Colin Cha > Colin's Quotes

“Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you not want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life...If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature...Be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.”
― C.G. Jung, The Red Book: A Reader's Edition

“Western civilization has preferred love of death to love of life to the very extent that its religious traditions have preferred redemption to creation, sin to ecstasy, and individual introspection to cosmic awareness and appreciation.”
― Matthew Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality - Presented in Four Paths, 26 Themes and Two Questions

“Without this solid grounding in creation's powers we become bored, violent people. We become necrophiliacs in love with death”
― Matthew Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality Presented in Four Paths, Twenty-Six Themes, and Two Questions

“Where the Divine and the Human Meet" shows how important it is to meet the world with the creativity of an artist, particularly in these uncertain times:

"What do we do with chaos?

Creativity has an answer. We are told by those who have studied the processes of nature that creativity happens at the border between chaos and order. Chaos is a prelude to creativity. We need to learn, as every artist needs to learn, to live with chaos and indeed to dance with it as we listen to it and attempt some ordering. Artists wrestle with chaos, take it apart, deconstruct and reconstruct from it. Accept the challenge to convert chaos into some kind of order, respecting the timing of it all, not pushing beyond what is possible—combining holy patience with holy impatience--that is the role of the artist. It is each of our roles as we launch the twenty-first century because we are all called to be artists in our own way. We were all artists as children. We need to study the chaos around us in order to turn it into something beautiful. Something sustainable. Something that remains".”
― Matthew Fox, Creativity

“We are not consumers. For most of humanity’s existence, we were makers, not consumers: we made our clothes, shelter, and education, we hunted and gathered our food.

We are not addicts. “I propose that most addictions come from our surrendering our real powers, that is, our powers of creativity.” We are not passive couch potatoes either. “It is not the essence of humans to be passive. We are players. We are actors on many stages…. We are curious, we are yearning to wonder, we are longing to be amazed… to be excited, to be enthusiastic, to be expressive. In short to be alive.” We are also not cogs in a machine. To be so would be to give up our personal freedoms so as to not upset The Machine, whatever that machine is. Creativity keeps us creating the life we wish to live and advancing humanity’s purpose as well.”
― Matthew Fox, Creativity

“My speech is imperfect. Not because I want to shine with words, but out of the impossibility of finding those words, I speak in images. With nothing else can I express the words from the depths.”
― C.G. Jung, The Red Book: A Reader's Edition

“Live quietly in the moment and see the beauty of all before you. The future will take care of itself......”
― Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi

“Be as simple as you can be; you will be astonished to see how uncomplicated and happy your life can become.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“You must not let your life run in the ordinary way; do something that nobody else has done, something that will dazzle the world. Show that God's creative principle works in you.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“You have come to earth to entertain and to be entertained.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi

“Read a little. Meditate more. Think of God all the time.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“forget the past, for it is gone from your domain! forget the future, for it is beyond your reach! control the present! Live supremely well now! This is the way of the wise...”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“Kindness is the light that dissolves all walls between souls, families, and nations.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“Be afraid of nothing. Hating none, giving love to all, feeling the love of God, seeing His presence in everyone, and having but one desire - for His constant presence in the temple of your consciousness - that is the way to live in this world.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, In the Sanctuary of the Soul: A Guide to Effective Prayer

“Self-realization is the knowing in all parts of body, mind, and soul that you are now in possession of the kingdom of God; that you do not have to pray that it come to you; that God’s omnipresence is your omnipresence; and that all that you need to do is improve your knowing.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“God is simple. Everything else is complex. Do not seek absolute values in the relative world of nature.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi: (With Pictures)

“The wave is the same as the ocean, though it is not the whole ocean. So each wave of creation is a part of the eternal Ocean of Spirit. The Ocean can exist without the waves, but the waves cannot exist without the Ocean.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“So long as we believe in our heart of hearts that our capacity is limited and we grow anxious and unhappy, we are lacking in faith. One who truly trusts in God has no right to be anxious about anything.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“Before embarking on important undertakings sit quietly calm your senses and thoughts and meditate deeply. You will then be guided by the great creative power of Spirit.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“The true basis of religion is not belief, but intuitive experience. Intuition is the soul’s power of knowing God. To know what religion is really all about, one must know God.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“The deeper the Self-realization of a man, the more he influences the whole universe by his subtle spiritual vibrations, and the less he himself is affected by the phenomenal flux.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi

“Seeds of past karma cannot germinate if they are roasted in the fires of divine wisdom.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi

“The happiness of one's own heart alone cannot satisfy the soul; one must try to include, as necessary to one's happiness, the happiness of others.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“To work with God's happiness bubbling in the soul is to carry a portable paradise within you wherever you go.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“The entire universe is God's cosmic motion picture, and that individuals are merely actors in the divine play who change roles through reincarnation; mankind's deep suffering is rooted in identifying too closely with one's current role, rather than with the movie's director, or God.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“Yoga is, as I can readily believe, the perfect and appropriate method of fusing body and mind together so that they form a unity which is scarcely to be questioned. This unity creates a psychological disposition which makes possible intuitions that transcend consciousness.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi

“Moral: Look fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi

“Every morning I offer my body, my mind and any ability that I posses, to be used by Thee, O infinite creator, in whatever way Thou dost choose to express Thyself through me. I know that all work is Thy work, and that no task is too difficult or too menial when offered to Thee in loving service.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“If you criticize others judgmentally, rather than simply commenting on their behavior impartially, that shows that you have their faults to work on in yourself. By criticizing others, moreover, you increase those faults in yourself. What you condemn in others, you will have to experience, someday, yourself. That is the karmic law. In that way, people are taught compassion.”
—Paramhansa Yogananda”
― Paramahansa Yogananda

“The human mind is a spark of the almighty consciousness of God. I could show you that whatever your powerful mind believes very intensely would instantly come to pass.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi