Jeff Foster Quotes

AN INVITATION I don’t want to hear what you believe I’m not at all interested in your certainty I couldn’t care less about your unexcelled perfection Share with me your doubts Open up your tender heart Let me in to your struggles I’ll meet you in that place Where your spiritual conclusions Are starting to crack open That’s where the creativity lies That’s where the newness shines That’s where we can truly meet: Beyond the image Your imperfections Are so perfect In this light I don’t want you to be perfect I want you to be real

Gentleness is the only answer.

To be honest means “to tell the truth without expectation,” without aiming for a particular result, without trying to hurt or manipulate the other person in any way. Honesty means telling the truth and being willing to experience everything that follows. It means telling the truth not with the aim of changing or fixing the other person, but simply because the truth is what I long for the most. What I long for the most is to let go of the burden of trying to hold up a false image of myself in your presence. In the end, we don’t need a reason to tell to the truth, to admit what is. Truth is its own reward.

Oh yes, for sure, there will be heartbreak! And you will learn to get out of your head and into your immediate embodied experience, coming out of mental stories and conclusions, and contacting the raw energy of the here and now, directly feeling the devastation of your dreams rather than intellectualizing everything away, letting the grief, anger, and sorrow of millennia surge through your pores, rather than dismissing it all as an “illusion,” or distracting yourself with fresh dreams.

"Oh, sweet little boy, beloved little girl, you are so overwhelmed by life sometimes, I know, by the enormity of it all, by the vastness of the possibilities, by the myriad of perspectives available to you. You feel so pressed down sometimes, by all the unresolved questions, by all the information you are supposed to process and hold, by the urgency of things. You are overcome by powerful emotions, trying to make it all "work out" somehow, trying to get everything done "on time," trying to resolve things so fast, even trying not to try at all.
You are exhausted, sweet one, exhausted from all the trying and the not trying, and you are struggling to trust life again. It's all too much for the poor organism, isn't it? You are exhausted; you long to rest. And that is not a failing of yours, not a horrible mistake, but something wonderful to embrace!"

Love says “I am everything”. Wisdom says “I am nothing”. Between the two, my life flows. - Nisargadatta Maharaj

Why does it often take extreme life situations to bring back an awareness of the magic and mystery of life? Why do we often wait until we’re about to die before discovering a deep gratitude for life as it is? Why do we exhaust ourselves seeking love, acceptance, fame, success, or spiritual enlightenment in the future? Why do we work or meditate ourselves into the grave? Why do we postpone life? Why do we hold back from it? What are we looking for exactly? What are we waiting for? What are we afraid of? Will the life we long for really come in the future? Or is it always closer than that?

All human suffering is a variation on this theme — trying to control the waves, trying to control our present-moment experience so it conforms to our ideas and concepts of how it should be. If you want to suffer, compare this moment with your image of how it should be! I

TO YOUR KNEES Life will eventually bring you to your knees. Either you’ll be on your knees cursing the universe and begging for a different life, or you’ll be brought to your knees by gratitude and awe, deeply embracing the life that you have, too overwhelmed by the beauty of it all to stand or even speak. Either way, they’re the same knees.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. MARCEL PROUST

Abundance is not the money you have in your bank account, the trophies on your shelf, the letters after your name, the list of goals reached, the number of people you know, your perfect, healthy body, your adoring fans. Abundance is your connection to each breath, how sensitive you are to every flicker of sensation and emotion in the body. It is the delight with which you savor each unique moment, the joy with which you greet each new day. It is knowing yourself as presence, the power that creates and moves worlds. It is your open heart, how deeply moved you are by love every day, your willingness to embrace, to hold what needs to be held. It is the freshness of each morning unencumbered by memory or false hope. Abundance is the feeling of the afternoon breeze on your cheeks, the sun warming your face. It is meeting others in the field of honesty and vulnerability, connecting beyond the story, sharing what is alive. It is your rootedness in the present moment, knowing that you are always Home, no matter what happens, no matter what is gained or lost. It is touching life at the point of creation, never looking back, feeling the belly rise and fall, thanking each breath, giving praise to each breath. It is falling to your knees in awe, laughing at the stories they tell about you, sinking more deeply into rest. Abundance is simplicity. It is kindness. It is you, before every sunrise: fresh, open, and awake. You are rich, friend! You are rich!

Trust the unpredictable intelligence of healing, and know that their “symptoms” may get worse before they get better; energy may become more intense before it dies down. What appears now as chaos and disintegration may in fact be a necessary release and an intelligent reorganization of blocked systems.

It’s delicious, ingenious, perfect, intelligent that you never felt like you fit in. It means that you were always alive, and therefore unique and irreplaceable, designed to resist any kind of labeling whatsoever, unable to be pinned down or reduced to a category.

hay prisa. La vida no tiene prisa. Sé como las estaciones. El invierno no intenta ser el verano. La primavera no corre hacia el otoño. La hierba crece a su ritmo. La lluvia tampoco se apresura para llegar antes al suelo. Las elecciones que se llevarán a cabo serán llevadas a cabo, y no tienes elección al respecto en este momento. Las decisiones que se tomen se tomarán, los acontecimientos se desplegarán en el tiempo, pero justo ahora tal vez no necesitas saber las soluciones o los resultados, o cómo es mejor proceder. Tal vez el no saber es un invitado bienvenido al banquete de la vida. Tal vez la apertura a la posibilidad es una querida amiga. Acaso incluso la confusión puede venir a descansar aquí, donde tú estás. Así pues, en vez de intentar «arreglar» nuestras vidas, en vez de intentar resolver totalmente lo que no puede ser resuelto y completar con rapidez la historia épica de un «yo» ficticio, sencillamente relajémonos en un profundo no saber y permitamos que todo esté «fuera de control», confiando en el orden que hay dentro del caos salvaje, desempeñándonos dentro del cálido abrazo del misterio, sumergiéndonos profundamente en el momento, saboreándolo plenamente, en toda su singularidad y maravilla.

Feelings that have been pushed away do not actually disappear; they live on in the darkness of the Unconscious, pulling the strings in our relationships, our work, self-expression, causing us to become reactive, compulsive, obsessive, depressed, anxious, and deteriorate our physical health until one day, we remember, all feelings have a right to exist in us. So, we stop numbing ourselves, and feed them love, attention, curiosity and Presence. Now, they can finally come to rest.