When you have gone beyond thinking, and if you can still remain alert, aware, as if one is fast asleep but still alert—deep down at the very core of one’s being a lamp goes on burning, a small candle of light—then you will see your original face. And to see your original face is to be back in the Garden of Eden.

Live as intensely as possible, burn your candle of life from both ends.

Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness

Light is shallow; darkness is infinitely deep. Light is always bounded, it has boundaries. Darkness has no boundaries, it is unbounded. Light comes and goes; darkness always is. When there is light you cannot see it. When light is not there you can see it. But it is always there; you cannot cause it. Light has a cause. You burn the fire, you put on wood. When the wood is finished the light will be gone. It is caused, hence it is an effect. But darkness is not caused by anything, it is not an effect. It is uncaused eternity.

To light a candle is to cast a shadow.

A candle's true power is measured not on how wide or strong its light is, but on how many candles it shared its light with.