Eknath Easwaran Quotes

Love is so exquisitely elusive. It cannot be bought, cannot be badgered, cannot be hijacked. It is available only in one rare form: as the natural response of a healthy mind and healthy heart.

One learns a good deal in the school of suffering. I wonder what would have happened to me if I had had an easy life, and had not had the privilege of tasting the joys of jail and all it means." ~ Badsha Khan, quote in Nonviolent Soldier of Islam.

As meditation deepens, compulsions, cravings, and fits of emotions begin to lose their power to dictate our behavior. We see clearly that choices are possible: we can say yes, or we can say no.

All we are is the result of what we have thought." By changing our mode of thinking, we can remake ourselves completely.

A mind that is racing over worries about the future or recycling resentments from the past is ill equipped to handle the challenges of the moment. By slowing down, we can train the mind to focus completely in the present. Then we will find that we can function well whatever the difficulties. That is what it means to be stress-proof: not avoiding stress but being at our best under pressure, calm, cool, and creative in the midst of the storm.

All negative thoughts – anger, fear, passion, compulsive craving -- tend to be fast. If we could see the mind when it is caught in such thoughts, we would really see it racing. But positive thoughts like love, patience, tenderness, compassion, and understanding are slow - not turbulent, rushing brooks of thinking, so to speak but broad rivers that are calm, clear, and deep.

Attention can be trained very naturally, with affection, just as you train a puppy. When something distracts your attention, you say “Come back” and bring it back again. With a lot of training, you can teach your mind to come running back to you when you call, just like a friendly pup.

Why do you want a new truth when you do not practice what you already know?

Peace would always be less compelling than war. Perhaps that was why there was so little of it in the world.

As by knowing one tool of iron, dear one, we come to know all things made out of iron: that they differ only in name and form, while the stuff of which all are made is iron- so through that spiritual wisdom, dear one, we come to know that ll of life is one.

As by knowing one tool of iron, dear one, We come to know all things made out of iron - That they differ only in name and form, While the stuff of which all are made is iron - So through spiritual wisdom, dear one, We come to know that all of life is one.

Concentration breeds efficiency while division brings inefficiency, error, and tension.

You are an exalted creature, with a spark of the divine within you that nothing you do can extinguish; and you have been granted life in order to give, because it is in giving that we receive.

Judged by the normal standards of human affairs, the lives of men and women of God may look overburdened with suffering, and even inconclusive.

Let nothing upset you; Let nothing frighten you. Everything is changing; God alone is changeless. Patience attains the goal. Who has God lacks nothing; God alone fills every need.

People say that modern life has grown so complicated, so busy, so crowded that we have to hurry even to survive. We need not accept that idea. It is quite possible to live in the midst of a highly developed technological society and keep an easy, relaxed pace while doing a lot of hard work. We have a choice.

Two forces pervade human life, the Gita says: the upward thrust of evolution and the downward pull of our evolutionary past.

We expect professional and financial success to require time and effort. Why do we take success in our relationships for granted? Why should we expect harmony to come naturally just because we are in love?

Reason tells the soul how mistaken it is in thinking that all these earthly things are of the slightest value by comparison with what it is seeking. A little recollection reminds it that all these things come to an end. And faith instructs it in what the soul must do to find satisfaction.

At the first gate, the gatekeeper asks, “Is this true?” At the second gate, he asks, “Is it kind?” And at the third gate, “Is it necessary?” If we applied this proverb strictly, most of us would have very little to say. I am not recommending silence, however, but control over our speech.

The popular etymology of the word mantram gives us some clue what it means to have the holy name at work in our consciousness. It is said that mantram comes from the roots man, “the mind,” and tri, “to cross.” The mantram is that which enables us to cross the sea of the mind. The sea is a perfect symbol for the mind. It is in constant motion; there is calm one day and storm the next.

In themselves, most of these thoughts are not actually harmful; a few of them may even be rather elevating. The trouble is that we have very little control over them. If you ask the thoughts, they would say, “This poor fellow thinks he is thinking us, but we are thinking him.

The effect of the mantram is cumulative: constant repetition, constant practice, is required for the mantram to take root in our consciousness and gradually transform it, just as constant repetition makes the advertiser’s jingle stick in our minds.

Every human heart has a deep need to love - to be in love, really, with all of life. This is the kind of love that comes when the mind is still. . . . Be still and know that we are all God’s children; then you will be in love with all.

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy. O divine master, grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled as to console, To be understood as to understand, To be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.

Live only for yourself and you will never grow; live for the welfare of all those around you and you will grow to your full stature.

Each time a divine incarnation comes to us, it is not to bring new truths or to establish a new religion but to remind us of what we have forgotten: that we are all one, and that we must live in harmony with this unity by learning to contribute to the joy and fulfillment of all.

Mind that is fast is sick, a mind that is slow is sound, and a mind that is still is divine. This is what the Bible means when it says, “Be still and know that I am God.

Don’t try to control the future,” he would say. “Work on the one thing you can learn to control: your own responses.

Let Nothing Upset You Let nothing upset you; Let nothing frighten you. Everything is changing; God alone is changeless. Patience attains the goal. Who has God lacks nothing; God alone fills every need.

The Buddha said, “When you are walking, walk. When you are sitting, sit. Don’t wobble.

To get angry with oneself and reject oneself is not helpful and is not what the Buddha teaches. The best thing is not to say either “I’m all good” or “I’m worthless; I’m no good.” The best thing is not to think about oneself, not talk about oneself, not dwell upon oneself at all – to be neither overconfident nor self-deprecating.

Nothing finite will ever satisfy us. We can go to the moon; it is a great achievement, but after a while our eyes turn beyond to Neptune. Wherever we go in space, wherever we go in time, we find limitations. Our need is for infinite joy, infinite love, infinite wisdom and infinite capacity for service, and until this need is met, we can never, never rest peacefully.