Richard Rohr Quotes

The spiritual journey does not consist of arriving at a new destination where a person gains what he did not have, or becomes what he is not. It consists in the dissipation of one's own ignorance concerning oneself and life, and the gradual growth of that understanding which begins the spiritual awakening. The finding of God is a coming to one?s self.

The nature of spiritual awakening is frequently misunderstood. The adoption of spiritual beliefs, seeing visions of God or celestial beings, the ability to channel, to heal, to foretell the future, or other paranormal powers - all such phenomena are of value and are not to be dismissed, but none of them is in itself indicative of spiritual awakening in a person who experiences them.

It is just a wonderful, wonderful time to be alive and to be able to be part of the ever-growing spiritual awareness that is happening around the world.

We must break the evil habit of ignoring the spiritual. We must shift our interest from the seen to the unseen.

A global awakening can only happen from a spiritual awakening that is of global dimensions.

So let it be a criterion if you follow the path of awareness, let love be the criterion. When your awareness suddenly blooms into love, know perfectly well that awareness has happened, SAMADHI has been achieved. If you follow the path of love, then let awareness function as a criterion, as a touchstone. When suddenly, from nowhere, at the very center of your love. a flame of awareness starts arising, know perfectly well... rejoice! You have come home.

On human levels of consciousness one may emphasize getting and having as the prime goals, in spiritual consciousness he seeks the way of giving and being.

Yoga is a generic name for any discipline by which one attempts to pass out of the limits of one's ordinary mental consciousness into a greater spiritual consciousness.

Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.

This is the front edge of the spiritual, psychological movement and is where the tools of psychology have finally come together to create a mass healing. I think spiritual psychology is the next wave.

I saw Krishnamurti speak one time. And I thought, I'm not going to live here.

Many of us who have experienced psychedelics feel very much that they are sacred tools. They open spiritual awareness.

To be awake is to be fully present, no noise, just you and God. Most of us only have seconds of full consciousness. To live in a state of Samadhi - that's what we're here for.

The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.

We must carry out exercises in thought and exercises in will if the portals of the supersensible world are to open for us. It is this world that we must enter if we want to know the eternal aspect of ourselves and of the universe.

The human race is getting into a spiritual way of thinking, even if they don't know about it, because this is the natural need of the human being.

Amputechture' is my personal way of describing enlightenment, or just the celebration of this person who is a shaman and not a crazy person.

That which distinguishes the new thought from the old is not a denial of this Divine Reality, but an affirmation of its immediate availability.

When all life is seen as divine, everyone grows wings.

For many people, the first indication of a spiritual awakening is that they suddenly become aware of their thoughts. They become a witness to their thoughts, so to speak. They are not completely identified with their mind anymore and so they begin to sense that there is a depth to them that they had never known before.

Spiritual light rarely comes to those who merely sit in the darkness waiting for someone to flick the switch.

Enlightenment doesn't mean we were never wounded; it means we've found a way to evolve beyond our wounds. Enlightenment isn't idealistic; it's practical. What's idealistic is thinking we can live from our wounds, stay in our weakness, and ever transform the world.

You think you want to know the secrets of the universe. You think you want to see the way things all fit together. You believe in your heart of hearts that enlightenment will save the world and set you free. Maybe it will. But the path to enlightenment is rarely a pleasant one.

If you think you are big, you will become small. If you are willing to become an absolute nothing, you will become larger than creation and Creator.

Whenever we attain a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself.