“True love is not a complicated matter of trying to get across anything—just a simple matter of being across. The process of loving is not a difficult job of overcoming difference and separation; it is an easy confession of being identical to and inseparable from others. You are already what they are, and where they are. When you see that, loving becomes natural and easy. Almost irrepressible, actually.”
“If you try to be free for the purpose of being free, it takes a long time to get anywhere. Whereas, if you effort to be free for some social purpose—like delighting—progress is instant.
Likewise, if you love to demonstrate that you are loving, you get further from loving each day. Whereas, if you love to heal the beloved, you’re already there.
Those are the actual rules.”
“There are many paths up the mountain.
Just make sure it’s the right mountain.”
“If the common paths led to love, love’s heroes would be legion. But masters of love are rare. How did these great ones prepare themselves?
They didn’t. They saw the futility of preparing for love. They recognized that preparation is only postponement—because the emphasis on becoming reflects a refusal to already be.
Jumping into love is like jumping off a high diving board: there’s no way to get ready—you’ve got to jump. And that’s exactly what they all did.
So don’t get ready. Just surrender to what you’ve always been getting ready to surrender to—just do it.”
“The average man hates the effects of the way he lives. He wants to escape the effects of insufficient loving—shame, low self-esteem, loneliness, emotional dysfunction. But he does not want to be sufficiently loving to stop creating those effects. And the fact remains, loving is the only way to prevent those effects.”
“You either live in the world according to Garp (subjective reality), or you live in the world as it is. You either deal with reality, or you deal with what you are thinking about.”
“When you’re ready for expensive love, you’re ready for free love. But if you’re only ready for cheap love, you’re not ready for love at all.”
“The present society of Earth has essentially failed on every level: practically, socially, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually; but it all begins and ends with man’s failure to accept and live as his own heart—as love.”
“True renunciation is not a matter of letting go of things. It is a matter of letting go of the selfish involvement with things.”
“There are better things to do with one’s life, and better reasons to do them: love is the better things; truth is the reason.”