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Taking the decision-making process away from people disempowers them. It also makes them much less likely to buy into the decision, however right it may be. One’s own conscience remains the ultimate arbiter.

Surya Das

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Surya Das
Age: 73
Born: 1950
Born: December 26
Poet
Writer
New York City
New York
Also
However
May
Taking
Right
Decision
Much
Less
Arbiter
People
Making
Likely
Process
Conscience
Away
Remains
Makes
Ultimate

More quotes by Surya Das

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Our lack of compassion stems from our inability to see deeply into the nature of things.
Surya Das
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Spirit is love, spirit is connection, inclusive, and that's what I'm interested in, and that's what moved me. That's what I got more and more into as I grew up and as I was in college in the 60's with consciousness raising and other kind of things, gestalt psychology etc.
Surya Das
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Well Buddhism, 'shmoodism', I didn't go to India looking for Buddhism. I was looking for truth, or God, or a better way of life or happiness, fulfillment, meaning, purpose. And a way to become peace in the world and not just fight for peace, as we had in the 60's.
Surya Das
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Embracing our environment is a good direction, a very spiritual direction. It's too Aristotelian to separate man from the animals and man humans from the environment.
Surya Das
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The heart is an organ of perception.
Surya Das
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If we accept and internalize the fact of our own mortality, then, by definition, we have to deal with the essential questions of how we live and spend our allotted time. We have to stop procrastinating, pretending that we have forever to do what we want to do and be what we long to be.
Surya Das
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When the sunset of life arrives, and its twilight shadows fade away while dreams of the next begin to appear more vividly may the inner-light essence of the Buddha, and all the radiant awakened ones, continuously guide us onwards and upwards, on the path of spiritual enlightment.
Surya Das
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You have to go through the darkness to truly know the light. This may sound like a cliche, but it's true nonetheless. Often the greatest doubts occur just before a breakthrough.
Surya Das
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I always thought he gave me that name because I have a kind of outgoing or sunny disposition. And in those days I was kinda blonde and bearded and had an afro and was bushy like a sun. So I don't know, he named me Surya Das but who knows.
Surya Das
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On the other side, is a substantial, more materialism, everything is real long to the extent we can see or measure it, and things are as real as I think they. That's way too materialistic or substantialist, because things are not really what they seem to be.
Surya Das
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Spiritual joy is devotion, it's like a virus you know? It's a benevolent virus, but it spreads. It's infectious. Ram Dass was like a mentor in those days.
Surya Das
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I realize that was becoming a contradiction in terms, especially after my friend Alison Krauss was shot and killed in Kent State in 1970 on campus by the National Guard.
Surya Das
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One-half plus one-half does not equal one one whole plus one whole equals relational wholeness.
Surya Das
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We learn by doing, not just by thinking. So I feel like beyond Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Judaism, or Christianity we need today to think about a global spirituality. We need to make it very personal and transformative for one self, and each other, together for those who are interested.
Surya Das
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Everything passes, nothing remains. Understand this, loosen your grip and fine serenity.
Surya Das
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Really, whatever I was seeking and looking into in those days like creative arts, chant, the muse being in touch with the muse for poetry and writing and music. It's all part of the spirit and if we look particularly at Hinduism and Buddhism, the tantric stream of those traditions totally embraces all aspects of human life and life on this world.
Surya Das
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Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead it's about becoming more fully human. . . . It is the end of ignorance.
Surya Das
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But you know, eventually that does kind of veneer, chemical veneers that you apply, they sink in. For better or for worse, so it's good to think about what kind of veneer you shellac yourself with. How superficial it may seep into your skin and into your blood stream and totally take over your heart, your brain, everything.
Surya Das
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We're human beings trying to understand and cultivate what it means to feel divine love. We have to start with small, realistic goals.
Surya Das
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Sex, creativity, music, art, family, love, beauty, and creative imagination are all part of the spiritual path in the tantric traditions. So I think that for today that has a lot to say to us about not dividing ourselves from ourselves.
Surya Das