Spiritual famous quotes
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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The Christian that is bound by his own horizon, the church that lives simply for itself, is bound to die a spiritual death and sink into stagnancy and corruption. We never can thank God enough for giving us not only a whole Gospel to believe, but a whole world to give it to.
-- A. B. Simpson -
We begin life with the natural, next we come into the spiritual; but then, when we have truly received the kingdom of God and His righteousness, the natural is added to the spiritual, and we are able to receive the gifts of His providence and the blessings of life without becoming centered in them or allowing them to separate us from Him.
-- A. B. Simpson -
When a pure devotee or spiritual master speak, what he says should be accepted as having been directly spoken by the Supreme Personality of Godhead in the Parampara System.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
If after accepting the spiritual master and being initiated one does not follow the rules and regulations of devotional service, then he is again fallen.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
A devotee should be fixed in the conclusion that, the spiritual master cannot be subject to criticism and should never be considered equal to a common man.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
Since one cannot visually experience the presence of the Supersoul, He appears before us as a liberated devotee. Such a spiritual master is none other than Krishna himself.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
Our first duty is to satisfy the spiritual master, who can arrange for the Lord's mercy. A common man must first begin to serve the spiritual master or the devotee. Then, through the mercy of the devotee, the Lord will be satisfied. Unless one receives the dust of a devotee's lotus feet on one's head, there is no possibility of advancement. Unless one approaches a pure devotee, he cannot understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
Out of many millions of wandering living entities, one who is very fortunate gets an opportunity to associate with a bonafide spiritual master by the grace of Krishna. By the mercy of both Krishna and the spiritual masters, such a person receives the seed of the creeper of devotional service.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
One has to ascertain the right path for his activities by following in the footsteps of great saintly persons and books of knowledge under the guidance of a spiritual master.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
It is imperative that one approaches a spiritual master, for by such association one proportionately develops his consciousness towards the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
In spiritual life, one must conduct one's whole life under the guidance of the guru. Only one who executes his spiritual life under the direction of the spiritual master can achieve the mercy of Krishna.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
This chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra is enacted from the spiritual platform and thus this sound vibration surpasses all lower strata of consciouness - namely sensual, mental and intellectual.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
The holy name of Krishna has extraordinary spiritual potency because the name of God is nondifferent from God Himself.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
The highest summit of spiritual perfection is knowledge of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
A disciple serves the spiritual master with the sole purpose of getting instructions from him.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
A bona fide spiritual master, under the guidance of authorities, can turn anyone to the Vaisnava cult so that naturally he may come to the topmost position of a brahmana.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
By the grace of the spiritual master the cloud of the mercy of the Personality of Godhead is brought in, and then only, when the rains of Krishna consciousness fall, can the fire of material existence be extinguished.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
First birth is from your parents, but real birth, real life, begins when one accepts a bona fide spiritual master and renders service unto him. Then the path is open for going back to home, back to Godhead, to live eternally in full knowledge and full bliss and in association with the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, Lord Krishna.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
The spiritual master and Krishna are two parallel lines. The train, on two tracks, moves forward. The spiritual Master and Krishna are like these two tracks. They must be served simultaneously. Krishna helps one to find bona fide Spiritual Master and bona fide Spiritual Master helps one to understand Krishna. If one does not get bona fide Spiritual Master, then how he can ever understand Krishna ? You cannot serve Krishna without Spiritual Master, or serve just Spiritual Master without serving Krishna. They must be served simultaneously.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the truth.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
In the last stage of the spiritual master's life, the devotees of the spiritual master should take preaching activities into their own hands. In this way the spiritual master can sit down in a solitary place and render nirjana-bhajana.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
The genuine Guru is God's representative and he speaks about God and nothing else.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
A spiritual master who is one hundred percent Krishna conscious is the bona fide spiritual master.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
One must execute devotional service under the guidance of a devotee or directly under the guidance of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. It is not possible, however, to train oneself without guidance from the spiritual master.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
Therefore a person fully absorbed in the bodily concept of life is surely killing himself by not making spiritual progress. Such a person is called pasu-ghna. Especially excluded from spiritual life are the animal hunters, who are not interested in hearing and chanting the holy name of the Lord. Such hunters are always unhappy, both in this life and in the next. It is therefore said that a hunter should neither die nor live because for such persons both living and dying are troublesome.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
Spiritual master is representative of God. Similarly, king is also representative of God. The father is also representative of God. These are the statements of the sastras. Because they will guide. The king will guide. The spiritual master will guide. The father will guide. What is that guidance? That guidance is how one can become Krishna Conscious by education, by culture.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
We need a quickening of faith; faith in the power of the God of Pentecost to convict and convert three thousand in a day. Faith, not in a process of culture by which we hope to train children into a state of salvation, but faith in the mighty God who can quicken a dead soul into life in a moment; faith in moral and spiritual revolution rather than evolution.
-- A. C. Dixon -
We must enhance the light, not fight the darkness.
-- A. D. Gordon -
To truly find God, truth needs to be found independently from the opinions of others. The truth has to be found in our hearts.
-- A. H. Almaas -
Religion is not something separate and apart from ordinary life. It is life - life of every kind viewed from the standpoint of meaning and purpose: life lived in the fuller awareness of its human quality and spiritual significance.
-- A. Powell Davies -
Each one of us has our own evolution of life, and each one of us goes through different tests which are unique and challenging. But certain things are common. And we do learn things from each other's experience. On a spiritual journey, we all have the same destination.
-- A. R. Rahman -
I like music that is able to stir my soul. My music is a spiritual exercise
-- A. R. Rahman -
President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., a modern prophet, said over and over again that the Lord would never let one of his Saints who had been faithful in the payment of tithes and offerings go without the necessities of life†(Marion G. Romney, “The Blessings of an Honest Tithe,†New Era, Jan.-Feb. 1982, 45). Members who faithfully pay tithing are promised spiritual blessings as well. “I think it is not well known in the Church that payment of tithing has very little to do with money. Tithing has to do with faith
-- A. Theodore Tuttle -
I Am More Spiritual Than Religious; Besides I Am Not A Fanatic
-- Aamir Khan -
At its core, meditation is about touching the spiritual essence that exists within us all. Our spiritual essence is not something that we create through meditation it's already there, deep within, behind all the barriers, patiently waiting for us to recognize it.
-- Aaron Hoopes -
The whole history of Israel, its ritual and its government, is explicable only as it is typical of the spiritual Israel, of the sacrifice on Calvary, of the precious blood which alone can wash away sin.
-- Abbott Eliot Kittredge -
This Bible, then, has a mission, grander than any mere creation of God; for in this volume are infinite wisdom, and infinite love. Between its covers are the mind and heart of God; and they are for man's good, for his salvation, his guidance, his spiritual nourishment. If now I neglect my Bible, I do my soul a wrong; for the fact of this Divine message is evidence that I need it.
-- Abbott Eliot Kittredge -
[On art:] I believe that it not only enriches the spiritual life, but that it makes one more sane and sympathetic, more observant and understanding, regardless of whatever age it springs from, whatever subjects it represents.
-- Abby Aldrich Rockefeller -
If the divine Mercy grants him the knowledge of himself, then his adoration will be pure; and, for him, paradise and hell, recompense, spiritual degrees and all created things will be as though God had never created them. He will not accord them any importance, nor will he take them into consideration, except to the extent that it is prescribed by the divine Law and Wisdom. For then he will know Who is the sole Agent.
-- Abdelkader El Djezairi -
The first "station of separation" corresponds to the state of the ordinary man who perceives the universe as distinct from God. Starting from here, the initiatic itinerary leads the being first to extinction in the divine Unity, which abolishes all perception of created things. But spiritual realization, if it is complete, arrives afterwards at the "second station of separation" where the being perceives simultaneously the one in the multiple and the multiple in the one.
-- Abdelkader El Djezairi -
Heroism does not require spiritual maturity.
-- Abel Hermant -
Each star is a mirror reflecting the truth inside you.
-- Aberjhani -
Love is our most unifying and empowering common spiritual denominator. The more we ignore its potential to bring greater balance and deeper meaning to human existence, the more likely we are to continue to define history as one long inglorious record of man’s inhumanity to man.
-- Aberjhani -
Authentic inspiration endows individuals with mental or spiritual energy which they are then able to transform into positive action. It can make all the difference between a man, woman, or child allowing despair to permanently paralyze any dreams they may have for their lives, or, exercising sufficient strength of will to make those dreams a reality.
-- Aberjhani -
Straight away, remove yourself from the field of spiritual progression , stay away from contemplation and skillful discourse, do not do research or meditate on the divinities, and stop concentrating and reciting textbooks! Tell me, what is the absolute nature of reality which allows no room for doubt? Listen carefully! Stop holding on to this or that, inhabit your true absolute nature, and peacefully enjoy the essence of what it is to be alive!
-- Abhinavagupta -
If it be true that our people represent a high percentage of mental vigor, the distinction is probably due, in some measure, to the extremely important part which Talmud studies have played in the spiritual life of the race.
-- Abraham Cahan -
The delight of the Torah is ignited by an inner awareness. A man begins to sense the great tapestry of each letter and point. Every concept and content, every notion and idea, of every spiritual movement, of every vibration, intellectual and emotional, from the immediate and general to the distant and detailed, from matters lofty, spiritual, and ethical according to their outward profile, to matters practical, obligatory, seemingly frightening, and forceful, and at the same time complex and full of content and great mental exertion - all together become known by a supernal holy awareness.
-- Abraham Isaac Kook -
Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel -
The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel -
The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel -
Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time.
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel -
The spiritual life is part of the human essence. It is a defining characteristic of human nature, without which human nature is not fully human.
-- Abraham Maslow -
When I use the word 'healing,' by that I mean that every disease has a physical element that we're very good at handling, but there's always a sense of the violation. 'Why me?' 'Why is my leg broken on the ski trip and not anyone else's?' And I think that medicine has done a terrible job of addressing that spiritual violation.
-- Abraham Verghese -
Love of Allah gives us spiritual life; hope in His Reward is the greatest incentive to do good; and fear of His Wrath stops us from evil.
-- Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi -
And now, advice for beginning mystics. Be sober, be intelligent, be educated, rely on the tangible reality as long as you can. Remember that the act of writing is a tiny part of a bigger something. Defend the value of the spiritual experience and if somebody tells you it's an old fashioned notion, laugh loudly and serenely.
-- Adam Zagajewski -
'Extinction' issue. Save the species for whom??? Humans' convenience, of course! Individuals of the species are snatched from their homes/family/habitat/held in captivity/forced to mate at great physical/ spiritual pain. When the right numbers are reached, their holocaust starts all over again! Another merry-go-round/ bu$ine$$ a$ u$ual!!! Protectionists/welfarists find it a profitable issue: no controversy/ easy donations! I'd rather see an entire species extinct than in the hands of the humans!
-- Adela Popescu -
my opinion is that we have, in the person of Da Free John, a Spiritual Master and religious genius of the ultimate degree. I assure you I do not mean that lightly. I am not tossing out high-powered phrases to 'hype' the works of Da Free John. I am simply offering to you my own considered opinion: Da Free John's teaching is, I believe, unsurpassed by that of any other spiritual Hero, of any period, of any place, of any time, of any persuasion.
-- Adi Da -
True religion is a universal and (necessarily) ego-transcending psycho-physical motivation of human beings. However, up to the present stage in human history, only relatively few individuals in any generation have been willing and able to make the gesture that is true religion (or, otherwise, true esotericism). In their great numbers, most people have, up to now, never yet been ready or willing to adapt to the true (and progressive) practical, moral, devotional, Spiritual, and Transcendental Wisdom-culture of right life.
-- Adi Da -
There is a spiritual hunger in the world today - and it cannot be satisfied by better cars on longer credit terms.
-- Adlai E. Stevenson -
It must never be forgotten that nothing that is really great in this world has ever been achieved by coalitions, but that it has always been the success of a single victor. Coalition successes bear by the very nature of their origin the germ of future crumbling, in fact of the loss of what has already been achieved. Great, truly world-shaking revolutions of a spiritual nature are not even conceivable and realizable except as the titanic struggles of individual formations, never as enterprises of coalitions.
-- Adolf Hitler -
When human hearts break and human hearts despair, then from the twilight of the past the great conquerors of distress and care, of disgrace and misery, of spiritual slavery and physical compulsion, look down on them and hold out their eternal hands to the despairing mortals.
-- Adolf Hitler -
Any violence which does not spring from a spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook.
-- Adolf Hitler -
I intend to set up a thousand-year Reich and anyone who supports me in this battle is a fellow-fighter for a unique spiritual-I would say divine-creation... Rudolf Hess, my assistant of many years standing, would tell you: If we have such a leader, God is with us.
-- Adolf Hitler -
The application of force alone, without support based on a spiritual concept, can never bring about the destruction of an idea or arrest the propagation of it, unless one is ready and able to ruthlessly to exterminate the last upholders of that idea even to a man, and also wipe out any tradition which it may tend to leave behind.
-- Adolf Hitler -
Writing comedy is the greatest spiritual gift you can give to anybody anytime.
-- Adriana Trigiani -
... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.
-- Adrienne Rich -
The mind wants to land, to fixate, to hold a concept, but the only way you can be really free is by not fixating. That's part of true maturity, and it's one of the hardest things for spiritual people who have had true and powerful revelations to go through - to accept the degree of surrender needed to literally let go of all experience and all self-reference. Even in great revelations, there is almost always something that wants to claim, "I am this." Every time you claim, "I am this", you just claimed another sense perception, thought, emotion, or feeling.
-- Adyashanti -
The most intimate question we can ask, and the one that has the most spiritual power, is this: What or who am I?
-- Adyashanti -
Fear is very often a part of the spiritual path. When people sit down and meditate it's not at all uncommon for fear to arise at some point.
-- Adyashanti -
What matters are not the truths other people tell us or the practices that we are able to mimic, but the spiritual discoveries we make through personal investigation.
-- Adyashanti -
The intricacies of spiritual philosophy and theologies are just a thought within Emptiness.
-- Adyashanti -
The main requirement for spiritual growth: A yearning to know who you really are.
-- Adyashanti -
A spiritual teaching is a finger pointing toward Reality; it is not Reality itself. To be in a true and mature relationship with a spiritual teaching requires you to apply it, not simply believe in it.
-- Adyashanti -
The unknown, our own true nature, has the capacity to wake itself up when you start to fall in love with letting go of all the mental structures you hold onto. Contemplate this: there is no such thing as a true belief.
-- Adyashanti -
The most difficult thing for spiritual seekers to do is to stop struggling, striving, seeking, and searching. Why? Because in the absence of struggle you don't know who you are; you lose your boundaries, you lose your separateness, you lose your specialness, you lose the dream you have lived all your life. Eventually you lose everything that your mind has created and awaken to who you truly are: the fullness of freedom, unbound by any identifications, identities, or boundaries.
-- Adyashanti -
God lends a helping hand to the man who tries hard.
-- Aeschylus -
Lawrence Hill, a cultural and spiritual descendant of West African griots, has used his vast storytelling talents to create an epic story that spans three continents. The Book of Negroes recites the pain, misery and liberation of one African woman, Aminata Diallo, who was stolen from her homeland and sold into American slavery. Through Aminata, Hill narrates the terrifying story of slavery and puts at the centre a female experience of the African Diaspora. I wept upon reading this story. The Book of Negroes is courageous, breathtaking, simply brilliant.
-- Afua Cooper -
The Pope is only concerned with the spiritual welfare of his flock.
-- Aga Khan IV -
...all human beings have a right, and duty, to be joyful. Anything that thwarts this spiritual human right goes against the very purpose of human being. Spirituality mandates us to wage a relentless war to eradicate these forces of oppression and disempowerment.
-- Agnivesh -
For the world order to be one of peace and justice, for the global village to be a theater of right livelihood, it is imperative that a new and proactive spiritual vision commensurate to the challenges of the emerging world order be enunciated without delay.
-- Agnivesh -
The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
Complacency is the deadly enemy of spiritual progress. The contented soul is the stagnant soul.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and he is instantly free. If we understand our first and sole duty to consist of loving God supremely and loving everyone, even our enemies, for God's dear sake, then we can enjoy spiritual tranquility under every circumstance.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
Problems patiently endured will work for our spiritual perfecting.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
The natural man must know in order to believe; The spiritual man must believe in order to know
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
He had everything, but he possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
I do not think I exaggerate when I say that some of us put our offering in the plate with a kind of triumphant bounce as much as to say: "There - now God will feel better!" I am obliged to tell you that God does not need anything you have. He does not need a dime of your money. It is your own spiritual welfare at stake in such matters as these. You have the right to keep what you have all to yourself - but it will rust and decay, and ultimately ruin you.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
Understand the place of love in a spiritual life. A powerful and blissful type of love has no conditions, no ownership and no people involved. Be free from fear. Be who you are. That is love.
-- Ajahn Brahm -
The Buddha taught some people the teachings of duality that help them avoid sin and acquire spiritual merit. To others he taught non-duality, that some find profoundly frightening.
-- Akkineni Nagarjuna -
Even offering three hundred bowls of food three times a day does not match the spiritual merit gained in one moment of love.
-- Akkineni Nagarjuna -
More and more, I am pulled reluctantly towards a strong horizontal current, which is a place where time is moving at such high velocity, that even our breath is forced to accelerate just in order for us humans to survive. And I have always believed, that it is in our slow exhalation, where the sense of this deep spiritual energy resides. In a world moving so fast, with the growth of technology and information, I am somehow inclined to move against this current, in search of what it might mean to be connected not just spiritually, but also vertically.
-- Akram Khan -
Those who are quick to feel disrespected often have a spiritual vacuum in their lives, because they feel disconnected to the love of their Father in Heaven.
-- Al Gore -
The more deeply I search for the roots of the global environmental crisis, the more I am convinced that it is an outer manifestation of an inner crisis that is, for lack of a better word, spiritual... what other word describes the collection of values and assumptions that determine our basic understanding of how we fit into the universe?
-- Al Gore
