Meditation is acceptance. It is the acceptance of life within us, without us and all around us. Acceptance of life is the beginning of human satisfaction. Transformation of life is the culmination of divine satisfaction.
—Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian Yoga Teacher
It is not enough that one surrenders oneself. Surrender is to give oneself up to the original cause of one’s being. Do not delude yourself by imagining such a source to be some God outside you. One’s source is within oneself. Give yourself up to it. That means that you should seek the source and merge in it.
—Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian Hindu Mystic
Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
The more intense the nature of a man, the more readily will he find meditation, and the more successfully will he practice it.
—James Lane Allen (1849–1925) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
He is divinely bent on meditation.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Regular meditation opens the avenues of intuitional knowledge, makes the mind calm and steady, awakens an ecstatic feeling, and brings the practitioner in contact with the source of his/her very being
—Sivananda Saraswati (1887–1963) Indian Hindu Spiritual Teacher
Meditation upon the unknown Thought He thought was real meditation. No, meditation is not and cannot be On any thought. Meditation is a conscious withdrawal From the thought-world. Meditation is the place Where Reality, Divinity and Immortality Can each claim their own Perennial existence-light.
—Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian Yoga Teacher
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.
—Walter Bagehot (1826–77) English Economist, Journalist
The very best and utmost of attainment in this life is to remain still and let God act and speak in thee.
—Meister Eckhart (c.1260–1327) German Christian Mystic
When we meditate, what we actually do is enter into the deeper part of our being. At that time, we are able to bring to the fore the wealth that we have deep within us.
—Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian Yoga Teacher
From meditation springs wisdom. From lack of meditation, loss of wisdom. Recognising these alternative roads of progress and decline, one should so direct oneself so that one’s wisdom will increase
—Buddhist Teaching
No need for special meditation rooms or temples. You can even meditate by driving a car, having a conversation or working at the computer.
—Hans Taeger
Nine-tenths of our sickness can be prevented by right thinking plus right hygiene—nine-tenths of it.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
The stormy life can be braved only by the heart’s sunny meditations.
—Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian Yoga Teacher
What meditation does slowly, slowly, a good shout of the master, unexpectedly, in the situation where the disciple was asking some question, and the master jumps and shouts, or hits him, or throws him out of the door, or jumps over him…. These methods were never known. It was purely the very creative genius of Ma Tzu, and he made many people enlightened. Sometimes it looks so hilarious: he threw a man from the window, from a two-storey house, and the man had come to ask on what to meditate. And Ma Tzu not only threw him, he jumped after him, fell on him, sat on his chest, and he said, “Got it?!” And the poor fellow said, “Yes” – because if you say “No,” he may beat you or do something else! It is enough – his body is fractured, and Ma Tzu, sitting on his chest, says, “Got it?!” And in fact he got it, because it was so sudden, out of the blue – he could never have conceived it.
—Sri Rajneesh (Osho) (1931–90) Indian Spiritual Teacher
Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit; and our wandering thoughts in prayer are but the neglects of meditation and recessions from that duty; according as we neglect meditation, so are our prayers imperfect,—meditation being the soul of prayer and the intention of our spirit.
—Jeremy Taylor
We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (b.1935) Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader, Civil Rights Leader, Philosopher, Author
Meditation may think down hours to moments. The heart may give most useful lessons to the head, and learning wiser grow without his books.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
Health, a light body, freedom from cravings, a glowing skin, sonorous voice, fragrance of body: these signs indicate progress in the practice of meditation.
—The Upanishads Sacred Books of Hinduism
Though reading and conversation may furnish us with many ideas of men and things, yet it is our own meditation must form our judgment.
—Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English Hymn writer
Meditation and water are wedded for ever.
—Herman Melville (1819–91) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Poet
Excerpt from My Heart’s Salutation To Australia
—Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian Yoga Teacher
Is there some time for yourself today – just for you, to sit quietly and refresh and renew. Not escaping into the TV, or thrashing around a squash court. Just time to sit quietly, focus your thoughts, check your priorities, make sure there is nothing negative pushing you down in your own mind. Take some time and be …with yourself. If you don’t, you may miss meeting the most important person in your life
—Indian Proverb
We could say that meditation doesn’t have a reason or doesn’t have a purpose. In this respect it’s unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don’t do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we lay music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.
—Alan Watts (1915–73) British-American Philosopher, Author
In meditation we are continuously discovering who and what we are.
—Sakyong Mipham (b.1962) Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader, Teacher, Lama
Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless—like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
—Bruce Lee (1940–73) American Martial Artist, Actor, Philosopher
My meditation Is my soul’s Soundless sound-conversation With my Inner Pilot
—Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian Yoga Teacher
If one’s life is simple, contentment has to come. Simplicity is extremely important for happiness. Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have, is very vital: satisfaction with just enough food, clothing, and shelter to protect yourself from the elements. And finally, there is an intense delight in abandoning faulty states of mind and in cultivating helpful ones in meditation.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (b.1935) Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader, Civil Rights Leader, Philosopher, Author
After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet,sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings
—Richard Dawkins (b.1941) British Evolutionary Biologist, Atheist
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