Quotes from Jean-Yves Leloup

Quoting Father Seraphim: Our life hangs only by a breath. It is the thread that links you to the Father, the Source, which brought you into being. Be conscious of this thread, and go where you will. (27)

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

There are many greedy and clever human animals in this world, but few human beings. Authentic human beings are so rare that I would even go so far as to say that we do not live in a truly human world.

C]hange your thinking, your interpretation of he world, change the way you see! To change the way you see is to change the world. (50)

Evil and sin arise from the blamer in ourselves.

It is the conscious Breath that comes from the unnamable space where inspiration originates, and expiration returns—that space without boundaries, which we are sometimes fortunate enough to taste when silence reigns within us.

The willfully ignorant are wont to follow this inclination that leads back to the animal they were but can no longer be, because it allows escape from the trials of self-knowledge and the demands of discrimination. Not wanting to know is the most powerful and destructive of forces, ultimately resulting in that self-indulgent cowardice that alone makes it possible for people to allow and participate in all the injustices and crimes of the world.

What is harvested in the world is composed of four elements: water, earth, wind, and light. What God harvests is also composed of four elements: faith [pistis], hope [elpis], love [agap], and contemplation [gnosis]. Our earth is faith, for she gives us roots. Water is our hope, for it slakes our thirst. Wind [pneuma] is the love [agap] through which we grow; and light is the contemplation [gnosis] through which we ripen.

We still do not know what Yeshua really said. We know only what a number of hearers and witnesses have heard. Scripture consists of what has been heard, not what has been said.

So it is with the disciples of God. When they are wise, they perceive the state of each. They are not misled by outward appearances; they consider the disposition of each soul and attune their words accordingly. There are many animals in the world who appear in human form; the wise one gives acorns to pigs, barley, hay, and grass to livestock, bones to dogs, to servants he gives basic lessons; and to his children, the teaching in its entirety.

"Sometimes we must undergo hardships, breakups, and narcissistic wounds, which shatter the flattering image that we had of ourselves, in order to discover two truths: that we are not who we thought we were; and that the loss of a cherished pleasure is not necessarily the loss of true happiness and well-being."