"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky."

Tagore

"Water is fluid, soft and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield.
As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard.
This is another paradox. What is soft is strong!"

Lao Tzu

"I have come into the world to see this:
the sword drop from mens' hands
even at the height of their arc of rage,
because we have finally realized
there is just one flesh we can wound."

Hafiz

"Nature never did betray the Heart that loved her."

Wordsworth

The spider dances her web without knowing that there are flies who will get caught in it. The fly, dancing nonchalantly on a sunbeam, gets caught in the net without knowing what lies in store. But through both of them ‘It’ dances, and inside and outside are united in this dance

zen in the art of archery

"The cave that you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek."

Joseph Campbell

"Be prepared, for the time is soon that you will move through the world unfettered like a cloud. You will fly with no boundaries like a bird and rejoice in the message of Truth."
Don Alejandro

"Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all - young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self. “Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, ‘I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom!’ “The other creatures laughed out loud and said ‘Fool! let go and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks and you will die quicker than boredom!’’ But the one headed them not and taking a breath, did let go and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom and he was bruised no more. And the creatures downstream to whom he was a stranger cried ‘see a miracle!’ A creature like ourselves yet he flies! See the Messiah come to save us all! And the one carried in the current said, ‘I am no Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is the voyage, this adventure.’ But they cried the more ‘Saviour!’ all the while clinging to their rocks, and when they looked again, he was gone and they were left alone making legends of a Saviour."

Richard Bach from "Illusions"

"True teachers use themselves as bridges
over which they invite their students to cross;
then, having facilitated their crossing,
joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own."

Nikos Kazantzakis

"Give evil nothing to oppose and it will dissolve of itself"

Lao Tzu

"In the depth of winter I finally learned
that there was in me an invincible summer"

Albert Camus

"There's so much to learn! And just when we think,
"I've got it. I really understand what's going on,"
we're shown a whole new stage set on which to play."

Richard Bach

"We shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring will be to
arrive where we started
and to know the place for the first time."

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
Poet, Dramatist and Literary Critic

The child whispered, "God, speak to me"
And a meadow lark sang.
The child did not hear.

So the child yelled, "God, speak to me!"
And the thunder rolled across the sky
But the child did not listen.

The child looked around and said,
"God let me see you" and a star shone brightly
But the child did not notice.

And the child shouted,
"God show me a miracle!"
And a life was born but the child did not know.

So the child cried out in despair,
"Touch me God, and let me know you are here!"
Whereupon God reached down
And touched the child.

But the child brushed the butterfly away
And walked away unknowingly.

Ravindra Kumar Karnani
(Old Hindu poem)

"It is a great mystery that though the human heart longs for Truth, in which alone it finds liberation and delight, the first reaction of human beings to Truth is one of hostility and fear!"

Anthony De Mello

"Truth has not special time of its own. Its hour is now—always and indeed then most truly when it seems unsuitable to actual circumstances."

Albert Schweitzer

'I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.
I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.' Mother Teresa

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

Kahlil Gibran

"My own words are not the medicine, but a prescription;
not the destination, but a map to help you reach it.
When you get there, quiet your mind and close your mouth.
Don't analyze the Tao.
Strive instead to live it: silently, undividedly,
with your whole harmonious being.

Lao Tzu (c.604 - 531 B.C.)
The Hua Hu Ching

“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

Bruce Lee

“All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.”

“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”

Bruce Lee

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge
of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter
of the gods.”

Albert Einstein

still yourself in me, and without doubt you shall be united with me, Lord of Love, dwelling in your heart.

Bhagavad Gita

you are ME. You are the waves, I am the ocean. Know this and be free.

Sai Baba

Nice quotes Jessica. Thank you for sharing them

Here's one that reminds us to be open and spacious in the face of challenges...

"Let yourself be open and life will be easier.
A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable.
A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed."

Buddha

It is amazing how a simple perception of oneself can change our experience of the world! Next time you are feeling overwhelmed and consumed by the trials of life feel your self expanding beyond the limitations of the situation!

"Of what can we be certain except this —
that we are fertilized by mysterious
circumstances.
Where is man’s truth to be found?
Truth is not that which can
be demonstrated by the air of logic.
If orange trees are hardy and rich in fruit in
this bit of soil and not that,
then this bit of soil is what is truth for orange trees.
If a particular religion, or culture,
or scale of values, if one form of activity rather than another,
brings self- fulfillment to a man,
releases the prince within him unknown to himself,
then that scale of values,
that culture, that form of activity constitutes his truth.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

How can one's self define one' self. Pilate asked Christ "What is truth?" The Master looked at him and remained silent. Truth has no words, no sounds, it is an experience of the extreme depths of the self. It is total identification with what is.

"The best way to knock the chip off your neighbor's
shoulder is to pat him on the back."
(Author Unknown)

"Dive deeply into the miracle of life and let the tips of your wings be burnt by the flame,
let your feet be lacerated by the thorns,
let your heart be stirred by human emotion,
and let your soul be lifted beyond the earth."
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

"Rest in Natural Great Peace, this Exhausted Mind
Beaten Helplessly by Karma and Neurotic Thoughts
Like the Relentless Fury of the Pounding Waves
in the Infinite Ocean of Samsara

Rest in Natural Great Peace...."

Sogyal Rinpoche

"Love of colours bewilders the eye and it fails to see right.
Love of harmonies bewitches the ear, and it loses its true hearing. Love of perfumes fills the head with dizziness.
Love of flavors ruins the taste.
Desires unsettle the heart until the original nature runs amok.
These five are enemies of true life.
Yet these are what men of discernment claim to live for.
They are not what I live for.
If this is life, then pigeons in a cage have found happiness!"

Chuang Tzu

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.

Rumi

"Human beings are
soft and supple when alive,
stiff and straight when dead.

The myriad creatures, grasses and trees are
soft and supple when alive,
dry and withered when dead.

Therefore it is said:
the rigid person is a disciple of death;
the soft, supple and delicate are lovers of life.

The army that is inflexible will not conquer;
the tree that cannot bend will snap!

The unyielding and mighty will be brought low;
the soft, supple and delicate will rise above them."

'one act of surrender,
one change of heart,
one leap of faith,
can change your life forever.’

Robert Holden from 'Shift Happens!'

"The entire physical creation, so awe inspiring to human mentality... provides only tantalizing hints to the underlying wonders of being."

Paramahansa Yogananda

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
hath elsewhere had its setting,
And cometh from afar."

Wordsworth

"O, Friend, Kabir has looked for him everywhere,
but to no avail.
For Kabir and
He are one, not two.
When a drop is merged into the ocean
how is it seen as distinct?
When the ocean is submerged in the drop,
who can say what is what?"

Kabir

" Though I may travel far, I will meet only what I carry with me for every man is a mirror. We see only ourselves reflected in those around us. Their attitudes and actions are reflections of our own. The whole world and it's conditions has it's counterpart within us all. Turn the gaze inward. Correct yourself and your world will change."

The Seed - Kristin Zambucka.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
Lao Tzu

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."

Michelangelo

“A wise old owl sat on an oak;
The more he saw the less he spoke;
The less he spoke the more he heard;
Why aren't we like that wise old bird?”

Old Irish saying

"We must take change by the hand
or change will take us by the throat."
Winston Churchill

I've gathered together a selection of quotes about the essential nature of change... Some inspirational, some cutting like the nature of change when we resist it.

The birds are molting. If only man could molt also - his mind once a year its errors, his heart once a year its useless passions. ~James Allen

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them. ~George Bernard Shaw

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer. ~Shunryu Suzuki

The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble. ~Henry Miller

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. ~Victor Frankl

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. ~William Blake

Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights. ~Pauline R. Kezer

Mind can accept any boundary anywhere. But the reality is that, by its very nature, existence cannot have any boundary, because what will be beyond the boundary - again another Sky. That is what I am saying, skies upon skies are available for your flight. Do not be easily contented. Those who remain content easily remain small, small are their joys, small are their ecstacies, small are their silences, small is their being. But there is no need! This smallness is your own imposition upon your freedom, upon your unlimited possibilities, upon your unlimited potential.

"Nobody is here to fulfull your dream. Everybody is here to fulfill his own destiny, his own reality"

Osho

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the Web we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.

Chief Seattle

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.
That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1929-1968

A good gauge of spiritual health is
to write down the three things that you most want.
If they differ in any way
you are in trouble

RUMI

"Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop."

Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland

"A warrior of light always has a second chance in life.
Like all other men and women he was not born knowing
how to use a sword; he made many mistakes before he
discovered his Personal Legend.

No warrior can sit down by the fire and tell the others: 'I
always did the right thing.' Anyone who says this is lying
and has not yet learned to know himself. The true warrior of
light has committed injustices in the past.

But as he proceeds on his journey, he realises that the
people to whom he did not behave correctly always cross
his path again.

It is his chance to right the wrong he did them, and he
always, unhesitatingly, seizes that chance."

from 'Manual of the Warrior of Light' by Paulo Coehlo

This thread is now full, please goto our new thread "Profound Spiritual Quotes 5" to find (or post) more quotes...

http://www.openhandweb.org/profound_spiritual_quotes_5

See you there