Quotes About Spirituality

Grace is not a shortcut around our effort; it is the divine blessing on efforts that are undertaken in dependence and trust on God.

The pursuit of a mature life, a life that can bear the weight of image bearing, is in many ways the continual accumulating of more and more secret disciplines, until we are fully formed in the image of the one who confronted every temptation, every opportunity for the misuse of power, and always and only bore the true image in the midst of it all.

If you want to be wise, then, the most important thing you can learn to do is worship.

Before one finds peace with God, he must have lived, loved and lost something of value to him.

HaShem makes us all different, and we are to be who HaShem meant us to be. As it says in the writings, 'You fashioned my inmost being, You knit me together in my mother's womb. I thank You because I am awesomely made, wonderfully; Your works are wonders

Another paragraph from Chris's journal replays in my mind: "The things that tempt me from following God daily aren't sinful things," he wrote. "They're good things—duty to my family, to my father's company, to the people at my church. But if I am going to devote myself to following God, I must be willing to leave the good things behind as I seek the best thing—total submission and obedience.

There doesn't need to be a God for me. There's something in people that's spiritual, that's godlike. I don't feel like doing things just because people say things, but I also don't really know if it's better to just not believe in anything, either.

This body is breaking down, but I am not.

I think the true ascent of man, the moment when humans divided irrevobably from apes and other fellow creatures, occurred with the birth of the first distinct soul. And much happiness ensued.

If the series of pilgrimages toward understanding our actual circumstances in the universe, the origin of life, and the laws of nature are not spiritual quests, then I don't know what could be. I

If God is the author of natural law, should not God be best apprehended in those laws?

Haven't my past sermons taught you anything? Yes, Emilie threw at him, that you pray for those who are close to God, and those who aren't, who need Him, you toss away like garbage.

Without death, the influence of faith-based religion is unthinkable. Clearly, the fact of death is intolerable to us, and faith is little more than the shadow cast by our hope for a better life beyond the grave.

the deepest goal of spirituality is freedom from the illusion of the self—

One of the greatest obstacles I see to our fashioning a rational approach to spirituality is to have religious superstition and self-deception masquerade as science.

But the deepest goal of spirituality is freedom from the illusion of the self—and to seek such freedom, as though it were a future state to be attained through effort, is to reinforce the chains of one's apparent bondage in each moment.

Witnessing the misadventures of supposedly enlightened adepts and their devotees can be depressing. But it can also be amusing.

our endowment from God.

In my view, the realistic goal to be attained through spiritual practice is not some permanent state of enlightenment that admits of no further efforts but a capacity to be free in this moment, in the midst of whatever is happening. If you can do that, you have already solved most of the problems you will encounter in life.

We are the source of the love that our priests and pastors attribute to God ( how else can we feel it?). Your own consciousness is the cause and substance of any experience you might want to deem spiritual or mystical. Realizing this, what possible need is there to pretend to be certain about ancient miracles?

If, as I contend throughout this book, all that is good in religion can be had elsewhere—if, for instance, ethical and spiritual experience can be cultivated and talked about without our claiming to know things we manifestly do not know—then all the rest of our religious activity represents, at best, a massive waste of time and energy.

Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world. Only Christianity.

Once one recognizes the selflessness of consciousness, the practice of meditation becomes just a means of getting more familiar with it.

Biblical worldview.