Michael Jeffreys

Below are 150 quotes (actually 184... I keep adding!) I've collected that I find (and you may too) to be enlightening as well as inspirational/helpful. It is recommended that you take your time as you go through each one. A contemplative reflection of each quote will yield far more of the truth that it is pointing at than a cursory reading. Enjoy! -Michael




O seeker, These thoughts have such power over you. From nothing you become sad, From nothing you become happy. -Rumi

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Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else... you are the one getting burned.
-Zen Proverb

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If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich. -Zen Proverb

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In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.
-Dalai Lama

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Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
-Marie Curie

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So long as you are still worried about what others think of you, you are owned by them. Only when you require no approval from outside yourself can you own yourself. -Neale Donald Walsch

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Everything that occurs—everything that has occurred, is occurring, and ever will occur—is the outward physical manifestation of your innermost thoughts. –Neale Donald Walsh

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By healing the soul, sometimes the body can be healed. -John of God

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The universe is perfect, intervene at your peril.

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Just think of the trees: they let the birds perch and fly, with no intention to call them when they come and no longing for their return when they fly away. If people's hearts can be like the trees, they will not be off the Way. -Zen Proverb

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One moon shows in every pool, in every pool the one moon.
-Zen Proverb

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Joy is not in things, it is in us. -Anonymous

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Fear only comes in with the concept of 'I'. - John Wheeler

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There is no Death for anyone. Why? Because there is no separate "You" to die!
-Michael Jeffreys

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True love simply does not see any fragmentation. It sees and loves the whole because it is the whole looking at itself. -Scott Kiloby

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Your identity is determined by whatever thoughts of past arise in present awareness. -Scott Kiloby

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Time is thought. You cannot touch past or future except through thinking. -Scott Kiloby

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When my heart is open, LOVE is my experience. When my heart is closed, FEAR is my experience. When I look into the eyes of a new born, LOVE is my experience. When I watch the news, FEAR is my experience. And when I allow ALL experiences to be exactly as they are, PEACE is my experience. And when I let go of ALL experiences, there is just this moment, exactly as it is. And that is more than enough... -Michael Jeffreys

(This photo and the one below were taken  at beautiful Douglas Park in Santa Monica on the evening of 2-8-08)

When you have a disease in the body, those bacteria or microbes have as much right to life as we do. -Sailor Bob Adamson

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If you take away all beliefs, none of this ever happened. -Jac O'Keeffe

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All searching is driven by thought; even the attaining of enlightenment does not exist beyond a concept. - Jac O'keeffe

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When you realize you are, in your essence, the same, beautiful person you took your teacher to be, you will be free.
-Jim Dreaver

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When I walk into a room, I know that everyone in it loves me. I just don't expect them to realize it yet. -Byron Katie

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Believing what you think is very painful. -Byron Katie

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You see, to me, to argue with reality is to argue with God.
-Byron Katie

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I look at my own story the same as I would someone else's. They are both just stories. It's natural for us to be without the story. I am a lover of reality. When you live from 'what is' you always get your way. -Byron Katie

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All you know is the inarticulable fact that you are and that you are in this wildness. -John Sherman

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The simple fact of being, your own presence, is the changeless constant. It is doubtless, clear, beyond questions and undeniable. It is the very ground from which the mind, the body and the universe emerge. -John Wheeler

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I express who I am by simply being it. -Jason Nelson





There is absolutely nothing to do or fix - ever. Doing and fixing are outgrowths of imagining a separate person and a 'doer'. Is there really any entity in there doing anything, making anything happen at all? Or are thoughts, feelings and perceptions spontaneously appearing? If so, then all is happening as it is bound to happen, and there is no basis for imagining 'doership'.
-John Wheeler

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Essence is emptiness. Emptiness brings peace to your loving. Everything else, disease. In this world of trickery, emptiness is what your soul wants. -Rumi

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The very search for pleasure is the cause of pain. -Sri Nisargadatta

(The great Indian sage is pointing out that happiness can only exist in the present moment (along with everything else), so the very act of searching takes you away from happiness, and thus pain and suffering arises! -mj)

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Consciousness cannot be known by the mind.The mind is an object. It does not know anything. It is itself known by Consciousness.
- Rupert Spira

(This one is worth spending some time on. What it is pointing at can make all the difference in the world! -mj)

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The space that is being looked for is the space that is looking.
-Rupert Spira

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Let go of what has passed. Let go of what may come. Let go of what is happening now. Don't try to figure anything out. Don't try to make anything happen. Relax, right now, and rest. -Tilopa

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My life is a succession of events, just like yours. Only I am detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while you stick to things and move along with them.
- Sri Nisargadatta

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Your high opinion of me is your opinion only. Any moment you may change it. Why attach importance to opinions, even your own?
- Sri Nisargadatta

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Worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you any where.
- Zen proverb

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Only when you can understand yourself as All Pervading Consciousness can you possibly understand that all the universe is an emanation of your mind. Everything that you see comes out of you.
- Robert Adams

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EVERYTHING is a concept!!! EVERYTHING! So, who are you without concepts?
-Michael Jeffreys

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At my core I am Aware Emptiness, and it is because I am empty that I am able to be filled, because I am no-thing that I am capacity for everything.
- J.C. Amberchele

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Separation is an illusion created by thought.
-Scott Kiloby

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Don't personalize your experience.

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The longest journey there is is from the head to the heart.

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If we think that we know something objective about ourselves or the world, then whatever that something is that we think we know will condition our subsequent enquiry into the nature of experience. -Rupert Spira

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Consciousness becomes dimmed chiefly through one's captivation and abiding interest in external objects.
- Sri Atmananda (Atma Darshan)

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You can't have fear without need.
-Candace Silvers

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If you can think about, it's not the truth.
-Robert Adams

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You are the knower of your body, senses and mind, but the knower can never be known, because you are it and there's nobody to know it. It can never become an object of observation because it is your totality.

(What Pandiji, one of Jean Klein's earliest teachers, said to Jean that helped him glimpse reality. From the book, Transmission of the Flame.)

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If there is attachment to it, there will be suffering. -Jac O'Keeffe

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When the idea of the objects falls away gradually, and attention is more and more fixed upon the awareness, it will be seen that it is Reality which pervades everyhing. -Atma Darshan

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You cannot change what you are inside by changing conditions. -Robert Adams

(This is one of the deepest quotes I have ever read. If you fully understand, if you see, what Robert is pointing at here, awakening can happen. There is a part of you that never changes. Forget about your life circumstances. Stay with the changeless that is always present. Feel it. It is you. Everything else is not.)

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If you have conditioning, you cannot awaken. -Robert Adams

(Meaning anything you believe yourself to be keeps you tied to the body/mind. Let go of it all! It is not you! Nothing you can be aware of is you. As soon as you think about this, it is no longer it because then you have left the absolute and gone into mind/conditioning. Just BE. There is nothing to do and nowhere to go.)

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Where real happiness exists, you do not. -Gina Lake

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This moment is the final destination. 'This' is as much God as it gets. -Florian Schlosser

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The seeking comes to an end when it is seen that the seeker never existed. -Michael Jeffreys

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Your experiences cannot tell you who you are; they do not define you in any way. Only the concepts that you hold about yourself to be true can be influenced by your experiences. -Jac O'Keeffe

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Searching for "it" is keeping you in the belief that the movie is real. -Jac O'Keeffe

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Time is the interval between two thoughts. So without thoughts, there is no time! -Richard Miller

(Sharing what someone told him during his interview with Chuck Hillig on Never Not Here.)

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You learned your thoughts, beliefs and identity. Why then would you imagine you can't unlearn them? -Isira

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There is the limited mind's world and there is present reality. Each moment provides a new opportunity to choose which one to experience. In other words, what you did 1 second ago is ancient history. All that matters is right now. -Michael Jeffreys

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I used to be into 'self-help,' until it became clear that the self I thought needed help doesn't even exist! -Michael Jeffreys

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What you assume yourself to be doesn't exist. -Charlie Hayes

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When nothing satisfies, general motivation to live lessons. In truth, this is a moment to be celebrated. Arriving at the place where you know that there must be more to life and to you is an opening, not a dead end. -Jac O'keeffe

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The only thing that can stop you from feeling happiness is you. To continue to look outside for something that is already inside only serves to distract you from looking within. -Jac O'keeffe

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The freedom you look for is where you look from. -Jac O'Keeffe

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The observer and the observed are appearances within awareness.

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Suffering seems real because we don't have a clear understanding of our true nature. Instead, we believe the passing thoughts, such as 'I am no good,'I am not there yet,' 'I am stuck' or whatever the thought may be. Eventually we understand that we are not those thoughts. Once our real self is pointed out, the suffering loses its grip.
-John Wheeler

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Beyond right thinking and wrong thinking there is a field. I'll meet you there. -Rumi

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Truth begins where thought ends.

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The world is as you are. -David Lynch

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I am not the knower, nor the known, nor the knowing. These three are not real. They only seem to be when I am not known.
- Ashtavakra Gita

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Two from one! This is the root of suffering. -Ashtavakra Gita

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It does not matter what goes on in the mind, it really doesn't. -Mooji

(The mind's thoughts are only important to the mind. Since YOU are not your mind, believing them to be important keeps you attached to your mind.-mj)

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What you are, in actuality, is nothing (no-thing)... so you have nothing to lose! -Michael Jeffreys

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The mind deals and operates exclusively in the realm of thought. Since "you" are not a thought, it cannot know "you." -Michael Jeffreys

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By accepting what is you become bigger than what is.
-Eckhart Tolle

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As things are interpreted or labeled by the mind they slowly cease to be what they are and start to become what is thought about them. -John Greven

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Seeking is simply a game that is played until the recognition that there is nothing to find. -Unmani Liza Hyde

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In not-knowing there is no doubt. In not-knowing there is absolute clarity. Simply the direct recognition of what is. This is what I am. I am Life itself. -Unmani Liza Hyde

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When we attempt to limit the unlimited, suffering occurs.
-Michael Jeffreys

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Many of our ideas and beliefs about ourselves and the world are so deeply ingrained that we are unaware that they are beliefs and take them, without question, for the absolute truth. - Rupert Spira

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The dilemma for the individual is NOT that it can't get what it wants, the dilemma IS the individual. -Tony Parsons

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It's not a doing, but a recognition. -Swami Premodaya

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You go from reacting to observing. There is an emotional disconnection that must take place; non-attachment. This doesn't mean not feeling anything, but being okay with whatever outcome manifests. -Swami Premodaya

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We are actors in a play who have forgotten they are in a play.
-Swami Premodaya

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Once you have been in deep water, your experience of going into shallow water is never the same. -Swami Premodaya

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Did you ever stop to realize—the only one that thinks thinking is so special, is that very same thinking? –Peter Francis Dziuban

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There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind--you are the one who hears it.
-Michael A. Singer

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The past is thinking and thinking is the past. It's the same.
- Florian Schlosser

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Let the moment decide your response.

(My neighbor and I were discussing the recent Air-France plane crash, and since he just returned from India, I asked him how he would react if his flight were going down. His response was beautiful... "I would let the moment decide.")

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Suppressing activity to reach stillness just creates agitation. -zenbitchslap.com

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Looking closely, you see it's always the stuff you seem to be aware of that's changing and passing, never Awareness itself. Awareness, all by itself alone, is present as pure Being, a changeless presence which simply, immovably is. -Peter Francis Dziuban

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It turns out that the source of everything is also who you are. Since the source of everything doesn't come and go, it must be here right now, in this very moment. -Nirmala

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Consciousness simply never leaves being present—and
one cannot have a memory of the present. -Peter Francis Dziuban

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The root of all suffering is desire. -Buddha

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Whatever you are pushing against, you are stuck to. -Werner Erhard

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It’s amazing what an unlimited well of energy you have when you are insanely clear about your purpose in life. - Jonathan Nasman

(Someone emailed me and asked a good question: "Michael, if there is no "you," how can "you" have a purpose?" The answer is that in the Absolute sense you can't, since "you" don't exist, and without a "you," there is no one there to have anything!

But on a relative level, that which your body-mind organism operates in, you most definitely have a purpose. And to discover what yours is, all you need do is ask one question: "How is Life calling me to serve it?" If you hold this question in your heart, eventually the answer will come to you much clearer than if you try to figure it out using your mind.)

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Enlightenment is the falling away of the sense of personal doership.
-Wayne Liquorman

(When you see that you are not the one creating your moment-to-moment experience, but that life is unfolding perfectly (of course, not the ego's definition of perfection), resistance to what is drops away and you are free to just experience the fullness of the moment. -mj)

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If you can't improve on silence, don't speak. -Zen Proverb

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There can never be an "enlightened person," there is only the realization that there is no separation. -Halina Pytlasinka'

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The biggest mistake is: "My mind has created the thought, my brain has created the thought." No! Every thought, however simple or complicated, comes from outside, and your brain reacts to that thought according to your genes and conditioning. -Ramesh Balsekar

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So the question Who am I? is not an idle one. How you answer the question will determine how you live the rest of your life. It will determine the quality of your life. -Neale Donald Walsch

You are this moment itself. Anything you add to it is an illusion.

–Michael Jeffreys

The moment--the now--is like a river, which carries you forward, ever-changing and ever moving. You either flow with this now or reject it and fight it, but that doesn't stop the flow; it only determines your experience of it.

-Gina Lake

As long as there is a 'you' doing or not doing, thinking or not-thinking, meditating or not-meditating, you are no closer to home than the day you were born. -Wei Wu Wei

This bundle of ideas that we have held as being who we are is not actually the one who can make progress in the spiritual realm.

–Alice Gardner

Free, we are not the number One, the first of all our objects, but Zero - their universal and Absolute Subject.

- Wei Wu Wei

Desire and fear walk hand in hand. –Katie Davis

(I took these two photos at beautiful Douglas Park in Santa Monica on the evening of 2-8-08).


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