“Just like a river flowing, we are talking, taking decisions, and doing actions – there is no one called an ‘I’ that is doing these things just like there is no ‘I’ associated with a river. It’s all a natural happening.”
“I envy and admire her innocence and trust, taking herself as she does to be a child of the universe.”
“Someone asked me once, ‘Is it better to marry someone you love or someone who loves you?’ Of course, ideally, love should not be a one-way street.”
“S/he who has not experienced the pangs of love has not understood one important aspect of life, one capable of teaching one much worth learning.”
“Whatever I do or don’t do cannot distance me from the Truth, just as however misshapen or broken a pot is cannot distance it from the clay.”
“Love continues to be popular because it flatters one’s ego to no end that someone considers one interesting enough to spend the rest of their life with.”
“I am in the Top 1% of Rich People in the world if riches are measured by the amount of leisure time one has.”
“The vast majority of people live their lives with the odds stacked against them.”
“Life tests us at every moment and we keep failing.”
“More and more it seems to me that the need one feels to be loved is more neurotic and pathological than anything else.”
“I am not a good poet because I am a philosopher. I am not a good philosopher because I am a poet.”
“Even when you have realized the absurdity of life, the stupidity of life, the inanity of life, the nonsensicalness of life, and even when you are imbued with the mood of I-don’t-care-if-I-drop-dead-next-moment, you have no choice but to continue living. That’s the absurdity of the highest order for you, and it somehow gets to you, and yet there’s not a damn thing that you can do about it.”
“We are timid individuals. We lack zest for life and everything we do mildly in apportioned terms. We are afraid of the extremes, afraid of the precipices in life. We stick to safe routines, sticking to well-trodden ways. Nothing we do is original. We are afraid of life; we are afraid of death. No passion in our search for truth and no compassion in our love. We desperately try to extinguish our ennui with cigarettes or booze, with inane entertainment or mindless gossip. Forever mediocre. Forever far from the truth, forever not knowing what love is. Fenced in. Unable to embrace the totality of human existence. We accept our condition. We think that’s how life is meant to be. We dare not blaze forth into oblivion like shooting stars. Grounded. Not knowing what it feels like to have wings. Trapped in our own thoughts and emotions. Never tasting real freedom. Pitiable creatures, we are whose neither joys nor sorrows are experienced in full measure. We do not sing with full-throated ease. Nor do we weep at our neighbor’s sorrows. We are mild like the summer in Ooty. Cautious. We do not forget to take insurance or disdain to go to temples. Constantly trying to protect ourselves. Ultimately, we die without having really lived.”
“Meditation is not for becoming happy and peaceful nor for attaining enlightenment. Meditation is for realizing that happiness and peace are one’s own nature, and that one is already enlightened but wrongly thinking that such is not the case.”
“Taking the appearance of name-and-form to be real, we suffer. The only way out is to realize this truth.”
“The whole universe is the temple of God.”
“Every object in this universe, including you and I, is an idol of God.”
“England must be a happening nation, what with places like Sussex, Middlesex, and Essex. No inhibitions there as I can see. No wonder Brits have a stiff upper lip given that they must pronounce such names in the earshot of everyone on the Tube or bus.”
“I reject both life and death.”
“All religions that try to entice you with a heaven or scare you with a hell are idiotic.”
Know Thyself 