Etty Hillesum Quotes

It is so powerful when we can leave behind our ordinary identities, no longer think of ourselves primarily as a conductor, or writer, or salesclerk, and go to a supportive environment to deeply immerse in meditation practice.

I listen to music a lot, if I need to get into a particular space. I do stretching and breathing, and take time to mostly be quiet and find the stillness. I think that's important.

I have never got on with the quietist movements: they lapse too easily into self-congratulations: I have found the oneness, you have not. I prefer to look outside myself if I possibly can, not inside. Meditation reminds me too forcibly of being made to lie on a mat at nursery school and take an hour's nap.

So the best thing is to really work on yourself and opening your own heart and just letting all that stuff [worrying] go. And it is possible. It's sometimes takes a lot of time; it's not easy. And a lot of sitting with yourself and trying to work with your own heart.

In deep self-acceptance grows a compassionate understanding. As one Zen master said when I asked if he ever gets angry, 'Of course I get angry, but then a few minutes later I say to myself, 'What's the use of this,' and I let it go.'

The essence of meditation is a period of time set aside to contemplate the Lord, listen to Him, and allow Him to permeate our spirits.

When there is no mind, you are in yoga; when there is mind you are not in yoga. So you may do all the postures, but if the mind goes on functioning, if you go on thinking, you are not in yoga.

Whenever you step out of the noise of thinking, that is meditation, and a different state of consciousness arises.

In the beginning of my twenties, I started transcendental meditation. For years I did nothing else. Every holiday I went to courses. Meditation is a real simple instrument. You don't need a long beard or a sari. It's meant to bring you to yourself. It's as easy as that. And that's what it's all about, being alone with yourself every day, for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening.

When you begin to meditate on a regular basis, you will start to notice that thoughts and feelings that may have been building up inside of you are gently released and you reach the quiet place that was always there, waiting for you- the place of pure awareness. It is there that you will experience peace, healing, and true rejuvenation.

There is a quiet, open place in the depths of the mind, to which we can go many times in the day and lift up our soul in praise, thankfulness and conscious unity. With practise this God-ward turn of the mind becomes an almost constant direction, underlying all our other activities.

I learned from my parents to do my best to not react to negative emotions. I try to think about what has happened and find the lessons that can be learned from these difficult experiences. I try to deal with these negative emotions right away because, if they stay inside, they can hurt and do a lot of damage. I release them as soon as possible so I can be free.

When you really laugh, for those few moments you are in a deep meditative state. Thinking stops. It is impossible to laugh and think together...If you are still thinking. laughter will be just so-so...It will be a crippled laughter.

It is when judgment ceases that healing occurs.

The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation. In meditation we divest ourselves of all material condition and feel our divine nature.

I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen, And accrue what I hear into myself...and let sound contribute toward me.

"We don't take sufficient time to meditate." I get up early in the morning...five o'clock, when my mind and spirit are clear and rested. Then I meditate.

Prayer draws us near to our own souls.

I notice that when I feel the most disconnected, once I'm done blaming the moon and everything else, I can see that I am so mired in identification with form and ego and story and identity, and that if I want to, I can read some scripture or read some spiritual book or pray or meditate or sit in the sun or hang around the birds and the dogs, and get a real objective sense of what's really going on here. That usually softens things.

The way to develop inner peace through meditation begins with the recognition that the destroyer of inner peace is not some external foe, but is within us. Therefore, the solution is within us too. However, that inner change does not take place immediately in the way that we switch on a light, but takes weeks, months and years.

Love is the flowering of meditation. Meditation brings many treasures; perhaps love is the greatest roseflower that grows on the bush of meditation.

When you enter a new experience, all that requires healing rushes to the surface . . . You have to pause.

Spiritual growth-looking inward-is replacing the pursuit of external power-reaching outward to manipulate and control-as the cure for the insecurity at the core of human experience.

The more you meditate, the more helpful you can be to others, and the more deeply you will be in tune with God.