Quotes from Eknath Easwaran

Make wise choices about what you read. Read only what is necessary or worthwhile. And then take the time to read carefully. One book read with concentration and reflected upon is worth a hundred flashed through without any absorption at all.

To love, we need to be sensitive to those around us, which is impossible if we are racing through life engrossed in all the things we need to do before sunset. In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that a person who is always late will find it difficult to love; he will be in too much of a hurry.

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

We can all avoid travel that is unnecessary; we do not need to travel around the world when the source of all joy and all beauty is right within us.

nothing finite will ever satisfy us. We can go to the moon; it is a great achievement, but after a while our eyes turn beyond to Neptune. Wherever we go in space, wherever we go in time, we find limitations. Our need is for infinite joy, infinite love, infinite wisdom and infinite capacity for service, and until this need is met, we can never, never rest peacefully.

Meditation is the basis of a life of splendid health, untiring energy, unfailing love, and abiding wisdom. It is the very foundation of that deep inner peace for which every one of us longs. No human being can ever be satisfied by money or success or prestige or anything else the world can offer. What we are really searching for is not something that satisfies us temporarily, but a permanent state of joy.

When we do things with only a part of the mind, we are just skimming the surface of life. Nothing sinks in; nothing has real impact. It leads to an empty feeling inside. Unfortunately, it is this very emptiness that drives us to pack in even more, seeking desperately to fill the void in our hearts. What we need to do is just the opposite: to slow down and live completely in the present. Then every moment will be full.

The real essentials of life - compassion, kindness, good will, forgiveness - are what is fundamental to living as a true human being.

Love is so exquisitely elusive. It cannot be bought, cannot be badgered, cannot be hijacked. It is available only in one rare form: as the natural response of a healthy mind and healthy heart.

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

Through meditation and by giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we choose.

The spiritual life is a call to action. But it is a call to ... action without any selfish attachment to the results.

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.

As we get deeper, we move closer and closer to other people; we feel closer to life as a whole.

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.

It takes a lot of experience of life to see why some relationships last and others do not. But we do not have to wait for a crisis to get an idea of the future of a particular relationship. Our behavior in little every incidents tells us a great deal.

Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it.

At the beginning of every winter people are careful to install storm windows. These extra panes of glass protect their houses against the bitter winds. We do something very similar to protect our minds through the practice of meditation.

With penetrating insight, the mystics will tell us that when we have a desire for a certain thing, a certain experience, and we fulfill that desire, the happiness we feel is not something given by that thing or experience; it is due to having no craving for a little while.

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 they necessary? At the last gate we ask, Are they kind?

As by knowing one tool of iron, dear one, we come to know all things made out of iron: that they differ only in name and form, while the stuff of which all are made is iron- so through that spiritual wisdom, dear one, we come to know that ll of life is one.

At the first gate, the gatekeeper asks, "Is this true?" At the second gate, he asks, "Is it kind?" And at the third gate, "Is it necessary?" If we applied this proverb strictly, most of us would have very little to say. I am not recommending silence, however, but control over our speech.

In themselves, most of these thoughts are not actually harmful; a few of them may even be rather elevating. The trouble is that we have very little control over them. If you ask the thoughts, they would say, "This poor fellow thinks he is thinking us, but we are thinking him.

There is a tale of a man who found on the road a large stone bearing the words, "Under me lies a great truth." The man strained to turn the stone over and finally succeeded. On the bottom was written, "Why do you want a new truth when you do not practice what you already know?