"The heart, having returned, blissful, from the Divine experience, will not rest until it has nourished other men, until it has shown them the way of love, the way to the Divine embrace."
Men Who Have Walked With God - Sheldon Cheney
|
|
 |
| SPIRIT OF THE WORLD |
| MANY VOICES / ONE TRUTH |
| Gathered and organized and introduced by
JoAnn Kite
|
|
| Take a few minutes to click through and explore this revealing masterpiece of visionary spiritual synopsis |
|
MYSTICISM
Evelyn Underhill
This is a classic work in the field of spiritual consciousness studies. Underhill writes of the awakening, purification and training of the self in its ascent of the path which leads to the blessedness of the Unitive life.
|
|
| 1 |
"The end and object of 'inward alchemy' will be the raising of the whole self to the condition in which conscious and permanent union with the Absolute takes place."
|
|
| 2 |
"All…are called to their origin." Rulman Merswin
|
|
| 3 |
"No transmutation without fire, say the alchemists: No cross, no crown, says the Christian. All the great experts of the spiritual life agree – whatever their creeds, their symbols, their explanations – in describing this stress, tribulation, and loneliness, as an essential part of the way from the Many to the One; bringing the self to the threshold of that completed life which is to be lived in intimate union with Reality."
|
|
| 4 |
"This meaning, this secret plan of Creation, flames out, had we eyes to see, from every department of existence."
|
|
| 5 |
"I have ascended higher than myself, and lo! I have found the Word above me still. My curiosity has led me to descend below myself also, and yet I have found Him still at a lower depth. If I have looked without myself, I have found that He is beyond that which is outside of me; and if within, He was at an inner depth still. And thus have I learned the truth of the words I have read, 'In Him we live and move and have our being.'" St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 'Cantica Canticorum, Sermon lxxiv
|
|
| 6 |
"The beauty, the majesty, the divinity of the living World of Becoming holds in its meshes every living thing."
|
|
| 7 |
"'That Which Is', says St. Augustine; 'The One', 'The Supplier of true Life', says Plotinus; 'the energitic Word', says St. Bernard; 'Eternal Light', says Dante; 'the Abyss', says Ruysbroeck; 'Pure Love', says St. Catherine of Genoa – poor symbols of Perfection at the best. But, through and by these oblique utterances, they give us the assurance that the Object of their discovery is one with the object of our quest."
|
|
| 8 |
"The spirit of God breathes us out from Himself that we may love."
|
|
| 9 |
"Symbols form the rallying-points about which are gathered a whole group of ideas and intuitions. Their presence – sometimes the sudden thought of them – will be enough, in psychological language, to provoke a discharge of energy along some particular path: that is to say, to stir to life all those ideas and intuitions which belong to the self's consciousness of the Absolute, to concentrate vitality on them, and introduce the self into that world of perception of which they are, as it were, the material keys."
|
|
| 10 |
"The Power of God exceeds and fills all." St. Angela of Foligno
|
|
| 11 |
"I but open my eyes, - and perfection, no more and no less, in the kind I imagined full-fronts me, and God is seen God in the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod." Robert Browning, 'Saul'
|
|
| 12 |
"The object of the mystic's contemplation is always some aspect of the Infinite Life: of God, the one Reality."
|
|
| 13 |
"The simple vision of pure love, which is marvellously penetrating, does not stop at the outer husk of creation: it penetrates to the divinity which is hidden within." Malaval, 'De l'Oraison Ordinaire'
|
|
| 14 |
"The flame of living and creative love fills the universe."
|
|
| 15 |
"Love flings open a door, in order that the larger Life may rush in, and it and the soul be one thing."
|
|
| 16 |
"There is – must be – contact in an intelligible where between every individual self and the Supreme Self, the Ultimate."
|
|
| 17 |
"Every visible and invisible creature is a theophany or appearance of God." Erigena
|
|
| 18 |
"The quest of the Absolute is no long journey, but a realization of something which is implicit in the self and in the universe."
|
|
| 19 |
"Natural magnetism…will draw the pilgrim irresistibly along the road from the Many to the One."
|
|
| 20 |
"This gift of 'sonship', this power of free cooperation in the world process, is man's greatest honour."
|
|
| 21 |
"The manifestation of the Eternal Light is renewed without interruption in the hiddenness of the spirit."
|
|
| 22 |
"More and more, as we study and collate all the available evidence, this fact – this law – is borne in on us: that the general movement of human consciousness, when it obeys its innate tendency to transcendence, is always the same. There is only one road from Appearance to Reality."
|
|
| 23 |
"To say that God is Infinite is to say that He may be apprehended and described in an infinity of ways. That Circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, may be approached from every angle with a certainty of being found."
|
|
| 24 |
"Trust your deep instincts: use your latent powers. Appropriate that divine creative life which is the very substance of your being. Remake yourself in its interest, if you would know its beauty and its truth. You can only behold that which you are. Only the Real can know Reality."
|
|
| 25 |
"Do but fix your eyes joyously upon yourself, and watch how God plays the game of love within your loving soul." Suso, 'Leban', cap. vi
|
|
|
|
Randomize this reference |
New random category
Add a comment
Reference and bibliography |
All quotes, by category
We are gathering together the primary insights of spirituality and bringing them together into one place.
This archive contains 11,754 quotes, taken from 635 references,
organized in terms of 39 primary categories. Quotes are randomized and appear in a different way at every click.
Explore the navigation options to review these insights.
We include
- All major spiritual and religious traditions, from all cultures, and all historical epochs
- Major psychologists, philosophers, writers, scholars and leading religious personalities
- Sources in classical religion as well as voices from new consciousness, esotericism and mysticism
- Choices are guided by the spirit of oneness, love, kindness, inclusion and community
|
|
|
3,071,549
|
|
