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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.
But now you are awake; it is but a dream you had! For horror’s prey in darkness of the night is but our reason’s sport in morning light.
Every step so downward, is a step upward. The man who renounces himself, comes to himself.
Endeavour to be inclined always:
not to the easiest, but to the most difficult;
not to the most delightful, but to the most distasteful;
not to the most gratifying, but to the less pleasant;
not to what means rest for you, but to hard work;
not to the consoling, but to the unconsoling;
not to the most, but to the least;
not to the highest and most precious, but to the lowest and most despised;
not to wanting something but to wanting nothing.
O time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me t’untie.
Everything I say must be understood not as an affirmation but as a question.
To look away from the world, or to stare at it, does not help a man to reach God; but he who sees the world in Him stands in His presence.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
Each mind has its own method.
Let nothing, therefore, deter a well-minded soul from persevering with fervor in this firm resolution. No, not the sight of her daily defect, imperfections, or sins, or remorses for them: but rather let her increase in courage even from her falls, and from the experience of her own impotency let her be incited to run more earnestly… she will be enabled to do all things and conquer all resistances.
If I were to discover that a certain kind of stone by the pond-shore was affected, say partially disintegrated, buy a particular natural sound, as of a bird or insect, I see that one could not be completely described without describing other. I am that rock by the pond side.
A strict belief in fate is the worst of slavery, imposing upon our necks an everlasting lord and tyrant, who we stand in awe of night and day.
Exercise yourself unceasingly in mystical contemplation. Abandon feelings. Renounce intellectual activities. Reject all that belongs to the perceptible and the intelligible. Strip yourself totally of non-being and being and lift yourself as far as you are able to the point of being united in unknowing with Him who is beyond all being and all knowledge. For it is by passing beyond everything, yourself included, irresistibly and completely, that you will be exalted in pure ecstasy right up to the dark splendour of the divine Superessence, after having abandoned all, and stripped yourself of everything.
Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.
Those who are inwardly alone, whose minds and hearts are free from the ache of loneliness, they are real people, for they can discover for themselves what reality is, they can receive that which is timeless.
That our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God’s sake which we commonly do for our own.
Always do your duty, but without attachment to it. That is how a man reaches ultimate truth — by working without anxiety about results.
I have earnestly endeavoured not to laugh at human actions, nor to lament them, but to understand them.
The tempest threatens before it rises upon us; buildings creak before they fall to pieces.
Man is so made that by continually telling him he is a fool he believes it, and by continually telling it to himself he makes himself believe it. For man holds an inward talk with himself, which it pays him to regulate… We must keep silent as much as possible, and talk with ourselves only of God, whom we know to be true, and thus we convince ourselves of the truth.
They said to him, “Tell us who you are so that we may believe in you.” He said to them, “You examine the face of heaven and earth, but you have not come to know the one who is in your presence, and you do not know how to examine this moment.”
There is an old simile in India that if you place a cup of milk before a Raja Hamsa (swan) with plenty of water in it, he will take all the milk and leave the water. In that way we should take what is of value in knowledge, and leave the dross.
He truly engages in battle who endeavours to surmount all the difficulties and errors which prevent him from reaching the knowledge of truth.
I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
In deepest solitude
I found the narrow way,
a secret giving such release
that I was stunned and stammering,
rising above all science.
I feel that all I know and all I teach, will do nothing for my own soul, if I spend my time, as most people do, in business or company, even the best company. My soul starves to death in the best company; and God is often lost in prayers and ordinances. “Enter into thy chamber,” said He, “and shut thy door about thee!” Some words in Scripture are very emphatical. “Shut thy door” means much: it means — shut out, not only nonsense, but business — not only the company abroad, but the company at home: It means — let thy poor soul have a little rest and refreshment; and God have opportunity to speak to thee in a small still voice, or He will speak in thunder.
