Search For Meaning

If you open your eyes and look carefully, you will find that everyone in the world is asking for happiness, everyone in the world is begging for love. But people have neither love nor happiness: the mistake is happening in the very asking And because you go on begging outside of yourself, you don’t even remember that what you are begging for is your very self-nature. This revolution is called religion. On the day you remember: “I must stop begging; for once I must look inside myself, must completely explore who I am. It is possible that what I have never found outside of myself may be within me”…. It has to be within you. You would not have even looked for it if it were not already there, because we can only ask for something which is already present as an experience somewhere deep within us. The whole universe is searching for bliss. If you had never known bliss, never tasted it; if you had never had a relationship with bliss, never... No one can ever go on a search for the complete unknown - how can you do that? How can you search for someone when you have no idea about them: no address, no whereabouts? There has to be an echo somewhere deep within you. Somewhere, far beneath the darkness of your heart, a lamp burns. Sometimes, knowingly or unknowingly, your eye catches a glimpse of it. Sometimes it even happens that you think that this time your happiness is coming from the other - but that too is this same glimpse, and you are simply mistaking it. Sometimes, listening to music you felt happy. But how can music give you happiness? While you were listening to the music, something else was happening. Listening to the music, you drowned in your own juices - the music just became an excuse. Because of the music you forgot your cares, your family, the mad race of the world, your mundane problems. The music enabled you to forget the world. And as soon as one forgets the world, one begins to remember oneself, and because of this remembrance one feels happiness. ~ Osho

Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to-throw away. Death walks with you , arm-in-arm. Be good while you live and when you can. ~ Marcus Aurelius

You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone. ~ Marcus Aurelius

In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices. ~ Epictetus

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. ~ Epicurus

An ignorant person is inclined to blame others for his own misfortune. To blame oneself is proof of progress. But the wise man never has to blame another or himself. ~ Epictetus

No man is free who is not master of himself. ~ Epictetus

Keep your attention focused entirely on what is truly your own concern, and be clear that what belongs to others is their business and none of yours. ~ Epictetus

The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject. ~ Marcus Aurelius

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. ~ John Steinbeck

Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions. ~ Mark Twain

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion. ~ Alexander the Great

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We've been using them not because we needed them but because we had ~ Seneca

To know that you are a prisoner of your mind is the dawn of wisdom. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Realize that your world is only a reflection of yourself and stop finding fault with the reflection. Attend to yourself, set yourself right; mentally and emotionally. The physical self will follow automatically. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward. ~ Oscar Wilde

If it is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach. ~ Marcus Aurelius

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. ~ Soren Kierkegaard