The idea that an individual can find God is terribly self-centered. It is like a wave thinking it can find the sea.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the notion of individualism in spirituality, suggesting that true understanding is communal and universal.
John Templeton's quote emphasizes the inherent interconnectedness of all existence, suggesting that the search for God as a solitary pursuit is misguided. Just as a wave is fundamentally part of the ocean, individuals are part of a larger spiritual reality, and the quest for understanding should transcend self-centered desires for personal enlightenment.
In practice
During a discussion on spirituality at a community gathering.
The correct description is that we try every day to become more humble when we talk about divinity, we try to realize how little we know and how open minded we should be. It's self centered to think that human beings, as limited as we are, can describe divinity.
Life is made up not necessarily of great sacrifices or high-level duties but of little things. The smiles, the kindnesses, the commitments and obligations and responsibilities that are given habitually and lovingly are the blessings that win and preserve the heart and bring comfort to one's self as we as to others. This is the ministry of service performed by every useful life.
The correct description is that we try every day to become more humble when we talk about divinity, we try to realize how little we know and how open minded we should be.
The objective of our religious foundations is to teach people that they are hurting themselves when they say they believe something. What we should realize is we know almost nothing about God and therefore we should be eager to search and to learn.
Three of my children are medical doctors; they know at least a hundred times as much about your body as my grandfather knew, but they don't know much more about soul than he did.
I focus on spiritual wealth now, and I'm busier, more enthusiastic, and more joyful than I have ever been.
Language is not a handmaiden to perception; it is perception; it gives shape to what would otherwise be inert and dead.
I do not oppose the insane asylum - but I abhor and condemn the cutthroat system that robs man of his reason, drives him to insanity and makes the lunatic asylum an indispensable adjunct to every civilized community.
For one gains by losing And loses by gaining.
My mother, Abra, had taught me that all people are made from the same dust. When our days here are gone, all men and women enter the same garden.
If a man never contradicts himself, the reason must be that he virtually never says anything at all.
Resolved ... that it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism - free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence.
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