#spiritual

Thomas Merton wrote, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus. Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock-more than a maple- a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you. ↗

— Annie Dillard

#landscape #nature #seeing #spirituality #life

Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak. ↗

— Anonymous

#spiritual #temptation

When the stakes are this high- when calling God by the right name can make the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, it is impossible to respect the beliefs of others who don't believe as you do. ↗

— Sam Harris

#atheism #belief #ethics #humanism #religion

And now, we have no option. We can't say 'maybe' 'it's possible' 'it looks very probable...' No way! We have to say this is what the Bible teaches! This is fact! May 21, 2011 is the day of the Rapture, it is the day that Judgment Day begins... ↗

— Harold Camping

#end-of-the-world #rapture #sci-fi #science-fiction #spiritual

For far too long, the female gender has been plagued with stereotypes, typecasting, as well as, subtle and blatant discrimination. ↗

— Asa Don Brown

#encouraging-and-empowering-girls #females #human-rights #psychology #spirituality

Teachers can be a living example to their students. Not that teachers should look for students to idealize them. One who is worth idealizing does not care whether others idealize them or not. Everyone needs to see that you not only teach human values but you live them. It is unavoidable sometimes you will be idealized -- it is better for children to have a role model, or goal, because then the worshipful quality in them can dawn. ↗

— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

#human-values #spiritual #student #teacher #worship

Man is lost and is wandering in a jungle where real values have no meaning. Real values can have meaning to man only when he steps on to the spiritual path, a path where negative emotions have no use. ↗

— Sai Baba

#jungle #lost #man #meaning #negative

Our path, our sense of spirituality demands great earnestness, dedication, sincerity & continuity. ↗

— Sharon Salzberg

#meditation #religion #spirituality #religion

In listing these tendencies making for a new world, we must not forget developments in the religious or spiritual thinking and feeling of mankind, where also we feel a strong unifying trend. ↗

— Emily Greene Balch

#developments #feel #feeling #forget #listing

I'm not going to fight in the physical with physical weapons, because it's not a physical fight. I'm going to fight with spiritual weapons, cause it's a spiritual fight. ↗

— Stephen Baldwin

#cause #fight #going #i #physical