous to the heat source of fire, we need the spark of desire to fuel our hearts and the spirit of the breeze to spread our heart songs.”

“A person experiments in life and reflects upon those events in order to discover how to lead a meaningful life. We conduct a quest searching for the source our essential being. What we seek is inside us waiting for us to discover. Until we realize the vital inner source that provides direction for our life, all our efforts are in vain. The ego with its craving and fearful protection strategies is what prevents us from perceiving the transparency of the world in which we belong. When we cease clinging to the past and no longer daydream of the future and unreservedly accept whatever is occurring while sacrificing ourselves in service of other people our sense of self vanishes and we exist only as conscious and nonjudgmental witnesses of reality.”

“Fate demands that we continue suffering, until we willingly seek out and discover the sacred path of righteousness. Until we surrender to the sameness of life, we are unable to experience the absolute ground zero of reality. Only by surrendering our desires, by readjusting our consciousness to a state undefined, unbound, and unmotivated by passion and desire, will we experience life transformed.”

“I stand on the banks of time silently witnessing the world change beneath my feet. I arrive at a desirable place in a world when I learn to accept a world devoid of my paltry existence. When my self-inflicted wounds heal, I will stand as mute as a mountain impervious to the whimsy of the quaking world and no longer be deluded into aspiring to be a member of a fantasy world of pleasure-seeking people. Fame and fortune do not matter to an enlightened person, it is sufficient simply to be present and unflinchingly support all life forms without hesitation.”

“English poet Phillip Larkin’s famous poem,’Toads,’ suggest that two types of toads drive a person to work for the dull business of making money. First, is the influence of society for a person to labor in a conventional manner, and second, the inner pressure people exert upon themselves to procure a secure future by working and saving for their old age. Larkin concludes that a person is doomed if either type of brute toad squats on their life. Some people drive the squatty toad away by living on their wit, or by willingly accepting a lifestyle without fame, fortune, and financial security. Perchance as Philip Larkin suggested in his illustrious poem, I should not continue to allow the toad work to squat on my life by escaping the burdensome exterior pressure to work without spiritual replenishment. Perhaps with thoughtful study, I can eliminate a malignant personal tumor that leaching manifestations drove me to strive for money, fame, and unrequited love.”

“Is life meaninglessness, without a fundamental purpose? Alternatively, must each of us proclaim a distinctive purposefulness for living? Is happiness a desired goal, and if so, what is personal happiness? Does happiness coincide with truthfulness? People intuitively seek happiness. How does a person haunted by memories of failure attain happiness? Should a person strive to realize an enviable social status and becoming fabulously wealthy (i.e. achieving fame and fortune)? Is happiness a mental state that instigates from a person leading a life that gives them maximize pleasure derived from their personal efforts? Does each person have the tools to achieve personal happiness? Is personal happiness a matter of making the right choices in life, of living a good life? Is the key to enjoying a happy life striving to obtain physical comfort, mental stimulation, and emotional wellbeing? Does a person achieve happiness by making choices in life that will enhance their degree of pleasure, lessen their degree of pain, and reduce their amount of personal sacrifice? Alternatively, does achieving a happy life require living virtuously by demonstrating honest work and helping other people? Can eradicating self-deception lead me to discovering a unique purpose in life that heretofore eluded me? Perhaps a creative course of constructive achievement will provide a glimmering moment of happiness.”

“Can I discover how to live so that life ceases to be problematic, so that one lives in the eternal and not in grip of the falsities of time? Can I expunge selfishness from my gene pool? Can I mine from my central chord the ability to demonstrate empathy, supply a compress of sympathy, and extend charity for people in need of assistance? Can I concentrate all my cognitive material to express grace and thankfulness for the world? Must I shed the tattered shirt of yesteryear in order to advance to the next stage in life? When the pigmented henna of the naked self is exposed, do I see the resin of my elemental character more clearly? Stripped of the restrictive pig iron of disappointment, I realize that the mystique of the future trumps the perspicuity of my blemished past. Letting go of the past and torching a wagonload of personal guilt is freeing. Once disburdened from a repressive sense of a remorseful and shamefaced self, I am free to prowl about uninhibited and nurture a mantle of renewed optimism for the brilliant seasons to come.”

“The dimension of space and time, represented by what is transpiring in the here and now, is all that we will ever know. Unlike the continuum of perpetual time and infinite space, everything that we know will experience disruption, dissolution, disintegration, dismemberment, and death. The inevitability of our ending represents the tragic comedy of life. Much of our needless suffering emanates from resisting our impermanence rather than embracing our fate. Only through acceptance of the events and situations that occur in a person’s life including suffering, and by releasing our attachments, will a person ever experience enlightenment.”

“We cannot have it all. We must live with our limitations. We cannot hold onto life with higher esteem than it deserves. We live only once, a life best served by dedicating ourselves to reducing the suffering of others, not inflicting evilness, taking satisfaction in just being, and recognizing the glory of nature.”

“We unthinkingly build the pilings of our lives upon whatever comes along. Like it or not, we play the hand that fate deals us. If fate is kind, some people credit their fortuitous circumstances to their ingenuity and resoluteness. If fate is cruel, some people curse God. The truth is that an unenlightened person resists suffering, they continually wish for a world different than it is, whereas an enlightened person learns how to suffer heroically.”

“Each of us is impermanent wave of energy folded into the infinite cosmic order. Acknowledgement of the fundamental impermanence of ourselves unchains us from the strictures of living a terrestrial life stuck like a needle vacillating between the magnetic pull of endless desire and the terror of death. Once we achieve freedom from any craving and all desires and we are relieved of all titanic fears, we release ourselves from living in perpetual distress. Once we rid ourselves from any impulse to exist, we discover our true place in the universal order. The composition of our life filament is exactly right when we accept the notion of living and dying with equal stoicism.”

“The greatest challenge in life is to be our own person and accept that being different is a blessing and not a curse. A person who knows who they are lives a simple life by eliminating from their orbit anything that does not align with his or her overriding purpose and values. A person must be selective with their time and energy because both elements of life are limited.”

“A person employs human reason and intellect to guide our earthly expedition. We can stumble through life satisfying the unconscious dictates of the mind or take control of our life by increasing our level of conscious awareness. Philosophy always commences with an act of consciousness. We must follow our moral passions. We create our reality by what we perceive as truth. We imagine a life that we wish to experience. Live the life that you envision. Do not allow other people or external determinates to control your conception of the self, because otherwise you are living someone else’s life.”

“We foster personal meaning out of life by exulting in all of nature, exhibiting a reverence for people, animals, plants, and by expressing compassion and sympathy for the entire community of life.”

“Rainer Maria Rilke said, ‘The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.’ I will witness many crimes and commit my share of sins. I shall nonetheless rally from heart rendering defeat and continue struggling to make my mind a cool reflection table that is capable of mirroring without distress all the conflict and greed that living entails. I will rebound from glorious defeat of cherished ideas by continuing to exhibit profound reverence for every facet of living in a world filled with both kind and beastly people. I can never cease learning and working to control my devious monkey mind. While I prefer that other people respect me, I will encounter many people whom dislike or ignore me. I cannot live an enlightened existence attempting to win other people’s affection. I desire success, but I must embrace failure and heartache as the preeminent means to encounter suffering that is essential to foster intellectual and spiritual growth. I aspire to make a mosaic of the mind out of personal failures and script a future byline that is admirable because it reflects living in a principled and disciplined manner.”

“The self is a subjective entity created by our thoughts and deeds. All sense of happiness and emotional wellbeing turns upon how a person organizes their stream of consciousness into a creation and development of a positive or negative self-image.”

“Life is neither a glorious highlight reel nor a monstrous tragedy. Every day is a good day to live and a good day to die. Every day is also an apt time to learn and express joy and love for the entire natural world. Each day is an apt time to make contact with other people and express empathy for the entire world. Each day is perfect to accept with indifference all aspects of being.”

“An artistic life is closely associated with a spiritual life as both represent an attempt to withdraw into enforced solitude in order to experience a person’s innermost self and to imbue the personal spirit with will and energy, virtue and purity. Both an artist and a spiritual seeker must possess an appreciation for beauty, the courage to confront personal demons, intellectual integrity to express truth, the self-discipline to labor endlessly, and the capacity to endure hardships that might break or destroy other people. Through protracted self-examination of and extensive contemplation of the gifts of nature an artistic and spiritual person overcomes their sense of desperation and feelings of isolation and aloneness, realizes oneness with the universe, becomes enlightened and free, lives humbly in a state of grace, and faces the future with curiosity and optimism.”

“Enlightenment – whether defined as spiritual awakening, liberation, or other form of illumination and attentiveness – requires inner transformation brokered by study of our limitations and application of a welcoming spirit of conscious appreciation. Self-knowledge commences by looking for the sacred light of awareness essential to spawn profound change in a person’s character.”

“A sterile mind can transform itself into a fecund mind through astute perception and resolute determination. A prolific internal landscape emanates from appreciating the incomparable beauty in this world. Sensory deprivation of all forms predictably instills in a person an intense gratefulness for living a sumptuous life whereas exposure to an abundance of radiant sensations supplies a tractable student with wealth of handy diversity.”

“I seek to embrace the wings of madness and allow its fresh breath to tear myself apart and begin all over. I aspire to live with inspiration, work every day towards self-improvement, dare to be honest with myself, not fear hard work, cease evading challenging experiences, and not bemoan personal setbacks. I need to accept that hardship and adversity is part of the path to discovering personal truth, and appreciate the growth message that stalks suffering and loss. I must channel all personal sources of pain into a constructive format that enables me to thrive, not wither, and die. Every person has the ability to do some good in their brief stay on this planet. I need to discover the essential purpose of my life and then go live it instead of lamenting my imperfections, nursing animosity, and registering wrongs.”

“There exists a universal order that we each play a distinct role in carrying out. Light always struggles to emerge from darkness. Each of us is the bearer of our own lantern. We find ourselves when we realize our place in an interconnected world. The struggle to pierce the darkness that shrouds us from realizing a state of perceptive awareness is the biggest part of both our individual story and our communal storyline.”

“It is ultimately the ebony of our pain, our blackest monuments, which lead us to seek an enlightened way of living. We are unable to hear the voice leading to our own salvation until we fall into the depths of an abbess manufactured by living a heedless life. From this state of floundering in the gloomy lagoon, we can awaken to find the light bearing the seeds of truth that will redeem us. Looking inward, we overcome stubborn resistance, and we revivify long lost and forgotten powers. The experience of soul-searching perspicacity transfigures us. We might even feel as if we died a spiritual death and then we were reborn. From our dark pit, a shaft of light emerges.”

“Dissimilar from acquiring riches and fame, which are largely products of providence, we self-manufacture our own lot of goodness. If we ground everything we do upon a moral principle and especially love, affection, and compassion, we might not accomplish all the goals that we hoped to achieve, but we will not be hampered with unyielding regret or remorse for the effort expended. If we approach each stage in life with true passion, then each step along a broken or straight path is at least honest. If we honor the commitments that we make to ourselves and act to honor all our personal obligations with other people by devoting our entire intelligence, drive, and vital life force, and do not waste our effort on greedy, wanton, or wasteful activities, we shall grow stronger. Judicious deployment of personal resources ensures that we shall experience a sense of renewal at each important milepost along the way. If we maintain our vow of faith and love people freely, an internal lightness will guide us in our time of uncertainly.”

“The mysteries of life include the external and the internal conundrums that each person encounters in a world composed of competing ideologies and agents of change. Conflicting ideas include political, social, legal, and ethical concepts. Agents of change include environmental factors, social pressure to conform, aging, and the forces inside us that made us into whom we are as well as the forces compelling us to be a different type of person.”

“Do I live out the remainder of my life striving to increase a mental storehouse of intellectual knowledge or by expanding a state of conscious awareness? Should my ultimate goal be to decode all the paradoxes in life or nurture a state of cognitive awareness? Should I strive to develop internal peace, silence, and tranquility? Must I rely upon the intuitive self to reconnect innate root structure and link myself to the essential means of living life deeply? By courageously striving to conquer illicit personal desires, can I develop a state of mirror-like purity of consciousness that allows a person to serve as a gracious and unbiased witness to the surrounding world?”

“I am an autonomous human being, self-regulating and self-governing, and duty bound to quest for the pure idea of how I wish to exist. I need to make the most of this breath of life while I can. I wish to live mindfully. I seek a roadmap leading to personal enlightenment, a means to live as effortlessly as a cork bobbing on a river, not resisting the flow of the stream, not fighting myself, liberated from the anxiety of foolishly lingering over prior travels, unconcerned where I am at, and accepting without reservation where I am heading without desiring more. A person with a light heart and a sound mind wants for nothing. I seek to travel into the mist of future while conscientiously working towards obtaining spiritual enlightenment. I search to acquire an active and open state of mindfulness, but I must exercise caution in doing so, because any degree of wanting, any foray to acquire money or acclaim, undermines the desire to achieve mental stillness and emotional equanimity. By living in an authentic and spontaneous manner, without striving, without obsessing about the horror of the past and the ambiguity of looming future, and by living exclusively in the now, I hope to experience the universal truths – the ultimate reality of absolute existence – reflective of the true nature of the universe.”

“We alone control our final form through our conscious actions. We become the product of the movement of our mind and our physical actions. The joint composition of our personal beliefs coupled with performing purposeful deeds brings forth form and tangible appearance to our thoughts. To discover our special radiance we must gain freedom from all forces of oppression. We must break free from the limitations of a shallow ego in an effort to give birth to our translucent state of creative consciousness.”

“In order to grow sometimes we must cease striving to meet other people’s expectations and begin establishing new goals that develop our personal potential. If we live a life to satisfy all the direct or implicit anticipations of other people, we end up living a life full of regret because we failed to develop into a complete manifestation of our being.”

“We cannot replicate other people’s lives. We must each institute and broker a personalized meaning to our exclusive existence. We must each serve as our own Zen master, awaken to our inviolate personal truth, and strive to fulfill our sui generis (unique) nature.”

“The choices we make in life determine human identities. A person might choose to avoid or confront their deepest night terrors. A person can elect to live carefully or rashly. A person can embrace ignorance or incessantly work to acquire knowledge of the larger world filled with people, nature, and ideas. A person can live a placid life or boldly seek out vivid encounters is a world filled with anarchy, chaos, hazards, and incomparable beauty and slender. A person can hold onto attachments and fear death or live their life as a mere witness and perceive their personal death as part of the collective story and the culmination of a life will lived. A person can employ their time in a material world to enhance personal pleasures or to develop their innate skills and strive towards attaining self-realization. A person may perceive their existence as pitiful drudgery, or live a courageously, making a statement with their wounds and scars that life is a thrilling mystery filled with longing, love, and holiness.”

“The path towards living in a spiritual manner begins by eliminating inculcated cultural biases, destroying personal illusions, and gratefully accepting the world without sentimental artifice. Emotional detachment provides for clarity of vision.”

“While solitude and study are necessary ingredients to understand our place in the world and to achieve an amplified sense of clarity and balance, immersion in natural world and sharing in human interaction is the ultimate source of inspiration and learning. Only by observing, understanding, and respecting nature and by unconditionally embracing, accepting, and loving other people of all stripes, can we experience the full gamut of emotions that makes us human.”

“Self-mastery is the first step towards attaining enlightenment. Change begins with personal dissatisfaction and belief that a person can do better. A person can set meaningful goals and vow not to hold onto frivolous attachments. My objective is to cultivate the ability to expect the best effort from myself and never be afraid to tackle the type of difficult projects or pursue scintillating adventures that spur mental growth. I aim to become a loyal, loving, and joyful person, and broaden personal knowledge through a self-prescribed course of active reading and studious contemplation. I aspire to use an expanded base of knowledge to live a more ethical and principled existence and rid myself of self-defeating behaviors brought on by brooding doubts regarding the paucity of my innate talent. Instead of grieving over what I failed to achieve, I plan to concentrate upon what I can achieve and bring the collective force of my newly resolved mindset to the forefront.”