Quote

When we go slower, we are more patient and when we are more patient we have a choice in how we respond.

Eknath Easwaran

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Eknath Easwaran
Age: 88 †
Born: 1910
Born: December 17
Died: 1999
Died: October 26
Author
Philosopher
Translator
Keralam
Slower
Respond
Patient
Choice
Choices

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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.
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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.
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Every angry thought makes it a little easier to get angry the next time, and a little more likely.
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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.
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Today, everything I do from morning meditation on - eating breakfast, going for a walk, writing, reading, even recreation - is governed by one purpose only: how to give the very best account of my life that I can in the service of all.
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Wisdom may be perennial, but to see its relevance we must see it lived out.
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Don't think the purpose of meditation is to go deep into consciousness, wrap a blanket around yourself, and say, 'How cozy! I'm going to curl up in here by myself let the world burn.' Not at all. We go deep into meditation so that we can reach out further and further to the world outside.
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The eye cannot see it the mind cannot grasp it. The deathless Self (the Supreme Soul or God) has neither caste nor race, Neither eyes, nor ears, nor hands, nor feet, Sages, this Self is infinite, present in the great and in the small, Everlasting and changeless, the source of life.
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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.
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Whatever we have done, we can always make amends for it without ever looking back in guilt or sorrow.
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When someone at peace and free from hurry enters a room, that person has a calming effect on everyone present.
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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.
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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?'
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As meditation deepens, compulsions, cravings and fits of emotion begin to lose their power to dictate our behavior. We see clearly that choices are possible we can say yes or we can say no. It is profoundly liberating.
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God made the senses turn outwards, man therefore looks outwards, not into himself. But occasionally a daring soul, desiring immortality, has looked back and found himself.
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Mastery does not come from dabbling. We have to be prepared to pay the price. We need to have the sustained enthusiasm that motivates us to give our best.
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When we try to get ourselves out of the way, we can understand much better the needs of the people closest to us.
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Instead of looking at difficulties as deprivations, we can learn to recognize them as opportunities for deepening and widening our love.
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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.
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Do not feed your ego and your problems with your attention. ...Slowly, surely, the ego will lose weight, until one fine day it will be nothing but a thin ghost of its former self. You will be able to see right through it, to the divine presence that shines in each of us.
Eknath Easwaran