Browse the Living Book by "The Sacred"

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Despite the many differences that seem to exist between peoples the world over — regardless of culture, tradition, environment, or heredity — there is but one seeker, one search, and one sacred object of our desire. The celestial source of this sacred being doesn’t just live within us… we are, in fact, one with it.

My servant does not cease to come near Me until I love him; and when I love him, I am the sight he sees with and the hearing he hears with and the hand he receives with and the foot he walks with.

Muhammad (570 – 632)

You could be sitting all alone in your room, in anguish, regretful over the past, anxious in the present, and worried about the future, having nothing, hopeful for nothing – and if you would snap the hypnosis of your mind, all grief would vanish in a flash.

Vernon Howard (1918 – 1992)

All things in the world are two. In our minds we are two, good and evil. With our eyes we see two things, things that are fair and things that are ugly. We have the right hand that strikes and makes for evil, and we have the left hand full of kindness, near the heart. One foot may lead us to an evil way, the other foot may lead us to a good. So are all things two, all two.

Chief Gray Eagle, Pawnee (1794)

Hell is a state of mind — ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind — is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains.

C. S. Lewis (1898 – 1963)

The truth is the end and aim of all existence, and the worlds originate so that the truth may come and dwell therein. Those who fail to aspire for the truth have missed the purpose of life. Blessed is he who rests in the truth.

Buddhism (circa 500 B.C.E.)

You never enjoy the world aright till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars, and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you.

Thomas Traherne (1637 – 1674)

This is a country whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. You do not find it by travelling but by standing still. Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.

Thomas Merton (1915 – 1968)

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 – 1987)

We have no right to believe that our ordinary level of consciousness is the highest form of consciousness, or the sole mode of experience possible to man. We cannot say that the range of the internal experience of oneself is necessarily limited either to dream-states or to ordinary consciousness. We have to consider the possibility, not only that there is a level above our ordinary level of consciousness, to which we are only occasionally awakened, but that our ordinary consciousness becomes integrated into a larger system when this happens.

Maurice Nicoll (1884 – 1953)

All insight, all revelation, all illumination, all love, all that is genuine, all that is real, lies in now — and in the attempt to find now we approach the inner precincts, the holiest part of life. For in time all things are seeking completion, but in now all things are complete.

Maurice Nicoll (1884 – 1953)

Bliss is not something to be got. On the other hand you are always bliss. This desire for bliss is born of the sense of incompleteness. To whom is this sense of incompleteness? Enquire. In deep sleep you were blissful. Now you are not so. What has interposed between that bliss and this non-bliss? It is the ego. Seek its source and find you are bliss.

Ramana Maharshi (1879 – 1950)

I hope the Great Heavenly Father, who will look down upon us, will give all the tribes His blessing, that we may go forth in peace and live in peace all our days, and that He will look down upon our children and finally lift us far above this Earth. And that our Heavenly Father will look upon our children as His children, that all the tribes may be His children. And as we shake hands today upon this broad plain we may forever live in peace.

Red Cloud (1822 – 1909)

It is the greatest manifestation of power to be calm. It is easy to be active. Let the reins go, and the horses will drag you down. Any one can do that, but he who can stop the plunging horses is the strong man. Which requires the greater strength, letting go, or restraining? The calm man is not the man who is dull… Activity is the manifestation of the lower strength, calmness of the superior strength.

Vivekananda (1863 – 1902)

The present alone is true and actual; it is the only time which possesses full reality, and our existence lies in it exclusively. Therefore we should always be glad of it, and give it the welcome it deserves, and enjoy every hour.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860)