Quotes About Spirituality

So long, therefore, as the object of the mystic's contemplation is amenable to thought, is something which he can "know," he may be quite sure that it is not the Absolute; but only a partial image or symbol of the Absolute. To find that final Reality, he must enter into the "cloud of unknowing"--must pass beyond the plane on which the intellect can work. "When I say darkness," says the same great mystic, "I mean thereby a lack of knowing. . . .

That dreadful consciousness of a narrow and limiting I-hood which dogs our search for freedom and full life, is done away. For a moment, at least, the independent spiritual life is achieved. The contemplative is merged in it "like a bird in the air, like a fish in the sea": loses to find and dies to live.

More complete in their grasp of experience than the votaries of intellect or of sense, they accept as central for life those spiritual messages which are mediated by religion, by beauty, and by pain.

Prayer, then, begins by an intellectual adjustment.

The tree which moves some to tears of joy", says Blake, who possessed in an eminent degree this form of sacramental perception, "is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the Way.

As it is not by the methods of the laboratory that we learn to know life, so it is not by the methods of the intellect that we learn to know God.

we are feeble in love and imperfect in virtue,

The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish.

Saints are simply men and women who have fulfilled their natural obligation which is to approach God.

O God, make me good, but not yet.

No one is ever holy without suffering.

I've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. ... Or it may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won't quite despair of me in the end.

No one could really hate a saint, could they? They can't really hate God either. When they want to Hate Him and His saints they have to find something like themselves and pretends it's God and hate that.

To "know thyself" has been a pivotal part of most spiritual traditions; here we will be considering it in depth in order to free ourselves from the self-centered drama of "me.

The tree has entered my hands, The sap has ascended my arms, The tree has grown in my breast- Downward, The branches grow out of me, like arms. Tree you are, Moss you are, You are violets with wind above them. A child - so high - you are, And all this is folly to the world.

Post Mortem Conspectu" A brown, fat babe sitting in the lotus, And you were glad and laughing With a laughter not of this world. It is good to splash in the water And laughter is the end of all things.

Fac deum!" "Est factus.

The temple is holy because it is not for sale

Nothing will surprise us more than when we get to heaven and see the Father and realize how well we know Him and how familiar His face is to us.

Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar His face is to us.

Today, with the abundance of books available, it is the mark of a truly educated man to know what not to read. … Feed only on the best. As John Wesley's mother counseled him: 'Avoid whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, takes off your relish for spiritual things, … increases the authority of the body over the mind.

Just as a man does not desire food until he is hungry, so does he not desire the salvation of Christ until he knows why he needs Christ.

If we do not feel like praying, then we should pray until we do feel like praying.

Book of Mormon There is a power in the book of which will begin to flow into our lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the strait and narrow path.