The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
When we focus on others, our world expands.
I have never got on with the quietist movements: they lapse too easily into self-congratulations: I have found the oneness, you have not. I prefer to look outside myself if I possibly can, not inside. Meditation reminds me too forcibly of being made to lie on a mat at nursery school and take an hour's nap.
The ideas of directing attention outward, trying to imagine other people complexly, trying not to see myself as the center of the universe - these concepts have become important to me, and I hope they're at work in my life on a minute-by-minute basis.
I have more appreciation for why the Bible avoids fuzzy psychologisms and says simply to the stealer, "Steal no more," and to the tempted, "Flee temptation." The Bible challenges us to look upward, not inward, for counsel at moments of crisis.
I think what I've learned to do is not look inward as much.
I want to be more selfless and look outward.
Form as a goal always ends in formalism. For this striving is directed not towards an inside, but towards an outside. But only a living inside has a living outside.
Vision looks outward and becomes aspiration.
I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.
The motive, if you are to find inner peace, must be an outgoing motive. Service, of course-service. Giving, not getting. Your motive must be good if your work is to have good effect. The secret of life is being of service.
Just try to keep the heart turned outward, as well as having moments inward.
When evangelizers rise from prayer, their hearts are more open; freed of self-absorption, they are desirous of doing good and sharing their lives with others.
When you stand amid the unending vistas of Kenya's Maasai Mara, it's impossible to remain focused inward. Your mind expands to the distant horizons.
To begin with oneself but not to end with onself. To start from oneself but not to aim at oneself.
It is better to have a Church that is wounded but out in the streets than a Church that is sick because it is closed in on itself.
Stop working so hard at being interesting and focus on what's outside yourself. There are universes out there that need to be explored. And, an interested person is extremely interesting.
The question is why one should be so inwardly preoccupied at all. Why not reach out to others in love and solidarity or peer into the natural world for some glimmer of understanding? Why retreat into anxious introspection when, as Emerson might have said, there is a vast world outside to explore? Why spend so much time working on oneself when there is so much real work to be done?
I am better off doing as abnegation taught me: turning away from myself, projecting always outward, and hoping that in whatever is next, I will be better than I am now.
Humans are not as unsophisticated as mulch wrigglers, they can see the writing on the wall. Is it any surprise, that among the ones who look outward, the real debate is not over whether to run, but over how far and how fast?
Americans are once again looking outward
God made the senses turn outwards, man therefore looks outwards, not into himself. But occasionally a daring soul, desiring immortality, has looked back and found himself.
It seems to me that we spend an inordinate amount of time and attention on fixing ourselves when we could really be directing that out to serving others.
Just try to keep the heart turned outward, as well as having moments inward. I think the threat of an industry like this is that you can become sort of self-obsessed. There's so much praise being given to you - there's a real threat of exalting the ego.
It is my belief, that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in that part of humanity that is most remote from our own.
