Quotes by "John O'Donohue"

Your body knows you very intimately; it is aware of your whole spirit and soul life.

It is far more creative to work with the idea of mindfulness rather than the idea of will. Too often people try to change their lives by using the will as a kind of hammer to beat their lives into proper shape. This way of approaching the sacredness of one's own presence is externalist and violent. It brings you falsely outside yourself, and you can spend years lost in the wilderness of your own mechanical, spiritual programs. You can perish in a famine of your own making. If you work with a different rhythm, you will come easily and naturally home to yourself. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey. There are no general principles for this art of being. Yet the signature of this unique journey is inscribed deeply in each soul. If you attend to yourself and seek to come into your presence, you will find exactly the right rhythm for your life.

You do not have to go away outside yourself to come into real conversation with your soul and with the mysteries of the spiritual world. The eternal is at home--within you.

In the Celtic world, and especially in the Celtic world of the senses, there was no barrier between soul and body. Each was natural to the other. The soul was the sister of the body, the body the sister of the soul. As yet there was no negative splitting of dualistic Christian morality, which later did so much damage to these two lovely and enfolded presences. The world of Celtic consciousness enjoyed this unified and lyrical sensuous spirituality

For the Celts, the world is always latently and actively spiritual.

There is a labyrinth within the soul.

When the unconscious becomes illuminated, its darker forces no longer hold us prisoner. This work of freedom is slow and unpredictable, yet it is precisely at this threshold that each individual is the custodian and subject of their own transfiguration.

Spirituality is the art of transfiguration. We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any predetermined shape. We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practice a new art of attention to the inner rhythm of our days and lives. This attention brings a new awareness of our own human and divine presence.

Your soul mediates between your body and your mind; it shelters the two and holds them together.

...we cannot continue to seek outside ourselves for the things we need from within. The blessings for which we hunger are not to be found in other places or people. These gifts can only be given to you by yourself. They are at home at the hearth of your soul.

The moment your fear transfigures, you come into rhythm with your own self.

There is such an intimate connection between the way we look at things and what we actually discover. If you can learn to look at yourself and your life in a gentle, creative, and adventurous way, you will be eternally surprised at what you find.

Each of us needs to learn the unique language of our own soul.

To describe the human body as the temple of the Holy Spirit recognizes that the body is suffused with wild and vital divinity.

In subsequent Christian tradition, and especially among the Church Fathers, there was a deep suspicion of the body and a negative obsession with sexuality. Sex and sexuality were portrayed as a potential danger to one's eternal salvation. The Christian tradition has often undervalued and mistreated the sacred presence of the body.

All our inner life and intimacy of soul longs to find an outer mirror. It longs for a form in which it can be seen, felt, and touched. The body is the mirror where the secret world of the soul comes to expression. The body is a sacred threshold; and it deserves to be respected, minded, and understood in its spiritual nature.

To spend time in silence before the mystery of your body brings you toward wisdom and holiness.

We should avoid the false dualism that separates the soul from the body.

This breakage within us is what makes us human and vulnerable. There is nothing more sinister than someone whose mind seems to be an absolute circle; there is a helpless coldness and a deadly certainty about such a presence.