The Great Transformation Quotes

“Unless there is some kind of spiritual revolution that can keep abreast of our technological genius, it is unlikely that we will save our planet. A purely rational education will not suffice.”
― Karen Armstrong , The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

“Oedipus had to abandon his certainty, his clarity, and supposed insight in order to become aware of the dark ambiguity of the human condition.”
― Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

“The book of Job, based on an ancient folktale, may have been written during the exile. One day, Yahweh made an interesting wager in the divine assembly with Satan, who was not yet a figure of towering evil but simply one of the “sons of God,” the legal “adversary” of the council.19 Satan pointed out that Job, Yahweh’s favorite human being, had never been truly tested but was good only because Yahweh had protected him and allowed him to prosper. If he lost all his possessions, he would soon curse Yahweh to his face. “Very well,” Yahweh replied, “all that he has is in your power.”20 Satan promptly destroyed Job’s oxen, sheep, camels, servants, and children, and Job was struck down by a series of foul diseases. He did indeed turn against God, and Satan won his bet. At this point, however, in a series of long poems and discourses, the author tried to square the suffering of humanity with the notion of a just, benevolent, and omnipotent god. Four of Job’s friends attempted to console him, using all the traditional arguments: Yahweh only ever punished the wicked; we could not fathom his plans; he was utterly righteous, and Job must therefore be guilty of some misdemeanor. These glib, facile platitudes simply enraged Job, who accused his comforters of behaving like God and persecuting him cruelly. As for Yahweh, it was impossible to have a sensible dialogue with a deity who was invisible, omnipotent, arbitrary, and unjust—at one and the same time prosecutor, judge, and executioner. When Yahweh finally deigned to respond to Job, he showed no compassion for the man he had treated so cruelly, but simply uttered a long speech about his own splendid accomplishments. Where had Job been while he laid the earth’s foundations, and pent up the sea behind closed doors? Could Job catch Leviathan with a fishhook, make a horse leap like a grasshopper, or guide the constellations on their course? The poetry was magnificent, but irrelevant. This long, boastful tirade did not even touch upon the real issue: Why did innocent people suffer at the hands of a supposedly loving God? And unlike Job, the reader knows that Job’s pain had nothing to do with the transcendent wisdom of Yahweh, but was simply the result of a frivolous bet. At the end of the poem, when Job—utterly defeated by Yahweh’s bombastic display of power—retracted all his complaints and repented in dust and ashes, God restored Job’s health and fortune. But he did not bring to life the children and servants who had been killed in the first chapter. There was no justice or recompense for them.”
― Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

“Religious people prefer to be right rather than be compassionate.”
― Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

“represented a universal striving for fulfillment.”
― Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

“When people are consistently treated with the utmost respect, they learn to feel worthy of reverence; they realize that they have absolute value. So”
― Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

“utmost”
― Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

“A primitive capitalism had developed, which had quite different priorities. The lavish sacrifices had been designed to impress the gods and to enhance the patron’s prestige. By the fifth century, these eastern peoples had realized that their improved trade and agriculture brought them far more wealth and status than the Vedic rites.”
― Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

“man of the Axial Age, Confucius wanted people to become fully conscious of what they were doing. Performance of the li was”
― Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

“What is lawful, what is unlawful?” asked Ku Yuan, prince and poet of Chu. “This country is a slough of despond! Nothing is pure any longer! Informers are exalted! And wise men of gentle birth are without renown!”3”
― Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

“Today we often assume that before undertaking a religious lifestyle, we must prove to our own satisfaction that “God” or the “Absolute” exists. This is good scientific practice: first you establish a principle; only then can you apply it. But the Axial sages would say that this was to put the cart before the horse. First you must commit yourself to the ethical life; then disciplined and habitual benevolence, not metaphysical conviction, would give you intimations of the transcendence you sought.”
― Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

“What mattered was not what you believed but how you behaved. Religion was about doing things that changed you at a profound level.”
― Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

“Shu required that “all day and every day” we looked into our own hearts, discovered what caused us pain, and then refrained, under all circumstances, from inflicting that distress upon other people. It demanded that people no longer put themselves into a special, separate category but constantly related their own experience to that of others. Confucius was the first to promulgate the Golden Rule. For Confucius it had transcendent value.”
― Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

“It was only possible to define or comprehend something when there was duality. A person can see, taste, or smell something that is separate and apart from him- or herself. But when “the whole [brahman] has become a person’s very self [atman], then who is there for him to see and by what means? Who is there for me to think of and by what means?”14 It was impossible to perceive the perceiver within oneself. So you could only say neti . . . neti (“not this”). The sage affirmed the existence of the atman while at the same time denying that it bore any similarity to anything known by the senses.”
― Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions