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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.
The path of self-knowledge has this aim in view, for no one can know himself unless he turns inwards away from sense-perception, and unless he learns what to seek for. By oneself this is impossible. A man cannot get to know himself alone. His imagination stands in the way. There is no sufficient point in himself from which he can view himself aright, no sufficient knowledge. The establishing of this point is a matter of long work upon oneself with the assistance of those in whom this point is already established.
The musicality of being holds both unending joy and infinite sorrow
It is the delicate touch of longing for the infinite
It is the tears of pain in the eyes of the worshiper
It is the sacrifice, at last rewarded
With a crown of roses, or thorns.
It holds the mystery of all beings who strive without knowledge
The infinite cycles of meaningless pain
The cares and woes of a thousand lives
Can one look at them, and listen without pity?
I touch them, I call them unto me
Those of little faith, and of great
Those who cry forever and those that laugh hysterically
The poor, the maimed, the lacking, the unhappy
The many parts each person must play.
I call them unto me, and I say:
Take all, take all, take everything and more
Your unhappiness is unbounded, take from me
And be at peace.
They scream, they cry, their tears are unending
The many forms of misery which all beings are heir to
Haunt me in the night.
There are beings of joy, of wonder, of enjoyment
There are sensual heavens, and pleasure-filled paradises
Yet where may those who suffer and grieve go
Those for whom the illusion of separateness
Is the truest reality?
Ropes and coils of evil deceptions
Locks and bars and endless loneliness
Before joy comes sorrow, before knowledge, pain
Before the thrill of enlightenment
Am I, who aid the wounded.
I share their grief, I hold them in my arms
I shed my tears, that they may realize they are not alone
In the vast depths of the infinite universe
There is one who cares.
Let us put the ideas of our mind, just as we put things of the laboratory, to the test of experience.
I do not wish to live what is not life.
‘Tis well, ’tis well; no more: Be not as extreme in submission as in offence.
Suffering, if it does not diminish love, will transport you to the furthest shore.
I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.
We would desire few things ardently if we had a perfect knowledge of what we were desiring.
True prudence is the knowledge of what to do and what not to do. One who possesses it never refrains from virtuous works and is never pierced by the deadly arrow of vice. Thus, he who understands words of prudence knows the difference between what is insidious, structured for deception and what reminds us quietly about the best way to live life.
There is no reason for despair. You need not fancy it is impossible to regulate your life in accordance with abstract ideas and maxims… the first thing to do is to understand the rule; the second thing is to learn the practice of it. The theory may be understood at once by an effort of reason, and yet the practice of it acquired only in the course of time.
Who is there who can make muddy waters clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will gradually clear itself.
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
The One is ever present. Even in those moments when your natural mind (ego) shrouds you in deception and despair, The One is there urging you to light, to love and to Life.
Three brothers were in the habit of going to see the blessed Anthony every year. The first two would ask him questions about their thoughts and the salvation of the soul. But the third would keep silence without asking anything. Eventually Abba Anthony said to him, “You have been coming here to see me for a long time now and you never ask me any questions.” The other replied, “One thing is enough for me, Father… to see you.”
A quiet mind knows the answer, which means we must cease to fight anxiously for the answer.
As a man-of-war that sails through the sea, so this earth that sails through the air. We mortals are all on board a fast-sailing, never-sinking world-frigate, of which God was the ship-wright… Thus sailing with sealed orders, we ourselves are the repositories of the secret packet, whose mysterious contents we long to learn. There are no mysteries out of ourselves.
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.
It is wise to seek immortality for time defeats all other ambitions.
It is right for us to be exhorted so to love wisdom that we most eargerly seek it as our treasure, acquire more and more of it, suffer many trials, restrain desires, ponder the future, so that we may preserve innocence and beneficence. Whenever we act in this way we are in possession of true virtues, because our objective is true that is in harmony with our nature in reference to salvation and true happiness.
What is a man’s first duty? The answer brief: To be himself.
If we subject everything to reason, our religion will have nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.
The knowledge of God without that of man’s misery causes pride. The knowledge of man’s misery without that of God causes despair.
This is the greatest stumbling block in our spiritual discipline, which, in actuality, consists not in getting rid of the self but in realizing the fact that there is no such existence from the first. The realization means being “poor” in spirit. “Being poor” does not mean “becoming poor.” “Being poor” means to be from the very beginning not in possession of anything and not giving away what one has. Nothing to gain, nothing to lose; nothing to give, nothing to take; to be just so, and yet to be rich in inexhaustible possibilities — this is to be “poor” in its most proper and characteristic sense of the word, this is what all religious experiences tell us. To be absolutely nothing is to be everything. When one is in possession of something, that something will keep all other somethings from coming in.
We have in us the power to transcend the bounds of our narrow individuality, and to find ourselves in that which seems to lie beyond us.
Mental pleasures never clog; unlike those of the body, they are increased by repetition, approved of by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment.
