Hymns to Agni from the Rig Veda

 “The preoccupation of the Mystics was with self-knowledge and a profounder world-knowledge; they found out that in man there was a deeper self and inner being behind the surface of the outward physical man, which it was his highest business to discover and know. “Know thyself” was their great precept, just as in India to know the Self, the Atman became the great spiritual need, the highest thing for the human being”

Papaji

 Happiness is permanent. It is always there. What comes and goes is unhappiness. If you identify with what comes and goes, you will be unhappy. If you identify with what is permanent and always there, you are happiness itself

Robert E. Wilkinson

 

“To realize Self is to realize the eternal freedom of the spirit. The first realization of the Self as something intensely silent and purely static is not the whole truth of it. There can also be a realization of the Self in its power. Establishing the mind in the Self means the conviction that the self alone is all, and that there is nothing other than it. As ones process deepens, the pervasive sense of coolness and calmness shows that the consciousness is reorienting itself at a deeper level of the being. Joy and happiness not dependent upon outward things begins to manifest. One becomes aware that he is acted through and totally dependent upon the Divine. This realization and accompanying release into peace and happiness is spoken of as liberation and carries with it the value of being released from jail. One begins to feel that the ordinary consciousness is something quite external and on the surface. It does not seem to be ones real self."

John Muir

When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

Ramakrishna

Only two kinds of people can attain self-knowledge: those who are not encumbered at all with learning, that is to say, whose minds are not over-crowded with thoughts borrowed from others; and those who, after studying all the scriptures and sciences, have come to realise that they know nothing.

Tao Te Ching 25th Chapter

There is a being wonderful, perfect; It existed before heaven and earth. How quiet it is! How spiritual it is! It stands alone and it does not change; It moves, but does not on that account suffer. All life comes from it, yet it does not demand to be Lord. I do not know its name, so I call it Tao, the Way, And I rejoice in its power. 

According to Lord KrishnA

 

The unreal never exists and the real is never without existence at any time. God alone is real, permanent, indestructible, changeless, and eternal, but he is beyond thought, imperceptible, and quite above the flutterings of mind

Unknown but cool

 

A joy with a cause is more like dependence or uncertainty. It is bound to vanish. Luckily, we can enjoy The Causeless Joy which is eternally present. The Causeless Joy is the Perfect Joy and is the Nature of God or Self. God is ever joyous without a cause, such is His essence - Joyful. Peace and Joy are one and the same and never leave Home. To be absolutely quiet in heart, body and mind is to partake in this Causeless Bliss. It will exist eternally and is the Joy enjoyed forever. Even if you do not notice it, you are now enjoying it, perhaps covered by layers of illusion. Still IT is there, for sure. Bliss is not a feeling, it is the Ineffable BEING of the Almighty Supreme which is Now and Here. To become blissful is to become miserable later. That which IS Bliss has no opposite. Very simple, but True.

–Swami Chidananda, Divine Life Society

“Far from denying self-expression, [brahmacharya] is giving full expression to yourself because you are no longer identified with the lesser aspect of your total personality. You are identified with the higher aspect. It is a sort of a liberation and evolution to a higher level

Kabir: In the bliss of Sahaj

 

My mind has returned To its own primal state; I realized the Lord When I died while living. Says Kabir: I am merged In the bliss of Sahaj; I no l onger know fear, Nor inspire it in others