Om Swami

Just like our desires and emotions are cyclical, so are the good and bad times in our lives. It is absolutely impossible that each day will turn out the way you expect it to, or that every time only pleasing news will knock on your door. At times, situations are undesirable and unpleasant, but we can’t avoid them. We have to deal with them. As they say, someone’s got to make the trains run on time. Granted, it’s not always feasible to deal with unpleasant situations with a pleasant mood, but it is possible to handle them with patience.

yoga-sthaḥ kuru karmāṇi saṅgaṁ tyaktvā dhanañjaya
siddhy-asiddhyoḥ samo bhūtvā samatvaṁ yoga uchyate.
(Bhagavad Gita 2.48)

‘O, the finest archer!’ Krishna says to Arjuna, ‘the yoga of equanimity is to maintain your steadfastness in the face of both success and failure, it is to act with a degree of detachment.’

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Pomnyun

There are two ways for people to become happy. One way is by doing work that they enjoy. However, although this may be fun, it may feel meaningless when they look back on it later on. For example, drinking and hanging out every day with your friends may have been a lot of fun, but when you look back on it in 10 years you will feel like you wasted your time. When you go to a bar, you have a great time, talking loudly and laughing hard, but when you leave the bar, you feel kind of empty. You may feel that way because there are no benefits to spending your time on such pursuits.

Another way is helping others. As human beings, we feel happy when we are useful to others or do something beneficial for others. Although doing something that helped others may have been very hard at the time, when we look back on it, we feel proud. We feel that what we did was meaningful and beneficial, so we believe we did the right thing even if it took a lot of effort.

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Whatever you do, make it an offering to me – the food you eat, the sacrifices you make, the help you give, even your suffering. In this way you will be freed from the bondage of karma, and from its results both pleasant and painful. (9:27–28)
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Which book has changed your life?

Alan Watts

​​If I first see a tree in the winter, I might assume that it is not a fruit-tree. But when I return in the summer to find it covered with plums, I must exclaim, "Excuse me! You were a fruit-tree after all." Imagine, then, that a billion years ago some beings from another part of the galaxy made a tour through the solar system in their flying saucer and found no life. They would dismiss it as "Just a bunch of old rocks!" But if they returned today, they would have to apologize: "Well—you were peopling rocks after all!" You may, of course, argue that there is no analogy between the two situations. The fruit-tree was at one time a seed inside a plum, but the earth—much less the solar system or the galaxy—was never a seed inside a person. But, oddly enough, you would be wrong.

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Thich Nhat Hanh

Once a young child asked me, “How does it feel to be dead?” This is a very good, very deep question. I used the example of a cloud to explain to her about birth, death, and continuation. I explained that a cloud can never die. A cloud can only become something else, like rain or snow or hail. When you are a cloud, you feel like a cloud. And when you become rain, you feel like the rain. And when you become snow, you feel like the snow. Remanifestation is wonderful.

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Observing thought

I must love the very thing I am studying. If you want to understand a child, you must love and not condemn him. You must play with him, watch his movements, his idiosyncrasies, his ways of behavior; but if you merely condemn, resist or blame him, there is no comprehension of the child. Similarly, to understand what is, one must observe what one thinks, feels and does from moment to moment. That is the actual.
~Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Om swami

“The tree laden with fruits is always a bit bent. Not because of any burden but because it has something to offer. Humility"

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Abandon all supports and look to me for protection. I shall purify you from the sins of the past; do not grieve” (18:66).
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Haemin Sunim

With love in our hearts,
we find even the most mundane things sacred and beautiful.

With love in our hearts,
we become kinder and gentler, even to complete strangers.

Without love in our hearts,
we find the world meaningless and random.

Without love in our hearts,
we become strangers even to our family and friends.

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Bhakti Yoga by Swami Vivekananda

Bhakti Yoga, or the path of devotion, is based on the doctrine "Love is God and God is Love". The Bhakti yogi experiences separation and longs to meet or even just glimpse his beloved, God. Nothing else attracts him, nothing else holds his attention, all else is meaningless

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Upanishad Wisdom

The Lord dwells in the womb of the cosmos,
The creator who is in all creatures.
He is that which is born and to be born;
His face is everywhere.


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Albert Einstein

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

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One who is free from selfish attachments, who has mastered himself and his passions, attains the supreme perfection of freedom from action. Listen and I shall explain now, Arjuna, how one who has attained perfection also attains Brahman, the supreme consummation of wisdom. (18:49–50)
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​​​​Thou art the highest goal of man!
Can sightless men appreciate the glory of light?Can the deaf know the charms of melody?

Can those blinded by self-indulgence behold the health-and-beauty rays that flow from the sun of self-control? Can bewildered one's, spiritually poor but striving only for material riches, know aught of the wealth of peace?

Father, help us to develop your powers of discrimination. May we be not satisfied with fulfilments of earthly hopes, essentially ego tainted and limited. O Boundless Being, Transcendent Treasure! teach us to seek the highest goal-realization of Thee.
~Paramahamsa Yogananda

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Om Swami

A young boy lost one of his contact lenses while playing basketball in his driveway. He looked around a bit, as thoroughly as he could, but the lens was nowhere to be found.
He went inside and apprised his mother who told him that she would search for it herself.
‘But mum,’ he said, ‘I’ve already looked for it everywhere and it’s impossible to find. It’s tiny and totally transparent, as you know.’
The mother, however, still went outside to search and returned with the lens in her hand. All in a matter of less than ten minutes.
‘Wow!’ the boy exclaimed. ‘How on earth did you find it?’
‘Well, son,’ she replied, ‘we weren’t looking for the same thing. You were searching for a small piece of plastic. I, on the other hand, was looking for $200.’

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Emptiness

When you are with everyone but me,
you're with no one.
When you are with no one but me,
you're with everyone.

Instead of being so bound up with everyone,
be everyone.
When you become that many, you're nothing.
Empty.
~Rumi

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Haemin Sunim

Our consciousness often does not know what our subconscious wants.
We think we want something, but when we get it, we realize we wanted something else.
When you wish to hear the voice of your subconscious, try meditation.
Meditation opens a secret path to your subconscious.

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Osho

"When you love, love as if the person is a god, not less than that. Never love a woman as a woman and never love a man as a man."


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