MAXIMS FOR MYSTICS
This collection of maxims, aphorisms and affirmations are for those of us who know the joy of contemplation. Like a jujube in the mouth, they should be slowly sucked until they are all gone.
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Not the body nor the energy in it; not the personality and its history; not the mind and its notions, deep sleep, dream or waking – all these things are what we are not.
Those who do not resist the natural order float effortlessly in the current of life.
The word reality is a Pandora’s Box. Do not open.
The stupid are cock-sure and powerful; the intelligent are unsure and cautious; the wise are perplexed with wonder.
Morally, self-control is only of importance when there is still a sense of self.
Our mind is everything humans have experienced in thought and action since the beginning of time. It is the known superimposed on the vast unknown which is our intrinsic being – our real Self. There is no greater state than freedom from the known.
Beyond the ego-idea our intrinsic Self cannot be reduced to a succession of perceiving egos.
Fears, desires, anger, hate, dissatisfactions and weaknesses are like smudges and blots on a pane of faultless glass.
Spurious mysticism denies the obvious and proposes the dubious.
Matter is an idea; its presence inferred by the appearance and resistance as objects of sensory perception. Its reality as basic substance is unprovable. Spirit requires no proof. It is our deepest reality as ‘I am’.
The fact that the mind can be observed shows that it not the source of consciousness.
Both instinct and intuition are forms of intelligence. Instinct is the lowest form as it does not reveal knowledge whereas intuition being the highest is direct and unmediated knowing.
Consciousness is prior to every form of existence, knowledge, affirmation or negation.
No light can illuminate the sun; similarly no knowledge can reveal consciousness.
The awareness of our ever-changing thoughts, perceptions and feelings implies the presence of an immutable unchanging observer. It may be called Spirit.
Only by acknowledging an eternal and infinite substratum of Being can we understand proximity in space, succession in time, the relationship of cause and effect, the source of fleeting pleasures and the nature of happiness, fellowship, love, unselfishness, morals and ethics
Mystics are not of this world only, but of the cosmos; wherever the Gods dwell.
Matter is an idea; its presence inferred by the appearance and resistance of objects. Its reality as basic substance is unprovable. As it is not phenomenal Spirit requires no proof. It is our deepest reality as ‘I am’.
Poverty, once the religious ideal of a few will become the necessity for many. Affluence has become too expensive.
We are not born into the universe, but out of it. Our bodies are made of stardust and our energies and senses are sparks from a cosmic anvil.
Symbols, images and idols are essential stepping stones to the comprehension of abstract ideas.
To the mystic, death is merely identification with the perishable.
Night and day are not properties of the sun, but of space and the planets. As there is no creation in the Absolute, there is neither night nor day in the sun.
There appears to be two types of eternity here; that of extended time and that of infinite time. Two types of infinity here; that of extended space and that of infinite space. Two types of existence here; personal and universal, They are delusions of semantic confusion for existence is absolute, eternity timeless and infinity spaceless.
Knowing is pure consciousness. Like the sun, it is self-revealing. No other light illuminates it.
The Absolute is right here.
Relativity is reality coloured by duality. Being only relatively real it is subject to conflict, confusion and ambiguity. It is measurement, but the absolutely real is not a quality or an adjunct that can be measured, try as we might.
Permanent change is here to stay.
Knowledge is better than ignorance. There is something better than knowledge. It is wisdom. There is something better than wisdom. It is understanding. Together, wisdom and understanding become marvellous felicity.
In the beginning there was Nothing. Then God said,’ Let there be light!’ There was still Nothing but it was a lot easier to see.
The vastness of the ocean cannot be appreciated while one is immersed in it. To see its vastness one needs to be above it. The incredible nature of life is only truly appreciated when it is transcended.
A pure crystal seems to be coloured by the proximity of flowers of differing hues; similarly, pure consciousness when modified by the presence of matter appears to possess empirical qualities. Similarly, the vast array of qualities has only one substance, as the crystal is one but its possible colours many.
Time wounds all healers.
It appears that the sun comes up and the sun goes down. The moon waxes and wanes, or so it seems. Straight sticks in water appear bent; the colourless sky is blue. Matter seems solid but is full of holes. The earth, though bumpy appears flat. Space looks empty but is full of dust and gasses. The sensory world is illusory.
Because you are all can be. You are the infinite potentiality of inexhaustible possibility.
The person is nothing more than a continuity of memory; a pattern of events and feelings appearing in time and space. Identity is beyond.
There is only one fact of life we can be absolutely sure of – that we exist. The sense of ‘I am’ is our only certainty.
Now can only exist in relation to a past and future. They are the trinity of time, produced by the remembered experience of sensory inputs in which past present and future are imagined to exist.
Only actuality is real; all else is imagined. Actuality is the present eternity; the shadow of which is the now. To know this, time must have a stop.
Heat/cold, pleasure/pain, up/down, action/inaction, good/evil, happiness/misery, birth/death; these twin pillars of the opposites support creation. Creation itself is based upon lost balance. Perfect balance would cancel it out.
Dynamic balance means that the more things change the more they stay the same; though big differences may make little change and small changes can make a big difference. The balance of all opposites is constant.
Illusion is not real. Nor is it unreal - like the son of a barren woman. It is inexplicable and undeniable. In the understanding of illusion is the knowledge of reality.
The apparent reality of a mirage is based on the apparent reality of the desert; it is the essential substratum. In turn, the apparent reality of the desert is based on the substratum of the fleeting subatomic. The substratum of the subatomic is Absolute Existence which is based on nothing else. It alone is real.
On one end of the seesaw sits ignorance. On the other end sits knowledge. Two ends of the same plank.
Only by acknowledging God as the eternal substratum can we understand proximity in space, succession in time, the relationship of cause and effect, the source of fleeting pleasures and the nature of happiness, fellowship, love, unselfishness, morals and ethics.
Becoming has no end for it restarts every moment.
Only actuality is real; all else is imagined. Actuality is the present eternity; the shadow of which is the now. To know this, time must have a stop.
Because it has no beginning, the now has no end.
We are figments of our own imagination. As you image, so you are. Take care!
All experience is consciousness. It is the light that shines in darkness.
Amazing! The darkness comprehends it not.
You, the worlds, and God are co-existent. The sole support of all is absolute existence.
The light of the world only shines when the light of the sun is revealed by the light of
Consciousness.
Is the cause of plants seeds? Is the cause of seeds plants? What is the cause of pigs, and
Why are cows?
Wise words only confuse the confused and confirm the wise.
Being alive in the world is a most inconvenient predicament.
Honesty gathers no moss.
The ‘golden rule’ is prejudice personified.
The more I learn the less I know.
Consciousness shines when all other lights go out.
A rolling stone is the best policy.
Like the newborn, the Absolute has no clothes.
It is from the timeless unknown that each second bursts from the unknown into the known, as transient as a spark. Only memory and imagination give it the appearance of duration but it has none, for only the timeless is durable.
Light is blind!
The meek don’t want it.
Pure consciousness is the only is.
To err is human; to moo, bovine.
Bodies are the difference between food and faeces.
The essence of every thing is existence. Things are existence with form. See the I as existence without form and so be the essence of all things in a state of pure existence. Laugh at death
Love joins: Hate separates. It is the isolation imposed by hate, which makes it so hateful.
The first freedom is to cease being a child of one’s time.
A pig is a pig because it is a manifestation of a consciousness that knows all about pigness. A God is a God because of a consciousness manifesting Godness.
God is not dead. God is the most non-dead thing there is, for God, being pure existence, is neither hereness or nowness but isness. It is beyond consciousness caught in time. It is consciousness caught in time, which is dead.
No one has ever seen matter. (What’s the matter?) No one has ever seen mind either.
(Never mind!) For matter and mind are notions derived by inference. (Must there always be fire where one sees smoke?)
The first great mystery is this: How do all the objects, qualities and motions in the universe become mere blips in our nervous system? A greater mystery still, is how these mere blips become the entire universe. That which claims all these experiences is yet an even greater mystery.
The realisation of God is the first step towards the knowledge of one’s Self.
Angels rush in where fools fear to tread.
Realisation makes no difference.
God is all that is magnificent, sublime, and glorious; all that is peaceful, serene and beautiful; all that is ravishing, joyful and blissful. We all love God, but this truth does not shine in the dark.
Humans are God playing the fool. He does it so well He even fools Himself. (When God hides who but God can find?)
To have illusions is natural. To be deluded by them is tragic.
Ideas about God are created out of our ignorance because we have been created out of His.
Evolution is the process of nature expressing consciousness.
Existence as this-ness is the basis of illusions as substance is to quality. Behind every illusion is a substance, behind every error a fact, every lie a truth. Falsehood cannot exist except on the basis of truth.
The Lord is my want, so I will not shepherd.
Humor is revelation. Laughter is the reaction to sudden truth, which is why saints are full of mirth and sages can’t stop laughing.
Understanding grows from lesser truth to greater. It is not a matter of either / or but of and / and. Wrongness and rightness are relative.
Belief in God is untenable, senseless, illogical and unreasonable. Marvelous isn’t it?
Perpetual astonishment is the first sign of wisdom.
That is all this and that’s that.
The most ridiculous illusion is that reality is an illusion.
Understanding grows, not from falsehood to truth, but from facts to subtler truth, and from them to great universal truths. It is not a matter of either / or, but of and / and.
In all experience there is only one thing you can be absolutely sure of. It is the rock of ages, the screen upon which all images are revealed, the one constant in chaos, the unborn in birth, the undecaying in death, the ever is and never was, the only known and the only knower, the everywhere magician. – Yourself.
How can time exist when everything happens at once? Where time exists onces happen twice. In Reality, where there is no time, there isn’t even a once. It would be funny if it wasn’t so perplexing.
Error is rightness gone wrong. Every lie hides a truth. The false is actuality inaccurately perceived. Rightness, goodness and truth are the basis of everything.
Finally, the one really important thing in life is the manner of one’s death.
Few things are feared as much as freedom. What we cherish as freedom is the ability to manifest our preferred form of bondage.
Reason cannot go beyond the ethics of self-interest. Morality does, for it is the revelation of right relationship based on the intuition of the Self.
At the birth of every creature consciousness reincarnates.
The essence of morality is identity.
Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and is rewarded with the improbable.
Truth is not irrational. It is suprarational. Reason is inherent in revelation.
Word is thought. Thought is word. Sound and meaning is inextricable.
Your whole life is a state of mind.
Is transcends this.
Whatever is happening and whatever you think, they are just stages that are passing through you.
All human endeavour can be expressed in a sentence which has no syntax; what, who, when, how, why.
Awareness walks upon two legs. Word and thought. It has two arms, intent and intelligence. Its body is the elements and its head is I.
Life has a hidden agenda. Find it!
The presence of any object is possible because of the absence of everything else. A specific colour is the absence of all others not reflected. The implication of anything is everything.