Summary

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Notes

Spiritual & Philosophical Insights

On Meditation & Practice

  • Meditation in midst of activity is 1000 times superior to meditation in stillness
  • The mind should be kept in the heart until it reaches the highest end - this is wisdom and liberation
  • You can make any activity into meditation by being completely present with it

On Self & Consciousness

  • Your nature is peace and happiness - there is no reason to be depressed
  • The self cannot be found in books - you have to find it yourself
  • You are the universe expressing itself for a little while

On Love & Relationships

  • Love is what we are - we don't get it from somebody, can't give it to anybody
  • Love can attain what the intellect cannot fathom
  • Attachment is love polluted by selfishness

On Freedom & Surrender

  • We don't work to become free - we simply are free
  • "I don't mind what happens" - that is the essence of inner freedom
  • Release attachment to outcomes - deep inside, you will feel good no matter what

On Learning & Growth

  • Learning is never cumulative - it is a movement of knowing with no beginning and no end
  • Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased
  • Wisdom comes from practice - find what works for you and keep doing it

On Life's Journey

  • Everyone has their own path - walk yours with integrity and wish others peace on their journey
  • The journey is uniquely yours - you cannot imitate somebody else's path and be true to yourself
  • Where the attention goes, the energy flows

On Mind & Thoughts

  • A free mind doesn't create problems - it meets them and answers them
  • Nothing is a problem until you make it one
  • Relinquish thoughts when not in use

On Living Fully

  • You can't live fully until you can live fully now
  • Approaching life with a sense of adventure is always available
  • Joy is exactly what's happening minus our attempt to control it

On Resilience

  • Ever tried? Ever failed? Doesn't matter. Try again, fail again, fail better
  • Defeat is a state of mind - no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as reality
  • The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be
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Application in decison making and practical life

Learning and Education

True learning requires a mind free from the burden of accumulated knowledge. In the state of absolute silence, we can truly listen and learn.

While we spend most of our lives learning to earn a living, we often neglect actual living. School should be a place of leisure where genuine learning happens without pressure.

Decision Making and Intuition

When intuition speaks, there is no reasoning - it simply feels right. The key is to be present without rushing to answers. This is surrender.

The mind seeks complexity but truth is simple. You cannot reach simplicity through complexity.

Understanding the Self and Body

The belief that the body needs an "I" to function is a fundamental error. The body operates perfectly well without the conscious "I" and its limited processing capabilities.

We are not our bodies. Attachment to physical appearance and society's ideals of beauty can create great suffering. True freedom comes from transcending body identification.

Free Will and Surrender

As Einstein said: "Everything is determined by forces over which we have no control. We all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."

The realization that we don't have free will is actually liberating. Life becomes easier and more wonderful when we stop believing we're in control.

Practical Wisdom

  • Let go gradually:
    • If you let go a little, you get a little happiness
    • If you let go more, you get more happiness
    • If you let go completely, you become free

Meditation and Practice

A powerful approach to surrender is saying "yes" during meditation, especially in difficult situations. Accept things as they are without resistance.

Gradually attain stillness through steady practice. Fix the mind in the Self, understanding that "The Self alone is all; there is nothing apart from It."

Career and Work

You are not bound by any job - jobs come and pass through you while you remain present in the moment. What happens is not your business; being 100% present is what matters.

The Universe will guide your career path - you can't make a "wrong" choice. Stay open to possibilities that may differ from your expectations.

Resources

For deeper exploration:

Gary Weber's Audio Resources

About Happiness Beyond Thought

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Powerful Quotes

Fritz Perls

I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped.

Dick Fosbury

I didn't train to make the Olympic team until 1968. I simply trained for the moment. I never even imagined I would be an Olympic athlete. It always seemed to evolve.

When you reach that elite level, 90 percent is mental and 10 percent is physical. You are competing against yourself. Not against the other athlete.

J. Krishnamurti

Because those who follow somebody destroy truth. Intelligence is not reason, logic, the very careful dialectical explanation, that is not intelligence. That is merely the exposition of thought in various forms. And thought is never intelligent. If it was, our world would be different.

Joseph Campbell

Remember the last line? "I've never done a thing I wanted to do in all my life." That's the man who never followed his bliss.

Carl Jung

Thinking is difficult, that's why most people judge.

You are what you do, not what you say you'll do.

It requires no art to become stupid; the whole art lies in extracting wisdom from stupidity. Stupidity is the mother of the wise, but cleverness never.

Alan Watts

Destination of life is this eternal moment.

The secret of the mastery of life is to know when to stop.

We don't think before we think, and we don't know how we think: we just do it. That is the Zen of thinking.

We begin from nothing and end in nothing.

Balinese Saying

We have no art. We do everything as well as we can.

You don't have art off in a little niche someplace. You have no distinction between what is art and what is not art. You do everything as well as you can.

Søren Kierkegaard

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

Emmet Fox

Attention is the key to life. Whatever you really give your attention to, you become. Whatever you really concentrate upon will come into your life. We grow into the thing that fills our thoughts as inevitably as the stream merges into the ocean at last.

You must not under any pretense allow your mind to dwell on any thought that is not positive, constructive, optimistic, kind.

As thy days, so shall thy strength be which, in modern language, may be translated as thy thoughts so shall thy life be.

You are not happy because you are well. You are well because you are happy. You are not depressed because trouble has come to you, but trouble has come to you because you are depressed. You can change your thoughts and feelings, and then the outer things will come to correspond, and indeed there is no other way of working.

To be afraid is to have more faith in evil than in God.

Epictetus

The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

Albert Camus

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.

To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.

Do not wait for the last judgment. It comes every day.

B.B. King

I learned another thing from the hurt my cousin gave me - never to give that kind of hurt to anyone else. My revenge was to change a bad feeling into a good one. If I'm working with you and I sense you're feeling a little insecure, I try to make you feel great. That's how I get rid of my old hurt. If I don't do that, my hurt grows and makes me mean and vengeful. But if hurt can change to kindness - that's something Mama showed me - the world becomes a little less cruel.

To me, singing is like talking. If it ain't natural, it ain't right.

This is a blues story. The blues is simple music, and I'm a simple man. But the blues aren't a science; the blues can't be broken down like mathematics. The blues are a mystery, and mysteries are never as simple as they look.

If you're kind to people, they'll be kind to you.

Ram Dass

We are all just walking each other home.

The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.

Pain is the mind. It's the thoughts of the mind. Then I get rid of the thoughts, and I get in my witness, which is down in my spiritual heart. The witness that witnesses being. Then those particular thoughts that are painful – love them. I love them to death!

From a Hindu perspective, you are born as what you need to deal with, and if you just try and push it away, whatever it is, it's got you.

Other Notable Quotes

Negativity is the enemy of creativity. - David Lynch

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. - Jimi Hendrix

Once we accept our limits we can go beyond them. - Albert Einstein

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. - Maya Angelou

Your suffering is truth; it is intelligent. - Chogyam Trungpa