Iyanla Vanzant Quotes

Do you know that the words meditation and medicine come from the same root? Meditation is a kind of medicine; its use is only for the time being. Once you have learned the quality, then you need not do any particular meditation, then the meditation has to spread all over your life. Only when you are meditative twenty-four hours a day then can you attain, then you have attained. Even sleeping is meditation.

By consciously meditating upon spiritual truths and cultivating personal integrity, one need never fear negative circumstances.

Meditation is a way of moving into the unlimited dimension of who you are - it is the ultimate freedom.

Great spiritual traditions are used as a means to ripen us, to bring us face to face with our life, and to help us to see in a new way by developing a stillness of mind and a strength of heart.

Meditation is such a more substantial reality than what we normally take to be reality.

If you have faith, then your whole life is put in a new perspective. You get to work but enjoy the work at the same time. If you grow spiritually, you do what's in front of you and let the results speak for themselves.

To realize that you are not your thoughts is when you begin to awaken spiritually.

I pray, read the word, and then creative stuff happens here. Problem-solving and all of that comes into that space. So 'Da Box' actually represents my sanctuary and that time. I might look trapped in a box, but I'm actually more free in that box than anyone on the outside looking in or in any other space in my life.

Wisdom happens through meditation, and bliss also happens through meditation. Both the flowers bloom on the same branch.

Meditation, then, is not so much a part of this or that particular religion, but rather part of the universal spiritual culture of all humankind--an effort to bring awareness to bear on all aspects of life. It is, in other words, part of what has been called the perennial philosophy.

Unless we possess high spiritual qualifications, there is no doubt that the events life throws upon us will give rise to frustration, emotional turmoil, and other distorted states of consciousness. These imperfect states of mind in turn give rise to imperfect activities, and the seeds of suffering are ever planted in a steady flow.

For many people, the first indication of a spiritual awakening is that they suddenly become aware of their thoughts. They become a witness to their thoughts, so to speak. They are not completely identified with their mind anymore and so they begin to sense that there is a depth to them that they had never known before.

While doing sadhana you must quieten your mind and keep awake the Purusha consciousness behind all your activities.

Meditation is not a withdrawal from life. Meditation is a process of understanding oneself.

Meditation is the golden key to all the mysteries of life.

Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.

Meditation is the straight flight of the mind to the Kingdom of Heaven present in the heart of everyone.

Meditation is simply a strange surgical method which cuts you away from all that is not yours and saves only that which is your authentic being. It burns everything else and leaves you standing naked, alone under the sun, in the wind. It is as if you are the first man who has descended onto earth—who knows nothing, who has to discover everything, who has to be a seeker, who has to go on a pilgrimage.

Meditation is simply a strange surgical method that cuts you away from all that is not yours and saves only that which is your authentic being.

It’s perfectly natural for me to sit down and talk about meditating and spiritual practice with my friends. But then I realize, how would it sound to a drunk cynical guy in London?

Meditation will change your life for the better, enhance your physical health, improve your sleep, and help you achieve your goals, both material and spiritual.

. . . in the spiritual life you must practice. And the only way to practice is by trying to solve your problems with prayer. This develops your spiritual power and it also trains you to use that spiritual power in the most effective way.

I think that all the spiritual training is just to be able to allow you to experience this from a slightly different perspective - one that's a little more stabilized.

If you are in a state of intense presence you are free of thought, yet highly alert. If your conscious attention sinks below a certain level, thought rushes in, the mental noise returns, stillness is lost, you're back in time.

One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: you bear with them until they somehow solve themselves. Or until life solves them for you.