1,438 Spirituality Quotes

It is also possible within this lifetime to enhance the power of the mind, enabling one to reaccess memories from previous lives. Such recollection tends to be more accessible during meditative experiences in the dream state. Once one has accessed memories of previous lives in the dream state, one gradually recalls them in the waking state.

If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.

When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.

Only so you can appeal to your God and pray Him to support and bless your courage, your work, your perseverance, your strength, your resolution, and with all these your claim on life.

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.

Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.

Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.

How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.

What has been presented as Christianity during these nineteen centuries is only a beginning, full of mistakes, not full blown Christianity springing from the spirit of Jesus.

Those who thank God much are the truly wealthy. So our inner happiness depends not on what we experience but on the degree of our gratitude to God, whatever the experience.

Day by day we should weigh what we have granted to the spirit of the world against what we have denied to the spirit of Jesus, in thought and especially in deed.

Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.

One truth stands firm. All that happens in world history rests on something spiritual. If the spiritual is strong, it creates world history. If it is weak, it suffers world history.

I must make MAGICK the essential factor in the life of ALL. In presenting this book to the world, I must then explain and justify my position by formulating a definition of MAGICK and setting forth its main principles in such a way that ALL may understand instantly that their souls, their lives, in every relation with every other human being and every circumstance, depend upon MAGICK and the right comprehension and right application thereof.

There is a single main definition of the object of all magical Ritual. It is the uniting of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm. The Supreme and Complete Ritual is therefore the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel; or, in the language of Mysticism, Union with God.

In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.

I admit that my visions can never mean to other men as much as they do to me. I do not regret this. All I ask is that my results should convince seekers after truth that there is beyond doubt something worth while seeking, attainable by methods more or less like mine. I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics, or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle.

In the end, all journeys are spiritual. So go off the main road. Be givers of hospitality and gracious takers of it too. Accept the serendipitous moments of life because, when all is said and done, you may find out that they were not serendipitous at all. And know that faith is as real as bread broken among friends. What you believe will take you far on your journey. If you search carefully, you will find good food all along the way.

Once I returned to the Church and began to see the universe as a place that really did incorporate redemption and really tried to understand the implications of there being a God, my identification with the vampires as outcasts, as outsiders and lost souls began to totally wane. It no longer worked for me. I had done it. It had led me to this point.

Any time you are with anyone or think of anyone you must say to yourself: I am dying and this person too is dying, attempting the while to experience the truth of the words you are saying. If every one of you agrees to practice this, bitterness will die out, harmony will arise.

Life is a process of losing our illusions, until we finally lose the illusion that we're alive.

If you have God on your side, everything becomes clear.

I read world literature and I read French romances in the originals. I had quite a profound knowledge - no, that sounds conceited, but I did have a profound interest in everything spiritual.

You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt.

I've come to the realization that a lot of our problems are because of a dearth of spiritual values.

I don't know if God would agree with me, but believing in God is kind of unimportant when compared to believing in yourself. Because if you go with the idea that God gave you a mind and an ability to judge things, then he would want you to believe in yourself and not worry about believing in him. By believing in yourself you will come to the conclusion that will point to something.

I've been here before and will come again, but I'm not going this trip through.

Life and Jah are one in the same. Jah is the gift of existence. I am in some way eternal, I will never be duplicated. The singularity of every man and woman is Jah's gift. What we struggle to make of it is our sole gift to Jah. The process of what that struggle becomes, in time, the Truth.

I am a composer first and foremost, and have always believed that being able to write memorable melodies is what sets musicians apart. My songs bring images to the listener's mind. The object is to transport my listeners to another place, some place sacred and spiritual that will make them glad they took the ride.

As long as I can remember I feel I have had this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all these combined. My brain becomes magnetized with this dominating force which I hold in my hand.

If there is a God, he is within. You don't ask God to give you things, you depend on God for your inner theme.

We're here to re-dedicate you to The Power, The Passion, The Mystery, and The Ministry of Rock and Roll.

'As a loving religious and caring nation the spiritual dimension of our resolve is to exercise restraint, goodwill, tolerance and understanding with all races in Fiji.'

What is a soul? It's like electricity - we don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light a room.

Winning the Super Bowl was a great day in my life, but that day in Jerusalem (reading the ancient Hebrew version of Matthew) was, without a doubt, the greatest day of my life!

When you look at the Asians, the Asian is very gifted in creation, creativity and inventions. If you go to Japan or any Asian country, they can turn a television into a watch. They're very creative. And you look at the Indians, they have been very gifted in the spirituality.

God will not ask me how many Pro Bowls I was in, He will ask me if I knew Jesus.

Prayer proceeds miracles.

The shamans are forever yacking about their snake-oil 'miracles.' I prefer the Real McCoy - a pregnant woman.

How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven.

Angels' song, comforting as the comfort of Christ When he spake tenderly to his sorrowful flock.

Scatter the clouds that hide The face of heaven, and show Where sweet peace doth abide, Where Truth and Beauty grow.

And now impatiently despairest, see How nought is changed: Joy's wisdom is attired Splended for others' eyes if not for thee: Not love or beauty or youth from earth is fled: If they delite thee not, 'tis thou art dead.

Beauty is the highest of all these occult influences, the quality of appearances that thru' the sense wakeneth spiritual emotion in the mind of man.

Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all! Not for such hopes and fears Annulling youth's brief years, Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! Rather I prize the doubt Low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed On joy, to solely seek and find and feast; Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men.

O lyric Love, half-angel and half-bird And all a wonder and a wild desire.

He concentrated on the special souls of men; seeking God in a series of personal interviews.

Far in the pillared dark Thrush music went - Almost like a call to come in To the dark and lament. But no, I was out for stars; I would not come in. I meant not even if asked; And I hadn't been.

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.

I have kept hidden in the instep arch Of an old cedar at the waterside A broken drinking goblet like the Grail Under a spell so the wrong ones can't find it, So can't get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn't. (I stole the goblet from the children's playhouse.) Here are your waters and your watering place. Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

A good deed is the best prayer.

Humanity is the grand religion, and no God can put a man in hell in another world, who has made a little heaven in this. God cannot make a man miserable if that man has made somebody else happy. God cannot hate anybody who is capable of loving anybody. Humanity - that word embraces all there is.

A fragment comes and lingers from an old Christian hymn, 'You've got to cross that lonesome valley.' It carries him forward. 'You've got to cross it by yourself.' It seems a Western hymn that belongs out in Montana. 'No one else can cross it for you,' it says. It seems to suggest something beyond. 'You've got to cross it by yourself.' He crosses a lonesome valley, out of the mythos, and emerges as if from a dream, seeing that his whole consciousness, the mythos, has been a dream and no one's dream but his own, a dream he must now sustain of his own efforts. Then even 'he' disappears and only the dream of himself remains with himself in it.

Most wondrous book! bright candle of the Lord! Star of Eternity! The only star By which the bark of man could navigate The sea of life and gain the coast of bliss Securely.

The true Vedantic spirit does not start out with a system of preconceived ideas. It possesses absolute liberty and unrivalled courage among religions with regard to the facts to be observed and the diverse hypotheses it has laid down for their coordination. Never having been hampered by a priestly order, each man has been entirely free to search wherever he pleased for the spiritual explanation of the spectacle of the universe.

The greatest human ideal is the great cause of bringing together the thoughts of Europe and Asia; the great soul of India will topple our world.

The tumult and the shouting dies; The Captains and the Kings depart; Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart.

And as I played, a child came thro' the gate, A boy who looked at me without a word, As tho' he saw stretch far behind my head Long lines of radiant angels, row on row. That day we spoke a little, timidly, And after that I never heard the voice That sang so many songs for love of me.

But oh, to him I loved Who loved me not at all, I owe the little open gate That led thru heaven's wall.

If I can find out God, then I shall find Him, If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly, Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me, A lamp in darkness.

When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.

Zazen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice; there is no other way of life than this way of life.

If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.

To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat.

Life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, nor actual difficulty in our life.

I used to pray that God would do this or that. Now I pray only that God will make his will known to me.

I made Man with too many faults. Yet I love him. And if he wishes, I have a home above for him.

'No amount of legislation can guarantee lasting peace and stability if the people it is supposed to serve are not spiritually and emotionally prepared to live by them (moral values) and where necessary defend them with their lives when it is breached.' (18 May 2000)

He has been called an atheist, but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity. His Bible was the open face of nature, the broad skies, the green hills. He disbelieved the ancient myths and miracles taught by established creeds. But the attacks on those creeds - or on persons devoted to them - have served to darken his memory, casting a shadow across the closing years of his life. When Theodore Roosevelt termed Tom Paine a 'dirty little atheist' he surely spoke from lack of understanding. It was a stricture, an inaccurate charge of the sort that has dimmed the greatness of this eminent American. But the true measure of his stature will yet be appreciated. The torch which he handed on will not be extinguished.

He felt there was a central processing core of life that went on and on. That was his conclusion. We talked of it many times together . . . Call it religion or what you like, Mr. Edison believed that the universe was alive and that it was responsive to man's deep necessity. It was an intelligent and hopeful religion if there ever was one. Mr. Edison went away expecting light, not darkness.

Thus Angels' Bread is made The Bread of man today: The Living Bread from Heaven With figures doth away: O wondrous gift indeed! The poor and lowly may Upon their Lord and Master feed.

O saving Victim, opening wide The gate of heaven to man below, Our foes press on from every side, Thine aid supply, Thy strength bestow.

Concerning perfect blessedness which consists in a vision of God.

Reason in man is rather like God in the world.

Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.

I have always considered myself, when I learned what the word meant, I've always considered myself a Pagan.

A psychedelic experience is a journey to new realms of consciousness. The scope and content of the experience is limitless, but its characteristic features are the transcendence of verbal concepts, of space-time dimensions, and of the ego or identity. Such experiences of enlarged consciousness can occur in a variety of ways: sensory deprivation, yoga exercises, disciplined meditation, religious or aesthetic ecstasies, or spontaneously. Most recently they have become available to anyone through the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT, etc. Of course, the drug does not produce the transcendent experience. It merely acts as a chemical key - it opens the mind, frees the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures.

Actions which are conscious expressions of the turn-on, tune-in, drop-out rhythm are religious. The wise person devotes his life exclusively to the religious search - for therein is found the only ecstasy, the only meaning. Anything else is a competitive quarrel over (or Hollywood-love sharing of) studio props.

If you are serious about your religion, if you really wist to commit yourself to the spiritual quest, you must learn how to use psychochemicals. Drugs are the religion of the twenty-first century. Pursuing the religious life today without using psychedelic drugs is like studying astronomy with the naked eye because that's how they did it in the first century A.D., and besides telescopes are unnatural.

After West Point and the priesthood, LSD must have seemed downright logical.

There is, I discover, a regular propaganda on foot; a long time ago - no man can recall how far back - the Wholesale Pickpockets made the discovery of the ease with which a man's pockets could be rifled while he was preoccupied with spiritual exercises, and they began offering prizes for the best essays in support of the practice.

What makes the Anthropic Principle and the Gaia Hypothesis so inspiring? One simple thing: Both remind us, in modern language, of what we have long suspected, of what we have long projected into our forgotten myths and perhaps what has always lain dormant within us as archetypes. That is, the awareness of our being anchored in the earth and the universe, the awareness that we are not here alone nor for ourselves alone, but that we are an integral part of higher, mysterious entities against whom it is not advisable to blaspheme. This forgotten awareness is encoded in all religions. All cultures anticipate it in various forms. It is one of the things that form the basis of man's understanding of himself, of his place in the world, and ultimately of the world as such.

I know of no one writing about politics today whose work is more inspirational. A brilliant intellectual, playwright and essayist, he believes with passion that essayists, poets, dramatists, artists, musicians, and philosophers carry responsibility for the well-being of the societies in which they live. In describing the role of politics in the world today, he exhibits a keen grasp of prevailing global dynamics. He knows from conviction and experience why a politics that is not attached to an anchored spirituality carries no lasting promise. When addressing religion, he affirms what believers wish to avow without falling into debilitating dogmatic or parochial traps. In assessing the present conditions of the world, he warns against utilitarian, pragmatic techno-culture. He respects the innate human aspiration to become rooted in that which most profoundly binds us to the core of being.

Du fond de l'ombre ou nous sommes et ou vous etes, vous ne voyez pas beaucoup plus distinctement que nous les radieuses et lointaines portes de l'eden. Seulement les pretres se trompent. Ces portes saintes ne sont pas derriere nous, mais devant nous.

Providence certainly does not favor just certain individuals, but the deep wisdom of its counsel, instruction and ennoblement extends to all.

Seeing the moon, he becomes the moon, the moon seen by him becomes him. He sinks into nature, becomes one with nature. The light of the 'clear heart' of the priest, seated in the meditation hall in the darkness before the dawn, becomes for the dawn moon its own light.

According to Eshin's 'Essentials of Salvation,' the Ten Pleasures are but a drop in the ocean when compared to the joys of the Pure Land.

Poor indeed must thou be, if around thee Thou no ray of light and joy canst throw-

... the kingdom of heaven is with us today.

When the Knock of the Spirit sounds we follow or perish

'God, it seems has left me now. But it's okay, 'cause maybe I'll make up my own God, and have a little tea party of mine own'- 'Drive In Drive Out', July 10th, 2005. Mansfield, Massachusetts