Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom to all.

Change in society is of secondary importance; that will come about naturally, inevitably, when you as a human being bring about the change in yourself.

A lily or a rose never pretends, and its beauty is that it is what it is.

Ugliness and evil are necessary for growth but they may be experienced vicariously.

We all place ourselves at various levels, and we are constantly falling from these heights. It is the falls we are ashamed of. Self-esteem is the cause of our shame, of our fall. It is this self-esteem that must be understood, and not the fall.

All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.

Only when the mind is still, tranquil, not expecting or grasping or resisting a single thing, is it possible to see what is true. It is the truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.

To keep always in the same place means to stagnate.

Religion, politics, society are exploiting you, and you are being conditioned by them; you are being forced in a particular direction. You are not human beings; you are mere cogs in a machine.

Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something - and it is only such love that can know freedom.

Any acceptance of authority is the very denial of truth.

Understanding of the self only arises in relationship, in watching yourself in relationship to people, ideas, and things; to trees, the earth, and the world around you and within you. Relationship is the mirror in which the self is revealed. Without self-knowledge there is no basis for right thought and action.

Truth is something which you must see immediately — and to see something clearly you must give your heart and your mind and your whole being to it immediately.

Why do you want to read others' books when there is the book of yourself?

It is astonishingly beautiful and interesting, how thought is absent when you have an insight. Thought cannot have an insight.

To ask the 'right' question is far more important than to receive the answer. The solution of a problem lies in the understanding of the problem; the answer is not outside the problem, it is in the problem.

Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity.

Fear is nonacceptance of what is.

Passion is a rather frightening thing because if you have passion you don't know where it will take you.

To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. We have lost it, or we have never had it; and, because we do not know how to judge anything, we have been led here and pushed there, beaten up, driven, politically, religiously and socially. We don't know, but it is difficult to say we don't know.

The becoming still can never be the being still; only with the death of becoming is there being.

Using another as a means of satisfaction and security is not love. Love is never security; love is a state in which there is no desire to be secure; it is a state of vulnerability.