Latest Surya Das Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Also not being afraid to stand up for what you believe in while taking into account that you could very well be wrong, or maybe there's another way to look at it- that things are not what they seem to be, and that everything is subjective.

  Surya Das

  Believe, Looks, Way

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• We learn by doing, not just by thinking. So I feel like beyond Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Judaism, or Christianity we need today to think about a global spirituality. We need to make it very personal and transformative for one self, and each other, together for those who are interested.

  Surya Das

  Buddhism, Thinking, Self

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• Contributing to others, not converting others, but for those who are interested, going where invited, speaking when asked, teaching when asked and so on, not proselytizing and missionary-izing. Not shoving the truth down people's throats, as if we know what's good for them. But being open when asked, when appropriate, and being very inclusive and open minded.

  Surya Das

  Teaching, People, Missionary

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• Who's willing to face the unknown- the difficulties, the disappointments, the surprises of the unfamiliar. If you're going to change, you have to face those things, and who's able? Who has the skillful means, the knowhow, the perseverance, the help, the fortitude to keep going?

  Surya Das

  Perseverance, Disappointment, Mean

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• So we have to be ready, willing, and able to really transform ourselves, and each other in the world, not just say it and affirm it, "Oh, I want to change". Intention is important, but so is action.

  Surya Das

  Important, World, Want

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• I think that's what's important, to see how we ourselves can become all that we are and can be. Everybody says they want to change, but it's not that simple, it's not that easy. Who's ready to change and give up? Who's ready to get out of their rut and leave it behind, not just pour honey or syrup over their heads and over the rut? Who's ready to change and give up that rut, who's ready willing and able?

  Surya Das

  Giving Up, Simple, Thinking

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• Mother Teresa- cream. Exemplars, exemplary models we can learn from and become more like, but we don't have to imitate them. We can become more authentically ourselves, impeccable and unselfish, and beneficial to many like a wish fulfilling jewel.

  Surya Das

  Mother, Jewels, Wish

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• There's plenty going on that's substantial and transformative, beneficial and authentic. Just because somebody is in the media, it doesn't mean they're bad. It may mean they're the best, and occasionally you know the cream rises to the surface, but not always everything on the surface is cream.

  Surya Das

  Mean, Media, May

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• I think it's very important to really find the wheat amidst the chafe and not give into superficialities, to not get caught up the commercialism or the fads, you know, the "over-popularization" of some things that we might see today. That doesn't mean we have to throw out the Buddha with the bath water, it's not all bad.

  Surya Das

  Mean, Thinking, Giving

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• There's many lanes on the highway of enlightenment, they don't have to be on the razor's edge like the yellow line dotted in the middle. Balance is appropriate, not too tight, not too loose, the Middle Way as we call it in Buddhist dharma teachings.

  Surya Das

  Buddhist, Teaching, Yellow

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• On the other side, is a substantial, more materialism, everything is real long to the extent we can see or measure it, and things are as real as I think they. That's way too materialistic or substantialist, because things are not really what they seem to be.

  Surya Das

  Real, Thinking, Long

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• I think that today, integration is the name of the game and not separating these things out, and not trying to find the razor's edge, the narrow path. There's a lot of lanes in the highway, the trick is not fall into the ditches on either side, like a one sided nihilism, nothing matters life.

  Surya Das

  Fall, Thinking, Games

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• There is false of Aristotelian logic, which is so much the basis of Christianity, and to some extent, Judaism in the west. Too rational, too logical, too masculine, chauvinistic, male dominated, head over heart, mind over body, heaven different than earth and so on, rather than yin/yang, inter-being, interwoven, inseparably.

  Surya Das

  Heart, Heaven, Mind

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• Sex, creativity, music, art, family, love, beauty, and creative imagination are all part of the spiritual path in the tantric traditions. So I think that for today that has a lot to say to us about not dividing ourselves from ourselves.

  Surya Das

  Spiritual, Art, Sex

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• Embracing our environment is a good direction, a very spiritual direction. It's too Aristotelian to separate man from the animals and man; humans from the environment.

  Surya Das

  Spiritual, Animal, Men

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• Really, whatever I was seeking and looking into in those days like creative arts, chant, the muse being in touch with the muse for poetry and writing and music. It's all part of the spirit and if we look particularly at Hinduism and Buddhism, the tantric stream of those traditions totally embraces all aspects of human life and life on this world.

  Surya Das

  Art, Writing, Buddhism

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• Spirit is love, spirit is connection, inclusive, and that's what I'm interested in, and that's what moved me. That's what I got more and more into as I grew up and as I was in college in the 60's with consciousness raising and other kind of things, gestalt psychology etc.

  Surya Das

  College, Psychology, Connections

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• Everybody has similar values. You travel around the world and everybody is different, but everybody is also the same in those ways. There's so much difference but there's so much similarity. Nobody wants to be harmed, or have their children, or their mates, or their relatives, or their families harmed, exploited, bombed, starved, dislocated, or become homeless refugees. So we're all similar in that way and spiritual life and religion is supposed to be part of the solution not part of the problem.

  Surya Das

  Spiritual, Children, Differences

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• Everyone has values, and values their family, values their health, their sanity, their safety and security, and their families, their parents, their children, their pets, their environments, well-being in general.

  Surya Das

  Children, Safety, Parent

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• However, we need to participate and manage skillfully, helpfully, and harmoniously, for a better world, family and society to be possible. So everybody's spiritual by nature I believe, not that they necessarily have to be religious. Everybody wants, or cares about, and has values even if they don't talk about them all the time explicitly, like some noisy preachers do with their foghorn voices and dogmatic views.

  Surya Das

  Spiritual, Religious, Believe

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• But you know the difference between sex and love. And sex can be part of love, but what moves your heart, what's really intimate, that's the real spirit. And that's very personal, it's also transpersonal. It's not impersonal, it's beyond any of us, it's transcendent of any of us, yet imminent in dwelling, imminent to each of us.

  Surya Das

  Sex, Real, Moving

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• It's not like we're all animalistic people trying to become more spiritual. We're really living spirit, trying to find out how to live embodied in this nitty gritty world, these corporeal forms, in these fleeting bodies in the material world where everything's changing and we're not in control.

  Surya Das

  Spiritual, People, Trying

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• The religions are the buildings or the institutions, the groups, but inside of that is what moves, is what's alive, is the beating heart of spirituality, and really, the heart's blood is the mystical experience. Not airy fairy vague mystical experience, but transformative, intimate experience that really touches your heart with love, and not just sex.

  Surya Das

  Sex, Moving, Heart

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• So we're all living spirit. It's not about isms and schims or religions. Religions are almost like political institutions, but the heart of it is the spirituality.

  Surya Das

  Heart, Political, Isms

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

• I realize that was becoming a contradiction in terms, especially after my friend Alison Krauss was shot and killed in Kent State in 1970 on campus by the National Guard.

  Surya Das

  Becoming, Realizing, Contradiction

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com