INSPIRING QUOTES &
POEMS
I count him braver who overcomes his own fears and anxieties
Praise and blame, gain and loss,
Hatred never ceases by hatred,
by George Washington Carver
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young,
from A Course in Miracles
Forgive the past and let it go…for it is gone…
The energy and consciousness of the divine
by Yogi Amrit Desai (Swami Kripalu's student/originator of Kripalu yoga)
You are the creator.
by Hafiz
Even after all this time
by contemporary Buddhist teacher, Jack Kornfield:
Sometimes love means standing firm.
In the end, when we look at our life,
By Swami Kripalu:
by W.N. Murray, 1951 (Scottish Himalayan Expedition)
Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw
Poem by Rumi: "The Guest House"
Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing
By Robert Thurman
Don't ask yourself what the world needs.
The day will come when with elation
Give wine, give bread, give back your heart to itself,
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
in alphabetical order
than him who conquers his enemies.
For the hardest victory, is the victory over oneself.
by the Buddha:
pleasure and pain, fame and disrepute,
are the eight worldly winds.
They ceaselessly change.
As a mountain is unshaken by the wind,
so the heart of a wise person
is unshaken by all the changes on this earth.
but by love alone is healed.
This is the ancient and eternal law.
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it
or who said it, not even if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense.
There are those who discover they can leave
behind destructive reactions and become
patient as the earth, unmoved by fires of anger
or fear...unperturbed as a clear and quiet pool.
compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving,
and tolerant of the weak and of the wrong.
Because someday you will have been all of these.
You have gone on and reached the world that lies at heaven's gate…
Look gently on your brother, and behold the world in which
perception of your hate has been transformed into a world of love.
by Dadaji (Swami Kripalu's teacher):
saturate the entire field of mind and matter.
Don't cling to limited forms and beliefs ….
Learn to investigate the truth directly.
See for yourself the nature of the world.
Whatever you think,
that is what you create,
and that is what you become.
Santosha means contentment. It is the ability to tolerate and digest
all the opposing experiences of duality with the equanimity of an ocean.
Even though rivers flood into the ocean, it remains unperturbed, allowing
all waters, whether still or rushing, to enter its vastness. Similarly,
the yogi lives in the world, yet remains content, despite the ebbs and
flows of life.
The sun never says to the earth,
"You owe me."
Look what happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole world.
Sometimes love means letting go.
Sometimes love means letting be.
Love blossoms whenever we step
beyond our fears and rest
in the generosity of the heart.
the questions will be simple:
Did I live fully?
Did I love well?
My beloved child, break your heart no longer.
Each time you judge yourself, you break your own heart.
You stop feeding on the love, which is the wellspring of your vitality.
The time has come. Your time. To live. To celebrate,
and to see the goodness that you are…
Do not fight the dark. Just turn on the light.
Let go, and breathe into the goodness that you are.
back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative,
there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills
countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely
commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things
occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one's
favor all manor of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material
assistance, which no man or woman could have dreamt would
have come his or her way. I have a deep respect for one of
Goethe's couplets: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can --
begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
This being human is a guest house, every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture.
Still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
and invite them in. Be grateful of whoever comes
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Ask yourself what makes you come alive
And go do that, because what the world needs
Is people who have come alive.
Poem by Derrick Walcott: "Love After Love"
you will greet yourself, ariving at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome saying:
Sit here, eat. You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
to the stranger who has loved you all your life,
whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart.
the photographs, the desperate notes.
Peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit, feast on your life. Feast on your life.
