Inner Detachment Quotes

But the disappearance of the effort to let go is precisely the disappearance of the separate thinker, of the ego trying to watch the mind without interfering.

As a water bead on a lotus leaf, as water on a red lily, does not adhere, so the sage does not adhere to the seen, the heard, or the sensed.

In exactly the same way, ... scatter your body, your feeling, your perception, your predispositions, your discriminative consciousness, break them up, knock them down, cease to play with them, apply yourself to the destruction of craving for them. Verily, ... the extinction of craving is Nirvana.

Despise all those things which when liberated from the body you will not want; invoke the Gods to become your helpers.

Renunciation is the background of all religious thought wherever it be, and you will always find that as this idea of renunciation lessens, the more will the senses creep into the field of religion, and spirituality will decrease in the same ratio.

Cut the bondage of all worldly affections; go beyond laziness and all care as to what becomes of you.

Christ dwells in that heart most eminently that hath emptied itself of itself.

Peace ... was contingent upon a certain disposition of the soul, a disposition to receive the gift that only detachment from self made possible.

One should remain as a witness to whatever happens, adopting the attitude, 'Let whatever strange things that happens happen, let us see!' This should be one's practice. Nothing happens by accident in the divine scheme of things.

All the classical meditation traditions, in one way or another, stress nonattachment to the self as a goal of practice. Oddly, this dimension is largely ignored in scientific research, which tends to focus on health and other such benefits. I suppose the difference has to do with the contrast in views of the self from the spiritual and scientific perspectives. Scientists value the self; spiritual traditions have another perspective.

I don't interest myself that much.

I have to confess that I had gambled on my soul and lost it with heroic insouciance and lightness of touch. The soul is so impalpable, so often useless, and sometimes such a nuisance, that I felt no more emotion on losing it than if, on a stroll, I had mislaid my visiting card.