[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 and my book in progress on Materialism, Holism, and Mysticism - A Mandala]
