“Sometimes we love with nothing more then hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that’s all we have — to hold on tight until dawn.” Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts p. 346

I don’t know how to express my love for Shantaram. I fear defining it, or labelling it. There is no value in understanding the reasons why I love this book. Reason and love have no connection in art. The art that captures us, is the art we dare not make reasonable. Great art is made up of emotions and expressions that move us. The truth I realized in the heart of Shantaram, is that we are all, everyone of us, is moving towards or away for God. And with that, a little bit of my soul swept forward into the light.  

“To know the truth, all you have to do is close your eyes…. We can know God, for example, and we can know sadness. We can know dreams, and we can know love. But none of these are real, in our usual sense of things that exist in the world and seem real. We cannot weight them, or measure their length, or find their basic parts in an atom smasher. Which is why they are possible. “ Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts p. 196

“Didier once told me, in a rambling, midnight dissertation, that a dream is the place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and the fear are exactly the same, he said, we call the dream a nightmare.” Shantaram p. 150

“You know, Lin, he said softly, we have a saying, in the Pashto language, and the meaning of it is that your are not a man until you give your love, truly and freely, to a child. And you are not a good man until you earn the love, truly and freely, of a child in return.” Shantaram p. 353

“I was thinking about another kind of river, one that runs through every one of us, no matter where we come from, all over the world. It’s the river of the heart, and the heart’s desire. It’s the pure, essential truth of what each one of us is, and can achieve… Shantaram, which means man of peace, or man of God’s peace. They nailed their stakes into the earth of my life, those farmers. They knew the place in me where the river stopped, and they marked it with a new name.  Shantaram Kishan Kharre.  I don’t know if they found that name in the heart of the man they believed me to be, or if they planted it there, like a whishing tree, to bloom and grow. Whatever the case, whether they discovered that peace or created it, the truth is that the man I am was born in those moments, as I stood near the flood sticks with my face lifted to the chrismal rain. Shantaram. The better man that, slowly, and much to late, I began to be.”   Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts  p.137

“The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men, he said. It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds, and bad deeds. Men are just men – it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good and evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone – the noblest man alive or the wicked – has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God.” Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts p. 199

“Lovers find their way by insights and confidences; they are the stars they use to navigate the ocean of desire. And the brightest of those stars are the heartbreaks and sorrows. The most precious gift you can bring to your lover is your suffering.”  Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts 

“I pressed my lips against the sky, and licked the stars into my mouth. She took my body into hers, and every moment was an incantation. Our breathing was like the whole world chanting prayers. Sweat ran in rivulets to ravines of pleasure. Every moment was a satin skin cascade. Within the velvet cloaks of tenderness, our backs convulsed in quivering heat, pushing heat, pushing muscles to complete what minds begin and bodies always win. I was hers. She was mine. My body was her chariot, and she drove it into the sun. Her body was my river, and I became the sea. And the wailing moan that drove our lips together, at the end, was the world of hope and sorrow that ecstasy wrings from lovers as it floods their souls with bliss.

The still and softly breathing silence that suffused and submerged us, afterwards, was emptied of need, and want, and hunger, and pain, and everything else except pure, ineffable exquisiteness of love.”  Shantaram  p. 400

“My heart broke on its shame and sorrow. I suddenly knew how much crying there was in me, and how little love. I knew, at last, how lonely I was.

But I couldn’t respond.  My culture had taught me all the wrong things well.  So I lay completely still, and gave no reaction at all. But the soul has no culture. The soul has no nations. The soul has no colour or accent or way of life. The soul is forever. The soul is one. And when the heart has its moment of truth and sorrow, the soul can’t be stilled.”

“I clenched my teeth against the stars. I closed my eyes. I surrendered to sleep. One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.”  Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts p.124

What started as a necessary evil, Twitter, has turned into a fun social media experiment. At last count, my Twitter ( @EnlightenYurDay ) had 2,153 followers. I Tweet and Retweet inspiring and eye-catching quotes along with current Social Media Trends from TweetDeck. I use #HashTags  and referral sites like MrTweet to cast my net wider. My Twitter philosophy is simple: share truth and beauty. Here is list of my favorite Retweets and Tweets. Kindest Regards to all my Twitter contributors.

RT Inspiring Tweets and Zen Retweets from my Twitter Contributors

flickr photo by scarbody

Zen ReTweets

• RT @MarkIsMusing: For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream” Van Gogh #quote
• RT @joyfrequencies: Awesome! “It was the work of the quiet mountains, this torrent of purity at my feet” Jack Kerouac #quote #quotes
• RT @beiruta: Great #quote “First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win” Mahatma Gandhi
• RT @fitwriter Now that my house has burned down, I have a much better look at the sky–Zen saying
• RT @traveleverywher: RT @Ladyalana: It’s not what if, it’s what now. ~Author Unknown #quote
• RT @ScreamingEagle1: “We make our world significant by the courage of our questions & the depth of our answers” ~ Carl Sagan #quote
• RT @allaboutenergy: The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven. ~ John Milton #quote
• RT @screamingeagle1 Great quote thanks irenerencsi: RT: “Be realistic: Plan for a miracle”— Osho?

flickr photo by Licht

Lovely ReTweets

• RT @MarkIsMusing: To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead” Bertrand Russell #quote #zen
• RT @lovepeaceunity: RT @MARCOME: “Love’s the only engine of survival.” ~ Leonard Cohen (via @mscator)
• RT @SusanCosmos: “If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.” – Bruce Lee #quote
• RT @quotesource: “The greatest treasures are those invisible to the eye but found by the heart.” #quote
• RT @AlexKaris #QUOTE At the moment of commitment, the universe conspires to assist you~ Goethe
• RT @NoTwidiot: “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius & it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring…” ~unknown?

flickr photo by Browni63

Social Media ReTweets

• RT @alvinyudistira: RT @unmarketing: The key to understanding “social media” is to focus on the first word of the term.
• RT @lululemon: “How would you start loving your body if you stopped comparing it to others?” Love your body!
• RT @1800GOTJUNK: RT @Earth911 Google got rid of individual employee trash cans to minimize waste & encourage recycling http://snurl.com/k6rlo from TweetDeck ?

flickr photo by digitalTool

Self-Actualization ReTweets

• RT @quotesource: I like that. RT @ColaAllen: Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it” Henry David Thoreau #zen
• RT @SusanCosmos: In response to those who say to stop dreaming and face reality, I say keep dreaming and make reality” Kristian Kan #quote
• RT @NadiaKoligman: RT @ImproveLife: “The only place where your #dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking” Robert Schuller #quote
• RT @ScreamingEagle1: “Begin each day as if it were on purpose.” ~ Mary Anne Radmacher #quote zen
• RT @JavierChua: #Quote: “We know what we are, but know not what we may be.” ~ William Shakespeare
• RT @Montsterr: RT @MarkIsMusing: It is not our abilities that show what we truly are…it is our #choices. Albus Dumbledore #quote #zen
• RT @NDFootballFan1: It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” Lou Holtz #quote #ND #quotes
• RT @quotesource: RT @mariaporter RT @TeddyShabba “Circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him.” Dr. Wayne W. Dyer #quote. Agreed!!
• RT @ghostcrabby: RT @thewebchild “#Success comes in cans, not cant’s.” – Unknown #quote #quotes #zen
• RT @SusanCosmos: Playing safe is probably the most unsafe thing in the world. U cannot stand still. U must go forward” Robert Collier #quote
• RT @JazmineSpirit: Intense desire not only creates its own possibilities-but its own talents -Kobi Yamada #quote
• RT @brandisco: RT @MurrayMelb: #Success is how high you bounce after you hit bottom. – General George Patton. #quote

Funny Tweets From @EnlighenYurDay

“I’m such a good lover because I practice a lot on my own.” Woody Allen #quote #love #movie

• Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.” Steven Wright #quote #humor
• Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use” Wendell Johnson #quote #quotes #zen
• Luke, there is no try, there is either do or not do” George Lucas #quote
• The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones” John Wooden #quote #quotes #books
• Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.” Mae West #quote
• A word to the wise ain’t necessary – it’s the stupid ones that need the advice” Bill Cosby #quote #humor
• “Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.” Jerry Garcia #music #quote

flickr photo by nighthamk3 (away for some time)

Dreamy Tweets From @EnlighenYurDay

#Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?” Alfred, Lord Tennyson

#Dreams are illustrations… from the book your soul is writing about you.” Marsha Norman #quote

The robber of your free #will,” writes Epictetus, “does not exist” Marcus Aurelius #quote

There is no snooze button on a #cat who wants breakfast.” Unknown #Zen #quote

A little girl, asked where her home was, replied, “where mother is.” ~Keith L. Brooks #quote #mother #day

photo of Olivia Wilde

Sexy Tweets From @EnlighenYurDay

• For it was not into my ear you whispered But into my heart Twas not my lips you kissed But my soul” Judy Garland #quote
• After the first blush of sin comes its indifference” Henry D Thoreau #quote
• We have to believe in #free-will. We’ve got no #choice” Isaac B Singer #quote
• The question is not whether we will die, but how we will #live” Joan Borysenko #quote #zen
• #Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.” James Dean #quotes #quote #zen
• People living deeply have no fear of death” Anais Nin #zen #quote #quotes
• Never pretend to a #love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command” Alan Watts #quote #zen

flickr photo by weirena

Enlightened Tweets From @EnlighenYurDay

• The gratification comes in the doing, not in the results.” James Dean #quote #quotes #zen
• The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow #quote #zen
• I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better. Paul Theroux #quote
• “If U can concentrate always on the present, U’ll be a #happy man. #Life will be a party for U, a grand festival” The Alchemist #Coelho
• No man was ever wise by chance.” Seneca #quote #wisdom
• Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” #Zen #Proverb #quotes

flickr photo by vanvos

Beauty Tweets From @EnlighenYurDay

• If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.” Anatole France #quote #zen #beauty
• “Let tears flow of their own accord: their flowing is not inconsistent with inward peace and harmony” Seneca #quote #peace
• To rise from error to truth is rare and beautiful” Victor Hugo #quote #art
• A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it” Michelangelo #quote
• The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer” Oliver W Holmes #quote
• “The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude” Friedrich Nietzsche #quote #art
• #Love and Compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them #Humanity cannot survive” Dalai Lama #quote
• There are no days in #life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the #imagination” Ralph Emerson #quote
• I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be” Bob Dylan #quotes

flickr photo by Jessica Shannon

Money Tweets From @EnlighenYurDay

• Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.” H. Jackson Browne #quote #zen
• He makes no friends who never made a foe” Tennyson #quote #friends #zen #quote #quotes
• My #motto is: Contented with little, yet wishing for more. Charles Lamb #quote
• #Money is everywhere but so is #poetry. What we lack are the #poets ” Federico Fellini #quote
• #Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” Goethe #quote
• “If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable” Seneca #quotes #quote
• If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.” Woody Allen #quote
• “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” Winston Churchill #quote
• Money won’t make you happy… but everybody wants to find out for themselves.” Zig Ziglar #quote
• The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities” Stephen Covey #quote
• All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity.” but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible” T. E. Lawrence #quote

Related posts: Yes, I love all things Social Media.

A list of inspiring quotes and pictures to elevate your day

When more then one friend recommends the same book to me, I consider it an omen. With Shantaram,  I knew after the first two pages it was a brilliant book. Here are three quotes from the first two chapters that I hope will inspire you to read this masterpiece: Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.

“The ancient Sanskrit legends speaks of a destined love, a karmic connection between souls that are fated to meet and collide and enrapture one another. The legends say that the loved one is instantly recognized because she’s loved in every gesture, every expression of thought, every movement, every sound, and every mood that prays in her eyes. The legends say that we know her by her wings–the wings that only we can see–and because wanting her kills every other desire of love.

The same legends also carry warnings that such fated love may, sometimes, be the possession and the obsession of one, and only one, of two souls twinned by destiny. But wisdom in one sense, is the opposite of love. Love survives in us precisely because it isn‘t wise.”    Shantaram by Gregory Roberts  P. 23

“The past reflects eternally between two mirrors — the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn’t do or say.  I wish now that from the beginning, even then in the first weeks that I had knew her, even on that night, the words had come to tell her… to tell her that I liked her.“   Shantaram by Gregory Roberts  P. 36

“My heart moved through deep and silent water.  No-one, and nothing, could really hurt me.  No-one, and nothing, could make me very happy.  I was tough, which is probably the saddest thing you can say about a man.”   Shantaram by Gregory Roberts  P.37

 Related Post: Quotes and passages of poetic beauty from Shantaram 

 The beautiful & enchanting wisdom of Hugh Prather

“My dream has in it a wife beautiful beyond belief, not Maggie, some gorgeous new blond sexpot of starry perfection with lovely lace neck, soft long skin, inturned mouth top – I picture the gorgeous… …a young beautiful American girl getting excited in your arms. –“ p 147 Maggie Cassidy

“The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great that I thought I was in a dream.”

Jack Kerouac lived the life he wrote about in his books. He was first, his own hero, living the life he wanted to live, the life of an artist on the road seeking the freedom of leaving everything behind you for what is in front of you. Striving to experience as many unknown present moment joys as possible. Like most of my favourite heroes, he found the light in the darkest hour of the night, he devoured the quick and easy highs in life, but never stops chasing the pure seemingly intangible ones – Enlightenment. I hope you will enjoy this selection of his Kerouac’s most famous quotes and the essentials of his Buddhist inspired literary style of Spontaneous Prose.

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.”

“Whee. Sal, we gotta go and never stop going till we get there.” “Where we going, man?” “I don’t know but we gotta go.”— Jack Kerouac

 “My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.”

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”

 “A pain stabbed my heart as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world”

“I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.” Lonesome Traveler (1960)

 “Ah, life is a gate, a way, a path to Paradise anyway, why not live for fun and joy and love or some sort of girl by a fireside, why not go to your desire and LAUGH…” Big Sur (1962)

“…-no girl had ever moved me with a story of spiritual suffering and so beautifully her soul showing out radiant as an angel wandering in hell and the hell the selfsame streets I’d roamed in watching, watching for someone just like her and never dreaming the darkness and the mystery and eventuality of our meeting in eternity,”

“They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!” On the Road (1957)

“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling. Ecstacy, even, I felt, with flashes of sudden remembrance, and feeling sweaty and drowsy I felt like sleeping and dreaming in the grass. The Dharma Bums (1958)

 ‘‘No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength. Learning for instance, to eat when he’s hungry and sleep when he’s sleepy. “

“The mad road, lonely, leading around the bend into the openings of space towards the horizon Wasatch snows promised us in the vision of the West, spine heights at the world’s end, coast of blue Pacific starry night — nobone halfbanana moons sloping in the tangled night sky, the torments of great formations in mist, the huddled invisible insect in the car racing onwards, illuminate. — The raw cut, the drag, the butte, the star, the draw, the sunflower in the grass — orangebutted west lands of Arcadia, forlorn sands of the isolate earth, dewy exposures to infinity in black space, home of the rattlesnake and the gopher the level of the world, low and flat: the charging restless mute unvoiced road keening in a seizure of tarpaulin power into the route. Visions of Cody

 “A man who allows wild passion to arise within, himself burns his heart, then after burning adds the wind that thereto which ignites the fire again, or not, as the case may be.” Some of the Dharma (1997)

“We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move.”

“Emotionlessly she kissed me in the vineyard and walked off down the row. We turned at a dozen paces, for love is a duel, and looked up at each other for the last time.” I was going to be left alone on my butt at the other end of the continent. But why think about that when all the golden land’s ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you’re alive to see?”

The essentials of his Buddhist inspired literary style of Spontaneous Prose.

“I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money. I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same that far down.” — Jack Kerouac

“Now you understand the Oriental passion for tea,” said Japhy. “Remember that book I told you about the first sip is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.” The Dharma Bums (1958)

Kerouac would include ideas he developed in his Buddhist studies. He called this style Spontaneous Prose, a literary technique akin to stream of consciousness.

Among the writings he set down specifically about his Spontaneous Prose method, the most concise would be Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, a list of thirty “essentials”.

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy

2. Submissive to everything, open, listening

3. Try never get drunk outside your own house

4. Be in love with your life

5. Something that you feel will find its own form

6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

7. Blow as deep as you want to blow

8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

9. The unspeakable visions of the individual

10. No time for poetry but exactly what is

11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest

12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you

13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition

14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time

15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog

16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye

17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself

18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea

19. Accept loss forever

20. Believe in the holy contour of life

21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

22. Don’t think of words when you stop but to see picture better

23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning

24. No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language & knowledge

25. Write for the world to read and see your exact pictures of it

26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness

28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better

29. You’re a Genius all the time

30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

“I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.”

“What is the feeling when you’re driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? -it’s the too huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” Jack Kerouac

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