Creative Mind and Success

• Without mental clearness on the part of the thinker there can be no real creative work done. As water will reach only its own level, so Mind will return to us only what we first believe. We are always getting what we believe but not always what we want.
• See only what you wish to experience and look at nothing else. No matter how many times the old thought returns, destroy it by knowing that is has no power over you; look it squarely in the face and tell it to go; it does not belong to you, and you must know - and stick to it - that you are now free.
• Whatever God is in the Universal, man must be in the individual world. The difference between God and man is one of degree and not of quality. Many is not self-made; he is made out of God.
• Nothing moves except as our mind moves it.
• At all times we are either drawing things to us or we are pushing them away from us.
• We live in mind; and it can return to us only what we think into it.
• Behind every condition, whether of body or environment, there has been some thought, conscious or unconscious, which produced that condition.
• Man does not really create, he uses creative power that already is.
• We are making our environments by the creative power of thought.
• Like attracts like and we attract to us just what we are in mind.
• We must think only what we wish to experience.
• Nothing ever happens by chance. Law governs all life, and all people come under that law.
• The person who is to succeed will never let his mind dwell on past mistakes. He will forgive the past in his life and in the lives of other people.
• He will know that so long as he desires any good, there is nowhere in the universe anything that opposes him.
• I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
• Things are but outer manifestations of inner mental concepts.
• The conditions that we attract will correspond exactly to our mental pictures.
• You can attract only that which you first mentally become and feel yourself to be in reality, without any doubting.
• Until we learn to love we are not sending out love vibrations, and not until we send out love vibrations can we receive love in return.
• Think of the whole world as your friend; but you must also be the friend of the whole world.
• Refuse to see/focus on the negative side of anyone.
• The only reason we think other people are "queer" is because they do not happen to think as we do. We must get over this little, petty attitude and see things in the large.
• God in us is unified with God in all.
• He must remember that whatever he gets is his to use but not his to hold. Creation is always flowing by and we have as much of it as we can take and use; more would cause stagnation.
• God will work through us if we will let him, but we must act in the outer as though we were sure of ourselves. Our part is to believe, and then to act in faith.
• Since God can do for us only by doing through us, nothing can be done for us unless we are positively receptive.
• Thought will always bring back to us what we send out.
• All is law, and cause and effect obtain through all life. Mind is cause, and what we term matter, or the visible, is effect. As water will freeze into the form that it is poured, so mind will solidify only into the forms that our thought takes.
• We are not troubled about competition or opposition or failure because there is nothing but life, and this life is continually giving to us all that we could ask for, wish, or think into it.
• What we must do is to provide that already-having-received attitude.
• We must know exactly what it is that we wish and get the perfect mental picture of it. We must believe absolutely that we now have it and never do or say anything that denies it.
• Life is consciousness and not years.
• It is thought and not conditions that we are dealing with.
• What we can mentally encompass we can accomplish, no matter how hard it may seem from the outside.
• Life is from within outward, and never from without inward. You are the center of power in your own life.
• Keep watch over the inner workings of your thought, and the Law will do the rest.
• There must be mental alertness before there can be physical activity.
• The thought of activity makes him move, and the thought of confidence makes his movements sure, and thought of Supreme Guidance makes his work intelligent.
• We must be careful and not get into ruts; always be doing something new and different, and you will find life becomes a great game in which you are taking the leading part.
• The wide awake person can find so many things to do that he hasn't time even to begin in this life and he knows that Eternity is necessary to carry out the ideals that he already has evolved.
• Be interested in life, if you want life to be interested in you.
• Every invention is but a discovery of something that already is, although we may not have seen it.
• Never become disturbed by effects. They didn't make themselves and have no intelligence to contradict you.
• Trust in your own self more than in all else. All great men have learned to do this.
• This door is our thought and we are the guardian of it, and when we do open the door we will find that the divine presence is right at hand, waiting, ready and willing to do for us all that we can believe.
• This is what happens. We are all sending out into Mind a constant stream of thought; the clearer it is, the better will it manifest; if it becomes doubtful it will not have so clear a manifestation. If it is confused it will manifest only confusion.
• We are living in the outer world of effects and in the inner world of causes.
• God still rules in the Universe, but we are given the power to rule in our lives.
• The substance that we deal with, in itself, is never limited, but we often are, because we draw only what we believe.
• Our limitation is only our unbelief; life can give us a big thing or a little thing.
• Limitation is an experience of the (human) race, but it is not the fault of God, it is the fault of man's perception.
• We must stick to it until we gain the mastery of all our thought and in that day we will rise never to fall again.
• If we want a thing we must have within ourselves the mental equivalent before we get it. As water will reach only its own level, so our outward conditions will re-produce only our inner realizations.
• We must all start somewhere, and that somewhere is within ourselves.
• Daily try to see more and to understand more, feel every day that you are a being especially looked after.
• Declare that all life, all love and power and now in your life.
• Those who believe the most always get the most.
• Realize that everyone in the world is a friend, and prove this by never saying anything unkind to any one or about any one.
• Anything that is unlike good is of sort duration, but anything that embodies the good is like God, ever present and Eternal.
• We must see only the good and let nothing else enter into our minds.
• The sun shines on all alike. Shall we separate and divide where God has so carefully united?
• Our thought is the seed and mind is the soil. We are always planting and harvesting. All that we need to do is plant only that which we want to harvest.
• Each victory will strengthen us until the time will come when we will no longer have to say I hope or believe, but I know.
• He laughs best who laughs last.
• We can never stand still in our thought. Either we will be growing or else we will be going back.
• Life is always limitless, and the only thing that limits us is our inability to conceive mentally.
• If we want to do a thing that is really worth doing, we must mentally grow until we are that thing, which we want to see made flesh.
• First impressions are usually the most direct and the clearest; they are generally direct form the mind of the Universe and should be carefully worked out into expression.
• The seed that falls into the ground shall bear fruit of its own kind; and nothing shall hinder it.

Source: Creative Mind and Success by Ernest Holmes

Quantum Leap Thinking

• Those who are always learning are those who can ride the winds of change and who can see a changing world as full of opportunities rather than dangers.
• When we choose one opportunity, other possibilities move to the background. Thus we alter our reality all the time. The things we do not choose are a potential reality.
  
• Paradigm shifting is a matter of choosing to create a new reality out of what we believe to be true.
• The first step toward taking a quantum leap is to be willing to examine the filter of your own belief systems.

• Real learning begins with questions: What do I want to create? Who am I? What is my purpose? How does this work? How do I get what I want?
• Never, never rest contented with any circle of ideas, but always be certain that a wider (better) one is still possible.
• It takes courage to test your ideas because you must be willing to have them fail.
• Turning judgment into curiosity opens the channel for learning.
• Be humble, for the worst thing in the world is of the same stuff as you; be confident, for the stars are of the same stuff as you.
• Success, however, can often be the kiss of death because it breeds complacency. Comfort can lead to stagnation.
• The process of creative thinking is simply the ability to see something not seen before, bringing something new out of a rearrangement of the old. The destruction of the old gives birth to the new.
• Only by using your imagination can you shift paradigms and bring forth the invisible.
• Creative ideas come to the intuitive person who can face up to the insecurity of looking beyond the obvious.
• Being busy does not necessarily mean being creative or productive.
• Busy-ness is often an unconscious choice to avoid reflection.
• In inner creativity, the quantum jump allows us to break from established patterns of behavior (what we have become as a result of our years of conditioning and growing up.)
• By changing the way you look at things, you bring the background to the foreground; you bring forth unseen possibilities.
• Assumptions are the death of possibility.
• The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
• Very few people take the time to truly define the problems they’re trying to solve. Until they do, no solution will work.
• There is always more than one right answer.
• No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
• We either create our circumstances or accept circumstances that have been imposed on us.
• With a shift in thinking, we are suddenly outside the box- and that is where the possibilities are.
• Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.
• Adapting to change is simple to talk about, difficult to execute, painful in the process, yet much less exhausting than fighting it.
• The truth about change is that, positive or negative, it creates loss. All change involves giving up something. We fear loss and resist change.
• Change can occur only after the pain of realizing that current behavior can no longer be tolerated.
• To attain what we want (the desired state), we must pass through the uncertain, uncomfortable phase of the transition state.
• Every change looks like a failure in the middle.
• You want long-term change, not a series of quick fixes.
• What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get done.
• Most people say, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” The truth is we see it when we believe it.
• You must challenge your assumptions. You must see the world through the eyes of others. You must honor others’ fears regardless of your own judgment.
• Make a contract with yourself. Write a contract stating exactly what change you intend to make and set a deadline for yourself. By entering into a written contract with yourself, you become your own coach.
• Failure doesn’t exist, only learning.
• Paraphrase what the other person says so they know you heard every word.
• No matter what life presents you, you have two choices about how you respond. Resist, deny, and blame, or experience the fear and look for all the possibilities that change inherently offers. 

• The skill of enlarging goals is the willingness to answer the question “Is this as big a game as I want to play?”
• A paradigm is a set of rules, mind-sets, regulations, or procedures that create boundaries or limitations and tell you how to conduct your behavior within those boundaries or limitations in order to meet with success. (A paradigm is a filter through which we perceive, interpret, and understand our reality and our options.)
• We see the world not as it is, but as we are.
• We interpret our experiences through our mental maps without ever questioning their accuracy.
• We have met the enemy and he is us.
• Goals are absolutely necessary and absolutely limiting.
• Unfortunately most of us limit ourselves without knowing it. The goals we set are easily achieved, short-term maintenance goals.
• Goals are baby steps to get you up the mountain.
• Goals are just dreams with deadlines.
• If there is tension, there must be resolution. A life of anxiety and worry is barely a life at all.
• People become discouraged and bitter because they operate from the belief that the problem lies somewhere “out there” and not within themselves.
• A quantum leap will take place only when you see things as they really are, not as you wish them to be.
• Vision is always something beyond ourselves; otherwise you’re far too near-sighted.
• Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It always comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.
• Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition form mediocre minds.
• Start at the beginning with the end in mind.
• We are what we repeatedly do.
• You have unlimited choices and you may choose to do whatever you like to do, as long as you are willing to pay the price.
• Just because you do your job doesn’t mean you’re committed to the job you’re doing.
• The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life.
• When there is correct thought, the right action follows.
• You create your reality twice: first in your imagination and then in the world (Change follows image).
• With every choice we make, we give up some other possibility.
• All fear grows out of the core fear of loss.
• Is this fear really energy in disguise? Fear is a signal that you are stretching (beyond your comfort zone).
• You need to separate the person from what is being criticized. Maintaining someone’s self-esteem is the number one priority for empowerment.
• Those with the courage to commit (to anything worthy) are the ones with passion, energy, and enthusiasm.
• You will commit only when the deepest part of you wants to. Commitment doesn’t suddenly, magically, appear, but the choice to commit can create seemingly magical outcomes.
• Take calculated risk. That is quite different from being rash.
• Risk taking is the spice of life. Risk taking means growth and innovation. Taking risks is stretching to meet your potential.
• Good risk takers are extremely cautious people. An extraordinary amount of intelligence goes into preparing for their activities. They have analyzed every factor that can operate against them.
• Not taking risks is far more dangerous than taking them. Not taking risks accelerates the aging process.
• The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing.
• There are two things to aim at in life: first to get what you want; and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest people achieve the second.
• You never conquer the mountain; you only conquer yourself.
• The majority of people are neither for nor against you; they are merely thinking about themselves.
• Wealth is the product of a man’s capacity to think.
• A person cannot do right in one department of life while attempting to do wrong in another. Life is one indivisible whole.
• Most anxiety and stress is caused by living in a dead past or an unborn future. Guilt from the past. Fear of the future. Healing, however, is in the present.
• Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear but around us in awareness.
• Invisible opportunities surround us all the time. In order to see them, we have to pay attention. Everything comes alive when you focus on it.   

Source: Quantum Leap Thinking by James Mapes

The Power of Now

• Nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody chooses insanity. They happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness. You are not fully here. You have not quite woken up yet. In the meantime, the conditioned mind is running your life.
• Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform you whole life.
• I have little use for the past and rarely think about it.
• You have IT already; you just can’t feel it because your mind is making too much noise.
• Do not make the false that is in you a personal problem, for that is how the false perpetuates itself.
• The seed of enlightenment is within; the knower in you who dwells behind the thinker, the deeper self that immediately recognizes spiritual truth, resonates with it, and gains strength from it.
• Don’t get attached to any words. They are only stepping stones to be left behind as quickly as possible.
• Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggers, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.
• Do not believe you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over.
• The moment you start watching “the thinker”, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated.
• Learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger.
• One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head which means you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it.
• As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people’s thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. Observe your mind and you will find this to be true. It causes a serious leakage of vital energy.
• To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important.
• The ego is always concerned with keeping the past alive, because without it- who are you? It constantly projects itself into the future to ensure its continued survival.
• Self-perceived reputation is nothing but ego created in your own mind.
• The predominance of mind is no more than a stage in the evolution of consciousness.
• Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought.
• When you do use your mind, and particularly when a creative solution is needed, you oscillate every few minutes or so between thought and stillness, between mind and no-mind. No-mind is consciousness without thought. Only in that way is it possible to think creatively, because only in that way does thought have any real power.
• You are the watcher, the observing presence. If you practice this, all that is unconscious in you will be brought into the light of consciousness.
• Emotion literally means “disturbance.” Love, joy, and peace are not emotions but deep states of Being or rather three aspects of the state of inner connectedness with Being.
• Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within. The very thing that gives you pleasure today will give you pain tomorrow, or it will leave you, so its absence will give you pain.
• All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being.
• Every pleasure or emotional high contains within itself the seed of pain: its inseparable opposite, which will manifest in time.
• The pain that you create now is always some form of non-acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level it is some form of negativity.
• The more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering- and free of the egoic mind.
• Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation.
• What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is. What would be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life- and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.
• The pain-body, which is the dark shadow cast by the ego, is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness. It is afraid of being found out and its survival depends on your unconscious identification with it.
• Everything is shown up by being exposed to the light (conscious awareness), and whatever is exposed to the light itself becomes light.
• Unease, worry, anxiety, nervousness, tension, dread, phobia; this kind of psychological fear is always of something that might happen, not of something that is happening now.
• Despite elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as constantly under threat. This is the case even if the ego is outwardly very confident.
• Watch out for any kind of defensiveness within yourself. What are you defending? An illusory identity, an image in your mind, a fictitious entity. By making this pattern conscious, by witnessing it, you disidentify from it. In the light of your consciousness, the unconscious pattern will then quickly dissolve. This is the end of all arguments and power games, which are so corrosive to relationships (power over others is weakness disguised as strength.)
• Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to “die before you die” – and find that there is no death.
• The mind in itself is not dysfunctional. It is a wonderful tool. Dysfunction sets in when you seek yourself in it and mistake it for who you are. It then becomes the egoic mind and takes over your whole life.
• Time and mind are inseparable. Remove time from the mind and it stops (no past/future); you’re left with conscious awareness with no judgment or thinking.
• To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory (past) and anticipation (future.) The compulsion arises because the past gives you an identity (ego) and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.
• The eternal present is the space within which your whole life unfolds, the one factor that remains constant. Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.
• If not now, when?
• Make it your practice to withdraw attention from past and future whenever they are not needed. Notice how often your attention is in the past or future. Don’t judge or analyze what you observe. Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction.  The still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind; you become aware that you are the silent watcher.
• The enlightened person’s main focus of attention is always the Now, but they are still peripherally aware of time. In other words, they continue to use clock time but are free of psychological time (past & future which is always linked to a false sense of identity)(regret of the past / anticipation of the future).
• Is fulfillment always just around the corner or confined to short-lived pleasures such as sex, food, drink, drugs, or thrills and excitement? Do you believe that if you acquire more things you will become more fulfilled, good enough, or psychologically complete? Are you waiting for a man or woman to give meaning to your life?
• Usually the future is a replica of the past. Superficial changes are possible, but real transformation is rare and depends upon whether you can become present enough to dissolve the past by accessing the power of the Now. What you perceive as future is an intrinsic part of your state of consciousness now.
• The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future- which of course can only be experienced as the Now.
• Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, and worry- all forms of fear- are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past and not enough presence.
• If all your problems or perceived causes of suffering or unhappiness were miraculously removed for you today, but you had not become more present, more conscious, you would soon find yourself with a similar set of problems or causes of suffering, like a shadow that follows you wherever you go.
• There is no salvation in time. You cannot be free in the future. Presence is the key to freedom, so you can only be free now.
• You cannot be both unhappy and fully present in the Now.
• Narrow your life down to this moment.
• Find the life underneath your life situation.
• You are awakening out of the dream of time and into the present.
• There are no problems, only situations to be dealt with. Problems are mind-made and need time to survive. They cannot survive in the actuality of the Now.
• “Problem” means that you are dwelling on a situation mentally without there being a true intention or possibility of taking action now and that you are unconsciously making it part of your sense of self.
• If you create no more pain for yourself, then you create no more pain for others.
• As there are no problems in the Now, there is no fear either.
• Completely accept what is, because you cannot give your full attention to something and at the same time resist it.
• Do not be concerned with the fruit of your action- just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord.
• The moment your attention turns to the Now, you feel a presence, a stillness, a peace. You no longer depend on the future for fulfillment and satisfaction- you don’t look to it for salvation. Therefore, you are not attached to the results. Neither failure nor success has the power to change your inner state of Being. You have found the life underneath your life situation.
• Loss of Now is loss of Being. To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for your identity and future for your fulfillment. It represents the most profound transformation of consciousness that you can imagine.
• Many people us alcohol, drugs, sex, food, work, television, or even shopping as anesthetics in an unconscious attempt to remove the basic unease. When this happens, an activity that might be very enjoyable if used in moderation becomes imbued with a compulsive or addictive quality, and all that is ever achieved through it is extremely short-lived symptom relief.
• If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.
• Any negative inner state is contagious: unhappiness spreads more easily than a physical disease.
• To complain is always non-acceptance of what is. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim.
• “One day I’ll make it.” Is your goal taking up so much of your attention that you reduce the present moment to a means to an end? Are you waiting to start living? It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.
• Waiting is a state of mind. Basically, it means that you want the future; you don’t want the present.
• You can improve your life situation, but you cannot improve your life. Life is primary. Life is your deepest inner Being. It is already whole, complete, and perfect.
• Gratitude for the present moment and the fullness of life now is true prosperity.Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now. As you become more deeply aware of this one step, you realize that it already contains within itself all the other steps as well as the destination. This one step then becomes transformed into an expression of perfection, an act of great beauty and quality. It will have taken you into Being, and the light of Being will shine through it. This is both the purpose and the fulfillment of your inner journey, the journey into yourself.
• Satori: a flash of insight, a moment of no-mind and total presence; a taste of enlightenment.
• The wider the time gap between perception and thought, the more depth there is to you as a human being, which is to say the more conscious you are.
• God said: “I AM THAT I AM.” No time here, just presence.
• You are cut off from Being as long as your mind takes up all your attention.
• Compulsive thinking has become a collective disease.
• A word is nothing but a signpost and all teachings are signposts pointing the way back to the Source.
• Through the inner body, you are forever one with God.
• Just as the sun is infinitely brighter than a candle flame, there is infinitely more intelligence in Being than in your mind.
• Attention is like a beam of light- the focused power of your consciousness that transmutes everything into itself.
• In a fully functional organism, an emotion has a very short life span. It is like a momentary ripple or wave on the surface of your Being.
• Forgiveness is to offer no resistance to life- to allow life to live through you.
• Most people don’t know how to listen because the major part of their attention is taken up by thinking.
• Continuous mind activity keeps you imprisoned in the world of form and becomes an opaque screen that prevents you from becoming conscious of the Unmanifested, conscious of the formless and timeless God-essence in yourself and in all things and all creatures.
• Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God. If you remain in conscious connection with the Unmanifested, you value, love, and deeply respect the manifested and every life form in it as an expression of the One Life beyond form.
• Nothing could be without space, yet space is no-thing.
• If there were no illusion, there would be no enlightenment.
• Salvation is not elsewhere in place or time. It is here and now.
• True salvation is fulfillment, peace, life in all its fullness. It is to be who you are, to feel within you the good that has no opposite, the joy of Being that depends on nothing outside itself. It is felt not as a passing experience but as an abiding presence.
• True salvation is a state of freedom from fear, from suffering, from a perceived state of lack and insufficiency and therefore from all wanting, needing, grasping, and clinging.
• You see time as the means to salvation, whereas in truth it is the greatest obstacle to salvation. You “get” there by realizing you are there already.
• Nothing that you ever did or that was done to you in the past prevents you from saying yes to what is and taking your attention deeply into the Now. You cannot do this in the future. You do it now or not at all.
• Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through (your own pain).
• To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, and enlightenment.
• The moment that judgment stops through acceptance of what is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, and for peace.
• With acknowledgment and acceptance of the facts also comes a degree of freedom from them.
• If you react to your partner’s (anyone’s) unconsciousness, you become unconscious yourself.
• Judgment is either to confuse someone’s unconscious behavior with who they are or to project your own unconsciousness onto another person and mistake that for who they are. To relinquish judgment does not mean that you do not recognize dysfunction and unconsciousness when you see it. It means “being the knowing” rather than “being the reaction” and the judge.
• Difference between happiness and inner peace: Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.
• Whenever anything negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it, although you may not see it at the time.
• Forgiveness of the present is even more important than forgiveness of the past. If you forgive every moment- allow it to be as it is- then there will be no accumulation of resentment that needs to be forgiven at some later time.
• Do what you have to do. In the meantime, accept what is. Since mind and resistance are synonymous, acceptance immediately frees you from mind dominance and thus reconnects you with Being. As a result, the usual ego motivations for “doing”- fear, greed, control, defending or feeding the false sense of self- will cease to operate. An intelligence much greater than the mind is now in charge, and so a different quality of consciousness will flow into your doing.
• When you are fully conscious, drama does not come into your life anymore.
• Ego is the unobserved mind that runs your life when you are not present. The ego perceives itself as a separate fragment in a hostile universe, with no real inner connection to any other being, surrounded by other egos which it either sees as a potential threat or which it will attempt to use for its own ends.
• Whenever you are not honoring the present moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama.
• When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life. Nobody can even have an argument with you, no matter how hard he or she tries. You cannot have an argument with a fully conscious person.
• When you are fully conscious, you cease to be in conflict.
• All suffering is ego-created and is due to resistance.
• It is not true that the up cycle is good and the down cycle bad, except in the mind’s judgment. Growth is usually considered positive, but nothing can grow forever. If growth were to go on and on, it would become monstrous and destructive.
• Failure lies concealed in every success, and success in every failure.
• Most people cannot distinguish between life and their life situation.
• The whole advertising industry and consumer society would collapse if people became enlightened and no longer sought to find their identity through things.
• Joy is uncaused and arises from within. It is your natural state, not something that you need to work hard for or struggle to attain.
• Many people never realize that there can be no “salvation” in anything they do, possess, or attain.
• All negativity is resistance.
• Whenever you are unhappy, there is the unconscious belief that the unhappiness “buys” you what you want. If “you”- the mind- did not believe that unhappiness works, why would you create it? The fact is, of course, that negativity does not work. Its only “useful” function is that it strengthens the ego, and that is why the ego loves it.
• Any changes that you make, whether they have to do with your work, your relationships, or your surroundings, are ultimately only cosmetic unless they arise out of a change in your level of consciousness.
• Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace.
• Nothing that was real ever died, only names, forms, and illusions.
• Your perception of the world is a reflection of your state of consciousness.
• You can still enjoy the passing pleasures of this world, but there is no fear of loss anymore, so you don’t need to cling to them.
• True change happens within, not without.
• Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life.
• You can accept the “isness” of this moment.
• Surrender is the most important thing you can do to bring about positive change. Any action you take is secondary. No truly positive action can arise out of an unsurrendered state of consciousness.
• Focus not on the hundred things that you will or may have to do at some future time but on the one thing that you can do now. (It may well be that planning is the one thing you can do now.)
• By witnessing the resistance, you will see that it serves no purpose. Resistance is always unconscious.
• You cannot be conscious and unhappy.
• You keep your unhappiness alive by giving it time. That is its lifeblood. Remove time through intense present-moment awareness and it dies. But do you want it to die? Have you truly had enough? Who would you be without it?
• If you cannot accept what is, by implication you will not be able to accept anybody the way they are.
• If you continuously make the Now into a means to an end in the future, you will also make every person you encounter or relate with into a means to an end.
• When identification with mental positions is out of the way, true communication begins.
• Don’t resist the opponent’s force. Yield to overcome.
• In surrender, you no longer need ego defenses and false masks.
• What the ego doesn’t know, of course, is that only through the letting go of resistance, through becoming “vulnerable,” can you discover your true and essential invulnerability.
• As there are no problems in the Now, there is no illness either.
• When you are transformed, your whole world is transformed, because the world is only a reflection.
• If you looked in the mirror and did not like what you saw, you would have to be mad to attack the image in the mirror. That is precisely what you do when you are in a state of nonacceptance.
• Anything “bad” that happens in your life- use it for enlightenment.
• It may look as if the situation is creating the suffering, but ultimately this is not so- your resistance is.
• God is BEING itself, not a being.
• Enlightenment consciously chosen means to relinquish your attachment to past and future and to make the Now the main focus of your life. It means choosing to dwell in the state of presence rather than in time.
• The mind, conditioned as it is by the past, always seeks to re-create what it knows and is familiar with.
• Present-moment awareness creates a gap not only in the stream of mind but also in the past-future continuum. Nothing truly new and creative can come into this world except through that gap, that clear space of infinite possibility.
• Only through accessing the power of the Now, which is your own power, can there be true forgiveness. This renders the past powerless, and you realize deeply that nothing you ever did or that was ever done to you could touch even in the slightest the radiant essence of who you are.
• How will I know when I have surrendered? When you no longer need to ask the question…

Source: The Power of NOW by Eckhart Tolle

Elevate Life

• When you summon the courage to do what others won’t, you will have in life what others don’t. 

• We ask for what we wish; we seek for what we miss; we knock for what has shut us out.
• Persistence is the bridge over failure that leads to success, because you never fail until you stop trying. You can persist when you know the middle is not the end.
• Each of you must examine your own actions. Then you can be proud of your own accomplishments without comparing yourself to others.
• A Warrior is measured by his accomplishments! Man can acquire knowledge and skill, but it doesn’t guarantee accomplishment. A Warrior is measured by his character! Character is who you are when nobody is around. A Warrior is measured by his companions! Tell me who you hang with and I will tell you who you are. A Warrior is measured by his commitments! A Warrior is measured by his concerns! You know a man by what keeps him up at night.
• A Mighty Man is one who strengthens himself and in the process leads others to do the same.  A mighty man is obedient to the unenforceable, is willing to do whatever it takes, is loyal, courageous, and embraces resistance.
• Spirit seeks God, Soul thinks faith, Body stands firm.
• You do nobody a favor by playing small. Have great strength in the midst of danger.
• Everything looks like failure in the middle. Get in the boat, deal with the middle, and don’t be distracted by the storm.
• In the middle of anything will be a storm.
• Dream big, even when people make you feel small.
• Never allow pits to make you pitiful. Always be willing to learn from your lowest points.
• I will add more value than anyone could pay, because I am worth more than anyone could pay.
• Make everywhere you go better, because you went there.
• Be the best you, in the worst of situations (and when the worst has been displayed by others).
• What needs to happen needs to happen immediately. Don’t put off until tomorrow what should have been done last year.
• The most important decision that you made yesterday, that you are making today, and that you will make tomorrow is what matters most to you
• Face your fears and accomplish something important!
• Your attitude is the only thing you truly own and is either the best part of you or the worst part of you.
• It’s not what happens to you that matters most, but what happens in you. What happens in you will ultimately determine what happens through you.
• Patience: to be long of spirit, not losing heat; to persevere with bravery, bearing the hurts and offences of others.
• Forgive yourself, forgive others, and refuse offence.
• When you are valued more for how you think rather than what you do, you will be paid more for what you do.
• Energy producers are people who speak blessing over people’s lives and encourage them.
• The law of first things is God is first in all things.
• Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear- not absence of fear.
• Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.
• Begin with an end in mind; act as if…
• It is easier to act your way into a feeling than feel your way into an action.
• Fear is faith too…
• Think like God: What am I creating? Who am I loving (the way they need to be loved)? How am I showing honor?
• God-like is to be fruitful, multiply, replenish, and force discipline.
• Order your life and follow the pattern.
• Integrity is the glue that holds our way of life together. We must constantly strive to keep our integrity intact. When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost, when character is lost, all is lost.
• Integrity breeds confidence, leads to true riches, and leaves a blessed legacy.
• Don’t allow the good to be robber of the best. 

Source: Elevate Life Church of Frisco, Texas

The Treasury of Quotes

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

But it’s my mountain. I will climb it. You will soon see me waving from the top or dead on the side from trying.

Some things you have to do every day. Eating seven apples on Saturday night instead of one a day just isn’t going to get the job done.

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure.

I used to say, “I sure hope things will change.” Then I learned that the only way things are going to change for me is when I change.

Don’t say, “If I could, I would.” Say, “If I can, I will.”

If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

Learn to express, not impress.

Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.

Pay attention. Don’t just stagger through the day.

There is plenty of time to argue with new ideas later. The key is to take careful notes first and debate second.

Always be willing to look at both sides of the argument. Understanding the other side is the best way to strengthen your own.

Motivation alone is not enough. If you have an idiot and you motivate him, now you have a motivated idiot.

Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments.

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.

We must learn to apply all that we know so that we can attract all that we want.

One of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is the gift of your attention.

Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living; profits make you a fortune.

Showing a profit means touching something and leaving it better than you found it.

It’s easy to carry the past as a burden instead of a school. It’s easy to let it overwhelm you instead of educate you.

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment repeated every day.

Develop a childlike fascination with life and people.

You cannot take the mild approach to the weeds in your garden. You’ve got to hate weeds enough to kill them. Weeds are not something you handle; weeds are something you devastate.

Rich people invest their money and spend what’s left. Poor people spend their money and invest what’s left.

Somebody says, “Well, I can’t be concerned about other people. About the best I can do is to take care of myself.” Well, then you will always be poor.

Don’t set your goals too low. If you don’t need much, you won’t become much.

We all have two choices: We can make a living or we can design a life.

The major reason for setting a goal is for what if makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.

The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them.

How sad to see a father with money and no joy. The man studied economics, but never studied happiness.

Happiness is the art of learning how to get joy from your
substance.

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.

If you wish to find, you must search. Rarely does a good idea interrupt you.

Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is poverty. Ignorance is devastation. Ignorance is tragedy. And ignorance is illness. It all stems from ignorance.

What you don’t know will hurt you.

You must constantly ask yourself these questions: who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they gave me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay?

We must learn to help those who deserve it, not just those who need it. Life responds to deserve, not need.

Income seldom exceeds personal development.

What you become directly influences what you get.

We can have more than we’ve got because we can become more than we are.

If you want to amend your errors, you must begin by amending your philosophy.

It is not what happens that determines the major part of your future. What happens, happens to us all. It is what you do about what happens that counts.

Walk away from the 97% crowd. Don’t use their excuses. Take charge of your own life.

Forget about the thief waiting in the alley; what about the thief in your mind?

I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change.

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll gall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they may have planned for you? Not much.

Life, in all its uniqueness, would not be life without the negatives and the positives. That is why it is important to be a serious student of both.

Life is part positive and part negative. Suppose you went to hear a symphony orchestra and all they played were little, happy, high notes? Would you leave soon? Let me hear the rumble of the bass, the crash of the cymbals, and the minor keys.

It only takes one lie to taint your entire testimony.

The greatest form of maturity is at harvest time. That is when we must learn how to reap without complaint if the amounts are small and how to reap without apology if the amounts are big.

Don’t wish it was easier; wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems; wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges; wish for more wisdom.

You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills.
Most people are just trying to get through the day. Sophisticated people learn how to get from the day.

You must get good at one of two things; sowing in the spring or begging in the fall.
Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

But it’s my mountain. I will climb it. You will soon see me waving from the top or dead on the side from trying.

Some things you have to do every day. Eating seven apples on Saturday night instead of one a day just isn’t going to get the job done.

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure.

I used to say, “I sure hope things will change.” Then I learned that the only way things are going to change for me is when I change.

Don’t say, “If I could, I would.” Say, “If I can, I will.”

If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

Learn to express, not impress.

Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.

Pay attention. Don’t just stagger through the day.

There is plenty of time to argue with new ideas later. The key is to take careful notes first and debate second.

Always be willing to look at both sides of the argument. Understanding the other side is the best way to strengthen your own.

Motivation alone is not enough. If you have an idiot and you motivate him, now you have a motivated idiot.

Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments.

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.

We must learn to apply all that we know so that we can attract all that we want.

One of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is the gift of your attention.

Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living; profits make you a fortune.

Showing a profit means touching something and leaving it better than you found it.

It’s easy to carry the past as a burden instead of a school. It’s easy to let it overwhelm you instead of educate you.

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment repeated every day.

Develop a childlike fascination with life and people.

You cannot take the mild approach to the weeds in your garden. You’ve got to hate weeds enough to kill them. Weeds are not something you handle; weeds are something you devastate.

Rich people invest their money and spend what’s left. Poor people spend their money and invest what’s left.

Somebody says, “Well, I can’t be concerned about other people. About the best I can do is to take care of myself.” Well, then you will always be poor.

Don’t set your goals too low. If you don’t need much, you won’t become much.

We all have two choices: We can make a living or we can design a life.

The major reason for setting a goal is for what if makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.

The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them.

How sad to see a father with money and no joy. The man studied economics, but never studied happiness.

Happiness is the art of learning how to get joy from your
substance.

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.

If you wish to find, you must search. Rarely does a good idea interrupt you.

Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is poverty. Ignorance is devastation. Ignorance is tragedy. And ignorance is illness. It all stems from ignorance.

What you don’t know will hurt you.

You must constantly ask yourself these questions: who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they gave me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay?

We must learn to help those who deserve it, not just those who need it. Life responds to deserve, not need.

Income seldom exceeds personal development.

What you become directly influences what you get.

We can have more than we’ve got because we can become more than we are.

If you want to amend your errors, you must begin by amending your philosophy.

It is not what happens that determines the major part of your future. What happens, happens to us all. It is what you do about what happens that counts.

Walk away from the 97% crowd. Don’t use their excuses. Take charge of your own life.

Forget about the thief waiting in the alley; what about the thief in your mind?

I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change.

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll gall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they may have planned for you? Not much.

Life, in all its uniqueness, would not be life without the negatives and the positives. That is why it is important to be a serious student of both.

Life is part positive and part negative. Suppose you went to hear a symphony orchestra and all they played were little, happy, high notes? Would you leave soon? Let me hear the rumble of the bass, the crash of the cymbals, and the minor keys.

It only takes one lie to taint your entire testimony.

The greatest form of maturity is at harvest time. That is when we must learn how to reap without complaint if the amounts are small and how to reap without apology if the amounts are big.

Don’t wish it was easier; wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems; wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges; wish for more wisdom.

You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills.
Most people are just trying to get through the day. Sophisticated people learn how to get from the day.

You must get good at one of two things; sowing in the spring or begging in the fall.

Success lies in the opposite direction of the normal pull.
Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.

Never begin the day until it is finished on paper.

Don’t mistake movement for achievement. It’s easy to get faked out by being busy. The question is: Busy doing what?

Six thousand years of recorded history reads like this: opportunity mixed with difficulty. It isn’t going to change. “So,” you ask, “how will my life change?” When you change!
Success lies in the opposite direction of the normal pull.
Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.

Never begin the day until it is finished on paper.

Don’t mistake movement for achievement. It’s easy to get faked out by being busy. The question is: Busy doing what?

Six thousand years of recorded history reads like this: opportunity mixed with difficulty. It isn’t going to change. “So,” you ask, “how will my life change?” When you change!

Source: "The Treasury of Quotes" By Jim Rohn