Bertrand Russell Quotes

I have achieved an inner freedom.

Life is not accomplishing some special work but attaining to a degree of consciousness and inner freedom which is beyond all works and attainments.

Words mean little unless you realize the truth of it yourself. And when you do, you'll be free at last.

We must always bear in mind that we are not going to be free, but are free already. Every idea that we are bound is a delusion.

You are already free. You only have to know and realize this truth.

That mind which understands itself is the mind of a free man.

We must become free. We are free; the work is to know it. We must give up all slavery, all bondage of whatever kind. We must not only give up our bondage to earth and everything and everybody on earth, but also to all ideas of heaven and happiness.

The only way to find happiness is to understand that happiness is not out there. It's in here. And happiness is not next week. It's now.

To become truly free, you must surrender.

I feel like a man who has been asleep somewhat and under someone else's control. I feel that what I'm thinking and saying is now for myself. Before it was for and by the guidance of Elijah Muhammad. Now I think with my own mind, sir!

Men are not free when they're doing just what they like. Men are only free when they're doing what the deepest self likes. And there is getting down to the deepest self! It takes some diving.

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.

Life is bliss. It is unbounded, deep within; and it is full of boundaries outside. So we advise the people to turn the attention within, experience that unbounded wholeness of life, and bring the mind out fully saturated with that--start to live unboundedness in the field of boundaries.

Truly free people do not need to be told they are free.

I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment.

I teach that the foundation for our practice is being able to go inward and disconnect from the busyness of our thoughts, that focusing the mind on bodily sensations and breath will ground us in the present moment. Yoga is about realizing who you really are, aside from your persona.

I’ve often said that I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame, so that they could see that it’s not where they’re gonna find their sense of completion. Like many of you, I was concerned about going out into the world and doing something bigger than myself, until someone smarter than myself made me realize that there is nothing bigger than myself. My soul is not contained within the limits of my body, my body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul.

Understand the obstructions you are putting in the way of love, freedom, and happiness and they will drop. Turn on the light of awareness and the darkness will disappear. Happiness is not something you acquire; love is not something you produce; love is not something you have; love is something that has you.

The chief requirement of the good life, is to live without any image of oneself.

Love, joy, and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance.

Once I looked in the mirror and decided this is who I am, and I'm not scared of who I am, and I'm not scared that I can't be like you, and I'm good with just doing me, that's when I found myself, as a man.

The happy man is he who knows his limitations, yet bows to no false gods.

No outward thing - nothing, nobody from without - can hurt me inside, psychologically. I recognized that I could only be hurt psychologically by my own wrong actions, which I have control over; by my own wrong reactions (they are tricky, but I have control over them too); or by my own inaction in some situations, like the present world situation, that need action from me. When I recognized all this how free I felt! And I just stopped hurting myself.

When you get to a higher level of consciousness, though, when you get into a spiritual approach to life, you are not trying to get someplace else...