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

SHOW detailed search and navigation | Quotes | References | JoAnn

One | Circle | Center | Opposites | Archetypes | Good | Ethics | Living Wholeness | Random

Theosophy, A Modern Expression of the Wisdom of the Ages
Robert Ellwood
Dr. Robert Ellwood is Bashford Professor of Oriental Studies in the School of Religion at the University of Southern California. In this book, he gives a theosophical overview of creation, as well as a Theosophical interpretation of the Oneness of all life.

1 “We humans are miniatures or microcosms of God.”

2 “The unity of the universe is its most basic reality.”

3 “A core of truth lies in all religions.”

4 "The universe is a great concourse of interconnected being, larger and smaller, inner and outer."

5 “The fact that all persons are eternal Pilgrims and expressions of the divine within justifies the importance for the equal treatment of all regardless of race, sex, or creed.”

6 “In their divine essence all humans are equal.”

7 “Despite the trials and frustrations of the passing day, our lives are parts of something tremendously grand and joyous.”

8 "All we do in the way of selfless compassion and service will bring as its logical consequence enhanced experience of the basic Oneness through enhanced awareness….Here is at work the paradoxical but crucial truth inculcated by all spiritual masters, that he who gives up his life for the sake of higher things will find it, and find it a hundredfold."

9 "Love is no more and no less than the ethical expression of oneness."

10 "The atom, the molecule, the cell, the body, the community, the planet, the solar system – all are in intimate and necessary relation to each other….The greater could not exist without the smaller, nor the smaller without the larger system that shapes it."

11 "Symbol is a very important word in the world's religious and spiritual traditions. The word literally means in Greek 'falls with', suggesting something which bears with it more than itself…..to interact with a symbol, in other words, is to interact with more than the thing itself; it also brings one in touch with another reality."

12 "Oneness of the universe is more fundamental than its diversity, so what is most widespread and most expresses unity among the spiritual and philosophical traditions of the Earth is most true."

13 "All persons have a common origin, and each has a unique role to play in human history and human life; all equally have lessons to learn. On the other hand, each has lessons to teach."

14 “Everything we can do for good, however tiny, will not be lost.”

15 "Whatever we do of creativity or love is inspired however unconsciously by the divine within."

16 "Behind the symbols and languages of the world's manifold religions lies a common pattern of pointers to ultimate truth."

17 "Compassion and service are the ethical expression of Unity, awarness of the illusive nature of all that seems to separate and differentiate."

18 "The universe is like a magic hall of mirrors in which the reality of each entity, each Pilgrim, depends on the way he reflects all the other mirrors from a particular angle."

19 "An infinite divine reality – call it Brahman, God, or the One – underlies all that is and is the ultimate nature of all that is; we humans, as part of it, have an infinite origin and destiny; and these things can be known through wisdom, for they are our heritage and our very selves."

20 "One infinite… Reality underlies and unites all that is or can ever be."

21 "Plotinus and the Neoplatonic tradition saw the universe as a chain of being extending from the One, and the One was not only supreme ineffable Reality but also supreme Beauty known in ecstasy."

22 "One can no more know oneself or the oneness of all things without knowing the anguish of myriads who are part of that web of life, and responding to their anguish as though to one's own, than one could act in a play and ignore all the other actors in their parts."

23 "Changes are not random or purposeless, for they are all under the One Law which runs through all that is."

24 “The One is the underlying reality beneath the infinite variations.”

25 “The great initiated souls who founded the great religions embodied the same essential truth under many different guises.”

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite