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		"From atom to god, the Law repeats itself in ever widening circles." Regents of the Seven Spheres (H. K. Challoner)

2		"According to Jung, the mandala is an image of unity and totality existing a priori and in potentia within the human mind. It represents the inner orderedness of the cosmic source, the foundation of beauty and harmony in a sacred cosmos, divinity unfolding in cosmos, nature, and mind." The Strong Eye of Shamanism, A Journey Into the Caves of Consciousness (Robert E. Ryan, Ph.D.)

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

4		"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)

5		"One by one you take your place in the mandala of saints and bodhisattvas." Quietly Comes the Buddha: Awakening Your Inner Buddha Nature (Elizabeth Clare Prophet)

6		"The ouroboros is an expression of the unified field of matter and mind, and the cosmic destiny that is also ours. 'Oneness'. Alchemy, The Art of Transformation (Jay Ramsay)

7		"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.)

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		"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)

10		"All this, then, was the plan of the everlasting god for the god who was going to be. According to this plan he made the body of the world smooth and uniform, everywhere equidistant from its center, a body whole and complete, with complete bodies for its parts. And in the centre he set the soul and caused it to extend throughout the whole body, and he further wrapped the body round with soul on the outside. So he established one world alone." Plato, 'Timaeus' Collected Works (Carl Jung)

11		"A mandala [is] an ordering pattern or pattern of order which is either consciously devised or appears spontaneously as a product of unconscious processes." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

12		"The Circle is the Thought; the diameter (or the line) is the Word; and their union is Life." The Secret Doctrine (Helena P. Blavatsky)

13		"The natural image to depict the Infinite's inclusiveness is a circle, an all-including circle that encompasses our finite universe and out of which it is impossible to fall. 'In Him we live and move and have our being', Paul tells us, and Augustine added, 'God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.'" The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition (Huston Smith)

14		"It seems the circle has resided within us since the dawn of time, and is a form familiar to us at a deeply resonant level. Over and over again, when this mythic resonance is activated, people experience a sense of 'having been here before' as they enter the circle." Calling the Circle: The First and Future Culture (Christina Baldwin)

15		"We are embedded in communities, circles within circles of communities, both small and large, focused and abstract. Holding up the ideal of unity, we strive to break down the walls which separate us from others – not only other nations and peoples, but other species and the natural world." Spiritual Literacy, Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life (Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat)

16		"In the cyclic system of the ancients, birth and death merged in a circular continuum." The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Barbara G. Walker)

17		"The Universe is boundless and unlimited, a circle whose circumference is everywhere." Encyclopedia of Ancient and Forbidden Knowledge (Zolar)

18		"In the circle of life all things are present and connected." Manual for the PeaceMaker (Jean Houston with Margaret Rubin)

19		"Your psyche is spherical, whole and complete. When you are approaching an experience of that wholeness, you begin to notice circles and spheres. The sun and moon are magnificent spherical mandalas, and isn't it a wonderful gift that both by day and by night, the heavens present the symbol of your wholeness to you?....The sphere contains the center point of your cohesive power. It can be used as an imaging device to aid in your movement toward wholeness." Reflections of an Elder Brother: Awakening from the Dream (Mary-Margaret Moore)

20		"God created the empyrean or highest heaven as a pure and simple radiance encircling and enclosing all the heavens and every corporeal and material thing which he ever created." John Ruysbroeck (1293-1381), Heaven, A History (Colleen McDannell & Bernhard Lang)

21		"There are times when doubts over me steal, but I know Thou are there and awake. Thou art – and art – and I feel no surging of aeons can shake Thee – Life is a ring, I have found – I am child, boy, man, more – I learn the circle is rich, the full round complete in its perfect return." Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), German poet The Choice Is Always Ours (Dorothy B. Phillips, Chief Editor)

22		"The World Snake, called 'Ouroboros' in Greek, was said to be itself both male and female, self-impregnating, self-feeding, immortal and complete. Thus it is the mythic image for both God and nature." The Mythic Tarot (Juliet Sharman-Burke and Liz Greene)

23		"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)

24		"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)

25		"The centre of a circle is regarded as the indivisible source of all the radii extending from it;…pre-existing in God are all the inner essences of created things." St. Maximos the Confessor, 'Second Century on Theology' The Philokalia, volume 2 (various authors, compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain)