More Aphorisms and Fragments

The sins of a humble man are always before him; therefor, he judges no one
But a proud man overlooks his own sins in order to look upon the sins of another.

If only one minute of your day is given
to the contemplation of higher things,
be thankful for it; it is the Lord's.

To seek God is to find Him; not to seek God is to lose Him;
the more you seek Him, the more He dwells in you.

The best sayings of the wise always sound so perfect, so simple, and so obvious, that we can hardly believe we have not heard them before, or that they have not been uttered since the beginning of the world.

When a man's hands are often in his pockets, very likely,
he is in there too, slipping through his fingers like loose change.

Love your weaknesses: they keep you humble.

We ask God to humble us, and to show us to ourselves, "warts and all". We don't realize that it is our vanity which causes us to believe we are strong enough to bear the unmitigated sight of ourselves, nor that it is God's mercy which permits us our delusions until such a time as we may dispel them more gradually and with less pain.

Whoever dies to the well-lit world of the living,
comes alive to the darkness and speaks with the dead.

Buried deep within the unconscious of every person,
there is a hidden reservoir of courage, hope, and love,
to which only the name of "God" provides access.

God's love being infinite, there is no adequate way to measure it,
nor to articulate it, so that mortal minds may begin to form an idea of its greatness,
other than to say that God's very nature is to love, and that God Himself is Love.

The Gospel is not about Jesus, as you have been taught to understand Him. It is about the idea of Jesus triggering a sudden awareness in the reader of a loving presence, which is accessible whenever we remember to call it to mind. This idea is Jesus. When you understand that an idea can be holy, and even divine, then you have understood Christ's divinity. As a man, because of his divine works, may be rightly called a God, so, also, an idea, by the divine works it inspires, may rightly be called the Holy Spirit of Our Lord. To deny that an idea (if it is the idea of Love) is worthy of ultimate reverence, is to deny the savior because He is humble. Christ is "just" a metaphor for the idea of love. When the idea is embraced and given its due, the kingdom of heaven will reign in men's hearts and upon the earth. In order to bring this idea into full manifestation, we must honor it as though it were already a reality for us and for all men. We must think it into being. We must rid ourselves of distracting concerns, all of which are chaff and dust, so that we may allow "Love" to be. Really, it is the simplest thing in the world. Do you think it is difficult? It is only difficult because you are resisting it. Before you imagine reasons to resist love, ask yourself, "do you really want to do that?" You will find that you do not. You have always been Love's disciple. Many times you have strayed from the path, but you always return when the master calls.

Return to Love. Love is the only reality. If only you stopped there!! But you are restless creatures. You need it set before you elaborately. You need it complicated and obscure. You need Bibles. It is not enough that the Bible is contained in the Lord's Prayer, or that the Lord's Prayer is contained in the first line, "The Lord is my Shepherd," and this is itself contained in that one word, which says more than all other words combined; "Love". My friends, what is there to do, but to moisten our lips, and speak the word, "Love," or to think it, and listen as it sinks to the bottom of our hearts, is arrested by something hard and, like a red-hot stone at the bottom of the sea, sizzles, steams, and burns through, to reach a depth as yet unknown? This word, "Love" is the philosopher's stone, which burns through all things, and is untouched. But it must be spoken, it must be thought, it's presence must be felt everywhere and at all times. We are all approaching this superior concentration. All our missteps, all our wrong turns, lead us back to this quiet, unassuming Word.

If I were a conqueror, I might write about the glory of Alexander, who perfected the art of conquest. But I am a lover, so I write about the glory of Jesus, who perfected the art of loving.

Remember, Jesus is a symbol. He represents all of us. Like Him, we are all tested, we all die and are reborn, and, in the end, we will all realize our divine nature; our Oneness with God. Like him we shall all say, "I and the Father are One". We are the children of God, destined to carry the cross of flesh, until we are ready to transcend our earthy lives. There is no shortcut. This is the only Way. This is what is meant by "Jesus is the only way". Jesus is the symbol, the model, the prototype, and the pioneer. He is the "first fruits", but we shall all become ripe.

True Christianity is not about sin, but grace. Grace is not exclusive, but inclusive. It is not dependent on actions, or even beliefs. It is for everyone. You don't even have to know about it. You are forgiven, you are innocent. The reason faith is important, is not so that you may be forgiven (you already are forgiven - "it is accomplished"), but, so that you might be spared the distress of imagining yourself guilty in the eyes of God.

Religions form around a nucleus, which is the "religious experience". An individual attains a high level of spiritual comprehension, and speaks to others from this place, probably never intending to inspire the creation of a religious system, but aware that it is inevitable. When a person is illumined, life becomes religion. There is no need for empty rituals, to pour the spirit into them. The spirit is everywhere, and every action, however small, is imbued with the significance of ritual. For others, ritual is like a set of training wheels, used to hold them up in the religious feeling, until they can learn to pedal, balance, and hold themselves up by their own speed. All religions forget their source in time. All religions become empty forms. They may still contain the spirit, but, at a certain point, the spirit grows and desires to overflow the rituals, and even the religion itself. When people cling to the rituals and the religion, this moment is lost, and even the rituals begin to lose power to invoke the spirit. Just as the body of Christ had to incarnate and die, religions have to "incarnate", to contain the spirit for a while, and then die. But, the moment when the religion dies, it actually attains itself, and accomplishes its greatest triumph. It will resurrect itself in spirit, it will come to people in spirit, and, in time, it will incarnate in another form. When Christianity dies, and is replaced by something else, something which resembles what Christianity was in its beginnings, that will be a second coming of the Christ.

If we only knew what supernatural wonders surround us, -- if we could see that angels, with their great wings outspread, protect us, bless and watch over our inauspicious activities, -- we would be stopped in our tracks, and our hearts, overcome with awe before their beauty, would render praise at all times to the majesty of God.

Nothing is more godly than humility, or more humbling than God.

Vanity is the single greatest source of cowardice. How often do we speak and act, or prevent ourselves from speaking and acting, merely from fear of what others might think? Pride, on the other hand, has to do with what we think of ourselves. It cuts much closer to the bone. People will adopt virtues for the sake of their pride, but for vanity they'll adopt only an appearance of virtue. Pride covets Virtue, vanity covets her appearance.

Prefer a faith in the divine to an education in the ordinary.

Knowledge trembles, but faith is fearless.

Faith is the beginning, humility is the center, and peace is the end, of prayer.

Lift up your eyes, and stretch out your minds, towards God.

Rinse your hearts out with tears, and hang them up in holy light.

Number your words, measure your movements, and do not squander your thoughts;
fools squander from a wealth of hollow words, empty thoughts, and aimless actions,
-- but wise men are frugal and poor.

It is possible to be too deep, and to know too much.
Many a man is too deep for us to get at what is within him.
Many a mind is too quick to keep up with itself.

People talk about going inside, not outside. What "inside"? What "outside"? No such thing. In order to make use of something "out there", you first have to be open to it "in here". That's all that means to me. Close your heart and mind, and the world really is "out there".

Do not be so identified with a cause that you identify everyone who does not share it as an opponent. And if any man opposes your cause, remember that he is a man first, and an opponent second. If you do not wish him to mistreat your cause, you must not mistreat him.

Prefer a noble cliché to a novel distraction.

Fill your hours with noble deeds and reflections, so that pettiness will find no foothold.

When we abandon God, when we abandon the contemplation of holy things and the attitude of prayer, we abandon ourselves to the forces of degeneration.

We endure and overcome evil by fixing our attention on the good which transcends it.

What to the fool is a stumblingblock, to the wise is a steppingstone.

Too often, we pride ourselves on being hardhearted and immovable. We must learn that it is better to be tenderhearted and easily moved. Clay must be soft in the hands of the Potter.

It is better to lose one's object through tenderness than to gain it by being overly strict.

There are many ways to pray. Do not force yourself, but allow yourself to be led along those paths which inspire you, provided that they awaken in you a devotion to higher things.

Even the smallest virtues are worthy to be encouraged, while the smallest vices should be overlooked.

People sometimes adopt greater vices in their efforts to eradicate lesser ones.

Schools are to education what religions are to spirituality. You don't need school to be educated, or religion to be spiritual. Structures, which can help to preserve and organize the wisdom of the past, also tend to become rigidly locked into ways of seeing which ultimately thwart innovation and pose resistance to progress. Only a religion which receives as well as dispenses prophecy, like a school which corrects itself even as it corrects others, is truly alive.

Consider the spirit and not the letter of the law: One is not a Christian merely because one calls oneself a Christian, and one who does not call oneself a Christian may yet be more a Christian than many who bear the name. Christ is love. If a religion has love it has Christ. Though it may never speak his name, it bears his spirit. Regardless of its outward forms, if it is compassionate it is Christian.

Ego is treading in a sea of awareness. Branches floating by are thoughts which ego clings to in order to remain afloat. Ego strings these branches together so as to make a raft which can separate him from the water. If he accomplishes this, he will be completely unaware. Drown yourself in the sea of awareness and be reborn as pure spirit.

Depths, which sparrows do not suspect the existence of, make up entire environments, which salmon take for granted. Who knows if there may not be some, among the spirits, who disbelieve reports of incarnation?

The corrupt man promotes his own interest in the world,
while the spirit of corruption destroys his interest in the soul.

The fool imagines himself victorious when the sage cannot move him to relinquish his folly.

Relax to discover your talents. Relax into your gifts.

You will never know peace until you humble yourself.
Pride does you no good. It only riles you.

Let your heroes be saints, not pundits.

Humility is the key to Heaven. Be humble; be at peace; have a warm heart.

Humility, love, and peace are mysteriously related;
each depending upon and increasing the others.
Whenever one of these is spoken of,
know that the others are understood.

A proud man has no peace, and a peaceful man has no pride.

Pride smothers spiritual gifts,
like sand shoveled onto hot coals;
but humility is a breath of the Spirit, igniting them,
and fanning the flames of God's glory in the world.

Humility is wide-eyed, expectant, braced for anything, overcome by a godly ideal. She is cautious, breathless, grounded, and aghast. Humility watches in respectful awe; waits, listening for the step of God. Humility has patience because she is slower than the world, and more deliberate. Humility has affection, feels connected to all things, is not insulted or indignant, as if anything were beneath her.

Love fuels the lamp of prayer.
Fill your prayers with the oil of love,
that they may light the way to heaven,
and may light heaven.

Do not think it degrading, to liken a monk to a dog. The dog, for his loyalty and devotion, is called 'man's best friend'. In the same way, it may be instructive to think of the monk as 'God's best friend'. Just as the dog sits and gazes expectantly at the door through which his master will enter, so does the humble monk sit and pray faithfully before the cross or icon of his Lord. And just as the animal leaps for joy when his master returns, so does the heart of the monk leap in his breast, and rush out of itself to meet the Savior when, at last, the Holy Presence is felt.

We must be in agreement with a truth,
in order to be in a position to refute it.

Seek with one eye, find with the other.
When you grasp it, let it go.

God is talking over himself to himself.
Everything is true. Every truth is incomplete.

If you are not contradicting yourself,
you are only telling half the story.
The end should find you back at the beginning.

The sense in which it is true
is not the sense in which it is false.

The best teachers don't say too much,
or teach too well.

I thought I was the teacher.
That will teach me.
Will I ever learn?

The closer you are to getting it,
the less sense you make.

My God,
where have you been?
You never left me.
I missed You all day.
I did not know what I was missing.
I thought about You.
I did not know what I was thinking.
I sought You in the place where You sent me.