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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.
There is a moment of difficulty and danger at which flattery and falsehood can no longer deceive, and simplicity itself can no longer be misled.
All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.
As to the thirst after knowledge, it is an old law that we all get whatever we want. None of us can get anything other than what we fix our hearts upon… The success sometimes may come immediately, but we must be ready to wait patiently even for what may look like an infinite length of time. The student who sets out with such a spirit of perseverance will surely find success and realization at last.
Of all knowledge the wise and good seek most to know themselves.
Seek here… “there” doesn’t exist.
Inasmuch as we neither seek nor shun any object except as our understanding represents it as either good or bad, all that is necessary to right action is right judgement… and the assurance of such an acquisition cannot fail to render us contented.
A little time alone in your own room will prove more valuable than anything else that could even be given to you.
One Love it is that pervades the whole world, few there are who know it fully: They are blind who hope to see it by the light of reason, that reason which is the cause of separation.
As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.
Nothing does so establish the mind amidst the rollings and turbulence of present things, as a look above them and a look beyond them — above them, to the steady and good hand by which they are ruled, and beyond them, to the sweet and beautiful end to which, by that hand, they will be brought.
We are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopeth for that which he seeth?
Truth is too simple for us… we do not like those who unmask our illusions.
Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!
That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
How shall we find the concord of this discord?
A mind that is truly free has reached the state in which opposites are seen as empty. This is the only freedom.
Who would claim that they are living according to God who throughout whole days or even months and years do not sigh out to God and do not aspire to God? A clear sign of death is not breathing. If this breathing is prayer, not to pray is a sign of death. The spiritual life, by which we are children of God, is rooted in love… Who loves without wanting to see the person he loves? God asks nothing of the highest soul but attention.
The mason employed on the building of a house may be quite ignorant of its general design, or, at any rate, he may not keep it constantly in mind. So it is with man: in working through the days and hours of his life, he takes little thought of its character as a whole… It is only when we come to view our life as a connected whole that our character and capacities show themselves in their true light; that we see how, in particular instances, some happy inspiration, as it were, led us to choose the only true path out of a thousand which might have brought us to ruin.
But maybe I have overlooked something, or misunderstood certain ideas. It cannot be possible that this condition of despair is natural to man.
All belief that does not make us more happy, more free, more loving, more active, more calm, is, I fear, a mistaken and superstitious belief.
But what is the secret of finding this treasure? There isn’t one. This treasure is everywhere. It is offered to us all the time and wherever we are. All creatures, friends or foes, pour it out in abundance, and it flows through every fiber of our body and soul until it reaches the very core of our being. God’s activity runs through the universe. It wells up around and penetrates every created being. Where they are, there it is also. It goes ahead of them, it is with them, and it follows them. All they have to do is let its waves sweep them onward, fulfill the simple duties of their religion and state, cheerfully accept all the troubles they meet, and submit to God’s will in all they have to do. This is true spirituality, which is valid for all times and for everyone. We cannot become truly good in a better, more marvelous, and yet easier way than by the simple use of the means offered us by God: the ready acceptance of all that comes to us at each moment of our lives.
When, by analyzing his own mind, man comes face to face, as it were, with something which is never destroyed, something which is, by its own nature, eternally pure and perfect, he will no more be miserable, no more unhappy. All misery comes from fear, from unsatisfied desire… When he knows that he is perfect, he will have no more vain desires, and both these causes being absent, there will be no more misery — there will be perfect bliss, even while in this body.
Why not, then, take steps to be free?
Do you wish always to stray further? See, good lies as near; learn only to grasp happiness, for happiness is always here.
Whenever conscience speaks with a divided, uncertain, and disputed voice, it is not yet the voice of God. Descend still deeper into yourself, until you hear nothing but a clear and undivided voice, a voice which does away with doubt and brings with it persuasion, light and serenity. Happy, says the Apostle, are they who are at peace with themselves, and whose heart condemns them not in the the part they take.
It’s wiser being good than bad… It’s fitter being sane than mad.
Here there are neither Russians nor English, Jews nor Christians, but only those who pursue one aim: to be able to be.
