Mary Garden Quotes

I was born with a serious spiritual consciousness and for many years studied different paths.

My hope is that 'Beyond the Heavens' will encourage people to explore faith, open their mind and go beyond what they think they know. That is what my mother encouraged me to do. I hope to encourage others to do the same through this story.

The fact that I didn't believe in God was something that I just didn't consider. And then when I did, it was like, 'Oh yeah, I'm out.'

I was looking for something within Judaism that had a spiritual nature and not just a religious nature. So my trainer at the time was the one who took me to the Kabbalah center on my 40th birthday. I was like, "Oh, this is so cool." I was just ready for it. I was ready for something different.

We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired.

There is no pestilence in a state like a zeal for religion, independent of morality.

Freedom from the wants of the body can help fulfill the needs of the spirit.

When a culture has fallen totally away from spiritual pursuits into materialism, one must begin by demonstrating they are each a soul, not a material animal.

I have finally decided to write my book on the spiritual life. I mean to put down as simply as possible the sort of ascetical or mystical teaching that I have been living and preaching so long. I call it 'Le Milieu Divin,' but I am being careful to include nothing esoteric and the minimum of explicit philosophy.

I would really like to hear somebody who is really articulate about the elements of their faith conversion. I'm not.

When I started law school in 2010, I would have called myself an atheist. When I graduated law school in 2013, I was exploring my faith again. A lot changed in those three years.

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.

I have a very strong connection with God, very strong sense of my faith.

The momentum of my creative life and intellectual growth is still the momentum of breaking out of fundamentalism. Because of that, I'm very grateful for it. But I'm also grateful that at the center of it was something that I still believe to be true - those fundamentals of faith.

Losing your faith is an essential part of having a three-dimensional, vivid, vibrant faith.

My main goal is still for the books to minister in some way, to teach a spiritual truth, to enlighten people.

I pursue God on a daily basis, I'm not stepping into oblivion.

I don't pass myself off as a Bible scholar or a pastor or someone who knows all the biblical facts cover-to-cover. I'm just a guy whose life was changed by it. And that's about the extent of it. So I'm not easily offended when people struggle about where they're at with their faith at all.

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

I have read a lot of spiritual works and believe that our body is just a place for the soul to dwell.

What I don't think I knew when I was young was that 'losing your faith' is actually part of the plan for a lot of people - that it's actually maybe the most beautiful and graceful thing that can happen. The mystery of God can handle all of it. It can handle all of your thoughts, all of your doubts, all of your folly. It's all in the game.

All I know is that the closer I get to God, the deeper I get into the Bible, and the heavier the burden seems on my shoulders.

I knew Bob Dylan was searching for the truth and had been for years. And anyone who Really wants the truth ends up at Jesus

We have all had times...when we have seen things from God's standpoint and have wanted to stay there; but God will never allow us to stay there. ...[I]t is in the valley where we live for the glory of God.

During my solitude, conflicting thoughts increased; but much exercise of soul had the effect of causing the scriptures to gain complete ascendancy over me. I had always owned them to be the Word of GOD . . . the careful reading of the Acts afforded me a practical picture of the early church; which made me feel deeply the contrast with its actual present state; though still, as ever beloved by GOD.