Enlightened Quotes

I had a fairly enlightened dad, though if you looked at his resume, it might not seem that way. He was a chartered accountant for Price Waterhouse. He was strict, and we had a very ordered life. To this day, I am the least materialistic person I know, because my father didn't raise me to just go out and buy this or that car. ~ Hugh Jackman

Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use
of the book of the world. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Is it not strange how humans will resort to the most inhumane of actions as the first plausible solution? Why are we such a feral bloodthirsty species when we are supposedly the enlightened ones? Are we guardians ... or just mindless butchers? ~ Dimitri Zaik

For the Stoics, however, the near impossibility of becoming a sage is not a problem. They talk about sages primarily so they will have a model to guide them in their practice of Stoicism. The sage is a target for them to aim at, even though they will probably fail to hit it. The sage, in other words, is to Stoicism as Buddha is to Buddhism. Most Buddhists can never hope to become as enlightened as Buddha, but nevertheless, reflecting on Buddha's perfection can help them gain a degree of enlightenment. ~ William B. Irvine

We are more thoroughly an enlightened people, with respect to our political interests, than perhaps any other under heaven. Every man among us reads, and is so easy in his circumstances as to have leisure for conversations of improvement and for acquiring information. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Strictly speaking, "you" cannot become enlightened, because who you take yourself to be is like a ripple in the ocean of consciousness - or a little wave if you're a VIP - and the ripple doesn't become enlightened until it realizes that its ripple-identity is ultimately a misperception, that it is the ocean taking on a fleeting ripple-form. ~ Eckhart Tolle

We should not, however, judge the value of our meditation by "how we feel." A hard and apparently fruitless meditation may in fact be much more valuable than one that is easy, happy, enlightened and apparently a big success. ~ Thomas Merton

Who cares about an enlightened phantom? Only the other phantoms. It always needs a community of ignorant ideas and one of them maybe is a master -ignorant. The master of ignorance! There are no masters of knowledge. How can there be a master of knowledge ? How can there be a master of Heart? You can only be a master of shit. ~ Karl Renz

convincing those who are intrusted with the public administration that every valuable end of government is best answered by the enlightened confidence of the people, and by teaching the people themselves to know and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority; ~ George Washington

Some teachers are very accessible. They advertise a great deal, they go out into the public. If they're advanced teachers, doubtlessly they are very inaccessible in terms of physical proximity. ~ Frederick Lenz

Activities such as chanting, bowing, and sitting in zazen are not at all wasted, even when done merely formally, for even this superficial encounter with the Dharma will have some wholesome outcome at a later time. However, it must be said in the most unambiguous terms that this is not real Zen. To follow the Dharma involves a complete reorientation of one's life in such a way that one's activities are manifestations of, and are filled with, a deeper meaning. If it were not otherwise, and merely sitting in zazen were enough, every frog in the pond would be enlightened, as one Zen master said. Dōgen Zenji himself said that one must practice Zen with the attitude of a person trying to extinguish a fire in his hair. That is, Zen must be practiced with an attitude of single-minded urgency. ~ Francis Harold Cook

Occasionally, in each age and in different lands, a Buddha is born, that is to say, an enlightened person ... they re-codify the ways, the practices, they make changes that are just intelligent changes that adapt to a new century, a new culture. ~ Frederick Lenz

There's also something that is often mistaken for enlightenment which is a kind of insanity. Often, people will have some kind of weird experience which is quite abnormal and think, "Oh my God, that's it, I understand everything" because they start seeing things in a very weird way and think that's how enlightened people see things as well. ~ Brad Warner

When people are determined they can overcome anything. ~ Ian Moore

It is often too easy to explain a novel idea to a few enlightened persons with a few words. But to enlighten about the same to many people, too many words are often required ~ Anuj

Loving music had pushed all of us off the track- away from the normal pursuit of career, mate, and family, on an endless quest for that vibrating high, the plunge beyond time that comes only when you submerge yourself beneath the waterline of amplified sound. We were addicts, in a way, but also adept, enlightened by a noise most people considered no more than a pleasant distraction. What was left for us but to practice our art of listening? ~ Ann Powers

What do the Vitaraag [the enlightened one] say? 'If you want to continue to remain in the worldly life, then do what people say, but if you want to attain Moksha [ultimate liberation], then do only what I say, then only you can go to Moksha! ~ Dada Bhagwan

Knowing others is to be clever. Knowing yourself is to be enlightened. Overcoming others requires force. Overcoming yourself requires strength. ~ Laozi

We wouldn't believe that the Germans, known as the enlightened world as 'bearers of culture,' were capable of planning and carrying out, in cold blood, without pity, the mass destruction of human beings by industrial means, as if they were bedbugs, flies, or other pests to be exterminated. ~ Joseph Bau

Once in a while an enlightened teacher goes out into the world and spreads the dharma. They attract some attention, and it is a great spectacle to see who and why and what is drawn. ~ Frederick Lenz

Art is a well-articulated manifestation of an aspect of life. I have been privileged to view much of life through my cameras, making the journey an enlightened experience. My emphasis has mainly been on affirmative reactions to human behavior and a strong attraction to the beauty in nature. ~ Dennis Stock

Prayers never bring anything ... They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy - but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas ~ W.C. Fields

Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free. Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before
and thus was the Empire forged.
... In these enlightened days, of course, no one believes a word of it. ~ Douglas Adams

Those who have not become enlightened will have to return to another, denser planet that is still involved with negativity, to work out their remaining karma. ~ Dolores Cannon

I didn't know the history of this world or how it interacted with the history of mine. Oric, Sabrina, all of them had tried to tell me that my rules didn't apply here, that my laws of decency meant nothing. The culture was medieval or perhaps an "enlightened" plutocracy. The wars of Napoleon could be a living memory for their elders. Their social system could be traced back to Genghis Khan for all I knew. It ~ Daniel Potter

One's liberation begins once he does the darshan of kashaya-free (absence of inner anger, pride, deceit and greed) Gnani purush [the enlightened one]. Who is considered kashaya-free? The one whose state is that where there was no kashaya, there is no kashaya, and there never will be any. The one who is never in the state of the non-Self. Doing darshan of such a One brings ultimate well being. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Fortunate, most fortunate occurrence! - fortunate for the millions of his manacled brethren, yet panting for deliverance from their awful thralldom! - fortunate for the cause of negro emancipation, and of universal liberty! - fortunate for the land of his birth, which he has already done so much to save and bless! - fortunate for a large circle of friends and acquaintances, whose sympathy and affection he has strongly secured by the many sufferings he has endured, by his virtuous traits of character, by his ever-abiding remembrance of those who are in bonds, as being bound with them! - fortunate for the multitudes, in various parts of our republic, whose minds he has enlightened on the subject of slavery, and who have been melted to tears by his pathos, or roused to virtuous indignation by his stirring eloquence against the enslavers of men! - fortunate for himself, as it at once brought him into the field of public usefulness, "gave the world assurance of a MAN," quickened the slumbering energies of his soul, and consecrated him to the great work of breaking the rod of the oppressor, and letting the oppressed go free! ~ William Lloyd Garrison

The enlightened give thanks for what most people take for granted ... As you begin to be grateful for what most people take for granted, the vibration of gratitude makes you more receptive to good in your life. ~ Michael Beckwith

We are all walking the same path, though it ain't some road scored in earth or sky or sea. It's the path of easing suffering, both ours and that of others, and we walk it till ever creature stands free of pain and lies, in unity with truth and peace, at last enlightened and made whole. ~ David Bowles

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked - as I am surprisingly often - why I bother to get up in the mornings. ~ Richard Dawkins

MAMMALIA, n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Apart from worshiping God, everything becomes superficial. But when you understand the driving force behind everything, all of a sudden there's an eternal amount of joy at our disposal, because everything we do is enlightened and enlivened by the endless glory of the eternal God. ~ Matt Chandler

The Buddha said that all conscious beings possess an enlightened nature.
Because of that, we have this natural purity, peacefulness and power.
We can rest the mind naturally because we are already in possession of these qualities.
If one can rest the mind naturally, that's the best meditation. ~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

What most of us need, almost more than anything, is the courage and humility really to ask for help, from the depths of our hearts: to ask for the compassion of the enlightened beings, to ask for purification and healing, to ask for the power to understand the meaning of our suffering and transform it; at a relative level to ask for the growth in our lives of clarity, peace, and discernment, and to ask for the realization of the absolute nature of mind that comes from merging with the deathless wisdom mind of the master. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche

Our Egos constantly strive to destroy our pure joy and happiness."

"If you say that you would love to do something, it is your responsibility to make it happen."

"Whether you like it or not you are on a spiritual quest; it is just a matter of which path you choose to take"

"Spirituality is very simple; you must unlearn all the faulty knowledge acquired from society"

" We must return to the wonder and mystery of childhood to be genuinely enlightened." (Came to me when staring into my sons eyes)

" Look into an infants eyes and you will see the true nature of life"

" Death is inevitable, but life is optional. ~ Richard A. Singer Jr.

I met too frankly preposterous, if it weren't for their banal evil, politicians and pastors who told knowing lies about the evils of homosexuality in order to attract bigger flocks to their churches and more votes and power to their corrupt councils. LGBT people seem to be being scapegoated more and more just as at the same time in more enlightened countries more and more freedom to express themselves, marry, be given official intersex status and so on is offered. ~ Stephen Fry

There is nobody who is so enlightened that they don't need to work on themselves. ~ Terence McKenna

Enlightenment is cumulative. You become a little more enlightened each day as you practice yoga and Buddhism. ~ Frederick Lenz

Anybody or anything can become enlightened because enlightenment is the very nature of existence itself. ~ Frederick Lenz

I am really very grateful for this Award. It is one of the first given to a woman, and to two women at that. When I first started getting work published, I used to have wistful thoughts at the way all important awards were given to men. Women, I used to think, could be as innovative, imaginative and productive as possible - and women were the ones mostly at work in the field of fantasy for children and young adults - but only let a man enter the field, and people instantly regarded what he had to say and what he did as more Important. He got respectful reviews as well as awards, even if what he was doing - which it often was - was imitating the women. But you have changed all that.
Thank you for being so enlightened.
Women, large-minded, formidable women, have played an almost exclusive part in helping my career. I have hardly ever dealt with a man - at least, when it came to publishing: ~ Diana Wynne Jones

Muslims all over the world are looking with high expectations toward the ummah community in the United States and Canada. Its dynamism, fresh approach, enlightened scholarship and sheer growth is their hope for an Islamic renaissance worldwide. ~ Murad Wilfried Hofmann

Enlightened teachers and people who help them, have a lot of trouble. People try to interfere with the work and spread awful rumors about you. ~ Frederick Lenz

The Enlightened one (Gnani Purush) never wastes his time in counting money; focus of the awareness of the self (upayog) is wasted in doing this. One's focused awareness (upayog) is where he has 'interest'! ~ Dada Bhagwan

When it's cold, water freezes into ice; when it's warm, ice melts into water. Similarly, when you are confused, essence freezes into mind; when you are enlightened, mind melts into essence. ~ Muso Soseki

Gnani Purush' [the enlightened one] has the [knowledge of the-Self] essence of all religions. ~ Dada Bhagwan

I think this is a bodhi tree," I said, "just like Buddha sat under! It's so exciting. I'm feeling sort of enlightened just standing here. Really, I can feel ripe bodhies squishing between my toes."
Joshua looked at my feet. "I don't think those are bodhies. There was a cow here before us."
I lifted my foot out of the mess. "Cows are overrated in this country. Under the Buddha's tree too. Is nothing sacred? ~ Christopher Moore

[A less-enlightened personage once asked Ummon What is the God-nature/Buddha/Central Truth> Ummon answered him A dried shit-stick] ~ Dan Simmons

To be enlightened means that you really don't change, and yet you're nothing but change. ~ Frederick Lenz

We all see very clearly in others tendencies which we, ourselves, have overcome. The older and wiser we grow, the more we can see the arrogance of youth. The more authentic we become, the more we can see the lies of insecurity. The more vulnerable we allow ourselves to be, the more we see the dangerous symptoms of unexpressed emotions.

There is no finish line to learning.

There is no point where we're done growing, and all we will ever do is look down upon others who are behind us. No one is ever at the top. We are all growing at our own rates, and no matter how terrible or how enlightened we fancy ourselves to be today, the future will be sure to give us a different perspective.

There is really no use in comparing yourself to others. There will always be someone ahead and someone behind, and there will be dozens (if not hundreds) of different scales and gradients to be behind and ahead on.

To be number one is never final. It is and always will be a momentary, fleeting instant. But to be a growing version of yourself? That, you can be. You can be that every single day. ~ Vironika Tugaleva

Personal responsibility for everything is the hallmark of an enlightened being. If you blame others, bad luck or the Universe/God for your difficulties, you clearly do not understand the Principle of Oneness. You are in charge and responsible for everything. Embrace your power and make no excuses. ~ Russell Anthony Gibbs

If you want to see how enlightened you are, go spend a week with your family. ~ Ram Dass

One late winter afternoon in Oxford Street, amid the noise of vehicles and voices that filled that dusky thoroughfare, as I was borne onward with the crowd past the great electric-lighted shops, a holy Indifference filled my thoughts. Illusion had faded from me; I was not touched by any desire for the goods displayed in those golden windows, nor had I the smallest share in the appetites and fears of all those moving and anxious faces. And as I listened with Asiatic detachment to the London traffic, its sound changed into something ancient and dissonant and sad - into the turbid flow of that stream of Craving which sweeps men onward through the meaningless cycles of Existence, blind and enslaved forever. But I had reached the farther shore, the Harbour of Deliverance, the Holy City; the Great Peace beyond all this turmoil and fret compassed me around. Om Mani padme hum - I murmured the sacred syllables, smiling with the pitying smile of the Enlightened One on his heavenly lotus.
Then, in a shop-window, I saw a neatly fitted suit-case. I liked that suit-case; I desired to possess it. Immediately I was enveloped by the mists of Illusion, chained once more to the Wheel of Existence, whirled onward along Oxford Street in that turbid stream of wrong-belief, and lust, and sorrow, and anger. ~ Logan Pearsall Smith

It is evident that it is the belief of Christian people in this country and in all other enlightened portions of the world that as a nation, we have passed through a severe ordeal - that severe judgments have been poured out upon us on account of the manner in which a poor, oppressed race was treated in this country. ~ Hiram Rhodes Revels

One can be enlightened about proofs as well as theorems. Without enlightenment, one is merely reduced to memorizing proofs. With enlightenment about a proof, its flow becomes clear and it can become an item of astonishing beauty. In addition, the need to memorize disappears because the proof has become part of your soul. ~ Herbert S. Gaskill

Without hope, Chöd practitioners are freed from the limits of hope and fear; having cut the ropes of grasping, definitely enlightened, where does one go? ~ Machik Labdrön

Each child represents either a potential addition to the protective capacity and enlightened citizenship of the nation or, if allowed to suffer from neglect, a potential addition to the destructive forces of a community ... The interests of the nation are involved in the welfare of this array of children no less than in our great material affairs. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

If a kid is old enough to drive a car or buy a gun, isn't he old enough to be held personally responsible for what he does with his car or gun? Or if he's a teenager, should someone else be blamed because he isn't as enlightened as an eighteen-year-old? ~ Marilyn Manson

In the East a man becomes divine only when he is no longer jealous, a man is thought to be enlightened only when he is no longer jealous. Jealousy is a by-product of the ego and when the ego disappears jealousy disappears. You cannot offend a buddha. Whatsoever you do you cannot offend him. ~ Rajneesh

The campaign of anti-Islamic slander was so successful that to this day some textbooks in European and American schools refer to Muhammad as having epilepsy, the Qur'an as being copied from Bible, Muslim armies forcing conversions on people (by the sword), and Islam as being against science and learning. All of these are quite untrue, and enlightened Western authors from Arnold Toynbee and Bertrand Russell to Yvonne Haddad and John Esposito have been dispelling these myths on book after book for decades; nevertheless, the message hasn't reached the masses, who still believe numerous myths concerning Islam. ~ Yahiya Emerick

A lady, that is an enlightened, cultivated, liberal lady - the only kind to be in a time of increasing classlessness - could espouse any cause: wayward girls, social diseases, unmarried mothers, and/or birth control with impunity. But never by so much as the shadow of a look should she acknowledge her own experience with the Facts of Life. ~ Virgilia Peterson

To finish building the free society dreamed of by Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, we must draw upon the resources of the enlightened imagination, which can be systematically developed by the spiritual sciences of India and Tibet. We have not yet tamed our own demons of racism, nationalism, sexism, and materialism. We have not yet made peace with a land we took by force and have only partly paid for. We are a teeming conglomeration of people from different tribes who have yet to embrace fully the humanness in one another. And none of us can be really free until all of us are. ~ Robert Thurman

All emotions that feel unpleasant are signals of inconsistencies within the collective consciousness. These inconsistencies are often false beliefs of duality in the Universe/God and in opposition to the natural unity of the Principle of Oneness. If you attack or wish ill of someone, you are attaching and sabotaging yourself. If you hate others, you hate yourself. Instead of reacting with dislike or hate, choose instead to just allow that part of you to exist without any judgement. This is the enlightened choice. ~ Russell Anthony Gibbs

The Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and establishing their sovereignty. Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant. ~ Theodor Adorno

Many a man in his hour of trial has turned to the Book of Mormon and been enlightened, enlivened, and comforted. The psalms in the Old Testament have a special food for the soul of one in distress. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

Rendering thanks to my Creator for my existence and station among His works, for my birth in a country enlightened by the Gospel and enjoying freedom, and for all His other kindnesses, to Him I resign myself, humbly confiding in His goodness and in His mercy through Jesus Christ for the events of eternity. ~ John Dickinson

The United States is the result of an enlightened philosophy; China is the outcome of traditions and history. ~ Patrick Mendis

A buddha lives in the orgasmic state for twenty-four hours, day in and day out. Between the day Gautama Buddha became enlightened and the day he died there is a distance of forty-two years. For these forty-two years he was utterly in an orgasmic state. Just think! Those few moments you have are nothing compared to a Buddha's. ~ Osho

What is samkit (enlightened view; right belief)? One has to realize the complete authoritative power, and accept everyone's worldly authority. People abuse their acquired authority and consequently loose their right for human birth (manushyapanu). Accept whatever authority one has. ~ Dada Bhagwan

What do the vitarags [the enlightened one] say? This world will keep on running, You do not interfere with anything in it. If you want to attain ultimate liberation (moksha) then you will have maintain a state of vitaragta (state free of attachment). ~ Dada Bhagwan

To see things (vastu) 'as it is' in its purest form, is called samkit (enlightened view; right belief), and to see it any other way is called mithyatva (wrong belief). ~ Dada Bhagwan

This formulation will not please the mass man or the collective believer. For the former the policy of the State is the supreme principle of thought and action. Indeed, this was the purpose for which he was enlightened, and accordingly the mass man grants the individual a right to exist only in so far as he is a function of the State. The believer, on the other hand, while admitting that the State has a moral and factual claim on him, confesses to the belief that not only man but the State that rules him is subject to the overlordship of "God," and that, in case of doubt, the supreme decision will be made by God and not by the State. ~ C. G. Jung

Most teachers of self-discovery have two types of students. They have students they deal with in a more exoteric way than the esoteric students. Esoteric truths are presented to usually a smaller group of students. ~ Frederick Lenz

Imagine a culture in which everything is geared toward helping all individuals become the best human beings they can be; in which individuals are driven to devoting their lives to becoming enlightened by the natural flood of compassion for others that arises from their wisdom. ~ Robert A.F. Thurman

What we're told about this country is way too limited by generalities, sound bites, and even the supposedly enlightened idea that there are two sides to every question. In fact, many questions have three or seven or a dozen sides. ~ Gloria Steinem

Figuring out our gifts in life is part of our journey to becoming enlightened human beings. ~ Allison DuBois

Do you use 'True Will' as an excuse to do nothing?
Have you declared yourself enlightened?
Damn your weak philosophies; a pox and a pestilence your despicable sloth and arrogance. ~ Peter J. Carroll

The intelligent are candles,
the virtuous are torches,
the wise are lamps,
and the enlightened are stars. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

A person who wants to progress more rapidly and wishes to overcome unhappiness sooner, should try to find an enlightened master. ~ Frederick Lenz

The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth. ~ Anthony Kennedy

In enlightenment you have to convince a teacher not only that you are worthy of teaching, but then that they should show you some of the secrets. ~ Frederick Lenz

The third thing about witnessing, the most important part and the thing that most people don't seem to understand. is that you have to take it further than just one step back. You have to keep going with it. Its not a passive thing. like you just sit back and observe. You don't just observe your character, you deconstruct it. You have to be aggressive about it. This is a way or simulating the enlightened perspective, which would be useful to anyone who wants to wake themselves up from the dreamstate instead of just in it. ~ Jed McKenna

It was known as the Sick Man of Europe. It was in every way poorer than now. Yet there were flowerbeds on roundabouts, libraries and post offices in every village, cottage hospitals in abundance, council housing for all who needed it. It was a country so comfortable and enlightened that hospitals maintained cricket pitches for their staff and mental patients lived in Victorian palaces. If we could afford it then, why not now? Someone needs to explain to me how it is that the richer Britain gets the poorer it thinks itself. ~ Bill Bryson

Moreover, what is true for the history of antisemitism, that it fell into the hands of non-Jewish crackpots and Jewish apologetics, and was carefully avoided by reputable historians, is true, mutatis mutandis, for nearly all elements that later crystallized in the novel totalitarian phenomenon; they had hardly been noticed by either learned or public opinion because they belonged to a subterranean stream of European history where, hidden from the light of the public and the attention of enlightened men, they had been able to gather an entirely unexpected virulence. ~ Hannah Arendt

His eyes spark with revolutions, enlightened trickery and unconditional affection. ~ Laurie Perez

below and select the title. http://cma.wiley.com/WileyCMA/Section... In this part . . . Classic - a word that can be used to describe not only the books represented in this chapter, but the For Dummies series as a whole. When the For Dummies series began, personal computers were becoming widespread, but how exactly to use them was a bit of a mystery to many people. That's why DOS For Dummies and Windows For Dummies (which we've updated with every edition of Windows, including Windows 7) made such a difference in people's lives. But we didn't stop with computers. French For Dummies showed everyone that the approach we used to teach people about computers could also be used to help people learn foreign languages. And Dr. Ruth Westheimer's Sex For Dummies enlightened people all over the world about that topic. So move ahead to these chapters and enjoy. It's a classic ride. ~ John Wiley & Sons

Many Hindus are willing to consider Jesus as a legitimate manifestation of the divine ... many Buddhists see Jesus as one of humanity's most enlightened people ... A shared reappraisal of Jesus' message could provide a unique space or common ground for urgently needed religious dialogue - and it doesn't seem an exaggeration to say that the future of our planet may depend on such dialogue. This reappraisal of Jesus' message may be the only project capable of saving a number of religions. ~ Brian D. McLaren

The teachings on love given by the Buddha are clear, scientific, and applicable ... Love, compassion, joy, and equanimity are the very nature of an enlightened person. They are the four aspects of true love within ourselves and within everyone and everything. ~ Nhat Hanh

Everything that I teach as an enlightened Buddhist teacher is towards directing an individual to happiness, a balanced wisdom and knowledge that is sometimes just bubbly and euphoric or just very still and profound. ~ Frederick Lenz

You need the patience of a mountain to become truly enlightened. ~ Lamees Alhassar

MY BOSS SENDS me home because of all the dried blood on my pants, and I am overjoyed.
The hole punched through my cheek doesn't ever heal. I'm going to work, and my punched-out eye sockets are two swollen-up black bagels around the little piss holes I have left to see through. Until today, it really pissed me off that I'd become this totally centered Zen Master and nobody had noticed. Still, I'm doing the little FAX thing. I write little HAIKU things and FAX them around to everyone. When I pass people in the hall at work, I get totally ZEN right in everyone's hostile little FACE.
Worker bees can leave
Even drones can fly away
The queen is their slave

You give up all your worldly possessions and your car and go live in a rented house in the toxic waste part of town where late at night, you can hear Marla and Tyler in his room, calling each other hum; butt wipe.
Take it, human butt wipe.
Do it, butt wipe.
Choke it down. Keep it down, baby.
Just by contrast, this makes me the calm little center of the world.
Me, with my punched-out eyes and dried blood in big black crusty stains on my pants, I'm saying HELLO to everybody at work. HELLO! Look at me. HELLO! I am so ZEN. This is BLOOD. This is NOTHING. Hello. Everything is nothing, and it's so cool to be ENLIGHTENED. Like me.
Sigh.
Look. Outside the window. A bird.
My boss asked if the blood was my blood.
The bird flies downwind. I'm writing a ~ Chuck Palahniuk

It is still the arena of those who dream of the City of Man and those who envision a City of Things. The battle appears to be forever joined. The armies, ignorant and enlightened, clash by day as well as night. Chicago is America's dream, writ large. And flamboyantly. ~ Studs Terkel

If one wants to go to Mumbai from Baroda, he will 'like' all the signs towards the south. And if he wants to go to Delhi, he will like all the signs towards the north. One can tell what path he is on from what he 'likes'. There are many paths, not just one. As many minds as there are, there are that many ways and they are all intellect-based opinions. Where one is guided by the intellectual opinions, there is nothing but aimless wandering there. Only the opinions of the Vitaraag Lords (the enlightened ones) is a "safe side"! ~ Dada Bhagwan

The only enlightened masters I know are the people that I see every day and the people that I've seen through my life who have had the understanding, at some level, that we're here to express love. ~ Richard Bach

effort is necessary, enlightened, well-directed and sustained. ~ Thomas Merton

Intuition is a powerful tool that can heal the painful split we all feel between our earthly, mundane selves and our divine, eternal selves. When we realize that our spiritual knowledge is in us right now, and always has been, we become filled with light, light-hearted, and enlightened. ~ Penney Peirce

I wish to say to you that the life of an enlightened people and a vibrant nation cannot be measured by the life of an individual. A successful person is one who manages to lay down a new stone, a brick that would help firm up his nation's existence. ~ King Hussein I

If you personally advocate that I be caged if I don't pay for whatever "government" things YOU want, please don't pretend to be tolerant, or non-violent, or enlightened, or compassionate. Don't pretend you believe in "live and let live," and don't pretend you want peace, freedom or harmony. It's a simple truism that the only people in the world who are willing to "live and let live" are voluntaryists. So you can either PRETEND to care about and respect your fellow man while continuing to advocate widespread authoritarian violence, or you can embrace the concepts of self-ownership and peaceful coexistence, and become an anarchist. ~ Larken Rose

It is pleasant to believe one's society is more "enlightened" or "rational" than all others, ~ David Bentley Hart

Extremism frequently turns its champions into angry people, driven by conflicting desires. At first, I pitied my less enlightened parents and siblings. Then I felt superior to them, poor sinners that they were. Then I lost patience with their unwillingness
to see the one true path and resorted to threats, intimidation, and yelling. At night, I was tormented by thoughts of what would happen to all us of when we reached our graves. ~ Manal Al-Sharif