| SPIRIT OF THE WORLD |
| MANY VOICES / ONE TRUTH |
| Gathered and organized and introduced by
JoAnn Kite
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| Take a few minutes to click through and explore this revealing masterpiece of visionary spiritual synopsis |
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THE MYSTIC WAY - A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY IN CHRISTIAN ORIGINS
Evelyn Underhill
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| 1 |
"As the heightening of mental life reveals to the intellect deeper and deeper levels of reality, so with that movement towards enhancement of the life of spirit….the world assumes not the character of illusion but the character of sacrament; and spirit finds Spirit in the lilies of the field, no less than in the Unknowable Abyss."
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| 2 |
"The movement of the self towards transcendence, its achievement of 'divine humanity', is an organic process."
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"Life immanent and life transcendent, the Temporal and the Eternal order, are the complementary expressions of a Reality which is one."
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| 4 |
"Only by love can man enter into direct communion with Reality; only by its dynamic power will he raise up the temple in which that Reality can make its home."
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| 5 |
"Man, said St. Bernard [of Clairvaux] is 'a capacity for the Infinite.'"
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| 6 |
"As gradually and naturally as the embryo of physical life emerges into the physical world, the germ of real life which is latent in human personality takes form and develops to the mystic climax of perfect participation in the Eternal World."
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| 7 |
"We live and are in God, we are of His substance, we have heaven and hell in ourselves; what we make of ourselves, that we are." Jacob Boehme, 'The Threefold Life of Man'
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| 8 |
"This Life – the divine elan vital – is an energetic spirit, thrusting itself to expression in and through the world."
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| 9 |
"The living water never ceased to flow. No doubt many of those through whom it passed are unknown to us. But enough are known, through their lives and their writing, to enable us to establish the continuance and ever richer, deeper growth of the life-force at work within humanity: the development of the new 'seed' within the world, destined to serve the interests of the Divine Plan."
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| 10 |
"The holy spark of the divine nature within (humanity) has a natural, strong, and almost infinite tendency or reaching after that eternal Light and Spirit of God from whence it came forth. It came forth from God, it came out of God, it partakes of the divine nature, and therefore it is always in a state of tendency and return to God." William Law, 'The Spirit of Prayer'
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| 11 |
"The action of 'grace', the spirit of love leading life to its highest expression, is continuous from the first travail of creation even until now."
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| 12 |
"Divine Love is not a single thread that links creature and Creator; but rather a web that knits up the many with the One."
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| 13 |
"We are like coals, burned on the hearth of Infinite Love." Ruysbroeck, 'De Septem gradibus amoris', ch. 14
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| 14 |
"Throughout the whole course of this struggle [of life] we observe on the side of spirit – or, if you like it better, on the psychic side of life – an unmistakable instinct for transcendence: 'an internal push, which has carried life by more and more complex forms to higher and higher destinies.' (Bergson, 'L'Evolution creatrice')."
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| 15 |
"The destiny to which our human spirit tends is 'freedom': that high level of being, upon which life achieves reality and becomes the self-creative auxiliary of the divine."
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| 16 |
"You need not call Him from a distance, your opening and His entering are but one moment."
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| 17 |
"Man [is] the thoroughfare of Life upon her upward pilgrimage; self-creative, susceptible of freedom, able to breathe the atmosphere of Reality, to attain consciousness here and now of the Spiritual World."
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| 18 |
"All is fused into one great work of art, all forms part of one living whole."
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| 19 |
"There are no breaks in the World of Becoming; Life, though it be instinct with spontaneity, though it cut new paths for its branching stream in fresh, unimaginable directions, behave in a thousand incalculable ways, ever remains one."
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| 20 |
"When Angela of Foligno says, 'I had comprehension of the whole world, both here and beyond the sea, and the Abyss and all things else; and therein I beheld naught save the divine power in a manner which is verily indescribable, so that through greatness of marvelling the soul cried with a loud voice, saying 'This whole world is full of God' – when we read this, an intuition deep within us replies that it can here recognise the accent of truth."
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| 21 |
"The natural things of the earth – the wheat, the vine, all growing living creatures – are already entinctured with Spirit, radiant of the divine loveliness, 'full of Thy glory', and hence….may become lenses that focus and distribute the flashes of the Uncreated Light."
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| 22 |
"I am God, says Love; for Love is God and God is Love. And this soul is God by condition of Love." Ruysbroeck, 'The Mirror of Simple Souls'
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| 23 |
"Man's will and work are themselves a part of the divine energy."
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| 24 |
"Deity, in so far as it is apprehended by human intuition and love, appears to us as a vast, all-encompassing, all-penetrating Reality, which is both transcendent and immanent, static and dynamic, changeless yet changeful, ineffable yet personal."
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"The glory of that One Reality [is] ablaze in the humblest of growing things."
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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
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2,738,392
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