Rami M. Shapiro > Quotes

“Wonder enhances life; worry shortens it.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Proverbs: Annotated & Explained

“spiritual practice is conspiratorial rather than inspirational; it conspires to strip away everything you use to maintain the illusion of certainty, security, and self-identity. Where spiritual writing seeks to bind you all the more tightly to the self you imagine yourself to be, writing as a spiritual practice intends to free you”
― Rami Shapiro, Writing—-The Sacred Art: Beyond the Page to Spiritual Practice

“My God, the soul you place within me is pure. And because it is pure I am free to live today differently than yesterday. Because it is free, I am free to live today without the burden of past habits, past fears, past mistakes, and past failures. I am free to look at my past without repeating it; to examine it for lessons to be learned and amends to be made; and to draw from it what guidance I can to live today differently. My God, may I use today’s gift of freedom to further my capacity to serve You by serving Your creation with justice, compassion, and humility.”
― Rami Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“A woman once approached the Buddha in tears. She presented him with her dead child and said, “Lord Buddha, I have heard that you can bring the dead back to life. This is my son who died only this morning. I beg you, Lord Buddha, restore him to me.” The Buddha agreed, provided that the woman bring him a single mustard seed from a home in the village that had not experienced death. The woman ran to the village and went door to door to find even one household that had not been touched by death. She failed. When she returned to the Buddha, her grief was no less but her attitude toward it had changed. She knew the inevitability of suffering and the futility of seeking to make things other than they are. She could now mourn her child and move on.”
― Rami Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“You get what you get, and then do your best with whatever it is.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Forgiveness

“we are powerless over our addiction. I am asking you to admit something further: that you are powerless over life.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“The golden rule is not a rule of logic. It is not a form of logical reasoning, but rather it determines the logic of value selection, something that does not usually fall under the purview of traditional logic.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, The Golden Rule and the Games People Play: The Ultimate Strategy for a Meaning-Filled Life

“If the way offered you demands theft and you are forbidden to share what it is you are taught, you can be certain you have dined with Folly.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Proverbs: Annotated & Explained

“spiritual growth is this: an ever-deepening capacity to embrace life with justice, compassion, curiosity, awe, wonder, serenity, and humility.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“Spirituality refers to behaviors designed to free you from the delusion that your life can be controlled and the illusion that you are controlling it.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“Pride can mask a deep self-loathing, and it is this aspect of pride that is sometimes evident at Twelve Step meetings as people tell their
stories. The idea is that if we cannot excel at excellence, we will excel at depravity. What the addict fears most is being ordinary.”
― Rami Shapiro

“Twelve Step recovery is about freeing yourself from playing God,”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“Twelve Step recovery offers no image of God other than God as a force capable of helping you recover your sanity by freeing you from the insanity of your addiction and the delusional thinking that feeds it.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“The disciplined live; the lazy are lost.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Proverbs: Annotated & Explained

“The real gift of Twelve Step recovery is not simply the cessation of our harmful behavior, but the ending of our harmful thinking. For it is ending harmful thinking that is at the heart of spiritual growth, awakening, and recovery.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“Hitting rock bottom is the term recovering addicts use to identify those moments when reality demolishes the illusion that you are in control of your life.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“Never underestimate the human capacity for rationalization and denial.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“our quest for control always ends in exhaustion and failure.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“Humans experience themselves, their thoughts, and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of their consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of love and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.3 Our”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“The Sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south, and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams flow to the sea, and the sea is not full … All words are wearisome, more than one can express; the eye is never satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. —Ecclesiastes 1:5–9”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“Or take the case of Ron Paul during the 2012 presidential primary. During a debate on American foreign policy, Congressman Paul said, “If another country does to us what we do to others, we’re not going to like it very much. So I would say that maybe we ought to consider a ‘Golden Rule’ in foreign policy. Don’t do to other nations what we don’t want to have them do to us.” The crowd booed.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, The Golden Rule and the Games People Play: The Ultimate Strategy for a Meaning-Filled Life

“We cannot control what happens to us. All we can do is work with what happens moment to moment.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“PREFACE This is a book about writing as a spiritual practice. This is not a book about spiritual writing. Spiritual writing—inspirational writing—has to conform to what the reader finds inspirational. Spiritual writing has to make the reader feel safe, certain, and self-satisfied; it has to leave the reader believing that what she already knows is all that she needs to know. Writing as a spiritual practice is something else entirely. Writing as a spiritual practice has nothing to do with readers per se. You”
― Rami Shapiro, Writing—-The Sacred Art: Beyond the Page to Spiritual Practice

“as you think you are in control of life, forget it.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“Free-falling into God is the discovery that you are part of the Divine and filled with a creativity that allows you to live free of the addiction that defined the preshattered ego.”
― Rami Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“Knowing yourself as a wave is knowing the relative world, the world of seemingly separate beings. Knowing yourself as the sea is knowing the absolute world, the world of the One who is all these seemingly separate waves.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent: Sacred Teachings—Annotated & Explained: Sacred Teachings―Annotated & Explained

“addiction as a state of mind committed to maintaining the illusion of control.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice

“Most of the hurts we experience are not meant for us. They are by-products of the suffering others are feeling. The truth is that most of the pain and suffering we feel isn’t directed at us at all.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Forgiveness

“three rules for writing as a spiritual practice: (1) Don’t write what you know; (2) Don’t write what you don’t know; and (3) Just write. Don’t write what”
― Rami Shapiro, Writing—-The Sacred Art: Beyond the Page to Spiritual Practice

“William Blake puts it, “A fool who persists in his folly becomes wise.”
― Rami M. Shapiro, Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice