Best 207 quotes in «transcendence quotes» category

We fell into each other’s arms and kissed like we were coming up for air after being underwater for days. The melding of our mouths was sweeter than oxygen. We took huge, deep gulps of each other as we struggled with worldly constraints like clothing and gravity, seeking to transcend it all in our coming together.

We have within ourselves as a species, the ability to find the beauty in everything. And once we master it, we will be some of the gentlest creatures that ever evolved.

What', said he, ' makes the difference between man and all the rest of the animal creation? Every beast that strays beside me has the same corporeal necessities with myself; he is hungry and crops the grass, he is thirsty and drinks the stream, his thirst and hunger are appeased, he is satisfied and sleeps; he rises again and is hungry, he is again fed and is at rest. I am hungry and thirsty like him, but when thirst and hunger cease I am not at rest; I am, like him, pained with want, but am not, like him, satisfied with fullness. The intermediate hours are tedious and gloomy; I long again to be hungry that I may again quicken my attention. The birds peck the berries or the corn, and fly away to the groves where they sit in seeming happiness on the branches, and waste their lives in tuning one unvaried series of sounds. I likewise can call the lutanist and the singer, but the sounds that pleased me yesterday weary me today, and will grow yet more wearisome tomorrow. I can discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man has surely some latent sense for which this place affords no gratification, or he has some desires distinct from sense which must be satisfied before he can be happy.

What we think of man and God, of sin and salvation, is partly prompted by the comparative comforts or discomforts in which we live. It is a very sobering reflection on the lack of transcendence of the human spirit over the flux of historical change.

When Love alights Fear falls unsound Folds into naught Thus never was The way Truth taught

What obligation is more binding than to protect the cherished, to defend whoever or whatever cannot defend itself, and to nurture in turn that which has given nourishment? I’m reminded of words written by John Seed, an Australian environmentalist. When he began considering these questions, he believed, “I am protecting the rain forest.” But as his thought evolved, he realized, “I am part of the rain forest protecting myself.

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

When they have contemplated the world, human beings have always experienced a transcendence and mystery at the heart of existence. They have felt that it is deeply connected with themselves and with the natural world, but that it also goes beyond. However we choose to define it - it has been called God, Brahman, or Nirvana - this transcendence has been a fact of human life. We have all experienced something similar, whatever our theological opinions, when we listen to a great piece of music or hear a beautiful poem and feel touched within and lifted, momentarily, beyond ourselves. We tend to seek out this experience, and if we do not find it in one setting - in a church or synagogue, for example - we would look elsewhere.

Without even knowing, humanity actually worships not an Entity, rather a mental state.

Work. Good, honest work, whether it’s working with your hands to create an artwork, or manual labour, brings forth a sense of divinity at play. The only prerequisite is that whatever the work is, it is done sincerely and in congruence with the soul’s true origin and intent, then, without any effort, one experiences a flow, wherein one feels a part of the plan of the entire universe.

Worship, then, needs to be characterized by hospitality; it needs to be inviting. But at the same time, it should be inviting seekers into the church and its unique story and language. Worship should be an occasion of cross-cultural hospitality. Consider an analogy: when I travel to France, I hope to be made to feel welcome. However, I don't expect my French hosts to become Americans in order to make me feel at home. I don't expect them to start speaking English, ordering pizza, talking about the New York Yankees, and so on. Indeed, if I wanted that, I would have just stayed home! Instead, what I'm hoping for is to be welcomed into their unique French culture; that's why I've come to France in the first place. And I know that this will take some work on my part. I'm expecting things to be different; indeed, I'm looking for just this difference. So also, I think, with hospitable worship: seekers are looking for something our culture can't provide. Many don't want a religious version of what they can already get at the mall. And this is especially true of postmodern or Gen X seekers: they are looking for elements of transcendence and challenge that MTV could never give them. Rather than an MTVized version of the gospel, they are searching for the mysterious practices of the ancient gospel.

When Van Gogh painted The Starry Night as a swirling mass of cosmic energy, he may have been painting what he saw with neurotic eyes, but he was also painting what he saw with transcendent eyes. The first gave his painting mere form, the second gave it formless, universal emotion that connects directly to the viewer.

Yes, contrast teaches us a great many things and there is purpose for it. Yet it is time to transcend your everyday dramas that are but drops in an ocean. Cease focusing on your droplets of water and look around you. Everything you say and touch and do sets into motion ripples that either heal and create or curse and destroy. Let me repeat: Everything.

You are one thought away from intelligence, one word away from kindness, one deed away from excellence, one step away from brilliance, and one second away from transcendence.

You believed you could transcend the body as you aged, she tells herself. You believed you could rise above it, to a serene, nonphysical realm. But it’s only through ecstasy you can do that, and ecstasy is achieved through the body itself. Without the bone and sinew of wings, no flight. Without that ecstasy you can only be dragged further down by the body, into its machinery. Its rusting, creaking, vengeful, brute machinery.

You can't hack your destiny, brute force...you need a back door, a side channel into Life.

During those rare moments of creativeness, when a person has something in common with the making of the universe, he feels a sense of transcendence. What could be a greater reward?

It is only when we understand the transcendence of God that we see how amazing his immanence is, and what a huge privilege it is to be able to enjoy God's intimate friendship.

The whole dimension of religious belief requires transcendence, it requires going beyond what you can establish rationally.

What I am feeling in myself, and what is happening to my physical body, to some extent, and what is happening to me mentally, is not a depression, is not a death. It is a transformation. It is a transcendence.

. . . absoluteness is a quality of the transcendent that comes to expression in revelation, but not necessarily of the symbols, myths, propositions or doctrines formulated to represent or communicate it. . . . the most precious thing we have to offer each other in interfaith encounters is our honest, unexaggerated and nonpossessive sharing of what we take to be the moments of absoluteness in the particuilar faith traditions in which we live as committed participants.

A most loving virtue of all, is that of a cheerful giver with the right attitude of LOVE! Giving is not just a random act of kindness. It is an investment in humanity. In return you become more than yourself, you transcend

Art, literature, and philosophy are attempts to found the world anew on a human freedom: that of the creator; to foster such an aim, one must first unequivocally posit oneself as a freedom. The restrictions that education and custom impose on a woman limit her grasp of the universe...Indeed, for one to become a creator, it is not enough to be cultivated, that is, to make going to shows and meeting people part of one's life; culture must be apprehended through the free movement of a transcendence; the spirit with all its riches must project itself in an empty sky that is its to fill; but if a thousand fine bonds tie it to the earth, its surge is broken. The girl today can certainly go out alone, stroll in the Tuileries; but I have already said how hostile the street is: eyes everywhere, hands waiting: if she wanders absentmindedly, her thoughts elsewhere, if she lights a cigarette in a cafe, if she goes to the cinema alone, an unpleasant incident can quickly occur; she must inspire respect by the way she dresses and behaves: this concern rivets her to the ground and self. "Her wings are clipped." At eighteen, T.E. Lawrence went on a grand tour through France by bicycle; a young girl would never be permitted to take on such an adventure...Yet such experiences have an inestimable impact: this is how an individual in the headiness of freedom and discovery learns to look at the entire world as his fief...[The girl] may feel alone within the world: she never stands up in front of it, unique and sovereign.

A sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart. Nay, even idolatry is ample evidence of this fact.

As for karma itself, it is apparently only that which binds "jiva" (sentience, life, spirit, etc.) with "ajiva" (the lifeless, material aspect of this world) - perhaps not unlike that which science seeks to bind energy with mass (if I understand either concept correctly). But it is only through asceticism that one might shed his predestined karmic allotment. I suppose this is what I still don't quite understand in any of these shramanic philosophies, though - their end-game. Their "moksha", or "mukti", or "samsara". This oneness/emptiness, liberation/ transcendence of karma/ajiva, of rebirth and ego - of "the self", of life, of everything. How exactly would this state differ from any standard, scientific definition of death? Plain old death. Or, at most, if any experience remains, from what might be more commonly imagined/feared to be death - some dark perpetual existence of paralyzed, semi-conscious nothingness. An incessant dreamless sleep from which one never wakes? They all assure you, of course, that this will be no condition of endless torment, but rather one of "eternal bliss". Inexplicable, incommunicable "bliss", mind you, but "bliss" nonetheless. So many in the realm of science, too, seem to propagate a notion of "bliss" - only here, in this world, with the universe being some great amusement park of non-stop "wonder" and "discovery". Any truly scientific, unbiased examination of their "discoveries", though, only ever seems to reveal a world that simply just "is" - where "wonder" is merely a euphemism for ignorance, and learning is its own reward because, frankly, nothing else ever could be. Still, the scientist seeks to conquer this ignorance, even though his very happiness depends on it - offering only some pale vision of eternal dumbfoundedness, and endless hollow surprises. The shramana, on the other hand, offers total knowledge of this hollowness, all at once - renouncing any form of happiness or pleasure, here, to seek some other ultimate, unknowable "bliss", off in the beyond...

As I see it the world is undoubtedly in need of a new religion, and that religion must be founded on humanist principles. When I say religion, I do not mean merely a theology involving belief in a supernatural god or gods; nor do I mean merely a system of ethics, however exalted; nor only scientific knowledge, however extensive; nor just a practical social morality, however admirable or efficient. I mean an organized system of ideas and emotions which relate man to his destiny, beyond and above the practical affairs of every day, transcending the present and the existing systems of law and social structure. The prerequisite today is that any such religion shall appeal potentially to all mankind; and that its intellectual and rational sides shall not be incompatible with scientific knowledge but on the contrary based on it.

A true religious person should not think that “my religion alone is the right path and other religions are false.” Other religions are also so many paths leading to the same domain of transcendental bliss. Likewise, no person should think “my perception of the reality is the only absolute reality, and all others’ are false”, because each human brain has its own unique way of perceiving the reality.

A true religious person should not think that “my religion alone is the right path and other religions are false.” Other religions are also so many paths leading to the same domain of transcendental bliss.

Awakening into the God state makes all the perceptual limitations of the mind disappear, just like a bucket of muddy water turns crystal-clear once poured into the ocean.

When the fuel is dried up in a vehicle, it stops driving automatically. You are a vehicle in the spiritual and the physical world, so you need some oil for alacrity, in order to get to your destination. The greater the quantity of your oil, the more you cover the distance, and the more you cover the distance, the closer you get to your success.

You could think that you had won. But I woke up, I came back to myself. You won nothing. I transcended you years ago, I left you in the past, I chained you up in my dreams. You may leave me shaken at times, but never again will you leave me broken. You have no power over me.

You feel the same hum at a Cohen concert that you do at a church or a synagogue, a feeling that emanates from the realization that the words and tunes you're about to hear represent the best efforts we humans can make to capture the mysteries that surround us, and that by listening and closing your eyes and singing along, you, too can somehow transcend.

You have no choice. You must leave your ego on the doorstep before you enter love.

You have the world at your feet if you have wisdom in your mind. You have the world in your hands if you have joy in your heart. You have the world in your bosom if you have love in your soul.

Your mind is not part of the brain, but its part of the spirit. The appearance of the mind is like subtle clothing that covers the whole brain, heart and body, and all the images, thought process, feelings, emotions, dreams, desires, experience and impressions of life, take place, inside of that clothing.

You shall see rude and sturdy, experienced and wise men, keeping their castles, or teaming up their summer’s wood, or chopping alone in the woods, men fuller of talk and rare adventure in the sun and wind and rain, than a chestnut is of meat; who were out not only in ‘75 and 1812, but have been out every day of their lives; greater men than Homer, or Chaucer, or Shakespeare, only they never got time to say so; they never took to the way of writing. Look at their fields, and imagine what they might write, if ever they should put pen to paper. Or what have they not written on the face of the earth already, clearing, and burning, and scratching, and harrowing, and plowing, and subsoiling, in and in, and out and out, and over and over, again and again, erasing what they had already written for want of parchment.

You were the ocean and we were the land You lay down unflinching You lay down forgetting And you were the ocean and we were the land

Contradiction is the lever of transcendence.

A being with no faith in the human self is a being with no spirit of life, regardless of how many Fathers or Holy Spirits or Sons it believes in.

About Reincarnation Q~ After death can one be lured backward into physical reincarnation rather then transcendence into the higher Celestial Realms of the One? A~ In the realm of transcendence you will find no conspiracy. Those who reincarnate do so because they have not yet balanced the effects of Karma within their consciousness. So they are not yet fully Realized. They have not yet stepped off of the wheel of the birth death cycle of the cause and effect realms of the material plane.

ah beliefs.... best to transcend all belief structures that crystalize the mind within the limits of time and planetary legends or stories. Elevating consciousness into the state of Being-ness ever originating prior to and beyond all planetary religions and metaphorical stories brings you homeward....

Enlightenment is transcending the limits of the Selfish gene. It is mastering the pain, pleasure and reward circuits of the brain by radiating peace, love and harmony from every cell of the body.*

Forgetting is not forgetting Forgetting is ‘Letting things pass’ When Existence opens up to Essence And rises above and beyond The path of Transcendence opens Love goes beyond Death The body disappears The person lives In Love And in this Love Remembrance is born (Page 91)

God is not a vague abstract principle or force but a living person who fellowships with His people.

God is simply a magnificent state of the mind, where the finite turns infinite.

Happiness can get boring, because it is the satisfaction of our desires, and we know what we desire. (Can you desire what you do not know?) Joy never gets boring because it transcends our desires and surprises them with gifts.

Hatred never ceases with hatred, but with love alone is healed.

Having drunk the dregs of Your Love, I am intoxicated beyond recognition. Now, I only pray for the nearness of You so I may advance in my annihilation.

He (Mohammed) was an ordinary man just like any other man. And as such his personal instincts, urges, drives as well as his philosophical goodness bubbled to the surface of his consciousness when he attained the Absolute Unitary Qualia.

Here powers failed my high imagination: But by now my desire and will were turned, Like a balanced wheel rotated evenly, By the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.