The Gate of Tears Quotes

“To me, God is a name that humans give to all that is.  Experientially, it is whatever is left over when the delusion of the self is taken away. ”
― Jay Michaelson, The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path

“Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you.” This”
― Jay Michaelson, The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path

“The deep joy of awakening is a happiness not of merriment or exuberance, but a love that reveals itself precisely when sadness or other difficult emotions are allowed to unfold just as they are. It is a joy of relinquishing, allowing, setting down the burden. The spiritual search, then, is really the cessation of searching. No more manipulating experience in order to feel better (what will it be this time?), no more lurching out of the mind for satisfaction.  But letting go, letting be, and giving up.”
― Jay Michaelson, The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path

“Religion is for people afraid of going to hell, Spirituality is for people who have been there.”
― Jay Michaelson, The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path

“Neither the spiritual nor the material repression of sadness reflects the depth of contemplative life. The great irony is that the very effort to feel joy (or relief) prevents its fruition. Perhaps counterintuitively, it is the surrender to sadness that causes it to pass—not the suppression of it. The gestures of opening, making-space, giving-way—these enable a delicious relinquishment, a setting down of the burden, even, perhaps, a kind of wisdom.”
― Jay Michaelson, The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path