John > John's Quotes

“Partake in reality as an actor in a theatrical play: with attention, dedication and an open heart. But never believe yourself to be your character, for characters spend their lives chasing their own shadows, whereas actors embody the meaning of existence.”
― Bernardo Kastrup, More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief

“Forget your past experiences and achievements and stand naked, exposed to the winds and rains of life, and you will have a chance.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Truth-seeking is the path to self-annihilation and thus to liberation.”
― Bernardo Kastrup, More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief

“You [are] the whole dream, not only a character within it.”
― Bernardo Kastrup, Brief Peeks Beyond: Critical Essays on Metaphysics, Neuroscience, Free Will, Skepticism and Culture

“When the shadow is seen to be only a shadow, you stop following it. You turn around and discover the sun which was there all the time - behind your back!”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Whether we live in transcendence or existential despair is simply a matter of which type of myth - religious or deprived - predominantly composes our world.”
― Bernardo Kastrup, More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief

“A religious myth infuses ordinary aspects of life with enchantment and significance: accidents and coincidences become invested with hidden purposes; our actions in the world acquire the importance of a cosmic mission; our suffering becomes the carrier of critical insights; even objects and people around us acquire a numinous aura.”
― Bernardo Kastrup, More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief

“A tremendous mystery unfolds in front of our senses every waking hour of our lives; a mystery more profound, more tantalizing, more penetrating and urgent than any novel or thriller. This unfolding mystery is nature’s challenge to us. Are we paying enough attention to it?”
― Bernardo Kastrup, More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief

“[The present moment] is a singularity that births all existence into form. It seeds our mind with fleeting consensus images that we then blow up into the voluminous bulk of projected past and future. These projections are like a cognitive ‘big bang’ unfolding in our mind. They stretch out the intangibility of the singularity into the substantiality of events in time. But unlike the theoretical Big Bang of current physics, the cognitive ‘big bang’ isn’t an isolated occurrence in a far distant past. It happens now; now; now. It only ever happens now.”
― Bernardo Kastrup, More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief

“The planets, moons, thunderstorms, volcanoes, rocks, even specs of dust. They are all symbols of transcendence… The world around you is a book waiting to be deciphered.”
― Bernardo Kastrup, More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief

“Existence only appears substantial because of our intellectual inferences, assumptions, confabulations and expectations. What is actually in front of our eyes now is incredibly elusive. The volume of our experiences - the bulk of life itself - is generated by our own internal myth-making. We conjure up substance and continuity out of sheer intangibility. We transmute quasi-emptiness into the solidity of existence through a trick of cognitive deception where we play both magician and audience. In reality, nothing ever really happens, for the scope of the present isn’t broad enough for any event to unfold objectively. That we think of life as a series of substantial happenings hanging from a historical timeline is a fantastic cognitive hallucination.”
― Bernardo Kastrup, More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief

“Give up all and you gain all. Then life becomes what it was meant to be: pure radiation from an inexhaustible source. In that light, the world appears dimly like a dream.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“What refuses to die cannot be reborn.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Awareness is ever there. It need not be realized. Open the shutter of the mind and it will be flooded with light.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Freedom means letting go. People just do not care to let go of everything. They do not know that the finite is the price of the infinite, as death is the price of immortality. Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let go of everything. The giving up is the first step. But the real giving up is in realizing that there is nothing to give up, for nothing is your own.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Love is not selective, desire is selective. In love there are no strangers. When the centre of selfishness is no longer, all desires for pleasure and fear of pain cease; one is no longer interested in being happy; beyond happiness there is pure intensity, inexhaustible energy, the ecstasy of giving from a perennial source.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Desire by itself is not wrong. It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience. It is the choices you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing - food, sex, power, fame - will make you happy is to deceive yourself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Love says 'I am everything.' Wisdom says 'I am nothing.' Between the two, my life flows.”
― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That

“Increase and widen your desires until nothing but reality can fulfill them. It is not desire that is wrong, but its narrowness and smallness. Desire is devotion. By all means, be devoted to the real, the infinite, the eternal heart of being. Transform desire into love. All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are expressions of your longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“What is in the world cannot save the world; if you really care to help the world, you must step out of it.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Reality is not the result of a process; it is an explosion.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Leave alone your desires and fears and give your entire attention to the subject, to he who is behind the experience of desire and fear. Ask: who desires? Let each desire bring you back to yourself.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World and it will one day return there.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“The boy reached through to the Soul of the World, and saw that it was part of the Soul of God. And he saw that the Soul of God was his own soul. And that he, a boy, could perform miracles.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Any life career that you choose in following your bliss should be chosen with that sense - that nobody can frighten me off from this thing. And no matter what happens, this is the validation of my life and action.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“We must constantly die one way or another to the selfhood already achieved.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“The end of the world is not an event to come, it is an event of psychological transformation, of visionary transformation. You see not the world of solid things but a world of radiance.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist