Nathaniel Branden Quotes

I loved reading the Dalai Lama's words: My religion is loving-kindness. I realized that meant loving-kindness to everyone in my life: past, present, and future; and that meant loving-kindness to myself-in my pain, in my jealousy, in my fear.

Each of us has a genuine capacity for love, forgiveness, wisdom and compassion. Meditation awakens these qualities so that we can discover for ourselves the unique happiness that is our birthright.

So many of us start along the spiritual path because we are suffering. But you must realize that for real healing to occur, there must first be deep compassion for yourself, especially the parts of yourself you dislike or consider ugly.

When we start out on a spiritual path we often have ideals we think we're supposed to live up to. We feel we're supposed to be better than we are in some way. But with this practice you take yourself completely as you are. Then ironically, taking in pain - breathing it in for yourself and all others in the same boat as you are heightens your awareness of exactly where you're stuck.

If you want to understand yourself, Then do not examine yourself. Just love yourself more sincerely, More soulfully And more self-givingly.

If you go deeper and deeper into your own heart, you'll be living in a world with less fear, isolation and loneliness.

My first book, 'Radical Acceptance', grew out of the suffering of feeling personally deficient and unworthy. Because most of us are so quick to turn against ourselves, the teachings and practices of radical acceptance continue as a strong current in 'True Refuge': nurturing a forgiving, understanding heart is a basic step on the path.

Well, I think everyone struggles with self-love.

I've been praying to God to show me how to forgive myself. Because... maybe... that's the thing I've been searching for.

I tend to say faith is believing in life, and as I love life, I try to do the best with it, make it as serene and joyous as possible.

It took me a very long time to be comfortable in my own skin.

Whatever your religion, you have to find internal happiness, which I found.

I know firsthand how long it takes to learn how to love yourself.

In my own personal life, it's been pretty hard navigating love, and so I've found this kind of contentment in loving myself and waiting for the world to catch up.

Eat the pain. Send it back into the void as love.

See If You Can Give Yourself Gifts That May Be True Blessings, Such As Self-Acceptance

Silence tells the seeker in us to love, to love himself. It tells us it is wrong to hate ourselves because of our imperfections. When the seeker loves himself, loves the Divine within himself, he eventually realises the Ultimate Truth.

Your pain is a school unto itself–– and your joy a lovely temple.

The greatest value comes from loving yourself for who you are. I've been teaching myself this for years, so I hope that by showing what I've learned, others can find the same freedom and joy I have.

The transformative power of love is not fully embraced in our society because we often wrongly believe that torment and anguish are our ‘natural’ condition.

Your real being only flowers with unconditional love. Ambition is against love. Anything that is against love is against you and your real life.

Meditation means: put the mind aside and watch. The first step - LOVE YOURSELF - will help you tremendously. By loving yourself you will have destroyed much that society has implanted within you. You will have become freer from the society and its conditioning.

As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else. All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.

It's an inside job to learn about forgiving, it's an inside job to hang on to the joy of living.

There's nothing more important on our spiritual path than developing gentleness to oneself.