2017
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September 17, 2017
There will come a time when you believe
everything is finished.
That will be the beginning.
September 10, 2017
Now see that I, even I, am He,
And there is no god besides Me;
I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal;
Nor is there any who can deliver from My hand.
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 32:39
September 3, 2017
And God’s is the east and the west:
and wherever you turn, there is God’s countenance.
Behold, God is infinite, all-knowing.
August 27, 2017
If you cannot love each other,
you cannot achieve your goal.
Maharajji
Neem Karoli Baba
August 20, 2017
There must come a change!
August 13, 2017
Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to. It doesn’t so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven’t had that what have you had?
August 6, 2017
Birds don’t fly, they are flown;
Fish don’t swim, they are carried.
A Tibetan nun
in The Story of God with Morgan Freeman
on National
Geographic Channel
July 30, 2017
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it.
July 23, 2017
Reason cannot grasp the essential being of God which remains shrouded in mystery. All that we can establish is the fact that God does not resemble any other being. All the other questions that exercise theologians are simply frivolous … .
Commentary in A History of God
by Karen
Armstrong
July 16, 2017
I do not know if you have experimented with yourself. Take a piece of stick, put it on the mantelpiece, and every day put a flower in front of it — give it a flower — put in front of it a flower, and repeat some words — “Coca-Cola,” “Amen,” “OM”; it doesn't matter what word — any word you like — listen, don’t laugh it off — do it and you will find out. If you do it, after a month you will see how holy it has become. You have indentified yourself with that stick, with that piece of stone or with that piece of idea, and you have made it into something sacred, holy. But it is not.
J.
Krishnamurti
in The
Awakening of Intelligence
July 9, 2017
Sin is often a failure to bother to love.
Heard on NPR’s
“Morning Edition
July 8, 2017
July 2, 2017
It is very difficult to know exactly what good should come out of a particular situation. To attempt to manipulate circumstances so your idea of good can come about, is to let the ego play God — and that, as you know, can and does backfire.
June 25, 2017
I discovered for myself and by myself that there is no self to realize. That’s the realization I am talking about. It comes as a shattering blow. It hits you like a thunderbolt. You have invested everything in one basket, self-realization, and, in the end, suddenly you discover that there is no self to discover, no self to realize.
U.G.
Krishnamurti
in The
Mystique of Enlightenment
June 18, 2017
… the easiest person to fool is yourself.
US
Senator Al Franken
in New
York Times
June 11, 2017
Nothing in life is to be feared,
it is only to be understood.
June 4, 2017
Hadith: “Reflect upon God’s creation but not upon his nature or else you will perish.”
Author’s commentary: Reason cannot grasp the essential being of God which remains shrouded in mystery. All that we can establish is the fact that God does not resemble any other being. All the other questions that exercise theologians are simply frivolous and are dismissed by the Koran as zanna. [zanna is defined here as “An Arabic term used in the KORAN, indicating meaningless theological speculation”.]
A
History of God
by Karen
Armstrong
May 28, 2017
THE STATE OF THE UNION
In the middle of one night
Miss Clavel turned on the light
and said, “Something is not right!”
Lines from Madeline
in The
Washington Post
May 21, 2017
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.
May 14, 2017
Besides communion with God and communion with the earth, is there not also communion with God in and through the earth? I should like it to be so, for myself and for many others.
Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin
quoted in Teilhard
de Chardin & The Mystery of Christ
May 7, 2017
Well, I am a devotee of Occam’s razor, and
use it daily.
What is obviously so is probably obviously so.
Gore
Vidal
Occam’s Razor:
Plurality should not be
posited without necessity.
April 30, 2017
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived
it can,
only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its
stupidity.
April 23, 2017
In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
Commonly attributed to George Orwell
April 16, 2017
What is divine in Man is elusive and impalpable, and he is easily tempted to embody it in a collective form – a church, a country, a social system, a leader – so that he may realize it with less effort and serve it with more profit. Yet the attempt to externalize the kingdom of heaven in a temporal shape must end in disaster. It cannot be created by charters or constitutions, nor established by arms. Those who set out for it alone will reach it together, and those who seek it in company will perish by themselves.
Hugh Kingsmill
The
Poisoned Crown
quoted in Jesus
Rediscovered
by Malcolm Muggeridge
April 9, 2017
The feeling that we call “I” is itself
the product of thought.
Having an ego is what it feels like
to be thinking without knowing that you are thinking.
April 2, 2017
I know I can go to hell for what I did to you.
A guard at Guantanamo
Bay
to a detainee in “Guantanamo
Diary”
described by John Le Carre
as
“A vision of hell, beyond Orwell, beyond Kafka”
March 26, 2017
Everyone wishes to have truth on his
side,
but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.
March 19, 2017
Tolerably early in life I discovered that one of the unpardonable sins, in the eyes of most people, is for a man to presume to go about unlabeled. The world regards such a person as the police do an unmuzzled dog, not under proper control.
March 12, 2017
Riddle me this:
How is it that there is God
but there is not a God?
SCN
March 5, 2017
One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.
Robert A. Heinlein
in “Notebooks of Lazarus Long”
from Time
Enough for Love
February 26, 2017
[In the aftermath of the crucifixion of Jesus, first century Christians told of] … the journey to Emmaus undertaken by two Jesus followers, one named and clearly male, one unnamed and probably female. The couple were leaving Jerusalem in disappointed and dejected sorrow. Jesus joined them on the road and, unknown and unrecognized, explained how the Hebrew Scriptures should have prepared them for his fate. Later that evening they invited him to join them for their evening meal, and finally they recognized him when once again he served the meal to them as of old beside the lake. And then, only then, they started back to Jerusalem in high spirits. The symbolism is obvious, as is the metaphoric condensation of the first years of Christian thought and practice into one parabolic afternoon. Emmaus never happened. Emmaus always happens.
John
Dominic Crossan
in The
Historical Jesus
February 19, 2017
Liberation is never of the person,
it is always from the person.
Sri
Nisargadatta Maharaj
in I
Am That
February 12, 2017
Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams — they all
have different names, but they all contain water.
Just as religions do — they all contain truths.
Muhammad
Ali
in New
York Times
February 5, 2017
A man’s character is his fate.
January 29, 2017
I can’t hate. Hate destroys the hater, too.
That’s a heavy burden to carry.
Wheeler Parker, cousin of Emmett Till
in The
New York Times
January 22, 2017
The measure of the greatness of a society is found in the way it treats those most in need, those who have nothing apart from their poverty.
Pope
Francis
in Caring
for Creation
January 15, 2017
The way that can be spoken of
Is not the constant way;
The name that can be named
Is not the constant name.
The nameless was the beginning of heaven and earth;
The named was the mother of the myriad creatures.
Hence always rid yourself of desires
in order to observe its secrets;
But always allow yourself to have desires
in order to observe its manifestations.
These two are the same
But diverge in name as they issue forth.
Being the same they are called mysteries,
Mystery upon mystery —
The gateway of the manifold secrets.
Tao Te Ching
(Wang Pi text)
in Chinese
Classics–Tao Te Ching
(emphasis mine)
January 8, 2017
I have spent thirty years looking for
Al-Bastami,
and have yet to find him.
Al-Bastami
quoted in The
Other Islam by Stephen Schwartz
January 1, 2017
Here’s a thought for this first
day of this new year:
Is
religious terrorism religious?
Is
Buddhist terrorism Buddhist?
Is
Christian terrorism Christian?
Is
Hindu terrorism Hindu?
Is
Islamic terrorism Islamic?
Is
Jewish terrorism Jewish?
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