Meditation Quotes

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Study the heart and the mind of man, and begin with your own. Meditation and reflection must lay the foundation of that knowledge, but experience and practice must, and alone can, complete it.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

Our whole life is a meditation of our last decision - the only decision that matters.

Meditation is the movement of love. It isn't the love of the one or of the many. It is like water that anyone can drink out of any jar.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Meditation is not to get out of society, to escape from society, but to prepare for a reentery into society.

I do many kinds of work, and if you forbid me from binding books, from gardening, from writing poetry, from practicing walking meditation, from teaching children, I will be very unhappy. To me, work is pleasant. Pleasant or unpleaseant depends on our way of looking.

The very minute we think we 'have' God, God will surprise us. As we search in fire and earthquakes, God will be in the still small voice. As we listen in silent meditation, God will be shouting protests in the street. God is warning us that we had best not try to find our security in any well-defined concept or category of what is Godly - for the minute we believe we are into God, God is off again and calling us forth into some unknown place.

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

Eknath Easwaran

There is a place for analysis, but it is apt to be quite fatal in prayer and meditation. Do not dissect the love of God, but feel it. Do not dissect divine intelligence, but realize it. Do not wonder how God can possibly solve this problem, but just watch Him do it in His own way-and He will if you will give Him a chance. You know that God is Love. So go ahead on that, and do not get theoretical about it.

If we are able to meet these two requirements - regularity in meditation and leading a good life in society, day-to-day a good life - then nothing would be unattainable by us.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Meditation is actually a very simple exercise in resting in the natural state of your present mind, and allowing yourself to be simply and clearly present to whatever thoughts, sensations, or emotions occur.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Meditation gives you the capacity to overcome obstacles and go beyond your limitations.

Meditation
practice begins by sitting down and assuming your seat cross-legged on
the ground. You begin to feel that by simply being on the spot, your
life can become workable and even wonderful. You realize that you are
capable of sitting like a king or queen on a throne. The regalness of
that situation shows you the... dignity that comes from being still and
simple.

Chögyam Trungpa

Reading is good, hearing is good, conversation and meditation are good; but then, they are only good at times and occasions, in a certain degree, and must be used and governed with such caution as we eat and drink and refresh ourselves, or they will bring forth in us the fruits of intemperance.

If we confine ourselves to a general and distant reflection on the ills of human life, that can have no effect to prepare us for them. If by close and intense meditation we render them present and intimate to us, that is the true secret for poisoning all our pleasures, and rendering us perpetually miserable.

Real meditation is not done by us. It is done by our Inner Pilot, the Supreme, who is constantly meditating in and through us. We are just the vessel, and we are allowing Him to fill us with His whole Consciousness.

Think for a moment of the great agents and engines of our civilization, and then think what shadowy ideas they all once were. The wheels of the steamship turned as swiftly as they do now, but as silent and unsubstantial as the motions of the inventor's thought; and in the noiseless loom of his meditation were woven the sinews of the printing-press, whose thunder shakes the world.

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

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

The fortunate one uses the instrument of deep meditation and probes deep into his heart. Then the waves of love gain the depth of the ocean, and the ocean of love flows and fills the heart and thrills every particle of being. Every wave of life then flows in the fullness of love, in the fullness of divine glory, in the fullness of grace, in bliss and peace.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

A man in his own secret meditation / Is lost amid the labyrinth that he has made / In art or politics.

William Butler Yeats

Meditation is offering your genuine presence to yourself in every moment.

Solve all your problems through meditation. Exchange unprofitable religious speculations for actual God-contact. Clear your mind of dogmatic theological debris; let in the fresh, healing waters of direct perception. Attune yourself to the active inner Guidance; the Divine Voice has the answer to every dilemma of life. Though man's ingenuity for getting himself into trouble appears to be endless, the Infinite Succor is no less resourceful.

Lahiri Mahasaya

The constant habit of perusing devout books is so indispensable, that it has been termed the oil of the lamp of prayer. Too much reading, however, and too little meditation, may produce the effect of a lamp inverted; which is extinguished by the very excess of that ailment, whose property is to feed it.

Meditation is listening to the song of the inner Soul, seeing the beauty of the inner Self, smelling the fragrance of the inner Spirit, experiencing the touch of the inner energies and tasting the intense sweetness of the inner God.

Happiness comes from the dissolution of the mind, not from external objects. Through meditation we can achieve everything including bliss, health, strength, intelligence and vitality. But it should be practiced properly in solitude and with care.

Mata Amritanandamayi

Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found.

Percy Bysshe Shelley