Spiritual Teachers Quotes

“True freedom is when all the stories, all the insights, all the realizations, concepts, beliefs and positions dissolve. What remains is what you are; a vast, conscious, luminous space simply resting in itself, not knowing a thing, at the point where all things are possible.”
― Enza Vita

“Om is that God of love. Like a loving mother Om cleans us of our clutters collected through many incarnations.”
― Banani Ray

“When you are truly awakened, you have completely stopped trying to become awakened. You simply are. You know that you did not locate awakening; awakening located you.”
― Enza Vita

“Being enlightened ironically means realizing that there is no separate entity that can be enlightened or unenlightened.”
― Enza Vita

“It is always beneficial to be near a spiritual teacher. These masters are like gardens or medicinal plants, sanctuaries of wisdom. In the presence of a realized master, you will rapidly attain enlightenment. In the presence of an erudite scholar, you will acquire great knowledge. In the presence of a great meditator, spiritual experience will dawn in your mind. In the presence of a bodhisattva, your compassion will expand, just as an ordinary log placed next to a log of sandalwood becomes saturated, little by little, with its fragrance.”
― Dilgo Khyentse, The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most

“All paths are valid, but in the end you will find that the realization of the ultimate truth is a pathless path.”
― Enza Vita

“Not knowing anything, not searching for anything, understanding that we can’t hold on to anything, leaves us with nothing — nothing except our original nature, pure awareness.”
― Enza Vita

“You aren’t actually a someone, a person, who is conscious. You are the awake space of awareness itself, within which all the “thought up” entities in your world appear. Out of all these imagined entities, you have simply made the mistake of thinking that one of them is you.”
― Enza Vita

“It’s only the ego that wants to surrender the ego; the real meaning of surrender does not involve anything external. It means to surrender to your true nature.”
― Enza Vita

“Realization includes everything, the mundane and the transcendental. In true awakening, nothing stands apart and nothing is excluded. If we find ourselves in a state where something is excluded, that state, however amazing it is, is still a dualistic state.”
― Enza Vita

“The one who believes himself to be a person needs to try to find that person. This is a solution, an antidote, offered to a ghost that thinks it actually exists.”
― Enza Vita

“The whole message of Jesus Christ is rejoicement. Jesus has said: Those who lose themselves will find themselves. It is to dissolve like a drop falls into the sea. The spiritual teacher is a death, but he is also a rebirth, a resurrection, a rejoicement.”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, When the Drop becomes the Ocean

“At the moment of enlightenment, everything is dropped—body, mind, all states, all things—everything. At that moment, there is no separate entity that can become enlightened, because there is no I that can experience it.”
― Enza Vita

“Realization is not about you, the wave, realizing it is ocean. The ocean realizes itself in you and reveals itself to have never been just a wave. Nothing changes except the falling away of a false belief.”
― Enza Vita

“Looking forward” to what you think enlightenment might be at some grand point in the future keeps you from seeing the truth of its presence right now.”
― Enza Vita

“Awareness is that which is reading these words right now, whatever “that” is. You know without a doubt that there is something reading these words right now and awareness is precisely what that is.”
― Enza Vita

“What is constant? Is the mind anything more than a conglomeration of thoughts? Where is the mind apart from thought? If there is no thought, can there be a mind? They cancel each other out, do they not?”
― Enza Vita

“The One that experiences itself as your body-mind is the same One that experiences itself in every other body-mind, form, or appearance that exists.”
― Enza Vita

“Even amazing states of bliss, peace, clarity and spaciousness have nothing to do with awakening as these are just experiences coming and going in the impersonal awareness that you are.”
― Enza Vita

“Just knowing that there is no gate to pass through doesn’t mean that we are at the end of the search, not if we are still standing outside that gateless gate.”
― Enza Vita

“Anything that appears and disappears cannot actually be you because it is being observed by you. By removing the attention from these things and noticing what remains, you are left only with what is permanent — the truth of who you are.”
― Enza Vita

“It could be said that we become so much a stranger that we disappear and find ourselves reborn in the midst of humanity which is quite a paradox.”
― Donna Goddard, Love s Longing

“A good teacher is clear that their role is ultimately to shine light on the path for others to find their way back to God.”
― Michael Mirdad

“Nothing can be the total truth in the worlds of manifestation and the more solid your concepts, the more likely they are going to sink you, sooner or later.”
― Enza Vita

“There are no secrets. Nothing is withheld by God. Yet, it is only by our own sincere searching, the evolutionary stage we have reached, and the grace of God that we come into contact with spiritual pathways and teachers that are right for us at any particular time.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Being Loving

“Nobody knows all the answers to the mysteries of the universe. For your own sake, be wary of anyone who claims they do.”
― Anthon St. Maarten

“As students of life, we seek both relief from suffering and growth of happiness. Nothing is withheld by God, yet, it is only by our sincere searching and the evolutionary stage we have reached that we come into contact with various teachings which leave us wiser than when we first found them.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“The motive of the ego is always self-centred. The love of less-developed teachers is not as unselfish as it may, sometimes, seem. Teachers can love our dedication to them rather than our dedication to the Truth. We dedicate ourselves to Truth, not to a material personality. We learn to lean on the sustaining Infinite and, in this way, we trust not human persons but we trust the goodness of the Divine presence. A true teacher will encourage this. The spirit of the teacher is everything. Words are cheap. Many teachers who have large followings are internally misaligned.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Most spiritual teachers do not consciously and intentionally deceive. However, ignorance of the ego does not make a saint. Good questions to ask about spiritual teachers are:
Are there rules and regulations?
Does the teacher need or want certain things back?
Is the teacher asking for a lot of money?
Does this teacher’s presence or writing transform me?
Do I feel closer to God by listening to this teacher?

We want the attention to be drawn not to the personal teacher but to the impersonal divinity of those listening. The focus is not on the teacher but on the true spirit within each of us. We want to feel God rising within. Otherwise, the capacity of the teacher to aid our long-term transformation will be limited. Genuine teachers quickly divert attention away from themselves. They do this so that the focus is on the needs of the student and not on themselves. If they have outgrown the desire for personal attention, they will do this very naturally.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“This is one of the principal reasons people seek out spiritual teachers. They figure there is more to most things than meets the eye.”
― Michael Downing, Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center