Erin > Erin's Quotes

“without any assistance or guidance from you
i have loved you assiduously for 8 months 2 wks & a day
i have been stood up four times
i've left 7 packages on yr doorstep
forty poems 2 plants & 3 handmade notecards i left
town so i cd send to you have been no help to me
on my job
you call at 3:00 in the mornin on weekdays
so i cd drive 27 1/2 miles cross the bay before i go to work
charmin charmin
but you are of no assistance
i want you to know
this waz an experiment
to see how selifsh i cd be
if i wd really carry on to snare a possible lover
if i waz capable of debasin my self for the love of another
if i cd stand not being wanted
when i wanted to be wanted
& i cannot
so
with no further assistance & no guidance from you
i am endin this affair

this note is attached to a plant
i've been waterin since the day i met you
you may water it
yr damn self”
― Ntozake Shange, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf

“In surrender, you no longer need ego defenses and false masks. You become very simple, very real. “That’s dangerous,” says the ego. “You’ll get hurt. You’ll become vulnerable.” What the ego doesn’t know, of course, is that only through the letting go of resistance, through becoming “vulnerable,” can you discover your true and essential invulnerability.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Stress is caused by being “here” but wanting to be “there,” or being in the present but wanting to be in the future.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“But look closely and you will find that your thinking and behavior are designed to keep the pain going, for yourself and others. If you were truly conscious of it, the pattern would dissolve, for to want more pain is insanity, and nobody is consciously insane.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“The mind unconsciously loves problems because they give you an identity of sorts.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Don't look for peace.
Don't look for any ther state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance.

Forgive yourself for not being peace.
The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace
Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace.

This is the miracle of surrencer.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“When there is no way out, there is still always a way through. So don’t turn away from the pain. Face it. Feel it fully. Feel it — don’t think about it! Express it if necessary, but don’t create a script in your mind around it. Give all your attention to the feeling, not to the person, event, or situation that seems to have caused it. Don’t let the mind use the pain to create a victim identity for yourself out of it. Feeling sorry for yourself and telling others your story will keep you stuck in suffering. Since it is impossible to get away from the feeling, the only possibility of change is to move into it; otherwise, nothing will shift. So give your complete attention to what you feel, and refrain from mentally labeling it. As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert. At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don’t act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is. Stay alert, stay present — present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness. This is the flame of your consciousness.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“The past has no power over the present moment.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“To love is to recognize yourself in another.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Life is the dancer and you are the dance.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the "love" of
ego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her. The bond that connects you with that person is the same bond that connects you with the person sitting next to you on a bus, or with a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and
not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms
of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" --- and find that there is no death.”
― Eckhart Tolle

“Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose”
― Eckhart Tolle