Eknath Easwaran
13 quotes
Biography
"Judged by the normal standards of human affairs, the lives of men and women of God may look overburdened with suffering, and even inconclusive."
"Through meditation and by giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we choose."
"By giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we choose."
"But patience can't be acquired overnight. It's just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it, to push its limits."
"Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it."
"It takes a lot of experience of life to see why some relationships last and others do not. But we do not have to wait for a crisis to get an idea of the future of a particular relationship. Our behavior in little every incidents tells us a great deal."
"You occasionally hear it said that spiritual aspirants should drop everything and set off for the woods, or go to India and wander about on the slopes of the Himalayas. But only through daily contact with people--not trees or brooks or deer--can we train ourselves to be selfless in personal relationships."
"But when we train the senses we conserve our vital energy, the very stuff of life. Patient and secure within, we do not have to look to externals for satisfaction. No matter what happens outside--whether events are for or against us, however people behave towards us, whether we get what pleases us or do not--we are in no way dependent. Then it is that we can give freely to others; then it is that we can love."
"The mind is powerful, but it needs something to hold on to so it doesn't wander."
"The goal of meditation is awareness, not relaxation."
"Those who indulge themselves in sense stimulation throughout their lives often end up exhausted, with an enfeebled will and little capacity to love others."
"Two forces pervade human life, the Gita says: the upward thrust of evolution and the downward pull of our evolutionary past."
"Patience is an unfailing remedy for friction in personal relations. Even if a person has never won a beauty contest, has no money in the bank, can't even change a flat tire, if he or she has inexhaustible patience, then we will find that life with such a person will never grow stale."