Everything is nothing, with a twist. —Kurt Vonnegut

 

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I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something. You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You'll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird.

—Richard Feynman

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You must know that no man ever left himself so much in this life, but he could find more to leave. There are few who are truly aware of this and who are steadfast in it. It is really an equal exchange and barter:

Just as much as you go out of all things, just so much, neither more nor less, does God enter in with all that is His - if indeed you go right out of all that is yours.

Start with that, and let it cost you all you can afford. And in that you will find true peace, and nowhere else.

—Meister Eckhart

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You grieve for those that should not be grieved for.
The wise grieve neither for the living nor the dead. 

Never at any time was I not, nor thou, nor these princes of men. 
Nor shall we ever cease to be hereafter. 

The unreal has no being. 
The real never ceases to be.


—Bhagavad Gita, version

Chapter 2, verse 11

 

 

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what is the standard of Reality?

  

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You want somehow or other to maintain that the world is real. What is the standard of Reality? That alone is Real which exists by itself, which reveals itself by itself and which is eternal and unchanging. Does the world exist by itself? Was it ever seen without the aid of the mind? 

In sleep there is neither mind nor world. When awake there is the mind and there is the world. What does this invariable concomitance mean? 

You are familiar with the principles of inductive logic, which are considered the very basis of scientific investigation. Why do you not decide this question of the reality of the world in the light of those accepted principles of logic? 

Of yourself you can say ‘I exist’. That is, yours is not mere existence, it is Existence of which you are conscious. Really, it is Existence identical with Consciousness.

—Ramana Maharshi

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There is no time in nature. There is rhythm in nature, yes. There is motion in nature. But the clock as a measure of motion is a human artifact.

The world, as it spins on its axis, doesn’t tick.


—Alan Watts 1967

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As the self moves in this body from childhood to youth to old age, so it passes into another body at death.

The wise are not confused by this change.


—Bhagavad Gita, 2.13

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manifesto

  

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When day comes, all things emerge from the depths of unmanifest nature;

when night comes, all things dissolve into the unmanifest again.

—Bhagavad Gita

 

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Moment by moment you wait for understanding, spiritual perception, peace and good to arrive from nonexistence. Nonexistence, then, is God's factory from which He continually produces goods.

He has caused what is nonexistent to appear magnificently existent, while the truly existent He has caused to appear as nonexistent.

He has hidden the Sea, yet made the foam visible;
He has concealed the Wind, but displayed the dust.

The dust whirls in the air higher than a minaret: does it rise by itself? 
You see the dust borne high, but the Wind you don't see, although you can surmise it.

You see the white-capped waves tumbling in every direction, but without the Sea the foam has no way to move.

You see the foam by sense perception and the Sea by induction: just as speech is manifest and thought is hidden.


—Rumi

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People think that the world itself is overflowing with beauty, 

but they forget that they are its cause.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

Twilight of the Idols

 

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Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed. —Antoine Lavoisier 1743–1794

    

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When a sensible man ceases to see different identities due to different material bodies and he sees how beings are expanded everywhere, he attains to the Brahman conception.


—Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita

 

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When the beetle sees, it is I that am looking,
When the nightingale sings, it is I that am singing,
When the lion roars, it is I that am roaring. 

But when I look for myself, I can see nothing --
for no thing is there to be seen. 

Síle cannot see me either, for when she tries to see me it is 
I who am looking: she can do nothing -- for only I can do anything.
The beetle can say that also, and Síle, for we are not three, 
nor two, nor one. 

I am the sea too, and the stars, the wind and the rain,
I am everything that has form -- for form is my seeing of it.
I am every sound -- for sound is my hearing of it,
I am all flavours, each perfume, whatever can be touched, 

For that which is perceptible is my perceiving of it,
And all sentience is mine. 
They have no other existence, and neither have I -- 
for what they are I am, and what I am they are.
What the universe is I am, and what I am the universe is.
And there is no other at all, nor any one whatsover. 


—Wei Wu Wei
Open Secret

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Science of nature has one goal: 
To find both manyness and whole. 

Nothing 'inside' or 'Out There,' 
The 'outer' world is all 'In Here.' 

This mystery grasp without delay, 
This secret always on display. 

The true illusion celebrate, 
Be joyful in the serious game! 

No living thing lives separate: 
One and Many are the same.


—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749 - 1832)

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eyes of the heart

    

 

 

 

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For one who sees with the eyes of the heart, rather than the senses, the world looks different; the blades of grass, the song of the birds, the drops of dew, all are seen to be none other than the One Life that surrounds us in every moment. 

They see the One in every creature and every creature in the One… they see everything with an equal eye.


—Bhagavad Gita

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Ether, air, fire, water, earth, planets, all creatures, directions, trees and plants, rivers and seas, they are all organs of God’s body. 

Remembering this a devotee respects all species.

—The Srimad Bhagavatam (2.2.41)

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