The World

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.'”

― Edgar D. Mitchell

View the entire cartoon by Zen Pencils:http://bit.ly/1ayxI3Q

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever know

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever know"

Quotes from "Atomic Suicide?" -- The Dangers of Nuclear Fission

Wonderful quotes from the book "Atomic Suicide?" by Lao Russell. Learn why we need to evolve beyond nuclear energy:

Quotes from "Atomic Suicide?" -- The Dangers of Nuclear Fission

Wonderful quotes from the book "Atomic Suicide?" by Lao Russell. Learn why we need to evolve beyond nuclear energy:

Confucius Quotes

"Signs and symbols control the world, not phrases and laws" - Confucius 551- 479 BC. 

The World

Contentment

"Enjoyment of whatever may be desired"

"Truly the Righteous will be in Bliss: on Thrones (of Dignity) will they command a sight (of all things) : you will recognize in their faces the beaming brightness of Bliss"--- Holy Quran: An- Mutaffifin 22-24

"Keep your lives free from the love of money, and he satisfied with what you have. For God has said, 'I will never abandon you."--- Holy Bible: Heb. 13:5

"Put away all covetousness and seek contentment: for the covetous hath ever been deprived and the contented hath ever been loved and praised."--- Baha'i Holy Writings:

"Heath is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship."--- Buddhist Holy writings:

"He who has the least desires in the world is richest man in the world. He who is filled with desires is the poorest man. Therefore one should have contentment and self-satisfaction."--- Hindu Holy Writings:

"O Nanak, there can be no union between the love of worldliness and the love of the Lord; no matter how much everyone many desire it."--- Sikh Holy Writings.

Picture Perfect: Blind Hearts

Eckhart Tolle

“Awareness is the greatest agent for change."

"Nonresistance, nonjudgement, and nonattachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living.”

1. “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.” 

2. “Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" --- and find that there is no death.” 

3. “To love is to recognize yourself in another.” 



4. “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is.” 

5. “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.” 


6. “Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.”

7. “Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”

8. “Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”

9. “The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.”

10. “Life is the dancer and you are the dance.”

11. “You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.”

12. “Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.”

13. “Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.”

14. “A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its image-making and self-seeking. In a genuine relationship, there is an outward flow of open, alert attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting whatsoever.”

15. “Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.”

16. “Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness.”

17. “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”

18. “All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.”

19. “Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.”

20. “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”


21. “You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.”

22. “Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose.”

23. “All the things that truly matter, beauty, love, creativity, joy and inner peace arise from beyond the mind.”

24. “When you don't cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought.”

25. “Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that other people have of you is inauthentic living.”

26. “Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the "love" of ego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her. The bond that connects you with that person is the same bond that connects you with the person sitting next to you on a bus, or with a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs.”

27. “Humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die. … If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction.”

28. “Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.”

29. “To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.”

30. “Don't let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.”

31. “Awareness is the greatest agent for change."

32. “The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.”

33. “If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. Primary reality is within; secondary reality without.”


34. “...the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whaterver form. Both are illusions.”

35. “Man made God in his own image...”

36. “Don't Seek Happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness.”

37. “Can you look without the voice in your head commenting, drawing conclusions, comparing, or trying to figure something out?”

38. “Become conscious of being conscious.”

39. “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you will ever have.”

40. “Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.”

41. “The significance is hiding in the insignificant. Appreciate everything.”

42. “What a liberation to realize that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.”

43. “Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be.”

44. “This is my secret," he said. "I don't mind what happens.”

45. “It is when we are trapped in incessant streams of compulsive thinking that the universe really disintegrates for us, and we lose the ability to sense the interconnectedness of all that exists.”

46. “When another recognizes you, that recognition draws the dimension of Being more fully into this world through both of you. That is the love that redeems the world.”

47. “All problems are illusions of the mind.”

48. “The human condition: lost in thought.”

49. “Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary.”

50. “Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called "God." As soon as you turn away from it, God ceases to be a reality in your life, and all you are left with is the mental concept of God, which some people believe in and others deny. Even belief in God is only a poor substitute for the living reality of God manifesting every moment of your life.”

51. “Doing is never enough if you neglect Being.”

52. “Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much.”

53. “Authentic human interactions become impossible when you lose yourself in a role.”

54. “Nonresistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe.”

55. “The ego wants to want more than it wants to have.”

56. “In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.”

57. “Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you.”

58. “The moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace.”

59. “What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.”

60. “The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science, or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction.”

61. “Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.”

62. “Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it & let it be without imposing a word of mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you.”

63. “The brain does not create consciousness, but conciousness created the brain, the most complex physical form on earth, for its expression. "

64. “You are here to enable the divine purpose of the Universe to unfold. That is how important you are!”

65. “In today's rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being.”

66. “The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not “the thinker.” The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.”

67. “Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much. Language consists of five basic sounds produced by the vocal cords. They are the vowels a, e, i, o, u. The other sounds are consonants produced by air pressure: s, f, g, and so forth. Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are, or the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even what a tree or stone is in its depth?”

68. “It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.”


69. “The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that.”

70. “The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly—you usually don't use it at all. It uses you. All the things that truly matter — beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace — arise from beyond the mind...”

71. “When this delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs whatever I think, say, and do, what kind of world do I create?”

72. “That in you which recognizes madness as madness (even if it is your own) is sanity, is the arising awareness, is the end of insanity.”

73. “Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth.”

74. “Each person's life – each lifeform, in fact – represents a world, a unique way in which the universe experiences itself.”

75. “Nothing has ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now; and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?”

76. “Love, joy, and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance.”

77. “Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everyone is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being.”

78. “Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.”

79. “Throughout history humans have inflicted countless violent, cruel, and hurtful acts on each other, and continue to do so. Are they all to be condemned; are they all guilty? Or are those acts simply expressions of unconsciousness, an evolutionary stage that we are now growing out of?

Jesus’ words, “Forgive them for they do not know what they do,” also apply to yourself.”

80. “The key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body - to feel it at all times. This will rapidly deepen and transform your life. The more consciousness you direct into the inner body, the higher its vibrational frequency becomes.”

81. “Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.”

Steve Jobs

"I want to put a ding in the Universe!"

1. “When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."

2. "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important."

3. "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." 

4. "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."

5. “I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.”

6. “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”

7. “We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief...and then you die. And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it!”

8. “Almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

9. “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

10. “I’m an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals. As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what’s happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don’t seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids.”

11. "No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new."

12. "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Thank you Steve Jobs for putting a ding in the Universe!

Thank you Steve Jobs You Changed The World!

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela received 250 awards, including the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize:

1. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us: it’s in everyone. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”


2. "I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.” 


3. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” 
4. "For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” 


5. “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” 

6. “As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself… Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.” 

7. "Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?"

8. "I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man."

9. "If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness."

10. "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."

11. "Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another."

12. "Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated."

13. "There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children."
14. "There is no such thing as part freedom."

15. "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."

16. "We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right."

17. “And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same”

18. “As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

19. “We need to exert ourselves that much more, and break out of the vicious cycle of dependence imposed on us by the financially powerful: those in command of immense market power and those who dare to fashion the world in their own image.”

20. "Man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished."

21. "Each of you must know that the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfil themselves."

22. "No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People are taught hate, and if they are able to learn hate, then they can also be taught love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."

Mahatma Gandhi

20 quotes from such a wonderful spirit: 
1. “Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.”
2. “Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
3. “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
4. “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
5. “You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” 6. “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed”
7. “There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.” 
8. “An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
9. “God has no religion.”
10. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” 
11. "Hate the sin, love the sinner.
12. "I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life." 
13. "In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth."
14. "It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."
15. "When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it - always."
16. "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."
17. "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"
18. "Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary."
19. “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”


And my absolute favorite:
20. “Be the change you want to see in the world.” 

Albert Einstein

20 quotes from a genius:

1. "We have been all wrong! What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been lowered as to be perceptible to the senses."

2. "Time is not at all what it seems to be. It is not flowing in one direction, and the future exists simultaneously with the past." 

3. "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

4. "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

5. "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."

6. "The only real valuable thing is intuition." (Intuition comes from your higher self).

7. "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds."

8. "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."

9. "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

10. "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."

11. "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

12. "In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself."

13. "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!"

14. "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."

15. "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

16. "The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."

17. "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

18. "He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

19. A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

I've ALWAYS wondered how such a great man could give the formula that lead to the creation of the atomic bomb. The following quote clarifies everything:

20. "The release of atom power has changed everything...except our way of thinking. The solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."

I forgive and love you, Albert Einstein!