A few of his disciples had decided to do a "grape cure" and eat nothing but grapes and grape juice for a while. Paramahansa Yogananda smiled when he heard about this and remarked, "Devotion is the greatest purifier." His disciple Donald Walters asked, "Is it your wish then, Sir, that we break this fast?" "Well, I don't want you to break your wills," said Yogananda, "now that you have set them in this way. But your time would be better spent if you worked on developing devotion. A pure heart is the way to God, not a pure stomach. —William Ashoka Ross More about this quote Tags: hunger food fasting Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Nobody, but nobody, is as fat as she thinks she is. —Cynthia Heimel More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
One can be conscious of the body with head consciousness, and this is true of so many people who engage in physical culture. . . . The body is seen then as the instrument of the ego. —Alexander Lowen More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don't get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat cheese . . . get up at dawn to run, break for a midmorning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle. —Barbara Ehrenreich More about this quote Tags: health class food cheese exercise running Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
A hungry man is not a free man. —Adlai Stevenson More about this quote Tags: hunger freedom Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Society is composed of two great classes — those who have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners. —Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
There are many ways of eating, for some eating is living for some eating is dying, for some thinking about ways of eating gives to them the feeling that they have it in them to be alive and to be going on living, to some to think about eating makes them know that death is always waiting that dying is in them. —Gertrude Stein More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I can reason down or deny everything, except this perpetual Belly; feed he must and will, and I cannot make him respectable. —Ralph Waldo Emerson More about this quote Tags: hunger reason rationality denial Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Spiritual awakening is frequently described as a journey to the top of a mountain. We leave our attachments and our worldliness behind and slowly make our way to the top. At the peak we have transcended all pain. The only problem with this metaphor is that we leave all the others behind. . . . In the process of discovering our true nature, the journey goes down, not up. . . . Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt. . . . We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we will let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of compassion. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die. —Pema Chödrön More about this quote Tags: truth spirituality love reality compassion pain death suffering doubt aggression transcendence healing attachments worldliness turbulence insecurity Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
For all your ills I give you laughter. —Rabelais More about this quote Tags: laughter Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Erv had a gift for optimism. He believed what he wanted to. Ruth said that if Erv tossed a ball in the air three times, tried to hit it three times with a bat, and three times missed, he would, undisturbed, conclude: Wow, what a pitcher. —Steve Fishman More about this quote Tags: optimism Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not waiting passively until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient, we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Let's be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand. —Henri J. M. Nouwen More about this quote Tags: patience present trust taste discipline control waiting live conflict tomorrow Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I pray for the strength to accept that lives most often end in tragedy, that quests don't always work, that understanding is a long and lonely hunt, that I can't reason my way to love, eat gold, or live forever. And that none of this matters. I pray to understand that I am here to find my way back to God, whatever that takes, and all the rest, save love and duty, is an illusion. —John Taylor Gatto More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new. —Ursula K. Le Guin More about this quote Tags: love time change Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
The man who thinks only of his own salvation is as good as a coal drawn out of the fire. —James Jones More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email