| 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." |
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~ Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science |
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| 2 |
"Only a self-imposed illusion of separateness keeps us from recognizing our own center of awareness and identity with the One" |
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~ Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science |
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| 3 |
"The world is single and it came into being from the center outwards." Joannes Stobaeus (5th century), Greek anthologist |
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~ Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science |
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| 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." |
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~ Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science |
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| 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." |
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~ Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science |
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| 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.'" |
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~ Robert Macoy, A Dictionary of Freemasonry |
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| 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." |
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~ Robert Macoy, A Dictionary of Freemasonry |
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| 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." |
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~ Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love, Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles |
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| 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) |
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~ Dagobert D. Runes, editor, A Treasury of Philosophy, Vol. 1 |
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| 10 |
"Spirit may be defined as that which has its center in itself." Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), German philosopher |
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~ Dagobert D. Runes, editor, A Treasury of Philosophy, Vol. 1 |
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| 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) |
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~ Dagobert D. Runes, editor, A Treasury of Philosophy, Vol. 1 |
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| 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." |
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~ Macrina Wiederkehr, A Tree Full of Angels |
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| 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." |
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~ Meredith L. Young, Agartha: The Essential Guide to Personal Transformation in the New Era |
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| 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." |
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~ Shirley Nicholson, Ancient Wisdom, Modern Insight |
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| 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 |
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~ Raphael Ben Zion, Translator, Anthology of Jewish Mysticism |
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| 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, |
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~ Leo W. Dowling, Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ |
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| 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." |
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~ Ronald S. Miller and the editors of New Age Journal, As Above, So Below: Paths to Spiritual Renewal in Daily Life |
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| 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 |
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~ Ronald S. Miller and the editors of New Age Journal, As Above, So Below: Paths to Spiritual Renewal in Daily Life |
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| 19 |
"The center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days." Stephen Jay Gould |
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~ Ronald S. Miller and the editors of New Age Journal, As Above, So Below: Paths to Spiritual Renewal in Daily Life |
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| 20 |
"The divine eye is center everywhere, circumference nowhere." |
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~ Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi |
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| 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." |
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~ Huston Smith, Beyond the Post-Modern Mind |
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| 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. |
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~ John Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks |
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| 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. |
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~ John Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks |
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| 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! |
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~ John Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks |
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| 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. |
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~ John Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks |
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| 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…?" |
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~ Pierre Teilhard deChardin, Building the Earth |
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| 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." |
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~ Geoffrey Hodson, Call to the Heights, Guidance on the Pathway to Self-illumination |
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| 28 |
"From within, from the very most interior center of existence and consciousness, the fact of oneness evermore proves to be the overriding truth." |
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~ Geoffrey Hodson, Call to the Heights, Guidance on the Pathway to Self-illumination |
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| 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." |
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~ Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul |
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| 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 |
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~ M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., Centering Prayer, Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form |
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| 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." |
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~ M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., Centering Prayer, Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form |
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| 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." |
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~ M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., Centering Prayer, Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form |
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| 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." |
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~ M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., Centering Prayer, Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form |
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| 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." |
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~ Carl Jung, Collected Works |
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| 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 |
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~ Carl Jung, Collected Works |
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| 36 |
"The idea of the 'anima mundi' [soul of the world] coincides with that of the collective unconscious whose center is the self." |
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~ Carl Jung, Collected Works |
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| 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' |
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~ Carl Jung, Collected Works |
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| 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." |
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~ Carl Jung, Collected Works |
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| 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." |
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~ Morton T. Kelsey, Companions on the Inner Way |
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| 40 |
"God…is the center of all selves." |
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~ Valentin Tomberg, Covenant of the Heart, Meditations of a Christian Hermeticist on the Mysteries of Tradition |
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| 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." |
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~ Valentin Tomberg, Covenant of the Heart, Meditations of a Christian Hermeticist on the Mysteries of Tradition |
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| 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." |
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~ Valentin Tomberg, Covenant of the Heart, Meditations of a Christian Hermeticist on the Mysteries of Tradition |
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| 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." |
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~ Marion Woodman and Elinor Dickson, Dancing in the Flames, The Dark Goddess in the Transformation of Consciousness |
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| 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." |
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~ St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul |
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| 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 |
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~ Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith, editors, Devotional Classics |
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| 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 |
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~ Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith, editors, Devotional Classics |
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| 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." |
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~ William Issacs, Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together |
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| 48 |
"Each person is a center of infinite love….Through recognition, the use of infinite love within a person can grow." |
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~ Jack and Cornelia Addington, Drawing the Larger Circle, How to Love and Be Loved |
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| 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." |
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~ Jack and Cornelia Addington, Drawing the Larger Circle, How to Love and Be Loved |
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| 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." |
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~ Sophy Burnham, Ecstatic Journey, The Transforming Power of Mystical Experience |
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| 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.'" |
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~ Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Psychology II |
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| 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." |
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~ Marianne Williamson, Everyday Grace, Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness, and Making Miracles |
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| 53 |
"Joy is the still point at the center of the dance." |
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~ Robert Ellwood, Finding Deep Joy |
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| 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." |
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~ Thomas Dubay, S.M., Fire Within: St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and the Gospel - on Prayer' |
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| 55 |
"One aspect of the soul is always joined with the center of creation, and this is our eternal link with truth." |
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~ Rabbi David A. Cooper, God Is A Verb, Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism |
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| 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." |
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~ Ken Wilber, Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber |
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| 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' |
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~ Richard Carlson and Benjamin Shield, editors, Handbook for the Heart, Original Writings on Love |
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| 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." |
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~ Joseph Campbell, Hero With A Thousand Faces |
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| 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." |
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~ Richard Wilhelm, translator, I Ching or The Book of Changes |
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| 60 |
"If intellect and will are correctly centered, the emotional life takes on harmony." |
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~ Richard Wilhelm, translator, I Ching or The Book of Changes |
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| 61 |
"God is at work every moment, sustaining everything in being – and therefore, He is at the center of every human being." |
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~ Donald Spoto, Ph.D., In Silence: Why We Pray |
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| 62 |
"By penetrating to the core of our own being, we can make contact with the consciousness at the center of the universe." |
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~ Richard Smoley, Inner Christianity, A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition |
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| 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." |
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~ Richard Smoley, Inner Christianity, A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition |
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| 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' |
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~ Virginia Hanson and Rosemarie Stewart, editors, Karma, The Universal Law of Harmony |
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| 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." |
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~ Manly P. Hall, Lectures on Ancient Philosophy |
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| 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." |
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~ Manly P. Hall, Lectures on Ancient Philosophy |
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| 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." |
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~ Richard Wilhelm, Lectures on the I Ching: Constancy and Change |
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| 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." |
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~ Richard Wilhelm, Lectures on the I Ching: Constancy and Change |
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| 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." |
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~ Richard Wilhelm, Lectures on the I Ching: Constancy and Change |
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| 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 |
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~ Sherwood Eliot Wirt and Kersten Beckstrom, editors, Living Quotations for Christians |
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| 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." |
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~ Harold Bloomfield, M.D. & Philip Goldberg, Ph.D., Making Peace With God, A Practical Guide |
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| 72 |
“One can reach the center directly from any point of the compass.” C. G. Jung, ‘Approaching the Unconscious’ |
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~ Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols |
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| 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 |
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~ Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols |
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| 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." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 76 |
"The Vegetative [Living] Universe opens like a flower from the earth's center in which is Eternity." William Blake |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 80 |
"This eternal NOW and the realization of one's center are coeval, simultaneous events." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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.'" |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 83 |
"To be integrated, to be made whole, means to be able to maintain contact with one's center." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 89 |
"Go to the center and know the Whole. Follow this path." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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 |
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| 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." |
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~ Jose and Miriam Arguelles, Mandala |
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| 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 |
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| 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 |
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| 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 |
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| 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' |
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~ Judith Cornell, Ph.D., Mandala, Luminous Symbols for Healing |
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| 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." |
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~ Marilyn Ferguson, Marilyn Ferguson's Book of PragMagic |
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| 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." |
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~ Carl Jung (edited by Aniela Jaffe), Memories, Dreams, Reflections |
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| 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." |
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~ James Finley, Merton's Palace of Nowhere |
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| 101 |
"Love is the energy, the light, and the sound that echoes from your soul and emanates from the center of your heart." |
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~ Rabbi Shoni Labowitz, Miraculous Living |
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| 102 |
"One can learn to experience timelessness, and can become aware of how nearly the deepest center in the I is one with the deepest center of the universe. This is sober 'ec-stasy' (or stepping out) from the time-bound to the timeless. The goal is absorption in Brahma in the same way all colors coincide in white light." |
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~ Bruno Borchert, Mysticism, Its History and Challenge |
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| 103 |
"The center of one's being coincides with the center of all things." |
|
~ Bruno Borchert, Mysticism, Its History and Challenge |
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| 104 |
"There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fulness." Robert Browning |
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~ Rudolf Steiner, Mystics after Modernism |
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| 105 |
"By this you may know that you are infinitely beloved: God has made your spirit a center in eternity comprehending all, and filled all about you in an endless manner with infinite riches." Thomas Traherne, 'Centuries of Meditations' |
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~ Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters |
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| 106 |
"The true symbol does not merely point to something else. It contains in itself a structure which awakens our consciousness to a new awareness of the inner meaning of life and of reality itself. A true symbol takes us to the center of the circle, not to another point on the circumference. It is by symbolism that man enters affectively and consciously into contact with his own deepest self, with other men, and with God." Thomas Merton, 'Symbolism: Communication or Communion? |
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~ Joseph Campbell, Myths To Live By |
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| 107 |
"The seven principles that form the basis of Kwanza celebration all center around community. They include the following: self-determination for the community; collective work and responsibility; cooperative economics; the collective vocation of building the community; and creativity whose purpose is 'to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.'" |
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~ Matthew Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from World Faiths |
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| 108 |
"All religious traditions assume that there is a sacred center to all things. The name differs from religious form to religious form, but it is clear that there is an inherent tendency for human beings to encounter this sacred center." |
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~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, One Spirit, Many Peoples, A Manifesto for Earth Spirituality |
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| 109 |
"The exchange of love between the contemplative person and the sacred center of all things keeps one on the path." |
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~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, One Spirit, Many Peoples, A Manifesto for Earth Spirituality |
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| 110 |
"At the center of all is a sacred thing that is alive and aware. It is the source of all things." |
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~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, One Spirit, Many Peoples, A Manifesto for Earth Spirituality |
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| 111 |
"Regular periods of meditation and prayer will center us in the awareness of the underlying truths, so that we can recognize the divine within ourselves and radiate this understanding to others around us." |
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~ Jeffrey Moses, Oneness: Great Principles Shared By All Religions |
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| 112 |
"The consciousness of the Divine is at the center of all human activity. Thus, at the heart of all loves is the love of God." Eliezer Shore, 'The Heart of Ritual' |
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~ various, Parabola, the Magazine of Myth and Tradition |
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| 113 |
"To praise this divinely benificent Providence you must turn to all of creation. It is there at the center of everything and everything has it for a destiny. It is there 'before all things and in it all things hold together (Col. 1:17)." |
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~ John Farina, Editor-in-Chief, Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works |
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| 114 |
"Now this is unified and one and common to the whole divinity, that the entire wholeness is participated in by each of those who participate in it; none participates in only a part. It is rather like the case of a circle. The center point of the circle is shared by the surrounding radii. Or take the example of a seal. There are numerous impressions of the seal and these all have a share in the original prototype; it is the same whole seal in each of the impressions and none participates in only a part." |
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~ John Farina, Editor-in-Chief, Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works |
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| 115 |
“All the radii of a circle are brought together in the unity of the center which contains all the straight lines brought together within itself. These are linked one to another because of this single point of origin and they are completely unified at this center.” |
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~ John Farina, Editor-in-Chief, Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works |
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| 116 |
"The image of the triune God is in the sphere, namely of the Father in the center, of the Son in the outer surface and of the Holy Ghost in the uniformity of connection between point and intervening space or surroundings." Johannes Kepler, 'Mysterium Cosmographicum', quoted by Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958) in 'Embracing the Rational and the Mystical' |
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~ Ken Wilber, editor, Quantum Questions, Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists |
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| 117 |
"So, where do you go to find this Wholeness? If you choose to use the power of each moment as it presents itself, to pull you in and rest you in the center where Being is experienced, you will find your Wholeness. You will find who you really are. You will experience pure, conscious awareness." |
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~ Mary-Margaret Moore, Reflections of an Elder Brother: Awakening from the Dream |
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| 118 |
"Your psyche is spherical, whole and complete. When you are approaching an experience of that wholeness, you begin to notice circles and spheres. The sun and moon are magnificent spherical mandalas, and isn't it a wonderful gift that both by day and by night, the heavens present the symbol of your wholeness to you?....The sphere contains the center point of your cohesive power. It can be used as an imaging device to aid in your movement toward wholeness." |
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~ Mary-Margaret Moore, Reflections of an Elder Brother: Awakening from the Dream |
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| 119 |
"In a sense each human being is the center of the universe, for God lives equally in all." |
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~ Irving S. Cooper, Reincarnation: A Hope of the World |
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| 120 |
"Philosophically viewed, the whirling wheel and its ever motionless center can be a potent symbol of the human struggle toward insight and harmony…..Only in the still center of the imperishable Self is true perspective apparently achieved." |
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~ Cranston/Head, editors, Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery |
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| 121 |
"By birth and growth the spirit-architect expands into this mass of which we consist, spreading outwards from the heart. Thither again it withdraws, winding up the threads of its web, returning by the same path along which it advanced, passed out by the same gate through which it entered. Birth is expansion of the center….death contraction to the center. It is the soul that gathers about it, groups and vivifies the atom-mass." Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), Italian philosopher and poet, quoted in J. Lewis McIntyre's 'Giordano Bruno', Macmillan, 1903 |
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~ Cranston/Head, editors, Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery |
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| 122 |
"Leibniz held with Bruno that each monadic center – whether an atom, a man, or a sun – is a mirror and replica of the entire cosmos, as well as the moving power in evolution." Editors |
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~ Cranston/Head, editors, Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery |
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| 123 |
"Every movement that returns to its point of origin must adopt the form of a circle. Only circular movement is continuous and consistent. Every object of nature is, then, a circle, whose function and activity derive from its center point, which is the soul." Dr. Felix Marti-Ibanez, 'Centaur, Essays on the History of Medical Ideas' |
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~ Cranston/Head, editors, Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery |
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| 124 |
"Deity and the cosmos may be likened to a circle or sphere whose circumference is nowhere – hence boundless – but those center is everywhere. And each monad is such a divine, immortal, preexistent center." Editors |
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~ Cranston/Head, editors, Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery |
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| 125 |
"The individual ego as I-ness, or as the I AM I, is never lost. It is that immortal, eternal center of Self-consciousness that undergoes the experiences within time and space but in itself is immortal." |
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~ Kyriacos C. Markides, Riding With the Lion: In Search of Mystical Christianity |
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| 126 |
"Each man's spirit (though included in diverse bodies) is made all one by the immediate, and first emanation or Universal beam of Unity; and Union in Nature can no more be severed or disjoined, than the bright stream which issues from the center of the Sun." |
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~ William Huffman, editor, Robert Fludd, Western Esoteric Masters Series |
|
| 127 |
"The Universe…is spread apart from a center of oneness to a diversity of light, color, tone and density." |
|
~ Mark L. and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Saint Germain on Alchemy |
|
| 128 |
"Mandalas have been used by many cultures to represent the creation of the universe. Carl Jung has theorized that mandalas represent centering, the unification of parts of the psyche." |
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~ Mike Samuels, M.D. and Nancy Samuels, Seeing With the Mind's Eye |
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| 129 |
"The mandala symbolizes the cosmos, and the center of the mandala represents the axis of the universe." |
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~ Mike Samuels, M.D. and Nancy Samuels, Seeing With the Mind's Eye |
|
| 130 |
"The field is part of the cow who grazes in it because she literally exchanges matter with the field almost continuously, not to mention breathing the sky and participating ultimately in the entire universe. Obviously this is something of a real-life rendition of Shakespeare's transcendent boast that 'I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space…' And in the memory of history it is an ecological version of ancient animism, a late form of which centered on the Pythagorean doctrine that the world itself has a soul, which was bequeathed to the Romans as 'anima mundi' and revered by the Hindus as Atman. I have a feeling there is also evidence here that life is temporally symmetrical: if it has no beginning, it can have no end. And if it occupies any point in space, it must fill the universe." |
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~ Guy Murchie, Seven Mysteries of Life, An Exploration in Science and Philosophy |
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| 131 |
"The Ultimate Reality is at once Absolute and Infinite….It can only be known through the sun of the Divine Self residing at the center of the human soul." Seyyed Hossein, Islamic scholar, 'Knowledge and the Sacred' |
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~ Frances Vaughan, Ph.D., Shadows of the Sacred: Seeing Through Spiritual Illusions |
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| 132 |
"The source and center of all existence is pure spirit existing in all created things simultaneously." John Redtail Freesoul, 'The Native American Prayer Pipe: Ceremonial Object and Tool of Self-Realization' |
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~ Shirley Nicholson, Compiler, Shamanism: An Expanded View of Reality |
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| 133 |
"I recognize and affirm that I am a center of pure self-consciousness. I am a center of will, capable of observing, directing, and using all my psychological processes." Roberto Assagioli, 'The Act of Will' |
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~ Alan Oken, Soul Centered Astrology, A Key to Your Expanding Self |
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| 134 |
"The purpose for humanity, both collectively and individually, is the revelation of the Soul's reality – the Love which is at the center of all forms and manifestations of Life." |
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~ Alan Oken, Soul Centered Astrology, A Key to Your Expanding Self |
|
| 135 |
"Actually there is no merging with the Center. We are always merged with the Center. It is rather an understanding of this eternal union now, and not a manufacture of it tomorrow." |
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~ Ken Wilber, Spectrum of Consciousness |
|
| 136 |
"To pray is to move to the center of all life and all love. The closer I come to the hub of life, the closer I come to all that receives its strength and energy from there….What does the hub represent? I think of it as my own heart, the heart of God, and the heart of the world. When I pray, I enter into the depth of my own heart and find there the heart of God, who speaks to me of love. And I recognize, right there, the place where all of my sisters and brothers are in communion with one another." Henri J. M. Nouwen, Catholic author, 'Here and Now' |
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~ Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spiritual Literacy, Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life |
|
| 137 |
"The mandala focuses attention on the center. The circle allows a center to emerge and the center then organizes the chaos about it. Patterns of meaning develop in relationship to the center." |
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~ John Welch, O. Carm., Spiritual Pilgrims, Carl Jung & Teresa of Avila |
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| 138 |
"Full healing and complete meaning come, ultimately, only from God at the center." |
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~ John Welch, O. Carm., Spiritual Pilgrims, Carl Jung & Teresa of Avila |
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| 139 |
"Healing comes from the mystery at the center." |
|
~ John Welch, O. Carm., Spiritual Pilgrims, Carl Jung & Teresa of Avila |
|
| 140 |
"The contemplation of God is based on a faith in God's love and goodness. Full healing and complete meaning come, ultimately, only from God at the center." |
|
~ John Welch, O. Carm., Spiritual Pilgrims, Carl Jung & Teresa of Avila |
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| 141 |
"The psyche of humanity contains…the divine Monad at the center." |
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~ Joseph Campbell & Richard Roberts, Tarot Revelations |
|
| 142 |
"The center of a spiral labyrinth may be likened to the maw of a dragon/serpent/crocodile in which the spirit/soul is devoured. But the way back is through the center; thus to be devoured is to be reborn,…a labyrinth is a form of Recycling Center." |
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~ Joseph Campbell & Richard Roberts, Tarot Revelations |
|
| 143 |
"In a twelfth-century hermetic text known as 'The Book of the Twenty-Four Philosophers' there is a statement that has been quoted, through the centuries, by a number of Christian thinkers – among others, Alan of Lille (1128-1202), Nicholas Cusanus (1401-1464), Rabelais (1490?-1553), Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), and Pascal (1632-1662), as well as Voltaire (1694-1778); to wit: 'God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.'" Joseph Campbell |
|
~ Joseph Campbell & Richard Roberts, Tarot Revelations |
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| 144 |
"Behind apparent randomness stands the archetypal order of an individual cosmic play, directed by a transcendental center." |
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~ Edward C. Whitmont, MD, The Alchemy of Healing |
|
| 145 |
" ... there may be oscillation between exhilaration and loneliness because Fear centers on the disruptive effect the transformative process may be having on the old itinerary: career direction, relationships, goals, and values ... there is a new self in an old culture." |
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~ Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy |
|
| 146 |
"One of the greatest paradoxes of the mystical life is this: that a man cannot enter into the deepest center of himself and pass through that center into God, unless he is able to pass entirely out of himself and empty himself and give himself to other people in the purity of a selfless love." Thomas Merton, 'Seeds of Contemplation' (20th century) |
|
~ John Chapin, Editor, The Book of Catholic Quotations |
|
| 147 |
"There is but one point in the universe where God communicates with us, and that is the center of our own soul." Archbishop Ullathorne, 'Humility and Patience' (19th century) |
|
~ John Chapin, Editor, The Book of Catholic Quotations |
|
| 148 |
The center of the Cyclone, in the deepest analysis I have yet done, is the quiet peaceful creating meeting place for all of us, connected in the Cosmic Network of Essences." |
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~ John C. Lilly, M.D., The Center of the Cyclone: An Autobiography of Inner Space |
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| 149 |
"Matter is immersed within the Center of Godhead." |
|
~ William Samuel, The Child Within Us Lives!, A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Metaphysics |
|
| 150 |
"The Divine Child of us has knowledge of the center Ground of religion, philosophy, metaphysics and science – already knowing all that needs to be known to make it through time." |
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~ William Samuel, The Child Within Us Lives!, A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Metaphysics |
|
| 151 |
"The True Teacher is inside yourself at your very center." |
|
~ William Samuel, The Child Within Us Lives!, A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Metaphysics |
|
| 152 |
"We never actually get away from the center and circumference where God put us." |
|
~ William Samuel, The Child Within Us Lives!, A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Metaphysics |
|
| 153 |
"There exists an ultimate Reality that is by nature both transcendent and immanent. The immanent aspect, this something of God in man, traces its ancestry to early Hindu sources, thence to the Socratic movement in philosophy, and on to the teaching of Jesus. Since then it has been variously expressed as: 'the deep center', 'the ground of the soul', 'the inward Voice', the Real Self', 'the inner Vocation', 'that something which binds us to the deeper processes of consciousness', 'that potentiality of an extension of consciousness', et cetera." |
|
~ Dorothy B. Phillips, Chief Editor, The Choice Is Always Ours |
|
| 154 |
"When any community is devoted to the vitality of the Center of and beyond each individual, there will be no danger of damaging consensus, for the particular 'color' of the Center as it expresses itself through each personality will contribute richness to the whole. This will bring relatedness and cooperation." Elizabeth Boyden Howes, Jungian analyst, written for this anthology |
|
~ Dorothy B. Phillips, Chief Editor, The Choice Is Always Ours |
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| 155 |
"He is your being and in him, you are what you are, not only because he is the cause and being of all that exists, but because he is your cause and the deep center of your being." |
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~ Unknown English author, The Cloud of Unknowing |
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| 156 |
"God is the dazzling light that constitutes the creative center of all life and movement. In that Point every 'where' and every 'when' are centered." Dante, 'The Divine Comedy', translated by Matthew Fox |
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~ Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ |
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| 157 |
"The fire at the center of the tepee, pipe, or of sweat lodge represents Wakan-Tanka, the Great Spirit within the world. How close this comes to Meister Eckhart's teaching that a 'spark of the soul' burns within every creature and every human that will never be extinguished and that this spark of the soul is the divine presence within us all. All of creation shares in this holiness." |
|
~ Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ |
|
| 158 |
"The power of love dissolves self-centeredness and brings the wisdom to act effectively in all situations." |
|
~ Arthur W. Osborn, The Cosmic Womb, An Interpretation of Man's Relationship to the Infinite |
|
| 159 |
"In the Aquarian Age…humanity enters into an expansion of consciousness which will reveal to him group relations instead of his individual and self-centered personal relations." |
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~ Alice A. Bailey, The Destiny of the Nations |
|
| 160 |
"I am blind and do not see the things of this world; but when the light comes from above, it enlightens my heart and I can see, for the Eye of my heart sees everything and through this vision I can help my people. The heart is a sanctuary at the center of which there is a little space, wherein the Great Spirit dwells, and this is the Eye. This is the Eye of the Great Spirit by which He sees all things, and through which we see Him. If the heart is not pure, the Great Spirit cannot be seen." Black Elk, Native American Elder |
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~ Andrew Harvey, The Essential Mystics |
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| 161 |
"Self-knowledge reveals to the soul that its natural motion is not, if uninterrupted, in a straight line, but circular, as around some inner object, about a center, the point to which it owes its origin. If the soul knows this, it will move around this center from which it came, will cling to it and commune with it as indeed all souls should….for divinity consists in being attached to the center." Plotinus, 'The Good or The One' |
|
~ Translated by Elmer O'Brien, S.J., The Essential Plotinus |
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| 162 |
"Our hearts are the rivers through which God's love flows. They are the eminent domain of divine energy and possess an intelligence greater than any other aspect of our being. Love emanating from our heart-center is a powerful force that unleashes the very creative energy of the universe." Sue Patton, psychotherapist and author, 'A Deep and Holy Hunger: Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine in Daily Life', |
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~ M. J. Ryan, editor, The Fabric of the Future |
|
| 163 |
"Serving the global vision through our personal vision may change thousands if not millions of lives, and in turn change our world." Rama Vernon, President of the Center for International Dialogue, 'Manifesting the Vision' |
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~ M. J. Ryan, editor, The Fabric of the Future |
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| 164 |
"There is a 'higher' power guiding us even in moments of greatest distress." Rama Vernon, President of the Center for International Dialogue, 'Manifesting the Vision' |
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~ M. J. Ryan, editor, The Fabric of the Future |
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| 165 |
"The esoteric traditions of all cultures speak of the 'withinness' of things that seeks to externalize and to fulfill itself. If we think of our planet as an organic, growing system – a living being – then it, too, has an image of fulfillment buried within its seed center, an image that is using all of nature as its means of emergence." |
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~ The Findhorn Community, The Findhorn Garden: Pioneering a New Vision of Man and Nature in Cooperation |
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| 166 |
"Look at the spokes of a bicycle wheel. At the rim, each spoke is separated from all the others. At the hub, each spoke is one with all the others. Each of us is like one of those spokes, connected with all the others at the center, at our spiritual hub." |
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~ Marianne Williamson, The Gift of Change, Spiritual Guidance for a Radically New Life |
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| 167 |
"The moment the World Trade Centers fell, the complete solution to the problem that then confronted us was created full-blown within the Mind of God. The solution is a plan involving every human being, to the extent to which we make ourselves available to Him." |
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~ Marianne Williamson, The Gift of Change, Spiritual Guidance for a Radically New Life |
|
| 168 |
"It is not a 'tete-a-tete' or a 'corps-a-corps' that we need; it is a heart-to-heart….If the synthesis of the Spirit is to be brought about in its entirety (and this is the only possible definition of progress), it can only be done, in the last resort, through the meeting, center to center, of human units, such as can only be realized in the universal, mutual love….There is but one possible way in which human elements, innumerably diverse by nature, can love one another: it is by knowing themselves all to be centered on a single 'supercenter' common to all." Pierre Teilhard deChardin, 'The Future of Man' |
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~ Peter Russell, The Global Brain, Speculations on the Evolutionary Leap to Planetary Consciousness |
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| 169 |
"The pure Self is an unchanging entity. It is at the center of all consciousness throughout society, just as the genes are the same throughout a particular individual." |
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~ Peter Russell, The Global Brain, Speculations on the Evolutionary Leap to Planetary Consciousness |
|
| 170 |
"The imperative 'gnothi sauton', 'Know yourself', was among the Greek inscriptions at the oracular center dedicated to Apollo at Delphi, and this saying is discussed by Plato in Alcibiades I and by Plutarch in his essay On the E at Delphi. The Gospel of Philip also reflects upon the saying. In the Secret Book of James, Jesus tells the disciples to know themselves." |
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~ Marvin Meyer, The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus |
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| 171 |
"The pair of opposites is always there until one can find the center. Then in the center one can move and then go freely." Jean Erdman, Joseph Campbell's wife |
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~ Phil Cousineau, editor, The Hero's Journey |
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| 172 |
"Every point is equally the center of a circle whose radius is infinite." |
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~ Charles W. Leadbeater, The Inner Life |
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| 173 |
"Black Elk's word, 'The center is everywhere', is matched by a statement from a hermetic, early medieval text, 'The Book of the Twenty-four Philosophers': 'God is an infinite sphere, whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere." |
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~ Joseph Campbell, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, Metaphor as Myth and as Religion |
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| 174 |
"There is a Center to the personality that includes the whole Self….This whole Self is in each of us as a potentiality and seeks to be realized in the life process." |
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~ John Sanford, The Kingdom Within, the Inner Meaning of Jesus' Sayings |
|
| 175 |
"Faith is essential. But this is not an intellectual faith that consists in giving assent to creedal doctrines; it is an inner attitude; a committing ourselves to the inner way regardless of what comes, a determination to know the One who is at the center." |
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~ John Sanford, The Kingdom Within, the Inner Meaning of Jesus' Sayings |
|
| 176 |
"Mythological symbols touch and exhilarate centers of life beyond the reach of vocabularies of reason and coercion. The light-world modes of experience and thought were late, very late, developments in the biological prehistory of our species….Shakespeare's definition of the function of his art, 'to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature,' is equally a definition of mythology. It is the revelation to waking consciousness of the powers of its own sustaining source." |
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~ Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God |
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| 177 |
"Mythological symbols touch and exhilarate centers of life beyond the reach of vocabularies of reason and coercion. The light-world modes of experience and thought were late, very late, developments in the biological prehistory of our species." |
|
~ Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God |
|
| 178 |
"Every place is the center because God is an infinite, intelligible sphere – totally unlimited and undetermined. Wherever the Divine is, that is the center." |
|
~ Wayne Teasdale, The Mystic Hours, A Daybook of Interspiritual Wisdom & Devotion |
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| 179 |
"No matter where you are, remember that forgiveness offers you peace of mind and everything else you could possibly ever want or hope for. It is an elixir, giving you your wholeness and leading you into the heart of God." Gerald Jampolsky, psychiatrist, founder of the Center for Attitudinal Healing |
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~ Wayne Teasdale, The Mystic Hours, A Daybook of Interspiritual Wisdom & Devotion |
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| 180 |
"In being one with the Divine, or what the Native Americans of the plains might call the Great Spirit, we are also at the center of the cosmos. In relationship with the Great Spirit, we share this same center. Let us find peace in this unity." |
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~ Wayne Teasdale, The Mystic Hours, A Daybook of Interspiritual Wisdom & Devotion |
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| 181 |
"'Sit in the center of yourself and you see what is and shall be,' says a Sufi mystic." |
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~ August Karl Reischauer, The Nature and Truth of the Great Religions |
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| 182 |
"The true doctrine is impacted in the imperishable center of man's nature." |
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~ William Q. Judge, The Ocean of Theosophy |
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| 183 |
"The primal center is the innermost light, of a translucence, subtlety, and purity beyond comprehension. That inner point extended becomes a 'palace' which acts as an enclosure for the center, and is also of a radiance translucent beyond the power to know it." 'Zohar', edited by Gershom Scholem, Schocken, New York 1963 |
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~ Willis Barnstone, editor, The Other Bible |
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| 184 |
"In the establishment now proceeding through science and the philosophies of a collective human Weltanschauung in which every one of us cooperates and participates, are we not experiencing the first symptoms of an aggregation of a still higher order, the birth of some single center from the convergent beams of millions of elementary centers dispersed over the surface of the thinking earth?" |
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~ Pierre Teilhard deChardin, The Phenomenon of Man |
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| 185 |
"I think of grass – you know, every two weeks a chap comes out with a lawnmower and cuts it down. Suppose the grass were to say, 'Well, for Pete's sake, what's the use if you keep getting cut down this way?' Instead, it keeps on growing. That's the sense of the energy of the center. That's the meaning of the image of the Grail, of the inexhaustible fountain, of the source." |
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~ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth |
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| 186 |
"God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." Empedocles (490-430 BCE), fragment |
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~ Peter Lorie and Manuela D Mascetti, editors, The Quotable Spirit |
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| 187 |
"Let the OM be heard right at the center of the group, proclaiming God is All." |
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~ Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and The Initiations |
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| 188 |
"In the coming new cycle the emphasis will be upon group work and activity, upon group initiation and group approach to the Center of Life." |
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~ Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and The Initiations |
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| 189 |
"Humanity is a great center of energy, affecting all the subhuman kingdoms, and forming likewise within itself a great system of interrelated energies." |
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~ Alice A. Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ |
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| 190 |
"A universe comes to birth from its center; it spreads out from a central point that is, as it were, its navel. It is in this way that, according to the Rig Veda (X, 149), the universe was born and developed from a core, a central point." |
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~ Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, The Nature of Religion |
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| 191 |
"The symbolism of the center is the formative principle not only of countries, cities, temples, and palaces but also of the humblest human dwelling." |
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~ Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, The Nature of Religion |
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| 192 |
"There is an immortal center of being in us." |
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~ Shirley J. Nicholson, The Seven Human Powers: Luminous Shadows of the Self |
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| 193 |
"The individual center of consciousness is one with the universal, all-encompassing divine consciousness." |
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~ Shirley J. Nicholson, The Seven Human Powers: Luminous Shadows of the Self |
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| 194 |
"The natural image to depict the Infinite's inclusiveness is a circle, an all-including circle that encompasses our finite universe and out of which it is impossible to fall. 'In Him we live and move and have our being', Paul tells us, and Augustine added, 'God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.'" |
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~ Huston Smith, The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition |
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| 195 |
"The myths and stories that have come down to us are not dogma to be taken literally….they are poetry, not theology – meant, in Joseph Campbell's words, 'to touch and exhilarate centers of life beyond the reach of vocabularies of reason and coercion.'" |
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~ Starhawk (Miriam Simos), The Spiral Dance, A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess |
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| 196 |
"The center of the circle is the point of transformation. It corresponds to pure essence, to timelessness, to transparent light." |
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~ Starhawk (Miriam Simos), The Spiral Dance, A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess |
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| 197 |
"The many are but rays of the One, manifested centers of consciousness, channels of the One, each in its own measure." |
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~ Annie Besant, The Spiritual Life |
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| 198 |
"Indeed, the idea of the soul is perhaps the single, most significant concept of our time: one that needs a current, scientifically relevant and heart-centered spiritual view." |
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~ Fred Alan Wolf, Ph. D., The Spiritual Universe |
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| 199 |
"Ancient sacred texts refer to the intelligence of the heart, the eye of the heart. This is the heart center, where we see with the feeling light of love." |
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~ Ralph Metzner, The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience |
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| 200 |
"By going to my center, my central axis, I can experience the central axis, pole, or pillar of the world – the cosmic hub, the navel of the world (omphalos)." |
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~ Ralph Metzner, The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience |
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| 201 |
"The tree of life symbolizes the interdimensional central axis, with its energy centers and branching channels, that is our connection with the realms of spirit and hence immortal life." |
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~ Ralph Metzner, The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience |
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| 202 |
"The personal center of the individual is essentially the Self (atman), which is beyond the particularities of physical-psychic-mental life or of any changeable things or of change as such." |
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~ Michael vonBruck, The Unity of Reality |
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| 203 |
"By knowing Him who is subtler than the subtlest, the still center of all activity, the fashioner of forms, enfolding the universe in His embrace, by knowing Him as Love, we find eternal peace." Shvetashvatara Upanishad, IV.8-14 |
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~ Alistair Shearer and Peter Russell, translators, The Upanishads, selections translated by Alistair Shearer and Peter Russell |
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| 204 |
"Humanity seems certainly to have reached the stage of its evolution in which it cannot from any viewpoint face the problems presented to it by the growth of its inner energy without defining for itself a center of love and adoration." |
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~ Pierre Teilhard deChardin, The Vision of the Past |
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| 205 |
"Act from the center – which the poet T. S. Eliot called 'the still point.'" |
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~ Amit Goswami, Ph.D., The Visionary Window: A Quantum Physicist's Guide to Enlightenment |
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| 206 |
"In the center of the castle of Brahman, our own body, there is a small shrine in the form of a lotus-flower, and within can be found a small space. We should find who dwells there, and we should want to know him." Chandogya Upanishad |
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~ Mark L. and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Understanding Yourself: A Spiritual Approach to Self-Discovery and Soul-Awareness |
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| 207 |
"The individual who reaches out from the seemingly separated center of being can, if he will, contact the cosmic center of life. From there he may reach out to the periphery of all reality as easily as the miracle of the radiant, expanding mind of God penetrates the universe with light." |
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~ Mark L. and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Understanding Yourself: A Spiritual Approach to Self-Discovery and Soul-Awareness |
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| 208 |
"Our essential identity is the certainty and the oneness of being that is at the center of all experience." |
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~ Carlos Warter, M.D., Ph.D., Who Do You Think You Are? The Healing Power of Your Sacred Self |
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| 209 |
"When we are acting from a centered place – the open heart – we can access our own inner wisdom and open to divine healing energy as well." |
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~ Carlos Warter, M.D., Ph.D., Who Do You Think You Are? The Healing Power of Your Sacred Self |
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| 210 |
"Love is the vital essence that pervades and permeates, from the center to the circumference, the graduating circles of all thought and action. Love is the talisman of human weal and woe – the open sesame to every human soul." Elizabeth Cady Stanton, speech at tenth National Woman's Rights Convention |
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~ John Marks Templeton, Worldwide Laws of Life: 200 Eternal Spiritual Principles |
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| 211 |
"The true universal, 'higher' self within us is an individualized center of God-consciousness." |
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~ John Marks Templeton, Worldwide Laws of Life: 200 Eternal Spiritual Principles |
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| 212 |
"Charity [love] is the force that stops beings from shutting themselves up in a self-centered folding-in of their energies, and makes them 'unbutton', open themselves and surrender themselves to one another." |
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~ Pierre Teilhard deChardin, Writings in Time of War |
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| 213 |
"There is only ONE SINGLE CENTER in the universe…it impels the whole of creation along one and the same line, first towards the fullest development of consciousness, and later towards the highest degree of holiness." |
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~ Pierre Teilhard deChardin, Writings in Time of War |
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