WISDOM: various authors - God/hermes/buddha/apocalypse

“Unless you make yourself equal to God, you cannot understand God: for the like is not intelligible save to the like. Make yourself grow to a greatness beyond measure, by a bound free yourself from the body; raise yourself above all time, become Eternity; then you will understand God. Believe that nothing is impossible for you, think yourself immortal and capable of understanding all, all arts, all sciences, the nature of every living being. Mount higher than the highest height; descend lower than the lowest depth. Draw into yourself all sensations of everything created, fire and water, dry and moist, imagining that you are everywhere, on earth, in the sea, in the sky, that you are not yet born, in the maternal womb, adolescent, old, dead, beyond death. If you embrace in your thought all things at once, times, places, substances, qualities, quantities, you may understand God”

— Hermes Trismegistus, Corpus Hermeticum, Treatise 12

I begin to see that I am torn between two realities. On the one hand, there is the reality of my existence on the earth, which limits me in time and space, with all its threats and opportunities for satisfaction. On the other hand, there is a reality of being that is beyond this existence, a reality for which I have a nostalgia. It calls to our consciousness, across all the disappointments and misfortunes, to lead us to serve Being, to serve the “divine” in ourselves.”

— Jeanne de Salzmann, from The Reality Of Being.

“this world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence … a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.”

— Plato, Timaeus

“The world is full of forces, elements and events that are at once terrifying and beautiful. In the old days they used to call that “the sublime” – when we find ourselves on that razor’s edge between beauty and terror. I’ve been there a few times in my life, and I’m grateful for it, and whether we’re in the presence of major wildfires, calving glaciers, or earthquakes, the world is full of these forces that put us in our place, that terrify us, and that exhilarate us. For me, the apocalypse is beautiful. Painfully beautiful. And our presence in the face of those forces, what we call nature, is all the more beautiful when we realize that nature couldn’t care less. But this whole idea of the apocalypse is really another narcissistic human notion. We don’t care about the end of the world. All we’re talking about is the end of us. We think if we’re gone then the world is over. But you know what, it’s not. And it’s entirely possible—well, inevitable—that we’re going to be history at some point, and it’s looking like we’re rushing to that point as rapidly as we can. But no, that is not the end of the world.”

John Luther Adams

“Poets and mystics have been telling us for centuries: Wake up. Wake to your true self. Wake to your own connections to what is around you right now. Gaze into someone’s eyes, and discover who looks back. Penetrate the mysteries where the worlds touch. Don’t go back to sleep. Paul H. Ray, Sherry Ruth Anderson”

”Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest”

- Buddha

Maybe the Universe is testing you, but the test is a lot easier than you think. When the universe finally sends you exactly what you asked for, you learn to trust the universe a little more, you learn that you really didn’t know any better, you learn why the universe waited to give you your answer years later and you learn that the universe, one way or another, will only give you what you want after it teaches you a few lessons. 

You might not be the person you need to be in order to really thrive in that job, relationship or experience without going through something else first. The universe will give you the love you’ve been asking for, but after you go through heartbreak, after you love the wrong ones so you can learn how to take care of someone’s heart, so you can learn how not to break someone’s heart and after your heart gets shattered a few times without giving up on love. The universe will eventually land you the right job, but after you’ve learned how to appreciate it and how to keep it, after you’ve learned how to discipline yourself, after you’ve learned that you shouldn’t ignore what you’re passionate about when it comes your way and it will give you your dreams after you’ve learned how to believe in them and how to fight fiercely for them. 

You’ll realize that all along, the universe has been giving you the answers to that test but you were so busy trying to find the answers in all the wrong places. You were so busy hating the universe only to realize that it was always on your side, rooting for you. 

The universe is a hyper-dimensional teaching system accelerating your rate of spiritual evolution by providing you with catalytic experiences in response to your thoughts, emotions, and spiritual composition. On the other hand, many of these experiences manifest as predatory forces preying upon your weaknesses. Of course, the only way to prevent being manipulated by these forces is to discover, integrate, and transform your weaknesses into strengths, thereby indirectly accomplishing the higher purpose of the Universe which is to help you transcend this cosmic pregnancy.

 Don’t make the mistake of imagining that the Divine judges the world by human standards. Mooji

If only there was a sufficient number of people whose experience of life goes beyond body and mind, this world will be a very different place. Jaggi Vasudev

“Let go of the battle. Breathe quietly and let it be. Let your body relax and your heart soften. Open to whatever you experience without fighting.”

Jack Kornfield

“Are you looking for me?

I am in the next seat.

My shoulder is against yours.

you will not find me in the stupas,

not in Indian shrine rooms,

nor in synagogues,

nor in cathedrals:

not in masses,

nor kirtans,

not in legs winding around your own neck,

nor in eating nothing but vegetables.

When you really look for me,

you will see me instantly —

you will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?

He is the breath inside the breath.”

― Kabir

 I still haven’t found you, but I wait patiently for the day you come into my life. The thoughts of you in my dreams are worth all the lonely nights. I will fill my heart with love until the day I have the chance to give it all to you. William Chapman