Paul > Paul's Quotes

“To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss.”
― Bodhidharma, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

“Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.”
― Bodhidharma, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

“But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.”
― Bodhidharma, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

“Poverty and hardship are created by false thinking.”
― Bodhidharma, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

“A buddha is an idle person. He doesn't run around after fortune and fame.”
― Bodhidharma, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

“When we're deluded, there's a world to escape. When we're aware, there's nothing to escape.”
― Red Pine, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

“It isn't by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world…by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves.”
― Ken Kesey, Kesey's Garage Sale

“I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes.

It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process.

It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher.

And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.

That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.”
― Osho

“You can only stop the flow of thoughts by refusing to have any interest in it.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“Your own Self-Realization is the greatest service you can render the world.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.”
― Sri Ramana Maharshi

“Your duty is to be and not to be this or that. 'I am that I am' sums up the whole truth. The method is summed up in the words 'Be still'. What does stillness mean? It means destroy yourself. Because any form or shape is the cause for trouble. Give up the notion that 'I am so and so'. All that is required to realize the Self is to be still. What can be easier than that?”
― Ramana Maharshi

“Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, try as you may. Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to prevent it. This is certain. The best course, therefore, is to remain silent.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“Wanting to reform the world without discovering one's true self is like trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“There is neither creation nor destruction,
neither destiny nor free will, neither
path nor achievement.
This is the final truth.”
― Ramana Maharshi, Sayings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

“There is neither Past nor Future. There is only the Present.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“If the mind falls asleep, awaken it. Then if it starts wandering, make it quiet. If you reach the state where there is neither sleep nor movement of mind, stay still in that, the natural (real) state.”
― Ramana Maharshi, The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi

“Let what comes come.
Let what goes go.
Find out what remains.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“All that is required to realise the Self is to “Be Still.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“The greatest error of a man is to think that he is weak by nature, evil by nature. Every man is divine and strong in his real nature. What are weak and evil are his habits, his desires and thoughts, but not himself.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“Eventually, all that one has learnt will have to be forgotten.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“Become conscious of being conscious. Say or think “I am”, and add nothing to it. Be aware of the stillness that follows the “I am”. Sense your presence, the naked unveiled, unclothed beingness. It is untouched by young or old, rich or poor, good or bad, or any other attributes. It is the spacious womb of all creation, all form.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“Time is only an idea. There is only the Reality Whatever you
think it is, it looks like that. If you call it time, it is time. If you
call it existence, it is existence, and so on. After calling it time, you
divide it into days and nights, months, years, hours, minutes, etc.
Time is immaterial for the Path of Knowledge. But some of these
rules and discipline are good for beginners.”
― Ramana Maharshi, Talks With Ramana Maharshi: On Realizing Abiding Peace and Happiness

“The only useful purpose of the present birth is to turn within and realize the Self.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“If you hold this feeling of ‘I’ long enough and strongly enough, the false ‘I’ will vanish leaving only the unbroken awareness of the real, immanent ‘I’, consciousness itself”
― Ramana Maharshi

“The explorers seek happiness in finding curiosities, discovering new lands and undergoing risks in adventures. They are thrilling. But where is pleasure found? Only within. Pleasure is not to be sought in the external world.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“The mind is by nature restless. Begin liberating it from its restlessness; give it peace; make it free from distractions; train it to look inward; make this a habit. This is done by ignoring the external world and removing the obstacles to peace of mind.”
― Ramana Maharshi, Talks With Ramana Maharshi: On Realizing Abiding Peace and Happiness

“Grace is always present. You imagine it is something somewhere high in the sky, far away, and has to descend. It is really inside you, in your Heart, and the moment you effect subsidence or merger of the mind into its Source, grace rushes forth, sprouting as from a spring within you”
― Ramana Maharshi

“The revelation or intuition arises in its own time and one must wait for it.”
― Ramana Maharshi

“The enquiry ‘Who am I?’ is the principal means to the removal of all misery and the attainment of the supreme bliss.”
― Ramana Maharshi, The Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi