James Redfield

“A lot of people are simply interested in exploring their own spirituality, their own values, who they are, whether they're happy where they are.”

“Spiritual consciousness is, on the whole, very adventurous and all about pursuing our deepest, most fulfilling dreams.”

“We're all addicted to sort of the habits of our lives. And we get stuck, and sometimes we'll get stuck because we had traumas that we don't want to remember.”

“We all have times that we get off center.”

“When love first happens, the individuals are giving each other energy unconsciously and both people feel buoyant and elated. That's the incredible high we call being ‘in love.’ Unfortunately, once they expect this feeling to come from another person, they cut themselves off from the energy in the universe and begin to rely even more on the energy from each other--only now there doesn’t seem to be enough and so they stop giving each other energy and fall back into their dramas in an attempt to control each other and force the other’s energy their way.”

“There's a rich legend of this in other cultures, this speaking with ancestors. The Christian mystics communicated with angels.”

“I grew up in a little Methodist church that was very rural, very community support-oriented, made up of great people who talked about love and grace and the spiritual experience, but only in rhetorical terms.”

“It's about really having a God connection: a connection with the divine behind the world and flowing forth out of that in a positive way with love and moving toward making a contribution that pushes forth the evolution of the world.”

“You can be non-judgmental, but you don't want to be non-discerning because, remember, the force of evolution is the conversation, you know: two truths standing up to each other in conversation, and the best truth emerges, and the best truth prevails.”

“I'm asked that a lot: 'James, is there really a continuing spiritual renaissance occurring on this planet? Look at all the conflict, look at the wars.' And I believe, yes, we're still moving toward a deeper spirituality. It's personal. It's grassroots. It's everybody trying to get their own connection made, and from there it grows out.”

“I don't think that anything happens by coincidence... No one is here by accident... Everyone who crosses our path has a message for us. Otherwise they would have taken another path, or left earlier or later. The fact that these people are here means that they are here for some reason"...”

“Each of us has a gift, a talent, that we can offer to the world that makes the world essentially a better place.”

“If you connect with a greater part of yourself, I call it higher self, but that's an experience, and when you do this, knowledge comes in, including intuition, and it's always about, 'What's my heart's sole desire?'”

“If you've ever walked a mile into a virgin forest - you know, like a deep forest where trees have been uncut - the energy is totally different from the shopping mall.”

“When we cultivate mystical awareness or transcendent identity - which is a natural outgrowth of meditation and other practices - what happens is that we begin to take a witness position on our own lives, and that includes our minds.”

“One of the things I think we're learning to do as the twelfth insight emerges is to be discerning without being judgmental, because condemning someone certainly feels like a comic event that brings other things back on you.”

“Wherever we are in life is where destiny has brought us. It doesn't mean we have to stay there.”

“There's a destiny for everybody. The world is set up - as foreign as that can be to some people who are very materialistic - but there is a force in this world, once we step into it, that opens doors for us, that gives us a sense of purpose and the greatest life there is, in my view.”

“We must assume every event has significance and contains a message that pertains to our questions...this especially applies to what we used to call bad things...the challenge is to find the silver lining in every event, no matter how negative.”

“The world is much more mysterious than we ever thought.”