31 quotes
We are, the great spiritual writers insist, most fully ourselves when we give ourselves away, and it is egotism that holds us back from that transcendent experience that has been called God, Nirvana, Brahman, or the Tao.
The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)
This is where some of the worst atrocities of religion have come from. Because people have used [it] — to give a sacred seal of a divine approval to some of their most worst hatreds, loathings, and fears.
We can't even say that God exists because our notion of existence is too limited to apply to God.
Ode interview (2009)
If we cannot accommodate a viewpoint in a friend without resorting to unkindness, how can we hope to heal the terrible problems of our planet? I no longer think that any principle or opinion is worth anything if it makes you unkind or intolerant.
The Spiral Staircase : My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)
Secularism has shown that it can be just as murderous, just as lethal … as religion.
NOW interview (2002)
Compassion is not a popular virtue.
NOW interview (2002)
Ironically, the first thing that appealed to me about Islam was its pluralism. The fact that the Qur'an praises all the great prophets of the past.
NOW interview (2002)
Mohammed was not an apparent failure. He was a dazzling success, politically as well as spiritually, and Islam went from strength to strength to strength.
NOW interview (2002)
Far from being the father of jihad, Mohammad was a peacemaker, who risked his life and nearly lost the loyalty of his closest companions because he was determined to effect a reconciliation with Mecca.
Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001)
Islam is a religion of success. Unlike Christianity, which has as its main image, in the West at least, a man dying in a devastating, disgraceful, helpless death… Muhammed was not an apparent failure. He was a dazzling success, politically as well as spiritually, and Islam went from strength to strength to strength.
All fundamentalist movements… whether they're Jewish, Christian or Muslim or Buddhist, all begin as an intra-religious debate, an intra-religious struggle.
NOW interview (2002)