Spiritual Inquiry Quotes

Spiritual inquiry has always been the realm of religion, which encourages us to have a blind faith in its teachings, even when they make little logical sense. - Edmond Kirsch ~ Dan Brown

The investigation of consciousness has come to be regarded suspiciously by most smart people and by most scientists. That's a legacy that began with the Inquisition, which considered non-Christian spiritual inquiry as blasphemous. ~ David O. Russell

The so-called spiritual inquiry must necessarily address questions of authority and power since both individuals and the organizations that represent them generally seek legitimacy from hegemonic interpretations of truth and reality. The only way to maintain the integrity of spiritual inquiry is to encourage radical questioning of all precepts/percepts and their interpretations. ~ Daniel Waterman

There is a fundamental law that the tissue of the human body will waste away through idleness and disuse. Conversely, muscles and vessel that are stressed grow and increase in capacity. This same basic law also applies to spiritual and intellectual growth and can be achieved only by continual nourishment and effort in day-to-day living. ~ Clarence Robison

Now is as good a time as ever to revisit the history of the Crusades, or the sorry history of partition in Kashmir, or the woes of the Chechens and Kosovars. But the bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face, and there's no point in any euphemism about it. What they abominate about 'the West,' to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state. Loose talk about chickens coming home to roost is the moral equivalent of the hateful garbage emitted by Falwell and Robertson, and exhibits about the same intellectual content. ~ Christopher Hitchens

When we approach the journey acknowledging what we do not know and what we can't control, we maintain our energy for the quest. ~ Sharon Salzberg

He was the perfect soldier: he went where you sent him, and stayed where you put him, and had no idea of his own to keep him from doing exactly what you told him. ~ Dashiell Hammett

The reason for so many defeats in the spiritual realm is because this sector of the soul has not been dealt with drastically. ~ Watchman Nee

When does gold ore become gold? When it is put through a process of fire. So the human being during the training becomes as pure as gold through suffering. It is the burning away of the dross. Suffering has a great redeeming quality. As a drop of water failing on the desert sand is sucked up immediately, so we must become nothing and nowhere ... we must disappear. ~ Bhai Sahib Singh

Do not allow yourself to be a thermometer which gauges the temperature, rather be a thermostat which changes your environment. ~ Asa Don Brown

Either you're a person wondering if you have a soul, or you're a soul who knows that being a person isn't real. ~ Deepak Chopra

Where there are two people, there is untruth. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Assiduous and frequent questioning is indeed the first key to wisdom ... for by doubting we come to inquiry; through inquiring we perceive the truth ... ~ Pierre Abelard

I think there is a serious corruption in the idea sold through advertising that you can attain spiritual peace through lifestyle and the notion of building your happiness from the outside-in by acquiring things ... which if you think about it, is the essence of advertising ~ Edward Norton

Not the external and physical alone is now managed by machinery, but the internal and spiritual also.... The same habit regulates not our modes of action alone, but our modes of thought and feeling. Men are grown mechanical in head and heart, as well as in hand. They have lost faith in individual endeavour, and in natural force, of any kind. Not for internal perfection, but for external combinations and arrangements, for institutions, constitutions – for Mechanism of one sort or another, do they hope and struggle. Their whole efforts, attachments, opinions, turn on mechanism, and are of a mechanical character. ~ Thomas Carlyle

The grace of living life is to give glory to God. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

For the spiritual sense of the Word treats everywhere of the spiritual world, that is, of the state of the church in the heavens, as well as in the earth; hence the Word is spiritual and Divine. ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

You need to hit Monday ready to go ... To do that, you need weekends that rejuvenate you, rather than exhaust or disappoint you. Cross-training makes you a better athlete, and likewise, exercise, volunteer work, and spiritual activities make you a better worker. ~ Laura Vanderkam

Children, we may go to the temple, reverently circumambulate the sanctum sanctorum and put our offering in the charity box, but on our way out if we kick the beggar at the door, where is our devotion? Compassion towards the poor is our duty to God. Mother is not saying that we should give money to every beggar that sits in front of a temple, but do not despise them. Pray for them as well. When we hate others, it is our own mind that becomes impure. Equality of vision is God. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi

The more I walk with Christ, the more I'm aware that the battles I'm fighting are not against flesh and blood, but neither is my help. ~ Jennifer DeFrates

Looking back now, I mourn the mutual wounds inflicted in verbal battles with the "unsaved". In fact, I have chosen to delete that particular term from my vocabulary as I have learned that even with my $500 European-designer bifocals, I cannot see into a person's heart to know his spiritual condition. All I can do is tell the jagged tale of my own spiritual journey and declare that my life has been better for having followed Christ. ~ Ron Hall

There is something in such laws that takes the breath away. They are not discoveries or inventions of the human mind, but exist independently of us. In a moment of clarity, one can at most discover that they are there and take them into account. Long before there were people on the earth, crystals were already growing in the earth's crust. On one day or another, a human being first came across such a sparkling morsel of regularity lying on the ground or hit one with his stone tool and it broke off and fell at his feet, and he picked it up and regarded it in his open hand, and he was amazed. ~ M.C. Escher

The fresh, pungent summer smells of the forest bring me home to the natural, forgotten spiritual place deep inside me. The part of me where hope lives, where prayers are answered and life feels good. ~ Vanessa G. Foster

Seek spiritual riches within. What you are is much greater than anyone or anything else you have ever yearned for. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

Being the head of the home isn't the same as controlling," David said. "It means being the spiritual leader. The Scripture you may have heard is from Ephesians: 'Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.' But for whatever reason, most people don't read the verse before it that says, 'Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ,' and the one after it, 'Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. ~ Beth Wiseman

Some people are only "believers" because they want God to give them things; a thrill, money, spiritual gifts etc. but they never think twice about what THEY can give to God. They are Christian parasites, always wanting more, rather than Christian servants, who are always willing to give. ~ Lisa Bedrick

We are also very presumptuous to negate the possibility that an illness may be a gift. It's a neutral experience is what I'm trying to say. It should be viewed in some regard as no different than any other experience. ~ Caroline Myss

Love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth ... Love is as love does. Love is an act of will
namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love. ~ M. Scott Peck

You know, in America, Christian fundamentalism vs. science. You know, be it teaching Darwinian evolutionary theory or stem cell res- You know, the whole thing, and then the issue of women being educated in Middle Eastern - I mean, it just seems so contemporary. In terms of spirituality, it's interesting because I actually think (her character in Agora) Hypatia is very spiritual. ~ Rachel Weisz

For a relationship to deepen, at some point the spiritual dimension needs to come in. You don't even need to be fully awakened for this to happen, but if it does happen it certainly means you are awakening. ~ Eckhart Tolle

There is something about human nature that just doesn't want to face the reality that we live in two worlds. We live in the physical, material world where we have jobs, read books, and go about our business. And we live in a spiritual world - and that is a world at war. ~ John Eldredge

That which cannot be seen by the eyes, nor heard by the ears, is the Self (chetan, Soul). That which can be heard by the ears, 'Television' is seen, a 'record' is heard, that is not self (chetan, Soul) . The Self (chetan, Soul) can only be seen with the divine vision (divya chakshu). ~ Dada Bhagwan

The game is not about becoming somebody, it's about becoming nobody. ~ Ram Dass

Isn't it human beings who impart vitality to the image in the temple? If no one sculpts the stone, it doesn't become an image. If no one installs it in the temple, it does not acquire any sanctity. If no worship is done, it does not acquire any power. Without human effort there cannot be any temples. What is wrong then in saying that we should view great masters as equal to God? Temples installed by such spiritual masters have a special energy of their own. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi

Only by being suspended aloft, by dangling my mind in the heavens and mingling my rare thought with the ethereal air, could I ever achieve strict scientific accuracy in my survey of the vast empyrean. Had I pursued my inquiries from down there on the ground, my data would be worthless. The earth, you see, pulls down the delicate essence of thought to its own gross level. ~ Aristophanes

Who built this tree of universe that has not stopped changing from the very minute (atomic) times undergoing many beautiful and wonderful changes; Who must eat fruits bearing from this tree? Why is that all are not eating these fruits equally without differences? What is the reason? Could someone like us plant another tree like that? Why not? The eternal that does not dry up but continues to give required fruits to the souls. This creator, is he in front of us or not? If not how does this work? Without doubt we all realize that work does not happen without a reason. Therefore, one who is giving us this variety of unlimited fruits without end in this tree of universe must be immensely powerful, with unlimited knowledge, unfathomable, have infinite empathy and having many other amazing qualities. His existence is documented in all vedas and puranas. Although he exists, the reason we are not able to witness, we have to admit is our deficiency in body, faculty and mind. Our ancestors called and praised him as "Paramatma and Sarveshvara." We have to resolve that we will practice sadhana to be able to see Paramatma and offer to Sarveshvara with great devotion our spiritual practices, without desire for any benefits. This is called Ishwarapranidhana. ~ Tirumalai Krishnamacharya

People in the world ask for forgiveness, but [true] 'pratikraman' does not happen by doing that. That is like when people casually say 'sorry' or 'thank you'. There is no significance in that; the significance is of 'alochana-pratikraman-pratyakhyan' (acknowledgement of the mistake, repentance and asking for forgiveness for the mistake, remorse and avowal not to repeat the mistake, respectively). ~ Dada Bhagwan

As long as there is worldly life, one is going to attain physical body, and as long as there is a body, there will be worldly miseries and troubles. ~ Dada Bhagwan

If necessary, they will even kill to escape the pain of their own spiritual growth. As the integrity of their sick self is threatened by the spiritual health of those around them, they will seek by all manner of means to crush and demolish the spiritual health that may exist near them. I define evil, then, as the exercise of ~ M. Scott Peck