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But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.

So I say to you, Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

"There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting."

"It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways."

"The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows."

"Better than worshiping gods is obedience to the laws of righteousness."

"It is better to travel well than to arrive."

"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned."

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world."

"Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the now the primary focus of your life. "

"What a liberation to realize that the 'voice in my head' is not who I am. 'Who am I, then?' The one who sees that."

"Discontent, blaming, complaining, self-pity cannot serve as a foundation for a good future, no matter how much effort you make."

"There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself."

"Even the most seemingly unpleasant situations - if you become aligned with it, something good will emerge from that."

"What is commonly called “falling in love” is in most cases an intensification of egoic wanting and needing. You become addicted to another person, or rather to your image of that person. It has nothing to do with true love, which contains no wanting whatsoever."

"The word enlightenent conjures up the idea of some super human accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it this way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something that, almost paradoxically, is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and form."

All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. As long as I am my mind, I am those cravings, those needs, wants, attachments, and aversions, and apart from them there is no "I" except as a mere possibility, an unfulfilled potential, a seed that has not yet sprouted. In that state even the desire to become free or enlightened is just another craving for fulfillment or completion in the future.

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”

“It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.”

“The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is. Self-knowledge has no end - you don't come to an achievement, you don't come to a conclusion. It is an endless river.”

"We are each one of us responsible for every war because of the aggressiveness of our own lives, because of our nationalism, our selfishness, our gods, our prejudices, our ideals, all of which divide us. And only when we realize, not intellectually but actually, as actually as we would recognise that we are hungry or in pain, that you and I are responsible for all this existing chaos, for all the misery throughout the entire world because we have contributed to it in our daily lives and are part of this monstrous society with its wars, divisions, its ugliness, brutality and greed - only then will we act. " (Freedom from the Known)

"Can you and I bring about in ourselves without any outside influence, without any persuasion, without any fear of punishment - can we bring about in the very essence of our being a total revolution, a psychological mutation, so that we are no longer brutal, violent, competitive, anxious, fearful, greedy, envious and all the rest of the manifestations of our nature which have built up the rotten society in which we live our daily lives?"

"In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself."

"The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed."

"The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear."

"A man who is not afraid is not aggressive, a man who has no sense of fear of any kind is really a free, a peaceful man."

"The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher's or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself - Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self."

"It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person. So violence isn't merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper."

"It is odd that we have so little relationship with nature, with the insects and the leaping frog and the owl that hoots among the hills calling for its mate. We never seem to have a feeling for all living things on the earth."

"If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires."

"If ye realize the Emptiness of All Things, Compassion will raise within your heart;
If ye lose all differentiation between yourselves and others, fit to serve others ye will be;
And when in serving others ye shall win success, then shall ye meet with me;
And finding me, ye shall attain to Buddhahood."
- Songs of Milarepa

"In the gap between thoughts nonconceptual wisdom shines continuously."

"All meditation must begin with arousing deep compassion. Whatever one does must emerge from an attitude of love and benefitting others."

"Do not entertain hopes for realization, but practice all your life."

"Accustomed long to contemplating love and compassion I have forgotten all difference between myself and others"

"Strong and healthy, who thinks of sickness until it strikes like lightning? Preoccupied with the world, who thinks of death, until it arrives like thunder?"

"Hasten slowly and ye shall soon arrive."

"To attain Buddhahood ... we must scatter this life's aims and objects to the wind."

"Do not follow after the past; do not go forward to meet the future. Instead, just rest the mind naturally in the present awareness."

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."

"Thoughts come and go. Feelings come and go. Find out what it is that remains."

"Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside."

"Your true nature is that of infinite spirit. The feeling of limitation is the work of the mind."

"Your duty is to Be, and not to be this or that."

"The degree of freedom from unwanted thoughts and the degree of concentration on a single thought are the measures to gauge spiritual progress."

"If you are vigilant and make a stern effort to reject every thought when it rises, you will soon find that you are going deeper and deeper into your own inner self, where there is no need for your effort to reject the thoughts."

"Self-reform automatically brings about social reform."

“SELF-SURRENDER IS THE HIGHEST AND EASIEST method for enlightenment. One who has surrendered himself is always protected by the divine power. One who possesses nothing and has no one to protect him belongs to God and is constantly under the protection of the Divine.”

"If you do not know yourself and you are trying to know God, it is not possible to do so. Don’t hanker after God; know about yourself first. You are fully equipped to know yourself; you have all the means and tools to do so. You are not searching for something outside yourself that is difficult to find. You are searching for someone who is already within you, so it is actually easy to find. The day that you see the Source face to face, you have accomplished your work as a human being—that is your human endeavor."

"The Buddhist scriptures say that if you hate others, nothing happens to the hated person, something happens to you, to your mind, to your heart. You can learn to love somebody, even one whom you hate, by understanding that he is a human being like you. Who am I to hate that person? Stop hurting and hating others, for it injures you. If you constantly injure yourself, it can lead you to an action that can never be forgiven by your own mind, by your own conscience. You are constantly killing your conscience. Stop doing that."

"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."

"In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher."

"We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection."

"Open-minded people tend to be interested in Buddhism because Buddha urged people to investigate things - he didn't just command them to believe."

"Awareness without projection is the greatest meditation. Train and develop like this and you will come to the deepest awakening.

"Don’t recall. Don’t imagine. Don’t think. Don’t examine. Don’t control. Rest."

"Obsessive use of meditative disciplines or perennial study of scripture and philosophy will never bring forth this wonderful realization, this truth which is natural to awareness, because the mind that desperately desires to reach another realm or level of experience inadvertently ignores the basic light that constitutes all experience."

"No thought, no reflection, no analysis, no cultivation, no intention; let it settle itself."

"Cut the mind at its root and rest in naked awareness"

"Let go of what has passed. Let go of what may come. Let go of what is happening now. Don't try to figure anything out. Don't try to make anything happen. Relax, right now, and rest."

"How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it."

"That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees."

"Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear."

"Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also."

"Things do not change; we change."

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it."

"Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?"

"What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you."

“Fortune is like a flirt—she will run away from you when you want her, but if you are not interested in her, she will come chasing you.”

"Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth."

"We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far."

"Do not stand on a high pedestal and take 5 cents in your hand and say, "here, my poor man", but be grateful that the poor man is there, so by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself.It is not the reciever that is blessed, but it is the giver.Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect."

"Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is the way great spiritual giants are produced."

You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.

"God is in all men, but all men are not in God; that is why we suffer."

"If you must be mad, be it not for the things of the world. Be mad with the love of God."

"The Man who works for others, without any selfish motive, really does good to himself."

"When divine vision is attained, all appear equal; and there remains no distinction of good and bad, or of high and low."

"Many good sayings are to be found in holy books, but merely reading them will not make one religious."

"Many are the names of God and infinite the forms through which He may be approached."

"Truth is exact correspondence with reality."

"There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you."

"When the yogi starts to meditate, he must leave behind all sensory thoughts and all longings for possessions by quieting the waves of feeling (chitta), and the mental restlessness that arises therefrom, through the application of techniques that reinstate the controlling power of the untrammeled superconsciousness of the soul."

"The Creator, in taking infinite pains to shroud with mystery His presence in every atom of creation, could have had but one motive - a sensitive desire that men seek Him only through free will."

"When your mind is fully withdrawn in superconsciousness, it becomes centered in the bliss of the spine. You are then in your ideational, or causal, body. That is the level of the soul."

"The happiness of one's own heart alone cannot satisfy the soul; one must try to include, as necessary to one's own happiness, the happiness of others."

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

"Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens."

"Ignorance is the failure to discriminate between the permanent and the impermanent, the pure and the impure, bliss and suffering, the Self and the non-Self."

"Yoga is the settling of the mind into silence. When the mind has settled, we are established in our essential nature, which is unbounded Consciousness. Our essential nature is usually overshadowed by the activity of the mind."

I hoped to get instruction in Yoga, expected wonderful teachings, but what the teacher did was mainly to force me to face the darkness within myself and it almost killed me.... I was beaten down in every sense until I had to come to terms with that in me which I kept rejecting all my life.

Surrender is the most difficult thing in the world while you are doing it and the easiest when it is done. - Bhai Sahib