~Robert M. Pirsig

Imagine a vast hall in Anglo-Saxon England, not long after the passing of King Arthur. It is the dead of winter and a fierce snowstorm rages outside, but a great fire fills the space within the hall with warmth and light. Now and then, a sparrow darts in for refuge from the weather. It appears as if from nowhere, flits about joyfully in the light, and then disappears again, and where it comes from and where it goes next in the stormy darkness, we do not know. 

Our lives are like that, suggests an old story in Bede’s medieval history of England. We spend our days in the familiar world of our five senses, but what lies beyond that, if anything, we have no idea. Those sparrows are hints of something more outside, a vast world, perhaps, waiting to be explored. But most of us our happy where we are. We may even be a bit afraid to venture into the unknown. What would be the point, we ask. Why should we leave the world we know?

Yet there are always a few who are not content to spend their lives indoors. Simply knowing there is something unknown beyond their reach makes them acutely restless. They have to see what lies outside — if only, as George Mallory said of Everest, “because its there.”

This is true of adventurers of every kind, but especially of those who seek to explore not mountains or jungles but consciousness itself: whose real drive, we might say, is not so much to know the unknown as to know the knower. Such men and women can be found in every age and culture. While the rest of us stay put, they quietly slip out to see what lies beyond.

Via Eknath Easwaran’s translation of The Bhagavad Gita

~Dalai Lama

Richard Rohr: 

We don’t come to God (or truth or love) by insisting on some ideal worldly order or so-called perfection, but in fact we come “to knowledge of salvation by the experience of forgiveness” (Luke 1:77)—forgiveness of reality itself, of others, of ourselves—for being so ordinary, imperfect, and often disappointing. Many also have to forgive God for not being what they wanted or expected. One reason why I am so attracted to Jesus and then to Francis is that they found God in disorder, in imperfection, in the ordinary, and in the real world—not in any idealized concepts. They were more into losing than winning. But the ego does not like that, so we rearranged much of Christianity to fit our egoic pattern of achievement and climbing.

Much of the Christian religion has largely become “holding on” instead of letting go. But God, it seems to me, does the holding on (to us!), and we must learn the letting go (of everything else).

We all end up together in the same place.

Via Buzzfeed:

From J.K. Rowling, Ray Bradbury, Maya Angelou, and a bunch of other people who know what they’re talking about.

Check out 23 more quotes — here. 

From The Times of India:

As a lamp in a windless place does not flicker, such is the disciplined mind of a yogi practising meditation on Self.

Bhagwad Gita 6.19 * To live immaculate amidst impurities of the world – this is true yoga practice.

Adi Granth * He who practises yoga does two things with one stroke: he simplifies his whole life and he gets free access to the Divine.

Sri Chinmoy * The word yoga means skill – skill to live your life, to manage your mind, to deal with your emotions, to be with people, to be in love and not let that love turn into hatred.

Sri Ravi Shankar * Yoga is not a religion. It is a science of well-being and youthfulness, integrating body, mind and soul.

Everyone has their own personal bucket list. Some people want to visit every continent. Some people want to win an argument with the wife. Some want to own an expensive sports car or their own private jet. And yet others just want something smaller but significant in their lives. If you ever do get the chance to travel to 100 locations, here are 100 awesome places that you just HAVE to visit before you die.

Interesting list that shares some great pictures.

Check it out — here. 

Image and Link via Optiming