#spiritual

The flesh,' as Saint Paul used the term, refers, ironically, not to our bodies but to fallen human nature. The 'carnal' spirit is the one that devours things for itself and refuses to make them an oblation to God. The carnal spirit is cruel, egocentric, avaricious, gluttonous, and lecherous, and as such us fevered, restless, and divided. The spiritual man, on the other hand, is alone the man who both knows what flesh is for and can enter into its amplitude. The lecher, for example, supposes that he knows more about love than the virgin or the continent man. He knows nothing. Only the virgin and the faithful spouse knows what love is about. The glutton supposes that he knows the pleasures of food, but the true knowledge of food is unavailable to his dribbling and surfeited jowls. The difference between the carnal man and the spiritual man is not physical. They may look alike and weigh the same. The different lies, rather, between one's being divided, snatching and grabbing at things, even nonphysical things like fame and power, or being whole and receiving all things as Adam was meant to receive them, in order to offer them as an oblation to their Giver. ↗

— Thomas Howard

#human-nature #sin #spiritual-life #faith

Meditation is an excellent habit and tool for transformation, however your ‘practice’ should eventually evolve into your natural primary state of being. ↗

— Gary Hopkins

#enlightenment #god #higher-self #holy-spirit #inspirational

Disciples and devotees…what are most of them doing? Worshipping the teapot instead of drinking the tea! ↗

— Wei Wu Wei

#disciples #form #forms #religion #religious

Ah well, I suppose that's the problem with trying to make others follow your own beliefs: what starts out as spiritual ardor too often becomes arrogance and bigotry. ↗

— Persia Woolley

#religious-extremism #spirituality #religion

Verily I say unto you all: Arise and shine forth, that thy light may be a standard for the nations. ↗

— Doctrine and covenants

#religion #spiritual #uplifting #religion

God is not a Christian. ↗

— Archbishop Desmond Tutu

#god #religion #spirituality #religion

Most people can't bear to sit in church for an hour on Sundays. How are they supposed to live somewhere very similar to it for eternity? ↗

— Mark Twain

#spirituality #religion

Orthodoxy as right belief will cost us little; indeed, it will allow us to sit back with our Pharisaic doctrines, guarding the ‘truth’ with the purity of our interpretations. But orthodoxy, as believing in the right way, as bringing love to the world around us and within us … that will cost us everything. For to live by that sword, as we all know, is to die by it. ↗

— Peter Rollins

#orthodoxy #religion #spirituality #love

John 8:6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. ↗

— Anonymous

#biblical #jesus #religion #silence #spiritual

And for the sake of humility--a characteristic crucial to sacred questioning we might do well to confess that we're capable at any moment of such bad religion ourselves. ↗

— David Dark

#questioning #spirituality #religion