Quotations relevant to the Path

[Smaragd]

"--Santa Elena had found the life-giving Tree of the Cross and the other instruments of the Lord's Passion, which had been buried by the heathen in the earth under the shrine of Venus--"

- A well known legend here repeated in Dmitry Merezhkovsky's Christ and Antichrist trilogy. Translated by Herbert Trench.

The legend is an interesting one where can be recognized the mythical arcs of Lucifer-Venus's fall and the ascension of Jesus Christ to meet there, under the temple. The Harrowings of Hell being a meeting point of the emanation and remanation of Lucifer-Christos. The idea that this crossing is hidden always brings me back to the idea of Azazel buried under the mountain, or a ravine in the desert. In the legend of St. Helen the same hidden crossing point of the underground is located, naturally, under a temple of Venus. Both of these places reach to the pagan past of both of the monotheistic religions of Judaism and Christianity and the humanity at large.

In the case of Judaism the pagan animal sacrifices to gods of the old is still forming a link through the Yom Kippur ritual where a goat is sacrifices to Azazel. While in some parts of the West - the Christian world and its legends - Lucifer has taken the place of the old pagan gods. It has become the host for the forgotten and his name carries their powers of creation within the ray of emanation.

[Smaragd]

Pulling these two quotes from two different articles in The Theosophist periodical, for together they manage to draw out such clear perspective to the world and on human position in it. The first quote I already shared in our study on the Celestial Hierarchy, but I also wanted to bring them together under this topic.

Remarkably suggestive is that part of the works of Paracelsus in which he developes the theory that each natural form is the outward expression of inward power and capacity. There is, say those who know, a natural alphabet, in terms of which Nature herself seems to work. By the knowledge of this alphabet the visible secrets of nature may be unriddled and by making use of a corresponding force-correlation, a dynamic aspect of this alphabet may be brough into play, and its letters will marshal themselves into words and phrases for the exposition of higher truths.

First of all, I have to point out to you that any system of practical instruction for spiritual guidance will have to be judged, first with reference to the nature and condition of man and the capabilities that are locked up in him; secondly, with reference to the cosmos and the forces to which man is subject and the circumstances under which he has to progress.

[SanatKumara]

"No path is stonier than this, no path is torturous as His"

-Alghazanth:adramelektaus


Only lyrics of any song, i could imagine getting tattooed onto me, and one of the lyrics in black metal which resonates in my totally. Causes almost powerful enough feeling to bring tears in my eyes.

[Nefastos]

"What is intelligence?
Why, responded the Eminence, it is no more than a human occupation; an activity which men put their brains to, as frog kicks his legs to swim; it is a standard which men in their egotism use to measure other and perhaps nobler races, who are thereby dumbfounded."
– Avatar's Apprentice, in Scroll from the Ninth Dimension (Jack Vance: Star King, XI)

I heartily agree, although what is meant by intelligence here is kâma manas, not pure manas, which is universal.

And a second beautiful quotation from the same chapter of the same book:

"To all sides hung stars by thousand, by the million: streaming, swarming, flowing, glaring, glittering; shifting silently one across the other, and the other across another still – worlds of infinite variety, populated by who knows whom; each drawing the eye, fixing the imagination, evoking wonder; each world an urge, a temptation, a mystery; each a promise of unseen sights, unknown knowledge, unsensed beauty."

[Nefastos]

Discussion about & around the quotation split to a topic of its own: Intelligence as a social concept.

[Mars]

"When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the spirit laughs for what it has found."

Anonymous Sufi Aphorism (in Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy)

[Aperiemus]

From Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk:

The game is a sort of journey, on which now and then choices keep appearing, the first words read. The choices make themselves, but sometimes the player is under the impression that he is making them consciously. This may frighten him, because then he will feel responsible for where he ends up and what he encounters.

The player sees his journey like cracks in the ice – lines that split, turn, and change direction at a dizzy pace. Or like lightning in the sky that seeks a way for itself through the air in a manner that is impossible to predict. The player who believes in God will say: “divine judgement,” “the finger of God” – that omnipotent, powerful extremity of the Creator. But if he doesn’t believe in God, he will say: “coincidence,” “accident.” Sometimes the player will use the words “my free choice,” but he is sure to say this more quietly and without conviction.

The game is a map of escape. It starts at the centre of the labyrinth. The aim is to pass through all the spheres and break free of the fetters of the Eight Worlds.

[Mars]

"Be cold ashes, a withered tree, an incense burner in an abandoned temple, a piece of unstained silk.
This is my earnest wish."

Keizan Jokin

[Vigintus]

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination encircles the world."

-Albert Einstein As quoted in "What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" in The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929)

[Smaragd]

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination encircles the world."

-Albert Einstein As quoted in "What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" in The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929)

To read this as a description of shakti as distict powers (here imagination) depicting or acting as an agent of the all-pervading Mahashakti is thrilling and a thing of joy.