Many / One

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Divine Light and Fire, Experiencing Esoteric Christianity
Peter Roche deCoppens

1 "The mind takes on the form of the object it beholds, and the vital energies of a human being will run along the lines traced and focused upon by the mind and will, and vivify the areas or objects on which both are focused."

2 “From the beginning of human history man has been a religious being, aspiring to discover and consciously reunite with his Source, the Essence of all that is.”

3 "The sacred traditions affirm that each human being is made in the image and likeness of God. Each has a 'Divine Spark', or Kernel of the Ultimate Reality, around which is gathered and organized form and force, matter and energy."

4 "Living synthesis is found and expressed in the images, symbols, myths and allegories of all the world religions."

5 "Each one of the great living religions..has one central and overriding purpose: to bring about a conscious communion and then living union, both internal and external, with God, the Ultimate Reality."

6 "Prayer, the basic exercise of the spirit, must be actively practiced by men and nations. For if the power of prayer is again released and used in the lives of common men and women, if the spirit declares its aims clearly and boldly, there is yet hope that our prayers for a better world will be answered." Alexis Carrell, Nobel Laureate, 'Homme c'est Inconnu'

7 “At this historical juncture, it is important to develop a philosophy of life and become wise in the art of living that philosophy. In doing this we are guided by our purpose on earth: the realization of happiness in the service of God and each other.”

8 "Symbols, images, and archetypes…are the key regulators and main 'switches' of human consciousness and of one's inner life. It is through them that all alterations, focusing, and expansion of human consciousness take place, for they are the regulators, accumulators, and transformers of human consciousness. They enable a person to connect himself (and his field of consciousness) temporarily and to identify with something greater and larger than he is and, thus, slowly to transcend himself and actualize his latent energies, faculties, and potentialitites."

9 “All the world religions, if properly understood, loved, and lived lead to the same ‘inner Temple’, to the One God and God-Experience.”

10 “The spirit of man, itself essentially divine, is capable of immediate communion with God, the One Reality.” Evelyn Underhill, ‘Practical Mysticism’

11 “It is within the power of every one of us, even the weakest, poorest, and least educated, to contribute to the welfare of the world.”

12 “The Divine Essence, or God, is Androgynous, above and implying all genders, masculine and feminine, personal and transpersonal, singular and plural.”

13 "The essence of Life is Love – of the Creator and Supreme Intelligence, and of our fellow humans – which leads to the awakening of spiritual consciousness. The heart of the Art of Living revolves around someone to love, something to do which one truly enjoys, and hope in a better future."

14 “The God who has hung our solar system in space, and has poured His life into it that we and His other creatures might come into being, superintends the progress of that tremendous Experiment with benevolent, paternal interest.” Charles W. Leadbeater, 'Science of the Sacraments'

15 "Archetypes use the analogical-allegorical method rather than the descriptive-analytical one. This means that they are multidimensional, having not one set of meanings, preestablished and socially standardized, but many sets of meanings and correspondences….they are not static and closed but rather dynamic and open, with ever-new emergent levels that come to the foreground as new layers and states of consciousness are activated; they are based on the principle of correspondence and homology, derived from the classical assumption that all things in the universe are interrelated and that the microcosm (human nature) is a reflection of the macrocosm (the world."

16 “Of all knowledge open to a human being, self-knowledge is both the most important and the indispensable prerequisite for any other kind of systematic knowledge.”

17 “It is not a question of ‘killing’ or destroying evil, but rather of recognizing it, in order to reequilibrate it and transmute it into the good by harnessing its energies: one can say, of ultimately redeeming it.”

18 "In the sacred traditions of the past, we can find a holistic structure of creation and of human nature (also interesting in the light of modern theoretical physics)."

19 "Symbols, images, and archetypes are indeed, and function as, a bridge or connection between the known and the unknown, the conscious and the Deep Mind, actuality and potentiality. They are elements in a progressive developmental path or curriculum by which the many can become one, by which the profane can be linked with the sacred, and by which the supreme synthesis of finding Union with God can be realized – the true purpose and destiny of all human beings on earth."

20 “Self-knowledge, a knowledge of human nature and of human consciousness, and a spiritual science of man and of human consciousness are essential and, indeed inevitable.”

21 "We are ready to move from analysis to synthesis, from the knowledge of the head to thinking with the heart, which can bring us to the beating heart of reality, to the tabernacle of our being, the Inner Christ."

22 "It is Love that is truly fundamental, the wellspring and motive force for both knowledge and action….Love is itself both form and substance of knowledge, a means of cognition, a way of true knowledge that comes from communion and union with the object of that knowledge."

23 “This is the time of history when the Great Synthesis can come about….What is most urgently needed are the teachings of the Spiritual Tradition, backed up by personal observation and experience.”

24 "In the heart and roots of each religion, one can find God, the Source and Essence of all, acting by various means but with the same fundamental purpose – to bring about the incarnation, evolution, actualization, and redemption of human beings in this earthly life."

25 "We know a thing only by uniting with it; by assimilating it; by an interpenetration of it and ourselves. It gives itself to us, just in so far as we give ourselves to it….The great Sufi who said that 'Pilgrimage to the place of the wise is to escape the flame of separation' spoke the literal truth. Wisdom is the fruit of communion." Evelyn Underhill, 'Practical Mysticism'

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite