Best 14385 quotes in «spiritual quotes» category

California is an unbelievable state. One day I might be in a spiritual place like Joshua Tree, then before I know it, I'm eating groovy sushi in a mini-mall. I'm a Cali girl through and through.

By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind sees the path

Calmness is the criterion of spiritual progress. Plunge the purified mind into the Heart. Then the work is over.

Canada is not really a place where you are encouraged to have large spiritual adventures.

Can you imagine the hopelessness of trying to live a spiritual life when you’re secretly looking up at the skies not for illumination or direction, but to gauge, miserably, the odds of rain?

Can you go a whole day with joy in your heart? Joy and vitality are an inseparable combination. Joy is not concerned with having fun; it is an inner spiritual quality that overcomes despair, pain and defeat. You cannot turn on joy like an electric light, but you can prepare yourself to receive it.

Can you look without the voice in your head commenting, drawing conclusions, comparing, or trying to figure something out?

Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy.

Carefully observe the natural laws in operation in the world around you, and live by them. From following them, you will learn the morality of modesty, moderation, compassion, and consideration (not just one society's rules and regulations), the wisdom of seeing things as they are (not of merely collecting "facts" about them), and the happiness of being in harmony with the Way (which has nothing to do with self-righteous "spiritual" obsessions and fanaticism). And you will live lightly, spontaneously, and effortlessly.

Cathedrals are built with pennies of the faithful. A great opera house also is a spiritual center, a temple of sorts, where many gather together for recreation, education, and inspiration - a blessed trinity worthy of public support.

Catastrophe is the essence of the spiritual path, a series of breakdowns allowing us to discover the threads that weave all of life into a whole cloth.

Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life-gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life.

Change is growth. For me it has been a very spiritual and musical rebirth.

Change is not merely necessary to life - it is life.

Change follows change in us, almost without transition; we pass from blissful rapture to sobbing woe; a single step divides our sublimest ecstasies from the darkest depth of spiritual despondency.

...[Changers] were a threat to identity, a challenge to the individualism even of those they were never likely to impersonate. It had nothing to do with souls or physical or spiritual possession; it was, as the Idirans well understood, the behavouristic copying of another which revolted. Individuality, the thing which most humans held more precious than anything else about themselves, was somehow cheapened by the ease with which a Changer could ignore it as a limitation and use it as a disguise.

Changing the world begins with the very personal process of changing yourself, the only place you can begin is where you are, and the only time you can begin is always now.

Chanting is no more holy than listening to the murmur of a stream, counting prayer beads no more sacred than simply breathing. . . . If you wish to attain oneness with the Tao, don't get caught up in spiritual superficialities.

Charity is like warmth in springtime or summer that causes grass, plants, and trees to grow. Without charity, or spiritual warmth, nothing grows.

Character is revealed in the power to discern the suffering of other people when we ourselves are suffering; in the ability to detect the hunger of others when we are hungry; and in the power to reach out and extend compassion for the spiritual agony of others when we are in the midst of our own spiritual distress.

Characters exist in a flat line until we challenge them - sometimes they challenge themselves, sometimes they're challenged by other people, by nature, by robots, or by fungal infections in and around one's nether-country. Stories need conflict across the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual spectra. Accidents, betrayals, cataclysm, desperation, excess - these are the letters in the alphabet of conflict.

Character is the spiritual body of the person, and represents the individualization of vital experience, the conversion of unconscious things into self-conscious men.

Check your spiritual birth certificate, you were made in the mighty image of God.

Children, everyone should try to wake up before five in the morning. The ideal time for spiritual practices like meditation and chanting is Brahma Muhurta. During this period, sattvic qualities are predominant in nature. Moreover, the mind will be clear and body energetic.

Children, daily practice of yoga or sun salutations (surya-namaskara) is very good for health and for spiritual practice. Lack of proper exercise is the cause of many of today's diseases. If we can get somewhere in time on foot, always walk instead of taking a vehicle. It is good exercise. Only if we have to go far should we depend on vehicles. Use a bicycle, whenever possible. This will save money, too.

Children, we are told to make an offering at the temple or at the feet of the guru, not because the Lord or guru is in need of wealth or anything else. Real offering is the act of surrendering the mind and the intellect. How can it be done? We cannot offer our minds as they are, but only the things to which our minds are attached. Today our minds are greatly attached to money and other worldly things. By placing such thoughts at the feet of the Lord, we are offering Him our heart. This is the principle behind giving charities.

Children, we can grow spiritually only if we see the guru as the manifestation of God. We should not accept anyone as guru before we are fully convinced personally that he is authentic and truthful. Once we choose someone as guru, we should surrender completely to him. Only then will spiritual development be possible. Devotion to the guru means total surrender to him.

Children, we may go to the temple, reverently circumambulate the sanctum sanctorum and put our offering in the charity box, but on our way out if we kick the beggar at the door, where is our devotion? Compassion towards the poor is our duty to God. Mother is not saying that we should give money to every beggar that sits in front of a temple, but do not despise them. Pray for them as well. When we hate others, it is our own mind that becomes impure. Equality of vision is God.

Children must grow not only in the body but in the spirit, and the mother longs to follow the mysterious spiritual journey of the beloved one who to-morrow will be the intelligent, divine creation, man.

Children, we must cultivate reverence towards all great masters, monks and gurus.

Children, when we go to the temple, do not hurry to have darshan, then make some offering and return home in a hurry. We should stand there patiently in silence for some time and try to visualize the beloved deity in our hearts. If possible, we should sit down and meditate. At each step, remember to do japa. Amma doesn't say that the offerings and worship are not necessary, but of all the offerings we make, what the Lord wants most is our hearts!

Children, temples are places where, at least for a short while, the remembrance of God is kindled in our hearts which otherwise are totally immersed in worldly transactions.

Children, those who are unmarried should conserve their vital energy by maintaining celibacy. To turn what we gain by this in to ojas (vitality), we also need to do spiritual practice. With increase in ojas, our intelligence, memory, health and beauty will also increase. We will gain lasting mental quietude.

Children, set aside at least half an hour in the morning and in the evening for spiritual practices. After bathing in the morning, a family should sit together and worship. Archana may be performed by chanting the 108 or 1000 Names of Devi or our chosen deity. We can also chant our mantra, meditate or sing hymns at this time.

Choice implies consciousness - a high degree of consciousness. Without it, you have no choice. Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present....Nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody chooses insanity. They happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness. You are not fully here. You have not quite woken up yet. In the meantime, the conditioned mind is running your life.

Christians can not truly evangelize unless they are prepared to be evangelized in the process. In sharing the good news, people are enriched by the spiritual insights, honest questions and depth of devotion demonstrated by those of other faiths. Including others involves listening to them, learning from them. Much of what exists in other faiths may not necessarily be hostile to the kingdom. Christians can learn a lot from other walks of life.

Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the Saints have practiced them...These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to Divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God.

Christianity is called a spiritual walk. It's not a run and it's not a jog. It's a walk you do from day to day and that makes you stable.

Christianity is not a "spiritual" religion, like some religions of the east. It is an intensely "practical" religion, having its moral roots in the practicality of judaism. It was not designed to change the way men think or believe as much as to change the way they act.

Christianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine.

Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.

Christians believe themselves to be the aristocracy of heaven upon earth, they are admitted to the spiritual court, while millions of men in foreign lands have never been presented. They bow their knees and say they are 'miserable sinners,' and their hearts rankle with abominable pride. Poor infatuated fools! Their servility is real and their insolence is real but their king is a phantom and their palace is a dream.

Christianity is completely and radically anti-democratic; it is committed to spiritual aristocracy.

Christianity exhorted man to set himself up against Nature, but did so in the name of his spiritual and disinterested attributes. Pragmatism exhorts him to do so in the name of his practical attributes. Formerly man was divine because he had been able to acquire the concept of justice, the idea of law, the sense of God; today he is divine because he has been able to create equipment which makes him the master of matter.

Christians must engage in "spiritual warfare" to combat same-sex marriage.

Christianity was created by some decadent and degenerated Romans as a tool of oppression, in the late Roman era, and it should be treated accordingly. It is like handcuffs to the mind and spirit and is nothing but destructive to mankind. In fact I don't really see Christianity as a religion. It is more like a spiritual plague, a mass psychosis, and it should first and foremost be treated as a problem to be solved by the medical science. Christianity is a diagnosis. It's like Islam and the other Asian religions, a HIV/AIDS of the spirit and mind.

Christian community is like the Christian's sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature.

Chris would use the spiritual aspect to try to motivate us. "He'd tell us to think about all the evil in the world, all the hatred, and imagine ourselves running against the forces of darkness, the evil wall that was trying to keep us from running our best. He believed that doing well was all mental, a simple matter of harnessing whatever energy was available.

Christ was crucified by the Jews who had wanted a temporal ruler to rescue them from the oppressive Roman authorities. Instead God sent them a spiritual leader to rescue them from their sins.... He was not what the Jews had expected so they considered Him a threat. Thus He was put to death.

Church, the spiritual power, and the executive power are working today united in a system that confronts people. This alliance or cooperation between the spiritual power and the executive power, between the church and the government, unfortunately takes away the Church's basic mission. It takes away their right to speak on moral or ethical subjects.