Experiencing Meanings
“Human beings are essentially creatures who have the power to experience meanings. Distinctively human existence consists in a pattern of meanings. Furthermore, general education is the process of engendering essential meanings.”
–Philip H. Phenix (American Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian, Philosopher, Educator and Arthur I. Gates Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, 1915-2002)
God Must Be Experienced
“Suppose I give a talk for three hours about blueberry pie. Can you taste it? No. I will be wasting my time. Instead, I have to give you the recipe: One cup of this, a tablespoon of that; put this together, mix, and then put it all in the oven.
But even that is not enough. You can’t just take the recipe book, gold-gilt it, put on an altar, wave incense, and say, “Blueberry pie, blueberry pie”. You have to get the ingredients, cook them, and eat the pie… God is not something that can be talked of. God must be experienced. The day man started talking of God, he created all kinds of religious fights and quarrels.”
–Swami Satchidananda (Indian Spiritual Teacher and, in 1966, Founder of Integral Yoga International, 1914-2002)
Learning From Life
“Daily life is more instructive than the most effective book.”
–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet, Playwright and Philosopher, 1749-1832)
After a Near-Death Experience
“Through the years, people have related, oh, five hundred or six hundred near-death experiences to me. When people come back out of that experience of light, they’ll often say that they have a sense that everything is interconnected. In some way that’s hard to put into words, we’re all the same. We all share one mind. And it doesn’t stop with people, it has to do, too, with trees and plants and living things.”
–Joan Borysenko (American Psychologist, Writer, Mystic and Speaker, 1945-)
Becoming A Saint
“You will not become a saint through other people’s sins.”
–Anton Chekhov (Russian Playwright and Author, 1860-1904)
