Sacred Symbols Quotes

Where new states have come into being, they have invariably swaddled themselves in sacred symbols and shibboleths forged in more dedicated struggles, beginning with an often random tricolor and a national anthem.

The cultural contrast I saw between religions... Catholics have a lot of mediators, going through saints and Mary or whatever. Protestants in general say things to God directly.

Issues that until recently were matters were matters of local prerogative, such as representations of the prophet Muhammad, are often [now] geographically unconfined.

When language was not transcendental enough to complete the meaning of a revelation, symbols were relied upon for heavenly teaching, and familiar images, chosen from the known, were made to mirror the unknown spiritual truth.

...I wondered if it was blasphemous to tell God that rainbows are kitsch.

The object of religion is the imagination, that deep and inexhaustible font of our understanding and symbolizing our deepest possibilities.

Religion, even the most primitive and superstitious, is inevitably a beginning of culture. It is not possible without some kind of symbolic expression ... and begets dramatic gesture, dance, and chant.

All religious expression is symbolism.

This external worship of images has, however, been described in all our Shastras as the lowest of all the low forms of worship. But that does not mean that it is a wrong thing to do.

Idolatry is still a socially cohesive force - its original function.

How I loved the feasts!.... I especially loved the processions in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. What a joy it was for me to throw flowers beneath the feet of God!... I was never so happy as when I saw my roses touch the sacred Monstrance.

Destroying a religious symbol and building a religious center are really the same thing if you don't think about it.

You grow up trying to interpret, worshipping, visual symbols. It's a body-soaked imagery that you're looking at.

I don't think God cares what you put in your body or on your body.

Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities.

And it seems to me a blasphemy to say that the Holy Spirit is Love. In the Old Testament it is an Eagle: in the New it is a Dove.Christ insists on the Dove: but in His supreme moments He includes the Eagle.

Concerning First Amendment fetishism - A federal subsidy for a photo of a crucifix suspended in a jar of urine is fine, but religious figures on stamps are offensive.

The myths connected with individual sanctuaries and ceremonies were merely part of the apparatus of the worship; they served to excite the fancy and sustain the interest of the worshipper... no one cared what he believed about its origin.

Religion comes from the word 're' or again and 'ligare' meaning to bind or tie back. The purpose of religion is to unite the self with God or the creative force. Music, sacred spaces, and meaningful icons are the way we conjoin our minds with the transcendental.

These gold chains and pendants I've been collecting from 1975. None of them are new and mostly - Hare Krishna Hare Rama, Ganpati, Satyanarayan, Hanuman - all god-related pendants.

I sacrifice to the God of Beauty — the impulse to beauty in nature. Here are flowers. Here is wine spilled on the floor. I will burn incense & myrhh. I will kneel & strike my breast & touch the dust with my forehead. I will I will! Only do not forsake me, Oh God of beauty.

Contemporary paganism gives me a subjective lens through which the world in which I live can be interpreted on an aesthetic and an ethical basis. I'm interested in narrative, myth, and story, in folklore and the way we connect to the turning of the seasons and the natural world.

If you visit a temple, you can see pictures of God, you can see the Deity form of the Lord, and you can just hear Him by listening to yourself and others say the mantra. It's just a way of realizing that all the senses can be applied toward perceiving God, and it makes it that much more appealing, seeing the pictures, hearing the mantra, smelling the incense, flowers, and so on.

I always carry prayer cards to St. Jude and St. Martha with me.