Abhimanyu Singh Quotes

For the standard of Christian life was to be strained to a higher pitch; more fasting was required, and more careful separation from the manners and enjoyments of the world; celibacy and martyrdom had great value set upon them, and second marriages were prohibited.

There's this idea supposedly that we preachers are supposed to walk about with sandals and ride bicycles. That's nonsense.

He was seriously thinking of becoming a monk. He thought he had to be celibate to maintain the purity of his instrument, but my instrument needed tuning, and we had to split.

Self-denial is indispensable to a strong character, and the highest kind comes from a religious stock.

Death is not more certainly a separation of our souls from our bodies than the Christian life is a separation of our souls from worldly tempers, vain indulgences, and unnecessary cares.

For both Protestants and Catholics, and whether or not absolute continence is demanded of the clergy, celibacy remains a blessed spiritual state.

The principle of asceticism never was, nor ever can be, consistently pursued by any living creature. Let but one tenth part of the inhabitants of the earth pursue it consistently, and in a day's time they will have turned it into a Hell.

I like the monastic life... in the prayer and the praising... this has charged me with new energy, spiritual energy. This is very important for my ministry outside the monastery.

Whoso will pray, he must fast and be clean, And fat his soul, and make his body lean.

Saint Mochua was the son of a certain Cronan, of noble race, and spent his youth in fighting. At the age of thirty, he laid aside his arms and burnt a house, with all its contents, which had been given to him by his uncle, saying that a servant of Christ should take nothing from sinners.

That clerical celibacy doesn't guarantee asceticism is obvious, any more than attending Mass guarantees prayerfulness (trust me on that one). But it preserves the call even when the system is corrupted.

I have a life of sacrifice. I don't have a normal social life.

Asceticism and celibacy can conceal many incapacities.

I might become an ascetic, live in India. A little rice is about the best I can do now.

Asceticism is the right way of thinking for those who have to extirpate their sensual drives because they are ravening beasts of prey. But only for those!

The importance of prayer rises in proportion to the importance of the things we should give up in order to pray

The older I get, the more beauty I see in the word renunciation.

Household life is crowded and dusty; life gone forth is wide open... Suppose I shave off my hair and beard, put on the ochre robe, and go forth from the home life into homelessness.

The rishis of old attained the Knowledge of Brahman. One cannot have this so long as there is the slightest trace of worldliness. How hard the rishis laboured ! Early in the morning they would go away from the hermitage, and would spend the whole day in solitude, meditating on Brahman. At night they would return to the hermitage and eat a little fruit or roots. They kept their mind aloof from the objects of sight, hearing, touch, and other things of a worldly nature. Only thus did they realize Brahman as their own inner conciousness.

To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only Him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self-denial can say is, 'He leads the way, keep close to Him.'

Everybody who does not live in a prostitute's bed and on a diet of cocaine snow is called an ascetic nowadays.

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself." The disciple must say to himself the same words Peter said of Christ when he denied him: "I know not this man." Self-denial is never just a series of isolated acts of mortification or asceticism. It is not suicide, for there is an element of self-will even in that. To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self denial can say is: "He leads the way, keep close to him.

Christ sayeth not, Abstain from the flesh, from marrying, from housekeeping, etc., as the Papists teach, for that were even to invite the devil and all his fellows to a feast.

To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not / You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.

Wherever on earth the religious neurosis has appeared we find it tied to three dangerous dietary demands: solitude, fasting, and sexual abstinence.