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We have a yearning to awaken to who we really are…

• The question ‘Who am I?’ is not an idle one. How you answer the question will determine how you live the rest of your life. It will determine the quality of your life. Neale Donald Walsch
• The main requirement for spiritual growth is a yearning to know who you really are. Adyashanti
• But in the end spirituality is not about watching the breath. It’s about waking up from the dream of separateness to the truth of unity. Adyashanti
• “Who am I?” is the only question worth asking and the only one never answered. Deepak Chopra
• I’ve always hated the “Who are you?” question. This is a philosophical inquiry. Answering that question is why we’re on earth. You can’t answer it in thirty seconds or in an elevator. Sandy Nathan
• Don’t let a day go by without asking who you are…each time you let a new ingredient to enter your awareness. Deepak Chopra
• The most intimate question we can ask, and the one that has the most spiritual power, is this: What or who am I? Adyashanti
• Who you think you are determines where you put your attention. Where you direct your attention creates your life experiences, and brings a new course of events into being. Gangaji
• What greater thing is there than this Mystery that is Myself? Franklin Merrell- Wolff
• Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle. Lewis Carroll
• The buddhists say there are 149 ways to god. I’m not looking for god, only for myself, and that is far more complicated. Jeanette Winterson
• The heart of this whole thing is to begin to examine: ‘Well who am I? Jon Kabat-Zinn
• Only one task to do here: find out who you are. How do you find out who you are? Dive into the silence and see. Satguru Siva Yogaswami
• How much longer will you go on letting your energy sleep? How much longer are you going to stay oblivious of the immensity of yourself? Rajneesh
• Man know thyself: then thou shalt know the Universe and God. Pythagoras
• I am not my body, I am not my mind, I am not my emotions Who then, am I? Vedic Question
• Getting in touch with your true self must be your first priority. Tom Hopkins
• Awakening,  Discovery,  Enlightenment,  The treasure within,  The soul,  Spirituality,  Meditation

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… to know the nature of our true self

• The secret to peace of mind is to not identify with anything other than your True Self. Robert Adams
• Every second you spend looking for something outside yourself is another second you spend away from your true self. Michael Jeffreys
• There is something that matters more than anything and that is finding the essence of who you are beyond that short- lived entity, that short- lived personalized sense of self. Eckhart Tolle
• Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free. Eckhart Tolle
• The effort to discover an authentic self, to strip away layers of alienation and culturally imposed identity and find a soul in a clear, unimpeded communion with the sacred is consonant with spiritual quests throughout the ages. Cynthia Eller
• Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment–the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is. Jorge Luis Borges

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Our minds create a fabricated sense of reality of who we are

• Everything generated by the mind including our thoughts and emotions is an illusion. It’s fabricated reality. Adyashanti
• What you assume yourself to be doesn’t exist. Charlie Hayes
• You’re a prisoner of your own illusions – about yourself and about the world. Dan Millman
• This bundle of ideas that we have held as being who we are is not actually the one who can make progress in the spiritual realm. Alice Gardner
• I thought I was, but I’m not, what I was, or what I thought. Micheal Teal
• He who defines himself can’t know who he really is. Lao Tzu
• The more you buy into thoughts about your identity, the more you cut yourself off from who you really are. Reuben Lowe
• We realize–often quite suddenly–that our sense of self, which has been formed and constructed out of our ideas, beliefs and images, is not really who we are. It doesn’t define us, it has no centre. Adyashanti
• All that a guru can tell you is: “My dear Sir, you are quite mistaken aboutyourself. You are not the person you take yourself to be.” Nisargadatta Maharaj
• The mind craves for formulations and definitions, always eager to squeeze reality into a verbal shape. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• When you awaken, you realize that the separate person you took yourself to be is just a construct, a mental fabrication… Stephan Bodian
• One common mistake is to think that one reality is THE reality. You must always be prepared to leave one reality for a greater one. Mother Meera
• Illusion,  Reality

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We mistake who we are for our thoughts, memories, bodies and possessions

• You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. Eckhart Tolle
• My thoughts are not who I am. All my thoughts about me and the world are an illusion. Once I know this, I can be truly still and experience the Immense Silence. Adyashanti
• It can be quite transformative to realize that you are not what you thought you were, that you are not your beliefs, that you are not your personality, that you are not your ego. You are something other than that, something that resides on the inside, at the innermost core of your being. Adyashanti
• You are not your mind, body, thoughts, feelings, story or past. Adyashanti
• Nothing that can be born, live and die is who we really are. Geraldine Evans
• Take 5 seconds just to be quiet. Everything that disappeared in those 5 seconds for you, that’s what’s not real. So when you are not thinking, everything that disappears… that’s what’s not real. For most people, that’s about 99% of their whole experience of life… their whole world. Adyashanti
• The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you. Eckhart Tolle
• I am not my successes or failures. I enjoy creating new circumstances but I do not get my sense of worth from them. I do not identify with them. They are not who I am. Eckhart Tolle
• I am not the person who is singing. I am the silent one inside. I am not my house, my car, my songs. They are only stops along my way.   Paula Cole
• I am unhappy if I think I am my things – job, friends, appearance, money. Sure, I can have fun with them, but I must not confuse with Who I Am. They have nothing to do with displaying or experiencing my True Self – and that is what I came to do. Neale Donald Walsch
• Look in the mirror and one thing is sure: what we see is not who we are. Richard Bach
• The illusion is we are only physical. Vanna Bonta

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We mistake who we are for “our life story”

• Your sense of identity, of self, is reduced to a story you keep telling yourself in your head. “Me and my story.” Eckhart Tolle
• We are, each of us, our own prisoner. We are locked up in our own story. Maxine Kumin
• The world is nothing but my perception of it. I see only through myself. I hear only through the filter of my story. Byron Katie
• Watch the mind as it tries, in every moment, to co-opt experience by translating it into a story. It tries to draw you away from experience into a mental world that simulates experience. If it succeeds, that story becomes your experience. Gina Lake
• When we really start to take a look at who we think we are… we start to see that while we may have various thoughts, beliefs, and identities, they do not individually or collectively tell us who we are. And yet it is astounding how completely we humans define ourselves by the content of our minds, feelings, and history. Adyashanti
• I ask you only to stop imagining that you were born, have parents, are a body, will die and so on. Just try, make a beginning– it is not as hard as you think. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it. The next message you need is always right where you are. Ram Dass
• Letting go of the story of self

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We mistake who we are for the roles we play in life

• Usually people are completely unaware of the roles they play. They are those roles. Eckhart Tolle
• The joy comes when we recognize that whatever situation we may find ourselves in, it’s only a role we are playing. Jean Slatter
• If circumstances are bad and you have to bear them, do not make them part of yourself. Play your part in life, but never forget it is only a role. Paramahansa Yogananda
• As soon as the mind and mind identification return; you’re no longer yourself but a mental image of yourself, and you start playing games and roles again to get your ego needs met. Eckhart Tolle
• In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight. Ram Dass
• Identify with the soul. Not the role. Ram Dass
• We are actors in a play who have forgotten they are in a play. Swami Premodaya

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The truth is that most of us are fast asleep…

• The world is in the condition that it’s in because the world is full of sleepwalkers. Neale Donald Walsch
• Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing we call human existence. Anthony de Mello
• People live in sleep, do everything in sleep, and do not know they are asleep. P. D. Ouspensky
• Right now, this very moment, you are asleep . . . Even if you are reading these words in broad daylight – sitting at your desk or beside the kitchen table, your feet firmly planted on the floor, eyes open, senses alert, feeling the weight of this book in your hands as sounds of life rise and fall rhythmically around you – you are deeply asleep, and dreaming furiously. Vincent Casspriano, Jr.
• When one realises one is asleep, at that moment one is already half-awake. D. Ouspensky
• It is not until you awaken and become fully present that you will realize that you have not been present. It is not until you awaken that you will realize you have been asleep, dreaming that you are awake. Leonard Jacobson
• Sleep,  Life is God’s dream

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… dreaming within a dream

• The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage! Like the apparent distances in a picture, things have no reality in themselves, but they are like heat haze. Buddha
• All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. Edgar Allan Poe
• Do not take life’s experiences too seriously. Above all, do not let them hurt you, for in reality they are nothing but dream experiences. Paramahansa Yogananda
• The dream is so convincing that it’s not until after you wake up that you realize just how asleep you were. Michael Jeffreys
• Consciousness is dreaming you. It likes it. But, it also wants to wake up. Eckhart Tolle
• The dream we are living has absolutely no purpose other than our awakening. Tony Parsons
• Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. Carl Jung
• If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn’t even know you are thinking. You would be like a dreamer who doesn’t know he is dreaming.  When you know you are dreaming, you are awake within the dream.  Eckhart Tolle
• My speaking is meant to shake you awake, not to tell you how to dream better. Adyashanti
• We dream that we are awake, we dream that we are asleep. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• You can live a whole life time never being awake. Dan Millman
• It is easy to be swept away by some overwhelming feeling, so it’s helpful to remember that any stressful feeling is like a compassionate alarm clock that says, “You’re caught in the dream.” Byron Katie
• Are you and I perchance caught up in a dream from which we have not yet awakened? Chuang Tzu
• We are near awakening when we dream that we dream. Novalis
• Though we seem to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream, and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are. Jelaluddin Rumi
• Life is dreaming with the brain awake.
• Dreaming

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Our sense of reality is just a persistent illusion

• Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. Albert Einstein
• If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. The Matrix (Morpheus)
• For nearly one hundred years we have known that the material world is an illusion. Everything that seems solid – a rock, a tree, your body – is actually 99.999% empty space. Deepak Chopra
• Reality leaves a lot to the imagination. John Lennon
• Learn to shake yourself loose from what the world believes is the only reality. Neville Goddard
• Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth. Ludwig Borne
• The great obstacle of progress is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge. Rod Beckwith’s
• Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion. Democritus of Abdera
• Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is illusion. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly. Richard Bach
• All descriptions of reality are temporary hypotheses. Gautama Buddha
• Reality,  Illusion

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All our mind-held beliefs and thoughts are part of that illusion …

• All the concepts and beliefs we possess, no matter how precious, are part of the illusion too. Adyashanti
• Many of our ideas and beliefs about ourselves and the world are so deeply ingrained that we are unaware that they are beliefs and take them, without question, for the absolute truth. Rupert Spira
• All thoughts achieve the same outcome. They take you out of the truth of life, out of the present moment, and into a world of illusion. Leonard Jacobson
• Don’t seek the truth. Just cease to cherish opinions. Zen saying
• There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth. Maya Angelou
• The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge. Daniel Boorstin
• The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new. Pema Chodrun
• Why is it that so few people are truly free? Because they try to conform to ideas, concepts, and beliefs in their heads. They try to concentrate their way to heaven. But freedom is about the natural state, the spontaneous and un- self- conscious expression of beingness. If you want to find it, see that the very idea of “a someone who is in control” is a concept created by the mind. Take one step backward into the unknown. Adyashanti
• Contemplate this: there is no such thing as a true belief. Adyashanti
• To expound and propogate concepts is simple, to drop all concepts is difficult and rare. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• Attachment to views is the greatest impediment to the spiritual path. Thich Nhat Hanh
• Belief

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… for the ultimate truth cannot be grasped by the mind

• The Truth cannot be grasped by the mind. Adyashanti
• A mature mind is one who understands the impossibility of knowing the ultimate, and with this understanding there is a new dimension: the dimension of being. Osho
• Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind. Woody Allen
• The answer can never be found in the mind. Bob Adamson
• The mind may accept or deny that you are awareness, but either way it can’t really understand. It cannot comprehend. Thought cannot comprehend what is beyond thought. That’s why we call this a transcendent recognition, a transcendent revelation. Adyashanti  Adyashanti
• I am telling you that your perception of ultimate reality is more limited than you thought, and that Truth is more unlimited than you can imagine. Neale Donald Walsch
• The soul understands what the mind cannot conceive. Neale Donald Walsch
• You rely too much on brain. The brain is the most overrated organ. Woody Allen
• If you use your mind to study reality, you will understand neither reality nor the mind. If you study reality without using your mind, you will understand both. Bodhidharma
• Truth,  The mind

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The truth is beyond thoughts and words…

• Reality is beyond thoughts and words. Eckhart Tolle
• Truth begins where thought ends. Michael Jeffreys
• No thought can tell you who you are. Michael Jeffreys
• Reality can only be seen in the absence of thought and belief. Scott Kiloby
• Trying to find the Truth through words and speech is like putting your head in a bowl of glue. Yuan Wu
• Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Words are merely utterances: noises that stand for feelings, thoughts, and experience. They are symbols. Signs. Insignias. They are not Truth. They are not the real thing. In fact, you place so little value on experience that when what your experience of God differs from what you’ve heard of God, you automatically discard the experience and own the words, when it should be just the other way around. Neale Donald Walsch
• Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much. Eckhart Tolle
• Nobody can tell you who you are. It would just be another concept, so it would not change you. Who you are requires no belief. In fact, every belief is an obstacle. It does not even require your realization since you already are who you are. But without realization, who you are does not shine forth into the world. Eckhart Tolle
• I confess that there is nothing to teach: no religion, no science, no writings which will lead your mind back to Spirit. Today I speak this way, tomorrow that, but always the Path is beyond words and beyond mind.  Lao Tzu
• No words, phrases, or sentences are capable of describing or naming the Way, because once it is named, it is a false name and has to be eliminated. Once it is eliminated, only emptiness is left. When the false is abandoned, the true emerges. Henry Chang
• The treasure I have found cannot be described in words, the mind cannot conceive of it. Shankara
• Spiritual Awakening is awakening from the dream of thought. Eckhart Tolle
• You are not who you believe yourself to be. Who you are cannot be devised. Who you are cannot be imagined. Who you are is before, during, and after all thoughts. Stop for a moment and realize who you are. Gangaji
• Thinking,  Words

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… and can only be understood outside the conceptual prison of the mind…

• The liberating truth is not static; it is alive. It cannot be put into concepts and be understood by the mind. The truth lies beyond all forms of conceptual fundamentalism. Adyashanti
• It is an illusory pursuit to look to concepts and ideas in order to find truth, to find peace, to find that which will liberate us. Adyashanti
• You can’t ‘figure your way out’ of the conceptual prison that your mind has created. The mind cannot ‘see’ outside the mind. Freedom can come only when you leave the entire conceptual framework behind. Ed Muzika
• When the mind is trying to understand, when the mind is trying to grasp an intellectual comprehension of ultimate reality, the mind is simply trying to remain in control. Adyashanti
• Spiritual awakening is being free from conceptualisation. It is awakening from identification with thoughts.  It is awakening to the aliveness and depth of this moment.  Eckhart Tolle
• Understanding

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… through a realisation born of direct experience, not that of the intellect

• Awakening to the truth is a deep realization of what you are as an experience. What is it that is listening? What is it that is feeling? Feel it. Sense it. Welcome it. Adyashanti
• Ultimately, awakening awareness is experiential. Alone, offered ‘truth’ is but more words in a world too cluttered with pretentious words. Experiencing ‘truth’ will affect a permanent change in you. G.’s Zaadz
• Experience

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To awaken to who you really are, you must let go of thought …

• Knowing my thoughts are not the Truth helps me to be still, not paying attention to thoughts. Adyashanti
• What is THIS moment like when I experience it without a story? Without checking with mind about what anything means or doesn’t mean? Without going into past or future? Without trying to understand or get anything? What is the storyless NOW like? Only one way to find out. Michael Jeffreys
• Let go of all ideas and images in your mind, they come and go and aren’t even generated by you. So why pay so much attention to your imagination when reality is for the realizing right now? Adyashanti
• Let there be a silent understanding and no more. Away with all thinking and explaining. Huang Po
• Thoughts are impediments to seeing your own face. Don’t give rise to any thought, and discover who you are. Papaji
• It is your work to clear away the mass of encumbering material of thoughts, so that you may bring into plain view the precious thing at the center of the mass. Robert Collier

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… and bathe in stillness

• When you are willing to stop looking for something in thought, you find everything in silence. Gangaji
• I will experience stillness when I no longer reference the mind for reality. Not a forced silence but a natural, immense silence. The great silence. Adyashanti
• The mind has to be empty to see clearly. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
• Why is silence the greatest teacher? Because real truth never speaks. What would be the point? Truth simply is and so does not need to be reminded of this. On the other hand, illusion cannot be convinced for it doesn’t actually exist except as a thought, belief or concept. Michael Jeffreys
• The moment you notice silence, stillness arises in you. Thoughts become depersonalised. Before, I thought they were me. Eckhart Tolle
• Truth can come to you only when your mind and heart are simple, clear, and there is love in your heart; not if your heart is filled with the things of the mind. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate. Huang Po
• The mind covers up reality, without knowing it. To know the nature of the mind, you need intelligence, the capacity to look at the mind in silent and dispassionate awareness. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• When all mental activity around who you think you are is stopped, there is a crack in the authority of perception, in the structure of the mind. I invite you to enter through that crack. Come in through that opening. When you do, the mind is no longer filled with its latest self- definition. In that moment, there is only silence. And in that silence, it is possible to recognize absolute fulfilment: the truth of who you are. Gangaji
• To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Give yourself some quiet time. Don’t struggle to be quiet – that’s struggle time.  Deep seated wisdom – wisdom beyond thought –   arises when we’re quiet.  Don’t try to figure it out.  Let it figure itself out.  Adopt an attitude of curiosity.  Watch your thoughts and feelings.  Ask yourself if it is actually true.  Does it exist beyond your mind? Adyashanti
• A mature mind is one who understands the impossibility of knowing the ultimate, and with this understanding there is a new dimension: the dimension of being. Osho
• Stillness

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In the stillness, allow all beliefs, opinions and concepts to fall away…

• If you want to know something, go elsewhere. If you want to un-know everything, then sit and listen. Adyashanti
• Finding the Truth is aloneness as all shared beliefs and concepts fall away. Adyashanti
• Forget all you know or think you know; abandon power and enforced decree. Inward, where the deepest rivers flow, find the currents of eternity. Wayland Drew
• I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• The most remarkable event in the history of humanity is the phenomena of people dissolving their identification with the prevailing systems of thoughts, beliefs, rituals, and practices, and entering an experience of unconditioned awareness. Peter Fenner
• Truth is. Belief is not required. Gerry Roston
• The intricacies of spiritual philosophy and theologies are just a thought within Emptiness. Adyashanti
• Don’t try to understand! It’s enough if you do not misunderstand. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color– something which exists before all forms and colors appear… No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self- centered idea. Shunryu Suzuki
• Do not seek for the truth, only stop having an opinion. Seng Ts’an
• The real work that brings about awakening, rather than merely granting the external appearance of “being spiritual,” while actually embroiling us ever more deeply in the dream, is a rigorous, daily commitment to the identification and elimination of every self- serving belief from which our personal dream-lives are constructed. Vincent Casspriano, Jr

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… dropping all you think you know…

• Self-actualization is the process of deprogramming, not the acquiring of new knowledge. Dick Sutphen
• In the pursuit of knowledge: everyday something is added. In the pursuit of enlightenment: everyday something is dropped. Lao Tzu
• Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge. Thich Nhat Hanh
• Truth isn’t about knowing things; you already know too much. It’s about unknowing. Jed McKenna
• If you want to know something, go elsewhere. If you want to unknow everything, then sit and listen. Adyashanti.
• The silence inside of you is the sound of your knowledge collapsing. Remember, it is you who said, “I want to be free.  Adyashanti
• If you fully awaken, you will not know yourself. Understand this, and you will understand all. Leonard Jacobson
• It’s not about understanding, it’s about a falling. A falling into the awesome mystery that is life itself. A falling into not- knowing. And in that falling, the seeker is no more. Jeff Foster

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… releasing all your attachments…

• One must die; that is, one must free oneself from a thousand petty attachments and identifications. . . . One is attached to everything in one’s life, attached to one’s imagination, attached to one’s stupidity, attached even to one’s sufferings, possibly to the sufferings more than to everything else. . . . Attachment to things, identifications with things, keep alive a thousand useless “I”s in a person. These “I”s must die in order that the big I may be born.  But how can they be made to die?  They do not want to die.  It is at this point that the possibility of awakening comes to the rescue.  To awaken means to recognize one’s nothingness.  I. Gurdjieff
• In spiritual life, there is no room for compromise. Awakening is not negotiable; we cannot bargain to hold on to things that please us while relinquishing things that do not matter to us. A lukewarm yearning for awakening is not enough to sustain us through the difficulties involved in letting go. It is important to understand that anything that can be lost was never truly ours, anything that we deeply cling to only imprisons us. Jack Kornfield
• Non-attachment

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…dropping all your illusions…

• Spiritual evolution occurs as the result of removing obstacles and not actually acquiring anything new. Devotion enables surrender of the mind’s vanities and cherished illusions so that it progressively becomes more free and more open to the light of Truth. David R. Hawkins
• Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretence. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true. Adyashanti
• Get rid of all of your illusions and what’s left is the truth. You don’t find truth as much as you stumble upon it when you have cast away your illusions. Adyashanti
• The years that are gone seem like dreams–if one might go on sleeping and dreaming—but to wake up and find—oh! Well! Perhaps it is better to wake up after all. Even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one’s life. Kate Chopin
• You’ve got to drop illusions. You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings. Anthony de Mello
• Awakening is ultimately the journey of an individual toward an understanding of the nature of the Ultimate Reality behind the illusion that we only think is ultimately real. It is the highest calling of man, for the destination is what many call God.  Steve Baxter
• Illusion

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… especially the illusions you’ve tangled up with your false sense of self…

• Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be. Alan Watts
• Disillusionment with yourself must precede Enlightenment. Vernon Howard
• The greatest miracle is the experiencing of your essential self as prior to any words, thoughts, mental labels, and images. For this to happen, you need to disentangle your sense of I, of Beingness, from all the things it has become mixed up with, that is to say, identified with. Eckhart Tolle
• The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self. Albert Einstein
• An hour reflecting on one’s own non-existence is better than a year of religious devotions with the thought that one exists. Abu Sa’id Lbn Abi-L-Khayr
• Before we can become who we really are, we must become conscious of the fact that the person who we think we are, here and now, is at best an impostor and a stranger. Thomas Merton

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… thus allowing your ego to die

• The ego is scared because awakening to the Truth will destroy it. It’s a destructive process. Adyashanti
• Total annihilation is a prerequisite for enlightenment. You can’t be one without the other. Steven Norquist
• When the ego dies, the soul awakes. Gandhi
• Enlightenment is the direct, abiding realization that YOU don’t exist. Anything else, ain’t it. Adyashanti
• … fundamentally, most people want to remain separate and in control. Simply put, most people want to keep dreaming that they are special, unique, and separate… more than they want to wake up to the perfect unity of an Unknown which leaves no room for any separation from the whole.  Adyashanti
• Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found. Pema Chodron
• Transcending the ego

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Allow only one thought, “I am”

• Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought ‘I am’. The mind will rebel in the beginning, but with patience and perseverance it will yield and keep quiet. Once you are quiet, things will begin to happen spontaneously and quite naturally, without any interference on your part. Whatever you think, say or do, this sense of immutable and affectionate being remains as the ever-    present background of the mind. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• When I say, ‘I am’, I do not mean a separate entity with a body as its nucleus, I mean the totality of being, the ocean of consciousness, the entire universe of all that is known. I have nothing to desire for I am complete forever. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the I Am that is deeper than name and form. Eckhart Tolle
• The only truth which is not a concept is the sense of presence, here and now. ‘I am,’ not ‘I am Joe or Jane.’ This impersonal sense of presence in the present moment is the only truth. Ramesh Balsekar
• As long as there is a ‘you’ doing or not doing, thinking or not-thinking, meditating or not- meditating, you are no closer to home than the day you were born. Wei Wu We

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In this way, you become enlightened by realising who you really are…

• Enlightenment means waking up to what you truly are and then being that. Adyashanti
• The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. Eckhart Tolle
• There is nothing to seek and nothing to find. You’re already enlightened, and all the words in the world won’t give you what you already have. The wise seeker, therefore, is concerned with one thing only: to become aware of what he already is, of the True Self within. Zen maxim
• Awakening isn’t about becoming extraordinary. If anything, it’s about becoming ordinary. It’s about becoming who we really, really are. Adyashanti
• Enlightenment is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. Eckhart Tolle
• The highest goal of spirituality is Self-realization, but what does that mean? It means to feel your Self as a living reality in this moment, and there is always only this moment. Gay Hendricks
• Awakening is the process of overcoming your false self and discovering your True Self. It begins when you decide to grab the tiger by the tail and ends with the tiger tenderly licking the sweat off your brow and face.  Steve Baxter
• Enlightenment

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… by awakening to your true nature and being that

• Enlightenment is the direct result of freedom from the illusion of a separate self. A profound understanding of this ultimate simplicity provides all that is required for an awakening to enlightenment. Gary Crowley
• Enlightenment is, in the end, nothing more than the natural state of being. Adyashanti
• Enlightenment is knowing what I really am. And what I am not. I awaken to my true nature. Adyashanti
• Being can be felt, but can never be understood mentally. To regain awareness of Being and to abide in that state of “feeling- realization” is enlightenment. Eckhart Tolle
• Now don’t think that awakening is the end. Awakening is the end of seeking, the end of the seeker, but it is the beginning of a life lived from your true nature. Adyashanti
• Awakening

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Enlightenment is therefore a realisation and not an attainment or achievement

• Enlightenment is not an attainment; it is a realization. And when you wake up, everything changes and nothing changes. If a blind man realizes that he can see, has the world changed? Dan Millman
• There can never be an “enlightened person,” there is only the realization that there is no separation. Halina Pytlasinka
• God is Being itself, not a being. There can be no subject-object relationship here, no duality, no you and God. God- realization is the most natural thing there is. Eckhart Tolle
• Awakening to the truth is a deep realization of what you are as an experience. What is it that is listening? What is it that is feeling? Feel it. Sense it. Welcome it. Adyashanti
• Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go. Osho
• Enlightenment

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Enlightenment is not something to seek or get to …

• Seeking is simply a game that is played until the recognition that there is nothing to find. Unmani Liza Hyde
• You find God the moment you realize that you don’t need to seek God. Eckhart Tolle
• Spiritual seekers look for self-realization or enlightenment in the future. To be a seeker implies that you need the future. If this is what you believe, it becomes true for you: you will need time until you realize that you don’t need time to be who you are. Eckhart Tolle
• There is no such thing as “getting to heaven.” There is only a knowing that you are already there. The irony is that most people think they have to leave where they are to get to where they want to be. Neale Donald Walsch
• When you demand nothing of the world, nor of God, when you want nothing, seek nothing, expect nothing, then the Supreme State will come to you uninvited and unexpected. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• You will receive everything you need when you stop asking for what you do not need. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• There is nothing new nor anything you do not already have which needs to be gained. The feeling that you have not yet realized is the sole obstruction to realization. Ramana Maharishi
• Consciousness is an end in itself. We torture ourselves getting somewhere, and when we get there it is nowhere, for there is nowhere to get to. David Herbert Lawrence
• Enlightenment

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… for you are already what you seek…

• The truth is that you already are what you are seeking. Adyashanti
• Enlightenment is understanding that there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nobody you have to be except exactly who you’re being right now. Neale Donald Walsch
• Your ego’s biggest trick is getting you to spend your entire lifetime looking outside yourself for something you already are. Michael Jeffreys
• Behind most spiritual practices is the belief that you have to get someplace you’re not – a destination called realization or enlightenment. But realization isn’t someplace else; it’s the naturally occurring human state. It doesn’t belong to anybody. It’s who we all are. Suzanne Segal
• We meditate not to attain enlightenment, because enlightenment is already in us. We don’t need to search anywhere. We don’t need to practice to obtain some high position. We can enjoy every moment. People talk about entering nirvana, but we are already there. Aimlessness and nirvana are one. We have everything we need to make the present moment the happiest in our life. Thich Nhat Hanh
• All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit is to stop seeking something more or better or different, and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are. Adyashanti
• To seek something, you must have at least some vague idea or image of what it is you are seeking. But ultimate truth is not an idea or an image or something attained anew. So, to seek truth as something objective is a waste of time and energy. Truth can’t be found by seeking it, simply because truth is what you are. Adyashanti
• Do not be under the delusion that God is somewhere and you have to search for Him; God is in you. Atharva Veda
• We are on a journey of becoming that which we already are. That is the impossible paradox of our lives. Leonard Jacobson
• Man is almost mad—mad because he is seeking something which he has already got; mad because he’s not aware of who he is; mad because he hopes, desires and then ultimately, feels frustrated. Frustration is bound to be there because you cannot find yourself by seeking; you are already there. The seeking has to stop, the search has to drop. Osho
• The search depends on a deep belief that The All is not present now. That this moment is not as it should be. Adyashanti
• The Truth is inseparable from who you are. Yes, you are the Truth. If you look for it elsewhere, you will be deceived every time. Eckhart Tolle
• The only thing standing between you and self-realization is the belief that you are not already fully realized. Ramana Maharshi

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… and it is only ever available to you in the present moment

• Even my desire to become free or enlightened is just another craving for fulfillment or completion in the future. So don’t seek to become free of desire or “achieve” enlightenment. Become present. Eckhart Tolle
• The present moment has always been available to spiritual seekers, but as long as you are seeking you are not available to the present moment. “Seeking” implies that you are looking to the future for some answer, or for some achievement, spiritual or otherwise. Eckhart Tolle
• Enlightenment cannot be attained if it is sought as a future goal. Give up the search.  The entry point is now, not in the future.  The ego can only be transcended in the now.  In the depth of you, your essence is already complete.  You are already it.  You just need to realise it.  Eckhart Tolle
• The very desire to seek spiritual enlightenment is in fact nothing but the grasping tendency of the ego itself, and thus the very search for enlightenment prevents it. The ‘perfect practice’ is therefore not to search for enlightenment but to inquire into the motive for seeking itself. You obviously seek in order to avoid the present, and yet the present alone holds the answer: to seek forever is to miss the point forever. You always already are enlightened Spirit, and therefore to seek Spirit is simply to deny Spirit. Ken Wilber
• You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present. Eckhart Tolle
• Presence

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Therefore, don’t seek or strive for enlightenment, but turn your attention inward in the present and allow your true nature to emerge

• God dwells in you, as you, and you don’t have to ‘do’ anything to be God- realized or Self- realized, it is already your true and natural state. Just drop all seeking, turn your attention inward, and sacrifice your mind to the One Self radiating in the Heart of your very being. For this to be your own presently lived experience, Self-Inquiry is the one direct and immediate way. Ramana Maharshi
• There is nothing to practise. To know yourself, be yourself. To be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that. Just be. Let your true nature emerge. Don’t disturb your mind with seeking Nisargadatta Maharaj
• You are already everything you may hope to attain, so no effort of the will is necessary – even for the mind to come back to the breath – and no attainment is possible. You are already it. It is already here. Here is already everywhere, and now is already always.  Jon Kabat-Zinn
• Awareness,  Attention

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Don’t think of awakening as something extraordinary

• The biggest barrier to awakening is the belief that it is something rare. Adyashanti
• Enlightenment is the natural state of consciousness, the innocent state of consciousness, that state which is uncontaminated by the movement of thought, uncontaminated by control or manipulation of mind. Adyashanti
• Enlightenment is very possible for the ordinary individual. Actually, it is easier than for someone who thinks that they are special. Ravi Shankar
• Enlightenment is very ordinary; it is nothing special. Rather than making you more special, it is going to make you less special. It plants you right in the center of a wonderful humility and innocence. Adyashanti
• Before enlightenment – chopping wood, carrying water. After enlightenment – chopping wood, carrying water. Zen proverb

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In fact, thinking that it is special, and we are special to attain it, is a great barrier to awakening

• The sense of being somebody special (a legend in our own mind!) helps immunize “I” against the bare facticity of its own mortality, here- and-now instability, and innate insubstantialness. Even when “I” dreams of transcending itself – as in those programs that have (or advertise) as their central agenda the eradication of ego – it is still an “I” who has now achieved the incomparable goal of self- transcendence! “Look, Ma, no ego!” we announce as we unicycle past our rapt inner audience, too proud to notice our pride, forgetting that self- conceit persists well into advanced transpersonal stages of development.   In our craving to be somebody special –  and don’t forget that we may find our specialness through being “nobody” – we bypass exploration of that very craving, committing far more of our passion to fulfilling our dreams than to actually awakening from them.   Robert Augustus Masters

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When you awaken, you awaken to the pure consciousness that you are…

• Underlying the sense-perceived universe there is the un-manifested life: the eternal one consciousness out of which every life form emerges. And you are that. Adyashanti
• What you are is the beyond—awake and present, here and now already. I am simply helping you to realize that. Adyashanti
• What we are looking for is what is looking. St. Francis of Assissi
• We think there’s someplace other than here to get to —that’s what drives the whole pursuit. Only when the pursuit ceases, is it possible to recognize what comprises you: pure being, pure consciousness. This is actually the very substance of your own self and being. Adyashanti
• You are a dynamic stream of consciousness, flowing freely, fully and fearlessly in, through and around the Universe in unlimited abundance. Reclaim your Spirit…  Robert Beno
• Within each of us is a light, awake, encoded in the fibers of our existence. Divine ecstasy is the totality of this marvellous creation experienced in the hearts of humanity. Tony Samara
• Spirit is the essence of consciousness, the energy of the universe that creates all things. Each one of us is a part of that spirit – a divine entity. So the spirit is the higher self, the eternal being that lives within us. Shakti Gawain
• Consciousness is the ground of all being. Amit Goswami, Ph.D
• Know yourself as wise, loving, intelligent, eternal consciousness that never needed to change or fix anything in the first place. Then see what happens. Christine Breese
• In my definition of consciousness, consciousness is the same thing as life. What wisdom traditions also call spirit. Deepak Chopra
• Mind is consciousness which has put on limitations. You are originally unlimited and perfect. Later you take on limitations and become the mind. Ramana Maharshi
• The truth is you really are nothing, but this nothing is full, whole, infinite in everything and everywhere. This nothing is consciousness itself. It is already whole, complete and fulfilled. This is the amazing irony. Gangaji
• Each individual has to know himself. He has to know himself as the infinite, eternal and immortal Consciousness. Sri Chinmoy
• Within your physical atoms the origins of all consciousness still sings. Seth- Jane Roberts
• You are consciousness itself, both as it manifests in the material world, and as it lies in unmanifested in your being. Deepak Chopra
• Life is consciousness. Emmet Fox
• God is not found in places. God is found in consciousness. Joel Goldsmith
• Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light, but making the darkness conscious. Carl Jung
• Consciousness

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… to the pure beingness and awareness that you are…

• Presence is the original state before the universe was born. In every being, the essence of being itself is present as presence. Eckhart Tolle
• Become aware you’re aware. There is no separate entity that is aware.  The All is aware. Adyashanti
• Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. Eckhart Tolle
• What you are is the beyond—awake and present, here and now already. I am simply helping you to realize that. Adyashanti
• Being,  Awareness

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… to the pure stillness and space that you are

• When you rest in quietness and your image of yourself fades, and your image of the world fades, and your ideas of others fade, what’s left? A brightness, a radiant emptiness that is simply what you are. Adyashanti
• The same undivided and indivisible space is outside and inside of a thousand pots. Likewise, the Self pervades all beings. Yogavasistha Maharamayana
• Stillness

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Awakening is no other than consciousness becoming acquainted with itself…

• It’s taken 14 billion years for matter to gain the capacity to become conscious of itself. Andrew Cohen
• The Awakening is no other than Consciousness becoming acquainted with itself. D. T. Suzuki
• Consciousness is dreaming you. It likes it. But, it also wants to wake up. Eckhart Tolle
• Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence. Alan Wilson Watts
• The All is conscious. It is self-aware.  Adyashanti
• We are the cosmos made conscious and life is the means by which the universe understands itself. Brian Cox
• Matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration; we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively; there’s no such thing as death, life is just a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Bill Hicks
• The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love. Meister Eckhart

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… and everything that occurs in your life is there to help you to wake up

• 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
• Everything that occurs in your life is part of God’s plan to wake you up. Leonard Jacobson
• The dream we are living has absolutely no purpose other than our awakening. Tony Parsons
• The separate self can never discover the truth – in the end, the truth just awakens to itself through you. Stephan Bodian
• Life gives you exactly what you need to awaken. Scott McLeod

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When you awaken, you awaken to the realisation that you are one with all …

• He who experiences the unity of life sees his own self in all beings, and all beings in his own self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye. Buddha
• The Truth is far more all-encompassing than the mind could ever comprehend. No thought can encapsulate the Truth. At best, it can point to it. For example, it can say: “All things are intrinsically one.” That is a pointer, not an explanation. Understanding these words means feeling deep within you the truth to which they point. Eckhart Tolle
• The way they perceive the world suddenly changes, and they find themselves without any sense of separation between themselves and the rest of the world. Adyashanti
• There can never be an “enlightened person,” there is only the realization that there is no separation. Halina Pytlasinka
• We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness. Thich Nhat Hanh
• The secret of merging with Spirit and recognizing the oneness of the whole Universe cannot be learned in a lifetime, but can be revealed in a moment, for it has always lived within each and every one of us. Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• The Truth is we are all one. Oneness. It’s not a tiny me in a vast universe, but the universe all in me. Adyashanti
• We are the universe pretending to be individuals. Deepak Chopra
• This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states, we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness.  This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed. William James
• At the deepest level of Being, you are one with all that is. Eckhart Tolle
• You are a temporary expression of the One Eternal Life. Eckhart Tolle
• Enlightenment is your realisation of your oneness with the Universal One Life. Eckhart Tolle
• The choiceless truth of who you are is revealed to be permanently here permeating everything. Not a thing and not separate from anything. Gangaji
• Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness. Albert Einstein
• The most basic truth of life: One Being is creating all of this – all of these different expressions of life. There’s only one Being here, and not only are you it but everyone else is it. Let that sink in a moment. Gina Lake
• Oneness

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Awakening to who you really are leads to a transformation…

• If we identify with the soul we awaken the authentic self, inspire the spirit and fuel the fire of transformation. Micheal Teal
• To be enlightened is to be unconditionally intimate with this moment. Scott Morrison
• There are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don’t bother you anymore. You become light- hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous. Deepak Chopra
• The capacity for total wonder is the very substance of awakening. Daniel Odier
• Last night I lost the world, and gained the universe. JoyBell C.
• Transformation

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…awakening you to deep happiness and peace …

• When you surrender to what is and so become fully present, the past ceases to have any power. The realm of Being, which has been obscured by the mind, then opens up. Suddenly a great stillness arises within you, an unfathomable sense of peace. And within that peace, there is great joy. And within that joy, there is love. And at the innermost core, there is the sacred and immeasurable, That which cannot be named. Eckhart Tolle
• Real happiness abides in Self-knowledge alone. All else is fleeting. To know one’s Self is to be blissful always. Ramana Maharshi
• To imagine that some little thing – food, sex, power, fame-will make you happy is to decieve oneself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• Our essential nature is pure potentiality, infinite creativity, pure joy, pure knowledge, infinite silence, perfect balance, simplicity and bliss. Deepak Chopra
• Nearly all mankind is more or less unhappy because nearly all do not know the true Self. Real happiness abides in Self- knowledge alone. All else is fleeting. To know one’s Self is to be blissful always. Ramana Maharshi
• Whatever noble aims we may have, paths we may be on, or necessary efforts we may make, our only real freedom is to awaken now, this very instant, to the mystery and miracle of being, to the spacious awareness that we are. It is only this immediate awakening to the deepest levels of ourselves, to the conscious source that connects us all, that will enable us to experience and manifest real harmony, intelligence, kindness, love, and compassion in our lives and bring about the transformation in the world that we all wish for.  Dennis Lewis
• Because all existence is founded upon the ever-present state of union, everything already exists in a state of tranquillity. However, this state of tranquility is masked from us by our assumption that there is a separation, that there is a problem.  Suzuki Roshi
• Then look for yourself. When we look for ourselves, we come to see that yes, indeed, peace and stillness are totally natural states, and they are already happening. Adyashanti
• Happiness,  Inner peace,  Love

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… awakening you to love and compassion…

• We awaken when we shift our consciousness and see life though the eyes of our divine essence. Awakened beings develop an awareness of their true spiritual natures. The more we awaken, the more empathy we feel for all life forms on earth. Marta Davidovich Ockuly
• The more you understand your true spiritual identity, and your connection with the Supreme, the easier it will be to love your Self. Stephen Knapp
• If there isn’t an emanation of love and joy, complete presence and openness toward all beings, then it is not enlightenment. Another indicator is how a person behaves in difficult or challenging situations or when things “go wrong.” Eckhart Tolle
• Awakening into love is a lifelong path. David Simon
• Love,  Compassion

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… awakening you to joy…

• Joy is the realization of oneness, the oneness of our soul with the world and of the world- soul with the supreme love. Rabindranath Tagore
• To discover joy is to return to a state of oneness with the universe. Peggy Jenkins
• True joy results when we become aware of our connectedness to everything. Paul Pearsall
• The challenge of the path of joy is to create freedom. True joy comes from operating with Inner- Directedness and recognizing who you are.  Sanaya Roman
• I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being. Hafez of Shiraz
• Egolessness is a state of mind that has complete confidence in the sacredness of the world. It is unconditional well being, unconditional joy that includes all the different qualities of our experience. Pema Chodron
• Our essential nature is pure potentiality, infinite creativity, pure joy, pure knowledge, infinite silence, perfect balance, simplicity and bliss. Deepak Chopra
• Happy are those who have overcome their egos; happy are those who have attained peace; happy are those who have found the Truth. Gautama Buddha
• Joy

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…awakening you to freedom and possibility…

• When you discover your essential nature and know who you really are, in that knowing itself is the ability to fulfil any dream you have…and the more you experience your true nature, the closer you are to the field of pure potentiality. Deepak Chopra
• Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free. Eckhart Tolle
• Truth is freedom. Truth requires no belief, no effort. It is what is. Of course, words cannot express this. But truth is freedom. Tom Thompson
• As the ego is no longer running your life, the psychological need for external security, which is illusory anyway, lessens. You are able to live with uncertainty, even enjoy it. When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life. Eckhart Tolle
• Freedom,  Possibility

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…awakening you to clarity and insight…

• In the enlightened state, you still use your thinking mind when needed, but in a much more focused and effective way than before. Eckhart Tolle
• A miracle is nothing more or less than this: Anyone who has come into a knowledge of his or her true identity, of his or her oneness with the all- pervading wisdom and power, this makes it possible for laws higher than the ordinary mind knows of to be revealed to him or her.  Ralph Waldo Trine
• Clarity,  Insight

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…awakening you to fearlessness and inner strength

• Your true Self, which is your spirit, is immune to criticism, it is unfearful of any challenge, and it feels beneath no one. And yet, it is also humble and feels superior to no one, because it recognizes that everyone else is the same Self, the same spirit in different disguises. Deepak Chopra
• You must learn to get in touch with the innermost essence of your being. This true essence is beyond the ego. It is fearless; it is free; it is immune to criticism; it does not fear any challenge. It is beneath no one, superior to no one, and full of magic, mystery, and enchantment. Deepak Chopra
• A nice definition of an awakened person: a person who no longer marches to the drums of society, a person who dances to the tune of the music that springs up from within. Anthony de Mello
• When we are afraid of someone or something, it is because we do not feel that particular person or thing is a part of us. When we have established conscious oneness with the Absolute, with the Infinite Vast, then everything there is part of us.  And how can we be afraid of ourselves?  Sri Chinmoy
• Strength

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…awakening a sense of harmony with your human nature

• When we rest in our source, our bodies and minds and personalities and feelings come into harmony. Adyashanti
• It’s amazing for a human being to realize his or her true nature is not trying to change their human nature. This allows the human nature to rest, to no longer feel separate from its source. We start to feel unity within ourselves. We stop feeling that we are divided within ourselves, because we see that ultimately there is no dividing line between awareness, or spirit, and our ego- personality. There’s really no separation between the two. Adyashanti
• Everything starts to be seen as a manifestation of spirit, including your humanness, with all of its strengths and weaknesses and all of its funny little quirks. You discover that your humanness is in no way separate from the divinity within you, which is what you actually are. Adyashanti
• When mind and heart come together, mind serves Consciousness instead of serving itself. David Icke
• When you know that you are eternal you can play your true role in time. When you know you are divine you can become completely human. When you know you are one with God you are free to become absolutely yourself. Mother Meera
• Nature

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Life becomes less heavy and more enjoyable

• You are not the character, but the dreamer of the character. You are consciousness. When you awaken, the dream does not disappear, but it becomes less heavy and more enjoyable. You can play the character and have fun with it without losing yourself in it. Eckhart Tolle
• The infinite expression of One, through our mind, is divided into individual people, moments and experiences. When you know that this is what the mind does then you can appreciate it and enjoy it. Otherwise, you end up being someone at a magic show trying to tell everyone how it’s all an illusion… but you came to be a part of the illusion, so enjoy the magic. If you aren’t enjoying the magic, you’re missing the point. Matt Kahn
• Enjoyment

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Your awakening benefits not only you but all living beings

• Waking up is not a selfish pursuit of happiness, it is a revolutionary stance, from the inside out, for the benefit of all beings in existence. Noah Levine
• Whenever someone awakens fully, it affects human consciousness at a collective level. It is like dropping a stone into a dark murky pond. Ripples of light!  Not one word need be spoken. Leonard Jacobsen
• Remember, we are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we’re so deeply interconnected with one another. Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is the supreme creative act. Ram Dass
• You and I are the force for transformation in the world. We are the consciousness that will define the nature of the reality we are moving into. Ram Dass
• Those who seek liberation for themselves alone cannot become fully enlightened. Though it may be said that one who is not already liberated cannot liberate others, the very process of forgetting oneself to help others is in itself liberating. Muso Kokushi

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During hard times, don’t despair for realise that suffering can help you awaken

• The unrest you are experiencing is not individual psychological difficulty, but rather part of a widespread spiritual awakening. Carol Osborn
• People with heavy pain-bodies usually have a better chance to awaken spiritually than those with a relatively light one. Whereas some of them do remain trapped in their heavy pain- bodies, many others reach a point where they cannot live with their unhappiness any longer, and so their motivation to awaken becomes strong. Eckhart Tolle
• When you can’t stand the endless cycle of suffering anymore, you begin to awaken. Eckhart Tolle
• The worst thing in life can become the best thing. The very thing that awakens you.  Eckhart Tolle
• I was very afraid at the beginning, until Master told me that pain isn’t the truth; it’s what you have to get through in order to find the truth. Deepak Chopra
• The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. Joseph Campbell
• You don’t go through a deep personal transformation without some kind of dark night of the soul. Sam Keen
• Suffering, if it does not diminish love, will transport you to the furthest shore. Buddha
• When we come close to those things that break us down, we touch those things that also break us open. And in that breaking open, we uncover our true nature.  Wayne Muller
• People have a need to feel their pain. Very often pain is the beginning of a great deal of awareness.  As an energy centre it awakens consciousness.  Arnold Mindell
• You will bring yourself the suffering you need to bring yourself so that you may awaken. Scott McLeod
• Let whatever happens, be what needs to happen, so that I may awaken. Scott McLeod
• If there is pain, use it as an awareness, as meditation, as a sharpening of the soul. Rajneesh
• There is no coming to consciousness without pain. Carl Jung
• Adversity,  Suffering

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Be ready and willing to feel uncertain and insecure for that can be part of the process

• Somewhere along the journey of remembering who we really are, we may find ourselves in a very uncomfortable space, a void in which we realize that we haven’t totally let go of our old beliefs, and on the other hand we have yet to fully plug into the new truths we have discovered. This awkward “place of mind” can bring on an internal crisis of uncertainty, instability, confusion, frustration, and a most unspeakable despair as the “dark night” sets in and makes its presence felt. Nicholas Schmidt
• In order to fully awaken to the fact that you are nothing but Awakeness itself, you must want to know the truth more than you want to feel secure. Adyashanti
• If you don’t get lost, there’s a chance you may never be found.
• Let go of the need to know,  Uncertainty

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More requirements for awakening

• The transition from the egoic self to the Authentic Self requires discipline… The good news is that discipline eventually becomes what I call a “blissipline” because it leads to playing our part with integrity, dignity, elegance, passion, and deep contentment. Michael Bernard Beckwith
• It may actually be more healthy to be disturbed, confused, or searching than confident, certain, and secure. Mark Scandrette
• To study the way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.  To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.  Zen Master Dogen
• Even if you have not awakened, if you realize that your perceptions and activities are all like dreams and you view them with detachment, not giving rise to grasping and rejecting discrimination, then this is virtually tantamount to awakening from the dream. Muso Kokushi

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• If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family. Ram Dass
• I think; therefore, I think I am. Ambrose Bierce

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