Thomas Shor > Quotes

“A pilgrimage in search of the present moment is a pilgrimage for awareness. To borrow a spatial analogy, we’re already there. Only we aren’t aware of it. When we’re not aware of it, we think there’s something we lack, something we have to do. We think in terms of mathematics. We think we have to add or subtract something from the present moment to be happy. But nothing can be taken from, or added to, what is.”
― Thomas Shor, The Master Director: A Journey through Politics, Doubt and Devotion with a Himalayan Master

“Gurudev gazes at me and I am struck by the tremendous love in his eyes. It is an all-giving love, that which we would expect from a saint. Its power seems based in its being impersonal. It comes with the knowledge that it encompasses whatever it encounters. Love itself is shining through, before it splits into love of or for anything in particular. I can glimpse the width and depth of his being, but cannot begin to fathom it.”
― Thomas Shor, The Master Director: A Journey through Politics, Doubt and Devotion with a Himalayan Master

“The Buddha taught that there is no single, independent cause for anything, that everything is linked together in a vast net. And, as with everything else, there are the immediate causes and there are those that are more distant, even in time—yet are of no less importance. Heraclitus said that character is destiny. The whole is reflected in every part. Every step, every fork in the road, every situation we’ve been in and every decision we’ve made determines what is to come.”
― Thomas Shor, The Master Director: A Journey through Politics, Doubt and Devotion with a Himalayan Master

“Then he turns to me. ‘So much of health is in the mind,’ he says. ‘Don’t think too much. If you think too much, you’ll get sick. If someone tells you that you are sick, don’t take it too seriously, don’t think about it too much—it can affect your health,’ and he bursts out laughing.”
― Thomas Shor, The Master Director: A Journey through Politics, Doubt and Devotion with a Himalayan Master