transcendence of materialism Quotes

Religion is simply an ideal. It is an ideal force that tends to free the human being from material bonds. I do not believe that matter and energy are interchangeable, any more than are the body and soul. There is just so much matter in the universe and it cannot be destroyed. As I see life on this planet, there is no individuality. It may sound ridiculous to say so, but I believe each person is but a wave passing through space, ever-changing from minute to minute as it travels along, finally, some day, just becoming dissolved.

If any one phrase could gather its (religion's) universal message, that phrase would be, - All is not vanity in this Universe, whatever the appearances may suggest.

The pursuit of material gain is ultimately empty when measured against eternity.

Giving up attachment to the world does not mean that you set yourself apart from it. Generating a desire for others to be happy increases your humanity. As you become less attached to the world, you become more humane. As the very purpose of spiritual practice is to help others, you must remain in society.

A sense of a wider meaning to one's existence is what raises a man beyond mere getting and spending. If he lacks this sense, he is lost and miserable.

We are not here for the sake of possessions, or of power. Or of happiness, but we are here to transfigure the divine out of human spirit.

Our noblest purpose in life is to remember our spiritual nature in the face of suggestions that we are a material society.

When there is firm conquest over covetousness, they who have conquered it wake up to the how and why of life.

Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them.... If they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is nothing but muck their power of usefulness is gone.

The church works best not as a power center, rather as a countercultural community - in the world but not of it - that shows others how to live the most fulfilled and meaningful life on earth. In modern society that means rejecting the false gods of independence, success, and pleasure and replacing them with love for God and neighbor.

The true Christian is one who is kind of sick of this world. If I find anybody who is settled down too snugly into this world, I am made to doubt whether he's ever truly been born again

Since every man who lives is born to die, And none can boast sincere felicity, With equal mind, what happens, let us bear, Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care. Like pilgrims to the' appointed place we tend; The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.

Mind is locked in matter like the spirit Ariel in a cloven pine. Like Ariel, men struggle to escape the drag of the matter they inhabit, yet it is the spirit that they fear.

I have sought earnestly and with great diligence that good and high virtue by which man may draw closest to God... and as far as my intelligence would permit, I find that high virtue to be pure disinterest, that is, detachment from creatures. Our Lord said to Martha 'Unum est necessarium', which is to say; to be untroubled and pure, one thing is necessary and that is disinterest.

Peace is only possible if men cease to place their happiness in the possession of things "which cannot be shared," and if they raise themselves to a point where they adopt an abstract principle superior to their egotisms. In other words, it can only be obtained by a betterment of human morality.

This labour of the artist to discover a means of apprehending beneath matter and experience, beneath words, something different from their appearance, is of an exactly contrary nature to the operation in which pride, passion, intelligence and habit are constantly engaged within us when we spend our lives without self-communion, accumulating as though to hide our true impressions, the terminology for practical ends which we falsely call life.

The greatest victory in life is to rise above the material things that we once valued most

As long as we prioritize material truths over spiritual truths we will live in tyranny because we are living an illusion

The redemption of Zion is more than the purchase or recovery of lands, the building of cities, or even the founding of nations. It is the conquest of the heart, the subjugation of the soul, the sanctifying of the flesh, the purifying and ennobling of the passions.

Life's irony is that as soon as worldly goods and worldly success are of no concern to you, the way is open for them to flow to you.

Neither numbers nor powers nor wealth nor learning nor eloquence nor anything else will prevail, but purity, living the life, in one word, anubhuti, realisation. Let there be a dozen such lion-souls in each country, lions who have broken their own bonds, who have touched the Infinite, whose whole soul is gone to Brahman, who care neither for wealth nor power nor fame, and these will be enough to shake the world.

There is no such thing as material covetousness. All covetousness is spiritual. ...Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.

I think materialism has trumped a lot of stuff, but I don't think it has trumped the heart, especially when it comes to (a person's) last thought.

Oh! joy for he who has escaped from this world of perfumes and color! For beyond these colors and these perfumes, these are other colors in the heart and the soul.

Perhaps one day the dreams of Utopists may be realized and humanity will shake off the chains of materialism which still separate us from what we think to be supernatural knowledge, but which, in reality, is already in us, only waiting to be discerned.