more quotes, quotations and nice thoughts on spirit

The spirit is an inward flame;
a lamp the world blows upon
but never puts out.

Margot Asquith

The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments. Abraham Heschel

There is one spectacle grander than the sea, That is the sky; There is one spectacle grander than the sky, That is the interior of the soul. Victor Hugo

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes. Alan Watts Why do you hasten to remove anything which hurts your eye, while if something affects your soul you postpone the cure until next year? Horace

Sometimes people get the mistaken notion that spirituality is a separate department of life, the penthouse of our existence. But rightly understood, it is a vital awareness that pervades all realms of our being. Someone will say, "I come alive when I listen to music," or "I come to life when I garden," or "I come alive when I play golf." Wherever we come alive, that is the area in which we are spiritual. And then we can say, "I know at least how one is spiritual in that area." To be vital, awake, aware, in all areas of our lives, is the task that is never accomplished, but it remains the goal. David Steindl-Rast

When we expand our awareness, strengthen our center, clarify our
purpose, transform our inner demons, develop our will and
make conscious choices, we are moving toward
deeper connection with our spiritual self.

Molly Young Brown

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Real spirituality is not up in the clouds--it is down on earth,
here and now. Deep spirituality is seeing God every day in the common
things, and showing God your appreciation by doing common tasks.

Fred Van Amburgh

Do not go looking for problems to feed your soul. Just let life be your
teacher. It will nourish you with its inevitable difficulties. How will you
know whether you are letting life teach you and nourish you? If your
physical senses become more sensitive to the beauty you see, the words
of love you hear, and the life you feel touching your body and soul, then
you know you have discovered the great value of misfortune.

Bernie Siegel

Our rushing and our busyness create a fog layer that encloses us,
surrounding us with thicker and thicker layers externally and building
denser and denser fog layers within. Pretty soon, we have lost
touch with that which guides our lives. We need contact with
our spirituality to be the people we would like to be.

Anne Wilson Schaef

You are all spirits. It is not that you "have" a spirit. To have a spirit implies
that you are spirit and that you are also something else. Human beings
are spirits. Being a human being is one of the ways of being a spirit.

Da Free John
The Fire Gospel

The essence of who I am--my spiritual identity--never changes.
I am wise, healthy, flexible, and free through the spirit
of God within me. I do not have to conform to trends and
fads--not the real person who I am. And the real me never
shrinks from learning new things. An awareness of my spirituality
is such a confidence booster that I live and learn while
remaining ever true to my spiritual identity.
The real me is a free, spiritual being!

unattributed

Spiritual beings do not sweat life's small stuff. They also
know that most of what drives us crazy in life is small stuff.
The only thing that isn't small stuff is the reason you're on
earth in the first place: to find that portion of the world's lost
heart that only you can ransom with your love and authentic
gifts and then return it, so that all of us can experience Wholeness.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

Spirit, and enlightenment, has to be something that you are fully aware of right now.
Something you are already looking at right now. As I was receiving these teachings,
I thought of the old puzzles in the Sunday supplement section of the newspaper,
where there is a landscape and the caption says, "The faces of twenty famous
people are hidden in this landscape. Can you spot them?" The faces were maybe
Walter Cronkite, John Kennedy, that kind of thing. The point is that you are
looking right at the faces. You don't need to see anything more in order to be
looking at the faces. They are completely entering your visual field already, you
just don't recognize them. If you still can't find them, then somebody comes along
and simply points them out. It's the same way with Spirit, I thought.
We are all already looking directly at Spirit, we just don't recognize it.
We have all the necessary cognition, but not the recognition.

Ken Wilber

But if we are to expand our souls, we need to pay attention
to the life all around us--the people and things and light and
dark and wind and sun. If you believe that you have a soul,
it's probably more important for us to focus on developing
our souls--which are immortal--than it is for us to gather
more information and develop our brains. A balance would
be nice, but most of us don't work at all on our souls,
except for an occasional prayer or book on a religious topic.
Much of our work on our souls can be accomplished by
working on our abilities to listen--not just hear, to see and
understand--not just see, to feel in our depths--not just feel.

tom walsh

At some point, sometimes in our twenties, sometimes our thirties, most
often the forties. . . we begin at last to let the soul lead. The power shifts
away from brickabrack and frick-frack to soulfulness. And though the
soul does not assume the lead by killing off the ego, the ego is demoted,
one might say, and given a different assignment in the psyche,
which is essentially to submit to the concerns of the soul.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

When you do things from your soul you feel a river
moving in you, a joy. When action come from
another section, the feeling disappears.

Jalal ad-Din Rumi

spirit

One certainly has a soul; but how it came to allow itself to be
enclosed in a body is more than I can imagine. I only know
if once mine gets out, I'll have a bit of a tussle before
I let it get in again to that of any other.

Lord Byron

A spiritual retreat is medicine for soul starvation. Through
silence, solitary practice, and simple living, we begin to fill
the empty reservoir. This lifts the veils, dissolves the masks,
and creates space within for the feelings of forgiveness,
compassion, and loving kindness that are so often blocked.

David A. Cooper

Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met
the soul walking upon my path." For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

Khalil Gibran

One of them asked Rabbi Scheersohn starkly, "What are you good for?"
And the Rabbi said, "I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking
about what my Master was for me. He was for me the
geologist of the soul. There are great treasures in the soul:
there's faith, there's love, there's awe, there's wisdom,
all these treasures you can dig, but if you don't know
where to dig, you dig up mud.
But if you want to get to the gold, which is the awe before God,
and the silver, which is the love, and the diamonds, which are
the faith, then you have to find the geologist of the soul who tells
you where to dig. . . . but the digging you have to do yourself."

Rodger Kamenetz

God sees the inner spirit stripped of flesh, skin, and all debris. For
his own mind only touches the spirit that he has allowed to flow
from himself into our bodies.
And if you can act the same way, you will rid yourself of all suffering.
For surely if you are not preoccupied with the body that encloses you,
you will not trouble yourself about clothes, houses, fame,
and other showy trappings.

Marcus Aurelius

We may speak of love and humility as the true flowers
of spiritual growth; and they give off a wonderful scent,
which benefits all those who come near.

Teresa of Avila

My spiritual life is not something specialised and intense; a fenced-off
devotional patch rather difficult to cultivate, and needing to be sheltered
from the cold winds of the outer world. Nor is it an alternative to my
outward, practical life. On the contrary, it is the very source of that
quality and purpose which makes my practical life worth while.
Many people seem to think that the spiritual
life necessarily requires a definite and exacting plan of study; it
does not. But it does require a definite plan of life; and courage
in sticking to the plan, not merely for days or weeks, but for years. . . .
This is something which cannot be hurried; but, unless we take it seriously,
can be infinitely delayed. Many people suggest by their behaviour that
God is of far less importance than their bath, morning paper, or early cup of tea.

Evelyn Underhill
The Spiritual Life

I believe the appearance that we're separate from God leads us
to think that we can control our life. In truth, because our life is
the life of God, It can manage itself. But we resist letting God
manifest through us because some part of us wants to stay the
same. Rather than change ourselves, we want to change the world
and other people. But spiritual growth is just the opposite. It's
about letting go of opinion, false thought, and erroneous
perceptions so this other dimension can emerge.

Michael Beckwith

The spiritual life does not remove us from the world
but leads us deeper into it.

Henri Nouwen

Articles and book excerpts on spirit:

Pruning a Tree      Bernie Siegel
Depression Is a Spiritual Issue      Frederick Zappone
Edmund Pollard      Edgar Lee Masters
Money and Spirituality      Asoka Selvarajah
Top Ten Principles to Live by--Plus One!      Louise Morganti Kaelin

Spirituality is a flower with a thousand petals: every act, every thought,
every talk, every movement of our heart is a part of it.

Robert Muller

I've found that what's true in nature is true for all humans in
understanding ourselves. Just as the blossoms on a fruit tree
fall away as the fruit grows, so does our need for a bouquet
of rationalizations vanish as the Divine produces the authentic
self. The more we allow ourselves to be guided by the principals
that identify us as spiritual, the less we have any desire or
inclination to use excuses. As Carl Jung put it: "Our most
important problems cannot be solved; they must be outgrown."

Wayne Dyer

There are numerous sidetracks which lead to a distorted ego-centered
version of spirituality; we can deceive ourselves into thinking we
are developing spiritually when instead we are strengthening
our egocentricity through spiritual techniques.

Chogyam Trungpa

We stumble and fall constantly, even when we are most enlightened. But when
we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen.

Thomas Merton

I am learning to follow the spirit within me, wherever it wants to take
me. Every time I check in, feeling the energy inside me and letting it
direct me, I find this a wonderful way to live. When I do this, I
experience joy, power, love, peace, and excitement.

Shakti Gawain

We are essentially spiritual beings. Our world is essentially a spiritual
world, and the underlying controlling forces may be identified as spiritual
laws. When we "fall in love" with this spiritual essence or establish our
spiritual unity with it, when we begin to recognize that this is a good
world and that the people in it have innate goodness within, then perhaps
we may be seeing with the "eyes of spirit." We can see goodness in all
people, and we can draw goodness from them.

John Marks Templeton
Worldwide Laws of Life

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The future requires openness to all spiritual knowledge. You may prefer one religion, but there are many paths to the center and we need all the help we can get.

People who believe there is only one path limit themselves. They find safety in spiritual rigidity. They memorize phrases and mindlessly repeat them, confusing faith with obedience. They threaten damnation, they hurl insults in the name of God. They cannot feel the love of the prophets they quote. They preach limits in the realm of the unlimited.

The message of the spirit throughout the world is the same. It is a message of love, tolerance, compassion, respect, optimism, and a profound understanding of the meaning of community.

Jennifer James
Success Is the Quality of Your Journey

For the journey of spiritual growth requires courage and initiative and
independence of thought and action. While the words of the prophets
and the assistance of grace are available, the journey still must be traveled
alone. No teacher can carry you there. There are no preset formulas.
Rituals are only learning aids, they are not the learning. Eating organic
food, saying five Hail Marys before breakfast, praying facing east or
west, or going to church on Sunday will not take you to your destination.
No words can be said, no teaching can be taught that will relieve
spiritual travelers from the necessity of picking their own ways, working
out with effort and anxiety their own paths through the unique circumstances
of their own lives toward the identification of their individual selves with God.

M. Scott Peck

You become spiritually rich when you discover the riches
of the kingdom within: when you have a consciousness of
the oneness of all life; when you experience kinship with nature;
when you are open to the buoyant spiritual lift of being in tune
with the Infinite; when you know the power of meditation and prayer.

Wilferd A. Peterson

If we want to support each other's inner lives, we must remember
a simple truth: the human soul does not want to be fixed, it wants
simply to be seen and heard. If we want to see and hear a person's
soul, there is another truth we must remember: the soul is like a
wild animal--tough, resilient, and yet shy. When we go crashing
through the woods shouting for it to come out so we can help it,
the soul will stay in hiding. But if we are willing to sit quietly and
wait for a while, the soul may show itself.

Parker J. Palmer
The Courage to Teach

spirit

Most of the people I know who have what I want--which is to say,
purpose, heart, balance, gratitude, joy--are people with a deep sense
of spirituality. . . . They follow a brighter light than the glimmer of their
own candle; they are part of something beautiful. I saw something
once. . . that said, "A human life is like a single letter of the alphabet.
It can be meaningless. Or it can be a part of a great meaning."

Anne Lamott
Traveling Mercies

Living in a society that undervalues the spirit, we who embrace it are tempted
to apologize for our interest. We must stop apologizing, for no subject is more
important. It is, after all, love's retrieval. It is the answer to global hatred. To
invalidate the spiritual life is to shoot at the fireman who is putting out the fire.

Marianne Williamson
Illuminata

If we have not developed a reservoir of spiritual wealth, no amount of money
is likely to make us happy. Spiritual wealth provides faith. It gives us love.
It brings and expands wisdom. Spiritual wealth leads to happiness
because it guides us into useful or loving relationships.

John Marks Templeton
Worldwide Laws of Life

This is the real gift: we have been given the breath of life, designed with a
unique, one-of-a-kind soul that exists forever--whether we live it as a burden
or a joy or with indifference doesn't change the fact that we've been
given the gift of being now and forever.

Wendy More

While everyone has a different experience of what is soulful, these
experiences do have similar beginnings. We start by giving ourselves
permission to be soulful, to take seriously this aspect of ourselves,
our soul and our soul needs.

Jean Shinoda Bolen
Handbook for the Soul

Soul loss can be observed today as a psychological phenomenon in
the everyday life of the human beings around us. Loss of soul appears
in the form of a sudden onset of apathy and listlessness; the joy has gone
out of life, initiative is crippled, one feels empty, everything seems pointless.

Marie-Louise von Franz

Care of the soul is quite different in scope from most modern notions of
psychology and psychotherapy. It isn't about curing, fixing, changing,
adjusting, or making healthy, and it isn't about some idea of perfection or
even improvement. It doesn't look to the future for an ideal, trouble-free
existence. Rather, it remains patiently in the present, close to life as it
presents itself day by day, and yet at the same time mindful
of religion and spirituality.

Thomas Moore
Care of the Soul