ONE

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		"In Jung's view, mandalas and all concomitant images….are derived from dreams and visions corresponding to the most basic of religious symbols known to mankind – symbols which are known to have existed as far back as the Paleolithic Age, as is proved, for example, by the Rhodesian rock engravings." A Dictionary of Symbols (J. E. Cirlot)

2		"Thirty-three centuries ago, Ikhnaton, the pharaoh of Egypt, described the universe as a giant egg, a great cell of being in which he conceived the nucleus as the source of that creative force which he acknowledged as the life energy of God." The Human Aura (Kuthumi and Djwal Kul)

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

4		"Circular motifs…point to our original wholeness – they are without beginning and end, self-contained and eternal." Journey Into Consciousness: The Chakras, Tantra and Jungian Psychology (Charles Breaux)

5		"The shape of the world exists everlastingly in the knowledge of the true Love which is God: constantly circling, wonderful for human nature, and such that it is not consumed by age and cannot be increased by anything new….in its workings the Godhead is like a wheel, a whole." Hildegard of Bingen, Mandala, Luminous Symbols for Healing (Judith Cornell, Ph.D.)

6		"The Mandala was developed as a reminder of the direct perception of reality." Mandala (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)

7		"Mandalas are birth-places, vessels of birth in the most literal sense, lotus-flowers in which a Buddha comes to life." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

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

9		"Since consciousness has always been described in terms derived from the behavior of light, it is in my view not too much to assume that these multiple luminosities correspond to ..conscious phenomena. If the luminosity appears in monadic form as a single star, sun, or eye, it readily assumes the shape of a mandala and must then be interpreted as the self…The symbols of the self have a uniting character." 'On The Nature of the Psyche', CW 8 Basic Writings of C G Jung (V S DeLasslo, editor)

10		"Between four and six thousand years ago the ancient peoples in Europe built stone circles and decorated them with interlocking scroll loops. Similar motifs appear all over the world. The psychologist Carl Jung said such images are archetypes or universal structures in the collective unconscious of humankind. Could such a collective wisdom perhaps be expressing its intuitions of the wholeness within nature, the order and simplicity, chance and predictability that lie in the interlocking and unfolding of things?" Turbulent Mirror (John Briggs and F. David Peat)

11		"A circle [is] the traditional symbol of heaven, wholeness, and unity." A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science (Michael S. Schneider)

12		"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)

13		"The universe is a mandalic mirror – a sacred art and science of divine creative processes." Mandala, Luminous Symbols for Healing (Judith Cornell, Ph.D.)

14		"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)

15		"We know from experience that the protective circle, the mandala, is the traditional antidote for chaotic states of mind." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

16		"Circles are archetypal images, representing the self." Symbols, Guiding Lights Along the Journey of Life (Kathleen R. Prata)

17		"The oldest mandala drawing known to me is a paleolithic 'sun wheel', recently discovered in Rhodesia….Things reaching so far back in human history naturally touch upon the deepest layer of the unconscious and affect the latter where conscious speech shows itself to be quite impotent. Such things cannot be thought up but must grow again from the forgotten depths, if they are to express the deepest insights of consciousness and the loftiest intuitions of the spirit. Coming from these depths they blend together the uniqueness of present-day consciousness with the age-old past of life." C. G. Jung The Secret of the Golden Flower (Richard Wilhelm, translator)

18		"We will see how we are a tribe and a company, in circle after circle rippling out and intersecting. We will see how we are all entering each other – as gifts to each other, mirroring and completing each other: and how we are all unique angles on the centre." Alchemy, The Art of Transformation (Jay Ramsay)

19		“The circle is the primary law.” Aphorism 29 in Horneffer, ‘Nietzches Lehre von der Ewigen Wiederkunft’ Collected Works (Carl Jung)

20		"Our deepest awareness, the power that motivates all awareness, which we can call the 'Power to Be Conscious,' of which we are not ordinarily cognizant, recognizes its own transcendental nature in the geometry of the circle. For this reason the circle has been a universal symbol of an ideal perfection and divine state that always exists around and within us whether we acknowledge it or not." A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science (Michael S. Schneider)

21		"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.)

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		"All centres are symbols of eternity, since time is the motion of the periphery of the wheel of phenomena rotating around the Aristotelian 'unmoved mover'." A Dictionary of Symbols (J. E. Cirlot)

24		"A certain circulation appears in love because it is from good and toward good and that circling agrees with the divine eternity of love, since circular motion alone can be perpetual." Thomas Aquinas, DDN, n. 450, p. 148 Sheer Joy, Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality (Matthew Fox)

25		"In 1918-1919 Jung sketched a circular drawing in his notebook every morning. These mandalas gave him insight into the development of his personality, a sense of the meanings growing in him. 'My mandalas', he wrote, 'were cryptograms concerning the state of the self which were presented to me anew each day. In them I saw the self – that is, my whole being – actively at work.' ('Memories, Dreams, Reflections')" Spiritual Pilgrims, Carl Jung & Teresa of Avila (John Welch, O. Carm.)

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite