Quotes About Consciousness

every one of us has a constant stream of images going through our heads, which we usually don't even notice

they think the image must remain in their conscious view the whole time they're describing it. Not so. Even if the image flickers for a second and disappears, you can still keep describing it from memory, just as you described the Taj Mahal.

Whatever explanation you prefer, men and women have for thousands of years been sharing their bodies with other beings, real or imagined. There is overwhelming documentation that, while engaged in such trances, people exhibit skills, talents, knowledge, and even physical strength and dexterity unavailable to them in their normal lives.

Pause before making your next big decision. Look around and notice the slight irregularities of the ceiling, the texture of brick underfoot, the feel of your knee bending and straightening, and the slight shifts of sensation in your shoulders, stomach, neck, and face. You can't really explain why, but when you widen your neurological contact with the world in this way you feel stronger, wiser, and more creative—and you choose more wisely.

As the poet W. H. Auden put it, "Choice of attention—to pay attention to this and ignore that—is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.

The Three Oddest Words When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it. When I pronounce the word nothing, I make something no nonbeing can hold.

We say 'forest' but this word is made of the unknown, the unfamiliar, the unencompassed. The earth. Clods of dirt. Pebbles. On a clear day you rest among ordinary, everyday things that have been familiar to you since childhood, grass, bushes, a dog (or a cat), a chair, but that changes when you realize that every object is an enormous army, an inexhaustible swarm.

Isn't it true (I thought), that one is almost never present, or rather never fully present, and that's because we have only a halfhearted, chaotic and slipshod, disgraceful and vile relationship with out surroundings.

I know neither day nor night, and the whole world fades around me.

Morality is the basis of all spirituality; if one is not morally pure, it is impossible to attain the highest spiritual fulfilment.

[The Civil War] created in this country what had never existed before—a national consciousness. It was not the salvation of the Union; it was the rebirth of the Union.

It is impossible to experience one's own death objectively and still carry a tune.

It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune.

What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists

three thousand realms in a single moment of life.

Our real self is not the captive of Space and Time

The master sees beyond what is obvious. He sees the unseen, feels the unfelt, and hears the unheard. He looks below the surface for what is hidden and so finds the great heartbeat of the Universe. He smiles, knowing it is his heartbeat, your heartbeat, our heartbeat.

To have anything we want, we need only raise our level of consciousness to the level of consciousness where what we want exists.

So, what I suggest you do is pay attention to what you're thinking and pay attention to what you're feeling. Know that these two things dictate the way you live your life. By focusing your attention internally as opposed to externally, you'll be able to be present enough to connect with any other living thing, which will also cause you to take responsibility for your life and how you live it. Will I judge you? Of course not! But I will observe.

I don't think the mystical experience can be verbalized. When the ego disappears, so does power over language.

Goodness is easier to recognize than to define.

They have got a con game going on, a political con game, and you and I are in the middle. It's time for you and me to wake up and start looking at it like it is, and trying to understand it like it is; and then we can deal with it like it is.

No one is exploited economically as thoroughly as you and I, because in most countries where people are exploited they know it. You and I are in this country being exploited and sometimes we don't know it.

Toda ciencia nace, naturalmente, de una concertación del pensamiento. Pero esta concentración tiene un carácter muy especial en la ciencia: es la atención a la vida, a sus necesidades.