 There are literally thousands of quotes from thousands of spiritual, religious and mystical leaders. The few that are offered here are to highlight the fact that Jesus was not alone in his thinking with respect to such ideas as attraction, responsibility and manifestation. The underlying theme of all great spiritual thought is the unity of life, its eternal continuity and its divine right to forge its own reality in order to experience the illusion we call reality. The meaning of these quotes is a matter of personal interpretation but with inner thought you will see that all is not as it appears and that humanity has a destiny that far surpasses the dogma that has been taught throughout the ages. ---------------------------------------- Bodhidharma (c. 440 AD - 528 AD) Source: The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma The essence of the Way is detachment. And the goal of those who practice is freedom from appearances. When we're deluded there's a world to escape. When we're aware, there's nothing to escape. If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both... The mind and the world are opposites, and vision arises where they meet. When your mind doesn't stir inside, the world doesn't arise outside. When the world and the mind are both transparent, this is true vision. And such understanding is true understanding. Everything good and bad comes from your own mind. To find something beyond the mind is impossible. If you know that everything comes from the mind, don't become attached. Once attached, you're unaware. But once you see your own nature, the entire Canon becomes so much prose. It's thousands of sutras and shastras only amount to a clear mind. Understanding comes in midsentence. What good are doctrines? The ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words. They're not the Way. The Way is wordless. Words are illusions... Don't cling to appearances, and you'll break through all barriers... We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are. The Talmud There are two rules on the spiritual path: Begin and Continue. Sufi saying I believe in a Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of human beings. Albert Einstein Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the. Albert Einstein In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of the priests." Albert Einstein The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior. Albert Einstein It is not God who is hostile, but we; for God is never hostile. St. John Chrysostom The purposes of God point to one simple end—that we should be as he is, think the same thoughts, mean the same things, possess the same blessedness. George MacDonald There is only one reality. That reality is God. The soul of man must contact God, and unless the spirit of man is truly joined to God, there is no such thing as real Christian manifestation. John G. Lake I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God. Sufi Proverb Buddhism does not accept a theory of God, or a creator. According to Buddhism, one's own actions are the creator, ultimately. Some people say that, from a certain angle, Buddhism is not a religion but rather a science of mind. Religion has much involvement with faith. Sometimes it seems that there is quite a distance between a way of thinking based on faith and one entirely based on experiment, remaining skeptical. Unless you find something through investigation, you do not want to accept it as fact. From one viewpoint, Buddhism is a religion, from another viewpoint Buddhism is a science of mind and not a religion. Buddhism can be a bridge between these two sides. Therefore, with this conviction I try to have closer ties with scientists, mainly in the fields of cosmology, psychology, neurobiology and physics. In these fields there are insights to share, and to a certain extent we can work together. Dalai Lama Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself. Erich Fromm Live your life so that the fear of death can never enter your heart. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light. Give thanks for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. And if perchance you see no reason for giving thanks, rest assured the fault is in yourself. Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Indian Chief Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. The Buddha I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. Ghandi If you judge people, you have no time to love them. Mother Teresa I am no Hindu, but I hold the doctrine of the Hindus concerning a future state (rebirth) to be incomparably more rational, more pious, and more likely to deter men from vice than the horrid opinions inculcated by Christians on punishments without end. William Jones Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, Jon, ten thousand… We choose our next world through what we learn in this one… But you, Jon, learned so much at one time that you didn't have to go through a thousand lives to reach this one. Richard Bach (Jonathan Livingston Seagull) The souls must reenter the absolute substance whence they have emerged. But to accomplish this, they must develop all the perfections, the germ of which is planted in them; and if they have not fulfilled this condition during one life, they must commence another, a third, and so forth, until they have acquired the condition which fits them for reunion with God. Zohar, one of the principal Cabalistic texts No one should allow his mind to be a vehicle for others to use; he who does not direct his own mind lacks mastery. Hazrat Inayat Khan By conquering my mind, I have conquered the whole world. Sri Guru Granth Sahib There are plenty of different paths to a deep understanding of the universe. Blackfoot Proverb As he thinks in his heart, so he is. Jewish Proverb |
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