1. To still the mind

“The grandest but most difficult goal to achieve in life is to still the mind. All magnificence and power comes from that.”

2. Happiness is calmness

“If a person can’t be calm for long, they can’t be happy for long, because happiness is calmness.”

3. Being present is harmony

“The trademark of being present is harmony. When you’re calm and relaxed, it always leads to harmony.”

4. Present moment and expectations

“If you don’t want suffering in your life you have to get rid of all expectations. And expectations are nothing but future projections, so to get rid of expectations means to live in the present moment.”

5. If you think you can’t meditate

“There’s no such thing as a person who can’t meditate. It’s just a beginner who hasn’t practiced for long enough, that’s all.”

6. Purposefully remaining calm

“When we set aside a bit of energy to purposefully remain calm and relaxed every moment—rain, hail or shine—suddenly our life will shift from meaningless living to living with depth, warmth and cheerfulness.”

7. Meditation, freedom and happiness

“If we don’t know how to increase our awareness or how to control our mind, we have suffering, like everybody else. When we know how to increase our awareness, we have freedom, we have happiness.”

8. The aim of spiritual practice

“The aim of spiritual practice is to cultivate love in us. In other words, to stop all those signals going on in our head that tell us not to love another.”

9. When you taste the present moment

“Once you truly taste the present moment, you will not want anything else in your life. Nothing is comparable. You’re hooked forever.”

10. Learn to switch off the mind

“When one starts to know how to switch off the mind, then one will understand that is how to stop suffering.”

11. The expansiveness of your soul

“Your soul is too expansive to ever be able to fit into anybody’s expectations.”

12. Meditation is ‘gold’

“If someone has learned meditation but doesn’t practice to be in the present moment, that must mean they think being present has less value than gold. So the first step is not to learn meditation techniques. The first step is to realise that this is gold.”

13. Love peacefulness more

“Don’t hate money—love money. But love peacefulness a thousand times more.”

14. How long you can be present

“How long you are able to be in the present moment will determine how happy you are, how peaceful you are or how fearful you are in your life.”

15. Seeing perfection

“To see perfection in everything means we are equally happy in the favourable situations and the unfavourable situations.”

16. The magnificence of our divine Self

“We did not come to this planet to complete a set of tasks and then die. We came to experience the magnificence of our divine Self in every single moment.”

17. Find happiness and joy in stillness

“We don’t need to search for happiness—search for stillness, because happiness and joy come from that.“

18. Love and peace

“Love and peace are like twins—they come together. If you cannot feel peace inside, you will not be able to feel love inside you.”

19. Life is enhanced

“All of life is enhanced when you are in the present moment.”

20. Feeling inner calmness

“When you feel inner calmness, it just feels beautiful. Well, that feeling is you! That beauty is not somewhere else, with another person—it’s inside you. And all you had to do was relax so that you could perceive it.”

21. Without the mind, there is peace

“Where there’s love, the mind doesn’t enter and when the mind doesn’t enter then there’s peace.”

22. The impact of peacefulness

“Once a person is peaceful, everything that comes out of them has an impact of peacefulness—the look in their eyes, the words they speak, the wish in their heart, the vibration they project—everything about them will contribute to peace.”

23. Surrendered to life

“Enlightenment is when you are totally surrendered to life, like a leaf that falls off a tree—the destiny of that leaf could go in any direction, depending on which way the wind is going to blow in that moment.”

24. Seeing the beauty

“When you are present, you see the beauty of life—the little things that make you feel beautiful.”

25. Inner stillness

“When there’s inner stillness, all our potential starts to flower.”

26. Freedom from suffering

“When we master the ability to focus or concentrate on one point, and remain there for long durations, we will be free from emotional suffering.”

27. Meditation techniques

“Meditation techniques are based on the truth that when we focus on one thing, like the breath, then thoughts can’t enter and the energy within you becomes still.”

28. Heaven is here and now

“Heaven is right here, right now. You’re not going to find heaven anywhere else.”

29. Happy moments in life

“Learning to notice and appreciate beautiful little happy moments in life is why we were born. This is the true challenge for every human being.”

30. Maximizing beauty and joy

“The purpose of life is to maximize the beauty and the joy of every moment, and you can not enjoy life if you are thinking.”

31. What mindfulness does

“Mindfulness is always alert to ignore those things that destroy our goal to love another.”

32. Getting rid of ‘knowledge’

“You have to get rid of your knowledge about life, to know life. You have to get rid of your knowledge about yourself, to know yourself. You have to get rid of your knowledge about love, to know love. You have to get rid of all your knowledge about happiness, to know happiness.”

33. The eternal now

“Meditation is the state of no mind, the eternal now, and that is where the heart lies.”

34. Selfless service and the meditation state

“Selfless service is a very powerful method to bring you to the meditation state. Because if you’re kind to someone, it’s going to make you feel beautiful about yourself, and when you feel beautiful about yourself your mind will stop. That chattering that speaks garbage all the time will stop.”

35. Being yourself

“When you are being 100% yourself, your life will flow effortlessly and love will sparkle in your eyes.”

36. If we are peaceful

“If we are all peaceful, if we have inner calm, inner peace, all of nature will be celebrating.”

37. Living in the now

“If you’re not here in the now, you’re living in thought. It’s not real. You miss everything—you miss the conversation, you miss the child’s giggle, you miss life.“

38. Ignoring the mind

“When you are able to ignore the mind, then your life is peaceful. Suddenly, you’ve got no problems.”

39. The goal of meditation

“The goal of meditation is to have inner stillness. And from that inner stillness then outer movement or outer non-movement is irrelevant. When you don’t move outside, when you sit still, there’s beauty and magnificence and peace in that. And when you walk, there can be grace in that, when you talk, there can be grace in that—as long as there’s stillness inside.”

40. Limitations

“Know that anything is possible. We are our only limitation.”

41. Anchor to the present moment

“No matter what difficulties you may have faced in your life, when you anchor to the present moment and don’t go to your past, you will experience true freedom.”

42. Oneness with God leads to the present moment

“If you have a love of God in your heart and the knowing that you are Godly, you can’t do anything separate from God. That’s just another way to say you are one with God. When you have that perception or feeling in your heart, then automatically you’ll be able to perceive the present moment, every moment.”

43. Best attitude for meditation

“The one attitude a person should have when they’re meditating is to try to be as calm as possible, and to stay in that calmness for as long as possible. That’s what meditation is—it’s a state of calmness.”

44. The epicentre of love

“In the state of no mind you don’t have to look for love, because that state is the epicentre of love itself.”

45. The present moment, your true identity

“When you’re in the present moment, that’s your true identity.”

46. Switching off our thoughts

“When we adventure through life knowing that we are able to switch off our thoughts at will, then life becomes truly magical.”

47. Whole-hearted effort

“It’s the whole-hearted effort each day—to practice to relax, live in the moment, take it slow and easy with one step at a time—this is how mastery of our mind and emotions takes place.”

48. Spirituality

“Spirituality is the ability to adapt to any situation in life.”

49. Live in the present, fearlessly

“When you start to live your live being present, fearlessly, things just work out.”

50. Suffering

“Suffering is in the realm of the body and the mind. The soul, the spirit, doesn’t have any suffering. The spirit is always free.”

51. Spiritual practice

“Spiritual practice is anything that makes you feel more beautiful inside you.”

52. Knowing when you’re present

“We do so many things each day when we’re actually present. The problem is we don’t know it, and if you’re present and you don’t know it, it’s like having a million dollars but you don’t know it.”

53. Know that being present benefits us

“To be present is actually not that hard, but to be present for long is hard because it needs the conviction, understanding and clarity that it benefits us.”

54. Living oneness and connection

“Formal spiritual practices such as meditation are great, but it is only when the truths of oneness and connection are lived and applied that true happiness begins to dawn in us.”

55. Not a spectator sport

“Spirituality is not a spectator sport. It’s in the application that results are achieved.”

56. Home to our true Self

“Ask our heart what it yearns to be and feel, and begin to live that. When this is asked, our heart  will unfailingly guide us home to our true Self.”

57. To turn within yourself

“When nothing on the outside satisfies you, there’s only one turn left—to turn within yourself.“

58. How to love spiritual practice

“If you’re not experiencing the spiritual path as fun then there is something missing in your understanding and experimentation. Spiritual practice is about stopping those things that destroy our fun—stress, anger, jealousy, sadness, loneliness, nervousness… Don’t be serious about spiritual practice. Just understand how it works, how it benefits you, and you’ll love it naturally—then you’re going to have fun with it.”

59. Meditation and not thinking

“Why is it important to understand and to practice meditation? Because when we’re not thinking, we are in the present moment.”

60. Loneliness

“Develop the ability to control your mind and loneliness will be forever gone.”

61. Meditation and selfless service

“Like two wings of a bird, meditation and selfless service will lead you home to your true self.”

62. Peace of mind

“In the world today there is one commodity that is rarer than diamonds, and that is peace of mind. If you want peace of mind, you’ve got to live in the present moment.”

63. When challenges come

“It is when challenges come, and we face them, that we know how good we are at this game of mind control.”

64. Thoughts, present moment, stillness

“When our awareness is not identifying with thoughts, then we are in the present moment. When we are in the present moment then stillness happens.”

65. Path towards enlightenment

“The path towards enlightenment is the path towards being the lightest you can be.”

66. Concentrating on the breath

“The Masters know that if you concentrate on anything your mind will stop. Concentrating on the breath is good, because it’s always with you.”

67. Remembering who you are

“To love yourself is an inner phenomenon—it has nothing to do with outside things. It’s about remembering who you are.”

68. God is right here, right now

“The mind can never know God, because the mind is historical—like a book, it is already written. But God is not yet published—God is right here, right now.”

69. Realising we are the eternal now

“We can only lose our ego when we realise our past is not who we are. Who we are is the eternal now.”

70. Understanding the mind

“If a person wants to be happy, to be peaceful, they need to understand just one thing—their own mind.”

71. The mind stops love

“To be able to feel love is very natural. God created each one of us as perfect embodiments of love, so each one of us has the capacity to feel love. But it’s all the conditions in our mind that make us unable to feel love.”

72. Who we are not

“A spiritual life means a life of practicing awareness to be able to see through all the false ideas of who we are not.”

73. The peace of the Buddha

“If you want your life to flow, you want to not think. When you don’t think, you will have the peace of the Buddha. You will become a saint.”

74. Erasing ‘knowledge’

“The spiritual path is about trying to erase knowledge, not gather knowledge. It’s a process of getting rid of the conditioning that ‘I know everything.'”

75. ‘Finding’ God

“Where is God? God is here in our heart. Nobody can ‘find’ God—they can only feel God inside their heart.”

76. Training the mind

“For a trained mind this planet is the most beautiful. For an untrained mind this planet is nothing but suffering.”

77. Discover the hidden power within you

“With every breath given, dedicate your life to discover the hidden power within you.”

78. In stillness we are happy

“Happiness is when the energy within you is still.”

79. Thoughts can’t enter

“The space of the ‘here and now’ is like a cave with such small doors that the dinosaurs of thoughts can never enter.”

80. Awareness to apply meditation in our life

“Awareness is the bridge between theory and practice. We tend to study a bunch of great theories and secrets. It sounds fantastic and these ideas seem so good, but where it breaks down is there’s no awareness in the critical moment to remember it. So we don’t need many secrets, but we need great awareness. Then we can actually apply all the spiritual principles that lead to happiness and peace of mind.”

81. Stay in the present for happiness and love

“How do you stay present for long? That’s the name of the game. Because that’s what happiness is, that’s what love is—to stay present for long.“

82. Controlling the mind

“You’ve got to learn to control the mind, otherwise the mind will control you.”

83. The here and now

“The here and now doesn’t change. The context, the backdrop, is changing, but the here and now is exactly the same.”

84. Mastering the mind

“If one person has mastered the ability to control their thoughts and emotions, there’s no reason why anyone cannot.”

85. In love with inner silence

“When we know what we are looking for, we will fall in love with inner silence.”

86. Silliness

“Before you can enter the kingdom of God, there is a prerequisite that you must hit a certain level of silliness. That might sound funny, but I’m telling you—it’s true!”

87. Negative thoughts

“When negative thoughts come, immediately go to the present moment—where thoughts can’t enter—and stay there as long as possible.”

88. To meditate, tune into your heart

“Meditation is one way to tune into your heart, but you can say it the other way around—if you tune into your heart, you’ll be in meditation!”

89. In the present moment

“In the present moment lies freedom.”

90. Enlightenment is

“Enlightenment is when you know that you know nothing. And because you know nothing, you’re happy!”

91. Meditation is

“Meditation is the art of being relaxed.”

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Explore this beautiful selection of quotes on the topics of spirituality, enlightenment, love and wellbeing. Hundreds of priceless nuggets of inspiration from the wisdom of Master Sri Avinash.

These quotes share simple secrets to a life of peace and happiness, and they serve to remind us of the beauty and depth of the human heart.