Bliss

Overview

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

• “Health is the greatest gift, contentment is the greatest wealth, a trusted friend is the best relative, Nibbana is the greatest bliss.”

• “What we sow here, we reap there! Can it be supposed that the soul will enjoy a reward or endure a retribution for deeds of which it has no recollection? Is the thing possible? Will it enjoy the bliss of heaven, praising Christ forever as its great Saviour, without any remembrance of the sins and sufferings from which He redeemed and saved it? The idea is absurd.”

• “Ecstasies enjoyed by religious mystics are usually called religious experiences no matter what the nature of the ecstasy or the trigger inducing it.”

• “A shoemaker who loses himself in mystical ecstasy and begins to think of himself as a saviour of the people, sent by God, will inevitably cut the soles the wrong way and mess up his stitches. As time goes on, he will be faced with starvation. It is precisely by this process, on the other hand, that the politician becomes strong and rich.”

• “Nirvana is a state of pure bliss and knowledge. ... It has nothing to do with the individual. The ego or its separation is an illusion. Indeed in a certain sense two "I"'s are identical namely when one disregards all special contents — their Karma. The goal of man is to preserve his Karma and to develop it further ... when man dies his Karma lives and creates for itself another carrier.”

• “Yesterday a conversation about divinity and faith suggested to me a great, a stupendous idea to the realization of which I feel capable of dedicating my whole life. This is the idea—the founding of a new religion corresponding to the development of mankind: the religion of Christ, but purged of all dogma and mystery, a practical religion, not promising future bliss but realizing bliss on earth.”

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Bliss across IJR