"Because there exists in all beings a common center - scattered and separable though they are in appearance - they meet together at a deeper level. "The more they perfect themselves naturally and sanctify themselves in grace, the more they come together and fuse into one, within the single unifying Center." - Pierre Teilhard deChardin, Writings in Time of War

"The axis mundi (also cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, columna cerului, center of the world, world tree), in religion or mythology, is the world center or the connection between Heaven and Earth. "As the celestial pole and geographic pole, it expresses a point of connection between sky and earth where the four compass directions meet. At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms. Communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from higher realms may descend to lower ones and be disseminated to all. The spot functions as the omphalos (navel), the world's point of beginning. "The image can be viewed as feminine, as it relates to center of the earth (like an umbilical providing nourishment) and as masculine (a phallus providing insemination into a uterus). "It may have the form of a natural object (a mountain, a tree, a vine, a stalk, a column of smoke or fire) or a product of human manufacture (a staff, a tower, a ladder, a staircase, a maypole, a cross, a steeple, a rope, a totem pole, a pillar, a spire). "Its proximity to heaven may carry implications that are chiefly religious (pagoda, temple mount, minaret, church) or secular (obelisk, lighthouse, rocket, skyscraper). The image appears in religious and secular contexts. The axis mundi symbol may be found in cultures utilizing shamanic practices or animist belief systems, in major world religions, and in technologically advanced 'urban centers'. In Mircea Eliade's opinion, 'Every Microcosm, every inhabited region, has a Centre; that is to say, a place that is sacred above all.' The axis mundi is often associated with mandalas." - Wikipedia Click to view large

1	"Through meditation and self-contemplation we can seek a more subtle center, our higher or deeper self, the power that motivates the actions, emotions, thoughts, and desires. This center of gravity is not in space but in pure awareness, the 'place' in you now aware of these very words."
	~ Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science
2	"Only a self-imposed illusion of separateness keeps us from recognizing our own center of awareness and identity with the One"
	~ Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science
3	"The world is single and it came into being from the center outwards." Joannes Stobaeus (5th century), Greek anthologist
	~ Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science
4	"Traditionally, the center is the most honorable place, known to the Greeks as 'the keep of Zeus.' Protector of hearths and boundaries (centers and circumferences) and the source of moral order, Zeus dispensed judgment from the center."
	~ Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science
5	"At the center of our Self, deep within our consciousness, is a calm 'I.' Like the calm 'eye' within a storm, our center is untouched by psychological turbulence. Peaceful, it observes all from the vantage of wisdom. Placid, it is unmoved by the turbulent weather of the surrounding psyche. When you're feeling connected with your center it seems very familiar. It feels like the Self you know best, like who and what you know your Self to be, calm in knowing without thinking. To be centered is not the same as being 'self-centered' or selfish. Instead, it is identity with the deep, divine power that motivates us."
	~ Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science
6	"The Alcoran [Koran] describes Allah's character and attributes thus: 'He alone is self-existent; has no rival; is from everlasting to everlasting; fills the universe with his presence; is the center in which all things unite.'"
	~ Robert Macoy, A Dictionary of Freemasonry
7	"The center of unity is not material nor visible. It is an internal principle which dwells in all its parts, and binds them altogether in one harmonious whole."
	~ Robert Macoy, A Dictionary of Freemasonry
8	"We're like the spokes on a wheel, all radiating out from the same center. If you define us according to our position on the rim, we seem separate and distinct from one another. But if you define us according to our starting point, our source – the center of the wheel – we're a shared identity."
	~ Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love, Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles
9	"How can anyone, whose life is centered in the primal source of love, indulge in enmity or even indifference to those who are objects of the divine love equally with himself?" Shadworth Hollway Hodgson (1832-1912)
	~ Dagobert D. Runes, editor, A Treasury of Philosophy, Vol. 1
10	"Spirit may be defined as that which has its center in itself." Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), German philosopher
	~ Dagobert D. Runes, editor, A Treasury of Philosophy, Vol. 1
11	"The true Heaven wherein God dewells, is all over, in all Places (or Corners), even in the Midst (or Center) of the Earth….there is nothing that is without God." Jacob Boehme (1575-1624)
	~ Dagobert D. Runes, editor, A Treasury of Philosophy, Vol. 1
12	"O Most Creaive One, ever bringing me to new life…O Most Powerful One, empowering me for life's journey…O Indwelling One, calling me to my Center…O Beloved One, loving me as I am."
	~ Macrina Wiederkehr, A Tree Full of Angels
13	"The complete set of instructions for one's spiritual development is present at birth. One need only recognize this life-sustaining center, this spiritual matrix, as the basis upon which successful physical life is built."
	~ Meredith L. Young, Agartha: The Essential Guide to Personal Transformation in the New Era
14	"In the midst of the whirling and changing worlds, we are ever rooted in the One, our deepest center of consciousness grounded in that unchanging, eternal background."
	~ Shirley Nicholson, Ancient Wisdom, Modern Insight
15	"Now the heart of man, which is in the center of the body embracing everything, is the counterpart of the Holy of Holies which is the center of the world, and the Stone of Foundation. It embraces the sources and roots of all sanctities, just as does the Holy of Holies." Hayim of Volozhin, 19th century Rabbi
	~ Raphael Ben Zion, Translator, Anthology of Jewish Mysticism
16	"The universal God is one, yet he is more than one; all things are God; all things are one. By the sweet breaths of God all life is bound in one; so if you touch a fiber of a living thing you send a thrill from center to the outer bounds of life." ch. 28, vs.4-5,
	~ Leo W. Dowling, Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ
17	"The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us."
	~ Ronald S. Miller and the editors of New Age Journal, As Above, So Below: Paths to Spiritual Renewal in Daily Life
18	"We must take our rightful place in nature – not as its self-centered and profligate 'master' with the divine right of kings to exploit and despoil, but as one species living in harmony with the whole." R. D. Laing
	~ Ronald S. Miller and the editors of New Age Journal, As Above, So Below: Paths to Spiritual Renewal in Daily Life
19	"The center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days." Stephen Jay Gould
	~ Ronald S. Miller and the editors of New Age Journal, As Above, So Below: Paths to Spiritual Renewal in Daily Life
20	"The divine eye is center everywhere, circumference nowhere."
	~ Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi
21	"Unconsciously dwelling at our inmost center; beneath the surface shuttlings of our sensations, precepts, and thoughts; wrapped in the envelope of soul (which too is finally porous) is the eternal and the divine, the final Reality."
	~ Huston Smith, Beyond the Post-Modern Mind
22	This center which is here, but which we know is really everywhere, is Wakan-Tanka. All the things of the universe are joined with you who smoke the pipe — All send their voices to Wakan-Tanka, the Great Spirit. When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything.
	~ John Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks
23	Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.
	~ John Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks
24	To the center of the world you have taken me and showed the goodness and the beauty and the strangeness of the greening earth, the only mother— and there the spirit shapes of things, as they should be, you have shown to me and I have seen. At the center of this sacred hoop, you have said that I should make the tree to bloom. With tears running, O Great Spirit, Great Spirit, my Grandfather— with running tears I must say now that the tree has never bloomed. A pitiful old man, you see me here, and I have fallen away and have done nothing. Here at the center of the world, where you took me when I was young and taught me; here, old, I stand, and the tree is withered, Grandfather, my Grandfather! Again, and maybe the last time on this earth, I recall the great vision you sent me. It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. Hear me, not for myself, but for my people; I am old. Hear me that they may once more go back into the sacred hoop and find the good red road, the shielding tree!
	~ John Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks
25	I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, —you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.
	~ John Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks
26	"Love is the most universal, formidable and mysterious of cosmic energies. From the point of view of spiritual Evolution, it seems that we might be able to give a name and a value to this strange energy of love. Could it not be, in essence, the attraction which is exercised upon each conscious element by the center of the universe? The call toward the great union, whose attainment is the only real business in nature…?"
	~ Pierre Teilhard deChardin, Building the Earth
27	"At the very heart and center of existence, pervading the whole manifestation of the divine Idea, there exists one predominant Law. This Law – insofar as it may be comprehended by humanity – decrees that the tendency to preserve harmonious equilibrium, shall always be stronger than the tendencies toward discordance."
	~ Geoffrey Hodson, Call to the Heights, Guidance on the Pathway to Self-illumination
28	"From within, from the very most interior center of existence and consciousness, the fact of oneness evermore proves to be the overriding truth."
	~ Geoffrey Hodson, Call to the Heights, Guidance on the Pathway to Self-illumination
29	"Every fall into ignorance and confusion is an opportunity to discover that the beast residing at the center of the labyrinth is also an angel."
	~ Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul
30	"Prayer begins with a return to the heart, finding one's deepest center, awakening the profound depths of our being in the presence of God who is the source of our being and of our life." Thomas Merton
	~ M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., Centering Prayer, Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form
31	"When we go to the center, we leave behind time and place and separateness. We come to our Source and are in the Being from which we ever flow and in which we ever stand and apart from which we are not."
	~ M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., Centering Prayer, Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form
32	"He is to be found in the depths of our being, at the center, at the ground of our being, perceived by the searching light of faith or the knowing embrace of love….He is within. And there we are so one with Him that we are communion, union, prayer."
	~ M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., Centering Prayer, Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form
33	"At the center, at the Source of our being, we find all others – for our Source is also their Source. We find that all others are one with us in coming forth from creative love."
	~ M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., Centering Prayer, Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form
34	"By 'composing the unstable,' by bringing order into chaos, by resolving disharmonies and centering upon the mid-point, thus setting a 'boundary' to the multitude and focusing attention upon the cross, consciousness is reunited with the unconscious, the unconscious man is made oned with his center, which is also the center of the universe, and in this wise the goal of man's salvation and exaltation is reached."
	~ Carl Jung, Collected Works
35	"Sickness is healed by the action of the true and Universal Center upon the body. This Center is the One in which we are rooted. If, therefore, you are to recover from bodily and spiritual sickness, study to know and to understand exactly this Center, and apply yourself wholly thereto, and you will be freed from imperfections and diseases." Gerhard Dorn, Medieval Alchemist and Philosopher
	~ Carl Jung, Collected Works
36	"The idea of the 'anima mundi' [soul of the world] coincides with that of the collective unconscious whose center is the self."
	~ Carl Jung, Collected Works
37	"All this, then, was the plan of the everlasting god for the god who was going to be. According to this plan he made the body of the world smooth and uniform, everywhere equidistant from its center, a body whole and complete, with complete bodies for its parts. And in the centre he set the soul and caused it to extend throughout the whole body, and he further wrapped the body round with soul on the outside. So he established one world alone." Plato, 'Timaeus'
	~ Carl Jung, Collected Works
38	"That Jacob Boehme should obtain a glimpse into the center of nature by means of a sunbeam reflected in a tin platter is understandable."
	~ Carl Jung, Collected Works
39	"God, the very creative power at the center of the universe, is loving and caring like a truly devoted parent. This love is not one aspect of God….but the very organizing reality at the heart of things. God is love."
	~ Morton T. Kelsey, Companions on the Inner Way
40	"God…is the center of all selves."
	~ Valentin Tomberg, Covenant of the Heart, Meditations of a Christian Hermeticist on the Mysteries of Tradition
41	"Just as the plurality of the human soul's life of imagination, feeling, and will has a focus, a center, around which it orders and orientates itself, so also does the multiplicity of the appearances of the world have ONE center, which orders and holds everything together."
	~ Valentin Tomberg, Covenant of the Heart, Meditations of a Christian Hermeticist on the Mysteries of Tradition
42	"Just as the self of the human being is the centerpoint of the plurality of manifestations of his life of soul, so is the ONE God, transcending the self, the centerpoint of the world."
	~ Valentin Tomberg, Covenant of the Heart, Meditations of a Christian Hermeticist on the Mysteries of Tradition
43	"If you go into your garden, you may feel yourself present in the divine embrace right there in the presence of a golden sunflower with a mandala for its center – the Immanence of the Transcendent in the flower."
	~ Marion Woodman and Elinor Dickson, Dancing in the Flames, The Dark Goddess in the Transformation of Consciousness
44	"By mystical theology and secret love, the soul continues to rise above all things and above itself, and to mount upward to God. For love is like fire, which ever rises upward with the desire to be absorbed in the center of its sphere."
	~ St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul
45	"The love of the One is actively concerned in awakening each life to its true center." Douglas V. Steere (b. 1901), philosophy teacher and author
	~ Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith, editors, Devotional Classics
46	"Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return." Thomas Kelly (1893-1941), American teacher of philosophy
	~ Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith, editors, Devotional Classics
47	"Dialogue... is a conversation with a center, not sides. It is a way of taking the energy of our differences and channeling it toward something that has never been created before. It lifts us out of polarization and into a greater common sense, and is thereby a means for accessing the intelligence and coordinated power of groups of people."
	~ William Issacs, Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together
48	"Each person is a center of infinite love….Through recognition, the use of infinite love within a person can grow."
	~ Jack and Cornelia Addington, Drawing the Larger Circle, How to Love and Be Loved
49	"Within each person is a center of love....Now is the time to send it forth, like ripples from a pebble cast into the still waters of a lake in ever-widening circles."
	~ Jack and Cornelia Addington, Drawing the Larger Circle, How to Love and Be Loved
50	"All types of meditation…lead to the same golden center, for at the mystical level all religions have more in common than they differ, and all derive from the same source and long for the same goal."
	~ Sophy Burnham, Ecstatic Journey, The Transforming Power of Mystical Experience
51	"The word goes forth from soul to form. 'Both sides are one. There is no war, no difference and no isolation. The warring forces seem to war from the point at which you stand. Move on a pace. See truly with the opened eye of inner vision and you will find, not two but one; not war but peace; not isolation but a heart which rests upon the center. Thus shall the beauty of the Lord shine forth. The hour is now.'"
	~ Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Psychology II
52	"We must make love the center of all our enterprises – collective as well as individual. When harmlessness toward life becomes a personal, social, economic, and political imperative, we will be on our way at last to the restoration and regeneration of our civilization."
	~ Marianne Williamson, Everyday Grace, Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness, and Making Miracles
53	"Joy is the still point at the center of the dance."
	~ Robert Ellwood, Finding Deep Joy
54	"On the sense and emotional levels there may be little or no peace, but in the center of the soul there are stability and serenity."
	~ Thomas Dubay, S.M., Fire Within: St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and the Gospel - on Prayer'
55	"One aspect of the soul is always joined with the center of creation, and this is our eternal link with truth."
	~ Rabbi David A. Cooper, God Is A Verb, Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism
56	"In the deepest part of your being, in the very center of your own pure awareness, you are fundamentally one with Spirit, one with Godhead, one with the All, in a timeless and eternal and unchanging fashion."
	~ Ken Wilber, Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber
57	"Love is the force, the energy that animates creativity and peace in each one of us. And on the collective level, when we center ourselves and bring love into our being, we engage in the historical process, in purposeful evolution." James and Salle Merrill Redfield, 'Listening for Love'
	~ Richard Carlson and Benjamin Shield, editors, Handbook for the Heart, Original Writings on Love
58	"The wonder is that the characteristic efficacy to touch and inspire deep creative centers dwells in the smallest nursery fairy tale - as the flavor of the ocean is contained in a droplet or the whole mystery of life within the egg of a flea. For the symbols of mythology are not manufactured; they cannot be ordered, invented,or permanently suppressed. They are spontaneous productions of the psyche, and each bears within it, undamaged, the germ power of its source."
	~ Joseph Campbell, Hero With A Thousand Faces
59	"There is depicted here a ruler, or influential man, to whom people are attracted. Those who come to him he accepts, those who do not come are allowed to go their own way. He invited none, flatters none -- all come of their own free will. In this way there develops a voluntary dependence among those who hold to him. They do not have to be constantly on their guard but may express their opinions openly. Police measures are not necessary, and they cleave to their ruler of their own volition. The same principle of freedom is valid for life in general. We should not woo favor from people. If a man cultivates within himself the purity and the strength that are necessary for one who is the center of a fellowship, those who are meant for him come of their own accord."
	~ Richard Wilhelm, translator, I Ching or The Book of Changes
60	"If intellect and will are correctly centered, the emotional life takes on harmony."
	~ Richard Wilhelm, translator, I Ching or The Book of Changes
61	"God is at work every moment, sustaining everything in being – and therefore, He is at the center of every human being."
	~ Donald Spoto, Ph.D., In Silence: Why We Pray
62	"By penetrating to the core of our own being, we can make contact with the consciousness at the center of the universe."
	~ Richard Smoley, Inner Christianity, A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition
63	"Mastering – or, if you prefer, integrating – the psyche is the work of a lifetime….This mastery is not holding the psyche in rigid subjugation (which is impossible in any case), nor is it a matter of having a maniacally religious ego lording it over the emotions and the body. Rather, it is being centered in the still, small voice that is the true 'I' of the spirit."
	~ Richard Smoley, Inner Christianity, A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition
64	"True freedom does not mean absolutely arbitrary action or irrational choice….Rightly understood, freedom means our ability to act and live in the light of our own human essence, the inner light revealing the purpose of our being as a unique mode of manifestation of Being, a distinctive creative center of the cosmic whole." Haridas Chaudhuri, 'The Meaning of Karma in Integral Philosophy'
	~ Virginia Hanson and Rosemarie Stewart, editors, Karma, The Universal Law of Harmony
65	"All principles and their progeny are finally centered and rooted by their summits in the first great all-comprehending one. Thus all beings proceed from, and are comprehended in the first being; all intellects emanate from one first intellect; all souls from one first soul; all natures blossom from one first nature;…all these great monads are comprehended in the first one, from which both they and all their depending series are unfolded into light. Hence, this first one is truly the unity of unities, the monad of monads, the principle of principles, the God of Gods, one and all things, and yet one prior to all."
	~ Manly P. Hall, Lectures on Ancient Philosophy
66	"If a spiritual principle is omnipresent at all times, then no object can ever be moved so that it either approaches closer to or retires farther from spirit; for spirit has its center everywhere and its circumference nowhere."
	~ Manly P. Hall, Lectures on Ancient Philosophy
67	"There is a saying in China that the nature of man is found there, in the center, where emotions are not yet manifest. In this center is the potentiality of everything to come."
	~ Richard Wilhelm, Lectures on the I Ching: Constancy and Change
68	"All of Chinese thinking – Confucianism, Taoism, as well as Buddhism – contains the idea that in the course of life, man will shape harmoniously those psychic and physical predispositions that he received as capital assets by unifying them and giving them form from within a center."
	~ Richard Wilhelm, Lectures on the I Ching: Constancy and Change
69	"We now should be able to see cosmos and individual joined in a relationship. We should see that macrocosm and microcosm are, as it were, only far-flung parts of one unified energy center."
	~ Richard Wilhelm, Lectures on the I Ching: Constancy and Change
70	"The center of power is not to be found in summit meetings or in peace conferences. It is not in Peking or Washington or the United Nations, but rather where a child of God prays in the power of the Spirit for God's will to be done in his life, in his home, and in the world about him." Ruth Bell Graham
	~ Sherwood Eliot Wirt and Kersten Beckstrom, editors, Living Quotations for Christians
71	"God can be seen as infinite generosity, ever and always giving him- or herself away like the sun gives away light – or, to use biblical imagery, like a burning bush that is not consumed by its flame. As manifestations of the sacred, created so to speak in the image and likeness of God, our very nature is generosity. The more access we have to the inexhaustible source of love and goodness at the center of our being, the easier and more natural it is to give some of it away."
	~ Harold Bloomfield, M.D. & Philip Goldberg, Ph.D., Making Peace With God, A Practical Guide
72	“One can reach the center directly from any point of the compass.” C. G. Jung, ‘Approaching the Unconscious’
	~ Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
73	"The organizing center from which the regulatory effect stems seems to be a sort of 'nuclear atom' in our psychic system. One could also call it the inventor, organizer, and source of dream images. Jung called this center the 'Self'….Throughout the ages people have been intuitively aware of the existence of such an inner center. The Greeks called it man's inner 'daimon'; in Egypt it was expressed by the concept of the 'Ba-soul'; and the Romans worshiped it as the 'genius' native to each individual. In more primitive societies it was often thought of as a protective spirit embodied within an animal or a fetish." Marie Louise vonFranz
	~ Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
74	"Though the principle of the center is One, the patterns, the swirls and eddies of form and process which are generated by and through the center are infinite; and though infinite in number, the centers are essentially one, for each is the same irreducible point, the primary syllable, the word, the Logos, through which all is uttered."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
75	"Feeling the impulse toward wholeness, man applies it to all that he does. It motivates his thoughts, permeates his activities, and resides in all that he constructs. In his dwellings, as in those of most of the 'primitive', pre-industrial world, there is a place, an altar, a fire, a stone that is the center, not only of the house or dwelling, but also of the entire cosmos…. We are dealing with what is essentially a SACRED principle, or a sacred state of consciousness in which all beings and all things are realized equally as emanations of One Divine Whole."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
76	"The Vegetative [Living] Universe opens like a flower from the earth's center in which is Eternity." William Blake
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
77	"The center is the beginning of the Mandala as it is the beginning and origin of all form and of all processes, including the extensions of form into time."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
78	"In the Beginning was the Center: the center of the mind of God, the eternal Creator, the Dream of Brahman, the galaxies that swirl beyond the lenses of our great telescopes. In all of these the center is one, and in the center lies eternity."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
79	"The center principle manifests itself through man in the same ways as it does through a flower or a star; in it we may discover our cosmic commonality – our cosmic community."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
80	"This eternal NOW and the realization of one's center are coeval, simultaneous events."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
81	"Like ripples in a pond, each awareness-moment expands out from its own center, containing in its form-pattern the configuration of all phenomena in the universe, material and immaterial."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
82	"Sacred consciousness, of which the Mandala is a structural model, conforms to the Hermetic statement, 'God is an intelligent sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.'"
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
83	"To be integrated, to be made whole, means to be able to maintain contact with one's center."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
84	"Each of us is an individualized being with a particular focalization and center of pure self-awareness; each of us is a creature of energy and light emanating our own creative field."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
85	"If man can mandalize himself, there will be a resulting deployment of now unused energies within his bio-organic structutre. It is these energies which will be most instrumental in creating a radiant – radiating from multiple centers – planetary sphere."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
86	"Since archetypes are what give form to the collective unconscious, awareness of the archetypes in everyday living is a means by which the elements of existence may acquire a more conscious structure. Situations exist for the purpose of our being able to center and create ourselves anew through them."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
87	"If man has alienated himself from the source, the center within, then it is the purpose of a Mandala ritual for our time to be used as a primal tool for investigating and opening that center, once again granting the individual an identification with the cosmic forces and their source."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
88	"Could men see clearly – as the seers have always seen – experience would be apprehended as an organic whole, continually proceeding from and returning to the one source – the center of being."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
89	"Go to the center and know the Whole. Follow this path."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
90	"From whichever point a Mandala is entered, a path opens that leads to the eternal center."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
91	"In Black Elk's vision, the hoop of his people will be reunited only when the tree of the center flowers once again. This is the vision of a Mandala of global consciousness."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
92	"The basic forces create and sustain each other through the mysterious power of the center. From this center flows the evolution of all phenomena in a symmetrically radiating manner. This is a cosmogenic process, which is beautifully described in the Great Treatise of 'The Book of Changes.'"
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
93	"Laurette Sejourne speaks of the Law of the Center which 'prevents the splitting asunder of opposing forces.' Cycles, whether pertaining to life and death, space and time, visible and invisible forces, are held together in concentric patterns. Understanding the Law of the Center as a basic principle of nature, men have been able to construct vast systems, and to perceive various levels of order throughout the universe."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
94	"The center is the nameless, the most supreme, the oldest, yet is ever-present and continually pours forth its energy – it is self-renewing."
	~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala
95	"Jung's involvement with the mandala culminated in his insight that it represented the center, the midpoint that balance all dualities." Michael Flanagin, Ph.D., 'The Mandala in Jungian Psychotherapy'
	~ Judith Cornell, Ph.D., Mandala, Luminous Symbols for Healing
96	"In both dreams and religion, the relation of the center to the mandala expresses the relation between the potential and the actual." Michael Flanagin, Ph.D., 'The Mandala in Jungian Psychotherapy'
	~ Judith Cornell, Ph.D., Mandala, Luminous Symbols for Healing
97	"The mandala embraces both directions, which is why it is the consummate archetype of East and West alike. As the 'alpha and omega', the center is a union of opposites – a reflection of the true higher Self." ." Michael Flanagin, Ph.D., 'The Mandala in Jungian Psychotherapy'
	~ Judith Cornell, Ph.D., Mandala, Luminous Symbols for Healing
98	"The word 'mandala' means circle in Sanskrit. The mandala, a design form which radiates out from a center, is ancient and universal, appearing in art, architecture, and dance of cultures everywhere. It is the 'magic circle' and often has a ritual, religious symbolism as in the rose window of medieval churches….In times of confusion or stress it is a way to collect your thoughts."
	~ Marilyn Ferguson, Marilyn Ferguson's Book of PragMagic
99	"When I began drawing mandalas, I saw that everything, all the paths I had been following, all the steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point – namely, to the mid-point. It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the center, to individuation."
	~ Carl Jung (edited by Aniela Jaffe), Memories, Dreams, Reflections
100	"The stirring of leaves in the wind makes the wind visible. Their stirring is the wind's stirring, their whisper is the wind's whisper. And so with love. Our actions of love make the invisible visible. Our actions of love make love present to ourselves and to others. And as we go out of ourselves in love, and become, as it were, lost in those we love, we discover a self greater than our isolated ego. We discover the birth of that self born of the death to self-centeredness."
	~ James Finley, Merton's Palace of Nowhere

We are suggesting an interpretation of a universal spiritual archetype or metaphor that appears in diverse ways under diverse names in a wide variety of cultural and historical contexts. Axis Mundi, understood this way, is a composite visualization that has been seen or imagined by far-seeing visionaries and mystics since the beginning of time.

We are suggesting that "all these concepts are the same idea" - perceived as related transcendent metaphors in slightly different forms, perhaps in the same way that "God" is perceived in different ways by different people in different contexts. We are proposing that this axial form is the central integrating and guiding principle of all human experience, linking together all the many facets of mind and civilization into a single wholeness. Axis Mundi is like the trunk of a huge universal tree, and all particular things and facets are its branches. In this way, Axis Mundi becomes the absolute foundation for unity.

The notes on this page are a growing work-in-progress, as new facets of this comprehensive vision, like the pieces of a huge international/interdisciplinary jig-saw puzzle, are brought into consideration and located within its framework.

Some of these pieces:

• The axis of the chakras throughout the human energy field/system/body - the caduceus
• The "Hara Line"
• The Tree of the World - One World Tree - the trunk of the tree is the Axis
• The Great Chain of Being
• The alignment of consecrated spiritual practice: karma-balancing, atonement, devotional attunement
• The vertical energy axis at the center of a deliberative council/circle
• "Dialogue is a conversation with a center, not sides" -- and the Axis rises through the center of the circle -- helping it to stay aligned and centered and inclusive
• The tree of interpretation - non-biased - truth is the relative degree of straightness throughout the tree of interpretation - "be straight with me"
• Resonance, harmony, maximum energy flow, highest bandwidth for any individual
• Sacred Tree of Community - alignment from everywhere converging to common center - affirming and validating "truth"
• Tree of Religions (huge): http://funki.com.ua/ru/portfolio/lab/world-religions-tree/

• The Axis Mundi is a visualization that interprets and aligns energy and conceptual forms / interpretations.
• Axis Mundi is not an empirical "thing" or "object" (and therefore its existence cannot be "empiricallly proven or discovered"), and scholars can find endless ways to argue about it. It is a guiding interpretive visualization that acts like part of our personal and collective "spiritual instrument panel". The essence of spiritual realization and divine/sacred attunement is alignment, and the Axis Mundi is the absolute standard for devotional alignment.
• Universal central axis of human life-force - chakras / caduceus
• Axis/alignment/center/true/balance/holistic context
• The general form of purpose - intention - teleology - it is the central alignment of evolution
• God's Will - "discerning God's Will together" - "Divine Intent" - it aligns the collective search and attunement for God's Will and Absolute Common Ground
• The connection of the universal ontology/cosmic form to the individual/local point
• Vertical alignment through the center of the circle - establishes common spirit of truth among participants in the circle

• Source / Godhead / I AM THAT I AM / Great Central Sun / Absolute Non-Dual
• Names for God ("Nine Billion")
• The "Trunk of the Tree of Religions"
• "The plumb-line of truth"
• The universal resonant calibration tone - AUM / Amen
• The Axis integrates and aligns the energies of "The Christ" and the Community ("The Sangha" in Buddhism - "The Body" in Christianity)
• Axis Mundi is aligned in and aligned by the energy and flow of AUM / OM
• Aligns the relative/fragmented world into the spirit of The One
• The Axis guides the healing of Babel and conceptual chaos/misunderstanding through resonant semantics

• Individual people align their soul to Center. This is accomplished through humility, surrender, kindness, faithfulness, adherence to virtue, and steady/repeated consecrated/devoted "karma-balancing" action
• Individual actions are devoted to - consecrated to - service to this center, and in suplication to or in petition to the divine energy of this center. All energy comes from it, is received through it, and opens to its full power when entered in surrendered humility.
• When multiple individual align in this way, they tend to all align to the same center - the vertical axis - and this creates a "congruence" or overlap. This overlap is "resonant"; it is harmonic. This phenomena is widely understood as "Namaste"
• Large groups of individuals can align in this way
• This alignment process within large groups occurs within the context of a circle gathering - "wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there I AM in the midst of you...."
• If this alignment occurs within a comprehensively integral/holistic context, this process can become a way to align the energies of an entire civilization
• The axis is the common ground of the human experience because it is the common center of human experience
• The axis represents our universal shared purpose. It connects us all to the universal design.

• We can perfect and accelerate the process of democracy by aligning its deliberations through the Axis in holistic/integral resonance
• All collective/communal decisions can and should made through resonant adjudication within the framework of the Whole and guided by it
• The Universal Ontology/Logos/Oneness contains an inherent ethic of wisdom and virtue and wholeness. We can tune every local/particular/immediate decision into the context of the absolute/universal/eternal oneness
• This approach creates the perfect attunement of the collective in the correct balance of the Many and the One -- local independence/personal freedom/"state's rights" in correct proportional balance with absolute interdependence/sacred mutuality/community/guidance of the One
• Every particular issue guided at the immediate local level on a case-by-case basis by universal law, as realized by deliberative community process at any level of social organization, all guided through the same transcendent axial integration
• All this interdependence mediated through a spirit-tuned "network of circles" -- perhaps supported through google-power, GIS, hand-held devices and intimate local resonance

• The center of the circle is like the trunk of the tree
• The participants in the circle are like the branches of the tree, or spokes of the wheel
• Truth within the circle emerges because the alignment of the participants becomes fully straight; the practice of virtue - listening and humility -- centers the participants and links them accurately to the center, where their various/differing perspectives can cross-correlate and substantiate one another

• Everyone has a "private dictionary", through which they understand the meaning of words.
• Word meaning is highly flexible and context-dependent. For human beings to understand one another through the use of language, it is essential for the listener to understand what it said in terms of the intention of the speaker

• Truth is the tree of interpretation in its purely straight balanced non-biased form
• Bias is distorted (or unbalanced or "incomplete/non-holistic/non-integral") interpretation. Straight/vertical comprehensively inclusive alignment is non-biased and proportionally balanced, considering all factors in balance (which makes it holistic and integral - "the whole truth and nothing but the truth").
• Individuals embodying the spirit of truth are aligning their souls to wholeness, to oneness, to absolute integrity
• The One, the Whole - is the Absolute - the "non-relative" - the "non-fragmented"
• Any alignment that is not centered in the absolute is a "relative" alignment - it is fragmented or partial rather than whole. The objective of spiritual practice is to align all individual/local energies with the absolute whole/one

• Cosmic axis
• World axis
• World pillar
• Great Chain of Being
• Center of the world
• Bridge from Heaven to Earth
• Omphalos
• Namaste
• Tube of light
• Column of light
• Caduceus
• One World Tree
• Kundalini - raising the Kundalini

• Axis - vertical line
• Mandala - concentric rings / circles
• Center / center-point
• Coordinate center / zero-point / coordinate origin
• The vertical axis of human alignment into oneness and non-biased/non-relativistic truth
• The vertical alignment of chakras
• The horizontal axis of human interconnection
• The Hara Line
• The concept of center - or axial center
• The "practice" of alignment - how we do it, what we do
  • Like Father Thomas Keating says -- relax into being who we already are
  • Incrementing towards center, always pursuing the opening of center
  • Incrementing "up hill" - release: grace
  • Saying grace over food - blessing food - aligning the energy we assimilate from food
  • Consecrated effort -- "karma balancing" -- Newton's Laws of Motion
• The absolute center of Oneness
• Karma balancing
• Namaste
• The universal human purpose -- all human purposes are "sub-purposes" of this universal purpose.
  Globalization drives universalization through cross-correlation, and universalization drives convergence towards the center. Axis Mundi may be the universal form of teleology or the universal form of evolutionary (and personal) intention. All life tends to converge towards enlightened universal Oneness; all aligned human purpose and action supports this central core objective
• The Axis Mundi is absolute life-force (why? because it is perfectly centered, carrying the maximal "juice" of life directly from the heart of the One to the particular individual -- just as "the vine" carries life-force nutrients to the berry on the vine)
• The vertical alignment of "truth" - non-biased, non-distorted, balanced, centered
• The Ascension Current - Crystal Cord - Silver Cord - Tube of Light
• "Be a true column of light"
• Energy flow / bandwidth / power
• Levels of reality - mandalas -- "wheels within wheels"
• Cosmic Christ / Logos
• Healing / Wholeness / Oneness / Integrity
• The All-seeing eye -- the "Eye of Contemplation"
• The Axis Mundi aligns the Will of God -- it IS the Will of God...
• The all-seeing eye of God: Cross-correlation of 10,000 points of view