Monday, December 04, 2006

The chains that bind you



These are some honking chains. I believe they are used for battleships -- each link is about a foot long.

We all have many chains that binds us from being what we want to be, or all we are capable of becoming. Of course, that depends on what you want, and ultimately, that may be to realize just what your biggest chains are.

I hope these quotes help you realize that in the end, the most significant chains are all self imposed, and while they appear real and substantial like the chains in this picture, in fact they are as insubstantial as gossamer, which you will understand with the proper insight.

"The important thing is this:
To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are
for what we could become."

-- Charles Dubois

"The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove."
-- Samuel Johnson


"The mind is your past. Die to your past and you will suddenly become fully conscious. The past is nothing but dead debris. Get rid of it and you will learn how to witness. When you die to your past, to your thoughts and your memories, then you will be fully in the present. When you truly exist in the present, you are simply witnessing. The past can only exist as long as there are thoughts. When the thoughts are eliminated, the past disappears and you abide in your own Self. The Self does nothing but witness. The Self is not a person - it is Pure Awareness. It is completely detached from all phenomena. It is the state of becoming the one subject, the core of your existence."
-- Mata Amritanandamayi

"Happiness is your choice.

Something will happen today.
You will be tempted to say that it made you happy.
It won't.
You will make you happy by taking pleasure in it.

Something else will happen today.
You will be tempted to say that it made you sad or angry.
It won't.
You will make you sad or angry by taking displeasure in it.

Lots of somethings will happen today.
Will you make them happy somethings?"

-- David Leonhardt, The Happy Guy


"Happiness is a butterfly,
which, when pursued,
is always just beyond your grasp,
but which, if you will sit down quietly,
may alight upon you."

-- Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Man does not know if he will live another moment,
Yet his thoughts are ten million and more."

-- Thirukkural


Restroom sign:
"At the feast of ego everyone leaves hungry."
-- Bentley's House of Coffee and Tea, Tucson, AZ

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