Quotes on Spirituality
The section that follows is drawn from my book, From Gaia to Zen. In order to make the updated text fit into a 740 page format (due to its 6 by 9, ISBN definition), I was forced to remove this section from the paper version. It is still a part of the ebook version, but the paper book goes without. As such, I'm including my quotes here, on this webpage. I like how the paper book displayed them, but one must adapt and move on. Or so I've been told. Either way, here they are. It's a small collection, but I like them, and they vary between the different religions, spiritualities, and philosophies.
The ASCENDED ONES will never limit us. They will never say we must be celibate or stop eating meat, shave our heads, or avoid anything psychic or pornographic or whatever. They will never say we must chant this or that mantrum. Or that we should follow one spiritual movement or another. They will never tell us to join in groups and project influencing thoughts at another who does not believe what we do in an attempt to bring him around to our persuasion or to lure him back into it if he has left the fold.
Dr. Theodore A. Baroody, Jr
From the mystical point of view, nothing is ‘real’ except ‘Reality’ itself. This world we live in is mere illusion, or Maya, a phantasmagoria of shifting images which have no real existence outside the dreams of the cosmic Consciousness. The same thing is true of the superphysical realms, according to this philosophy.
Steven Richards
Compassion is judicious affection. Wisdom is flexible intelligence.
Master Sheng Yen
An encumbered mind sees a world out of balance. An undisturbed mind sees a world of beauty.
Master Sheng Yen
Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
E.O. Wilson
I am never in control of what happens around me but I am always in control of what happens within me.
Fearless Soul
The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don’t tell you what to see.
Alexandra K. Trenfor
The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The Challenge is to silence the mind.
Caroline Myss
In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.
Abraham Maslow
How people treat you is their karma. How you react is yours.
Dr. Wayne Dyer
Spirituality does not come from religion. It comes from the soul.
Anthony Douglas Williams
The answers you seek never come when the mind is busy, they come when the mind is still.
Unknown
Faith is seeing light with your heart when all your eyes see is darkness.
Unknown
Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
Khalil Gibran
You cannot travel on the path until you become the path itself.
Buddha
The opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is control.
Richard Rohr
Religion is belief in someone else’s experience. Spirituality is having your own experience.
Deepak Chopra
In every religion there is love, yet love has no religion.
Mesut Barazany
God has no religion.
Mahatma Gandhi
A society with religion is like a maniac without a gun.
Unknown
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is endless.
Dalai Lama
I love when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of a one religion, and it is the spirit.
Khalil Gibran
The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.
Mahatma Gandhi
Religion. It’s given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.
Jon Stewart
Spirituality is universal. Religion is a perspective.
Amy Jalapeno.com
Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives.
The Art of Healing
We are not human beings having spiritual experiences. We are spiritual beings having human experiences.
RecoverMySpirit.com
The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
Napoleon Bonaparte
The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love.
Marianne Williamson
When meditation is mastered, the mind in unwavering like the flame of a candle in a windless place.
Bhagavad Gita
What people resist the most about spiritual healing is changing their minds.
S. Kelley Harrell
The reason old souls enjoy spending time alone is because they never really are.
Awakening People
Old Souls are usually childlike in many ways, having the playfulness and simplicity of children, while maintaining a certain world-weariness and deep insight.
don Mateo Sol
I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Life is all about balance. You don’t always need to be getting stuff done. Sometimes, it’s perfectly okay, and it’s absolutely necessary, to shut down, kick back, and do nothing.
Lori Deschene
I’m not looking to escape my darkness. I am learning to love myself there.
Rune Lazuli
It is not what we receive but what we give that heals us.
Richard Evans
You didn’t come here to chase money, status, fame or power. You came here to awaken your True Nature as Spirit incarnate.
Luna and Sol
The soul does not love. It is love itself.
It does not exist. It is existence itself.
It does not know. It is knowledge itself.
Patanaali
Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness.
Eckhart Tolle
I Am
Two of the most powerful words; for what you put after them shapes your reality.
Unknown
I’m trying to see more with my eye
than with my eyes.
Unknown
Dr. Theodore A. Baroody, Jr
From the mystical point of view, nothing is ‘real’ except ‘Reality’ itself. This world we live in is mere illusion, or Maya, a phantasmagoria of shifting images which have no real existence outside the dreams of the cosmic Consciousness. The same thing is true of the superphysical realms, according to this philosophy.
Steven Richards
Compassion is judicious affection. Wisdom is flexible intelligence.
Master Sheng Yen
An encumbered mind sees a world out of balance. An undisturbed mind sees a world of beauty.
Master Sheng Yen
Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
E.O. Wilson
I am never in control of what happens around me but I am always in control of what happens within me.
Fearless Soul
The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don’t tell you what to see.
Alexandra K. Trenfor
The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The Challenge is to silence the mind.
Caroline Myss
In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.
Abraham Maslow
How people treat you is their karma. How you react is yours.
Dr. Wayne Dyer
Spirituality does not come from religion. It comes from the soul.
Anthony Douglas Williams
The answers you seek never come when the mind is busy, they come when the mind is still.
Unknown
Faith is seeing light with your heart when all your eyes see is darkness.
Unknown
Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
Khalil Gibran
You cannot travel on the path until you become the path itself.
Buddha
The opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is control.
Richard Rohr
Religion is belief in someone else’s experience. Spirituality is having your own experience.
Deepak Chopra
In every religion there is love, yet love has no religion.
Mesut Barazany
God has no religion.
Mahatma Gandhi
A society with religion is like a maniac without a gun.
Unknown
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is endless.
Dalai Lama
I love when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of a one religion, and it is the spirit.
Khalil Gibran
The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.
Mahatma Gandhi
Religion. It’s given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.
Jon Stewart
Spirituality is universal. Religion is a perspective.
Amy Jalapeno.com
Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives.
The Art of Healing
We are not human beings having spiritual experiences. We are spiritual beings having human experiences.
RecoverMySpirit.com
The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
Napoleon Bonaparte
The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love.
Marianne Williamson
When meditation is mastered, the mind in unwavering like the flame of a candle in a windless place.
Bhagavad Gita
What people resist the most about spiritual healing is changing their minds.
S. Kelley Harrell
The reason old souls enjoy spending time alone is because they never really are.
Awakening People
Old Souls are usually childlike in many ways, having the playfulness and simplicity of children, while maintaining a certain world-weariness and deep insight.
don Mateo Sol
I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Life is all about balance. You don’t always need to be getting stuff done. Sometimes, it’s perfectly okay, and it’s absolutely necessary, to shut down, kick back, and do nothing.
Lori Deschene
I’m not looking to escape my darkness. I am learning to love myself there.
Rune Lazuli
It is not what we receive but what we give that heals us.
Richard Evans
You didn’t come here to chase money, status, fame or power. You came here to awaken your True Nature as Spirit incarnate.
Luna and Sol
The soul does not love. It is love itself.
It does not exist. It is existence itself.
It does not know. It is knowledge itself.
Patanaali
Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness.
Eckhart Tolle
I Am
Two of the most powerful words; for what you put after them shapes your reality.
Unknown
I’m trying to see more with my eye
than with my eyes.
Unknown
Religion Tree Extras
What doesn't fit on the printed page
I was going to include a religion tree in my World Religion book, but I decided against it. I was actually going to make my own for that matter, but it would have taken a lot of work, and the chart would have been too large to fit properly in the book. The details and names would have come out too small to remain legible. As such, I turned to the thought of making my chart for a webpage on this site (what you're reading and visiting now). Doing research online, I discovered some religion trees/charts already done. They're actually quite nice. I'm good using their work, and I'm citing where I got them and, in one case, the name of the person given credit for its making.
First, I'd like to include the following. It's rather large but colourful. I hope it shows up well. We can thank Simon Davies for this chart. I like this chart, but I do find it challenging to follow its 'lines' in some cases. And yet I learned a fair number of new religious names, and I realized I'd been wrong about a few others. So it's a good chart to study.
If you click on it, the image will open in this window large enough to read. I couldn't get it larger and legible.
Click to enlarge image.
Source: http://www.maximizingprogress.org/2014/04/evolution-of-religion-tree-of.html
First, I'd like to include the following. It's rather large but colourful. I hope it shows up well. We can thank Simon Davies for this chart. I like this chart, but I do find it challenging to follow its 'lines' in some cases. And yet I learned a fair number of new religious names, and I realized I'd been wrong about a few others. So it's a good chart to study.
If you click on it, the image will open in this window large enough to read. I couldn't get it larger and legible.
Click to enlarge image.
Source: http://www.maximizingprogress.org/2014/04/evolution-of-religion-tree-of.html
Next, I'm including one that is more basic than the previous selection. As such, it covers less information, but I like the simplicity, in part, because there aren't the colours and elaborate designs that, in some places, take away from the names and orders. I did find a few religion-orders here that are against what I've found elsewhere though. Feel free to disagree with what you read. Let me know if I'm correct for that matter. Maybe this information is all correct. This image was found on a reddit blog. I couldn't find the chart on the website per say. It might be buried under some sub-comment?
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2reffe/it_never_made_sense_to_me_how_easily_christianity/
And lastly, the next chart was uncovered. I include this chart to show the break down of Christian splinter groups. This one is large enough online at its original site. I know it's too small here, like the top religion tree. Feel free to check out the original until I can figure out resizing/large image display. Again, like before, I wanted to make sure I got something up here as a starter.
I could, I suppose, find a chart for other reglions that have splintered? Which is all three main religions found today. But I wasn't technically even going to include this one until I came across it. This does help a person follow the line of Christian religions through their splintered factions which will likely interested most web-readers.
Click to enlarge image.
Source: https://relevancy22.blogspot.ca/2013/08/a-family-tree-of-religious-groups.html
Let me know if these religious trees are useful or accurate. Or inaccurate. I've gotten a few ideas from looking them over, the colourful one at least, and further research will likely come from what names and sequences came to my eye.