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41 " The real problems of our planet are not economic or technical, they are philosophical. The philosophy of unbridled materialism is being challenged by events. "
― Ernst F. Schumacher
42 " If you were an atheist, Birbal," the Emperor challenged his first minister, " what would you say to the true believers of all the great religions of the world?" Birbal was a devout Brahmin from Trivikrampur, but he answered unhesitatingly, " I would say to them that in my opinion they were all atheists as well; I merely believe in one god less than each of them." " How so?" the Emperor asked. " All true believers have good reasons for disbelieving in every god except their own," said Birbal. " And so it is they who, between them, give me all the reasons for believing in "
43 " You don't need to retire to a cloister or the desert for years on end to experience a true dark night; you don't even have to be pursuing any particular " spiritual" path. Raising a challenged child, or caring for a failing parent for years on end, is at least as purgative as donning robes and shaving one's head; to endure a mediocre work situation for the sake of the paycheck that sustains a family demands at least as much in the way of daily surrender to years of pristine silence in a monastery. No one can know in advance how and where the night will come, and what form God's darkness will take. "
44 " Devotees of these two spiritual paths of experience—oneness and goodness—have been at odds for centuries. Proponents of the oneness path have insisted that the goal of spirituality is to reconnect with everlasting eternity. They yearn to taste the quintessence of their being, to transcend time and space, to be unified with the one. In the other camp, advocates of the goodness path have traditionally seen stark choices in the world. They believe we should choose love, compassion, beauty, truth, and altruism over hatred, fear, anger, judgment, and other opposites of goodness. To them, there are constructive forces in the world that are being challenged by destructive ones. Their goal has been to stand their ground and choose to be good above all else. Even with those apparent differences, both paths have found homes within each of the world’s religions. As noted earlier, Hinduism offers the oneness path of Yoga, Judaism offers Kabbalah, Islam offers Sufism, Christianity offers Mysticism, and so on. Whatever the arrangement, the two paths have historically found ways to co-exist. "
― Gudjon Bergmann , Experifaith: At the Heart of Every Religion; An Experiential Approach to Individual Spirituality and Improved Interfaith Relations
45 " Many people experience a sense of rage and very strong anger toward their parents and others who hurt them. Ultimately that is also a thought. It doesn’t really exist in this very pure and present moment. It doesn’t really exist. So actually what we are really carrying is nothing but a bunch of thoughts. When we let go of those thoughts then nothing else is required. We are free......Whenever you suffer, whenever you struggle, don’t go outside trying to find out what is wrong with your life. Don’t treat your life like you treat your car. When something is wrong with the car we get out, open the hood, see what’s wrong with the engine, and fix it. But life is not like a car. Life is consciousness. Life is not something outside of us. Therefore whenever we feel that we are suffering, tormented, or challenged we should always look into our consciousness. Immediately we discover that we are having a very evil affair with an evil thought. That’s all there is. Just that thought.Such thoughts always come with a specific idea and with some kind of voice: “I am good. I am bad. I am poor. I don’t have this or that. I am not enlightened.” It is always associate with a concept and a belief system. Until we are awakened to the ultimate truth we are completely ruled by our thoughts. Thoughts are always dictating reality to us. So in that sense thought is the ultimate empire of propaganda. Thought is always coloring and defining reality. "
46 " Trust acquired through challenged skepticism is infinitely more solid and lasting than passive acceptance. "
― Brownell Landrum , A Chorus of Voices: DUET stories Volume III - Adult Version
47 " Instead of negotiating or begging for mercy, [my brother Damascene] challenged them to kill him. " Go ahead," he said. " What are you waiting for? Today is my day to go to God. I can feel Him all around us. He is watching, waiting to take me home. Go ahead--finish your work and send me to paradise. I pity you for killing people like it's some kind of child's game. Murder is no game: If you offend God, you will pay for your fun. The blood of the innocent people you cut down will follow you to your reckoning. But I am praying for you. . . I pray that you see the evil you're doing and ask God's forgiveness before it's too late. "
48 " Anyone? On Snow's visit before the Victory Tour, he challenged me to erase any doubts of my love for Peeta. " Convince me," Snow said. It seems, under that hot pink sky with Peeta's life in limbo, I finally did. And In doing so, I gave him the weapon he needed to break me. "
49 " As I lay in my bed unable to sleep I challenged Him: Pull out another miracle. Send him back. You can do that. You’re God. At that point in my grief, I envisioned how utterly fantastic it would be for others to see what a mighty and awesome God we serve. They could witness a modern-day miracle! I was convinced the only way for this to happen was for God to send Joseph back. It would be a win/win situation! Dozens would come to know Jesus—and —I’d have Joseph home in time for supper. "
50 " After months of separation her friends still catalyzed her thoughts and challenged her opinions and wrangled with her emotions, and she was relieved to see that they still slid into the familiar patterns, the comfortable ruts of long-established personalities. It was nice but it also worried her. Could there be room for growth? How could you change around the people that knew you best, who knew you backwards and forwards and knew you so well that they defined themselves by you and you by them? How could you possibly evolve, like really evolve and become a whole person all on your own, when your own makeup was inextricably intertwined with someone else’s perception of themselves? "
― Katie Neipris , The Inconvenient Process of Falling
51 " Men think they like to be challenged. The truth is, they only like to be challenged if they win. "
― Karen Hawkins , How to Capture a Countess (The Duchess Diaries, #1)
52 " I have argued that the God of the Bible, and especially of the Gospels, can be understood only as God-in-public, and that methods of criticism designed to keep this rumor quiet need to be challenged by appropriate historical, theological, and political critique and replaced by methods that do justice to the reality of the texts and hence do justice - in the much fuller sense - in the public world that the Gospels demand to address. "
― N.T. Wright
53 " The choice between James’s vision of a Jewish religion anchored in the Law of Moses and derived from a Jewish nationalist who fought against Rome, and Paul’s vision of a Roman religion that divorced itself from Jewish provincialism and required nothing for salvation save belief in Christ, was not a difficult one for the second and third generations of Jesus’s followers to make.Two thousand years later, the Christ of Paul’s creation has utterly subsumed the Jesus of history. The memory of the revolutionary zealot who walked across Galilee gathering an army of disciples with the goal of establishing the Kingdom of God on earth, the magnetic preacher who defied the authority of the Temple priesthood in Jerusalem, the radical Jewish nationalist who challenged the Roman occupation and lost, has been almost completely lost to history. "
― Reza Aslan , Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
54 " For a moment Carl tried to picture everything in his mind, and then it happened. Somewhere inside of him, where cause and effect were not weighted against each other, and where logic and explanations never challenged consciousness, in that place where thoughts could live freely and played out against each other - right there in that spot, things fell into place, and he understood how it all fitted together "
― Jussi Adler-Olsen , The Keeper of Lost Causes (Department Q, #1)
55 " The rich feel much less need than their predecessors to account for their wealth, whether to society, to governments or to God. Their attitudes and values are not seriously challenged by anyone. The respect now shown for wealth and money-making has been the most fundamental change in Britain over four decades. "
56 " The further you are challenged and threatened, the more your warrior heart will emerge. "
― Bryant McGill , Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
57 " Isn't it strange that what we call " self" doesn't really constitute of our " own" . It consists of parts and bits of so many people around us! People who helped us, people who laughed with us, people who wiped our tears, people who walked with us, people whom we looked up to as idols, people who silently followed us, people who hated us, people who challenged us! We are a net integral of all these, isn't it? "
58 " He challenged the world with his genius, and the world defeated him by ignoring the challenge and starving him. He stopped writing because he had failed and because he had no choice but to accept the world’s terms: there is no mystery here. This was not insanity, but common sense. "
59 " There are handful of moments in your life when you'll be challenged to choose between what you really want and what you believe is possible. These are the moments which will shape both your destiny AND who you will become. "
60 " Memoir writing draws on all aspects of who we are, body, mind and soul. We are challenged to dig deep, to remember, and once again inhabit the skin of who we were and what we have learned. Writing memoir is an act of testimony, witnessing, healing. When you write a memoir, you draw upon layers of your consciousness and discover your true nature, your essential self, and are transformed the process.” Linda Joy Meyer "
― Rossandra White
