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		"The mandala…portrays an autonomous psychic fact, characterized by a phenomenology which is always repeating itself and is everywhere the same. It seems to be a sort of atomic nucleus." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

2		"Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past everything you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches as you look into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes. The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it is no longer contained at all. The light expands and covers everything, extending to infinity forever shining and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that anything could be outside, for there is nowhere that this light is not. This is the vision of the Son of God, whom you know well….Here is the memory of what you are; a part of this, with all of it within, and joined to all as surely as all is joined to you." A Course in Miracles (Helen Schucman and William Thetford)

3		"I live my life in growing orbits, which move out over the things of the world…I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years." Rainer Maria Rilke, 'Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke' The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience (Ralph Metzner)

4		"In one sense, all sacred religious structures partake of the Mandala principle: the Egyptian and Mexican pyramids; the temples of India, Buddhist stupas; Islamic mosques; the pagodas of China and Japan; and the tipis and kivas of North America; in the churches and cathedrals of Christianity." Mandala (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)

5		"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)

6		"The idea of rotation is the keystone of most transcendent symbols: of the mediaeval 'Rota'; of the Wheel of Buddhist transformations; of the zodiacal cycle; of the myth of the Gemini; and of the 'opus' [work] of the alchemists. The idea of the world as a labyrinth or of life as a pilgrimage leads to the idea of the 'centre' as a symbol of the absolute goal of Man – Paradise regained….Pictorially, this central point is sometimes identified with the geometric centre of the symbolic circle." A Dictionary of Symbols (J. E. Cirlot)

7		"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)

8		"Never during its pilgrimage is the spirit of man completely adrift and alone. From start to finish its nucleus is the Atman – the self-luminous abiding point, boundless as the sky, indivisible, absolute, the only reality." Huston Smith, 'Karma, Rebirth and Freewill' Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery (Cranston/Head, editors)

9		“O great, greatest, incomprehensible fabric of the world, formed in a circle!” ‘Secret Inscription’ in the Great Magic Papyrus of Paris Collected Works (Carl Jung)

10		"The holistic perception of alchemy relates directly to the Mandala. Many alchemical charts take on a Mandala form in revealing the integral interrelationships between the elements and qualities of nature. Alchemy also defines the proceses of consciousness as an on-going state of integral awareness." Mandala (Jose and Miriam Arguelles)

11		"They [mandalas] are among the oldest religious symbols of humanity and may even have existed in paleolithic times (cf. the Rhodesian rock paintings). Moreover they are distributed all over the world." Collected Works (Carl Jung)

12		"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)

13		"I pin my hopes to quiet processes and small circles, in which vital and transforming events take place." Rufus Jones A Hidden Wholeness, The Journey Toward An Undivided Life (Parker J. Palmer)

14		"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)

15		"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)

16		"I have found that the eye which sees the whole circle expresses our soul simply and perfectly." Nikos Kazantzakis The Way of The Earth, Encounters with Nature in Ancient and Contemporary Thought (T. C. McLuhan)

17		"Each circle you see or create is a profound statement about the transcendental nature of the uni-verse." A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art & Science (Michael S. Schneider)

18		“The circle is a symbol of the psyche (even Plato described the psyche as a sphere).” Aniela Jaffe, ‘Symbolism in the Visual Arts’ Man and His Symbols (Carl Jung)

19		"The Point within a Circle…is the Divine Spirit indwelling creation and abiding in the nature of man." A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (Arthur Edward Waite)

20		"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.)

21		"The Light will return to the Infinite Source whence it sprang, forming a luminous circle that will encompass the universe throughout eternity." Kabbalah for the Modern World (Migene Gonzalez-Wippler)

22		"Even a pebble or a tiny insect is gathered up in the sacred hoop." Leonard Crow Dog (Sioux Native American), American Indian Myths and Legends (Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz, editors)

23		"At one with the physical world around them, they (Native Americans) perceived the interconnectedness of all things, the circular nature of the universe, and the rightness of both birth and death in the overall scheme of creation." Seven Paths to God, The Ways of the Mystic (Joan Borysenko, Ph.D.)

24		"The center of the circle is the point of transformation. It corresponds to pure essence, to timelessness, to transparent light." The Spiral Dance, A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (Starhawk (Miriam Simos))

25		"The great wheels turn in cyclic motion, bearing all things toward one consummation." Regents of the Seven Spheres (H. K. Challoner)