Teachers:
Anthony Damiani
“The sublime majesty of Truth’s presence in the sacred sermons of so many wise ones, those of good will, ultimately guides us to the ways of peace and wisdom, the lovely, the holy. And so our troubled hearts are reassured, and we can read and reread about God’s word in many scriptures.
“However incomprehensible, a faith settles into our hearts that awakens the desire to understand Infinity and Forever. The dedication is eternal and to the Eternal. For the Word becomes flesh — and this is an eternal utterance, an act that includes the human heart mounted on a towering aspiration. Yet even this pyramiding love is without effect unless winged with Grace. So we shall let fly our supplications, enfolded in holy silence on wings of veneration, to the throne of our most Sovereign Good with the request to guide the spirit of our understanding, wherein we stand within God’s Light, in order to see the pouring out of the Sacred Word made manifest.” Invocation from Astronoesis
"You have to go through the Absolute Silence, to get an answer from within". 1981
"Remember, it’s the angle from which you’re trying to understand something that’s going to determine the answer to your question". 1972
Marsilio Ficino
“O boundless light, observing yourself, seeing all things in yourself!
O infinite sight, shining from yourself, illuminating all!
O spiritual eye, whom alone and by whom alone, spiritual eyes see!
O immortal life of those that see!
O all goodness of the living!” (Letter 116, v.1)
“My love is religious and my religion full of love. Indeed, creation is so ordered that there is no true love that is not religious, nor is there any true religion but that sustained by love.” (Letter 48, v.1)
Paul Brunton
“... the ultimate goal is to discover that there is but one reality, of which we are all but a part, that the separateness of the personal ego is but superficial, and that TRUTH
is evidenced by the consciousness of unity. The first fruit of such discovery is necessarily the
dedication of life to the service of all creatures, to incessant service for universal welfare." Realizing Soul
“The central point of this quest is the inner opening of the ego's heart to the Overself" Perspectives
“In your innermost being you are already as divine as you are ever likely to be. Hence,
no interior training can give you what you already possess, but a suitable training can
give you the consciousness of what you possess." Instructions for Spiritual Living
Mountains are traditionally associated with initiation. A mountain knows how to remain quiet, it is a perfect symbol of stillness…To go up a mountain is symbolically to enter that condition of complete inner silence stillness, wherein initiation becomes possible. Unpublished
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From Volume 16 of the Notebooks, Enlightened Mind, Divine Mind
“We are not God. Yet we can approach God so intimately, be suffused by His presence so completely, that the first mystic to call this state “ union with God” may be excused. The telepathic closeness which sometimes exists between two separated lovers, relatives, or friends is a slight hint of the telepathic closeness which exists between the harmonized human ego and its divine soul.
“The God in the sun is the `I' in me"--this put tersely is the essence of man's relationship to divinity. A whole book may be needed to explain it, a whole lifetime to get direct experience of its truth as insight.”
“It might well be said that I am connected with God on the one hand, with the world on the other hand, but both connections are highly ingenious inventions. God is literally in me. His "I" makes my "I" possible. My own sense of being is immersed in God's archetypal thought.”
“The soul in us, the Overself, is linked with, or rooted in, the soul in the universe, the World-Mind.”
“Thus the World-Mind originates our experience for us but we ourselves mold it. It supplies the karmic-forces material and we as individuals supply the space-time shape which this material takes. Thus there is a union of the individual with the universal.”
“If he refuses to seek and cling to the human personality of any master but resolves to keep all the strength of his devotion for the divine impersonal Self back of his own, that will not bar his further progress. It, too, is a way whereby the goal can be successfully reached. But it is a harder way.”
“Socrates got his wisdom from within himself. He had no master.”
“The teachings of Jesus were not based on any of the ancient doctrines--that is, those of the Jews, Egyptians, or Indians. They were entirely Self-inspired.”
“It is surprising how widely people have ignored Jesus' message ("The kingdom of heaven is within you") when its meaning is so clear, its phrasing so strong.”
“It would be a grave error to believe that when philosophy says that the divine dwells in everything, it dwells equally in everything.”
Raphael:
On Eros:
‘Eros according to Plato, what he really meant, Eros is that fire, that thirst for the Divine. This fire, this love, is a driving force let’s say that takes off and leads to the realization of the Divine… Therefore the Eros transforms this energy from the lower chakras and gives it to the higher chakras, to talk in chakra terms.’ ‘Without Eros we cannot become philosophers!’
On the Heart and Love:
The Heart is the symbol of the center, both the microcosmic center (individual entity) and the macrocosmic center (universal entity).
If you look for the heart you find Love, and Love is supreme Knowledge that offers rest and beatitude to the tired wayfarer, comfort and growth to the Soul immersed in måyå-avidyå.
He who has reached the center of the Heart has reached not only his own centrality but the center of all things; he has realized the identity with the central spiritual sun which is the true Heart of all the worlds; he has resolved all dualities of the samsåra and broken through the transitory orbits. He who has attained the center of the Heart feeds on the fire of Love, that love that “moves the sun and the other stars”.
Love is quality of fullness, is fusing, resolving, liberating, while feeling is conservative and acquisitive quality. The sentimental ego must acquire and obtain that which it does not have by nature, and therefore needs support and dependence.
It is necessary to distinguish between sacred Love and profane love, the former is supra-individual and suprasensory, the latter operates in the individual and particular domain.
On Humility:
Humility does not constitute only a moral virtue, benign and linked to the human plane and therefore of an ethical and sentimental-religious character; nor can it be said to be only an intellectual quality, although Humility, which we have talked about, comprehends without doubt these positive qualities.
Humility represents a spiritual symbol and as such it incorporates an immense, infinite value because it represents the accomplishment of total renunciation and all identifications, because it renounces the entire scope of the mental content from the gross object to the universal Being (Ishvara), and is therefore the essence itself of renunciation (samnyasa) in its most elevated form: self-renunciation. That is renunciation towards oneself, the renunciation of the jiva-center of the self-consciousness to “exist” as a separated entity, and therefore the solution and extinction (nirvana) in the Self-atman.
Humility is self-renunciation; the vital expression, humble and comprehensive, and not only is it the prelude in a certain measure to one’s own spiritual elevation, but as a matter of fact attains complete Knowledge-realization. It can be said that it is the “clear sign” of all-pervasive. Knowledge that manifests the Unity of Consciousness of one who has attained to really and totally living one’s own omni-comprehensive visions.
Trigueirinho:
“We are not asking that you donate your spare time. We count on the offer of your lives.”
“Many remain, waiting to be prepared to be able to serve and do not realize that it is service that would prepare them for the new steps.” The Formation of Healers
“Just as we cannot live physically without the water we drink, our consciousness cannot survive without the light of distant worlds, and the Mother of the World is the bearer of this Light.” Lecture 4 on the Divine Mother
Morari Bapu
“Each should be given the right to choose his or her own path”
“It is necessary to have a limit, even for happiness”
“To reach the Supreme is to reach our own inner self”
“Patience is required to understand the truth”
“True love gives birth to contentment”
“When you sense innate joy permeating you from within, know that you have tasted the divine nectar”
“If you are aiming at the highest and none are laughing at you, know that your goal is not high enough”
“Self-realized people provide us with the tools: the journey needs to be undertaken by us”
“Love is the mantra for the 21st century, only Love”
“Our life itself is a temple”
“The final step of joy and bliss is tears”
Mother Meera:
“Love is everywhere and exists in everything. It is selfless. Love gives itself and asks for nothing like a tree gives fruit and expects nothing from us. Love is a powerful and dynamic Energy.”
“The different Gods are like different facets of the same diamond, and in each facet all the other facets are reflected. There is no special Goddess or God to worship. In realty all are One. You call the One or Absolute, Paramatma or God. Only the names for forms are different ... You can worship whomever you like. I will help you. ”
“I have come to say that all paths are as good as each other and all lead to the Divine, and that therefore the various believers should respect each other’s ways… People who follow any path can come to me – I help them to remember the Divine and give them peace and happiness when they are in trouble.”
“Before coming here I knew who I was, I knew that I would incarnate and what my work would be. The Mother is beyond time.”
“As the Mother I have my own special work which I know exactly and precisely how to accomplish.”
“Many people think that they can own me, but I will always escape. I have always been, and will always be, free.”
“Wherever there is aspiration, I will feel happy. My work is not for one country or one race or one people only; it is for the world.”
“Avatars come from the Divine, while self-realized persons go to the Divine. Avatars are always one with God and never loose awareness of the Divine unlike gurus who began ignorant.”
Others:
“the life of the individual only has value [insofar] as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful.” (Albert Einstein)
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“True love is transcendental. Without recognition of the formless within yourself, there can be no true transcendental love. If you cannot recognize the formless in yourself, you cannot recognize it in the other. The recognition of the other as yourself in essence – not the form – is true love.” (Eckhart Tolle)
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“I Salute the Light in your eyes where the whole Universe dwells; for, when you are at the center within you, and I am at that place within me, WE SHALL BE ONE” (Chief Crazy Horse, Tasuŋke Witco)
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“Our task is to make the hidden life of God shine in this lower world, the world of matter” (Martin Buber)
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“Love sits as sultan in my soul, His army has made camp in my heart” (Ibn al-Arabi)
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“A doctrine that ignores everyday life is not the true doctrine.” Genro (18th Century Japanese Monk)
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Traditions
Christianity
"if we cannot recognize the divinity in the Prophets of other nations, we have not realized
the divinity of our own Prophet and we have not understood the eternal Truth of the Unity of
Divine Being under the variety of names and forms.... I am sure that the Christian who
sees the divinity in Christ alone and who does not recognize his own Master (Christ)
when he comes in the form of the Buddha or Krishna has not realized the divinity of
Christ Himself" Swami Abhedananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna
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The path to liberation is not made by us, but is prepared for us,by the descent of the Savior: “Seals in My hands, I will descend, down through the universal aeons will I make a way; all mysteries I will
reveal and manifest the forms the gods display.”
G.R.S. Meade quoting Christ from an ancient text in “Quests Old and New”
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“the Word of God desires to repeat in men the Mystery of His Incarnation,” giving birth to Christ spiritually, as the Mother of God did bodily. St Maximos the Confessor and Metropolitan Chrysostomos in his book “ (Abba Dorotheos of Gaza.)
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"We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature (trees, flowers, grass) grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls." - (Mother Teresa)
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“The more you are afflicted the more you ought to rejoice, because in the fire of tribulation the soul will become pure gold, worth to shine in the heavenly palace” (Padre Pio)
Platonism and Neo-Platonism
“the consciousness of our own nothingness, when we compare ourselves with the Gods, causes us to betake ourselves spontaneously to prayer.” (Iamblicus)
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“Plato used to say that in the education of the young what is of most importance is that children should become accustomed to delight only in those things that are honourable. ‘Otherwise’, he used to say, "pleasure is bait for evils". He would add that true health of mind is the love of wisdom. In truth, other powers seem to be not so much love of wisdom as embellishments. Nothing is sweeter for a healthy mind than to speak and hear true things; for there is nothing better or more enduring than truth. To some people who asked what kind of possessions then should one chiefly provide for one's children, he said, "Those which would dread neither hailstorm nor the violence of men nor even Jove himself."
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The Divine Mother
On the Phrase “Mother of the World”
From Esoteric Healing, by Alice Bailey (p. 362-3)
The various ways in which the phrase can be used can mean quite a number of things. It can mean:
- The feminine aspect in manifestation, symbolized for us in many of the world religions as a virgin mother and in the Christian religion as the Virgin Mary. It is that substance which enables Deity to manifest.
- Nature itself, the mother of all forms.
- The moon also, who is the symbol of the generative, creative life which gives birth to forms and is therefore the symbol of the form nature.
- The concentration of the feminine force in nature in some individual in female form who is then called the “World Mother.” Such an individual has never existed in our planetary life, though the avatars of a previous solar system, expressing itself through planetary life, always took this form. But not in this solar system. The tradition of such appearances is purely symbolic, inherited from the previous solar system from which we inherited the matter which all manifested forms are made. This symbolism has come down from the far-off period of the Matriarchate, which had a religion that recalled the ancient ways of the earlier system and in which period of time Lilith symbolized the World Mother, until Eve took her place.
Ramakrishna on the Divine Mother
Not much over one hundred years ago God walked with man in the blissful form of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa of Dakshineswar. One of His disciples, Swami Turiyananda, told in later times of one visit to Sri Ramakrishna during which a renowned Vedantic scholar spoke at His request. After more than an hour of brilliant exposition of the eternal philosophy, he fell silent. Paramhansa Deva was most pleased and spoke words of praise to him. Yet, He then said: "As far as I am concerned, I do not like all those details. There is nothing but my Mother and I. To you, knowledge, knower, and known - the one who meditates, meditation, and the object of meditation - this sort of triple division is very good. But for me, 'Mother and I' - that is all and nothing else."
Recounting this incident years later, Swami Turiyananda concluded:
"These words, 'Mother and I,' were said in such a way that it made a very deep impression on all present. At that moment all ideas of Vedanta paled into insignificance. The Master's 'Mother and I' seemed easier, simpler, and more pleasing to the mind than the three divisions of Vedanta. I realized then that 'Mother and I' was the ideal attitude to be adopted."
Mother and I! Besides which all the greatest principles of philosophy are but "details"! There is nothing else to life, for She is life.
Paul Brunton Exercise on the Divine Mothers
Balance the "As if I am enlightened" exercise: Counter by "As if the Divine Mothers were present" whenever I speak to others, whatever I do, alone or in society. It notes and judges my speed and action. In the first example I am alone always; but in the second I am not, there is the other. The idea is not so much that it notes and judges our actions as that we are in a holy presence.
Shankara of Kanchipuram on the Divine Mother
The only way to get cleaned of one’s sins is to penitently prostrate at the feet of the Divine Mother. Let us, therefore, surrender ourselves at the feet of the Mother and find peace and happiness.
…the Divine Mother, known by different names as Sarasvati, Lakshmi, Paravati, etc. are but manifestations of the same Supreme Divinity, who is none other than that Creative Energy who forms part of the static Para-atman, both together constituting the Father and Mother of the Universe and to whom creation, preservation and destruction are mere sport.
Ignorance is a disease for which enlightenment is the only cure. The Divine Mother alone is capable of bestowing this milk of knowledge, removing our ignorance and satiating the hunger of the soul… we must yearn for the Grace of the Divine Mother so that we can obtain from her the milk of enlightenment. For that reason we must be constantly thinking of Her and praying to Her.
Orphic Hymn to The Mother of the Gods
Virgin, mother, nurse,
whore and crone
we honor you
Lioness, you destroy
the pride of bulls,
You are the axis.
You are the heart
enthroned in every being.
Your love protects us.
You feed and care for us.
You guide the seasons.
God and mortals
flow from you
like seas and rivers.
Mother of goodness and bounty,
we rejoice in your gifts,
amazed by your kindness.
You tame every wildness
and make wild every street.
We pound the drum for you,
mighty queen, Celestial,
primal, you give life,
sustain it and take it.
Help us, wife of time,
we are your incense
On the “Virginity” of the Divine Mother
Each and every year Hera would bathe in the Spring of Canathus as a way of renewing her virginity. This ritual of renewal was almost identical to the one performed by Aphrodite who, every year, would dive into the waters off the island upon which she had originally washed up. When Aphrodite came out of the water, it appeared as though she had just been re-born, and the same thing was also true with Hera. Renewing a Goddess’ virginity did not mean that she actually became a virgin again; it simply meant that she appeared to be refreshed and renewed, as though she had just been re-born.
From Emperor Julian’s Oration on “The Mother of the Gods”
Who then is the mother of the gods? She is indeed the fountain of the gods who govern the apparent series of things… She is the mistress of all life, and the cause of all generation, who most easily confers perfection on her productions, and generates and fabricates things without passion, in conjunction with the father of the universe. She is also a virgin…
Aspects of the Mother of God in Eastern Orthodoxy
The Virgin of the Sweet Kiss
Life-giving source
Joy of all that Sorrow
Inviolate Mountain
Our Lady of Refuge
The Lamenting Virgin
Unexpected Joy
Unfading Rose
From the Kaballah (Zohar V1, p. 371 ff)
The Shekinah “is represented as the passive female who receives and transmits the influence which descends from the active male forces… it has no light or definite color of its own, but, on the other hand, precisely because of this, it acts as a mirror for every light and color.”
In relation to the upper world, it is the last link in the chain of emanation, acting as a receptacle for the supernal flow of influence and representing the extreme limit of the divine being. In relation to the lower world, however, it is the very beginning and highest point, assuming the role of mother and ruler of the world.
Shekinah is the divine presence, existing and active in the world and among the people of Israel.
From Helena Roerich “The Mother of the World”
The old world rejected the Mother of the World, but the New World begins to perceive Her lustrous veil…
I have already told you that the Mother of the World conceals Her name. I have already shown you how the Mother of the World veils Her face. I have already made mention about the Mother of Buddha and Christ.
Indeed it is time to point out that the one Mother of both Lords is not a symbol but a great manifestation of the Feminine Origin, in which is revealed the spiritual Mother of Christ and Buddha.
She it was Who taught and ordained Them for achievement.
From times immemorial the Mother of the World has sent forth to achievement. In the history of humanity, Her Hand traces out an unmistakable thread.
On Sinai Her Voice rang out. She assumed the image of Kali. She was at the basis of the cults of Isis and Ishtar. After Atlantic, when a blow was inflicted on the cult of the spirit, the Mother of the World began to weave a new thread, which will now begin to radiate. After Atlantis, the Mother of the World veiled Her Face and forbade the pronouncement of Her Name until the hour of the constellations should strike. She has manifested Herself only partly, never has she manifested Herself on a Planetary scale.
