Above all we have to go beyond words and images and concepts. No imaginative vision or conceptual framework is adequate to the great reality.
BEDE GRIFFITHSIn his (Christ’s) surrender on the cross all the pain and agony of mankind was concentrated at a single point, and passed through from death to immortality.
More Bede Griffiths Quotes
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I am rediscovering the whole sexual dimension of life at the age of 86, really. And that also means discovering the feminine. So the whole of this dimension, which I had been seeking for a very long time, is now sort of opening itself up to me.
BEDE GRIFFITHS -
In his (Christ’s) surrender on the cross all the pain and agony of mankind was concentrated at a single point, and passed through from death to immortality.
BEDE GRIFFITHS -
This was the very purpose of creation that each unique, individual being should participate in its own way in the divine Being, should realize its eternal ‘idea’ in God, should ‘become’ God by participation, God expressing himself through that unique being.
BEDE GRIFFITHS -
There is a beautiful expression of this in the Chandogya Upanishad: ‘There is this City of Brahman, (that is the body), and in this city there is a shrine, and in that shrine there is a small lotus, and in that lotus there is a small space, (akasa).
BEDE GRIFFITHS -
Atheism and agnosticism signify the rejection of certain images and concepts of God or of truth, which are historically conditioned and therefore inadequate. Atheism is a challenge to religion to purifiy its images and concepts and come nearer to the truth of divine mystery.
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The body itself is undergoing great changes. My problem before was that I was living largely from the head; and then after the stroke I got down into the heart.
BEDE GRIFFITHS -
Perseverance is the essential requirement in the practice of yoga. It has to be done day by day, week by week, year by year, until the mind is brought to the ‘still point’ where it is open to the grace of God.
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It is no longer a question of a Christian going about to convert others to the faith, but of each one being ready to listen to the other and so to grow together in mutual understanding.
BEDE GRIFFITHS -
I suddenly saw that all the time it was not I who had been seeking God, but God who had been seeking me. I had made myself the centre of my own existence and had my back turned to God.
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This process of change since my stroke has been very gradual. It is going on all the time… It is partly a physical transformation.
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…the need to overawe people and demand obedience from them is powerful and seductive. It is a part of that world that the kingdom of heaven is not of.
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The one thing which you have to abandon unconditionally is your self.
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This is criterion by which the Church is to be judged, not by the forms of its doctrine or ritual, but by the reality of the reality of the love which it manifests.
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You must be ready to give up everything, not only material attachments but also human attachments – father, mother, wife, children – everything that you have. But the one thing which you have to abandon unconditionally is your self.
BEDE GRIFFITHS -
God had brought me to my knees and made me acknowledge my own nothingness, and out of that knowledge I had been reborn. I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything.
BEDE GRIFFITHS