150 Spiritual Quotes

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150 Good Spiritual Quotes

150 Good Spiritual Quotes

There is absolutely nothing to do or fix - ever. Doing and fixing are outgrowths of imagining a separate person and a 'doer'. Is there really any entity in there doing anything, making anything happen at all? Or are thoughts, feelings and perceptions spontaneously appearing? If so, then all is happening as it is bound to happen, and there is no basis for imagining 'doership'.
-John Wheeler


The very search for pleasure is the cause of pain. -Sri Nisargadatta

(The great Indian sage is pointing out that happiness can only exist in the present moment (along with everything else), so the very act of searching takes you away from happiness, and thus pain and suffering arises! -mj)


Consciousness cannot be known by the mind. The mind is an object. It does not know anything. It is itself known by Consciousness.
- Rupert Spira

(This one is worth spending some time on. What it is pointing at can make all the difference in the world! -mj)


The space that is being looked for is the space that is looking.
-Rupert Spira


Let go of what has passed. Let go of what may come. Let go of what is happening now. Don't try to figure anything out. Don't try to make anything happen. Relax, right now, and rest. -Tilopa


My life is a succession of events, just like yours. Only I am detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while you stick to things and move along with them.
- Sri Nisargadatta


Your high opinion of me is your opinion only. Any moment you may change it. Why attach importance to opinions, even your own?
- Sri Nisargadatta


Worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you any where.
- Zen proverb


Only when you can understand yourself as All Pervading Consciousness can you possibly understand that all the universe is an emanation of your mind. Everything that you see comes out of you.
- Robert Adams


EVERYTHING is a concept!!! EVERYTHING! So, who are you without concepts?
-Michael Jeffreys


At my core I am Aware Emptiness, and it is because I am empty that I am able to be filled, because I am no-thing that I am capacity for everything.
- J.C. Amberchele


Separation is an illusion created by thought.
-Scott Kiloby


Don't personalize your experience.


The longest journey there is is from the head to the heart.


If we think that we know something objective about ourselves or the world, then whatever that something is that we think we know will condition our subsequent enquiry into the nature of experience. -Rupert Spira


Consciousness becomes dimmed chiefly through one's captivation and abiding interest in external objects.
- Sri Atmananda (Atma Darshan)


You can't have fear without need.
-Candace Silvers


If you can think about, it's not the truth.
-Robert Adams


You are the knower of your body, senses and mind, but the knower can never be known, because you are it and there's nobody to know it. It can never become an object of observation because it is your totality.

(What Pandiji, one of Jean Klein's earliest teachers, said to Jean that helped him glimpse reality. From the book, Transmission of the Flame.)


If there is attachment to it, there will be suffering. -Jac O'Keeffe


When the idea of the objects falls away gradually, and attention is more and more fixed upon the awareness, it will be seen that it is Reality which pervades everything. -Atma Darshan


You cannot change what you are inside by changing conditions. -Robert Adams

(This is one of the deepest quotes I have ever read. If you fully understand, if you see, what Robert is pointing at here, awakening can happen. There is a part of you that never changes. Forget about your life circumstances. Stay with the changeless that is always present. Feel it. It is you. Everything else is not.)


If you have conditioning, you cannot awaken. -Robert Adams

(Meaning anything you believe yourself to be keeps you tied to the body/mind. Let go of it all! It is not you! Nothing you can be aware of is you. As soon as you think about this, it is no longer it because then you have left the absolute and gone into mind/conditioning. Just BE. There is nothing to do and nowhere to go.)


Where real happiness exists, you do not. -Gina Lake


This moment is the final destination. 'This' is as much God as it gets. -Florian Schlosser


The seeking comes to an end when it is seen that the seeker never existed. -Michael Jeffreys


Your experiences cannot tell you who you are; they do not define you in any way. Only the concepts that you hold about yourself to be true can be influenced by your experiences. -Jac O'Keeffe


Searching for "it" is keeping you in the belief that the movie is real. -Jac O'Keeffe


Time is the interval between two thoughts. So without thoughts, there is no time! -Richard Miller

(Sharing what someone told him during his interview with Chuck Hillig on Never Not Here.)


You learned your thoughts, beliefs and identity. Why then would you imagine you can't unlearn them? -Isira


There is the limited mind's world and there is present reality. Each moment provides a new opportunity to choose which one to experience. In other words, what you did 1 second ago is ancient history. All that matters is right now. -Michael Jeffreys


I used to be into 'self-help,' until it became clear that the self I thought needed help doesn't even exist! -Michael Jeffreys


What you assume yourself to be doesn't exist. -Charlie Hayes


When nothing satisfies, general motivation to live lessons. In truth, this is a moment to be celebrated. Arriving at the place where you know that there must be more to life and to you is an opening, not a dead end. -Jac O'keeffe



The only thing that can stop you from feeling happiness is you. To continue to look outside for something that is already inside only serves to distract you from looking within. -Jac O'keeffe



The freedom you look for is where you look from. -Jac O'Keeffe


The observer and the observed are appearances within awareness.


Suffering seems real because we don't have a clear understanding of our true nature. Instead, we believe the passing thoughts, such as 'I am no good,'I am not there yet,' 'I am stuck' or whatever the thought may be. Eventually we understand that we are not those thoughts. Once our real self is pointed out, the suffering loses its grip.
-John Wheeler


Beyond right thinking and wrong thinking there is a field. I'll meet you there. -Rumi


Truth begins where thought ends.


The world is as you are. -David Lynch


I am not the knower, nor the known, nor the knowing. These three are not real. They only seem to be when I am not known.
- Ashtavakra Gita


Two from one! This is the root of suffering. -Ashtavakra Gita


It does not matter what goes on in the mind, it really doesn't. -Mooji

(The mind's thoughts are only important to the mind. Since YOU are not your mind, believing them to be important keeps you attached to your mind.-mj)


What you are, in actuality, is nothing (no-thing)... so you have nothing to lose! -Michael Jeffreys


The mind deals and operates exclusively in the realm of thought. Since "you" are not a thought, it cannot know "you." -Michael Jeffreys


By accepting what is you become bigger than what is.
-Eckhart Tolle


As things are interpreted or labeled by the mind they slowly cease to be what they are and start to become what is thought about them. -John Greven


Seeking is simply a game that is played until the recognition that there is nothing to find. -Unmani Liza Hyde


In not-knowing there is no doubt. In not-knowing there is absolute clarity. Simply the direct recognition of what is. This is what I am. I am Life itself. -Unmani Liza Hyde


When we attempt to limit the unlimited, suffering occurs.
-Michael Jeffreys


Many of our ideas and beliefs about ourselves and the world are so deeply ingrained that we are unaware that they are beliefs and take them, without question, for the absolute truth. - Rupert Spira

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The dilemma for the individual is NOT that it can't get what it wants, the dilemma IS the individual. -Tony Parsons


It's not a doing, but a recognition. -Swami Premodaya


You go from reacting to observing. There is an emotional disconnection that must take place; non-attachment. This doesn't mean not feeling anything, but being okay with whatever outcome manifests. -Swami Premodaya


We are actors in a play who have forgotten they are in a play.
-Swami Premodaya


Once you have been in deep water, your experience of going into shallow water is never the same. -Swami Premodaya


Did you ever stop to realize—the only one that thinks thinking is so special, is that very same thinking? –Peter Francis Dziuban


There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind--you are the one who hears it.
-Michael A. Singer


The past is thinking and thinking is the past. It's the same.
- Florian Schlosser


Let the moment decide your response.

(My neighbor and I were discussing the recent Air-France plane crash, and since he just returned from India, I asked him how he would react if his flight were going down. His response was beautiful... "I would let the moment decide.")


Suppressing activity to reach stillness just creates agitation. -zenbitchslap.com


Looking closely, you see it's always the stuff you seem to be aware of that's changing and passing, never Awareness itself. Awareness, all by itself alone, is present as pure Being, a changeless presence which simply, immovably is. -Peter Francis Dziuban


It turns out that the source of everything is also who you are. Since the source of everything doesn't come and go, it must be here right now, in this very moment. -Nirmala


Consciousness simply never leaves being present—and
one cannot have a memory of the present. -Peter Francis Dziuban


The root of all suffering is desire. -Buddha


Whatever you are pushing against, you are stuck to. -Werner Erhard


It’s amazing what an unlimited well of energy you have when you are insanely clear about your purpose in life. - Jonathan Nasman

(Someone emailed me and asked a good question: "Michael, if there is no "you," how can "you" have a purpose?" The answer is that in the Absolute sense you can't, since "you" don't exist, and without a "you," there is no one there to have anything!

But on a relative level, that which your body-mind organism operates in, you most definitely have a purpose. And to discover what yours is, all you need do is ask one question: "How is Life calling me to serve it?" If you hold this question in your heart, eventually the answer will come to you much clearer than if you try to figure it out using your mind.)


Enlightenment is the falling away of the sense of personal doership.
-Wayne Liquorman

(When you see that you are not the one creating your moment-to-moment experience, but that life is unfolding perfectly (of course, not the ego's definition of perfection), resistance to what is drops away and you are free to just experience the fullness of the moment. -mj)


If you can't improve on silence, don't speak. -Zen Proverb


There can never be an "enlightened person," there is only the realization that there is no separation. -Halina Pytlasinka'


The biggest mistake is: "My mind has created the thought, my brain has created the thought." No! Every thought, however simple or complicated, comes from outside, and your brain reacts to that thought according to your genes and conditioning. -Ramesh Balsekar


So the question Who am I? is not an idle one. How you answer the question will determine how you live the rest of your life. It will determine the quality of your life. -Neale Donald Walsch


All thoughts achieve the same outcome. They take you out of the truth of life, out of the present moment, and into a world of illusion.
-Leonard Jacobson


Either you live in the world of desire and fear, or you live in freedom.
- Sri Nisargadatta


Practice not-doing. And everything will fall into place.
- Tao Te Ching


Every cell that is occupied by the self is one less cell that can be occupied by God. -Sri Pranananda


You are this moment itself. Anything you add to it is an illusion.
–Michael Jeffreys


Until you’ve given the world its freedom, you’ll never have your freedom. -Adyashanti (Adya means the complete letting go of judgement)


What it means to live spiritually is to not participate in this struggle. It means that the events that happen in the moment belong to the moment. They don't belong to you.
-Michael A. Singer


IS means now, present tense ONLY. Is means being or presently existing. In IS there is absolutely no provision for passing time, past or future. The past would be that which is-not-anymore, and future would be that which is-not-yet. Time would be that-which-is-not. IS cannot be IS and simultaneously be is-not.
-Peter Francis Dziuban

You are the only thing that does not have an opposite!
-Michael Jeffreys


There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind--you are the one who hears it.
-Michael A. Singer


Question this very "me," this "I" you take yourself to be. With deep self-inquiry you will discover it is just a "story" too--the story-teller. The "I" telling the story is no more real than any other thought.
-Jim Dreaver

The main requirement for spiritual growth: A yearning to know who you really are.
–Adyashanti


Spiritual Awakening is awakening from the dream of thought.
–Eckhart Tolle


Who are you? You are that which is aware of your thoughts.
– Michael Jeffreys


Your degree of absence of thought is your measuring stick on the spiritual path. - Ramana Maharshi


Watch the mind as it tries, in every moment, to co-opt experience by translating it into a story. It tries to draw you away from experience into a mental world that simulates experience. If it succeeds, that story becomes your experience. –Gina Lake


When I look within and see that I am nothing,
that is wisdom. When I look without and see that I am everything, that is love. And between these two, my life turns. -Sri Nisargadatta

The moment--the now--is like a river, which carries you forward, ever-changing and ever moving. You either flow with this now or reject it and fight it, but that doesn't stop the flow; it only determines your experience of it.
-Gina Lake

Enlightenment is the direct result of freedom from the illusion of a separate self. A profound understanding of this ultimate simplicity provides all that is required for an awakening to enlightenment.
-Gary Crowley


We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains. -Li Po

Authentic spirituality… does not render the self content, it renders it undone. – Ken Wilbur

The dream we are living has absolutely no purpose other than our awakening. – Tony Parsons

When there is a waking up from fantasy, there is no one who does it.
–Toni Packer
An individual is the very thought he seeks to be free from!
-Jeff Foster

Nothing is to be clung to as I, me, or mine. – Buddha

The most remarkable event in the history of humanity is the phenomen of people dissolving their identification with the prevailing systems of thoughts, beliefs, rituals, and practices, and entering an experience of unconditioned awareness.
-Peter Fenner

We transcend suffering, not because our problems are solved, but because we experience a level of consciousness in which nothing is missing, a way of being that doesn't depend on the conditions of our mind, body, and life situation. -Peter Fenner

The difference between me and you is that I don't mind what happens. -Krishnamurti

To be enlightened is to be unconditionally intimate with this moment. -Scott Morrison

Not letting things bother you is cool! -Bobby Hall

It's not possible to have a problem without believing a prior thought. To notice this simple truth is the beginning of peace. -Byron Katie

Whenever you are immersed in compulsive thinking, you are avoiding what is. You don't want to be where you are. Here, Now.
–Eckhart Tolle


What are thoughts? They are sounds and images passing through awareness. -Tom Stine (admitted former think-aholic!)


Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9% of everything you think and do is for yourself - and there isn't one.
-Wei Wu Wei

As long as there is a 'you' doing or not doing, thinking or not-thinking, meditating or not-meditating, you are no closer to home than the day you were born. -Wei Wu Wei


This bundle of ideas that we have held as being who we are is not actually the one who can make progress in the spiritual realm.
–Alice Gardner


Free, we are not the number One, the first of all our objects, but Zero - their universal and Absolute Subject.
- Wei Wu Wei


What we are looking for is what is looking.
-St. Francis of Assissi

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Desire and fear walk hand in hand. –Katie Davis

EGO stands for: Edge God Out
-Dr. Wayne Dyer

You wouldn't worry what people think of you if you knew how seldom they did. -Charlie Greer

(This dead-on quote came both as a shock and a relief to my ego!-MJ)

Doing one thing at a time. (The definition of Zen)

Feel gratitude for everything. When we see every situation as being perfect just the way it is, happiness grows and grows. -Daniel Levin

The ego tends to equate having with Being: I have therefore I am. And the more I have, the more I am.
-Echart Tolle
When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. -Eckhart Tolle


The mind looks to past for identity and the future for fulfillment.
–Eckhart Tolle


We don’t realize that our future is being consumed by our past.
- JZ Knight

(Meaning that we are living on autopilot from our past emotions, rather than from the fresh, new, alive present moment.-MJ)


All emotions, if practiced regularly, grow in size.
-The Dalai Lama


You should BE the change you want to see in the world.
- Mahatma Gandhi


A positive state of mind is not merely good for you, it benefits everyone with whom you come into contact, literally changing the world. - The Dalai Lama


The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention. - Richard Moss


The equivalent of external noise is the inner noise of thinking. The equivalent of external silence is inner stillness.
-Eckhart Tolle


Love is embracing everything and avoiding nothing.
–Edwin Carl Smith


Authentic (as opposed to Egoic) LOVE =
Non-Judgement
Non-Attachment
Non-Resistance


We come back to where we started and know the place for the first time. -T.S. Elliot


Not being in opposition to the present moment brings clarity.


Enjoy the discovery, the journey.


You are the essence of life; everything and nothing, the seen and the unseen. –Michael Jeffreys


Sit quietly and open up to spirit. –Sharon Janis


Consciousness runs through every human being just like water runs through every wave in the ocean.
–Michael Jeffreys


Stillness is your essential nature. -Eckhart Tolle


There cannot be the ultimate understanding without the ultimate sacrifice.


No gratitude, no humility, and no sense of humor = no enlightenment.
–Michael Jeffreys


Your true self is perfect; it wants/needs nothing. Your ego is imperfect; it wants/needs everything. -Michael Jeffreys


What you call “your” thoughts are just thoughts arising in consciousness. Taking ownership of them is what causes suffering.
-Michael Jeffreys


Before you think/say anything to yourself, ask yourself if you would say that to God; because in essence, you are.
–Michael Jeffreys


Positive thinking is still thinking (it takes you out of the now); silence, on the other hand, requires no thinking, and thus leaves you fully present. – Michael Jeffreys


The ego treats the present moment in 3 ways:
1. As a means to an end.
2. As an obstacle.
3. As an enemy.
–Eckhart Tolle


Seeing the extraordinary, even when there is no “you” to see it.
–Jeff Foster


The lens in a telescope is neutral; it doesn’t care what you look at. It has no opinions, makes no judgment. It just is. You are the lens through which life sees itself.
–Michael Jeffreys


The separate self can never discover the truth–in the end, the truth just awakens to itself through you.
- Stephan Bodian


When I cease to own [physical or emotional pain], I liberate myself from its bondage and see it simply as it is.
- Tony Parsons


The mind can never give you an accurate picture of reality. It can only give you one tiny point-of-view among billions.
–Michael Jeffreys


Accept the present moment without judgment.
–Eckhart Tolle


While eating your appetizer, don’t be concerned with dessert. –Dr. Wayne Dyer (on staying in the Now)


Your ego’s biggest trick is getting you to spend your entire lifetime looking outside yourself for something you already are.
-Michael Jeffreys


To me, spirituality is about two things: The liberation of consciousness from all illusion, so that the true nature can shine and an embodiment in life that is an alternative to the patterns of manipulation and greed that dominate our current culture. –Christian Opitz


When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. – Dr. Wayne Dyer


Each moment is its own reward. -Tony Parsons


In what way is this perfect present moment deficient?
-Michael Jeffreys


The very search for pleasure is the cause of pain.
-Sri Nisargadatta


Pain is god disguised as your greatest teacher. The greater the pain, the bigger the opportunity for a breakthough.
-Michael Jeffreys


You can find the sacred in the most ordinary of things.
- Oprah


Consciousness brings matter into being wherever there’s energy.
– Martha Beck

My Zen Koan: If you lost the ability to think, what would you know? -Michael Jeffreys


150 Good Spiritual Quotes

[Abitofzen]

It's hard to beat:

"If you can't improve on silence, don't speak." -Zen Proverb

Another classic that I first heard from Eckhart Tolle:

"The Language of God is Stillness... everything else is a bad translation"



I enjoyed the list!

keep smiling,

Ben