How to Have the World Offer Itself
“You do not even have to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has not choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
–Franz Kafka (Czech Writer, 1883-1924)
Mental Silence
“Mental silence is the perfect response to a challenge.”
–Vernon Howard (American Spiritual Teacher and Author, 1935-1992)
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)
The Vast Presence
“The silence of landscape conceals vast presence. Place is not simply location. A place is a profound individuality. With complete attention, landscape celebrates the liturgy of the seasons, giving itself unreservedly to the passion of the goddess. The shape of a landscape is an ancient and silent form of consciousness. Mountains are huge contemplatives. Rivers and streams offer voice; they are the tears of the earth’s joy and despair. The earth is full of soul ….. Civilization has tamed place. Left to itself, the curvature of the landscape invites presence and the loyalty of stillness.”
–John O’Donohue (Irish Poet, Author, Catholic Priest and Hegelian Philosopher, 1956-2008)
Participation in God’s Being
“We are so identified with our thoughts that we don’t notice the river they are floating upon. That river, which is not apparent in everyday consciousness, is our participation in God’s being. As we learn to be silent, and spaces appear between thoughts, the river becomes visible.”
–Joan Borysenko (American Psychologist, Writer, Mystic and Speaker)
“7 Paths to God: The Ways of the Mystic” (Joan Z. Borysenko)
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 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)
The Art of Silence
“There is one form of art which is superior to all other forms – the art of remaining quiet and silent…. All the arts serve a limited purpose and provide only momentary joy. But the art of silence and the resultant peace ensure happiness…. That all should cultivate.”
–Shankara (a.k.a. Adi Shankaracharya, Indian Sage, Spiritual Teacher and Author of the Crest-Jewel of Discrimination, Dates Uncertain, but c.A.D. 686-718 or 788-821)
Thought and Speech
“Everyone who lives any semblance of an inner life thinks more nobly and profoundly than he speaks.”
–Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Writer, 1850-1894)
Finding Tranquility Within Ourselves
“When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.”
–François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (French Writer and Moralist, 1613-1680)
