Rumi

Why are you so afraid of silence,
silence is the root of everything.
If you spiral into its void
a hundred voices will thunder messages
you long to hear.

What you always know experientially is the energy of the moment. This moment of life is who you are right now.
Become more sensitive to this miraculous moment of life happening in you.

Allow the energy of Now to take you where it wants to go.
—Maitreya Ishwara

Q: "I am engaged in the study of philosophy, sociology and education. I think more mental development is needed before I can dream of self-realization. Am I on the right track?"

Nisargadatta: "To earn a livelihood some specialized knowledge is needed. General knowledge develops the mind, no doubt. But if you are going to spend your life amassing knowledge, you build a wall around yourself. To go beyond the mind, a well-furnished mind is not needed."

Q: "Then what is needed?"

Nisargadatta: "Distrust your mind, and go beyond."

Q: "What shall I find beyond the mind?"

Nisargadatta: "The direct experience of being, knowing and loving."

Nyogen Sensaki

Some old papers were recently excavated
from the ruins of an ancient city
in Eastern Turkestan.

The scholars say that they contain
the thought of Bodhidharma,
and they have been busy turning out commentaries,
both in the horizontal writing of the West
and the vertical lines of the Orient.

Who knows exactly the thought of the blue-eyed monk?
Some imitate his zazen and gaze at the wall
until the sun goes down.

Hey – you are all wrong.

Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen

One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen. You cannot do it every morning for a few minutes or for half an hour and then forget all about it. It has to become like your heartbeat. You have to sit in it, you have to walk in it. Yes, you have even to sleep in it. —Osho

Slipping into Sanity…

I have given all that I am
as have you.
Whether wearied or exalted
let’s all fall on the floor laughing.

What a colossal blunder
we have all fallen prey to,
slipping into sanity like this.

Our minds are surely gone
when we see everything as God.
Prepare yourself Mother Earth
the inmates are loose
the fools have
broken free of their chains.

—Adyashanti

The birds have vanished from the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
Until only the Mountain remains

~ Li Po

`I do not know'

Earlier I was sure of so many things, now I am sure of nothing.
But I feel that I have lost nothing by not knowing, because all my knowledge was false. My not knowing was in itself knowledge of the fact that all knowledge is ignorance, that `I do not know' is the only true statement the mind can make. ~Nisargadatta