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		"The mandala form is universal and deeply fixed in our psyche." Jeanne Miles, American artist Parabola, the Magazine of Myth and Tradition (various)

2		"Reflecting on wholeness and balance as represented by symbols of integration such as the cross and the circle can sometimes help us bring our spiritual life into balance." Shadows of the Sacred: Seeing Through Spiritual Illusions (Frances Vaughan, Ph.D.)

3		"Even a pebble or a tiny insect is gathered up in the sacred hoop." Leonard Crow Dog (Sioux Native American), American Indian Myths and Legends (Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz, editors)

4		"Looking at a circle is like looking into a mirror. We create and respond irresistibly to circles, cylinders, and spheres because we recognize ourselves in them. The message of the shape bypasses our conscious mental circuitry and speaks directly to the quiet intelligence of our deepest being. The circle is a reflection of the world's – and our own – deep perfection, unity, design excellence, wholenes, and divine nature." A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science (Michael S. Schneider)

5		"Humanity returns by a sort of circulatory movement to its first beginning, being united by the work of the Incarnation to the very origin of all things." Thomas Aquinas, 'A Compendium of Theology', I, 201 Sheer Joy, Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality (Matthew Fox)

6		"As a cosmogenic model, the Mandala is a synchronous, self-renewing whole." Mandala (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)

7		“The elements are conjoined in the circle of true friendship.” Petrus Bonus Collected Works (Carl Jung)

8		"The mandala as a symbol of the self is the psyche's expression of its fundamental orientation to wholeness. Not only is it an expression of the goal, but it also indicates that the psyche has a built-in dynamism moving it toward its objective." Spiritual Pilgrims, Carl Jung & Teresa of Avila (John Welch, O. Carm.)

9		"The mandla fulfils its function as an aid to man in his efforts to regroup all that is dispersed around a single axis." A Dictionary of Symbols (J. E. Cirlot)

10		"Both as a principle of unity and a model of the cosmos, the sphere represents the ultimate undivided, undifferentiated whole." Keith Chritchlow, 'Twelve Criteria for Sacred Architecture' Homage to Pythagoras, Rediscovering Sacred Science (Christopher Bamford, editor)

11		"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.)

12		"They [mandalas] are among the oldest religious symbols of humanity and may even have existed in paleolithic times (cf. the Rhodesian rock paintings). Moreover they are distributed all over the world." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

13		"In early Christian remains, the circle frequently appears as a serpent with its tail in its mouth." Violet Shelley, 'Symbols and the Self' Symbols, Guiding Lights Along the Journey of Life (Kathleen R. Prata)

14		"The whole world is a circle. All of these circular images reflect the psyche, so there may be some relationship between these architectural designs and the actual structuring of our spiritual functions….the circle represents totality. Everything within the circle is one thing, which is encircled, enframed. That would be the spatial aspect. But the temporal aspect of the circle is that you leave, go somewhere, and always come back. God is the alpha and the omega, the source and the end. The circle suggests immediately a completed totality, whether in time or in space." The Power of Myth (Joseph Campbell)

15		"In its most elevated form, the sacred circle mirrors an illumined state of consciousness through a symbolic pattern – making the invisible visible. It is meant to draw both creator and viewer into an encounter with animating sources of numinous energy." Mandala, Luminous Symbols for Healing (Judith Cornell, Ph.D.)

16		"The animate world is the larger circle, man is the smaller circle. He is the microcosm. Consequently, everything without is within, everything above is below. Between all things in the larger and smaller circles reigns 'correspondence'." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

17		"The Mandala is a module exhibiting principles of organicity: interrelationship of parts, interdependence of systems, resonance and synchronicity." Mandala (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)

18		"Since olden times the circle with a centre has been a symbol for the Deity, illustrating the wholeness of God incarnate." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

19		"Psychoanalysts have noted that the joining of the square with the circle (in such forms as the star, the rose, the lotus, concentric circles, the circle with a visible central point, etc.) is symbolic of the final stage in the process of individuation, or, in other words, of that phase of spiritual development when imperfections (irregular shapes) have been eliminated…for the sake of concentrating upon the achievement of Oneness." A Dictionary of Symbols (J. E. Cirlot)

20		"From whichever point a Mandala is entered, a path opens that leads to the eternal center." Mandala (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)

21		"The mandala symbolizes the cosmos, and the center of the mandala represents the axis of the universe." Seeing With the Mind's Eye (Mike Samuels, M.D. and Nancy Samuels)

22		"The circular sea with no outlet, which perpetually replenishes itself by means of a spring bubbling up in its centre, is to be found in [the writings of] Nicholas of Cusa as an allegory of God." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

23		"Mandalas are also formed with the hands, danced, and represented in music (for instance Bach's 'Art of Fugue')….When a mandala is being formed, everything round and square known to man works on it too. But the impetus for its formation comes from the unconscious archetype." C. G. Jung: Letters, 1951-1961 (Gerhard Adler and Aniela Jaffe, editors)

24		"We need to worship in circles again, preferably on the soil of Mother Earth wherever possible. Circles invite all creatures to be part of the grateful event and they allow the humans present to look each other in the eye while rounding and connecting themselves in step with the universe." The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (Matthew Fox)

25		"The eye is the first circle, the horizon which it forms is the second: and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end." Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American essayist and poet A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science (Michael S. Schneider)