Quotes on Spirit from Quotes for the Journey!

Quotes for
the Journey:

Spirit

Unrest of spirit is a mark of life.

Karl Menninger

The spiritual life is, at root, a matter of seeing. It is all of life seen from a certain perspective. It is waking, sleeping, dreaming, eating, drinking, working, loving, relaxing, recreating, walking, sitting, standing, and breathing. . . . spirit suffuses everything; and so the spiritual life is simply life, wherever and whatever, seen from the vantage point of spirit. -John Shea

The paralyzing effect of fear makes us as helpless as babies and blinds us to the truth that God didn’t send us here to be powerless spectators, but to become powerful initiators. We are spiritual beings having an earthly experience, and we have the power to break the cycle of negativity that is fueling a very dangerous world. It’s not only possible, it’s why we are here. -Susan L. Taylor

Everything science has taught me--and continues to teach me-- strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. Nothing disappears without a trace. -Wernher von Braun

All you need is deep within you waiting to unfold and reveal itself. All you have to do is be still and take time to seek what is within, and you will surely find it. -Eileen Caddy

Delve within; within is the fountain of good, and it is always ready to bubble up, if you always delve. -Marcus Aurelius

My whole attitude to life is spiritual--a feeling of identification with all nature, all mankind, all life, the whole of the past, the whole of the future. -Fenner Brockway

Our spirit is a being of nature quite indestructible and its activity continues from eternity to eternity. It is like the sun, which seems to set only to our earthly eyes, but which, in reality, never sets, but shines on unceasingly. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
-Teilhard de Chardin

Sadly, some people wait until they have a heart attack or ulcers, or have a teenage child who gets into trouble, or until their spouse leaves them, or the like, to attend to their soul needs. The disastrous experience pushes them to it. But you don't have to wait for disaster. You can open yourself to the possibility of nourishing your soul, and you can make it a priority. Take careful stock of the way you spend your life energies doing things that are not so nourishing. Often, in the middle adult years especially, people find that they have been busy being productive in some task-oriented way, some way in which their souls were excluded. The responsibilities of everyday life--taking the kids to school, paying the bills, doing the grocery shopping, all the stuff that life requires of mature adults--expand to fill the entire life. -Jean Shinoda Bolen

Are you aware that your spirit needs to be fed? Did you know that your spirit would be delighted to partake in a feast of spiritual food? How about a plate full of prayer? Or maybe a few hours of succulent self-reflection. Perhaps a piping-hot selection of spiritual literature, served by the side of a lake or under a tree, would satisfy your spiritual hunger. Can you imagine feasting for a few hours on spiritually uplifting music? What about some forgiveness à la mode, topped with compassion? You cannot imagine how much your spirit would enjoy it. -Iyanla Vanzant

The balance and peace we seek for ourselves and our society won’t be achieved through mental effort alone. Mind and spirit are meant to travel together, with spirit leading the way. Until we make a conscious commitment to understand and embrace our spiritual nature, we will endure the ache of living without the awareness and guidance of the most essential part of ourselves. -Susan L. Taylor

We collect data, things, people, ideas, "profound experiences," never penetrating any of them. . . But there are other times. There are times when we stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper. -James Carroll

Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself. I mean, do not be disturbed because of your imperfections, and always rise up bravely from a fall. I am glad that you make a daily new beginning; there is no better means of progress in the spiritual life than to be continually beginning afresh, and never to think that we have done enough. -St. Francis de Sales

In this noisy, restless, bewildering age, there is a great need for quietness of spirit. Even in our communion with God we are so busy presenting our problems, asking for help, seeking relief that we leave no moments of silence to listen for God’s answers.
By practice we can learn to submerge our spirits beneath the turbulent surface waves of life and reach that depth of our being where all is still, where no storms can reach us. Here only can we forget the material world and its demands on us. -Alice Hegan Rice

It’s tempting, when faced with a flaw of the spirit or other growth issue, to pray for and expect immediate change. Sometimes it happens. But how lost and confused we feel if our prayers don’t bring the instant relief we seek. During such times, it’s good to remember that all facets of our nature—whether traits we love about ourselves or those we want to improve—are part of our God-created being. Even our less-than-desirable parts are there for a reason and contain His lessons for us. When change seems to come slowly, don’t give up hope. Consider that the timetable for your growth is in the Lord’s hands. Continue your daily communion with God and trust your spirit to be healed in His time. -unattributed

No great spiritual event befalls those who do not summon it. -Elbert Hubbard

Spirit 2

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes. -Alan Watts

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

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

Why do you hasten to remove anything which hurts your eye, while if something affects your soul you postpone the cure until next year? -Horace

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The future requires openness to all spiritual knowledge. You may prefer one religion, but there are many paths to the center and we need all the help we can get.
People who believe there is only one path limit themselves. They find safety in spiritual rigidity. They memorize phrases and mindlessly repeat them, confusing faith with obedience. They threaten damnation, they hurl insults in the name of God. They cannot feel the love of the prophets they quote. They preach limits in the realm of the unlimited.
The message of the spirit throughout the world is the same. It is a message of love, tolerance, compassion, respect, optimism, and a profound understanding of the meaning of community. -Jennifer James, Success Is the Quality of Your Journey

Spirit 2

Home - About - Links - abundance - acceptance - achievement - action - adversity - advertising - aging
ambition - America - anger - anticipation - apathy - appreciation - arrogance - art - attitude - authenticity
autumn - awakening - awareness - awe - balance - beauty - being yourself - beliefs - body - brooding
busyness - caring - celebration - challenges - change - character - charity - children - choice - Christianity
Christmas - coincidence - commitment - common sense - community - comparison - compassion
competition - complaining - compliments - compromise - confidence - conformity - conscience - contentment
control - cooperation - courage - covetousness - creativity - crisis - criticism - cruelty - death - decisions
desire - determination - disappointment - discipline - discouragement - diversity - doubt - dreams - earth
education - ego - emotions - encouragement - enlightenment - enthusiasm - envy - eternity - ethics - example
exercise - experience - failure - faith - fame - family - fate - fathers - fault-finding - fear - feelings - flowers
forgiveness - freedom - friendship - frustration - fun - the future - the garden of life - gardening - generosity
gentleness - giving - goals - God - goodness - grace - gratitude - greatness - greed - grief - growing up - guilt
habit - happiness - hatred - healing - health - heart - helpfulness - home - honesty - hope - hospitality
humility - hurry - ideals - identity - idleness - idolatry - ignorance - illusion - imagination - impatience
independence - individuality - inner child - inspiration - integrity - intimacy - introspection - intuition
jealousy - journey - joy - judgment - karma - kindness - knowledge - language - laughter - law of attraction
laziness - leadership - learning - letting go - life - listening - loneliness - love - lying - magic - marriage
materialism - meanness - meditation - mindfulness - miracles - mistakes - mistrust- moderation - money
mothers - motivation - music - mystery - Native American wisdom - nature - negative attitude - new year
oneness - open mindedness - opportunity - optimism - pain - parenting - passion - the past - patience - peace
perfectionism - perseverance - perspective - pessimism - play - poetry - positive thinking - possessions
potential - poverty - power - praise - prayer - prejudice - the present moment - pride - principle - problems
progress - prosperity - purpose - reading - recreation - reflection - relationships - religion - reputation
resentment - respect - responsibility - rest - revenge - risk - role models - running - ruts - sadness - safety
the seasons of life - self - self-love - self-pity - self-reliance - self-respect - selfishness - service - shame
silence - simplicity - slowing down - smiles - solitude - sorrow - spirit - spring - stories - strength
success - suffering - summer - talent - the tapestry of life - teachers - teaching - Thanksgiving - thoughts
time - today - tolerance - tradition - trees - trust - truth - values - vanity - virtue - vulnerability - walking
war - wealth - weight - winter - wisdom - women - wonder - work - worry - worship - youth - Zen
Dale Carnegie - Albert Einstein - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross - Helen Keller - Mother Teresa - Eleanor Roosevelt
Orison Swett Marden - Albert Schweitzer - Aristotle - Mohandas Gandhi - Wilferd A. Peterson