Q: Why can't the mind be turned inwards despite repeated attempts?

M: It is done by abhyasa (practice) and vairagya (dispassion) and succeeds only slowly. The mind has been used to going outwards for so long, it is not easily turned inwards. A cow accustomed to grazing on others' estates is not easily confined to its shed. However, its keeper tempts it with luscious grass and fine fodder. It refuses the first time; then it takes a bit, but its innate tendency to stray asserts itself and it slips away. On being repeatedly tempted by the owner, it accustoms itself to the stall. Finally, even if let loose, it would not stray. Similarly with the mind. If once it finds its happiness within, it will not stray outwards.

"Let your mind guard against an attempted invasion by all kinds

of unworthy thoughts. Never doubt its power to repel harmful

ideas. Because of daily defeats we assume that the mind is

inferior to whatever happens to us. This is a wrong assumption.

We simply lack knowledge of the mind's actual supremacy. The

needed knowledge can be won. 

So let your mind admit only the

high and the noble, just as a sea-wall permits only the higher

waves to splash over to the other side."

       Esoteric Encyclopedia of Eternal Knowledge, p. 111

"There's a famous story about the lion who came upon a flock of sheep and to his amazement found a lion among the sheep. It was a lion who had been brought up by the sheep ever since he was a cub. It would bleat like a sheep and run around like a sheep. The lion when straight for him, and when the sheep-lion stood in front of the real one, he trembled in every limb. And the lion said to him,"What are you doing among these sheep?" And the sheep-lion said, "I am a sheep." And the lion said, "Oh no you're not. You're coming with me." So he took the sheep-lion to a pool and said,"Look!" And when the sheep-lion looked at his reflection in the water, he let out a mighty roar, and in that moment he was transformed. He was never the same again. 


If you're lucky...you might suddenly understand who "I" is and you'll never be the same again, ever. Nothing will ever be able to touch you again and nothing will ever be able to hurt you again. 


You will fear no one and you will fear nothing."

"I'm talking about self-observation. What's that? It means to watch everything in you and around you as far as possible and watch it as if it's happening to someone else. What does that sentence mean? It means that you do not personalize what is happening to you. It means you look at things as if you have no connection with them whatsoever."

"A Western businessman heard that a Zen master living on a faraway mountain knew the three basic secrets of life. Anyone who could obtain these secrets would know everything needed to live a happy fulfilling life. The businessman, whose life felt empty, reflected at length on what those three secrets might be. What possible words would answer all of life's problems and guarantee constant feelings of well being?  Determined to find out, he finally sold his business and began his travels in search of the master.  Two years later he arrived at the top of the right mountain and at the right zendo. There say the Zen master.


The man approached the sage and said, 'Oh master, I have travelled far and wide to hear the three secrets that I need to know in order to live a full and rich life. Would you tell me those secrets?'  


The master bowed in return and said, 'Yes, I will tell you. The first secret is pay attention. The second secret is pay attention. And the third secret is pay attention.'


You are in good company if your response is something like, 'Is that all? I was hoping for something profound.'  But let it sink in and you might wonder, 'What does it really mean to pay attention?'


Pay attention to what?  For starters: to what you are feeling, what you are sensing, and what you are thinking; to the sounds around you, the opening bud, the color of the autumn leaf, to the wind, the shrug of a shoulder, the taste, smell and texture of your food or drink. That kind of paying attention immerses you in life in a new way. 


If you pay attention at every moment, you form a new relationship to time. Your own absorption slows down internally. That slowing down feeds your sense of deep appreciation and at the same time produces more energy.  In some magical way, by slowing down you become more efficient, more productive and energetic, focusing on the task right in front of you. Not only do you become immersed in that moment, you become that moment. 

"I would say you don't believe it enough. You don't believe that you have no limits; you don't believe that life can be, every second, ecstatically happy; you don't believe that it  can be totally effortless; you don't believe that you can do things mentally."

"There is nothing to do. Just be. Do nothing. Be. No climbing mountains and sitting in caves. I do not even say, 'be yourself,' since you do not know yourself.  Just be. Having seen that you are neither the 'outer' world of perceivables, nor the 'inner' world of thinkables, that you are neither body no mind---just be."


"Q. Surely there are degrees of realization.
M. There are no steps to self realization.  There is nothing gradual about it. It happens suddenly and is irreversible. You rotate into a new dimension, seen from which the previous ones are mere abstractions. Just like on the sunrise you see things as they are, so on self realization you see everything as it is. The world of illusions is left behind."

"But some events purify the mind and some stain it. Moments of deep insight and all-embracing love, purify the mind. While desires and fears, envies and anger, blind beliefs and intellectual arrogance pollute and dull the psyche."

"Do understand it clearly.  Whatever you perceive, you are not what you perceive."

"Actually pulling off the illusion of the playing field, the amusement park for the Human Game, and making everyone and everything appear absolutely real, is an amazing accomplishment and one of the most amazing aspects of who we really are and how much power we really have."

"Intention says, no limit here.  Nothing can stop me. I feel it. I see it in my mind's eye. I have focused will as the laser beam of my intent. I am involved. I persist. Nothing is too much trouble. My intention has to be delivered. I  insist on it. I won't quit until it is... 


Persistence and patience are the keys to intention. But for that to work you have to focus and concentrate on the target. Most people quit before the final pay out which is sad but that's life. I was in a silver mine where the old miners had dug and dug for years and found only a trickle of silver here and there. When they finally quit digging they were just twelve feet from a a multi-million dollar motherlode...


The Mongols were brilliant organizers. In fact there word orda gave rise to our word order. What we learn from them is their ability to stick to the project no matter what. They could ride in anguish and pain. Conditions were irrelevant to them.  The intent was the only thing that mattered...


What you're looking to do with intent is to focus on the target and never let go, no matter how long it takes...


I like the symbology of the woodpecker. Each peck does not amount to much but eventually the whole bloody tree comes down...


Now you probably haven't thought much in terms of the power of your will...The difference between  will and intention is that, for many people, intention is just a mental act---a kind of wishful thinking---whereas the force of will projected from your consciousness contains not only your thoughts and desires but also your own life force. Your will, projected correctly, will contain the vital ingredient, your spirit---the very essence of what you are."

"A secret and cunning fondness for sad circumstances will surely

keep them around."

            1500 Ways to Escape the Human Jungle, # 654

"There is a centre that imparts reality to whatever it perceives. All you need is to understand is that you are the source of reality, that you give reality instead of getting it, that you need no support or confirmation. Things are as they are because you accept them as they are. Stop accepting them and they will dissolve.  Whatever you think about with desire or fear appears before you as real.  Look at it without desire or fear and it loses its substance. Pleasure and pain are momentary. It is simpler and easier to disregard them than to act on them."

"Our daily practice consists of running away. If we have a moment free, we will make use of it to watch television or read a magazine article so we will not have to go back to our territory. We are afraid of the suffering that is inside us. Afraid of war and conflicts.  
The practice of mindfulness consists of coming back to ourselves in order to restore peace and harmony. The energy with which we can do this is the energy of mindfulness. Mindfulness if a kind of energy that carries with it concentration, understanding, love. 
...mindfulness is not something that is only done in a meditation hall. It is also done in the kitchen, in the garden, when we are on the telephone, when we are driving a car, when we are doing the dishes." 

"You need not enter a monastery---the world today is your monastery and the struggles of daily life are the monastic discipline. It is not what you do, but how you do it; not sitting in a hermitage that really matters, but sitting in the deep centre of your own being.  The wise can make the worldly life itself their hermitage, and worldly activities their means of liberation."

"If the mind wanders, we must at once realize we are not the body and inquire, "Who am I?" and the mind must be brought back to realize the Self. Thus all evils are destroyed and happiness is realized. 

Absence of mental activity is solitude."

"Your daily life vibrates between desire and fear. Watch it intently and you will see how the mind assumes innumerable names and shapes like a river foaming between the boulders. Trace every action to its selfish motive and look at the motive intently til it dissolves."

"The mind must learn that beyond the moving mind there is the background of awareness, which does not change. The mind must come to know the true self and respect it and cease covering it up, like the moon which obscures the sun during solar eclipse. Just realize that nothing observable, or experienceable is you, or binds you. Take notice of what is not your self."

"If you want to live sanely, creatively and happily, and have infinite riches to share, search for what you are. "

May all be happy, content and fulfilled

May all be healed and whole

May all have whatever they want and need

May all be protected, safe and fearless

May all be awakened, liberated and free

May all have peace in their world and in their universe.

"Once you realize that all comes from within, that the world in which you live has not been projected onto you but by you, your fear comes to and end. Without this realization, you identify yourself with the externals, like body, mind, society, nation, humanity, even God or the Absolute.  But these are all escapes from fear. It is only when you fully accept your responsibility for the little world in which you live and watch the process of creation, preservation, and destruction, that you may be free of your imaginary bondage."

"Just drop all your seeking, turn your attention inward, and sacrifice your mind to the One Self radiating in the Heart of your very being."

"Get with it totally in a quiet spot until is sucks you in more and more until you let go of the world pull.  Getting quiet enough, the Infinite part of you just takes over and you go all the way.  You reach a place where you feel helpless because it's effortless.  Keep that up and you'll effortlessly be sucked right into your Infiinity."

" Everything you are seeking, you are, and very foolishly saying you are not. That's part of the enigma: everything everyone is seeking with such intensity, one has, and much more."

"When I say, 'I Am." I do not mean a separate entity with a body as its nucleus. I mean the totality of being, the ocean of consciousness, the entire universe of all that is and knows. I have nothing to desire for I am complete forever."

"We loosely talk about Self Realization, for lack of better term. But how can one realize or make real that which alone is real?  All we need to do is to give up our habit of regarding as real that which is unreal. All seeking practices are meant solely to help us do this. When we stop regarding the unreal as real, then reality alone will remain.