The key is in accepting your thoughts, all of them, even the bad ones. Accept thoughts, but don’t become them. Understand, for instance, that having a sad thought, even having a continual succession of sad thoughts, is not the same as being a sad person. You can walk through a storm and feel the wind but you know you are not the wind.

Obstacles are inevitable, so don’t get upset. Any form of worry erodes your strength. Never see a situation as difficult. Never ask why has this happened? Never feel you are on your own. Remember, God is always with you. God is giving you support. Take time to go into silence. Silence stops confusion. Your power will be restored.

You need your nausea. You need your pain. It is a message, and we must listen to the message. All these depressed and anxious people, all over the world—they are giving us a message. They are telling us something has gone wrong with the way we live. We need to stop trying to muffle or silence or pathologize that pain. Instead, we need to listen to it, and honor it. It is only when we listen to our pain that we can follow it back to its source—and only there, when we can see its true causes, can we begin to overcome it.

The moment you accept what troubles you’ve been given, the door will open.

If we think only of ourselves, forget about other people, then our minds occupy a very small area. Inside that small area, even tiny problem appears very big. But the moment you develop a sense of concern for others, you realize that, just like ourselves, they also want happiness; they also want satisfaction. When you have this sense of concern, your mind automatically widens. At this point, your own problems, even big problems, will not be so significant. The result? A big increase in peace of mind. So, if you think only of yourself, only your own happiness, the result is actually less happiness. You get more anxiety, more fear.

You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?

In order to ‎experience ‎silence I have to separate ‎myself from all worries and negative ‎thoughts. I need to engage the ‎intellect and ‎develop the ‎power of ‎concentration.‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.

Why, if we’re still breathing and eating, is there such unhappiness? Dissatisfaction is part of the deal of living because simple existence is full of contradictions; we want individuality, to stand out from the crowd, yet we want be part of a tribe. We’re driven and busy and yet we want peace. And worst of all, we want things to stay the same despite the fact that everything changes.

A beautiful state of being is soul consciousness, where your whole sense of self is shifted from a physical identity to a spiritual one. In soul consciousness, you no longer feel yourself to be male or female, black or white. No worldly achievement forms your self-esteem. Instead, self-esteem is shaped by a deep, abiding experience of your intrinsic worth as a child of God.

Soul consciousness is cultivated through deliberate practice, and only those who have understood the need for this kind of true, inner self-respect will make the effort. Difficulties will arise to test your resolve for self-upliftment – physical illness, relationships, memories of the past, and so on. Yet with patience and introspection, you will come to see how these very tests are the means to strengthen your spiritual identity.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

What is it that would make a creature as fierce, majestic and powerful as a lion is, subject itself to the intimidation of a man, a whip and a chair? The lion has been taught to forget what it is.

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you
as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.