Nirvana Quotes

“Practice makes perfect, but nobody's perfect, so why practice?”
― Kurt Cobain

“The search for Nirvana, like the search for Utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays

“No True Talent is fully organic. Yet the superior talented have not only control of study but that extra special, little gift at birth--fueled by passion.A built in, totally spiritual, unexplainable, New Age,fuckin cosmic energy bursting love for passion. And yes,they are an even smaller percent amongst the small percent. And they are special!”
― Kurt Cobain

“If we learn to listen to the others and try to capture the soul of their language, and can scent the fragrance of the words we hear, we can be transported to a nirvana of deep understanding, without being overwhelmed by the reality of the clock. ("Watching the flight of time")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“He was depressed. He was addicted to heroin. And I think there comes a time when all the beauty in the world just isn’t enough.”
― Antony John, Five Flavors of Dumb

“You are not limited to this body, to this mind, or to this reality—you are a limitless ocean of Consciousness, imbued with infinite potential. You are existence itself.”
― Joseph P. Kauffman, The Answer Is YOU: A Guide to Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Freedom

“These are the three stages of enlightenment, the three glimpses of satori.

1. The first stage enlightenment:
A Glimpse of the Whole

The first stage of enlightenment is short glimpse from faraway of the whole. It is a short glimpse of being.
The first stage of enlightenment is when, for the first time, for a single moment the mind is not functioning. The ordinary ego is still present at the first stage of enlightenment, but you experience for a short while that there is something beyond the ego.
There is a gap, a silence and emptiness, where there is not thought between you and existence.
You and existence meet and merge for a moment.
And for the first time the seed, the thirst and longing, for enlightenment, the meeting between you and existence, will grow in your heart.

2. The second stage of enlightenment:
Silence, Relaxation, Togetherness, Inner Being

The second stage of enlightenment is a new order, a harmony, from within, which comes from the inner being. It is the quality of freedom.
The inner chaos has disappeared and a new silence, relaxation and togetherness has arisen.
Your own wisdom from within has arisen.
A subtle ego is still present in the second stage of enlightenment.
The Hindus has three names for the ego:
1. Ahamkar, which is the ordinary ego.
2. Asmita, which is the quality of Am-ness, of no ego. It is a very silent ego, not aggreessive, but it is still a subtle ego.
3. Atma, the third word is Atma, when the Am-ness is also lost. This is what Buddha callas no-self, pure being.
In the second stage of enlightenment you become capable of being in the inner being, in the gap, in the meditative quality within, in the silence and emptiness.
For hours, for days, you can remain in the gap, in utter aloneness, in God.
Still you need effort to remain in the gap, and if you drop the effort, the gap will disappear.
Love, meditation and prayer becomes the way to increase the effort in the search for God.
Then the second stage becomes a more conscious effort. Now you know the way, you now the direction.

3. The third stage of enlightenment:
Ocean, Wholeness, No-self, Pure being

At the third stage of enlightenment, at the third step of Satori, our individual river flowing silently, suddenly reaches to the Ocean and becomes one with the Ocean.
At the third Satori, the ego is lost, and there is Atma, pure being. You are, but without any boundaries. The river has become the Ocean, the Whole.
It has become a vast emptiness, just like the pure sky.
The third stage of enlightenment happens when you have become capable of finding the inner being, the meditative quality within, the gap, the inner silence and emptiness, so that it becomes a natural quality.
You can find the gap whenever you want.
This is what tantra callas Mahamudra, the great orgasm, what Buddha calls Nirvana, what Lao Tzu calls Tao and what Jesus calls the kingdom of God.
You have found the door to God.
You have come home.”
― Swami Dhyan Giten

“Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem”
― Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam

“I would love to be erased from our association with Pearl Jam or the Nymphs and other first time offenders.”
― Kurt Cobain, Journals

“An entire generation now regards Nirvana as its version of the Beatles. They are of course hopelessly mistaken, but I would not recommend you tell them so.”
― Lewis Grossberger

“Having just enough life to enjoy being dead.”
― Jim Holt, Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story

“He has no need for faith who knows the uncreated, who has cut off rebirth, who has destroyed any opportunity for good or evil, and cast away all desire. He is indeed the ultimate man.”
― Gautama Buddha, The Dhammapada

“Sometimes, you can't save someone from themselves.”
― Dave Grohl

“Nirvana is right here, in the midst of the turmoil of life. It is the state you find when you are no longer driven to live by compelling desires, fears, and social commitments, when you have found your center of freedom and can act by choice out of that. Voluntary action out of this center is the action of the bodhisattvas -- joyful participation in the sorrows of the world. You are not grabbed, because you have released yourself from the grabbers of fear, lust, and duties.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“It is said that love does not last, that it is just a momentary spell cast upon your soul by some higher power, or a small trick of the mind. If this were all true, there would be no story to tell.”
― Natalie Valdes, NIRVANA

“Nirvana's music dragged you across the floor. You felt every crack; every speck of dirt. Their songs helped you locate the places where you ached, and in that awareness of your hurting, you suddenly knew that the bleakness was collective - not merely your own.”
― Carrie Brownstein, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl

“..reincarnation is a truth, because in existence nothing dies. Even the physicist will say, about the objective world, that nothing dies. You can destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki but you cannot destroy a single drop of water.

You cannot destroy. Physicists have become aware of this impossibility. Whatever you do, only the form changes.

But nothing can be destroyed in the objective world.

The same is true about the world of consciousness, of life. There is no death. Death is only a change from one form into another form, and ultimately from form to formlessness.

Only Gautam Buddha has given the right word for this experience. In English it is difficult to translate it, because languages develop only after experience. It is just arbitrarily that I am calling it "enlightenment." But it is very arbitrary; it does not really give you the sense that Buddha's word gives. He calls it nirvana.

Nirvana means ceasing to be. Strange... ceasing to be.

Not to be is nirvana. That does not mean that you are no more; it simply means you are no longer an entity, embodied.

The dewdrop drops into the ocean.
Now it is the whole ocean.

Existence is alive at every stage. Nothing is dead. Even a stone - which you think seems to be completely dead - is not dead. So many living electrons are running so fast inside it that you cannot see them, but they are all living beings. Their bodies are so small that nobody has seen them; we don't even have any scientific instrument to see the electron, it is only guesswork. We can see the effect; hence we think there must be a cause. The cause has not been seen, only the effect has been seen. But the electron is as alive as you are.

The whole existence is synonymous with life.

Here nothing dies. Death is an impossibility.

Yes, things change from one form to another form till they become mature enough that they need not go to school again. Then they move into a formless life, then they become one with the ocean itself.”
― Osho, From the false to the truth: Answers to the seekers of the path

“Bonds of family and love can withstand any storm and then life, even with its trials, can still be a beautiful and meaningful journey.”
― Jyoti Patel, NIRVANA: RAGA • DVESHA • MOHA

“Cosmos comes from consciousness,
Consciousness comes from cosmos.
Conscious life is cosmic life,
All else is counterfeit glasnost.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect

“You should understand that birth-and-death is itself nirvana. Nirvana is not realized outside of birth-and death.”
― Dōgen, The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master

“Even if you hope to live for seventy or eighty years, in the end you are destined to die. You should regard your pleasures and sorrows, relationships, and attachments in worldly affairs as your enemy. To do so is the way to a fuller life. You should keep in mind the buddha way alone and work for the bliss of nirvana. Especially those of you who are elderly or who are middle-aged, how many years do you have left? How can you be lax in your practice of the way?”
― Dōgen, The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master

“As for stream-winners, no matter how many times shoddy impulses may occur
to them, the goodness of nibbāna acts as a magnet on their hearts. This is what draws
them to keep on practicing until they reach the end point. When they reach the end
point, there can be no more birth, no more aging, no more illness, no more death.”
― Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo, Inner Strength and Parting Gifts

“I poured my heart into every effort, but the day came when I had to leave. And in that departure, I found the strength to appreciate myself, even if others couldn't see the value I brought to their lives.”
― Jyoti Patel, NIRVANA: RAGA • DVESHA • MOHA

“Sanatan means eternal, timeless, deathless.

These are our real qualities. We are never born and we never die. The body is
only a shelter, we are not it. It is only like a garment which one has to change
when it is too old. And we have changed the garment so many times. We differ
from other people only if the form and the shape and the color and the size of the
garment. The innermost reality is the same.

To find it, to find that which is never born and never dies, is the real goal of all
religious enquiry. One can call it god, liberation, nirvana, enlightenment. They
are different names for the same phenomenon. And it is not to be searched for
somewhere else, it is within you. It is you, so you have to dive deep into your
own nature.

Sannyas is a pilgrimage from the periphery to the center, from your own surface
to your depth.”
― Osho

“The English word anxiety comes from a Latin root which means narrowing down, and in the beginning the word was used for the entry of a soul into a womb. So the first anxiety is felt when a soul enters a womb, because everything is narrowed down; an infinite soul becomes a small body. This is the most painful process possible, as if the whole sky has been forced to enter into a seed. You don't know it because it is so painful that you become totally unconscious.

There are two painful processes. You may have heard Buddha's saying, "Birth is pain, death is pain." These are the greatest pains, the greatest anguishes possible. When the infinite becomes finite in the womb, it is painful, it is anxiety; and when the infinite is taken out of the body again there is anguish and pain.

So whenever someone dies consciously, he disappears. Then there is no more entry into the body. Then there is no more anxiety, because anxiety is the consequence of desire; then you need not be narrowed down because there is no desire to be fulfilled. You can remain infinite; there is no need to enter a vehicle because now you are going nowhere.”
― Osho, Bird on a Wing

“There is no death, only a change of form.

Everything continues....

The water that is constituting you, almost eighty percent or more, goes to the water. The mud that is constituting you, goes to the mud.

All the elements that constitute you go to their original sources. Your consciousness moves on into a new body. You can call it soul, you can call it atman.

The old body was no more capable as a house to be lived in so you simply move in a new house and you continue moving into new houses till any kind of desire remains in you.

The moment all desires disappear, the moment you live so totally that all desires are consumed by your living, that you simply live without any desire, without any ambition, without any goal, then the material elements move into material elements and your consciousness moves into the universal consciousness.

Nothing dies.

Only combinations disperse.

And they constitute another body for you. Existence is very compassionate -- it goes on giving you new bodies, new forms, until you have learned the lesson.

And the lesson is to live so totally that there is no space for any desire. Then you are allowed to be part of the universal consciousness.

This universal consciousness is not separate from existence. It is part, intrinsic part of existence. Existence is one. Matter and consciousness are two extremes of one energy. Matter is a certain combination of the same energy as consciousness.

It is the same cloth out of which all kinds of clothes are made -- your shirts, your caps, your pyjamas, everything. According to your need.

But the cloth, the basic reality, is one.”
― Osho

“Ništa od toga nije posebno i novo, pak nijedna ideja, nikakva vizija ni grijeh. Živio si ranije, lovio si ranije, čak si prije svega i umro, a tok se nastavljao neometano, i nedirano raskajanošću, ni bijesom, uopće uskrata neodnosna tobom, ti si mislio da si zarobljen, a stubokom, sve vrijeme, nisi tu ni bio, kao sjena bivanja, sjeti se, gdje li se izbavljenju stremi, ne mora li biti opisana jednako i sjena, želiš li što pustiti, objasni što ispuštaš, čega li se odričeš - ocrtaj, opiši - je li memorija, laž, samo nada u laž, od čega to još
zajednički, svaki ovaj dan mi bježimo...”
― Ivan Baran, Veliki pad

“Nježni ponent hujeći poja zibljući polugole grmove pri tajanstvenu, istrajno živu, živopisno čarovitu odsječku ovozemnog postojanja, isto nekako vrckavo, nemirno u višebojnom, brzajućem, titravom razmetanju kojim eto i govori, izjašnjava se neodstupajuće da i on je tu. Oko nas srebro stijenja, vrtača, vododerinama se raspada smeđezelena mrtva mahovina, gdješto je prljavohrđava, prlja bjeljavinu kamenja kano je drobljiva kaluga.
U taktu takvoga postojanja, ja slušam glas Atre:
“Naveo si me na nešto čemu sam se protivio, čemu sam od početka zapravo bio i neprijatelj. Zatražio si me da posegnem i ocrtam ti svrhu. Da kažem dostojanstveno što je krv postojanja. Jer i ono je uvjetovano time, ja osjećam da se ti osjećaš uvrijeđeno, poniženo u neograđenosti samoga sebe, tebi je zbilja i mučna ova sloboda. Ja bih zaista volio, bio bih i počašćen, kad bi ti prihvatio, a zašto ne i sada u ovom životu, evo sada dok hodamo prema niskom suncu, da je postojanje garantirano nepostojanjem, jedno je odraz drugoga i taj garant je jedini okov koji ti se može ponuditi.
“Atra... ali mene izluđuje neprestajuća nepredviđenost, beskrajno snalaženje, već mi je bljutava moja vlastitost i oslon na nju, zašto misliš kad bih pristao, ako bih već i mogao, a znam da ne mogu, da bi to bilo išta manje od mrcvarenja. Jedno jastvo rastegnuto između potpunih ispraznosti, pak na njima izgrađeno, dograđeno, uzdignuto prema jalovim visinama, a tako niskim visinama... U jednom životu sam ti o moći pripovijedao, o njezinoj ukupnosti, sadržini koja negira nepovredivost postojanja, čovjeka negira i oskvrnjuje ga, dokle istodobno njegova pojava, sam taj proces da je on tu, finalni jamac je bezvlasnog sljepila; moje već prisuće poriče ultimativni identitet i ono nije neopasno, unatoč tomu što sam sve vrijeme doista samo ja tu.”
Prepoznat ću da izgovaranje riječi ako i rovito, razdrta glasa u razgaru misli me prikučuje ipak snažnije svemu onomu izvanjskom, kroz rastinje vukući tijelo čak i tako uz himbu smjelosti ustuk sam oćutio marazma duše i ja opažam pod progalinom kao polazište, plamsaj svega posvemašnjeg ne više no nemir neprilježni, tako posve opušteno, stuporozno, stupidno prolazim zarudjelim trnjakom makije, zuljećim u ćuhu vjetra, svrstavajući nepomirljivost, ratoljublje, krvoločje drzovito kao čak posljednjeg zastupnika svega onostranog. Ali u tom razumijevanju, krvlju crljeno izmrljanom lovcu ja svejedno sada govoriti prepuštam:
“Ako se neka pojava trgne i odluči razglasiti da počinje naglašavati počelo stvari, recimo to, makar se time obraćala grotlu, mraku, samom koncu svega vlastitog - zbilja ona zbori eliminaciji sebe -, takva pojava zapravo prelako prilazi stupici kojoj upravo uz mene dolaziš i ti, pored toga što sam ti suputnik, pristojno se osvrćem na bogomračje, zaozbiljno i zatečen kako te zaobišla misao. Neprikladna je, teško prihvatljiva, veliki je pad čovjeka potreban kako bi se vidjelo i sa dna; u veličini vidjeti voljnost da sve nestane u bilo kojem trenutku, ali ne takvu ogorčenu težnju kakva je tvoja, već voljeti proces, biti proces, ja vrijedim onoliko koliko mi je malo stalo do toga, neogorčeno, ponavljam, ali dolično. Želiš izaći iz procesa, iz ritma, biti mrak, od čega sam ja recimo... a što dalje? Razumiješ li da fantazija - a mi znamo da je sve cilik perlica i šuštaj vea šarenih u svjetlu smrvljena zrcala, sve je i naivna sanja - razumiješ li da ona nije negacija niti opravdanje zazora stvarnosti, ono opipljivo i dalje je ozbiljno, i dalje šteti, ondje pak njeguje, uzdiže, sokoli, tu se nasiljem otimlje u borbi za život, ja ne moram biti stvaran da bih bio sirov, i mogu zaista naškoditi i
onda kad me nema.”
― Ivan Baran, Veliki pad

“To attain nirvana is to reach the Kong (Tao, Buddha) state by chanting the Heart Sutra.”
― Ricardo B Serrano, Akashic Records Reading with Tao Chang: and Messages from my Heart for Healing and Transformation

“One of the many great things about taking breaks from screens and devices is that it forces you to be still. This stillness can be very uncomfortable, but it also gives your brain a chance to breathe--and to come up with new ideas. As I sat there, contemplating my empty play tank and my inevitable march toward death, I asked myself a question ... What is something you've always said you wanted to do but that you supposedly don't have time for?”
― Catherine Price, The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again