Awakening To Self Quotes & Sayings

Everything with no exception is a choice. The choice can be either conscious or unconscious depending on the level of self-awareness.
The more self-aware we become, the faster we can make our unconscious choices known to us. — Raphael Zernoff

It takes a long time-many incarnations of right action, good company, help of the guru, self-awakening, wisdom, and meditation-for man to regain his soul consciousness of immortality. To reach this state of Self-realization, each man must practice meditation to transfer his consciousness from the limited body to the unlimited sphere of joy felt in meditation. — Paramahansa Yogananda

If you go to war with your mind, you will always be at war. — T. Scott McLeod

I didn't lose anyone, for everyone that I lost was never really a loss, unless it was death well then I had to have words with God. — Nikki Rowe

We are all born to fly. Instead, we sit on the branches afraid of the leap into the unknown. But the unknown is where enlightenment lives. Our true nature is the unknown. — Enza Vita

If you have to wait for a long time, you have to seize hold of the waiting or it will become destructive. If you let things slide, your consciousness will waver, awakening fear and restlessness, then depression strikes, and you're pulled down. — Peter Hoeg

There is nothing we could add to that which has already been created ... perfection. — Vivian Amis

Healing from our past is an essential aspect of expanding our sense of self and awakening our capacity to love. This shift often manifests as a change in the questions we've been asking ourselves. Instead of What do I need? we ask, How can I serve? Instead of What am I getting out of this? we start to ask, What can I bring to this situation to promote the highest possible outcome for everyone involved? — David Simon

You have eternity to experience your awakened self. So why not enjoy the dream while you're in it, even if it is limited? — Teresa Tsalaky

The point of the overall meditative path is to have Wakefulness (or Consciousness as Such) transcend and include all state-realms, so it ceases to "black out" or "forget" various changes of state (such as dreaming and deep sleep), and instead recognizes a "constant Consciousness" or ever-present nondual Awareness, the union (and transcendence) of individual finite self and infinite Spirit. — Ken Wilber

Even after the Truth has been realised, there remains that strong, obstinate impression that one is still an ego - the agent and experiencer. This has to be carefully removed by living in a state of constant identification with the supreme non-dual Self. Full Awakening is the eventual ceasing of all the mental impressions of being an ego. — Adi Shankara

It takes courage to become authentic. So many talk about the light but not enough speak the truth about the struggles it takes to get there and the tools to overcome it all. — Nikki Rowe

The mirror image of suffering is the truth. Try it. Change the story. Change the course of your entire history. Right now."
"You want me to lie about my past?" Diana wipes tears from her face with the back of her hand.
"No, to tell the story a truer way," says Herself. "Any story can be told infinite ways, dear, but listen to me. Listen well. If a story liberates your soul, believe it. But if a story imprisons you, believe its mirror image. — Martha N. Beck

The most fundamental exercise is self-observation, which is the catalyst for inner change, it will give self-knowledge and a clear mind and perception. Without it, the attempt to reach enlightenment and awaken consciousness is destined to fail. — Belsebuub

Their own destiny is a far-off thing to them ... One declines, descends, trickles away, even crumbles away, and yet is hardly conscious of it one's self. It always ends, it is true, in an awakening, but the awakening is tardy. In the meantime, it seems as though we held ourselves neutral in the game which is going on between our happiness and our unhappiness. We are the stake, and we look on at the game with indifference. — Victor Hugo

The factors that contributed to my growth were many - finding someone who understood me, exploring the unconscious, awakening my latent love ... but one star is brightest among all: the self. I found the source of livingness inside me, something I didn't even know existed. — Piero Ferrucci

Throughout the world there is an awakening to the fact that, just as a human being cannot hope to realize his or her potential without healthy self-esteem, neither can a society whose members do not respect themselves, do not value their persons, do not trust their minds. But with all of these developments, what precisely self-esteem is - and what specifically its attainment depends on - remain the great questions. — Nathaniel Branden

At last
He is healed of his self-doubt.
Now what is happening ?
He is awakening
To his souls ecstasy-sun. — Sri Chinmoy

On a surface level, all one finds is repeated forms of shallow whispers. Having the courage to explore deeply, a wealth of buried infinite lifetimes emerge - an undeniable force. — T.F. Hodge

Totally isolated from our own culture for long periods, we became vulnerable to forgotten times and tribes re-awakening within us. Our journeys, we found, were to take us simultaneously to some of the least-charted regions of the planet and to the least-charted regions of our own minds. What began for us as the effort to capture a purely objective record of what we saw gradually dissolved into a quest, an odyssey of self-discovery which actually took place amongst the last of the lands of real living kings and queens, dragons and pirates, cannibals and headhunters, mystics and magicians. — Lawrence Blair

Awakening is not a state but a process: an ethical way of life and commitment that enables human flourishing. As such, it is no longer the exclusive preserve of enlightened teachers or accomplished yogis. Likewise, nirvana-the stopping of craving-is not the goal of the path but its very source. For human flourishing first stirs in that clear, bright, empty space where neurotic self-centredness realizes that it has no ground at all to stand on. One is then freed to pour forth like sunlight. — Stephen Batchelor

The pathway to peace is an in describable journey of facing ones darkness, to find ones light. If they told you it's easier to give up, you met a fool; if they told you; it's easier to grow, you met the wise. — Nikki Rowe

Evolve and see what comes with you anything that doesn't has taught you all you need to know. — Nikki Rowe

Listen to your heart in silence and peace, as through fear you only channel fear. — Raphael Zernoff

The Bible was penned by men. The Epistles of Paul were penned by that evangelist salesman and his students, desperate to bring mystery and excitement into a quiet philosophy, turning it into a religion promising the secret of an afterlife, answers to questions that previously no one could answer. Always remember, words written by men have an agenda. Sometimes their agenda is for the better, but it's usually for the self, and that almost always leads down a dangerous path."

~Character Mark from The Awakening, book one of The Judas Curse series. — Angella Graff

What is awakening? Awakening is the cessation of self-deception! Religion is self-deception; fate is self-deception; the idea that there is no death but only continuation is a self-deception! Real awakening is to acquire a scientific mind, it is to meet face to face with the bare realities, and it is to leave the spiritual fallacies and fantasies! And this is real awakening! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Women of all classes are awakening to the necessity of self-support, but few are willing to do the ordinary useful work for which they are fitted. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The pith instruction is, whatever you do, don't try to make the poisons go away. When you're trying to make them go away, you're losing your wealth along with your neurosis. The irony is that what we most want to avoid in our lives is crucial to awakening bodhichitta. These juicy emotional spots are where a warrior gains wisdom and compassion. Of course, we'll want to get out of those spots far more often than we'll want to stay. That's why self-compassion and courage are vital. Without loving-kindness, staying with pain is just warfare. — Pema Chodron

The degree to which your Consciousness expands, is the degree to which you understand yourself and the universe. — Gina Charles

Through reflection, awakening, and choice we are able to exist as our true selves. However, this is not the end. In order for us to realize and put into practice the life purpose we have chosen, endless choices await us. — Ilchi Lee

We look for our perfect partners, and we wish we can be accepted the way we are. We seek unconditional love. It is all beautiful. While doing it we can always remember that we need to accept ourselves unconditionally, as much as we wish others to accept as with no conditions. — Raphael Zernoff

A man who's discontents were barely known to himself, awakening in middle age to the horror of self-reflection. — Philip Roth

A community best serves itself when it truly serves the awakening of the unique story trying to come to life through each person born. — Michael Meade

The truth is, in order to heal we need to tell our stories and have them witnessed ... The story itself becomes a vessel that holds us up, that sustains, that allows us to order our jumbled experiences into meaning.
As I told my stories of fear, awakening, struggle, and transformation and had them received, heard, and validated by other women, I found healing.
I also needed to hear other women's stories in order to see and embrace my own. Sometimes another woman's story becomes a mirror that shows me a self I haven't seen before. When I listen to her tell it, her experience quickens and clarifies my own. Her questions rouse mine. Her conflicts illumine my conflicts. Her resolutions call forth my hope. Her strengths summon my strengths. All of this can happen even when our stories and our lives are very different. — Sue Monk Kidd

Pain is a crucial part of our reality; it awakens a person from a mental stupor. A person must never be afraid to discover where their pain originates, follow pain to where it emanates from, learn from its messages, and reject the mindless business and busyness of contemporary culture in order to fuel an artistic vision of the self. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The very first evidence of awakening grace is dissatisfaction with one's self and self-effort and a longing for deliverance from chains of sin that have bound the soul. To own frankly that I am lost and guilty is the prelude to life and peace. It is not a question of a certain depth of grief and sorrow, but simply the recognition and acknowledgment of need that lead one to turn to Christ for refuge. None can perish who put their trust in Him. His grace superabounds above all our sin, and His expiatory work on the cross is so infinitely precious to God that it fully meets all our uncleanness and guilt. — H. A Ironside

Nirvana is the extinction of desire and the full awakening that results from this extinction. It is not simply the dissolution of all ego-limits, a quasi-infinite expansion of the ego into an ocean of self-satisfaction and annihilation. This is the last and worst illusion of the ascetic who, having "crossed to the other shore," says to himself with satisfaction: "I have at last crossed to the other shore." He has, of course, crossed nothing. He is still where he was, as broken as ever. He is in the darkness of Avidya. He has only managed to find a pill that produces a spurious light and deadens a little of the pain. — Thomas Merton

The shaping of character mimics the smallest detail of habit; humans are creatures that learn from observation. Each little thing you do, and each thing you allow yourself to become desensitized to matters. They create you - whether you know it consciously or not. — Grace Sara

Just like any civilized person, you've spent practically your whole life torturing an innocent wild creature. Starved it, then force-fed it, cut it, cursed it, driven it to exhaustion. Imprisoned it with other creatures who tormented it."
"What?" Diana shakes her head in miserable confusion. "I don't
even kill spiders! I never wanted to hurt anything."
"The innocent wild creature to which I refer, my darling, is you. — Martha N. Beck

A soulmate is the one person whose love is powerful enough to motivate you to meet your soul, to do the emotional work of self-discovery, of awakening. — Kenny Loggins

So, we have an element newly prominent in American religious and political life, a new form of entitlement, a self-declared elect. What some have seen as a resurgence of Christianity, or at least a bold defense of American cultural tradition - even as another great awakening! - has brought a harshness, a bitterness, a crudeness, and a high-handedness into the public sphere that are only to be compared to the politics, or the collapse of politics, in the period before the Civil War. Its self-righteousness fuels the damnedest things - I use the word advisedly - notably the acquisition of homicidal weapons. I wonder what these supposed biblicists find in the Gospels or the Epistles that could begin to excuse any of it. — Marilynne Robinson

On any given day, you will reach to the state of realization; you will never find any other God, except you. You are the God, you are searching for, either externally or internally. — Roshan Sharma

There is no separate entity that could be enlightened or unenlightened. There are only innumerable expressions of the One Being (which we call people, animals, forms), mirror-like facets, reflecting being-ness back to itself. — Enza Vita

At that moment, when the world around him melted away, when he stood alone like a star in the heavens, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of icy despair, but he was more firmly himself than ever. That was the last shudder of his awakening, the last pains of birth. Immediately he moved on again and began to walk quickly and impatiently, no longer homewards, no longer to his father, no longer looking backwards. — Hermann Hesse

Self awakening enables you to see the human scene as it is, not as it appears to be, which frees you of its chaos. — Vernon Howard

Self discovery is the most empowering time of your life, you remember who you are and you become the best version of yourself but what they forget to tell you is, to get to a point of pleasure you must face the pain. — Nikki Rowe

It is the Fourth Instinct (the spirit - RJ) that urges us to exceed ourselves ... by awakening our intuitive selves, and striving to be all that we were intended to be. It takes us beyond self-centeredness and enables us to resist the combined forces of indifference and meaninglessness. It awakens us to a sense of responsibility for those most in need of our society as well as for that world that future generations will inherit. — Arianna Huffington

We may be focused on looking forward and upward yet looking inward can be the easiest path to take. — Raphael Zernoff

I used to cry when I thought of living the rest of this life alone. Tears would fill my eyes while my heart would yearn. But now I feel empowerment in that acceptance. Power in knowing it is up to me to be happy ever after. I will not wait for him. After all, this awakening has just begun, it is going to take a man at the same point on the path I am. If I am going to fall allowing my spirit to completely melt into his manly grace, it is necessary he be awake. — Juls Amor

Today the West is awakening to its wants; and the "true self of man and spirit" is the watchword of the advanced school of Western theologians. The student of Sanskrit philosophy knows where the wind is blowing from, but it matters not whence the power comes so longs as it brings new life. — Swami Vivekananda

The movie, (X-Men: Days of Future Past), illustrates a spiritual journey that involves going back in time. The Purpose of the journey is to find the core grievance and let it be healed. When the grievance is healed in Forgiveness, all future scenarios of conflict and destruction are also healed. It is not that they have been prevented in time; it is that we have come to the realization that there was no time in which they could have existed. In the Happy Dream, everything is resolved. It becomes harmonious and then disappears.
Wolverine is the agent strong enough to go back through time and ignite the mission of forgiveness. We can think of ourselves this way as well. We can imagine that our future self, or our higher Self, is orchestrating this whole thing for our awakening. We are just perceiving it in time, where we perceive ourselves to be. There is great love and compassion coming from the higher Self, the future self. — David Hoffmeister

Swept away with the idea, he said it felt like an awakening to him. More like a remembering, I think. The animacy of the world is something we already know, but the language of animacy teeters on extinction - not just for Native peoples, but for everyone. Our toddlers speak of plants and animals as if they were people, extending to them self and intention and compassion - until we teach them not to. We quickly retrain them and make them forget. When we tell them that the tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple an object; we put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation. — Robin Wall Kimmerer

Learn to be assertive without anger attached to it. — Nikki Rowe

I stared at the stop sign and even though I was only five I thought, I will remember that stop sign for the rest of my life. The dents and the bumps, the colors and the shape, the three-fingered, black scuff and long silver scrape - even the dirty gray sky behind it. Days will go by and I will grow old but from time to time the image of this stop sign will come to my mind and I will think about it and remember what I was thinking at this exact time. I even remember thinking that I was awfully young to have such a profound thought and premonition but there it was. — April Adams

True healing is not physical - it is a spiritual awakening to our True Self. If art is used for that purpose then it can be quite healing as it purifies the mind of thoughts that create disease. — Judith Cornell

Awakenings are always terrifying as they force you to realize your past has been lived in confinement, the most disturbing part is when you recognize that the shackle holding you down are largely once you have placed upon yourself, the prison is self constructed — Dean Karnazes

The less you know, the more you will be known
The less you want, the more you will have
The less you are, the more you will be — Vivian Amis

You are in prison. If you wish to get out of prison, the first thing you must do is realize that you are in prison. If you think you are free, you can't escape. — G.I. Gurdjieff

Low states are a like a poison to the psyche. Millions of people throughout the world take tranquillizers each day to combat depression, but this does not tackle its root cause, which is found in the basic state of the internal energies of the psyche.
Basically the energy of the psyche needs to change, from low states to spiritual ones. It requires inner observation, the destruction of the egos, and alchemical transformation. — Belsebuub

WE ALREADY HAVE everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves - the heavy-duty fearing that we're bad and hoping that we're good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds - never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake. — Pema Chodron

A song for you
A song for me
Is how we relate our life to be — Patty Smith

The cold logic of mid-twentieth-century atheism has now given way to an era of renewed 'spirituality,' but it is an awakening more thrapeutic than pious, more attuned to self-expression than self-denial. It is now fashionable to talk about God, though it is still deeply unfashionable to believe in him. — J. Mark Bertrand

Human life is designed as a self-study program.
Existence is always one undivided. It is what we often call the Light. It is a pure consciousness of unconditional love. Out of the Light the idea of darkness is created. There is no existence of light and darkness, as separated energies. The separation is illusionary.
Experiencing ourselves as humans is an exploration of the greater Self in a localised condition.
A dense reality is created to facilitate the idea of forgetfulness.
Now we collectively entered a new time of remembering. It is not necessary anymore to create the illusion of self-disconnection from the energy source. — Raphael Zernoff

Awakening is the experience of forgiving the illusion of manifesting, for Identity Is Spirit. Christ comes not into form, but calls you out of the world to recognize your Self as eternal Spirit. — David Hoffmeister

When I felt ill and was on the way to becoming a burden to the other men, I noticed a growing chill in their attitude toward me. For people like us, living day and night on the brink of danger, the normal instinct of survival seems to strike inward, like a disease, distorting the personality and removing all motives other than those of sheer self-interest. That is why this afternoon I did not wait to go and tell my former comrades-in-arms what had happened to me. For one thing, they probably already knew; besides, it seemed unfair to risk awakening their dormant sense of humanity. — Shohei Ooka

Each time you meet an old emotional pattern with presence, your awakening to truth can deepen. There's less identification with the self in the story and more ability to rest in the awareness that is witnessing what's happening. You become more able to abide in compassion, to remember and trust your true home. Rather than cycling repetitively through old conditioning, you are actually spiraling toward freedom. — Tara Brach

Realization is the direct seeing that this entity you have believed yourself to be has its roots in something infinitely vast and that this entity is not separate from that vastness, the source, the absolute. — Enza Vita

A final word. Curious. Many years of reading many books has led me to a somewhat bizarre literary critical theory, namely that all significant texts are distinguished by the preponderance of a single word. In Alice's adventures in Wonderland that word is 'curious' (In The Brothers Karamazov it's 'ecstasy', but that needn't concern us here.) The word 'curious' appears so frequently in Carroll's text that it becomes a kind of tocsin awakening us from our reverie. But it isn't the strangeness of Alice's Wonderland that it reminds us of-it's the bizarre incomprehensibility of our own. — Will Self

A person is bound to experience troubling doubts when attempting to forge a viable philosophy for living. When we are young, the world appears as a dream, no desire is unattainable, and no goal is impossible. We do not entertain the notion that the world will blunt our passionate aspirations, we assume that the world will yield to our resolute will. Misfortune, poverty, illness, and death crush a person's hopes, awakening us to parts of oneself and the world that we previously denied. When fate has spoken harshly we initially feel ruined, life appears as a bleak wasteland. We must then chose to accept a misery ridden existence or rally the courage and fortitude to turn our thoughts from bitterness and regrets, surrender vain notions that we are somehow special and immune from the terrors of a life when reality does not care a wit for our survival. — Kilroy J. Oldster

A person who is asleep is either lost in deep unconsciousness or absorbed in a dream. Metaphorically, this was how the Buddha must have seen both his previous self as well as everyone else he had known: they either were blind to the questions of existence or sought consolation from them in metaphysical or religious fantasies. — Stephen Batchelor

I remember sitting back, on a local beach I called home; thinking about the wild storms I had already faced, the chaotic thunder I somehow learnt to dance through. This time, remembering it, was different. I had no emotional attachment, I felt free of the past and could quietly seperate who I was with who I am now and this moment was empowering , because had I not faced the greatest disasters with courage, I wouldn't have learnt the mastery of life. My self awakening. — Nikki Rowe

For aeons past, there were many gods who descended to be humans, yet there were not many humans who ascended back to their divinity. — Raphael Zernoff

Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity of self-change. And in observing himself a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes. He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening. — G.I. Gurdjieff

We all woke up this morning and we had with it the amazing return of our conscious mind. We recovered minds with a complete sense of self and a complete sense of our own existence - yet we hardly ever pause to consider this wonder. — Antonio R. Damasio

Accepting that a person will die and shucking off any aversion to this blunt thought awakens the mind to realize what is possible in a human life. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The movement of grace toward gratitude brings us from the package of self-obsessed madness to a spiritual awakening. Gratitude is peace. — Anne Lamott

Now, what's stirring in this murky sea of complexity and foolishness is an almost suffocating need to breathe fresh history. — Laurie Perez

Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness; it invents nations where they do not exist ... — Ernest Gellner

You are your master. Only you have the master keys to open the inner locks. — Amit Ray

...philosophy permits man to interrogate himself about what he says and about what one says to oneself in thinking. No longer to let oneself be swayed or intoxicated by the rhythm of words and the generality that they designate, but to open oneself to the uniqueness of the unique in the real, that is to say, to the uniqueness of the other. That is to say, in the final analysis, to love. To speak truly, not as one sings; to awaken; to sober up; to undo one's refrain. Already the philosopher Alain taught us to be on guard against everything that in our purportedly lucid civilization comes to us from the "merchants of sleep." Philosophy as insomnia, as a new awakening at the heart of the self-evidence which already marks the awakening, but which is still or always a dream. — Emmanue Levinas

Place where man laughs, sings, picks flowers, chases butterflies and pets birds, makes love with maidens, and plays with children. Here he spontaneously reveals his nature, the base as well as the noble. Here also he buries his sorrows and difficulties and cherishes his ideals and hopes. It is in the garden that men discover themselves. Indeed one discovers not only his real self but also his ideal self?he returns to his youth. Inevitably the garden is made the scene of man's merriment, escapades, romantic abandonment, spiritual awakening or the perfection of his finer self. — Confucius