Always discriminate-your body, your house, the people and the world are all absolutely unreal like a dream. Always think that the body is only an inert instrument. And the Atman within is your real nature.
True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air, And more inconstant than the wind, who woos Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.
I honestly didn't think miracles could ever come from my broken pieces, and I was disabled in fear that my dreams would always remain as dreams. Don't give up on you. Don't give up on God. Don't give up on love.
That is the most common excuse, and the most foolish of all. Love has never prevented a man from following his dreams. If she truly loves you, she will want the best for you.
Salvation means knowing the truth. We do not become anything; we are what we are. Salvation [comes] by faith and not by work. It is a question of knowledge! You must know what you are, and it is done. The dream vanishes. This you [and others] are dreaming here. When they die, they go to [the] heaven [of their dream]. They live in that dream, and [when it ends], they take a nice body [here], and they are good people.
That is another theme in the book [Dreams from My Father]. How do we exercise more empathy in our public discourse? How do we get the black to see through the eyes of the white? Or the citizen to see through the eyes of the immigrant? Or the straight to see through the eyes of the gay? That has always been a struggle in our politics.
To seek visions, to dream dreams, is essential, and it is also essential to try new ways of living, to make room for serious experimentation, to respect the effort even where it fails.
That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door.
I believe the role of government is to stand side by side with our citizens to help them realize their dreams, not tell citizens how to live their lives.