Quotes Tagged "spirituality"

To every Armageddonist, every earth lover must keep saying with all the sincerity and affection we can muster, “May God make this world as beautiful to you as it has been to me.

The only power that can effect transformations of the order (of Jesus) is love. It remained for the 20th century to discover that locked within the atom is the energy of the sun itself. For this energy to be released, the atom must be bombarded from without. So too, locked in every human being is a store of love that partakes of the divine- the imago dei, image of god…And it too can be activated only through bombardment, in its case, love’s bombardment. The process begins in infancy, where a mother’s initially unilateral loving smile awakens love in her baby and as coordination develops, elicits its answering smile… A loving human being is not produced by exhortations, rules and threats. Love can only take root in children when it comes to them- initially and most importantly from nurturing parents. Ontogenetically speaking, love is an answering phenomenon. It is literally a response.

You can live as a particle crashing about and colliding in a welter of materials with god, or you can live as a particle crashing about and colliding in a welter of materials without god. But you cannot live outside the welter of colliding materials.

The disciples of Jesus “found themselves thinking that if divine goodness were to manifest itself in human form, this (he) is how it would behave… he invited people to see differently instead of telling them what to do or believe…he located the authority of his teaching in his hearer’s hearts, not in himself or God-as-removed.

Religious laws, in all the major religious traditions, have both a letter and a spirit. As I understand the words and example of Jesus, the spirit of the law is all-important whereas the letter, while useful… becomes lifeless and deadly without it. In accord with this distinction a yearning to worship on wilderness ridges or beside rivers rather than in churches could legitimately be called evangelical… if your words or deeds harmonize with the example of Jesus, you are evangelical in spirit whether you claim to be or not. When the non-Christian Ambrose Bierce wrote, “War is the means by which Americans learn geography,” his words are aimed at the same antiwar end as “Blessed are the peacemakers.

Do not exalt any path above god. There are many paths that lead to god. So people are capable of finding and following the ways that suit them, provided they do not stand still.

Spirituality is about being awake. It’s the attempt to transcend the mundane, sleepwalking experience of life we all fall into, to tap into the wonder of being a conscious and grateful thing in the midst of an astonishing universe. It doesn’t require religion. Religion can, in fact, and often does, blunt our awareness by substituting false (and dare I say inferior) wonders for real ones. It’s a fine joke on ourselves that most of what we call spirituality is actually about putting ourselves to sleep.

The process of reconciliation implies that people who want to engage in interfaith cooperation should be prepared to reflect critically on their own religious tradition. They should also contemplate what place their own religious tradition assigns to people of other faith traditions. (by Cilliers, Ch. 3, p. 52)

I strongly feel that it is only when there is a deep understanding of one's own religious beliefs and commitments that progress can be made in achieving true understanding and respect for the religious values and beliefs of others. Engaging in interfaith dialogue does not in any way mean undermining one's own faith or religious tradition. Indeed, interfaith dialogue is constructive only when people become firmly grounded in their own religious traditions and through that process gain a willingness to listen and respect the beliefs of other religions. (by Cilliers, Ch. 3, p. 48-49)

The best religion or practice is the one that makes us better. (42)

If religion is about the sacred as opposed to the profane, the spirit as opposed to matter, the Creator as opposed to the created, Confucianism plainly does not qualify. But perhaps what we are to learn from this tradition is not that Confucianism is not a religion but that not all religious people parse the sacred and the secular the way Christians do.

Religion seeks to lift us from everyday matter towards spirit, while magic seeks rather to bring spirit down into everyday matter. While religion often reflects a 'quest for meaning', magic is more about 'sowing seeds of meaning'.

We have (not free but) caged will.

Sometimes our spiritual programs take us far away from our inner belonging. We become addicted to the methods and programs of psychology and religion. We become so desperate to learn how to be, that our lives pass, and we neglect the practice of being.

Witchcraft is not inherently a religion, thought it can be for some. Witchcraft is more of a spirituality, or rather how one relates to the world of spirit, and that’s going to be unique and individual for each witch.

The religious is not neurotic at all. He is religious. But he looks like a neurotic, because he too combines things around what really is the desire of the Other. The only difference is that, because this is an Other that does not exist, because it is God, we need proof. So we pretend the Other is asking for something.

No one is wrong, unless what you take from religion, is aggression.

Politics is not going to save this world, science and technology are not going to save this world, religion and spirituality are not going to save this world - what will is our understanding of which belongs where and to what extent.

You either believe that you know or you just believe.

My spirituality is the spirituality of love. You give love to the Universe and the Universe reflect back the refined love back to you. Because love is all-pervading, divine, and the ultimate Godliness.