The joy in our heart is a mere reflection of the smiles that we bring to another's life

When it comes to surrendering one's smile to adversity I am a total Gandhian - I refuse to comply. Period. C O M E W H A T M A Y!

Often we are bound by fear of loss until loss itself frees us of the fear.

POOR: What things can I skip buying?
MIDDLE CLASS: What more things can I buy?
RICH: What things I still cannot buy?
SUPER RICH: What do you mean I cannot buy happiness?

Love is the heart of simplicity.

Love is the breath That flows through my heart. It beats in my chest Like the Universe's harp.

It's a good yardstick to measure the quality of our life not by the extent of our accumulations but by the immensity of our contributions, not in meeting the desires of one but in seeing to the well being of all.

The brightness of a day can make one forget the darkness of the night, but the cycle continues. To struggle against either is to lose. It is most important to understand the nature of things if one is to be at peace with them.

Pain can either serve as a guide towards a better life or as an enemy that we get busy fighting. Either is available. Each is valuable. Former is wisdom, latter is courage. What does your life demand of you today? To answer this question with involvement and passion is service.

To want is to be miserable. It matters not whether what we want is vice or virtue, sensible or senseless, for another or for ourselves. Wanting is misery. A belief in the promise of that which is not at the expense of that which is. Stop wanting. Start living.

Morality without emotional buy-in is akin to a sail boat without winds. The rational mind is limited in its ability to enforce virtue without support from the subconscious.

Because we do not know what to do with ourselves, we rely on another to provide that direction by them creating a stimuli in the form of a contact, communication, situation, invitation etc to which then we can then respond or attend to and not have to face the emptiness of our lives anymore. This dependence creates resentment in the form of blame, anger, and frustration, when such stimulus does not arise as per our expectations. Thus withers away the quality of our relationships and the joy from our life. To have a good relationship with another it is paramount to be at ease with our own selves first. Secondly, it is important that we be friendly towards all without dwelling too much of friendships themselves, which become laden with expectations over time, which kills joy.

When the enticement of a pleasure is greater than the realization of its ensuing pain, we remain incapable of overcoming the pleasures that lead to those pains.

The choices we make are determined as much by who we are as the role they play in determining who we become.

Sometimes things go the way they do not because we are lacking, incapable, or failures, but because that is how they just happened to be on that occasion

One dream goes to sleep, another awakens. Who is the dreamer, how long will he dream?

What else, but emptiness only, can fill a vessel that has no bottom. But is this fulness the same as fulfillment?

Limitlessness of available knowledge in the Universe is paralleled only by its limitation in revealing the truth underlying all existence. There is no end to knowledge. There is no end to ignorance. There does, however, exist the possibility to transcend duality, to be neither a knowledgeable scholar nor be an ignorant fool but to be just as one is. This possibility is the promise that we all seek in our myriad ways.

The wise use knowledge to realize their ignorance while the fools use it to further their arrogance. Knowledge - which is as limited as it is limitless - does not care either way.

With our judgements we enslave not another but ourselves. Calling another bad ties us to an idea of what we think of as good. Labeling another as great leaves us stuck with an image of what we consider as petty. To see things exactly for what they are - without labeling - is freedom, is joy, is life, is love.

We miss that which we once had, have no more, and want it again. But in a Universe where nothing ever comes or goes but only changes form, nothing ever goes missing. Perhaps what we are mistakenly searching for is not the lost love or friendship but the form in which we had experienced it. Look again and re-discover it - around you, within you, as you.

Each day is full of BOTH the good and the bad. We must make an effort to contain and to improve upon the bad while we share and spread that which is good and joyous. Often we do the reverse - ignore the joyous and share the upsetting. Any wonder then that we find ourselves tired and short-tempered at the end of our day.

What immense oceans of thoughts and feelings underlie the little ripples that manage to surface the expanse of our personalities.

The desire to be free is a bondage in itself.

Consciousness is the tree of which we are all leaves, roots, and branches. When the limbs of a tree know each other as separate from each other it only hurts the well being of the entire tree and of each of the limbs in return. And a single branch that flowers brings great merit to the entire tree. Arise, awake, and know your relationship to everyone and everything around you.

In absence of courage to act skillfully, knowledge of a difficulty only creates restlessness and anxiety. Rather be an ignorant fool who willingly explores than be a knowledgeable scholar who unwillingly procrastinates.

It is easy to miss the jagged outlines of boundaries that divide and exclude until one finds one's own self excluded by the very walls within which one had once sought safety, security, camaraderie with one at the expense of another.

Our search for Truth is akin to darkness' search for light. The completion of the search is not just the finding of the light but also marks the end of darkness.

Faith is not hope. Faith is not desire. Faith is but that quality of inner strength which propels benevolent action in face of opposition and adversity.

Whatever befalls us in our life carries as much the possibility of becoming worse as it carries the potential to be made better. That potential sometimes requires that we grow wings and fly, while at other times asks of us no more than to put one foot ahead of the other.

One may be able to cheat one's way to money but never to happiness.

No matter how much we may have been hurt at the hands of another, to hurt back is always a choice and never a right.

One of the greatest challenges we face in our relationships is the ability to be honest, with another, with ourselves. Not about the 'big' stuff - but about day-to-day things. The small lies geared at changing everything in an effort to keep the image of our imagined life intact.

Often what distinguishes brave from stupid is not the act but the outcome. However, that which is carried out for the good of another is always brave, no matter how stupid.

A life driven by the din of a harsh mind is insensitive to the quite sounds of a shattering heart.

If I get to live my life all over again I would like to not commit the same mistakes. But I would still like for it to not be completely free of mistakes. Every mistake from which I have learned has added zest and spice to living. And very mistake from which I refuse to grow up hangs like a weight on a balloon struggling to be free. But as long as the struggle persists I know the mistake won't.

Dear God, whoever you are, wherever you are, whether you are or not - thank you for this life, this world, it's people, its diversity, its joys and sorrows, for faith, for joy, for gratitude, for fragrance in flowers and for the love in our hearts ♥ ♥ ♥

A happiness that is not here and now, is nowhere to be found.

Through us the Universe gets done what it needs to get done - we are the Universe's wish fulfillers and also its wish come true.

Only a mind that serves and not enslave the heart is free - free of worry, free of fear, free of distortion, free of contradiction, free of conflict. Only such a mind knows love, knows care, knows compassion, knows beauty, knows togetherness. The heart is the wings that let the mind soar. Let your heart set your destination, let your mind carve the way.

Lonely is one who depends on another to experience the joy in one's own heart.
Lively is one who carries joy in one's own heart - with, without, or in spite of another.

Willingly be with that which you would rather wish away and witness life's noise morph into music.

What an amazing gift we give when we generously receive!

Ambition: A fire that fuels us as much as it burns those around us.

Starved for love, pain grows...

Inability to let go of that which once was but is now no more or that which is now and we are afraid may soon be no more is not only the greatest cause of our sorrows but is also the cause of our greatest sorrows.

Love, tainted by ambition, is life as we know it. Life, free of ambition, is love as we don't know it.

Often what differentiates a tragedy from a comedy for us is whether it is another's story or our own. When we are able to see our own story as another's, we become capable of joy. When we are able to see another's story as our own, we become capable of compassion.

The other can incite in us only that which we already carry within. If we feel no love for another, know that is because of absence of love within. If presence of another makes us angry, it is the anger that we already carry within. Our relationship to another is merely a mirror in which we see our own reflection.

You can be at peace even if no one likes you as long as you carry no dislike in your heart for another or against yourself.

Love is no more passive than strength is aggressive. True love is spontaneous action for the good of another. While real strength is never void of compassion even towards it's greatest adversary.

We often believe that to give is to be generous. But to accept an offering is the real generosity. What could be more beautiful and giving that to give another an opportunity to share their love, their fulfillment, their abundance? To hoard is to plant the seeds and reap the fruits of sorrow, of pain, of loneliness, of fear and insecurity. To share is to grow in love, in life, to become bigger, inclusive, abundant. Every time we accept to receive, we add to another's joy, their life, and to their love. To receive without hesitation, then, is an act of unsurpassed generosity.

The purpose of all speech should be to bring about a sense of silence - in another, in ourselves.

Favor righteousness over reputation.

To love oneself is to treat oneself as one would like to be treated by another. To love another is to treat another as one would like to be treated oneself. However, to love another one must first begin by loving oneself. Cause no harm to self, to another.

Sleep well knowing that you are loved, that there is nothing ever to be afraid of or to worry about. That which brought us this far and kept us safe continues to take us forward through all of our trials and tribulations.

Every time we smile, the Universe thanks us for acknowledging the hard work, love, compassion and the limitless potential that she placed in bringing us to our current life and it's situations. When we know this in our heart we can always smile at any situation and say to the Universe - "Worry not! I am here and I will take care of this for us!"

Dear God, I love you and I belong to you. Do as you like with this life. I am grateful for everything - the thorns that make me appreciate the roses and the roses that allow me to smile at the thorns.

What is my deepest desire? To experience a living free from restlessness.

A tree has many branches growing in all different directions and of different lengths and vigor. Some are laden with fruits while others are a mere display for dried leaves. But they all together make this tree. The branch that bears fruits could not carry on without the existence of the other branches including the one that has now gone dry. Such is also the truth about humanity and of human existence and of its interdependence.

Jealousy is a reflection not of love but of insecurity.

When hallucinations start feeling real the real starts feeling hallucinatory.

When I am "so good" everyone else automatically becomes "oh! So bad". Our life becomes a HUGE problem when we start believing that we are "oh! So good!".

For most of us, when real trouble strikes "oh s***" is a more spontaneous outcry than a sincere remembrance of the divine, which may follow but rarely precedes.

Lack of enthusiasm is not because of dispassion but because of it's absence.

What went against your plan was part of God's plan - rejoice in the truth of this knowledge!

Surrender is not an offering that we make but a gift that we receive.

To fill your life with love means to love any and all with great passion regardless of whether you feel loved or despised by them - care endlessly, give without measure, alleviate the burden of another.

The fear/anxiety underlying all indecision/regret: I could have had more of what I wanted / better than what I got, by giving up less than what I had to/have to give up and which I would have liked to/will like to keep. Essentially, not wanting to lose what one has (fear) and wondering if one can/could get more than one got (greed).

We like or dislike not another but how we feel about ourselves through that another.

What good is the desire to seek bereft of the grace to come upon?

When we go seeking love, we are not as much seeking someone that would fall in love with us as something with which we can fall in love. In the outside absences we seek the experience of the presence within.

A heart devoid of love is a restless heart.

Why is there sorrow? Because I believe that I am oh SO special. And another does not give a fig!

To blame another is to not understand oneself

That for which we punish, we could also forgive.

A day offers as much to remember as to never forget - for reasons known and yet to reveal!

What is, was not. What's not, will be. What is that which always is?

Some places are not reachable by any road. Yet, walk we must.

Life is such a delicate intermix of ins and out, beginnings and endings, beauty and silence. Incredible...

Action resulting from confusion and contradiction only creates more of the same. Perhaps we could be patient enough to let the dust settle before the next step.

The most important presence in one's life is that of one's own.

Desire for fulfillment inhabits the root of all frustration.

Is it work that fills up our day or is it us?

Did it ever help to tighten a fist in an effort to hold on to the sand? Or is it just that we know not that it is sand that fills our hands?

Only in true Intelligence there can exist effortless order that is free of struggle, strife, conflicts, and contradictions.

One floating white cloud against clear blue sky, the warm winds, the sparkling waters, the conversations and the silences. Ah! life the beautiful...

Often the search ends when one finds. On occasion one finds only when the search ends.

The opportunity to do good may not befall us all, but the capacity to cause no harm we always carry within.

Is it because life is difficult that we invent dreams and hopes or is it because we so cling to hopes and dreams that life is difficult?

What's the relationship between understanding and knowledge? Is one love & the other dogmatic? Is knowledge necessary for understanding life or is it a barrier?

Beauty is same as a quite mind. To a chattering brain even silence is noise.

Roots of great complications are inhabited by simple desires: desire to be safe, desire to be loved, desire to not be lonely. What is the root of desire?

May all find their deepest needs fulfilled enough to meet needs of another this day.

End of search is the finding, if only one can come upon...

We cover a thousand miles in search of a place to stand still.

The choices we make are defined as much by who we are as the role that they play in determining who we become.

I keep searching, I keep getting found...

Is there more to life than remembering and forgetting? Who remembers and who tries to forget? Is this something to remember or is this something forgotten?

Sometimes one's own past feels like another person's life...

Desire is its own final pursuit, it's own final offering to the fire that it is...

The discovery of love lies not in the presence of another but in the absence of self

What minimal fraction of how we live is of any significance to who we are...

The butterfly is not the desire of a caterpillar. In being one becomes, in becoming one can't be.

Pleasure sees not whose joy it tramples upon.

Mind seeks stillness through action while Love is action born of stillness.

What walls guard us against the raging storms of time - Money? Power? Fame? Beauty? Health? And if everything is fleeting then why the struggle and the strife? Might it be to stumble upon something that is perhaps untouched by time, untainted by age, and without a beginning and thereby no end?

What joy to open windows to an early morning breeze, chirping birds, and to a sun that is barely awake!

What gratitude can one offer to this immense Grace that shines upon us as life, friends, family, and joy for no great doing of ours. I suppose one can always start with a heartfelt Thank you. So Thank you...

The courage needed to embrace a change is often paralleled by the energy one invests in avoiding the same.

We often advice where we should closely listen. Perhaps we are afraid that if we did listen we might be compelled to change how we go about our daily business of living.

The effort to change things outside is a resistance to change within. Only when we are free of all resistance does there exist the possibility to come upon the unchangeable.

Until we discover the togetherness that weaves through our separateness we only end up with feeling isolated in our togetherness.

The withering away of beauty lies not in the death or decay of a thing but in the aliveness of our attachment towards its particular form.

How many distances we cover in order to arrive from where we started and be able to see it as home.

Mind's demand for occupation emanates from its fear of being alone.

Sometimes it is most difficult to be who we already are - a son, a daughter, a parent, an employee, a friend. The roles that bind us are the same as the ones that define us. It is unbearable to witness the forthcoming or immediate falling apart of these definitions.

It is kind on life's part to accommodate our logic. It would be too much to ask her to abide by it as well.

Fear is not of the unknown but of losing that which is the known.

Happiness is so overrated. Why can't we just be with that which is?

Love has taught me - in its approaching, in its staying, in its receding, in my desire of it, in my fear of it, in my understanding and misunderstanding of it. but mostly because of my realizing that I understand it not and know it even less. I have cherished it even when i have knowingly moved away from it and loved it even when if has flown as an unending stream through the very eyes that never grew weary longing for it.

it is only either out of great courage or out of great love that we are able to take earnest responsibility for the wrongs that we committed, which we know not how to correct.

All this time I thought I was carrying the weight of my body. Not realizing that it was my heart that was either light or heavy. today it has put on some weight. I think it is pushing down hard so it can leap up really high into lightness of being.

Short term remediations are helpful only if they inspire us and enable us towards achieving long term alleviations. Otherwise they can be and often are disastrous.

That which claims another's happiness can never be our joy. No matter what size, shape, form or circumstance it uses to present itself.

Care. Do we? About us, about ours, about those and for that which we do not consider as ours?
how would our next action be different if we really, truly, genuinely cared?

may we all discover the deepest rest and respite in truly realizing that ALL roads lead home.

An examined life comes a full circle starting from ignorance, leading up to knowledge, and returning back to the starting point of not-knowing. It is all the same and yet it is never the same again.

That which requires another is no love.
Love is that in which there is no other.

Don't go looking for places to pray to God. Instead know that wherever you truly pray there your God exists.

Religion is but an invention of a fearful mind seeking security in face of a world that ceaselessly questions the possibility of immortality. The desire to survive beyond the seen is the seed in whose sprouting all religions germinate.

So much is buried under the sands of time.
The wind is whispering or trying to remind?
At times one recalls what is not forgotten,
At times one wants to forget what one just recalled.

Those whom we consider least deserving of our love may actually be in most need of it. to judge another is to deprive ourselves - of love, of life, of possibilities.

Does hate result from the fear of being deprived of what one loves? If yes, then is love causing hate to come about? If not, then is our understanding of love a mere misunderstanding of attachment? Then what is love?

If life were a crime, loneliness would be its punishment.
If life is a gift, could loneliness be its wrapper?

Nothing is as restorative, comforting, transforming, and destructive as love.

may we find within ourselves th strength to come upon that which seeks us from within and from without.

When it feels right to do what you know to be the wrong thing to do, look within for courage that listens to and acts in accordance with the soft and innocent inner voice. that which seems easy today will not always remain so, nor would the difficult.

may we all find in ourselves not just the compassion that abstains from hurting but also the courage and capacity that heals an aching heart - in another, in ourselves.

Suffering is as much a cause of desire as desire is the cause for suffering. As long as one suffers one cannot know a life without desire. In the birth of wisdom lies the death of suffering.

Storms, clouds, dust, rains, thunder, lightening... and an ever untainted sky.

How to express that which cannot be comprehended? How to comprehend that which cannot be perceived? Perhaps silence can convey that which words cannot will.

Move with love towards those from whom you would rather move away in aversion and come to know what love really is.

love already is what knowledge strives to become.

It wasn't the river in search of the ocean but the ocean in search of itself. The drop did not fall in the ocean, the ocean itself descended in the drop.

For the most part, what w call our faith, like our beliefs, is a mere reflection and extension of our greed - greed to be more prosperous, more joyful, more peaceful.

Our relationship with another is a reflection of our relationship with ourselves in presence of that another - person, animal, object, or idea. Only when we are comfortable with ourselves at all times, can we be comfortable with all else under all circumstances.

Freedom - the knowledge of and the ability to respond differently to the same circumstance.

Fate is not inscribed in any gene. Blood does not scream nationality. there is more to life than one's ability to outperform another or one's own past as it stands in contrast to another. today, choose to be at peace. Today, choose to unite. today, let another's burden be lighter because you walked alongside.

In suffering there lies the possibility of birth of wisdom. However, in birth of wisdom there lies sure death of suffering.

the loudest sound outside fails to dampen the faintest whisper within.

To hear, listen.
To listen, be silent.
To be silent, just be.

Thank goodness for the tears of gratitude. How else could we ever express our gratefulness for the gift of love!

Love is to acknowledge a family member in every stranger and to make room for a stranger in every family member.

technology as a social tool: an attempt to overcome one person's absence at the expense of another person's presence.

Culture is what we invent through the ages while truth is that which we recognize, since truth is that which is never-changing and always known by our being - even if forgotten.

Desire - the unending search for joy. May we all find the joy coming upon which frees us of all longing and restlessness, settling us in a place of peace and abundance.

All smiles. No tears. Everyone. Everywhere.

Pursuit of peace without an understanding of love, seeped in fear and marked by lack of courage, serves none other than conflict, hatred, and isolation as its sole master.

May today we forgive that which we have not been able to forget. may today we embrace in love that which we have not been able to accept. May today our hearts dwell in peace no matter what path our life takes.

To truly give without expectation is the same as to receive without hesitation. both go hand in hand. Both are love. Both are of the heart and not of the mind.

One creates noise outside to hide the din within. One gets busy outside to overcome the restlessness inside. to go within is to move from words to silence, from having to being, from confusion to clarity, from hankering to contentment, from indifference to love. Then all is music, then all is rest.

True forgiveness is not selective but all encompassing. and it begins with forgiving oneself. To forgive is to let go of the past. To forgive is to not be afraid of the future. To forgive is to become innocent again.

presence of thirst indicates the existence of water, hunger of food, darkness of light, and longing of love. Search itself substantiates the sought. Do not give up on the possibility of coming upon that whose existence you long for.

To blame is to judge the past, motivated by a desire to control the future, completely oblivious to that which is the present. If this is not sleep, what is?

To find oneself when feeling lost - priceless!

If we leave another to suffer on account of that other being a cause of suffering to us/another, sooner or later we will find ourselves alone and hurting in our lives.

Nights are noisy from dreams while days echo their silence....

May another's well being be the intent and not a causality of our ambitions.

A perfect outcome is an intricate interweaving of small tasks attended to with great love and detail, glued together with luck/grace.

Once a lamp is lit it cannot but help dispel darkness. the alchemy is within, not without. Elimination of darkness has all to do with light and nothing to do with darkness itself.

There is freedom in choice but bondage in choosing

To be meditative is to find unmoving stillness in relentless movement, to come upon peaceful rest in unsettling restlessness, to be the light of love in a world darkened by conflict.

Knowledge blocks the path to love unless love was the path that led to the knowledge