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April 2003
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April 1st 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Seeing Eye
The eye with which I see God, is the same eye with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.
Meister Eckhart
What else, Lord, is Your seeing, when You behold me with compassionate eye, than that You are seen of me? In beholding me You give Yourself to be seen by me, You who are a hidden God. None can see You except You grant a sight of Yourself, nor is that sight anything else than Your seeing him that sees You.
Nicholas of Cusa
Thou lookest upon the Creator, praised be his name, and the Creator, being praised, looketh upon thee.
The Baal-shem
I looked at God and He looked at me, and we were one forever.
C H Spurgeon
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 2nd 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Spiritual Consciousness
Consciousness is not a mental activity; consciousness does not reason or think; It is just aware.
Apart from Consciousness we are nothing, but as Consciousness, we are infinite.
In our humanhood, we are states and stages of consciousness, and whatever our outer experience is, is determined by our state of consciousness. The word, "consciosness," therefore, contains within itself the entire secret of individual and collective life, the secret of harmony or discord.
The mystical world is a real world. It is a world of people and a world of things formed of the illumined or enlightened consciousness.
Joel S Goldsmith
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 3rd 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Experiencing the Soul
You know you have a body, and you know you have a mind, but you have not come to know 'you' that has the body and the mind. This is the you that is the adventure of life, and the adventure of life is the awakening of this you.
You are the Soul that lives (eternally). But first you must know you are the Soul, and then you must begin to explore, search, and seek until you find 'Me' -- until you find your Self -- the real 'you'.
The knowledge of the Soul, the life of the Soul, the wider horizon that the Soul encompasses is the greatest experience that can come to any individual. The Soul is imprisoned in the tomb that we call the human experience -- body and mind.
If we are to experience the Soul, we have to break through the limitations of the body and mind. When the Soul is released it flies upward, not in time or space, but in consciousness. It is no longer anchored to the ground; it is no longer entombed in body and mind. It is a soaring awareness, a soaring faculty.
Joel S Goldsmith
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 4th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Willing to Fight for It
The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle -- the roar of the crowd on the one side -- and the 'still small voice' within on the other.
Douglas MacArthur
To be nobody but yourself (your true Self) when the whole world is trying its best night and day to make you everybody else is the hardest battle any human being will ever fight.
e e cummings
If you dare to take up the banner of Enlightenment you will be attacked from all sides. From the inside you will be attacked by your own mind and from the outside you will be attacked by everyone else's mind. Anyone who dares to succeed automatically presents a huge threat. If true Freedom is going to survive within you, you have to be willing to fight for it. You have to have a sword in each hand at all times. One sword is for your own mind and the other sword is for everyone else's mind. You must be ready to use them.
Andrew Cohen
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 5th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Rules for Better Writing:
1. One should NEVER generalize.
2. Be more or less specific.
3. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
4. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
5. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
6. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat)
7. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
10. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
11. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
12. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly. Source unknown
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 6th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Darkness Within Darkness
There was something formless yet complete That existed before heaven and earth; Without sound, without substance, Dependent on nothing, unchanging, All pervading, unfailing, One may think of it as the Mother of all things under heaven Its true name we do not know.
Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding
Tao Teh King -- Lao Tsu
The simple, absolute and immutable mysteries of divine Truth are hidden in the super-luminous darkness of that silence which revealeth in secret. For this darkness, though of deepest obscurity, is yet radiently clear; and, though beyond touch and sight, it more than fills our unseeing minds with splendours of transcendent beauty ... And we behold that darkness beyond being, concealed under all natural light.
Dionysius the Areopagite
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 7th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Face of Faces
In all things is shown the Face of faces, veiled and in a riddle. Howbeit unveiled it is not seen, until, above all faces, an individual enters into a certain secret and mystic silence, where there is no knowing or concept of a face.
This mist, cloud, darkness or ingnorance, into which one that seeks Your Face enters, when one goes beyond all knowledge and concept, is the state below which Your Face cannot be found, except veiled; but that very darkness reveals Your Face to be there beyond all veils,
Hence I observe how needful it is for an individual to enter into the darkness and to admit the coincidence of opposites, beyond all grasp of reason, and there to seek the Truth, where Impossibility meets us.
Nicholas of Cusa
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 8th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Joy at Every Level
Through meditation, the beauty, activity, abundance, joy and peace of God's grace reach us.
The Presence is easily and quickly recognizable in those who live in the constant awareness of Withinness: there shines forth an inner peace, integrity and joy that are at once apparent.
Each individual is an heir of God and entitled to all that the Father has -- all the joy, all the abundance, all the infinity, all the life, all the love and all the wisdom.
We can be one through our oneness with God, and in that oneness joy flows, a joy at every level.
Joel S Goldsmith
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 9th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Finding Courage
Courage is a special kind of knowledge; the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared.
David Ben Gurion
Where do you find the courage to live fully what you have realized? From your own realization, that's where. The truth itself is what will give you the courage. The truth of your own experience, which you yourself have recognized, will alone give you all the courage you will ever need.
Andrew Cohen
If you stand very still and hold to your faith, You will get all the help that you ask; You will draw from the silence the things that you need: Hope and courage and strength for your task.
From the Commonplace Book of Una J Martin
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 10th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- This Inexpressible Mystery
We are not separate from Being, we are in it ...
Plotinus
The ground of God and the Ground of the soul are one and the same.
Meister Eckhart
The ultimate meaning and purpose of life cannot be expressed, cannot properly be thought. It is present everywhere, in everything, yet it always escapes our grasp. It is the 'Ground' of all existence, that from which all things come, to which all things return, but which never appears.
It is 'within' all things, 'above' all things, but it cannot be identified with anything. Without it nothing could exist, without it nothing can be known, yet it is itself unknown. It is 'unseen but seeing, unheard but hearing, unperceived but perceiving, unknown but knowing' ... We speak of 'God' but this is only a name for this inexpressible mystery.
Bede Griffiths
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 11th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Life Becomes an Adventure
When I am courageous enough to stand fully alone away from what I think, what I want and what I need -- my personal distraction, my self concern -- what then will arise in me is a sense and a knowing of freedom from all things.
Love then can be known in me, felt in me, breathed within me and shared on every level. My self concern was blinding me from my and humanity's true nature and true purpose on the earth. I am free from the burden of my and humanity's destructive patterning.
My spirit of awareness flies ever higher as I begin to understand and know my true source and birth it on this earth as a total way of life for the whole. Life becomes an adventure -- no longer a problem.
Bernie Prior
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 12th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- A Shatter'd Visage
He was close and secret, a deep dissembler, lowly of countenance, arrogant of heart, outwardly companionable where he inwardly hated, not hesitating to kiss whom he thought to kill.
Thomas More
I MET a traveller from an antique land Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.
P B Shelley -- Ozymandias
If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble, for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, is beloved of none but itself.
Francis Quarles
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 13th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Whole Panorama
If it is said that I am concealed by the existence of the world, then who is it that blossoms in the form of the world?
Can a red jewel be concealed by its own lustre? Does a piece of gold lose its goldness if turned into a ring? Does a lotus lose itself when it blossoms into so many petals? When a seed of grain is sown and grows into an ear of corn, is it destroyed or does it appear in its enhanced glory?
So there is no need to draw the curtain of the world away in order to have my vision, because I am the whole panorama.
Jnaneshwar
I am the Light that is above them all, I am the All, the All came forth from Me, and the All attained to Me. Cleave a piece of wood, I am there; Lift up the stone, and you will find Me there.
The Gospel according to Thomas
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 14th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Into the Tiger's Lair
Knock on yourself as upon a door and walk upon yourself as on a straight road. For if you walk on the road, It is impossible for you to go astray. And if you knock with Wisdom, You knock on hidden treasures ... Wisdom is a holy kingdom and a shining robe.
The Teaching of Silvanus
Let the one who seeks, not cease seeking until he or she finds, and when that one finds, he or she will be troubled, and when that one has been troubled, he or she will marvel and that one will reign over the All.
The Gospel according to Thomas
The Tao is as deep as can be -- who is willing to pursue it closely? If you don't go into the Tiger's lair, how can you catch its cub? If you don't wash out the stone and sand, how can you pick out the gold? ... carefully seek the heart of heaven and earth with firm determination. Suddenly you will see the original thing; everywhere you meet the source, all is a forest of jewels. Lui I-Ming
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 15th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Light of Being
Unconsciousness creates the pain-body (the false self); consciousness transmutes it into itself (the true Self). St. Paul expressed this universal principle beautifully: "Everything is shown up by being exposed to the light, and whatever is exposed to the light itself becomes light." (Eph. 5:13).
Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now. As you become more deeply aware of this one step, you realise that it already contains within itself all the other steps as well as the destination. This one step then becomes transformed into an expression of perfection, an act of great beauty and quality. it will have taken you into Being, and the light of Being will shine through it. This is both the purpose and the fulfilment of your inner journey, the journey into yourself (your true Self).
Eckhart Tolle
Through the mystery of this inner work, darkness is turned into light. The chaos and confusion of our unconscious -- what the alchemists termed the 'prima materia' -- gradually and miraculously reveal a higher center of consciousness which is none other than our innermost essence, 'the face we had before we were born'. This is the Self, the Divine Child, which was always present within us but hidden beneath layers of ego and conditioning.
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 16th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- When The Buzzing Ceases
Nothing is so like a soul as a bee. It goes from flower to flower as a soul from star to star, and it gathers honey as a soul gathers light.
Victor Hugo
As a bee seeks nectar from all kinds of flowers Seek teachings everywhere. Like a deer that finds a quiet place to graze Seek seclusion to digest all that you have gathered. Like a mad one beyond all limits, go where you please and live like a lion completely free of all fear.
Dzogghen Tantra
So long as the bee is outside the petals of the lily, and has not tasted the sweetness of its honey, it hovers round the flower emitting its buzzing sound; but when it is inside the flower, it noiselessly drinks its nectar. So long as a man quarrels and disputes about doctrines and dogmas, he has not tasted the nectar of true faith; when he has tasted it, he becomes quiet and full of peace.
Sri Ramakrishna
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 17th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Highest Path
Whoever knows the All but fails to know himself lacks everything.
The Gospel according to Thomas
He who sees that the Lord of all is ever the same in all that is, immortal in the field of mortality -- he sees the truth. And when a man sees that the God in himself is the same God in all that is, he hurts not himself by hurting others: then he goes indeed to the highest path.
Bhagavad Gita
Spiritual life is the bouquet, the perfume, the flowering and fulfilment of a human life, not a supernatural virtue imposed on it.
Joseph Campbell
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 18th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Way of the Cross
The way of the cross … means that the worst thing in your life, your cross, turns into the best thing that ever happened to you, by forcing you into surrender, into "death" forcing you to become as nothing, to become as God -- because God, too, is no-thing.
At this time, as far as the unconscious majority of humans is concerned, the way of the cross is still the only way. They will only awaken through further suffering, and enlightenment as a collective phenomenon will be predictably preceded by vast upheavals.
However, there is a growing number of humans alive today whose consciousness is sufficiently evolved not to need any more suffering before the realization of enlightenment. You may be one of them.
Enlightenment consciously chosen means to relinquish your attachment to past and future and to make the Now the main focus of your life. It means choosing to dwell in the state of presence rather than in time. It means saying yes to what IS. You then don't need pain anymore.
Eckhart Tolle -- The Power of Now, 1999.
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 19th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Dark Pearl Within The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. Matthew 13:45-46 This is the precious pearl whose beauty is more glorious, and whose virtue more sovereign than the sun: It is a never-failing comfort in all afflictions, a balsam for all sores, a panacea for all diseases, a sure antidote against all poison, and death itself; it is that joyful and assured companion and guide, which never forsakes a man, but convoys him ... into the blessed paradise of perfect bliss. Jakob Boehme The Tao is priceless, a pearl containing Creation. In storage, it is utterly dark, without a trace. Brought out (from within you), its light shines through day and night. Becoming wise depends entirely on this -- you need nothing else to be enlightened. Liu-I-Ming
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 20th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Transforming Power
But what is this transformation? The soul discovers its source of being in the Spirit, the mind is opened to this inner light, the will is energized by this inner power. The very substance of the soul is changed; it is made a 'partaker of the divine nature'.
And this transformation affects not only the soul but the body. The matter of the body -- its actual particles -- is transformed by the divine power and transfigured by the divine light -- like the body of Christ at the resurrection.
Bede Griffiths
Up then, noble soul! Put on thy jumping shoes which are intellect and love, and overleap the worship of thy mental powers, overleap thine understanding and spring into the heart of God, into his hiddenness where thou art hidden from all creatures.
Meister Eckhart
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 21st 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The True Reformer
Paradoxical as it seemed, the Master always insisted that the true reformer was one who was able to see that everything is perfect as it is -- and able to leave it alone.
"Then why would he wish to reform anything?" protested a disciple.
"Well, there are reformers and reformers: One type lets action flow through them while they themselves do nothing; these are like people who change the shape and flow of a river. The others generate their own activity; they are like people who exert themselves to make the river wetter."
Anthony de Mello
Be still like a mountain and flow like a river.
Lao-Tze
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 22nd 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- They That Draw Us
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
Matthew 13:31-32
Who then are they that draw us and when shall come the Kingdom that is in heaven?
The fowls of the air and the beasts, whatever is beneath the earth or upon the earth, and the fishes of the sea, these they are that draw you.
And the Kingdom of heaven is within you and whoever knoweth himself shall find it. And having found it, ye shall know yourselves that ye are sons and heirs of the Father, the Almighty, and shall know yourselves that ye are in God and God in you.
Oxyrhynchus manuscript
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 23rd 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- What Cannot Be Spoken
What cannot be spoken with words, but that whereby words are spoken:
What cannot be thought with the mind, but whereby the mind can think:
What cannot be seen with the eye, but that whereby the eye can see:
What cannot be heard with the ear, but that whereby the ear can hear:
What cannot be indrawn with the breath, but that whereby breath is indrawn: Know that alone to be Brahman, the Spirit; and not what people here adore.
Kena Upanishad
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 24th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- To Your Health
Health is the thing that makes you feel that now is the best time of the year.
Franklin P Adams
Health is a matter of spirit, and spirit is a matter of faith and courage, and if we take God unto our hearts, reach out with our souls to encompass His nature and power, we will find changed lives and joyful and vigorous bodies. We will not do this thing by continually focusing our attention on the negative, the evil, and the restrictive, but rather by seeing our identity with the positive, the good, and the powerful. The Divine dwells within each of us. Let us exercise our good sense and get our limiting egos out of the way so that His power and perfection may become manifest in our bodies and our affairs.
U S Andersen
Infinite Eternal Being is the only Source of health, and the only way to enjoy constant health is to discover and cultivate a conscious awareness of that Source within yourself. This is best done in periods of silence and mental stillness. Divine Being, or God, the Psalmist tells us, "IS the health of your countenance;" therefore, if you know, feel and live out of the 'Beingness' of your inner spiritual body … you will begin to experience more and more health and 'well-being' in your outer physical body.
PSS
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 25th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Calling From the Deep
Each man must discover this Centre for himself, this Ground of his being, this Law of his life. It is hidden in the depths of every soul, waiting to be discovered. It is the treasure hidden in a field, the pearl of great price. It is the one thing which is necessary, which can satisfy all our desires and answer all our needs ... It is the original Paradise from which we have all come.
Bede Griffiths
Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.
Psalm 42:7
The King's Son lies in the depths of the sea as though dead. But he lives and calls from the deep, 'Whosoever will free me from the waters and lead me to dry land, him will I prosper with everlasting riches.'
Trismosin
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 26th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- An Incredible Liberation
Enlightenment is not only the end of suffering and of continuous conflict within and without, but also the end of the dreadful enslavement to incessant thinking. What an incredible liberation this is!
Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts. labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God. It is this screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion that there is you 'and' a totally separate "other."
You then forget the essential fact that, underneath the level of physical appearances and separate forms, you are one with all that 'is'. By "forget," I mean that you can no longer 'feel' this oneness as self-evident reality. You may 'believe' it to be true, but you no longer 'know' it to be true. A belief may be comforting. Only through your own experience, however, does it become liberating.
Eckhart Tolle -- The Power of Now
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 27th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Dropping Things
The Master insisted that what he taught was nothing, what he did was nothing.
His disciples gradually discovered that Wisdom comes to those who learn nothing, unlearn everything.
That transformation is the consequence not of something done, but of something dropped.
Anthony de Mello
In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired. In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.
Lao Tsu
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 28th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Different Perspectives
Sitting beside my husband on the porch one night, I commented that there appeared to be an equal distance between the birds sitting on the telephone wire. He looked at me rather strange and asked, "How can there be an equal distance between two birds?"
You see, while I saw three birds on the wire, a tree branch blocked his view and he could only see two.
The realization came that no matter how close two people may be, no one is able to "see" exactly as another does. And it isn't that one person sees more, each one simply sees from a different angle.
Anonymous
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 29th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The World
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
Carl Gustav Jung
We are not here to merely make a living. We are here to enrich the world, and we impoverish ourselves if we forget this errand.
Woodrow T Wilson
The ultimate purpose of the world lies not within the world, but in transcendence of the world. Just as you would not be conscious of space if there were no objects in space, the world is needed for the Unmanifested to be realised.
You may have heard the Buddhist saying, "If there were no illusion, there would be no enlightenment." It is through the world, and ultimately through you, that the Unmanifested knows Itself. You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are.
Eckhart Tolle -- The Power of Now
--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner
April 30th 2003
From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Flow of Good
If we maintain our relationship of oneness with God, consciously realized, there will always be those in our experience who are instruments of God, sharing with us as we share with them, drawing on the same illimitable Oneness.
If we expect love from one another, we obstruct and limit its flow to us. But if we maintain our conscious union with God, through a constant realization that 'I and the Father are one', then we open the way for the activity of God to flow to us, through anyone and everyone receptive and responsive to the God-impulse.
Our contact with God is our contact with every person or place that can, in any way, play a part in the unfolding of our daily experience, including not only persons and places within range of our immediate environment, but throughout the universe. Wherever there is good for us in the world, it finds its way to us.
Joel S Goldsmith
