“Augustine of Hippo used to say that, but for God's grace, he should have been capable of committing any crime; and it is when we feel this sincerely, that we are most likely to be really improving, and best able to give assistance to others without moral loss to ourselves.”

The Book of Ammon

Source: Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter 1.

From Evelyn Underhill Ruysbroeck (1915), p. 182 & 183
The Sparkling Stone (c. 1340)

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 16.

700 Inspiring Guides to a New Life

Source: Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ

The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)
Context: We are, the great spiritual writers insist, most fully ourselves when we give ourselves away, and it is egotism that holds us back from that transcendent experience that has been called God, Nirvana, Brahman, or the Tao.
What I now realize, from my study of the different religious traditions, is that a disciplined attempt to go beyond the ego brings about a state of ecstasy. Indeed, it is in itself ekstasis. Theologians in all the great faiths have devised all kinds of myths to show that this type of kenosis, or self-emptying, is found in the life of God itself. They do not do this because it sounds edifying, but because this is the way that human nature seems to work. We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (1991)