Compassion is the key in Islam and Buddhism and Judaism and Christianity. They are profoundly similar.
Karen ArmstrongRead
Nirvana is something within you. It is not an external reality. No god thunders down from the mountaintop. Just as the great mystics in the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths all discovered, God is within the self. God is virtually inseparable from ourselves.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nirvana is an inner state of being rather than an external entity or goal.
This quote emphasizes that true enlightenment or spiritual accomplishment, referred to as Nirvana, is not found in external pursuits or divine interventions, but rather it resides within each individual. Karen Armstrong highlights the unified understanding across different mystic traditions that the divine essence is intrinsically linked to our own selves, suggesting that self-exploration and inner awareness are key to spiritual fulfillment.
Themes
NirvanaInner PeaceSelfSpiritualityDivine
In practice
Example use cases
In a spiritual retreat focused on self-discovery, this quote could be used to inspire participants to look within for enlightenment.
More from Karen Armstrong
All quotes →Yet a personal God can become a grave liability. He can be a mere idol carved in our own image, a projection of our limited needs, fears and desires. We can assume that he loves what we love and hates what we hate, endorsing our prejudices instead of compelling us to transcend them.
Karen ArmstrongRead
When violence becomes imbedded in a region, then this affects everything. It affects your dreams, your fantasies and relationships, and your religion becomes violent, too.
Karen ArmstrongRead
Far from being the father of jihad, [Prophet] 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
Karen ArmstrongRead
Yes, all fundamentalists feel that in a secular society, God has been relegated to the margin, to the periphery and they are all in different ways seeking to drag him out of that peripheral position, back to center stage.
Karen ArmstrongRead
Religion is a search for transcendence. But transcendence isn't necessarily sited in an external god, which can be a very unspiritual, unreligious concept.
Karen ArmstrongRead
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