Enlightenment Quotes (160) Spiritual Sayings
Summary: Enlightenment in a secular context often means the "full comprehension of a situation", but in spiritual terms the word alludes to a spiritual revelation or deep insight into the meaning and purpose of all things, communication with or understanding of the mind of God, profound spiritual understanding or a fundamentally changed consciousness whereby everything is perceived as a unity
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Enlightenment…is real; and each of us, whoever we are, can in the right circumstances and with the right training realize the nature of mind and so know in us what is deathless and eternally pure. This is the promise of all the mystical traditions of the world, and it has been fulfilled and is being fulfilled in countless thousands of human lives.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment.”
~ Chögyam Trungpa
“Nobody makes anybody enlightened. Just tell them what you want to say, then let them decide for themselves.”
~ Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
“Enlightenment will be now the beginning, not the end. Beginning of a non-ending process in all dimensions of richness. ”
~ Osho
“Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.”
~ Anthony de Mello
“In the process of burning out these confusions, we discover enlightenment. If the process were otherwise, the awakened state of mind would be a product dependent upon cause and effect and therefore liable to dissolution. Anything which is created must, sooner or later, die. If enlightenment were created in such a way, there would always be a possibility of ego reasserting itself, causing a return to the confused state. Enlightenment is permanent because we have not produced it; we have merely discovered it.”
~ Chögyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to drop off our own body and mind, and the bodies and minds of others. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.
~ Dogen
Enlightenment is understanding that there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nobody you have to be
except exactly who you’re being right now.
~ Neale Donald Walsch
Nirvana or lasting enlightenment or true spiritual growth can be achieved only through persistent exercise of real love.
~ M. Scott Peck, M.D.
You are destined for enlightenment. Cooperate with your destiny, Don’t go against it, Don’t thwart it.
Allow it to fulfill itself.
~ Nisargadatta
Whether or not enlightenment is a plausible goal for us is a vital question for our lives. If it is possible for us to attain such perfect enlightenment ourselves, our whole sense of meaning and our place in the universe immediately changes. To be open to the possibility is to be a spiritual seeker, no matter what our religion. Enlightenment is not meant to be an object of religious faith. It is an evolutionary goal…
~ Robert Thurman
No one saves us by but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
~ Buddha
To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.
~ Buddha
According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don’t bother you anymore. You become light hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous.
~ Deepak Chopra
Enlightenment takes place when one lets his innocence emerge and sees nature and life with a childlike awe and respect. The ‘why’ of a child is repeated over and over, causing questions and the never-ending process of discovery.
~ Charles DuBack
If I could define enlightenment briefly I would say it is ‘the quiet acceptance of what is’.
~ Wayne Dyer
The the illuminated mind the whole world sparkles with light.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light, but making the darkness conscious.
~ Carl Jung
The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan
He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.
~ Lao Tzu
There are many paths to enlightenment. Be sure to take the one with a heart.
~ Lao Tzu
Zen has no gates. The purpose of Buddha's words is to enlighten others. Therefore Zen should be gateless. But, how does one pass through the gateless gate?
~ Mumon
Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.
~ Zen Proverb
Unity is divinity, purity is enlightenment.
~ Sathya Sai Baba
Enlightenment is the journey back from the head to the heart.
~ Ravi Shankar
Enlightenment is very possible for the ordinary individual. Actually, it is easier than for someone who thinks that they are special.
~ Ravi Shankar
Nonresistance, nonjudgment, and nonattachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living.
~ Eckhart Tolle
The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being.
~ Eckhart Tolle
True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten oneself and others.
~ Voltaire
So the most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner's mind. There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner. Be very very careful about this point. If you start to practice zazen, you will begin to appreciate your beginner's mind. It is the secret of Zen practice.
~ Shunryu Suzuki
Enlightenment must come little by little - otherwise it would overwhelm.
~ Idries Shah
The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being.
~ Eckhart Tolle
If I could define enlightenment briefly I would say it is 'the quiet acceptance of what is'.
~ Wayne Dyer
Enlightenment is its own reward, its own punishment. You begin to see so much more. And so much more sees you.
~ Laird Barron
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
~ Mahatma Gandhi
We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
~ Gautama Buddha
Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment; Mastering others requires force; Mastering the self needs strength.
~ Laozi
Anything that is created must sooner or later die. Enlightenment is permanent because we have not produced it; we have merely discovered it.
~ Chogyam Trungpa
There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.
~ Nhat Hanh
Enlightenment is any experience of expanding our consciousness beyond its present limits.
~ Thaddeus Golas
Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment.
~ Chogyam Trungpa
Enlightenment has nothing to do with physical knowledge. It is the experience of existence. Existence is infinite. There are countless universes and creations taking place simultaneously.
~ Frederick Lenz
There are many paths to enlightenment. Be sure to take the one with a heart.
~ Laozi
Don't think you can attain total awareness and whole enlightenment without proper discipline and practice. This is egomania. Appropriate rituals channel your emotions and life energy toward the light. Without the discipline to practice them, you will tumble constantly backward into darkness.
~ Laozi
Not creating delusions is enlightenment.
~ Bodhidharma
Discomfort is always a necessary part of enlightenment.
~ Pearl Cleage
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
~ Carl Jung
There are two obstacles to enlightenment: 1. Thinking you know. 2 Thinking you don't know.
~ Gautama Buddha
If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.
~ Dalai Lama
Be - don't try to become. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.
Rajneesh
You are here for no other purpose than to realize your inner divinity and manifest your inner enlightenment.
~ Morihei Ueshiba
Woman knowing this was not right but not knowing what else to do, developed the only means to fight for their survival that they had, since their survival was dependent upon men, and that was to use sexuality to survive.
~ Frederick Lenz
When you continuously know and sense yourself as the space of consciousness rather than what appears in consciousness - sense perceptions, thoughts, emotions - then it can be said that you are enlightened... except that you wouldn't think or speak of yourself as 'enlightened', because that would instantly create another mind-based conceptual identity and so it would be the end of 'your' enlightenment.
~ Eckhart Tolle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
There are certain people who people think are enlightened. The problem with the word enlightenment is what you mean by it.
~ Tenzin Palmo
There is no fundamental difference between the preparation for death and the practice of dying, and spiritual practice leading to enlightenment.
~ Stanislav Grof
Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.
~ Anthony de Mello
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.
~ Immanuel Kant
Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.
~ William Blake
Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go.
~ Rajneesh
Logic is the key to an all-inclusive spiritual well-being.
~ Marlene Dietrich
Enlightenment is finding that there is nothing to find. Enlightenment is to come to know that there is nowhere to go. Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go. You are already there - you have never been away. You cannot be away from there. God has never been missed. Maybe you have forgotten, that's all. Maybe you have fallen asleep, that's all.
~ Rajneesh
I'd been busy, busy, so busy, preparing for life, while life floated by me, quiet and swift as a regatta.
~ Lorene Cary
Those who really seek the path to Enlightenment dictate terms to their mind. Then they proceed with strong determination.
~ Gautama Buddha
In tribulation immediately draw near to God with confidence, and you will receive strength, enlightenment, and instruction.
~ John of the Cross
In your everyday life you always have opportunities for enlightenment. If you go to the rest room, there is a chance to attain enlightenment. When you cook, there is a chance to attain enlightenment. When you clean the floor, there is a chance to attain enlightenment.
~ Shunryu Suzuki
Trying to find a buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space.
~ Bodhidharma
Remember, the greatest gift to give people your enlightenment, to share it. It has to be the greatest.
~ Gautama Buddha
You may have expected that enlightenment would come ZAP! instantaneous and permanent.This is unlikely.After the first ah ha expereince, it can be thougth of as a thinning of a layer of clouds.
~ Ram Dass
And when you talk about realization, accomplishment for that matter enlightenment is that when you realize the fundamental essence of your mind.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
~ Henry David Thoreau
The miracle of enlightenment is that you take the self and let it dissolve in the white light of eternity.
~ Frederick Lenz
However many holy words you read, However many you speak, What good will they do you If you do not act on upon them?
~ Gautama Buddha
Good humor and enthusiasm should be the sunshine ahead that will keep that shadow behind.
~ Charles W. Field
If you are liberated then you can be in the crowd and there is no crowd. You can be surrounded by the world and their is no world. You have shattered the prism of illusion.
~ Frederick Lenz
All the buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be — don´t try to become. Within these two words, be and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance." Osho
~ Rajneesh
All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.
~ Benjamin Franklin
we remove ourselves from the world, we are pretending that we can follow our own individual enlightenment and let the rest of the world go to hell, so to speak.
~ Satish Kumar
The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith.
~ Michael Polanyi
Our sexual lives are maintained by the shadow side and the light side, so the more we can understand and embrace enlightenment, the less need there is for chemical enhancement.
~ Kyan Douglas
God is not anything human. God is a force, God is chaos, God is unknown. God is terror and enlightenment at the same time.
~ Ralph Fiennes
Enlightenment is not the process of learning 'new' information. It is the process of 'reminding' ourselves that the answers are already 'within our consciousness'. All knowledge, all energy, all information is within us, not outside of us. it always has been and always will be.
~ Eric Allen
Nirvana or lasting enlightenment or true spiritual growth can be achieved only through persistent exercise of real love.
~ M. Scott Peck
Enlightenment is the food that eats you.
~ Frederick Lenz
Become an alchemist. Transmute base metal into gold, suffering into consciousness, disaster into enlightenment.
~ Eckhart Tolle
There is no beginning to practice nor end to enlightenment; There is no beginning to enlightenment nor end to practice.
~ Dogen
Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.
~ Pema Chodron
Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.
~ Dogen
Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.
~ Dogen
To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.
~ Gautama Buddha
And as long as you're subject to birth and death, you'll never attain enlightenment.
~ Bodhidharma
All that we are is the result of what we have thought; what we think we become.
~ Gautama Buddha
Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own intelligence!
~ Immanuel Kant
Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
~ Gautama Buddha
In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create disticntions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.
~ Gautama Buddha
The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started.
~ T. S. Eliot
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
~ Gautama Buddha
I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.
~ Marie Curie
What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you.
~ Anthony de Mello
You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
~ Gautama Buddha
We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act.
~ Gautama Buddha
Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everythiong else.
~ Gautama Buddha
If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
~ Gautama Buddha
Watch your thoughts, they become words...
~ Laozi
The Art of Peace begins with you...
~ Morihei Ueshiba
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
~ Frank Jackson
Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habit.
~ Laozi
Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
~ Dalai Lama
Foster peace in your own life and then apply the Art to all that you encounter.
~ Morihei Ueshiba
Art trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.
~ John Lubbock
Create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path
~ Rajneesh
No one who has lived even for a fleeting moment for something other than life in its conventional sense and has experienced the exaltation that this feeling produces can then renounce his new freedom so easily.
~ Andre Breton
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
~ Alton Brown
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Watch your step.
~ Thomas S. Monson
In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves.
~ Abraham Joshua Heschel
It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.
~ Gautama Buddha
Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.
~ Gautama Buddha
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles.
~ Gautama Buddha
Everybody wants to get enlightened but nobody wants to change.
~ Andrew Cohen
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
~ Gautama Buddha
The sun is but a morning star.
~ Henry David Thoreau
The unexamined life is not worth living.
~ Socrates
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us.
~ Henry David Thoreau
What you think you become.
~ Gautama Buddha
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
~ Gautama Buddha
Concentrate the mind on the present moment.
~ Gautama Buddha
Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another.
~ Immanuel Kant
You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.
~ Galileo Galilei
One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is not so cheap, to reach to the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints. You cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind.
~ Rajneesh
All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?
~ Gautama Buddha
Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.
~ Gautama Buddha
Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.
~ Gautama Buddha
Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive - that you can touch the miracle of being alive - then that is a kind of enlightenment.
~ Nhat Hanh
According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don't bother you anymore. You become light hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous.
~ Deepak Chopra
Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.
~ Dalai Lama
To an Earthkeeper, love is not a feeling or something your barter with. Love is the essence of who you are, and it radiates from you as a brilliant aura: You become love, practice fearlessness, and attain enlightenment.
~ Alberto Villoldo
Enlightenment is a destructive process. It
has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the
crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing
through the facade of pretence. It's the
complete eradication of everything we
imagined to be true.
~ Adyashanti
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.
~ Marcus Aurelius
It is quite natural, in pursuing enlightenment or just in trying to be happier, to look to your everyday experiences for signs of results. Indeed, your daily life is nothing else but an expression of your spiritual condition. Your life will change as you become more loving, but not in ways you can exactly predict. What happens is not important as how you react to what happens.
~ Thaddeus Golas
The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this life. For it is only through meditation that you can undertake the journey to discover your true nature, and so find the stability and confidence you will need to live, and die, well; Meditation is the road to enlightenment.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
It is a special kind of enlightenment to have this feeling that the usual, the way things normally are, is odduncanny and highly improbable. G.K.Chesterton once said that it is one thing to be amazed at gorgon or a griffin, creatures which do not exist; but it is quite another and much higher thing to be amazed at a rhinoceros or a giraffe, creatures which do exist and look as if they don't. This feeling of universal oddity includes a basic and intense wondering about the sense of things.
~ Alan Watts
When we wake up from our confused state of mind, that is enlightenment.
~ Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
The enlightened world will be one in which everyone is in love with everyone all the time. We will see each other as God created us: as the perfect, loving, and lovable people we really are. The purpose of romantic love is to jump-start our enlightenment.
~ Marianne Williamson
So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger. One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it.
~ Eckhart Tolle
Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another. Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own intelligence! is therefore the motto of the enlightenment...
~ Immanuel Kant
Enlightenment is the key to everything, and it is the key to intimacy, because it is the goal of true authenticity.
~ Marianne Williamson
From a mind filled with infinite love comes the power to create infinite possibilities. We have the power to think in ways that reflect and attract all the love in the world. Such thinking is called enlightenment. Enlightenment is not a process we work toward, but a choice available to us in any instant.
~ Marianne Williamson
Being an outsider to some extent, someone who does not "fit in" with others or is rejected by them for whatever reason, makes life difficult, but it also places you at an advantage as far as enlightenment is concerned. It takes you out of unconsciousness almost by force.
~ Eckhart Tolle
The more we try and understand enlightenment the more it will elude us. And that's because enlightenment does not come from the mind. It comes form 'no-mind.' It comes form just being. You are already enlightened. You just have to realize it to allow it into your experience.
~ Anita Moorjani
Enlightenment is, in the end, nothing more than the natural state of being.
~ Adyashanti
Enlightenment means waking up to what you truly are and then being that.
~ Adyashanti
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