Quotes About Openness

Self-evaluation and self-criticism are, basically, neurotic tendencies which derive from our not having enough confidence in ourselves, confidence in the sense of seeing what we are, knowing what we are, knowing that we can afford to open. We can afford to surrender that raw and rugged neurotic quality of self and step out of fascination, step out of preconceived ideas.

The point of meditation is not merely to be an honest or good person in the conventional sense, trying only to maintain our security. We must begin to become compassionate and wise in the fundamental sense, open and relating to the world as it is.

Joy develops into the panoramic situation of seeing or feeling the whole ground, the open ground. This open situation has no hint of limitation, of imposed solemnity. And if you do try to treat life as a "serious business," if you try to impose solemnity upon life as though everything is a big deal, then it is funny. Why such a big deal?

However, maitri is not just being kind and nice. It is the understanding that one has to become one with the situation. That does not particularly mean that one becomes entirely without personality and has to accept whatever the other person suggests. Rather, you have to overcome the barrier that you have formed between yourself and others. If you remove this barrier and open yourself, then automatically real understanding and clarity will develop in your mind.

The ultimate implication of the words "peace on earth" is to remove altogether the ideas of peace and war and to open yourself equally and completely to the positive and negative aspects of the world.

Generosity is a willingness to give, to open without philosophical or pious or religious motives, just simply doing what is required at any moment in any situation, not being afraid to receive anything.

The basic act of surrender does not involve the worship of an external power. Rather it means working together with inspiration, so that one becomes an open vessel into which knowledge can be poured.

AT THIS POINT we may have come to the conclusion that we should drop the whole game of spiritual materialism; that is, we should give up trying to defend and improve ourselves. We may have glimpsed that our struggle is futile and may wish to surrender, to completely abandon our efforts to defend ourselves. But how many of us could actually do this? It is not as simple and easy as we might think. To what degree could we really let go and be open? At what point would we become defensive?

The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there's no ground."

Education requires both a teacher and a student. Many of us are too often reluctant to be a student.

May your heart open. May joy emerge. May love flow through you. May you heal and help others.

The sixth gift is Joy. May it keep your heart open and filled with light.

SOMETIMES OUR WAY OF THINKING LIMITS WHAT WE CAN SEE.

Perhaps it would be better for science, that all criticism should be avowed.

While this may simply be another way of saying that spirituality is Christian maturity, it tries to delineate more openly the factors of Spirit-control over a period of time.

If it be true that men of strong imaginations are usually dogmatists--and I am inclined to think it is so--it ought to follow that men of weak imaginations are the reverse; in which case we should have some compensation for stupidity. But it unfortunately happens that no dogmatist is more obstinate or less open to conviction than a fool.

Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds.

The mind is not a hermit's cell, but a place of hospitality and intercourse.

A closed book makes a page; Open heart makes a thousand faces. (Un livre fermé fait une page; Coeur ouvert, mille visages)

Never close your lips to those whom you have opened your heart.

Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.

The plain rule is, to do nothing in the dark, to be party to nothing under-handed or mysterious, and never to put his foot down where he cannot see ground.

He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood, and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.