Inspiring Words from Albert Einstein

“I didn't arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.”
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. Matter is spirit reduced to point of visibility. There is no matter.”
"Time and space are not conditions in which we live, but modes by which we think.
Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, determined by the external world."
“Time does not exist – we invented it. Time is what the clock says. The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me."
"The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”
"A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
"Our separation from each other is an optical illusion."
“When something vibrates, the electrons of the entire universe resonate with it. Everything is connected. The greatest tragedy of human existence is the illusion of separateness.”
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.”
“When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.”
“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.”
“The ancients knew something, which we seem to have forgotten.”
“The more I learn of physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics.”
“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike. We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.”
“I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books.”
"The common idea that I am an atheist is based on a big mistake. Anyone who interprets my scientific theories this way, did not understand them."
"Everything is determined, every beginning and ending, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It will transcend a personal God and avoid dogma and theology.”
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”
“Everything is energy and that is all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you can not help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”
"I am happy because I want nothing from anyone. I do not care about money. Decorations, titles or distinctions mean nothing to me. I do not crave praise. I claim credit for nothing. A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future."

        I don't know if Einstein ever studied astrology because there appears to be no evidence that he did. He is correct in that our lives have a degree of pre-determination and we can't change the timing of events. However, people who have awareness of astrology know that not everything is pre-determined  and we have some free will in that our actions now determine our karma for future lives. At the same time, there are major parts of our lives that are pre-determined due to having to balance karma from our previous lives. Major parts refers to the timing of relationships, marriage, career, children, where you are born and live, health challenges and your overall purpose for this lifetime. Life transitions are pre-planned as well, though most people believe they are actively making the choices. Each person has a different degree of free will which is shown in their birth chart, and living in different places in the world can also affect how much free will you have, as well as which pieces of your karma you will experience in this lifetime. When you actively engage in spiritual development, it is possible that through God's grace some of your karma is mitigated so when you experience it, it is not as severe as it would have been otherwise.

    The invisible forces governing the trajectory of our lives may not appear to be under our control, but this is incorrect. The karma which you experience now is solely what you created. You had full control over it at one time through your behaviour and decisions.  When you mismanage something, whether it is money, relationships, your health or something else, it comes back to you as a more difficult challenge in another lifetime. For example, if you had lots of money but you were not generous in giving to your family or employees, you will find yourself in a position of lack this time. If  you were responsible for inflicting harm on someone and took no accountability, you may find yourself the victim of the same type of harm. If you left your family in a precarious position, you may be left in that same time of predicament now. If you injured or killed someone, you may be injured or killed the same way.

     Everything you do comes back to you in some way, if not in this lifetime, then it is another.  Forgiving someone does not release them from the karma they have created by harming you. It frees you from that karmic association in this lifetime and all lifetimes to come. You have free will in how you react to your life circumstances, the people with whom you associate and your own spiritual development. When you shift your thinking from being a victim to the knowledge that you created this circumstance you are now facing, you gain power. Accepting everything and everyone with equanimity, not creating resistance by always wishing things were different, not taking things too personally, genuinely forgiving people who hurt you, and being mindful with your thoughts and emotions goes a long way in burning karma from the past and ensuring you have happier circumstances in the future.