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		"What is immortal and what is mortal are harmoniously blended." Ashvaghosha

2		"[In mythology] stand revealed the hidden processes of the enigma Homo sapiens – Occidental and Oriental, primitive and civilized, contemporary and archaic. The entire spectacle is before us. We have only to read it, study its constant patterns, analyze its variations, and therewith come to an understanding of the deep forces that have shaped man's destiny and must continue to determine both our private and our public lives."

3		"It must be known that, though this ignorant, limited, self-defending, suffering body may regard itself as threatened by some other – the enemy – that one too is the God."

4		"This world IS Nirvana….'This our worldly life is an activity of Nirvana itself, not the slightest distinction exists between them.' Nagarjuna, 'Madhyamika Shastra'

5		"Myth is a directing of the mind and heart, by means of profoundly informed figurations, to that ultimate mystery which fills and surrounds all existences."

6		"As we are told in the Vedas: 'Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names."

7		"Time and eternity are two aspects of the same experience-whole, two planes of the same nondual ineffable; i.e., the jewel of eternity is in the lotus of birth and death: om mani padme hum."

8		"Him on whom the sky, the earth, and the atmosphere are woven, and the mind, together with all the life-breaths, Him alone know as the one Soul. Other words dismiss. He is the bridge to immortality." Mundaka Upanishad, 2. 2. 5

9		"Thine is Heaven, Thine is Earth. Thou fillest the high regions, and Thou fillest the low regions. Wheresoever I turn, Thou, oh Thou, art there." Leon Stein, 'Hassidic Music'

10		"God is love…He can be, and is to be, loved, and all without exception are his children."

11		"Dr. Jung points out that he has borrowed his term 'archetype' from classic sources: Cicero, Pliny, the Corpus Hermeticum, Augustine, etc. ('Psychology and Religion', par. 89). Bastian notes the correspondence of his own theory of 'Elementary Ideas' with the Stoic concept of the 'Logoi spermatikoi'. The tradition of the 'subjectively known forms' (Sanskrit: antarjneyarupa) is, in fact, coextensive with the tradition of myth, and is the key to the understanding and use of mythological images."

12		"The energy behind the elemental pair of opposites, fire and water, is one and the same."

13		"Through all, the transcendent force…lives in all, in all is wonderful, and is worthy, in all, of our profound obeisance."

14		"Through all the contraries of phenomenality the Uncreate-Imperishable remains, and there is nothing to fear."

15		"The goal of the myth is to dispel ignorance by effecting a reconciliation of the individual consciousness with the universal will."

16		"The hearth in the home, the altar in the temple, is the hub of the wheel of the earth, the womb of the Universal Mother whose fire is the fire of life."

17		"The forward roll of the cosmogonic round precipitates the One into the many."

18		"The distinction between eternity and time is only apparent – made, perforce, by the rational mind, but dissolved in the perfect knowledge of the mind that has transcended the pairs of opposites."

19		"Since the Godhead is immanent in all, He will make Himself known through any object profoundly regarded."

20		"The Eight Hundred Myriads of Gods are but differing manifestations of one unique Deity…The Eternally Standing Divine Being of the Earth, The Great Unity of All Things in the Universe, The Primordial Being of Heaven and Earth, eternally existing." Izawa-Nagahide, 'Shinto-Ameno-Nuboko-no-Ki'

21		"The One breaks into the manifold and the many are reconciled in the One."

22		"There can be no doubt that in the main the mental characteristics of man are the same all over the world." Franz Boas, 'The Mind of Primitive Man'

23		"To a man not led astray from himself by sentiments stemming from the surfaces of what he sees, but courageously responding to the dynamics of his own nature – to a man who is, as Nietzsche phrases it, 'a wheel rolling of itself' – difficulties melt and the unpredictable highway opens as he goes."

24		"Protective power is always and ever present within the sanctuary of the heart and even immanent within, or just behind, the unfamiliar features of the world. One has only to know and trust, and the ageless guardians will appear."

25		"Oh, Lord of the Universe, I will sing Thee a song. Where canst Thou be found, and where canst Thou not be found? Where I pass – there art Thou. Where I remain – there, too, Thou art. Thou, Thou, and only Thou." Leon Stein, 'Hassidic Music'