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Meditation Quotes

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Meditation Quotes

“In meditation you withdraw from others and focus your attention inside to gain purity of mind and wisdom energy. Then you must become extroverted and use this energy. When you take a long jump, you must first take some steps backward. Then you run, and make the jump. Like this, you first withdraw, observe yourself, develop clarity and unlock the wisdom. Then you make a long jump into society, to serve society. These two steps cannot be separated.”

“My art in the last period has all been in small format, but my paintings have become even deeper and more spiritual, speaking truly through colour. Feeling that because of my illness I would not be able to paint very much longer, I worked like a man obsessed on these little 'Meditations' (a long series of small paintings he made during the last years of his life, with as main motif the schema of a face, ed.). And now I leave these small but, to me, important works to the future and to people who love art.”

“The only times that we can have what we long for are those moments when we stop grasping for it. At such times, all things are possible: "to a mind that is 'still' the whole universe surrenders".”

“In the beginning of my twenties, I started transcendental meditation. For years I did nothing else. Every holiday I went to courses. Meditation is a real simple instrument. You don't need a long beard or a sari. It's meant to bring you to yourself. It's as easy as that. And that's what it's all about, being alone with yourself every day, for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening.”

“You can just imagine if everyone on earth did have one day where we just put all our minds together regardless where the force is, as long as it's positive, and just meditate for even a hour that day. And just live nice with them nice meditation. I mean, now, the climate would be nice, the smog would a leave”

“Millions of people are joined in the knowledge that writing brings insight and calm in the same way that prayer, meditation, or a long walk in the woods does. They have discovered that writing allows the racing mind to move at the pace of pen and paper or the pace of typing on the waiting screen - that journal writing is a spiritual practice.”

“We in America should see that no man is ever given, no matter how gradually or how noble and excellent the man, the power to put this country into a war which is now being prepared and brought closer each day with all the pre-meditation of a long planned murder. For when you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.”

“Who is unhappy with little, won't be with much; who doesn't appreciate the small won't be able to take care of the large; who doesn't have enough with enough is at the margin or virtue, for the physical body lives from one day to another and if it gets what it really needs, there will be time for meditation, as long as if we try to give it everything it desires, endless will be the task.”

“Swimming is probably the ultimate of burnout sports. It's ironic because millions of people who swim as their regular exercise love the meditation aspect of it; you don't wind up with any orthopedic injuries. But when you swim at a world class level for hours and hours - the loneness of the long distance runner.”

“Kerouac's books portray a hero and narrator free and easy, confident, sure of his rebellion against the American system. In reality, Jack was torn between Catholicism, Buddhism, and his own demon-driven pursuit of kicks, between spirit and flesh, between mom's house and the Beat coffeehouse, patriotism and subversion, men and women, society and solitude, carousing and meditation, sacred and profane, secular and divine. It's a miracle he survived as long as he did.”

“When you understand that everything happening in the world mirrors something that's happening in yourself, then you can work on the self by working on the external manifestation of that thing in the world. And in fact, there may be no other way. You can sit in meditation for a long time and be blind to huge wounds in yourself, and it's only when you're engaging with the world that the wounds become visible, externalized.”

“He leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands and remained rapt in dumb meditation. On my inquiring the subject of his thoughts, he answered gravely 'I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!' 'For shame, Heathcliff!' said I. 'It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.' 'No, God won’t have the satisfaction that I shall,' he returned. 'I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I'll plan it out: while I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain.”

“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.”

“It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn't depend on how long it has been running; a shift in perspective doesn't depend on how long you've held on to the old view. When you flip the switch in that attic, it doesn't matter whether its been dark for ten minutes, ten years or ten decades. The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn't see before. Its never too late to take a moment to look.”

“The mountain has left me feeling renewed, more content and positive than I’ve been for weeks, as if something has been given back after a long absence, as if my eyes have opened once again. For this time at least, I’ve let myself be rooted in the unshakable sanity of the senses, spared my mind the burden of too much thinking, turned myself outward to experience the world and inward to savor the pleasures it has given me.”

“Why are we such tortured human beings, with tears in our eyes and false laughter on our lips? If you could walk alone among those hills or in the woods or along the long, white, bleached sands, in that solitude you would know what meditation is. The ecstasy of solitude comes when you are not frightened to be alone no longer belonging to the world or attached to anything. Then, like that dawn that came up this morning, it comes silently, and makes a golden path in the very stillness, which was at the beginning, which is now, and which will be always there.”

“But I am all for love, and I am against marriage, particularly the arranged kind, because the arranged marriage gives you satisfaction. And love? - love can never satisfy you. It gives you more and more thirst for a better and better love, it makes you more and more long for it, it gives you tremendous discontentment. And that discontent is the beginning of the search for God. When love fails many times, you start looking for a new kind of lover, a new kind of love, a new quality of love. That love affair is prayer, meditation, sannyas.”

“Some people are very identified, say with their country or maybe with their worshipping style , whatever it is. All these misidentifications have to be given up. It is very difficult for people because they are so conditioned and as long as you have conditioning you cannot rise above your mind, which is a myth, you cannot.”

“Millions of people miss meditation because meditation has taken on a wrong connotation. It looks very serious, looks gloomy, has something of the church in it, looks as if it is only for people who are dead, or almost dead, who are gloomy, serious, have long faces, who have lost festivity, fun, playfulness, celebration.... A really meditative person is playful: life is fun for him.... He enjoys it tremendously. He is not serious. He is relaxed.”

“As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than there is wrong, no matter how ill or how hopeless you may feel. But if you hope to mobilize your inner capacities for growth and for healing and to take charge in your life on a new level, a certain kind of effort and energy on your part will be required.... It will take conscious effort on your part to move in a direction of healing and inner peace. This means learning to work with the very stress and pain that is causing you to suffer.”