When we are no longer able to change a situation - just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer, we are challenged to change ourselves. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. - Viktor Frankl
"Suffering warns us that the structure of memories and habits, which we call
the person is threatened by loss or change. Pain is essential for the
survival of the body, but none compels you to suffer. Suffering is due
entirely to clinging and resisting; it is a sign of our unwillingness to move
on, to flow with life." -Nisargadatta Maharaj
"Even the feeling of having understood is likely to
lead one into a sense of illusion, because the individual thinks he has found
something to impart to others, but there is no individual." -Nisargadatta
Maharaj
"The real state is
that state which is prior to the arrival of consciousness." -Nisargadatta
Maharaj
"How do you
understand anything? Any knowledge of any kind that you think you have
can only be in the consciousness. How can the consciousness, which came
later, give you any knowledge about that state which exists prior to its
arrival? Any thought that you have reached or are going to reach that
state is false. Whatever happens in consciousness is purely imaginary, an
hallucination; therefore, keep in mind the knowledge that it is consciousness
in which everything is happening. What that knowledge, be still, do not
pursue any other thoughts which arise in consciousness. What is necessary
is to understand with sure conviction is that all is temporary, and does not
reflect your true state." -Nisargadatta Maharaj
"No belief
is true, life has no meaning, nothing we do matters. All is vanity and a
striving after wind. We are going to die and it will be as we never
lived. Everything we think is true is false, all our beliefs are
delusions and everything we know is a lie. There is not such thing as
success, nothing we do can make any possible difference, no matter how fast we
go or how far ahead we are, we are not going anywhere. The best and the
brightest are in a dead tie with the worst and the dimmest. These are the
facts of life, simple, obvious, plain to behold, yet universally unrecognized
and unacknowledged." -Jed McKenna
Do the action! But give up the desire of the fruits of the action.
You need not worry about your worries. Just be. Do not try to be quiet; do not make 'being quiet' into a task to be performed. Don't be restless about 'being quiet', miserable about 'being happy'. Just be aware that you are and remain aware - don't say 'yes, I am; what next?' there is no 'next' in 'I am'. It is the timeless state. - Nisargadatta Maharaj
All fear comes from thought in the form of memory (past) or projection (future). Thought creates time: past, present, and future. So fear exists and comes from the perceived existence of time. To be free of fear is to be free from time. Since time is a creation of thought, to be free of fear you must be free of thought. Consequently, it is important to awaken and experience your Self outside thought, existing as eternity. So question all notions of yourself that are creations of thought and of time - of past, present, and future. Experience your eternalness, your holiness, your awakeness until you are convinced that you are never subject to the movement of thought, of fear, or of time. To be free of fear is to be full of Love. - Nisargadatta Maharaj