Learn to be still

            Notice, how quiet it becomes, in your mind... that state in between thoughts, where there is nothing going on, in that second, in that moment, when the mind is total quiet, the thoughts are not moving any longer.
            This is your true Self, in that moment in between thoughts. Stay in that moment. Learn to put yourself in that state, whether you are in the market place or you are in a temple, wherever you are, learn to be still.
            It makes no difference what is going on around you. It makes no difference what other people are doing. You be still. When you are still, then there’s peace. When you are still, there’s happiness. Can you ever imagine a person who is being happy all the time, for no reason whatsoever?
            Most of us have been taught that to be happy we have to receive something good. We have to have something nice happen to us to be happy, otherwise we are miserable. Yet the truth is, happiness is your very nature, unalloyed happiness, eternal happiness, forever happiness. - Robert Adams

Empty yourself of everything, let the mind become still. - The book of Tao

Mysticism

You are Life passing through your body, passing through your mind, passing through your soul. Once you find that out, not with logic, not with the intellect, but because you can feel that Life - you find out that you are the force that makes the flowers open and close, that makes the hummingbird fly from flower to flower. You find out that you are in every tree, and you are in every animal, vegetable, and rock. You are that force that moves the wind and breathes through your body. The whole universe is a living being that is moved by that force, and that is what you are. You are Life. - Don Miguel Ruiz

The sun is the source of all light and life, and its daily rising in the East was one of the earliest mysteries to man. To mystics the sunrise represents the dawning of new consciousness and the coming of the light of a higher understanding of man and the universe. - Unknown

Every phenomenon on earth is symbolic, and each symbol is an open gate through which the soul, if it is ready, can enter into the inner part of the world, where you and I and day and night are all one. - Hermann Hesse

God

Since ancient times, the philosophers' secret has always been this: we know that God does not exist, or, at least, if he does, he's utterly indifferent to our individual affairs – but we can't let the rabble know that; it's the fear of God, the threat of divine punishment and the promise of divine reward, that keeps in line those too unsophisticated to work out questions of morality on their own. - Robert J. Sawyer

The theory of evil being merely permitted by God, is unspeakably absurd; for, if he permits any act, he either does the act himself, or some other power, who is not God, does it; but no other power, which is not God, can possibly do anything whatever; for then there would exist an operative power, acting from itself, independently of God, a power of the Divine Order, only weaker – which is absurd by the hypothesis that God is absolute. - William Batchelder Greene

Universe Quotes

The primary consequence of the computational nature of the universe is that the universe naturally generates complex systems, such as life. Although the basic laws of physics are comparatively simple in form, they give rise, because they are computationally universal, to systems of enormous complexity. - Seth Lloyd

The Universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the world of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the world of matter. - Sir James Jeans

The universe is continually at its work of restructuring itself at a higher, more complex, more elegant level. The novelty, the new, more complex order, doesn't emerge from the present in a steady stream, nor at all places at the same rate. It comes, as all things do, in rhythmic waves; there will always be times and places of scarcity and stagnation and retrogression. Still, the long-term direction is clear. The intention of the universe is evolution. - George Leonard

Theory on God

Max Loughan, the 13-year-old Physicist has a mind-blowing theory on God.

Brilliant young man, articulate, confident, and very mature for his age. It is such a joy to hear him speak. It’s unfortunate that there were so much background noise and the sound on some parts of the video were not very good.

Click Here to see the video

Buddhist Quotes

Speak not harshly to anyone; Those who are spoken to will answer thee in the same way. Painful indeed is language violent; Blow for blow will pursue thee.

Through zeal, knowledge is gotten, through lack of zeal, knowledge is lost; let a man who knows this double path of gain and loss thus place himself that knowledge may grow.

Rude speech is the sharp sword. Greed and lust are the repulsive poison.

A heart untouched by worldly things, not swayed by sorrow, passionless and secure – that is the greatest blessing.

A kind man who makes good use of wealth is rightly said to possess a great treasure; but the miser who hoards up his riches will have no profit.

A man is not learned because he talks much; He who is patient, free from hatred and fear, he is called learned.

A wise man blows off the impurities of his self, as a smith blows off the impurities of silver one by one, little by little and from time to time.

All things are transient and void of self.

Food for Thought

Karma

Karma is a key that we may use to organize our lives, rather than endlessly agonizing over the seemingly unexplainable and often unexpected events forming the fabric of our lives.... Karma is not about fate, fatalism, or destiny; nothing is pre-ordained – rather everything is a sequential happening emerging logically from antecedents. Karma is a way of viewing existence that brings about a harmony of both fatalism and free will, resulting in increased mental health and self-responsibility. - Jonn Mumford

Karma is like a magnetic field: it is an invisible tendency that draws bad or good things to a person. Karma doesn't always effect the person who created the karma. The good and bad things can happen to someone near the person, someone who just happened to be in the way. The effect is like a field of karma that emanates from a person. Luck gets worse, or greater, the closer you get to that person. - Brian ST. Claire-King

Karma is like the vine that gathers strength through uninterrupted years, and which fastens its tendrils so closely that it is as strong as the structure to which it adheres. There is no way to destroy its power except by the separation of the parts, these parts renew themselves in other forms of life, but the structure is freed when its root is destroyed. - William Q. Judge

Spiritual

I believe the root of all happiness on this earth to lie in the realization of a spiritual life with a consciousness of something wider than materialism; in the capacity to live in a world that makes you unselfish because you are not overanxious about your own comic fallibilities; that gives you tranquillity without complacency because you believe in something so much larger than yourself. - Sir Hugh Walpole

I have never been spiritual in the sense that you understand the word. That has not been my way at all. But to me spirituality has a totally different connotation. It needs an honest individuality. It does not allow any kind of dependence. It creates a freedom for itself, whatever the cost. It is never in the crowd but alone, because the crowd has never found any truth. The truth has been found only in people's aloneness. - Osho

As a progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that he may learn that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which any circumstance contains for him, it passes away and gives place to other circumstances. - James Allen

Religion

As long as there are those who are willing to shed blood and take innocent life in the name of religion – in the name of God – the world will never know a true and lasting peace. - Hillary Clinton

Can you imagine a world with no religion? No Muslims killing Jews, no Christians bombing abortion clinics. The world would be a wonderful place ... - Richard Dawkins

During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution. - James Madison

Each religion has got their own way of making you feel like a victim. The Christians say "you are a sinner", and you better just zip up your trousers and give the money to the pope and we'll give you a room up in the hotel in the sky. - Timothy Leary

Chi / Energy

Science Says: Humans Can Absorb the Energy of Others.

Click on the link to read the article.
http://expandedconsciousness.com/2016/09/26/absorb-the-energy/

Truth

Contemplate the workings of this world, listen to the words of the wise, take all that is good as your own. With this as your base, open your own door to truth. Do not overlook the truth that is right before you. Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks. Also learn from holy books and wise people. Everything – even mountains, rivers, plants, and trees – should be your teacher. - Morihei Ueshiba

The search for truth is, as it always has been, the noblest expression of the human spirit. Man’s insatiable desire for knowledge about himself, about his environment and the forces by which he is surrounded, gives life its meaning and purpose, and clothes it with final dignity.... And yet we know, deep in our hearts, that knowledge is not enough.... Unless we can anchor our knowledge to moral purposes, the ultimate result will be dust and ashes – dust and ashes that will bury the hopes and monuments of men beyond recovery. - Raymond B. Fosdick

All worldly pursuits have but the one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow: acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings, in destruction; meetings, in separation; births, in death. Knowing this, one should, from the very first, renounce acquisition and heaping up, and building, and meeting; and, faithful to the commands of an eminent guru, set about realizing the Truth. - Milarepa

Teachings of The Buddha

           When a simpleton abused him, Buddha listened in silence; after the man finished, Buddha asked, "Son, if a man declined to accept a present made to him, to whom would it belong?"
           The man answered, "To who offered it."
           "My son." Said Buddha, "I decline to accept your abuse, and request that you keep it for yourself."

Bhikkus is a Pali word for male ordained monastic monk.

On one occasion, while The Buddha was passing through a forest. He took a handful of leaves and said: "O Bhikkhus, what I have taught is comparable to the leaves in my hand. What I have not taught is comparable to the amount of leaves in the forest. - The Buddha

Faith

Meditation

We are not compelled to meditate by some outside agent, by other people, or by God. Rather, just as we are responsible for our own suffering, so are we solely responsible for our own cure. We have created the situation in which we find ourselves, and it is up to us to create the circumstances for our release. - Lama Thubten Yeshe

Meditation develops the capacity to question your mind. Without it, you are at the mercy of every thought, every desire, every wave of emotion. - Geneen Roth

Suffering occurs when people are enslaved by their thoughts. Meditation teaches one to let them go like one’s breath. - Venerable Hyon Gak

Without meditation we do but talk one after another like parrots, and take up things by mere hearsay, and repeat them by rote, without affection and life, or discerning the worth and excellency of what we speak. It is meditation that maketh truths always ready and present with us. - Thomas Manton

Though observation and instruction, reading and conversation may furnish us with many ideas of men and things, yet it is our own meditation and the labour of our own thoughts that must form our judgment of things. - Isaac Watts

Mysticism

Life is the Great Initiation – a crossing of the threshold from non-existence to self-realization. Its rites consist of the vicissitudes of life, each with its symbolic value. Ultimate attainment is the integrating of the total experience into an order of personal understanding and meaning. - Validivar

The world is the offspring of the Eternal’s thought; thus the Eternal is the Real in all things. Behold it thus with mind full of peace. Being, free of form, see everywhere. Knowers of the Eternal understand that whatever is other than this, is but the sport and workmanship of intellect. - Sankaracharya

There is only the appearance of individuality. The appearance is a result of false interpretation. Interpretation is a direct result of a mental state. The mental state is an illusion – there is only beingness which is wholly undivided and in which all appearance arises spontaneously. Therefore individuality is merely a false motion in time. - Unknown

God

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear. - Thomas Jefferson

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. - Gene Roddenberry

It’s a horrible idea that God, this paragon of wisdom and knowledge, power, couldn’t think of a better way to forgive us our sins than to come down to Earth in his alter ego as his son and have himself hideously tortured and executed so that he could forgive himself. - Richard Dawkins

The existence of the world without God seems to me less absurd than the presence of a God, existing in all his perfection, creating an imperfect man in order to make him run the risk of Hell. - Armand Salacrou

If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him. - James Baldwin

Universe

So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator? - Stephen Hawking

The basic stuff of the universe, at its core, is looking like a kind of pure energy that is malleable to human intention and expectation in a way that defies our old mechanistic model of the universe – as though our expectation itself causes our energy to flow out into the world and affect other energy systems. - James Redfield

The only thing that made me, or any of us, special was that no one in the whole of history would ever see the universe exactly the same way any other of us saw it. - Grant Morrison

How to Explain Your Spirituality to Others

An article on how to explain your spirituality to others by Kalee Brown

Click Here to read the article.

Buddhist Quotes

Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed. - Unknown

Improvement or degeneration, happiness or misery, are all the results of our deeds. We ourselves are moulders of our fate. No one else is to be blamed for our misery, or praised for our happiness. - Unknown

Neither in the sky nor in mid-ocean, nor in entering a mountain cave, is found the place, where abiding one may escape the consequences of an evil deed. - Unknown

The noble swerve not from the right path let happen what may, and crave no longer after worldly joys. The wise remain calm and constant in mind alike in joy and sorrow. - Unknown

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly. - Unknown