Synopsis: Live in the moments, it’s all you have, it’s all you ever will have.
Key Takeaways
Page 14 – Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction
Page 15 – Basic error: to equate thinking with being and identify with thinking
Page 15 – Identification with your mind comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God
Page 15 – you are one with all that is
Page 16 – Thinking has become a disease, your mind uses you. You believe that you are your mind.
Page 17 – Start watching the thinker
Page 18 – Be there as the witnessing presence, listen to it impartially, do not judge or condemn
Page 21 – Learn to disidentify from your mind
Page 26 – If you really want to know your mind, the body will always give you a truthful reflection
Page 27 – But don’t analyse, just watch
Page 34 – The mind covers up the present moment with past and future
Page 35 – Don’t create any more time, or at least no more than is necessary to deal with the practical aspects of your life. Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it
Page 39 – Everything is shown up by being exposed to the light, and whatever is exposed to the light itself becomes light. Watching it is enough. Watching it implies accepting it as part of what is at that moment
Page 40 – Watch
Page 46 – Die before you die – and find that there is no death
Page 50 – Nothing ever happened in the past: it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future, it will happen in the Now
Page 54 – The mind cannot know the tree. It can only know facts or information about the tree. My mind cannot know you, only labels, judgements, facts and opinions about you.
Page 55 – Through self-observation, more presence comes into your life automatically. Whenever you are able to observe your mind, you are no longer trapped in it. Don’t judge or analyze what you observe. Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction
Page 69 – Of course, but you will not have illusory expectations that anything or anybody in the future will save you or make you happy.
Page 69 – Yet on a deeper level you are already complete, you are free of “becoming”
Page 70 – Nothing real can be threatened
Page 75 – They are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something. They are always uneasy and restless. We don’t know what they want. We think they are mad
Page 82 – To complain is always nonacceptance. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary, or possible leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness
Page 121 – Before you enter the temple, forgive
Page 127 – The being of the other person underneath the words and the mind. Of course, you cannot feel someone else’s Being except through your own
Page 136 – Just as no sound can exist without silence, nothing can exist without no-thing, without empty space that enables it to be
Page 138 – Pay attention to “nothing”
Page 147 – There is nothing you can ever do to attain that will get you closer to salvation that it is at this moment
Page 154 – Stop judging yourself, then you stop judging your partner. The greatest catalyst for change in a relationship is complete acceptance of your partner as he or she is
Page 158 – All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter
Page 179 – Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?
Page 188 – To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease and lightness. You may not be happy, but you will be at peace
Page 188 – All negativity is resistance
Page 189 – It only useful function is that it strengthens the ego and that is why the ego loves it
Page 189 – Negativity is totally unnatural (think of a baby boy/girl always positive)
Page 193 – Instead of having a wall of resistance inside you that gets constantly and painfully hit by things that “should not be happening” let everything pass through you
Page 193 – Offer no resistance. It is as if there is nobody there to get hurt anymore. That is forgiveness
Page 194 – Don’t look for any other state than the one you are in now, otherwise you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.
Page 217 – Surrender is inner acceptance of what is without any reservations. We are talking about your life – this instant – not the conditions or circumstances of your life, not what I call your life situation.
Page 220 – Your first chance is to surrender each moment to the reality of that moment. Knowing that what is cannot be undone – because it already is – you say yes to what is or accept what isn’t. Then you do what you have to do, whatever the situation requires
Page 221 – Do not resist the pain. Allow it to be there. Surrender to the grief, despair, loneliness or whatever form the suffering takes
Page 222 – When there is no way out, there is still always a way through. So don’t run away from the pain. Face it. Feel it fully. Feel it – don’t think about it. Express it if necessary, but don’t create a script in your mind around it.
Page 223 – Full attention is full acceptance, is surrender
Final Thoughts – Its been a few months since I read this book but I already know that I will be reading it again. The lessons here aresimple yet profound but very hard for me to absorb. I know allot of the suffereing in my life comes from not living in the moment. I still remember back packing through South America worrying about what I would do when I got back home. 9/10
Stranger in Sydney 