Living Flames

Humility is not an attitude towards oneself.

It is thru the dual state that one reaches the non-dual state,
and there learns to embrace the dual, for the sake of all beings.

If the way to God were from body to spirit,
then body were mere hindrance, and godliness selfish;
but the journey from darkness to light is only half of the way,
for light is gathered so that it might be carried into darkness.

As the lower is transcended in approaching what is higher,
so, also, the higher is transcended in approaching what is lower.

One does not enter into the presence of the King
without receiving a missal for the instruction of all subjects.

We are not truly free until we wholeheartedly desire our chains.

Words strain to uphold a spirit,
and to secure that in the mind,
which silence would let drop into the heart.

The mind in prayer should hover, ever-so-gently,
like a honeybee, over the flower of the heart,
patiently drawing sweet nectar therefrom.

There is no single "enlightenment",
crushingly prosaic or adorned with all novelty,
but there are saints endowed, respectively,
with various charisms; each privy to different lights.

There are realms of unspeakable bliss,
populated with angelic hosts and living lights.
They are not abstract, or metaphorical,
but ordinary, in their own way.

Affliction is natural to lovers in this world,
as steam to hot coals dropped in water.

Every soul in this world is heroic
and worthy of our utmost compassion.

It's always best to forgive a man before apologizing to him.

If you must speak, become bibles;
modern testaments; new scriptures!

Men curse the clarion call, and consecrate the lullaby.

Great souls draw lines in the sand; small ones bury their heads in it.

A flatterer is a pusher of a most addictive and destructive drug;
nothing is so much to be lamented as to be content with one's estate.

However exalted, however great,
it is mediocrity to rest --
while life inflames the breast!

The Lord, in His wisdom,
has coupled loftiness with humility,
and celebrity with servitude.

Actions may serve a particular good,
and words commend a general goodness,
but silence responds to the will of God.

A man may stumble and still progress; no pilgrim ascends like a ghost, gliding over rocks and streams; but lurches, lunges, leaps, and leans upon his staff; seeming the most compromised when scaling the steepest heights.

When anger overtakes you, do not snatch at consolations, anxious for a cheaply gotten peace. First, be humbled by contrition. Confess your double-will. Lament that you hold to anger still, and cannot put it out of you, however much your higher nature tells you to, and however much you would like to want to do. It must repulse you. Only then will you relinquish it, and peace will come upon you as though unbidden.

To become aware of sin in oneself is almost to uproot it.

The soul is buried, as it were, in a tomb of clay,
and must be dug out, for the purposes of resurrection.

All the strength of my life, to be good in this moment.

We seek knowledge, we seek the concrete, not realizing that what is acquired by the mind must serve as heavy blocks, weighing us down, and preventing our ascent towards the wisdom of the Highest. How much more willingly ought we to seek -- nay, to confess -- a humble ignorance; the limitless unknowing of a child? In this ignorance is lightness, spaciousness, and openness to the leadings of Divine Suggestion. Truly, all our knowledge, or all that appears to us as knowledge, is but a reflection of a reflection of reflection of all that we do not know. The plans we fashion, and the paths we imagine for ourselves, can never begin to compare to the blueprints which God has laid out for the development of our souls. We had better forget these anxious attempts at directing our course, and place our utmost trust in the will of the Father, who alone knows what is best, and how to lead.

The prayers we offer on our own behalf are never so effective,
and never so beneficial to ourselves, as the prayers we offer for others.