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"Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives."
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"Writing is mental exercise and the preeminent method to train the mind to achieve a desirable state of mental quietude. Meditative writing, a single pointed concentration of mental activity, induces an altered state of consciousness. Writing is studious rumination, a means to converse with our personal muse. Writing entails a period of forced solitude that enables us to meet and conduct a searching conversation with our authentic self. This contemplative dialogue with our true self is transformational. Writing is not a mere act but a journey of the mind into heretofore-unknown frontiers of the self."

"Only when there is dharmadhyan (auspicious contemplation; to not hurt anyone, to give happiness to others) in the body, then there is shukladhyan in the Self (contemplation as the Self, the Soul)."

"Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives."

"For until this morning I had known contemplation only in its humbler, its more ordinary forms - as discursive thinking; as a rapt absorption in poetry or painting or music, as a patient waiting upon those inspirations, without which even the prosiest writer cannot hope to accomplish anything; as occasional glimpses, in nature, of Wordsworth's 'something far more deeply interfused'; as systematic silence leading, sometimes, to hints of an 'obscure knowledge'. But now I knew contemplation at its height."

"I think a lot of contemplation happens in bathtubs. It does for me. Nothing like a hot bath to ease the tension and think about what's going to happen next."

"If one can exactly see the world 'as it is'; if one can exactly see the 'relative' and the 'real', it is shukladhyan (contemplation as the Self, Pure Soul)."

"Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing."

"Traditionally, true contemplation involves an act of devotion, wherein self-consciousness is removed by transferring consciousness onto the thing at hand. The better you perceive it, the less you observe yourself doing that. In other words, you could say that, at least for the extended moments of engaging it, you love it more than yourself."

"Shukladhyan (pure contemplation of the Self, the Soul) means focused awareness of the eternal form of the Self, the Soul. Dhyan (contemplation or one's focused effort) is a natural thing. And in pure applied awareness as Pure Soul (shuddha upayog), one must do spiritual effort with awareness of the separation of the Self and non-Self."

"I have often wondered whether especially those days when we are forced to remain idle are not precisely the days spend in the most profound activity. Whether our actions themselves, even if they do not take place until later, are nothing more than the last reverberations of a vast movement that occurs within us during idle days.In any case, it is very important to be idle with confidence, with devotion, possibly even with joy. The days when even our hands do not stir are so exceptionally quiet that it is hardly possible to raise them without hearing a whole lot."
Explore more quotes by Tahir Shah

"Prideep pointed to the flames of paraffin lamps as they came alive in the distance and cackled in awe at the experience. I was to discover that making tasty soup with one carrot, ten peas and a little dishwater, was his greatest skill. One wondered what the man would be capable of creating with a blender and a non-stick frying-pan."

"Lured by the wilderness, and by the chance of spotting rare desert elephants, a few intrepid tourists make their way to the Skeleton Coast each year. It's just about as remote as any tourist destination on earth, but one that pays fabulous dividends."

"Back at the Chateau Windsor there was a rat-like scratching at the door of my room. Vinod, the youngest servant, came in with a soda water. He placed it next to the bag of toffees. Then he watched me read. I was used to being observed reading. Sometimes the room would fill like a railway station at rush hour and I would be expected to cure widespread boredom."

"In moments of great uncertainty on my travels, I have always felt that something is protecting me, that I will come to no harm."

"Real travel is not about the highlights with which you dazzle your friends once you're home. It's about the loneliness, the solitude, the evenings spent by yourself, pining to be somewhere else. Those are the moments of true value. You feel half proud of them and half ashamed and you hold them to your heart."

"Experience has taught me the power of trophies. You may have every knick-knack and useless contraption ever devised, but while they weigh you down, a simple trophy can go a long, long way."
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