Browse by: Quotation Source | Entire Living Book | The Seeker | The Sacred
Share in the accounts and discoveries of the many individuals who, just like you, set out to find new, true answers that could stand up to the test of passing time with its ever-changing conditions. Welcome these inward and uplifting thoughts as if they were your own, for in one sense… they are.
If there are phenomena, the reality of which we cannot deny but which cannot be fitted into our accepted conceptual framework, then something is wrong with that framework and we must look for another.
The union of the soul with soul and spirit with spirit in accordance with the sowing of the word brings growth to the seed sown and produces life. Everyone who is educated in obedience to his educator becomes a son.
If you bring forth that which is within you, that which is within you will save you. If you fail to bring forth that which is within you, that which is within you will kill you.
During the gap — infinitesimal though it be — between two thoughts, the ego vanishes. Hence it may truly be said that with each thought it reincarnates anew. There is no real need to wait for the series of long-lived births to be passed through before liberation can be achieved. The series of momentary births also offers this opportunity, provided a man knows how to use it.
If men could see their true position and could understand all the horror of it, they would be unable to remain where they are even for one second. They would begin to seek a way out and they would quickly find it, because there is a way out, but men fail to see it simply because they are hypnotized. Kundalini is the force that keeps them in a hypnotic state. “To awaken” for man means to be “dehypnotized.”
Who looks outside, dreams… who looks inside, awakes.
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
Emulate your forefathers, your ancestors… You see, their words remain in their writings open, that you may read and copy their wisdom.
The force of necessity is irresistible.
There is no death… Only a change of worlds.
It is not necessary to go off on a tour of great cathedrals in order to find the Deity. Look within. You have to sit still to do it.
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.
A man should orient his will and all his works to God and having only God in view go forward unafraid, not thinking, “Am I right or am I wrong?” One who worked out all the chances before starting his first fight would never fight at all. And if, going to someplace, we must think how to set the front foot down, we shall never get there. It is our duty to do the next thing: go straight on, that is the right way.
In yourself lies the sweetness of your charm, from you does it blossom, in you it sojourns, within you it rests, in your own self you must search for the jubilant quality of your conscience. For that reason Solomon says, “Drink water out of your own cistern and the streams out of your own well.”
The eternal stars shine out as soon as it is dark enough.
We must try to penetrate our most secret self, and examine our being from all sides… And so, for the first time in my life perhaps (although I am supposed to meditate every day!), I took the lamp and, leaving the zone of everyday occupations and relationships where everything seems clear, I went down into my inmost self, to the deep abyss whence I feel dimly that my power of action emanates. But as I moved further and further away from the conventional certainties by which social life is superficially illuminated, I became aware that I was losing contact with myself. At each step of the descent a new person was disclosed within me of whose name I was no longer sure, and who no longer obeyed me. And when I had to stop my exploration because the path faded from beneath my steps, I found a bottomless abyss at my feet, and out of it came — arising I know not from where — the current which I dare to call my life.
He who knows not,
And knows not that he knows not,
Is a fool — shun him.
He who knows not,
And knows that he knows not,
Is a child — teach him.
He who knows,
And knows not that he knows,
Is asleep — wake him.
He who knows,
And knows that he knows,
Is wise — follow him.
One must strive to become what one is.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
Ring the bell that still can ring.
Forget the perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.
Another thing that people must sacrifice is their suffering. It is very difficult also to sacrifice one’s suffering. A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering. Man is made in such a way that he is never so much attached to anything as he is to his suffering. And it is necessary to be free from suffering. No one who is not free from suffering, who has not sacrificed his suffering, can work. Later on a great deal must be said about suffering. Nothing can be attained without suffering, but at the same time one must begin by sacrificing suffering. Now, decipher what this means.
Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.
Origen says the soul’s quest of God comes by self-observation. If she knew herself she would know God also.
“Is there anything that I can do to make myself enlightened?”
“As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning.”
“Then of what use are the spiritual exercises you prescribe?”
“To make sure you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise.”
Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly. Let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you as few human or even divine ingredients can. Something missing in my heart tonight has made my eyes so soft, my voice so tender, my need of God absolutely clear.
