Many / One

A database of 11,000+ illuminated guiding quotations in 40 categories from 600+ inspired books by our most brilliant and influential authors.
Compiled by JoAnn Kite

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1		"Since consciousness has always been described in terms derived from the behavior of light, it is in my view not too much to assume that these multiple luminosities correspond to ..conscious phenomena. If the luminosity appears in monadic form as a single star, sun, or eye, it readily assumes the shape of a mandala and must then be interpreted as the self…The symbols of the self have a uniting character." 'On The Nature of the Psyche', CW 8 Basic Writings of C G Jung (V S DeLasslo, editor)

2		"The One is the midpoint of the circle." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

3		"What is the work of works for man if not to establish, in and by each one of us, an absolutely original centre in which the universe reflects itself in a unique and inimitable way? And those centres are our very selves and personalities." The Phenomenon of Man (Pierre Teilhard deChardin)

4		"The circle with the point in the centre is symbolic of the perfected man. He is rounded out; he is inclusive both vertically (soul contact) and horizontally (human relationship)." The Rays and The Initiations (Alice A. Bailey)

5		"At the very heart and center of existence, pervading the whole manifestation of the divine Idea, there exists one predominant Law. This Law – insofar as it may be comprehended by humanity – decrees that the tendency to preserve harmonious equilibrium, shall always be stronger than the tendencies toward discordance." Call to the Heights, Guidance on the Pathway to Self-illumination (Geoffrey Hodson)

6		"Work with symbols will be found of real value if you persevere. I would give you a hint about them which your intuition will reveal. Where the converging lines of any symbol meet and where the many lines cross there is a point of force and of illumination, a focussed centre through which the illumined mind can pierce. Ponder on this." Discipleship in the New Age (Alice A. Bailey)

7		"Deity and the cosmos may be likened to a circle or sphere whose circumference is nowhere – hence boundless – but those center is everywhere. And each monad is such a divine, immortal, preexistent center." Editors Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery (Cranston/Head, editors)

8		"We know the energy that causes water to circulate: it is the sun and her unlimited and divine energy. Perhaps we ought to assume the existence of a similar energy for spiritual realms – a sort of central sun." Lectures on the I Ching: Constancy and Change (Richard Wilhelm)

9		"The sphere is a whole, and hence it underlies the symbolic significance of all those images which partake of this wholeness, from the idea of the mystic 'Centre' to that of the world and eternity, or , more particularly, of the world-soul. In neo-platonic philosophy, the soul is explicitly related to the shape of the sphere, and the substance of the soul is deposited as quintessence around the concentric spheres of the four Elements. The same is true of the primordial man of Plato's Timaeus….Another important association is that of perfection and felicity. The absence of corners and edges is analogous to the absence of inconveniences, difficulties, and obstacles." A Dictionary of Symbols (J. E. Cirlot)

10		"To be integrated, to be made whole, means to be able to maintain contact with one's center." Mandala (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)

11		"The centre is the indivisible monad of the self, the unity and wholeness of the experiencing subject." C. G. Jung: Letters, 1951-1961 (Gerhard Adler and Aniela Jaffe, editors)

12		"The hearth in the home, the altar in the temple, is the hub of the wheel of the earth, the womb of the Universal Mother whose fire is the fire of life." Hero With A Thousand Faces (Joseph Campbell)

13		"Each cell divides (by mitotic or amitotic division) and gives birth to another cell similar to itself. First, a single centre; then two. Everything in the subsequent development of life stems from this potent primordial phenomenon." The Phenomenon of Man (Pierre Teilhard deChardin)

14		"God…is the center of all selves." Covenant of the Heart, Meditations of a Christian Hermeticist on the Mysteries of Tradition (Valentin Tomberg)

15		"Deity is the central and immortal germ of all that exists in the universe." Isis Unveiled (Helena P. Blavatsky)

16		"To say that God is Infinite is to say that He may be apprehended and described in an infinity of ways. That Circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, may be approached from every angle with a certainty of being found." Mysticism (Evelyn Underhill)

17		"The centre of the soul is God; and, when the soul has attained to Him according to the whole capacity of its being, which is the strength and virtue of the soul, it will have reached the last and the deep centre of the soul, which will be when with all its powers it loves and understands and enjoys God." Living Flame of Love (St. John of the Cross)

18		"Everywhere are to be found centres of force, and the idea can be extended from such a force centre as a chemical atom, on and up through varying grades and groups of such intelligent centres, to humanity, and thence to the Life which is manifesting through the system. Thus is demonstrated a marvellous and synthesised Whole." The Consciousness of the Atom (Alice A. Bailey)

19		"Unconsciously dwelling at our inmost center; beneath the surface shuttlings of our sensations, precepts, and thoughts; wrapped in the envelope of soul (which too is finally porous) is the eternal and the divine, the final Reality." Beyond the Post-Modern Mind (Huston Smith)

20		"The pair of opposites is always there until one can find the center. Then in the center one can move and then go freely." Jean Erdman, Joseph Campbell's wife The Hero's Journey (Phil Cousineau, editor)

21		"The unconscious can be reached and expressed only by symbols, and art, myth, dream, and fantasy, with their symbolic propensities, are effective psychopomps, leading the mind to an anamnesis of the origins of psychic life. The result of this anamnesis (an 'unforgetting' or rediscovery) is, on the one hand, an accession to power and vitality resultant from this integration. On the other hand, the mind experiences a perception of something akin to essential form and divinity at the heart of the creation and begins to sense an underlying acausal pattern of continuous creation. The two aspects coalesce in spontaneous images, often taking the form of a mandala and emphasizing a unifying centrality surrounded by a symmetrical quaternary or circular structure suggesting a microcosmic-macrocosmic identity between creature and the cosmic creation." The Strong Eye of Shamanism, A Journey Into the Caves of Consciousness (Robert E. Ryan, Ph.D.)

22		"In a twelfth-century hermetic text known as 'The Book of the Twenty-Four Philosophers' there is a statement that has been quoted, through the centuries, by a number of Christian thinkers – among others, Alan of Lille (1128-1202), Nicholas Cusanus (1401-1464), Rabelais (1490?-1553), Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), and Pascal (1632-1662), as well as Voltaire (1694-1778); to wit: 'God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.'" Joseph Campbell Tarot Revelations (Joseph Campbell & Richard Roberts)

23		"Through finding himself and understanding his own nature, man arrives at that centre within himself which is one with all that is." From Intellect to Intuition (Alice A. Bailey)

24		"We will see how we are a tribe and a company, in circle after circle rippling out and intersecting. We will see how we are all entering each other – as gifts to each other, mirroring and completing each other: and how we are all unique angles on the centre." Alchemy, The Art of Transformation (Jay Ramsay)

25		"The center of the circle is the point of transformation. It corresponds to pure essence, to timelessness, to transparent light." The Spiral Dance, A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (Starhawk (Miriam Simos))