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You ask, “How can we know the Infinite?” I answer, not by reason. It is the office of reason to distinguish and define. The Infinite, therefore, cannot be ranked among its objects. You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer, in which the Divine Essence is communicated to you. This is Ecstasy. It is the liberation of your mind from its finite consciousness.
Everything I say must be understood not as an affirmation but as a question.
Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.
Only those who are willing to go too far will ever know how far they can go.
What sort of tree is there which will not, if neglected, grow crooked and unfruitful, but which will, if given right attention, prove to be productive, and bring its fruit to maturity?
It is necessary to study the mind itself, mind studying mind. We know that there is the power of the mind called reflective. I am talking to you… at the same time I am standing aside, as it were, a second person, and knowing and hearing that I am talking. You work and think at the same time, another portion of your mind stands by and sees that you are talking. The powers of the mind should be concentrated and turned back upon itself, and as the darkest places reveal their secrets before the penetrating rays of the sun, so will this concentrated mind penetrate its own innermost secrets… it will all be revealed to us.
What man in his senses abandons that which is good, to keep company with evil.
Those who are believed to be the most mild and humble are usually the most ambitious and envious.
Nothing so much prevents our being natural as the desire of appearing so.
Rich, only to be wretched, thy great fortunes
Are made thy chief afflictions.
He who knows the Tao is sure to be well acquainted with the principles that appear in the procedures of things. Acquainted with those principles, he is sure to understand how to regulate his actions in all kinds of circumstances. Having that understanding, he will not allow things to injure him.
If man were a unity instead of being a multiplicity, he would have true individuality.
Expect your every need to be met, expect the answer to every problem, expect abundance on every level, expect to grow spiritually. You are not living by human laws. Expect miracles and see them take place. Hold ever before you the thought of prosperity and abundance, and know that doing so sets in motion forces that will bring it into being.
There is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works. In idleness alone is there perpetual despair.
Language does not touch the one who lives in each of us.
The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive… We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.
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.”
The waters know their own, and draw
The brook that springs in yonder heights;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delights.
The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave comes to the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.
Different is the Good and different is the dear,
they both, having different aims, fetter you men;
He, who chooses for himself the Good, comes to wellbeing,
he, who chooses the dear, loses the goal.
The Good and the dear approach the man,
The wise man, pondering over both, distinguishes them;
The wise one chooses the Good over the dear,
The fool, acquisitive and craving, chooses the dear.
Nothing can trouble him more, nothing can move him, for he has cut all the thousand cords of will which hold us bound to the world… as desire, fear, envy, anger, drag us here and there in constant pain. He now looks back smiling and at rest on the delusions of the world, which once were able to move and agonize his spirit also.