Quotes

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
–Carl Jung

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
–E. E. Cummings

The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.
–Jiddu Krishnamurti

Be relentless in your looking, because you are the one you seek.
–Rumi

The heart itself cannot break, for its very nature is soft and open. What breaks open when we see things as they are is the protective shell of ego identity we have built around ourselves in order to avoid feeling pain. When the heart breaks out of this shell, we feel quite raw and vulnerable. Yet that is also the beginning of feeling real compassion for ourselves and others.
–John Welwood

Healing is like weeding; watching closely for the feelings and messages that restrict, bending down until I am the size of a child, then pulling out the roots and shaking the good dirt back onto my own ground, the ground upon which my life happens. I found I could not talk myself out of my pain and anger. I discovered that core beliefs and feelings are closely connected and that I must get close to my feelings to heal… Healing is a process of cleaning the wounds by expressing what lives there. This involves inviting the wounded child selves forward and listening to them.
–Louise Wisechild

O friend, understand: The body is like the ocean, rich with hidden treasures.
Open your innermost chamber and light its lamp.
Within the body are gardens, rare flowers, peacocks, the inner music; within the body a lake of bliss,
On it, the white soul-swans take their joy.
–Mirabai

The psyche contains an indwelling sense of its destiny of wholeness.
–Stephen Hoeller

The bud stands for all things, even for those things that do not flower, for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on the brow of the flower, and retell it in words and in touch, it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.
–Galway Kinnell

Consciousness is an ever-unfolding, deepening and expanding process with no end point. We are infinite and complex beings, and our human journey involves not just a spiritual awakening, but the development of all levels of our being—spiritual, mental, emotional and physical—and the integration of all these aspects into a healthy and balanced daily life.
–Shakti Gawain

It is just simple attention that allows us truly to listen to the song of a bird, to see deeply the glory of an autumn leaf, to touch the heart of another and be touched. We need to be fully present in order to love a single thing wholeheartedly. We need to be fully awake in this moment if we are to receive and respond to the learning inherent in it.
–Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield

The Healing Time
Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
All the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages
that send me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say holy
holy.
–Pesha Joyce Gertler

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
–Albert Einstein

Living for a Higher Purpose
This is the true joy in life—that being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. That being a force of nature, instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I have got to hold up for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
–George Bernard Shaw

My life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is a privilege to do for it whatsoever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I have got hold of for the moment; and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
–George Bernard Shaw

Honor Your Body Temple
You have been provided with a perfect body to house your soul for a few brief moments in eternity. So regardless of its size, shape, color or any imagined infirmities, you can honor the temple that houses you by eating healthfully, exercising, listening to your body’s needs, and treating it with dignity and love.
–Dr. Wayne W. Dyer