As you recognize that you already own the wholeness you seek, and no one outside you can give you more than you already are, dysfunctional situations will evaporate like bad dreams exposed to the morning sun.
Alan CohenRead
If you have to have it, it's ego. If you have to not have it, it's ego. Hold life lightly and it will deliver what you need and release what you don't.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that attachment and aversion stem from the ego, and that a lighter approach to life can bring balance.
Alan Cohen's quote emphasizes that desires and aversions are often products of the ego, which can lead to suffering. By learning to hold life lightly, without excessive attachment to what we want or don't want, we can allow life to unfold naturally, bringing us what we truly need while letting go of what doesn't serve us.
Themes
EgoAttachmentLifeBalanceLetting GoDesires
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about mindfulness, one could illustrate how holding life lightly leads to inner peace.
More from Alan Cohen
All quotes →Communication is an offering. When you tell someone your truth, you must release your expectation of what the other person should do with it. They may thank you profusely, love you forever, argue with you, or ignore you. It doesn't matter. Of course we hope the gift will be received with appreciation and thanks. But if it isn't we must not dictate. We've done our part, and we must trust the universe to do the rest.
Alan CohenRead
When you learn to say yes to yourself, you will be able to say no to others, with love.
Alan CohenRead
We attain freedom as we let go of whatever does not reflect our magnificence. A bird cannot fly high or far with a stone tied to its back. But release the impediment, and we are free to soar to unprecedented heights.
Alan CohenRead
You can be helping many people, but if you are not helping yourself, you have missed the one person you were born to heal.
Alan CohenRead
When you protect yourself from pain, be sure you do not protect yourself from love.
Alan CohenRead
Similar quotes
And it's a human need to be told stories. The more we're governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.
Alan RickmanRead
When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.
Samuel JohnsonRead
When you criminalize something, only criminals can deal with it. When criminals deal with it, there's no recourse to law, so there's only recourse to violence.
Don WinslowRead
There is no ship now that can bear me hence
J. R. R. TolkienRead
Masonry is not a religion._x000D_ He who makes of it a religious belief, falsifies and denaturalizes it.
Albert PikeRead
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
George WashingtonRead