Quotes About Spirituality

In Paul's story we find the archetypal spiritual pattern, wherein people move from what they thought they always knew to what they now fully recognize. The pattern reveals itself earlier in the Torah when Jacob "wakes from his sleep" on the rock at Bethel and says, in effect, "I found it, but it was here all the time! This is the very gate of heaven" (Genesis 28:16–17).

To stay on the surface of anything is invariably to miss its message—even the surface meaning of our sinfulness.

Both Christianity and Buddhism are saying that the pattern of transformation, the pattern that connects, the life that Reality offers us is not death avoided, but always death transformed. In other words, the only trustworthy pattern of spiritual transformation is death and resurrection.

To keep the mind space open, we need some form of contemplative or meditation practice. This has been the most neglected in recent centuries, substituting the mere reciting and "saying" of prayers, which is not the same as a contemplative mind, and often merely confirms us in our superior or fear-based system.

Yes, I am saying: That the way things work and Christ are one and the same. This is not a religion to be either fervently joined or angrily rejected. It is a train ride already in motion. The tracks are visible everywhere. You can be a willing and happy traveler, or not.

I finally had to be either Roman or catholic, and I continue to choose the catholic end of that spectrum.

I personally describe contemplation as "non-dual consciousness" and find that it is necessary to overcome the "stinking thinking" of most addicts, which tends to be "all-or-nothing thinking."3 We could say that authentic spirituality is invariably a matter of emptying the mind and filling the heart at the same time.

A mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone else.

God does not come uninvited. God and grace cannot enter without an opening from our side, or we would be mere robots. God does not want robots, but lovers who freely choose to love in return for love. And toward that supreme end, God seems quite willing to wait, cajole, and entice.

Anything is a sacrament if it serves as a shortcut to the Infinite, but it will always be hidden in something that is very finite.

There is only Christ. He is everything and he is in everything" (Colossians 3:11). If I were to write that today, people would call me a pantheist (the universe is God), whereas I am really a panentheist (God lies within all things, but also transcends them), exactly like both Jesus and Paul.

Of course, to be honest and consistent, one must ask if "church family" is not also a family that one has to eventually "hate" in this very same way, and with the same scandal involved as hating the natural family.

God does not change, but our readiness for such a God takes a long time to change.

Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit, "Invoked or not invoked, God is still present."*3

All of us, without exception, are living inside of a cosmic identity, already in place, that is driving and guiding us forward. We are all en Cristo, willingly or unwillingly, happily or unhappily, consciously or unconsciously.

Mutual perfect faith would be heaven!

All of us, without exception, are living inside of a common identity, already in place, that is driving and guiding us forward. Paul calls this bigger Divine identity the "mystery of his purpose, the hidden plan he so kindly made en Cristo from the very beginning" (Ephesians 1:9).

Everything is the "child of God." No exceptions. When you think of it, what else could anything be? All creatures must in some way carry the divine DNA of their Creator.

Your True Self is who you objectively are from the beginning, in the mind and heart of God

The surrendering of our false self, which we have usually taken for our absolute identity, yet is merely a relative identity, is the necessary suffering needed to find "the pearl of great price" that is always hidden inside this lovely but passing shell.

God is the ultimate nonviolent one, so we dare not accept any theory of salvation that is based on violence, exclusion, social pressure, or moral coercion.

When you are present, you will know the Presence. It is that simple, and it is that hard.

It is all one continuum of Incarnation. Who we are in God is who we all are. Everything else is changing and passing away.

I have never been separate from God, nor can I be, except in my mind.