[Josiah P. Mendum memorial at Paine Hall][He turned] the strait-laced Boston of sixty years ago [into] the enlightened Hub of today, . . . to 'destroy bigotry and uproot the evils of superstition.

Enlightenment doesn’t make us a better person if we seek it just for us. It doesn’t erase our desires or put an end to even our own suffering. In fact it is the suffering that ennobles us.

I did not tell Fat this, but technically he had become a Buddha. It did not seem to me like a good idea to let him know. After all, if you are a Buddha you should be able to figure it out for yourself.

When a man does not dwell in self, then things will of themselves reveal their forms to him. His movement is like that of water, his stillness like that of a mirror, his responses like those of an echo.

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?

It [enlightenment] has not come to you by means of teaching! And-thus is my thought, oh exalted one,-nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings! (character of Siddhartha, speaking to the Buddha)

If you believe that you are NOT omnipresent, omniscient and ultimately omnipotent – you are delusional. If you believe that you are separate from that which you call God, then you are living a lie.

If you stay on this path as long as I have, you’ll soon learn that the road to providence leads right through perdition. And along that road, the devil’s waiting to collect his pound of flesh.

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.

Never allow dogmatic interpretations of Karma to keep you from defending what is right or just. You must accept the reality that on occasion, you may very well be the proper instrument of this cosmic force.

Realization is the direct seeing that this entity you have believed yourself to be has its roots in something infinitely vast and that this entity is not separate from that vastness, the source, the absolute.

The breath I take, the thoughts I think, the emotions I develop, the blood I circulate, the neurons that are wired, everything is completely controlled and has a deep meaning behind it. My soul is enlightened.

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.

You will not die if you abandon them. You will not lose if you abandon them. You will gain something greater. If you do not abandon them you will never reach enlightenment, nor find your self that is at peace.

Despair is the result of each earnest attempt to go through life with virtue, justice and understanding, and to fulfill their requirements. Children live on one side of despair, the awakened on the other side.