Quotes by Teachers - Page 2

We act like pagans in a crisis--only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.

Oswald Chambers

Disappointment cannot exist without expectation. “The expected apricot is never as sweet when it reaches the mouth.

Idries Shah

The Bible attitude is not that God sends sickness or that sickness is of the devil, but that sickness is a fact usable by both God and the devil.

Oswald Chambers

Sufism is the doing in this lifetime what any fool will be doing in then thousand years’ time.

Idries Shah

What writing practice, like Zen practice does is bring you back to the natural state of mind…The mind is raw, full of energy, alive and hungry. It does not think in the way we were brought up to think-well-mannered, congenial.

Natalie Goldberg

You will always have doubts, but only discover them at a useful time for your weakness to point them out.

Idries Shah

When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted friendship - when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us.

Oswald Chambers

The sketch hunter moves through life as he finds it, not passing negligently the things he loves, but stopping to know them, and to note them down in the shorthand of his sketchbook.

Robert Henri

What makes human life--which is inseparable from this moment--so precious is its fleeting nature. And not that it doesn't last but that it never returns again.

Steve Hagen

The forms of the central and surrounding deities... should not be protruding like a clay statue or cast image, yet neither should they be flat like a painting. In contrast, they should be apparent, yet not truly existent, like a rainbow in the sky or the reflection of the moon in a lake. They should appear as though conjured up by a magician. Clear appearance involves fixing the mind one-pointedly on these forms with a sense of vividness, nakedness, lucidity, and clarity.

Jigme Lingpa

They'd listen silenty, with grave faces: but once they'd turn to each other they'd smile cruelly. He couldn't have it both ways. He'd put himself outside and outside they'd make him stay. Neither brutality nor complaining could force a way in.

John McGahern

They were our enemies. Yet in those young men of Italy I'd seen something centuries old. An American is only as old as his years. A long line of something was hidden behind the bright eyes of those Italians. And then and there I decided to learn something of the modern world. There was something abroad which we Americans couldn't or wouldn't understand. But unless we made some attempt to realize that everyone in the world isn't American, and that not everything American is good, we'll all perish together, and in this twentieth century....

John Horne Burns

Keep your hand moving. (Don’t pause to reread the line you have just written. That’s stalling and trying to get control of what you’re saying.)

Natalie Goldberg

You cannot have a moral holiday and remain moral, nor can you have a spiritual holiday and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely his, and this means that you have to watch to keep yourself fit. It takes a tremendous amount of time. Some of us expect to “clear the numberless ascensions”* in about two minutes.

Oswald Chambers

It takes great wit and interest and energy to be happy. The pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat man has to accomplish.

Robert Henri

You call me an unbeliever. I shall therefore call you a True Believer since a lie is best met with one of similar magnitude.

Idries Shah

When a man is at his wits' end it is not a cowardly thing to pray it is the only way he can get in touch with Reality.

Oswald Chambers

Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.

Natalie Goldberg

Right time, right place, right people equals success.Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.

Idries Shah

Never ask another person's advice about anything God makes you decide before Him.

Oswald Chambers

Make the difficult habitual, the habitual easy, and the easy beautiful.

Constantin S. Stanislavski

I want you to take a sleeve of Thin Mints and line them up on the edge of the kitchen counter and when I'm hungry I can just bend over and sweep a cookie into my mouth like I'm scoring a goal in hockey.

Jack Gantos

God made man because he loves to hear stories, Alessandro said. That's a good story, huh?

Tom Spanbauer

The Apparent is the Bridge to the Real

Idries Shah

A child's death isn't always necessary for a mother to grieve.

Bebe Moore Campbell

God always ignores the present perfection for the ultimate perfection.

Oswald Chambers

[F]ocus not on ourselves as a force in charge of the manipulation of others, but on how our lives interpenetrate those of others – and … all creatures of a dynamic universe.

Steve Hagen

He had entered the rough world of men, where a man's acts follow him wherever he goes in the form of story.

David Malouf

You yourself are your own barrier – rise from within it.

Idries Shah

It is no accident that Sufis find that they can connect most constructively with people who are well integrated into the world, as well as having higher aims, and that those who adopt a sensible attitude towards society and life as generally known can usually absorb Sufi teachings very well indeed

Idries Shah

Darius held Stark back from launching himself at Neferet, and Duantia spoke quickly into the rising tension. 'Neferet, I think we can all agree that there are many unanswered questions about the tragedy that occured on our island today. Stark, we also understand the passion and rage you feel at the loss of your Priestess. it is a hard blow for a Warrior to-'Duantia's wisdom was cut off by the sound of Aretha Franklin belting out the chorus from "Respect," which was coming from the little Coach purse Aphrodite had slung over her shoulder.Oopsie, um, sorry 'bout that.' Aphrodite frantically unzipped her purse and dug for her iPhone.

P.C. Cast

… when we are talking about 'Christians' and 'Moslems' we must first make sure that we are talking about people who have an idea, which should be more or less correct, as to what the other is supposed to believe and what he is expected to do as a consequence of that belief.

Idries Shah

Prayer is often a temptation to bank on a miracle of God instead of on a moral issue i.e. it is much easier to ask God to do my work than it is to do it myself. Until we are disciplined properly we will always be inclined to bank on God's miracles and refuse to do the moral thing ourselves. It is our job and it will never be done unless we do it.

Oswald Chambers

Don't forget to pray today because God did not forget to wake you up this morning.

Oswald Chambers

None should say: ‘I can trust,’ or ‘I cannot trust’ until he is master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.

Idries Shah

Whoever might perfume a scorpionWill not thereby escape its sting. Bahaudin Naqshband

Idries Shah

Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either.

Golda Meir

In a profession, members are only partly guided by service to the public.

Clay Shirky

Saying of the ProphetReflectionThe Faithful are mirrors, one to the other.

Idries Shah

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaEmotionalist:A man or woman who thinks he has experienced the divine.

Idries Shah

Go then, O my inseperable, this once more,

Donald Justice

It is a Sufi contention that truth is not discovered or maintained by the mere repetition of teachings. It can only be kept understood by the perpetual experience of it. And it is in the experience of truth that the Sufis have always reposed their trust. Sufism is therefore not 'Do as I say and not as I do', or even 'Do as I do', but 'Experience it and you will know'.

Idries Shah

Our ordinary and reasonable service to God may actually compete against our total surrender to Him.

Oswald Chambers

The major barrier to understanding is wishful thinking and following that which pleases one.

Idries Shah

Do not try to be humble: learn humility.

Idries Shah

...action is in fact knowledge in operation. Right action stems from right knowledge. Right knowledge is acquired through the teacher.

Idries Shah

I do not put in long hours at the keys - or very seldom. Instead, I snatch time. I write in the crannies of my life.

Julia Cameron

Those who speak in spiritual terms routinely refer to God as creator but seldom see "creator" as the literal term for "artist". I am suggesting you take the term "creator" quite literally. You are seeking to forge a creative alliance, artist-to-artist with the Great Creator. Accepting this concept can greatly expand your creative possibilities.

Julia Cameron

People go through life blindly, ignoring death like revellers at a party feasting on fine foods. They ignore that later they will have to go to the toilet, so they do not bother to find out where there is one. When nature finally calls, they have no idea where to go and are in a mess.

Ajahn Chah

Saying of the ProphetLoveDo you think you love your Creator? Love your fellow-creature first.

Idries Shah

Do you mind telling me what you pray?""I pray for the wisdom to find meaning in the . . . her death.""And have you?""No, Mrs. Aislabie, I find no meaning. But perhaps that's because I'm too small to see a plan so large I rarely get anything but a brief glimpse of it.

Katharine McMahon

When I act tough they listen politely till the spasm passes. They know.

Frank McCourt

Take the straight path, even if it is long: marry no widow, even if she is a houri.

Idries Shah

Maggie Dove wanted to be a beacon of light. She dreamed of being the sort of person who made others laugh, calmed crying babies, soothed wild dogs, inspired hopefulness.

Susan Breen

You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the pitcher with clean.

Idries Shah

The Pilgrims believed beer was an unalloyed good, a 'good creature of God.' People who did not drink were suspect and 'crank-brained.

Susan Cheever

Is your division of Understanding into Greater and Lesser common to all Sufis? Nothing which is put into words is common to all Sufis.

Idries Shah

The colour of the water seems to be the colour of the glass into which it has been poured'.

Idries Shah

The mine is always bigger than the gem.

Idries Shah

Never look for justice in this world, never cease to give it.

Oswald Chambers

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