Man's Eternal Quest Quotes

I am. I think. I will. My hands. . . My spirit . . . My sky . . . This earth of mine . . . . What more must I say besides? These are the words. This is the answer. I stand here on the summit of the mountain I lift my head and I spread m arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction. It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgment of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect. . . . Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me. I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not a means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose. Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage on their wounds. I am not a a sacrifice on their altars. I am a man . . .

The initiative to undertake your most important duty in life is often buried beneath the accumulated debris of human habits.

The Hindus have a saying: “The child is busy with play, the youth is busy with sex, and the adult is busy with worries. How few are busy with God!

The moon shines in my body, but my blind eyes cannot see it: The moon is within me, and so is the sun. The unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me; but my deaf ears cannot hear it. So long as man clamors for the I and the Mine, his works are as naught: When all love of the I and the Mine is dead, then the work of the Lord is done. For work has no other aim than the getting of knowledge: When that comes, then work is put away. The flower blooms for the fruit: when the fruit comes, the flower withers. The musk is in the deer, but is seeks it not within itself: it wanders in quest of grass.

Communion with God is the only thing to live for. You will have to come to that understanding eventually, often after much suffering. Why not learn now? He is ready to welcome you. You can’t fail to reach God ultimately. It is foolish to ask, “Will I be able to get into the kingdom of heaven?” There is no other place you can stay, for that is your real home. You don’t have to earn it. You are already God’s child, made in His image. You have only to tear away the mask of the human being and realize your divine birthright.

The art of the alchemist, whether spiritual or physical, consists in completing the work of perfection, bringing forth and making dominant, as it were, the “latent goldness” which “lies obscure” in metal or man. The ideal adept of alchemy was therefore an “auxiliary of the Eternal Goodness.” By his search for the “Noble Tincture” which should restore an imperfect world, he became a partner in the business of creation, assisting the Cosmic Plan. Thus the proper art of the Spiritual Alchemist, with whom alone we are here concerned, was the production of the spiritual and only valid tincture or Philosopher’s Stone; the mystic seed of transcendental life which should invade, tinge, and wholly transmute the imperfect self into spiritual gold. That this was no fancy of seventeenth-century allegorists, but an idea familiar to many of the oldest writers upon alchemy—whose quest was truly a spiritual search into the deepest secrets of the soul—is proved by the words which bring to an end the first part of the antique “Golden Treatise upon the Making of the Stone,” sometimes attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. “This, O Son,” says that remarkable tract, “is the Concealed Stone of Many Colours, which is born and brought forth in one colour; know this and conceal it . . . it leads from darkness into light, from this desert wilderness to a secure habitation, and from poverty and straits to a free and ample fortune.

For good reason you are not allowed to remember your past incarnations. Suppose you have been born ten times. You have therefore had ten mothers. How can you love them all the same? You are meant to learn that behind those ten mothers there is One Mother; behind all friends, One Friend; behind all fathers, One Father; behind all loves, One Love. How wonderful is that recognition! It is as if you had been playing hideand-seek in the corridors of incarnations, and then you find Him! When I realized that One Love, I could not contain myself. My mind vanished into the Infinite Kingdom. It is so, even now. The joy of Spirit is endless.

Myth and Christianity are opposed on every point. Myth seeks the ascent of man to spirit; the Word of God seeks descent into flesh and blood. Myth wants power; revelation reveals the true power of God in the most extreme powerlessness. Myth wants knowledge; the Word of God asks for constant faith and, only within that faith, a growing, reverent understanding. Myth is the lightning that flashes when contradictory things collide—absolute knowledge, eternal quest; the revelation of God’s Word is gentle patience amidst the intractable tensions of life. Myth tears God and world apart by trying to force them into a magical unity; the revelation of God’s Word unites God and world by sealing the distance between them in the very intimacy of their communion.

Life is very tricky and we must deal with it as it is. If we do not first master it ourselves we cannot help anyone else. In the seclusion of concentrated thought lies hidden the factory of all accomplishment. Remember that. In this factory continuously weave your will pattern for attaining success over opposing difficulties. Exercise your will continuously. During the day and at night you have many opportunities to work in this factory, if you do not waste your time. At night I withdraw from the world’s demands and am by myself, an absolute stranger to the world; it is a blank. Alone with my will power, I turn my thoughts in the desired direction until I have determined in my mind exactly what I wish to do and how to do it. Then I harness my will to the right activities and it creates success. In this way I have effectively used my will power many times. But it won’t work unless the application of will power is continuous.

For here is the philosophy which sharpeneth the senses, satisfieth the soul, enlargeth the intellect and leadeth man to that true bliss to which he may attain, which consisteth in a certain balance, for it liberateth him alike from the eager quest of pleasure and from the blind feeling of grief; it causeth him to rejoice in the present and neither to fear nor to hope for the future. For that Providence or Fate or Lot which determineth the vicissitudes of our individual life doth neither desire nor permit our knowledge of the one to exceed our ignorance of the other, so that at first sight we are dubious and perplexed. But when we consider more profoundly the being and substance of that universe in which we are immutably set, we shall discover that neither we ourselves nor any substance doth suffer death; for nothing is in fact diminished in its substance, but all things wandering through infinite space undergo change of aspect. And since we are all subject to a perfect Power, we should not believe, suppose or hope otherwise, than that even as all issueth from good, so too all is good, through good, toward good; from good, by good means, toward a good end. For a contrary view can be held only by one who considereth merely the present moment, even as the beauty of a building is not manifest to one who seeth but one small detail, as a stone, a cement affixed to it or half a partition wall, but is revealed to him who can view the whole and hath understanding to appraise the proportions. We do not fear that by the violence of some erring spirit or by the wrath of a thundering Jove, that which is accumulated in our world could become dispersed beyond this hollow sepulchre or cupola of the heavens, be shaken or scattered as dust beyond this starry mantle. In no other way could the nature of things be brought to naught as to its substance save in appearance, as when the air which was compressed within the concavity of a bubble seemeth to one's own eyes to go forth into the void. For in the world as known to us, object succeedeth ever to object, nor is there an ultimate depth from which as from the artificer's hand things flow to an inevitable nullity. There are no ends, boundaries, limits or walls which can defraud or deprive us of the infinite multitude of things. Therefore the earth and the ocean thereof are fecund; therefore the sun's blaze is everlasting, so that eternally fuel is provided for the voracious fires, and moisture replenisheth the attenuated seas. For from infinity is born an ever fresh abundance of matter.