Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

If we are to have magical bodies, we must have magical minds.

Making conclusions about life is a sure way to deny yourself the possibility of a human being transforming himself into the Divine.

The progress of our soul is like a perfect poem. It has an infinite idea which, once realised, makes all movements full of meaning and joy.

... my life has been dedicated to my growth and evolution as a conscious being. ... becoming more aware of all that was taking place within me and around me; how my inner world affected my outer world and vice versa. I realized that the more awareness I have, the more choice I have in how I create or respond to the circumstances of my life.

If you could envision the type of person God intended you to be, you would rise up and never be the same again.

For human beings, the most daunting challenge is to become fully human. For to become fully human is to become fully divine.

Discomfort is always a necessary part of enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not a complete remedy.

The primary goal of spiritual life is human transformation.

True progress comes not through action, but through awakening.

We view Sufism not as an ideology that molds people to the right way of belief or action, but as an art or science that can exert a beneficial influence on individuals and societies, in accordance with the needs of those individuals and societies ... Sufi study and development gives one capacities one did not have before.

You may be trying to attain power in this world, then you start trying to attain power in that world. First you want to attain wealth in this world, then you try to attain wealth in that world. But you remain the same, and the mind and the functioning and the whole scheme remains the same: Attain! Reach! This is the ego trip. The achieving mind is the ego.

The need is not to amputate the ego ... but to transcend it.

Spiritual transformation is not a matter of trying harder, but of training wisely.

God’s priority isn’t your destination but your development. God’s priority isn’t the dream but the dreamer.

The spirit knows that its growth is the real aim of existence.

We never become truly spiritual by sitting down and wishing to become so. You must undertake something so great that you cannot accomplish it unaided.

I was in my late thirties and decided my intention in life had nothing to do with the acquiring of material things, but rather it was now my intention to experience the evolution of my own soul and to grow spiritually. I wanted to come to know the highest truths of life and to express those truths in action, through myself. I wanted to become the grandest version of the greatest idea I ever held about who I am in regards to my relationship with God.

Being on the spiritual path means you want to be a success in an existential sphere, not just on a social level.

To reach perfection, we must all pass, one by one, through the death of self-effacement.

Anthroposophy does not want to impart knowledge. It seeks to awaken life.

There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.

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.

The Here-and-Now demands attention, is more present to us. We dismiss the inner world of our ideas as less important, although most of our immediate physical reality originated only in the mind. The TV, sofa, clock and room, the whole civilisation that contains them once were nothing save ideas.

This is something basic to be understood - the ego must come to a peak, it must be strong, it must have attained an integrity - only then can you dissolve it. A weak ego cannot be dissolved. And this becomes a problem.