Many / One

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Compiled by JoAnn Kite

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The Choice Is Always Ours
Dorothy B. Phillips, Chief Editor
An anthology about the spiritual Way, chosen from psychological, religious, philosophical, poetical and biographical sources

1 "It is through the symbol – the language of the unconscious – that the deeper levels of man's being have always expressed themselves."

2 "The Self may be thought of as the heart at the centre of personality." Fritz Kunkel, M.D. (1889-1956), American Psychiatrist, 'How Character Develops'

3 "Great Tao is all pervading! It is available everywhere, on the right hand and on the left. Everything is dependent upon it for existence and it never fails them." Laotzu, 6th century bce, Chinese philosopher, 'Laotzu's Tao and Wu-Wei'

4 "Live in simple faith….just as this trusting cherry flowers, fades, and falls." Issa (1763-1827), Japanese poet, 'Japanese Haiku'

5 "Everything I do is like the pebble thrown into a pool, making larger and larger ripples in the waters of other lives." Joshua Loth Liebman (1907-1948), American rabbi, educator, 'Peace of Mind'

6 "As a matter of fact, the factor of conscious choice, of deliberate decision is the constituent element of human wholeness." Gerhard Adler (b. 1904), English Jungian analyst, 'Studies in Analytical Psychology'

7 "They who are long gone are in us, as predisposition, as a charge upon our destiny, as blood that stirs, and as gesture that rises up out of the depths of time." Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), German poet, 'Letters to a Young Poet'

8 "Somehow we are part of a creative destiny, reaching backward and forward to infinity – a destiny that reveals itself…in our striving, in our love, our thought, our appreciation. We are the fruition of a process that stretches back to star dust. We are material in the hands of the Genius of the universe for a still larger destiny that we cannot see in the everlasting rhythm of worlds." John Elof Boodin, (1869-1950), American philosopher, 'Cosmic Evoltuion'

9 "It is striking to note the remarkable similarity in the ideas of the Object of Devotion as expressed by the great mystics in all religions." editors

10 "Prayer is not the pleading to be saved suffering; it is the pleading that one will be spared no suffering which is necessary to achieve the end one desires: unity with God and co-consciousness with all people." Rose Terlin, American editor and writer, 'Prayer and Christian Living'

11 "There are facets of failure in every person's makeup and there are elements of success. Both must be accepted while we try to emphasize the latter through self-knowledge." Joshua Loth Liebman (1907-1948), American rabbi, 'Peace of Mind', quoted in 'The Choice Is Always Ours', edited by Dorothy B. Phillips, Re-Quest Books 1975, p. 199

12 "In the depths of the human multitude there slumbers an immense spiritual power which will manifest itself only when we have learned how to break through the dividing walls of our egoism and raise ourselves up to an entirely new perspective, so that habitually and in a practical fashion we fix our gaze on the universal realities." Pierre Teilhard deChardin (1881-1955), priest and paleontologist, 'Hymn of the Universe'

13 "Freedom comes through complete acceptance of reality." Alan W. Watts (1915-1973), American philosopher and author, 'The Spirit of Zen'

14 "Love is the result of an identification – the identifying of our wills with the will of God, and our fate with that of all men, however obscure, fallen and needy." Rose Terlin, contemporary American editor and writer, 'Christian Faith and Social Action'

15 "All souls of all things do but compose the body of God." D. H. Lawrence (1885-1940), English novelist and poet, from a letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell, February, 1915

16 "The world lives by its incarnation of God in itself." Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), English mathematician and philosopher, 'Religion in the Making'

17 "I realize that in 'my' chemistry I am akin to earth and water; I recognize my kinship with flowers and grass and trees, with brooks and lakes and rivers, and I feel their rhythms flow through me with peace and power, as I yield my sense of them-in-separateness to the Unity which is their underlying reality." Ruth Raymond (1878-1969), American art educator, written for this anthology

18 "The idea of wholeness is an archetype of deep significance." Gerhard Adler (b. 1904), English Jungian analyst, 'Studies in Analytical Psychology'

19 "I feel myself part of eternity, part of the Being which was eons of years before I was born, and will be eons of years after I die. This is an expression, it seems to me, of 'The peace of God which passes understanding.'" Rollo May (b. 1909), American psychoanalyst, 'Paulus'

20 "Deep in the psychic structure of every individual there is an urge for the kind of fulfillment which will yield meaning, joy and creativity. Men and women, consciously or unconsciously, desire to obtain the insight whereby they can resolve their own pesonal turbulences, achieve an organic interdependence with other human beings and gain a sense of the end for which they were created."

21 "When any community is devoted to the vitality of the Center of and beyond each individual, there will be no danger of damaging consensus, for the particular 'color' of the Center as it expresses itself through each personality will contribute richness to the whole. This will bring relatedness and cooperation." Elizabeth Boyden Howes, Jungian analyst, written for this anthology

22 "What happens in your innermost being is worthy of your whole love." Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), German poet, 'Letters to a Young Poet'

23 "There is inherent in man a longing and tendency towards wholeness, and only when this longing is stilled is his negative state of tension wiped out and neutralized." Gerhard Adler (b. 1904), English Jungian analyst, 'Studies in Analytical Psychology'

24 "We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us." Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), German poet, 'Letters to a Young Poet'

25 "All things are simply channels of the divine and spiritual." Meister Johannes Eckhart (1260-1327), German scholar and mystic

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite