“Are the many aspects of my being all equally part of my ‘self,’ or is there only one of me—and if so, which, where, how, and why?” (Location 125)
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There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind—you are the one who hears it. (Location 198)
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The truth is that most of life will unfold in accordance with forces far outside your control, regardless of what your mind says about it. (Location 203)
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Your consciousness is actually experiencing your mental model of reality, not reality itself. (Location 242)
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True personal growth is about transcending the part of you that is not okay and needs protection. (Location 259)
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Come to know the one who watches the voice, and you will come to know one of the great mysteries of creation. (Location 263)
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Your inner growth is completely dependent upon the realization that the only way to find peace and contentment is to stop thinking about yourself. (Location 266)
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When a problem is disturbing you, don’t ask, “What should I do about it?” Ask, “What part of me is being disturbed by this?” (Location 271)
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If you want to achieve peace in the face of your problems, you must understand why you perceive a particular situation as a problem. (Location 273)
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The only real solution is to take the seat of witness consciousness and completely change your frame of reference. (Location 283)
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To attain true inner freedom, you must be able to objectively watch your problems instead of being lost in them. (Location 284)
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Everyone knows you can’t deal well with a situation if you’re getting anxious, scared, or angry about it. (Location 285)
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The only permanent solution to your problems is to go inside and let go of the part of you that seems to have so many problems with reality. (Location 290)
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Yoga is not really about getting your body healthy, although it does that too. Yoga is about the knowledge that will help you out of your predicament, the knowledge that can free you. (Location 390)
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True meditation is beyond the act of simple, one-pointed concentration. For the deepest meditation, you must not only have the ability to focus your consciousness completely on one object, you must also have the ability to make awareness itself be that object. In the highest state, the focus of consciousness is turned back to the Self. (Location 612)
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What you’ll find is that the only thing you really want from life is to feel enthusiasm, joy, and love. If you can feel that all the time, then who cares what happens outside? (Location 726)
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You simply realize that defining what you need in order to stay open actually ends up limiting you. If you make lists of how the world must be for you to open, you have limited your openness to those conditions. Better to be open no matter what. (Location 730)
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The most important thing in life is your inner energy. If you’re always tired and never enthused, then life is no fun. But if you’re always inspired and filled with energy, then every minute of every day is an exciting experience. Learn to work with these things. Through meditation, through awareness and willful efforts, you can learn to keep your centers open. You do this by just relaxing and releasing. You do this by not buying into the concept that there is anything worth closing over. Remember, if you love life, nothing is worth closing over. Nothing, ever, is worth closing your heart over. (Location 754)
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We now experience the daily need to defend our self-concepts rather than our bodies. Our major struggles end up being with our own inner fears, insecurities, and destructive behavior patterns, and not with outside forces. (Location 932)
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The alternative is to become conscious enough to simply watch the part of your being that is constantly trying to protect itself. (Location 976)
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The moment you see the energy getting imbalanced inside, the moment you see the heart starting to tense and get defensive, you just stop. (Location 992)
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What exactly does it mean “to stop”? It’s something you do inside. It’s called letting go. When you let go, you are falling behind the energy that is trying to pull you into it. (Location 994)
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A wise person remains centered enough to let go every time the energy shifts into a defensive mode. (Location 1031)
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Your definitions of desirable and undesirable, as well as good and bad, all come about because you have defined how things need to be in order for you to be okay. (Location 1094)
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Life is continuously changing, and if you’re trying to control it, you’ll never be able to fully live (Location 1112)
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But in the case of the human heart, we have more than one thorn. We have sensitivities about loneliness, about rejection, about our physical appearance, and about our mental prowess. (Location 1270)
The prerequisite to true freedom is to decide that you do not want to suffer anymore. You must decide that you want to enjoy your life and that there is no reason for stress, inner pain, or fear. (Location 1349)
You can wake up in the morning, look forward to the day, and not worry about what will happen. Your daily life can be like a vacation. Work can be fun; family can be fun; you can just enjoy all of it. (Location 1434)
That does not mean you don’t do your best; you just have fun doing your best. Then, at night when you go to sleep, you let it all go. You just live your life without getting uptight and worrying about it. You actually live life instead of fearing or fighting it. (Location 1435)
Begin this journey to freedom by regularly reminding yourself to watch the psyche. This will keep you from getting lost in it. (Location 1487)
Every time you get into your car, as you’re settling into the seat, just stop. Take a moment to remember that you’re spinning on a planet in the middle of empty space. Then remind yourself that you’re not going to get involved in your own melodrama. (Location 1490)
You will see that the mind follows the heart. The heart reacts way before the mind starts talking. (Location 1503)
Change involves challenging what is familiar to us and daring to question our traditional needs for safety, comfort, and control. This is often perceived as a painful experience. (Location 1512)
Wise beings do not want to remain a slave to the fear of pain. They permit the world to be what it is instead of being afraid of it. They wholeheartedly participate in life, but not for the purpose of using life to avoid themselves. If life does something that causes a disturbance inside of you, instead of pulling away, let it pass through you like the wind. After all, things happen every day that cause inner disturbance. At any moment you can feel frustration, anger, fear, jealousy, insecurity, or embarrassment. If you watch, you will see that the heart is trying to push it all away. If you want to be free, you have to learn to stop fighting these human feelings. (Location 1608)
Imagine your house of thoughts standing in the middle of an ocean of light from a trillion stars. Imagine your awareness trapped inside the darkness of that house, struggling daily to live off the artificial light of your limited experiences. Now imagine the walls crumbling down, and the effortless release of consciousness expanding into the brilliance of what is and always was. Now give that experience a name—enlightenment. (Location 1783)
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If you never stop, then you go beyond boundaries, beyond limitations, beyond the sense of a restricted self. (Location 1791)
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to maintain honest relations with others we must first be true to ourselves. (Location 114)