Great Throughts Treasury

"The Hindu scriptures describe the body as a product of Nature, with six defects of delusion: "It is born; it exists; it grows; it changes; it decays; it is annihilated." Most human beings nevertheless expect permanent happiness from this impermanent body. Because of the precedence of the experience of material pleasures, the ego is unwilling and unable to conceive of any higher state of happiness." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"Not an unconscious state Or mental chloroform without wilful return, Samadhi but extends my realm of consciousness Beyond the limits of my mortal frame To the boundaries of eternity, Where I, the Cosmic Sea, Watch the little ego floating in Me." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"No one can ever heap enough insults upon me to suit my taste. I think we all really thrive on hostility, because it's the most intense kind of massage the ego can undergo. Other people's indifference is the only horror." - Paul Bowles

"Every discussion which is made from an egoistic standpoint is corrupted from the start and cannot yield an absolutely sure conclusion. The ego puts its own interest first and twists every argument, word, even fact to suit that interest. " - Paul Brunton, born Hermann Hirsch, wrote under various pseudonyms including Brunton Paul, Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte

"If outer events bring him to a position where he can bear them no longer and force him to cry out to the higher power in helplessness for relief or if inner feelings bring humiliation and recognition of his dependence on that power, this crushing of the ego may open the door to grace. " - Paul Brunton, born Hermann Hirsch, wrote under various pseudonyms including Brunton Paul, Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte

"If you investigate the matter deeply enough and widely enough, you will find that happiness eludes nearly all men despite the fact that they are forever seeking it. The fortunate and successful few are those who have stopped seeking with the ego alone and allow the search to be directed inwardly by the higher self. They alone can find a happiness unblemished by defects or deficiencies, a Supreme Good which is not a further source of pain and sorrow but an endless source of satisfaction and peace. " - Paul Brunton, born Hermann Hirsch, wrote under various pseudonyms including Brunton Paul, Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte

"In the heart's deepest place, where the burden of ego is dropped and the mystery of soul is penetrated, a man finds the consciousness there not different in any way from what all other men may find. The mutuality of the human race is thus revealed as existing only on a plane where its humanness is transcended. This is why all attempts to express it in political and economic terms, no less than the theosophic attempts to form a universal brotherhood, being premature, must be also artificial. This is why they failed. " - Paul Brunton, born Hermann Hirsch, wrote under various pseudonyms including Brunton Paul, Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte

"The source of wisdom and power, of love and beauty, is within ourselves, but not within our egos. It is within our consciousness. Indeed, its presence provides us with a conscious contrast which enables us to speak of the ego as if it were something different and apart: it is the true Self whereas the ego is only an illusion of the mind. " - Paul Brunton, born Hermann Hirsch, wrote under various pseudonyms including Brunton Paul, Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte

"Ego could be defined as whatever covers up basic goodness. From an experiential point of view, what is ego covering up? It's covering up our experience of just being here, just fully being where we are, so that we can relate with the immediacy of our experience. Egolessness is a state of mind that has complete confidence in the sacredness of the world. It is unconditional well-being, unconditional joy that includes all the different qualities of our experience." - Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown

"True sanity entails in one way or another the dissolution of the normal ego, that false self competently adjusted to our alienated social reality... and through this death a rebirth and the eventual re-establishment of a new kind of ego-functioning, the ego now being the servant of the divine, no longer its betrayer." - R. D. Laing, fully Ronald David Laing

"Soul in the room where I am, here I am, Entrungene, staggering. Wag ego then? I'll throw myself? were eligible for a lot where I urged. Now that even the slightest power of accomplishing it completely, in silence before the competition -: Wag ego then? Throw myself Although I suffered from self-conscious body, nights, so I befriended him, the earthen, with infinity, sobbing overflowed, that I raised . his austere heart But now, whom ego, show me your soul I? Who? is surprised Suddenly I want to be the eternal, not adhering to the contrary, no longer comforter, feeling with nothing but heaven. Hardly a secret, because in the open all the secrets of a, an anxious O go by how the big hugs. What is embraced me, which I continue to give me, awkward Embracing? Or I forgot, and counting? forgot the finite turmoil that heavy lovers? Stalin ', rush up and Kann?" - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke

"Spiritual practices help us move from identifying with the ego to identifying with the soul. Old age does that for you too. It spiritualizes people naturally." - Ram Dass, aka Baba Ram Dass, born Richard Alpert

"The Ego is an exquisite instrument. Enjoy it, use it--just don't get lost in it." - Ram Dass, aka Baba Ram Dass, born Richard Alpert

"A man cannot easily get rid of the ego and the consciousness that the body is the soul. It becomes possible only when, through the grace of God, he attains samadhi" - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"A man is able to see God as soon as he gets rid of ego and other limitations. He sees God as soon as he is free from such feelings as 'I am a scholar', 'I am the son of such and such a person', 'I am wealthy', 'I am honorable', and so forth." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"According to the Vedanta one has to know the real nature of one's own Self. But such knowledge is impossible without the renunciation of ego. The ego is like a stick that seems to divide the water in two. It makes you feel that you are one and I am another. When the ego disappears in samadhi, then one knows Brahman to be one's own inner consciousness." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"As a piece of rope, when burnt, retains its form, but cannot serve to bind, so is the ego which is burnt by the fire of supreme Knowledge." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"Egotism is of the nature of tamas; it is begotten by ignorance. On account of the barrier of ego one does not see God. 'All troubles come to an end when the ego dies.' It is futile to be egotistic. Neither body nor wealth will last." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"God is realized as soon as the mind becomes free from attachment. Whatever appears in the Pure Mind is the voice of God. That which is Pure Mind is also Pure Buddhi; that, again, is Pure Atman, because there is nothing pure but God. But in order to realize God one must go beyond dharma and adharma. The 'I' that makes one a worldly person and attaches one to 'woman and gold' is the 'wicked I'. The intervention of this ego creates the difference between jiva and Atman. Water appears to be divided into two parts if one puts a stick across it. But in reality there is only one water. It appears as two on account of the stick. This 'I' is the stick. Remove the stick and there remains only one water as before." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"If by the grace of the guru one's ego vanishes, then one sees God." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"If this ego cannot be got rid of, then let the rascal remain as the servant of God." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"Ignorance lasts as long as one has ego. There can be no liberation so long as the ego remains." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"It is on account of the ego that one is not able to see God. In front of the door of God's mansion lies the stump of ego. One cannot enter the mansion without jumping over the stump." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"Man's ego itself is m?y?. It is the veil that shuts the light." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"Maya is nothing but the egotism of the embodied soul. This egotism has covered everything like a veil. 'All troubles come to an end when the ego dies.' If by the grace of God a man but once realizes that he is not the doer, then he at once becomes a Jivanmukta. Though living in the body, he is liberated. He has nothing else to fear. It is through God's grace that you understand that. The doubts of the mind will not disappear without His grace. Doubts do not disappear without Self-realization." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"Only the ego that is attached to 'woman and. gold' is harmful. But the ego that feels it is the servant of God does no harm to anybody. Neither does the ego of a child, which is not under the control of any guna. One moment children quarrel, and the next moment they are on friendly terms. One moment they build their toy houses with great care, and immediately afterwards they knock them down. There is no harm in the 'I-consciousness' that makes one feel oneself to be a child of God or His servant. This ego is really no ego at all. It is like sugar candy, which is not like other sweets. Other sweets make one ill; but sugar candy relieves acidity. Or take the case of Om. It is unlike other sounds." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"The darkness of the mind is destroyed only when a man stands little apart from. 'woman and gold' and, thus standing apart, practices a little austerity and spiritual discipline. Then only does the cloud of his ego and ignorance vanish. Then only does he attain the Knowledge of God. This 'woman and gold' is the only cloud that hides the Sun of Knowledge." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"The feeling of ego has covered the Truth. Narendra once said, 'As the "I" of man recedes, the "I" of God approaches.' Kedar says, 'The more clay there is in the jar, the less water it holds.'" - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"The 'I' that makes one a worldly person and attaches one to 'woman and gold' is the 'wicked I'. The intervention of this ego creates the difference between jiva and Atman. Water appears to be divided into two parts if one puts a stick across it. But in reality there is only one water. It appears as two on account of the stick. This 'I' is the stick. Remove the stick and there remains only one water as before." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"The path of knowledge leads to Truth, as does the path that combines knowledge and love. The path of love, too, leads to this goal. The way of love is as true as the way of knowledge. All paths ultimately lead to the same Truth. But as long as God keeps the feeling of ego in us, it is easier to follow the path of love." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"This maya, that is to say, the ego, is like a cloud. The sun cannot be seen on account of a thin patch of cloud; when that disappears one sees the sun. If by the grace of the guru one's ego vanishes, then one sees God." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral ground. You can only meet him as an artist. He sees nothing objectively because his own ego is always in the foreground of every picture." - Raymond Chandler, fully Raymond Thornton Chandler

"Having appropriated to itself all conscious intelligence in the universe ...Man faces the existential crisis of being a solitary and mortal conscious ego thrown into an ultimately meaningless and unknowable universe ...and the psychological and biological crisis of living in a world that has come to be shaped in such a way that it precisely matches his world view" - Richard Tarnas, fully Richard Theodore Tarnas

"Man is effective in the world not only through what he does, but above all through what he is." - Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner

"I looked for the soul in the sea and coral found there and under the foam was all around for me lying naked on the night of my heart and along the narrow road I felt light of the day the land of eternal." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"The Eternal looked upon me for a moment with His eye of power, and annihilated me in His being, and become manifest to me in His essence. I saw I existed through Him." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"The only reason anyone goes to Broadway is because they can't get work in the movies." - Bette Davis, Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis

"I learned from a very early age that it was important for us kids to help provide for the home, to be contributors rather than just takers. In the process, of course, we learned how much hard work it took to get your hands on a dollar and that when you did it was worth something. One thing my mother and ad shared completely was their approach to money: they just didn’t spend it." - Sam Walton, fully Samuel Moore "Sam" Walton

"Emotionally we have many problems; they are something created; they are problems pointed out by our self-centered ideas or views. Because we point out something, there are problems. But actually it is not possible to point out anything in particular. Happiness is sorrow; sorrow is happiness. Even though the ways we feel are different, they are not really different; in essence they are the same. This is the true understanding; transmitted from Buddha to us." - Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi

"The most important tactic in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without an embarrassing loss of face." - Sydney J. Harris

"Every one of us owes nature his death and must be prepared to pay his debt, in short, that death was natural, undeniable, and inevitable. In practice we were accustomed to act as if matters were quite different. We have shown an unmistakable tendency to put death aside, to eliminate it from life. We attempted to hush it up, in fact, we have the proverb: to think of something as of death. Of course we meant our own death. We cannot, indeed, imagine our own death; whenever we try to do so we find that we survive ourselves as spectators. The school of psychoanalysis could thus assert that at bottom no one believes in his own death, which amounts to saying: in the unconscious every one of us is convinced of his immortality." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"The ego represents what we call reason and sanity, in contrast to the id which contains the passions." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"The EGO, or territorial-status circuit of the primate brain is a social creation for which one person at a time gets the blame." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"The price we pay for our advance in civilization is a loss of happiness through the heightening of the sense of guilt." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"Two hallmarks of a healthy life are the abilities to love and to work. Each requires imagination." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"Where questions of religion are concerned, people are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanor." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"Beware of organizations that proclaim their devotion to the light without embracing, bowing to the dark; for when they idealize half the world they must devalue the rest." - Starhawk, born Miriam Simos NULL