To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.
The truth is at the bottom of a well. You look in a well, and you see the sun or the moon, but if you jump in, there’s no longer the sun or the moon; there’s the truth.
But the important thing is not the finding. It is the seeking. It is the devotion with which one spins the wheel of prayer and scripture, discovering the truth little by little. If this machine gave you the truth immediately, you would not recognize it, because your heart would not have been purified by the long quest.
Who cares if you’re enlightened forever? Can you just get it in this moment, now?
Enlightenment is not an attainment; it is a realization. When you wake up, everything changes and nothing changes. If a blind man realizes that he can see, has the world changed?
A person who says, “I’m enlightened,” probably isn’t.
Don’t put your faith in anyone. You have it all inside you. You’re always asking the masters. Why don’t you ask yourselves? Forget the masters.
The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the nonintellectuals have never stirred.
Spiritual seekers look for self-realization or enlightenment in the future. To be a seeker implies that you need the future. If this is what you believe, it becomes true for you: you will need time until you realize that you don’t need time to be who you are.
We are here and now. Further than that, all knowledge is moonshine.
I am not so arrogant as to presume that only my intellectual superiors can teach me. If such were the case then the teacher would learn nothing from her disciples, the parents nothing from their children, and I nothing from the animals, from whom I have learned so much.
Sit at the feet of the master long enough, and they’ll start to smell.
Life happens to be both a severe and an endlessly kind teacher. It’s the only authority that you need to trust. And this teacher, this authority, is everywhere. You don’t have to go to some special place to find this incomparable teacher; you don’t have to have some especially quiet or ideal situation: in fact, the messier it is, the better. The average office is a great place. The average home is perfect. . . . That is where the authority, the teacher is.
I am so absorbed in the wonder of the earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels. I have enough for this life.
God changes appearances every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises. One moment he is a glass of fresh water; the next, your son bouncing on your knees, or an enchanting woman, or perhaps merely a morning walk.
The story is told of a holy man who lived in a large house on top of a remote mountain. Over time, news of the holy man’s greatness spread throughout the land, and many seekers made their way over the mountains in hopes of having even a brief moment with this saintly being. Each aspirant was greeted at the door by a servant, who ushered him or her into the house and guided the visitor through several rooms. After a few minutes the servant and aspirant arrived at another door, which led out of the back of the house. The servant opened the door and indicated to the visitor that it was time to leave. “But I was hoping to have even a few minutes with the holy man!” the aspirant would utter in frustration. “You just did,” answered the holy man as he closed the door.
If you don’t find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.
