First of all, just to make it clear, I’m absolutely sure that Brian has read and keeps reading tons of books on different philosophies, both ancient and modern, religious concepts and spiritual teachings. I’m now focusing on only a couple of titles and authors, mentioned by Brian in the interviews.
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| Photo credit:Trip Fontaine |
๐ข๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ง: I see the reason [of being more down to Earth] in my enthusiasm for Eastern culture. For Buddhism, for meditations, or for the work of German philosopher and spiritual person Eckhart Tolle, who wrote an amazing book called The Power of Now. Also, nowadays I live an incomparably healthier life than I did in my times.
(๐ ๐๐๐ & ๐๐๐ ๐ถ๐ง๐๐โ ๐ ๐๐๐ข๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐ฃ๐๐๐๐๐ 2013)
๐ข๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ง: There are books that I always carry with me. There’s a couple that I’m in a perpetual state of reading. Simply because they are, for me, kind of like guides to living more than anything else. I suppose a born-again Christian would travel with the Bible. I travel everywhere with "The Power of Now," by Eckhart Tolle. And "The Four Agreements." Simply because they help me stay sane.
(๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐ก๐๐๐๐ 29๐กโ 2013)
๐ฌ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ป๐๐๐๐ is a German-born spiritual teacher and self-help author of The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment and A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose.
One night in 1977, at the age of 29, after long periods of depression, Tolle says he experienced an "inner transformation" and came to peace with everything.
In September 2009, Tolle appeared with the Dalai Lama at the Vancouver Peace Summit. While publishing his nature photography in 2018, he commented that "both art and nature can serve as portals into the transcendent dimension, your essence-identity."
▪️“Your outer journey may contain million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you’re taking right now.”
▪️“Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still.”
▪️“Be the ever-alert guardian of your inner space.”
▪️“Thinking has become a disease.”
▪️“Even when the sky is heavily overcast, the sun hasn’t disappeared, it’s still there on the other side of the clouds.”
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| Photo credit: Marco Vittur |
๐ซ๐๐ ๐ด๐๐๐๐๐ ๐น๐๐๐ is a Mexican author of Toltec spiritualist and neoshamanistic texts. His work focuses on ancient teachings as a means to achieve spiritual enlightenment. Ruiz is listed as one of 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People in 2018.
▪️“Real love is accepting other people the way they are without trying to change them.”
▪️“It is always better to ask questions than to make an assumption, because assumptions set us up for suffering.”
▪️“Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal.”
▪️“Forgiveness is the only way to heal. We can choose to forgive because we feel compassion for ourselves.”
▪️“You are never responsible for the actions of others; you are only responsible for you.”
๐ข๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ง: […] I’m also an admirer of Jiddu Krishnamurti and Don Miguel Ruiz, and one of my favourite philosophers is a comedian, Bill Hicks. […] I reject all formal notions of society, morality and religion as bourgeois constructs, and I seek total freedom from what others consider the “correct” way of living.
[…] As Bill Hicks says, we are all one consciousness that experiences itself subjectively. There’s no death. The reality that we perceive is a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.
(๐ ๐ข๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ง๐๐๐ ๐.362, ๐๐๐๐โ 2022)
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| Photo credit: Joseph Llanes |
๐ฑ๐๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ฒ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ was a philosopher, speaker, and writer. His interests included psychological revolution, the nature of mind, meditation, holistic inquiry, human relationships, and bringing about radical change in society. Krishnamurti wrote many books, among them The First and Last Freedom, The Only Revolution, and Krishnamurti's Notebook.
▪️“If, living in the world, you refuse to be a part of it, you will help others out of this chaos - not in the future, not tomorrow, but now.”
▪️“We are so sluggish in our mentality that we think the world's problems are not our business, that they have to be resolved by the United Nations or by substituting new leaders for the old.”
▪️“Love is love, not to be defined or described by the mind as exclusive or inclusive. Love is its own eternity: it is the real, the supreme, the immeasurable.”
▪️“The ending is the beginning, and the beginning is the first step, and the first step is the only step.”
๐ฃ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ฃ
๐ฉ๐๐๐ ๐ฏ๐๐๐๐ was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and musician. His material - encompassing a wide range of social issues including religion, politics, and philosophy - was controversial and often steeped in dark comedy. He’s the author of the book “Love All the People.”
▪️“We all pay for life with death, so everything in between should be free.”
▪️“Folks, it's time to evolve. That's why we're troubled. You know why our institutions are failing us, the church, the state, everything's failing? It's because, um – they're no longer relevant. We're supposed to keep evolving. Evolution did not end with us growing opposable thumbs. You do know that, right?”
▪️“Watching television is like taking black spray paint to your third eye.”
▪️“It is, and has been, and will forever be, this world of ours, a fucking joke.”
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| Photo credit: Kevin Westenberg |
๐ฃ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ฒ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ฃ
๐ข๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ง: The Dalai Lama has written several very readable books which had a positive effect on me. The best-known and probably most successful is 'The art of happiness’.
(๐๐ข๐ ๐๐๐๐ฅ๐๐๐๐ ๐ , ๐๐๐ก๐๐๐๐ 2013)
๐ป๐๐ ๐จ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ฏ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ is a book by the 14th Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, a psychiatrist who posed questions to the Dalai Lama. Cutler quotes the Dalai Lama, providing context and describing some details of the settings in which the interviews took place, as well as adding his own reflections on issues raised.
The book states that the purpose of life is happiness, that happiness is determined more by the state of one's mind than by one's external conditions, circumstances, or events—at least once one's basic survival needs are met, and that happiness can be achieved through the systematic training of our hearts and minds.
▪️“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
▪️“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
▪️“Although you may not always be able to avoid difficult situations, you can modify the extent to which you can suffer by how you choose to respond to the situation.”
▪️“In general, if we carefully examine any given situation in a very unbiased and honest way, we will realize that to a large extent we are also responsible for the unfolding of events.”
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| Photo credit:Trip Fontaine |
About Solara and her metaphysical ideas, Brian rather speaks with some irony. But the fact he included a quote from her introduction of 11:11 Doorway into the song Hold On To Me, confirms that the visionary’s texts made an impression on him.
๐๐ง๐ ๐ฐ๐ก๐๐ญ ๐ข๐ฌ "๐๐จ๐ฅ๐ ๐๐ง ๐๐จ ๐๐" ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ญ? ๐๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐จ๐ค๐๐ง ๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐ญ ๐จ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฌ๐จ๐ง๐ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐ช๐ฎ๐จ๐ญ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ญ๐ก๐จ๐ซ ๐๐จ๐ฅ๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐ง๐ ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐๐๐ค ๐จ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐๐ญ๐๐ฐ๐๐ฒ ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐ง๐จ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ซ ๐ฎ๐ง๐ข๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ฌ๐.
๐ข๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ง: It's about a gate into a new, spiritual world, about reaching a collective consciousness, leaving the physical world and becoming part of the universe in its origin (laughs). I admit that sounds totally stupid. But it sounds really good on the record!
(๐๐ก๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐ก๐๐๐๐๐ 2013)
๐บ๐๐๐๐๐ is a visionary who travels around the world and gives talks, workshops, master classes. She’s written six books; 11:11: Inside the Doorway is one of them.
▪️“We all come from the Stars,
We all originate from the One.”
Post by Olga
