I enjoyed this work by Bob Ouradnik. It is somewhat of a distinctly biographical journey alongside a self-admitted spiritual explorer. It is definitely a book for the open-minded.
Here are a few tidbit excerpts that I truly appreciated:
Ouradnik, Robert Growing Spiritually – Without Getting Bogged Down in Religion, Booksurge Copyright © 2009 by Robert Ouradnik
Perhaps the first step to prevent getting bogged down in religion is to give up the belief, that only I have the right way. P.7
Life requires us to dance, to dance between the order that we are sure of and the chaos that we are not, between the known and the mysterious. It is impossible to live without the fiction of order: It is impossible to live if the fiction of order is absolutized into a belief that this is all there is. P. 14
Our lives became richer, fuller, more exciting – perhaps more meaningful because of an experience to which the most appropriate response was to remain speechless and in awe of some – thing beyond our complete understanding and for which we could only feel gratitude. We had become aware of the Beyond that was in the midst of everything. P. 25
Awareness of the Beyond is not an attribute possessed by one religion and denied to another. p. 26
Religion is the box we build in our hope that we can ship the gift onto someone else. P.49.
Yearning for someone else who could just stand beside me in Awe and-gratitude before an event too large to comprehend. P. 58
Every aspect of spirituality is life created. Every aspect of religion IS a product of human reflection. P. 62
myths told in the right way at the right time can be powerful. P. 64
It is important not to become so bogged down in the righteousness of our own religion that we no longer can be grateful for the transforming power of someone else’s. p.89
The absence of openness, the presence of close-mindedness, narrows the possibility that we will receive the gifts of deep insight, intuition, and lasting Truth, p.100.
To see the old as the only way that life should be seen is to” become bogged down in the past. The temptation is to commit only to the old. That lone option should be avoided. P. 105.
But the situation keeps changing. Life has a way of waking us up to new ways of seeing its meaning and its purpose. This perception is why I have tried to not get bogged down in dogmatic commitments that cannot flow with life. P. 109.
Truth is not reducible to an intellectual concept. P. 110
New commandments burned into stone tablets probably won’t ever be available to direct us in stem cell research, environmental preservation, and international justice and peace. We’re going to have to come up with answers from within ourselves. P. 174
It (this book) was written in the hope that those who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious” might know they have a friend. p. 174.
Truly enjoyable. Thanks Bob!
