Many / One

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The Search for the Beloved
Jean Houston
Journeys in mythology and sacred psychology

1 "The ancient metaphor of Indra's net and the modern formulations of quantum physics remind us that we are all woven together."

2 "The entelechy in us, the most potent and personal of evolutionary principles, constantly seeks to remind us that we are that grand intersection between cosmology and biology, and that the universe seeks to grow in our own becoming."

3 "To touch the sacred you must touch the divinity of skin and bark; to see God you must sense the numinous in all things."

4 "Our spirits are dogged by the Hound of Heaven who barks, 'Get on with it!' That is why we are at a unique point in human history."

5 "The culture of the depths, sometimes referred to as the 'mundus imaginalis', the imaginal world, or in the Arabic mystical tradition as the 'alam al-mithal', is as real as everyday, objective life – perhaps even more real, since it is the place where the forms and creations of your existential life are conceived."

6 "Meister Eckhart, the great medieval German mystic, spoke of our being planted with godseeds that can bring forth gods. Our loaded latency is now ready to be born, to be schooled, to be grown, to be used to co-create the world and ourselves, as well as to nurture the psychogenes of what we have called 'gods'."

7 "In nearly all traditions, sacred psychology assumes that the deepest yearning in every human soul is to return to its spiritual source, there to experience communion and even union with the Beloved."

8 "As fetus in our mother's womb, we had no choice about our physical development. In our present embryogenesis, not only do we have choice, but indeed we are invited to join Great Nature in the re-creation and the regeneration of ourselves neurologically, psycho-physically, mentally, and emotionally."

9 "In times of suffering, when you feel abandoned, perhaps even annihilated, there is occurring – at levels deeper than your pain – the entry of the sacred, the possibility of redemption."

10 "We are at a time in human history and planetary development when we are becoming aware of the stupendous unconscious knowledge and skillful orchestration that is going on in ourselves as well as in the outer cosmos all the time."

11 "The ladder of existence and the archetypal world meet in the crossroads of the heart to bring the archetypal patterns into time, and to raise the human being higher in his journey up the ladder toward the One."

12 "A study of history indicates that times of chaos hold within themselves the codings for new cosmos, new culture, a new and deeper commitment to love….Present civilization, as well as planetary necessity, is an extraordinary vehicle to engender chaos to provoke in you the desire for cosmogenesis and the search for the Divine Beloved. Thus, chaos is a movement toward consciousness, which is also a movement into conscious creation, conscious genesis, and conscious loving."

13 "Myth is something that never was but is always happening. It is the nuclear cell in the entelechy, the wake-up call from Central: 'It's time! Time to wake up now!'"

14 "Myth has a universal formulation that speaks to the codings of the deep unconscious. Thus myth is not just an ancient narrative designed to entertain benighted souls during the long winter evenings; it is an imprint in the psychic and spiritual DNA."

15 "The need for planetary communion and co-creation is activating capacities in ourselves that had to remain latent until we came to this place and time in history. Thus the rising spiritual intensity in our time is not merely an individual or cultural phenomenon; it is also a critical result of the spiritual quickening of the earth."

16 "It becomes increasingly apparent to me, after several decades of work with extending human capacities, that capacities evolve and change in response to the larger cultural and mythic patterns of which we are a part. We can only extend our capacities when we are conscious of these larger patterns and assume our role as their co-creator."

17 "Indeed man may now be defined as the latest expression of the cosmic-earth process, as that being in whom the cosmic-earth-human-process becomes conscious of itself."

18 "Philosophically, in the reality structure of the feminine archetype, Great Nature is just as important within as it is without. The principle of the 'unus mundus', the unified reality stream, is operative here; the realm of inwardness has as much ontological status as the external world has. The feminine principle expresses itself as an unfolding of levels of existence, not as the conquest of facts."

19 "Remember that the Beloved is probably yearning for you as much, if not a great deal more, than you are yearning for the Beloved."

20 "Throughout history, deeper answers to the questions of life have been offered in the various traditions of sacred psychology – and not just answers, but practical methods of training to grow the godseed. Be it the sophisticated psychophysical methods found in various forms of yoga, or the spiritual practice of oriental martial arts, or the training of mindfulness in Buddhism, or of the imagination in Islamic mysticism, or the activation of courage and creative power in the shamanic practices of the North-South axis of the world, the tradition of the development of the god in us is very rich and always contemporary."

21 "It would seem that in the Earth's living system we are the nervous system; that is, we are the individual neurons of the brain of the planet, with the consequent responsibility for organizing and orchestrating the functioning and well-being of the planetary body. This responsibility includes evolutionary governance and whole-system management. Living organism to living organism, we and earth are now co-trustees of those processes."

22 "Unprecedented trauma and unequaled challenge have created the conditions for an opening in the foreground of existence and a rising of the background of consciousness and psyche, of high pattern, and deep purpose…..the depths are rising out of the vacuum of divine no-thing-ness, which contains the seeds and codings of all that can ever be."

23 "A new natural philosophy of love seems to be on the rise everywhere. It belongs perhaps to a 'geo-theology' of love as the creative force in evolution, the lure of becoming, which is finding renewed expression in the rising archetype of the Beloved of the soul. The world may be urging us to coalesce into a new and higher unity for which we feel unprepared, and the only force emotionally powerful enough to call us to educate ourselves for sacred stewardship is communion and partnership with the Beloved."

24 "You are a One who contains the Many."

25 "The archetypal level contains the great symbolic and mythic patterns that charge the human spirit with meaning and direction."

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite