What they kept saying

After all, the words that we speak are the literal commands to consciousness itself, the quantum “stuff” where everything begins!

One begins without understanding the parts or the whole very well. Only the whole gives the parts their roles and meanings. But of course we arrive at an understanding of the whole only part by part. A better grasp of any part can change the sense of the whole.

To learn how to die, according to the Stoics, is to unlearn how to be a slave.

Much of what we call personality is not a fixed set of traits, only coping mechanisms a person acquired in childhood.

This is not just a book; it is what the title implies: an experience.

When your true nature is realized there is no longer this “I” searching for anything else.

When we are angry, we are the anger. When we are joyful, we are the joy.

In each moment, things simply are as they are, whether “I” like it or not.

The essence of warriorship, or the essence of human bravery, is refusing to give up on anyone or anything.

Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

My approach to both physical and mental symptoms is to not fight them, but to surrender to them totally and to allow the Eternal Spirit to wash them out of my body and soul forever.

In the original substance of the mind there is no distinction of good and evil. When the will becomes active, however, such distinction exists. The faculty of innate knowledge is to know good and evil. The investigation of things is to do good and remove evil.

From the feelings proper to it, it is constituted for the practice of what is good. This is what I mean in saying that the nature is good. If men do what is not good, the blame cannot be imputed to their natural powers.

True surrender enlarges you; it increases your capacity; it gives you a greater measure in quality and in quantity, which you could not have had yourself.

Every human being strives for significance; but people always make mistakes if they do not see that their whole significance must consist in their contribution to the lives of others.

All your notions of love — that’s what’s given up. Your idea of love, what you’ve thought of love, what you expect from love, what you cling to as love — that is what you give up.

We have set you at the world’s center that you may from thence more easily observe whatever is in the world. We have made you neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with freedom of choice and with honor, as though the maker and molder of yourself, you may fashion yourself in whatever shape you shall prefer.

This is what Wisdom means: To be changed without the slightest effort on your part, to be transformed, believe it or not, merely by waking to the reality that is not words, that lies beyond the reach of words.

You don’t need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding.

There is just a mysterious tacit understanding and no more.

The subjective mind… gives rise to corresponding external results.

This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way: Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.

Synchronistic meetings are like mirrors, reflecting back to us something of ourselves. In order to grow, we should take a good look.

To offer our hearts in faith means recognizing that our hearts are worth something, that we ourselves, in our deepest and truest nature, are of value.

The soul is neither born, nor does it ever die… it is not slain when the body is slain.

And since the Maximum is also such, it is evident that the Minimum coincides with the Maximum.

Beyond the reach of the Censor’s babble we find our own quiet center, the place where we hear the still, small voice that is at once our creator’s and our own.

God is all of everything, everywhere. I’m a child of God, His spirit within me.

It may seem so at first, but that’s because you still belong to your emotions and opinions—you think they’re yours and that they’re real. They aren’t—they belong to the ego. The Infinite Self cannot be insecure.

Though ten thousand ways of slipping and overturning spread out before him, they cannot enter the doors of his mind; he is relaxed wherever he goes.

Choose your highest excitement and act on it to the best of your ability.

For a soul that only fasteneth it[self] on to God with very trust, either by seeking or in beholding, it is the most worship that it may do to Him, as to my sight.

Man becomes aware of the sacred because it manifests itself, shows itself, as something wholly different from the profane. To designate the act of manifestation of the sacred, we have proposed the term hierophany.

Unitary consciousness . . . a state of consciousness in which one grasps in a global way the unity of all one knows—one’s whole world.

Honor your own Self. Meditate on your own Self. Worship your own Self. Kneel to your own Self. Understand your own Self. Your God dwells within you as you.

Enlightenment only becomes available when it has been accepted that it cannot be achieved.

kahuna thought begins with the search for self-realization—with the quest to discover who we are as well as where we are in our journey as souls traveling across time.

Thought is forever attempting to find form, is always looking for an outlet, is always trying to manifest itself. It is the nature of thought to try and materialize into its physical equivalent.

For those habituated to high levels of internal stress since early childhood, it is the absence of stress that creates unease, evoking boredom and a sense of meaninglessness.

Thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee.

The feeling of commiseration is the principle of benevolence. The feeling of shame and dislike is the principle of righteousness. The feeling of modesty and complaisance is the principle of propriety. The feeling of approving and disapproving is the principle of knowledge.

This ability to stand back and calmly observe my inner dramas, without rushing to judgment, is foundational for spiritual seeing.

Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.

The map is not the territory, and the name is not the thing named.

Blessed is one whose concern is one, whose heart is not occupied with what his eyes have seen and his ears have heard.

At the core you are empty, silent, and at peace—not in the pain and darkness that most of us would assume.

Since the light of spiritual knowledge is the intellect’s life, and since this light is engendered by love for God, it is rightly said that nothing is greater than divine love.

There is (gentle reader) nothing (the works of God only set apart) which so much beautifies and adorns the soul and mind of man as does knowledge of the good arts and sciences.

Trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside you.

Cognitive therapy seeks to alleviate psychological stresses by correcting faulty conceptions and self-signals. By correcting erroneous beliefs we can lower excessive reactions.

Spirituality is invisible. Never forget that. If you can see it, if it’s dressed in funny robes, if it’s up there to be looked at, if it’s making a big performance of itself, it is not spirituality. It is ego.

In one word, one should desire of God desirelessness. For desire alone is at the root of all suffering. It is the cause of repeated births and deaths. It is the obstacle in the way of liberation.

In the end, spiritual life is not a process of seeking or gaining some extraordinary condition or special powers. In fact, such seeking can take us away from ourselves.

The happiness of the world is transitory. The less you become attached to the world, the more you enjoy peace of mind.

The Wild Man doesn’t come to full life through being “natural,” going with the flow, smoking weed, reading nothing, and being generally groovy. Ecstasy amounts to living within reach of the high voltage of the golden gifts. The ecstasy comes after thought, after discipline imposed on ourselves, after grief.

The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.