Karen Armstrong Quotes

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being.

When you start to crack open, don't waste a moment gathering your old self up into something like you knew before. Let your new self splash like sunlight into every dark place and laugh and cry and make sounds you never made & thank all that is holy for the gift.

It is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself.

We are searching for the core of our lives; our culture intuits that writing, that ancient activity, might be the pathway...Awakening does not feed ego's needs and desires; it pulverizes the self. Our society couldn't knowingly bear such reduction, so we've tricked ourselves into the same path but call it writing.

In fact, a person always finds when he begins to practice meditation that all sorts of problems are brought out. Any hidden aspects of your personality are brought out into the open, for the simple reason that for the first time you are allowing yourself to see your state of mind as it is.

For there is only one great adventure and that is inward toward the self, and for that, time nor space nor even deeds matter.

Learning to cultivate an awareness of the known and unknown within one's being often leads to a healthier and more realistic sense of self.

I am interested in solving an unknown factor of art and an unknown factor of life.

The instinct that pulls us toward art is the impulse to evolve, to learn, to heighten and elevate our consciousness. The Ego hates this. Because the more awake we become, the less we need the Ego.

The practise of an art is essential to the whole man, not because of what art is but because of what art does to the artist.

My early films were about self discovery, and films of internal conflict. At that level, they were very personal.

I feel like something has changed for me, but it’s a new change, so it’s going to be hard for me to describe. Maybe it has something to do with turning 30. I don’t feel as shy or nervous or self-conscious. I have more confidence that I can handle what life brings me. I don’t feel scared to have an idea and express it. I feel giddy about it because it’s a complete transformation. It’s like I’ve found my voice.

George, if you had to do it all over, would you fall in love with yourself again?

In life you only have to travel 6 inches. That is the distance from your mind to your heart.

I am what I am again: a writer. I have metabolized the injury into art.

Come to the Root of the Root of your Self

When a woman conceives her true self, a miracle occurs and life around her begins again.

You may go on reading any number of books on Meditation. They can only tell you ‘Realize the Self’. The Self cannot be found in books. You have to find it for yourself in yourself.

Like the lotus flower that is born out of mud, we must honor the darkest parts of ourselves and the most painful of our life’s experiences, because they are what allow us to birth our most beautiful self.

Steven [Sebring] was documenting me as a widow with two children, going from 50 to 60 years old. My focus, during that time, was to rediscover myself, stay healthy, take care of my kids and reestablish a relationship with the people.

The real you is on the side of God against the false self

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.

Anybody who travels knows that you're not really doing so in order to move around - you're traveling in order to be moved. And really what you're seeing is not just the Grand Canyon or the Great Wall but some moods or intimations or places inside yourself that you never ordinarily see when you're sleepwalking through your daily life.

For self-realization, a rebel demands a strong authority, a worthy opponent, God to his Lucifer.

Love and faith are both a search, a process, it doesn't stay the same; it comes and goes. In some people, it's asleep for a long time and then it wakes up as it evolves.