Every Part Contains the Whole
“Every part of the part contains knowledge of the whole of the Whole.”
–William Samuel (American Writer, Spiritual Seeker, Mystic and Teacher, 1924-1996)
Educating the Growing Soul
“Everyone has in him something divine, something his own, a chance of perfection and strength in however small a sphere which God offers him to take or refuse. The task is to find it, develop it and use it. The chief aim of education should be to help the growing soul to draw out that in itself which is best and make it perfect for a noble use.”
–Sri Aurobindo (a.k.a. Aurobindo Ghose, Indian Nationalist Leader, Mystic, Philosopher and Creator of Purna (Integral) Yoga, 1872-1950)
Not Confusing the Teacher and the Teaching
“Everyone’s looking for the perfect teacher, but although their teachings might be divine, teachers are all too human, and that’s something people find all too hard to accept. Don’t confuse the teacher with the lesson, the ritual with the ecstasy, the transmitter of the symbol with the symbol itself. The Tradition is linked to our encounter with the forces of life and not with the people who bring this about. But we are weak: we ask the Mother to send us guides, and all she sends are signs to the road we need to follow. Pity those who seek for shepherds, instead of longing for freedom! An encounter with superior energy is open to anyone but remains far from those who shift responsibility onto others. Our time on earth is sacred and we should celebrate every moment.”
–Paulo Coelho (Brazilian Writer, 1947-)
Living in Awe
“Making Peace With God: A Practical Guide” (Harold H. Bloomfield, Philip Goldberg)
“Evidence suggests that the original meaning of the phrase that has come down to us as ‘fear of God’ was something more like awe. And awe, wrote Abraham Joshua Heschel, ‘enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple, to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal’.”
Harold Bloomfield (American Psychiatrist and Expert on Holistic Medicine, 1944-)
Phillip Goldberg (American Spiritual Counselor, Interfaith Minister and Author)
Using Your Gifts
“God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher.”
Saint Teresa of Ávila (a.k.a. St. Teresa de Jesus, Spanish Nun, Mystic and Author, 1515-1582)
Fractals in Nature
Here is a remarkable video that I first saw on Stuart Wilde’s highly recommended website. It’s from Nova, and well worth a few minutes of your time.
Solving the World’s Problems
“If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution — then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise.”
–Aldous Huxley (English Novelist and Critic, 1894-1963)
The True and the Sublime
“In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains.”
–Henry David Thoreau (American Essayist and Philosopher, 1817-1862)
You Are Divine
“Man is divine. But he is not aware of his own divinity. He mistakenly thinks he is this little body. but he is not this body. Man is something infinite, immutable, eternal.”
–Sathya Sai Baba (Indian Spiritual Teacher, c.1926-2011)
Shaking the World
“Saint Teresa was a great contemplative? Yes, and Saint Teresa is the only woman ever to have reformed an entire Catholic monastic tradition (think about it). Gautama Buddha shook India to its foundations. Rumi, Plotinus, Bodhidharma, Lady Tsogyal, Lao Tzu, Plato, the Baal Shem Tov–these men and women started revolutions in the gross realm that lasted hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years, something neither Marx nor Lenin nor Locke nor Jefferson can yet claim. And they did not do so because they were dead from the neck down. No, they were monumentally, gloriously, divinely big egos, plugged into a deeper psychic, which was plugged straight into God.”
–Ken Wilber (American Philosopher, 1949- Revolution)
“One Taste: Daily Reflections on Integral Spirituality” (Ken Wilber)
