Science and mysticism are inseparable if access to knowledge is your goal. This is why one can make no case against them, or consider that one is the negation of the other. On the contrary, say simply that scientists are interested rather in the "how" of things, while mystics wonder more about the "why".
-Rosicrucian mysticism (That would make philosophers and physicists interested in the "what" of things, psychologists and sociologists interested in the "who", and historians interested in "when and where" things happened.)
Anyone who becomes seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that there is a spirit manifest in the laws of the universe. A spirit vastly superior to that of man.
-Albert Einstein
He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.
-Elbert Hubbard
If you would know a mystic, do not confine your search to monasteries and temples, but look also on the highways and byways, in towns, hamlets, and in the hustle and bustle of the great cosmopolitan centers of the world. When you find someone who is industrious, studious, compassionate, loved by friends, and neighbours, tolerant in religious views, and who can point out to you the magnificence and efficacy of God in the simplest of things, you have found a mystic. With these qualities, whether one is attired in sacerdotal robe or in the overalls of a mechanic, one is none the less a mystic.
-Ralph M. Lewis
If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
-Vincent Van Gogh
Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.
-Aristotle
True happiness is the full use of your powers along lines of excellence in a life affording scope.
-John F. Kennedy
What is success? It is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace.
-Paulo Coelho
The mystic knows only too well the value and danger, the goodness and the evil, that lies in the power of mentally creating. We know that if we hold in our minds a picture and give it the vibrations of living possibility, and if we prophetically proclaim that it is to be or will be, we bring it about; we create it in the world of actuality, by transferring it from the world of reality to material manifestation. We know that as each hour of the day passes, the things which we have held in our imagination and which we now allow to pass into the chamber of mental alchemy are likely to be crystallized immediately in earthly form. We must, therefore, be pure minded. We must be pure and holy in our imaginary concepts. We must keep the chamber of mental alchemy so clear and so wholesome and of such a high standard that no evil thought, no evil admission, no unholy concept of our earthly imagination may take form there and grow and be born in the world of actuality.
-H. Spencer Lewis
Cosmic meditation is not an escape but a recourse to a fountain of wisdom. It results in a spiritual influx, the results of which the objective mind can translate into procedures, into useful ways of living. What the mystic receives through such meditation must be passed on to humanity. This is accomplished by transmuting such experiences into material realities, objective knowledge, in which others may indulge. Such revelations are not the mystic's sole possession, to be filed away as a mere part of a collection of ecstatic experiences. They must be used to help others in their professional and social worlds. In this way do we transmit to humanity what we have received.
-Ralph M. Lewis
When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Not all who wander are lost.
-Prophet Velen, World of Warcraft
The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.
-Nikola Tesla
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved except in memory. LLAP
-Leonard Nimoy's final tweet
We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.
-Aristotle
When we are tired, defeated, and dispirited, it is not necessary to languish in this condition. Turn the faculty of your attention to some nobler dream or aspiration within you. Bestow upon this the full measure of available energy, and experience rest and refreshment. We are not tired because we serve the laws of the universe; rather we are exhausted because we try to live well without fully maturing the soul. We all have many things to attend to, but let us never be so busy that we neglect the integration of the inner life.
-Manly P. Hall
The less you expect, the less you judge, the less you cling to this or that experience as significant, the further you will progress. For what you’re seeking is a transformation of your being far beyond that which any specific experience can give you. It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.
-Ram Dass
An old alchemist gave the following consolation to one of his disciples: “No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you.
-Carl Jung
No, it’s not fools who turn mystics. It takes a certain amount of intelligence and imagination to realize the extraordinary queerness and mysteriousness of the world in which we live. The fools, the innumerable fools, take it all for granted, skate about cheerfully on the surface and never think of inquiring what’s underneath.
-Aldous Huxley
Let your imagination have full sway. Build it up until it is filled daily and hourly with the pictures that the lessons of the past and the trials of today suggest to your consciousness. Then analyze these imaginary things, select the best, and take them into the laboratory of your creative powers. Let the divine consciousness flowing through you reconstruct them, radiate them, and bring them to pass in your life and in the lives of those around you, thus adding to the world the assets of the future and the beautiful things of human evolution.
-H. Spencer Lewis
If we know the divine art of concentration, if we know the divine art of meditation, if we know the divine art of contemplation, easily and consciously we can unite the inner world and the outer world.
-Sri Chinmoy
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
-Carl G. Jung
Only in being delivered from the lust of result can the result be attained.
-Travis Miller
Metaphysical disciplines should not be directed toward material ends. The true mystic does not meditate or concentrate in an effort to attract to himself the things of the material world; nor does he attempt to find in meditation an escape from the responsibilities or problems of his objective life. This does not mean, however, that metaphysical disciplines produce no physical result. When a man puts his inner life in order, through meditation and realization, the result is a happier and better physical existence.
-Manly P. Hall (A Monthly Letter August 1940)
When you realize that each thing, just as it inconceivably is, is whole within itself as flowing nexus of interconnection with everything else, you are released from the compulsive drive to push it into processes of signification & causation, and you discover the unexcelled peacefulness of the reconciliation of all dichotomies & the adamantine tolerance of all cognitive dissonances that is enlightenment. And when you realize that all beings and things are ultimately and primordially essentially fulfilled in their freedom & peacefulness, you discover the super-bliss energy that is the actual reality of all things, and you effortlessly enjoy the wisdom of innermost, supreme, realistic satisfaction that transcends all suffering of both yourself & all others.
The Buddhist tradition is not mainly religion, however, does not mainly require belief, especially not belief in some fantasy world to be fabricated by suspending reason & straining the imagination. It is more science, encouraging reason, knowledge, and wisdom, considering that the more realistic you can be, the more genuinely happy and the more effectively benevolent you can be.
-Bob Thurman from his essay "Hail to the Vagina"
Energetically, Ida and Pingala in Sanskrit are the plus and minus, masculine-feminine, Yin-Yang, Od and Ob in Kabbalistic terms, or Adam and Eve. These are energetic channels shown in the caduceus of Mercury and many symbols throughout the world, these two symbolic serpents that sit or entwine around a central serpent. Those are symbols of forces, energies.
-Samael Aun Weor
Occultism is the ancient science which deals with the hidden forces of nature, the laws governing them, and the means by which such forces can be brought under the control of the enlightened human mind. An occultist is one who believes in the reality of esoteric sciences, has studied them in a scholarly manner, has resolved to perfect his own consciousness according to their rules, and may, or may not, be able to practice the rituals and formulas of Transcendental Magic.
-Manly Palmer Hall
The only thing that really matters is to bring the man to awaken, to open his field of consciousness, to regain his true nature, to be in the world and to be perfected by the world, to become fit to find one day His part of origin.
-Ostad Elahi
Is Mysticism an Ideal, or is it Practical?
" Mysticism is distinct, by itself. Mysticism is the art of knowing God. It is the possible way for us to know God within us, and it is God within us that is the other side of man.
There is the personality without. It is the "I". Mysticism, as the Rosicrucians know it, is a distinct, separate part of man and not merely the reaction of the physical side of man. Mysticism is practical, it is the divine side of man, and it is those divine laws of the universe that have allowed the existence of the material side of man. The material side of man is secondary.
It is true, mysticism is an ideal. Mysticism is the word, the law. It is the spiritual side of man that resulted in the objective manifestation of man. Therefore, if we study mysticism and thoroughly comprehend its laws, digest it, we are bound to know that it is practical, since it will teach us the proper purpose of man. It will teach us the limitations of the material side of man, and how the two, though distinct, must be worked in unity. Man does not know himself until he knows mysticism. When he knows mysticism he knows God, and he knows himself.
Thus it is easily seen that mysticism is practical, because if man does not know of the spiritual side of himself, he misses the purpose of his existence, fails to comprehend his place in the scheme of things, and cannot do justice to his existence in the physical world. Any means that will show man his proper place in the scheme of things certainly will serve a purpose, and a practical one."
-Ralph M. Lewis (1926)
There are many names for the source of knowledge—the Absolute, the Cosmic, God, the Divine Spirit, the Transcendent —yet the concept is one; it is the Universal Manifestation, the Spiritual Essence, that pervades all things. And, it is this entity, this Universal Oneness, that the mystic seeks to know.
-Rosicrucian Manuscript
The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation.
-Joseph Campbell
Individual societies begin in harmonious adaptation to the environment and, like individuals, quickly get trapped into nonadaptive, artificial, repetitive sequences. When the individual's behavior and consciousness get hooked to a routine sequence of external actions, he is a dead robot, and it is time for him to die and be reborn. Time to "drop out," "turn on," and "tune in." This period of robotization is called the Kali Yuga, the Age of Strife and Empire...
-Timothy Leary
The goal of the Rosicrucian student is to live mysticism and mysticism, by definition, is the practice of strengthening the bond that unites us with the God of our Heart. It is though this Cosmic Attunement, being of necessity harmonic and harmonious, that we can understand our origin, our nature, and the infinite powers that are conferred upon those who master it. You are therefore encouraged to expend every possible effort to live daily the harmonic rapport that unites you with the Divine so that, through conscious revelation and illumination, you become forever instruments of Cosmic Harmony and Universal Peace.
-Christian Bernard
The mystic sees in every human being a real brother and sister, a close kin through every human and spiritual association. The interest of our human relatives and those of all humanity are our interest. All are united and constitute one grand experience for the evolution of the soul. The mystical life opens wide the portals of human understanding, sympathy, and human attunement, and through this comes a closer attunement with the spiritual consciousness that pervades all beings. This is the keynote of the power that comes into the very being of every mystic and enables us to wield an influence for good in the lives of others.
-H. Spencer Lewis
If a union is to take place between opposites like spirit and matter, conscious and unconscious, bright and dark, and so on, it will happen in a third thing, which represents not a compromise but something new.
-C.G. Jung
The mystic does everything they can to cultivate and maintain four primary virtues, and thus warrant being called a mystic: understanding, service, compassion, and love. These virtues all flow into one another, and end up merging into a perfect unity and forming one entity, thus moving us closer to the “Rose-Croix” state. But the road is long, and the ascent an arduous one, with its tests like so many stones on the path. Willpower, perseverance, and trust are three further virtues that need to be manifested, if we wish to achieve our spiritual elevation. We can do this together under the aegis of the sacred symbol of the Rose-Cross, and thanks to all the experiences – pleasant and unpleasant – that we have already lived through, and will continue to live through. This choice is ours, for we have our free will.
-Christian Bernard
As long as we continue to ignore the Divine Wisdom and highly specialized faculties and abilities that we have, as long as we refuse to use them or exercise them, we will remain in all of our mental and worldly affairs, nothing more than creatures of the animal kingdom. Religions say we should put our faith in God, but as Rosicrucians, we say that we should put our faith in the Divine Consciousness, the Divine Wisdom and the Divine Powers that we all possess and which reside within each of us and remain more or less undeveloped in all human beings.
-H. Spencer Lewis
There is no loftier mission than to approach the Godhead nearer than other people, and to disseminate the divine rays among humanity.
-Beethoven
The alchemist realizes that he himself is the Philosopher’s Stone, and that this stone is made diamond like when the salt and the sulphur, or the spirit and the body, are united through mercury, the link of mind. Man is the incarnated principle of mind as the animal is of emotion. He stands with one foot on the heavens and the other on the earth. His higher being is lifted to the celestial spheres, but the lower man ties him to matter. Now the philosopher, building his sacred stone, is doing so by harmonizing his spirit and his body. The result is the Philosopher’s Stone. The hard knocks of life chip it away and facet it until it reflects lights from a million different angles.
-Manly P Hall
Each artist is a facet of God's unfolding infinite vision, refracting the light of awareness in his or her own particular way.
-Alex Grey, "The Mission of Art," page 9.
The Rosicrucian teachings admonish members to never vaunt themselves as being perfect masters of knowledge and power; but rather, as "STUDENTS" striving to attain "Self-Mastery." While it is in our own interests to put forward the best of ourselves at all times, it is also pragmatic to always bear in mind that we all have inherent weaknesses. If perfection is divine, imperfection is human and natural. The "Law of Duality" indicates that two opposite polarities are necessary in every manifestation. This implies that no polarity can be solely expressed to the total exclusion of its opposite.
-Excerpt from Unto Thee I Grant by Sri Ramatherio
...every human being has a soul that comes from the universal soul, which is itself an emanation of God. This means that man is divine and is virtually perfect. But he is not aware of this latent perfection and does not express it in his behaviour, which explains why he is imperfect in his way of thinking, talking and acting. If he lives on earth, it is precisely to realize this awareness and make it manifest in its existence. How? By learning to positively apply his free will and live in harmony with natural, universal and spiritual laws.
-Extract from "the ontology of the rose-cross", by Serge Toussaint, grand master of the a.m.o.r.c.
Jumoke Ajamu
The Divine Spark
The human body is composed of billions of atoms. These atoms, through attraction, form countless specialized combinations. These combinations result in the differentiation that we see in the human body. Sense organs, bones, muscles, etc. All of these billions of atoms are composed of fallen matter.
In every human heart, there is a single atom that is not composed of fallen matter. It is, in fact, built of matter from an order of existence higher and above the one we are currently exiled in. This atom is constructed of divine matter. The ancients refer to it as The Divine Spark.
This Divine Spark has no connection with the fallen world. It does not vibrate in resonance to any of the lower vibrations that this world surrounds us with. It responds only to the radiations of the Divine Kingdom - Christ Consciousness.
If one can rouse this spark to life, nurture its burning ember into a flame, it will eventually make a connection, a linking with the Divine Universe. Slowly, a magnetic attraction between man and the Divine will be re-established. This divine thread is our life-line. It is our ticket out of Hell. If one can activate this connection and sincerely build upon it, one's freedom from the Wheel of Death-And-Rebirth is virtually assured,
In the majority of human beings, this Divine Spark is asleep. Not only is it asleep, it is more than likely buried under a ton of low-vibrational muck. For the most part, mankind is completely unaware of the Treasure we carry within our hearts.
The half-wise, recognizing the comparative unreality of the Universe, imagine that they may defy its Laws — such are vain and presumptuous fools, and they are broken against the rocks and torn asunder by the elements by reason of their folly. The truly wise, knowing the nature of the Universe, use Law against laws; the higher against the lower; and by the Art of Alchemy transmute that which is undesirable into that which is worthy, and thus triumph. Mastery consists not in abnormal dreams, visions and fantastic imaginings or living, but in using the higher forces against the lower — escaping the pains of the lower planes by vibrating on the higher. Transmutation, not presumptuous denial, is the weapon of the Master.
-The Kybalion
Mysticism is the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for a universal one.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mysticism is: a.) An advanced state of inner enlightenment. b.) Union with Reality. c.) A state of genuinely satisfying success. d.) Insight into an entirely new world of living. e.) An intuitive grasp of Truth, above and beyond intellectual reasoning. f.) A personal experience, in which we are happy and healthy human beings.
-Vernon Howard
To cognize the divine essence
This is the highest purpose of the soul
Sent by the creator to the earth
-Pythagoras
Symbols bring the spirit beyond the boundaries of the finished, of becoming, in the kingdom of being infinite. They give suggestions, they are signs of the ineffable and inexhaustible.
-J. J. Bachofen
Let your imagination have full sway. Build it up until it is filled daily and hourly with the pictures that the lessons of the past and the trials of today suggest to your consciousness. Then analyze these imaginary things, select the best, and take them into the laboratory of your creative powers. Let the divine consciousness flowing through you reconstruct them, radiate them, and bring them to pass in your life and in the lives of those around you, thus adding to the world the assets of the future and the beautiful things of human evolution.
-H. Spencer Lewis
Before the soul can see, the Harmony within must be attained, and fleshly eyes be rendered blind to all illusion.
-Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Voice of the Silence
The artist, in order to evolve, will have to extend the study of nature to the great Laws of cosmic Ideas. That knowledge will urge him to penetrate the mystery and hidden meaning in the forms of the visible world .... The object of art, then, is to cause man to perceive the essential reality of all things.
-Jean Delville
The Occultists, however, know that the traditions of Esoteric Philosophy must be the right ones, simply because they are the most logical, and reconcile every difficulty.
-H. P. Blavatsky
Most of the fairy tales of Europe originate from the Celtic tradition. Now, there are lots of fairy hills in Ireland and one of the things about a fairy hill is that it’s invisible and nobody knows it’s there, and another remarkable thing about fairy hills is that you can walk in what you think is a straight line but you will have walked around a fairy hill—it is that inaccessible. Yet this fairy world is just one small dimension deeper than the visible world; it’s everywhere. The fairies are the inhabiting nature powers, and the reason they are so fascinating and enchanting is that their nature and your unconscious nature, your deep nature, are the same. The fairies are representatives of that permanent energy consciousness that underlies all the phenomenal forms of life. This is Mother Goddess stuff.
-Joseph Campbell, Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine
In Kabbalah, when we address the "Cosmic Christ", we are addressing the Ain Soph Aur, which is the first emanation of the Ain Soph, the abstract absolute space. The Ain Soph Aur is “Limitless Light,” it is what we call the ray of creation that emerges from the Ain Soph and that goes down through all the ten sephiroth of the Tree of Life until reaching Malkuth, the bottom of the Tree of Life; the ray penetrates the inferior layers of the Earth, Malkuth, in order to reach the ninth sphere, where the core or the heart of the Earth is found. So the ray of creation begins in the Absolute and ends in the Infernos. This is how we have to see the journey of the creative light that we call the Ain Soph Aur.
By studying the Tree of Life, we understand that the ray of creation is the Christ, in Greek terms, and that the Christ is a unity that we call a “perfect multiple unity.” That multiple unity is the Ain Soph Aur, the Solar Absolute, which we also call the Glorian or using other terminology, the ray of Okidanokh that emerges from the Absolute. This Ain Soph Aur, this light of the Solar Absolute, is universal and cosmic, and what we call the Cosmic Krestos, and it is related with all other forces or lights that are synthesized in one light in the seventh and zero dimension, which is the abode of אאלהים Aelohim. The letter א a of Aelohim means “without,” and אלהים Elohim means “gods and goddesses.” This means that אאלהים Aelohim is a Seity beyond any god or any deity. Thus, Aelohim is what we call the Seity, the universal cosmic Christ, within the Abstract Absolute space.
The first emanation of this light that penetrates into the universe is represented in the first triangle of the Tree of Life, ruled by the sephirah Kether, “the crown,” which in Christianity is called “the Father.” The first triangle represents the holy three-unity; this means that this light, the Ain Soph Aur, divides itself into three unities, thus forming with it four unities. These four unities form what we call the Tetragrammaton, or יהוה the four-lettered name of God; in Hebrew these four-letters יהוה are pronounced Iod-Hei-Vav-Hei which spells the holy name יהוה Jehovah or Iod-Havah, which represents the first emanation or holy name formed by the light in its unmanifested and in its manifested aspects.
-Gnostic Mysteries: The Son of Man written by #Gnostic Instructor
Alchemical work is reduced in a single sentence ...
materialize the spirit and at the same time spiritualize the matter.
-Alejandro Jodorowsky
Man does indeed know intuitively more than he rationally understands. The question, however , is how we can gain access to the potentials of the knowledge contained in the depth of us, how we can achieve increased capacities of direct intuition and enlarged awareness.
-Ira Progoff
The White Magician labors entirely with the finer forces of the elemental planes. He is a builder – not a destroyer – and seeks to liberate rather than to dominate his fellow creatures.
-Manly P. Hall
The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.
-Ken Kesey
Man is a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements; and so he is their quintessence.
-Paracelsus
If you seek another's spiritual welfare before attaining your own, it would be like a helplessly drowning man trying to save another man in the same condition.
-Milarepa
Aren’t all religions equally true? No, all religions are equally false. The relationship of religion to truth is like that of a menu to a meal. The menu describes the meal as best it can. It points to something beyond itself. As long as we use the menu as a guide we do it honor. When we mistake the menu for the meal, we do it and ourselves a grave injustice.”
Rabbi Rami Shapiro
The ancients did not believe that spirituality made men either righteous or rational, but rather that righteousness and rationality made men spiritual. The Mysteries taught that spiritual illumination was attained only by bringing the lower nature up to a certain standard of efficiency and purity. The Mysteries were therefore established for the purpose of unfolding the nature of man according to certain fixed rules which, when faithfully followed, elevated the human consciousness to a point where it was capable of cognizing its own constitution and the true purpose of existence.
-Manly P. Hall
Every Warrior of the Light has felt afraid of going into battle.
Every Warrior of the Light has, at some time in the past, lied or betrayed someone.
Every Warrior of the Light has trodden a path that was not his.
Every Warrior of the Light has suffered for the most trivial of reasons.
Every Warrior of the Light has, at least once, believed he was not a Warrior of the Light.
Every Warrior of the Light has failed in his spiritual duties.
Every Warrior of the Light has said 'yes' when he wanted to say 'no.'
Every Warrior of the Light has hurt someone he loved.
That is why he is a Warrior of the Light, because he has been through all this and yet has never lost hope of being better than he is.
-Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light
Ego is constantly attempting to acquire and apply the teachings of spirituality for its own benefit.
~ Chögyam Trungpa
In building the finer form through meditation for access to the soul, the guardian of the entrance is invoked. The voice of conscience sounds in the personal life with startling emphasis. It indicates a new standard of values which are at cross purposes with life within the threefold form he seeks to transcend. Meditation sounds the chord of dissonance between the two. The contemplative life is to resolve that chord into one of harmonious attunement. The soul has a vibration, a tempo, out of proportion to that of the personality. The two cannot become one, or we should be translated beyond any further contact with mundane things. But the contemplative life demands an approximation, a reorientation of the personal life, a degree of fineness and spiritual culture, a basic and vibrant goodness of heart and mind, to bear and use sanely and unselfishly the powerful vibrations of the soul.
-Raymund Andrea FRC, The Mystic Path, Rosicrucian Order AMORC, Kindle Editions
Just as the purpose of eating is to satisfy hunger, not greed, so the sex instinct is designed for the propagation of the species according to natural law, never for the kindling of insatiable longings. Destroy wrong desires now; otherwise they will follow you after the astral body is torn from its physical casing. Even when the flesh is weak, the mind should be constantly resistant. If temptation assails you with cruel force, overcome it by impersonal analysis and indomitable will. Every natural passion can be mastered. Conserve your powers. Be like the capacious ocean, absorbing within all the tributary rivers of the senses. Small yearnings are openings in the reservoir of your inner peace, permitting healing waters to be wasted in the desert soil of materialism. The forceful activating impulse of wrong desire is the greatest enemy to the happiness of man. Roam in the world as a lion of self-control; see that the frogs of weakness don’t kick you around.
-Sri Sri Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri
Common to [religions] is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.
The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.
-Albert Einstein Einstein - The New York Times Magazine on November 9, 1930
What is to give light must endure burning.
-Victor Frankl
The purpose of Rosicrucian instruction, including the practice of Rosicrucian principles, is to give more freedom to the expression of this self within and to train the outer self to give greater credence to what the Inner Self inspires while at the same time break down the general superiority complex of our outer self with its false beliefs in the integrity and dependability of the worldly impressions and worldly reasoning.
It is through the guidance of this Inner Self and through its dependable messages, its inspiring impulses, and its whispering of warning that we are able to guide our lives correctly, meeting the problems of life with a superior power of understanding, overcoming the obstacles with a never-failing solution, and attaining the goal of our desires through a correct leadership.
-Dr. Harvey Spencer Lewis
Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.
-Adyashanti
It is my belief that the ethical and religious motives in spite of the splendidly imaginative systems to which they have given rise, have been on the whole a hindrance to the progress of philosophy, and ought now to be consciously thrust aside by those who wish to discover philosophical truth. Science, originally, was entangled in similar motives, and was thereby hindered in its advances. It is, I maintain, from science, rather than from ethics and religion, that philosophy should draw its inspiration.
-Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1917), Ch. VI: On Scientific Method in Philosophy, p. 98
POP
We inhabit our experience of self without any sense of enquiry or questioning.
Should one begin an examination of the true nature of self through contemplative analysis, the self that we normally see will disappear.
Because... the self we normally see does not exist, for it is an hallucination, a mirage lie appearance.
This wisdom contemplation reduces all my anxiety and fear, and an inner peace naturally manifests within my mind.
I practice this, because it is the best mind medicine for me.
And when the bubble of illusion dissolves into a blissful mind - POP!
Build your inner environment. Practice Silence. Remember the wonderful discipline of the Great Ones. When we used to talk and chatter, they would say: "Go back into your inner castle." It was very hard to comprehend then, but now I understand the way of peace.
-Paramahansa Yogananda
The worst thing we ever did
was put God in the sky
out of reach
pulling the divinity
from the leaf,
sifting out the holy from our bones,
insisting God isn’t bursting dazzlement
through everything we’ve made
a hard commitment to see as ordinary,
stripping the sacred from everywhere
to put in a cloud man elsewhere,
prying closeness from your heart.
The worst thing we ever did
was take the dance and the song
out of prayer
made it sit up straight
and cross its legs
removed it of rejoicing
wiped clean its hip sway,
its questions,
its ecstatic yowl,
its tears.
The worst thing we ever did is pretend
God isn’t the easiest thing
in this Universe
available to every soul
in every breath.
-Chelan Harkin, in poetry book 'Susceptible to Light'
The mandala or meditation object, especially in Tibet and in the Shingon sect of Japan, is also a kind of picture of the four worlds. Through some kind of appropriate symbolism, it impresses the cosmic pattern upon the relaxed and receptive faculties of the meditating disciple. While it is a physical thing, and can never actually transcend its own physical substances, it stands for this continual remembrance of value. It is not intellectually contemplated; it is merely allowed to wake the sleeping elements of Human subjective nature. The mandala may lead the meditating mystic, but it will lead gently. It will remind of the ancient law and the ancient way; it will call out of the manifold memory the lessons learned and the ideals which have accumulated through the years. At least subconsciously, it will point out mistakes, and warn against those inharmonious instincts which have brought trouble and sorrow. Here is its mnemonic factor. This is why it is called a magical device. Its only magic is that it is a mystical representation of reality. It is a picture that means the most that a diagram or drawing fashioned by Humans can mean. It is not art necessarily, according to our emotional acceptance of art; but it is the highest artistry because it reveals all that our creative skill could depict. To the profane, it tells nothing, because to unlock it, one must relax and accept.
-Manly Hall
In fact, there is, absolutely, no need to go to Tibet or India to find some knowledge and power "which are in latent state in every human soul; but the acquisition of that knowledge and that higher power requires not only many years of the toughest study illuminated by one superior intelligence, and an audacity that does not bend to any danger, but also retreat to a relative solitude an association with students seeking the same goals, in a place where their own nature preserves, like the neophyte, a complete tranquility and, if possible, total silence.
Wherever the air is free for hundreds of kilometers of all polluting influence; where the atmosphere and human magnetism are absolutely pure and not a drop of animal blood is spilled.
- Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Excerpts from the book, the biography of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Extraordinary Life and Influence of the Founder of the Modern Theosophical Movement
One of the most influential writings of Ancient Egypt, The Great Hymn to Aten, bears witness to the Akhenaten’s religious devotion to Aten and records his vision upon the nature of this solar deity and Akhenaten’s profound connection with the essence of this solar God.
You created the sky far away in order to ascend to it,
to witness everything You created.
You are alone, shining in your form of the living Aten.
Risen, radiant, distant and near.
You made millions of forms from yourself alone:
cities, towns, fields, and the river's course.
All eyes see You above them
as the Aten of the daytime on high.
When You are gone, (...) your eye is gone (...)
which You have made {for their sake}
But even then You are in my heart
and there is no other who knows You,
only your son, Nefer-kheperu-Re, Sole-one-of-Re,
whom You have taught your ways and your might.
The ones on Earth come into being by your hand,
in the way You made them.
When You rise, they live.
When You set, they die.
You yourself are lifetime itself,
one lives through You.
All eyes rest on beauty until You set.
All labor ceases when You rest in the West.
When You rise, You make all arms firm for the King,
every leg is on the move since You founded the Earth,
You rouse them for your son, who emerged from your body.
The King who lives by Maat,
the Lord of the Two Lands :
Nefer-kheperu-Re, Sole-one-of-Re,
the Son of Re who lives by Maat,
the Lord of Crowns, Akhenaten, great in his lifetime.
And the great Queen whom he loves,
the Lady of the Two Lands :
Nefer-neferu-Aten Nefertiti,
who lives and is rejuvenated forever and ever.
- thanks to Egyptologia Brasil
We cannot produce a thought, a word, an act, which is not imprinted on the eternal mirror on which everything is engraved, and from which nothing is ever effaced.
-Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin
Today the philosopher in search of reality must retire deep into the recesses of his inner self and thus escape from the discordances of the outer life. If he would think, he must depart from the mob which in its non-productive scrambling scatters the faculties of the mind and robs man of his most precious gift--the power of thought. It should not be necessary for man to leave the world in order to find himself, for his world should be a place where his true nature may mingle in concord with the true natures of all other beings.
The sham of civilization is apparent when we realize that forces the majority of people to assume false lives, to live in confit with their inner convictions. The idealist must keep silent or be reviled; the thinker must hold his peace or be persecuted; the mystic dares not share his vision with the world which, though aware that he is right, will crucify him if not in body at least in soul. Hence, those with little knowledge babble continuously and their words become the laws of men. while those of nobler vision must remain unknown, unhonored and unsung. Never can we rise to the true heights seen by the eyes of the idealist while we are in servitude to the inferior part of ourselves.
Book: Lectures on Ancient Philosophy by Manly P. Hall, pages 189-190
Indeed, the first and most essential service of a mythology is this one, of opening the mind and heart to the utter wonder of all being. And the second service, then is cosmological: of representing the universe and the whole spectacle of nature, both as known to the mind and as beheld by the eye, as an epiphany of such kind that when lightning flashes, or a setting sun ignites the sky, or a deer is seen standing alerted, the exclamation ‘Ah!’ may be uttered as a recognition of divinity.
-Joseph Campbell
The mystic, in petitioning the Cosmic, turns the consciousness inward instead of directing the plea to a distant external entity or power. The Cosmic is in each of us, the mystic realizes. It is not just in the reaches of space. The mystic knows further, that our Soul will answer our petition. The Soul is of the Cosmic and it guides each of us to self-action.
~Ralph M Lewis
The Holy Grail, contains the Bloodline of All God, manifested by His Priests, Everywhere, Every Time and Every Space.
Don't steal the fire of the gods, become first men of meritoriousness, to obtain the Secret Knowledge.
Keep in mind that
God is a sphere, whose center is everywhere and the circumference is none, since the one who moves is at the center and the periphery at the same time.
You must know, that all things consist of self and not. It is the no that allows the revelation of the self, of the confrontation of opposites sprouts sense, not because God is and is not, but because he is all that exists.
The Being is That which has manifested itself as "neither this nor that". It is imperceptible because it is never perceived, indestructible, because it is never destroyed, untouchable because it has never been touched and untouched, because it never feels pain, or suffers.
He who moves and does not move, is far and near at the same time, is within everything and at the same time outside.
-Ignacio García Sotos
You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.
-Alan Watts
When we begin to see through the illusion we once took to be “me”, there is a simultaneous emergence of our true nature from the background, where it has been waiting patiently for us to sober up from the intoxication of seeking.
-Bob O'Hearn
Evidently it is not science that has diminished man or divorced him from divinity. On the contrary... we are to recognize in this whole universe a reflection magnified of our own most inward nature; so that we are indeed its ears, its eyes, its thinking, and its speech – or, in theological terms, God's ears, God's eyes, God's thinking, and God's Word; and, by the same token, participants here and now in an act of creation that is continuous in the whole infinitude of that space of our mind through which the planets fly, and our fellows of earth now among them.
-Joseph Campbell
Every Person Must Realize: "I with all my abilities, potentials and talents both physical and spiritual, am unique in the universe. Amongst all those alive today there is no other me. In past generations too there was no other me, and until the end of time there will be no other me. And if so, the Master of the Universe certainly has sent me here on a special mission that could be fulfilled by no one else but me - with all my uniqueness."
-Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe
Anybody who goes through life with an open mind and heart will encounter moments that are saturated with meaning, but whose meaning cannot be put into words. These moments are precious to us. When they occur it is as though, on the winding, ill-lit stairway of our life, we suddenly come across a window, through which we catch sight of another and brighter world; a world to which we belong but which we cannot enter. There are many who dismiss this world as an unscientific ficition. I am not alone in thinking it real and important.
-Sir Roger Vernon Scruton FBA FRSL was an English philosopher and writer who specialized in aesthetics and political philosophy
Religion is a specific set of organised (sometimes dogmatic) beliefs, judgements , definitions of morality, and the practice of rituals, usually shared by a community or group.
In contrast, Spirituality is an individual practice of peace, purpose, acceptance and love through non judgement and acceptance of Self and others.
It is the process of developing beliefs through experience and self-introspection of the meaning of life and connection with others.
-@gabikovalenko @awake_spiritual
Human. The word "hue", is the word we use to the measure the depth, or saturation of light. "Man" comes from the word manifestation. To come into the physical, or to be embodied. A human is a light embodied being.
-Laurie McDonald-Beyond Belief Ep 12
Today we know something that people in the nineteenth century thought was no longer to be dreaded: we know that all our knowledge must be revised. It is quite certain that a new world has been revealed to the human spirit: but above all, it must be noted that new faculties of the intelligence are developing, and it is by this means that science can now pene- trate further into the mystery of Nature.
-Ra Schwaller De Lubicz : Symbol and the Symbolic Ancient Egypt, Science, and the Evolution of Consciousness
The alchemist realizes that he himself is the Philosopher’s Stone, and that this stone is made diamond-like when the salt and the sulphur, or the spirit and the body, are united through mercury, the link of mind. Man is the incarnated principle of mind as the animal is of emotion. He stands with one foot on the heavens and the other on earth. His higher being is lifted to the celestial spheres, but the lower man ties him to matter. Now the philosopher, building his sacred stone, is doing so by harmonizing his spirit and his body. The result is the Philosopher’s Stone. The hard knocks of life chip it away and facet it until it reflects lights from a million different angles.
-Manly P. Hall
You open the gates of the soul to let the dark flood of chaos flow into your order and meaning. If you marry the ordered to the chaos you produce the divine child, the supreme meaning beyond meaning and meaninglessness.
-C.G. Jung, The Red Book
In order for one to receive the fullest benefits from the study of Kabbalah, one must be able to understand it thoroughly. In order to do this one must be able to penetrate the veil of Kabbalistic metaphors. All the secrets of the Torah have been concealed and written in code fashion because when properly deciphered and understood the Kabbalah unleashed the power locked up in the human mind; the same power used in the creation of the universe. Such power can only be entrusted into the hands of those who are of appropriate moral and spiritual character, those that can be trusted not to abuse it. Kabbalah is far more than a mere metaphysical philosophy. Kabbalah is much more than mystical thoughts and obscure concepts. Granted, major sections of Kabbalistic study are learned through philosophy, thoughts, and concepts, nonetheless, the lessons learned must be properly applied to one’s life. This was the message of the Ba’al Shem Tov. When this occurs, one’s life becomes transformed. One’s consciousness expands and becomes inclusive of a previously invisible world.
-Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok
No secrets are taught in Kabbalah. The wisdom of Kabbalah is called “the wisdom of the hidden,” not because it is secret in and of itself, but because it reveals things that were hidden before we began to study. It reveals everything that surrounds us.
However, the wisdom of Kabbalah is comprised of two parts: “flavors of the Torah” and “secrets of the Torah.” The flavors of the Torah investigate the structure of the spiritual worlds, man’s soul, and how one should correct oneself. Everyone is permitted to study that part. This material is written about in books of Kabbalah sold all over the world and translated into English, Russian and other languages. Anyone can learn the flavors of the Torah.
The “secrets of the Torah” is the hidden part of the Torah. Nothing is written about it in any book. That part is taught only after a person has acquired the flavors of the Torah, attained the structure of the spiritual worlds as well as one’s own completely, and recognized and partaken of the process of creation.
A person who has attained that level, where physical life and death do not exist, sees the entire process from beginning to end and is above our world. Then the secrets open up like innermost fountains, and we understand the laws that are at the basis of that system. Before that, we will not understand the meaning of those secrets, even if we heard or saw them.
-Rav Michael Laitman
The healer is not really a healer because he is not the one who acts. Healing happens through him; he just has to disappear. Actually, being a healer means not being.
The less you are, the better the healing. The more you are, the more blocked the vehicle is. God, or totality, or however you prefer to call it, is the healer: the healer is all..
A sick person is one who has developed blockages between himself and the whole, and that is why he is disconnected. The function of the healer is to reconnect you. But when I say the function of the healer is to reconnect I don't mean it's the healer who has to do something. The healer is just a vehicle. God is the healer.
The healer is connected to the whole, therefore it can become a vehicle.
The healer touches the body of a sick person and becomes a link between the patient and the source. If a healer is a person of knowledge, who understands the process, can not only help the patient heal, but can also help them connect to the source from which the healing comes.
-OSHO
To understand the mysteries of life, one must penetrate beneath the surface of the visible world and discover the hidden causes behind the effects.”
-Manly Palmer Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages
Every thought or action gives off a vibration or a track that is a high-frequency energy pattern associated with the person‘s energy body. This interacts with the sea of consciousness, which is filled with an infinite number of such energy patterns that emanate from other energy bodies. Within this complex sea of intricate patterns selections are made that influence the decisions and directions of life.
-David Hawkins