ॐAshtonॐ the Wayfaring Yogi

"I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty."



-oo-

I'm the luckiest man that walks on this earth. I've never found a place I love more than here, or a time I love more than now. I love almost everybody. Not everybody, but almost. I love to read aloud. It's nice to read aloud to someone, but I'll do it if I'm alone, just the same. Sometimes a beautiful sunset can bring tears to my eyes, but they're always followed with laughter. No matter how many beautiful women I see, a smile from one can still make my knees go weak. I love to fall in love, but I'd rather rise in love. I try not to have expectations for others, but I have high expectations for myself. Sometimes I can't sleep. Sometimes I don't want to sleep. Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing. Not often, but sometimes. I try to plan as little as possible, but sometimes I find it hard not to. For every person I've brought joy, I feel like I've let another down. I love my friends, but I also love my time alone. I used to wear my heart on my sleeve, now I've thrown it out into the world. I sometimes marvel at my ability to manifest the things I want, And I sometimes marvel at the universe's ability to manifest the things I need. Sometimes, I try too hard. Sometimes, I don't try hard enough. I know that we're all gods, but sometimes I feel all too mortal. I love to stare at the stars. I can stare at them for hours. I love the ocean. I used to think I couldn't last without her. It's funny how things can change over time. It's funny how people can change over time. It's funny how I've changed over time… No matter what changes come and what changes go, Things are always perfect, exactly as they are Right now, in this moment.



"Every river has to find its own way to the ocean."

A radical transformation takes place once you stop trying to become this or that, and simply enjoy what and who you are. Your authentic self, no longer distracted by searching, flowers for the whole world to see. - AYS

"Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do." -- Rumi

“I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life… to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” -- Henry David Thoreau

"I could have worshipped God while living among His creatures, for worship does not require solitude. I did not leave the people in order to see God, for I had always seen Him at the home of my father and mother. I deserted the people because their natures were in conflict with mine, and their dreams did not agree with my dreams... I left man because I found that the wheel of my soul was turning one way and grinding harshly against the wheels of other souls which were turning in the opposite direction. I left civilization because I found it to be an old and corrupt tree, strong and terrible, whose roots are locked into the obscurity of the earth and whose branches are reaching beyond the cloud; but its blossoms are of greed and evil and crime, and its fruit is of woe and misery and fear. Crusaders have undertaken to blend good into it and change its nature, but they could not succeed. They died disappointed, persecuted and torn." -- Khalil Gibran



You're focused on the shadow. I'm focused on the sun.

-oo-



-oo-

"I don't regret how much I love,
and I avoid those who repent their passion.
Hundreds of sweethearts!
I am the lover and the one lovers long for.
Blue, and a cure for blues,
sky in a small cage,
badly hurt but flying.
Everybody's scandalous flaw is mine."
~~ Rumi

"It is easy to become part of the society and get into the rut; it is difficult to get out of it. And once you are in the rut, you start becoming afraid. What will happen if you get out of it? You will lose money, you will lose this, you will lose that. But you are losing your life all the time! Life should be the supreme value. Nothing should be put above life. Never sacrifice your life for anything! Sacrifice everything for life! Life is the ultimate goal - greater than any god, greater than any scripture. But no leader or priest is going to say that to you, because then their whole business is gone. -- Osho

One cannot hold onto Love, one can only play with it.

"There is nothing to practice. To know yourself, be yourself. To be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that. Just be. Let your true nature emerge. Don't disturb your mind with seeking." -- Nisargadatta Maharaj

"Put everything at stake. Be a gambler! Risk everything because the next moment is not certain, so why bother? Why be concerned? Live dangerously, live joyously. Live without fear, live without guilt. Live without any fear of hell or any greed for heaven. Just live." -- Osho

"Why make plans and what for? Such questions show anxiety. Relationship is a living thing. Be at peace with your inner self and you will be at peace with everybody. Realize that you are not the master of what happens, you cannot control the future except in purely technical matters. Human relationship cannot be planned, it is too rich and varied. Just be understanding and compassionate, free of all self-seeking." -- Nisargadatta Maharaj

"Just as people may cross a field, day after day, unaware that a treasure lies buried there, so too do people, day after day, wake up, go about their duties and then go back to sleep, unaware of that immortal Self buried deep within themselves." -- Upanishad

"Reason is powerless in the expression of Love. Love alone is capable of revealing the truth of Love and being a Lover. If you want to live, die in Love; die in Love if you want to remain alive." -- Rumi

"True happiness cannot be found in things that change and pass away. Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably. Happiness comes from the self and can be found in the self only. Find your real self and all else will come to it." -- Nisargadatta Maharaj

"We have only to follow the thread of the hero's path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world." -- Joseph Campbell

"I sought solitude for in it there is a full life for the spirit and for the heart and for the body. I found the endless prairies where the light of the sun rests, and where the flowers breathe their fragrance into space, and where the streams sing their way to the sea. I discovered the mountains where I found the fresh awakening of Spring, and the colourful longing of Summer, and the rich songs of Autumn, and the beautiful mystery of Winter. I came to this far corner of God's domain for I hungered to learn the secrets of the Universe, and approach close to the throne of God." -- Khalil Gibran

"The union of God and man was everything. It was to be complete and direct, without reservation or mediators." -- Simon

"That hurt we embrace becomes joy." -- Rumi

"Just as archers fix their gaze upon a distant target before loosing the strings of their bows and sending their arrows flying, so do lovers of God fix their gaze upon the face of God." -- Will Johnson

"Open the door for yourself, so you will know what is." -- Jesus, Gospel of Thomas

-oo-

"Everything on earth lives according to the law of nature, and from that law emerges the glory and joy of liberty; but man is denied this fortune, because he set for the God-given soul a limited and earthly law of his own. He made for himself strict rules. Man built a narrow and painful prison in which he secluded his affections and desires. he dug out a deep grave in which he buried his heart and it's purpose. If an individual, through the dictates of his soul, declares his withdrawal from society and violates the law, his fellowmen will say he is a rebel worthy of exile or an infamous creature worthy of only execution. Will man remain a slave of self-confinement until the end of the world? Or will he be freed by the passing of time and live in the Spirit for the Spirit? Will man insist upon staring downward and backward at the earth? Or will he turn his eyes toward the sun so he will not see the shadow of his body amongst the skulls and thorns?" -- Khalil Gibran

"Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows." -- Nisargadatta Maharaj

"Man's power to alter the nature of his enviroment must develop simultaniously with his ability to master his inner enviroment, his own mind; his phyche, soul, spirit." -- "The Mad Arab"

"The modern person drawn to the shamanic archetype - the vision of sacred earth, revelatory word, and multidimensional cosmos -finds himself horrified by contemporary society and the accelerating processes of global destruction it has unleashed. Yet he is cut off from the archaic traditions he might like to embrace. Our tradition seems to deny us access to spiritual vision, and we have lost the Indian's innate relation with the natural world as sacred being." - Daniel Pinchbeck

"Tremendous is the splendor of a person who has come to know everything that goes on within him, because by being aware, everything that is false disappears and all that is real is nourished. Except this, there is no radical transformation possible. No religon can give it to you, no messiah can give it to you. It is a gift you have to give to yourself." -- Osho

"To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other, who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Seeing people all around... walking corpses... is inspiration enough not to move with them, not to go their way, but to find a small footpath of your own if you want to be alive." -- Osho

“Human opinions are toys for children.” -- Heraclitus

"If a man could understand all the horror of the lives of ordinary people who are turning round in a circle of insignificant interests and insignificant aims, if he could understand what they are losing, he would understand that there can be only one thing that is serious for him - to escape from the general law, to be free. What can be serious for a man in prison who is condemned to death? Only one thing: How to save himself, how to escape: nothing else is serious" -- G.I. Gurdjieff

"Within each of us lies the power of our consent to health and to sickness, to riches and to poverty, to freedom and to slavery. It is we who decide these, and not another." -- Richard Bach

"And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors? Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power? Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind? Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain? Tell me, have you these in your houses? Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master? Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires. Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron. It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh. It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels. Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral." -- Kahlil Gibran

"Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry." ~Henry David Thoreau’s Walden~

"Passion makes the old medicine new: Passion lops off the bough of weariness. Passion is the elixir that renews: how can there be weariness when passion is present? Oh, don't sigh heavily from fatigue: seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!" ~~ Rumi

"This whole journey of life is fundamentally an attempt to remember that at the most intimate personal level we are the center of the world. We are the center of the cosmos. We are light. We are love. We are God. That's basically it. But it takes time, because after the initial period of childhood, you forget it. Everything in society is designed to help you forget it. So you have to remember that process." -- Alex Stark

"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." --Carl Gustav Jung

"The future man will not be a man and will not be a woman. I am not saying biologically -- biologically the woman will be a woman, and the man will be a man -- but spiritually the future man will have as many feminine qualities as the woman, and the woman will have as many masculine qualities as the man. Spiritually they will never be labeled as man or woman any more. And that will be the real liberation -- not only the liberation of women, but the liberation of men too: liberation from straitjackets, liberation from imprisoning categories, liberation from all labels. -- Osho"

"Shamanic ecstacy is the true ancient religion, of which modern churches are merely pale imitations. Our ancestors discovered in many places, and at many times, that suffering humanity could find in ecstatic entheogenic experiences the reconciliation between the cultivated intelligence that seperates each human being from other creatures and even from other humans, and the wild, untamed, magnificent animal physicality that we all possess... It is not necessary to have faith because the ecstatic experience in and of itself gives one the belief in the true unity and integrity of the universe, and in ourselves as an integral part of the whole. Ecstatic experience is what reveals to us the sublime grandeur of our universe and the fluctuating, shummering, alchemical wonder that constitutes our everyday consciousness." -- Plants of the Gods by Schultes, Hofmann and Ratsch

"From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines. Going where I list, my own master total and absolute. Listening to others, considering well what they say, pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, gently but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold me." -- Walt Whitman

"If a human being remains constantly aware of the purpose of his life and directs all his actions toward the fulfillment of that purpose, there remains nothing impossible for him." -- Unknown



"Life is much too important to be taken seriously." -- Oscar Wilde

"People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think this is what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive." -- Joseph Campbell

"A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with confidence." -- Kahlil Gibran

"What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I know." -- Chinese Proverb

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence." --Henry David Thoreau

"To me, the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for words." -- William Wordsworth

"One can have no smaller or greater master than master of oneself." -- Leonardo De Vinci

"Withered summer grass is truly all that remains of the dreams of the warriors..." -- Matsuo Basho

"He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty." -- Kahlil Gibran

"The intellectual is always showing off,
the lover is always getting lost.
The intellectual runs away.
afraid of drowning;
the whole business of love
is to drown in the sea.
Intellectuals plan their repose;
lovers are ashamed to rest.
The lover is always alone.
even surrounded by people;
like water and oil, he remains apart.
The man who goes to the trouble
of giving advice to a lover
gets nothing. He's mocked by passion.
Love is like musk. It attracts attention.
Love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade."
~~ Rumi