Surrender to the Stillness
“Those who try to grasp Tao, lose it, declared Lao Tzu. Why? Because they are using willpower, personal willpower, instead of becoming passive and letting the Tao use them, their minds and bodies, as if they were its instruments. This elimination of the self-will is what Jesus meant when he counseled his followers to lose their life in order to find life.”
–Paul Brunton (a.k.a. Raphael Hurst, English Philosopher, Traveler, Spiritual Teacher and Author, 1898-1981)
The Play of Universal Forces
“All life is the play of universal forces. The individual gives a personal form to these universal forces. But he can choose whether he shall respond or not to the action of a particular force. Only most people do not really choose – they indulge the play of the forces. Your illness, depressions etc. are the repeated play of such forces. It is only when you can make oneself free of them that one can be the true person and have a true life – but one can be free only by living in the Divine.”
–Sri Aurobindo (a.k.a. Aurobindo Ghose, Indian Nationalist Leader, Mystic, Philosopher and Creator of Purna (Integral) Yoga, 1872-1950)
The Law of Benefits
“This is the law of benefits between men; the one ought to forget at once what was given, and the other ought never to forget what he has received.”
–Seneca (a.k.a. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a.k.a. Seneca the Younger, Spanish-born Roman Philosopher and Statesman, c.4 B.C.- A.D. 65)
We Are Parts of a Whole
“We are parts of a whole, and the whole must draw us as soon as we open our doors: this is grace working upon and within us.”
–Arthur Edward Waite (American-born English Scholar, Mystic and Esotericist, 1857-1942)
Recognizing the Universal
“In recognizing the universal in singular things the human mind is intellectually participating, however indirectly, in the original pattern by which God created that thing.”
–Richard Tarnas (American Philosopher, Cultural Historian and Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, 1950-)
Rising Above the Material World
“If the intellect has not risen above the contemplation of the created world, it has not yet beheld the realm of God perfectly. For it may be occupied with the knowledge of intelligible things and so involved in their multiplicity.”
–Evagrios the Solitary (a.k.a. Evagrius Ponticus, Pontus-born Christian Mystic, Writer and “Desert Father,” c.346-399) Illusion
{On Prayer: “Philokalia Vol. 1”, p. 62, text 58}
“The Philokalia Vol 1: 001” (G.E.H. Palmer, Kallistos Timothy Ware, Philip Sherrard)
The Hidden Power of Kindness
“Have you noticed in your past experience that your kind interpretations have almost always been truer than your harsh ones”
–Lawrence G. Lovasik (American Roman Catholic Priest and Writer, 1913-1986)
Success
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Poet and Essayist, 1803-1882)
Sacred Union
“To man and to atom, to star-cloud and to earth, to sun and to snow crystal, to mountain and to worm, to sage and to fool, to saint and to sinner, God, to whom size and number offer no obstacle, gives eternal and inescapable union with his very Self.”
–Alan W. Watts (English-born American Philosopher, Writer, Speaker and Expert in Comparative Religion, 1915-1973)
Behold the Spirit, A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion
Acting On Your Dreams
“I learned this, at least by my experiment: that if you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams, and endeavor to live the life which you have imagined, you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
You will put some things behind, you will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within you; or the old laws will be expanded, and interpreted in your favor in a more liberal sense, and you will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty, nor weakness.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost, that is what they should be. Now put foundations under them.”
–Henry David Thoreau (American Essayist and Philosopher, 1817-1862)
