Quote

Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead it's about becoming more fully human. . . . It is the end of ignorance.

Surya Das

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Surya Das
Age: 73
Born: 1950
Born: December 26
Poet
Writer
New York City
New York
Divine
Ends
Human
Humans
Enlightenment
Fully
Ignorance
Becoming
Instead

More quotes by Surya Das

Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The secret, or innermost, level of wisdom is pure intuition, clarity, lucidity, innate wakefulness, presence, and recognition of reality. This transcendental wisdom is within all of us—it just needs to be discovered and developed, unfolded and actualized.
Surya Das
Image
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
Image
Everything passes, nothing remains. Understand this, loosen your grip and fine serenity.
Surya Das
Image
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
Image
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
Image
One-half plus one-half does not equal one one whole plus one whole equals relational wholeness.
Surya Das
Image
Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger, regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue. Let go of the need for approval. Let go of old judgments and opinions. Die to all that, and fly free. Soar in the freedom of desirelessness. Let go. Let Be. See through everything and be free, complete, luminous, at home -- at ease.
Surya Das
Image
Spiritually speaking, everything that one wants, aspires to, and needs is ever-present, accessible here and now - for those with eyes to see.
Surya Das
Image
The heart is an organ of perception.
Surya Das
Image
Other people can’t cause us to be impatient unless we let them do so. In other words, others don’t make us impatient. We make ourselves impatient, through our expectations and demands, fixated attachments and stuckness.
Surya Das
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I started to think more about becoming peace rather than fighting for peace, and the contradiction in terms, and the anger and violence that we were prey to and involved in to some extent in those days.
Surya Das
Image
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
Image
So we're all living spirit. It's not about isms and schims or religions. Religions are almost like political institutions, but the heart of it is the spirituality.
Surya Das
Image
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