Almaas Quotes

#1. Many people are reluctant to show mercy because they don't understand the difference between trust and forgiveness.
Forgiveness is letting go of the past. Trust has to do with future behavior.

Rick Warren

#2. To truly find God, truth needs to be found independently from the opinions of others. The truth has to be found in our hearts.

A.H. Almaas

#3. Are you really angry, or simply aware of anger in the body and mind? Don't speculate, simply look at what is there.

A.H. Almaas

#4. Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true.

Ram Dass

#5. Sometimes being real means allowing pain or accepting a painful truth. Yet something in us aligns with an inner ground of authenticity when we are real. We love it because of its inherent rightness in our soul, the sense of "Aha, here I am and there is nothing to do but be.

A.H. Almaas

#6. If the pursuit of perfection is a way to prove our worth, in the end the pursuit will only prove our imperfections.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

#7. If the story wasn't overly long, I'd type it out. And I'd carry it around with me for a week and jot notes on it, and then I'd throw it away and do another one.

Donald Ray Pollock

#8. When we blend courage and compassion, assertiveness and gentleness, our essential strength and kindness support us in being where we are.

A.H. Almaas

#9. You are not the feelings or the thoughts or the contents of your awareness. None of these are who you are. You are the fullness of your Being, the substance of your presence.

A.H. Almaas

#10. Can any one find in what condition his body will be, I do not say a year hence, but this evening?

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#11. True states of realization occur when you throw away all the teachings. All of the teachings, absolutely. Everything. Then you are investigation itself finding out what you are.

A.H. Almaas

#12. To contact the deeper truth of who we are, we must engage in some activity or practice that questions what we assume to be true about ourselves.

A.H. Almaas

#13. Your career, interests and relationships are important, but they are only important insofar as they lead you toward a deeper understanding of yourself. Otherwise, they are irrelevant.

A.H. Almaas

#14. Directing the process by the mind can only lead to difficulty, for the mind does not know. Commitment to the Truth is sufficient for the process to unfold.

A.H. Almaas

#15. The (narcissitic) rage may turn into, or be accompanied by, a cold hatred that gives her qualities of power, invincibility, and calculation. This hatred underlies the desire for vengeance, for wanting to inflict pain and suffering, and for actually enjoying getting back at the person who failed her.

A.H. Almaas

#16. Sometimes I think my life would make a great TV movie. It even has the part where they say, Stand by. We are experiencing temporary difficulties.

Robert Breault

#17. One should be an enigma not just to others but to oneself too. I study myself. When I'm tired of that I light a cigar to pass the time, and think: God only knows what the good Lord really meant with me, or what He meant to make of me.

Soren Kierkegaard

#18. If we are to reach certainty and true autonomy of realization, we need to be willing to be heretics. What's more, we need to become universal heretics, not believing anything that we do not know from direct experience, beyond stories, beyond hearsay, and even beyond the mind.

A.H. Almaas