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Our deepest need is for the joy that comes with knowing we are of genuine use to others.

Eknath Easwaran

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Eknath Easwaran
Age: 88 †
Born: 1910
Born: December 17
Died: 1999
Died: October 26
Author
Philosopher
Translator
Keralam
Others
Need
Needs
Deepest
Genuine
Joy
Knowing
Use
Comes

More quotes by Eknath Easwaran

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Having come to realize in the first stage of meditation that we are not our bodies, in the second stage we make an even more astounding discovery we are not our minds either.
Eknath Easwaran
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When the mind is still, we can become an instrument of peace.
Eknath Easwaran
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A calm mind releases the most precious capacity a human being can have: the capacity to turn anger into compassion, fear into fearlessness, and hatred into love.
Eknath Easwaran
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Wisdom may be perennial, but to see its relevance we must see it lived out.
Eknath Easwaran
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Meditation is warm-up exercise for the mind, so that you can jog through the rest of the day without getting agitated or spraining your patience.
Eknath Easwaran
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Through meditation and by giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we choose.
Eknath Easwaran
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The spiritual life is a call to action. But it is a call to ... action without any selfish attachment to the results.
Eknath Easwaran
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Every angry thought makes it a little easier to get angry the next time, and a little more likely.
Eknath Easwaran
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Excitement and depression, fortune and misfortune, pleasure and pain are storms in a tiny private, shell-bound realm - which we take to be the whole of existence. Yet we can break out of this shell and enter a new world.
Eknath Easwaran
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The Sufis advise us to speak only after our words have managed to pass through three gates. At the first gate, we ask ourselves, 'Are these words true?' If so, we let them pass on if not, back they go. At the second gate, we ask, 'Are the necessary?' At the last gate, we ask, 'Are they kind?'
Eknath Easwaran
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Every human heart has a deep need to love - to be in love, really, with all of life. This is the kind of love that comes when the mind is still. . . . Be still and know that we are all God’s children then you will be in love with all.
Eknath Easwaran
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Nothing really worth having comes quickly and easily. If it did, I doubt that we would ever grow.
Eknath Easwaran
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When someone at peace and free from hurry enters a room, that person has a calming effect on everyone present.
Eknath Easwaran
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The things we think about, brood on, dwell on, and exult over influence our life in a thousand ways. When we can actually choose the direction of our thoughts instead of just letting them run along the grooves of conditioned thinking, we become the masters of our own lives.
Eknath Easwaran
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An unhurried mind brings the capacity to make wise choices every day - choices of how we use our time, of where we place our resources and our love. I am not just talking about avoiding the rat race, but about a life full of an artistic beauty - a life that has almost vanished from modern civilization, but is quite within the reach of everyone.
Eknath Easwaran
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It may sound paradoxical, but however tight our schedule, however many things clamor to be done, we don't need to hurry. If we can keep our mind calm and go about our business with undivided attention, we will not only accomplish more but we'll do a better job - and find ourselves more patient, more at peace.
Eknath Easwaran
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When we are at home with ourselves, we are at home everywhere in the world. When we have found peace within ourselves, peace and love follow us wherever we go.
Eknath Easwaran
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Whatever we have done, we can always make amends for it without ever looking back in guilt or sorrow.
Eknath Easwaran
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Whenever you are angry or afraid, nervous or worried or resentful, repeat the mantram until the agitation subsides. The mantram works to steady the mind, and all these emotions are power running against you, which the mantram can harness and put to work for you.
Eknath Easwaran
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International war is the sum total of millions of individual wars, raging in the minds of the people, between what is selfish and what is selfless. To the extent that you and I develop selflessness in our own hearts, to that extent we contribute to peace in our family, community, country, and world.
Eknath Easwaran