Quotes about Consciousness

The world as pure object is something that is not there. It is not a reality outside us for which we exist....It is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself, my own unique door.

If we enter into ourselves, find our true self, and then pass beyond the inner I, we sail forth into the immense darkness in which we confront the I AM of the Almighty.

The function of a university is to teach a [person] how to drink tea, not because anything is important, but because it is usual to drink tea, or for that matter anything else under the sun. And whatever you do, every act, however small, can teach you everything, provided you see who is acting." ? Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton On Prayer

There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality

There is only now.

Before we can see that created things (especially material) are unreal, we must see clearly that they are real.

Less and less conscious of themselves, they finally cease to be aware of themselves doing things, and gradually God begins to do all that they do, in them and for them, at least in the sense that the habit of His love has become second nature to them and informs all that they do with His likeness.

But in the actual experience of contemplation all other experiences are momentarily lost. They "die" to be born again on a higher level of life.

Any life lived attentively is disillusioning as it forces us to know us as we are.

It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of His presence.

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.

Consciousness is either inexplicable illusion, or else revelation