All children are Atheists; they have no idea of God. - Paul-Henri Holbch
I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people. - Katherine Hepburn
The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not. - Eric Hoffer
Buddha-dharma
The Buddha-dharma does not invite us to dabble in abstract notions. Rather, the task it presents us with is to attend to what we actually experience, right in this moment. You don't have to look "over there." You don't have to figure anything out. You don't have to acquire anything. And you don't have to run off to Tibet, or Japan, or anywhere else. You wake up right here. In fact, you can only wake up right here. So you don't have to do the long search, the frantic chase, the painful quest. You're already right where you need to be. - Steve Hagen
Buddha
Buddha is not to be worshipped, one has to become a Buddha. Except for that, there is no worship, no prayer. You don't need any priest, you don't need any scriptures, you don't need to be in any religious organization, you have to be just yourself – silently, peacefully settling within your home. - Osho
I do understand that some people need to believe in a religion. I have no problem with that. And I do not mean to belittle any religion, but when hypocrites and ignorant fools spout falsehood, or try to mislead others with nonsense, they deserved to be ridiculed.
Believers reading this, I hope you are not hanging out with the likes of people in the pictures.
All too often people come to meditation in the hope of extraordinary results, like visions, lights, or some supernatural miracle. When no such thing occurs, they feel extremely disappointed. But the real miracle of meditation is more ordinary and much more useful. - Sogyal Rinpoche
Harvard MRI Study Proves Meditation Literally Rebuilds Brain’s Gray Matters In 8 Weeks
http://timewheel.net/tome-harvard-mri-study-proves-meditation-literally-rebuilds-brain-s/
source
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/
Spirituality exists wherever we struggle with the issue of how our lives fit into the greater cosmic scheme of things. This is true even when our questions never give way to specific answers or give rise to specific practices such as prayer or meditation. We encounter spiritual issues every time we wonder where the universe comes from, why we are here, or what happens when we die. We also become spiritual when we become moved by values such as beauty, love, or creativity that seem to reveal a meaning or power beyond our visible world. An idea or practice is ‘spiritual’ when it reveals our personal desire to establish a felt-relationship with the deepest meanings or powers governing life. - Robert C. Fuller
The spiritual presence in your life is ever with you, ever available to you and ever reminding you to look beyond your own judgments. It is forever providing for you the support, the assistance and the guidance necessary to minimize the wrong application of your mind and to strengthen the right application of your mind to allow knowledge to arise within you. - Unknown
Ignorance of nature's ways led people in ancient times to invent gods to lord it over every aspect of human life. There were gods of love and war; of the sun, earth, and sky; of the oceans and rivers; of rain and thunderstorms; even of earthquakes and volcanoes. When the gods were pleased, mankind was treated to good weather, peace, and freedom from natural disaster and disease. When they were displeased, there came draught, war, pestilence, and epidemics. Since the connection of cause and effect in nature was invisible to their eyes, these gods appeared inscrutable, and people at their mercy. - Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow
God was always invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand. Now when you finally discover how something works, you get some laws which you're taking away from God; you don't need him anymore. But you need him for the other mysteries. So therefore you leave him to create the universe because we haven't figured that out yet; you need him for understanding those things which you don't believe the laws will explain, such as consciousness, or why you only live to a certain length of time – life and death – stuff like that. God is always associated with those things that you do not understand. - Richard Feynman
Instead of being overwhelmed by the universe, I think that perhaps one of the deepest experiences a scientist can have, almost approaching a religious awakening, is to realize that we are children of the stars, and that our minds are capable of understanding the universal laws that they obey. The atoms within our bodies were forged on the anvil of nucleo-synthesis within an exploding star aeons before the birth of the solar system. Our atoms are older than the mountains. We are literally made of star dust. Now these atoms, in turn, have coalesced into intelligent beings capable of understanding the universal laws governing that event. - Michiokaku
Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to non-existent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centred on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries. - Carl Sagan
More quotes on Yin and Yang – the dual polarities in life.
The motion of Yin and Yang generates all things in nature. - Meh Jiuzhang & Guo Lei
The sexual union of male and female is thus regarded as the essential earthly manifestation of the great cosmic dance of Yin and Yang. - Daniel Reid
The world is, was, will always be filled with good and evil, because good and evil is the yin and yang of the human condition. - Philip Zimbardo
The yin and the yang are opposite forces. Yet, they exist together in the harmony of a perfect orb. - R. A. Wise
There's eternal opposition between yin and yang. No third party at all, but treason occurs sometimes. - Toba Beta
Yin and Yang are one vital force – the primordial aura. - YangMing Wang
Excerpts from Buddhist texts and publications.
If you see things with real insight, then there is no attachment in your relationship to them. They come – pleasant and unpleasant – you see them and there is no attachment. They come and they pass. Even if the worst kinds of defilement come up, such as greed or anger, there's enough wisdom to see their impermanent nature and allow them to just fade away. If you react to them, however, by liking or disliking, that isn't wisdom. You're only creating more suffering for yourself. - Unknown
Once you understand non-self, then the burden of life is gone. You'll be at peace with the world. When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness and we can truly be happy. Learn to let go without struggle, simply let go, to be just as you are – no holding on, no attachment, free. - Unknown
The very aim of meditation is firstly subjugation of the mind, so that it can no longer be an obstacle to a clear vision of the Supreme cliché. Secondly, it is the full silencing of that mind, so that consciousness becomes similar to the mirror-like surface of a quiet lake or pool. I can see the real Reflection of Truth in it then, but not otherwise. - Mouni Sadhu
All that you need is just to be silent and listen to existence. There is no need of any religion, there is no need of any God, there is no need of any priesthood, there is no need of any organization. All those things can be removed. Now all that is left to you is a state of meditation which simply means a state of utter silence. Even the word meditation makes it look heavier. It is better to just call it a simple, innocent silence. - Osho
Mystical attainment is an individual accomplishment. Others influence our way of approaching life, but the development of the inner self must be undertaken in solitude. It is by retreating within, facing the real self, and relying on his own resources that the way to mastery of life is achieved. - Unknown
The task, and joy, of a mystic is to listen for the stirrings of the sacred in the world and the presence of soul. What the mystic seeks to hear is not a message or even a sound. It is something more subtle and less glamorous. The hearing of a mystic is not really auditory at all but more a deeply focused yet widely extended attentiveness. - Unknown
Once we have seriously embarked upon the mystical path, we begin to look upon the conditions in the world from the higher point of view. - Unknown
Reaching the zenith of one mystic mountain of attainment, we find the base of another still nobler and higher to climb. - Unknown
The will is the commander of chi. Chi is the totality of the body. - Mencius
Explanation:
Our will power can control the flow of energy. When we think of a certain organ or area of our body, energy will flow to that part. Energy is the basic ingredient of our whole body. All our organs, tissues and cells as well as all our physiological functions and metal activities are the products of energy.
Man is born of the chi of heaven and of earth, and is nurtured by the ways of the four seasons. - Nei Jing
Explanation:
The very substance of which a man is born is the same as the substance that comprises the whole universe, that is energy. This energy may be manifested as different kinds, which are generalized into two main groups. The fine types are known as heaven energy, and the coarser types as earth energy. This energy, which is in man as well as in the whole universe, is not static. It is forever changing, and the changes can be brought about by different times and environments. The growth and development of a man, therefore, are affected by the seasons, which include not only climatic but also subtle psychological, physiological and other variations.
I am not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion, I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually the case. - Christopher Hitchens
I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. - Carl Sagan
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life. - George Bernard Shaw
One Buddha Teaching That Will Tell You More About Yourself Than Anything Else.
Click on the link to read the article.
The ground we walk on, the plants and creatures, the clouds above constantly dissolving into new formations – each gift of nature possessing its own radiant energy, bound together by cosmic harmony. - Ruth Bernhard
There are no cosmic secrets except as man is ignorant of cosmic phenomena or unable to perceive them. - Validivar
The Cosmos and I live on forever. All things and I are united as one. - Chuang Tzu
We are the cosmos made conscious and life is the means by which the universe understands itself. - Brian Cox
Benefits of Meditation
Mingyur Rinpoche talks about his experiences in the laboratory. Click on the link to read the article.
When you approach spirituality as an adventure of being alive, you start as you would any adventure – with a sense of mystery and not-knowing. Instead of searching for answers that make you feel safe, you set out into the vastness of life and death, with a willingness to continually grow. You open up to the possibility that your ordinary life is an extraordinary adventure, and that your joys and sorrows have meaning. Spiritual practice becomes your rudder, offering direction and insight and discretion as you venture into the unknown. - Elizabeth Lesser
The spiritual presence in your life is ever with you, ever available to you and ever reminding you to look beyond your own judgments. It is forever providing for you the support, the assistance and the guidance necessary to minimize the wrong application of your mind and to strengthen the right application of your mind to allow knowledge to arise within you. - Unknown
If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. - Johann Von Goethe
Many deeds are enacted in God's name which fill the Devil's heart with envy. - Abraham Miller
A god of kindness would be charitable to all. Your god of wrath and punishment is but a monstrous phantasy. - Emile Zola
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time. - Friedrich Nietzsche
I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. - Susan B. Anthony
All things are connected with all things throughout the universe, from the insect to the archangel; from the sand-grain to the mountain and the globe; from the dew-drop to the ocean; from the rain-drop to the rainbow; from the pebble on the shore to the sun that blazes in the firmament; from the zephyr that sings among the flowers of the field to the ocean that pours its wild bass in the great anthem of nature. Not only are all things connected with all things, but there is a concatenation of events, so that the character and effects of no one event can terminate in itself. As each event owes some portion of its nature to that which preceded it, so it imparts some of its nature to that which succeeds it, and thus perpetuates the blended good or evil of itself and its predecessors. The single event may thus live on in its influence along the line of all the ages, assuming new shapes, or if clothing itself in the drapery of new events, ever marching onward and upward in the continually growing affairs of time. - John Lanahan
More quotes on Yin and Yang – the dual polarities in life.
Yin and Yang are two convenient polar opposites that are used to explain how things function in relation to one another and to the universe. No entity can be seen in isolation; everything is connected. - W. John Diamond
Just as the copulation of the sky (yang) and earth (yin) energies gave birth to humanity and the myriad things of the world, the union of the yin and yang, female and male, is the basis of creating and renewing the energy of life in the body. - Eva Wong
Every whole "thing" – from a tree to a person to a business, an atom, planet, or universe – can be seen as a metaphorical Tai-Chi, with corresponding Yin and Yang aspects. Once Yin and Yang are distinguished, each one can also be seen as a whole and broken down further into its own integral Yin and Yang parts. We can see this creative process unfold all around us. The universal process of Being arising from Non-Being through the fusion of opposites, followed by the differentiation and increase of complexity from oneness to myriad forms, can be observed in the studies of modern cosmology, the evolution of species, the conception and development of individuals, and the arising of ideas. - Simmone Kuo
Excerpts from Buddhist texts and publications.
The Buddha teaches that no amount of factual knowledge will ultimately free man from the pain of existence. He must strive alone and diligently until he arrives at a true understanding of his own nature and of the changeable nature of the cosmos. To be truly free a man must seek to tame his mind, to destroy his craving for sensual pleasure. - Unknown
Knowledge and going forth will not show the way to the end of this world, nor will they show the way to eternity. Yet without finding the end of the world, you cannot find the ending of suffering. Within this fathom long body has the means whereby time and space first came into your consciousness, and within this fathom long body is the means whereby you can pass beyond time and space and find the end of the world and Deathlessness. For friend, these things are not without you; they are within. - Unknown
Knowledge is like a deep well, fed by perennial springs, and the mind of man is like a bucket that is dropped into it. He will get as much as he can assimilate. Knowledge and mental self-culture will confer incalculable blessings to man. One third of the ills of man are due to human ignorance, delusions, and superstitious beliefs; the rest of the ills, according to the Dharma, are traceable to human selfishness and human malevolence. - Unknown
I came across this article from the site call ‘Collective Evolution’. Interesting. Do read.
How false flag terrorism and religion are being used as a means for control.
Man needs silence, and an opportunity to meditate. One may even need to isolate himself temporarily from outside interference to be able to think through and assimilate his experiences, to attain understanding and insight into them. By watching for the illuminating gleam of intuition, listening for the whisper of the inner self, one can find new answers to his problems, new directions for his life, new ways to fulfil his dreams. - Unknown
The divine light residing in each of us awaits recognition and use. Its light will illuminate our mystical endeavours and trigger deeper insights into our daily affairs.
This is the mystical life; the living of a practical and useful life in the world, ever seeking greater knowledge and understanding; helping others when the need arises, with a mind and heart uplifted and illuminated by the light of the Divine Consciousness within us.
As you attuned yourself with the Inner self, you will receive inspiration and enlightenment on how you may best utilize your abilities for the good of others. - Unknown
A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vain – then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system? - Robert Heinlein
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. - Thomas Paine
A man’s ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. - Albert Einstein
At the ultimate level, cultivating energy leads to a wonderful sense of spiritual renewal. Some people have a vibrant living faith, either as part of an orthodox religion or through a private sense of belief. But many people nowadays feel alienated from traditional religions or unable to reconcile their own feelings with the dogma and rituals of age-old sects. However, once you begin to work with energy, the outward trappings of religion become unimportant. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how you perceive God, Goddess, Creator, – when you connect to the living, vibrant energy of the universe, there is no need for names or titles. Instead there is a wonderful sense of belonging, of love, peace and connection. As beings of energy we become united with the source of all energy and therein lies our purpose and our meaning. - Unknown
An atheist doesn’t have to be someone who thinks he has a proof that there can’t be a god. He only has to be someone who believes that the evidence on the God question is at a similar level to the evidence on the werewolf question. - John McCarthy
Scientists do not join hands every Sunday and sing "Yes gravity is real! I know gravity is real! I will have faith! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about the concept. - Dan Barker
When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. - Robert Green Ingersoll
Excerpts from Buddhist text and publications.
It is in the nature of things, however dear they may be to us, that we must separate from them, leave and depart from them. Anything that is born, that is formed and brought into being, contains within itself the qualities naturally associated with its own dissolution. - Unknown
Conditions all go their own natural way. Whether we laugh or cry over them, they just go their own way. And there is no knowledge of science that can prevent this natural course of things. Everything falls apart in the end. - Unknown
If a man cares not if things are thus and not thus, then provided he has no harsh thoughts, he has indeed found happiness. He has certain security for he has found freedom from grief and care. Truly, he has overcome the world. - Unknown
What do you think science is? There's nothing magical about science. it is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic? - Dr. Steven Novella
There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win. Because it works. - Professor Stephen Hawking
Science knows it doesn't know everything; otherwise, it'd stop. But just because science doesn't know everytihng doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you. Dara O'Briain
