inside out

 

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Religion is the reconnection - re-legio - between man and reality.

—E. F. Schumacher

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In order to keep the mind on one thing […] it is necessary to preserve attention and so lead it into the heart: for so long as the mind remains in the head, where thoughts jostle one another, it has not time to concentrate on one thing. But where attention descends into the heart, it attracts all the powers of the soul and body into one point there. 

This concentration of all human life in one place is immediately reflected in the heart by a special sensation that is the beginning of future warmth. This sensation, faint at the beginning, becomes gradually stronger, firmer, deeper. At first tepid, it grows into warm feeling and concentrates the attention upon itself. 

And so it comes about that, whereas in the initial stages the attention is kept in the heart by an effort of will, in due course this attention, by its own vigour, gives birth to warmth in the heart. This warmth then holds the attention without special effort. 

From this, the two go on supporting one another, and must remain inseparable; because dispersion of attention cools the warmth, and diminishing warmth weakens attention.

—Theophan the Recluse, 1815-1894

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For silence is not God, nor speaking; 
fasting is not God, nor eating; 
solitude is not God, nor company; 
nor any other pair of opposites.

He is hidden between them, 
and cannot be found by anything your soul does, but only by the love of your heart. 

He cannot be known by reason, 
he cannot be thought, caught, 
or sought by understanding. 

But he can be loved and 
chosen by the true, loving will of your heart.


—the cloud of unknowing

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Jesus said, “If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. 

If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. 

Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father.

But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."


—The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas

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