A Quote by Karen Armstrong
All religions are designed to teach us how to live, joyfully, serenely, and kindly, in the midst of suffering.
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For you see, the face of destiny or luck or god that gives us war also gives us other kinds of pain: the loss of health and youth; the loss of loved ones or of love; the fear that we will end our days alone. Some people suffer in peace the way others suffer in war. The special gift of that suffering, I have learned, is how to be strong while we are weak, how to be brave when we are afraid, how to be wise in the midst of confusion, and how to let go of that which we can no longer hold. In this way, anger can teach us forgiveness, hate can teach us love, and war can teach us peace.
All religions are nothing but a science - or an art - to teach you how to die. And the only way to teach you how to die is to teach you how to live. They are not separate. If you know what right living is, you will know what right dying is. So the first thing, or the most fundamental thing is: how to live.
I have never thought that a Christian would be free of suffering, umfundisi. For our Lord suffered. And I come to believe that he suffered, not to save us from suffering, but to teach us how to bear suffering. For he knew that there is no life without suffering.
To live in the midst of suffering, which we do, we do, amid distress, and to keep some equilibrium in the midst of that - that would be happiness enough.
Respect kindly all religions that teach loving kindness, and have no respect for envy and jealousy. Never follow hate.
In terms of the ego, most religions teach in some way that all of us must die before we die, and then we will not be afraid of dying. Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to destabilize our arrogance and our ignorance. I would define suffering very simply as whenever you are not in control.
Watch any plant or animal and let it teach you acceptance of what is, surrender to the Now. Let it teach you Being. Let it teach you integrity — which means to be one, to be yourself, to be real. Let it teach you how to live and how to die, and how not to make living and dying into a problem.
I believe there are angels among us, sent down to us from somewhere up above. They come to you and me in our darkest hours, to show us how to live, to teach us how to give, to guide us with a light of love.
I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.
On Good Friday Jesus died But rose again at Eastertide.....Lord, teach us to understand that your Son died to save us not from suffering but from ourselves, not from injustice...but from being unjust. He died that we might live - but live as he lives, by dying as he died who died to himself.
Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person.
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.
Suffering is universal; how we react to suffering is individual. Suffering can take us one of two ways. It can be a strengthening and purifying experience combined with faith, or it can be a destructive force in our lives if we do not have the faith in the Lord's atoning sacrifice. The purpose of suffering, however, is to build and strengthen us.
It's not our land; it's not made for us. It's America. That's how it was designed. We came here as slaves. It wasn't designed for us to win.
Solitude is used to teach us how to live with other people. Rage is used to show us the infinite value of peace. Boredom is used to underline the importance of adventure & spontaneity. Silence is used to teach us to use words responsibly. Tiredness is used so that we can understand the value of waking up. Illness is used to underline the blessing of good health. Fire is used to teach us about water. Earth is used so that we can understand the value of air. Death is used to show us the importance of life.
God's love does not protect us from suffering. God's love protects us in the midst of suffering.
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