The Heart's Code by Paul Pearsall

All quotes from Paul's book

A vascular system…could be wrapped around the earth two and a half times.

Our billions of heart cells may be able to combine to form a quantum energy generator that operates not only by mechanical pumping rules but by the laws of the quantum world such as non-locality, thus instantaneously organizing the info-energetic connection that constitutes all systems in the universe.  The heart may be capable of resonating a nonlocal “field” of intelligence throughout every one of the trillions of cells in our body, using them as info-energetic storage pods and temporary holding areas for the kind of information that makes us who and how we are.

The brain is primarily designed as a reactive health maintenance system.

The body is mass, energy and information all at the same time.

The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion by Thich Nhat Hanh

All quotes from Thich's book

We should begin meditation practice by looking deeply into things and not letting the mind entrap us in games of words, reasons, or speculation.

If you die because of violence, you must meditate on compassion in order to forgive those who killed you.

The Power of Breath by Swami Saradananda

All quotes from Swami's book

The point where two or more nadis meet forms a junction of energy known as a chakra, Sanskrit for “wheel”.  You might like to visualize these whirling balls of energy as a multi-dimensional telephone exchange where numerous wires feed in and distribute vast amounts of information. 

Your breath is the interface between your body and your mind.

Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain Science & Buddhism with Zara Houshmand, Robert B Livingston and B Alan Wallace

All quotes from Zara, Alan, and Robert's book

"The brain as a whole tends to the best it can by integrating all of its resources that are available". Robert B Livingston

"According to Buddhist theory, there are some things that belong to subtle consciousness, or subtle mind, that are independent from the body, from the brain.  There's no assertion in Buddhism that there is a thing called a soul or a thing called consciousness, something that exists independently of the brain.  There is no such thing existing independently of the brain or being dependent upon the brain.  But rather, consciousness is understood as a multifaceted matrix of events".  Dalai Lama

"When someone builds a house to live in, you have to have a plan.  And on the basis of that plan you build the house, and then later you can live in it. In the same manner, sentient beings who produced the evolution of this present universe made this plan, but not necessarily consciously, by leaving karmic imprints within their subtle mental consciousness, which later, when activated, made it possible to influence the formation of this universe".  Thubten Jinpa

"Although the world is put together for us in consciousness, it is assembled from a distributed, analytical, decision-making apparatus which has a surprisingly marvelous gross, microscopic, and ultrastructural architecture". Antonio R Damasio

"When death occurs suddenly, if one is in perfect health, one's memories still remain very sharp".  Dalai Lama

"The newborn infant has about four times as much dream-state sleeping as the adult does".  Allan Hobson

"The five elements are the elements of earth, water, fire, air, and consciousness.  Bear in mind, "earth" doesn't mean dirt, it refers to the solid constituents of the body; water to the fluid constituents".  Dalai Lama

"When you have the very subtle consciousness that one is supposed to have just before death, that really does not mean that you have heightened, greater awareness, but rather the contrary. It means that in fact you are reducing perception to very low levels".  Antonio Damasio

"The fewer the examples, the stronger the evidence must be".  Allan Hobson

"Even in Buddhism there is no notion of a self-sufficient, self-supporting "I", self, soul, or ego.  This is thoroughly refuted. Buddhists do assert the existence of awareness, but to use the term soul in a Buddhist context is misleading, because Buddhists don't use the term and by and large refute the existence of a soul".  Dalai Lama

"As a result of scientific investigations, we have more less refuted the notion of a truly existent self. You can't find a soul, or a human being.  You can find the human body, but you can't find the human being per se, the person qua person, the entity for which we feel compassion and affection".  Dalai Lama

"The absence of an intrinsic self is emptiness, and emptiness is something to be realized.  It is not designed to reintroduce a soul".  Dalai Lama

"I always believe that each individual human being has some kind of responsibility for humanity as a whole". Dalai Lama

"According to the Buddhist view… consciousness is simply of the nature of luminosity and cognizance, much as fire is of the nature of heat". B Alan Wallace

Religion & Healing in Native America: Pathways for Renewal by Suzanne J Crawford O’Brien

The quote from Suzanne's book

Healing requires restoring the soul, restoring identity and returning individuals to their place in community.

The Smudging and Blessings Book by Jane Alexander

All quotes from Jane's book

Light your aromatherapy burner and add three drops of lemon and or lavender oil.  Lemon helps you accept change and let go; lavender gives resolution and helps you to release negative emotions.

Cleaning crystals: simply immerse it in a bowl of water to which you have added three tablespoons of sea salt.  Leave for 72 hours, then take it out and dry it. 

Within by Dr Habib Sadeghi

All quotes from Habib's book

Through the power of being in your visualization, you can come to know something through experience and imprint upon the cells of your body what ought to be.  What you create in your virtual world, you bring into your material world.

Self-love is an act of “being” – not doing.

Everything in our lives… manifests not from what we wish or hope for, but what we deeply believe about ourselves.

We each have the ability to re-create our lives on a daily basis by managing our personal thought energy that arises from our beliefs.  If something negative is happening in your life, it’s time to look internally and examine how you are attracting these circumstances into your life based on your beliefs about yourself.

Because life is a mirror reflecting our inner nature back to us, we only have to look at the external conditions of our lives for clues to uncover the hidden beliefs that limit us.

Consciousness in the moment is what allows us to make new choices that heal and serve us.

When it comes to our lives, it’s the subtle energies of our expectations that drive us.

A great way to challenge your false beliefs is to compare what you believe with what you know.  There’s a big difference between believing something and knowing something.  Knowing something comes from direct physical experience, while believing something is an intellectual choice to see something as true.  When you believe something, you have to explain it or justify it to someone else.  When you know something, it’s self-evident.

We can see that our life situations and our bodies are not who we are, just where we are at the moment.

We don’t create our lives quite so much by what we’re thinking about but by what we’re feeling about.

Consciousness is beingness…. You cannot be sad but conscious of happiness at the same time.  Being conscious of something is a state of knowing something, being in the midst of it, experiencing it now.  We’ve learned that knowing, as opposed to believing, only comes from direct physical or emotional experience.  So, to become conscious of anything, we must generate an experience for ourselves that allows us to know what it’s like to be, do or have whatever it is we desire.

The subconscious creates what it knows, what it is aware of.  To raise our level of awareness, we must raise our level of beingness.

Being is the key to conscious creation.

Having is a natural by-product of being.

We only want what we want for one reason: how it will make us feel.

When we are being something, our lives are growth-oriented…. When we’re being, we’re not task-driven….The doing just comes naturally.

You create the consciousness of having your desire first, and then listen intuitively for what you need to do… You have to create the attitude of having your desire, not the outcome… So be it now.  You’ll be led to what you need to do, and soon you will have your desire.

"To flow” is the root of the word affluent…. Affluence is anything that flows towards others and is represented by our generosity with whatever might be at our disposal – whether it is our attention, our material resources, or our care.

Full responsibility and full power will always be a package deal.

Remember, it’s your story and you’re writing it.  Your life is a mirror image of you, reflecting back every energetic signal you’ve put out into the universe.

Saying yes to your contraction means being willing to discover what the problem is trying to teach us, rather than the problem itself.

When we see our problem as a call to return to wholeness, it becomes our ally, and we say yes to the situation as it is, reducing resistance.

Cooperating with our contraction means becoming conscious of what we feel, when we’re feeling it, and why we’re feeling it.

The goal in healing is to stop being manipulated by outer circumstances and to enter your experiences of contraction consciously and willingly.  The idea is to open your emotional challenges back up that were shut down earlier in life…. The intention is not to feel bad but to remain open to any feelings that come to the surface and allow them to be consciously and completely experienced.

If we are to heal our lives, we must remain open to receive all life has for us, including the challenges.

Remember, the universe is an affirmative place.  It’s always saying yes.

Many of our perceptions come from our parents, even before we were born. Investigating our parents’ perceptions can be valuable tools in changing our own.

Our genes are not performing based on what’s happening in our environment, but on what we think is happening in our environment.

The “real” circle of life goes like this:  an event occurs that we observe or experience which is filtered through our perception of it, after which we form a judgment as to whether it is “good” or “bad”, which leads to an emotional reaction, that results in a specific vibration being sent out into the universe, that creates an attraction for another matching event, and so on.  It seems like a lot of steps, but this process happens in a fraction of a second in every facet of our lives.  This is why it’s essential to not trust your physical sense if you want real change in your life.

Always look in the direction you want to go, no matter where your car is headed or how fast it’s taking you there.

So much of our own suffering in life is self-inflicted, usually when we make assumptions about the lives of others…. We constantly compares ourselves to others in regard to body image, salary, or accomplishments.  We compete with others on these levels to establish a sense of superiority and self-worth.  If we feel we’re on the long end of the competition, then we complain.

Glenn Macey's World of Acrylics: How to Paint Sea, Sky, Land and Life

All quotes from Glenn's book

What is a neat and fast way to open your mind?  Try closing your eyes and breathing deeply…. What fragrances can you smell? The salty ocean? Decaying leaves in the forest? … try to picture the colour that the aroma suggests .

Adventures for Your Soul by Shannon Kaiser

All quotes from Shannon's book

Fear is a lot like junk food.  It is convenient, easy to access, and it seems to be everywhere, but that doesn’t mean we have to buy into it.

Inspired choices are almost always motivated from the heart.  When we make an inspired choice it feels expansive, exciting, and loving.  Desperate choices are usually ones we feel forced into.

Part of our despair in life comes because we refuse to detach from a version of ourselves that no longer serves us.

We let comparison kidnap our joy.

You follow your heart.  You go inward and begin to trust yourself.  You let go of trying to please others and allow your true self to express itself fully.  You no longer settle.  You are happy and connected to your life.  You live in the moment…. All of your relationships are purposeful and fulfilling. You are abundant with wellness, financial stability, and inner peace. 

Pilots don’t worry about turbulence at all.  In fact, one pilot told me it is like your car going over a speed bump.  When was the last time you drove your car over a speed bump and you started freaking out that you might die  it doesn’t happen, because we recognize speed bumps are just a caution to slow down.” .

Realize that people who urge you to be realistic generally want you to accept their version of reality.

Building a happy life is about daily action. 

The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss

All quotes from Timothy's book

What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.

Living like a millionaire requires doing interesting things and not just owning enviable things.

Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.

Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.

Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant.

Lack of time is actually lack of priorities.

Learn to ignore or redirect all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable.  Most are all three.

The bottom line is that you only have the rights you fight for.

You’re not going to find time, you have to make time. 

People don’t want to be millionaires – they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy. 

There are always lateral options.

Focus on being productive instead of busy.

“Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.

“If only I had more money” is the easiest way to postpone the intense self-examination and decision-making necessary to create a life of enjoyment – now and not later.

Pure hell forces action, but anything less can be endured with enough clever rationalization.

Are you better off than you were one year ago, one month ago, or one week ago?  If not, things will not improve by themselves.

Shadowcatchers by Steve Wall

All quotes from Steve's book

There’s a lot of truth in those stories.  And they’ll leave you like that.  There was no power in the stone any more than the stone had before.  But there was tremendous power when the man focused on the stone.  When we scatter things out, they run back and forth all over the place.  When he focused on the stone in healing and he went to his village with that healing in mind, his focusing set the power in motion.  That’s what all these objects do.  There’s no power in an eagle feather until it’s charged, until somebody focuses on it.  The object is only there to bring a focus.  It’s like a magnifying glass.  If you get it at the right place, you can start a fire with it.  But if you move it too far either way, it doesn’t work.  It’s a focusing.  That’s what objects are for. They don’t have any power. 

Do Your Om Thing by Rebecca Pacheco

All quotes from Rebecca's book

Yoga is about attaining a clearer sense of who you are, how you feel, what you want, and how you interact with the world around you.

At yoga’s core, it seeks to connect us to life in a compassionate way.

Originally written in Sanskrit as chitta vritti nirodhah, the purpose of yoga is “to still the fluctuations of the mind”, per the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a foundational yoga text written roughly 2000 years ago.  Everything else, such as the flexibility and fitness, is secondary.

There are no spiritual scorecards on the path to enlightenment.

Happier people do not live easier lives, with less hard work, grief, divorce, or financial strain than the rest of us.  They’re simply more grateful for what they have and choose to be conscious of their contentment more often.

Gratitude.  It’s the skill of taking yourself out of the tailspin of scarcity and reconnecting to contentment.

Meditation is the natural, graceful state of being yourself and knowing who that is.

Stop fleeing the moment and yourself in favor of quick comforts.

Which moments each day are you throwing away?  Remind yourself that they are real and significant.  No matter how mundane, your journey, spirit, and best self are in these moments.

Celebrate what your body does before how it looks.  Never diminish others to feel better.  Never diminish yourself.

Prioritize sensation over appearance.  How would you walk if you felt confident?

Most of us are highly conscious about the content stored in our smartphones, the content of our bank accounts, and the content of our closets, for example.  Wouldn’t it make sense to be equally, if not more, concerned with the contents of our minds?

The only way to meditate badly is to not meditate at all.

Any yogi could mediate in a dark room lit with candles and incense.  But could you meditate at the dentist?

It’s only when we’re insecure about who we are, what we believe, or what we’re practicing that we become anxious or judgmental about how others choose to live.

We don’t need more time in our day to strengthen our spirits and let the inner journey unfold.  We only need more awareness.

The easy path leads to the hard life, and the hard path leads to the easy life.

The obstacle is the deity.

Mastery of the mind is the purpose of yoga…. The first step to practicing yoga authentically is to acknowledge that you are not perfect.  You live in your life, and you are you.  Rather than a limitation or a letdown, this is a relief and a privilege.

Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold

All quotes from Stephen & Howard's book

Attempt to think of all our experiences as dreams and to try to maintain unbroken continuity of consciousness between two states of waking and sleeping.

Ask: am I dreaming or awake right now--- and really ponder it.  Develop critical-reflective attitude toward your state of consciousness.

Purple Cow by Seth Godin

All quotes from Dennis’ book

The leader is the leader because he did something remarkable.

You need to be investing in the Purple Cow. Products, services and techniques so useful, interesting, outrageous, and noteworthy that the market will want to listen to what you have to say. No, in fact, you must develop products, services, and techniques that the market will actually seek out.

Criticism comes to those who stand out.

It seems that we face two choices: to be invisible, anonymous, uncriticised, and safe, or to take a chance at greatness, uniqueness, and the cow.

We’ve been raised with a false belief: we mistakenly believe that criticism leads to failure.

 The opposite of “remarkable” is “very good”.

Find the market niche first, and then make the remarkable product – not the other way around.

Consumers with needs are the ones most likely to respond to your solutions.

You need to figure out who’s buying, and then solve their problem.

Assume that what was remarkable last time won’t be remarkable this time.

You have to go where the competition is not. The further the better. 

Side Hustle: From Idea to Income in 27 Days by Chris Guillebeau

All quotes from Chris' book

A feasible idea is one that you can turn into reality using the skills, time, and resources you already have.

You don't have to be better than the competition in every way, but you should at least be different.  Become a detective and survey the landscape to understand what else is out there.

Busy people are good at side hustles, because they know how to make their time count.

At some point in their journey, longtime hustlers learn an important lesson: you can do something repeatedly, or you can do something just once.

Ashtanga Yoga by Gregor Maehle

All quotes from Gregor's book

Emotions are only a form of the mind.  To be emotional means to react to a present situation according to a past conditioning.

As the Yoga Sutra explains, every thought, emotion, and experience leaves a subconscious imprint (samskara) in the mind.  These imprints determine who we will be in the future.  According to the Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad, as long as liberation is not achieved, the soul, like a caterpillar that draws itself from one blade of grass over to the next, will, by the force of its impressions in this life, reach out and draw itself over to a new body in a new life.

The body we have today is nothing but the accumulation of our past thoughts, emotions, and actions.

Our body is the crystallized history of our past thoughts.

The body is our vehicle and the storehouse of our past.

It is through the belief that individuals exercise free will that ego is produced; and, in turn, ego produces suffering.

The entire cosmos, including our body-mind complex, is an unconscious machine operated upon by God.  Our self, who is pure consciousness, is forever inactive.  It merely witnesses.

Time is the operating system of the human mind; to go beyond time is to go beyond mind. 

Soul Cravings by Erwin Raphael McManus

All quotes from Erwin's book

When love does not come to you, it breaks your heart, but when you do not give love away, it hardens your heart.

Love reminds us that there is a knowing beyond reason.

Most of us don’t sell our souls to the devil; we just give them away.

Contrary to what you may have been told all your life, God is not offended by questions.

It may seem way too simple, but the world will change when we change.

Most of us want God to fix every wrong choice we make without taking from us our right to choose wrongly.  We want to make God into our own person pooper-scooper following right behind us, cleaning up our mess.

It was a fifteen year old boy, blinded by a tragic accident, who found 63 ways to use a 6-dot cell to communicate meaning. Imagine finding a way to make 6 dots tell any story, communicate any theory, bring meaning into a world gone dark.

When you feel something deeply, it’s a true feeling, but it doesn’t mean that it should become the basis of all reality.  Our emotions can be a turbulent ocean constantly changing in response to our circumstances.

If you conclude life is meaningless, your story ends before you do.  You may never make the connection, but the cynicism, bitterness, despair, and emptiness eating away at you have everything to do with your need to believe in something or someone.

If you were meant to fly, not even running really fast is that impressive.

To be reincarnated is not a gift, but a declaration that you have not yet lived your life well enough.

There is a reason for our existence, a reason to live, and if we can’t find it, we’ll just make it up. And if we lack imagination, then we’ll just medicate ourselves, sedate ourselves, intoxicate ourselves, indulge ourselves, deceive ourselves, or just simply come to the end of ourselves.

Without hope your life may not come to an end, but it does come to a stop.

All of us are called to a place we have not been.  Our lives were always intended to be journeys into the unknown.

Evil never looks for permission.

It’s amazing how much we can endure when we are convinced there is a purpose to our struggle.

As children we assume that greatness is within our grasp.  Whatever inspires us, we begin to dream that one day we will be the best.  It is only as we lose our childlike innocence that we begin to settle for far less.  A part of growing up seems to be acquiescing to mediocrity.  It’s easy to say that we’re just becoming realistic, that it’s just a part of growing up.  But, in fact, it’s the death of our souls.  When we stop dreaming, we start dying.

Your soul longs to become, and you can try to ignore it, but soon you will find yourself hating your life and despising everyone who refuses to give up on his or her dreams.

We’re more self-absorbed but less self-aware.  We don’t know who we are.

When we are optimistic about the future, we find the energy to create it.

Eventually it hits you: you cannot take love; you have to give it.  Love is a gift that cannot be stolen.

The farther we move from community, the closer we move to violence.