1. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: A Breeze Passes

“A breeze passes in the night. When did it spring up? Whence does it come? Whither is it going? NO man knows. No one can compel the spirit, the gaze or the light of God to descend upon him.

On some given day a man suddenly becomes conscious that he is alive to a particular perception of the divine spread everywhere about him. Question him. When did this state begin for him? He cannot tell. All he knows is that a new spirit has crossed his life.

‘It began with a particular and unique resonance which swelled each harmony, with a diffused radiance which haloed each beauty. All the elements of psychological life were in turn affected; sensations, feelings, thoughts. Day by day they became more fragrant. More coloured, more intense by means of an indefinable thing-the same thing. Then the vague note, and fragrance, and light began to define themselves. And then, contrary to all expectation and all probability, I began to feel what was ineffably common to all things. The unity communicated itself to me by giving me the gift of grasping it. I had in fact acquired a new sense, the sense of a new quality or of a new dimension. Deeper still: a transformation had taken place for min the very perception of being. Thenceforward being had become. In some way. Tangible and savorous to me; and as it came to dominate all the form which it assumed, being itself began to draw me and to intoxicate me.’”

Chardin, Pierre. The Divine Milieu; an Essay on the Interior Life. New York: Harper, 1960. 108.

2. Mirabai: Lost in Sweetness

"What do I care for the words of the world?
The name of the Dark One has entered my heart.
Those who praise, those who blame,
Those who say I am crazy, wicked, an uncontrolled
fire—
Al ignorant fools, caught in their senses.
It is true, Mira has no sense: she is lost in the sweetness.
To take this path is to walk the edge of the sword;
Then the noose of birth and death is suddenly cut
Mira lives now beyond Mira.
She swims, deep mind and deep body, in Shyam’s
ocean."

Bly, Robert. "Mira Swims Free." In Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems, 57. Boston, Mass: Beacon Press, 2004.

3. Sri Ramana Maharshi: Silence & Self

“Swami who am I? and how is salvation to be obtained?
By incessant inward inquiry.

Who am I?
You will know yourself and thereby obtain salvation.

But who am I?
The real “I” or self is not the body, nor any of the 5 senses, nor the sense objects, nor the organs of action, nor the prana the breath or vital force, nor the mind not even the deep sleep state where there is no cognizance of these.

But if I am none of these what else am I?
After rejecting each of these and saying this I am not that which is alone remains is the “I” and that is consciousness.

What is the nature of that consciousness?
It is sat chit ananda being consciousness bliss in which there is not even the slightest trace of the “I” thought. This is also called mauna, silence or atma, self that is the only thing that is. If the trinity of the world, ego and god are considered as separate entities, they are mere illusions like the appearance of silver in the mother of pearl.God, ego and world are really Sivasvarupa the form of Siva or Atmasvarupa the form of the spirit.”

Ramana, Maharshi, and David Godman. Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi. London: Arkana, 1985.

4. Lama Yeshe: Observing the Mind

"When you meditate, you can see why today you’re up, tomorrow you’re down: mood swings are caused by your mind. People who don’t heck within themselves come up with very superficial reasons like, “ I’m unhappy today because the sun’s not shining, “ but most of the time your ups and downs are due to primarily psychological factors.

When a strong wind blows, the clouds vanish and the blue sky appears. Similarly, when the powerful wisdom that understands the nature of the mind arises, the dark clouds of ego disappear. Beynd the ego—the agitated, uncontrolled mind—lie everlasting peace and satisfaction. That’s why Lord Buddha prescribed penetrative analysis of both your positive and your negative sides. In particular, when your negative mind arises, instead of being afraid, you should examine it more closely.

You see, Buddhism is not all a tactful religion, always trying to avoid giving offense. Buddhism addresses precisely what you are and what your mind is doing in the hear and now. That is what makes it so interesting. You can’t expect to hear only positive things. Sure you have a positive side, but what about the negative aspects of your nature? To gain an equal understanding of both, an understanding of the totality of your being, you have to look at your negative characteristics as well as the positive ones, and not try to cover them up.”

Yeshe, Lama. "Religion: The Path of Inquiry." In Becoming Your Own Therapist and Make Your Mind an Ocean, 33-34. Lincoln, MA: Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, 2012.

5. Abraham Joshua Heschel: Heavy with Wonder

"To become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words...the tangent to the curve of human experience lies beyond the limits of language. the world of things we perceive is but a veil. It’s flutter is music, its ornament science, but what it conceals is inscrutable. It’s silence remains unbroken; no words can carry it away. Sometimes we wish the world could cry and tell us about that which made it pregnant with fear--filling grandeur. Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder."

Heschel, Abraham Joshua, and Samuel H. Dresner. "GOD." In I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology, 20. New York: Crossroad, 1983.

6. Vimala Thakar: Live in Love

“There is something in each human hearth that whispers:

‘You are free.

You are not born to live in bondage, in shackles of the past; you are not born to oscillate between attachments and detachments,

You are born to live in love.'"

Thakar, Vimala. "Freedom." In The Eloquence of Living: Meeting Life with Freshness, Fearlessness, and Compassion, 1. San Rafael, Calif.: New World Library, 1989.

7. Irina Tweedie: Love Loves the Human Being

“Love is quenching the thirst on the physical plane; this is not love. The human being is Love and Love loves the human being. To realize Love is to realize God. If we sit before an open fire it warms us; there is no effort on our part. Those who have realized God are like this fire. Keep in their company. God realizes Himself in the Heart of Hearts of the human being. When we realize, Love disappears. We cannot give shape or name to Love. The deeper we go the more it disappears.”

Tweedie, Irina. "14 December." In The Chasm of Fire: A Woman's Experience of Liberation through the Teaching of a Sufi Master, 148. Tisbury: Element Books, 1979.

8. Krishnamurti: Unafraid of Life

“Most of us are frightened of dying because we don’t know what it means to live.
We don’t know how to live, therefore we don’t know how to die.
As long as we are frightened of life, we shall be frightened of death.
The man who is not frightened of life is not frightened of being completely insecure for he understands that inwardly psychologically there is no security.
When there is no security there is an endless movement, and then life and death are the same. The man who lives without conflict, who lives with beauty and love is not frightened of death because to love is to die.”

Krishnamurti, J.. Freedom from the Known,. [1st U.S. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1969.

9. Buddha: The Goal

“Cessation of lust, of hate, and of delusion is the Unformed (Unconditioned), the End, the Taintless, the Truth, the Other Shore, the Subtle, the Very Hard To See, the Unweakening, the Everlasting, the Undisintegrating, the Invisible, the Undiversified, Peace, the Deathless, the Superior Goal, the Blest, Safety, Exhaustion of Craving, the Wonderful, the Marvellous, Non-distress, the Naturally Non-distressed, Nibbāna, Non-affliction (Unhostility), Fading of Lust, Purity, Freedom, Independence of Reliance, the Island, the Shelter, the Harbour, the Refuge, the Beyond.”

Nanamoli, Bhikku. The Life of the Buddha: According to the Pali Canon. 3d ed. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1992.

10. Ram Dass: Gone Beyond

“GATE/GATE/PARAGATE
PARASAMGATE
BODHI SVAHA!
GONE/GONE/GONE BEYOND/GONE BEYOND BEYOND
HAIL THE GOER!
Beyond even conceiving of a place
Beyond which you can go beyond
Who’s adventurous enough to want to go
On that journey?
Do you realize when you go on that journey In order to get to the destination
YOU
Can never get to the destination?
In the process
YOU
Must die
MUST DIE
Pretty fierce journey. Pretty fierce requirement
WE WANT VOLUNTEERS
Now: we’ll make the journey
As comfortable as possible
But: you have to realize that
(After you pass through the van allen belt)
You’re going to get out
To another belt of radiation
which is going to crisp you completely
And
YOU WILL DIE
But there will be an
ESSENCE
Left that will get through.
Now: who would like to volunteer?
READY?
Well: couldn’t we make a specially insulated suit?
No. Sorry. Can’t do it.
But: if you propel hard enough
There will be going through—
There will be something that will
GET THROUGH TO THE OTHER SIDE
We can’t really define what you’ll be…
But you’ll be beyond that
Why would anyone go on a trip like that?
Adventure?
Well: one thing about an adventure is:
The adventurer wants to stay around
And adventure.
 And:
If he’s going to be crisped in the process
There’s going to be no adventurer left
To have had the adventure.
But you see: there’s something that
Pulls a person towards this journey
Way away back
Deep inside
Is a memory
There is something
Inside each of us
That comes from behind that veil
Behind the place of our own birth
It’s as if you have tasted of something
Somewhere in your past
That’s been so high
So much light
So much energy
That nothing
You can experience
Through any of your
SENSES
Or your thoughts
Can be
ENOUGH!
Somewhere inside
Everybody knows that there is a place
Which is TOTALLY fulfilling
Not a desperate flick of fulfillment
It is a
STATE OF FULFILLMENT
You may experience despair
That you’ll never know that.
GOOD! because through despair
And through
That surrender
Comes surrender
You get closer to it.”

Dass, Ram. Be Here Now, 8. 1^st ed. Sacramento: Dwell Llc, 1977.

11. Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Soul of the Whole

"We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul for the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul. Only by the vision of that Wisdom can the horoscope of the ages be read, and by falling aback on our better thoughts, by yielding to the spirit of prophecy which is innate in every man, we can know what it says."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, and Thomas Carlyle. "The Oversoul." In Essays, 2. London: James Fraser, 1841.

12. Alfred North Whitehead: Deeper than Joy or Sorrow

“The task of Theology is to show how the World is founded on something beyond mere transient fact, and how it issues in something beyond the perishing of occasions. The temporal World is the stage of finite accomplishment. We ask of Theology to express that element in perishing lives which is undying by reason of its expression of perfections proper to our finite natures. In this way we shall understand how life includes a mode of satisfaction deeper than joy or sorrow.”

Whitehead, Alfred North. "The New Reformation." In Adventures of Ideas, 172. New York: Macmillan, 1933.

13. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Calling to Higher Unification

“Souls are mistaken, in fact, when they imagine that they are made for autonomy and isolation. It is clear, indeed, that the work of individual deepening and folding back upon the centre is indispensable if the monads are to be completed; but that works is ordered to a higher fusion of the pleiad. Individuals are called to a higher unification, the need for which constantly plagues them—and we see evidence of this in their inability to find happiness and to develop in isolation.”

Chardin, Pierre. "Creative Union." In Writings in Time of War, 158. New York: Harper & Row, 1968.

14. Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Voice of God

“God is not always silent, and man is not always blind. In every man’s life there are moments when there is a lifting of the veil at the horizon of the known, opening a sight of the eternal. Each of us has at least once in his life experienced the momentous reality of God. Each of us has once caught a glimpse of the beauty, peace, and power that flow through the souls of those who are devoted to Him. But such experiences are rare events. To some people they are like shooting stars, passing and unremembered. IN others they kindle a light that is never quenched. The remembrance of that experience and the loyalty to the response of that moment are the forces that sustain our faith. In this sense, faith is faithfulness, loyalty to an event, loyalty to our response.”

Heschel, Abraham Joshua, and Samuel H. Dresner. "GOD." In I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology, 37. New York: Crossroad, 1983.

15. Lama Yeshe: Conquering Ego Problems

"We are seeking freedom, liberation. What kind of liberation are we seeking? We need to somehow conquer the ego: conquer our ego problems, desire problems, grasping problems, depression problems, anxiety problems, emotional problems, hatred problems— I hope I’ve mentioned enough problems! These problems have to be eradicated, conquered. Think about this very simple thing: as human beings we are responsible for our body, our speech and our mind. These three things are our business besides our job. Buddhism is very simple, very down to earth, it says that as human beings we are responsible for our body, speech, and mind. If you can subdue these three things then everything is easy; if you can’t make these things easy, then everything becomes crazy.

I will tell you a story. When Atisha came to bring Buddhism to Tibet, one Tibetan meditator welcomed Atisha and told him that he used to do strong, one-pointed meditation. Atisha said, “That is a bad action, give it up!” This meditator then thought, “Maybe I should teach other people dharma instead.” But Atisha told him, “That is a bad action, give it up!” Then the meditator didn’t know what to do, he was already confused. He thought, “Sometimes meditate and sometimes give teachings.” Atisha said, “That is also a bad action, you should give it up!” Then he gave up and said, “What should I do?” Atisha said, “Give up grasping after this life’s pleasures, that is what you should do.”

Landaw, Jonathan. Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire. Rev. ed. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001.

16. Vimala Thakar: Effervescent Awareness

“Silence is not artificial stilling of the mind.
It is qualitatively different; in the abeyance of mental
movement, the unconditioned energy of universal
intelligence is released.
This intelligence is the moving sensitivity of the whole being.
With this movement of intelligence, awareness of the oneness of life blossoms and in every encounter in daily
Living, there is sensitivity to the sacredness, the divinity of living”

Thakar, Vimala. "Silence." In The Eloquence of Living: Meeting Life with Freshness, Fearlessness, and Compassion, 94. San Rafael, Calif.: New World Library, 1989.

17. Ram Dass: The Heart Cave

“ ‘Except ye be converted
Become as little children
Ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.’
Unless you
START AGAIN
Become that trusting
Open surrendered being
The energy can’t come in
That is the kingdom of heaven
THE ENERGY
It is the same thing
COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS”

Dass, Ram. “The Heart Cave.” In Be Here Now, 1. San Cristobal, N.M.: Lama Foundation, 1971

18. Mirabai: Rocking like a Lotus Flower

“Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening,
Kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night.

If we could reach the Lord through immersion in
water,
I would have asked to be born a fish in this life.
If we could reach him through nothing but berries and
wild nuts
Then surely the saints would have been monkeys when
they came from the womb!
If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry
leaves
Then the goats would surely get to the Holy One
before us!

If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way,
I would have adored a granite mountain years ago.

Mirabai says: The heat of midnight tears will bring you
to God”

Bly, Robert. "The Heat of Midnight Tears." In Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems, 64. Boston, Mass: Beacon Press, 2004.

19. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Light Shines Through

“From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all. A man is the façade of a temple wherein all wisdom and all good abide. What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend. When it breathes through his intellect, it is genius’ when it breathes through his will, it is virtue; when it flows trough his affection, it is love, And the blindness of the intellect begins, when it would be something of itself, The weakness of the will begins, when the individual would be something of himself. All reform aims, in some one particular, to let the soul have its way through us’ in other words, to engage us to obey."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, and Thomas Carlyle. "The Oversoul." In Essays, 3. London: James Fraser, 1841.

20. Sri Ramana Maharshi: Renunciation & Realization

"Devotee: I am inclined to give up my job and remain always with Sri Bhagavan.

Bhagavan: Bhagavan is always with you, in you. The Self in you is Bhagavan. It is that you should realize.

Devotee: But I feel the urge to give up all attachments and renounce the world as a sannyasin.

Bhagavan: Renunciation does not mean outward divestment of clothes and so on or abandonment of home. True renunciation is the renunciation of desires, passions and attachments.

Bhagavan: One who truly renounces actually merges in the world and expands his love to embrace the whole world. It would be more correct to describe the attitude of the devotee as universal love than as abandoning home to don the ochre robe of a monk.

Bhagavan: Great souls who have abandoned the life of the world have done so not out of aversion to family life but because of their large-hearted and all-embracing love for all mankind and all creatures.

Bhagavan: When you really feel that equal love for all, when your heart has so expanded as to embrace the whole of creation, you will certainly not feel like giving up this or that; you will simply drop off from secular life as a ripe fruit does from the branch of a tree. You will feel that the whole world is your home."

Ramana, Maharshi, and David Godman. Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi. London: Arkana, 1985.

21. Buddha: No Exception

“I was delicate, most delicate, supremely delicate. Lily pools were made for me at my father’s house solely for my benefit. Blue lilies flowered in one, white lilies in another, red lilies in a third. I used no sandalwood that was not from Benares. My turban, tunic, lower garments and cloak were all made of Benares cloth. A white sunshade was held over me day and night so that no cold or heat or dust or grit or dew might inconvenience me.

‘I had three palaces; one for the winter, one for the summer and one for the rains. In the rains palace I was entertained by minstrels with no men among them. For the four months of the rains I never went down to the lower palace. Though meals of broken rice with lentil soup are given to the servants and retainers in other people’s houses, in my father’s house white rice and meat was given to them.

‘Whilst I had such power and good fortune, yet I thought; ‘When an untaught ordinary man, who is subject to ageing, not safe from ageing, sees another who is aged, he is shocked, humiliated and disgusted; for he forgets that he himself is no exception. But I too am subject to ageing, not safe from aging, and so it cannot befit me to be shocked, humiliated and disgusted on seeing another who is aged.’

When I considered this, the vanity of youth entirely left me.

‘I thought: ‘When an untaught ordinary man, who is subject to sickness, not safe from sickness, sees another who is sick, he is shocked, humiliated and disgusted; for he forgets that he himself is no exception. But I too am subject to sickness, not safe from sickness, and so it cannot befit me to be shocked, humiliated and disgusted on seeing another who is sick.’ When I considered this, the vanity of health entirely left me.

“I thought; ‘ When an untaught ordinary man, who is subject to death, not safe from death, sees another who is dead, he is shocked, humiliated and disgusted, for her forgets that he himself is no exception. But I too am subject to death, not safe from death, and so it cannot befit me to be shocked, humiliated and disgusted on seeing another who is dead.' When I considered this, the vanity of life entirely left me.”

Nanamoli, Bhikku. The Life of the Buddha: According to the Pali Canon. 3d ed.,8. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1992.

22. Alfred North Whitehead: Higher Ideas

“. . . there are the ideas of high generality expressing conceptions of the nature of things, of the possibilities of human society, of the final aim which should guide the conduct of individual men. In each age of the world distinguished by high activity there will be found at its culmination, and among the agencies leading to what culmination, some profound cosmological outlook, implicitly accepted, impressing its own type upon the current springs of action. This ultimate cosmology is only partly express, and the details of such expression issue into derivative specialized questions of violent controversy. The intellectual strife of an age is mainly concerned with these latter questions of secondary generality which conceal a general agreement upon first principles almost too obvious to need expression, and almost too general to be capable of expression. In each period there is a general form of the forms of thought; and, like the air we breath, such a form is so translucent, and so pervading, and so seemingly necessary that only by extreme effort can we become aware of it."

Whitehead, Alfred North. "The New Reformation." In Adventures of Ideas, 12. New York: Macmillan, 1933.

23. Irina Tweedie: Beyond Relationship

“His Presence is constant. To live with God as a Reality is a great happiness.
As I understand it now, one does not surrender to the Master at all; for in reality the surrender is through the Master to God. The Master is only the focus of attention on the physical plane. In other words, the outer guru points to the inner guru, the Self.

It is a Gift, but it is not given for oneself; it is given for others.’ He closed his eyes for a moment; and then, ‘At first love is created; it is not done to everyone. Not everyone’s heart is made in such a way that it can be done. If there is much feeling quality, love is created.

If the person lives on the mental level and there is hardly any feeling, first feeling is awakened and love afterwards. In the ordinary way, love comes slowly. In the state of dhyana, a state of pure being is felt first; then currents of love and bliss. But it is a slow process. It takes time.”

Tweedie, Irina. The Chasm of Fire: A Woman's Experience of Liberation Through the Teaching of a Sufi Master. Tisbury: Element Books, 1979.

24. Krishnamurti: Total Revolution Within

“What we have been concerned with is the bringing about in ourselves, and therefore in our lives, of a total revolution that has nothing whatsoever to do with the structure of society as it is. Society as it is, is a horrifying thing with its endless wars of aggression, whether that aggression be defensive or offensive. What we need is something totally new—a revolution, a mutation, in the psyche itself. The old brain cannot possibly solve the human problem of relationship. The old brain is Asiatic, European, American or African, so what we are asking ourselves is whether it is possible to bring about a mutation in the brain cells themselves?

Let us ask ourselves again, now that we have come to understand ourselves better, is it possible for a human being living an ordinary everyday life in this brutal, violent, ruthless world—a world which is becoming more and more efficient and therefore more and more ruthless—is it possible for him or herto bring about a revolution not only in his or her outward relationships but in the whole field of his or her thinking, feeling, acting and reacting?

Every day we see or read of appalling things happening in the world as the result of violence in man. You may say, ‘I can’t do anything about it’, or, ‘How can I influence the world?’ I think you can tremendously influence the world if in yourself you are not violent, if you lead actually every day a peaceful life—a life which is not competitive, ambitious, envious—a life which does not create enmity. Small fires can become a blaze. We have reduced the world to its present state of chaos by our self-centred activity, by our prejudices, our hatreds, our nationalism, and when we say we cannot do anything about it, we are accepting disorder in ourselves as inevitable. We have splintered the world into fragments and if we ourselves are broken, fragmented, our relationship with the world will also be broken. But if, when we act, we act totally, then our relationship with the world undergoes a tremendous revolution.

After all, any movement which is worth while, any action which has any deep significance, must begin with each one of us. I must change first; I must see what is the nature and structure of my relationship with the world –and in the very seeing is the doing; therefore I, as a human being living in the world, bring about a different quality, and that quality, it seem to me, is the quality of the religious mind.

The Religious mind is a state of mind in which there is no fear and therefore no belief whatsoever but only what is—what actually is.

In the religious mind there is that state of silence which is not produced by thought but is the outcome of awareness, which is meditation when the mediator is entirely absent.”

Krishnamurti, J.. Freedom from the Known,. 1st U.S. ed., 119. New York: Harper & Row, 1969.