Michael James > Quotes

“according to Sri Ramana, something can be called real only if it satisfies three essential criteria: it must be eternal, unchanging and self-shining.”
― Michael James, Happiness and the Art of Being: An introduction to the philosophy and practice of the spiritual teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana

“Is it not clear, therefore, that happiness is a state of being, and unhappiness is a state of doing? So long as our mind is active or doing something, thinking one thought or another, we experience only a mixture of happiness and unhappiness, and whatever happiness we do experience in the midst of that mixture is imperfect, limited and relative. We experience perfect, unlimited and absolute happiness only when our mind becomes perfectly still.”
― Michael James, Happiness and the Art of Being: An introduction to the philosophy and practice of the spiritual teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana

“Happiness lies deep within us, in the very core of our being. Happiness does not exist in any external object, but only in us, who are the consciousness that experiences happiness. Though we seem to derive happiness from external objects or experiences, the happiness that we thus enjoy in fact arises from within us.”
― Michael James, Happiness and the Art of Being: An introduction to the philosophy and practice of the spiritual teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana

“To enjoy happiness, therefore, all our mind need do is to cease all activity, returning calmly to its natural state of inactive being, as it does daily in deep sleep.”
― Michael James, Happiness and the Art of Being: An introduction to the philosophy and practice of the spiritual teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana

“Of all the thoughts that are formed in our mind, the first is the thought ‘I’. Our mind first forms itself as the thought ‘I’, and only then does it form other thoughts. Without an ‘I’ to think or know them, no other thoughts could be formed. All the other thoughts that”
― Michael James, Happiness and the Art of Being: An introduction to the philosophy and practice of the spiritual teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana

“The sole reality that exists and is known in this state of egolessness, nirvāṇa or salvation is our fundamental and essential consciousness ‘I am’. Since it does not identify itself with any delimiting adjunct, our essential and pure consciousness ‘I am’ is a single, undivided and unlimited whole, separate from which nothing can exist. All the diversity and multiplicity that appears to exist so long as we identify ourself with a physical body, is known only by our mind, which is merely a distorted and limited form of our original consciousness ‘I am’. If this consciousness ‘I am’ did not exist, nothing else could appear to exist. Therefore, our fundamental consciousness ‘I am’ is the source and origin of all knowledge – the one basis of all that appears to exist.”
― Michael James, Happiness and the Art of Being: An introduction to the philosophy and practice of the spiritual teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana

“Come sail with me and you will see nothing can hold you down!”
― Michael James