The Power of Solitude
The path of the hermit is meant for very few people. But we can all benefit from learning the power of occasional solitude.
Even if you have a house full of cats, dogs and kids demanding your attention, you will be better able to help them all if you can have just a little quiet time. Even if it means spending five minutes sitting on your own in a closet!
“When you cease to fear your solitude, a new creativity awakens in you. Your forgotten or neglected wealth begins to reveal itself. You come home to yourself and learn to rest within. Thoughts are our inner senses. Infused with silence and solitude, they bring out the mystery of inner landscape.”
–John O’Donohue (Irish Poet, Author, Catholic Priest and Hegelian Philosopher, 1956-2008)
Exchange Is The Law of Life
“Exchange is the law of life, and to exchange means to give and receive. Understanding this law allows us to better understand the processes of the spiritual life, such as communion, for example. To commune means to make exchanges.”
–Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov (Bulgarian Spiritual Master, 1900-1986)
Happiness Is Within Us
“Happiness is within us, and it is ours, but we are always superimposing our own inner joy onto something outside and thinking it comes from there.”
–Swami Muktananda (Indian Spiritual Teacher and Writer, 1908-1982)
The Emergence of Truth
“If we really contemplate the course of human evolution, we are bound to say that however overbearing the opposition, the misunderstandings, the slanders that oppose the truth, the truth will find its own way through the narrowest cracks in the rocks of human evolution, however great the pressure from the rocks may be.”
–Rudolf Steiner (Croatian-born Austrian Mystic, Occultist, Social Philosopher, Architect and Founder of Anthroposophy, 1861-1925)
Transcend Yourself
“Arise, transcend thyself. Thou art man and the whole nature of man is to become more than himself.”
–Sri Aurobindo (a.k.a. Aurobindo Ghose, Indian Nationalist Leader, Mystic, Philosopher and Creator of Purna (Integral) Yoga, 1872-1950)
Other Ways of Knowing
“I will be mindful of the first principle of our great period, never to rely on and let myself be disconcerted by reason, always to know that faith is stronger than so-called reality.”
–Hermann Hesse (German-born Swiss Novelist, Poet and, in 1946, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1877-1962)
The Silent Secret Self
“The silent secret part of the self is forever there, forever asking a little surrender of attention. But few give it.”
–Paul Brunton (a.k.a. Raphael Hurst, English Philosopher, Traveler, Spiritual Teacher and Author, 1898-1981)
Unfolding Divinity
“While remaining transcendent to all created things, the divine spirit involved itself in the birth of the material universe. The process that followed, the uneven but inexorable emergence of ever higher organization from matter to life to humankind, is then – at the heart of it – the unfolding of hidden divinity.”
George Leonard (American Aikidoist, President Emeritus of the Esalen Institute and Writer, 1923-2010) and Michael Murphy (American Cofounder of the Esalen Institute and Author, 1930-)
Wisdom and Humility
“The wisest man is generally he who thinks himself the least so.”
–Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (French Poet and Literary Critic, 1636-1711)
Timeless Awareness
“The ground in which the multifarious and time-bound psyche is rooted is a simple, timeless awareness. By making ourselves pure in heart and poor in spirit we can discover and be identified with this awareness. In the spirit we not only have, but are, the unitive knowledge of the divine Ground.”
–Aldous Huxley (English Novelist and Critic, 1894-1963)