Quotes About Spirituality

The silence in mysticism is alien. People want to do a few courses in mysticism, rather like the way you do French before going on holiday, and emerge a mystic. Mysticism isn't like that.

Again, what works well in the spiritual domain can become destructive and even immoral if interpreted literally and practically in the mundane world. It

What mattered was not what you believed but how you behaved. Religion was about doing things that changed you at a profound level.

When they have contemplated the world, human beings have always experienced a transcendence and mystery at the heart of existence.

Perhaps the central paradox of the religious life is that it seeks transcendence, a dimension of existence that goes beyond our mundane lives, but that human beings can only experience this transcendent reality in earthly, physical phenomena.

Jesus's demonstration in the temple was not, as is often assumed, a plea for a more spiritual form of worship. As he rampaged through the money changers' stalls, he quoted the Hebrew prophets who had harsh words for those who were punctilious in their devotions but ignored the plight of the poor, the vulnerable, and the oppressed.

Where establishment Islam was becoming less tolerant, seeing the Quran as the only valid scripture and Muhammad's religion as the one true faith, Sufis went back to the spirit of the Quran in their appreciation of other religious traditions. Some, for example, were especially devoted to Jesus, whom they saw as the ideal Sufi since he had preached a gospel of love.

And how could I hope to sense God's presence when I continually broke the silence, frequently had uncharitable thoughts, and above all, constantly yearned for human affection and wept when reprimanded?

All the great spiritual traditions have insisted that what holds us back from enlightenment is selfishness and egotism; they have also said that a practical concern for everybody (not simply those who belong to your own class or those you find congenial) was the test of true spirituality.

the moral and spiritual imperatives of religion are important for humanity and should not be relegated unthinkingly to the scrap heap of history in the interests of an unfettered rationalism.

Holiness in Islam was inclusive rather than exclusive.

there is a direct correlation between our prayer life and our conversations. Perhaps if we spent more time and energy on our prayer life, we would use our tongues more wisely.

Even though godlike in his imagination, he still lacks the earthy self-confidence of a simple shepherd.

The territorialism and desire to possess things comes directly from the ego, which strives to own and control things. Your spirit already knows you own nothing. It is a matter of realizing that your happiness does not depend on your ownership of things. They help you in your journey but they are not the journey itself.

The higher the hair, the closer to God.

When someone gets you hot and bothered, turn on the prayer conditioner.

Some people are born with a hole inside them. They spend their lives trying to fill it. Sometimes it's pills, sometimes it's Jesus.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose/With my lost saints/I love thee with the breath/Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose/I shall but love thee better after death.

The author says that theologian operates with windows open to the interest of the world, but also with a skylight that allows full awareness of prayer.

God transcends even the undertakings of evangelical theologians.

The Christian Church does not exist in Heaven, but on earth and in time.

The church speaks finally in that it prays for the world.

Everyone who must contend with unbelief should be advised that he ought not to take his own unbelief too seriously. Only faith is to be taken seriously; and if we have faith as a grain of mustard seed, that suffices for the devil to have lost his game.

the older and younger Blumhardt and their friends. There would have been something significant to learn—as later developments prove—from the books of Friedrich Zündel, for example.