Quotes About Reality

Die Natur soll der sichtbare Geist, der Geist die unsichtbare Natur sein. Hier also, in der absoluten Identität des Geistes in uns und der Natur außer uns, muß sich das Problem, wie eine Natur außer uns möglich sei, auflösen.

The living is a species of the dead and not a very attractive one.

When people want to be rid of Heaven it is logical to start by creating an atmosphere in which spiritual things appear out of place; in order to be able to declare successfully that God is unreal they have to construct around man a false reality, a reality that is inevitably inhuman because only the inhuman can exclude God. What is involved is a falsification of the imagination and so its destruction.

It is impossible to describe a landscape so validly as to exclude all other descriptions, for no one can see the landscape in all its aspects at the same time, and no single view can prevent the existence and validity of other equally possible views.

Hinduism — a spiritual world That contains everything, and shimmers in all colors; It offers us Vedanta, the doctrine of the great Shankara: And also gods without number, In whose cult our heart has no interest. Islam wants first and foremost to be Unity, And life-wisdom. It also knows the wine Of the heart, that turns the soul inwards. Islam is revelation's last sanctuary. In whichever language one honors truth: God is reality — the world is appearance.

Le rationalisme d'une grenouille au fond d'un puits, c'est de nier l'existence des montagnes, ce qui peut être «logique», mais n'a rien à voir avec la réalité. [The rationalism of a frog living at the bottom of a well is to deny the existence of mountains: perhaps this is "logic", but it has nothing to do with reality]

Derrière l'humble croyance à un Paradis situé dans les nuages, il y a au moins un fond de vérité inaliénable, et surtout - et cela est sans prix - une réalité miséricordieuse qui ne déçoit jamais

Il est à peine besoin de dire que beaucoup de choses que la science moderne prend pour des fantaisies sont — ou étaient — des réalités. Il est curieux de constater que certains procédés d'une science qui veut être « exacte » sont foncièrement illogiques : par exemple, prendre une improbabilité pour une impossibilité, ou conclure à l'inexistence d'une chose dont on ne possède pas de preuves positives.

Reality's all you've got. But here's the real secret, the real miracle: it's enough.

If a tree falls in the forest and it hits a mime, would he make a noise?

You won't understand life and death until you're ready to set aside any hope of understanding life and death and just live your life until you die.

Real wisdom is the ability to understand the incredible extent to which you bullshit yourself every single moment of every day.

As for enlightenment, that's just for people who can't face reality.

This world is better than Utopia because - and follow this point carefully - you can never live in Utopia . Utopia is always somewhere else. That's the very definition of Utopia.

The very idea of higher states of consciousness is absurd. Comparing one state of consciousness to another and saying one is "higher" and the other is "mundane" is like eating a banana and complaining it's not a very good apple.

Rather than face what really is, we prefer to retreat and compare what we're living through with the way we think it oughta be. Suffering comes from the comparison between the two.

The pain of having your dreams come true appears vividly when you realize that even if your dreams really come true, they never really come true. From birth to death it's just like this

You can't life in paradise- but you are living right here. Make this your paradise or make this your hell. The choice is entirely yours. Really.

Reality exists as it is. The words we use to explain our understanding of it are always pale reflections of the truth we are attempting to convey and of our own understanding of that truth.

Truth doesn't screw around, and truth doesn't care about your opinions. It doesn't care if you believe in it, deny it, or ignore it. It couldn't care less what religion you are, what country you're from, what color your skin is, what or who you've got between your legs, or how much you've got invested in mutual funds. None of the trivial junk that concerns most people most of the time matters even one teensy-weensy bit to the truth.

it's still absurd from a Buddhist standpoint to say the mountain on which the old man / wild fox met Hyakujo is the same one that existed millions of years ago. Yet there is still some kind of continuity from the past to the present, and we all know that.

At best, past and future are no more than reference material for the eternal now. The only real facts are those at the present moment.

You can get hooked on afterlife ideas just like a drug. The reason to avoid ideas about life after death isn't because they couldn't possibly be true. Maybe they could. How would I know? It's because ideas like that promote a kind of dreamy fantasy state that distracts us from seeing what our life is right now. "The question doesn't fit the case." Look at your life as it is right now and live it, right now.

Often statues depicting the Buddha's moment of enlightenment show him touching the ground. This symbolizes that his enlightened state included a firm grounding in this reality instead of serving as an escape from it.