Quotes about Being

Sometimes people get the mistaken notion that spirituality is a separate department of life, the penthouse of existence. But rightly understood, it is a vital awareness that pervades all realms of our being.

Die – you will have to die. But die gracefully. I am not saying die like a stoic, I am not saying die like a very controlled man. No, I'm saying die gracefully, beautifully, as if a friend is coming, knocks at your door, and you are happy. And you embrace the friend and invite him in, and you have been waiting for him so long....

If you can love death you become deathless; if you can understand non-being then your being becomes the very ground of being-hood, the very ground of God. If you can love non-being then nothing can destroy you, you have transcended time and space. Then you have become one with the total, and this is what holiness is – to become whole is to be holy.

I cling to my imperfection, as the very essence of my being.

Enlightenment is, in the end, nothing more than the natural state of being.

Neither God nor Being nor any other word can define or explain the ineffable reality behind the word, so the only important question is whether the word is a help or a hindrance in enabling you to experience That toward which it points.

Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you.

When we really start to take a look at who we think we are, we become very grace prone.

To posit that there might be some changeless state of final attainment, whether through the aquisition of fame or money, or being able to make all of one's own life choices without acceding to external compulsion, is deeply misleading. We would do better to remember that it is in the nature of unhappiness only to be changeless, and to see happiness as an intermittent state -- sometimes expected, most often not -- that deepens the textures of present life, rather than being a final destination in which, once arrived at, we will surely plan to stay.

Dove that ventured outside,        flying far from the dovecote:
housed and protected again,     one with the day, the night,
knows what serenity is,              for she has felt her wings
pass through all distance and fear       in the course of her wanderings.

The doves that remained at home,     never exposed to loss,
innocent and secure,               cannot know tenderness;
only the won-back heart              can ever be satisfied: free,
through all it has given up,                to rejoice in its mastery. 

Being arches itself                 over the vast abyss.
Ah the ball that we dared,     that we hurled into infinite space,
Doesn’t it fill our hands            differently with its return:
heavier by the weight             of where it has been.

I want you to be everything that's you, deep at the center of your being.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.
[this quote also appears in Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Chapter 9, p. 28]

This is not a day for asking questions,
not a day on any calendar.
This day is conscious of itself.
This day is a lover, bread, and gentleness,
more manifest than saying can say.

I believe that the physical is the geography of the being.

It is strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you alone. Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits. A world lives within you. No one else can bring you news of this inner world.

It is impossible to imagine existence void of any intelligence.

Being naked approaches being revolutionary; going barefoot is mere populism.

If I was to survive, I must literally believe myself into being. This, of course, was essentially no different from what I'd always done. I'd simply believed in myself until, in fact, I existed.

..because if you believe in something, and believe in it long enough, it will come into being.

Your soul doesn't care what you do for a living - and when your life is over, neither will you.  Your soul cares only about what you're being while you're doing whatever you're doing....

"Don't look for perfection in me. I want to acknowledge my own imperfection, I want to understand that that is part of the endlessness of my growth.  It’s absolutely useless at this stage in your life, with all of the shit piled up in your closet, to walk around and try to kid yourself about your perfection. Out of the raw material you break down you grow and absorb the energy.  You work yourself from inside out, tearing out, destroying, and finding a sense of nothingness.  That nothingness allows God to come in.  But this somethingness— ego and prejudices and limitations— is your raw material.  If you process and refine it all, you can open consciously.  Otherwise, you will never come to anything that represents yourself...The only thing that can create a oneness inside you is the ability to see more of yourself as you work everyday to open deeper and say, fine,  ‘I’m short tempered,’ or ‘Fine, I’m aggressive,’ or, ‘Fine, I love to make money,’ or, ‘I have no feeling for anybody else.’ Once you recognize you’re all of these things, you’ll finally be able to take a breath and allow these things to open."

Burn me.
Drown me.
Tell me lies.
I will still be who I am.

The existence of God is not logically necessary, and yet, on the basis of some profound peculiar empirical order in the universe, it seems that He exists as the ultimate uncreated Being, implying a paradox, as no logically unnecessary entity can be uncreated. This paradox is the ultimate question asked by God, who is nothing but the ultimate questioner.

A fundamental condition of Being is slavery. Man is the slave of God, and God that of His vanity.

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.

I find there is a little spot at the end of every breath
where no one can get to but me. It's pure rapture.

The real beauty of realizing your true nature is in the freshness,
peace and deep bodily relaxation which touches to the core of
your being, flows into your everyday life and bursts forth naturally
into blossoming from within itself. Without you 'doing' a thing
about any of it.

This is a beautiful and simple change of lifestyle.
A lifestyle of letting go and living openhandedly, curled
up in the sunlit warmth on the lap of
the Divine (your heart)

This is NOT some stale old chore which you have got to 'do'.

The true beauty of realizing your true nature is in the freshness,
peace and deep bodily relaxation which touches to the core of your
being, flows into your everyday life and bursts forth naturally
into blossoming from within itself. Without you 'doing' a thing
about any of it.

It is very important to note that this is NOT a limited
meditation 'practice' or 'technique'.

All that is required for you to live the freedom of your divinity is to again become
familiar with returning back to your true nature. Being it and sinking deeply into living as it.

There is never the possibility of satiating desire. It is in the beingness of this one ...that you are freed from the attempts of satiating the bottomless well of desire.

I don't ever want to make taking pictures into another way of saying 'Here I am'.  Because I'm as here as I want to be.