The sage belongs to the same obsolete repertory as the virtuous maiden and the enlightened monarch.
It is within your power at this very moment not only to consumate an act of enlightened statesmanship, but, as the instrument of the Almighty, to restore to freedom a race of men.
As a student of enlightenment your attitude should not be to become enlightened. It should be to learn.
Once you are enlightened, you don't do wrong things. You don't take to wrong things. Then you start understanding all these prophets, all these great incarnations, you start understanding what they were. Then you understand that all these religions have come out of one Tree of Life, which is spirituality.
Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use of the book of the world.
The enlightened being can look through states of mind, but they are also outside of them.
You can't just sit in emptiness. Even the enlightened don't sit in emptiness. We call it emptiness - but we move our mind into a world of light.
You can't teach someone to be enlightened. It's something you have to go and do. You can't teach someone to meditate well. It's something you have to go and do.
We have come to think that duty should come first. I disagree. Duty should be a by-product. Writing, the creative effort, the use of the imagination, should come first – at least, for some part of every day of your life. It is a wonderful blessing if you use it. You will become happier, more enlightened, alive, impassioned, light-hearted and generous to everybody else. Even your health will improve. Colds will disappear and all the other ailments of discouragement and boredom.
Shambhala teachings say we all have the potential to accomplish our enlightened nature - our basic goodness.
Systems of religious error have been adopted in times of ignorance. It has been the interest of tyrannical kings, popes, and prelates to maintain these errors. When the clouds of ignorance began to vanish and the people grew more enlightened, there was no other way to keep them in error but to prohibit their altering their religious opinions by severe persecuting laws. In this way persecution became general throughout Europe.
It is easy to imagine that the Buddha, the awakened one, is something or somewhere other than here or that awakening to reality will happen sometime other than now. But as long as we continue to think in terms of time we will deceive ourselves. The you who is chasing enlightenment will never become enlightened. Instead of striving towards some distant goal that you will never reach, I invite you to stop and ask: How am I avoiding the enlightenment that is already present in each moment? How am I seeing separation where it doesn't exist?
It's only when all the dust is completely gone from the mirror, and there is only mirror, no dust, that we're really enlightened. So that's a lot of work.
Human beings of all societies in all periods of history believe that their ideas on the nature of the real world are the most secure, and that their ideas on religion, ethics and justice are the most enlightened. Like us, they think that final knowledge is at last within reach. Like us, they pity the people in earlier ages for not knowing the true facts. Unfailingly, human beings pity their ancestors for being so ignorant and forget that their descendants will pity them for the same reason.
When a poet digs himself into a hole, he doesn't climb out. He digs deeper, enjoys the scenery, and comes out the other side enlightened.
Newton, Pascal, Bossuet, Racine, F?nelon -- that is to say, some of the most enlightened men on earth, in the most philosophical of all ages -- have been believers in Jesus Christ; and the great Cond?, when dying, repeated these noble words, "Yes, I shall see God as He is, face to face!".
The idea of restraining the legislative authority, in the means of providing for the national defense, is one of those refinements which owe their origin to a zeal for liberty more ardent than enlightened.
True teachers of enlightenment are hard to find. The popular ones, of course, usually aren't enlightened because how could they be? They just tell people what they want to hear.
Becoming enlightened doesn't mean everything works your way.
Enlightened beings are rare in the universe. They are the joker in the deck. They are outside the circle.