Great Throughts Treasury

"True encouragement occurs when you hear a truth you already knew faintly."

"True independence comes when we cease to force and start to flow. The truly independent person knows and lives with cosmic laws, which release him from cramping human codes."

"True life is vertical, not horizontal."

"True spiritual salvation begins when you see that you are a part of the mad mob, and that the last thing you want is to be rescued."

"Truth does not hurt, rather, it is our resistance to its message that causes pain."

"Truth is delighted to give us an abundance of rich gifts, but our cherished ignorance prevents our reception."

"Truth is not a matter of personal viewpoint."

"Truth is aware of man’s fears, but never accepts them as his necessary or permanent condition."

"Truth is exceedingly close, comforting and strong. Now isn't that a delightful thought to think about. Since Truth is close and strong, why are you weak? See Truth says something to you. It says, I want you to know that when you tremble, I don't tremble. If you were to bring yourself back to where you should be internally, you would be right with Truth. It would be your comfort. You need nothing else on earth."

"Truth is very frightening to who you are not, but never to who you are in reality."

"Truth never plays false roles of any kind, which is why people are so surprised when meeting it. Everyone must decide whether he wants the uncompromising truth or a counterfeit version of truth. Real wisdom consists of recommending the truth to yourself at every opportunity."

"Try to see what attitudes rule your day, then ask what kind of a day you usually have."

"Turning to God, Truth, Reality, simply means to let go, even fearfully at first, of our self-centered ideas."

"Trying to command life without studying one's own mind is like trying to play the piano without studying music."

"Try not thinking about happiness and a purposeful life. It is possible to be happy and purposeful, but not with a hypnotized mind."

"Truth replies only when first hearing sincere questions, and how few it hears."

"Uplift your inner nature and you will uplift your love-life."

"Unpleasant behavior is sick behavior. If another person is unpleasant, realize that your wish for sunlight must have nothing to do with his darkness."

"We are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see. We are freed by conscious perception."

"We are frustrated because we demand our answer over the answer."

"Valuable self-knowledge comes through daily self-observation."

"We are exactly where we have chosen to be."

"We burden ourselves with useless ideas which we carelessly take as facts. Instead of letting reality come as a new surprise, we insist that it conform to our habitual concepts, and thus, we spoil everything."

"We are slaves to whatever we don’t understand."

"We can accept God becoming man to save man, but not man becoming god to save himself."

"We can either have our own way, and lose, or lose our own way, and win."

"We clearly realize that freedom’s inner kingdom cannot be touched by exterior attacks."

"We must become acquainted with our emotional household: we must see our feelings as they actually are, not as we assume they are. This breaks their hypnotic and damaging hold on us."

"We learn to escape from self-defeating behavior in small ways at first. You can do this by thinking of present situations where you now say YES but wish you could stop. Recall several small situations. Perhaps you have agreed to meet regularly with a friend or relative but realize that it is really a burden. Maybe you agreed to take the leadership in a certain project but now you wish you had declined. You now know WHERE you must say NO. The next step is also clear. SAY NO. Make the necessary contact and resign. Just like that. Do it even if you feel nervous about it. Don’t listen to your timidity. Do what is right. Do you know what you are doing! You are getting your life back!"

"We can either suffer from our suffering, or we can use it to end suffering. To abolish anguish we must understand its nature. What is suffering? It is a face to face encounter with something that the false self doesn't want to face. It is resistance against the Truth, against Reality. We resist the very Truth that could liberate us because we don't recognize it, because we are still under the delusion that falsehood is all there is."

"We find the light only after total defeat of our attempts to deceive and outwit it."

"We need not hide anything from Truth, for it never condemns us, but only wishes to help."

"We should be encouraged, not discouraged, by seeing how much work we have to do on ourselves. It means we are awakening to our actual condition, we are seeing our self-defeating attitudes. People who live in self-images of being positive and wise and pleasant see no need whatever to work on themselves, so they remain in the suffering caused by living in dreamland. The worse we see ourselves to be, the more encouraged we should be, for if you know all about darkness, you also know about dawn."

"We must expose ourselves fully to life's experiences. Nothing is discovered in isolation, any more than a rainbow is discovered in a closet. To harmonize with life we must be with it altogether, without resistance, with no concern for what it may bring us."

"We need the wisdom to have nothing to say."

"What exactly is suffering? Our pains are caused by our wrong viewpoints toward things. The false self throws up an imaginary picture of how it insists things should be. And every time this 'should be' clashes with what actually happens, we react painfully. The problem is not what actually happens, but our demands that something else should happen. Don't take my word for this; experiment for yourself."

"Welcome higher facts without understanding them and in time you will understand."

"What a dawning appears to the man or woman who earnestly inquires, 'Who is living my life for me?' Am I really thinking for myself or am I unknowingly projecting acquired ideas which may be all wrong?"

"We suffer only from a lack of self-knowledge."

"What it can do is to conquer the universe."

"What we imagine is our power is not power at all, while what we cannot imagine - Truth - is our actual power."

"What you really want for yourself is always trying to break through, just as a cooling breeze flows through an open window on a hot day. Your part is to open the windows of your mind."

"When a frantic world tries to carry you away, remind yourself that you need not go."

"When someone hints that he will turn against you unless you please him, invite him to turn against you at once and with full force."

"When I really want to hear something outside of myself, I will."

"When someone screams out to affirm his position, it is not the position which he values, but the screaming itself. He screams to try to convince himself that he has a position that is real and beneficial. His actual position is in the center of delusion. He is a prisoner in the castle’s dungeon, hallucinating that his position is on the castle’s throne."

"When someone tells you what they are, they are telling you what they are not."

"When troubled, we have our choice of either surface comfort or psychic understanding. If the choice is for comfort, such as associating with those who sympathize, we cannot have understanding. The demand for comfort blocks psychic insight. But if the choice is for understanding, which forces you to stand all alone without comfort, understanding breaks through. Every time we choose understanding over comfort, we walk a greater distance away from troubles, for such are caused by misunderstanding."

"When the wretched self searches it finds the wretched self."

"When we associate with others we really associate with ourselves. We like or dislike in others whatever we like or dislike in ourselves."