Lawrence Kushner

“By reading holy literature as if it were a dream, we gain access to a primary mode of our collective unconscious.”

— Lawrence Kushner

“personal confusion, search, and self-interrogation are more important than any answers could ever be.”

— Lawrence Kushner

“If Scripture be like a dream, then methods of understanding the dream are, at least in principle, valid for learning Scripture.”

— Lawrence Kushner

“how he once slipped through the "scriptural text" of his daily life into the primordial light of consciousness itself.”

— Lawrence Kushner

Hold up your hands before your eyes. You are looking at the hands of God.

— Lawrence Kushner

Religion is a more or less organized way of remembering that every ministry points to a higher reality.

— Lawrence Kushner

“We should draft dogs,” he said. “People would say, ‘But I love my dog; I wouldn’t send him to Vietnam. He might…

— Lawrence Kushner

The only thing truly within our power, may be whether or not we will behave in each moment with arrogance or reverence.

— Lawrence Kushner

“One should be so absorbed in prayer that one is no longer aware of one’s own self. There is nothing for such…

— Lawrence Kushner

“The amount of communal participation in prayer is in inverse ratio to the combined vertical and horizontal distance between the leader of…

— Lawrence Kushner

God does not have hands, we do. Our hands are God's. It is up to us what God will see and hear,…

— Lawrence Kushner

“Again and again we trade infinite wonder for a handful of statue; we barter the limitless Nothing for the short-term bird in…

— Lawrence Kushner

“The one who pays attention to the dreams, draws on them, and lives them out is blessed, even as the one who…

— Lawrence Kushner

The first mystery is simply that there is a mystery, a mystery that can never be explained or understood, only encountered from…

— Lawrence Kushner

“Assume full responsibility for the dream. For "through the dream the man makes the matter his own; it is in his will,…

— Lawrence Kushner

“We must not allow embarrassment to distract attention from elements that make us uncomfortable. Disgust and dread are the sorts of feelings…

— Lawrence Kushner

“allowing the river of light-the deepest currents of consciousness-to rise to the surface and, without anxiety, animate our lives. We are thus…

— Lawrence Kushner

“Consequently, they who cleave with all their mental powers to God … [they have lost their] existence like a drop which has…

— Lawrence Kushner

“This consciousness is never still, not even for a moment. It will not be photographed or even named. In its wanting to…

— Lawrence Kushner

“Isolate and identify the primary elements of the dream text before us. What are the dream's components? One of the most common…

— Lawrence Kushner

“And this, then, is the job of the searchers and the dreamers: to reach deeper and deeper into the dream. Peeling away…

— Lawrence Kushner

“As any good teacher of dreams will tell you, you are all the people in your dream. Fritz Perls taught, "[All] the…

— Lawrence Kushner

“If a group of people can have a psyche and think of itself as an organic being, then surely a people should…

— Lawrence Kushner

“This is the great dream of which each individual dream is a personal manifestation. Dream is ontogenetic. Myth is phylogenetic. "Dreams and…

— Lawrence Kushner

“Each person has a Torah, unique to that person, his or her innermost teaching. Some seem to know their Torahs very early…

— Lawrence Kushner

“We participate in a perpetual organic conversation with our universe.”

— Lawrence Kushner

“What first occurs to us on remembering the dream/reading the text may be the most important thing.”

— Lawrence Kushner

Everyone carries with them at least one piece to someone else's puzzle.

— Lawrence Kushner

“Pay especially close attention to the seemingly trivial details and the little discrepancies.”

— Lawrence Kushner

Our tolerance for forms of religious expression we disagree with is a precise barometer of our own spiritual security.

— Lawrence Kushner

“You must protect people who have no social clout because the health of a congregation is measured by its ability to tolerate…

— Lawrence Kushner

“The boundary between now and not yet will softly blur. And the clean line between your discrete body and all creation will…

— Lawrence Kushner

“what is the underlying emotional dynamic of the story? "The emotions displayed in the dream are its most reliable elements. The emotion…

— Lawrence Kushner

“We must therefore entertain the hypothesis that there is an important connection between being 'dialectical' and dreaming, just as there is between…

— Lawrence Kushner

“All creation is patterned according to an inner blueprint or arrangement that carries within it a genetic memory of everything that ever…

— Lawrence Kushner

“Is it not at least occasionally the case that we set out on a clear and simple mission and return with something…

— Lawrence Kushner

“Recall our own recent, immediate experiences. Since dreams are often initiated by something that happened only recently, we must ask about yesterday's…

— Lawrence Kushner

...the goal of all spiritual life is to get your ego out of the way - outwit the sucker; dissolve it; shoot…

— Lawrence Kushner

“So that's what it's all about! You put your whole self in, you take your whole self out; you put your whole…

— Lawrence Kushner

When you see something that is broken, fix it. When you find something that is lost, return it. When you see something…

— Lawrence Kushner