"If you feel the need to convince others of the truth, then you do not know the truth" ~ A.B.
"God is an artist and his art is good. Look around at what he has made in all its beauty. Look at what you have made and be happy, for it and you are good" ~Chris Ali.
"Is not the definition of ego to think that there is no reality beyond us?" ~Anna Mazur
"This world, and everything physical, is unreal. Reality exists within all temporal things, and can be seen through them, but these temporal things are not themselves reality" ~Michael Masters
"We should all help others and ask about what they need, maybe one smile makes their world. This is exactly what God tells us to do" ~Duaa Salah
"'True religion is surrender'...it's something we can't distinguish with the five senses, and it is something that we're all born with, but at some point we either completely give ourselves to it without understanding its true nature, we flee from it, or we embrace it and we make it present in our lives. I love this so much because now I believe that true religion isn't one or another and it's not worshiping in a stuffy church. It's all of the above" ~Alex Bryant
"By being kind, patient, and non-judgmental you are maintaining key elements that help you find the kingdom of God within" ~Jared Borghese
"God doesn't hide the answers from us. He isn't trying to trick us. He doesn't want us to fail" ~Amanda Vertido
"As hard as it is to let go of my preconceptions, it sure is easy" ~Tarah Duncan
"I believe that what we know of God is just a thimble of water taken from the ocean" ~Danielle Geierman
"The [native american] philosophy goes something like this (paraphrased): When we are born, the Great Spirit gives us a song to sing. Our only purpose in life is to sing our song. If we go through life, each of us singing our own song, the world will be in harmony. If for some reason you forget your song, go to a quiet place and listen, as the Great Spirit has put that song inside of you. You will once again know the words and music to your song. Once again, the world will be in harmony" ~Jeffrey Barhnart
"Living in this world is like changing water into wine, like changing ignorance into knowledge" ~Airi Furuuchi
"It is an overwhelming concept to remember that a lover of God is not saved by their own accord" ~ Rebecca Garn.
"Everything that happens is God's will and there is a purpose behind it" ~Kristen Epperson
"It's almost like someone went into my head and has started answering some of the harder questions, but in their place put even more challenging ones in" ~Camille Swain
"And really money is just a man made thing. It has no value when it comes to life" ~Samantha Esquibel
"From Rumi, I laughed when it was stated that if I thought it was talking about real gold, I was to be compared to a child, because I completely pictured actual gold, and once it was explained I saw the point that was to be made" ~Jamie Decker
"The fact that people are here, its the same reason why tigers or elephants, or snakes are here" ~ Carolyn Reichert
"We don't have to search for answers, we just have to give in to them and we'll become a part of the answers we seek" ~David Cochrane
"It seems a bit complex, but with focus it seems that one could really understand this principle, "I neither know nor don't know". ~Ashley Singh
"I shared this week's readings with one of my clients, who is actively dying. I spend every Saturday night with him, all night, so his wife can get uninterrupted sleep. He is a Lutheran. These are our thoughts. "In the struggle between yourself and the world, second the world" [Kafka]. When I read this the second time, I decided I really liked this phrase enough to put it on my teenage sons' bathroom wall. Ed asked what I thought my twin sons would get from the phrase. I hope they learn to believe in themselves, and in their own inner strength. I want them to face all the challenges the world presents them with cautious fear, a healthy dose of humility, and the confidence to face anything they put their mind to, and succeed if they are willing to work hard enough for it. Ed liked my thought so much, he asked me to write this phrase by Kafka and put it on his wall, which I did. It sits next to a tapestry that says the following:
May I be filled with loving kindness
May I be well
May I be peaceful and at ease
May I be happy"
~Cindi Mortimer
"Everything in life is the same and no matter how complex things are they are equally as simple" ~Stephanie Konen
"God gives us the tools to attain a goal of goodness and reverence, and then throws up roadblocks to test us so that we can achieve greatness" ~Claire Hardeman
"When God says that he has put the truth into the inner mind of man, I think this is pure God, not the God that churches will try to occasionally pass along as the God we must worship. God put himself into each of us; gay, straight, black, white, we can all feel the supernatural, and in that we are all connected" ~ Jeremy Heath
"“The more a man enters the light of understanding, the more aware he is of his own ignorance.” I had to read that sentence twice before it hit me like a ton of bricks. It is so true that the more we learn the more we are able to acknowledge how little we know. It can be hard to swallow the fact that you don’t know everything you thought you knew, but it is rewarding to be able to take it in and embrace it. It keeps you humble and constantly searching and truly gives life meaning" ~ Kali Coughlin.
"In my opinion there is nothing to fear from death if you are satisfied with what you did in your lifetime" ~ Alyssa Maylan.
"Padmasambhava reminds me of the Egyptian opening of the mouth ceremoony in that they are both instructions/reminders for the next plane of existence. I don't know if instructions, reminders, or directions are actually needed at our death but I would think that a ritual where you recite the procedures for the afterlife would be a fantastic way to teach or pass along beliefs" ~Tara Muller
"Children don’t carry an urge to obtain a wealthy status or to start conflicts with someone else, because children have an open mind" ~ Moraud Lebastchi
"Since the mind is huge and can ultimately contain every secret of life and every tool that one needs to live there is no reason to strive because the answers are already inside you. Mind exists in this context outside of the physical universe and can not be defined in the physical universe terms" ~Joanna Ransier
"What is bestowed by heaven is called human nature. The fulfillment of human nature is called the Tao. The cultivation of the Tao is called true learning. To me this is talking about our basic human, natural instincts that we have and that we need to answer to. The need to eat or worship." ~ Mandi Kaile
"Atheists puzzle me because it seems so obvious that why all their questions about God cannot be answered is because God is infinite" ~Rebeka Garn
"He made the mountains that turn purple in the sunset, the trees that whisper in the wind, the water that roars over the boulders, the stars that brighten the dark sky, the wheat that glows of gold in the sun, the swallowtail that flutters by, the strawberry that tastes so sweet, there is no end. Just look out, and what you see is what he created. Just look in, and what you see he created. He made the deep down soul of all people good." ~ Marna Ambroselli
"The God that man created has strict laws and guidelines in place to make sure we're good little humans and behave just how He wants us to; He punishes and damns us. But the God that exists deep underneath all the human tampering is a God who would insist, 'I don't hear the words they say, I look inside at the humility.'" ~Katie Elmore
"The Tao likes to focus in a center, making everything relative to that center" ~ Austin Purcell
"A great question Sa-go-ye-wat-ha asks is why the white man differs so much about their religion, if there is only one religion and one book. I guess the answer to that is that somewhere in there, man’s hand must be getting in the way of the one divine truth the white man was saying he represented." ~ Theri Hanks
"It is wise to let go of the ego, not to hold onto it" ~Jasmin Khinda
"This missionary is not good at preaching" ~ Moe Okamura
"At first I felt that a 'non-horse' was some kind of creature that was like a horse, but wasn't called a horse. I then realized that a 'non-horse' was anything that wasn't a horse. I'm still confused why something like a pen could show in comparison that a horse is not a horse. The real teaching is that no object truly has a name that defines it, we are never starting class at the exact point in time; these are all illusions that your language and culture has created for us" ~Cecelia Spencer
"It really does make me consider the validity of others who say they are 'knowledgeable' about their own 'personal' faith. I might be wrong and I might be crazy, but faith, in my opinion, should stay personal" ~Sarah Morenko.
"According to the story, red people think that God makes white people stronger every day and he has abandoned his red children, so red people feel they are orphans. It is very sad that red people think that. I hope God treats his children evenly." ~ Moe Okamura
"When a Master speaks, what comes out of her mouth is what is inside of her; her inner thoughts; feelings and emotions will be arranged in front of you, in a very benevolent manner" ~ Seth Hensley.
"God is everywhere but people are still trying to find him" ~ Rich Cervantes
"Wanting to know is the correct road to knowing God. And if it is followed, one will finally be able to understand and perceive Him. He [Heraclitus] states that in order to know him you must be equal to him, similar to how it is in real life" ~ Alesandro Padilla.
"The presence of God is here but it is here in different ways than the people believe it to be" ~ Joseph Vejar.
"Religions believe that you should judge yourself, but not to judge others" ~ Brian Keast
"One person's beliefs *cannot* be more correct than someone else's because belief is not fact" ~Katie Elmore.
"Teachers can help us understand what enlightenment is and is not, but in order to achieve it we must dedicate time to unlearning what we have discovered" ~Brandon Johnson
"Think about this if someone came to your house and asked you for dinner you might help them. Then the next night they showed up with their family and asked you for dinner would you feed them? Then they came back with more people and asked you if they could stay, then they paid your family to fight you until you moved into the barn and they lived in your house. Then they came to you and said that they way you talk to god is wrong you need to do it their way. Would you believe them?" ~ Amanda Sheeler
"How bad would you want to breathe after being held under water for 5 minutes" ~Courtney Clifford
"A person cannot be happy until they stop searching for things to make them happy." ~ Rebecca Sawyer.
"The author...says, 'If the mind is happy, not only the body but the whole world will be happy.' This saying is much like the author opinion, because if the mind is happy doesn't, necessarily mean the whole world will be happy. But to him his perception of the world or even maybe his personal world is happy. I think that this person was very wise and knew very much of what he was talking about" ~ Leckesia Pablo
"Even people who separate from worldly place to find enlightenment still live on the earth which is eventually worldly. Finding enlightenment in worldly place makes a whole lot of sense, and is down to earth" ~Airi Furuuchi
"Nothing can rightfully be said to "exist" without first establishing a frame of reference from which it may be observed. Without perception, the is no creation; we cannot hope to understand the principles that give rise to physical reality in their entirety without first accounting for the phenomenon of sentience itself. It can be all too easy to overlook this very basic aspect of our existence: the world as you experience it around you is not the actual 'world' per se. What we experience is not the real world itself, but rather a construct of the real world interpreted and assembled by our brains from external information." ~ Max O'Connell
"When you accept the fact that you don't really know, you come out more sure of yourself than ever before" ~ Kayla Hale
"As a child I was taught to live in the Lord's image (the mirror) and the idea of actually becoming the mirror is astounding and intriguing" ~ Laikien Daggett
"To be in a conscious awareness of things is hard to accomplish when so many people's attitudes are based off their brains" ~ Eric Sutton.
"Did God do this to me? And the answer, apparently, is yes: he does create evil and darkness. On the flip side, though, he creates light and peace. I take this is God's way of saying that things balance out. Sure, when someone is diagnosed with cancer, it's easy to blame him for what he's done. But we have to remember that when that person experienced joy (light, peace) in their life, it was also God's doing" ~Leif Eng.
"When surgeons open the brains, they see material, but they cannot see the unseen, the human thought" ~ Tim Lyashenko
"People seem to do most of their thinking from their head, and I think that what is being said [by Philo] is that when you can think from your heart as well as your mind you will be a good person and your soul will be good" ~ Jessica Clingman.
"If you want to know how to fix a problem which has arisen, a good way to start is to think about how it developed to that point. Often the answer is within the problem" ~ Gabrielle Brown.
"He is free of everything that is physical, immeasurable vastness, beyond time and space, immortal, embraces all things in mind, home to every heart, highest and lowest, brings opposites aside and reconciles them, everywhere, in land, sea, and sky, young and old." ~ Flore Tanase
"I can purchase wonderful soil, build a functional planting box, buy the best seeds, ensure that my garden gets plenty of clean water and manage that it gets the proper amount of sunlight; still, I cannot make a seed become a flower. I have faith that the order of the universe works.~ Woody Laughnan.
"Listening is the strongest medicine" ~ Alli Bosserman.
"There are powerful arguments for and against God's existence but the word 'proof' doesn't apply to God" ~Katie Bumpus
"In order to see God, you must act as God. This idea made a lot of sense to me" ~Jamie Decker
"My western brain screams out against this idea because I *have* to think about what will happen tomorrow so that I can make my plans to attempt to influence it or change it" ~Tara Muller
"When you interact with people you are not really experiencing them, you are experiencing your version of them" ~ Heather Bonacci
"For Buddhists not to think so much they sure do think of great things to say" ~ Leckesia Pablo
"The writer...states; the moment you begin to hear what you yourself are saying, you must stop. That is a challenge to us because sitting in silence and really being alone is a lost art. To stop the hearing and begin the listening is a huge obstacle. Have you ever thought how interesting it is that the word, "listen" is just 6 letters and yet rearranged in a different order it also spells, 'silent.'" ~ Genie Snyder
"No matter how hard we try we cannot truly be objective about ourselves. There is always a part of us that is going to be subjective and use our own beliefs and feelings in projecting yourself. When we do this we are not experiencing ourselves in an open way" ~Joella Van Thull
"To be in a conscious awareness of things is hard to accomplish when so many people's attitudes are based off their brains" ~ Eric Sutton.
"Did God do this to me? And the answer, apparently, is yes: he does create evil and darkness. On the flip side, though, he creates light and peace. I take this is God's way of saying that things balance out. Sure, when someone is diagnosed with cancer, it's easy to blame him for what he's done. But we have to remember that when that person experienced joy (light, peace) in their life, it was also God's doing" ~Leif Eng.
"When surgeons open the brains, they see material, but they cannot see the unseen, the human thought" ~ Tim Lyashenko
"People seem to do most of their thinking from their head, and I think that what is being said [by Philo] is that when you can think from your heart as well as your mind you will be a good person and your soul will be good" ~ Jessica Clingman.
"If you want to know how to fix a problem which has arisen, a good way to start is to think about how it developed to that point. Often the answer is within the problem" ~ Gabrielle Brown.
"He is free of everything that is physical, immeasurable vastness, beyond time and space, immortal, embraces all things in mind, home to every heart, highest and lowest, brings opposites aside and reconciles them, everywhere, in land, sea, and sky, young and old." ~ Flore Tanase
"I can purchase wonderful soil, build a functional planting box, buy the best seeds, ensure that my garden gets plenty of clean water and manage that it gets the proper amount of sunlight; still, I cannot make a seed become a flower. I have faith that the order of the universe works.~ Woody Laughnan.
"Listening is the strongest medicine" ~ Alli Bosserman.
"There are powerful arguments for and against God's existence but the word 'proof' doesn't apply to God" ~Katie Bumpus
"In order to see God, you must act as God. This idea made a lot of sense to me" ~Jamie Decker
"My western brain screams out against this idea because I *have* to think about what will happen tomorrow so that I can make my plans to attempt to influence it or change it" ~Tara Muller
"When you interact with people you are not really experiencing them, you are experiencing your version of them" ~ Heather Bonacci
"For Buddhists not to think so much they sure do think of great things to say" ~ Leckesia Pablo
"The writer...states; the moment you begin to hear what you yourself are saying, you must stop. That is a challenge to us because sitting in silence and really being alone is a lost art. To stop the hearing and begin the listening is a huge obstacle. Have you ever thought how interesting it is that the word, "listen" is just 6 letters and yet rearranged in a different order it also spells, 'silent.'" ~ Genie Snyder
"No matter how hard we try we cannot truly be objective about ourselves. There is always a part of us that is going to be subjective and use our own beliefs and feelings in projecting yourself. When we do this we are not experiencing ourselves in an open way" ~Joella Van Thull
"As I sit here and write, the door outside reveals the quietness of nature, the stillness of the air and the rustle of the trees. Inside my head I have a million things going all the time, yet I know underneath all these tasks that there is calm and peace such as there is outside right now" ~ Rob Epstein.
"Your mind gets some sense of freedom from knowing the truth because you don't dwell on little things" ~Amanda Schab ("You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free")
"I will teach you the best way to say Torah. You must be nothing but an ear that hears what the universe of the word is constantly saying within you. The moment you begin to hear what you yourself are saying, you must stop. I loved this because like all the other passages within the enlightened mind, the one true way to believe and follow your God is to do just that. To feel what is right not to think. It is when you start thinking of how and why that people start to get it wrong. To truly believe and follow is to let go of your thoughts and to take in the feelings from within." ~ Christina Young
"It starts off saying 'I will teach you the best way to say Torah,' and goes on to say you must listen to the universe and never speak, because the universe is constantly saying it to you from within, and if you speak you aren't listening to how to say Torah" ~Jake Kozak
"It is the wealth of God that you are experiencing when you yourself make the decision to live a life of goodness, and discard material obsessions" ~ Eric Sutton.
"Your mind gets some sense of freedom from knowing the truth because you don't dwell on little things" ~Amanda Schab ("You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free")
"I will teach you the best way to say Torah. You must be nothing but an ear that hears what the universe of the word is constantly saying within you. The moment you begin to hear what you yourself are saying, you must stop. I loved this because like all the other passages within the enlightened mind, the one true way to believe and follow your God is to do just that. To feel what is right not to think. It is when you start thinking of how and why that people start to get it wrong. To truly believe and follow is to let go of your thoughts and to take in the feelings from within." ~ Christina Young
"It starts off saying 'I will teach you the best way to say Torah,' and goes on to say you must listen to the universe and never speak, because the universe is constantly saying it to you from within, and if you speak you aren't listening to how to say Torah" ~Jake Kozak
"It is the wealth of God that you are experiencing when you yourself make the decision to live a life of goodness, and discard material obsessions" ~ Eric Sutton.
"The phrase Do not despise the world, for the world too is God struck me with a relaxing air upon reading it, almost as if it had lifted a weight from my concerns. I am not exactly sure why." ~ Josh Peterson
"Take a very beautiful place for instance: Yosemite, or a very beautiful glacier, or even the tropical rainforest. These places are all outrageously exhilarating. It is so easy for one to be disconnected from these wondrous natural sources and be consumed in the world of people and our creations. Having this state of mind will only make one's viewpoint on life dull and pessimistic because everything is changing and evolving and nothing is ever permanent, thus where is God? But beyond this state of mind one can find that there is pure beauty in the world and there is a supreme form of existence responsible for this wondrous reality. Experiencing waterfalls, the ocean, mountains, deep forests, blizzards, and nature in its raw, is to experience a faint sliver of the magnificence and wondrous power that God possesses. Not to say that these things can't be found within the monotony of human tasks and society, but they can never live as full and long as the forces of nature. Love can burn for a lifetime, but rain can fall for a longer time, and to feel its sensation is divine" ~ Eric Sutton
[Dov Baer of Mezritch] "You need to be aware of what surrounds you, and see beauty and see it as a piece of the whole. Once you begin to become acutely aware of it or yourself, the beauty is destroyed because you are looking at the individual" ~Julie Petersen
[Isaac of Ninevah] "Although our love may seem unconditional, yet when you really look at it, we're very selfish and most of us love that person conditionally. We love them because they make us happy, they make us laugh, we like to do the same things together, because they love us. But if that person suddenly changed one day, and they were rude, unenjoyable to be around, unsupportive, depressed, or even claimed that they didn't love you, would you still love them? I don't know, it just dawned on me, I think that that would be difficult if someone told me that, and would probably would stop loving them" ~ Courtney Wight
"Even as I sit here writing this, I long to be finished and tucked into bed. However, if the world blows up in 30 seconds I will have wished I was appreciative for the moments I had, regardless of how I was spending them. So I look around, see that there is good, and smile, because tomorrow does not have to come" ~Abbie Lueken
"Take a very beautiful place for instance: Yosemite, or a very beautiful glacier, or even the tropical rainforest. These places are all outrageously exhilarating. It is so easy for one to be disconnected from these wondrous natural sources and be consumed in the world of people and our creations. Having this state of mind will only make one's viewpoint on life dull and pessimistic because everything is changing and evolving and nothing is ever permanent, thus where is God? But beyond this state of mind one can find that there is pure beauty in the world and there is a supreme form of existence responsible for this wondrous reality. Experiencing waterfalls, the ocean, mountains, deep forests, blizzards, and nature in its raw, is to experience a faint sliver of the magnificence and wondrous power that God possesses. Not to say that these things can't be found within the monotony of human tasks and society, but they can never live as full and long as the forces of nature. Love can burn for a lifetime, but rain can fall for a longer time, and to feel its sensation is divine" ~ Eric Sutton
[Dov Baer of Mezritch] "You need to be aware of what surrounds you, and see beauty and see it as a piece of the whole. Once you begin to become acutely aware of it or yourself, the beauty is destroyed because you are looking at the individual" ~Julie Petersen
[Isaac of Ninevah] "Although our love may seem unconditional, yet when you really look at it, we're very selfish and most of us love that person conditionally. We love them because they make us happy, they make us laugh, we like to do the same things together, because they love us. But if that person suddenly changed one day, and they were rude, unenjoyable to be around, unsupportive, depressed, or even claimed that they didn't love you, would you still love them? I don't know, it just dawned on me, I think that that would be difficult if someone told me that, and would probably would stop loving them" ~ Courtney Wight
"Even as I sit here writing this, I long to be finished and tucked into bed. However, if the world blows up in 30 seconds I will have wished I was appreciative for the moments I had, regardless of how I was spending them. So I look around, see that there is good, and smile, because tomorrow does not have to come" ~Abbie Lueken
"Maximus said But we, being unable to apprehend His essence, use the help of sounds and names and pictures...beaten gold and...plants and rivers. I've heard people say "God made the mountains" or "God is in the mountains", but for some reason it offers up a completely different perspective to think of it as Maximus puts it. Instead of thinking of a man sitting somewhere up in heaven making things, it gives a better visual of an essence that permeates all things. It is easier to wrap my mind around that for some reason, which is really nice" ~ Kali Coughlin
"When we lose our balance we die, but at the same time we also develop ourselves, we grow. Whatever we see is changing, losing its balance. The reason everything looks beautiful is because it is out of balance [Suzuki]. I thought this was so true that most almost everything in nature is extremely beautiful because it has contrast and things are always changing. The leaves on trees, shapes and sizes of things in nature, everything has its own individual beauty. On the other hand most things that are man made and that come from factories are not very beautiful, not full of life. For example tools, cars, books, buildings, are not very beautiful as they are not of nature and rarely change" ~ Zach Zufeldt.
"Everyone always has to put a name to everything but some things like God have no name, they are as it says an unnamable force too powerful and great to understand" ~ Heather Howard.
"Names are things humans give each other to label and classify them, and to tell apart. God isn't something you would need to do any of these things with" ~Amanda Cameron
"Dov Baer of Mezritch: the masters who do nothing but meditate see the world as it was before creation...I see this as the masters who meditate are rewarded with the view of the world before we knew it, and are granted enlightenment" ~Kyle Massa
"I like the idea of bringing vitality to something with thoughts or contemplation. It gives me the idea that I might be able to participate through sending out goodness, or a conveyance of peace to an object or person" ~Laura McCutchan
"Recognizing the Divine in all things is a daunting task. It would require one to shift perspective on everything, and everyone, one would encounter. It would take a great deal of patience, no small measure of humility, and a vast deal of compassion to recognize the Divine in others. It is an intellectual shift, as well as an emotional one. It is possible but obviously requires a great deal of patience" ~ Sandy Fuller.
"No matter what god will always be there. This is why Jesus asks people not to worry." ~ Rich Cervantes
"Even though the eyes can't see doesn't mean that the mind can't see through the eyes" ~Jarrett Kelly
"Judeo-Christianity refers to this 'Enlightenment' as being 'born again' or being 'saved'. This simply means that you understand that you are goofed and messed up, and that there is nothing and never will be anything you can do to fix yourself...this Enlightenment does not change who you are, it simply changes your perspective." ~ Kyle McFerran
"You don't become someone else when you're enlightened; you are simply the best version of yourself" ~ Jenna Jackson
"We're much more divine in actuality than we are when we pretend to be perfect." ~ Kayla Hale.
"My favorite line from this piece is right at the beginning where it says, Take perfect from perfect, the remainder is perfect. I'm not exactly sure why this appealed to me, but I think its because it is so positive. I am used to scriptures pointing out flaws in humanity and offering remedies for those flaws. But this suggests that everything is right. I like the idea that religion can be viewed as more than just a band-aid for humanity" ~ Autumn Bohnstedt
"While there are many truths, there are even more ways to avoid staying on them" ~Tyler Stevens.
"The hidden harmony is better than the obvious one (Heraclitus). The obvious harmony is on the surface. The hidden one is at the center." ~ Shane Rahimi
"I don't think reality really cares what I think about it" ~Cecilia Spencer
"The sun is new everyday. My great grandma in Mexico always used to say that "The sun is new everyday." When I first read this, I was thinking that someone has been plagiarizing my grandmother. ~ Mike Sanchez.
"It kind of makes sense that God would create something that makes Him happy" ~ Alexis Cruz
"I have put my truth in your innermost mind and I have written it in your heart. No longer does a man need to teach his brother about God.
I find the idea that religion does not need to be taught very interesting. When you think about it, all groups of people throughout time had their own God/Gods. Which leads me to think that everyone does have spirituality in his/her heart. Maybe we are born with the desire for there to be something greater than ourselves, the same way we are born with a fear of snakes and heights" ~ Malayna Galligan
"I'm always the one saying 'Who cares?' which doesn't mean that I don't care or that you don't care but that it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things that you lost your job or your dog died or your mother in law is moving in next week because the very thing that makes any of these little 'issues' important is the very thing that makes them unimportant: You. If everyone were Buddhist there would be no use for country music ever again" ~ Tami Granada.
"Humans attempt to understand God through written or oral scriptures created by someone besides themselves. How can you know God through this method? It is like saying that you know Theodore Roosevelt through hearing your history teacher talk about him and reading a bibliography about him" ~ Laikien Daggett.
"The Self moves faster than the mind. I believe this to be true because I think that the self influences the mind, deeper emotions than your momentary thoughts are what drive you to make the more meaningful decisions in life" ~ Rob Epstein.
"It is a contradiction to rational thought but very appealing" ~Francesca Latzer
"Everything starts on time and ends on time, yet eternity is lost in the process." ~ Michelle Clement
"When I attained Absolute Perfect Enlightenment, I attained absolutely nothing. That is why it is called Absolute Perfect Enlightenment. I did not understand this at first, but after re-reading it about 5 times, it makes much more sense. Absolute Perfect Enlightenment isn't about attaining anything. I don't think you can attain Perfect Enlightenment if you are trying. I think when you stop looking and just let go of everything, needs/wants/thoughts/belongs/whatever it may be, then you can be truly enlightened" ~ Melanie Schmitt
"I don't think you find your purpose by looking for it, I think you find your purpose when you stop looking for it" ~Alex Bryant
"I think Enlightenment is kind of like opening your mind to a whole new world of ideas, and then the body releases chemicals like that of endorphins and makes an overall 'aaaaahhhhhhhh' feeling in your body" ~ Steve Askew
"Someone does not claim there is no God without having first had some kind of experience with religion" ~ Jillian Adkins
"Religion starts with the acceptance that some things are bigger than us, and more complex than we could ever grasp. It begins with the humility to realize that we are only human, and that there are forces acting infinitely beyond our understanding. Those who feel that God is something that should make sense to us, or that we can make sense out of his actions, are as ignorant and arrogant in those beliefs as the people who blindly follow the God and heavenly rules which are professed to them by their community or parents without giving it a second thought" ~ Andrew Ezzet
"How can you have right and wrong at the same time? Yes, it is true that you cannot have one without the other, yet how is it possible that they exist at the same time? It is like two whales occupying the same space. Would these two whales become one whale?" ~Larissa Harter
"To men, some things are good and some are bad. But to God, all things are good and beautiful and just. Men see things in a much more negative light than God" ~ Sarah Knight.
"God created us and even though we can't see him, we can" ~ Spring Longinotti
"The part about this that really hit home, was the note about silence being 'the perennial flow of language, interrupted by words.' I think it piqued my interest because of the fact that most people are so uncomfortable with silence, and they fidget and try to end it as soon as possible, when in fact comfortable, companionable silences do exist." ~ Carolyn Reichert
"Silence is perennial flow of language, interrupted by words." I think that line is so clever. Thoughts are always going on through everyone's head, but when you start talking, the flow of your thoughts come to a stop to focus on the conversation" ~ Melanie Schmitt.
The second time I read it I looked at it in a different way. I did not just pay closer attention to what Dov Baer said in one sentence, "The moment you begin to hear what you yourself are saying, you must stop" but what he was saying throughout the whole passage. This is when I understood that he was not saying do not interpret the words, he was saying to not take credit for God's work" ~ Mandip Kaile
"God can be vengeful or scary but I don't think that is his default mode" ~Sarah Carlson
"Words are compartmentalized packets of information we use to communicate with one another; in actuality their ability to convey meaning is very limited. You can't describe color to the blind: it has to be experienced to be understood" ~ Max O'Connell.
"As we go through life we will be bombarded with all that we cannot change no matter what efforts we make, or what power an individual obtains. This near infinite impotence will frustrate us endlessly, and seemingly all of human innovation is directed at conquering it. But the Muslims acknowledge the futility in these efforts, and instead of viewing it as a burden they seem to say that it's good, because that gap between humanity and control, desire and acquisition, life and death: that is where God and faith come in. That's where we can find ourselves, and come to accept that we are limited, and are able to do so without pain because we can acknowledge the majesty of something greater than ourselves" ~David Cochrane
"Since 'Buddha' means 'the Awakened One', I am Buddha by breakfast time." ~ Jordan Matthews.
"To not know what you want to know, because you know that if you know it, there would be no point in trying to know it. These are the questions and philosophies that I love the most. They force me to think really really hard, and the answer is not something that comes easily or quickly, but rather never comes, but rather becomes known." ~ Hailey Kleinhans.
"21st century religion seems to be completely centered on how it fits YOUR schedule, how it makes YOUR life better, how well YOU like the music or preachings or pastors, how well the religion fits YOUR wants and needs. The shift from God to self is so disheartening and completely irrelevant to true religion. Finding God or enlightenment or peace is not an easy task and no one ever said it was. It takes time, dedication and commitment, just like all other good things in life" ~Abbie Lueken
"When I was having a hard time believing in God one thing I couldn't work out in my head was how the world and everything came about if there wasn't a God. How could the world be if there wasn't a creator? All of nature, the sun, moon and stars how'd they just pop up?" ~ Autumn Childers
"The universe or God answers our conception of reality and what we want it to be" ~Francesca Latzer
"Once we put our devotion to materialistic things instead of an everlasting happiness, we lose ourselves and it's hard to get back" ~Melissa Blair
"I think of the prettiest place I've been to, the kindest thing that I've witnessed and realize that in the moments of experiencing those things, I was not in my mind, judging and considering, but rather admiring. I was gone, I merely appreciated and took in" ~Sam Tilden
"We experience the same God down here on earth that we will experience when we go to Heaven" ~Ana Topaz
"When we first enter this world we feel like little strangers because we are not introduced to anything yet. We think the world is perfect as it is, everything runs smooth, and there is no ignorance, no pain, no sins or complaints only immortality, everything is at rest and free of everything. Until that one day when you run across sickness and you face death, you realize that there are things that no one has told you about, your way of thinking changes, the world is not as perfect any more...On our arrival to this earth, our minds are automatically set to think of everything as being perfect, there is nothing bad or evil" ~ Tatyana Babiyenko
"I feel that many of us let our past eat us alive and to me this isn't right because it's not like we can go back in time and change it" ~Marissa Dorado
"Forgetting the self is the presentation of uniqueness. This idea is so interesting and deep! I started to think about it when I was a child. It happened when one day I was very thirsty and was playing with other kids outside the house. I remember, I was running home, opening the door, going to the kitchen and drinking water. And after I drunk the last glass of water, I froze because sudden idea shoots through my head: 'Where was I when I was opening the door?' I mean, of course I knew that I was staying on the porch and opening the door, but I don't remember the exact moment. All I remember in my head was a glass of water. In tat moment I understood that I did something without including my mind and consciousness. I did something without thinking about it; my mind was free of it and I realized that the action of opening the door was the most honest and unique action of my life" ~Michael Corotas
"Basically, philosophy is the study and questioning of everything. We research topics, find answers, and question them; however, we do not know if the answer we have found is the correct one. Humans are homesick for the right answer, and philosophy is like the teddy bear given to us to comfort us" ~ Damien Cooper
"You do not have to try to be sincere; if you are trying it is not truly sincerity" ~Kristen Epperson
"Just opening up that emotional portal to that which is god and letting that ray of positive energy fill you to be joyed by his sheer love and that which you can give back" ~Jonathan Christiansen
"In the reading of Dame Julian of Norwhich, she could not stop
talking about God. She loves her religion, Christianity to death. She
may have been a missionary. She believed that God is everything good and
everything is good. She is very confident and positive about her life
because she believe that God is with her. Since God is the most powerful,
she was confident in him. She is very sweet. However, I do not know if
she is all there. She is way too sweet. She may even think that bad luck
or fate is good. I do not think she is real at all. She is an airhead" ~Annie Saelee
"Eternity in my heart is a very freeing idea" ~Karen Rounsley
"Thoughts are separate from the mind. The mind doesn't create thoughts, it passes them in the universe, and shouldn't stop for any of them" ~Chris Ali
"How could you ever be sorrowful if you loved all that surrounded you?" ~Abbie Lueken
"God knows the true person every individual is. He knows what you will, and the reason you are feeling those feelings. There is no way to escape the God" ~Ashley Singh
"I thought that the author [Philo] brought up good points about how God loves to give. In Christian tradition he has given grace love mercy and forgiveness and his own son. Also the author talks about how he has given the world to his people which is a really good point that gets neglected so often in the Christian thought" ~ Ryan Kyle
"The universe or God answers our conception of reality and what we want it to be" ~Francesca Latzer
"Once we put our devotion to materialistic things instead of an everlasting happiness, we lose ourselves and it's hard to get back" ~Melissa Blair
"I think of the prettiest place I've been to, the kindest thing that I've witnessed and realize that in the moments of experiencing those things, I was not in my mind, judging and considering, but rather admiring. I was gone, I merely appreciated and took in" ~Sam Tilden
"We experience the same God down here on earth that we will experience when we go to Heaven" ~Ana Topaz
"When we first enter this world we feel like little strangers because we are not introduced to anything yet. We think the world is perfect as it is, everything runs smooth, and there is no ignorance, no pain, no sins or complaints only immortality, everything is at rest and free of everything. Until that one day when you run across sickness and you face death, you realize that there are things that no one has told you about, your way of thinking changes, the world is not as perfect any more...On our arrival to this earth, our minds are automatically set to think of everything as being perfect, there is nothing bad or evil" ~ Tatyana Babiyenko
"I feel that many of us let our past eat us alive and to me this isn't right because it's not like we can go back in time and change it" ~Marissa Dorado
"Forgetting the self is the presentation of uniqueness. This idea is so interesting and deep! I started to think about it when I was a child. It happened when one day I was very thirsty and was playing with other kids outside the house. I remember, I was running home, opening the door, going to the kitchen and drinking water. And after I drunk the last glass of water, I froze because sudden idea shoots through my head: 'Where was I when I was opening the door?' I mean, of course I knew that I was staying on the porch and opening the door, but I don't remember the exact moment. All I remember in my head was a glass of water. In tat moment I understood that I did something without including my mind and consciousness. I did something without thinking about it; my mind was free of it and I realized that the action of opening the door was the most honest and unique action of my life" ~Michael Corotas
"Basically, philosophy is the study and questioning of everything. We research topics, find answers, and question them; however, we do not know if the answer we have found is the correct one. Humans are homesick for the right answer, and philosophy is like the teddy bear given to us to comfort us" ~ Damien Cooper
"You do not have to try to be sincere; if you are trying it is not truly sincerity" ~Kristen Epperson
"Just opening up that emotional portal to that which is god and letting that ray of positive energy fill you to be joyed by his sheer love and that which you can give back" ~Jonathan Christiansen
"In the reading of Dame Julian of Norwhich, she could not stop
talking about God. She loves her religion, Christianity to death. She
may have been a missionary. She believed that God is everything good and
everything is good. She is very confident and positive about her life
because she believe that God is with her. Since God is the most powerful,
she was confident in him. She is very sweet. However, I do not know if
she is all there. She is way too sweet. She may even think that bad luck
or fate is good. I do not think she is real at all. She is an airhead" ~Annie Saelee
"Eternity in my heart is a very freeing idea" ~Karen Rounsley
"Thoughts are separate from the mind. The mind doesn't create thoughts, it passes them in the universe, and shouldn't stop for any of them" ~Chris Ali
"How could you ever be sorrowful if you loved all that surrounded you?" ~Abbie Lueken
"God knows the true person every individual is. He knows what you will, and the reason you are feeling those feelings. There is no way to escape the God" ~Ashley Singh
"I thought that the author [Philo] brought up good points about how God loves to give. In Christian tradition he has given grace love mercy and forgiveness and his own son. Also the author talks about how he has given the world to his people which is a really good point that gets neglected so often in the Christian thought" ~ Ryan Kyle
"Anyone that wants a relationship with God can have one, He accepts each and everyone of us and everything. I believe that God is here with us each and everyday, watching over us, loving us, and being here for us giving forgiveness to us when we need it. That is why He made all things, so that through all things you can see Him" ~ Spring Longinotti
"When he [Philo] talked about Today is the true name of eternity, I found myself pondering that for a long while. Then it suddenly hit me. No matter what, we can only live in today. Tomorrow, Yesterday, Next Month etc...are just illusions, or better yet labels. We cannot escape TODAY. This is extremely profound I think" ~ Jimmy Smith.
"He tells us that today is actually the name of eternity, that only man has put a limit on what today really is. This I really liked. It shows that man tries to control what he cannot, but never can hope to, and fools himself and believes that he does" ~ John Tilden.
"'When I attained Absolute Perfect Enlightenment, I attained absolutely nothing. That is why it is called Absolute Perfect Enlightenment.' This sentence made me laugh. Part of me understands it, but that part of me can't explain it to the rest of me, so ultimately I don't understand what it means" ~Jennifer Benjamin.
"The Dov Baer of Mezrich, was a short reading, however, had a lot of meaning packed into such a small page. Basically, what I got from him is that beauty or divineness is only created because of your perspective on it, and you create it" ~ Janell Johnson.
"This might be a singularity, where everything and nothing coexist in a single point, like that before the Big Bang happened. Singularity is pretty much going on in every thing one could observe down to an atomic level" ~Rob Smith
"It is an admirable thing when someone can communicate in silence. Rare, too. Silence is what carries language" ~ Sasha Saetes-Ulbrich
"If He wanted to be so selfish and have everyone do everything in honor of Him everyday and every minute, then He wouldn't have given us the ability to do otherwise" ~ Melanie Schmitt
"People can't necessarily choose what they want to look like, but they can choose who they want to be on the inside" ~Vitaly Zanko
"It's almost as if instead of speaking from God's mouth and truly hearing his words, we become self-righteous and completely judgmental" ~Sarah Morenko
"Its a deeper sort of compassion when you want to help not only those less fortunate than yourself, but also those more fortunate than yourself" ~ JF
"People think money is the root of all happiness but I disagree, I wouldn't give up my family or friends for anything. I would live in a mud hut and eat rice for the rest of my life to keep them in my life." ~ Rich Cervantes.
"The less someone seems to care about earthly possessions the more fulfilled someone seems to be." ~ Emily Morris
"The concept that God gives you love in order to love others painted a very loving picture upon the image of God" ~Jamie Decker
"As it is said in the Talmud, Greater than the first miracle is the last. It is a wonderful thing that God did indeed create heaven and earth out of nothing. But the fact that we can actually realize that God, through His purpose, created everything from nothing, that is the real miracle" ~ Melanie Schmitt.
"Its kinda like... what is real? and what is fake? what is it that makes something real or fake? i think its our own perception on things. if we learn to let go of this perception, we can see that things just are, and not worry about things" ~ Ashley Ray
"To not dwell on anything and to see that we sit in a jewel made of many jewels and to be content with this - to me this is rather inhuman. Not inhuman like madness, but inhuman like trying to breathe underwater. To do as these people say you would have to die first." ~ Cary O'Neal.
"If you want to enjoy the world outside, clear the mind. What was once just a lake is now a new world, you notice the smells and sounds that were once blocked out by all of the other thoughts" ~ Cameron Potter
"I know for myself, at least, that I'm most open to learning, and adapting, and changing when I know little of a subject, and the more I learn the more set I become. Like painting a picture, the blank canvas can become anything, yet with each brush stroke some possibilities vanish and soon you are left with a full, but unalterable moment. It is beautiful in its way, but it will never again be anything else. That is like the mind of someone who is an expert in their field" ~ David Cochrane
"All these things we all dwell on don't matter when you die, they don't matter when you're born, so why do they matter so much now? Perhaps what connects us all is the fact that we are all of one perfect mind at the time of birth and death - it's just the trivial stuff that happens inbetween that separates us from one another" ~ Tami Granada.
"When we practice our breathing we practice ourselves in the same existence as the rest of the world as a whole" ~Deborah Weeks
"We took my dog to the vet yesterday, and he was put to sleep. It was the hardest thing i've ever had to do in my life. I held him in my arms the whole time. The doctor put the needle in his arm, and my dog looked up at me, and the whole time, kept complete eye contact with me. While this was happening, i had a feeling come over me. It was so powerful, that i can't ever really n truly explain it. I can kind of describe it as trust, love, peace, and much strength... but it was so much more than that. It was so powerful, that i couldn't even cry. I didn't cry" ~ Ashley Ray
"'Nothing is more manifest than the hidden', these are words the modern psychotherapist would endorse" ~Karen Rounsley
"'You must be nothing but an ear that hears what the universe of the world is constantly saying within you.' The more I contemplate the meaning of this quote, the less I understand it, and oddly enough I think that's kind of what the quote is trying to say" ~Lauren Bell
"Even when I am bored I am thinking about how bored I am. When I am happy I am thinking about the thing that made me happy" ~Marissa Dorado
"The picture shown in class of Maharshi for some reason evoked in me feelings akin to a mixture of those induced when looking at a poster of Albert Einstein and pictures of puppies." ~ Heather Bonacci
"Although I enjoyed all of the selections in The Enlightened Mind this week, I have to admit that the passages from Ramana Maharshi were the most profound to me. When thinking about his philosophies and what was shared in The Enlightened Mind, it opened up more than my mind to sit down and deeply think about his thoughts and beliefs, but it also deeply opened up my heart. A feeling that had been lost within me suddenly surrounded me, and uplifted my spirits beyond that of what I thought imaginable" ~Heather Waller
"Rumi - Augh!! 5 pages!! I hope its good. I've heard the name but, have never ventured that far yet! Here we go!!
Ooooh I like it!!" ~Annette Pool
"We are born, live, grow old, and die all at the same time" ~Don Alexander
"When I see the sunset, it is a sight of beauty and magnificence and it is hard not to feel happiness when viewing it. Something that is truly that beautiful and can bring joy to you just from the sight of it must be connected to love" ~Lindsey Hayden
"When you desire a situation to be different it prevents the perfection of the situation to be seen and all that is beautiful never received" ~Tania Danforth
"From the perspective of the deer, the lion is evil. From the perspective of the lion, the deer is good" ~Shaine Kennedy
"The Jewel Net of Indra: this jewel can show the reflections of all the jewels at once
This jumped out at me because I feel as though people are definitely reflections of each other for various reasons. In interacting with one another we act and react and reflect each other’s views, prejudices, fears and thoughts. We are shaped by our experiences and within those experiences are thousands people who – despite being the same or different as us – have made impressions on who we are. With each impression our view changes subtly and they leave a little of themselves within us" ~ Kali Coughlin
"Love comes, and then the egotism comes again" ~Rebecca Garn.
"Tu Shun chooses his words wisely and clearly paints a picture in my mind. Putting a dot in one of the crystals causes it to reflect the dot onto the crystals around it, this process continues out to the edge of the net (if there is one?)" ~ Jeremy Heath
"You always hear that if you think too much your brain starts to hurt, and it's true. I think if people didn't think too much they would live longer" ~ Fatin Diab.
"That which makes the tongue speak but which cannot be spoken by the tongue - that alone is God, not what people worship.
"His teaching is fair to everybody, and is full of love to his children" ~Airi Furuuchi
The author says this and goes on to say the same exact thing about the mind, the eyes, and the ears. What we say and do is not necessarily done by our bodies but done by God. God is in all of us. He is not just in our hearts or in a small little part of our body but he is there through out. He is a part of everyone and everything. He is the air we breathe, the water we drink, the houses we live in, and the Earth we live on. He is everything and is everywhere. I really like this reading. I like how he made the idea of God more than just an idea. He makes you realize how God is not just God, he is everything." ~ Alicia Curto
"Franz Kafka is the hardest to understand among these writings that I read this time. However, the one phrase that I like is 'the messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary.' If everyone had the peaceful mind and bliss in mind, it is the messiah itself. However, people believed that the messiah will come because their mind is unrestful and uneasy" ~Airi Furuuchi
"'That is perfect. This is perfect. Perfect comes from perfect. Take perfect from perfect, the remainder is perfect. May peace and peace and peace be everywhere.' I read these lines and intellectually got them. Yes, all is god, we are all perfect, no need to worry. Then I said them out loud to myself. They had so much more power when I spoke them. Such a peaceful feeling came over me." ~Sam Shaw
"There is a peace in realizing that the confines of your own mind are simply a passing gift/curse" ~Summer McDonald
"I agree with the Upanishads that God is something we cannot fathom. They say, "The ignorant think that God can be grasped by the mind; the wise know it beyond knowledge." I thought this statement was very profound. They describe God is something that is known and unknown, can be seen and cannot be seen" ~ Alex Montalvo.
"We look at a priest as someone closer to God than we are. Someone, who knows God better than we do. We confess our sins to God through the priest. We see the priest as link between us and God. But the truth is we do not need this link. He is no different in God's eyes. God loves us all the same, unconditionally. We are all his children" ~Zuzana Szegedy
"Atman is Brahman; that is what the teachings say. If I have it correct, Atman is purity of the soul, and once you know Atman you know Brahman. What I found the most fascinating is that the knower of Atman is content with everything. I think the reason I find that so interesting is because I rely on material things to make me comfortable and to make my life easier in almost every way. These comforts are things that I'm used to, and what if I didn't have those things? Would I be happy? As much as I'd like to say that yes, I would be content, I know I wouldn't be. I would be upset, I would be anxious, I would be trying to figure out how to get back what I had lost. If I'd never had those things I think it would be much easier" ~Holly Fonseca
"Waiting to be happy or satisfied is the ultimate waste of time" ~Abbie Lueken
"Atman to me is the ability to take your mind to a place where nothing but joy exists. Atman is also a state of mind where nothing bothers you and you see others as beings who are on the same orb learning their own lessons. Atman is the ability to be able to not get caught up in the drama of life as a daily chore. Atman is the ability to let go and remember what is important" ~Claire Hardeman
"My interpretation of the Upanishads is that the Self is this invisible force that we are all a part of. Kind of similar to sea water, the Self is the sea of the forces of life. Likewise our human bodies contain water so do we contain a part of the Self and when we die the water in us is transferred to something or somewhere else through the vaporizing process, likewise our Self is transferred to something or somewhere else" ~Khiem Diep
[Abi'l Khayr] "The idea that to find God one need to 'seek him in the hearts of men' brings serenity to my innermost being" ~Tyler McCubbin
"The following reading disturbed me: 'The Tao is the law of nature, which you can't depart from even for one instant.' Immediately after reading this, I felt so trapped. While I still believe that it is trying to describe a scenario where 'all' of the infinite is a 'whole', it no longer felt infinitely large to me; it seems limited in itself" ~Curtis Munz
"It would be like calling the ocean 'a huge number of water droplets', referring to a group of individuals when clearly it is a single entity" ~Johathan Lockwood
"That which makes the mind think but which cannot be thought by the mind-that alone is God. He made our minds, and he gave them the ability to think. Yet we cannot even comprehend God in his fullest. He goes on with the same analogy using the tongue, eye, and ear. All of these senses we use, yet none of them can be used to see, hear, understand God more clearly" ~ Courtney Wight
"We like to think of ourselves as individuals, and as our own beings, when in reality, we are nothing more than parts that make up a whole. When one of us changes, the whole changes. It does not matter who changes, it does not matter what changes. The change that occurs is never a change in an individual, but rather a change in reality, and a change in the universe" ~ Andrew Ezzet
"Creation of Earth is the process of making something out of nothing, the process of making heaven on earth. People who stop what they are doing every day and just listen to God will see what everything was like before creation. The 'something' goes back to what it was before - which is nothing. The process of going backwards is a bigger deal than the process of going forward" ~Lindsey Hayden
"The best quote was those who divide fail to divide; those who discriminate fail to discriminate. They fail because they do not realize that everything is one" ~ Victoria Hunt
"In the Upanishads, my favorite line was probably 'Those who realize God cannot be known, truly know; those who claim that they know, know nothing.' I believe in God, but I admit I do not fully understand his ways. I have the Bible to give me some guidance, but honestly, I don't understand why babies are born with a disease, and have to die before experiencing life. I don't understand why God does this or that, but I do know he is greater than any knowledge can explain. To me, people who obsess over finding answers in this world will never find freedom or peace" ~Emily Ruff.
"Physical and emotional suffering gives our lives meaning. It is because our hearts get broken that we appreciate love. It is because we die that we appreciate life. The emotions we experience during suffering are connected with the emotions we experience when our suffering has ended. Despair turns to hope. Hate turns to love. Sadness turns to joy. There is a purpose for everything and everything is necessary" ~ Jenna Jackson
"Whether God exists or not, or anything in regards to religion or purpose or meaning... it doesn't really matter. The fact that people have created something to fill that void... to give them hope and comfort when they are hopeless and worn out... that has to be the most beautiful thing we could have ever accomplished. To find something, be a part of something so vibrant and filled with so much positive energy and love and faith..... the idea in itself gives it power, even if the power did not exist before it." ~Heather Waller
"Those who divide fail to divide. If you try to find the difference between everything, you won't find anything. For example: trying to find the difference between hot and cold. You can't find how without the cold. Sooner or later, you will experience the cold that comes with the hot. Like a hot shower, it's nice and hot but as soon as the shower ends you experience the cold. If you're always trying to differentiate everything then you'll only make your life more complicated. Just take things for what they are" ~ Melanie Schmitt.
"When we fail we need to look into ourselves to find out the why we failed and that maybe it wasn’t something we did wrong but only our definition of failure that was wrong and needs to change" ~ Amanda Sheeler
"To possess God in your mind is wrong" ~Randall Harding
"At first reading my mind sort of shut down, 'how can this Tao be the law of nature that can't be departed from?' Then just a second ago I realized I was taking things too literal - the Tao is only a teaching of what is, not that all things are contained in any words, but that all words are contained in anything" ~ Jimmy Smith
"This is much like an ear that cannot listen because all it is working to achieve is hearing, not understanding" ~Grace Tillotson
"We look at birds and we say that's a bird. We look at a desk and we say that's a desk. But Dov Baer of Mezritch looks at a bird or a desk and says 'that's the universe'" ~Lyubov Gavrilyuk
"This journal reading [Tzu Ssu] opened my eyes to a lighter side of thinking" ~ Kalena Granada
"There is a positive and a negative in life, not that the negative is any worse than that of the positive, but for the positive to exist the negative must also be apparent, a ying & yang theory, good & evil. There are no materialistic items, no I & mine, nothing is owned, but rather those items are a part of something much bigger, out of our control" ~Seth Hensley
"We all love to talk and show our point of view, expecting others to listen and of course agree with us. Stop and listen; try to understand, where others are coming from, why they think the way they do. If we start listening to ourselves, we turn off the most important part - the World" ~Zuzana Szegedy
"If human beings only function in life is to procreate, then having a religion to give you a purpose would make sense" ~ Moraud Lebastchi
"In Kuei-Shan, it talks about Zen masters. They are completely straightforward, and are completely without deceit and lying. He is completely alert, and everything is unattached. I liked the reading because it was short." ~Brittany Throckmorton
"If we lost it, then there is a point when we had it." ~ Timofey Lyashenko
"What is a day when we have the rest of our lives, the rest of eternity? In a day we can accomplish anything. In a lifetime we will have tried too late" ~Cecelia Spencer
"This reading [ibn Pakuda] summed up why I both love religion and don't love it at the same time. The first half, my reasons for not liking it, my problems come from blindless surrender to something unknown. It seems to happen so immediately, without knowing exactly what it is or without having any real reason behind it. Blind faith that people follow through the good and bad and even to death for. Maybe it's because I'm jealous that I've never felt something worth giving myself over to, no god or religion has been able to make me throw caution to the wind and believe in only that. Perhaps that's a good thing and would've kept me from being one of Charlie Manson's followers, or maybe it's also what keeps the fact that I know something is missing from my life" ~ C.R.
"Everything in life is a process, and everything has a lesson. The type of person you are is reflected in the way you go about these processes" ~Summer McDonald
"It has been my own life experience that judging another's religion, customs, or even lifestyle, I am really judging myself. There can be no true happiness manifested from telling another human being what they should believe" ~Amanda Raynal
"You stop thinking of things as yours, including your family, your house, the tree in front of your yard, and yourself. It is now all God's" ~Jessica Katz
"If we see our selves as something, then we ultimately do not see God at all. Much like if we harnass God in a book rather than in reality then we tend not to even see god in reality at all" ~ Cary ONeal.
"The spiritual world is something you shouldn't have to think about, if it is truly there then you should just be able to let it happen, and if it isn't there should just let it not happen" ~Anthony Armentano
"The part that states “Eye cannot see it, tongue cannot utter it, mind cannot grasp it. There is no way to learn it or teach it. It is different from the known, beyond the unknown. That which makes the tongue speak but which cannot be spoken by the tongue-that alone is God, not what people worship." Basically what I got from this reading was to worship God and truly understand God is not to. It’s just allowing it to happen, for you to feel not think. For you to just know not to understand" ~ Christina Young
"I think a better way to explain what I'm trying to say is looking at a blind man as an example. If a blind man lives his life knowing he can't see (if he, for some strange reason, grew up with a bunch of other blind people) then it's never a problem, he grew up that way and has no idea about a completely different world involving sight. Then one day, he meets someone that can see and realizes that there's something else out there, something he knows nothing about but now he's beginning to hear and learn about an entire different world, but never really experiences it himself. That is the first way of being enlightened. And then one day, he gets his sight, and he can really experience and see things for himself. That is how he is truly enlightened" ~ Melanie Schmitt
"I have found that garbage has an interesting blend of colors when you look closely, and that it represents common cycles of life" ~Tania Danforth
"Sometimes I look at things and don't appreciate them until one day I do and realize that I didn't" ~Amy Erickson
"Once inner peace is attained, all desires will become content" ~Jasmin Khinda
"If you gain experience with a different understanding, the chance opens that maybe your way of thinking is not right is planted in your head. The more this idea pesters at you the more you realize that you may be more ignorant than you first though, and when you finally let go of predisposed ways of thinking you allow for the simple light of God to make itself available to you" ~ Krissi Hoelscher
"I don't really agree with 'Our mind is pure and simple' [Symeon the New Theologian]. No it's not! There is tons of crap up there" ~ Charlene Driller
"I feel that if God was something that was explained and proved to be either true or untrue, religion would in turn lose it's luster" ~ Kaitlin Schafer
"God's grace is the beginning, the middle, and the end. When you pray for God's grace, you are like someone standing neck-deep in water and yet crying for water." God's grace is everywhere whether you pray for it or not. We just need to recognize that it's there, and maybe instead of asking for it, just thank him for it" ~ Courtney Wight
"If God is within us, why are we trying to move through space to get to something else? We move from God to God" ~ Olivia Capeloto
"Once you purge yourself of everything on the outside and venture inside yourself, you will reach the blissful state of Nirvana" ~Kristen Epperson
"[Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer]. It's not fair that we can give unmixed attention to the television but not in prayer" ~ Melanie Schmitt
"If I believe that the world is flat and not round and no matter how many scientists and pictures of the world you show me I still say that the world is round, am I being judgmental by telling all my friends that I think the world is flat and that I think the scientists are lying to us? Depends, if I am just sharing knowledge to try and share my truth with friends then I am not judging them" ~Kim Eelkema
"I believe that one's soul can find a state of bliss through the silence in life" ~Jacob Shugart
On Chuang Tzu: "Whether I'm right or wrong, I don't really know, and I'm definitely okay with that. All I can do is admire these people for their complicated way of thinking and their need for over-complicating the simplest things. But I guess if I really think about it, all they're doing is putting our brains' thoughts on paper and showing us how ridiculous our brains can be at times. Wow, I guess there is some sort of method to their madness?" ~Thannia Gonzalez
"Religion should not have to be spoken, rather it is just in the essence of life and the things surrounding us" ~Jessica Katz
"There's just nothing to draw from 'To use a horse to show that a horse is not a horse is not as good as using a non-horse to show that a horse is a horse,' makes basically no logical sense, but all the sense in the world. He's trying to trick us by using opposites that lead to nothing, it leads our brains into making a choice that goes nowhere, then maybe trying the other choice, which again leads nowhere, and that's just the point, over-thinking will get you nowhere" ~Aliya Purvis.
"Everything has something to depend on and everything depends on something. For some reason as I was reading it I kept thinking of the whole chicken and the egg debate. Which came first? As I was reading I replaced 'this' and 'that' with 'chicken' and 'egg' and it was kind of interesting. For example, 'So I say, "Chicken" comes out of "egg" and "egg" depends on "chicken" - which is to say that "egg" and "chicken" give birth to each other'" ~Samantha Esquibel
"Chuang Tzu is a yin-yang sign obstructing my view of what I thought I knew" ~Tarah Duncan
"If truth were something that did not exist in us before we realized it then it would mean that truth is not eternal and therefore anything non eternal is not worth striving for in the ultimate sense" ~Rohan Rajan
"Isn't it very hard to trust God to love us that much, and even to know more about us then we know about ourselves?" ~Francesca Latzer
"Tzu-Ssu also refers to people who are aware of the Tao as 'mature people'. These people respect what is unseen and unheard because they are always looking inward" ~Jorrell Sorensen
"After going through the readings, I realize that I am doing the wrong thing by trying to understand what I am looking at...soaking up the various opposites and realizing they are all the same thing whilst being nothing really is an interesting feeling" ~Chad Davies
"We are really like fish. Just swimming around, we are trying to figure out the world...but all of a sudden we can't swim anymore and just accept that we are caught. Being fish, we don't know what we are caught in, or what being caught leads to, we just know that it is out of our control and we should just let it happen" ~Chad Davies.
"While it was the answer, it was also the riddle" ~Wyatt Ciciarelli
"Being a good person is something good church won't change" ~Chad Davies
"Children have a clean slate. Swimming in a pool with a child of another race, or playing tag with a child of another race, doesn't even register being different from their own race" ~Aliya Purvis
"I thought that it was interesting that [Kafka] said that the largest sin was impatience. It says that because impatience they were expelled, because of impatience they don't return. I think that is very true with life. People have goals and dreams that they want to achieve but a large portion of the reason that they do not come true is because of impatience. They lose focus of what they hoped for and they end up giving up. Once they give up then they decide that they will never achieve it because they tried before and were unsuccessful" ~ Sarah Paepke.
"Western thinking tends to work in linear logical 'either or' patterns, while the readings are using 'both and' reasoning" ~Marla Edwards.
"Western philosophy says: I think, therefore I am. Whereas, the readings seem to be saying: I am, therefore I am" ~Tara Muller
"Absolutes are unattainable" ~Joanna Ransier
"This passage talked a lot about God already being there for a person. To have God is as simple as having him. People always make things so much more difficult than they really are. I think the section that explained the whole passage was the one that said..."God's grace is the beginning, the middle, and the end. When you pray for God's grace you are like someone standing neck-deep in water and yet crying for water. It is like saying that someone neck-deep in water feels thirsty, or that a fish in water feels thirst, or that water feels thirsty." God's grace and love is everywhere. We don’t need to look for it because we have it. We don’t need to yearn for it, it is there. We don’t need fancy words and teachings to obtain it, because we already have it" ~ Christina Young
"In the eyes of my grandkids, I often see a depth that seems to extend back to the moment of creation" ~ Sharon McGaughey
"It seems many of the gems are hidden, so you have to do some digging" ~Nathan Mackey
"The incomprehensible is real" ~Kristen Epperson
"When we say 'ignorance is bliss,' we're really misattributing bliss as ignorance of reality based on our own perception of reality, which is colored by the very things standing between us and bliss" ~Brad Warren
"I read this passage [from the Buddha, in The Enlightened Mind] before I read [the textbook]. That was a mistake. I pondered on the passage for a while. As I neared the end of the Buddhism chapter I went back to the passage and read it a few more times. Then I understood what Buddha was talking about. Our needs are not permanent." ~ Joel Ocray.
"The contradictions, while frustrating, causes the mind to actually examine the readings" ~ Laikien Daggett.
"Though you cannot see the change you are working on yourself and others, it is there" ~Cheyne Close.
"He also tells of a man building a raft to get by a swift river. Once he makes it, should he take it with him on his travels, or should he leave it because it has served its purpose? And Buddha says you should leave the raft because you are using it appropriately. I also believe that another reason to leave the raft there is maybe it will help someone else someday." ~ Andrew McCrory.
"The most sublime act is to set another before you. This is parenting" ~ Deborah Lynn
"I find that in life there are ways and then there are long ways. For some reason my mind likes to take the long ways, as if I were carrying that raft after I got to the opposite shore" ~ Rachel Dobish.
"Space is such a mysterious place, and not a whole lot is known about it, and I hope it will stay that way" ~Danielle Geierman
"As a westerner I was never taught these kinds of things. I was never taught to follow the thoughts before the actions, or to focus the feeling tones of my body or how my mind processes things. It seems to me that this is the way to go." ~ Colin Rice
"We fear the simplicity of it" ~Carol Crockett
"I also really liked what [Ramana Maharshi] had to say about reality, how humans keep trying to search for reality, when really the whole time we are the reality here on this earth. There is nothing else hidden for us to know about here on earth while we exist. And if there are hidden things, it is hidden on purpose and for us to know about only when we're dead." ~ Amanda Espinosa
"I get mixed messages from this whole William Blake thing" ~ Alicia Opdyke
"So in this great mystery we call life there are many things to be unsure of - especially your ego" ~ Tami Granada
"It's like giving a kid their dream toy for their birthday, and instead of playing with it they instead spend all their time asking where it was made, who put it together, and what will happen to it after it gets old and breaks down. They are interesting questions, but really they are irrelevant for the most part, and should not supersede the toy itself" ~David Cochrane
"“When it [our mind] is emptied of thought … [it] finds nothing but the light.” Once I got into the hang of meditating this statement became true. I wasn’t even necessarily trying to meditate to be a holy being or to reach some sort of nirvana, but just to see if I could do it. When I finally was able to truly free my mind of thought and checked back in to reality I was left with a feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction and tranquility like I had never experienced before. I didn’t consider myself religious, but when that happened it was hard to deny that something had to have happened that was beyond me" ~ Kali Coughlin
"One particular thing that my children do, that I remember doing also, is spending a great deal of time inspecting things from different angles, generally upside-down is the most fascinating" ~Tara Muller
"A quote from Gandhi...says that 'I am here to serve no one else but myself, to find my own self-realization through the service of others.' I found that to be so profound...I feel the same way when I coach or volunteer through my church. I am a U.S. Marine and people often say wow that is so brave or they thank me for volunteering and coaching. I just do not get it. I am serving other people but through my wishes and fulfillments, the fact that it helps others is just part of it I guess" ~ Mike Sanchez.
"Maybe that is just a common problem in teaching religion to children, all the forcing of knowledge and cramming of morality, with the overall theme of God loves you, you love god, and not enough teaching of how to feel that love, or that peace" ~Jonathan Christensen
"With people grasping at willy-nilly in order to fill their void with material possessions, as humans we have over-reached our bounds" ~ Gabrielle Brown
"Let me feel the sweetness and very kindness of this world, this world is not my enemy at all" ~Airi Furuuchi
"If you walk in the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew" ~Pocahontas, cited in student paper
"Stop looking up to an unreal god will make the real things all you need" ~Kim Eelkema
"Even though a man content with Atman exists unattached from the world, he sees men as equals to his enlightenment and reaps the benefits of luxuries if bestowed upon him - he is the ultimate neutral being" ~Emily Buck
"The burden [Jesus] carried as he died seems trivial compared to the burden he know carries as the focal point of one of the most influential religions, and by that, one of the most influential powers, on the planet." ~ Cameron Betts
"[Dying] It is like watching someone grip on to something with all they have and struggle while it is being pried from them until they realize it doesn't matter how hard they hang on, this is happening. I think a lot goes on for someone when they are able to give up that control and gain a sense of peace in the end" ~Shelsea Coleman
"When I first heard about loving your neighbor, I always thought, “Well, that’s easy, I only have 2 neighbors on my street!” ~ Florrie Tanase
"When I was little i was under the impression that idolatry was so easy to spot- it looked like the golden calf scene from The Ten Commandments movie, or the Incas sacrificing humans to their bellicose gods. But now I see it in a way more personal way- it's when humans disregard God in favor of themselves, or any other of God's creation." ~ Gia Day.
"If I want people to know that I love God and seek him, I should show love" ~Angelina Piluyeva
"Like Maximus of Tyre states, what is the harm in making a devotional object? I believe that devotional objects can come about spontaneously. They are not always consciously created. I have a little plastic turtle in my room that I got at a toy store while I was out with a friend. We named him Franklin. Since then, he has been sitting in my room, acting as a solid representation of my friendship with that person. Without any intention, he has come to represent all that there is to represent about me, my friend, and our relationship to each other. I am sure that certain images evoke the same response in religious people, but perhaps in a more spiritual way. I am not religious, but I can see how everyday objects could evoke thoughts about God. These objects could be the shoes one wore the day they were saved, or a nice pebble they found outside their church on a particularly memorable day. These pieces almost attach their own significance to themselves. If something like this can happen on accident, why should we not be able to imitate it on purpose? If the idea is to always have God in your heart, why not surround yourself with his image? It seems to make sense to me. After all, nature is one giant 'idol.' What greater evidence is there of God's presence? Each butterfly is an idol. Each blade of grass and every cloud is the image of God. Not only that, but people were made in His image. We ourselves are idols. Would anyone consider having children to be creating false idols? Everything that exists is the impression of God. Idols help us focus ~ Autumn Bohnstedt
"When you have found God, he no longer loves just within you but he also lives through you" ~Justin Becerril
"The basic truths in life are very simple, very easy to understand, and very difficult to practice" ~Robin Roundtree
"[Heraclitus] states that we name nature after the ones we worship and in their being. I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of things named after Gods out in nature by their followers and it's interesting that people would do such a thing. I think it could possibly be so that they are closer to god in a more physical way than an abstract way such as, 'God is everywhere'" ~ Alesandro Padilla
"One quote that really stood out to me was, 'Thus, in dealing with people, we already have the perfect model of behavior inside of us'. I think this is said beautifully, because in a way we do have the perfect model...in other words, in most cases, think about how you act when you are around elders, for example your Grandparents" ~ Don Helmig.
"I tend to be very judgmental of people and have a hard time letting grudges go. I grew up in a very dysfunctional family, as were my marriages; and to this day I have not forgiven any of those involved. This [Shmelke of Nicholsberg] is something I and probably many other people should read on a daily basis. I absolutely agreed with the author, it is just something I have a hard time pulling off. But, I wish I could" ~ T.B.
"Padmasambhava's belief that dying is the beginning of living is the insight that when we die there is nothing but further enlightenment for us to obtain" ~Seth Hensley.
"To give up what some people consider to be their only hope, for the ultimate lack of anything? It seems as though only Dawkins could rejoice in such a hard choice" ~ Carolyn Reichert
"To a degree, I think everyone is somewhat of an Atheist. A Christian is not going to believe in a Hindu god for example. Each individual has his/her belief of what God is. That image will vary from person to person" ~ Jillian Adkins
"One could use other words instead of the word God and the message would still apply" ~Liberty Watts
"I once heard that not forgiving someone is like taking the poison and expecting the other person to die. This hit me hard because I imagined how physically ill I get when I'm mad or hold a grudge against someone, yet they go on seemingly unaffected. I’m taking the poison and waiting for them to drop dead, and it’s never going to happen. For this reason, forgiveness isn’t optional, it’s essential to my being" ~ Teira Taylor
"Simply naming something creates boundaries and therefore dualities" ~ Sandy Fuller
"You have to ask yourself what defines 'real'. Is it real as defined by what you can touch, see, taste, smell or hear? Or is it something completely different? I interpret real as being actual matter that is present in our plane of time. Having said that, I cannot believe that something which emphasizes the unreal (Religion) can help us shed the habit of 'regarding as real that which is unreal'." ~ Gerry Schardt
"It is perfectly attainable by just looking inward" ~Kristen Epperson
"I wonder if God even bothers with calculating time. I doubt that he does" ~Liberty Watts
"In my belief, the student should find the teacher, not the other way around" ~Hailey Kleinhans
"I love at the end how it says that the kingdom of God is not here nor there for it is within you. Once you have found God, it really is a kingdom! There is so much to learn, to explore and so much knowledge to obtain." ~ Katy Cahill.
"I think people are meant to be in awe and not understand because I want to believe people are meant to have feelings of awe" ~Tania Danforth
"Asking where and how for the Kingdom of God, he will not answer you because he doesn't know the answer only you know the answer" ~ Spring Longinotti
"Religion can provide answers, although they may not always be the right ones they are answers to a question. And for a lost and hopeless person the answers don't need to be right" ~ Robbie Bendorf
"Whether or not people believe in him he will always be there, even without a name" ~Crystal Hernandez
"We should treat everything as if it or they were our own child. When majority of society is compared to other citizens who have nothing and are living in poverty, majority of society stand by and watches. Society continues to let the poorer get poorer as the rich get richer. If we treated everyone as if they were our own kin I could guarantee the statistics of less fortunate people would decrease" ~Crystal Hernandez
"Dogen [says] that to study Buddhism is to forget one's self, and to forget one's self is to be enlightened by all things. So once you learn to forget everything else and then to accept it, you can then begin to understand it" ~Anthony Armentano
"I feel like I can access a deeper level of meditation when removing myself; entering more of a quote 'dream state' getting to the center, getting to the base of my own connection to everything. Getting to this point of singularity. Ironically getting to this point doesn't get me anywhere or do anything. It just feels good" ~Rob Smith
"Don't be anxious about what you will eat or what you will wear. Isn't your life more than its food, and your body more than its clothing? Basically saying that you shouldn't worry about that stuff because God will take care of it for you. I'm not sure i liked this statement because I'm pretty sure that if i sat around all day and did nothing food and clothes would not just appear out of no where. I don't know though" ~ Kaitlin Schafer
"Once you stop searching for God and trying to wrap your head around the concept of God you will realize nothing you can point to is either void of God or full of God. Nothing is good or bad, it’s simply perfect." ~ Teira Taylor
"I know that by seeking God outside of myself I am not truly seeking. It is all a concept 'soul', the term implies that something exists outside of the whole" ~ Jimmy Smith.
"Hate and love are both very strong things" ~ Amanda Espinoza
"In my experience the human mind over complicates things" ~ Sarah Knight
"When you try to ignore God's creation, you can't help but realize how great and divine it is" ~ Hannah Beausang.
"When I say 'bad karma' I mean karma that will have bad results, not actual bad karma because there is no such thing, it is what it is" ~ Melanie Schmitt
"God is not necessarily everywhere, because he doesn't intrude, or sneak himself somewhere, he waits for man to accept him, and once man has done that, then he makes his way in and surrounds the person" ~Ana Topaz
"I personally think that people are what make religion what it is, so we should be open to hear how others interpret their faith, not shut the door on them" ~ Victoria Hunt.
"All people have to do really is look inside themselves and it is already there" ~Joella Van Thull
"That's what gives Westerners peace, believing that all things are knowable in the physical sense. Shankara writes that the true Reality is not what is physically knowable - the outward forms - but what is unknowable: Brahman. Ramana Maharshi says that true reality is simply the loss of ego, that there is nothing that is hiding reality and that we are in fact reality. So, to find true reality, Maharshi would say don't look more closely at something, as Westerners would do, but look less closely" ~ Lois Hathaway
"Accept all things fairly because we are in the Kingdom of Heaven, but to truly see it you have to accept it" ~Don Alexander
"I would like to say that this piece of writing [Shankara], although it was in some ways complex and I had to read more than once in order to fully understand the writer's message, it was enlightening and deep as well. It also leaves you wondering and somewhat confused, but overall it leaves you with a peaceful mind" ~ Sarah Matar.
"'It neither is nor is not.' Then what the heck is it!!!? How do you keep your mind separate from your thoughts?" ~ Shane Rahimi.
"Taking what 'life dishes out' and accepting it basically forces you to work on yourself instead. I think before we start trying to improve our society we need to work on improving ourselves." ~ Kayla Hale.
"Often when we pray it is like we are talking to Santa rather than God" ~Anthony Lopez
"The hidden harmony is better than the obvious one. I think the hidden harmony could be the good feelings you have as a result of the things you do, and the obvious harmony could be the actual things you do. An analogy to that might be love being better than sex" ~ Dan Emery.
"In my opinion it is more important to know God than to understand God" ~ Raven Fonseca
"The one thing I think causes most pain in the world would have to be choices" ~ Derek Irvin.
"Absence of existence is frightening" ~ Gabrielle Brown
"Death and the afterlife are probably the most interesting views of all. Within Judaism, there is the idea that bodily death is final, but the soul can go on to be with God. The body is made of earth and returns to it.
"This is hard for me to grasp that nothing in the brain is a good thing" ~Sarah Miller
Buddhists, however, have a very different take. Bodily death is final, but since there is no 'soul' separate from God, it doesn't 'go' anywhere.
There is, however, the concept of reincarnation that adds a twist to it all. It is not reincarnation of the soul, like Hindus believe, but rather the reincarnation of the personality or 'spirit' of a person. And spirit does not mean soul or ghost, but as in 'she had a bright spirit.' It is the idea that God reinvents aspects of itself in people over and over, despite their body dying.
Despite their differences, both religions aim to be good people, help those in need, share what they can and be rewarded for it - either by God or within God" ~ Kali Coughlin
"We will always exist as long as God exists" ~ Melanie Schmitt.
"I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil." God made everything. I think he was trying to balance out our world. You can't appreciate beauty if you've never seen the ugly. Happiness wouldn't mean anything to us if we've never suffered" ~ Melanie Schmitt.
"Evil and good are both alike because they were created by the Unnameable and in your heart you know the truth; the Unnameable has put it there" ~Tyler McCubbin
"I think it would be too un-natural for our minds to perceive the source of material. It is fun to think about, though, but if all our thoughts can only imagine things that we are accustomed to, and even if we were accustomed to the entire universe and all the intricacies of it, we would still not be able to comprehend God. Our minds and bodies were not meant for that in my opinion. What we are meant for is not anything beyond living and dying, and thinking along the way if our thoughts and lives as humans are so important. I like this point of view because it gives all beings equality. There is no social order among all that live, spiritually. Plants and animals live just like we do, and their thought processes are either non-existent or very small, and it doesn't matter because our thoughts are still limited. Therefore thought and intelligence does not distinguish us as being a greater being than any other thing. So that is real equality." ~ Eric Sutton.
"My journal response will be very biased as I am a native american. I have lived on the reservation most of my life. Things such as where you go after life and how you are supposed to act are just known from birth. I remember being little and my father telling me not to listen to what my grandparents (on my moms side) say about religion. He said hell did not exist. In this way, without fear, I think I was able to appreciate the great spirit. There was no "Do this or else", it was laughable. Everything was and is because it was supposed to be. There was no reason to be scared of God. I can imagine what Red Jacket and the other indians thought when the missionary told them their religion is wrong. "Yeah right." Natives I know now who still are traditional in their spirituality know that the way each person appreciates the great spirit is in their own way. Even among the same family, each person is unique in their practices. I go to sweats and I sing, I have a sister who dances and my father leads our tribe. I also have family who are atheists, Christians and one who is a wiccan. No one argues over religion in my family. One of the most important things I think is common amongst indigenous religions is that they are tolerant of others beliefs. They live and let live. They mind their own business." ~ Raven Fonseca.
"The other section that really stood out was the section describing that everything around us (water and land) and all that we have via talents and good health, was given to us. However when you ask people about themselves, or the home they live in and the landscaping of the grounds they say I did that or I created it. Instead of thanking God for what was provided and the skill given to them to allow them to create things, they try to claim the credit for it. I really liked and really thought hard on the message these readings were trying to put into words" ~ Krissi Hoelscher.
"He tells us that today is actually the name of eternity, that only man has put a limit on what today really is. This I really liked. It shows that man tries to control what he cannot, but never can hope to, and fools himself and believes that he does" ~ John Tilden.
"'When I attained Absolute Perfect Enlightenment, I attained absolutely nothing. That is why it is called Absolute Perfect Enlightenment.' This sentence made me laugh. Part of me understands it, but that part of me can't explain it to the rest of me, so ultimately I don't understand what it means" ~Jennifer Benjamin.
"The Dov Baer of Mezrich, was a short reading, however, had a lot of meaning packed into such a small page. Basically, what I got from him is that beauty or divineness is only created because of your perspective on it, and you create it" ~ Janell Johnson.
"This might be a singularity, where everything and nothing coexist in a single point, like that before the Big Bang happened. Singularity is pretty much going on in every thing one could observe down to an atomic level" ~Rob Smith
"All beauty is loved by those who are able to perceive beauty, for the perception of beauty is a delight in itself [al-Ghazali]. What a simple observation. People love to look at pleasant things and are drawn to beauty, but don't think about why they love it. It is, indeed, the perception which is the joy itself" ~ Kali Coughlin
"After reading about th eman walking along the highroad and then crosses a river using a make-shift raft, and then wanting to carry it with him once he crosses to go along with him on his journey, I was once again fascinated by the simple analogy to life. It is not appropriate to carry things with you that are unnecessary. Yes, it may have helped you at one time, but it is also important to let things to and not bare them onto you and weaken yourself. If you end up coming to a river again, make another raft, you have done it once before" ~Marisa Martinez.
"After reading about th eman walking along the highroad and then crosses a river using a make-shift raft, and then wanting to carry it with him once he crosses to go along with him on his journey, I was once again fascinated by the simple analogy to life. It is not appropriate to carry things with you that are unnecessary. Yes, it may have helped you at one time, but it is also important to let things to and not bare them onto you and weaken yourself. If you end up coming to a river again, make another raft, you have done it once before" ~Marisa Martinez.
"It is an admirable thing when someone can communicate in silence. Rare, too. Silence is what carries language" ~ Sasha Saetes-Ulbrich
"If He wanted to be so selfish and have everyone do everything in honor of Him everyday and every minute, then He wouldn't have given us the ability to do otherwise" ~ Melanie Schmitt
"People can't necessarily choose what they want to look like, but they can choose who they want to be on the inside" ~Vitaly Zanko
"It's almost as if instead of speaking from God's mouth and truly hearing his words, we become self-righteous and completely judgmental" ~Sarah Morenko
"Its a deeper sort of compassion when you want to help not only those less fortunate than yourself, but also those more fortunate than yourself" ~ JF
"People think money is the root of all happiness but I disagree, I wouldn't give up my family or friends for anything. I would live in a mud hut and eat rice for the rest of my life to keep them in my life." ~ Rich Cervantes.
"The less someone seems to care about earthly possessions the more fulfilled someone seems to be." ~ Emily Morris
"The concept that God gives you love in order to love others painted a very loving picture upon the image of God" ~Jamie Decker
"As it is said in the Talmud, Greater than the first miracle is the last. It is a wonderful thing that God did indeed create heaven and earth out of nothing. But the fact that we can actually realize that God, through His purpose, created everything from nothing, that is the real miracle" ~ Melanie Schmitt.
"Its kinda like... what is real? and what is fake? what is it that makes something real or fake? i think its our own perception on things. if we learn to let go of this perception, we can see that things just are, and not worry about things" ~ Ashley Ray
"To not dwell on anything and to see that we sit in a jewel made of many jewels and to be content with this - to me this is rather inhuman. Not inhuman like madness, but inhuman like trying to breathe underwater. To do as these people say you would have to die first." ~ Cary O'Neal.
"If you want to enjoy the world outside, clear the mind. What was once just a lake is now a new world, you notice the smells and sounds that were once blocked out by all of the other thoughts" ~ Cameron Potter
"I know for myself, at least, that I'm most open to learning, and adapting, and changing when I know little of a subject, and the more I learn the more set I become. Like painting a picture, the blank canvas can become anything, yet with each brush stroke some possibilities vanish and soon you are left with a full, but unalterable moment. It is beautiful in its way, but it will never again be anything else. That is like the mind of someone who is an expert in their field" ~ David Cochrane
"All these things we all dwell on don't matter when you die, they don't matter when you're born, so why do they matter so much now? Perhaps what connects us all is the fact that we are all of one perfect mind at the time of birth and death - it's just the trivial stuff that happens inbetween that separates us from one another" ~ Tami Granada.
"When we practice our breathing we practice ourselves in the same existence as the rest of the world as a whole" ~Deborah Weeks
"We took my dog to the vet yesterday, and he was put to sleep. It was the hardest thing i've ever had to do in my life. I held him in my arms the whole time. The doctor put the needle in his arm, and my dog looked up at me, and the whole time, kept complete eye contact with me. While this was happening, i had a feeling come over me. It was so powerful, that i can't ever really n truly explain it. I can kind of describe it as trust, love, peace, and much strength... but it was so much more than that. It was so powerful, that i couldn't even cry. I didn't cry" ~ Ashley Ray
"'Nothing is more manifest than the hidden', these are words the modern psychotherapist would endorse" ~Karen Rounsley
"'You must be nothing but an ear that hears what the universe of the world is constantly saying within you.' The more I contemplate the meaning of this quote, the less I understand it, and oddly enough I think that's kind of what the quote is trying to say" ~Lauren Bell
"Even when I am bored I am thinking about how bored I am. When I am happy I am thinking about the thing that made me happy" ~Marissa Dorado
"The picture shown in class of Maharshi for some reason evoked in me feelings akin to a mixture of those induced when looking at a poster of Albert Einstein and pictures of puppies." ~ Heather Bonacci
"Although I enjoyed all of the selections in The Enlightened Mind this week, I have to admit that the passages from Ramana Maharshi were the most profound to me. When thinking about his philosophies and what was shared in The Enlightened Mind, it opened up more than my mind to sit down and deeply think about his thoughts and beliefs, but it also deeply opened up my heart. A feeling that had been lost within me suddenly surrounded me, and uplifted my spirits beyond that of what I thought imaginable" ~Heather Waller
"Rumi - Augh!! 5 pages!! I hope its good. I've heard the name but, have never ventured that far yet! Here we go!!
Ooooh I like it!!" ~Annette Pool
"We are born, live, grow old, and die all at the same time" ~Don Alexander
"When I see the sunset, it is a sight of beauty and magnificence and it is hard not to feel happiness when viewing it. Something that is truly that beautiful and can bring joy to you just from the sight of it must be connected to love" ~Lindsey Hayden
"When you desire a situation to be different it prevents the perfection of the situation to be seen and all that is beautiful never received" ~Tania Danforth
"From the perspective of the deer, the lion is evil. From the perspective of the lion, the deer is good" ~Shaine Kennedy
"The Jewel Net of Indra: this jewel can show the reflections of all the jewels at once
This jumped out at me because I feel as though people are definitely reflections of each other for various reasons. In interacting with one another we act and react and reflect each other’s views, prejudices, fears and thoughts. We are shaped by our experiences and within those experiences are thousands people who – despite being the same or different as us – have made impressions on who we are. With each impression our view changes subtly and they leave a little of themselves within us" ~ Kali Coughlin
"Love comes, and then the egotism comes again" ~Rebecca Garn.
"Tu Shun chooses his words wisely and clearly paints a picture in my mind. Putting a dot in one of the crystals causes it to reflect the dot onto the crystals around it, this process continues out to the edge of the net (if there is one?)" ~ Jeremy Heath
"You always hear that if you think too much your brain starts to hurt, and it's true. I think if people didn't think too much they would live longer" ~ Fatin Diab.
"That which makes the tongue speak but which cannot be spoken by the tongue - that alone is God, not what people worship.
"His teaching is fair to everybody, and is full of love to his children" ~Airi Furuuchi
The author says this and goes on to say the same exact thing about the mind, the eyes, and the ears. What we say and do is not necessarily done by our bodies but done by God. God is in all of us. He is not just in our hearts or in a small little part of our body but he is there through out. He is a part of everyone and everything. He is the air we breathe, the water we drink, the houses we live in, and the Earth we live on. He is everything and is everywhere. I really like this reading. I like how he made the idea of God more than just an idea. He makes you realize how God is not just God, he is everything." ~ Alicia Curto
"Franz Kafka is the hardest to understand among these writings that I read this time. However, the one phrase that I like is 'the messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary.' If everyone had the peaceful mind and bliss in mind, it is the messiah itself. However, people believed that the messiah will come because their mind is unrestful and uneasy" ~Airi Furuuchi
"'That is perfect. This is perfect. Perfect comes from perfect. Take perfect from perfect, the remainder is perfect. May peace and peace and peace be everywhere.' I read these lines and intellectually got them. Yes, all is god, we are all perfect, no need to worry. Then I said them out loud to myself. They had so much more power when I spoke them. Such a peaceful feeling came over me." ~Sam Shaw
"There is a peace in realizing that the confines of your own mind are simply a passing gift/curse" ~Summer McDonald
"I agree with the Upanishads that God is something we cannot fathom. They say, "The ignorant think that God can be grasped by the mind; the wise know it beyond knowledge." I thought this statement was very profound. They describe God is something that is known and unknown, can be seen and cannot be seen" ~ Alex Montalvo.
"We look at a priest as someone closer to God than we are. Someone, who knows God better than we do. We confess our sins to God through the priest. We see the priest as link between us and God. But the truth is we do not need this link. He is no different in God's eyes. God loves us all the same, unconditionally. We are all his children" ~Zuzana Szegedy
"Atman is Brahman; that is what the teachings say. If I have it correct, Atman is purity of the soul, and once you know Atman you know Brahman. What I found the most fascinating is that the knower of Atman is content with everything. I think the reason I find that so interesting is because I rely on material things to make me comfortable and to make my life easier in almost every way. These comforts are things that I'm used to, and what if I didn't have those things? Would I be happy? As much as I'd like to say that yes, I would be content, I know I wouldn't be. I would be upset, I would be anxious, I would be trying to figure out how to get back what I had lost. If I'd never had those things I think it would be much easier" ~Holly Fonseca
"Waiting to be happy or satisfied is the ultimate waste of time" ~Abbie Lueken
"Atman to me is the ability to take your mind to a place where nothing but joy exists. Atman is also a state of mind where nothing bothers you and you see others as beings who are on the same orb learning their own lessons. Atman is the ability to be able to not get caught up in the drama of life as a daily chore. Atman is the ability to let go and remember what is important" ~Claire Hardeman
"My interpretation of the Upanishads is that the Self is this invisible force that we are all a part of. Kind of similar to sea water, the Self is the sea of the forces of life. Likewise our human bodies contain water so do we contain a part of the Self and when we die the water in us is transferred to something or somewhere else through the vaporizing process, likewise our Self is transferred to something or somewhere else" ~Khiem Diep
[Abi'l Khayr] "The idea that to find God one need to 'seek him in the hearts of men' brings serenity to my innermost being" ~Tyler McCubbin
"The following reading disturbed me: 'The Tao is the law of nature, which you can't depart from even for one instant.' Immediately after reading this, I felt so trapped. While I still believe that it is trying to describe a scenario where 'all' of the infinite is a 'whole', it no longer felt infinitely large to me; it seems limited in itself" ~Curtis Munz
"It would be like calling the ocean 'a huge number of water droplets', referring to a group of individuals when clearly it is a single entity" ~Johathan Lockwood
"That which makes the mind think but which cannot be thought by the mind-that alone is God. He made our minds, and he gave them the ability to think. Yet we cannot even comprehend God in his fullest. He goes on with the same analogy using the tongue, eye, and ear. All of these senses we use, yet none of them can be used to see, hear, understand God more clearly" ~ Courtney Wight
"We like to think of ourselves as individuals, and as our own beings, when in reality, we are nothing more than parts that make up a whole. When one of us changes, the whole changes. It does not matter who changes, it does not matter what changes. The change that occurs is never a change in an individual, but rather a change in reality, and a change in the universe" ~ Andrew Ezzet
"Creation of Earth is the process of making something out of nothing, the process of making heaven on earth. People who stop what they are doing every day and just listen to God will see what everything was like before creation. The 'something' goes back to what it was before - which is nothing. The process of going backwards is a bigger deal than the process of going forward" ~Lindsey Hayden
"The best quote was those who divide fail to divide; those who discriminate fail to discriminate. They fail because they do not realize that everything is one" ~ Victoria Hunt
"In the Upanishads, my favorite line was probably 'Those who realize God cannot be known, truly know; those who claim that they know, know nothing.' I believe in God, but I admit I do not fully understand his ways. I have the Bible to give me some guidance, but honestly, I don't understand why babies are born with a disease, and have to die before experiencing life. I don't understand why God does this or that, but I do know he is greater than any knowledge can explain. To me, people who obsess over finding answers in this world will never find freedom or peace" ~Emily Ruff.
"Physical and emotional suffering gives our lives meaning. It is because our hearts get broken that we appreciate love. It is because we die that we appreciate life. The emotions we experience during suffering are connected with the emotions we experience when our suffering has ended. Despair turns to hope. Hate turns to love. Sadness turns to joy. There is a purpose for everything and everything is necessary" ~ Jenna Jackson
"Whether God exists or not, or anything in regards to religion or purpose or meaning... it doesn't really matter. The fact that people have created something to fill that void... to give them hope and comfort when they are hopeless and worn out... that has to be the most beautiful thing we could have ever accomplished. To find something, be a part of something so vibrant and filled with so much positive energy and love and faith..... the idea in itself gives it power, even if the power did not exist before it." ~Heather Waller
"Those who divide fail to divide. If you try to find the difference between everything, you won't find anything. For example: trying to find the difference between hot and cold. You can't find how without the cold. Sooner or later, you will experience the cold that comes with the hot. Like a hot shower, it's nice and hot but as soon as the shower ends you experience the cold. If you're always trying to differentiate everything then you'll only make your life more complicated. Just take things for what they are" ~ Melanie Schmitt.
"When we fail we need to look into ourselves to find out the why we failed and that maybe it wasn’t something we did wrong but only our definition of failure that was wrong and needs to change" ~ Amanda Sheeler
"To possess God in your mind is wrong" ~Randall Harding
"At first reading my mind sort of shut down, 'how can this Tao be the law of nature that can't be departed from?' Then just a second ago I realized I was taking things too literal - the Tao is only a teaching of what is, not that all things are contained in any words, but that all words are contained in anything" ~ Jimmy Smith
"This is much like an ear that cannot listen because all it is working to achieve is hearing, not understanding" ~Grace Tillotson
"We look at birds and we say that's a bird. We look at a desk and we say that's a desk. But Dov Baer of Mezritch looks at a bird or a desk and says 'that's the universe'" ~Lyubov Gavrilyuk
"This journal reading [Tzu Ssu] opened my eyes to a lighter side of thinking" ~ Kalena Granada
"There is a positive and a negative in life, not that the negative is any worse than that of the positive, but for the positive to exist the negative must also be apparent, a ying & yang theory, good & evil. There are no materialistic items, no I & mine, nothing is owned, but rather those items are a part of something much bigger, out of our control" ~Seth Hensley
"We all love to talk and show our point of view, expecting others to listen and of course agree with us. Stop and listen; try to understand, where others are coming from, why they think the way they do. If we start listening to ourselves, we turn off the most important part - the World" ~Zuzana Szegedy
"If human beings only function in life is to procreate, then having a religion to give you a purpose would make sense" ~ Moraud Lebastchi
"In Kuei-Shan, it talks about Zen masters. They are completely straightforward, and are completely without deceit and lying. He is completely alert, and everything is unattached. I liked the reading because it was short." ~Brittany Throckmorton
"If we lost it, then there is a point when we had it." ~ Timofey Lyashenko
"What is a day when we have the rest of our lives, the rest of eternity? In a day we can accomplish anything. In a lifetime we will have tried too late" ~Cecelia Spencer
"This reading [ibn Pakuda] summed up why I both love religion and don't love it at the same time. The first half, my reasons for not liking it, my problems come from blindless surrender to something unknown. It seems to happen so immediately, without knowing exactly what it is or without having any real reason behind it. Blind faith that people follow through the good and bad and even to death for. Maybe it's because I'm jealous that I've never felt something worth giving myself over to, no god or religion has been able to make me throw caution to the wind and believe in only that. Perhaps that's a good thing and would've kept me from being one of Charlie Manson's followers, or maybe it's also what keeps the fact that I know something is missing from my life" ~ C.R.
"Everything in life is a process, and everything has a lesson. The type of person you are is reflected in the way you go about these processes" ~Summer McDonald
"It has been my own life experience that judging another's religion, customs, or even lifestyle, I am really judging myself. There can be no true happiness manifested from telling another human being what they should believe" ~Amanda Raynal
"You stop thinking of things as yours, including your family, your house, the tree in front of your yard, and yourself. It is now all God's" ~Jessica Katz
"If we see our selves as something, then we ultimately do not see God at all. Much like if we harnass God in a book rather than in reality then we tend not to even see god in reality at all" ~ Cary ONeal.
"The spiritual world is something you shouldn't have to think about, if it is truly there then you should just be able to let it happen, and if it isn't there should just let it not happen" ~Anthony Armentano
"It's true that most religions require that you give up yourself. Who you are no longer should exist once you believe in some sort of religion. Whether it's Buddhism, and you look within yourself to lose yourself, or whether it's Christianity where your will no longer matters, but the will of God is something that is to be strived for. It's a little unnerving." ~ Christina Calabrese
"The part that states “Eye cannot see it, tongue cannot utter it, mind cannot grasp it. There is no way to learn it or teach it. It is different from the known, beyond the unknown. That which makes the tongue speak but which cannot be spoken by the tongue-that alone is God, not what people worship." Basically what I got from this reading was to worship God and truly understand God is not to. It’s just allowing it to happen, for you to feel not think. For you to just know not to understand" ~ Christina Young
"I think a better way to explain what I'm trying to say is looking at a blind man as an example. If a blind man lives his life knowing he can't see (if he, for some strange reason, grew up with a bunch of other blind people) then it's never a problem, he grew up that way and has no idea about a completely different world involving sight. Then one day, he meets someone that can see and realizes that there's something else out there, something he knows nothing about but now he's beginning to hear and learn about an entire different world, but never really experiences it himself. That is the first way of being enlightened. And then one day, he gets his sight, and he can really experience and see things for himself. That is how he is truly enlightened" ~ Melanie Schmitt
"I have found that garbage has an interesting blend of colors when you look closely, and that it represents common cycles of life" ~Tania Danforth
"Sometimes I look at things and don't appreciate them until one day I do and realize that I didn't" ~Amy Erickson
"Once inner peace is attained, all desires will become content" ~Jasmin Khinda
"If you gain experience with a different understanding, the chance opens that maybe your way of thinking is not right is planted in your head. The more this idea pesters at you the more you realize that you may be more ignorant than you first though, and when you finally let go of predisposed ways of thinking you allow for the simple light of God to make itself available to you" ~ Krissi Hoelscher
"I don't really agree with 'Our mind is pure and simple' [Symeon the New Theologian]. No it's not! There is tons of crap up there" ~ Charlene Driller
"I feel that if God was something that was explained and proved to be either true or untrue, religion would in turn lose it's luster" ~ Kaitlin Schafer
"God's grace is the beginning, the middle, and the end. When you pray for God's grace, you are like someone standing neck-deep in water and yet crying for water." God's grace is everywhere whether you pray for it or not. We just need to recognize that it's there, and maybe instead of asking for it, just thank him for it" ~ Courtney Wight
"If God is within us, why are we trying to move through space to get to something else? We move from God to God" ~ Olivia Capeloto
"Once you purge yourself of everything on the outside and venture inside yourself, you will reach the blissful state of Nirvana" ~Kristen Epperson
"[Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer]. It's not fair that we can give unmixed attention to the television but not in prayer" ~ Melanie Schmitt
"If I believe that the world is flat and not round and no matter how many scientists and pictures of the world you show me I still say that the world is round, am I being judgmental by telling all my friends that I think the world is flat and that I think the scientists are lying to us? Depends, if I am just sharing knowledge to try and share my truth with friends then I am not judging them" ~Kim Eelkema
"I believe that one's soul can find a state of bliss through the silence in life" ~Jacob Shugart
On Chuang Tzu: "Whether I'm right or wrong, I don't really know, and I'm definitely okay with that. All I can do is admire these people for their complicated way of thinking and their need for over-complicating the simplest things. But I guess if I really think about it, all they're doing is putting our brains' thoughts on paper and showing us how ridiculous our brains can be at times. Wow, I guess there is some sort of method to their madness?" ~Thannia Gonzalez
"Religion should not have to be spoken, rather it is just in the essence of life and the things surrounding us" ~Jessica Katz
"There's just nothing to draw from 'To use a horse to show that a horse is not a horse is not as good as using a non-horse to show that a horse is a horse,' makes basically no logical sense, but all the sense in the world. He's trying to trick us by using opposites that lead to nothing, it leads our brains into making a choice that goes nowhere, then maybe trying the other choice, which again leads nowhere, and that's just the point, over-thinking will get you nowhere" ~Aliya Purvis.
"Everything has something to depend on and everything depends on something. For some reason as I was reading it I kept thinking of the whole chicken and the egg debate. Which came first? As I was reading I replaced 'this' and 'that' with 'chicken' and 'egg' and it was kind of interesting. For example, 'So I say, "Chicken" comes out of "egg" and "egg" depends on "chicken" - which is to say that "egg" and "chicken" give birth to each other'" ~Samantha Esquibel
"Chuang Tzu is a yin-yang sign obstructing my view of what I thought I knew" ~Tarah Duncan
"If truth were something that did not exist in us before we realized it then it would mean that truth is not eternal and therefore anything non eternal is not worth striving for in the ultimate sense" ~Rohan Rajan
"Isn't it very hard to trust God to love us that much, and even to know more about us then we know about ourselves?" ~Francesca Latzer
"Tzu-Ssu also refers to people who are aware of the Tao as 'mature people'. These people respect what is unseen and unheard because they are always looking inward" ~Jorrell Sorensen
"After going through the readings, I realize that I am doing the wrong thing by trying to understand what I am looking at...soaking up the various opposites and realizing they are all the same thing whilst being nothing really is an interesting feeling" ~Chad Davies
"We are really like fish. Just swimming around, we are trying to figure out the world...but all of a sudden we can't swim anymore and just accept that we are caught. Being fish, we don't know what we are caught in, or what being caught leads to, we just know that it is out of our control and we should just let it happen" ~Chad Davies.
"While it was the answer, it was also the riddle" ~Wyatt Ciciarelli
"Being a good person is something good church won't change" ~Chad Davies
"Children have a clean slate. Swimming in a pool with a child of another race, or playing tag with a child of another race, doesn't even register being different from their own race" ~Aliya Purvis
"I thought that it was interesting that [Kafka] said that the largest sin was impatience. It says that because impatience they were expelled, because of impatience they don't return. I think that is very true with life. People have goals and dreams that they want to achieve but a large portion of the reason that they do not come true is because of impatience. They lose focus of what they hoped for and they end up giving up. Once they give up then they decide that they will never achieve it because they tried before and were unsuccessful" ~ Sarah Paepke.
"Western thinking tends to work in linear logical 'either or' patterns, while the readings are using 'both and' reasoning" ~Marla Edwards.
"Western philosophy says: I think, therefore I am. Whereas, the readings seem to be saying: I am, therefore I am" ~Tara Muller
"Absolutes are unattainable" ~Joanna Ransier
"This passage talked a lot about God already being there for a person. To have God is as simple as having him. People always make things so much more difficult than they really are. I think the section that explained the whole passage was the one that said..."God's grace is the beginning, the middle, and the end. When you pray for God's grace you are like someone standing neck-deep in water and yet crying for water. It is like saying that someone neck-deep in water feels thirsty, or that a fish in water feels thirst, or that water feels thirsty." God's grace and love is everywhere. We don’t need to look for it because we have it. We don’t need to yearn for it, it is there. We don’t need fancy words and teachings to obtain it, because we already have it" ~ Christina Young
"In the eyes of my grandkids, I often see a depth that seems to extend back to the moment of creation" ~ Sharon McGaughey
"It seems many of the gems are hidden, so you have to do some digging" ~Nathan Mackey
"The incomprehensible is real" ~Kristen Epperson
"When we say 'ignorance is bliss,' we're really misattributing bliss as ignorance of reality based on our own perception of reality, which is colored by the very things standing between us and bliss" ~Brad Warren
"I read this passage [from the Buddha, in The Enlightened Mind] before I read [the textbook]. That was a mistake. I pondered on the passage for a while. As I neared the end of the Buddhism chapter I went back to the passage and read it a few more times. Then I understood what Buddha was talking about. Our needs are not permanent." ~ Joel Ocray.
"The contradictions, while frustrating, causes the mind to actually examine the readings" ~ Laikien Daggett.
"Though you cannot see the change you are working on yourself and others, it is there" ~Cheyne Close.
"He also tells of a man building a raft to get by a swift river. Once he makes it, should he take it with him on his travels, or should he leave it because it has served its purpose? And Buddha says you should leave the raft because you are using it appropriately. I also believe that another reason to leave the raft there is maybe it will help someone else someday." ~ Andrew McCrory.
"The most sublime act is to set another before you. This is parenting" ~ Deborah Lynn
"I find that in life there are ways and then there are long ways. For some reason my mind likes to take the long ways, as if I were carrying that raft after I got to the opposite shore" ~ Rachel Dobish.
"Space is such a mysterious place, and not a whole lot is known about it, and I hope it will stay that way" ~Danielle Geierman
"As a westerner I was never taught these kinds of things. I was never taught to follow the thoughts before the actions, or to focus the feeling tones of my body or how my mind processes things. It seems to me that this is the way to go." ~ Colin Rice
"We fear the simplicity of it" ~Carol Crockett
"I also really liked what [Ramana Maharshi] had to say about reality, how humans keep trying to search for reality, when really the whole time we are the reality here on this earth. There is nothing else hidden for us to know about here on earth while we exist. And if there are hidden things, it is hidden on purpose and for us to know about only when we're dead." ~ Amanda Espinosa
"I get mixed messages from this whole William Blake thing" ~ Alicia Opdyke
"So in this great mystery we call life there are many things to be unsure of - especially your ego" ~ Tami Granada
"It's like giving a kid their dream toy for their birthday, and instead of playing with it they instead spend all their time asking where it was made, who put it together, and what will happen to it after it gets old and breaks down. They are interesting questions, but really they are irrelevant for the most part, and should not supersede the toy itself" ~David Cochrane
"“When it [our mind] is emptied of thought … [it] finds nothing but the light.” Once I got into the hang of meditating this statement became true. I wasn’t even necessarily trying to meditate to be a holy being or to reach some sort of nirvana, but just to see if I could do it. When I finally was able to truly free my mind of thought and checked back in to reality I was left with a feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction and tranquility like I had never experienced before. I didn’t consider myself religious, but when that happened it was hard to deny that something had to have happened that was beyond me" ~ Kali Coughlin
"One particular thing that my children do, that I remember doing also, is spending a great deal of time inspecting things from different angles, generally upside-down is the most fascinating" ~Tara Muller
"A quote from Gandhi...says that 'I am here to serve no one else but myself, to find my own self-realization through the service of others.' I found that to be so profound...I feel the same way when I coach or volunteer through my church. I am a U.S. Marine and people often say wow that is so brave or they thank me for volunteering and coaching. I just do not get it. I am serving other people but through my wishes and fulfillments, the fact that it helps others is just part of it I guess" ~ Mike Sanchez.
"Maybe that is just a common problem in teaching religion to children, all the forcing of knowledge and cramming of morality, with the overall theme of God loves you, you love god, and not enough teaching of how to feel that love, or that peace" ~Jonathan Christensen
"With people grasping at willy-nilly in order to fill their void with material possessions, as humans we have over-reached our bounds" ~ Gabrielle Brown
"Let me feel the sweetness and very kindness of this world, this world is not my enemy at all" ~Airi Furuuchi
"If you walk in the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew" ~Pocahontas, cited in student paper
"Stop looking up to an unreal god will make the real things all you need" ~Kim Eelkema
"Even though a man content with Atman exists unattached from the world, he sees men as equals to his enlightenment and reaps the benefits of luxuries if bestowed upon him - he is the ultimate neutral being" ~Emily Buck
"The burden [Jesus] carried as he died seems trivial compared to the burden he know carries as the focal point of one of the most influential religions, and by that, one of the most influential powers, on the planet." ~ Cameron Betts
"[Dying] It is like watching someone grip on to something with all they have and struggle while it is being pried from them until they realize it doesn't matter how hard they hang on, this is happening. I think a lot goes on for someone when they are able to give up that control and gain a sense of peace in the end" ~Shelsea Coleman
"When I first heard about loving your neighbor, I always thought, “Well, that’s easy, I only have 2 neighbors on my street!” ~ Florrie Tanase
"When I was little i was under the impression that idolatry was so easy to spot- it looked like the golden calf scene from The Ten Commandments movie, or the Incas sacrificing humans to their bellicose gods. But now I see it in a way more personal way- it's when humans disregard God in favor of themselves, or any other of God's creation." ~ Gia Day.
"If I want people to know that I love God and seek him, I should show love" ~Angelina Piluyeva
"Like Maximus of Tyre states, what is the harm in making a devotional object? I believe that devotional objects can come about spontaneously. They are not always consciously created. I have a little plastic turtle in my room that I got at a toy store while I was out with a friend. We named him Franklin. Since then, he has been sitting in my room, acting as a solid representation of my friendship with that person. Without any intention, he has come to represent all that there is to represent about me, my friend, and our relationship to each other. I am sure that certain images evoke the same response in religious people, but perhaps in a more spiritual way. I am not religious, but I can see how everyday objects could evoke thoughts about God. These objects could be the shoes one wore the day they were saved, or a nice pebble they found outside their church on a particularly memorable day. These pieces almost attach their own significance to themselves. If something like this can happen on accident, why should we not be able to imitate it on purpose? If the idea is to always have God in your heart, why not surround yourself with his image? It seems to make sense to me. After all, nature is one giant 'idol.' What greater evidence is there of God's presence? Each butterfly is an idol. Each blade of grass and every cloud is the image of God. Not only that, but people were made in His image. We ourselves are idols. Would anyone consider having children to be creating false idols? Everything that exists is the impression of God. Idols help us focus ~ Autumn Bohnstedt
"When you have found God, he no longer loves just within you but he also lives through you" ~Justin Becerril
"The basic truths in life are very simple, very easy to understand, and very difficult to practice" ~Robin Roundtree
"[Heraclitus] states that we name nature after the ones we worship and in their being. I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of things named after Gods out in nature by their followers and it's interesting that people would do such a thing. I think it could possibly be so that they are closer to god in a more physical way than an abstract way such as, 'God is everywhere'" ~ Alesandro Padilla
"One quote that really stood out to me was, 'Thus, in dealing with people, we already have the perfect model of behavior inside of us'. I think this is said beautifully, because in a way we do have the perfect model...in other words, in most cases, think about how you act when you are around elders, for example your Grandparents" ~ Don Helmig.
"I tend to be very judgmental of people and have a hard time letting grudges go. I grew up in a very dysfunctional family, as were my marriages; and to this day I have not forgiven any of those involved. This [Shmelke of Nicholsberg] is something I and probably many other people should read on a daily basis. I absolutely agreed with the author, it is just something I have a hard time pulling off. But, I wish I could" ~ T.B.
"Padmasambhava's belief that dying is the beginning of living is the insight that when we die there is nothing but further enlightenment for us to obtain" ~Seth Hensley.
"To give up what some people consider to be their only hope, for the ultimate lack of anything? It seems as though only Dawkins could rejoice in such a hard choice" ~ Carolyn Reichert
"To a degree, I think everyone is somewhat of an Atheist. A Christian is not going to believe in a Hindu god for example. Each individual has his/her belief of what God is. That image will vary from person to person" ~ Jillian Adkins
"One could use other words instead of the word God and the message would still apply" ~Liberty Watts
"I once heard that not forgiving someone is like taking the poison and expecting the other person to die. This hit me hard because I imagined how physically ill I get when I'm mad or hold a grudge against someone, yet they go on seemingly unaffected. I’m taking the poison and waiting for them to drop dead, and it’s never going to happen. For this reason, forgiveness isn’t optional, it’s essential to my being" ~ Teira Taylor
"People need to learn to forgive God" ~ Charlene Driller
"Your mind is neutral. It was never born and can never die" ~Heather Smith
"Some people are always searching for the higher unseen form of religion when they can just do some soul searching and find everything they need" ~Danielle Nelson
"To be truly self aware is to realize that you don't need to try to be at peace with the cosmos, in fact, it is the trying that destroys one's ability to be so." ~ Kayla Hale
"Sometimes things make more sense when there is less explanation" ~Andrea Gandelman
"It is hard for people in organized religions to find God because they just go and listen to people preach to feel good about themselves. To be really in the spirit of God requires a selflessness that bends the ego outside of itself" ~Francesca Latzer
"'When he misses the bull's-eye, he turns and seeks the reason for his failure in himself.' Why couldn't he just understand that he missed and better luck next time? Why does something have to be wrong? He just missed the shot" ~Brandy Whitten.
"The Diamond Sutra is given its name because it can cut through doubt as a diamond cuts through glass. This reading didn't so much cut through my doubt so much as confuse me. It says that when perfect wisdom is reached, all sentient things will be liberated yet a true Bodhisattva does not entertain concepts such as 'self' or 'others'; therefore, there are no sentient beings to be liberated and no self to attain perfect wisdom. It seems as though it goes in circles and there is no true way of knowing that you have reached perfect wisdom besides simply reaching it and knowing it" ~ Hien Ngo.
"Rilke advises to 'live the questions now" as opposed to stressing about finding the answers. If you resolve to always be at the beginning, you will eventually find yourself at the end" ~Madison Williams
"You have to create a logical story in order to fill in the gaps, because mortals must revere the gods. They must remain, however, ignorant about the true extent of the gods' powers" ~Casey Coles
"'Intuition' is one of those subjective words, but I think it is some combination of faith and doubt. The Buddha says, when you realize that something is unwholesome and bad for you, give it up. And when you realize that something is wholesome and good for you, do it. That seems simple enough. But what will make you realize that? Intuition. And what creates intuition? Doubt. It is not being certain that lets you feel what is right" ~ Autumn Bohnstedt.
"When I reached the point in the passage where meditation is discussed I realized something interesting. Since the beginning of this class, and the first time meditation was discussed in our class, I have held skepticism about it. I was feeling like meditation was a great idea, but asked myself, "who could really actively practice this in modern society?". We are flooded with stimulation all day. Television, traffic, phone calls, radio...we are constantly being bombarded with activity around us. Then a light bulb turned on for me. I am completely capable of meditation, and I have proof to myself that I can meditate.
Seven years ago when I was in labor with my daughter, I decided I was going to give her a "natural birth". I refused all medication, and the entire time I was laboring with her, I was totally meditating. Not only have I done this before...but I was really good at it! I blocked out every thought in my mind for hours upon hours. I remember that I didn't even feel like I was within my own body. It was as if I completely detached myself from the physical pain. My thoughts were of nothing, and I didn't allow anything negative or positive to enter my consciousness. After my little one was born, my mom said how peaceful I appeared throughout the entire labor." ~ Alicia Livesay
"It is born within us who he is and that is all we need to know" ~Monica Lee
"It goes on to say that 'eternity is Today' which is an interesting idea because many religious people focus on the eternity instead of the today" ~Sarah Miller
"'God' is everywhere you don't have to seek him/it out. You are surrounded by it, you are it" ~Mandy Gamble
"So i figured out one nite, (after many nights of restlessness lol), that if i clear my mind of ANY thoughts, (thoughts of what happened that day, hunger thoughts lol, even thoughts of being somewhere pleasant, like a field on a nice summer day, or out on the water just floating on a raft), that i would just fall asleep. And it worked. And now i do it everytime i fall asleep" ~ Ashley Ray
"They must be able to grow vast heights as well as bottomless pits" ~ Alesandro Padilla.
"When it comes to God's love, he provides for me at all times. He relieves my stress, teaches me to live for more then myself, and supplies me with knowledge to overcome the obstacles of the world" ~Danny Martinez
"When we start living today and know that time is actually endless, perhaps we can learn to appreciate what we have now" ~Monica Lee
"What I liked also about this passage [Dogen] is as I was reading it I would ask questions in my mind, and then a sentence later I would gain the answer. For instance, “I thought how can I control all those thought that come into my head?” And the reading states it so simply, just continue breathing and let your thoughts just flow" ~ Moraud Lebastchi
"Another quote I loved was Although its light is broad and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the whole sky are reflected in one dewdrop of the grass. I feel like it is saying that even though reaching enlightenment is a huge accomplishment, anyone has the opportunity to accomplish this" ~ Kelsey Stewart
"The cloud of unknowing is the place that everything that is done between one and God. The place where all of the day's stresses and worries are not stressed or worried; where nothing else exists except the love and dedication of one's soul to god. This is the eye of the storm of one's thoughts, where calmness exists. We are directed to hold on to this place" ~ Lindsay Ballestero
"I think Adam and Eve should be blamed for the mosquitos" ~ Melanie Schmitt.
"I basically got of it that all the searching and questioning will get you know where" ~ Donny Helmig.
"If one knew no words nor no images of holy figures how would they be religious? Are mentally retarded people religious? What about schizophrenics and people in vegetative states? Does "God" reach those people's minds" ~Melissa Patrick.
"If you think about the present then it disappears by itself" ~Sandy Cheatham
"If we are going to divide the present by seconds, then each second is present, but the thing is when you watch the clock you see that an arrow moves from one division to another, and the moment between these two divisions is the present. You know that an arrow will move to another division, but it's in the future; and as soon as an arrow moves to another division, it's in the past. So, it makes me think that overall we live in the past and future and there is no such concept as the present" ~Michael Corotas
“Moses said, “When I tell the people that the God of their fathers has sent me, they will ask his name. What shall I tell them?” And God said, “I am what I am. Tell them that I am has sent you”...it wouldn’t have had as big a standing had it been a real name. Even if it had been a profound name that was very God like, or one that used all the letters in the alphabet. But to be called ‘I am’ is so big that you have to stop and think would you also call God ‘I am’ or would you call him ‘You are’. Well at least I had to think about that a little. ~ Gagan Sandhu
"[The master makes everything seem easy; but she puts an immense amount of effort into achieving this effortlessness]. This quote is ridiculously true, By the way we put or push ourselves through something crazy just to get good at it to make it seem effortless is one of the hardest possible thing in the world to do in the world but when accomplished it just makes things seem greater, as well as ourselves. And this concept even applies to doing good. Once we get good at it, or even great at it, it will come secondhand and little thought will be put into doing the right thing" ~ Alesandro Padilla
"Before creating a human being, God took care of everything else first, in other words God prepared the earth for us, so when we come we have everything to be able to live and survive" ~Tatyana Babiyenko
"I actually liked the first paragraph of Wittgenstein...it kind of reminds me of this Mexican song that says if I don't desire anything I have everything" ~ Claudia Pedroza.
"How much differently would you live life if today was it?" ~Liberty Watts
"I don't understand why people kept/keep trying to give him a name especially when god himself keeps telling them not to" ~ Lauren Montalvo
"Your mind is neutral. It was never born and can never die" ~Heather Smith
"Some people are always searching for the higher unseen form of religion when they can just do some soul searching and find everything they need" ~Danielle Nelson
"To be truly self aware is to realize that you don't need to try to be at peace with the cosmos, in fact, it is the trying that destroys one's ability to be so." ~ Kayla Hale
"Sometimes things make more sense when there is less explanation" ~Andrea Gandelman
"It is hard for people in organized religions to find God because they just go and listen to people preach to feel good about themselves. To be really in the spirit of God requires a selflessness that bends the ego outside of itself" ~Francesca Latzer
"'When he misses the bull's-eye, he turns and seeks the reason for his failure in himself.' Why couldn't he just understand that he missed and better luck next time? Why does something have to be wrong? He just missed the shot" ~Brandy Whitten.
"The Diamond Sutra is given its name because it can cut through doubt as a diamond cuts through glass. This reading didn't so much cut through my doubt so much as confuse me. It says that when perfect wisdom is reached, all sentient things will be liberated yet a true Bodhisattva does not entertain concepts such as 'self' or 'others'; therefore, there are no sentient beings to be liberated and no self to attain perfect wisdom. It seems as though it goes in circles and there is no true way of knowing that you have reached perfect wisdom besides simply reaching it and knowing it" ~ Hien Ngo.
"Rilke advises to 'live the questions now" as opposed to stressing about finding the answers. If you resolve to always be at the beginning, you will eventually find yourself at the end" ~Madison Williams
"You have to create a logical story in order to fill in the gaps, because mortals must revere the gods. They must remain, however, ignorant about the true extent of the gods' powers" ~Casey Coles
"'Intuition' is one of those subjective words, but I think it is some combination of faith and doubt. The Buddha says, when you realize that something is unwholesome and bad for you, give it up. And when you realize that something is wholesome and good for you, do it. That seems simple enough. But what will make you realize that? Intuition. And what creates intuition? Doubt. It is not being certain that lets you feel what is right" ~ Autumn Bohnstedt.
"When I reached the point in the passage where meditation is discussed I realized something interesting. Since the beginning of this class, and the first time meditation was discussed in our class, I have held skepticism about it. I was feeling like meditation was a great idea, but asked myself, "who could really actively practice this in modern society?". We are flooded with stimulation all day. Television, traffic, phone calls, radio...we are constantly being bombarded with activity around us. Then a light bulb turned on for me. I am completely capable of meditation, and I have proof to myself that I can meditate.
Seven years ago when I was in labor with my daughter, I decided I was going to give her a "natural birth". I refused all medication, and the entire time I was laboring with her, I was totally meditating. Not only have I done this before...but I was really good at it! I blocked out every thought in my mind for hours upon hours. I remember that I didn't even feel like I was within my own body. It was as if I completely detached myself from the physical pain. My thoughts were of nothing, and I didn't allow anything negative or positive to enter my consciousness. After my little one was born, my mom said how peaceful I appeared throughout the entire labor." ~ Alicia Livesay
"It is born within us who he is and that is all we need to know" ~Monica Lee
"It goes on to say that 'eternity is Today' which is an interesting idea because many religious people focus on the eternity instead of the today" ~Sarah Miller
"'God' is everywhere you don't have to seek him/it out. You are surrounded by it, you are it" ~Mandy Gamble
"So i figured out one nite, (after many nights of restlessness lol), that if i clear my mind of ANY thoughts, (thoughts of what happened that day, hunger thoughts lol, even thoughts of being somewhere pleasant, like a field on a nice summer day, or out on the water just floating on a raft), that i would just fall asleep. And it worked. And now i do it everytime i fall asleep" ~ Ashley Ray
"They must be able to grow vast heights as well as bottomless pits" ~ Alesandro Padilla.
"When it comes to God's love, he provides for me at all times. He relieves my stress, teaches me to live for more then myself, and supplies me with knowledge to overcome the obstacles of the world" ~Danny Martinez
"When we start living today and know that time is actually endless, perhaps we can learn to appreciate what we have now" ~Monica Lee
"What I liked also about this passage [Dogen] is as I was reading it I would ask questions in my mind, and then a sentence later I would gain the answer. For instance, “I thought how can I control all those thought that come into my head?” And the reading states it so simply, just continue breathing and let your thoughts just flow" ~ Moraud Lebastchi
"Another quote I loved was Although its light is broad and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the whole sky are reflected in one dewdrop of the grass. I feel like it is saying that even though reaching enlightenment is a huge accomplishment, anyone has the opportunity to accomplish this" ~ Kelsey Stewart
"The cloud of unknowing is the place that everything that is done between one and God. The place where all of the day's stresses and worries are not stressed or worried; where nothing else exists except the love and dedication of one's soul to god. This is the eye of the storm of one's thoughts, where calmness exists. We are directed to hold on to this place" ~ Lindsay Ballestero
"I think Adam and Eve should be blamed for the mosquitos" ~ Melanie Schmitt.
"I basically got of it that all the searching and questioning will get you know where" ~ Donny Helmig.
"If one knew no words nor no images of holy figures how would they be religious? Are mentally retarded people religious? What about schizophrenics and people in vegetative states? Does "God" reach those people's minds" ~Melissa Patrick.
"If you think about the present then it disappears by itself" ~Sandy Cheatham
"If we are going to divide the present by seconds, then each second is present, but the thing is when you watch the clock you see that an arrow moves from one division to another, and the moment between these two divisions is the present. You know that an arrow will move to another division, but it's in the future; and as soon as an arrow moves to another division, it's in the past. So, it makes me think that overall we live in the past and future and there is no such concept as the present" ~Michael Corotas
“Moses said, “When I tell the people that the God of their fathers has sent me, they will ask his name. What shall I tell them?” And God said, “I am what I am. Tell them that I am has sent you”...it wouldn’t have had as big a standing had it been a real name. Even if it had been a profound name that was very God like, or one that used all the letters in the alphabet. But to be called ‘I am’ is so big that you have to stop and think would you also call God ‘I am’ or would you call him ‘You are’. Well at least I had to think about that a little. ~ Gagan Sandhu
"[The master makes everything seem easy; but she puts an immense amount of effort into achieving this effortlessness]. This quote is ridiculously true, By the way we put or push ourselves through something crazy just to get good at it to make it seem effortless is one of the hardest possible thing in the world to do in the world but when accomplished it just makes things seem greater, as well as ourselves. And this concept even applies to doing good. Once we get good at it, or even great at it, it will come secondhand and little thought will be put into doing the right thing" ~ Alesandro Padilla
"Before creating a human being, God took care of everything else first, in other words God prepared the earth for us, so when we come we have everything to be able to live and survive" ~Tatyana Babiyenko
"I actually liked the first paragraph of Wittgenstein...it kind of reminds me of this Mexican song that says if I don't desire anything I have everything" ~ Claudia Pedroza.
"How much differently would you live life if today was it?" ~Liberty Watts
"I don't understand why people kept/keep trying to give him a name especially when god himself keeps telling them not to" ~ Lauren Montalvo
"I always thought that other religions worship a different God. It was nice to learn that they just have a different name for him" ~ Alicia Curto
"Simply naming something creates boundaries and therefore dualities" ~ Sandy Fuller
"You have to ask yourself what defines 'real'. Is it real as defined by what you can touch, see, taste, smell or hear? Or is it something completely different? I interpret real as being actual matter that is present in our plane of time. Having said that, I cannot believe that something which emphasizes the unreal (Religion) can help us shed the habit of 'regarding as real that which is unreal'." ~ Gerry Schardt
"It is perfectly attainable by just looking inward" ~Kristen Epperson
"I wonder if God even bothers with calculating time. I doubt that he does" ~Liberty Watts
"In my belief, the student should find the teacher, not the other way around" ~Hailey Kleinhans
"I love at the end how it says that the kingdom of God is not here nor there for it is within you. Once you have found God, it really is a kingdom! There is so much to learn, to explore and so much knowledge to obtain." ~ Katy Cahill.
"I think people are meant to be in awe and not understand because I want to believe people are meant to have feelings of awe" ~Tania Danforth
"Asking where and how for the Kingdom of God, he will not answer you because he doesn't know the answer only you know the answer" ~ Spring Longinotti
"Religion can provide answers, although they may not always be the right ones they are answers to a question. And for a lost and hopeless person the answers don't need to be right" ~ Robbie Bendorf
"Whether or not people believe in him he will always be there, even without a name" ~Crystal Hernandez
"We should treat everything as if it or they were our own child. When majority of society is compared to other citizens who have nothing and are living in poverty, majority of society stand by and watches. Society continues to let the poorer get poorer as the rich get richer. If we treated everyone as if they were our own kin I could guarantee the statistics of less fortunate people would decrease" ~Crystal Hernandez
"Dogen [says] that to study Buddhism is to forget one's self, and to forget one's self is to be enlightened by all things. So once you learn to forget everything else and then to accept it, you can then begin to understand it" ~Anthony Armentano
"I feel like I can access a deeper level of meditation when removing myself; entering more of a quote 'dream state' getting to the center, getting to the base of my own connection to everything. Getting to this point of singularity. Ironically getting to this point doesn't get me anywhere or do anything. It just feels good" ~Rob Smith
"Don't be anxious about what you will eat or what you will wear. Isn't your life more than its food, and your body more than its clothing? Basically saying that you shouldn't worry about that stuff because God will take care of it for you. I'm not sure i liked this statement because I'm pretty sure that if i sat around all day and did nothing food and clothes would not just appear out of no where. I don't know though" ~ Kaitlin Schafer
"Once you stop searching for God and trying to wrap your head around the concept of God you will realize nothing you can point to is either void of God or full of God. Nothing is good or bad, it’s simply perfect." ~ Teira Taylor
"I know that by seeking God outside of myself I am not truly seeking. It is all a concept 'soul', the term implies that something exists outside of the whole" ~ Jimmy Smith.
"Hate and love are both very strong things" ~ Amanda Espinoza
"In my experience the human mind over complicates things" ~ Sarah Knight
"When you try to ignore God's creation, you can't help but realize how great and divine it is" ~ Hannah Beausang.
"When I say 'bad karma' I mean karma that will have bad results, not actual bad karma because there is no such thing, it is what it is" ~ Melanie Schmitt
"God is not necessarily everywhere, because he doesn't intrude, or sneak himself somewhere, he waits for man to accept him, and once man has done that, then he makes his way in and surrounds the person" ~Ana Topaz
"I personally think that people are what make religion what it is, so we should be open to hear how others interpret their faith, not shut the door on them" ~ Victoria Hunt.
"All people have to do really is look inside themselves and it is already there" ~Joella Van Thull
"Maximus also goes on to say Let men know what is divine. Let them know. That is all. That struck me like a lightning bold. In my experience, there are far too many people who not only try to let you know what is divine, but they often go to invasive lengths to try to convince you. They do not simply let you know, let you simmer on it and make your own decisions about it - instead, they go a little too far and it borders forceful. When that happens, and someone feels a belief forced upon them, they often become close-minded as a personal defense. However, if they were merely informed, their minds would remain open and the message would truly get across. Only let them know, let them love, let them remember" ~ Kali Coughlin
"That's what gives Westerners peace, believing that all things are knowable in the physical sense. Shankara writes that the true Reality is not what is physically knowable - the outward forms - but what is unknowable: Brahman. Ramana Maharshi says that true reality is simply the loss of ego, that there is nothing that is hiding reality and that we are in fact reality. So, to find true reality, Maharshi would say don't look more closely at something, as Westerners would do, but look less closely" ~ Lois Hathaway
"Accept all things fairly because we are in the Kingdom of Heaven, but to truly see it you have to accept it" ~Don Alexander
"I would like to say that this piece of writing [Shankara], although it was in some ways complex and I had to read more than once in order to fully understand the writer's message, it was enlightening and deep as well. It also leaves you wondering and somewhat confused, but overall it leaves you with a peaceful mind" ~ Sarah Matar.
"'It neither is nor is not.' Then what the heck is it!!!? How do you keep your mind separate from your thoughts?" ~ Shane Rahimi.
"Taking what 'life dishes out' and accepting it basically forces you to work on yourself instead. I think before we start trying to improve our society we need to work on improving ourselves." ~ Kayla Hale.
"Often when we pray it is like we are talking to Santa rather than God" ~Anthony Lopez
"The hidden harmony is better than the obvious one. I think the hidden harmony could be the good feelings you have as a result of the things you do, and the obvious harmony could be the actual things you do. An analogy to that might be love being better than sex" ~ Dan Emery.
"In my opinion it is more important to know God than to understand God" ~ Raven Fonseca
"The one thing I think causes most pain in the world would have to be choices" ~ Derek Irvin.
"Absence of existence is frightening" ~ Gabrielle Brown
"Death and the afterlife are probably the most interesting views of all. Within Judaism, there is the idea that bodily death is final, but the soul can go on to be with God. The body is made of earth and returns to it.
"This is hard for me to grasp that nothing in the brain is a good thing" ~Sarah Miller
Buddhists, however, have a very different take. Bodily death is final, but since there is no 'soul' separate from God, it doesn't 'go' anywhere.
There is, however, the concept of reincarnation that adds a twist to it all. It is not reincarnation of the soul, like Hindus believe, but rather the reincarnation of the personality or 'spirit' of a person. And spirit does not mean soul or ghost, but as in 'she had a bright spirit.' It is the idea that God reinvents aspects of itself in people over and over, despite their body dying.
Despite their differences, both religions aim to be good people, help those in need, share what they can and be rewarded for it - either by God or within God" ~ Kali Coughlin
"We will always exist as long as God exists" ~ Melanie Schmitt.
"I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil." God made everything. I think he was trying to balance out our world. You can't appreciate beauty if you've never seen the ugly. Happiness wouldn't mean anything to us if we've never suffered" ~ Melanie Schmitt.
"Evil and good are both alike because they were created by the Unnameable and in your heart you know the truth; the Unnameable has put it there" ~Tyler McCubbin
"I think it would be too un-natural for our minds to perceive the source of material. It is fun to think about, though, but if all our thoughts can only imagine things that we are accustomed to, and even if we were accustomed to the entire universe and all the intricacies of it, we would still not be able to comprehend God. Our minds and bodies were not meant for that in my opinion. What we are meant for is not anything beyond living and dying, and thinking along the way if our thoughts and lives as humans are so important. I like this point of view because it gives all beings equality. There is no social order among all that live, spiritually. Plants and animals live just like we do, and their thought processes are either non-existent or very small, and it doesn't matter because our thoughts are still limited. Therefore thought and intelligence does not distinguish us as being a greater being than any other thing. So that is real equality." ~ Eric Sutton.
"My journal response will be very biased as I am a native american. I have lived on the reservation most of my life. Things such as where you go after life and how you are supposed to act are just known from birth. I remember being little and my father telling me not to listen to what my grandparents (on my moms side) say about religion. He said hell did not exist. In this way, without fear, I think I was able to appreciate the great spirit. There was no "Do this or else", it was laughable. Everything was and is because it was supposed to be. There was no reason to be scared of God. I can imagine what Red Jacket and the other indians thought when the missionary told them their religion is wrong. "Yeah right." Natives I know now who still are traditional in their spirituality know that the way each person appreciates the great spirit is in their own way. Even among the same family, each person is unique in their practices. I go to sweats and I sing, I have a sister who dances and my father leads our tribe. I also have family who are atheists, Christians and one who is a wiccan. No one argues over religion in my family. One of the most important things I think is common amongst indigenous religions is that they are tolerant of others beliefs. They live and let live. They mind their own business." ~ Raven Fonseca.
"The other section that really stood out was the section describing that everything around us (water and land) and all that we have via talents and good health, was given to us. However when you ask people about themselves, or the home they live in and the landscaping of the grounds they say I did that or I created it. Instead of thanking God for what was provided and the skill given to them to allow them to create things, they try to claim the credit for it. I really liked and really thought hard on the message these readings were trying to put into words" ~ Krissi Hoelscher.
"The advice such as 'claim nothing' has significance because the world and everything in it is bigger than that and so are we" ~Dylan Balbi
"Some of the world's greatest thinkers and religious leaders tend to carry some of the most difficult names to pronounce" ~Devon Bisquera
"I do pray for others, yet I also include myself in there as well, because it says that when I ask, and trust God to do it, it should happen. But to not think of ourselves at all when we pray is a new one for me. "At every moment we trust our Father in heaven, whose love infinitely surpasses the love of all earthly fathers and who gives us more than we ourselves could ask for or even imagine." So we don't think of ourselves , and trust only in God, he will provide for us more than we can imagine. That's really cool! I never even thought of that before" ~ Courtney Wight
"Buddha had already attained 'supreme perfect enlightenment' by not striving for it. So when he attained it, he had already attained it" ~Heather Smith
"If a person is truly motivated by the right idea of being a good person and seeing the beauty in others, then life is a truly beautiful place indeed" ~Liberty Watts
"I certainly like what 'The Enlightened Mind' gives me, and that is the notion of a child listening attentively to its grandfather about the nature of things" ~Joel Lopez-Sosa
