A man has not seen a thing who has not felt it. —Henry David Thoreau

 

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The careful observer can observe the seemingly impossible even with the unaided eye, a fact which forces one to prostrate oneself in adoration before the mysterious origin of all things.  

We all walk in mysteries. We do not know what is stirring in the atmosphere that surrounds us, nor how it is connected with our own spirit. So much is certain—that at times we can put out the feelers of our soul beyond its bodily limits; and a presentiment, an actual insight is accorded to it.

—Geothe

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The Greeks understood the mysterious power of the hidden side of things. They bequeathed to us one of the most beautiful words in our language—the word ‘enthusiasm’—en theos—a god within. 

The grandeur of human actions is measured by the inspiration from which they spring. 

Happy is he who bears a god within, and who obeys it.


—Louis Pasteur

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sublime emptiness

 

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In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.

You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature.


—Henry David Thoreau
from Economy, 1854

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I need to be silent for a while. 

Worlds are forming in my heart.

—Meister Eckhart

Daniel Ladinsky version

from Expands His Being

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Nature is on the inside. —Paul Cézanne

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Sometimes a mortal feels in himself Nature–not his Father but his Mother stirs within him, and he becomes immortal with her immortality. 

From time to time she claims kinship with us, and some globule from her veins steals up into our own.


—Henry David Thoreau

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life after birth

  

David Whyte

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Sometimes a mortal feels in himself Nature–not his Father but his Mother stirs within him, and he becomes immortal with her immortality. From time to time she claims kinship with us, and some globule from her veins steals up into our own.

—Henry David Thoreau

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In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?” 

The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.” 


—Útmutató a Léleknek
Life after Birth

 

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The way the world actually is, is an enormously complex interrelated organism. —Alan Watts

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The earth I tread on is not a dead inert mass. 

It is a body—has a spirit—is organic—and fluid to the influence of its spirit—and to whatever particle of the spirit is in me.

—Henry David Thoreau

 

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You have only to rest in inaction and things will transform themselves. 

Smash your form and body, spit out hearing and eyesight, forget you are a thing among other things, and you may join in great unity with the deep and boundless.


—Chuang Tzu
4th Century B.C.

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are you still happening there, in your body? 

—Joy Katz 

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directions

   

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Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked,

which you can walk with love and reverence.


—Henry David Thoreau

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Make your own Bible.

Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet. 

[…] 

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. 

And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

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pray without ceasing

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Meditation must be unceasing even when one is engaged in work. 

Particular time for it is meant for novices.

—Sri Ramana Maharshi

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Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. 

I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. 

I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.


—Henry David Thoreau
Walden: Where I lived and What I lived for

 

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