Wisdom and Love - Love and Self-love Quotes

Love is the foundation for wisdom

Buddhism perceives love and compassion as going hand in hand with wisdom, as if they were the two wings of a bird. 

Wisdom in this context refers to the realization of the truth of life that sets the mind free of its obsessions, fixations and mental negativities. Ultimately the truth is revealed in a profound understanding that our ego-consciousness, along with its sensory functions, is in a state of separation from the true Self, experienced as one with the unconditioned, non-dual Ultimate Reality, or the great cosmic Mind as trans-personal psychology prefers to call it. At that realization, the dualistic ego is instantly dissolved into the egoless true Self, the great Mind, that embraces all beings in love and compassion. 

Paradoxically we cannot hope to attain that wisdom if we do not have a loving and compassionate heart to start with.

At this point, an analogy may be helpful: A fertile land with propitious climatic conditions can yield a good crop of corn, but without healthy corn seeds to start with, how can a good harvest be possible? This means that wisdom and love and compassion come in an interactive circle. 

The practice of loving-kindness (metta practice), which includes first and foremost the practice of forgiveness, tolerance and sympathetic understanding as mentioned above, is thus of vital importance to attain spiritual enlightenment.

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"Wisdom tells me I am nothing; love tells me I am everything. Between the two my life flows."
Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Loving ourselves is the foundation of love and compassion for others.

As the Buddha observes, "You can travel around the world to search for someone more lovable than yourself, and yet that person is never to be found."

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Self-love, however, should not be confused with narcissism and ego-centeredness.

It comes from a process of healthy personal growth in which the actualization of our personal potentials, especially in the service of others, brings us joy and happiness, and enhances our self-worth rather than self-conceit.

To love ourselves is to be continuously in touch with this source of joy and happiness, and to learn to appreciate the goodness we have in us.

Self-love in this sense is eroded by all egoist and narcissistic tendencies, including self-aggrandizement and self-abasement.

Conversely it is enriched by our willingness to open our hearts and minds to accept all situations and all people, to touch our pain and sorrow with tenderness, and to reach out to others in need of help. Out of self-love the power of love and compassion grows. It is a power so warm as to heal, so strong as to overcome, and so radiant as to illuminate. The potentials of that power are indeed within all of us - a precious inner resource that we all can and should learn to develop, and to benefit from.


from The Buddha on Compassion - An Existential Approach, By Chen Yu-Hsi
Read the full text here.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj Quotes - I Am That Quotes

Just keep in mind the feeling "I am," merge in it, till your mind and feeling become one. By repeated attempts you will stumble on the right balance of attention and affection and your mind will be firmly established in the thought-feeling "I am."

There is no such thing as a person.
There are only restrictions and limitations.
The sum total of these defines the person. (...)
The person merely appears to be, like the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume and smell of the pot.

Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about your self anything except ‘I am’, and that nothing that can be pointed at, can be your self, the need for the ‘I am’ is over -- you are no longer intent on verbalising what you are.

All that a guru can tell you is:
'My dear Sir, you are quite mistaken about yourself.
You are not the person you take yourself to be.'

Time is in the mind, space is in the mind. The law of cause and effect is also a way of thinking. In reality all is here and now and all is one. Multiplicity and diversity are in the mind only.


A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and steady self-awareness inner energies wake up and work miracles without effort on your part.

By all means attend to your duties. Action, in which you are not emotionally involved and which is beneficial and does not cause suffering will not bind you. You may be engaged in several directions and work with enormous zest, yet remain inwardly free and quiet, with a mirror like mind, which reflects all, without being affected.


The mind covers up reality, without knowing it. To know the nature of the mind, you need intelligence, the capacity to look at the mind in silent and dispassionate awareness.


Awareness is ever there. It need not be realized. Open the shutter of the mind, and it will be flooded with light.


There is nothing to practise. To know yourself, be yourself. To be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that. Just be. Let your true nature emerge. Don't disturb your mind with seeking.


Look at your mind dispassionately; this is enough to calm it. When it is quiet, you can go beyond it. Do not keep it busy all the time. Stop it - and just be. If you give it a rest, it will settle down and recover its purity and strength. Constant thinking makes it decay.


The unchangeable can only be realised in silence. Once realised, it will deeply affect the changeable, itself remaining unaffected.


To locate a thing you need space, to place an event you need time; but the timeless and spaceless defies handling. It makes everything perceivable, yet itself is beyond perception. The mind cannot know what is beyond the mind, but the mind is known by what is beyond it.


You are not in the body, the body is in you! The mind is in you. They happen to you. They are there because you find them interesting.


Put your awareness to work, not your mind. The mind is not the right instrument for this task. The timeless can be reached only by the timeless. Your body and your mind are born subject to time; only awareness is timeless, even in the now.


That in which consciousness happens, the universal consciousness or mind, we call the ether of consciousness. All the objects of consciousness form the universe. What is beyond both, supporting both, is the supreme state, a state of utter stillness and silence. Whoever goes there, disappears. It is unreachable by words, or mind. You may call it God, or Parabrahman, or Supreme Reality, but these are names given by the mind. It is the nameless, contentless, effortless and spontaneous state, beyond being and not being.


Unless you make tremendous efforts, you will not be convinced that effort will take you nowhere. The self is so self-confident that unless it is totally discouraged it will not give up. Mere verbal conviction is not enough. Hard facts alone can show the absolute nothingness of the self-image.


When you demand nothing of the world, nor of God, when you want nothing,
seek nothing, expect nothing, then the Supreme State will come to you
uninvited and unexpected.


What is wrong with its seeking the pleasant and shirking the unpleasant? Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem. By flowing with life I mean acceptance -- letting come what comes and go what goes. Desire not, fear not, observe the actual, as and when it happens, for you are not what happens, you are to whom it happens. Ultimately even the observer you are not. You are the ultimate potentiality of which the all-embracing consciousness is the manifestation and expression.

I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Search Within Yourself Quotes

People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.
Ramona L. Anderson

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.
Krishnamurti

Francois de la Rochefoucauld Quotes - Maxims

He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks.

He is not to pass for a man of reason who stumbles upon reason by chance but he who knows it and can judge it and has a true taste for it.

Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves.

Usually we praise only to be praised.

A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.

As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.

Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.


Conceit causes more conversation than wit.

However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.


Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.

As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.

Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.


How is it that we remember the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not remember how often we have recounted it to the same person?


There are various sorts of curiosity; one is from interest, which makes us desire to know that which may be useful to us; and the other, from pride which comes from the wish to know what others are ignorant of.


Only the contemptible fear contempt.

People always complain about their memories, never about their minds.

There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.


Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.

Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.

A man is sometimes as different from himself as he is from others.

Stanislaw Jerzy Lec Quotes - Quotations

Value your words. Each one may be the last.

In a war of ideas it is people who get killed.

The pleasure of reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books.

The mob shouts with one big mouth and eats with a thousand little ones.

To torture a man you have to know his pleasures.

Some like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe in what they understand.

To whom should we marry Freedom, to make it multiply?

I am against using death as a punishment. I am also against using it as a reward.

Thoughts, like fleas, jump from man to man, but they don't bite everybody.

Telling lies does not work in advertising.

You must first have a lot of patience to learn to have patience.

A dream will always triumph over reality, once it is given the chance.

Do not trust people. They are capable of greatness.

We know we are on the wrong track, but we are compensating for this shortcoming by accelerating.


The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all is the person who argues with him.

If a man who cannot count finds a four-leaf clover, is he entitled to happiness?

Optimists and pessimists differ only on the date of the end of the world.

Do not ask God the way to heaven; he will show you the hardest one.

If you are not a psychiatrist, stay away from idiots. They are too stupid to pay a layman for his company.

You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories.

When everything has to be right, something isn't.

The weakest link in the chain is also the strongest. It can break the chain.

Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.

The exit is usually where the entrance was.

You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads lead down.

When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.

Whenever man begins to doubt himself, he does something so stupid that he is reassured.

Beyond each corner new directions lie in wait.

Laugh Quotes - Laughter Quotes - Smile Quotes

Your Smile, Your Laughter have Enormous Power!
Don't underestimate the positive energy that is in you.
Laughing also positively impacts your immune system.


If you can’t smile, don’t open a shop.
Chinese Proverb

A day without laughter is a day wasted.
Charlie Chaplin

A smile will gain you ten more years of life.
Chinese Proverb

Laughter is the best medicine.
Proverb

Laughing deeply is living deeply.
Milan Kundera

He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world as he who is ready to die.
Giacomo Leopardi

I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilised music in the world.
Peter Ustinov

Laughter is the closest distance between two people.
Victor Borge


Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one.
Henry Ward Beecher