for it is what you have defined, and so it is relative.
-Paul Ferrini
to which the forth-pouring from the Absolute is comparable.
-G. A. Gaskell
Also Some Short Poems and Passages (titled for expediency)
Awake Awhile
It does not have to be Forever,
Right Now.
One Step upon the Sky's soft skirt
Would be enough.
-Hafiz
To inhere in one's own Being,
where the 'I', or ego, is dead,
is the perfect State.
-Ramana Maharshi
I remember taking this book with me
to read among the flowers
and realize that another year has passed.
-Yang Wan-li
Every day, priests minutely examine the Law
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind
and rain, and snow and moon.
-Ikkyu Sojun
Permanently established at the centre of all things,
he "is unto himself his own law",
because his will is one with the universal Will
(the "Will of Heaven"of the Far-Eastern tradition,
which effectively manifests itself at the very point where that being resides);
he has obtained the "Great Peace",
which is none other than the "Divine Presence"
(Es-Sakinah, the immanence of the Divinity
at that point which is the "Centre of the World");
being identified, by his own unification, with the principal unity itself,
he sees unity in all things and all things in unity,
in the absolute simultaneity of the Eternal Present.
-Rene Guenon
It is you, cerebral man,
who distinguishes what creates from what is created.
-R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz
There is no man alone,
because every man is a microcosm,
and carries the whole world about him.
-Thomas Browne
But now I hold the powers of creation
in the palm of my hand -
-Ravidas
You are on earth by the necessity immanent in the cause,
and you must therefore realize the cosmic Ego, the absolute I,
by the crystallization in yourself of absolute consciousness.
-R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz
And thou shalt find thy knowledgeable desire
Grow large as all the regions of thy soul,
Whose firmament doth cover the whole of Being,
And of created purpose reach the ends.
-Lascelles Abercrombie
Look into the nature of desire,
and there is boundless light.
-Padmasambhava
I did not have to ask my heart what it wanted,
because of all the desires I have ever known
just one did I cling to for it was the essence of all desire:
to know beauty.
-Saint John of the Cross
The only desire that remains true for all times and places
is the desire for fulfillment.
All other desires are manifestations of that one desire:
the desire for completion, for self-realization.
-Harish Johari
There is really only one fundamental desire
the desire for spiritual perfection.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan
Desire for Reality
leads to the annihilation of all desire.
-Anandamayi Ma
If your desires are not in accord with your spirit,
sacrifice them, and you will come to the end of your journey.
-Attar
If you make love with the divine now,
in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.
-Kabir
The name given to a being
that is the rudimentary consciousness of any structure is deva.
This is a good short word that means god of a form.
-Itzhak Bentov
Essentially the devas and nature spirits
are aspects of our own selves,
guiding us toward our true identity,
the divine reality within.
-The Findhorn Garden Book
The Divine, within and without, can be worshipped at three levels:
the intellectual or wisdom based (absolute non-duality).
the emotional or devotional (qualified non-duality),
and the physical or external (duality).
First, one may communicate with the Divine
externally, in the form of an image, statue, murti.
The worshipper is one entity, and the worshipped is another,
completely separate.
Second, one may meditate on the Divine, internally, within one's heart,
as the inner ruler (antaryamin).
The worshipper and the worshipped are not exactly identical
but not exactly different either.
Finally, one may contemplate the Divine as oneself,
as omnipresent, all-pervasive.
Or to put it in other words, first one is in the Light.
The Light is one thing, there, and you are another, here,
and you are in the Light's presence.
Then, one can turn within and find that the Divine can be wherever one is.
The Light is within oneself.
Finally, one is the Light.
-John A. Grimes
Emptiness is the countermeasure against a dark cloud
Of contaminated knowledge and emotions.
He who wishes to achieve enlightenment soon
Should meditate on emptiness.
-Bodhicharyavatara
Look upon the body as unreal,
an image in a mirror,
the reflection of the moon in water.
Contemplate the mind as formless,
yet bright and pure.
Not a single thought arising,
empty, yet perceptive;
still, yet illuminating;
complete like the great emptiness,
containing all that is wonderful.
-Han Shan Te'-Ch'ing
The gravest error is not to discern the essential.
-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov
Error is lack of love.
-A Course in Miracles
The more evolved you are,
the more of the universe is in your view.
-Yasuhiko Kimura
The goal of evolution is to reach the point
at which each of the higher bodies incarnates
in the corresponding lower body.
Only then will human beings receive full illumination,
because divine nature will then dwell within them.
-Omraam Mikhael Aivanov
The archetypal assignment for all individualized beings
through the entire span of sequential incarnations
is the conscious re-attainment of perfect equilibrium.
-Elman Bacher
The beauty of the person is the final issue of evolution.
-Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.
You can never see your own face,
only a reflection, not the face itself.
-Farid ud-Din 'Attar
For I am a torch, and the flame of me is God.
-Lascelles Ambercrombie
The eternal flame is devoid of fire,
And is met within thyself.
-Keshodas
There's a well inverted, in skies within,
A flame-eternal, still-doth burn therein.
-Paltu
There burneth a transcendent flame
No oil needs, no wick the same.
-Paltu
Come, dwell within the eyes;
Withdraw and become one at this point.
Here duality will depart
And you will behold the Flame.
-Dayal Singh
Vigilance is a sacred, quiet, peaceful vigil
at the flame of truth.
-Merle Antoinette Roberson (Toni), "Gangaji"
Where the Divine Melody plays,
Burns there the resplendent Flame,
The strains of bani (Word) emanate
From deep within the flame.
-Nanak
The unbroken strains of the Word
Come from deep within the Flame;
those who see the Flame and hear the Word
Become attached to the true Lord.
-Nanak
Flowers never emit so sweet and strong a fragrance
as before a storm.
Beauteous soul! when a storm approaches thee,
be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower.
-Jean Paul Friedrich Richter
I find one vast garden spread out all over the universe.
All plants, all human beings, all higher mind bodies
are about in this garden in various ways,
each has his own uniqueness and beauty.
Their presence and variety give me great delight.
Every one of you adds with his special feature
to the glory of the garden.
-Ananandamayi Ma
How reluctantly
the bee emerges from deep
within the peony
-Matsuo Basho
That man's life is but a dream -
is what we now come to know.
Its house abandoned,
the garden has become home
to butterflies.
-Sougi
Eden which is the Wisdom of God.
-Philo
Man is a reflection of God;
but the reflection cannot exist without the object reflected;
so man must know what God is,
if he would know himself.
-Paramananda
As the fragrance is in the flower
And the reflection in the mirror,
So is God within thee,
In thine own body shouldst thou seek him.
-Teg Bahadur
And peruse objects no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good,
and their adjuncts good.
-Walt Whitman
Of all virtues and dignities of the mind,
goodness is the greatest,
being the character of the Deity.
-Francis Bacon
The Infinite Goodness has such wide arms
that it takes whatever turns to it.
-Dante Alighieri
Goodness is not goodness
unless it is a rapture.
-Robert Norwood
He whose hand is without wound may touch poison:
poison cannot enter where there is no wound.
-Dhammapada
In mythological stories and legends
the fight between the lower mind and the higher mind
is illustrated as that of man
being tempted by the devil on one hand
and helped by a guardian angel on the other.
-Vishnu-devananda
When the higher incorporates the lower into its service,
the nature of the lower is transformed into that of the higher.
-Meister Eckhart
Ignorance is of the Self,
and to remove it, Self-awareness it required.
When you come to an awareness of the Self, ignorance vanishes.
If you don't lose contact with the Self, ignorance can never arise.
-Annamalai
In illusion, what is true?
Illusion is from the outset true.
In illusion what is manifested?
The very illusion itself is manifestation.
If this is so, then one can never be apart from illusion.
No matter how you seek illusion, you won't find it.
-Ts'ao Shan
A man has only one way of being immortal on this earth.
He has to forget that he is mortal.
-Jean Giraudoux
Initiation is equivalent to a basic change in existential condition.
-Mircea Eliade
Wake up.
This is your life for God's sake.
It's time to face up to it.
You can't get anywhere, can't get over anything,
if you don't let yourself feel anything in the first place.
It's time.
-Julie Buxaum
When you get out of the driver's seat,
you find that life can drive itself,
that actually life has always been driving itself...
Life becomes almost magical.
The illusion of the "me" is no longer in the way.
Life begins to flow,
and you never know where it will take you.
-Stephen Gray, "Adyashanti"
The sum total of our life
is a breath spent in the company of the Beloved.
-Abu-Said Abil-Kheir