Sometimes I believe that God wants to try me, both now and later on; I must become good through my own efforts, without examples and without good advice.
Each of you should feel that you have great potential and that, with self-confidence and a little more effort, change really is possible if you want it. If you feel that your present way of life is unpleasant or has some difficulties, then don't look at these negative things. See the positive side, the potential, and make an effort.
Whatever forms of meditation you practice, the most important point is to apply mindfulness continuously, and make a sustained effort. It is unrealistic to expect results from meditation within a short period of time. What is required is continuous sustained effort.
It is astonishing, how many difficulties clear up without any effort when the inner life gets straightened out. If half the time we spend trying to fix up outward things were spent in getting our hearts right, we would be delighted with the result. Strange as it may seem, harmony within our hearts depends mostly upon our getting into harmony with God.
We are passing into a social phase in which unless a heroic effort is made for human dignity and freedom, gold will be the sole method of government and therefore the sole standard of manners.
It cannot but be injurious to the human mind never to be called into effort: the habit of receiving pleasure without any exertion of thought, by the mere excitement of curiosity, and sensibility, may be justly ranked among the worst effects of habitual novel-reading.
I want us to be together without bothering about ourselves- to be really together because we ARE together, as if it were a phenomenon, not a thing we have to maintain by our own effort.
Great calm, generous detachment, selfless love, disinterested effort: these are what make for success in life. If you can find peace in yourself and can spread comfort around you, you will be happier than an empress.
Truth should be the very breath of our life. When once this state in the pilgrim's progress is reached, all other rules of correct living will come without any effort, and obedience to them will be instinctive.