Rumi

 

 

“God’s joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,

from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flower bed,

As roses, up from ground.

Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,

now a cliff covered with vines,

now a horse being saddled.

It hides within these,

till one day it cracks them open.”

 

from Unmarked Boxes

 

 

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

 

 

 

George Russell

 

 

“Then, suddenly, my consciousness was lighted up from within and I saw in a vivid way how the whole universe was made up of particles of material which, no matter how dull and lifeless they might seem, were nevertheless filled with this intense and vital beauty. For a second or two the whole world appeared as a blaze of glory. When it died down, it left me with something I have never forgotten and which constantly reminds me of the beauty locked up in every minute speck of material around us.”

 

 

 

 

Arthur Symms

 

 

“Art begins when a man wishes to immortalize the most vivid moments he has ever lived.”

 

 

 

 

Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

 

“The dull see no divinity in grass, life in dead stones, or spirit in air.”

 

“I am a part of all that I have seen.”

 

“Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.”

 

“Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”

 

 

 

Eckhart Tolle

 

 

“True salvation is to know yourself as an inseparable part of the timeless and formless One Life from which all that exists derives its being.”

 

“Having access to that formless realm is truly liberating. It frees you from bondage to form and identification with form. It is life in its undifferentiated state prior to its fragmentation into multiplicity. We may call it the Unmanifested, the invisible Source of all things, the Being within all beings. It is a realm of deep stillness and peace, but also of joy and intense aliveness. Whenever you are present, you become "transparent" to some extent to the light, the pure consciousness that emanates from this Source. You also realize that the light is not separate from who you are but constitutes your very essence.”

 

“Beyond the beauty of the external forms, there is more here: something that cannot be named, something ineffable, some deep, inner, holy essence. Whenever and wherever there is beauty, this inner essence shines through somehow. It only reveals itself to you when you are present.”

 

“Pure consciousness is Life before it comes into manifestation, and that Life looks at the world of form through "your" eyes because consciousness is who you are. When you know yourself as That, then you recognize yourself in everything. It is a state of complete clarity of perception.”

 

“The eternal present is the space within which your whole life unfolds, the one factor that remains constant. Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be. Secondly, the Now is the only point that can take you beyond the limited confines of the mind. It is your only point of access into the timeless and formless realm of Being.”

 

“Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past. In you, as in each human being, there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought. It is the very essence of who you are. We may call it presence, awareness, the unconditioned consciousness. In the ancient teachings, it is the Christ within, or your Buddha nature.”

 

“Although the unmanifested realm of pure consciousness could be considered another dimension it is not separate from this dimension of form. Form and formlessness interpenetrate. The unmanifested flows into this dimension as awareness, inner space, Presence.”

 

“In the timeless dimension of the Now comes a different kind of knowing, a knowing that contains a deep love and reverence for all that is.”

 

“The moment you enter the Now with your attention, you realize that life is sacred. There is a sacredness to everything you perceive when you are present.”

 

 

 

 

Walt Whitman

 

 

“Mystery and reality are the two halves of the same sphere.”

 

“How useless all things would be if they led on to nothing but what we see.” 

 

“The unseen is proved by the seen,

Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.”

 

“I have dreamed that the purpose and essence of the known life,

the transient,

Is to form and decide identity for the unknown life, the permanent.”

 

“Sometimes how strange and clear to the soul,

That all these solid things are indeed but apparitions, concepts,

non-realities.”

 

from Apparitions

 

 

 

“O the joy of my soul leaning pois’'d on itself, receiving identity through

materials and loving them, observing characters and absorbing them,

My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hearing, touch,

reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like,

The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and flesh,

My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes,

Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes

which finally see,

Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts,

embraces, procreates.”

 

from A Song of Joys

 

 

 

“Come said the Muse,

Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,

Sing me the universal.”

 

from Song of the Universal

 

 

 

“Why who makes much of a miracle?

As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,

Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.”

 

from Miracles

 

 

 

“Maybe the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills

Shining and flowing waters,

The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these

Are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real

something has yet to be known...”

 

from Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances

 

 

 

“Was somebody asking to see the soul?

See, your own shape and countenance, person, substances, beasts

the trees, the running rivers, the rocks and sands.”

 

from Starting From Paumanok

 

 

 

“I swear I think now that every thing without exception has an

eternal soul!

The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have!

the animals!

I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!

That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it,

and the cohering is for it!

And all preparation is for it—and identity is for it—and life and

material are altogether for it!”

 

from To Think of Time