Spiritual Transformation Quotes

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good. ~ Matthew Parris

The yoga we practice is not for ourselves alone, but for the Divine; its aim is to work out the will of the Divine in the world, to effect a spiritual transformation and to bring down a divine nature and a divine life into the mental, vital and physical nature and life of humanity. Its object is not personal Mukti, although Mukti is a necessary condition of the yoga, but the liberation and transformation of the human being. It is not personal Ananda, but the bringing down of the divine Ananda - Christ's kingdom of heaven, our Satyayuga - upon the earth. ~ Sri Aurobindo

Serious spiritual practice is more than serene walks in the woods, lit candles and incense.

You have to be committed.

You have to be willing to enter into your own darkness and transcend it. ~ Maria Erving

The left-hand path adept seeks to liberate him/herself from passive subjection to the illusory nature of Maya, thus freeing the consciousness from the binds of self-created delusion. ~ Zeena Schreck

I spent most of my time floating on an inflatable raft in the pristine Mediterranean waters, my big belly curving toward the sun, reading (incongruously) The Autobiography of Malcolm X. It rocked me to my core. Malcolm's story opened a window onto a reality I had ignored. But the greatest revelation the book brought me was the possibility of profound human transformation. I was spellbound by his journey from the doped-up, numbers-running, woman-beating, street-hustling, pimping Malcolm Little to a proud, clean, literate, Muslim Malcolm X who taught that all white people were the Devil incarnate - to his final, spiritual transformation in Mecca. There he met white people from all over the world who received him as a brother, and he realized that "white," as he had been using the word, didn't mean skin color as much as it meant attitudes and actions some whites held toward non-whites - but that not all whites were racist. At the time of his murder, he was anything but the hatemonger portrayed in the American press. Somehow, through the horrors that had been his life, he had become a spiritual leader. How had this been possible? ~ Jane Fonda

Your desire for more of God than you have right now, your longing for love, your need for deeper levels of spiritual transformation than you have experienced so far is the truest thing about you. You might think that your woundedness or your sinfulness is the truest thing about you or that your giftedness or your personality type or your job title or your identity as husband or wife, mother or father, somehow defines you. But, in reality, it is your desire for God and your capacity to reach for more of God than you have right now that is the deepest essence of who you are. ~ Ruth Haley Barton

Taking the time to meditate is as important as taking the time to breathe. One pumps oxygen into the body, the other pumps peace into the mind. ~ Marianne Williamson

Nervous breakdowns can be highly underrated methods of spiritual transformation. ~ Marianne Williamson

Nostalgia is an illness
for those who haven't realized
that today
is tomorrow's nostalgia. ~ Zeena Schreck

Divine power transforms us, to be the better person, we ought to be. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Have no fear. Trust in the vibrational currents of your life. ~ Alaric Hutchinson

Very often in our culture, you are treated as though you have little spiritual capacity, as though you have no inherent power, and that people 'in the know' have to always liquidize your food in order for you to grow. But it is important that the true seeker understands that they must be open enough to be deeply challenged to awaken the living aspiration necessary for true freedom. To be free you are going to have to break out of the mold of personal conditioning, out of your cocoon. Each sincere seeker must be willing to undergo the necessary transformation from caterpillar consciousness to the butterfly of freedom! ~ Mooji

After you've seen behind the facade of a stage set you can't take the play seriously any more. You can't go backwards and regain your ignorance; you have to move forward. ~ Zeena Schreck

Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It's a journey of discovery - there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair. ~ Rick Warren

Reading the Bible for spiritual transformation is not a one-sided endeavor: it is a dialogue of human spirit and Holy Spirit. ~ Richard J. Foster

The Bible was not given for our information but for our transformation. ~ D.L. Moody

Spiritual transformation into Christ-likeness in not going to happen unless we act ... What transforms us is the will to obey Jesus Christ. ~ Dallas Willard

The amount of time you spend interceding for others is a testimony to the love you have for them. ~ Bobby Gene Redding

Did Christ finish His work for us? Then there can be no doubt but He will also finish His work in us. ~ John Flavel

Our spiritual traditions have carried virtues across time. They are tools for the art of living. They are pieces of intelligence about human behavior that neuroscience is now exploring with new words and images: what we practice, we become. What's true of playing the piano or throwing a ball also holds for our capacity to move through the world mindlessly and destructively or generously and gracefully. I've come to think of virtues and rituals as spiritual technologies for being our best selves in flesh and blood, time and space. There are superstar virtues that come most readily to mind and can be the work of a day or a lifetime - love, compassion, forgiveness. And there are gentle shifts of mind and habit that make those possible, working patiently through the raw materials of our lives. ~ Krista Tippett

Changing is not just changing the things outside of us. First of all we need the right view that transcends all notions including of being and non-being, creator and creature, mind and spirit. That kind of insight is crucial for transformation and healing. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I have come to the conclusion that human beings are born with an innate capacity to triumph over trauma. I believe not only that trauma is curable, but that the healing process can be a catalyst for profound awakening - a portal opening to emotional and genuine spiritual transformation. I have little doubt that as individuals, families, communities, and even nations, we have the capacity to learn how to heal and prevent much of the damage done by trauma. In so doing, we will significantly increase our ability to achieve both our individual and collective dreams. ~ Peter A. Levine

You can't have a physical transformation until you have a spiritual transformation. ~ Cory Booker

You've got to admit you're broken before you can be made whole. ~ LeCrae

The Arab conquest was not only a matter of military domination. It was not like the Mongol invasion. The Mongols invaded Iran, but Iran did not become Shamanist or Buddhist. Some people say that the Arab invasion was just a military conquest, but this is not so. Rather, it was accompanied by a profound spiritual transformation that took place wherever Muslims went and settled down. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr

By opening our lives to God in Christ, we become new creatures. This experience, which Jesus spoke of as the new birth, is essential if we are to be transformed nonconformists ... Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

We all have vices, visible and invisible. Some we deliberately keep secret. Others we don't even realize or we refuse to admit we have ... Vices can be lots of fun, or they can turn your life into a living hell. Accept them for what they are, just another aspect of the mind's creation, and you can enjoy them - if you choose - without being broken by them.
- Zeena Schreck for VICE Magazine ~ Zeena Schreck

Enlightenment doesn't mean we were never wounded; it means we've found a way to evolve beyond our wounds. Enlightenment isn't idealistic; it's practical. What's idealistic is thinking we can live from our wounds, stay in our weakness, and ever transform the world. ~ Marianne Williamson

Often on a journey of spiritual transformation, that is ultimately what heals the pain: the veil is removed from in front of our own eyes and we see where we had been thinking thoughts that would inevitably lead to pain. Until we change those thoughts, the pain will remain. ~ Marianne Williamson

I wanted to write something that was very entertaining to read. The hardest part of this novel [The Yoga of Max's Discontent] was how to make a deeply spiritual transformation journey page-turning and adventurous. That was the hardest part to crack for me. ~ Karan Bajaj

The prescription for spiritual transformation has often been too individualistically oriented. We are encouraged to engage in spiritual disciplines so that we might have the power to do what we can't do by will power alone. But what happens when people don't have the "will power" to engage spiritual disciples on a consistent basis? Our character is left untended. "In a wild world like ours, your character, left untended, will become a stale room, an obnoxious child, a vacant lot filled with thorns, weeds, broken bottles, raggedy grocery bags, and dog droppings. Your deepest channels will silt in, and you will feel yourself shallowing. You'll become a presence neither you nor others will enjoy, and you and they will spend more and more time and energy trying to be anywhere else."[1] So what are we to do? ~ J.R. Woodward

Vegetarianism preserves live, health, peace, the ecology, creates a more equitable distribution of resources, helps to feed the hungry, encourages nonviolence for the animal and human members of the planet, and is a powerful aid for the spiritual transformation of the body, emotions, mind, and spirit. ~ Gabriel Cousens

For a true spiritual transformation to flourish, we must see beyond this tendency to mental self-flagellation. Spirituality based on self-hatred can never sustain itself. Generosity coming from self-hatred becomes martyrdom. Morality born of self-hatred becomes rigid repression. Love for others without the foundation of love for ourselves becomes a loss of boundaries, codependency, and a painful and fruitless search for intimacy. But when we contact, through meditation, our true nature, we can allow others to also find theirs. ~ Sharon Salzberg

... I believe there needs to be a striving to find the pure, unadulterated root of the great truths taught by the wisdom bringers, and an understanding of the principles of the Religion of the Sun, which gave rise to times of great peace, high art and literature, and a profound understanding of reality, perennial wisdom, advances in civilization and most importantly of all, the spiritual transformation of the individual. It is when these principles are lost that civilization falls into decay, and it can't hope to regain any of its former glory, without understanding and adhering to them. ~ Lara Atwood

It's important to recognize that forgiveness is more than mere words; it's a heart attitude that induces a spiritual transformation. ~ Victoria Osteen

Our whole spiritual transformation brings us to the point where we realize that in our own being, we are enough. ~ Ram Dass

The flowers of your qualities will reveal your true nature. If you have the fragrance of God, you will have the fragrance of an insan kamil, a perfected man. There will be light in your face, beauty in your heart, and sweetness in your speech. (p. 399) ~ M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

Sufis Know the Secrets of Love
"Longing takes us back to God, takes the lover back into the arms of the Beloved. This is the ancient path of the mystic, of those who are destined to make the journey to the further shores of love. Why we are called to this quest is always a mystery, for the ways of the heart cannot be understood by the mind. Love always draws us back to love, and longing is the fire that purifies us. Sufis know the secrets of love, of the way love takes and transforms us. They are the people of love who have kept alive the mysteries of divine loving, of what is hidden within the depths of the human being. ~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

The great benefit of science is that it can contribute tremendously to the alleviation of suffering at the physical level, but it is only through the cultivation of the qualities of the human heart and the transformation of our attitudes that we can begin to address and overcome our mental suffering ~ Dalai Lama

I try to write the books I would love to come upon, that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, wonder, craziness- and that can make me laugh. When I am reading a book like this, I feel rich and profoundly relieved to be in the presence of someone who will share the truth with me, and throw the lights on a little, and I try to write these kind of books. Books, for me, are medicine. ~ Anne Lamott

He suddenly understood the message of so many spiritual teachers that the only revolution that can work is the inner transformation of every human being. ~ Stanislav Grof

We are living in a very exciting and powerful time. On the deepest level of consciousness, a radical spiritual transformation is taking place. I believe that on a worldwide level, we are being challenged to let go of our present way of life and create an entirely new one. We are, in fact, in the process of destroying our old world and building a new one in its place. ~ Shakti Gawain

Zazen doesn't give you something - it's the complete opposite! ~ Dainin Katagiri

Our souls cannot be forced to grow, but like flowers, our spiritual selves can be nurtured until they blossom and flourish. ~ James Van Praagh

Everydayness perfumes the depth of life, the huge ocean where all are interconnected, and makes your life mature. Then a new life arises from the depth and appears on the surface. So, by taking care of everydayness, you don't make just the surface mature; you also make the depth of your life mature. ~ Dainin Katagiri

To seek Truth is automatically a calling for the innate dissident and the subversive; how
many are willing to give up safety and security for the perilous life of the spiritual revolutionary? How
many are willing to truly learn that their own cherished concepts are wrong? Striking provocative or
mysterious poses in the safety of Internet [social media] is far easier than taking the risks involved in
the hard work of genuine initiation. ~ Zeena Schreck

The other day, someone visited me and asked, 'I wish to practice zazen under your guidance. But because I live far away, I can't come to Antaiji very often. I'd like to practice zazen at home. What should I keep in mind to avoid doing zazen in a mistaken way?' I responded, 'If your wife and children say, "Daddy has become nicer since he began to do zazen," then your practice is on the right track.'

Roshi, Kosho Uchiyama. Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo (Kindle Locations 2519-2523). Wisdom Publications. Kindle Edition. ~ Kosho Uchiyama

As we begin to transform, illness and pain can also be seen as a "messenger" for spiritual growth. What does this illness mean? What can I learn from this? Why is the occurring in my life ~ Teresa DeCicco

Program your mind with what God says about you and a transformation will take place. ~ Joel Osteen

When people are facing a severe illness or a major surgery, that may be one of the most significant opportunities for spiritual transformation that they will encounter. ~ Allan Hamilton

On the journey of spiritual transformation, you want to lose your baggage. In fact, you want to make sure all of it is lost, so that when you reach the end of this road, you have nothing left to cover your Self up with. ~ Derek Rydall

Beware of harking back to what you once were when God wants you to be something you have never been. ~ Oswald Chambers

This vision is always available to us; it doesn't matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn't matter if the room has been dark for a day, or a week, or ten thousand years - we turn on the light and it is illumined. Once we contact our capacity for love and happiness - the good - the light has been turned on. Practicing the brahma-viharas is a way of turning on the light and then tending it. It is a process of deep spiritual transformation. ~ Sharon Salzberg

When I enter into nirvikalpa samadhi, most can see this light, or feel it. This light creates very powerful, steady spiritual transformation. The reason you are here is to sit in this light. ~ Frederick Lenz

Sporadic and shallow dipping in the doctrine of Christ and partial participation in His restored Church cannot produce the spiritual transformation that enables us to walk in a newness of life. Rather, fidelity to covenants, constancy of commitment, and offering our whole soul unto God are required if we are to receive the blessings of eternity. ~ David A. Bednar

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

Two great appetites of the soul - the urge to independence and self-determination and the urge to self-transcendence - were fused with, and interpreted in the light of, a third - the urge to worship ~ Aldous Huxley

If yoga is about life, this means ALL life, not just part of it. Together, the spiritual and the material constitute the whole you, the whole of the experience of being human, and the nature of the universe in which you live. There may be no step more important to achieving ultimate fulfillment than accepting what the Vedas teach us about desires
that some desires are inpsired by your soul. ~ Rod Stryker

Many become popular because they speak and write with a reductionist style that brings the complex and disturbing down into canned formulas of what spiritual growth is supposedly all about. Dozens of such New Age authors could bring their works together into one large volume entitled, "How To Become Aware of the Depths of Your Being Without Disturbing the Routine of Your Comfortable Lifestyle. ~ Lew Paz

We are our ancestors. The spiritual umbilicus is apparent to all. The dead look upon us with the pure love of a mother's gaze. But the dead love is even more because of our flawed flesh and eternal confusion. The removal from form allows for total and complete unconditional love. We carry our dead with us like helium balloons. There is no breaking the umbilicus. ~ Tanya Tagaq

Opinions are like hearts. Everyone has one, but they are not ALL healthy. ~ Lakesha Ruise

He had lived (without being aware of it) on those spiritual truths that he had sucked in with his mother's milk, but he had thought, not merely without recognition of these truths, but studiously ignoring them. ~ Leo Tolstoy

But now I want to say things that comfort me and that are a little free. For example: Thursdat is a day transparent as an insect's wing in the light. Just as Monday is a compact day. Ultimately, far beyond thought, I live from these ideas, if ideas is what they are. They are sensations that transform into ideas because I must use words. Even just using them mentally. The primary thought thinks with words. ~ Clarice Lispector

Pain is the mind. It's the thoughts of the mind. Then I get rid of the thoughts, and I get in my witness, which is down in my spiritual heart. The witness that witnesses being. Then those particular thoughts that are painful - love them. I love them to death! ~ Ram Dass

- Why do you think I am special?
- If I would answer you, you will be no more. ~ Cristian Peter Marinescu-Ivan

One's fate, obviously, will either be for the better or for the worse, depending on the choices made by the spiritual will. ~ David R. Hawkins

In Bangladesh alone, tens of millions are expected to have to flee from low-lying plains in coming years because of sea level rise and more severe weather, creating a migrant crisis that will make today's pale in significance. With considerable justice, Bangladesh's leading climate scientist says that "These migrants should have the right to move to the countries from which all these greenhouse gases are coming. Millions should be able to go to the United States." And to the other rich countries that have grown wealthy while bringing about a new geological era, the Anthropocene, marked by radical human transformation of the environment. ~ Chomsky Noam

The suggestion that petroleum might have arisen from some transformation of squashed fish or biological detritus is surely the silliest notion to have been entertained by substantial numbers of persons over an extended period of time. ~ Fred Hoyle

So, from generation to generation, the spiritual church is rising upwards toward its perfection; and, though one after another the workmen pass away, the fabric remains, and the great Master-builder carries on the undertaking. Be it ours to build in our portion in a solid and substantial manner, so that they who come after us may be at once thankful for our thoroughness, and inspired by our example. ~ William Mackergo Taylor

You are meant to think before you speak. How many times is your heart involved in what you are doing? Every act should be a spiritual one involving your total being - soul, mind and body - done for the sake of the doing, given for the sake of the giving, worked for the sake of the working, not for the sake of what you can get out of it. The more you do this, uniting all the aspects of your being, the more you will create harmony, balance and peace. ~ Jack Schwarz

Too many of us dissipate our energy by being 'for all good causes,' attending meetings and passing resolutions, organizing and presenting petitions - all this effort to change others, when if we really got down to it we could use this energy to change ourselves ... We become tired radicals because we use our weakest weapon: the ballot box, where we are always outnumbered, and refuse to use our strongest weapon: spiritual power. ~ Ammon Hennacy

Conquer the angry man by love. ~ Gautama Buddha

God descends to earth like fresh spring rain, and at every level his grace is received differently. For some it feels like love, for others like salvation. It feels like safety and warmth at one level, like coming home at another. ~ Deepak Chopra

Be you. You are a holy-self. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

It's like in eco-economics where what you take from the system has to be balanced by what you give in to it, balanced or exceeded to create that anti-entropic surge which characterizes all creative life and especially this step across to a new world, this place that is neither nature nor culture, transformation of a planet into a world and then a home. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

The Spirit is neither good nor bad, it runs where the wild heart leads" "Wisdom begins in wonder. ~ Socrates

Man is comprised of an organism, which is to say an organised form, and of vital forces, as well as a soul. The same may be said of a people. The national construction of a state, while taking account of all three elements, for various reasons of qualification and heredity can nevertheless be chiefly based upon a single one of these elements.

In my opinion, in the Fascist movement it is the state element that prevails, coinciding with organised force. What finds expression here is the shaping power of ancient Rome, that master of law and political organisation, the purest heirs to which are the Italians. National Socialism emphasises what is connected to vital forces: race, racial instinct, and the ethical and national element. The Romanian Legionary movement instead chiefly stresses what in a living organism corresponds to the soul: the spiritual and religious aspect.

This is the reason for the distinctive character of each national movement, although ultimately all three elements are taken into account, and none is overlooked. The specific character of our movement derives from our distant heritage. Already Herodotus called our forefathers "the immortal Dacians". Our Geto-Thracian ancestors, even before Christianity, already had faith in the immortality and indestructibility of the soul – something which proves their spiritual drive. Roman colonisation introduced the Roman sense of organisation and form. Later centuries made our people miserable and di ~ Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

The uncompromising example of Jesus Christ places upon every Christian minister the responsibility to withstand the temptation to align oneself with the secular ruling powers. It is true that it is part of every minister's calling to be a pastor to his or her parishioners, to be a spiritual leader and teacher and a comforter of the sick at heart and those afflicted in mind, soul, spirit, or body. Ministers of the Gospel must comfort the afflicted, but they also have the prophet's duty to afflict the comfortable. ~ Obery M. Hendricks Jr.

As China is about adaptation, not transformation, it is unlikely to change the world dramatically should it ever assume the global driver's seat. But this does not mean that China won't exploit that world for its own purposes. ~ Ivan Krastev

Spiritual life is not dry, it is also exceuted happily, 'susukham'. The result of that is not just happiness, but bliss, spiritual joy. ~ Bhakti Charu Swami

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

When one is confirmed in celibacy, spiritual vigor is gained. ~ Patanjali

A great Awakening has begun. People around the world are opening their eyes to their own spiritual natures. They are beginning to see who they truly are and what they have always been-beings with an eternal past and a glorious future. ~ Betty Eadie

The Monk in the Kitchen



I

ORDER is a lovely thing;
On disarray it lays its wing,
Teaching simplicity to sing.
It has a meek and lowly grace,
Quiet as a nun's face.
Lo - I will have thee in this place!
Tranquil well of deep delight,
All things that shine through thee appear
As stones through water, sweetly clear.
Thou clarity,
That with angelic charity
Revealest beauty where thou art,
Spread thyself like a clean pool.
Then all the things that in thee are,
Shall seem more spiritual and fair,

Reflection from serener air -
Sunken shapes of many a star
In the high heavens set afar.


II

Ye stolid, homely, visible things,
Above you all brood glorious wings
Of your deep entities, set high,
Like slow moons in a hidden sky.
But you, their likenesses, are spent
Upon another element.
Truly ye are but seemings -
The shadowy cast-oft gleamings
Of bright solidities. Ye seem
Soft as water, vague as dream;
Image, cast in a shifting stream.


III

What are ye?
I know not.
Brazen pan and iron pot,
Yellow brick and gray flag-stone
That my feet have trod upon -
Ye seem to me
Vessels of bright mystery.
For ye do bear a shape, and so
Though ye were made by man, I know
An inner Spirit al ~ Anna Hempstead Branch

The divine is not something high above us. It is in heaven, it is in earth, it is inside us ~ Morihei Ueshiba

The test in spiritual fires is the strength of faith. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

No questions, no excuses, none of this who-am-I, what-am-I, where-am-I crap, not a grain of self-mistrust or the slightest impulse toward spiritual distinction; rather, like so many of his generation out of Newark's old Jewish slums, a man who breathed the spirit of opposition while remaining completely in accord with the ways and means of the earth. Back when ~ Philip Roth