A.H. Almaas Quotes

Your conflicts, all the difficult things, the problematic situations in your life are not chance or haphazard. They are actually yours. They are specifically yours, designed specifically for you by a part of you that loves you more than anything else. The part of you that loves you more than anything else has created roadblocks to lead you to yourself. You are not going in the right direction unless there is something pricking you in the side, telling you, "Look here! This way!" That part of you loves you so much that it doesn't want you to lose the chance. It will go to extreme measures to wake you up, it will make you suffer greatly if you don't listen. What else can it do? That is its purpose.

When we blend courage and compassion, assertiveness and gentleness, our essential strength and kindness support us in being where we are.

Your career, interests and relationships are important, but they are only important insofar as they lead you toward a deeper understanding of yourself. Otherwise, they are irrelevant.

When we look at a child, we see that sense of fullness, of intrinsic aliveness, of joy in being, is not the result of something else. There is value in just being oneself, it is not because of something one does or doesn't do. It is there in the beginning, when we are children, but slowly it gets lost.

As long as you hold onto wanting something from the outside, you will be dissatisfied because there is a part of you that you are till not totally owning...How can you be a complete and fulfilled if you believe that you cannot own this part [of yourself] until somebody else does something?...If it is conditional, it is not totally yours.

Sometimes being real means allowing pain or accepting a painful truth. Yet something in us aligns with an inner ground of authenticity when we are real. We love it because of its inherent rightness in our soul, the sense of "Aha, here I am and there is nothing to do but be.

If we are to reach certainty and true autonomy of realization, we need to be willing to be heretics. What's more, we need to become universal heretics, not believing anything that we do not know from direct experience, beyond stories, beyond hearsay, and even beyond the mind.

True states of realization occur when you throw away all the teachings. All of the teachings, absolutely. Everything. Then you are investigation itself finding out what you are.

In very clear and available language, this book details how to recognize the inner critic and how to deal effectively with it. Byron Brown's presentation is useful for any individual who wishes to be free from the inner suffering and coercion of this ancient foe of our humanity, but it is specifically directed to those interested and engaged in the inner journey toward realization and enlightenment.

..."in the world but not of it"...

Directing the process by the mind can only lead to difficulty, for the mind does not know. Commitment to the Truth is sufficient for the process to unfold.

To truly find God, truth needs to be found independently from the opinions of others. The truth has to be found in our hearts.

Are you really angry, or simply aware of anger in the body and mind? Don't speculate, simply look at what is there.