Spiritual Insights quotations
Many people today would like to see the emergence, and continuance, of a World of Peace and Tolerance and tend to view studies in Comparative Religion in a very positive light as a potential contributor to greater mutual understanding and respect.
Given the immense historical-cultural importance of forms of religion across the Globe over several millenia we cannot but accept that most people feel a "call" towards Spirituality. Yet, in our everyday lives, we are undoubtedly aware of worldly "callings" as well as those of the Spirit.
Our site was to some extent inspired by "The Perennial Philosophy," Aldous Huxley's celebrated work in comparative religion, where a limited range of agreement between world faiths was discussed.
In the Introduction to The Perennial Philosophy Huxley suggests that there is a tradition held in common by the world faiths whereby Reality:
"cannot be directly and immediately apprehended except by
those who have chosen to fulfil certain conditions, making themselves loving, pure in heart, and poor in spirit."
Our own further studies have led us to accept that "Spiritual Insight" (aka Enlightenment) becomes more readily available to those who are not only Loving, Pure in Heart, and Poor in Spirit, but who also cultivate other Spiritual Attainments as set out in two collections ~ Christian and Interfaith ~ set out here:-
A selection of "Central Spiritual Insights" ~
gleaned from Christian sources
These Christian quotations have been selected based on their inherent Spiritual Impact, (rather than whether they might be deemed to be
Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox), and come from The New International Version of The Bible and from the 'Of the Imitation
of Christ'; a fifteenth century devotional work that has long been the second most widely read Christian book after The Bible itself.
- A Disdain for Materialism
-
Some have Me in their mouths, but little in their
hearts.
There are others who, being enlightened in their understanding and purified in their affection, always breathe after things eternal, are unwilling to hear of earthly things, and grieve to be subject to the necessities of nature; and such as these perceive what the Spirit of Truth speaketh in them.
For it teacheth them to despise the things of the earth and to love heavenly things; to disregard the world, and all the day and night to aspire after heaven.
Thomas a Kempis - Of the Imitation of Christ Book 3 Ch. 4 v. 4 - A Distrust of Intellect
- So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.
They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening
of their hearts.
St. Paul - Spiritual Insights are possible!
- What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely
given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities
with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them
foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
St. Paul - Charity
- Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does
not love does not know God, because God is love.
St. John - Purity of Heart
- Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, "children of God without fault in a warped and
crooked generation." Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life...
St. Paul - Humility
- Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For
whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
Jesus - Meekness
- Therefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man worketh not the
righteousness of God.
St. James
"Central Spiritual Insights" ~
drawn from "non-Christian" Inter-Faith sources
- A Disdain for Materialism
- Chuang Tzu put on cotton clothes with patches in them, and
arranging his girdle and tying on his shoes,
(i.e. to keep them from falling off),
went to see the prince of Wei.
"How miserable you look, Sir!" Cried the prince. "It is poverty, not misery", replied Chuang Tzu. "A man who has TAO cannot be miserable. Ragged clothes and old boots make poverty, not misery".
Chuang Tzu - (Taoism) - A Distrust of Intellect
- Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment; Cleverness is mere
opinion, bewilderment intuition.
Rumi - (Islam) - Spiritual Insights are possible!
- The intelligence of the mean man does not rise beyond bribes and letters of
recommendation. His mind is beclouded with trivialities. Yet he would penetrate the
mystery of TAO and of creation, and rise to participation in the ONE. The result is
that he is confounded by time and space; and that trammelled by objective existences,
that he fails apprehension of that age before anything was.
But the perfect man, - he carries his mind back to the period before the beginning.
Content to rest in the oblivion of nowhere, passing away like flowing water, he is
merged in the clear depths of the infinite.
Chuang Tzu - (Taoism) - Charity
- He that does everything for Me, whose supreme object I am, who
worships Me, being free from attachment and without hatred to any
creature, this man, Arjuna!, comes to Me.
Bhagavad Gita ~ (Hinduism) ~ also known as ~ (Vedanta).
And my soul is absorbed
In the Love of My Lord.
Bow humbly to the saint
That is a pious act.
Bow to the ground before him
That is devotion, indeed.
The faithless know not,
The joy of the love of the Lord;
From Sohila-Arti ~ a bed-time prayer
This section of which is attributed to Guru Ram Das - (Sikhism) - Purity of Heart
- The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more
and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as
darkness: they know not at what they stumble.
Solomon - (Judaism) - Humility
- Would you become a pilgrim on the road of love? The first
condition is that you make yourself humble as dust and ashes.
Ansari of Herat - (Islam) - Meekness
- Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good;
let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth!
Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked
for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.
Dhammapada - (Buddhism)
The approach adopted in our own studies, in which we sincerely tried to be scholarly and definitive, being one of assessing Spiritual Insights Wisdom Quotes gleaned from Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Sikh and Taoist, mysticism for Spiritual-Poetical "impact". This "impact" we hold to be evidence of something innate to human nature responding to deep spiritual truths that have been somehow distilled, and captured, in the essence of these Spiritual Insights Wisdom Quotes.
We consider that we have identified a range of KEY quotations that "Somehow Encapsulate" Enlightenments, Wisdoms and Spiritual Insights about "deep spiritual truths" as recognised by the major world religions, and also about another highly significant area of agreement between world faiths that is to do with the relationship between "Spirituality and the wider world."
These sets of quotations were brought together as a result of studies that were specifically directed towards the identification of the most evident areas of agreement between the respective innermost spiritual teachings of several World religions.
We believe that the results of our studies greatly extends the range of established and accepted similarities between the spiritual teachings of several world faiths to the point that we now consider that there is such a close similarity between the spiritual teachings of the world religions that, where spiritual teachings alone are being considered, it is perhaps more appropriate to speak of Complementary Religion and less appropriate to speak of Comparative Religion!
We have deemed it appropriate to separate these Spiritual Insights into two categories - those that seem to be of more "Central" significance and an "Other" category of Insights.
The following linked pages briefly, but compellingly, demonstrate a
~ perhaps surprising ~ degree of
Common Ground
between the "Central?" Spiritual Teachings of the major World Religions:-
World Religions Spirituality Quotations
Buddhist Islamic Hindu
Christian
Sikh Taoist Jewish
The "Other?" selection of Spiritual Insights is available on this page:-
Interfaith Studies
Buddhist Islamic Hindu
Christian
Sikh Taoist Jewish
The "Other?" selection of Spiritual Insights is available on this page:-
Interfaith Studies
It is surely worth noting that both The Sermon on the Mount and The Parable of the Sower can be seen as suggesting the "Spirituality" is relative to "Desire" and to "Wrath".
A selection from The Parable of the Sower:
And he taught them many things by parables, and he said unto them in his doctrine,Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:
And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.
And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth:
But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.
And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred.
And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. …
… The sower soweth the word.
And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.
And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word immediately receive it with gladness;
And have no root in themselves, and so endure for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended.
And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word,
And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.
And these are they which are sown on good ground; such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.
And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick?
For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was anything secret, but that it should come abroad.
Jesus' teaching from St. Mark's Gospel, Chapter 4
Such suggestion of "Spirituality" as being relative to "Desire" and to "Wrath" can also be found in Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh teachings.
Examples of such suggestion are to be found on the Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh spirituality pages which were offered as links in the above panel.
Saints have no moderation, nor do poets,
just exuberance. ~ Anne Sexton
The following "Central" Poetry Insights quotations could be said to "somehow encapsulate" the same Truths just presented from Christian sources, and from "non-Christian" Inter-Faith sources.
just exuberance. ~ Anne Sexton
- A Disdain for Materialism
-
Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.
Shakespeare - A Distrust of Intellect
- The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!
Wordsworth - Poetical Insights are possible!
- God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone;
Yeats - Charity
- That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.
Wordsworth - Purity of Heart
- A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
Shakespeare - Humility
- The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him, was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
Thomas Dekker - Meekness
- Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish her election,
Sh'hath sealed thee for herself, for thou hast been
As one in suff'ring all that suffers nothing,
A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those
Whose blood and judgement are so well co-medled,
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please: give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.
Shakespeare
Admittedly secular but somewhat? comparable in depth and content!!!
Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, Cowper and Dryden ~ need we say more?
A broader selection of "Central" poetry insights can be accessed here:-