There is no ascent to the heights without prior descent into darkness, no new life without some form of death.
What is lawful, what is unlawful? asked Ku Yuan, prince and poet of Chu. This country is a slough of despond! Nothing is pure any longer! Informers are exalted! And wise men of gentle birth are withou...
The right to liberty was crucial: it is difficult to find a single reference to imprisonment in the whole of rabbinic literature, because only God can curtail the freedom of a human being. Spreading s...
Quraysh, who had shown throughout the day that they were still in thrall to the overbearing haughtiness and intransigence of the jahiliyyah, a stubborn resistance to anything that might injure their s...
Jezus, de Logos, zou de functie van de verwoeste tempel overnemen en de plaats waar de joden de goddelijke aanwezigheid konden ontmoeten[...]. Het jodendom en zijn heiligste symbolen waren vervangen d...
It was only possible to define or comprehend something when there was duality. A person can see, taste, or smell something that is separate and apart from him- or herself. But when the whole [brahman]...
It seems that when human beings contemplate the absolute, they have very similar ideas and experiences. The sense of presence, ecstasy and dread in the presence of a reality—called nirvana, the One, B...
It is always tempting to try to shut out the suffering that is an inescapable part of the human condition, but once it has broken through the cautionary barricades we have erected against it, we can n...
In the West the idea that religion is inherently violent is now taken for granted and seems self-evident. As one who speaks on religion, I constantly hear how cruel and aggressive it has been, a view...
In [the] early days, Muslims did not see Islam as a new, exclusive religion but as a continuation of the primordial faith of the ‘People of the Book’, the Jews and Christians. In one remarkable passag...
Het was absurd, stelde Filo, om het eerste hoofdstuk van Genesis letterlijk op te vatten en te denken dat de wereld in zes dagen was geschapen. Het getal 'zes' was een symbool voor volmaaktheid.
După cum a explicat Grigorie de Nyssa în Comentariu la Cântarea Cântărilor fiecare concept pe care mintea îl înţelege este o piedică în calea celor care caută. Ţelul contemplatorului era să meargă din...
Charity, Davidson continues, is forced on us, whether we like it or not; if we want to understand others, we must count them right in most matters.13
After his death, his followers decided that Jesus had been divine. This did not happen immediately; as we shall see, the doctrine that Jesus had been God in human form was not finalized until the four...
A truly compassionate person touches a chord in us that resonates with some of our deepest yearnings. People flock to such individuals, because they seem to offer a haven of peace in a violent, angry...
If we harm our neighbors, we also inflict damage on ourselves. There
Cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.
Yet a personal God can become a grave liability. He can be a mere idol carved in our own image, a projection of our limited needs. fears and desires. We can assume that he loves what we love and hates...
With this new empathetic understanding of the context, we will find that we can imagine ourselves, in similar circumstances, feeling the same.
What seems wrong to you is right for himWhat is poison to one is honey to someone else.Purity and impurity, sloth and diligence in worship,These mean nothing to Me.I am apart from all that.Ways of wor...