Stephen Levine Quotations

I have never lived a life so much larger than death. (93)

There is a delicate balance that we need to honor as we try to find meaning in any event or state of mind: Many people confuse finding meaning with finding a reason, putting our finger on something or someone for blame.

Hell is not fire and brimstone, not a place where you are punished for lying or cheating or stealing. Hell is wanting to be something and somewhere different from where you are.

Loss is the absence of something we were once attached to. Grief is the rope burns left behind, when that which is held is pulled beyond our grasp.

If sequestered pain made a sound, the atmosphere would be humming all the time.

Meditation isn't to disappear into the light. Meditation is to see all of what we are.

When the heart acknowledges how much pain there is in the mind, it turns like a mother toward a frightened child.

Until we find out who was born this time around, it seems irrelevant to seek earlier identities. I have heard many people speak of who they believe they were in previous incarnations, but they seem to have very little idea of who they are in this one. . . . Let’s take one life at a time. Perhaps the best way to do that is to live as though there were no afterlife or reincarnation. To live as though this moment was all that was allotted. (132)

How soon will we accept this opportunity to be fully alive before we die? (88)

Always try to see yourself through God's eyes.