“Do you want to be a living being or a thinking being? Right now, ninety percent of the time, you are only thinking about life, not living it. Have you come into this world to experience life or to think about it? Your mental process is a very small happening compared to the life process, but right now it has become far more important. It is time for humanity to shift the significance to the life process once again. The need is an urgent one. Our lives depend on it.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 162)
“The most beautiful moments in your life—what you might consider moments of bliss, joy, ecstasy, or utter peace—were moments when you were not thinking about anything at all. You were just being. Even without your thoughts, existence is.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 150)
Quote on Making Your Wants Want You and How Relaxing Helps Make That Happen
“Don’t chase, don’t beg, don’t stress, don’t be desperate, just relax. When you relax it will come to you. Make your wants, want you.”
Unknown
Beyond the Quote (291/365)
What happens when you relax? You release. You let go of held tension both in the body and the mind. Or, maybe better said, in the mind and then in the body. For, the body is but a puppet of the mind. And in order for the mind to relax what needs to happen? Well, you have to ease your mind away from the regrets of the past and the anxieties of the future and connect to the now. How else can you be truly relaxed if you’re preoccupied thinking and worrying about the past and future? It is only when you are utterly present that you can be truly relaxed. Isn’t it so?
Read More »Quote on Making Your Wants Want You and How Relaxing Helps Make That Happen“You could be good today. But instead, you choose tomorrow.”
Marcus Aurelius, Medium
“Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts.”
Naval Ravikant, Medium
Thich Nhat Hanh Quote on the Present Moment and Appreciating the Flower When It’s Shown To You
“We can realize peace right in the present moment with our look, our smile, our words, and our actions. Peace work is not a means. Each step we make should be peace. Each step we make should be joy. Each step we make should be happiness. If we are determined, we can do it. We don’t need the future. We can smile and relax. Everything we want is right here in the present moment.”
Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step
Beyond the Quote (238/365)
One day the Buddha held up a flower in front of an audience of 1,250 monks and nuns. He did not say anything for quite a long time. The audience was perfectly silent. Everyone seemed to be thinking hard, trying to see the meaning behind the Buddha’s gesture. Then, suddenly, the Buddha smiled.
Read More »Thich Nhat Hanh Quote on the Present Moment and Appreciating the Flower When It’s Shown To You“The only way I was able to pick up details on the court, to be aware of the minutiae on the hardwood, was by training my mind to do that off the court and focusing on every detail in my daily life. By reading, by paying attention in class and in practice, by working, I strengthened my focus. By doing all of that, I strengthened my ability to be present and not have a wandering mind.”
Kobe Bryant, Mamba Mentality (Page 29)
Is Multitasking Good Or Bad? A Look Into The Most Effective Ways To Get Multiple Tasks Done
Excerpt: Is Multitasking Good Or Bad? Some seem to think doing multiple tasks simultaneously is effective—some seem to think otherwise. Let’s dive in.
Read More »Is Multitasking Good Or Bad? A Look Into The Most Effective Ways To Get Multiple Tasks Done
Terri Guillemets Quote on Clouds and What They Can Remind Us About Life
“Why do I love clouds? Because you can’t save a cloud like you can save a leaf or a flower or a rock – clouds are now.”
Terri Guillemets
Beyond the Quote (204/365)
As I sit here struggling to find the right words to write, I find myself looking out the window, captivated by the movement of the clouds through the sky. It’s nothing special. Or it’s something really special? I can’t tell.
Read More »Terri Guillemets Quote on Clouds and What They Can Remind Us About Life32 Deep and Insightful Eckhart Tolle Quotes from The Power of Now
Excerpt: These 32 Eckhart Tolle quotes from The Power of Now are deep and discuss why being present is so powerful and how it can transform your life.
Read More »32 Deep and Insightful Eckhart Tolle Quotes from The Power of Now
“Any action you take may not bear fruit immediately. Until it does—do not resist what is. If there is no action you can take, and you cannot remove yourself from the situation either, then use the situation to make you go more deeply into surrender, more deeply into the Now, more deeply into Being. When you enter this timeless dimension of the present, change often comes about in strange ways without the need for a great deal of doing on your part.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 210)
“I have lived with several Zen masters—all of them cats. Even ducks have taught me important spiritual lessons. Just watching them is a meditation. How peacefully they float along, at ease with themselves, totally present in the Now, dignified and perfect as only a mindless creature can be. Occasionally, however, two ducks will get into a fight—sometimes for no apparent reason, or because one duck has strayed into another’s private space. The fight usually lasts only for a few seconds, and then the ducks separate, swim off in opposite directions, and vigorously flap their wings a few times. They then continue to swim on peacefully as if the fight had never happened. When I observed that for the first time, I suddenly realized that by flapping their wings they were releasing surplus energy, thus preventing it from becoming trapped in their body and turning into negativity. This is natural wisdom, and it is easy for them because they do not have a mind that keeps the past alive unnecessarily and then builds an identity around it.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 190)
“I have learned to offer no resistance to what is; I have learned to allow the present moment to be and to accept the impermanent nature of all things and conditions. Thus have I found peace.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 187)
“Whenever two or more egos come together, drama of one kind or another ensues. But even if you live totally alone, you still create your own drama. When you feel sorry for yourself, that’s drama. When you feel guilty or anxious, that’s drama. When you let the past or future obscure the present, you are creating time, psychological time—the stuff out of which drama is made. Whenever you are not honoring the present moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 182)
“There is nothing you can ever do or attain that will get you closer to salvation than it is at this moment. This may be hard to grasp for a mind accustomed to thinking that everything worthwhile is in the future. Nor can anything that you ever did or that was done to you in the past prevent you from saying yes to what is and taking your attention deeply into the Now. You cannot do this in the future. You do it now or not at all.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 147)
Paul Hogan Poem on Capturing Moments (and Maybe When Not To)
“Camera loaded, the light
near sundown blushes
the grey, beat wood
of the boathouse, flashes
along arcs of the waves.
Don’t photograph this. Don’t render it
immutable now. Let it
distort, let it unravel,
reconstruct itself.
This image will retell
this here and now for years,
without conclusion —
It will never change,
it will always be different,
we will never agree. For now,
let the light slip down
around you. Don’t
remember this yet.”
Paul Hogan, Point of Departures (Page 37)
Beyond the Quote (167/365)
In a world where the camera on our phone takes better pictures than most DSLR cameras from just a few years ago, where 4K quality can be held in the palm of one hand and activated with the push of one thumb, where so much of what we see and hear in the world can be so vividly captured and contained within the confines of a memory chip that’s smaller than a penny and backed up by an imaginary cloud—the line between knowing when to be present in a moment and when to capture a moment can become incredibly blurred. Hell, if we wanted to, we could record every moment we ever wanted to and store it into a neat and tidy timeline of moments that could quite literally make up the story of our lives. Rather than our life “flashing before our eyes” at the end, we could playback our lives in a flash with just a few clicks on a computer screen.
Read More »Paul Hogan Poem on Capturing Moments (and Maybe When Not To)Richard Carlson Quote on Letting Go Of Expectations and A Short Story About Finding Inner Peace
“Whenever you expect something to be a certain way and it isn’t, you’re upset and you suffer. On the other hand, when you let go of expectations, when you accept life as it is, you’re free.”
Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Beyond the Quote (159/365)
A wealthy westerner, in search of peace of mind travels east to find a guru who might be able to help. After searching far and wide, through many towns and villages, he finally gets word of just the guru who can help. When they finally meet, the wise guru asks the wealthy westerner what is in the bag that he is holding so close to his heart. The wealthy man explains that it is a large sum of money that will be rewarded to whomever can help him find the inner peace that he so desperately hopes to find. The wise guru paused for a moment and reflected on the offer. Then, to everybody’s surprise, snatched the bag of money right from the man’s hands and ran away!
Read More »Richard Carlson Quote on Letting Go Of Expectations and A Short Story About Finding Inner PeaceRichard Carlson Quote on How Wherever You Go, There You Are.
“Something wonderful begins to happen with the simple realization that life, like an automobile, is driven from the inside out, not the other way around. As you focus more on becoming more peaceful with where you are, rather than focusing on where you would rather be, you begin to find peace right now, in the present. Then, as you move around, try new things, and meet new people, you carry that sense of inner peace with you. It’s absolutely true that, ‘Wherever you go, there you are.’”
Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Beyond the Quote (140/365)
One of the tragedies that we experience every day is missing out on the moment because we’re somewhere else. Our consciousness is constantly twisted up in what already happened and what we’re anticipating might happen next. And I’m not talking about a few moments out of every day—I’m talking about the vast majority of our moments every day. Let’s see how the following examples sits with you.
Read More »Richard Carlson Quote on How Wherever You Go, There You Are.Richard Branson Quote on Living In Every Moment—Not A Select Few Moments
“I don’t think of work as work and play as play. It’s all living.”
Richard Branson, via Talk Like TED
Beyond the Quote (139/365)
When you are able to live life completely immersed in the present moment, Richard Branson is dead on, it’s ALL living. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, where you are, or who you’re with—it’s all a part of the whole life experience and we should be soaking it ALL in for what it is. For, what else do we ever have besides this moment? If we’re not living in this moment now, are we reserving life for a future point in time? When we lose touch with “the now” and mentally wander elsewhere, are we voluntarily letting go of chunks of our life? Let’s break it down.
Read More »Richard Branson Quote on Living In Every Moment—Not A Select Few MomentsRyan Holiday Quote on How Being Present May Be The Hardest Thing In The World
“Being present demands all of us. It’s not nothing. It may be the hardest thing in the world.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 25)
Beyond the Quote (138/365)
If you’ve ever tried to meditate, then you know how hard it is to be completely present for even a moment of time. Our brains are like monkeys diagnosed with ADD who just drank Red Bulls after taking a long nap—they’re out of control. We’re constantly wandering to different trains of thought, replaying past situations, simulating future situations, and thinking about seemingly random and arbitrary things like monkeys and Red Bull and squirrels.
Read More »Ryan Holiday Quote on How Being Present May Be The Hardest Thing In The World
