Eknath Easwaran Quotes

Judged by the normal standards of human affairs, the lives of men and women of God may look overburdened with suffering, and even inconclusive.

~ Eknath Easwaran

It is a very difficult secret to understand that when we do not want to possess another selfishly, he or she will always love us. It is when we do not want to possess, when we do not make demand after demand, that the relationship will last.

~ Eknath Easwaran

You occasionally hear it said that spiritual aspirants should drop everything and set off for the woods, or go to India and wander about on the slopes of the Himalayas. But only through daily contact with people--not trees or brooks or deer--can we train ourselves to be selfless in personal relationships.

~ Eknath Easwaran

As meditation deepens, compulsions, cravings, and fits of emotions begin to lose their power to dictate our behavior. We see clearly that choices are possible: we can say yes, or we can say no.... All we are is the result of what we have thought. By changing our mode of thinking, we can remake ourselves completely.

~ Eknath Easwaran

As long as we lean on anything outside ourselves for support, we are going to be insecure. Most of us try to find support by leaning on all sorts of things - gold, books, learning, sensory stimulation - and if these things are taken away, we fall over. To the extent that we are dependent on these external supports, we grow weaker and more liable to upsets and misfortune.

~ Eknath Easwaran

Good books are rare, and to have a really good library, a few shelves are all we need. When I was still on my campus in India, I was convinced, like many professors, that if the Lord was to be found anywhere, it was in the lower stacks of the library. But now - just as when I go into a big department store, I can say, How many things I don't need! How many expensive suits I don't want! - when I enter a big library I say, What tomes I don't have to read again! What folios I will never open! This feeling of freedom will come to all of us when we realise, in the depths of our meditation, that all wisdom lies within.

~ Eknath Easwaran

We can all avoid travel that is unnecessary we do not need to travel around the world when the source of all joy and all beauty is right within us.

~ Eknath Easwaran

If someone who is agitated comes to visit you, wanting to discuss their agitation and weigh the pros and cons of what action he should take, my suggestion is to give him the mantram album and say, why don't you just write Rama, Rama, Rama a thousand times?

~ Eknath Easwaran

Peace would always be less compelling than war. Perhaps that was why there was so little of it in the world. (p. 160)

~ Eknath Easwaran

But when we train the senses we conserve our vital energy, the very stuff of life. Patient and secure within, we do not have to look to externals for satisfaction. No matter what happens outside--whether events are for or against us, however people behave towards us, whether we get what pleases us or do not--we are in no way dependent. Then it is that we can give freely to others; then it is that we can love.

~ Eknath Easwaran

To be secure everywhere is the mark of sophistication. To be unshakeable is the mark of courage. To be permanently in love with every person is the mark of masculinity or femininity. To forgive is the mark of strength. To govern our senses and passions is the mark of freedom.

~ Eknath Easwaran

I have tremendous respect for anyone who can control his palate enough to learn not only to drink beer but to enjoy it too.

~ Eknath Easwaran

When Nureyev appeared in San Francisco not long ago there were quite a few ballet fans who flew all the way from New York to see him. The mystics would point out how fruitless it is to go to see important people when our first priority is to see ourselves. We think we know Tom, Dick and Harry, but we really know everyone, including ourselves, only on the surface level. If we could see our real Self coming down the street, we would wonder who this beautiful, radiant, magnificent creature could be. We would not be able to take our eyes off him.

~ Eknath Easwaran

Make wise choices about what you read. Read only what is necessary or worthwhile. And then take the time to read carefully. One book read with concentration and reflected upon is worth a hundred flashed through without any absorption at all.

~ Eknath Easwaran

The mind is powerful, but it needs something to hold on to so it doesn't wander.

~ Eknath Easwaran

Meditation is the basis of a life of splendid health, untiring energy, unfailing love, and abiding wisdom. It is the very foundation of that deep inner peace for which every one of us longs. No human being can ever be satisfied by money or success or prestige or anything else the world can offer. What we are really searching for is not something that satisfies us temporarily, but a permanent state of joy.

~ Eknath Easwaran

Children naturally ask all kinds of questions and take a long time to tell their stories, and in millions of homes the parents are doing something else as they reply, “Yes, yes, I see.” And in millions of homes, the parents are surprised when their children don’t listen to them.Those little bright eyes know when your attention is wandering. When they are telling you the news from school, give your full attention. Everything else can be set aside for the moment. You are teaching your children to listen to you.

~ Eknath Easwaran

Anything that tends to make us elated is inevitably going to throw us into depression.

~ Eknath Easwaran

A mind that is fast is sick. A mind that is slow is sound. A mind that is still is divine.

~ Eknath Easwaran

People who have strong likes and dislikes find life very difficult, they are as rigid as if they had only one bone.

~ Eknath Easwaran

The goal of meditation is awareness, not relaxation.

~ Eknath Easwaran

Attention can be trained very naturally, with affection, just as you train a puppy. When something distracts your attention, you say “Come back” and bring it back again. With a lot of training, you can teach your mind to come running back to you when you call, just like a friendly pup.

~ Eknath Easwaran

One learns a good deal in the school of suffering. I wonder what would have happened to me if I had had an easy life, and had not had the privilege of tasting the joys of jail and all it means. ~ Badsha Khan, quote in Nonviolent Soldier of Islam, p. 87

~ Eknath Easwaran

Those who indulge themselves in sense stimulation throughout their lives often end up exhausted, with an enfeebled will and little capacity to love others.

~ Eknath Easwaran

Two forces pervade human life, the Gita says: the upward thrust of evolution and the downward pull of our evolutionary past.

~ Eknath Easwaran

To love, we need to be sensitive to those around us, which is impossible if we are racing through life engrossed in all the things we need to do before sunset. In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that a person who is always late will find it difficult to love; he will be in too much of a hurry.

~ Eknath Easwaran

Patience is an unfailing remedy for friction in personal relations. Even if a person has never won a beauty contest, has no money in the bank, can't even change a flat tire, if he or she has inexhaustible patience, then we will find that life with such a person will never grow stale.

~ Eknath Easwaran

Wherever people gather for selfless ends, there is a vast augmentation of their individual capacities. Something wonderful, something momentous happens. An irresistible force begins to move, which, though we may not see it, is going to change our world.

~ Eknath Easwaran

The law of karma says that no matter what context I find myself in, it is neither my parents, nor my science teacher, nor the mailman, but I alone who have brought myself into this state because of my past actions. Instead of trapping me in a fatalistic snare, this gives me freedom. Because I alone have brought myself into my present condition, I myself, by working hard and striving earnestly, can reach the supreme state which is nirvana.

~ Eknath Easwaran

A mind that is racing over worries about the future or recycling resentments from the past is ill equipped to handle the challenges of the moment. By slowing down, we can train the mind to focus completely in the present. Then we will find that we can function well whatever the difficulties. That is what it means to be stress-proof: not avoiding stress but being at our best under pressure, calm, cool, and creative in the midst of the storm.

~ Eknath Easwaran

Fasting may not be as easy as feasting, but after a while it is not too different. Both are extremes. It is not hard to go the extreme way, but what is really difficult is neither to fast nor to feast, but to be moderate in everything we do.

~ Eknath Easwaran

Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it.

~ Eknath Easwaran