Cognitions

Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.

—~ Eckhart Tolle

The Ego, however, is not who you really are. The ego is your self-image; it is your social mask; it is the role you are playing. Your social mask thrives on approval. It wants control, and it is sustained by power, because it lives in fear.

—Deepak Chopra (via lazyyogi)

Neuroscience may increasingly give us the capability to tinker more viscerally with our own experience, but this is nothing but the means to an ever debatable end. Science is nothing but a method, and one which can never identify the life most worth living. The latter can only be arrived at biographically and culturally, through lived experience, dialogue, and contingency. Everything that is not a fact exists in the vast penumbra of narrative.

—James Garvey

Acid and drugs have always lured man. It is nothing new. It is as old as man himself — in the Vedas they used to have SOMA. In India they have continued to use drugs down the centuries — charas and ganga and opium — they have tried everything. Now the madness is spreading all over the world. Now people are trying to find a shortcut — a very easy and cheap thing — that you can possess, that you can just swallow. Samadhi cannot be swallowed. And God is not a chemical phenomenon; you have to earn it, only then can you have it.

Drugs are a deception. They give you a feeling which is imaginary, hallucinatory, they give you a feeling that you are back, part of nature. People come to me; they say, “I have been on a drug trip, and it was beautiful, and so many things happened.” Nothing happened! — because after it you are again the same, even worse. It only releases dreams in you, but you become so unconscious that you take the dreams to be real. You are not aware, so you cannot see whether this is a dream or a reality.

Our meditations are nothing but drugs — perfect drugs, without any chemicals in them. A man who can meditate will not be able to enjoy the drug, any drug. Because, his meditation gives him so much peace and the drug will disturb it.

—Osho (via nirvikalpa)

Affirmation means acceptance of your own miraculous complexity. It means saying ‘yes’ to your own being. It means acquiescing to your reality as a spirit in flesh. Within the framework of your own complexity, you have the right to say ‘no’ to certain situations, to express your desires, to communicate your feelings.

If you do so, then in the great flow and sweep of your eternal reality there will be an overall current of love and creativity that carries you. Affirmation is the acceptance of yourself in your present as the person that you are. Within that acceptance you may find qualities that you wish you did not have, or habits that annoy you. You must not expect to be ‘perfect.’ As mentioned earlier, your ideas of perfection mean a state of fulfillment beyond which there is no future growth, and no such state exists.

—Seth (via nirvikalpa)

Don’t ever mistake my silence for ignorance, my calmness for acceptance, or my kindness for weakness.

—Anonymous  (via weedbrain)

(Source: quotelibrary.info, via mentalalchemy)

Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.

—William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”  (via moreofamore)

(Source: shisaa, via moreofamore)

Don’t explain. People only hear what they want to hear.

—Paulo Coelho   (via moreofamore)

(Source: kari-shma, via moreofamore)

If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself.

—Martin Heidegger  (via moreofamore)

(Source: nminusone, via moreofamore)

One of the most commonly overlooked spiritual practices is daring to be completely honest with everyone you encounter. Some may say others cannot handle the grace of honesty, but true honesty is not a strategy or a weapon of any kind. It is the willingness to be open and absolutely transparent in sharing how any moment feels in your heart. It has nothing to do with confrontation, accusation, or any form of blame. True honesty is the willingness to stand completely exposed, allowing the world to do what it may, and say what it will, only so you may know who you are – beyond all ideas.

Feelings such as shame, guilt, doubt, envy, anger, and resentment arise whenever we have prevented ourselves from speaking our deepest truths, or withheld a depth of sincerity from being shared with others. With nothing to withhold or hide, the truth is spoken freely – at no one’s expense. The truth contains no form of blame or judgment. Instead, it celebrates how intimately you know yourself by how open and available you’re willing to be. Knowing this, life’s deepest wisdom always remains the same: you’ll feel better when you’re totally honest.

This is why honesty is also the ultimate healing modality. Honesty is the absence of avoidance, no matter what situation appears. Inevitably, life transforms when the value of honesty is no longer dominated by an attachment to convenience or the threat of rejection.

When honesty is regarded as your highest value and acted upon with kindness and compassion in every personal encounter, you invite the precision of life’s inherent perfection into all areas of life. In doing so, every relationship and circumstance transforms at the rate in which true sincerity of heart leads the way. This reveals life’s natural way of being, which cannot be known on the deepest level until you’re being completely honest.

—Matt Kahn (via nirvikalpa)

The heart is like a flower - unless it is open it cannot release its fragrance into the world. The fragrance of the heart is made up of the qualities and virtues of our spirit. Most of us have learned how to keep our heart closed in a world that would trample all over us if we let it. Being open hearted today seems to require tremendous courage. It is a courage which comes only when we realise that no one can hurt us, no matter what they say or do. They may hurt our body, but if we have realised we are spirit, nothing outside can touch us, if we so decide. Little by little, practice opening your heart to those you think have hurt you. Realise it wasnt them that hurt you, it was yourself. And it taught you not to trust and you closed your heart. A closed heart is in need of opening. And when you do, you will have begun to heal yourself.

—Osho (via thefreenomad)

(Source: bohemianromance, via thefreenomad)