Spiritual Sloth Quotes

With respect also to spiritual sloth, beginners are apt to be irked by the things that are most spiritual, from which they flee because these things are incompatible with sensible pleasure. For, as they are so much accustomed to sweetness in spiritual things, they are wearied by things in which they find no sweetness. If once they failed to find in prayer the satisfaction which their taste required (and after all it is well that God should take it from them to prove them), they would prefer not to return to it: sometimes they leave it; at other times they continue it unwillingly. And thus because of this sloth they abandon the way of perfection (which is the way of the negation of their will and pleasure for God's sake) for the pleasure and sweetness of their own will, which they aim at satisfying in this way rather than the will of God.

And many of these would have God will that which they themselves will, and are fretful at having to will that which He wills, and find it repugnant to accommodate their will to that of God. Hence it happens to them that oftentimes they think that that wherein they find not their own will and pleasure is not the will of God; and that, on the other hand, when they themselves find satisfaction, God is satisfied. Thus they measure God by themselves and not themselves by God, acting quite contrarily to that which He Himself taught in the Gospel, saying: That he who should lose his will for His sake, the same should gain it; and he who s ~ Juan De La Cruz

Spiritual sloth, or acedia, was known as The Sin of the Middle Ages. It's the sin of my middle age, too. ~ Mignon McLaughlin

The trouble with psychics is that they convince you that you get this future no matter what you do. It is as though you can cheat the universe out of your experiences, that you need only tweak something here or there to live happily ever after. It allows for spiritual sloth in the certainty of providence. ~ Thomm Quackenbush

Theistic absolutism and realism are the basic ontological principles of Kashmir Shaivism. In this philosophy everything that exists is real, and yet is spiritual as well, because everything is the manifestation of an absolute reality, described as pure, eternal, and infinite Consciousness. According to the ancient authors of this philosophy, the essential features of Consciousness are Its infinite, divine, and joyful vitality, and the inclination to manifest Its powers of creation, preservation, dissolution, obscuration, and revelation. The vibrant, creative quality is the divine essence of God. Consciousness is also described as luminous. It illuminates Itself and is always aware of Itself and everything within It.

The ancient masters refer in various ways to this One creative force out of which everything emerges. It is known most commonly as the Ultimate, Absolute Reality, Consciousness, Paramasiva, and God. Yet, according to Kashmir Shaivism, Paramasiva cannot be fully described or clearly thought over because, being infinite in nature, He cannot be confined to any thinking or speaking ability. No words can fully describe Him, no mind can correctly think about Him, and no understanding can perfectly understand Him. This is His absoluteness, and Kashmir Shaivism considers this absoluteness to be one of His key attributes. Because the Absolute cannot be fathomed with the intellect or through ordinary logical reasoning and philosophical speculation, the ancient ma ~ Balajinnatha Pandita

If you desire with all your heart, friendship with every race on earth, your thought, spiritual and positive, will spread; it will become the desire of others, growing stronger and stronger, until it reaches the minds of all men. ~ Abdu'l- Baha

You are doing better than you think you are. ~ Alan Cohen

Anything inside that immobilizes me, gets in my way, keeps me from my goals, is all mine. ~ Wayne Dyer

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (November 11 [O.S. October 30] 1821 – February 9 [O.S. January 28] 1881) is considered one of two greatest prose writers of Russian literature, alongside close contemporary Leo Tolstoy. Dostoevsky's works have had a profound and lasting effect on twentieth-century thought and world literature. Dostoevsky's chief ouevre, mainly novels, explore the human psychology in the disturbing political, social and spiritual context of his 19th-century Russian society. Considered by many as a founder or precursor of 20th-century existentialism, his Notes from Underground (1864), written in the anonymous, embittered voice of the Underground Man, is considered by Walter Kaufmann as the "best overture for existentialism ever written." Source: Wikipedia ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

When we learn to deal directly with our complaints and difficulties, romanticized ideas about the spiritual path are no longer meaningful. We see that what is important is to take responsibility for ourselves, and to always be aware of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. ~ Tarthang Tulku

Everyday life, everyday miracle. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

To be fully human is to fulfill our spiritual destiny. ~ Kabir Edmund Helminski

The use of drugs like mescaline may serve an appropriate purpose. Indeed, "Psychedelic" drugs have been widely used in the spiritual traditions of the world, including the Yoga of Patanjali, though they were never advertised as ultimate keys to enlightenment, merely as stepping-stones on the spiritual path. ~ Georg Feuerstein

Gratitude and love are always multiplied when you give freely. It is an infinite source of contentment and prosperous energy. ~ Jim Fargiano

The Beggar and the Monk - Paulo Coelho
A monk was meditating in the desert when a beggar came up to him and said:
"I need to eat".
The monk – who was almost reaching the point of perfect harmony with the spiritual world – did not answer.
"I need to eat", insisted the beggar.
"Go to the town and ask someone else. Can't you see that you are bothering me? I am trying to communicate with the angels".
"God placed himself lower than men, washed their feet, gave His life, and no-one recognized Him", the beggar replied. "He who says he loves God – who does not see – and forgets his brother – who does – is lying".
And the beggar turned into an angel.
"What a pity, you almost made it", he remarked before leaving. ~ Paulo Coelho

There are 3 levels of compatibility in intimate relationships that connect the most subtle realm of spirit to the most outer, dense form of body. There must be alignment in heart, through life view and spiritual intention; mind, through clear, open communication; and body, through physical chemistry. Compatibility on all 3 levels of heart, mind, and body is the ultimate love relationship, which everyone is seeking! ~ John Friend

7. The Law of Balance in Life. It is also the case with human affairs. Social positions high or low, occupations spiritual or temporal, work rough or gentle, education perfect or imperfect, circumstances needy or opulent, each has its own advantage as well as disadvantage. The higher the position the graver the responsibilities, the lower the rank the lighter the obligation. The director of a large bank can never be so careless as his errand-boy who may stop on the street to throw a stone at a sparrow; nor can the manager of a large plantation have as good a time on a rainy day as his day-labourers who spend it in gambling. The accumulation of wealth is always accompanied by its evils; no Rothschild nor Rockefeller can be happier than a poor pedlar. A mother of many children may be troubled by her noisy little ones and envy her sterile friend, who in turn may complain of her loneliness; but if they balance what they gain with what they lose, they will find the both sides are equal. ~ Kaiten Nukariya

There are no planes in the spiritual life; we are either going uphill or coming down. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

Some feelings are quite untranslatable; no language has yet been found for them. They gleam upon us beautifully through the dim twilight of fancy, and yet when we bring them close to us, and hold them up to the light of reason, lose their beauty all at once, as glow worms which gleam with such a spiritual light in the shadows of evening, when brought in where the candles are lighted, are found to be only worms like so many others. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

He just seems as cool as ever. I can smell him. Even on the other side, there is smell. Like, when babies are born, there's two smells-one is chicken soup, which is the flesh, and the other is lilacs, which is coming from the spiritual garden. The spirit has a lilac smell. ~ Carlos Santana

Half the spiritual difficulties that men and women suffer arise from a morbid state of health. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

For true liberation, the only war we need to win is the war between presence and ego. ~ John Maiorana (oohGiovanni)

The annals of official philosophy are populated by 'bureaucrats of pure reason' who speak in 'the shadow of the despot' and are in historical complicity with the State. They invent 'a properly spiritual…absolute State that… effectively functions in the mind.' Theirs is a discourse of sovereign judgment, of stable subjectivity legislated by 'good' sense, of rocklike identity, 'universal' truth, and (white male) justice. 'Thus the exercise of their thought is in conformity with the aims of the real State, with the dominant significations, and with the requirements of the established order. ~ Gilles Deleuze

Compassion dissolves ignorance. ~ Alaric Hutchinson

The science of the spirit and its relationship to the body in which it indwells is a complex conundrum. Life is not what it appears to be. Life is wholesome, and this unison of synergistic amalgamations persuade the common view that one thing is the other. But one thing is many things - at the one time - and this simple truth goes to the essence of all life with its manifold complexities. ~ Gabriel Brunsdon

God has said not to create any accounts (karmic). Create accounts (only) if you have the knowledge of the future. Hey! If you want to start an account, then why don't you account for the possibility that you may die tomorrow? ~ Dada Bhagwan

It is a self-evident truth that those who persist in spiritual disciplines grow in grace, and those who don't persist, don't grow. I have never met a mature believer who is not faithful in private devotions. Like the cumulative, compounding effect of military training, the daily work of prayer, Bible reading, and meditation will shape us more and more into the likeness of Christ. And when we are thinking in terms of contentment, this likeness is the mark we are after, because Christ remains the most content man who ever lived. ~ Erik Raymond

Spiritual formation is character formation. Everyone gets a spiritual formation. It's like education. Everyone gets an education; it's just a matter of which one you get. ~ Dallas Willard

Inner beauty magnifies outer beauty. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

We are recipients of God's choicest blessings. We enjoy an abundance of material things beyond that enjoyed by any other nation in the history of the world; but unless we keep alive a realization that all these blessings come from God and are a part of our great spiritual heritage, they may crumble as ashes in our hands. "In nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things and obey not his commandments." ~ Ezra Taft Benson

The heart, or will, simply is spirit in human beings. It is the human spirit, and the only thing in us that God will accept as the basis of our relationship to him. It is the spiritual plane of our natural existence, the place of truth before God, from where alone our whole lives can become eternal. ~ Dallas Willard

Please hold my hand for every balloon needs a string to stay grounded. ~ Wald Wassermann

I began to read for myself and realised that here was somebody who could teach me profound biblical theology, get inside my heart with his spiritual analysis, and help me to become a minister of the gospel, which is what I wanted to be. ~ Sinclair B. Ferguson

Such deluded persons, symptomatically, dwell in dualities of dishonor and honor, misery and happiness, woman and man, good and bad, pleasure and pain, etc., thinking, "This is my wife; this is my house; I am the master of this house; I am the husband of this wife." These are the dualities of delusion. Those who are so deluded by dualities are completely foolish and therefore cannot understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead. ~ A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Nevertheless, the Tenth Commandment-'Thou shalt not covet'-recognizes that making money and owning things could become selfish activities. But it is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but love of money for its own sake. The spiritual dimension comes in deciding what one does with the wealth. How could we respond to the many calls for help, or invest for the future, or support the wonderful artists or craftsmen whose work also glorifies God, unless we had first worked hard and used our talents to create the necessary wealth? ~ Margaret Thatcher

The language and the "people" of the unconscious are symbols, and the means of communications dreams.
Thus an examination of Man and his Symbols is in effect an examination of man's relation to his own unconscious. And since in Jung's view the unconscious is the great guide, friend, and adviser of the conscious, this book is related in the most direct terms to the study of human beings and their spiritual problems. ~ C. G. Jung

On the spiritual path we must become a gentle warrior--curious, kind, and alert to our own con games--whispering to ourselves, wake up. ~ Charlotte Kasl

Aligning yourself with spiritual ideals that are bigger than you brings true emotional stability. ~ Franklin Gillette

You gave me health that I might serve you; and so often I failed to use my good health in your service. Now you send me sickness in order to correct me Grant that, having ignored the things of spirit when my body was vigorous, I may now enjoy spiritual sweetness while my body groans with pain. ~ Blaise Pascal

Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity. ~ Thomas Merton

I'm not a religious or spiritual man. I am guided solely by my instincts, my gut. And they have led me to you. Without you, I have nothing to believe in. ~ Jessica Hawkins

We are all spiritual beings
and our calling is to
LOVE our neighbor,
STAND against injustice
and to show COMPASSION to ALL! ~ Timothy Pina

When you confer spiritual authority on another person, you must realize that you are allowing them to pick your pocket and sell you your own watch. How ~ Alan W. Watts

One thing we can know for sure is that when we are confessing our sin to God but not to the people around us in ordinary, nitty-gritty life, there is not much real spiritual transformation going on ~ Ruth Haley Barton

Throughout our lives, God's grace bestows temporal blessings and spiritual gifts that magnify our abilities and enrich our lives. His grace refines us. His grace helps us become our best selves. ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf