Awakened Heart Quotes & Sayings

You Americans. You suppress the body of its desires, and treat the heart as if it is a wild animal to be tamed, so that when those things are awakened in you , they have the strength of ravenous lions, too long imprisoned. — Louisa Edwards

Virtue tested: Have I not survived hunger and thirst, suffering, and mockery for the sake of the truth which heaven has awakened in my heart? — Khalil Gibran

I walked up to the stairs and with my first step my eyes caught a pair of green emerald eyes, the face darkened by the corner it was hiding in. But the green eyes were clear, standing out like a beacon. Stopping dead, my heart skipped a few beats. I know those eyes, how can I forget them? Chax. — Karen Swart

Pema calls these activities "the six ways of compassionate living": generosity, patience, discipline, exertion, meditation, and prajna, or wisdom. The basis for all these practices is the cultivation of maitri, an unconditional loving-kindness with ourselves that says, "Start where you are." In Buddhist terms, this path is known as bodhisattva activity. Simply put, a bodhisattva is one who aspires to act from an awakened heart. In terms of the Shambhala teachings, it is the path of warriorship. To join these two streams, Pema likes to use the term warrior-bodhisattva, which implies a fresh and forward-moving energy that is willing to enter into suffering for others' benefit. Such action relates to overcoming the self-deception, self-protection, and other habitual reactions that we use to keep ourselves secure - in a prison of concepts. By gently and precisely cutting through these barriers of ego, we develop a direct experience of bodhichitta. — Pema Chodron

You do not need any preacher or prophet to learn about God. The teaching is spread on the trees and the mountains, on the stars and the river, on the Sun and the moon. The ultimate teaching is written in your heart. You just need to wake up and see. — Banani Ray

When once the Heart is awakened, every single moment 'in-time' is a treasure to beheld — AainaA-Ridtz

Offend in neither word nor deed. Eat with moderation. Live in your heart. Seek the highest consciousness. Master yourself according to the law. This is the simple teaching of the awakened. — Gautama Buddha

Anne, look here. Can't we be good friends?"
For a moment Anne hesitated. She had an odd, newly awakened consciousness under all her outraged dignity that the half-shy, half-eager expression in Gilbert's hazel eyes was something that was very good to see. Her heart gave a quick, queer little beat. But the bitterness of her old grievance promptly stiffened up her wavering determination. That scene of two years before flashed back into her recollection as vividly as if it had taken place yesterday. Gilbert had called her "carrots" and had brought about her disdain before the whole school. Her resentment, which to other and older people might be as laughable as its cause, was in no whit allayed and softened by time seemingly. She hated Gilbert Blythe! She would never forgive him! — L.M. Montgomery

Intentional living will eradicate the need of excuse as well as the constant submission to distraction. Allow yourself to "become wealthy in self-significance!" Allow yourself to become enriched in Spirit. Remember, there is no trouble. Trouble is "created" and established when we "see ourselves inferior" to what we are facing. When we lack power, we lack movement! When we lack hope, we lack momentum! Trouble will disappear "as soon as our Mindset becomes enriched!" When we can afford to see things clearly, without depression or self-doubt, we have awakened our new heart! — Undrai Fizer

At the deepest level, an 'open heart' is spacious presence, in which the sense of separateness between yourself and the 'other' dissolves and there is the recognition of oneness, of shared consciousness. That recognition is love. Sensing the formless essence in another and recognizing it as one with your own essence - that's what love is. All this is an intrinsic part of the awakened consciousness and the revelation of the spiritual dimension of life. — Eckhart Tolle

I needed to pay attention, to be ready to step through and descend into it, whatever it was. It felt archetypal. Something in me was being slain in the fires of pain so that some new thing could be born. I knew it and went with it, and in the alchemy of my pain, like flowers whose seeds open only in the presence of fire, tendrils of something new began to sprout. Pain for me was a Trojan horse, penetrating the protective walls I'd erected around my heart, bearing within it hints of a future I might never have awakened to had I tried to numb myself with busyness. — Jane Fonda

When you study by listening directly to the teacher, it is like turning an attentive ear to our body, and that is Dahnhak. All scriptures are a kind of teachings, and the means to get to the Truth, but they are not the Truth itself. The awakened can feel the Truth. When this is translated into words and letters, they get to lose the heart and soul of the Truth.
from The Way to Light Up Your Divinity — Ilchi Lee

I tremble because of the sufferings of those persecuted in different lands. I tremble thinking about the eternal destiny of their torturers. I tremble for Western Christians who don't help their persecuted brethren. In the depth of my heart, I would like to keep the beauty of my own vineyard and not be involved in such a huge fight. I would like so much to be somewhere in quietness and rest. But it is not possible ... The quietness and rest for which I long would be an escape from reality and dangerous for my soul ... The West sleeps and must be awakened to see the plight of the captive nations. — Richard Wurmbrand

If we work for social change - and it is good to do such things - let us always do it with an awakened heart big enough for all. There is no enemy; there is only ignorance. There is no one to hate, only many to love. — John Kehoe

Nothing glows brighter than the heart awakened to the unseen light of love that lives within it. — Guy Finley

Perhaps your hunger to belong is always active and intense because you belonged so totally before you came here. This hunger to belong is the echo and reverberation of your invisible heritage. You are from somewhere else, where you were known, embraced and sheltered. This is also the secret root from which all longing grows. Something in you knows, perhaps remembers, that eternal belonging liberates longing into its surest and most potent creativity. This is why your longing is often wiser than your conventional sense of appropriateness, safety and truth ... Your longing desires to take you towards the absolute realization of all the possibilities that sleep in the clay of your heart; it knows your eternal potential, and it will not rest until it is awakened. — John O'Donohue

It was a comet. The boy saw the comet and he felt as though his life had meaning. And when it went away, he waited his entire life for it to come back to him. It was more than just a comet because of what it brought to his life: direction, beauty, meaning. There are many who couldn't understand, and sometimes he walked among them. But even in his darkest hours, he knew in his heart that someday it would return to him, and his world would be whole again ... And his belief in God and love and art would be re-awakened in his heart. The boy saw the comet and suddenly his life had meaning. — Lucas Scott

Beloved,
my ears listen for you,
my lips thirst for you,
my eyes search for you,
and darkness brings light,
but light brings truth
to be fed by your sight.
And when the winds of Persia blew,
for a moment in time,
something awakened in my fertile mind;
an awareness boldly standing in
my view, that my heart has always,
and only, bled for you. — V.S. Atbay

I always prayed the same way at night: "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Please bless my mother, father, sister, everyone in the word, and me. And please make my father quit drinking."
As a child growing up in a family battling alcoholism, this is what I know: Something bad is coming; it always does. I can't ask for help; I'm too ashamed. I can't talk about our secrets; no one understands. I can't trust anyone; they always leave.
Questions bounced off my self-constructed wall of values
a barricade I'd made from the fears I'd pushed into my darkness.
How could Ryan, a professional baseball player, really resist all those women? How could I really trust Jerry, my childhood friend? I'd barely awakened to sex and already boys were the seventh wonder of the world. Did anyone really trust another person? I needed proof. That proof hadn't revealed itself ... yet. — Pamela Taeuffer

Furious flutter awakened hummingbird heart hello hello love — Megan McCafferty

I am convinced that in the present time, in spite of the difficulties man has to meet another in a state of oblation, communion and gift of self, there are latent hidden forces in him which can be awakened in order to enable him to discover and live this reality of love and fidelity. In order to really penetrate into this mystery of the union of the couple, it is essential that each one acquire an interior maturity, a maturity that is perhaps rare. I would add that in order to be truly united and to remain truly faithful to one another, the couple must listen and be open to the Spirit of God who has reserved for Himself the science of the heart. The heart of man is satisfied only by the Infinite and to discover this Infinite in union he must open himself to the Spirit of God, a spirit of giving, of receiving. The union between the two spouses can thus deepen to such an extent that they enter in a mystical manner into the very life of God Himself. — Jean Vanier

The course of a man's destiny can seem sharply altered by a sudden illumination. But illumination is no more than the Spirit's sudden vision of a road that is long prepared. Gradually I learned grammar. I practiced syntax. My feelings were awakened. Then a poem suddenly blazed in my heart. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

The book the man is reading is the Word of God, the Bible. It has become both the focus of and the reason for his current state of perplexity and distress. The heavy burden on his back is his awakened knowledge and sense of his own sin. The man discovers the frightful condition of his heart, which provokes genuine and constant fears of damnation. These fears are an ever-present weight upon his entire person.
4. — John Bunyan

Our campaigns have not grown more humanistic because our candidates are more benevolent or their policy concerns more salient. In fact, over the last decade, public confidence in institutions-- big business, the church, media, government-- has declined dramatically. The political conversation has privileged the nasty and trivial. Yet during that period, election seasons have awakened with a new culture of volunteer activity. This cannot be credited to a politics inspiring people to hand over their time but rather to campaign, newly alert to the irreplaceable value of a human touch, seeking it out. Finally campaigns are learning to quantify the ineffable - the value of a neighbor's knock, of a stranger's call, the delicate condition of being undecided-- and isolate the moment where a behavior can be changed, or a heart won. Campaigns have started treating voters like people again. — Sasha Issenberg

When I write about "realizations," I am describing a state in which a practitioner has wisdom of who she or he is, and has embodied that wisdom; it has become integrated into daily life, thoughts, and activities. We often view "awakening" as first step towards such realization. Awakening can occur in the blink of an eye, frequently through the direct, heart-opening (heart-breaking) transmission of grace from an awakened teacher. — Russell Targ

Over the years my religion has changed and my spirituality has evolved. Religion and spirituality are very different, but people often confuse the two. Some things cannot be taught, but they can be awakened in the heart. Spirituality is recognizing the divine light that is within us all. It doesn't belong to any particular religion; it belongs to everyone. — Muhammad Ali

Tonglen practice has four stages: Rest your mind for a second or two in a state of openness or stillness. This is called flashing absolute bodhichitta, or suddenly opening to the basic spaciousness and clarity of the awakened heart. Work with texture. Breathe in a feeling of hot, dark, and heavy - a sense of claustrophobia - and breathe out a feeling of cool, bright, and light - a sense of freshness. Breathe in through all the pores of your body and radiate out completely, through all the pores of your body. Do this until your visualization feels synchronized with your in and out-breaths. Now contemplate any painful situation that's real to you. For example, you can breathe in the hot, dark, constricted feeling of sadness that you feel, and breathe out a light, cool sense of joy or space or whatever might provide relief. Widen the circle of compassion by connecting with all those who feel this kind of pain, and extending the wish to help everyone. — Pema Chodron

Don't ignore your dreams, in them your soul is awake and you are your true self. — Bangambiki Habyarimana

I shall never forget my mother, for it was she who planted and nurtured the first seeds of good within me. She opened my heart to the lasting impressions of nature; she awakened my understanding and extended my horizon and her percepts exerted an everlasting influence upon the course of my life. — Immanuel Kant

We have all cherished our life purposes. We have forecast our futures as likely to lie in a certain direction and have dearly desired that it should be so. When hindrances have been put in our way and when we have met with strong opposition and rebuff, we have still clung to our hope. Only very slowly have we yielded and accepted the inevitable. To renounce it has been like tearing out our heart. Not till long years have passed have we realized that the Lord's plan was much wiser and grander that our own. Then suddenly we have awakened to discover that while we were desiring to do one thing, God was leading us to do another and that what we have counted secondary was primary, for His glory, and for the lasting satisfaction of our own heart. — F.B. Meyer

I cannot tell you how much I love you. But that which of all things I have most at heart, with regard to you, is the real progress of your soul in the divine life. Heaven seems to be awakened in you. It is a tender plant. It requires stillness, meekness, and the unity of the heart, totally given up to the unknown workings of the Spirit of God, which will do all its work in the calm soul, that has no hunger or desire but to escape out of the mire of its earthly life into its lost union and life in God. I mention this, out of a fear of your giving in to an eagerness about many things, which, though seemingly innocent, yet divide and weaken the workings of the divine life within you. — William Law

I told you I didn't have a heart. I do have one. I just didn't know it until I met you. You are my light. My soul craves you, and I love you with every ounce of the heart you've awakened in me. I ... I could live without you but I wouldn't want to. Will you marry me, Evelyn Marie? — Suzanne Enoch

The wisdom, the strength, the confidence - the awakened heart and mind are always accessible
here, now, always. — Pema Chodron

My life in this pit will soon enter its fifth year. For more than forty-two months, I have thought hate, have lain down with hate in my heart, have dreamed hate and awakened with hate. I suffocate in the knowledge that I am the prisoner of a horde of vicious apes, and I rack my brain over the perpetual riddle of how this same people which so jealously watched over its rights a few years ago can have sunk into this stupor, in which it not only allows itself to be dominated by the street-corner idlers of yesterday, but actually, height of shame, is incapable any longer of perceiving its shame for the shame that it is. — Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen

At the heart of each spiritual tradition is the question of how to be in the world without losing what matters, and whether living an awakened life is of any use if we don't bring what matters to bear on the world. — Mark Nepo

It was one of Emily's earliest pleasures to ramble among the scenes of nature; nor was it in the soft and glowing landscape that she most delighted; she loved more the wild wood-walks, that skirted the mountain; and still more the mountain's stupendous recesses, where the silence and grandeur of solitude impressed a sacred awe upon her heart, and lifted her thoughts to the GOD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH. In scenes like these she would often linger along, wrapped in a melancholy charm, till the last gleam of day faded from the west; till the lonely sound of a sheep-bell, or the distant bark of a watch-dog, were all that broke on the stillness of the evening. Then, the gloom of the woods; the trembling of their leaves, at intervals, in the breeze; the bat, flitting on the twilight; the cottage-lights, now seen, and now lost - were circumstances that awakened her mind into effort, and led to enthusiasm and poetry. Her — Eliza Parsons

Sadness clings to you like a cat unwilling to release its claws, so you embrace it and stroke it until it is content to sleep in your heart, until awakened by a sound, a smell, or a memory...but it never leaves you. — D.S. Mixell

If your heart isn't yet illumined
Be awake always, be a seeker of the heart,
Be at war continually with your carnal soul.
But if your heart is already awakened,
Sleep peacefully, sleep in the arms of Love — Rumi

If for instance the sentiment possessing for the moment the empire of our mind is sorrow, will not the genius sharpen the sorrow and the sorrow purify the genius? Together, will they not be like a cut diamond for which language is only the wax on which they stamp their imprint? I believe that genius, thus awakened, has no need to seek out details, that it scarcely pauses to reflect, that it never thinks of unity: I believe that the details come naturally without search by the poet, that inspiration takes the place of reflection and as for unity, I think there is no unity so perfect as that which results from a heart filled with a single idea ... The nature of genius is related to that of instinct; it's operation is both simple and marvelous. — Charlotte Bronte

Sometimes during the night, your father awakened. He rose from his bed, staggered across the room, and found the strength to raise the window sash. He called your mother's name with what little voice he had, and he called yours, too, and your brother, Joe. And he called for Mickey. At that moment, it seemed, his heart was spilling out, all the guilt and regret. Perhaps he felt the light of death approaching. Perhaps he only knew you were all out there somewhere, in the streets beneath his window. He bent over the ledge. The night was chilly. The wind and damp, in his state, were too much. He was dead before dawn. — Mitch Albom

I believe that it is truly important for everyone to confront in dialogue the historical reality of the Reformation, its consequences and the responses it elicited. Catholics and Lutherans can ask forgiveness for the harm they have caused one another and for their offenses committed in the sight of God. Together we can rejoice in the longing for unity which the Lord has awakened in our hearts, and which makes us look with hope to the future. — Pope Francis

The heart of the matter: You should never belong fully to something that is outside yourself. It is very important to find a balance in your belonging. You should never belong totally to any cause or system. People frequently need to belong to an external system because they are afraid to belong to their own lives. If your soul is awakened, then you realize that this is the house of your real belonging. Your longing is safe there. — John O'Donohue

The organ has a mind of its own, disregarding what might be unhealthy for you. Once it's been jolted by that spark, awakened by that all-consuming flame, it plays the dirtiest game of all. With each curious beat of wanting to touch, taste, and feel love, the heart routes all logical thoughts from your brain, siphoning them out of that sucker like a thief, spitting them back out onto a highway piled high with nothing but bloody wreckage. — Gail McHugh

Fighting, and the employment of force, even for the right cause, will not bring about good results. The oppressed who have right on their side, must not take that right by force; the evil would continue. Hearts must be changed. The rich must wish to give! Life in man should be like a flame, warming all with whom it comes into contact. The spiritually awakened are like to bright torches in the sight of God, they give light and comfort to their fellows. — Abdu'l- Baha

For every one pupil who needs to be guarded against a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head. — C.S. Lewis

It's been awhile since I have heard from you,
To me it felt like it was only yesterday that all we could do was talk to each other
To me it felt like it was only yesterday that I'd fall asleep with you on my mind and be awakened with a smile from your morning messages
To me it felt like it was only yesterday that you started to back away, when I was in a dark place
To me it felt like it was only yesterday when you left my mind and heart in a million pieces — Tanzy Sayadi

The heart power once engaged and awakened is capable of achieving and realising the things to make your life wonderful. — Steven Redhead

in a single instant, can the consciousness of the sin that has been committed in thoughts, words, and actions of our past life, be unfolded to us. When once the conscience is awakened, it springs up in the heart spontaneously, and God awakens the conscience when we least expect it. Then we can find no excuse for ourselves; the deed is there and bears witness against us. — Hans Christian Andersen

Bodhichitta is our heart - our wounded, softened heart. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die. This love is bodhichitta. It is gentle and warm; it is clear and sharp; it is open and spacious. The awakened heart of bodhichitta is the basic goodness of all beings. — Pema Chodron

He took my hand in his. I gasped when our skin touched and looked into his eyes in a kind of shocked wonder, my eyes wide. His hand was smooth and warm, a few degrees warmer than it should be, and that heat sank into me, but it was not his heat that made me gasp. It felt like a storm resided within his skin and the moment our hands met, the storm and heat went raging through my veins, leaving my skin tingling and my heart fluttering while also making my blush deeper. It was like heat lightning, flashes of brilliance without sound that told of an impending storm. It awakened something within me, something I did not know existed, and took my breath away. I had never felt anything like it before. — Jasmine Dubroff

And so a deep and powerful compassion arises in the heart of the awakened ones, and they seek, above all else, to awaken others - and thus relieve them from the sorrow and the pity, the torment and the pain, the terror and the anguish that comes from taking with dreadful seriousness the passing dream of life. So — Ken Wilber

Let your heart be awakened to the transforming power of gratefulness. — Sarah Ban Breathnach

The apex of glorifying God is enjoying Him with the heart. But this is empty emotionalism where that joy is not awakened and sustained by true views of God for who He really is — John Piper

In the middle of the night I am awakened by a sound. I sit up abruptly in bed. I hear it again. It's music. Wait, it sounds like the ice cream man, in our house. Is this some kind of twisted nightmare? The flipping ice cream man, breaking in to chop us all up in our beds to the tune of 'Zippity Do Dah'? ... My heart slows. I remember. There is no psycho ice cream man here. It is just our new musical soap dispenser ... — Deb Caletti

Every midwife knows
that not until a mother's womb
softens from the pain of labor
will a way unfold
and the infant find that opening to be born.
Oh friend!
There is treasure in your heart,
it is heavy with child.
Listen.
All the awakened ones,
like trusted midwives are saying,
'welcome this pain.
It opens the dark passage of Grace. — Rumi