Quotes About Life

One of my favorite definitions of enlightenment comes from a Jesuit priest named Anthony de Mello, who passed away some years ago. Someone asked him to define his experience of enlightenment. He said, "Enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable." I love that, because it defines enlightenment not just as a realization, but as an activity. Enlightenment is when everything within us is in cooperation with the flow of life itself, with the inevitable.

The first stage of the awakening journey is the calling. The calling arrives when we first feel that spiritual impulse that galvanizes our attention. All of a sudden we sense a greater mystery to life that we seek to experience more deeply; it literally calls us.

Everything, in its way, is a gift—even the painful things. In reality, all of life—every moment, every experience—is an expression of spirit.

It is not the pursuit of greater and greater states of happiness and bliss that leads to enlightenment, but the yearning for Reality and the rabid dissatisfaction with living anything less than a fully authentic life.

In truth, we are life itself. When we see and perceive that we are the totality of life, we are no longer afraid of it; we no longer feel afraid of birth, life, and death. But until we see that, we will see life as intimidating, as a barrier we somehow have to get through.

The more in harmony you are with the flow of your own existence, the more magical life becomes.

Imagine if you took it on in yourself to reorient your life trajectory toward your divinity. Your divinity: I so loved the world, that I gave it all of myself. Imagine your birth as an act of pouring yourself forth into life as a loving means of redemption. Imagine your human life as what you have come to redeem. And when you've fully awakened to all of it, then you've fully redeemed your human incarnation.

don't know what it is. They'll forget that that thing flying through the sky is beyond all words, that it's an expression of the immensity of life. It's actually an extraordinary and wondrous thing that flies through the sky. But as soon as we name it, we think we know what it is. We see "bird," and we almost discount it.

All of a sudden there I was, standing there, holding my plate my of food at this wedding, and there was the realization that even though I don't see things the way most people around me see them, this is it. This is life, and it is absolutely wonderful, amazingly beautiful. The only thing left for me to do was to walk back into the world.

One of the most common of these traps is a sense of meaninglessness. From our new view of reality, we are free from the egoic desire to find meaning. We see that the ego's desire to find meaning in life is actually a substitute for the perception of being life itself. The search for meaning in life is a surrogate for the knowledge that we are life. Only someone who is disconnected from life itself will seek meaning. Only someone disconnected from life will look for purpose.

That's a teaching meant to shake us from our slumber. In order to come into our full potential and to embody the truth and radiance of what we are, we must come vitally alive; we must lean once again into presence; we must pour ourselves forth into life, instead of trying to escape life and avoid its challenges.

This calling can arrive at any point in your life. It is that moment when the trajectory of your life begins to turn toward the mystery of life. When I say the mystery of life, what I'm referring to is that transcendent aspect of life that shines through the world of space and time.

The Buddha image shows us abiding tranquility amidst the turning wheel of life.

Unfortunately, when we turn to religion, often the churches box us in even more. They tell us that we are inherently flawed, that we need to be forgiven for this sin, this stain that we carry. The first and most important function of religion is to connect you with the mystery of life and the mystery of your own being. When religion fails to do this, it has betrayed its primary mission, and all we are left with is dogma and belief.

The ending of Jesus' life in John is completely different than in Mark. In Mark, Jesus' last breath was a loud death cry from exhaustion and torment. In the Gospel of John, Jesus right to the very end maintains his dignity and balance, and remains centered in divine being. With his last breath, Jesus simply says, "It is finished." Jesus has lived out his destiny; he's played his part well, and he has no regrets.

Your life, all of your life, is your path to awakening. By resisting or not dealing with its challenges, you stay asleep to Reality. Pay attention to what life is trying to reveal to you. Say yes to its fierce, ruthless, and loving grace.

A good ritual is meant to evoke the mystery of being, the mystery of our own existence, the mystery of life, the mystery of God. It's meant to evoke that sense of eternity that shines through the latticework of time and space. That's really what ritual is for—to put us in touch with that sense of eternity, with the sense of the sacred.

There's just a simple, profound intimacy with all things, and with all beings, and with that which transcends all things and all beings. Life is experienced in all of its original completeness and unity.

The very last phase of spiritual awakening is what I call "the transmutation." Transmutation is what transfiguration and relinquishment make possible. In it, your orientation to life is entirely selfless. It's not that you want to be selfless or you're practicing being selfless: rather you're selfless in the sense of no self.

Imagine if you took it on in yourself to reorient your life trajectory toward your divinity. Your divinity: I so loved the world, that I gave it all of myself.

The truth, I would suggest, is that you poured yourself willingly into form out of infinite love in order to redeem the entirety of this life. When seen from that perspective, all of a sudden life looks very different. You stop holding back from life, your inner life or the life around you, because the kingdom of heaven is within and all around you. That's the message of the Jesus story.

I didn't make the calling happen, I couldn't pretend it didn't happen, and I couldn't have turned it off even if I'd wanted to. It was disconcerting. And sure enough, my intuition was true: the entire trajectory of my life had changed at that instant.

The beginning of the spiritual journey is what I call "life after awakening.

Ah me, thou Destiny, Giver of evil gifts.