8 Habits of Love by Ed Bacon

All quotes from Ed's book

Chronic fear overshadows each of our more loving human traits, making us reactive and closeminded. 

Any time we dehumanize, demonize, or too readily categorize any person, we cut ourselves off from the foundation of our own humanity.

Being a victim or a hero leads us to be closed minded, whereas when we are a learner we are open hearted – recognizing that we may need correction or illumination.

Truth seeks to rearrange the life of the individual so there is more compassion, justice, sustainability, and peace for all.

Truth is a constantly unfolding series of insights, understandings, revelations, and epiphanies about ourselves and how the world works.

Salvation had nothing to do with escaping hell.

Into the Gray Zone: A NeuroScientist Explores the Border Between Life & Death by Dr Adrian Owen

All quotes from Adrian's book

Being "intelligent" depends on much more than memorization. It depends on what we do with what we remember, how to make what we remember useful in a variety of ways and that has to do with the way we lay down memories, the way we organize and catalog them, and how easy it then is for us to retrieve them efficiently.

Flourishing by Maureen Gaffney

All quotes from Maureen's book

Finding value in suffering is the core of post-traumatic growth.

Acceptance is an active word.

Become aware of the self-defeating “if-then” rules you are using. [if you do ___, then I will ___ ].

Since many of [our] mental processes are happening below the level of consciousness, we are often unaware of how we are thinking or responding, and so we make up stories to explain ourselves.

Part of the experience of being at your best is the realization that there is as much to be learned – and sometimes more—from the setbacks in your life as from the successes.

To flourish, people need to make a connection between the practical things they are doing and some deeper value that motivates them.

Positive emotions broaden, build and transform us.

If you feel good, you are more likely to do good.

To flourish in your life, to build flourishing relationships, teams – and, indeed, a flourishing society – it pays to take happiness seriously.

[A 2005 study] concluded that about 50% of happiness is inheritable.  Some life circumstances – being married, having a good job and an adequate income, being healthy, being religious—each matter to happiness but, added all together, they account for just 10% of overall happiness.  The remainder, a full 40% of happiness, derives from our intentional activities.

The only way to eat an elephant is bite by bite.

We can all too easily become trapped in a blur of “busyness” that is disconnected from any vital purpose or intention, or we may feel trapped by inertia.

Our experiences of the day are not the things that happen to us.  Rather, our experiences are what we create and recreate by how we direct our attention and our thinking throughout the day.  As the days pass, those accumulated experiences becomes our life.

Emotions carry with them a certain perception of centre that may not reflect your actual control, or lack of it, in reality.  Unless you are aware of it, you will assume that your perception of control equates to real control.

The brain is “an anticipation machine”, always readying itself for the next moment.

Your brain directs your attention not just to what you can do now, but to what you could do next.

Moods are more free-floating, diffuse, hovering at the back of your mind.  While emotions demand immediate attention and action, moods are more subtle, not associated with any particular urge to do anything.

Moods are provoked by an emotional reaction to an event…. Moods are not just watered-down feelings. While both may be instigated by the same event, they are very different processes and serve different psychological needs. Emotions alert us threats and opportunities; they are the generals calling for action. Moods … are in charge of the supply line.

Moods… give you a constant read-out of how resourceful or depleted you feel.

Mood is a big, big factor in how you express your portfolio of strengths and weaknesses.

Negative emotions are reactions to threats of any kind…. Positive emotions are our first reactions when confronted with opportunities…. The more unexpected the opportunity or threat, the stronger the emotion.

When you develop a habit of gratitude, you notice other people’s generosity.

People in flow report feeling relaxed, at ease, energetic.  Their concentration is so complete that they no longer think of themselves as separate from what they are doing.  They no longer have to think about what to do next; each action carries them forward effortlessly.

There are always choices in how we interpret what is happening to us and how we respond.

What you prioritize – the things you choose to spend your time and energy on – reflect your true hierarchy of values, not what you say your values are.

The Essential Yoga Sutra with Geshe Michael Roach and Christie McNally

All quotes from Michael and Christie's book

Pain is real – yes – and it really hurts people.  But we can only stop it if we can stop misunderstanding where it comes from.

Stop seeing things the wrong way.

Most of our perceptions during the day are triggered by some outside object: seeing an apple is set off by the apple --- in a sense the seeing depends on, or hinges upon, the apple.

We begin with a daily inner practice.  It will always include three essential elements: being careful never to hurt others; learning to pray or meditate; and relentlessly exploring the question of where things really come from.

We very much come from how we treat others.

Meditation is a serious tool.  We need to use it to fix ourselves and the world, forever.  Using meditation only to feel good for a while is like a surgeon taking the anesthesia himself, leaving the patient to die on the operating table.

Awareness is to be present: to be here now, not wrapped up in what’s happened or might happen.

The highest form of awareness is to keep our mind on where the things that happen to us are really coming from.

If a young child falls into a fire, her mother moves quickly.  People having a normal life in this world are in much more danger than the child.

The things around us are a product of the seeds within our own minds and so are the people.

True yoga is the search for a worldview that actually works to bring people happiness.

Our world is a product of the seeds within our own minds.  Just wanting to help a single other person alters these seeds drastically.

Don’t be naïve and believe that thoughts stop just because the body stops.

Money karma can be amazing.  Money isn’t made at a federal facility somewhere.  The  value of the world economy – every single cent of it – is created by respecting other people’s things.

It’s no surprise that, karmically speaking (which is the only way that works any way), we can get the kind of relationship we want with someone… only by being very careful not to damage other people’s relationships.

The habit of watching out for possible angels among us graduates into direct encounters with these beings.

It really is true that there is no school like being put into difficult situations and learning to excel because of them.

If we are doing our yoga exercises correctly then, inside channels open up, which actually causes us to think more clearly and kindly.  If you’re not getting this effect with your yoga, then you’re not doing it properly.

To make meditation perfect, it’s not enough to simply mentally stare at something like our breath for a long time.  The mind even then is making its constant, deadly error, and we must fix it or come to the end of our life unfulfilled. As we meditate we need to strive to see that one thing that is simply… missing, clear gone.  We need to realize that nothing is anything; that is, even the hotness of a fire never belonged to it. It is I who make the fire hot.

Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy by Sadhguru

All quotes from Sadhguru's book

The function of the guru, contrary to popular belief, is not to teach, indoctrinate, or convert.  The guru is here to throw light on dimensions beyond your sensory perceptions and your psychological drama, dimensions that you are currently unable to perceive.

Right now your problem is that you suffer what happened ten years ago and you suffer what may happen the day after tomorrow. Both are not living truths. They are simply a play of your memory and imagination.

If you deny or amputate one part of reality, it gives you a lopsided perspective of life.

It has always seemed to me odd that the world does not realize the immensity of a state of "I do not know".  Those who destroy that state with beliefs and assumptions completely miss an enormous possibility - the possibility of knowing. They forget that "I do not know" is the doorway -- the only doorway -- to seeking and knowing.

The ability to simply look without motive is missing in the world today.  Everybody is a psychological creature, wanting to assign meaning to everything.  Seeking is not about looking for something.  It is about enhancing your perception, your very faculty of seeing.

I grew aware of that extraordinary intelligence within each of us that is capable of transforming a piece of

bread or an apple into the human body in a single afternoon.

Yoga is essentially a way of re-creating the body so that it serves a higher purpose. 

Things that even royalty could not afford a hundred years ago are accessible to the average citizen.

All human experience is only a question of pleasantness and unpleasantness in varying degrees.

The only thing that stands between you and your well-being is a simple fact: you have allowed your thoughts and emotions to take instruction from the outside rather than the inside.

What's happening in your head is your dream.  At least your dream should happen the way you want it, shouldn't it? Even if the world doesn't happen the way you want it, at least your thoughts and emotions should happen the way you want them to.

Our inner ecology is a mess. Somehow we think that fixing outer conditions will make everything okay on the inside.

Unless we do the right things, the right things will not happen to us.

Most people think peace and joy are the goals of the spiritual life.  This is a fallacy. Peace and joy are the basic requirements for a life of well-being.

Whatever you feel deprived of looks like the highest aspiration.

When most people say "life", they mean the accessories of life -- their work, their family, their relationships, the homes they live in, the cars they drive, the clothes they wear, or the gods they pray to.  The one thing they miss is life -- the life process itself, the essential life that is you.

The foundations of peace and bliss are not about attending to the external realities of your life, but in accessing and organizing the inner nature of your being.

If you go outward, it is an endless journey.  If you turn inward, it is just one moment.  In that moment, everything changes.  In that one moment, you are not in pursuit of joy anymore.  Instead, your life becomes an expression of your joyfulness.

Whatever we do not want to take responsibility for, whatever we cannot make sense of logically, we label "destiny".  It is a consoling word, but disempowering.

Your body is just an accumulation of food.

Your destiny is written by you unconsciously.

When pain, misery, or anger happen, it is time to look within you, not around you.

Creating your destiny is about steadily heading toward your well-being and your ultimate nature, no matter what they content of life around you.

Who is responsible for the way you are right now?  Your genes? Your father? Your mother? Your wife? Your husband? Your teacher? Your boss? Your mother-in-law? God? The government? All of the above? The condition is a pervasive one.  Ask someone, "Why are you in this situation?" Pat comes the response, "You know, when I was a child, my parents…"  The same old story, with just a few variations.

Being fully responsible is to be fully conscious.

The past exists within each one of us only as memory.

The choice is always before you: to respond consciously to the present; or to react compulsively to it. 

The most horrific things in life can be a source of nourishment if you accept, "I am responsible for the way I am now".

No adversity is an impediment if you are in a state of conscious response.

Responsibility is not reaction but it is not action either.  Responsibility and action belong to different dimensions.  The ability to respond gives you the freedom to act.  It also gives you the freedom not to act…. Responsibility is not compulsive action; it offers you the choice of action…. Your ability to act is always limited, but there are no limitations on your ability to respond…. Responsibility does not mean unbridled action.

Many think responsibility means capability…. When it comes to action, capability could play a role.  But when it comes to response, it is just a question of willingness.

Responsibility is not about talking, thinking, or doing.  Responsibility is about being.  That's the way life is -- not an independent, self-contained bubble but a moment-to-moment dialogue with the universe.

What the mind forgets is that the ability to respond is the basis of life.  If the ability is acknowledge willingly, you become blissful.

Love is not something you do; it is just the way you are.

Love has nothing to do with someone else.  It is all about you…. You are only using the other person as a key to open up what is already within you.

Once your joy is on self-start rather than push-start, you have upgraded your technology.

The question is: do you want to be a full-time human being or a part-time human being?... To be an absolutely full-time human being is to be a constant full-blooded response to everything.  You don't have to do anything in particular.  You just need to become a wiling piece of life in this glorious living cosmos.

Most people are not aware of the nature  of their longing.  When their longing finds unconscious expression, we call this greed, conquest, ambition. When their longing finds conscious expression, we call this yoga.

Yoga is not a practice.  It is not an exercise.  It is not a technique…. T he science of yoga is, quite simply, the science of being in perfect alignment, in absolute harmony, in complete sync with existence.

What you call the "body" right now is just an accumulated heap of food. It is the product of all the nourishment you have ingested over the years.

What you call "mind" is not just the brain.  It is not located in any single part of the human anatomy.  Instead, every cell has its own intelligence, so there is an entire mental body, an entire anatomy of the mind. 

The physical and mental bodies are like your hardware and software.  Hardware and software cannot do anything unless you plug into quality power…. The energy body.

Yoga does not ask you to work with anything other than what you know.  It simply tells you that if the physical, mental, and energy bodies are perfectly aligned, you will find access to the bliss body. 

The walls of self-preservation that you build for today are the walls of self-imprisonment for tomorrow.  Boundaries that you establish in your life as a protection for yourself today will feel like constraints tomorrow.

Truth is not a conclusion.

[Yoga] is the science of aligning your inner geometry with the cosmic geometry.

If you unconsciously get your body into different postures, you can elevate your consciousness. 

Learning to listen is the essence of intelligent living.

A painful body can become an obstacle, and so can a compulsive body. 

It is easy to forget that the physical body is only a part of you; it is important that it does not become the whole of you.

The body is like that antenna:  if you hold it in the right position, it becomes receptive to all there is in existence.

The body is like a barometer: if you know how to read it, it can tell you everything about you and the world around you.

If you know how to read the body, it can tell you your potential, your limitations, even your past, present, and your future. That is why the fundamental yoga starts with the physical body. It is as simple as this.  The more you know about your telephone or any other gadget, the better you can use it.

Only a person who knows what it is to work understands rest.

The very essence of dhyana, or meditativeness, is that you push yourself to the highest possible intensity where, after some time, there is no effort.  Now meditation will not be an act, but a natural consequence of the intensity that has been achieved.

The fundamental mistake that most of us make: the fact that we view the ingredients which constitute our body, like earth, water, air, and food, as commodities and not as an organic process of the life process.

The entire cosmos is just a magnified projection of a little occurrence happening within you --- the play of five elements [earth, water, fire, air, ether].

Whether you experience life as a great possibility or a great barrier simply depends on the extent to which

these five elements cooperate within you.

The key to freedom is your limited persona.  If you pull the plug, it just falls apart and you are free.  If you know how to pull yourself out, life's complexity collapses and everything settles.

What kind of food you put into the system has a tremendous impact on the kind of body you have constructed.

You need to eat the right kind of food depending on your inclination and what you want out of life.

Ask the body what kind of food it is most comfortable with, not your tongue.  The kind of food your body feels most comfortable with is always the ideal food to eat.

The entire aim and endeavor of yoga is to open up the cocoon of the physical body to the larger sensory body where you experience everything as a part of you.

It is our compulsive reaction to the situations in which we are placed that causes stress.

Remember that the grossness or sanctity of something is largely decided by your unwillingness and unconsciousness, or your willingness and consciousness.

Your body is just a loan from this planet.  What you call "death" is just Mother Earth reclaiming the loan that she offered you.

Fear is a result of the incompleteness of your existence.  If you have not explored life in its magnitude and multidimensionality, but have limited yourself to the physical body, fear is a natural consequence.

Death is not the end of life.  Death is simply the end of the body.

If you were in charge, for sure you would not manufacture misery for yourself.  A fundamental freedom you have is to think whatever you want.  What then stops you from thinking pleasant thoughts?

The system of yoga is a technology to create a distinction between you and your mind.

You are not just this or that; you are everywhere.  There is nothing like "yours" and "mine"; everything is you, everything is yours.

An intellectual understanding that is not backed by experiential knowledge can lead to mind games and deceptive states.

If the activity of your mind ceases and you are still alert, you are in yoga.

If you want to know the experiential dimensions of life, you will never know them with the petty process of thought.

Every thought that arises in the mind has its roots in data you have already accumulated.

Awareness is a process of inclusiveness, a way of embracing this entire existence.  You cannot do it, but you can set the right conditions so that it happens.  Don’t try to be aware.  It will not work.  If you keep your body, thought, emotion, and energies properly alighted, awareness will blossom.

When you are consciously in touch with your awareness, you gain access to the subtlest dimension of physicality, or akash.… The akashic, or etheric, dimension envelops the physical body -- usually up to a distance of eighteen to twenty-one inches.  Because this element is still physical, it carries information…. When you gain conscious access to your awareness, you gain access to the akashic dimension around your body, as also to the akashic dimension around the planet. 

If you are aware at the moment of death, you will be aware beyond death also. 

Morality always differs from person to person, according to time, lace, situation -- and convenience. 

The way you feel and the way you think are both activities of the mind.

Here is really no such thing as conditional love and unconditional love.  There are conditions and there is love.

Love is not something that you do; love is the way you are.

Suffering is entirely self-created.  An every human being has the choice: to suffer or not to suffer.  It doesn't take much intelligence to choose the latter.

Most human beings are doing the same thing: they are labeling their compulsions, their limitations, as their choices.

"Karma" literally means "action". Action is of three kinds.  It could be in terms of the body, mind, or energy.  Whatever you do with your body, mind, or energy, leaves a certain residue.  This residue forms a pattern of its own, and these resultant patterns stay with you.  When you gather a huge volume of impressions, slowly these shape themselves into tendencies, and you become like an automatic toy, a slave to your patterns, a puppet of your past.

Karma is encrypted on every aspect of life.  It is imprinted on your mental memory, the fundamentals of your body, your chemistry, your very energy.  These are all back up systems.  Even if you lose your body or your mind, you still do not lose your karma!

The quality of your life is always decided by how you experience life, not by what life offers you.

When you realize that all your material achievements are of value only in comparison with those who don’t have them, this is joy that springs from another's deprivation.  Can you really call this joy?

The chakras are powerful centers in the physiology where the nadis meet in a particular way to create an energy vortex.

There are 114 chakras in the body.  Two are outside the body and 112 are within the body.  Among these 112, there are 7 major chakras.  For most people, three of these are active; the remaining are either dormant or mildly active.  You do not have to activate all 114 chakras to live a physical life…. If you were to activate all 114 chakras, you would have no sense of body at all.

[Chakras] always meet in the form of a triangle (not a circle, as the word "chakra" suggests).  The moving part in a machine is always a circle, because a circle is capable of movement with least resistance.