Browse The Living Book

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And to know that place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot (1888)

He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me, in those who harbor such thoughts hatred will never leave. . . For hatred ceases not by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love. Dhammapada (200)

Love's conqueror is he whom love conquers. Hakim Sanai (1080)

Such is the nature of man,
that for your first gift--he prostrates himself;
for your second--kisses your hand;
for the third--fawns;
for the fourth--just nods his head once;
for the fifth--becomes too familiar;
for the sixth--insults you;
and for the seventh--sues you because he was not
given enough.
Georges Gurdjieff (1866)

All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so them; for this is the law and the prophets. Jesus Christ (4 B.C.E.)

This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you. Mahabharata (540 B.C.E.)

When you know yourselves, then you will be known and you will understand that you are children of the living father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty, and you are poverty. Gospel Of Thomas (110)

Those whose minds are attracted to my invisible nature have a great labor to encounter, because an invisible path is difficult to be found by corporal beings. Bhaghavad-Gita (500 B.C.E.)

If you walk toward Him, He comes to you running. Muhammed (570)

But if you keep quiet, and desist from thinking and feeling with your own personal selfhood, then will the eternal hearing, seeing, and speaking become revealed to you, and God will see and hear and perceive through you. Jacob Boehme (1575)

O Lord, I cannot plead my love of thee. I plead thy love of me, The shallow conduit hails the unfathomed sea. Christina Rossetti (1830)

When thou givest to God thy nothingness, he gives to thee His All. Abu I'Hasin Khurqani

The only way to avoid death is not to be born in the first place. In death there is union with the Beloved. The real skill is to reach the secret of death before dying. John Algeo (1933)

We don't have to quarrel about a word, because "God" is only a word, a concept. One never quarrels about reality; we only quarrel about opinions, about concepts, about judgments. Drop your concepts, drop your opinions, drop your prejudices, drop your judgments, and you will see that. Anthony De Mello (1931)

There never was a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor any of these kings. Nor is there any future in which we shall cease to be. Bhaghavad-Gita (500 B.C.E.)

The kingdom of Heaven is within you, and whosoever knoweth himself shall find it. Gospel Of Thomas (110)

Lovers do not themselves seek and yearn. In all the world there is no one seeking but He! Jalal Al Din Rumi (1207)

"Die and become," that is, "Die to this existence and be reborn on a higher level." Goethe (1749)

"Has the road an end or not?" He answered: "The road has an end, but the stations have no end, for the journey is twofold, one to God and one in God." Fariduddin Attar (1120)

The true man of God sits in the midst of his fellow men, and rises and eats and sleeps and marries and buys and sells and gives and takes in the bazaars and spends the days with other people, and yet never forgets God even for a single moment. Abu Sa'id Ibn Abi'l Khayr (967)

Come, let us go into the body of that light. Let us live in the cleanliness of that song. Let us throw off the pieces of the world like clothing and enter naked into wisdom. For this is what all hearts pray for when they cry, "Thy will be done." Thomas Merton (1915)

Sharing in the divine fullness is such that it makes whoever achieves it ever greater, more illimitable, so as never to cease growing. Because the spring of all reality flows ceaselessly, the being of anyone who shares in it is increased in grandeur by all that springs up within, so that the capacity for receiving grows along with the abundance of good gifts received. Gregory Of Nissa (395 B.C.E.)

That our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God's sake which we commonly do for our own. Brother Lawrence (1611)

When your presence flooded me with its light I hoped that within it I might find Ultimate Reality at its most tangible. But now that I have in fact laid hold on you, you who are utter consistency, and feel myself borne by you I realize that my deepest hidden desire was not to possess you, but to be possessed. Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881)

I know that for the right practice of it (The presence of the Lord) the heart must be empty of all other things, because God will possess the heart alone; and as He cannot possess it alone without emptying it of all besides, so neither can he act there, and do in it what he pleases, unless it be left vacant to Him. Brother Lawrence (1611)