It's our nature to be free, and until we're stuck in a stressful belief system, we're pretty happy.
Inviting people to inquiry is much more powerful to me than describing my experience... When people hear me tell the story, they often say, "Oh my goodness, I get it. I get it!" But it's not enough.
The world begins with what we believe.
I have discovered that in every language and every country I have visited, there are no new stories. They're all recycled. The same stressful thoughts arise in each mind one way or another, sooner or later.
The worst loss you've ever experienced is the greatest gift you can have.
There is no mistake in nature.
When I was in my early forties, I slept with a loaded gun under my bed. Id become severely depressed in my thirties, and for almost a decade I spiraled down into paranoia, rage, self-loathing, and thoughts of suicide.
When you run in fear, it's square into the wall.
My happiness isn't dependent on anyone else's.
I suffered from severe depression for over a decade. My condition deteriorated steadily. I was suicidal.
An unquestioned mind is the world of suffering.
As we watch the world embrace the Olympics in the coming days, let us remember why the modern Olympics came into being: to bring nations closer together, to have the youth of the world compete in sports, rather than fight in war. As long as we believe our own war-driven thoughts, there will always be war, in ourselves, in our families, and in our world. As long as we believe our thoughts, there will always be war.
No one can hurt me - that's my job.
If you are mentally somewhere else, you miss real life
Even breathing is a contribution.
When we work with our thinking, then to have great wealth is the same as to have nothing. That's the only freedom.
Arguing with reality it like trying to teach a cat to bark.
We all think we have our personal favorites. But when I say, "People shouldn't steal - is it true?" Everyone in a room of, let's say, a thousand people all raise their hands and say, "That's true."
It's just a constant thing when the mind starts to wake up to itself.
That's huge: just to clean up one ecosystem.
One morning as I lay sleeping on the floor, a cockroach crawled over my foot. And I opened my eyes out of this dead sleep - about a 43-year sleep - and in place of all that darkness was a joy that I can't describe.
I was full of rage. My self-esteem was so low that I actually slept on the floor every night, because I didn't believe I deserved a bed to sleep in.
As far as intellect, what else is there? Without intellect, no story and no world.
I shouldn't steal in this world.
I was clinically depressed. I was paranoid. I was agoraphobic. I would have days at a time of not being able to even bathe or brush my teeth.
