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		"No epoch is without its geniuses, its wisdom, its enduring truths. Moreover, to ignore past truths seems to be the very definition of pathology. Therefore, an integral approach – a sane approach – would surely attempt to honor, acknowledge, and incorporate these enduring truths in the ongoing sweep of consciousness evolution."

2		"The world is not merely reflected by consciousness, it is co-created by consciousness."

3		"It seems that we are part and parcel of a single and all-encompassing evolutionary current that is itself Spirit-in-action, the mode and manner of Spirit's creation. The same currents that run through our human blood run through swirling galaxies and colossal solar systems, crash through the great oceans and course through the cosmos, move the mightiest of mountains as well as our own moral aspirations – one and the same current moves throughout the All, and drives the entire Kosmos in its every lasting gesture, an extraordinary morphogenetic field that exerts a pull and pressure which refuses to surrender until you remember who and what you are, and that you were carried to this realization by that single current of an all-pervading Love, and here 'there came fulfillment in a flash of light, and vigor failed the lofty fantasy, but now my will and my desires were moved like a wheel revolving evenly, by the Love that moves the sun and other stars.'"

4		"Whenever we moderns pause for a moment, and enter the silence, and listen very carefully, the glimmer of our own deepest nature begins to shine forth, and we are introduced to the mysteries of the deep, the call of the within, the infinite radiance of a splendor that time and space forgot – we are introduced to the all-pervading Spiritual domain that the growing tip of our honored ancestors were the first to discover. And they were good enough to leave us a general map to that infinite domain, a map called the Great Nest of Being, a map of our own interiors, an archeology of our own Spirit."

5		"The essential realizations of the pivotal work of Jung's career were, first, that since the archetypes or norms of myth are common to the human species, they are inherently expressive neither of local social circumstance nor of any individual's singular experience, but of common human needs, instincts, and potentials." Joseph Campbell, 'The Portable Jung'

6		"These interior transcendental journeys – portrayed in brilliant manner by such exemplars as Saint John of the Cross, Ramanuja, Saint Teresa, Shinran, Saint Hildegard – disclosed depths of the soul, and heights of reality, that altered the very nature of consciousness at large, and left the world profoundly altered in its very structure."

7		"During the evolutionary process, that which is whole at one stage becomes a part of the whole of the next: whole atoms become parts of molecules, whole molecules become parts of cells, whole cells become parts of organisms….Each and every thing in the Kosmos is a whole/part, a holon, existing in a nested hierarchy or holarchy, an order of increasing wholeness and holism."

8		"Creativity is built into the very fabric of the Kosmos. This creativity – Eros is one of its many names – drives the emergence of ever higher and ever wider holons, a drive that shows up, in the interior domains, as an expansion of identity (and morals and consciousness) from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit. And the proof of that seqence is found, not by staring at the physical organism and its environment, but by looking into the subjective and intersubjective domains. But humanity has ALREADY done that very carefully for at least several thousand years."

9		"Evolution is simply Spirit-in-action in all domains."

10		"Human beings CAN know the transrational realms directly and immediately."

11		"Brahman IS the world, and nondual mysticism takes its start with just that realization of One Taste."

12		"In the deepest recesses of the psyche, one finds not instincts, but Spirit – and the study of psychology ought ideally to be the study of ALL of that, body to mind to soul, subconscious to self-conscious to superconscious, sleeping to half-awake to fully awake."

13		"The evolutionary current of the Kosmos – this great River of Eros, binding human and nonhuman holons together in an ever-flowing caress – is indeed the Love that moves the sun and other stars."

14		"The divine spirit is one, omniscient and truly all-conscious, i.e., holding all the consciousness of the universe and thus comprising each individual consciousness….in a higher and highest connection." Gustave Theodor Fechner, 'Life After Death'

15		"Eros is the same Spirit-in-action that originally threw itself outward to create a vast morphogenetic field of wondrous possibilities (known as the Great Nest). Out of itself, as matter, it began; out of itself, as life, it continued; out of itself, as mind, it began to awaken. The same Spirit-in-action differentiated itself into modes of the good and the true and the beautiful, as it continued its evolutionary play. And it is now the same Spirit-in-action, starting to become collectively conscious of itself, that has initiated an era of integral embrace – global village to communications internet to integral theories to network society."

16		"The pure Self is the entire Kosmos in all its radiant wonder, and is fully autonomous because there is nothing outside of it."

17		"Harvard theologian John Chirban's conclusion: 'Although each saint describes his own experience (often in his own unique way), basic parallels emerge as one compares the stages of the saints with one another. This sameness confirms the catholicity of their experience….' – and the catholicity (or universal applicability) of the basic waves of consciousness themselves, which are similarly reflected in these numerous cross-cultural sources. Whether one is looking at Saint Teresa, Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi, Lady Tsogyal, Saint Dionysius, Patanjali, Hazrat Inayat Kahn, or Mahamudra, one is again struck by the broadly similar morphogenetic field or developmental space over which their stages migrate."

18		"Looking deep within the mind, in the very most interior part of the self, when the mind becomes very, very quiet, and one listens very carefully, in that infinite Silence, the soul begins to whisper, and its feather-soft voice takes one far beyond what the mind could ever imagine, beyond anything rationality could possibly tolerate, beyond anything logic can endure. In its gentle whisperings, there are the faintest hints of infinite love, glimmers of a life that time forgot, flashes of a bliss that must not be mentioned, an infinite intersection where the mysteries of eternity breathe life into mortal time, where suffering and pain have forgotten how to pronouce their own names, this secret quiet intersection of time and the very timeless, an intersection called the soul."

19		"Spirit is both the very highest wave (purely transcendental) and the ever-present ground of all the waves (purely immanent), going beyond All, embracing All. The Great Nest is a multidimensional latticework of love – eros, agape, karuna, maitri – call it what you will, it leaves no corner of the Kosmos untouched by care nor alien to the mysteries of grace."

20		"All people – in fact, all sentient beings – are equally one with God."

21		"At the very upper reaches of the spectrum of consciousness, your individual I – your separate self or inner subject – becomes an object of the ultimate I, which is none other than radiant Spirit and your own true Self. According to the mystics, you are one with God as ultimate Subject or pure Consciousness – a pure Emptiness that, as absolute Witness, I-I, or Seer, can never itself be seen, and yet paradoxically exists as Everything that is seen: the Spirit that transcends all – and thus can never be seen – and includes all – and thus is everything you are looking at right now."

22		"In the extraordinary archeology of Spirit, those spiritual pioneers (saints and sages) were ahead of their time, and they are still ahead of ours. They are thus voices, not of our past, but of our future; they point to emergents, not exhumations; they urge us forward, not backward. As the growing tip of humanity, they forged a future telos through which the trunk of humanity is now slowly heading, not as a rigid pregiven, but as a gentle persuasion. They are figures of the deepest layers of our own true Self, layers that whisper to us from the radiant depths of a greater tomorrow."

23		"Eros moves through you and me, urging us to include, to diversify, to honor, to enfold."

24		"An integral approach – a sane approach – attempts to honor, acknowledge, and incorporate the enduring truths into the ongoing sweep of consciousness evolution, for they are the truths of our very own Self, even here and now."

25		"In ever-present awareness, your soul expands to embrace the entire Kosmos, so that Spirit alone remains, as the simple world of what is. The rain no longer falls on you, but within you; the sun shines from inside your heart and radiates out into the world, blessing it with grace; supernovas swirl in your consciousness, the thunder is the sound of your own exhilarated heart; the oceans and rivers are nothing but your blood pulsing to the rhythm of your soul."