Quotations relevant to the Path

[Silvaeon]

"All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man's hand and the wisdom in a tree's root: they all arise together. My name, and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power, no other name" - Ursula K. Leguin, A Wizard of Earthsea

[obnoxion]

This is the openness of the myth: it spreads its arms, and all whom it takes in gain some of the power of the catharsis.

- Rollo May

[Nefastos]

"The individual is then faced with the task of putting down to his own account all the iniquity, devilry, etc. which he has blandly attributed to others and about which he has been indignant all his life. The irritating thing about this procedure is the conviction, on the one hand, that if everybody acted in this way life would be so much more endurable, and a violent resistance, on the other hand, against applying this principle seriously to oneself. If everybody else did it, how much better the world would be; but to do it oneself - how intolerable!

The neurotic is forced by his neurosis to take this step, but the normal person is not. Instead, he acts out his psychic disturbances socially and politically, in the form of mass psychoses like wars and revolutions. The real existence of an enemy upon whom one can foist off everything evil is an enormous relief to one's conscience. You can then at least say, without hesitation, who the devil is; you are quite certain that the cause of your misfortune is outside, and not in your own attitude. Once you have accepted the somewhat disagreeable consequences of interpretation on the subjective level, however, the misgiving forces itself on you that it is surely impossible that all the bad qualities which irritate you in others should belong to you. By that token the great moralist, the fanatical educationist and world-improver, would be the worst of all. Much could be said about the close proximity of good and evil, and even more about the direct relations between pairs of opposites, but that would lead us too far from our theme."

- C.G. Jung: General Aspects of Dream Psychology

[obnoxion]

Jesus said: "Wouldest thou love one who never died
For thee, or ever die for one who had not died for thee?
And if God dieth not for man and giveth not himself
Eternally for man, man could not exist, for man is love
As God is love. Every kindness to another is a little death
In the divine image, nor can man exist but by brotherhood."

- William Blake -

[obnoxion]

I traverse the three realms without effort;
I sleep in the play of great bliss.
No matter what your conduct, Gypsy woman,
You're a ragged mendicant
In the midst of respectable people.
Everything is destroyed by you, Gypsy woman!
Work left undone, the moon eclipsed.
Some people may call you ugly,
But the wise never leave you.
Krishna sings, "You act the outcast woman;
There is no immoral woman better than a Gypsy!"

- Krishnavajra-

This is one of the legendary Tantric Songs (caryagitikos) of the Bengali Adepts, translated and commented by Thomas Cleary in his "The Secrets of Tantric Buddhism". This songs sings in a symbolic language. For example, the Gypsy woman here means the form of emptiness (sunyata).

[Heith]

"The Virtue of Love is Nothing and All, or that Nothing visible out of which All Things proceed; its Power is through All Things; its Height is as high as God; its Greatness is as great as God. Its Virtue is the Principle of all Principles; its Power supports the Heavens and upholds the Earth; its Height is higher than the Highest Heavens; and its Greatness is even greater than the very Manifestation of the Godhead in the glorious Light of the Divine Essence, as being infinitely capable of greater and greater Manifestations in all Eternity. What can I say more? Love is higher than the Highest. Love is greater that the Greatest. Yea, it is in a certain Sense greater than God; while yet in the highest Sense of all, God is Love, and Love is God. Love being the highest Principle, is the Virtue of all Virtues; from whence they flow forth. Love being the greatest Majesty, is the Power of all Powers, from whence they severally operate: And it is the Holy Magical Root, or Ghostly Power from whence all the Wonders of God have been wrought by the Hands of His elect Servants, in all their Generations successively. Whosoever finds it, finds Nothing and All Things."

-Jakob Böhme

[obnoxion]

Reverting to the state prior to Heaven within the state posterior to Heaven is the way of "knowing the white and keeping to the black".

- This comment by Liu Yiming on a Taoist treatise (from Fabrizio Pregadio's translation and commentary of "The Seal of the Unity of the Three") says something essential of the White aspect practice within the esoteric matrix of the Black aspect.

[obnoxion]

Rationalism is the suburbia of the universe.

- Cecil Collins -

[obnoxion]

The woman's pitha is the Crest-Jeweled Mother; my family becomes the Candali-kula.

- mahasiddha Acinta the Kapalika -

[Nefastos]

"Glory to the impercetible Lord,
The antithesis of the Vedas [holy scriptures] and the Âgamas [magical manuals]
And yet the true essence
of the Vedas and the Âgamas [...]

May you be glorified, O Sharva,
Who are the essence of the "righthanded" path,
Who are the essence of the "lefthanded" path,
Who claim every sect
And no sect at all."

– Utpaladeva: Shivastrotavali, 2:7,19. Translation by C.R. Bailly.