E Easwaran Quotes

#1. When the mind is still, we can become an instrument of peace.

Eknath Easwaran

#2. Anything that tends to make us elated is inevitably going to throw us into depression.

Eknath Easwaran

#3. When we go slower, we are more patient and when we are more patient we have a choice in how we respond.

Eknath Easwaran

#4. Whatever we have done, we can always make amends for it without ever looking back in guilt or sorrow.

Eknath Easwaran

#5. Peace would always be less compelling than war. Perhaps that was why there was so little of it in the world. (p. 160)

Eknath Easwaran

#6. The eye cannot see it; the mind cannot grasp it. The deathless Self (the Supreme Soul or God) has neither caste nor race, Neither eyes, nor ears, nor hands, nor feet, Sages, this Self is infinite, present in the great and in the small, Everlasting and changeless, the source of life.

Eknath Easwaran

#7. I have tremendous respect for anyone who can control his palate enough to learn not only to drink beer but to enjoy it too.

Eknath Easwaran

#8. The things we think about, brood on, dwell on, and exult over influence our life in a thousand ways. When we can actually choose the direction of our thoughts instead of just letting them run along the grooves of conditioned thinking, we become the masters of our own lives.

Eknath Easwaran

#9. I am time, the destroyer of all; I have come to consume the world.

Eknath Easwaran

#10. When people used to complain to the Buddha that they were upset, telling him, "Our children upset us; our partner agitates us," his simple reply would be, "You are not upset because of your children or your partner; you are upset because you are upsettable.

Eknath Easwaran

#11. I like to remind my friends frequently how short life is. This is the important message of death: not a day to waste, not a day to quarrel, not a day to brood upon yourself. This is not losing the joy of life; this is gaining the joy of life.

Eknath Easwaran

#12. Activity is not achievement. It is not enough to rush about beginning a lot of things and keeping busy. A well-spent life is one that rounds out what it has begun.

Eknath Easwaran

#13. Like Gandhi, like the Buddha, like all great spiritual teachers, Easwaran had no use for beliefs unless they generated actions. Doing, not saying, is what counts.

Eknath Easwaran

#14. To get angry with oneself and reject oneself is not helpful and is not what the Buddha teaches. The best thing is not to say either "I'm all good" or "I'm worthless; I'm no good." The best thing is not to think about oneself, not talk about oneself, not dwell upon

Eknath Easwaran

#15. Lasting change happens when people see for themselves that a different way of life is more fulfilling than their present one.

Eknath Easwaran

#16. Excitement and depression, fortune and misfortune, pleasure and pain are storms in a tiny private, shell-bound realm - which we take to be the whole of existence. Yet we can break out of this shell and enter a new world.

Eknath Easwaran

#17. It is not action or effort that we must surrender; it is self-will, and this is terribly difficult. You must do your best constantly, yet never allow yourself to become involved in whether things work out the way you want.

Eknath Easwaran

#18. The Sufis advise us to speak only after our words have managed to pass through three gates. At the first gate, we ask ourselves, 'Are these words true?' If so, we let them pass on; if not, back they go. At the second gate, we ask, 'Are the necessary?' At the last gate, we ask, 'Are they kind?'

Eknath Easwaran

#19. Nothing really worth having comes quickly and easily. If it did, I doubt that we would ever grow.

Eknath Easwaran

#20. If someone who is agitated comes to visit you, wanting to discuss their agitation and weigh the pros and cons of what action he should take, my suggestion is to give him the mantram album and say, "why don't you just write Rama, Rama, Rama a thousand times?

Eknath Easwaran

#21. ... .You are an exalted creature, with a spark of the divine within you that nothing you do can extinguish; and you have been granted life in order to give, because it is in giving that we receive ...

Eknath Easwaran

#22. Those who indulge themselves in sense stimulation throughout their lives often end up exhausted, with an enfeebled will and little capacity to love others.

Eknath Easwaran

#23. By removing that which is petty and self-seeking, we bring forth all that is glorious and mindful of the whole.

Eknath Easwaran

#24. Concentration breeds efficiency while division brings inefficiency, error, and tension.

Eknath Easwaran

#25. As long as there are poor people in the world, as long as there are people who are deprived and handicapped in the world, if we are sensitive, we will not load ourselves with unnecessary adornment.

Eknath Easwaran

#26. Reason tells the soul how mistaken it is in thinking that all these earthly things are of the slightest value by comparison with what it is seeking. A little recollection reminds it that all these things come to an end. And faith instructs it in what the soul must do to find satisfaction ...

Eknath Easwaran

#27. Each time a divine incarnation comes to us, it is not to bring new truths or to establish a new religion but to remind us of what we have forgotten: that we are all one, and that we must live in harmony with this unity by learning to contribute to the joy and fulfillment of all.

Eknath Easwaran

#28. When we meditate every morning we are putting on armor for the day's battle against our own impatience, inadequacy, resentment, and hostility.

Eknath Easwaran

#29. We expect professional and financial success to require time and effort. Why do we take success in our relationships for granted? Why should we expect harmony to come naturally just because we are in love?

Eknath Easwaran

#30. When we truly are putting others first, we cannot but feel at peace with ourselves.

Eknath Easwaran