The big-brain ideas from Upanishads.

Everything we see is a subjective perspective and constructs of our own mind, not the truth.

You have power over your mind—not outside events and outside events have no effect on us

Nothing is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of drushti

It is not death that one should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

Never let the past and future disturb you. Everything is just there, which can be observed just by living in the present

Way of life as per Upanishads:

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they are suffering. But I have seen the beauty of maitri-karuna-pramod-samtaand the ugliness of avidya, and have recognized that the wrong doer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing the same share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me because we are one and the same.”

“Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to worry about the future.”

“Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing and feeling what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice and observe it's true nature. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can—if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable.”

“Do external things distract you? Then make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions. Learn an array of topics but create synergies between them”

“People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward a particular vision and long term goal are wasting their time—even when hard at work”

“Don’t ever forget these things: The nature of the world. My nature. How I relate to the world. What proportion of it do I make up? That you are one with nature, and no one can always prevent you from speaking and acting in harmony with it.”

“In comparing sins (the way people do) the ones committed out of desire are worse than the ones committed out of anger.”

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think so you become one with the moment”

“Nothing is more pathetic than people who run around in circles, ‘delving into the things that lie beneath’ and conducting investigations into the souls of the people around them, never realizing that all you have to do is to be attentive to the power inside you and worship it sincerely.”

“You can’t lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don’t have? As both space and time are constructs of mind to construct the understandings of mind”

“The present is all that we can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose.”

“Don’t waste the rest of your time worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind.”

“Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust, or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill will, or hypocrisy, or a desire for things.”

"Break away all the created identities by doing and saying things that you are ashamed about"

“Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see.“

“Nothing is so conducive to spiritual growth as this capacity for logical and accurate analysis of everything that happens to us.”

“If you do job in a principled way, with diligence, energy and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions, and keep the spirit inside you undamaged, as if you might have to give it back at any moment— If you can embrace this without fear or expectation—can find fulfilment in what you’re doing now, as Nature intended, and in superhuman truthfulness (every word, every utterance)—then your life will be happy and full of love. No one can prevent that.”

“Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul.”

“The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception and that observation leading to realisation is the starting point of any Indian philosophy”

“Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been. Its not important to focus on angst but rather let yourself only have pleasant sensations”

“Every event is the right one. Look closely and you’ll see.”

“Nothing, we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time and tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’”

"In every argument, understand and first convince yourself that what the opponent is saying is right and then convince yourself about the aspects, where he would be wrong"

“It’s unfortunate that this has happened. No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it—not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it. Why treat the one as a misfortune rather than the other as fortunate?”

“Remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.”

“The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.”

“If the gods have made decisions about me and the things that happen to me, then they can never be bad decisions. Why would they expend their energies on causing me harm? What good would it do them—or the world, which is their primary concern so nothing that happened with me can ever be bad?”

“Whatever happens to you is for the good of yourself”

“When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have: this one’s energy, that one’s modesty, another’s generosity, and so on. Nothing is as encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we’re practically showered with them. It’s good to keep this in mind.”

“Never be ashamed to do anything, say anything or think anything. Just be aware of it with observing yourself with concentration. After all, in your right to quest of truth, it is fine to offend others ”

“It doesn’t hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to.”

“When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you’ll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger. Your sense of good and evil may be the same as theirs, or near it, in which case you have to excuse them.“

“Treat what you don’t have as non-existent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you’d crave them if you didn’t have them. But be careful. Don’t feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them—that it would upset you to lose them.”

“Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option: to accept this event with humility to treat this person as he should be treated to approach this thought with care, so that nothing irrational creeps in.”

“Pain is neither unbearable nor unending, as long as you keep in mind its limits and don’t magnify them in your imagination. Use imagination to feel happy as our minds can't differentiate between an illusion, self created imagination or the external world"

“You don’t need anything to live happily. And just because you’ve abandoned your hopes of becoming a great thinker or scientist, don’t give up on attaining freedom as it's your right”

“For every action, ask: How does it affect me? Could I change my mind about it?”

“If [an outcome] is in your control, why do you do it? If it’s in someone else’s, then who are you blaming? Atoms? The gods? Stupid either way.”

“Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Prepare yourself by picturing everything bad that could possibly happen but then stick with the situation at hand, and ask, ‘Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?’ You’ll be embarrassed to answer that will you sail through with resilience”

“External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.”

“If the problem is something in your own character, who’s stopping you from setting your mind straight? And if it’s that you’re not doing something you think you should be, why not just do it?”

“The existence of something bad does not harm anyone. And an individual act does not harm you. Only one person is harmed by it—and he can stop being harmed as soon as he decides to.”

“Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it’s unendurable … then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well. Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so. In your interest, or in your nature.”

“If they’ve made a mistake, correct them gently and show them where they went wrong. If you can’t do that, then the blame lies with you. So no one except you can ever be wrong, embrace that and correct everything that is in your control”

“Characteristics of the rational soul: Self-perception, self-examination, and the power to make of itself whatever it wants.”

“Everything you’re trying to reach—by taking the long way round—you could have right now. If you’d only stop thwarting your own attempts. If you’d only let go of the past, entrust the future to Providence, and guide the present toward reverence”

“Don’t let anything deter you: other people’s misbehavior, your own mis-perceptions, What People Will Say, or the feelings of the body that covers you (let the affected part take care of those). And if, when it’s time to depart, you shunt everything aside except your mind and the divinity within … if it isn’t ceasing to live that you’re afraid of but never beginning to live properly … then you’ll be worthy of the world that your mind created”

Tell yourself: This thought is unnecessary

This one is destructive to the people around you and the destruction of people around you will destroy you

Self-reproach: that the more divine part of you has been beaten and subdued by the degraded mortal part—the body and its stupid?self-indulgence