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There is an old simile in India that if you place a cup of milk before a Raja Hamsa (swan) with plenty of water in it, he will take all the milk and leave the water. In that way we should take what is of value in knowledge, and leave the dross.
One characteristic of a sane mind is its refusal to get involved in society’s insanity because it recognizes insanity when it sees it.
The deepest and most passionate love is that which survives the extinction of esteem.
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope. For hope would be hope for the wrong thing.
If you wish to grow in your spiritual life, you must not allow yourself to be caught up in the workings of the world. You must find time alone, away from the noise and confusion, away from the allure of power and wealth.
He who does not understand how the soul contains the Beautiful within itself, seeks to realize beauty without, by laborious production.
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control: these three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Whatever you think appears in consciousness as a show. That’s the way thought works to display its content, as a show of imagination. Therefore if you think the observer is separate from the observed, it’s going to appear in consciousness as two different entities. The point is that the words will seem to be coming from the observer who knows, who sees, and therefore they are the truth, they are a description of the truth. That’s the illusion.
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it.
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
Settle yourself in solitude, and you will come upon Him in yourself.
Your true spiritual responsibility is not how you arrive but that you continually set out upon the journey.
All writings, both of secular and of divine wisdom, yield instruction when effort is applied.
We are enslaved by the laws we set up for our protection, which have become our oppression.
It is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do.
Silence is a solvent that destroys personality, and gives us leave to be great and universal.
When I see an anxious man, I say, “What does this man want?” If he did not want something which is not in his power, how could he be anxious? For this reason, a lute player when he is singing by himself has no anxiety, but when he goes to the theatre, he is anxious, even if he has a good voice and plays well on the lute, for he not only wishes to sing well, but also to obtain applause, which is not in his power.
All things are known to the soul. It is not to be surprised by any communication. Nothing can be greater than it, let those fear and those fawn who will. The soul is in her native realm; and it is wider than space, older than time, wide as hope, rich as love. Pusillanimity and fear she refuses with a beautiful scorn; they are not for her who putteth on her coronation robes, and goes out through universal love to universal power.
The friction of a thousand interests evolves a condition of electricity in which men are moved to and fro without considering their steps. Yet the agitated pool of life is stonily indifferent, the thought is absent or preoccupied, for it is evident that the mass are unconscious of the scene in which they act.
