If someone who is agitated comes to visit you, wanting to discuss their agitation and weigh the pros and cons of what action he should take, my suggestion is to give him the mantra album and say, "why don't you just write Rama, Rama, Rama a thousand times?

— Eknath Easwaran

I have tremendous respect for anyone who can control his palate enough to learn not only to drink beer but to enjoy it too.

— Eknath Easwaran

It is a very difficult secret to understand that when we do not want to possess another selfishly, he or she will always love us. It is when we do not want to possess, when we do not make demand after demand, that the relationship will last.

— Eknath Easwaran

Judged by the normal standards of human affairs, the lives of men and women of God may look overburdened with suffering, and even inconclusive.

— Eknath Easwaran

Lovers of God possess intense concentration. In prayer their attention rivets itself so completely onto God that nothing can tear it away. Even a suggestion of the divine may draw them into a higher state of consciousness. Occasionally this can be somewhat inconvenient. Sri Ramakrishna once went to see a religious drama produced by his disciple. The curtain went up, and a character started singing the praises of the Lord. Sri Ramakrishna immediately began to enter the supreme state of consciousness. The stage faded; the actors and actresses faded. As only a great mystic can, he uttered a protest: "I come here, Lord, to see a play staged by my disciple, and you send me into ecstasy. I won't let it happen!" And he started saying over and over, "Money... money...money," to keep some awareness of the temporal world.

— Eknath Easwaran

Make wise choices about what you read. Read only what is necessary or worthwhile. And then take the time to read carefully. One book read with concentration and reflected upon is worth a hundred flashed through without any absorption at all.

— Eknath Easwaran

Meditation is the basis of a life of splendid health, untiring energy, unfailing love, and abiding wisdom. It is the very foundation of that deep inner peace for which every one of us longs. No human being can ever be satisfied by money or success or prestige or anything else the world can offer. What we are really searching for is not something that satisfies us temporarily, but a permanent state of joy.

— Eknath Easwaran

One learns a good deal in the school of suffering. I wonder what would have happened to me if I had had an easy life, and had not had the privilege of tasting the joys of jail and all it means." ~ Barsha Khan, quote in Nonviolent Soldier of Islam, p. 87

— Eknath Easwaran

Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it.

— Eknath Easwaran

Patience is an unfailing remedy for friction in personal relations. Even if a person has never won a beauty contest, has no money in the bank, can't even change a flat tire, if he or she has inexhaustible patience, then we will find that life with such a person will never grow stale.

— Eknath Easwaran