Mystic Quotes
[The comments in
brackets are by Rolf Sattler]
1
I used to think
of (Brahman) as being separate from myself. Now I know that I
am All (Shankara, quoted by Malcolm Hollik. 2006.
The Science
of Oneness. A Worldview for the Twenty-First
Century. New York: O
Books, p. 163).
2
When the Ten
Thousand Things are seen in their Oneness, we return to the
Origin where we have always been (Sengtsan, quoted by F.
Franck. 1976. The Book of
Angelus Silesius. New York:
Vintage Books, p.50).
[see also Quotes from
Holistic Scientists # 6-15]
3
Whole, health,
healing, holy, all come from the same root. To be healed
means to be joined with the whole [the One] (Bhagwan Shree
Rajneesh.1984. The
Book. Series I.
Rajneeshpuram, Oregon: Rajneesh Foundation International, pp.
621).
[see also Quotes on Health and
Healing]
4
That which is ONE
inspite of being the many, that alone we call the Mystery
(Laotse, quoted by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. 1978.
The Way of
Tao. Discourses on Lao Tse’s
Tao-Te-King. Delhi: Motilal
Barnarsidass, p. 98).
5
The Supreme
Wisdom (Prajna) is the Oneness of things; the Supreme
Compassion (Karuna) is the Manyness of things (D.T. Suzuki,
quoted by F. Franck. 1976. The Book of
Angelus Silesius. New York:
Vintage Books, p. 49).
5a
The One is
fullness.
The One is emptiness.
The One is neither fullness
nor emptiness.
To say "One" is to utter
one word too many
(Georg Feuerbach. 2006. A little Book
for Lovers. Boulder, CO:
Sounds True, p. 89)
6
A monk asked,
"All things are said to be reducible to the One, but where is
the One to be reduced?" Chao-Chou answered, "When I was in
the district of Ch'ing I had a robe made that weighed
seven chin."(Zen
Buddhism. Selected Writings of D.T. Suzuki, edited by W.
Barrett. 1956. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books,
pp. 134-135).
7
Nothing existed.
Not even nothing. The truth, naked of opinion and
conceptualization, is that there was not even the One. And
when I say “there was”, I don’t mean that anything was
(Basilides, quoted by Malcolm Hollik. 2006.
The Science
of Oneness. A Worldview for the Twenty-First
Century. New York: O
Books, p. 163).
8
It cannot be
properly called the Void [Emptiness] or not-Void or both or
neither. Just in order to point at it, it is called the Void
(Madyamika Scripture, quoted by F. Franck. 1976.
The Book of
Angelus Silesius. New York:
Vintage Books, p. 136).
[see also Korzybski
Quotes]
9
The word
“mysticism” comes from a Greek word, mysterion,
…[which] comes from another root, myein,
which means “to keep one’s mouth shut”…Mysticism means you
have come across a truth which makes you dumb. It is so big,
so huge, so enormous that it cannot be contained in any word
(Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.1984. The
Book. Series II.
Rajneeshpuram, Oregon: Rajneesh Foundation International, pp.
339-340).
10
And the whole of
life is a great cosmic joke. It is not a serious phenomenon –
take it seriously and you will go on missing it. It is
understood only through laughter (Bhagwan Shree
Rajneesh.1984. The
Book. Series II.
Rajneeshpuram, Oregon: Rajneesh Foundation International, pp.
111).
[see also Laughter
Quotes]
11
When challenged
to explain the Absolute I shall fall still, I shall be silent
as a mute (Angelus Silesius, quoted by F. Franck.
1976. The Book of
Angelus Silesius. New York:
Vintage Books, p.56).
12
I have seen that
which makes all that I have written and taught look small to
me. My writing days are over (Saint Thomas Aquinas, quoted in
Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropedia, 15th
edition, Vol. 26,
p. 589).
13
Existence is
beyond the power of words
To define:
Terms may be used
But are none of them absolute
(from Chapter 1 of the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), translated
by Witter Bynner. 1972. The Way of
Life according to Laotzu. New York:
Perigee Books, p. 31)
14
The nameless
[mystery] was the beginning of heaven and earth;
The named [manifestations] was the mother of the myriad
creatures [all things].
(from Chapter 1 of the Dao De Jing, translated by D.C. Lau.
1969. Lao Tzu Tao
Te Ching. Hammondsworth,
Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, p. 57)
15
Yet mystery and
manifestations
Arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.
(from Chapter 1 of the Dao De Jing, translated by Stephen
Mitchell. 1992. Tao Te
Ching. New York:
HarperPerennial, p. 1)
16
These two (the
Secret [mystery] and its manifestations)
Are (in their nature) the same [*]…
They may both be called the Cosmic Mystery
(from Chapter 1 of the Dao De Jing, translated by Lin Yutang.
1976. The Wisdom of
Laotse. New York:
Random House, p. 41; in a footnote Lin Yutang added that the
Chinese word for Cosmic Mystery is the equivalent of “mystic”
and “mysticism”, and that Daoism is also known as the “Mystic
Religion.”)
[* they are “one and the same” according to a translation by
Moss Roberts. 2001. Dao De
Jing. Berkeley:
University of California Press, p. 27. Note that here the one
is the Ultimate One, the Cosmic Mystery that transcends the
One and the Many, the Unnamable and the Namable, the Secret
and its manifestations, the mystery and its manifestations,
the unmanifest and the manifest. The Cosmic Mystery also
transcends the mystery
(the
unmanifest)
that is contrasted with its manifestations. The Chinese
symbols, which Lin Yutang translated as Cosmic Mystery, have
also been translated as “darkness” (by Stephen Mitchell, see
above), “wonder” (by Witter Bynner, see above), or just
Mystery (see Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. 1978.
The
Way of Tao. Discourses on Lao Tse’s
Tao-Te-King. Delhi: Motilal
Barnarsidass, p. 88). Thus, the word mystery
can
refer to the unmanifest or that which transcends the
unmanifest and manifest. The words oneness
and
the
One also can refer to
these two levels. The confusion can be avoided by adding
adjectives such as ultimate
or
cosmic
as in
the Ultimate One and the Cosmic Mystery. If, however, we
recognize that the unmanifest includes the manifest, then the
two levels collapse and we don’t have to make the above
distinction. Then “that which is ONE inspite of being many,
that alone we call the Mystery” (Laozi, quoted by Bhagwan
Shree Rajneesh. 1978. The Way of
Tao. Discourses on Lao Tse’s
Tao-Te-King. Delhi: Motilal
Barnarsidass, p. 98). Thus, we have arrived at the Heart
Sutra: Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. In other
words: form is mystery, and mystery is form; or form is
oneness (the One), and oneness is form]
[see also Quotes from
Holistic Scientists # 6-15]
[Note: Ken Wilber, being a hierarchical (holarchical)
thinker, distinguishes four levels of mysticism. From the
lowest to the highest level, they are the following: 1.
nature mysticism, an “experience of being one with the entire
natural-sensory world” (e.g., Thoreau, Whitman), 2. deity
mysticism, “an experience of being one with the
source
or
ground
of
the sensory-natural world” (e.g., Saint Teresa of Avila,
Hildegard of Bingen), 3. formless mysticism, an experience of
“cessation, or immersion in unmanifest, formless
consciousness” (e.g., The Cloud of
Unknowing, Patanjali), and
4. nondual or integral mysticism “which is experienced as the
union of the manifest and the unmanifest, or the union of
Form and Emptiness” (e.g., Ramana Maharshi, Hui Neng). The
quotations are from Ken Wilber. 2001. The Eye of Spirit.
Boston: Shambhala, p. 260).]
17
Bhagavan [founder
of the Oneness University in India] is correct when he states
that there is only one cause for human problems, and that is
the sense of separateness - the sense that the world can be
divided into "me" and "not me." Of course, this separation is
not limited to the dichotomy of "me" and "the rest of the
world," but is moderated by various forms of identification
that are not purely egoic: with family, community, nation,
culture, ... (Ervin Laszlo in Ardagh, A. 2007.
Awakening
into Oneness. Boulder, CO:
Sounds True, p. XI).
18
Says Lao
Tzu: Therefore the
sage embraces the One, without any
choice, without any logical distinctions. He chooses the One,
the whole, the whole which comprehends all opposites. He
chooses life with death, not life against death; he chooses
love with hate, not love against hate (Osho. 2003. Living
Tao. Talks on Fragments from "Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu. Pune:
Tao Publishing, p.77)
[Ultimately even the separation between "separation" and
non-separation, the many and the one, has to be transcended.
Hence, as Georg Feuerstein noted, "to say "One" is to utter
one word too many" (see above # 5a)].
[see also Quotes from
Holistic Scientists and
Beyond
Thinking, Writing, and Speaking - the
Unnamable]