Spiritual Freedom Quotes

For the anarch, little has changed; flags have meaning for him, but not sense. I have seen them in the air and on the ground like leaves in May and November; and I have done so as a contemporary and not just as a historian. The May Day celebration will survive, but with a different meaning. New portraits will head up the processions. A date devoted to the Great Mother is re-profaned. A pair of lovers in the wood pays more homage to it. I mean the forest as something undivided, where every tree is still a liberty tree.
For the anarch, little is changed when he strips off a uniform that he wore partly as fool's motley, partly as camouflage. It covers his spiritual freedom, which he will objectivate during such transitions. This distinguishes him from the anarchist, who, objectively unfree, starts raging until he is thrust into a more rigorous straitjacket. ~ Ernst Junger

Prison life taught him how little one can get along with, and what extraordinary spiritual freedom and peace such simplification can bring. I remember again, ironically, that today more of us in the world have the luxury of choice between simplicity and complication of life. And for the most part, we, who could choose simplicity, choose complication. War, prison, survival periods, enforce a form of simplicity on us. The monk and the nun choose it of their own free will. But if one accidentally finds it, as I have for a few days, one finds also the serenity it brings. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Unfortunately, many people do not feel comfortable with freedom. They must find for themselves a leader, a guru, or a mentor to take over the direction of their spiritual lives and who will tell them what to do and how to think. A guide or a counselor is understandable, as in sports or music or in any pursuit, but that is not enough. Many mistakenly believe they have to be led each step of the way. ~ Joseph Girzone

There is a law in physics that applies to the soul. No two objects can occupy the same space at the same time; one thing must displace another. If your heart's crammed tight with material things and a thirst for wealth, there's no space left for God. Francis wanted a void in his life that could only be filled with Jesus. Poverty wasn't a burden for him - it was a pathway to spiritual freedom. ~ Ian Morgan Cron

Walking the Camino de Santiago taught me the wonders of physical challenge, the wonders of spiritual freedom, and the wonders of baby powder. ~ Christy Hall

The mess of the human condition is that fundamental trust has not yet been realized. The true value of profound spiritual experience lies in the discovery of that fundamental trust. ~ Andrew Cohen

I had reached the point, at which I was not afraid to die. This spirit made me a Freeman in fact, while I remained a slave in form, ~ Frederick Douglass

True freedom is always spiritual. It has something to do with your innermost being, which cannot be chained, handcuffed, or put into a jail. ~ Rajneesh

When Ruben talked about spiritual freedom and self-awareness and how to change your reality, it wasn't with mystical grandeur. He spoke very practically. He talked about the body as a machine and the brain as the software that ran the machine. ~ Ruben Papian

Tom Paine generally took a critical stance when dealing with religion and the church, but in 1775, in an essay entitled, "Thoughts on Defensive War" he wrote as follows: "In the barbarous ages of the world, men in genernal had no liberty. the strong governed the weak a will; till the coming of Christ there was no sucht thing as political freedom in any part of the world... The Romans held the world in slavery and were themselves slaves of their emperors... Wherefore political as well as spiritual freedom is the gift of God through Christ ~ Edmund A. Opitz

What is spiritual freedom? Spiritual freedom is growing into a state of more godliness. Becoming more aware of the presence of God. How do you do this? By becoming aware of the lessons behind your everyday experiences. This is how you grow into a loving awareness of the presence of God. Most people live under the hand of ~ Harold Klemp

The whole tendency of modern life is towards scientific planning and organisation, central control, standardisation, and specialisation. If this tendency was left to work itself out to its extreme conclusion, one might expect to see the state transformed into an immense social machine, all the individual components of which are strictly limited to the performance of a definite and specialised function, where there could be no freedom because the machine could only work smoothly as long as every wheel and cog performed its task with unvarying regularity. Now the nearer modern society comes to the state of total organisation, the more difficult it is to find any place for spiritual freedom and personal responsibility. Education itself becomes an essential part of the machine, for the mind has to be as completely measured and controlled by the techniques of the scientific expert as the task which it is being trained to perform. ~ Christopher Henry Dawson

Linguistic danger to spiritual freedom.- Every word is a prejudice. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Nonsense is an assertion of man's spiritual freedom in spite of all the oppressions of circumstance. ~ Aldous Huxley

Dostoevski said once, "There is only one thing I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings." These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of the their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom - which cannot be taken away - that makes life meaningful and purposeful. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Isn't it important for your friends close by and far away to know the high cost of these insights? Wouldn't they find it a source of consolation to see that light and darkness, hope and despair, love and fear are never very far from each other, and that spiritual freedom often requires a fierce spiritual battle? ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Scientology is used to increase spiritual freedom, intelligence, ability and to produce immortality. ~ L. Ron Hubbard

Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of a delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less. They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom. Only in this way can one explain the apparent paradox that some prisoners of a less hardy make-up often seemed to survive camp life better than did those of a robust nature. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The writers who reject tendentiousness and purpose in their work are the very ones who display it in every word they write. I could draw countless examples from the history of literature to show that the more a writer clamours for spiritual freedom, the more tendentious his work is liable to be. ~ Bjornstjerne Bjornson

You said to your mind, "I want everyone to like me. I don't want anyone to speak badly of me. I want everything I say and do to be acceptable and pleasing to everyone. I don't want anyone to hurt me. I don't want anything to happen that I don't like. And I want everything to happen that I do like." Then you said, "Now mind, figure out how to make every one of these things a reality, even if you have to think about it day and night." And of course your mind said, "I'm on the job, I will work on it constantly. ~ Michael Singer

Democracy is essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom. As such it is by no means infallible or certain. Nor must we forget that there has often been much more cultural and spiritual freedom under an autocratic rule than under some democracies and it is at least conceivable that under the government of a very homogeneous and doctrinaire majority democratic government might be as oppressive as the worst dictatorship. ~ Friedrich Hayek

Jnana, bhakti, yoga and karma - these are the four paths which lead to spiritual freedom. One must follow the path for which one is best suited. But in this age, special stress should be laid on karma yoga. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Today in the west the word 'guru' has come to mean someone who leads a cult, someone who deprives others of their intellectual or spiritual freedom and rips them off financially. ~ Frederick Lenz

Understand this if nothing else: spiritual freedom and oneness with the Tao are not randomly bestowed gifts, but the rewards of conscious self-transformation and self-evolution. ~ Laozi

Most Christians are more than content to live out their lives surrounded by the trappings of our world, rather than to risk losing them in becoming a radical Christian. A radical Christian (by my definition) is one who will put God first in all decisions, even when putting God first is costly. In the business world, this means putting God first even when doing so costs money. That is true freedom - spiritual freedom - as opposed to business bondage. ~ Larry Burkett

The poet's spoken discourse often depends on a mystique, on the spiritual freedom that finds itself enslaved on earth. ~ Salvatore Quasimodo

The political independence of a nation must not be confused with any intellectual isolation. The spiritual freedom, indeed, your own generous lives and liberal air will give you. From us you will learn the classical restraint of form. For all great art is delicate art, roughness having very little to do with strength, and harshness very little to do with power. 'The artist,' as Mr. Swinburne says, 'must be perfectly articulate.' This limitation is for the artist perfect freedom: it is at once the origin and the sign of his strength. So that all the supreme masters of style - Dante, Sophocles, Shakespeare - are the supreme masters of spiritual and intellectual vision also. Love art for its own sake, and then all things that you need will be added to you. ~ Oscar Wilde

Discernment is first of all a habit, a way of seeing that eventually permeates our whole life. It is the journey from spiritual blindness (not seeing God anywhere or seeing him only where we expect to see him) to spiritual sight (finding God everywhere, especially where we least expect it). ~ Ruth Haley Barton

To be brutally truthful, the removal of your noodle from seeking other people's futile approval to be you, is one of the most beautiful steps to flight, where wings flap to freedom from so many deadly traps. ~ Curtis Tyrone Jones

We all have the same Christ dwelling within, but revelation of some new need will lead us spontaneously to trust Him to live out His life in in that particular. ~ Watchman Nee

One who turns his face towards Bhagwan [God], turns towards him; he will receive the bliss and the light. God does not do anything else. ~ Dada Bhagwan

To succeed, this movement will have to change our ideals in fundamental ways. It will have to kill off the traditional American dream, the idea of constant striving for a better future, symbolized by the middle-class goal of a rising income and the purchase of a little house with a yard - not to mention the freedom to move where you please, run your life, and govern your town with your neighbors when you get there. Greg Galluzzo, Obama's mentor and the man who created the grassroots crusade that inspired Building One America, dismisses the American dream as a sham. What really makes Americans move to the suburbs, says Galluzzo, is 'racism and greed. ~ Stanley Kurtz

When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither. ~ Thomas Jefferson

We live in graves and call them home, and we further sustain the neurotic structure of those graves with elements of so-called sociological, cultural, traditional, religious, political and intellectual significance. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The ninos santos (Psilocybe mexicana) heal. They lower fevers, cure colds, and give freedom from toothaches. They pull the evil spirits out of the body or free the spirit of the sick. ~ Maria Sabina

The mud of this body-complex (pudgal - that which charges and disharges) is such that the harder one tries to get out, the deeper and deeper he sinks into it. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Peace is non-resistance, complete acceptance, identification with all, everyone, everything. ~ Lester Levenson

In the name of God, they stole her time and her freedom, putting shackles on her heart. They preached about God's kindness, but preached twice as much about his wrath and intolerance. ~ Haruki Murakami

If we only identify with the mortal world, then we identify with a level of scarcity and lack and brokenness, and that will be our experience. But if we shift our experience of self-identification - and this is what enlightenment is - from the body-self to the spiritual-self, then we place ourselves under an entirely different set of possibilities and probabilities. ~ Marianne Williamson

Too many people base their worth and value on what other people think of them. They worry if others like them, approve of them, or think of them as important. Because of such insecurities, they are constantly playing up to others, trying to win their favor and to meet others' every expectation.
When you do that, you set yourself up to be controlled and manipulated. You allow others to put you in a box. Some people do not follow their dreams because they are so concerned about falling from the good grace of others. You may lose the approval of others if you follow your own dreams. But if your friends approve of you only when you meet their expectations, they aren't true friends. They are manipulators. They are controllers.
There is a real freedom when you realize you don't need the approval of others. You have almighty God's approval. Don't try to keep everyone around you happy. Some people don't even want to be happy. You've got to be secure enough to say, "I love you, but I won't allow you to control me. You may not give me your blessing, but that's okay. I have God's blessing. And I'm not a people pleaser; I'm a God pleaser."
Take charge of your life. If you're being manipulated and pressured into being someone you are not, it's not the other person's fault, it's your own fault. You control your destiny. You can be nice. You can be respectful. But do not allow anyone to make you feel guilty for being your own person.
Life is too short to spend it trying ~ Joel Osteen

Freedom is willpower to act for a change. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Attachment to being right creates suffering. When you have a choice to be right, or to be kind, choose kind and watch your suffering disappear. ~ Wayne W. Dyer

But if they realize that their true freedom consists in the acceptance of principles, of laws which are the own, a synthesis of universal and particular interests becomes possible. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

There may be an art to conversation, and some are better at it than others, but conversation's virtue lies in randomness and possibility: people, without a plan, could speak a spontaneous, unexpected truth, because revelation rules. Telling words recur in this smart, generous conversation between Stephen Andrews and Gregg Bordowitz: patience, responsibility, feminism, ethics, cosmology, AIDS, gift, freedom, mortality. ~ Lynne Tillman

Maybe you've gotten through something and when you did you thought, I am leaving that behind and will never return. And that's a great way of thinking ... for selfish jerks.
If we actually care about people other than ourselves, we can't leave our problems behind and never return. If we don't take the freedom we've experienced and try to bring it to others, we are not becoming people worth becoming. ~ Vince Antonucci

Speech' is such a thing that if handled [used] correctly, it encompasses all the major vows (mahavrats). ~ Dada Bhagwan

Speculation does not determine prices; it has to accept the prices that are determined in the market. I ts efforts are directed to correctly estimating future price-situations, and to acting accordingly. The influence of speculation cannot alter the average level of prices over a given period; what it can do is to diminish the gap between the highest and the lowest prices. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Want a reliable road to emotional and spiritual suicide? Spend your life trying to fit in. ~ Brandon Mull

Contribute to charitable projects like the printing of spiritual books so that they can be sold at a lower price. Poor people will then be able to buy and read them. In this way we can help to cultivate spiritual culture in them also. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi

What position is nobler than that of a spiritual father who claims no authority and yet is universally esteemed, whose word is given only as tender advice, but is allowed to operate with the force of law? ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

What Tunisia urgently needs, is freedom and the building of a real democracy. ~ Rashid Al-Ghannushi

Tell me more," I said. "Tell me anything. What's the meaning of life?"
He let out a big, burly laugh.
"You thought you'd stump me with that one, didn't you? It's actually very simple. The purpose of life is to find your way back to a spiritual way of thinking and living-to be able to get past the physical stuff. That's pretty much the whole test. And every soul is given talents and strengths to help them along the way."
"That's it?"
He snickered at my bug-eyed response.
"It's much harder than it sounds." He looked up at the clock now. "Ten more minutes, little one. What else you got for me? ~ Wendy Higgins

The freedom of the seed is in the attainment of its dharma, its nature and destiny of becoming a tree; it is the non-accomplishment which is its prison. ~ Anonymous

Knowledge is unsettled by the idea of power. We see how it works in the worlds of business and politics, and we suspect that it works the same in the spiritual world. We presume it's a gift for the exceptional and the few. She can do it, but we cannot, people might say to themselves. He is the chosen one; I am not. He's a master, but I can never be. We have become masters of what we are not. We have made ourselves vulnerable to the belief that others have greater power than we do, because we won't acknowledge the power of us - the truth of us. Power, to the world-dream, is something small and self-serving. Power, from the point of view of creation, is infinite and selfless. ~ Miguel Ruiz

I don't want to be looking inside my ego, my stuff, my achievements, my me, me, me, me, I hate that stuff. I just want to be out there eh to the last day of my life ah interested in the world, in causes, in helping other people. Um that doesn't mean that I don't have a spiritual practice, that I don't look at my own soul, that I don't prepare myself for the that transition that death is but I cannot sit in meditation to contemplate my navel for the rest of my life. That would be boring for me. ~ Isabel Allende

No one is a doer in this world. To claim, 'I am doing' is egoism. Illusion continues to prevail under the umbrella of egoism. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom.
–The Grand Inquisitor ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky