Elizabeth Lesser Quotes

I know that if we allow ourselves into the gridlock of tribalism, we're in trouble.

If you're interested in the door to the heavens opening, start with the door to your own secret self.

What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do.

Grief is an expression that you loved well.

When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead.

One does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.

Fear is a sneaky thief, stealing away precious moments of your life.

In the true spirit of the holidays, let the darkness of your moods lead you back up to the light, and when New Year's rolls around, your resolution will be tinged with new authenticity and power.

Diversity is good. We need each other's ideas.

I think that life is a friggin' magic carpet ride - it's amazing. Everything about life is mysterious and beautiful and touching and tragic and lovely and mystical.

When we slow down, quiet the mind, and allow ourselves to feel hungry for something that we do not understand, we are dipping into the abundant well of spiritual longing.

Adversity is a natural part of being human. It is the height of arrogance to prescribe a moral code or health regimen or spiritual practice as an amulet to keep things from falling apart.

Life is like a school; one can learn, one can graduate, one can skip a grade or stay behind.

Look for a way to lift someone up. If that's all you do, it's enough.

...approach change with an understanding of the process and an openness to the pain.

No one has the answer; only you know the way home.

How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change

Grief is good...it is a sign of how well we have loved.

As humans try to evolve out of greed, let's put aside some wild places, protected lands, protected farms, things like that, since we may not evolve fast enough to protect nature.

First we forgive ourselves, then we forgive others and life itself.

It's like you trade the virility of the body for the agility of the spirirt.

To be human is to be lost in the woods.

Our errors and failings are chinks in the heart's armor through which our true colors can shine.

When women hear each other's stories, told from the heart, it gives us inspiration to keep on going.

Agree to these ground rules: Be curious, conversational and real. Don't persuade or interrupt. Listen, listen, listen.

It is the acceptance of death that has finally allowed me to choose life.

Life's always changing. We always are being called to adapt.

Every day we have the opportunity to make our relationships be on the outside what they really are on a spiritual level.

We need to claim our power for something beautiful, something harmonious and something globally healthy.

It seems to be almost a law of physics, that the winds of change awaken fear and fundamentalism.

The person who takes the first step in a conflict toward the other, those are brave people.

Don't persuade, defend or interrupt. Be curious, be conversational, be real. And listen.

My years as a mystic have made me question almost all my assumptions. They've made me a proud I-don't-know-it-all.

A broken heart is not the same as sadness. Sadness occurs when the heart is stone cold and lifeless. On the contrary, there is an unbelievable amount of vitality in a broken heart.

I believe that educating people to awaken into full consciousness is the most important thing we can do.

Rumi called his teacher "the friend." And that's what we need. We need friends.

To me the purpose of life is to enjoy it! It's to enjoy the gift, and to make sure that other people have an opportunity to enjoy the gift.

It is such a teaching in itself for us, all of us, every moment when we're with anyone.

Not only must we follow the golden thread towards spiritual freedom, but we must also unravel the garden-variety twine that is wrapped tightly around our hearts and minds.

Love is the secret you unmask yourself to find; it is the foundation of the spiritual life, the destination where all roads of the journey lead.

First we love within, then we love the world.

We must pay attention to the voice that calls us out of the safety zone.

There is no one alive who has not wanted to go back to sleep.

If I pull from places of faith, joy and gratitude, then I have the wind of creativity behind me. And, my work in the world is much more effective.

Life is about change, it never stops, it's moving and it's moving this human body inexorably towards its demise.

I can only do what I do with a spirit of humor, and faith and give the controls over to something else.

The world needs women to redefine what it means to be a person of power

Beautiful quality that women have, which is we like to get together and gab. It's time to elevate that aspect of being a woman.

Even if your difficult time comes at you out of the blue - like cancer - even those times, opens your heart to the magic and power of life, and gives you this inner commitment to live every moment.

Instead of fixating on the physical aspects of aging, it's good to contemplate the deeper source of our anxiety. That can be liberating.