Emptiness is a symptom that you are not living creatively. You either have no goal that is important enough to you, or you are not using your talents and efforts in striving toward an important goal.

Awareness of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom.

What you pay attention to grows. If your attention is attracted to negative situations and emotions, then they will grow in your awareness.

If we should be blessed by some great reward, such as fame or fortune, it's the fruit of a seed planted by us in the past.

Delusion means mortality. And awareness means Buddhahood.

Happiness is a state of which you are unconscious. The moment you are aware that you are happy, you cease to be happy.

Faith, courage, optimism, looking forward, bring us new life and more life. Futility, frustration, living in the past are not only characteristic of 'old age'; they contribute to it.

We could say that compassion is the ultimate attitude of wealth: an anti-poverty attitude, a war on want. It contains all sorts of heroic, juicy, positive, visionary, expansive qualities. And it implies larger scale thinking, a freer and more expansive way of relating to yourself and the world.

Meditation practice is regarded as a good and in fact excellent way to overcome warfare in the world; our own warfare as well as greater warfare.

Finally all that is trustworthy is this immeasurable silent awareness that is the truth of who you are, that is love.

The outward man is the swinging door; the inner man is the still hinge.

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

It seems to me that self-confidence and the ability to stand one's ground are essential if we want to succeed in life. I am not talking of stupid self-assurance but of an awareness of our inner potential, a certainty that we can always correct our behavior, improve ourselves, enrich ourselves, and that things are never hopeless.

If you sit down and just keep quiet...you are in the state of Self-Awareness. ..keeping quiet means being without any techniques, effort or intention to meditate...not following the thought stream...not pursuing the senses, no imagination...such an intense Self-focusing comes without any effort...then, by itself...out of nowhere, wisdom and insights come.

One cultivates spaciousness or awareness which allows you to acknowledge the emotions and see them as part of the human condition. Emotions are like subtle thought forms and they all arise in response to something outside yourself. They are all reactions. You cultivate a quietness in yourself that watches these emotions rising and falling and passing away.

So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger. One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it.

Anyone can practice some nonviolence, even soldiers. Some army generals, for example, conduct their operations in ways that avoid killing innocent people; this is a kind of nonviolence. To help soldiers move in the nonviolent direction, we have to be in touch with them. If we divide reality into two camps - the violent and the nonviolent - and stand in one camp while attacking the other, the world will never have peace. We will always blame and condemn those we feel are responsible for wars and social injustice, without recognizing the degree of violence in ourselves. We must work on ourselves and also with those we condemn if we want to have a real impact.

He who has renounced all violence towards all living beings, weak or strong, who neither kills nor causes others to kill - him I do call a holy man.

Mind should not be made outward. What's the benefit if the mind and the eyes are tranquil and not the body? Today, the breath does not come out, and a lot of addictions are generated.

We have to study with our warm heart, not just with our brain.

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.

Watch. Remain always on top, with higher awareness.

Whether you bathe in the Ganga for a thousand years or live on vegetable food for a like period, unless it helps towards the manifestation of the Self, know that it is all of no use.