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Spiritual Quotes To Uplift, Inspire & Deepen
Your Connection To Spirit - Page 6
Commentary © 2007  Richard Chandler & Bonnett Chandler

Pema Chödrön

Pema Chödrön is among a handful of eminent authors who teach philosophies born of eastern thought and excel at making them relevant to the majority of us, steeped as we are in the teachings of western civilization. Formerly known as Deirdre Brown, she changed her name to Pema Chodron after becoming a Buddhist nun in 1974. She is a prolific author and lecturer as well as the director of Gampo Abbey, a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia, Canada. Her principle teacher was Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who founded the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and spread Tibetan Buddhism and the Shambhala teachings across Europe, Canada and the United States. In addition to writing, teaching and her responsibilities as Abbey director, Pema Chödrön typically devotes over half of each year to silent retreat and study.

“People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That’s not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn’t understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you’re given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.”

“A psychotic drowns in the very same stuff a mystic swims in.”

“Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future. In other words, if we’re going to be more cheerful in the future, it’s because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful in the present. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.”

                

“We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better “me” who one day will emerge. We can’t just jump over ourselves as if we were not there.”     

“Rejoicing in ordinary things takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us we enter the warrior’s world.”

“Training in equanimity requires that we leave behind some baggage: the comfort of rejecting whole parts of ourselves, for example, [or] the security of only welcoming what is pleasant. The courage to continue with the unfolding process comes from self-compassion and from giving ourselves plenty of time.”

“We cannot be present and run our story line at the same time.”

“It’s also helpful to realize that this very body that we have, that’s sitting right here right now... with its aches and it pleasures... is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive.”

“Ego could be defined as whatever covers up basic goodness. From an experiential point of view, what is ego covering up? It’s covering up our experience of just being here, just fully being where we are, so that we can relate with the immediacy of our experience. Egolessness is a state of mind that has complete confidence in the sacredness of the world. It is unconditional well being, unconditional joy that includes all the different qualities of our experience.”

 - Pema Chödrön  (1936- )

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Albert Schweitzer - Humanitarian & Nobel Prize Winner

Albert Schweitzer, humanitarian, organist, JS Bach scholar, Lutheran pastor and African missionary, who won the 1952 Nobel Peace prize for founding and running the Lambarene Hospital in Gabon, west central Africa, most likely rekindled the spirit of many throughout his lifetime. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of “reverence for life” and ‘The Problem of Peace’ lecture is considered one of the best speeches ever given. In alliance with Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, he worked from 1952 until his death against the construction, testing and use of nuclear weapons.

“A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”“I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”

“A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.”

“By respect for life we become religious in a way that is elementary, profound and alive.”

“The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.”

                   

“Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.”

“Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.”

“Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.”

- Albert Schweitzer  (1875-1965)

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Horst Rechelbacher       

Horst M. Rechelbacher, founder of Aveda, an organic plant-based line of salon products, is an active environmentalist, innovative business leader, author, artist, yoga practitioner and the founder and chief executive of the Minneapolis based company, ‘Intelligent Nutrients’.

Aveda was created by Horst in 1978 after several trips to India. Further study earned him two doctorates in ayurvedic medicine, which means “all knowledge” or “knowledge of nature” in Sanskrit. He has collaborated with noted physicians and chemists as well as experts and traditional healers throughout the world - especially in India and Asia - and with tribes in the Brazilian Rainforest. One of the three original founders of BSR, (Business for Social Responsibility), Horst supports his belief that businesses have not only the responsibility, but the opportunity, to provide sustainability to all living species.

“The mind subconsciously stores all sensory information—smells, tastes, images, physical sensations, sounds, and thoughts. When we are relaxed, we have access to it. When we are hyperactive, we're replacing one thought with another. Relaxation doesn't occur, and this is when the body goes into a toxic state.”

“It’s important to let go, calm down, and get grounded. We need to listen to ourselves. When one becomes aware that our present-moment thoughts are not productive, one should simply let them go. Change a negative thought to a positive one.”

“Close your eyes and you will see clearly. Be still and you will hear the truth.”

“Serve selflessly, seeing our customers as ourselves.”
“Apprentice ourselves with dedication to great teachers and to life itself.”

“Ask ourselves: How can we serve, nurture and sustain the planet and its people in our business ventures?”

“Give thanks in our prayers for our successes – past, present and future.”

“Clone ourselves through teaching others.”

“Reinvent ourselves daily.”

- Horst Rechelbacher (Born 1941)

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Marian Wright Edelman

The first black woman to be admitted to the Mississippi Bar in 1964, Marian Wright Edelman is the founder and President of the Children’s Defense Fund and has received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, and the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Her father, Arthur Wright, required his children to perform community service work as part of their chores and Edelman today works tirelessly for the rights of poor, handicapped, and minority children. Edelman has written a number of books about kids, family and social responsibility, including the bestseller ‘The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours’  (1992).

“Service is the rent we pay to be living. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time.”

“When Jesus Christ asked little children to come to him, he didn’t say only rich children, or white children, or children with two-parent families, or children who didn't have a mental or physical handicap. He said, ‘Let all children come unto me’.”

- Marian Wright Edelman  (1939- )

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The Dalai Lama

Tibet’s Head of State and one of the most influential spiritual leaders in the world, The 14th Dalai Lama, (who refers to himself as a simple monk), promotes peace, happiness and ethical behavior wherever he goes. He won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989 and was the recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor on October 17, 2007. While his hobby is mechanical clock and watch repair, he is most widely known for his many books and speeches, from which we may excerpt some very wise and insightful quotes.  Here are a few...

“If the basic human nature was aggressive, we would have been born with animal claws & huge teeth -- but ours are very short, very pretty, very weak! That means we are not well equipped to be aggressive beings. Even the size of our mouth is very small. So I think the basic nature of human beings should be gentle.”

“Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.”

                   

“Compassion can be put into practice if one recognizes the fact that every human being is a member of humanity and the human family regardless of differences in religion, culture, color and creed. Deep down there is no difference.”

“The purpose of life is to be happy.”

“We had a rule in Tibet that anyone proposing a new invention had to guarantee that it was beneficial, or at least harmless, for seven generations of humans before it could be adopted.”

“Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.”

“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”

“It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.”

“Everyday, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.”

“I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path.”

“No matter what country or continent we come from, we are all basically the same humane beings. We have the common human needs and concerns. We all seek happiness an try to avoid suffering regardless of our race, religion ,sex, or political status. Human beings, indeed all sentient beings, have the right to pursue happiness and live in peace and in freedom.”

- The Dalai Lama  (1935- )

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Sting

Three quotes by Rock star and yoga practitioner, Sting, an English musician best known for playing bass, singing and writing the songs for the continually evolving ensembles which he leads and as the songwriter and lead singer for his most famous rock band, The Police. Along with his extraordinarily successful career, which now includes CD & DVD recordings of the compositions of renaissance-era singer and lute player, John Dowland, Sting supports environmental and humanitarian causes including ‘Amnesty International’. Along with his wife, Trudie Styler, he founded the ‘Rainforest Foundation’ to help save our rainforests throughout the world.

“I think love has something to do with allowing a person you claim to love to enter a larger arena than the one you create for them.”

“In fact, I don’t spend a lot of intellectual energy thinking about yoga, or trying to articulate the process it awakens, because, for one, I don’t have to teach it, and, two, it’s become an intrinsic part of my whole life, permeating it to such an extent that I don’t really know where it begins or ends.”

“I’ve also come to believe the highest form of prayer is to pray and yet ask for nothing…”

- Sting  (1951- )

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Possibly the most influential woman in the world, Oprah Winfrey is host to The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest rated talk show in television history. She is also the most philanthropic African-American of all time. It behooves us to listen to her thoughts and her words.

“You never have to do anything. Don’t know what to do? Do nothing. I wait. And that has been a big lesson: to be willing, to be still with myself, and trust myself and my higher power to help me make the right decision.”

- Oprah Winfrey  (1954- )

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While working towards his PhD in anthropology at UCLA, American author Carlos Castaneda claims to have studied with several Mexican shamans. He wrote a series of popular books describing his training in traditional Mesoamerican shamanism, which have sold over eight million copies in seventeen different languages.

“Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

     “A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't it is of no use.”

 - Carlos Castaneda  (1925-1998)

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