You can get stuck in one state of mind or a general area of mind for a thousand lifetimes. Some states of mind afford better views than others.
You can just stay in oblivion, going through your days and your life and your experiences, staying with your friends, family. If that suits you, it's good. But for some people, it's not enough.
Trivial Pursuit means that you've got nothing going on in your life. Trivial Pursuit is more than a board game. It is the way most people live. Their lives are trivial pursuits.
Most people don't care much about enlightenment and the truth. They'd rather watch the Home Shopping Network, and maybe that's another kind of truth.
You have been programmed, brainwashed to see life in very specific forms. Life is endless and we are a body of perception. We are an awareness that is endless. The universe is only perception.
You will have to put aside some things in your life, habits, ideas, ways of seeing life. You will have to learn new things, and then new things and then new things - forever.
Self-knowledge, I guess, is hard. But I think pain is harder, personally. I think to be hopeless is very hard. I think to die without hope or to live without hope is very hard.
Why waste your time being around people who drag you down? You don't live forever, at least in this life.
People who are drawn to meditation have had lots of incarnation in the world of experience, and we know the score. We know that experience is great, but it's not enough.
You have probably had past lives where you were in better stages of mind than you are in now.
You don't have to meditate. You don't have to practice self-discovery and Buddhism. You should only practice self-discovery if you really have had it with the human world.
Maybe you don't need to do this. Maybe this isn't your moment. But if you do feel the pull of the eternal, then you can't stay away from it.
We get so involved with the latest craze or having the latest car or the most high-powered house that we lose touch with that which makes us happy - what makes us happy are quiet states of mind.
What is perfection anyway in the physical? It is an idea we have. When it doesn't happen we get all bent out of shape and frustrated and angry and then unhappy, we take it out on everybody.
The spirit longs for the world of light from which it came. That longing causes something to happen. It causes the being to grow into light.
What you need to learn are basic types of concentration, bringing more energy into your life, plugging up the holes where you lose energy, the basics of self-discovery.
Enlightenment is cumulative. You become a little more enlightened each day as you practice yoga and Buddhism.
Examine your experience of the incarnation so far and realistically add up the moments of happiness and unhappiness and you tell me, oh somewhat vaguely nobly born, you tell me, what has it been like for you?
These truths may seem simple and self-apparent and the words easy to say, but the states of mind that you live in as you progress are beautiful beyond description.
All I have to teach you are feelings, the words don't matter much. But as you listen, feel the stillness of my mind, not my mind but of mind...infinite mind.
Anyone who meditates for a period of time will gradually become more sensitized to all of life.
When you are in a painful situation, look at it. If you look deeply enough and you don't get freaked out, you will see that there is beauty in everything. You will see that there is beauty in you.
Gain control of the emotions. Be the helmsperson and not blown around by the winds of emotion. While there will be winds, you can navigate them or even use them to expedite your journey.
You need to feel good about your life. Winning is a great idea, but you can get stuck in it too. It's just another way of looking at life, an idea. You need to renew yourself and your spirit.
The world appears solid to most people. It is filled with their pain, their desires, their private ecstasies, their expectations. They are that world - nothing glows.
