Huston Smith

Muhammad adhered meticulously to the charter he forged for Medina, which - grounded as it was in the Quranic injunction, "Let there be no compulsion in religion" (2:256) - is arguably the first mandate for religious tolerance in human history.

Sex is the divine in its most available epiphany.

The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.

Most of the book deals with things we already know yet never learn.

I am critical of modernity giving science and technology a blank check as if it were the fountain of all truth. That is not true. And I think I may have introduced a word which has now caught on quite a bit, scientism. Science is good. It simply reports a discovery.

The disciples of Jesus __ound themselves thinking that if divine goodness were to manifest itself in human form, this (he) is how it would behave_ he invited people to see differently instead of telling them what to do or believe_he located the authority of his teaching in his hearer__ hearts, not in himself or God-as-removed.

The only power that can effect transformations of the order (of Jesus) is love. It remained for the 20th century to discover that locked within the atom is the energy of the sun itself. For this energy to be released, the atom must be bombarded from without. So too, locked in every human being is a store of love that partakes of the divine- the imago dei, image of god_And it too can be activated only through bombardment, in its case, love__ bombardment. The process begins in infancy, where a mother__ initially unilateral loving smile awakens love in her baby and as coordination develops, elicits its answering smile_ A loving human being is not produced by exhortations, rules and threats. Love can only take root in children when it comes to them- initially and most importantly from nurturing parents. Ontogenetically speaking, love is an answering phenomenon. It is literally a response.

Institutions are not pretty. Show me a pretty government. Healing is wonderful, but the American Medical Association? Learning is wonderful, but universities? The same is true for religion... religion is institutionalized spirituality. _ Mother Jones November/December 1997.

Never during its pilgrimage is the human spirit completely adrift and alone. From start to finish its nucleus is the Atman, the god-within... underlying its whirlpool of transient feelings, emotions, and delusions is the self-luminous, abiding point of the transpersonal god. As the sun lights the world even when cloud-covered, __he Immutable is never seen but is the Witness; it is never heard but is the Hearer; it is never thought but is the Thinker; it is never known but is the Knower. There is no other witness but This, no other knower but This." from the Upanishad

Every society and religion has rules, for both have moral laws. And the essence of morality consists, as in art, of drawing the line somewhere.

God has to speak to each person in their own language, in their own idioms. Take Spanish, Chinese. You can express the same thought, but to different people you have to use a different language. It's the same in religion.

Human intelligence is a reflection of the intelligence that produces everything. In knowing, we are simply extending the intelligence that comes to and constitutes us. We mimic the mind of God, so to speak. Or better, we continue and extend it.

I don't have any fear of death. I do, however, have an inordinate fear of becoming dependent on other people. To me, that's the severest test, not death.

Poetry is a special use of language that opens onto the real. The business of the poet is truth telling, which is why in the Celtic tradition no one could be a teacher unless he or she was a poet.

Science is like a flashlight in the hands of people living in a huge balloon. They can illuminate anything in the balloon, but cannot shine it outside the balloon to see where it is floating - or if it is floating at all.

The modern period adds social ethics to religions agenda, for we now realize that social structures are not like laws of nature. They are human creations, so we are responsible for them.

We all carry it within us: supreme strength the fullness of wisdom unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted and cannot be destroyed.

Might we begin then to transform our passing illuminations into abiding light?