Quotes About Self-awareness

A moment's reflection will show you that you play many roles in the course of a day . . . and that who you are from moment to moment changes. There is the angry you, and the kind you, the lazy you, the lustful you—hundreds of different you's. Gurdjieff points out that sometimes one "you" does something for which all the other "you's" must pay for years or possibly the rest of this life.

As we acquire a certain degree of equanimity in self-image, we are that much more likely to feel empathy for those around us. We know what it's like to be a "self" moving through the world of "others." When someone feels particularly isolated or in pain, we don't need a great deal of information in order to come to his or her aid.

But you know, you really don't have to worry about whether everybody else is doing it or not. You just begin to get your own house in order. Recognizing your complete interrelatedness with all of it and with your own spiritual source changes the meaning of each act, and therefore both the reason and the way it's done.

So we won't take ourselves too seriously. Because taking something serious doesn't make it go away any faster. In fact, it keeps making it a little bit worse.

If somebody at work is a problem for you, they're not the one who needs to change. If someone is a problem for you, it's you who needs to change. If you feel they're causing you trouble, that's your problem. It's on you. Your job is to clear yourself.

The witness is not evaluative. It does not judge your actions. It merely notes them. Thus, if you perform an act because of desire, such as eating something that is not sattvic (helpful to your sadhana), and then you put yourself down for having eaten it... the witness—when it finally appears—would merely note: (a) he is eating such-and-such, and (b) he is putting himself down for eating such-and-such.

Motivations and desires affect our perceptions. We don't necessarily see things as they are. We see them as we are.

It's not the crow's feet under your eyes that make you old, Or the gray in your hair, I'm told. But when your mind makes a contract your body can't fill, You're over the hill, brother, you're over the hill.

woman once came to Gandhi with her young son. "Mahatma-ji, tell my son to stop eating sugar. It's not good for him." Gandhi told her to return with her son in a week's time. When they returned, Gandhi said to the boy, "Stop eating sugar." The woman was perplexed and asked Gandhi why he couldn't have told the boy that a week earlier. Gandhi replied, "Because at that time I had not given up sugar." What

Calm yourself. Think with your intellect, not your burning heart, and you will see what I must do.

La dicha,debo añadir,no es la felicidad. La felicidad depende de factores externos mientras que la dicha procede del interior de cada uno, sin que nada la provoque.

Often we are not aware of how close we are to that which we need but we think we do not have. In His grace, God has placed some hidden gold somewhere in all of us that meets our need at a desperate moment.

Are we really ever completely our own person or have we been conditioned in ways beyond our own imagination?

Why are we so eager to prove to the world that we are the best at what we do and care not for why or who we are? How

last everything comes between you and what you'd like to be, and you've lost your true self forever.

if you are reading this and you really believe that you're perfect, there's only one solution to that predicament: you need to get married. If you are married, then you need to start listening!

The first thing you learn in life is you're a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you're the same fool.

Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

We're all fools, said Clemens, all the time. It's just we're a different kind each day. We think, I'm not a fool today. I've learned my lesson. I was a fool yesterday but not this morning. Then tomorrow we find out that, yes, we were a fool today too. I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we're not perfect and live accordingly.

He glanced back at the wall. How like a mirror, too, her face. Impossible; for how many people did you know who reflected your own light to you? People were more often--he searched for a simile, found one in his work--torches, blazing away until they whiffed out. How rarely did other people's faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought?

I'm not anyone, I'm just myself; whatever I am, I am something, and now I'm something you can't help.

Dad, said Will, his voice very faint. Are you a good person? To you and your mother, yes, I try. But no man's a hero to himself. I've lived with me a lifetime, Will. I know everything worth knowing about myself- And, adding it all up...? The sum? As they come and go, and I mostly sit very still and tight, yes, I'm all right.

But no man's a hero to himself.

The most important single thing we had to pound into ourselves is that we were not important, we musn't be pedants; we were not to feel superior to anyone else in the world. We're nothing more than dust jackets for books, of no significance otherwise.