A Quote by Alain de Botton

The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life. — © Alain de Botton
The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.
All religions are not the same. All religions do not point to God. All religions do not say that all religions are the same. At the heart of every religion is an uncompromising commitment to a particular way of defining who God is or is not and accordingly, of defining life's purpose. Anyone who claims that all religions are the same betrays not only an ignorance of all religions but also a caricatured view of even the best-known ones. Every religion at its core is exclusive.
If we live in our oneness-heart, we will feel the essence of all religions, which is love of God. But if we live in the mind, we will only try to separate one religion from another and see how their ideologies differ. It is the heart that can have a true intuitive understanding of the height and breadth of all religions. It is the heart that sees and feels the inner harmony and oneness of all religions.
I recognize this in my writing process. A consistent writing structure opens the door to amazing insights. I recognize the truth of this in my daily habits. When I set my keys in the place I, with practice, always set my keys... I do not lose them. In many instances an ordered external structure can be an invitation for an extraordinarily unfettered, creative and unbounded inner structure.
We all have two lives: an inner life and an outer life. Your inner life is your soul life, which includes your mind, will and emotions. Your outer life is your physical life. And while God cares about every detail of your life, He is more concerned with your inner life than your outer life.
If you gave your inner genius as much credence as your inner critic, you would be light years ahead of where you now stand.
when I first began this diary I said I would give a record of my inner life. I begin to wonder if I have said anything about my inner life. What if I have no inner life?
The rise of community among cultures and religious traditions makes possible what we can call 'interspirituality': the assimilation of insights, values, and spiritual practices from the various religions and their application to one's own inner life and development.
I do feel there are countless people on earth who do not believe in the inner power, the inner life. They feel that the outer strength and the outer life are everything. I do not agree with them. There is an inner life; there is spirit, and my ability to lift these heavy weights proves that it can work in matter as well.
Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it.
Athirst for personal salvation, the West forgets that many religions had but a vague notion of the life beyond the grave; true, all great religions stake a claim on eternity, but not necessarily on man's eternal life.
An important advance in the life of a people is the transformation of the religion of fear into the moral religion. But one must avoid the prejudice that regards the religions of primitive peoples as pure fear religions and those of the civilized races as pure moral religions. All are mixed forms, though the moral element predominates in the higher levels of social life. Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of the idea of God.
Meditation is listening to the song of the inner Soul, seeing the beauty of the inner Self, smelling the fragrance of the inner Spirit, experiencing the touch of the inner energies and tasting the intense sweetness of the inner God.
Thoughts that deny reincarnation are transformed in the next life into an inner unreality, an inner emptiness of life; this inner unreality and emptiness are experienced as torment, as disharmony.
The inner life of any great thing will be incomprehensible to me until I develop and deepen an inner life of my own.
Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.
When you die in this life, you might be experiencing pain, but the structure of your perceptual field will determine your next lifetime. That structure has been determined by the way you have led this life.
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