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 "The only name for the faculty by which we can discern that element of Beauty which is present in every Fact, which we must discern in every Fact before it becomes Truth for us, is Love." John Middleton Murry (1889-1957), English author, 'Studies in Keats'

2 "Prayer is the act by which man opens himself to the total values for wholeness that exist in each situational moment of his life." Elizabeth B. Howes and Sheila Moon, 'Man the Choicemaker'

3 "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

4 "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

5 "The integrated personality does not merely express the individual totality, for in the actualization of his own a priori wholeness the individual also discovers his relatedness to a super-individual centre. This centre is the self which is paradoxically the quintessence of the individuum and at the same time of the collectivum. In other words: the experience of wholeness coincides with the experience of a centre of the personality and a meaning of life which transcends the individual. This is expressed for instance in the words of Nicolaus of Cusa who makes God say to man: 'Be thou thyself, and I shall be thine.'" Gerhard Adler (b. 1904), English Jungian analyst, 'Studies in Analytical Psychology'

6 "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'

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

8 "This Form of the good must be seen by whosoever would act wisely in public or in private." Plato, 'The Republic'

9 "If he does not know what is good, a man cannot be true to himself….He who learns to be his true self is one who finds out what is good and holds fast to it." Tsesze, Chinese philosopher, grandson of Confucius, 'The Golden Mean of Tsesze'

10 "Prayer is a pure act of the will, seeking an integral understanding of and union with the Whole, the One." Gerald Heard (1889-197), English author and philosopher, 'A Preface to Prayer'

11 "The philosophers Tilly and Seneca maintain that no rational soul is without God. The seed of God is in us." Meister Eckhart (1260-1327), German scholar and mystic

12 "Whatever the approach, and however complicated the philosophical, psychological or theological superstructure erected upon it, the essentials of the Way whereby the suprapersonal reality becomes transformingly effective in the individual life are found to be virtually identical and universal."

13 "There is nothing real where the One Sole Good is not." Francois Fenelon (1651-1715), French Archbishop of Cambray, 'Spiritual Letters of Archbishop Fenelon'

14 "This is the real message of the Bhagavad Gita: in short, temporal life and spiritual values stand in a relation of harmony – one divine life, as the Gita tells us." Swami Prabhavananda (b. 1893), monk of Ramakrishna Mission, 'Vedic Religion and Philosophy'

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

16 "The deepest and most profound and most hidden of all human desires: The desire to love and to give oneself in love and to be part of the living stream we call brotherhood." Fritz Kunkel, M.D. (1889-1956), American psychiatrist, 'In Search of Maturity', quoted in 'The Choice Is Always Ours', edited by Dorothy B. Phillips, Pillar Books 1975, p. 105

17 "There exists an ultimate Reality that is by nature both transcendent and immanent. The immanent aspect, this something of God in man, traces its ancestry to early Hindu sources, thence to the Socratic movement in philosophy, and on to the teaching of Jesus. Since then it has been variously expressed as: 'the deep center', 'the ground of the soul', 'the inward Voice', the Real Self', 'the inner Vocation', 'that something which binds us to the deeper processes of consciousness', 'that potentiality of an extension of consciousness', et cetera."

18 "There are times when doubts over me steal, but I know Thou are there and awake. Thou art – and art – and I feel no surging of aeons can shake Thee – Life is a ring, I have found – I am child, boy, man, more – I learn the circle is rich, the full round complete in its perfect return." Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), German poet

19 "God is. That is so real, that to talk of His love, or of serving Him is saying less, not more. He is, and He is with us." Alfred Romer, (b. 1907), American professor of physics

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

21 "Who are you who go about to save them that are lost? Are you saved yourself?.... Be sure, very sure, that each one of these can teach you as much as, probably more than, you can teach them. Have you then sat humbly at their feet, and waited on their lips that they should be the first to speak – and been reverent before these children – whom you so little understand? Have you dropped into the bottomless pit from between yourself and them all hallucination of superiority, all flatulence of knowledge, every shred of abhorrence and loathing? Is it equal, is it free as the wind between you? Could you be happy receiving favors from one of the most despised of these?.....Arise, then, and become a savior." Edward Carpenter (1844-1929), English author, poet, 'Towards Democracy'

22 "The Kingdom of God is not imminent but immanent; it is not 'among you', about suddenly to break like a thunderstorm, but 'within you', ready to be expressed the moment you understand your latent, common nature and how you must and can transcend your individuality, your egotism, which makes the world the obstacle it proves today to be to you." Gerald Heard (1889-1971), English author and philosopher, 'The Third Morality'

23 "The command to love is written in the material structure of our everyday life. Mutuality is not just a shiny ideal that catches the eye of a few idealists. It is the demand of the historic process. It is not merely a moral obligation, which can be set aside because of more urgent practical necessities. It is the most urgently practical need of our life. It is a moral obligation precisely because it is also a material necessity." Gregory Vlastos (b. 1909), Canadian professor of philosophy, 'Christian Faith and Democracy'

24 "Love directed towards the eternal and infinite feeds the mind with pure joy and is free from all sadness." Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch philosopher, 'De Intellectus Emendatione'

25 "The freedom of the individual might be defined as the preparedness to be formed by his own eidos, his inner image of wholeness which exists a priori in him. The more the individual becomes sensitive and receptive to his inner image, the more he becomes whole and 'healed'." Gerhard Adler (B. 1904), English Jungian analyst, 'Studies in Analytical Psychology'

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite