Born only of your own pain…
There are insights that can be born only of your own pain, and they are the most precious. Seek [within] the undiscovered part of yourself. (emphasis added)
« πλ | 9 Aug 2005 »
Quotes — Identity (30 entries)
Do not wish to be…
Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly.
« πλ | 7 Jun 2006 »
Every human being is a mixture of…
Every human being is a mixture of light and darkness, trust and fear, love and hate.
And God still loves us wholely, completely, unconditionally.
« πλ | 25 Apr 2005 »
Find your own mountain…
The key then is to find your own mountain, otherwise you will be competing with people who are not even in your event, and running up against the ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ of that world, and the inevitable frustration and depression and feelings of failure. A person can be complete or incomplete, but one thing is sure, he cannot be someone else.
« πλ | 19 Dec 2005 »
God has given you one face…
God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.
Which one is your “real” face, the created one or the eternal one?
« πλ | 19 Sep 2004 »
God is like a mirror…
God is like a mirror. The mirror never changes, but everybody who looks at it sees something different.
« πλ | 31 Oct 2004 »
Great fire in our soul…
There may be a great fire in our soul, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.
« πλ | 22 Jun 2006 »
I shall not be asked…
In the world to come, I shall not be asked, “Why were you not Moses?” I shall be asked, “Why were you not Zusya?”
« πλ | 20 Sep 2004 »
Interruptions are precisely one’s real life…
The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s own, or real life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s real life is a phantom of one’s own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight; but it’s hard to remember it all the time.
« πλ | 20 Dec 2004 »
Life is a succession of…
Life is a succession of crises and moments when we have to rediscover who we are and what we really want.
« πλ | 5 May 2005 »
Like a piece of gold…
We each have a self—an image developed over time. It is a mysterious fusion of ego, personality, and memory that everyone amasses between infancy and early childhood. Being completely personal, your ‘self’ is also completely isolated and separate from every other ‘self’. Yet, if you saw yourself truly, you would no longer identify with this haphazard, ramshackle thing, your self. In truth, every person is like a piece of gold. If you were a gold ring, you could say “I am a ring”, but this is a temporary shape (your self-image). In truth you are just gold - that is your essence, no matter how the shape changes.
« πλ | 11 Dec 2005 »
Love your neighbor…
“Love your Neighbor as Yourself” is a Trinitarian ethic. In the Holy Trinity, neighbor is self.
« πλ | 23 Dec 2005 »
Mountains can’t be conquered…
You never conquer a mountain. Mountains can’t be conquered; you conquer yourself—your hopes, your fears.
« πλ | 23 Aug 2005 »
Our happiest times are…
Our happiest times are those in which we forget ourselves, usually in being kind to someone else. That tiny moment of self-abdication is an act of true humility: the man who loses himself finds himself and finds his happiness.
« πλ | 18 Jan 2005 »
Perhaps this is what it means…
Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.
« πλ | 18 Nov 2004 »
Point of spiritual practice is not…
The important point of spiritual practice is not to try to escape your life, but to face it—exactly and completely.
« πλ | 12 Dec 2005 »
Sin comes from…
Sin comes from not realizing God’s love. Sin comes from thinking ourselves only as sinners, while overcoming sin comes from thinking ourselves as overcomers. We act our our perceived identities.
« πλ | 6 Apr 2006 »
Surface personality…
Realize that the surface personality has no interest in anything which might disturb its darling delusions.
« πλ | 23 Sep 2005 »
The self is like a baseball…
The self is like a baseball. Throw it back to the divine pitcher who pitched it to you in the first place, and the game of love goes on. Hold it, and the game is over. That is the difference between Heaven and Hell.
« πλ | 5 Mar 2006 »
The spiritual quest is…
The spiritual quest is a journey without distance.
You travel from where you are right now
To where you have always been.
From ignorance to recognition…
To a recognition that God was with us, in us, the whole time?
« πλ | 29 Apr 2005 »
The stream of thinking…
The stream of thinking has enormous momentum that can easily drag you along with it. Every thought pretends that it matters so much. It wants to draw your attention in completely.
Feelings, positive or negative, have a similar enormous momentum too.
« πλ | 23 Oct 2005 »
The web of our life is…
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill, together; our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not, and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.
« πλ | 21 May 2006 »
To change others…
Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.
« πλ | 3 Aug 2005 »
To find the way to himself…
Each man has only one genuine vocation—to find the way to himself… His task is to discover his own destiny—not an arbitrary one—and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else is only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity; and fear of one’s own inwardness.
« πλ | 20 May 2006 »
To get into the core of God…
To get into the core of God at his greatest, one must first get into the core of himself at his least, for no one can know God who has not first known himself.
« πλ | 22 Dec 2004 »
We are cups…
We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.
« πλ | 11 Nov 2005 »
We only know through…
Not only do we only know God through Jesus Christ, but we only know ourselves through Jesus Christ; we only know life and death through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ we cannot know the meaning of our life or our death, of God or of ourselves.
« πλ | 22 Jan 2006 »
![[Jerusalem Cross with Heart]](http://cowpi.com/journal/grafiks/jerusalem-cross-heart.gif "Jerusalem Cross with Heart")