Philosophers I love- Lao Tzu

You cannot discuss Chinese literature without discussing Lao Tzu. A great philosopher and founder of Taoism, one of the important tradition in eastern spirituality. Believed to be have lived in around 4th century, his words of wisdom are still relatable and applicable, so enjoy his quotes!

Explaining the meaning of love when there was no romantic movies -

He was a spiritual leader after all -

Motivational -

Well that's deep -

Patience -

                              

"Log kya sochenge" -

                                   

True and deep -

                                    

Ready to live?

                                 

Happy Weekend!

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Jalal ul-din Rumi

Jalalulldin Rumi is one of the most loved ones from the world of the mystics. Mystics don't get love because they are nice, handsome or stuff, they receive love because they themselves shower love first. This is the miracle of love, the purest form of it, Show it and "ye shall receive" it back because we all are made of the same love which resonates after getting triggered by those showering love unconditionally. It starts to flow freely all from your body to outside it and then to other beings, with the only condition is that for you to set it free without any hinderance. There are countless number of mystics who teach the path of love and it is for very courageous people. The path of love begins by first loving yourself, just completely. You fill your self with immense love by fully accepting yourself, just like the way you are, just like the way God has made you, with full peace and grace. And then slowly slowly, you are completely filled with love to an extent that you are unable to hold it and it overflows. You are deeply immersed in it and it just reaches whomsoever is in front of you and "captures" him too. Now you have become a part-of love. No, you have become love. There is no difference between love and you, you have been immersed in it fully and your identity has been dissolved. Love has become you and you have become love. It is said that mind stops working in love which is true. If you are feeling it fully, your mind's hold on you gets weaker and weaker, because the real master of your body-the heart has awakened to its potential. Now, mind can no longer work, its illusions can no longer work. And if mind stops working, who will you be? Nobody! Just flowing in the ocean of love. This is the ultimate emotional experience, man is capable to have.(Note, only emotional).

 In the world of Sufis, the ultimate spiritual awakening is achieved by simply "loving God", completely submitting to Him, being completely dissolved, losing your identity and then filling it completely with love. And remember they are loving God and in Islam, it is very strict that you cannot have God assuming any kind of shape or form. How could they even love God so completely, so madly? How is it possible for the material mind to love someone of whom it don't have any image, or characteristics? That's why many Hindus and others might never be able to grasp the profoundness of Sufism and that's also why many intellectuals too might miss it completely. Amidst, the so much confusion and misinterpretation of Sufi texts based on their literal meanings, still they are widely read among those who understand them, who understand the music, who understand the rhythm, who understands their wavelength of consciousness, their boundless joy and among them, there is a man who is incomparable- Rumi.

Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam. It objectively rejects many dogmas from the religion and is aimed at the overall humanity. Sufism is an art, a music. But, music is "haraam" is Islam. Yes, although there are here and there ambiguous verses in Quran for music of beating of drums or Allah and David conversation, but majority of the Islamic scholars prohibits almost all the types of modern music, Yes. But Sufism is on a complete contrast, it very much out of the dogmas and that's why fundamental Muslims are against Sufism. Well, let them stay there, we are not talking about them. Sufis have termed Rumi as Mevlana, i.e. their master. Rumi was born to a Persian speaking family. His father was a theologian and mystic himself but Rumi was going to be at a completely different legacy. He was a preacher for some time till he met the Shams-e-Tabrizi. The meeting spiritually transformed him and even motivated him to begin the inner journey. He was the founder of "Sama", a Sufi dance you probably have observed-

This is a religious practice, path to attain God -Sama. It is said that Rumi when heard the beating of the gold, he found of a rhythm of "there is no god but Allah" and then stretched out in happiness and began whirling. This dance brings man to a kind of drunkard state and to lose his senses. Interpretations can be different. It can be imagined that while whirling around Rumi found his inner self which is static and thus said, "there is no need now to go to mosque". Sama symbolizes the man's journey from ego to ego-free. From selfishness to the joy of love.

He was a great poet, of course with the masterpiece Masnavi to his credit, we will focus on his lovely quotes making us remember our own self, our inner being where God actually is-

                       

                       

                       

                            

 
                 

                               

                    

                                       


                       

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A New fresh list of Quotes you should not again miss!

This time I have tried to mix up my own quotes with others. Enjoy!



Life/Death

• Don’t worry about when your life will end, keep worrying about when it will actually begin.

• Life when seen as an expectation to happen, becomes all tragic and miserable even in its amazing wonderness. But when it is seen as a reality to be experienced, it becomes all wonderful even in its all tragedy and misery.

• “Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist."- Epicurus

• “Death is just a creative opportunity for life to reconstruct itself”- Deepak Chopra

• "The purpose of life is a life of purpose." - Robert Byrne

• You are not experiencing Life. Life is experiencing you.

• Those who fear from death can never achieve anything in life.

• It's not about why to work when you will die anyway, it's because we know we are going to die, we work.

• You will meet two types of people the most in your life- First who does not think you have any potential, second who try to harm it. Keep searching for the third.

• If it's so easy and smooth for you to live, it will be so easy and smooth for you to die as well.

Religion/God

• If at all there is a God, he would be secular and not religious.

•  If you meet a religious person, ask this question to assess how deep is he gone in his own stupidity-

• People ask me, “how can you define good or evil without God?”, I ask them, “Well then, how do you define God”?

• Believing in a secular God is good, believing in a religious God is irrational, believing only in your religious God is ridiculous and believing that your religion is fundamental is dangerous.

• “Always believe in God.” Believe that he does not exist.

• If you think criticizing a religion is racist, you must believe that all those who follow a particular religion constitute a race, in which case you are a racist.(derived from Dawkins.)

• People say to me that I have some kind of hatred towards God. Yeah, I do have one- "Why such a great being does not exist?"

•  "If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people"- Dr. House

          Christian- What is the age of the Earth

           Muslim- What is the meaning of the Jihad?

          Hindu- Are Vedas scientific? Or is speed of light

           Pagan- Fuck, you still exist?

Consciousness/Thoughts

• All secondary thoughts that seem to be arise from the brain- intuition, creativity, wisdom can be explained as being “received” by the brain rather than generated and it would be still scientifically plausible. Our brain can very well be a valve.

•  “Consciousness is a feedback of awareness”- Michio Kaku

• When you have more and more ability to express your thoughts, your thoughts disturb less and less.

• Thoughts are real. They have a start and they have an end. They have all powers to come into physical existence. You have to decide which one should

Hard Work

• If you are unable to work when you are supposed to work, you will be unable to rest when you are supposed to rest.

• A master who always make you feel down and appreciates only for a little moment when you do something good is better than a master who always praise you but ridiculously put you down if you do a bit bad.

• If you do it good without being under somebody's guidance or obligation, it is passion. Rest everything are just talents.

• I find solace in doing what everybody is doing but I don't find solace in getting what everybody is getting

• If you do a thing, some people will bark, If you do not do that thing again some people will bark. It is for you to decide whether you want to give attention to your heart- or these dogs.

• When people say, "have you gone mad?" it is that they don't have guts to do the stuff you are doing.

• Future is secure for those who do not stay in it.

• There is no need to say Sorry or ThankYou if you can justify or compensate it through your actions.

• Postpone your mourning, not the pain.

• The right thing and the easy thing is never the same."-  Kami Garcia.

• I would not say to you what will happen if you give up because giving up itself shouldn't be an option,

Spirituality

• See yourself as a soul who is exploring, not as this body which will die.

• Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't." - Richard Bach.

• Spirituality is looking for who is actually looking.

• The correct path to life doesn't lie in finding God but it does in finding God within oneself.

• “He who does not answer the questions has passed the test.” — Franz Kafka

• That you are a body with a spirit is religion. That you are a spirit with a body is spirituality.

Happiness

• The people who feel lonely are the ones who do not enjoy themselves. Such persons should exist only in figments, they do not deserve reality.

• Wisdom cannot be handled because it is not self containing. You can attain peace only when you share it.

• People don't get happiness, they should find happiness in what they got. Seeking happiness is an infinite process.

• Collect "Thank you"s. It is the best collection that you can have in life.

• Self is the best company. 

• Silence and peace is just the harmony and resonance of the highest frequencies which consciousness cannot fathom.

• If your own actions are the reason of your miseries, how can somebody else's actions be the reason of your redemption/happiness? 

Miscellaneous

•  You will find many good reasons to do the bad thing, but realize that it is not the reasons which decide the nature of the actions, result does.

• World is like a mirror and philosophy is like water. Both show the same thing, but you can play with water, get inside it, let it inside you and also throw it on others.

• Conscious understanding and realization of desires does not explain the irrationality of them.

• If a person does not know how to identify himself apart from others and who don't know how to express his own uniqueness and is lost in the thought's of others is very well an animal. Maybe a pig.

• Darkness is just a place for the light to shine.

•  "I do not know." is always the correct answer. Believe me.

• I am a jack of all trades because I know being an expert in something will make me disregard everything else that exists.

• The best and worst feeling in the world- "Nobody cares."

• If you let it at ease, it will GROW, but if you stretch it, it will only elongate with pain, but still not grow.

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Philosophers I love- Epicurus

One who denies philosophy denies life. People with only materialistic understanding and literal senses would never be able to penetrate deep in to the mighty ocean of philosophy weaved through conscious efforts. I hereby decide to share one of the greatest philosophers one by one and their quotes.

His parents, Neocles and Chaerestrate, both Athenian-born, and his father a citizen, had emigrated to the Athenian settlement. He professed the idea of fearless life of wisdom and philosophy. He said that one must not fear things like death and must always pursue methods of true happiness. He started a school of philosophy called  Epicureanism. He suffered from kidney stones which took his life at the age of 72. Here is a very touching para from his Wikipedia page-

"At the time of death despite the prolonged pain involved, he wrote to Idomeneus:

I have written this letter to you on a happy day to me, which is also the last day of my life. For I have been attacked by a painful inability to urinate, and also dysentery, so violent that nothing can be added to the violence of my sufferings. But the cheerfulness of my mind, which comes from the recollection of all my philosophical contemplation, counterbalances all these afflictions. And I beg you to take care of the children of Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of the devotion shown by the young man to me, and to philosophy."

  Only some of his 300 works are remaining. Here are some of his pieces.

NOTE- This list is in no regard to the any religious or cultural beliefs. I do not profess any of them, although one has to disregard their pre conceived notions in order to fully enjoy these treasures.

• I will start by his world famous "bomb". This one is known as Eucredian paradox.

• "What was most important in Epicurus’ philosophy of nature was the overall conviction that our life on this earth comes with no strings attached; that there is no Maker whose puppets we are; that there is no script for us to follow and be constrained by; that it is up to us to discover the real constraints which our own nature imposes on us."

• "Death is nothing to us, because a body that has been dispersed into elements experiences no sensations, and the absence of sensation is nothing to us. Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist."

• "We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink."

• This excerpt proves he was a genius. Note that his time was- 341 BC- 270 BC

“The risings and settings of the sun, the moon, and the other heavenly bodies may come about from the lighting up and quenching of their fires…; for nothing in our sensory experience runs counter to this hypothesis. Or the said effects may be caused by the emergence of these bodies from a point above the earth and again by the earth’s position in front of them; for nothing in our sensory experience is against this.Here two alternative explanations of “risings and settings” are offered; both are of equal value and equally true, since neither is contradicted by anything in our experience. On the contrary, we have all seen fires die down from lack of fuel, and lights obscured or blacked out by objects coming in front of them.”

• You cannot stop smiling if you truly understand the irony- 

“The conquest of fear, especially fear of unaccountable divine beings who meddle in nature at will, means a reduction in the sum total of human pain and suffering and opens the door to the calm acceptance of a new picture of the world—a world in which nature is autonomous and where there are ideal beings who never meddle.” 

• But he wasn't a full Atheist, rather an Agnostic. What I feel that, a true philosopher will disown religion and atheism both because neither of them seems to be fully true. He said what you can see or experience is true if you have tested it and not become skeptic of your own senses.

"If a person fights the clear evidence of his senses he will never be able to share in genuine tranquillity. In other words, a person who doubts his senses will either lose contact with the reality of the surrounding world, like the Skeptics, and become psychologically isolated and insecure, or he will fall prey, as do the religionists, to theological explanations which do not allay anxiety but foment it.”

• LOL!

“The man who says that all events are necessitated has no ground for critizing the man who says that not all events are necessitated. For according to him this is itself a necessitated event."

• This one is his most liked one- 

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

• “You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity"

• “It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself."

• “If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another.”

• “He who has peace of mind disturbs neither himself nor another.”

• “He who says either that the time for philosophy has not yet come or that it has passed is like someone who says that the time for happiness has not yet come or that it has passed.”

• “We must, therefore, pursue the things that make for happiness, seeing that when happiness is present, we have everything; but when it is absent, we do everything to possess it.”

• Yeah, this famous sentence was the work of Epicurus- 

“If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract from his desires.”

• "The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it.”

• “He who least needs tomorrow, will most gladly greet tomorrow.”

• He took my words!

“The wise man who has become accustomed to necessities knows better how to share with others than how to take from them, so great a treasure of self-sufficiency has he found.”

• “We need to set our affections on one good man and keep him constantly before our eyes, so that we may live as if he were watching us and do everything as if he saw what we were doing.”

• “Therefore, foolish is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will cause pain when it arrives but because anticipation of it is painful.

• “It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us."

 

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30 Quotes from me which you should definitely not miss!

Sometimes I am lucky enough to storm some good quotes in my brain. Hope you all get at related with at least one of them :)

     

1)  Life is a battle. You are the warrior. You have swords and you have the armour. Nature is your army and the only enemy that side is the doubt that you cannot win.

      2)  Magic doesn't stop happening. It's only people who realize that they too can do it.

      3)   If some external words from some external person hurts your heart and disturb your emotions which should been completely under your control, it is the highest form of slavery you can ever experience.

    

      4)    Nobody knows what the correct choice to make in life is, you only need to make a choice and prove it right enough.

             

       5)   Every single person in this world is the greatest trickster ever, yet most of them spend their entire life in tricking someone who was actually the easiest one to fool- they themselves.

      

      6) There is no purpose of life but there can be a purpose of what you want to do in life.

7) Devote your maximum time to YOURSELF and you will be much happier.

      8)You will not be known by sacrifices you made, but will be, by the success you achieved over the sacrifices of many others.

      9) One never finds satisfaction in readymade pleasures. One must always pursue.

      10)  While being extra nice to some people, I got despised by them. Never try to understand someone so much that they forget to acknowledge you in their lives.
    
      11) Calling a talent "god gifted" is more of an understatement. Telling that it happened all of sudden is even worse, "Hey, you just suddenly have started to write good! :)". Because, you just ignored all the efforts he took this while to polish his talent. Remember, what god gives us can never be directly utilized.

12) Sometimes being predictable is necessary to win over over-confident guys.

13) Challenge everyone but remain unbeatable.

        

      14) Judge people by the possibility of them standing by you when you need them. But, if in particular situations, you happen to stand against them they shouldn't cry, they should FIGHT!

15) Happiness is having a goal.

16) The biggest lesson you can learn is to how to teach yourself.

17) We all are judged by identical, almost archaic yardsticks in our education system, your ability to read, add some numbers, learn by rote and score high marks. Failing to do so, we are marked out as failures, someone who can do nothing in life which is both unfair and incorrect.

18) We forget too much that we should forget to think too much.

19) If you are good at something and you do not tell that to anybody, you are as good as the one who isn't.

20) I will promise you one thing. That I will live a lifestyle like you. Not just because you are living an awesome life but honestly I am too jealous to let you have all the fun!

21) You can either just sit and think BIG or go out and start from doing something small. Choose wisely!

22) Helpful people are more worth your friendship than self-centered talented egoists. "Never chase people".

23) Grasses are meant to be trimmed, chewed and walked over. Don't be like a grass. Be a thorn

24) You will get something just because you "think" you deserved it? Tch

25) Intellectual connection is the only bond for a real friendship. Not trust. Not will. Nothing.

26)  Religion is the law for theists and law is religion for the atheists.

27) I see people who instead of spending the whole day with their family, busy texting each and every one "Merry Christmas".

28) For everything that you want, with everything you have. Get up and FIGHT!

29) I cannot win to a person who is already defeated.

30) Don't read other people's quotes. Make your own :)

      

    

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