Quotessence
Home / Authors / Charles Eisenstein
Charles Eisenstein

Charles Eisenstein Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllWorldPeopleThinkingSpiritualStoriesActionCommunityKindSelfSeparationWayClimateCrisisEarthFeelingsProblemSometimesSpiritualityAbundanceActivism

Famous Charles Eisenstein Quotes

“I'm not prescribing non-doing as a universal response to our problems. Sometimes, something obviously needs to be done. And we retreat into a spiritual or meditative state that we fancy up by calling it mindfulness, but really it's an unhealthy detachment and a shrinking back from life. But culturally, it's much more common to be trapped in habits of reaction, whether on a systemic level or on a personal level. That's where the non-doing comes in, which is something that we don't really have room for. I think that it's something we need to embrace as part of the creative process.”

ThinkingSometimesDoneProblemSpiritualCommonCreativeHabitMindfulnessEmbraceResponseCreative ProcessDetachment
Author:Charles Eisenstein
Create image

“It's not like activist work is a nice add-on to what's really important, the spiritual work. The two are inseparable and it goes both ways. Many people are hardcore activists for decades, and they encounter burnout, futility, or a feeling of imbalance. Sometimes they need to go so far as to drop their activism and go on a spiritual journey. They're realizing that all the stuff they're trying to change in the world isn't just out there in the world. It's in them, too. And as long as they're blind to what's in them, they're going to continually re-create it in all that they do.”

PeopleWorldTryingLongImportantSometimesFeelingsSpiritualRealizingNiceJourneyBlindActivismActivistInseparableFutilitySpiritual JourneyHardcoreTrying To Change
Author:Charles Eisenstein
Create image

“The word "spiritual" normally means something that's distinct from the fleshly or the material. It's not of the world. But that version of spirituality is bankrupt today. It had its use when the program of science divested matter from the spiritual qualities - - the qualities of a self, or of a being. When science divested the world of those qualities and made it into just a thing, rather than a self, it gave us license to treat it as just a thing, and not as something sacred, conscious, alive, intelligent. So this is tied into the whole trajectory of our civilization.”

WorldMeanTodaySpiritualSpiritualityQualityConsciousProgramIntelligent
Author:Charles Eisenstein
Create image

“The discoveries of the last couple decades are showing that properties of a self do actually inhere in matter, that matter seems to have properties of self-organization and life, even intelligence, consciousness. I can't say that science has proved these things, but it at least suggests the possibility. As we re-invest the world with sacredness, "spiritual" comes to mean something very different. If only a human being has these qualities, then spiritual work is inner. It's all about your own consciousness.”

WorldMeanDifferentSpiritualConsciousnessQualityPossibilityCoupleProperty
Author:Charles Eisenstein
Create image

“You could conceive spirituality as the study of the immeasurable, of the qualitative. But that's very different from the way we typically use the word. A spiritual person, in the popular conception, is somebody who's kind of aloof from the world, introspective, meditating, communing with non-material beings. That's the spiritual realm, and we elevate it above the material realm. What's more worthy, what's more admirable? Who's the one who has done this hard work on the self, and has done a lot of "practice"? That's the spiritual person.”

WorldKindDifferentDoneSpiritualSpiritualityStudyHard WorkWorthyAdmirableIntrospectiveAloof
Author:Charles Eisenstein
Create image

“Even if we profess to be non-judgmental, there's an inherent judgmentality and hierarchy in which the spiritual person, the conscious person, the mindful person, is more developed than the typical truck driver or waitress or heroin addict. This is a red flag, another problem built into the concept of spirituality. The truth is that every person you meet is in some way more developed than you are, and that the multiple modes of development that a human being can pursue require the whole of humanity to pursue. We're in this together. Enlightenment is a collective effort.”

ProblemTogetherSpiritualHumanitySpiritualityEffortTruth IsEnlightenmentConsciousMultipleAddictTruckHeroinWaitressTruck Driver
Author:Charles Eisenstein
Create image

“A woman recently told me a story about her descent into chronic fatigue. She was sleeping sixteen, eighteen hours a day, and feeling more tired when she woke up than when she went to bed. She really wanted to go to a workshop and she went anyway. And when she was there, she felt much less tired. So she decided, "Maybe if I continue to follow what I really want to do at all times, I will feel less tired." This was her spiritual practice - - to only do the things that she wanted to, and to not make choices based on anything else. That is an embracing of pleasure, of joy, of good feelings.”

FeelingsSpiritualJoyChoicesHoursSleepPleasureTiredAll TimeFatigueEighteenSpiritual Practice
Author:Charles Eisenstein
Create image

“Traditional spirituality often made pleasure, joy, good feelings. the things to overcome. It said you couldn't just indulge in your desires; that would be selfish. Anyone who has been in a spiritual community recognizes the dangers of this kind of joyless spirituality, where everything is somber and heavy and serious. We recognize that as kind of a trap, a false path.”

KindFeelingsSpiritualJoyDesireSpiritualityCommunityPleasurePathDangerSeriousOvercomingSelfishIndulgeBeing SelfishSomber
Author:Charles Eisenstein
Create image