Quotes about mysticism
Anonymous - The Bhagavad Gita
I am Sama Veda among the Vedas I am Indra among the Devas I am the mind among the senses I am the consciousness in living beings.
Bert McCoy -
Don't be so loyal to your mind the mind is not loyal to You.
Sadhguru - Of Mystics & Mistakes
Mysticism is like pure science it has no use. Mysticism is just the human longing to know… Occult is not science. Occult is just technology.
Peter Sloterdijk -
Mysticism is the acquired immunodeficiency of regional ontologies one catches it through unprotected thought intercourse with the stirred-up concept of the infinite.
Simone Weil - Gravity and Grace
Time’s violence rends the soul by the rent eternity enters.
Walter M. Miller Jr. - A Canticle for Leibowitz
They don't think up questions like that on the basis of what might be true they concoct the questions on the basis of what might be sensational if it just happened to be true.
Pitigrilli - Cocaine
Mysticism was merely virility in a state of liquidation sperm that had gone bad.
Katherine Ramsland - The Science of Vampires
I see science and mysticism as two complementary manifestations of the human mind as its rational and intuitive faculties.Capra
Julia Cameron - The Artist's Way
The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union the heart of the mystical union is an experience of creativity.
Baba Tunde Ojo-Olubiyo -
The Truth Is That I Was Recognized For Stubbornness And Not Goodness. Even, Though I Was Very Intelligent And Sent To School By A Little Few Supports From Sponsors And My Mother. My Brain Was Never Ever Cool. Due To All The Mistakes I Saw From A Very Tender Age From All Those Whom I Looked Upon As Elders And Shinning Examples. Although They Where Some Good Examples Which Still Live On. Still The Early Damaged As Already Been Done. So It Led Me Dropping Out Of School In To Working And Using The G
William James -
There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.
David C. Downing - Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C. S. Lewis
As his (C. S. Lewis's) good friend Owen Barfield once remarked, Lewis radiated a sense that the spiritual world is home, that we are always coming back to a place we have never yet reached.
Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi -
Love is an involuntary gift that manifests unplanned.
Hadewijch - Hadewijch: The Complete Works
At that time I also had, for a short while, the strength to bear it. But all too soon I lost external sight of the shape of that beautiful man, and I saw him disappear to nothing, so quickly melting away and fusing together that I could not see or observe him outside of me, nor discern him within me. It was to me at that moment as if we were one without distinction.
Bert McCoy -
what is not true does not exist in this moment.
Peter Matthiessen - The Snow Leopard
The mystical perception (which is only “mystical” if reality is limited to what can be measured by the intellect and senses) is remarkably consistent in all ages and all places. All phenomena are processes, connections, all is in flux…have the mind screens knocked away to see there is no real edge to anything, that in the endless interpenetration of the universe, a molecular flow, a cosmic energy shimmers in all stone and steel as well as flesh…
ذو النون المصري - Sufism: An Account of the Mystics of Islam
I die, and yet not dies in meThe ardour of my love for Thee,Nor hath Thy Love, my only goal,Assuaged the fever of my soul.To Thee alone my spirit cries;In Thee my whole ambition lies,And still Thy Wealth is far aboveThe poverty of my small love.I turn to Thee in my request,And seek in Thee my final rest;To Thee my loud lament is brought,Thou dwellest in my secret thought.However long my sickness be,This wearisome infirmity,Never to men will I declareThe burden Thou has made me bear.To Thee alone
A.J. Arberry - Sufism: An Account of the Mystics of Islam
To understand the extreme lengths to which the Sufis were prepared to go in reading esoteric meanings into the quite simple language of their Scriptures, it is necessary to remember that the Koran was committed to memory by all deeply religious men and women, and recited constantly, aloud or in the heart; so that the mystic was in a state of uninterrupted meditation upon the Holy Book. Many passages which would otherwise pass without special notice were therefore bound to arrest their attention,
Barbara Ehrenreich - Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
The conventional term is "mystical experience," meaning something that by its very nature lies beyond the reach of language, except for some vague verbal hand-wavings about "mystery" and "transcendence." As far as I was concerned - as a rationalist, an atheist, a scientist by training - this was the realm of gods and fairies and of no use to the great human project of trying to retain a foothold on the planet for future generations.
G.K. Chesterton - Orthodoxy
Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain.
Paracelsus -
Man is a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements; and so he is their quintessence.
Katherine Ramsland - The Science of Vampires
It was the discovery of the quantum universe that changed everything, and that universe was so small and so dynamic that it could not be observed directly. Trying to explain their insights, scientists looked at the language of mysticism. At the subatomic level, the parallels between quantum reality and mysticism were striking. For example, the behavior of light: in some contexts it acted like a wave, in others like a particle. Could it be both? Physicists had no concept for grasping this, so the
Eli Of Kittim - The Little Book of Revelation: The First Coming of Jesus at the End of Days
One could say that my view legitimately fuses the end-time messianic expectations of all three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity!
Wasif Ali Wasif -
Belief in God, without belief in the Prophet (SAWW), would still be unbelief.
Idries Shah -
Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaDrugs: Source of the mystical experience of the ignorant.
Teresa of Ávila - The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself
For if the will has nothing to employ it and love has no present object with which to busy itself, the soul finds itself without either support or occupation, its solitude and aridity cause it great distress and its thoughts involve it in the severest conflict.
G.K. Chesterton - Orthodoxy
The man who cannot believe his senses, and the man who cannot believe anything else, are both insane, but their insanity is proved not by any error in their argument, but by the manifest mistake of their whole lives. They have both locked themselves up in two boxes, painted inside with the sun and stars; they are both unable to get out, the one into the health and happiness of heaven, the other even into the health and happiness of the earth.
Rachel Carson - The Sea Around Us
The next time you stand on a beach at night, watching the moon’s bright path across the water, and the conscious of the moon-drawn tides, remember that the moon itself may have been born of a great tidal wave of earthly substance, torn off into space. And remember if the moon was formed in this fashion, the event may have had much to do with shaping the ocean basins and the continents as we know them.
G.K. Chesterton - Orthodoxy
The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything. Like the sun at noonday, mysticism explains everything else by the blaze of its own victorious invisibility. Detached intellectualism is (in the exact sense of a popular phrase) all moonshine; for it is light without heat, and it is secondary light, reflected from a dead world. But the Greeks were right when they made Apollo the god both of imagination and of sanity; for he was both the pa
Sarmad Shaheed - The Rubaiyat of Sarmad
Although hundreds of friends Have become my foes, The friendship of One Has given security to my soul. Rejecting many I have embraced the One-At last I am He and He is me.
Sarmad Shaheed -
I am the king of kingsO Sheikh! Not naked like you, I love madness, dynamism, but I am not distraughtAn infidel, an idolator, I am not one of the pious. I am going towards the mosqueBut I am not a Muslim.
Amir Khusrau - The Writings Of Amir Khusrau :700 years after the prophet : a 13th-14th century legend of Indian-sub-continent
Farsi Couplet: Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast, Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast. English Translation: If there is a paradise on earth, It is this, it is this, it is this
Soroosh Shahrivar - The Rise of Shams
Love was supposed to be the easiest path to divinity
Various -
No soul in the world is without a particular mission to perform and accomplish, and the misery of every soul is in not having come to understanding of the purpose for which he is born. The lifetime of confusion is always caused by souls wandering all the time away from the purpose of which they were born.Inayat Khan (1882 – 1927).
Muhammad Iqbal - The Reconstruction Of Religious Thought In Islam
The revealed and mystic literature of mankind bears ample testimony to the fact that religious experience has been too enduring and dominant in the history of mankind to be rejected as mere illusion. There seems to be no reason, then, to accept the normal level of human experience as fact and reject its other levels as mystical and emotional.
Thomas Ligotti -
To be sane, he held, was either to be sedated by melancholy or activated by hysteria, two responses which were 'always and equally warranted for those of sound insight'. All others were irrational, merely symptoms of imaginations left idle, of memories out of work. And above these mundane responses, the only elevation allowable, the only valid transcendence, was a sardonic one: a bliss that annihilated the universe with jeers of dark joy, a mindful ecstasy. Anything else in the way of 'mysticism
John Myhill -
No non-poetic account of reality can be complete.
Joseph Campbell - Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research
The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.
Joseph Campbell - Myths to Live By
The LSD phenomenon, on the other hand, is—to me at least—more interesting. It is an intentionally achieved schizophrenia, with the expectation of a spontaneous remission—which, however, does not always follow. Yoga, too, is intentional schizophrenia: one breaks away from the world, plunging inward, and the ranges of vision experienced are in fact the same as those of a psychosis. But what, then, is the difference? What is the difference between a psychotic or LSD experience and a yogic, or a mys
Victor F. Weisskopf - The Joy of Insight: Passions of a Physicist
Through Jung [Pauli] became very interested in various kinds of mysticism, including Jewish mysticism. This led Pauli to develop a friendship with Gershom Scholem, the world's greatest authority in that field and in the Cabala, .... On one occasion Scholem asked me to tell him about unsolved problems in modern physics. .... When I mentioned this number --137-- to Scholem, .... He told me that in Hebrew .... The number corresponding to the word 'cabala' happens to be 137.
Kim Chestney - The Psychic Workshop: A Complete Program for Fulfilling Your Spiritual Potential
An eternity of wisdom and life lies waiting for discovery by those who are willing to embark on the mystical adventure. All of our resources are within us. All we need is our heart, our mind and the will to be something better than we are.
Sunday Adelaja -
Stop looking for miracles through mystic way
Shannon Hale - Book of a Thousand Days
I let my head fall back, and I gazed into the Eternal Blue Sky. It was morning. Some of the sky was yellow, some the softest blue. One small cloud scuttled along. Strange how everything below can be such death and chaos and pain while above the sky is peace, sweet blue gentleness. I heard a shaman say once, the Ancestors want our souls to be like the blue sky.
Meister Eckhart -
Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry -
Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.
Wasif Ali Wasif -
Death is the protector of life and life is the process of death.
Evelyn Underhill - Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness
In mysticism that love of truth which we saw as the beginning of all philosophy leaves the merely intellectual sphere, and takes on the assured aspect of a personal passion. Where the philosopher guesses and argues, the mystic lives and looks; and speaks, consequently, the disconcerting language of first-hand experience, not the neat dialectic of the schools. Hence whilst the Absolute of the metaphysicians remains a diagram —impersonal and unattainable—the Absolute of the mystics is lovable, att
Evelyn Underhill - Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness
Idealism, though just in its premises, and often daring and honest in their application, is stultified by the exclusive intellectualism of its own methods: by its fatal trust in the squirrel-work of the industrious brain instead of the piercing vision of the desirous heart. It interests man, but does not involve him in its processes: does not catch him up to the new and more real life which it describes. Hence the thing that matters, the living thing, has somehow escaped it; and its observations
Christopher Hitchens - and War: Journeys and Essays
At a certain point talk about 'essence' and 'oneness' and the universal becomes more tautological than inquisitive.
Etienne de L'Amour - The Lucian Uprising
The shadow of scepticism is dispelled in the light of real knowledge.
Rick Aster -
You cannot be a great writer in a shop where words are sold in tens and twenties.
P.D. Ouspensky - A New Model of the Universe
I have become so accustomed to think “scientifically” that I am afraid even to imagine that there may be something else beyond the outer covering of life. I feel like a man condemned to death, whose companions have been hanged and who has already become reconciled to the thought that the same fate awaits him.
Ashavan -
Do not let your intellect steer you away from what your eyes have seen. Neither should you let it deny what your higher powers have perceived.
Hafiz Shirazi -
When shall I get to kiss thee?’ I asked.‘By all means you can forever ask,’ she answered.‘Your lips ask a heavy price,’ I said.‘It’s a fair exchange of one so fair,’ she said.‘What lips are worthy for your mouth and lips?’ I asked.‘Only the discerning can this secret know,’ she answered.‘Don’t worship idols, be with the Truth,’ I said.‘In the Way of Love, both are allowed,’ she said.I said, ‘The tavern helps to heal the heart.’‘Blessed are those who heal the lonely heart,’ she answered.‘It’s not
St. Teresa Of Avila - The Interior Castle
Trust God that you are where you are meant to be.
Mimi Novic -
God is the vessel of love that gives wings to our prayers
John Jakes - Orbit 3
—and I say you still haven't answered my question, Father Bleu.""Haven't I, dear lady? I thought I stated that death is merely the beginning
Arthur C. Clarke - Childhood's End
…mysticism –perhaps the main aberration of the human mind.
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudevuru -
Similarly, it does not matter what the mind is doing once you identify it as a fool. If there is somebody very stupid around you who goes on blabbering, do you not learn to simply ignore him and carry on with your work? That is all you need to do.
Sadhguru - Of Mystics & Mistakes
The most incredible thing is that you can know everything you wish to know with your eyes closed.
Hildegard of Bingen - Selected Writings
Beryl: Beryl is a warm gemstone which develops, between the third hour and midday, from the foam of water when the sun burns it severely. Its power is thus more from air and water than from fire, but nevertheless it has some of the properties of fire. And if a man has drunk or eaten poison, then he should place a little beryl in spring water and drink it at once. Continue for five days drinking it once a day while fasting, and the poison will foam up through vomiting, or it will pass out of him
Eden Robinson - Monkey Beach
We are apart so that I will know the joy of being with you again. Take care of yourself, wherever you are. Take care of yourself, wherever you are.
Wasif Ali Wasif -
There can only be two contexts of your life. Either you are the author of your life, or He (the Creator) is the author of your life. People who feel that their creation is the responsibility of the Creator, find opportunities unexpectedly. Those who feel that their lives are their own, have to fashion their own means.
Wasif Ali Wasif -
In the bosom of success lie not delights but deprivations
Fritjof Capra - The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism
The parallels to modern physics [with mysticism] appear not only in the Vedas of Hinduism, in the I Ching, or in the Buddhist sutras, but also in the fragments of Heraclitus, in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, or in the teachings of the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan.
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky - Isis Unveiled
Man is a little world--a microcosm inside the great universe. Like a fetus, he is suspended, by all his three spirits, in the matrix of the macrocosmos; and while his terrestrial body is in constant sympathy with its parent earth, his astral soul lives in unison with the sidereal anima mundi. He is in it, as it is in him, for the world-pervading element fills all space, and is space itself, only shoreless and infinite. As to his third spirit, the divine, what is it but an infinitesimal ray, one
Bedil - Bedil: Selected Poems
Except Him, whatever understood,O Bedil~ love made me forget.
Vadim Zeland - Reality transurfing. Steps I-V
Why do people kill others just like them with such ferocity simply because they worship a different god? What harm were they doing? People suffer in these wars and dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions even lose their lives. Whatever happened to the survival instinct? One could just about understand the violent battle for wealth or territory but how are we supposed to understand the battle for a belief?
Noah Wareness -
You know how long's the universe. It's seven million freeways side by side. You know how high. So high the moon just falls. But little punks, you still know the hardcore of the universe. It's cause you're hardcore too. You're made of pure universe, under your bones. And nothing ever starts shit by meaning to. We meant to break down the amerikan dream throwing bottles. All we broke was bottles. What worked was one stolen handful of flax seed. All ages shows in the highschool parkade, and the keys
Kabir - Songs of Kabir
As the river enters into the ocean,so my heart touches Thee.
Amir Khusrau - The Writings Of Amir Khusrau :700 years after the prophet : a 13th-14th century legend of Indian-sub-continent
Khusrau darya prem ka, ulti wa ki dhaar, Jo utra so doob gaya, jo dooba so paar. English Translation. Oh Khusrau, the river of love Runs in strange directions. One who jumps into it drowns, And one who drowns, gets across.
Elie Wiesel - Conversations with Elie Wiesel
What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It’s close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically.
Mark Waid - Volume 7
Mystic grimoirs, walking corpses... I'm so far out of my wheelhouse that I might as well be on the moon.
Thomas Ligotti - Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe
The embodiment of his mystic precepts, he appeared at any given moment to be on the verge of an amazing disintegration, his particular complex of atoms ready to go shooting off into the great void like a burst of fireworks.
Bob Dylan - The Lyrics: Since 1962
No martyr is among ye now | Whom you can call your own | So go on your way accordingly | But know you’re not alone.
John O'Donohue -
It's strange to be here, the mystery never leaves you alone".
Hadewijch - Hadewijch: The Complete Works
Make haste to Love.
Kabir -
So high is my Lord’s palace, my heart trembles to mount its stairs: yet I must not be shy, if I would enjoy His love.
Sadhguru - Of Mystics & Mistakes
When we talk of "exploring the mystical," we are not trying to dig into creation, because if you dig into creation, it will only get more complex. It will not bring clarity; it will only bring more complexity. That is why the yogis looked in a different direction. We looked inward. If you look inward, a different dimension opens up. Now instead of things getting more complex, you get to clarity. It is because of this that we say that those who look inward have a third eye. They see things that o
Lynne McTaggart - The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe
Why two (or whole groups) of people can come up with the same story or idea at the same time, even when across the world from each-other:"A field is a region of influence, where a force will influence objects at a distance with nothing in between. We and our universe live in a Quantum sea of light. Scientists have found that the real currency of the universe is an exchange of energy. Life radiates light, even when grown in the dark. Creation takes place amidst a background sea of energy, which m
Soroosh Shahrivar - The Rise of Shams
In searching for himself, he had come to understand that he was defined by selflessness
Sadhguru -
You can convert this human system into absolute receptivity, where you can perceive life in ways that you have never believed possible. If you keep all your ideas, emotions and your nonsense aside, maybe you can take a step, move one inch. One little step existentially is worth more than all the scriptures that you can read on the planet. One little step is far more important than all the philosophies that you can spout.
Sadhguru - Of Mystics & Mistakes
See, when we say a "spiritual seeker," unfortunately most people assume that he is God-oriented. A spiritual seeker is not God-oriented; if Devil is the chief of existence, he wants to know that. We want to know what is true; we are not interested in proving our belief systems, because we don't have any.
Sadhguru - Of Mystics & Mistakes
I am not here to speak the Truth. I am here just to give you a method to perceive it.
Mark Crutchfield - The Last Best Gift: Eye Witnesses to the Celebrity Sabbath Massacre
For the New Age community, 'ancient' knowledge is always considered unimpeachable and unimprovable, just as a diverse range of beliefs from Eastern mysticism to UFOs, energy dowsing to cryptozoology, are - though mutually contradictory - unquestionably accepted in the name of open-mindedness.
James Martin -
In such uncommon longings, hidden in plain sight in our lives, does God call us.
Dacha Avelin -
When you start to notice the mystical, the mystical will start to notice you.
Stefan Emunds -
Experience God, don't raise a wall of dogmas between you and Him.
Tirupattur Ramaseshayyer Venkatachala Murti - Central Philosophy of Buddhism: A Study of Madhyamika System
In his numerous works, especially in The Idealist View of Life and Eastern Religions and Western Thought, the great Eastern Philosopher, Professor Radhakrishnan, advocates the necessity for the revival of the deeply spiritual mystical experience which is the basis of all religions and which is expressed in a pure form in Hinduism. He says: “In spite of all appearances to the contrary, we discern in the present unrest the gradual dawning of a great light, a converging life-endeavour, a growing re
Darrell Calkins -
By music I mean the ‘spirit of the game,’ which is what all spirituality ultimately points to — ‘I hear the voice’ (of Nature, God, beauty, truth, love…). Hear it and move onto or into. The easiest way to do that is to notice and invest in whatever it is that provokes wonderment. You could call this coming back to mysticism as a way of life. We were all already there as children.
Darrell Calkins -
Love has an enormous spectrum of expression and impact. At the far end, it begins to unravel and move away from subjective experience and personal preference. It becomes pure intent, something that no longer tickles our desires, but fulfills the deeper needs of each circumstance we’re in.
Thomas Pynchon -
Sometimes, down in the subway, a train Maxine's riding on will slowly be overtaken by a local or an express on the other track, and in the darkness of the tunnel, as the windows of the other train move slowly past, the lighted panels appear one by one, like a series of fortune-telling cards being deal and slid in front of her. The Scholar, The Unhoused, The Warrior Thief, The Haunted Woman... After a while Maxine has come to understand that the faces framed in these panels are precisely those ou
Benedicta Ward -
A monk was told that his father had died. He said to the messenger, "Do not blaspheme. My Father cannot die.
Anthony M. Esolen -
We would – or at least we should – take upon ourselves the ultimate task of our poet: to seek the face of God.
C. JoyBell C. -
In the heart of the mystic lies a deep longing to be reunited with the ancient ways, coupled with a yearning to be able to show others what she can see. She wants to show others what she can see. Sadly, more often than not, others do not have the eyes with which to see, or, their eyes are blinded by bondage and fear. She is ever alone and yet ever accompanied by a thousand leagues of beauties and voices, that this mystic existence can only be described as a thorny rose— the mystic is the one who
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite -
WE say then- that the Cause of all, which is above all, is neither without being, nor without life----nor with- out reason, nor without mind, nor is a body----nor has shape----nor form----nor quality, or quantity, or bulk----nor is in a place----nor is seen----nor has sensible contact----nor perceives, nor is perceived, by the senses----nor has disorder and confusion, as being vexed by earthly passions,----nor is powerless, as being subject to casualties of sense,----nor is in need of light;----
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite -
TRIAD supernal, both super-God and super-good, Guardian of the Theosophy of Christian men, direct us aright to the super-unknown and super-brilliant and highest summit of the mystic Oracles, where the simple and absolute a!nd changeless mysteries of theology lie hidden within the super-luminous gloom of the silence, revealing hidden things, which in its deepest darkness shines above the most super-brilliant, and in the altogether impalpable and invisible, fills to overflowing the eyeless minds w
Dennis Gabor - Inventing The Future
It would be pleasant to believe that the age of pessimism is now coming to a close, and that its end is marked by the same author who marked its beginning: Aldous Huxley. After thirty years of trying to find salvation in mysticism, and assimilating the Wisdom of the East, Huxley published in 1962 a new constructive utopia, The Island. In this beautiful book he created a grand synthesis between the science of the West and the Wisdom of the East, with the same exceptional intellectual power which
Ken Wilber - The Fourth Turning: Imagining the Evolution of an Integral Buddhism
A Super-Integral Spirituality has all the features of an Integral Spirituality, plus, among other things, an inherent conjunction of each stage with a given state, giving all of its stages a transpersonal or spiritual flavor (at least the possibility of either gross nature mysticism, subtle deity mysticism, causal formless mysticism, or nondual Unity mysticism). These mystical states are, of course, available to virtually all the lower 1st- and 2nd-tier stages, although there are likely some sig