“To you, it was just picking flowers. To them, it was a massacre.” ~ Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You
“Whether one is rich or poor, educated or illiterate, religious or nonbelieving, man or woman, black, white, or brown, we are all the same. Physically, emotionally, and mentally, we are all equal. We all share basic needs for food, shelter, safety, and love. We all aspire to happiness and we all shun suffering. Each of us has hopes, worries, fears, and dreams. Each of us wants the best for our family and loved ones. We all experience pain when we suffer loss and joy when we achieve what we seek. On this fundamental level, religion, ethnicity, culture, and language make no difference.” ~ Dalai Lama
“Wherever I meet people, I always have the feeling that I am encountering another human being, just like myself. I find it is much easier to communicate with others on that level. If we emphasize specific characteristics, like I am Tibetan or I am Buddhist, then there are differences. But those things are secondary. If we can leave the differences aside, I think we can easily communicate, exchange ideas, and share experiences.” ~ Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness
“A human being is part of the whole called by us ‘the universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection of a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” ~ Albert Einstein, via Solitude
“Not only is everything I experience part of who I am, Spirit-filled, and not to be rejected, but there is no need to go searching for something special anywhere else. Everything life has to offer is always right here wherever I am right now. There is no place more alive and sacred than this place. No time more alive and sacred than this time.” ~ Robert Kull, Solitude
“I feel I somehow own myself and have the right to control what I do and feel and what happens to me. From there it follows that the world is mine to do with as I wish. But I didn’t make me, nor do I own me or the world. I’m just part of the flow of existence.” ~ Robert Kull, Solitude
“Sometimes, I actually experience that there is no outside or inside, that the weather and my feelings are a continuum, that the world is not, cannot be, against me since there is not separation between us. I am the wind and rain. In those moments I feel peace and joy.” ~ Robert Kull, Solitude
“Every being on this Earth, every object on this Earth has a soul. All souls flow into one, this is the Soul of the Universe. You see, when you nourish your own mind and your own spirit, you are really feeding the Soul of the Universe. When you improve yourself, you are improving the lives of all those around you. And when you have the courage to advance confidently in the direction of your dreams, you begin to draw upon the power of the universe.” ~ Robin S. Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
“Within you lies the sun, the moon, the sky and all the wonders of this universe. The intelligence that created these wonders is the same force that created you. All things around you come from the same source. We are all one.” ~ Robin S. Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
“The majesty of the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas made his heart beat faster and, for one long moment, took his breath away. He felt a oneness with his surroundings, a kind of kinship that two old friends might enjoy after many years spent listening to each other’s innermost thoughts and laughing at each other’s jokes. The fresh mountain air cleared his mind and energized his spirit. Having travelled the world many times over, [he] had thought he had seen it all. But he had never seen beauty like this. The wonders of which he drank at that magical time were an exquisite tribute to the symphony of nature. At once he felt joyous, exhilarated and carefree. It was here, high above the humanity below, that [he] slowly ventured out of the cocoon of the ordinary and began to explore the realm of the extraordinary.” ~ Robin S. Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
“Unless you know yourself as eternal beings, part of the whole, you will remain afraid of death. The fear of death is simply because you are not aware of your eternal source of life. Once the eternity of your being is realized, death becomes the greatest lie in existence. Death has never happened, never happens, never will happen, because that which is, remains always – in different forms, on different levels, but there is no discontinuity. Eternity in the past and eternity in the future both belong to you. And the present moment becomes a meeting point of two eternities: one going toward the past, one going toward the future.” ~ Osho, Love, Freedom, Alonenss: The Koan of Relationships
“A self-centered person is always seeking his happiness. And this is the beauty of it, that the more you seek your happiness the more you will help others to be happy. Because that is the only way to be happy in the world. If everybody else around you is unhappy, you cannot be happy, because man is not an island. He is part of the vast continent. If you want to be happy, you will have to help others who surround you to be happy. Then – and only then – can you be happy.” ~ Osho, Love, Freedom, Alonenss: The Koan of Relationships
Give love freely and never wait for it to come back.
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“Be kind. Always. Give love freely and never wait for it to come back. If it breathes, grows, or has even a single cell bouncing around inside it, love it, too. Each and every thing deserves and has earned more respect than it’s given so start the trend and I promise, promise that you will feel part of it all when you hold life in your hands.” ~ Tyler Knott Gregson
“If we want justice for minorities and cooled wars with our natural enemies, whether human or nonhuman, we must first come to terms with the minority and the enemy in ourselves and in our own hearts, for the rascal is there as much as anywhere in the ‘external’ world – especially when you realize that the world outside your skin is as much yourself as the world inside.” ~ Alan Watts, The Book
“The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that differentiation is not separation. The head and the feet are different, but not separate, and though man is not connected to the universe by exactly the same physical relation as branch to tree or feet to head, he is nonetheless connected – and by physical relations of fascinating complexity.” ~ Alan Watts, The Book
“This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not ‘come into’ this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean ‘waves,’ the universe ‘peoples.’ Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.” ~ Alan Watts, The Book
“Gandhi believed in the intrinsic good in every individual – the universality of humankind. He asked individuals to search for the truth that was within them and to act in accordance with their conscience. He devoted a great deal of his life trying to convince people to acknowledge the good in others, to reject differences based on caste, religion, and social position, and to work for the welfare of all.” ~ Keshavan Nair, A Higher Standard of Leadership