Meditation and Its Practices by Swami Adiswarananda

All quotes from Swami's book

Illumination remains hidden in the mantra, just as the oak tree remains hidden in the acorn. 

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

All quotes from Rebecca's book

Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark.  That's where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.

Socrates says you can know the unknown because you remember it.  You already know what seems unknown; you have been here before, but only when you were someone else.

We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire.

A person in her twenties has been a child for most of her life, but as time goes by that portion that is childhood becomes smaller and smaller.

"The early stages of change or cure may mimic deterioration.  Cut a chrysalis open, and  you will find a rotting caterpillar.  What you never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly, a fit emblem of the human soul, for those whose cast of mind leads them to seek such emblems.  No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay". Pat Barker

A new map of the city of Las Vegas appears every month, because the place grows so fast that delivery people need constant updates on the streets.

Upgrade: Taking Your Work and Life from Ordinary to Extraordinary by Rana Florida

All quotes from Rana's book

Intuitively, we know that the best stuff in life isn’t stuff at all, and the relationships, experiences and meaningful work are the staples of a happy life. 

Following your passion means the possibility of having everything and nothing, making it and losing it.  It ebbs and flows; you must have flexibility and adaptable personality.

Identify what you want your life to look like, learn how to leverage the resources you already have, prioritize your needs, and knock out time wasters.

Creativity grows in a yes environment.

Creativity is a prerequisite for success.

Constant change, creativity, and innovation are the key to success.

Three things – having a blast, feeling a sense of accomplishment, and cultivating a sense of a larger purpose – are all that really matters in life.

Give up me in favor of we.

Understand what your underlying fear is.  Will you be judged?  Humiliated publicly? Are you afraid of next steps? Do you risk financial security? Afraid of success?  Determining the fear is the first step to removing the obstacles.

It’s time to take back our freedom, to be ourselves, and to follow our dreams and passions, whether it’s at school, at the office, or in our homes.

Your life doesn’t have to suck; stop settling for a state of managed dissatisfaction.

Build recess time into your daily life; we all need a playground to recharge our thinking.

Growth, learning, and discovery happen when you leave your comfort zone.

Time is more important than money and possessions.  It’s the one thing you can never get back and something you can’t buy, barter, or borrow. 

Think of failure as a time to grow, regroup, reflect, reinvent, and ultimately push forward in new directions.

The majority of us don’t think about how we can optimize our lives.  Instead of developing a real strategy based on where we want to go in life and why, we just slog through in a state of what I like to call managed dissatisfaction.  We are doing ok; we are managing to get by but with an underlying tinge of unhappiness.

It is never too late to envision an entirely different future…. It’s about leveraging the resources around you, collaborating, thinking creatively, and protecting your time.

The most successful lives are forged by incredible focus.

Doing the things you want to do and having the freedom, time, and flexibility to make them happen are the secrets of a rich, fulfilled life.

Your space is the foundation on which everything else will build.  Why not curate it, clean it up, and make it appealing?

Zoo animals can die or suffer psychological and physical damage if their environment doesn’t meet their needs, and the same thing is true of the place where you spend more than forty hours a week.

Understanding the Messages of Your Body by Jean-Pierre Barral

All quotes from Jean-Pierre's book

Let us seek to prevent, rather than wait until we have to cure.

Because joints, muscles, and ligaments share certain nerve centers with particular organs, irritation in an organ can cause a problem in a joint.

The body is endowed with a two-speed nervous system: the accelerating system and the slowing-down system (the sympathetic and the para-sympathetic systems).

Removing an organ does not remove the representation of that organ in the brain.

Dreams, Myths and Fairy Tales in Japan by Hayao Kawai

All quotes from Hayao's book

Most people today assume that their dreams belong to them, but do not feel responsible for what they dream. 

What is the role of the human being in the reality of [nature] if everything including the former is simply flowing spontaneously of itself?

The Japanese had no conception of Nature as such prior to their contact with Western culture….Throughout European history, Nature has been a concept which stands in opposition to culture and civilization. 

Yoga for Life by Alan Finger

All quotes from Alan's book

Remind yourself that at any given moment you are exactly where you need to be.

Acting consistently is much harder than acting radically.

The law of karma makes sure that we never miss the lessons we are due to get; we will always get a second, third, or forth opportunity -- however many it takes -- to learn the lessons that we need. 

If you are like most people…you are accustomed to feeling uncomfortable, and you cannot begin to remember what true relaxation, stillness, and peace feel like.

Practice a new vision: learn to greet the onset of stress positively, because it signals a situation that is causing you discomfort, giving you an opportunity to break old, harmful patterns of through and behavior and consciously create healthier new ones.  The key is self-examination.

Practicing yoga is not a cure-all; nor is it insurance against the onset of future illness. It can, however, shift your attention away from the illness and help you redefine yourself, so that illness never defines you.

Asanas are not exercises that need to be perfected.  They are tools for self-exploration.

The more clarity (the Sanskrit word is viveka) you can bring to your relationships, the less stressful they will be. The more you fine-tune your awareness of your emotional connection to others, the more you will be able to approach every relationship in your life as if it were a mirror reflecting back valuable information about where you stand spatially, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and philosophically from moment to moment.

When an action remains incomplete -- when it has not been rectified, made right, or amended, when it has not come full circle -- it does not simply disappear into a void somewhere…. The universe has made a record of your action and intention, called a samskara, and that samskara lodges itself deep in your unconsciousness.  You will eventually come back to this action in the future, even if you have momentarily erased it from the forefront of your memory.

Your body and your unconsciousness are virtual storehouses for your unfinished actions. 

We have been put here in order to love.  The foundation of the universe is unconditional love -- it is made of harmony and nonconflict. 

Chakras & Their Archetypes by Ambika Wauters

All quotes from Ambika's book

We can choose at which level of awareness we use to respond to life situations.

We can empower ourselves with greater awareness through inner work and spiritual development, and live from a place of wisdom and mastery.

It is said in Chinese medicine that we inherit our life force from both our parents.  Sometimes a life vision or attitude is deeply rooted in the family history, and in order to grow and live creatively, we may be forced to bring into our own consciousness the unexpressed anger, fear or grief which stopped our parents from living their lives to the fullest.

The more accepting and loving we are of ourselves and our lives, the quicker our energy opens up and starts to flow.

Rather than creating further damage by getting into the rut of punishing and judging ourselves, we can focus love, warmth, gentleness and understanding on those wounded parts of ourselves.

When we own our projections, by recognizing that we are in fact seeing through our own emotions, we make the shifts in our perception and thinking that will allow us to grow.

Born to be Free by Jac O’Keeffe

All quotes from Jac's book

Your mind plays many tricks on you.  Its subtleties must be recognized for you to gain objectivity regarding such tricks.  An effective trap is the thought that you will be better off when…

Consider that this is as good as it gets.  Here now is how it always will be.

Your capacity to be happy does not improve when certain conditions are in place.  That is just a thought.

Mind seeks limitations.  It likes to play safely, to be in control and manage things.  Your natural state is to be at peace, but mind only knows peace as a concept so it will try to create peace for you.

Do not stop short on your inner inquiry just because your mind is still. If you can experience stillness, you will also experience agitation.  All states have their opposite.

Mind cannot and will not lead you out of mind.

Wanting is suffering.  Not wanting is the natural state.

Therapies can show you your patterns of thinking.  Skills can be learned to help you better engage with life.  If this interests you, self-inquiry is not of interest to you.  Engaging with life experientially has a stronger pull than the search for truth.

Consciousness will find its own practice until it becomes more appealing to ask yourself who is it that is practising.

Abiding in the Self is not the reward for working through a process.  There is nothing to work through.

Pay no attention to what is presented by mind.  Your not that and it is not your concern.

The healing industry, angels and chakra work, churches, religions and rituals are not routes that lead to truth.  They offer experiences only.

Remain thoughtless, egoless, without the personal, and a universal outstanding prevails.  There is no one to give, no one to receive – just movements taking place in form.  Settle in the freedom of understanding that individuality is only a concept.

Do not fool yourself into thinking that you have to work something out in order to be what you already are. Effortlessly, you are That.  Stay in quiet observance of any resistance in your mind.

Be the detached observer who is without judgment or preference, in this natural state, you are not manipulating anything and you enjoy a delightful indifference towards all that takes place.

To choose is mind, to allow is mind, to serve is mind.

There is nothing to do to be more of what you are.

If you believe that happiness is awaiting you in the future, then rest assured it will never come.  Be prepared for a long wait, for that is simply an idea in your mind that keeps happiness at arm’s length.  Happiness is a direct experience arising from your innate nature.

Arriving at the place where you know that there must be more to life and to you, is an opening, not a dead end.  Your choice to walk through this opening must be made in total awareness; this is not a rabbit hole that you can peep into before deciding if you will enter.  The choice is simple; take a risk or continue as is and play it safe.

Spiritual practice involves actively ignoring the mind.

Experiences cannot change anything: they only have the power to do so if you give it.  Experiences come and go, but their impact on you is determined solely by your level of identification with them.

Your true identity lies much deeper than any experience that life has presented you.  If you have survived the most horrendous ordeal, this does not make you special.  It has nothing to do with who you are.

Your level of self-esteem rests on two cornerstones; knowing that you are lovable and knowing that you are capable.

There is nothing to fear, ever.  If you continue to place attention on fear-creating ideas, knowing that your thoughts create emotions, you will fear fear.

There is nothing to fear when you trust the unfolding of life.  Whatever is presented, no matter the scale, you will respond then, as it happens.

In any moment, if you are not content and at peace with total certainty, you can know that your mind has created this situation.

As your understanding of your mind increases, you will recognize its tricks, its convincing arguments and its ideas of how the world should be.  Your mind believes that if things went according to what you believe to be the right way then everything would be fine. This is not the truth.  This is a game your mind uses to keep you resisting what is.

You are in the world of your mind, seeing and reacting as one with your mind, as if you are your mind.  Usually, there is no objectivity.  While it may seem that life is all-engrossing, the fact is that your mind has you engrossed.  Life is busy at times, calm at times, stressful much of the time and all these ideas about life are created through the mind.

The shift is from personal to impersonal.  Instead of events happening to you and taking everything personally, they simply happen.  All takes place around you.

With patience and calmness, direction will come from within.

All that is required is a shift in perspective through removing a personal agenda.  Do not buy the idea that events are all about you.  Drop the mental connection between who, how, what you are and daily life.  Let your attention be on what is taking place, not on how you fear it may impact you.

Mind notices differences only and always seeks to acquire more.  It is concerned with having and not having.

The human mind is an instrument to be used when it is needed and put aside when it is not.  It is a tool like any other.

The problem is not with the mind, it is the personal identification with thoughts that creates suffering.

For many, the desire to make a difference in the lives of others or the planet motivates their life.  Like everything, this has is place and plays a part in the playing out of a grand design.  Making a difference is a motivation from the mind.  It arises when there is a belief that things are not okay and that work needs to be undertaken to make things better, to make things right.  All is well.  All unfolds perfectly.

The thinking mind seeks purpose, but in truth there is no purpose to any of it.

There is no answer that will lead to the why of it all.  But what there is, is usefulness.  Usefulness can serve as the highest purpose if your mind seeks reasons for living and taking action.

If you identify with the phrase “I want happiness”, you can simply remove the “I” as an identification with body and mind and get rid of “want” by dropping desires.  What remains? Without “I” and “want”, happiness alone remains.  It is as simple as this.

There is no “how” to stop thinking.  Simply stop getting involved in the stories of your thoughts.

Just be quiet, be still and stop participating in the imaginary world created by your thoughts.

Neuromancer by William Gibson

All quotes from William's book

The future is already here.  It’s just unevenly distributed. 

Everyday Grace by Marianne Williamson

All quotes from Marianne's book

We can withdraw our faith in the thought forms that have guided us to where we are, realizing their complete inadequacy to guide us where we would like to go.  

Love heals the world by healing our minds, for that which is healed on the level of consciousness is healed on the level of ultimate cause.

Every problem reflects an unforgiveness.

New beginnings are possible anywhere.

This is not a time to wait for angels, but to actively become them.  Indeed, we are waiting for something that is waiting for us.

The only way to achieve an excellent life is to be willing to be excellent.

When we realize our mission is to love and forgive, we realize that every situation is an opportunity to do so.

We cannot change anything unless we ourselves are willing to change, for whatever problem we see in the world is only there as a reflection of our own internal state. 

We cannot give what we do not have; we cannot bring peace to the world if we ourselves are not peaceful.

We do not need to push life so much as we need to experience it more elegantly, to be motivated more by inspiration than by ambition.

When we’re aligned with our own spiritual essence, the world is a safer place to be.  Remaining serene within ourselves, we become magnets for harmony and peace in the world.

What is not love… is a call for love.

The more still you become, the more the universe moves into powerful action on your behalf.  Forces you will never be consciously aware of begin to move in your direction.  The less still you are--- the more emotionally and mentally fidgety you are – the more the universe stays stuck in old patterns of energy, reflecting the general chaos of your own psyche.

As long as love is not our top priority, we will continue to manifest a world of pain.

The tenor of your being, not your doing, is what establishes the pathways of energy that run through your life experience. 

It has been said that when the Buddha comes again, he will arrive not as a person but as a commodity. 

Dear Mr You by Mary-Louise Parker

All quotes from Mary-Louise's book

It’s so transparent, how willing we are to dismiss the intelligence of someone who rejects us, as though that renders them incapable of sound judgment.

Guided: Reclaiming the Intuitive Voice of Your Soul by Hans Christian King

All quotes from Hans' book

Our intuition is meant to be used like smelling salts that we apply to wake up in whatever situation we find ourselves.

The ego has nothing to gain from your awakening.

A provocateur is a person who knows what they must do to provoke themselves to get back on their dharmic track, who courageously focus all that stands in the way of claiming their original Self…. A provocateur isn’t an individual who feels no fear.  It’s a matter of him or her being courageous enough to move closer to fear with respect and openness, to silently stand in it long enough to discover its empty, illusory nature.

When you trust the intuitive intelligence of the heart, then a possibility becomes a probability, which becomes a reality.

Mind chatter, whether negative or positive, is still mind chatter.  Even though high-minded chatter feels better to us and offers some relief, it is no substitute for the hearts’ intuitive intelligence.

The more we train in being aware, the more we will succeed in connecting with and receiving the heart’s intuitive guidance throughout our daily activities.  Then, when challenges, opportunities, and perplexities present themselves, we will be prepared to follow the wisdom of our heart.

Out of the need for parental and eventually societal approval, a child begins to live a life that has been created for it rather than by it, thereby desensitizing the inherent awareness of her uniquely individual life path. 

The sacred responsibility that has been entrusted to parents is to grow their children toward and not way from their authentic self.

No child is a blank page.  Each and every spiritual-soul arrives on the planet with a custom-designed letterhead that includes a mission statement.  Not realizing this, parents rewrite it, convinced about what should appear as its header… and they go about indoctrinating their children with these notions. 

The journey is largely about unlearning what you’ve been taught and releasing the false perceptions you have embodied. 

Ego is the gatekeeper of our image, and its job description includes comparing ourselves to and competing with others in the arena called “success”. 

Our laughter is like a mantra --- a verbal sound capable of clearing the mind and creating a transformation that deepens with each repetition.

By making your own laughter your mantra and repeating it often, you will be lifted into your higher self and reclaim your childlike quality of wonderment.

Your life is itself your one true religion.  While spiritual teachers, guides, and practices profoundly contribute to accelerating one’s inner evolutionary progress, it is only in the laboratory of your own life that you can consummate the practices that awaken you to the sublime reality in your being.

When you find yourself standing in the face of a challenge welcome it, knowing that it holds before you a self-reflective mirror revealing the next evolutionary step on your dharmic walk.

Our intuition is the voice of spirit itself, connecting each of us to a world of loving and wise spirit guides.  Our part is to become open and receptive to such grace-filled generosity and demonstrate our gratitude by using this guiding compass in all aspects of our life.

The Illuminated Rumi by Coleman Barks

All quotes from Coleman's book

You sit here for days saying, This is strange business.  You're the strange business.  You have the energy of the sun in you, but you keep knotting it up at the base of your spine.

Listen to the story told by the reed of being separated.  Since I was cut from the reed bed I have made this crying sound.  Anyone separated from someone he loves understands what I say: Anyone pulled from a source longs to go back.

Don’t move the way fear makes you move.

We all know things that get better when we pay attention to the breath.  We're more in the moment, more present, more true.  There are things to do. Enlightenment unfolds as it will, but there are ways to become more accessible  to it.  Practices. Meditation. Vigils. Fasting. Walks. What you give time and attention to.

Don't pray to be healed, or look for evidence of "some other world".  You are the soul and medicine for what wounds the soul.

Be source. Not result.

The Healing Power of Mind by Tulku Thondup

All quotes from Tulku's book

Problems hold the key to their own healing if we bring our awareness to them, rather than pushing them away or clinging blindly to them.

Buddhists see sickness as a broom that sweeps away the accumulations of negative attitudes and emotions.

We can make friends with our problems.  When difficult emotions come, we can ask them what they want.

Beginning Drawing: A Multidimensional Approach to Learning the Art of Basic Drawing by Alain Picard

All quotes from Alain's book

Drawing is the foundation of all painting, thus great care should be taken to establish good habits.

Edges are found at the intersection of contrasting values and define the separation of major shapes of value.  Evaluate whether edges are hard (sharp), soft (blurred), or broken (textured).

When determining your focal point, consider the rule of thirds.  Divide your image into thirds with two horizontal lines and two vertical lines.  These intersections become hot spots, or pleasing locations, for focal points in your design…. Another effective use of the rule of thirds is to divide the land and sky of a landscape painting so that the sky accounts for two-thirds of the available space.

Start With Why by Simon Sinek

All quotes from Simon's book

There are only two ways to influence human behavior:  you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.

If you don’t know WHY, you can’t know HOW.

One Day We'll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul

All quotes from Scaachi's book

Your mom is your blood and bone before your body even knows how to make any.

Racism doesn't have to be accurate, it just has to be acute.

Fear always reaches a breaking point and turns into anxiety or rage.

We are deeply afraid of making marginalized voices stronger, because we think it makes privileged ones that much weaker.