One word may hide another.
- William Shakespeare |
Simplify, simplify!
- Henry David Thoreau |
How to use quotes and facts to guide us in our journey...
The Need to Simplify - Quotes
- A collection of quotes commented by Swamiji
Our biggest problem today is an over-abundance of choices, a situation which is getting worse day by day. The current trend of having everything customized—our news, our clothes, our house, our education, our diet, our workout exercise (not to mention our body and even our fetuses in the near future, through genetic programming!)—has created a life filled with confusion and endless stress about making “correct” decisions. The solution sounds paradoxical, but has been amply verified by those who have practiced it: to be truly free is to have fewer and simpler, not more and complex, lifestyle choices. Here are a few quotes to help us shed our extra luggage…
True freedom consists of performing all actions—eating, reading, working, and so forth—in accordance with right judgment and choice of will, not in being compelled by habits. Eat what you should eat and not necessarily what you are used to. Do what you ought to do, not what your bad habits dictate.
- Paramahansa Yogananda, Scientific Healing Affirmations
… the simplification of life, to bring inner and outer well-being, psychological and material well-being, into harmony in your life… I felt that I could no longer accept more than I need while others in the world have less than they need. This moved me to bring my life down to need level. I thought it would be difficult. I thought it would entail a great many hardships, but I was quite wrong. Instead of hardships, I found a wonderful sense of peace and joy, and a conviction that unnecessary possessions are only unnecessary burdens.
- Peace Pilgrim, Peace Pilgrim
Disagreeable things are:
Too much furniture in a living room
Too many pens on an inkstand
Too many images in a private shrine
Too many rocks, herbs and trees in a garden
Too many children in a house
Too many words when men meet
Too many vows in a prayer.
Things of which it is good to see plenty:
Books in a book-case
Dust in a dust heap.
- Yoshida Kenko, Essays in Idleness
The simplified life is a sanctified life,
Much more calm, much less strife.
Oh, what wondrous truths are unveiled—
Projects succeed which had previously failed.
Oh, how beautiful life can be,
Beautiful simplicity.
- Peace Pilgrim, Peace Pilgrim
Poverty is not the absence of goods, but rather the overabundance of desire.
- Plato
The more we despise poverty the more will the world despise us and the greater need will we suffer. But if we embrace Holy Poverty very closely, the world will come to us and will feed us abundantly.
- St. Francisco of Assisi
And those who have followed out this vow of voluntary poverty to the fullest extent possible… those who have reached the ideal of that state, testify that when you dispossess yourself of everything you have, you really possess all the treasures of the world.
- Mahatma Gandhi, All Men Are Brothers
Rebbe Mikhal of Zlotchev was asked an embarrassing question: ‘You are poor, Rebbe. And yet everyday you thank God for taking care of your needs. Isn’t that a lie?’
‘Not at all. You see, for me poverty is a need.’
- Quoted in The Spiritual Athlete, ed. Ray Berry
Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet it is one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.
- Elise Boulding
Money often costs too much.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The poor monk is lord of the world. He has handed all his cares over to God and by his faith has obtained all men as his servants.
- St. John Climacus
God has proven that when He is with me all the “necessities of life” become unnecessary. In that consciousness you become more healthy than the average person, more joyous, more bountiful in every way. Don’t seek little things; they will divert you from God. Start your experiment now: make life simple and be a king.
- Paramahansa Yogananda, Man’s Eternal Quest
| Stripping our Prayers and Daily Activities |
Strip your prayers; simplify, de-intellectualize. Reach God not through understanding but love.” “If earlier we knew, we possessed something, now love has reduced us to nothing. Even the good thoughts serve no purpose now.
- Carlos Carretto, Letters from the Desert
God is more glorified by a man who uses the good things of this life in simplicity and with gratitude than by the nervous asceticism of someone who is agitated about every detail of his self-denial. . . . His [the latter’s] struggle for perfection becomes a kind of battle of wits with the Creator who made all things good.
- Thomas Merton
Mencius said to Kau Tzu, “A trail through the mountains, if used, becomes a path in a short time, but, if unused, becomes blocked by grass in an equally short time. Now your heart is blocked by grass.”
- Mencius 7:B:21
If one guards himself against sin three times, the Holy One guards him from then on.
- Jerusalem Talmud, Kiddushin 1:9
The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.
- Dag Hammarskjold
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
- T.S. Eliot, East Coker
What is at the center of your life? Carefully examine where you spend your attention, your time. Look at your appointment book, your daily schedule . . . . This is what receives your care and attention—and by definition, your love.
- Wayne Muller, therapist and writer
| Preparing for Leaner Times |
Ego identifies with bigness. Big egos always want bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger bonuses, bigger TVs, supersize meals, bigger everything. After decades of an unrestrained shopping spree on the global market, Western nations (with the United States in an unstoppable lead) have gradually emptied the world’s shelves of natural resources (oil, gas, drinking water, arable land, etc.) without a second thought for the less fortunate who have been left dying of hunger, thirst, and lack of care. The looming crises in energy, drinking water, global warming, social security bankruptcy, galloping national deficit, and overdrawn personal credit all coming to a head at the same time will put a violent end to this consumption orgy, and will be a serious wake-up call for the least prepared. While poor countries will continue to bear the brunt of the dwindling food and energy resources (the UN estimates that Africa will see only 50% reduction of its poverty level by the year 2147 in the rosiest of scenarios!), the Western nations (with, again, the United States in the lead) will experience the worst suffering because they are the least willing and prepared to do the only two things which could have prevented this catastrophe: 1) reduce one’s economic footprint (reduce consumption and waste) and 2) increase savings. It is not too late to start, but a lifetime of addiction to waste, clutter, and buying on credit is tremendously difficult to overcome. Here are a few quotes to help us get started in trimming away the fat of our ego and reducing the size of our possessions…
There is a world revolution going on. It will change the financial system... How can you meet the world crisis that is coming? The best way is to adopt plain living and high thinking. Unless you make drastic changes in your living habits immediately, you will be rudely surprised; conditions will change in a way you cannot imagine now. You still have food and clothing, even luxuries, that people in other nations do not. So it is best to accustom yourself now to simple living. Choose a dwelling place that is adequate, but not larger than you really need, and if possible in an area where taxes and other living expenses are reasonable. Make your own clothes; can your own food. Grow your own vegetable garden, and if feasible, keep a few chickens to produce eggs.... Keep life simple and enjoy what God has provided, without seeking false and expensive pleasures.
- Paramahamsa Yogananda, World Crisis (written in the 1940s)
Spend less and have more, by doing away with luxurious habits. From your earnings put aside as much as possible, so that you can live partially on the interest from your savings, without having to dip into the capital.
- Paramahamsa Yogananda, Man’s Eternal Quest
Millions of people think that all wealth comes from banks, factories, and jobs, and through personal ability. Yet periodic great depressions prove that there are divine laws, aside from known physical laws, that govern the physical, mental, spiritual, and material phases of life, Strive every day to be healthy, wealthy, wise, and happy, not by taking away the health, wealth, and happiness of others, but by including their happiness and welfare in your own. The happiness of individuals, of family members, and of nations depends entirely upon the law of mutual cooperation or unselfishness, and on living up to this motto: “Father, bless us, that we may remember Thee always. Let us not forget that all blessings flow from Thee.”
- Paramahamsa Yogananda
He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.
- Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching
As a child, I understood how to give; I have forgotten that grace since I became civilized. I lived the natural life, whereas I now live the artificial. Any pretty pebble was valuable to me then; every growing tree an object of reverence. Now I worship with the white man before a painted landscape whose value is estimated in dollars! Thus the Indian is reconstructed, as the natural rocks are ground to powder, and made into artificial blocks which may be built into the walls of modern society.
- Ohiyesa a.k.a Charles Alexander Eastman
The life of the moral man is plain, and yet not unattractive; it is simple, and yet full of grace; it is easy, and yet methodical. He knows that accomplishment of great things consists in doing little things well. He knows that great effects are produced by small causes. He knows the evidence and reality of what cannot be perceived by the senses. Thus he is enabled to enter into the world of ideas and morals.
- Confucius, Doctrine of the Mean 33
Nature is what we know—
Yet have not art to say—
So impotent our wisdom is
To her simplicity.
- Emily Dickinson, American Poet
It now costs more to amuse a child than it once did to educate his father.
- Unknown
The earth has enough for every man’s need, but not for every man’s greed.
- Mahatma Gandhi
Live simply so that others may simply live.
- Mahatma Gandhi
For a small reward a man will hurry away on a long journey, while for eternal life many will hardly take a single step.
- Thomas A Kempis
There is no greatness where there is no simplicity.
- Leo Tolstoy |
