Quotes from Steve Hagen

Even though the ball comes to a rest, the energy that once moved it is still here, it's been converted … , but it won't disappear. … Nothing stops.

There can be no moral authority to tell you what to do, for no such authority can lie outside your own will.

To assume the existence of a self, an 'I', is to assume the existence of something that has not changed … . … [I]f the thing in question – the 'I' – has changed, in what manner can it still be itself?

I]t's through our obsession with meaning that we create meaninglessness.

The range of what is human is vast, ranging from the saintly to the monstrous. When we speak of other human beings as belonging to another species, we ignore the reality of our very nature.

The moment we try to capture and encapsulate Truth, we have paradox, confusion, contention [and] doubt[.]

We can easily see what actions and speech will lead us and others into hatred, confusion, difficulty, and suffering. And we can see what words and actions will not. ... Is our intention to hoodwink, mislead, inflate, or deceive others ... ?

W]ith the sense of self gone, ... actions naturally become uncalculated and free.

When we see Reality, we are completely beyond the world of words and concepts. We experience what words cannot express, what ideas cannot contain, what speech cannot communicate.

Usually we hold a frozen view of ourselves as well as of the world 'out there.' … We identify with groups, behaviours, habits, and beliefs.

We cannot. . .begin any real inquiry into Truth, with any assumption or belief whatsoever. We must be willing to see things as they are, rather than as we hope, wish, or expect them to be.

When we fancy ourselves to be a particular thing with a name, we see ourselves as we would a cork in a stream. What we do not realize is that there is only stream. What we fancy as particular is, from the first, only movement, change and flow.

Truth and Reality are … not found in the way we frame our thoughts.

W]e reject … experience in favour of what we think.

T]he most basic division is 'me' and 'everything else,' self and other.

F]ocus not on ourselves as a force in charge of the manipulation of others, but on how our lives interpenetrate those of others – and … all creatures of a dynamic universe.

This moment is complete unto itself. There's nothing lacking in this moment

There are no overwhelming questions such as 'Where do I go after I die?' because it becomes clear that such questions, doubts, fears, and anxieties are based on buying into an illusion – the self.

Good times come and go. And bad times do the same.

Truth is not … something to believe or disbelieve. The things we believe are always less than Truth[.]

By simply attending to how we feel without trying to judge or change our feelings, we may notice that there's no real distinction between self and other. If it's a grey day inside, … it's a grey day outside as well.

W]hen we come up with any concept at all, we simultaneously create one or more opposite concepts.

We tend not to realise the extent to which we make up … the world, that is, the world of relative truths. We set boundaries, we make definitions. We determine what is good, what is bad, what ought to be, and what ought not to be – all out of inclinations of our mind.

Henry Ford, after he made his first billion dollars, was asked how much more he wanted. He said he wanted just a little more.