Author/teacher Jeff Foster studied Astrophysics at Cambridge University. In his mid-twenties, after a long period of depression and illness, he became addicted to the idea of ‘spiritual enlightenment’ and embarked on an intensive spiritual quest for the ultimate truth of existence.
The spiritual search came crashing down with the clear recognition of the non-dual nature of everything, and the discovery of the extraordinary in the ordinary. In the clarity of this seeing, life became what it always was: intimate, open, loving and spontaneous, and Jeff was left with a deep understanding of the root illusion behind all human suffering, and a love of the present moment.
Jeff presently holds meetings, retreats and private one-to-one sessions around the world, gently but directly pointing people back to the deep acceptance inherent in the present moment.
Jeff’s teaching is simple. He helps people discover who they really are, beyond all thoughts and judgments about themselves, even in the midst of the stress and struggle of modern day living and intimate relationships.
His style is direct and uncompromising and yet full of humanity, humour and compassion. He believes that freedom is everybody’s birth right. He belongs to no tradition or lineage, and makes his teaching accessible to all.
Jeff was voted #59 in Watkins Mind Body Spirit’s 2014 list of the world’s 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People. He has published four books in over six languages. His latest book The Deepest Acceptance was published in 2012 by Sounds True.” ~ excerpted from Jeff Foster’s website
Other posts you may like:
75 Beautiful Jeff Foster Quotes – Soul Enriching!
“This moment is not life waiting to happen, goals waiting to be achieved, words waiting to be spoken, connections waiting to be made, regrets waiting to evaporate, aliveness waiting to be felt, enlightenment waiting to be gained. No. Nothing is waiting. This is it. This moment is life.” ― Jeff Foster
“Leave everything undefined, including yourself. Befriend uncertainty. Fall in love with mystery. Kneel at the altar of not knowing. Give your questions time to breathe. The answers will find you.” – Jeff Foster
“Less is the new more.” – Jeff Foster
“Wholeness is not something that ‘happens’ one day, it is that which is already present. Life itself – what you really are, beyond your image of yourself – is already whole.” – Jeff Foster
“All your problems are just thoughts. And thoughts are not a problem.” – Jeff Foster
“Fall in love with where you are. Turn towards this – a sacred moment, unrepeatable. Trust the ebb and flow of things. Say yes to uncertainty and the unresolvedness of your life. Come out of stories and second-hand dreams and remember the place where breathing happens. Here. Now.” – Jeff Foster
“Life is just a constant invitation to find out how vast you are.” – Jeff Foster
“The word “depressed” is spoken phonetically as “deep rest.” We can view depression not as a mental illness, but on a deeper level, as a profound (and very misunderstood) state of deep rest, entered into when we are completely exhausted by the weight of our own identity. It is an unconscious loss of interest in our story. It is so very close to awakening – but unfortunately rarely understood as such. Or as one friend put it, “depression has awakening built-in…” – Jeff Foster
“Love is the answer. The question is unimportant.” – Jeff Foster
“Stop trying to love yourself. Simply be the self that loves.” – Jeff Foster
“Nothing can make you happy until Nothing can make you happy.” – Jeff Foster
“Stop waiting for others to make you happy. You’ll be waiting forever. Discover your natural happiness. The in-built contentment that doesn’t depend on content.” – Jeff Foster
“We are not in control. Everything is dying from the moment it is born, as the Buddha taught. Everything is made of crystal. And therein lies our greatest sorrow and deepest depression, but also our greatest potential for joy and liberation.” – Jeff Foster
“Don’t mistake the weather of your mind for the sky of your being.” – Jeff Foster
“Do not search for the answer. It will find you in the perfect moment, when your defenses are down. It knows where you live.” – Jeff Foster
“The greatest change seems to happen when we stop trying to change and sink creatively into the mystery of the moment.” – Jeff Foster
“One of the biggest illusions: something outside of myself is going to bring me home.” – Jeff Foster
“Sensitive ones bring some gentleness into this weary world! Shine on with courageous sensitivity! You are the light bearers!” – Jeff Foster
“This moment, whatever shape it takes, has no opposite. Investigate this very deeply, for this insight is the key to unimaginable peace.” – Jeff Foster
“There are two core fears: losing what you have, and not getting what you want. There is one solution: Falling in love with where you are.” – Jeff Foster
“True happiness has no opposite, for it embraces all. It is your nature, not some far-off utopia. It is you, before you were named, before you learned to doubt yourself.” – Jeff Foster
“Relax. Answers will come, in time. Or perhaps the unnecessary questions will fall away.” – Jeff Foster
“The word “depressed” is spoken phonetically as “deep rest”. We can view depression not as a mental illness, but on a deeper level, as a profound (and very misunderstood) state of deep rest, entered into when we are completely exhausted by the weight of our own identity.” – Jeff Foster
“Trying to fall in love is like trying to make your heart beat backwards. It can’t be done. I am already what you are. And so we don’t fall in love; we simply notice that we are in love already, and always have been. We don’t fall in love; it is the ‘we’, the ‘me’ and the ‘you’, that ‘in-between’, that falls away in love, revealing the intimacy of our own absence. We are all so deeply in love that we don’t realize it.” – Jeff Foster
“The more you try to fix it, the more you reinforce the belief that it’s broken.” – Jeff Foster
“Accept your non-acceptance. Forgive your inability to forgive. Surrender to your lack of surrender. This is the pathless path!” – Jeff Foster
“Breathe in the moment, exactly as it is. Love changes everything, by leaving everything unchanged.” – Jeff Foster
“The most unexpectedly beautiful gifts can come from a deep and total embrace of helplessness.” – Jeff Foster
“Gentleness. Be gentle in how you react to your spouse. Be gentle in how you speak to them; never using harsh or hurtful words intentionally. Finally, be gentle in how you assume their perspective.” – Jeff Foster
“Today…Forget your plans of fabulous perfection.” – Jeff Foster
“How to accept life? Firstly, realize that you can’t. And then discover that life, appearing as this moment, is already accepted, as it is.” – Jeff Foster
“Just as the ocean allows every wave, Awareness allows every thought and feeling.” – Jeff Foster
“Between ‘What was’ and ‘What will be’ there is a vast space called Now. It is your true home.” – Jeff Foster
“Somehow we end up where we need to be.” – Jeff Foster
“My guru is this moment. My lineage is this moment. My spiritual path is this moment. And my home is this moment.” – Jeff Foster
“Beautiful things happen in your life when you distance yourself from all the negativity and drama.” – Jeff Foster
“Regret is the longing to change the past. Fear is the desire to control the future. Peace is the surrender to now.” – Jeff Foster
“True spirituality is not a comfort – it is a furnace, burning up your cherished homes and dreams, your outdated beliefs about life, the universe and everything.” – Jeff Foster
“Can this moment be deeply allowed? and if it can’t can that be allowed too?” – Jeff Foster
“Never come to a conclusion about anyone. They will always surprise you. For they are alive, and ever-changing, with no fixed ‘self’ to call their own. They are a cast of thousands. A shape-shifter. A parade of masks. Tragic, comic, fierce, ecstatic, numb. Do not confuse them with their appearance! See the Universal Self underneath. Breathe. Stay open. You will be humbled.” – Jeff Foster
“You are never ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the now. You are the now.” – Jeff Foster
“What is life – and its fulfillment – is always now? Then, what’s next?” – Jeff Foster
“Like clouds floating through the sky, like drops of rain trickling down the window pane, thoughts aren’t really a problem at all. Thoughts are only a problem when an individual want to be free of them.” – Jeff Foster
“Love is all that matters. The rain falls, stars explode in silence somewhere out in the vastness of space, and here on this tiny planet someone called earth, sometimes we meet and hold each other.” – Jeff Foster
“It is about celebration of the uniqueness of who you are and recognizing our underlying shared essence.” – Jeff Foster
“Essence never changes and cannot be destroyed, so when you die, you don’t really die at all. You just become gloriously naked.” – Jeff Foster
“Consciousness has no religion and no nationality.” – Jeff Foster
“Even though we sometimes forget, or do not admit it, we all live here, as we did when we were children, in this limitless space of profound not knowing, and wonder, endless wonder.” – Jeff Foster
“There are no conditions to love. And no end to its depths.” – Jeff Foster
“Life is a moment by moment adventure to be lived, not a story to be completed or an image to be upheld. Conclusions are not your job. In this moment, answers are not required.” – Jeff Foster
“How will you ever know what kind of dance you’re capable of dancing until you actually dance?” – Jeff Foster
“Life is a never-ending invitation to discover freedom in everything you’re running from.” – Jeff Foster
“What is meditation? Pure fascination with this moment, exactly as it is. Not adding anything. Not taking anything away. No goal. No seeking. No meditator.” – Jeff Foster
“You are a forgotten heir to a glorious kingdom. Reclaim it. Make contact with this moment.” – Jeff Foster
“Acceptance is not toleration or passivity – it makes you radically alive and passionately engaged with this astonishing dream-world.” – Jeff Foster
“You cannot be fixed you were never broken.” – Jeff Foster
“Wanting things to disappear piles suffering on top of suffering.” – Jeff Foster
“Love breaks down the non-existent walls of separation.” – Jeff Foster
“You know you’re on the right path when the old path dissolves in front of you…and you start trusting yourself completely.” – Jeff Foster
“Heaven is this moment. Hell is the burning desire for this moment to be different. It’s that simple.” – Jeff Foster
‘We long to be in profound contact with where we are.” – Jeff Foster
“Regret is rewind – the longing to change the past. Fear is fast forward – the desire to control the future. Depression is pause – the stagnation of trying to keep life at bay. Freedom is play – a thrilling free-fall into the juicy aliveness of now.” – Jeff Foster
“Today…Dance without rules in the vast field of the unknown.” – Jeff Foster
“Give your questions time to breathe. And the answers will find you.” – Jeff Foster
“. Begin by feeling the warmth of your own broken heart, reconnecting there at the very source of disconnection, finding presence in your own presence.” – Jeff Foster
“Do not seek the extraordinary, but see the extraordinary shining through the ordinary. The gateway is everywhere.” – Jeff Foster
“Bow to your awkwardness. Kneel at the altar of your failures.” – Jeff Foster
“There are only solutions, waiting patiently for ‘you’ to disappear.” – Jeff Foster
“Life is not a series of present moments, but a single present moment with infinite depths.” – Jeff Foster
“Cherish your doubts. They are the seeds of mystery.” – Jeff Foster
“At the root of every desire is the desire for ourselves.” – Jeff Foster
“Today…let your identity be a giant question mark.” – Jeff Foster
“This moment is an invitation to start again…Begin where you are.” – Jeff Foster
“The story is always old. The silence is always brand new.” – Jeff Foster
“Knowing who you are – the unconditional embrace of this moment’s contentment is true content-ment.” – Jeff Foster
75 Beautiful Jeff Foster Quotes – Final thoughts
It’s difficult to narrow down Jeff Foster quotes to 75 as there is so much depth and wisdom in his words. Through his life and words, he powerfully articulates how it is really possible to discover the truth of who you are and be true to that discovery.
If you have any questions please reach out to me via adam@adam-lawrence.org. I would love to hear from you.
If you’re interested in working with me in a more structured approach, then please send an email to adam@adam-lawrence.org for a free consultation to take the first step towards personal transformation. I look forward to hearing from you.
Other posts you may like:
Hello! My name is Adam and welcome to my space on the internet. Here you can find me writing about subjects such as spiritual growth, self-discovery, wellbeing, addiction recovery and mental health. Please connect with me on my journey and join the community!
