A.H. Almaas > Quotes

“Your conflicts, all the difficult things, the problematic situations in your life are not chance or haphazard. They are actually yours. They are specifically yours, designed specifically for you by a part of you that loves you more than anything else. The part of you that loves you more than anything else has created roadblocks to lead you to yourself. You are not going in the right direction unless there is something pricking you in the side, telling you, “Look here! This way!” That part of you loves you so much that it doesn’t want you to lose the chance. It will go to extreme measures to wake you up, it will make you suffer greatly if you don’t listen. What else can it do? That is its purpose.”
― A.H. Almaas

“Your environment wasn't supportive, wasn't loving, did not respond to you ... The fundamental thing that happened, and the greatest calamity, is not that there was no love or support. The greater calamity, which is caused by the first calamity is that you lost the connection to your essence. That is much more important than whether your mother or father loved you or not.”
― A.H. Almaas

“Sometimes being real means allowing pain or accepting a painful truth. Yet something in us aligns with an inner ground of authenticity when we are real. We love it because of its inherent rightness in our soul, the sense of “Aha, here I am and there is nothing to do but be.”
― A.H. Almaas, The Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature through the Practice of Presence

“One cannot seek happiness, for it is the result of realizing the Truth. The personality, which has security and pleasure as its aims, cannot be happy. Pursuing pleasure or safety will entail covering up any unpleasant or frightening truths. This automatically closes Joy. For Joy is the radiance of the heart when Truth is appreciated.”
― A.H. Almaas, The Pearl Beyond Price: Integration of Personality into Being, an Object Relations Approach

“Only when compassion is present will people allow themselves to see the truth.”
― A.H. Almaas

“When are you going to let yourself descend from your lofty preoccupations, and simply land where you are?”
― A.H. Almaas, Diamond Heart: Being and the Meaning of Life

“As long as you hold onto wanting something from the outside, you will be dissatisfied because there is a part of you that you are till not totally owning...How can you be a complete and fulfilled if you believe that you cannot own this part [of yourself] until somebody else does something?...If it is conditional, it is not totally yours.”
― A. H. Almass

“Hatred wants to annihilate, but it annihilates by destroying, by making our awareness dull, by suppressing, by dividing. True Nature does not really annihilate, because something is not wiping out something else--there is no duality. The kind of annihilation that True Nature makes possible is more of a recognition, a precise understanding that Being reveals in us. We have no inner agitation in our attitude; we see and understand whatever impediment is arising, but we do not give it energy in the form of reaction, and thus it becomes still on its own and does not appear. We experience this as a dissolving or a melting, but what is actually happening is that the energy fueling the obstacle disappears, the obstacle loses its dynamism, and it simply stops arising.”
― A.H. Almaas

“The (narcissitic) rage may turn into, or be accompanied by, a cold hatred that gives her qualities of power, invincibility, and calculation. This hatred underlies the desire for vengeance, for wanting to inflict pain and suffering, and for actually enjoying getting back at the person who failed her.”
― A.H. Almaas

“When we blend courage and compassion, assertiveness and gentleness, our essential strength and kindness support us in being where we are.”
― A.H. Almaas, The Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature through the Practice of Presence

“Love, compassion, kindness, and generosity change their function from being motivations for practice to becoming expressions of realization.”
― A.H. Almaas

“The more we are illuminated, the more we want others to experience that also. We can't help but be generous and giving, because self and other is one, and the nature of self and the nature of other is one; it is true nature giving itself to itself. (p. 9)”
― A.H. Almaas, The Alchemy of Freedom: The Philosophers' Stone and the Secrets of Existence

“We are thus offered a fundamental and joyfully liberating release from our addiction to searching for love from outside, by realizing the truth that the most powerful experience of love is available within us, simply waiting for us to discover it. And it is in our own souls that love moves us toward our deepest nature, acting as the fuel for unfoldment and revelation and dissolving what separates us from the truth of what we are.”
― A.H. Almaas, Love Unveiled: Discovering the Essence of the Awakened Heart

“You abandon yourself, then start looking for satisfaction. You”
― A.H. Almaas, Diamond Heart: Being and the Meaning of Life

“Practice is the interest, the love, the drive, the tendency, the movement, to be as authentic as possible, to be as real as possible.”
― A. H. Almaas, Runaway Realization: Living a Life of Ceaseless Discovery

“The longing of the human heart to know its true nature, our passionate desire to know who we are and to know our origin and our home, is all too easily placated with ready answers. The path described in this book reflects an approach which is far from a ready answer, but begins and ends with a sense of humility before the mystery of our existence. The work of coming to know one’s true nature has perhaps been made easier by the knowledge in this book, but it remains a task requiring tremendous patience and perseverance.”
― A.H. Almaas, The Point of Existence: Transformations of Narcissism in Self-Realization

“Whatever is happening at this moment, that is your life. The future is not your life; it never arrives. What is actually here is always only this moment.”
― A.H. Almaas, Diamond Heart: Being and the Meaning of Life

“When we know what we want, and see that our desires authentically reflect who and what we are, our self-esteem improves, and we find ourselves enjoying truly human interactions. The more effortlessly secure we are in being ourselves, the more we can afford to open up to others, and the more we can naturally act with generosity and magnanimity.”
― A.H. Almaas, The Point of Existence: Transformations of Narcissism in Self-Realization

“When will you begin to exist then? When will you begin to be here, to live? Regardless”
― A.H. Almaas, Diamond Heart: Being and the Meaning of Life

“...“in the world but not of it”...”
― A.H. Almaas

“The refined values of love and compassion and truth are not going to become part of you and manifest in your life if you are just sitting on your ass and meditating, or trying to understand yourself.”
― A.H. Almaas, Indestructible Innocence