Mystics

"The reason why we know so little of Jesus Christ, as our savior, atonement, and justification, why we are so destitute of that faith in him, which alone can change, rectify, and redeem our souls, why we live starving in the coldness and deadness of a formal, historical, hearsay-religion, is this; we are strangers to our own inward misery and wants, we know not that we lie in the jaws of death and hell; we keep all things quiet within us, partly by outward forms, and modes of religion and morality, and partly by the comforts, cares and delights of this world. Hence it is that we consent to receive a savior, as we consent to admit of the four gospels, because only four are received by the church. We believe in a savior, not because we feel an absolute want of one, but because we have been told there is one, and that it would be a rebellion against God to reject him. We believe in Christ as our atonement, just as we believe, that he cast seven devils out of Mary Magdalene, and so are no more helped, delivered, and justified by believing that he is our atonement, than by believing that he cured Mary Magdalene."

"The Deists, and unbelievers, have a great share of my compassionate affections, and I never can think, or write of the infinite blessings of the Christian redemption, without feeling in my heart, an impatient longing to see them the happy partakers of them. And as one naturally believes, what one strongly wishes; so I cannot help hoping, that both Christians and Deists will here find truths of such a nature, as must in some degree touch their hearts, if not read with prejudice and aversion. OF THE Nature and Necessity OF R E G E N E R A T I O N, OR, THE N E W - B I R T H."

"You can have no greater sign of confirmed pride than when you think you are humble enough."

"He that is endeavouring to subdue, and root out of his mind,all those passions of pride,envy and ambition,which religion opposes, is doing more to make himself happy, even in this life than he that is contriving means to indulge them."

"Now if you will stop here and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it."

"So that Christianity is so far from leaving us to live in the common ways of life, conforming to the folly of customs, and gratifying the passions and tempers which the spirit of the world delights in, it is so far from indulging us in any of these things, that all its virtues which it makes necessary to salvation are only so many ways of living above and contrary to the world, in all the common actions of our life. If our common life is not a common course of humility, self-denial, renunciation of the world, poverty of spirit, and heavenly affection, we do not live the lives of Christians."

"If contempt of the world and heavenly affection is a necessary temper of christians, it is necessary that this temper appear in the whole course of their lives, in their manner of using the world, because it can have no place anywhere else."

"Men are not in hell because God is angry with them. They are in wrath and darkness because they have done to the light, which infinitely flows forth from God, as that man does to the light who puts out his own eyes."

"We have no spiritual need except for a restoration of the divine nature in us. And if this be true, then nothing can be our salvation except that which brings us into a right relationship with God, making us partakers of the divine nature in such a manner and degree as we need. But to reason about life cannot communicate it to the soul, nor can a religion of rational notions and opinions logically deduced from Scripture words bring the reality of the gospel into our lives. Do we not see sinners of all sorts, and men under the power of every corrupt passion, equally zealous for such a religion? How is it then that Christian leaders spend so much time reasoning about Scripture doctrines, and yet remain so blind to the obvious fact that filling the head with right notions of Christ can never give to the heart the reality of His Spirit and life? For logical reasoning about Scripture words and doctrines will do no more to remove pride, hypocrisy, envy, or malice from the soul of man, than logical reasoning about geometry. The one leaves man as empty of the life of God in Christ as the other. Yet the church is filled with professing Christians whose faith has never gone beyond a conviction that the words of Scripture are true. They believe in the Christ of the Bible, but do not know Him personally. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is sound doctrine to their minds, but their lives are empty of His manifest power either to overcome the power of sin within, or to convert others to Christ. Though many are zealous to preach the gospel, yet instead of bringing men to Christ, they seek to reason them into a trust in their own learned opinions about Scripture doctrines. In contrast to Paul, their gospel is in word only, without the demonstration and power of the Spirit. Nor can they see their need of the Holy Spirit to fill them with Christ, and then to overflow through them in rivers of living water to others, because reason tells them that they are sound in the letter of doctrine."

"Man needs to be Saved from his own Wisdom as much as from his own Righteousness, for they produce one and the same corruption. Nothing saves a man from his own righteousness, but that which delivers him from his own wisdom."

"If Reason seems to have any Power against Religion, it is only where Religion is become a dead Form, has lost its true State, and is dwindled into Opinion; and when this is the Case, that Religion stands only as a well-grounded Opinion, then indeed it is always liable to be shaken; either by having its own Credibility lessened, or that of a contrary Opinion increased. But when Religion is that which it should be, not a Notion or Opinion, but a real Life growing up in God, then Reason has just as much power to stop its Course, as the barking Dog to stop the Course of the Moon. For true and genuine Religion is Nature, is Life, and the Working of Life; and therefore, wherever it is, Reason has no more Power over it, than over the Roots that grow secretly in the Earth, or the Life that is working in the highest Heavens. If therefore you are afraid of Reason hurting your Religion, it is a Sign, that your Religion is not yet as it should be, is not a self-evident Growth of Nature and Life within you, but has much of mere Opinion in it ."

"Now the Spirit of Love has this Original. God, as considered in himself in his Holy Being, before any thing is brought forth by him or out of him, is only an eternal Will to all Goodness. This is the one eternal immutable God, that from Eternity to Eternity changeth not, that can be neither more nor less nor any thing else but an eternal Will to all the Goodness that is in himself, and can come from him. The Creation of ever so many Worlds or Systems of Creatures adds nothing to, nor takes any thing from this immutable God. He always was and always will be the same immutable Will to all Goodness. So that as certainly as he is the Creator, so certainly is he the Blesser of every created Thing, and can give nothing but Blessing, Goodness, and Happiness from himself because he has in himself nothing else to give. It is much more possible for the Sun to give forth Darkness, than for God to do, or be, or give forth anything but Blessing and Goodness. Now this is the Ground and Original of the Spirit of Love in the Creature; it is and must be a Will to all Goodness, and you have not the Spirit of Love till you have this Will to all Goodness at all Times and on all Occasions. You may indeed do many Works of Love and delight in them, especially at such Times as they are not inconvenient to you, or contradictory to your State or Temper or Occurrences in Life. But the Spirit of Love is not in you till it is the Spirit of your Life, till you live freely, willingly, and universally according to it. For every Spirit acts with Freedom and Universality according to what it is. It needs no command to live its own Life, or be what it is, no more than you need bid Wrath be wrathful. And therefore when Love is the Spirit of your Life, it will have the Freedom and Universality of a Spirit; it will always live and work in Love, not because of This or That, Here or There, but because the Spirit of Love can only love, wherever it is or goes or whatever is done to it. As the Sparks know no Motion but that of flying upwards, whether it be in the Darkness of the Night or in the Light of the Day, so the Spirit of Love is always in the same Course; it knows no Difference of Time, Place, or Persons, but whether it gives or forgives, bears or forbears, it is equally doing its own delightful Work, equally blessed from itself. For the Spirit of Love, wherever it is, is its own Blessing and Happiness because it is the Truth and Reality of God in the Soul, and therefore is in the same Joy of Life and is the same Good to itself, everywhere and on every Occasion."

"Chuang Tzu’s paradoxical teaching that “you never find happiness until you stop looking for it” must not, therefore, be negatively interpreted. He is not preaching a retreat from a full, active, human existence into inertia and quietism. He is, in fact, saying that happiness can be found, but only by non-seeking and non-action. It can be found, but not as the result of a program or of a system. A program or a system has this disadvantage: it tends to situate happiness in one kind of action only and to seek it only there. But the happiness and freedom which Chuang Tzu saw in Tao is to be found everywhere (since Tao is everywhere), and until one can learn to act with such freedom from care that all action is “perfect joy because without joy,” one cannot really be happy in anything."

"Chuang Tzu is not against virtue (why should he be?), but he sees that mere virtuousness is without meaning and without deep effect either in the life of the individual or in society. Once this is clear, we see that Chuang Tzu’s ironic statements about “righteousness” and “ceremonies” are made not in the name of lawless hedonism and antinomianism, but in the name of that genuine virtue which is “beyond virtuousness.” Once this is clear, one can reasonably see a certain analogy between Chuang Tzu and St. Paul. The analogy must certainly not be pushed too far. Chuang Tzu lacks the profoundly theological mysticism of St. Paul. But his teaching about the spiritual liberty of wu wei and the relation of virtue to the indwelling Tao is analogous to Paul’s teaching on faith and grace, contrasted with the “works of the Old Law.” The relation of the Chuang Tzu book to the Analects of Confucius is not unlike that of the Epistles to the Galatians and Romans to the Torah."

"I simply like Chuang Tzu because he is what he is and I feel no need to justify this liking to myself or to anyone else. He is far too great to need any apologies from me. If St. Augustine could read Plotinus, if St. Thomas could read Aristotle and Averroës (both of them certainly a long way further from Christianity than Chuang Tzu ever was!), and if Teilhard de Chardin could make copious use of Marx and Engels in his synthesis, I think I may be pardoned for consorting with a Chinese recluse who shares the climate and peace of my own kind of solitude, and who is my own kind of person."

"I saw a man's bones lying in the squelchy earth, Black rime-frost over him; and I in sorrow spoke And asked him, saying, "Dead man, how was it? Fled you with your friend from famine and for the last grains Gambled and lost? Was this earth your tomb, Or did floods carry you from afar? Were you mighty, were you wise, Were you foolish and poor? A warrior, or a girl?" Then a wonder came; for out of the silence a voice— Thin echo only, in no substance was the Spirit seen— Mysteriously answered, saying, "I was a man of Sung, Of the clan of Chuang! Chou was my name. Beyond the climes of common thought My reason soared, yet could I not save myself; For at the last, when the long charter of my years was told, I too, for all my magic, by age was brought To the Black Hill of Death. Wherefore, O Master, do you question me?" Then I answered: "Let me plead for you upon the Five Hill-tops, Let me pray for you to the Gods of Heaven and the Gods of Earth, That your white bones may arise, And your limbs be joined anew. ... Would you not have it so?" The dead man answered me: "O Friend, how strange and unacceptable your words! In death I rest and am at peace; in life I toiled and strove. Is the hardness of the winter stream Better than the melting of spring? All pride that the body knew Was it not lighter than dust? What Ch'ao and Hsu despised, What Po-ch'eng fled, Shall I desire, whom death Already has hidden in the Eternal Way— Where Li Chu cannot see me Nor Tzu Yeh hear me, Where neither Yao nor Shun can praise me Nor the tyrants Chieh and Hsin condemn me, Nor wolf nor tiger harm me, Lance prick me nor sword wound me? Of the Primal Spirit is my substance; I am a wave In the river of Darkness and Light. The Maker of All Things is my Father and Mother, Heaven is my bed and earth my cushion, The thunder and lightning are my drum and fan, The sun and moon my candle and my torch, The Milky Way my moat, the stars my jewels. With Nature am I conjoined; I have no passion, no desire, Wash me and I shall be no whiter, Foul me and I shall yet be clean. I come not, yet am here; Hasten not, yet am swift." The voice stopped, there was silence. A ghostly light Faded and expired. I gazed upon the dead, stared in sorrow and compassion. Then I called upon my servant that was with me To tie his silken scarf about those bones And wrap them in a cloak of sombre dust; While I, as offering to the soul of this dead man, Poured my hot tears upon the margin of the road."

"Chuangtse said that he once dreamed of being a butterfly, and while he was in the dream, he felt he could flutter his wings and everything was real, but that on waking up, he realized that he was Chuangtse and Chuangtse was real. Then he thought and wondered which was really real, whether he was really Chuangtse dreaming of being a butterfly, or really a butterfly dreaming of being Chuangtse. Life, then, is really a dream, and we human beings are like travelers floating down the eternal river of time, embarking at a certain point and disembarking again at another point in order to make room for others waiting below the river to come aboard. Half of the poetry of life would be gone, if we did not feel that life was either a dream, or a voyage with transient travelers, or merely a stage in which the actors seldom realized that they were playing their parts."

"荃者所以在魚，得魚而忘荃；蹄者所以在兔，得兔而忘蹄；言者所以在意，得意而忘言。吾安得忘言之人而與之言哉！"

"知止乎其所不能知，至矣。若有不即是者，天鈞敗之。"

"Chuang Tzu's wife died and Hui Tzu came to console him, but Chuang Tzu was sitting, legs akimbo, bashing a battered tub and singing. Hui Tzu said, 'You lived as man and wife, she reared your children. At her death surely the least you should be doing is to be on the verge of weeping, rather than banging the tub and singing: this is not right!' Chuang Tzu said, 'Certainly not. When she first died, I certainly mourned just like everyone else! However, I then thought back to her birth and to the very roots of her being, before she was born. Indeed, not just before she was born but before the time when her body was created. Not just before her body was created but before the origin of life's breath. Her life's breath wrought a transformation and she had a body. Her body wrought a transformation and she was born. Now there is yet another transformation and she is dead. She is like the four seasons in the way that spring, summer, autumn and winter follow each other. She is now at peace, lying in her chamber, but if I were to sob and cry it would certainly appear that I could not comprehend the ways of destiny. This is why I stopped.'"

"Perfect happiness is keeping yourself alive, and only actionless action can have this affect."

"Those in positions of power spend day and night plotting and pondering about what to do. The body is treated in a very careless way. People live their lives, constantly surrounded by anxiety. If they live long before dying, they end up in senility, worn out by concerns: a terrible fate."

"Thus, the wise man looks into space, and does not regard the small as too little, nor the great as too much; for he knows that there is no limit to dimension."

"Chuang Tzŭ was fishing in the P'u when the prince of Ch'u sent two high officials to ask him to take charge of the administration of the Ch'u State. Chuang Tzŭ went on fishing, and without turning his head said, "I have heard that in Ch'u there is a sacred tortoise which has been dead now some three thousand years. And that the prince keeps this tortoise carefully enclosed in a chest on the altar of his ancestral temple. Now would this tortoise rather be dead and have its remains venerated, or be alive and wagging its tail in the mud?" "It would rather be alive," replied the two officials, "and wagging its tail in the mud." "Begone!" cried Chuang Tzŭ. "I too will wag my tail in the mud.""

"You cannot speak of ocean to a well-frog."

"Duke Huan was in his hall reading a book. The wheelwright P’ien, who was in the yard below chiselling a wheel, laid down his mallet and chisel, stepped up into the hall, and said to Duke Huan, ‘This book Your Grace is reading—may I venture to ask whose words are in it?’ ‘The words of the sages,’ said the duke. ‘Are the sages still alive?’ ‘Dead long ago,’ said the duke. ‘In that case, what you are reading there is nothing but the chaff and dregs of the men of old!’ ‘Since when does a wheelwright have permission to comment on the books I read?’ said Duke Huan. ‘If you have some explanation, well and good. If not, it’s your life!’ Wheelwright P’ien said, ‘I look at it from the point of view of my own work. When I chisel a wheel, if the blows of the mallet are too gentle, the chisel slides and won’t take hold. But if they’re too hard, it bites in and won’t budge. Not too gentle, not too hard—you can get it in your hand and feel it in your mind. You can’t put it into words, and yet there’s a knack to it somehow. I can’t teach it to my son, and he can’t learn it from me. So I’ve gone along for seventy years and at my age I’m still chiselling wheels. When the men of old died, they took with them the things that couldn’t be handed down. So what you are reading there must be nothing but the chaff and dregs of the men of old.’"

"Great truths do not take hold of the hearts of the masses...And now, as all the world is in error, I, though I know the true path,—how shall I guide? If I know that I cannot succeed and yet try to force success, this would be but another source of error. Better, then, to desist and strive no more. But if I strive not, who will?"

"Rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education."

"Cherish that which is within you, and shut off that which is without; for much knowledge is a curse."

"For all men strive to grasp what they do not know, while none strive to grasp what they already know; and all strive to discredit what they do not excel in, while none strive to discredit what they do excel in. This is why there is chaos."

"Away then with wisdom and knowledge, and great robbers will disappear!"

"And so in the days when natural instincts prevailed, men moved quietly and gazed steadily. At that time, there were no roads over mountains, nor boats, nor bridges over water. All things were produced, each for its own proper sphere. Birds and beasts multiplied; trees and shrubs grew up. The former might be led by the hand; you could climb up and peep into the raven's nest. For then man dwelt with birds and beasts, and all creation was one. There were no distinctions of good and bad men. Being all equally without knowledge, their virtue could not go astray. Being all equally without evil desires, they were in a state of natural integrity, the perfection of human existence. But when Sages appeared, tripping people over charity and fettering with duty to one's neighbour, doubt found its way into the world. And then with their gushing over music and fussing over ceremony, the empire became divided against itself. ... Destruction of the natural integrity of things, in order to produce articles of various kinds,—this is the fault of the artisan. Annihilation of Tao in order to practise charity and duty to one's neighbour,—this is the error of the Sage."

"Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature."

"Resolve your mental energy into abstraction, your physical energy into inaction. Allow yourself to fall in with the natural order of phenomena, without admitting the element of self,—and the empire will be governed."

"He who pursues fame at the risk of losing his self is not a scholar."

"He who knows what is of God and who knows what is of Man has reached indeed the height (of wisdom)."

"All men know the utility of useful things; but they do not know the utility of futility."

"昔者莊周夢為蝴蝶，栩栩然蝴蝶也，自喻適志與，不知周也。俄然覺，則戚戚然周也。不知周之夢為蝴蝶與，蝴蝶之夢為周與？週與蝴蝶則必有分矣。此之謂物化。 (traditional)"

"昔者庄周梦为蝴蝶，栩栩然蝴蝶也，自喻适志与，不知周也。俄然觉，则戚戚然周也。不知周之梦为蝴蝶与，蝴蝶之梦为周与？周与蝴蝶则必有分矣。此之谓物化。"

"Forget the years, forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home!"

"Right is not right; so is not so. If right were really right it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were really so, it would differ so clearly from not so that there would be no need for argument."

"How do I know that enjoying life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death we are not like people who got lost in early childhood and do not know the way home? Lady Li was the child of a border guard in Ai. When first captured by the state of Jin, she wept so much her clothes were soaked. But after she entered the palace, shared the king's bed, and dined on the finest meats, she regretted her tears. How do I know that the dead do not regret their previous longing for life? One who dreams of drinking wine may in the morning weep; one who dreams weeping may in the morning go out to hunt. During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming. We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream. And yet fools think they are awake, presuming to know that they are rulers or herdsmen. How dense! You and Confucius are both dreaming, and I who say you are a dream am also a dream. Such is my tale. It will probably be called preposterous, but after ten thousand generations there may be a great sage who will be able to explain it, a trivial interval equivalent to the passage from morning to night."

"Whether you point to a little stalk or a great pillar, a leper or the beautiful Hsi-shih, things ribald and shady or things grotesque and strange, the Way makes them all into one. Their dividedness is their completeness; their completeness is their impairment. No thing is either complete or impaired, but all are made into one again. Only the man of far-reaching vision knows how to make them into one. So he has no use [for categories], but relegates all to the constant. The constant is the useful; the useful is the passable; the passable is the successful; and with success, all is accomplished. He relies upon this alone, relies upon it and does not know he is doing so. This is called the Way."

"We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away."

"Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous."

"The great bird rises on the wind to a height of a thousand miles. What does it see from on high there in the blue? Is it droves of wild horses galloping? Is it primeval matter whirling in atomic dust? Is it the exhalations that give birth to all things? Is it the blue of the sky itself, or is it only the colour of infinite distance?"

"Youth should be a savings-bank."

"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others"

"The only true method of action in this world is to be in it, but not of it."

"My experience is that Christianity dispels more mystery than it involves. With Christianity, it is twilight in the world; without it, night. Christianity does not finish the statue,—that is heaven's work; but it "rough-hews" all things,—truth, the mind, the soul."