Eknath Easwaran Quotes

45 Sourced Quotes

The real essentials of life - compassion, kindness, good will, forgiveness - are what is fundamental to living as a true human being.

Eknath Easwaran
Imagine a hot tub for the mind. That is what meditation is; it can bathe your mind in relaxing thoughts.

Eknath Easwaran
The spiritual life is a call to action. But it is a call to... action without any selfish attachment to the results.

Eknath Easwaran
Having come to realize in the first stage of meditation that we are not our bodies, in the second stage we make an even more astounding discovery; we are not our minds either.

Eknath Easwaran
This is the central principle of meditation: we become what we meditate on.

Eknath Easwaran
When we meditate every morning we are putting on armor for the day's battle against our own impatience, inadequacy, resentment, and hostility.

Eknath Easwaran
In the spiritual lore of India there is a story that the Lord whispered only one word in our ears when he sent us into the world: 'Give.' Give freely of your time, your talent, your resources; give without asking for anything in return. This is the secret of living in joy and security.

Eknath Easwaran
Wisdom may be perennial, but to see its relevance we must see it lived out.

Eknath Easwaran
It may sound paradoxical, but however tight our schedule, however many things clamor to be done, we don't need to hurry. If we can keep our mind calm and go about our business with undivided attention, we will not only accomplish more but we'll do a better job - and find ourselves more patient, more at peace.

Eknath Easwaran
By removing that which is petty and self-seeking, we bring forth all that is glorious and mindful of the whole.

Eknath Easwaran
When we go slower, we are more patient and when we are more patient we have a choice in how we respond.

Eknath Easwaran
Whatever we have done, we can always make amends for it without ever looking back in guilt or sorrow.

Eknath Easwaran
It is not action or effort that we must surrender; it is self-will, and this is terribly difficult. You must do your best constantly, yet never allow yourself to become involved in whether things work out the way you want.

Eknath Easwaran
To be secure everywhere is the mark of sophistication, to be unshakable 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
Our deepest need is for the joy that comes with knowing we are of genuine use to others.

Eknath Easwaran
We have to have a purpose greater than the endless struggle to satisfy personal desires.

Eknath Easwaran
Whenever you are angry or afraid, nervous or worried or resentful, repeat the mantram until the agitation subsides. The mantram works to steady the mind, and all these emotions are power running against you, which the mantram can harness and put to work for you.

Eknath Easwaran
When we truly are putting others first, we cannot but feel at peace with ourselves.

Eknath Easwaran
The capacity to be patient, to bear with others through thick and thin, is within the reach of anyone.

Eknath Easwaran
When we are at home with ourselves, we are at home everywhere in the world. When we have found peace within ourselves, peace and love follow us wherever we go.

Eknath Easwaran
Do not feed your ego and your problems, with your attention....Slowly, surely, the ego will lose weight, until one fine day it will be nothing but a thin ghost of its former self. You will be able to see right through it, to the divine presence that shines in each of us.

Eknath Easwaran
An unhurried mind brings the capacity to make wise choices every day - choices of how we use our time, of where we place our resources and our love. I am not just talking about avoiding the rat race, but about a life full of an artistic beauty - a life that has almost vanished from modern civilization, but is quite within the reach of everyone.

Eknath Easwaran
Every angry thought makes it a little easier to get angry the next time, and a little more likely.

Eknath Easwaran
Don't think the purpose of meditation is to go deep into consciousness, wrap a blanket around yourself, and say, 'How cozy! I'm going to curl up in here by myself; let the world burn.' Not at all. We go deep into meditation so that we can reach out further and further to the world outside.

Eknath Easwaran
There are three kinds of violence: one, through our deeds; two, through our words; and three, through our thoughts. …The root of all violence is in the world of thoughts, and that is why training the mind is so important.

Eknath Easwaran
As we get deeper, we move closer and closer to other people; we feel closer to life as a whole.

Eknath Easwaran
Meditation is warm-up exercise for the mind, so that you can jog through the rest of the day without getting agitated or spraining your patience.

Eknath Easwaran
Human relationships are the perfect tool for sanding away our rough edges and getting at the core of divinity within us.

Eknath Easwaran
As meditation deepens, compulsions, cravings and fits of emotion 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. It is profoundly liberating.

Eknath Easwaran
By giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we choose.

Eknath Easwaran