We judge matters so superficially that ordinary acts and words, done and spoken with some flair and some knowledge of worldly matters, often succeed better than the greatest cleverness.
Perhaps Westerners are in a better position to practice true renunciation than uneducated Orientals because most Western people, by the time they come to the Dharma, have led a pretty full worldly life with lots of sensual pleasures, money and lots of toys to play with. They have seen that the path of accumulation of worldly treasure does not lead to happiness or contentment. That's why they come to the Dharma.
A person may have no relatives anywhere, but Mahamaya may make him keep a cat and thus make him worldly. This is how She plays!
The interesting thing about the religious component, for me, is that Jesus hardly mentions sex at all. He's pretty interested in the poor, he's pretty interested in selling your worldly goods and storing up riches in heaven. However, religious fundamentalists have made it all about sex, and that's like saying, "Look at the sex and we're just not going to talk about what you may be doing in a financial way that is sinful."
I think I'm attracted to the mystics, to seeing needs in the world. I'm attracted to caring for people who are disenfranchised. I'm attracted to getting rid of worldly possessions.
As worldly thoughts diminish, thoughts of God increase. Normally, the mind is all the time desiring these worldly things. As the desires are cut out one by one, the peace becomes stronger.
Christ's religion needs no prop of any kind from any worldly source, and to the degree that it is thus supported is a millstone hanged about its neck.
If we had nothing but pecuniary rewards and worldly honours to look to, our profession would not be one to be desired. But in its practice you will find it to be attended with peculiar privileges, second to none in intense interest and pure pleasures. It is our proud office to tend the fleshly tabernacle of the immortal spirit, and our path, rightly followed, will be guided by unfettered truth and love unfeigned. In the pursuit of this noble and holy calling I wish you all God-speed.
Joining the Sangha and renouncing worldly life is necessary in order to devote your whole life and all your energies toward the Dharma.
As a boy holding to a post or a pillar whirls about it with headlong speed without any fear or falling, so perform your worldly duties, fixing your hold firmly upon God, and you will be free from danger.
I was very immersed in the world. I'm very worldly. I love world. I was immersed in my career, in school, in teaching.
Three worldly things have been made dear to me: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and reading the Qur'an.
The utter folly of our time is lamentable, that men should think to assist God with human help and to protect the Church of Christ by worldly ambition.
I would confront the thieves, I thought, and the self-evident justice of my case would cause them to crumble before me. I don't know why I expected such extravagant results from the application of mere justice. That kind of calculation is seldom borne out by worldly events.
Everyone should not be ordained, but for those who really feel that the only thing that matters in this world is the Dharma, then it is a logical step to adopt a form of life that automatically precludes worldly distractions.
Sometimes I see my students, especially the ones with a gift for the lyrical, reaching far outside the realm of their own experience for language and images. I understand this impulse. We think, in the beginning, that striking exotic words together will create something entirely new. That we must be worldly in our vocabulary. We idolize the styles of other writers and don't trust or perhaps yet know our own.
Guilt is imposed by others on you. It is a strategy of the priests to exploit. It is a conspiracy between the priest and the politician to keep humanity in deep slavery forever. They create guilt in you, they create great fear of sin. They condemn you, they make you afraid, they poison your very roots with the idea of guilt. They destroy all possibilities of laughter, joy, celebration. Their condemnation is such that to laugh seems to be a sin, to be joyous means you are worldly.
Fight for us, O God, that we not drift numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity.
Intend to live in continual mortification, and never to expect or desire any worldly ease or pleasure.
Some people thought I was crazy to have let go of all the worldly things I had "achieved." They didn't understand that I didn't want or need any of that anymore.
Guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor, can never confer real happiness; the evil consequences of our crimes long survive their commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt the steps of the malefactor; while the paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace.
The paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace.
The blessing of heaven will not accompany the preaching that is done in a worldly manner.
It is observed in the course of worldly things, that men's fortunes are oftener made by their tongues than by their virtues; and more men's fortunes overthrown thereby than by vices.
According to Solomon, life and death are in the power of the tongue; and as Euripides truly affirmeth, every unbridled tongue in the end shall find itself unfortunate; for in all that ever I observed in the course of worldly things, I ever found that men's fortunes are oftener made by their tongues than by their virtues, and more men's fortunes overthrown thereby, also, than by their vices.
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