monists

"Sengcan: I am riddled with sickness. Please absolve me of my sin. Huike: Bring your sin here and I will absolve you. Sengcan [after a long pause]: When I look for my sin, I cannot find it. Huike: I have absolved you. You should live by the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha."

"The Perfect Way knows no difficulties Except that it refuses to make preferences; Only when freed from hate and love, It reveals itself fully and without disguise; A tenth of an inch's difference, And heaven and earth are set apart; If you wish to see it before your own eyes, Have no fixed thoughts either for or against it. To set up what you like against what you dislike — This is the disease of the mind: When the deep meaning (of the Way) is not understood Peace of mind is disturbed to no purpose. (The Way is) perfect like unto vast space, With nothing wanting, nothing superfluous: It is indeed due to making choice That its suchness is lost sight of. Pursue not the outer entanglements, Dwell not in the inner void; Be serene in the oneness of things, And (dualism) vanishes by itself."

"Whether we see it or not, It is manifest everywhere in all the ten quarters. Infinitely small things are as large as large things can be, For here no external conditions obtain; Infinitely large things are as small as small things can be, For objective limits are here of no consideration. What is is the same as what is not, What is not is the same as what is: Where this state of things fails to obtain, Indeed, no tarrying there. One in All, All in One — If only this is realized, No more worry about your not being perfect! Where Mind and each believing mind are not divided, And undivided are each believing mind and Mind, This is where words fail; For it is not of the past, present, and future."

"It is not important to teach all that you know, teach what people need to know, and what they are ready to receive. Guide them so they improve their lives, become stronger, increase their capacities, gain deeper insight, and progressively become worthy to receive and appreciate higher wisdom. Be a constant traveller. Wherever you go, find out what people are missing and how it can be provided. In all things remember harmlessness.."

"Do not be a threat to others or consider others to be a threat to you. Deliver only the message of the sages that you have received directly or what has been revealed in the Vedas and the Upanishads."

"Neither force nor manipulate others into following you. Rather dedicate your life to the highest truth and let the magnetism of truth itself pull people to you."

"Do not teach principles that you do not practice. Resolve any contradiction between your direct experience and the words of the wise. Only then may you teach those principles."

"Be fearless, let fearlessness radiate from you and dispel fear in the hearts of others."

"One should have living faith in higher things. One should have an aim. This is very important. The moment one loses faith and forgets the aim, one succumbs to anger, jealousy, greed, passion or delusion"

"Once we gain a glimpse of higher spheres of consciousness, then our unhapiness and discontent automatically fade away."

"Together with his victory and pursuit, having made himself master of the port, he laid siege to the Samians, and blocked them up, who yet, one way or another, still ventured to make sallies, and fight under the city walls. But after that another greater fleet from Athens was arrived, and that the Samians were now shut up with a close leaguer on every side, Pericles, taking with him sixty galleys, sailed out into the main sea, with the intention, as most authors give the account, to meet a squadron of Phoenician ships that were coming for the Samians' relief, and to fight them at as great distance as could be from the island; but, as Stesimbrotus says, with a design of putting over to Cyprus, which does not seem to be probable. But, whichever of the two was his intention, it seems to have been a miscalculation. For on his departure, Melissus, the son of Ithagenes, a philosopher, being at that time the general in Samos, despising either the small number of the ships that were left or the inexperience of the commanders, prevailed with the citizens to attack the Athenians. And the Samians having won the battle, and taken several of the men prisoners, and disabled several of the ships, were masters of the sea, and brought into port all necessaries they wanted for the war, which they had not before. Aristotle says, too, that Pericles had been once before this worsted by this Melissus in a sea-fight. … Pericles, as soon as news was brought him of the disaster that had befallen his army, made all the haste he could to come in to their relief, and having defeated Melissus, who bore up against him, and put the enemy to flight, he immediately proceeded to hem them in with a wall, resolving to master them and take the town, rather with some cost and time than with the wounds and hazards of his citizens."

"Melissus, the son of Ithaegenes, was a native of Samos. He was a pupil of Parmenides. Moreover he came into relations with Heraclitus, on which occasion the latter was introduced by him to the Ephesians, who did not know him, as Democritus was to the citizens of Abdera by Hippocrates. He took part also in politics and won the approval of his countrymen, and for this reason he was elected admiral and won more admiration than ever through his own merit.In his view the universe was unlimited, unchangeable and immovable, and was one, uniform and full of matter. There was no real, but only apparent, motion. Moreover he said that we ought not to make any statements about the gods, for it was impossible to have knowledge of them.According to Apollodorus, he flourished in the 84th Olympiad."

"Οὐδ᾿ ἂν τὸ ὑγιὲς ἀλγῆσαι δύναιτο· ἀπὸ γὰρ ἂν ὄλοιτο τὸ ὑγιὲς καὶ τὸ ἐόν, τὸ δὲ οὐκ ἐὸν γένοιτο. Καὶ περὶ τοῦ ἀνιᾶσθαι ὡυτὸς λόγος τῶι ἀλγέοντι. Οὐδὲ κενεόν ἐστιν οὐδέν· τὸ γὰρ κενεὸν οὐδέν ἐστιν· οὐκ ἂν οὖν εἴη τό γε μηδέν. Οὐδὲ κινεῖται· ὑποχωρῆσαι γὰρ οὐκ ἔχει οὐδαμῆι, ἀλλὰ πλέων ἐστίν. Εἰ μὲν γὰρ κενεὸν ἦν, ὑπεχώρει ἂν εἰς τὸ κενόν· κενοῦ δὲ μὴ ἐόντος οὐκ ἔχει ὅκηι ὑποχωρήσει."

"This is indeed the first question we have to ask: is generation a fact or not? Earlier speculation was at variance both with itself and with the views here put forward as to the true answer to this question. Some removed generation and destruction from the world altogether. Nothing that is, they said, is generated or destroyed, and our conviction to the contrary is an illusion. So maintained the school of Melissus and Parmenides. But however excellent their theories may otherwise be, anyhow they cannot be held to speak as students of nature. There may be things not subject to generation or any kind of movement, but if so they belong to another and a higher inquiry than the study of nature. They, however, had no idea of any form of being other than the substance of things perceived; and when they saw, what no one previously had seen, that there could be no knowledge or wisdom without some such unchanging entities, they naturally transferred what was true of them to things perceived."

"Melissus seems to infer that what really exists must be permanent and immutable, because it is too tough to pass away, and all change involves the destruction of a previous state of being. The argument depends upon investigating what we mean by saying something is real or exists. Permanence, Melissus suggests, is part of the concept of truth or existence. Is that so? How would we check up?"

"Οὕτως οὖν ἀίδιόν ἐστι καὶ ἄπειρον καὶ ἓν καὶ ὅμοιον πᾶν."

"[W]hen in company where people engaged themselves in what are commonly thought the liberal and elegant amusements, he was obliged to defend himself against the observations of those who considered themselves highly accomplished, by the somewhat arrogant retort, that he certainly could not make use of any stringed instrument, could only, were a small and obscure city put into his hands, make it great and glorious. Notwithstanding this, Stesimbrotus says that Themistocles was a hearer of Anaxagoras, and that he studied natural philosophy under Melissus, contrary to chronology; for Melissus commanded the Samians in their siege by Pericles, who was much Themistocles's junior; and with Pericles, also, Anaxagoras was intimate."

"Τοῦ γὰρ ἐόντος ἀληθινοῦ κρεῖσσον οὐδέν."

"Καὶ Μέλισσος δὲ τὸ ἀγένητον τοῦ ὄντος ἔδειξε τῶι κοινῶι τούτωι χρησάμενος ἀξιώματι· γράφει δὲ οὕτως·᾿ἀεὶ ἦν ὅ τι ἦν καὶ ἀεὶ ἔσται. Εἰ γὰρ ἐγένετο, ἀναγκαῖόν ἐστι πρὶν γενέσθαι εἶναι μηδέν· εἰ τοίνυν μηδὲν ἦν, οὐδαμὰ ἂν γένοιτο οὐδὲν ἐκ μηδενός᾿."

"One special function of the mother goddess was leadership in war. It was a custom among the Arabians until recent times that the warriors of a tribe were led in battle by a girl riding at their head with breast exposed, inspiring them in their attack to the display of irresistible courage; and if it was a common practice in prehistoric times, we may assume that this function of womanhood established the character of Istar as the goddess of war, later on differentiated as the Greek Pallas Athene and the Roman Bellona. We may be sure that the character of Aphrodite as Venus Victrix is by no means a late Roman invention of the days of Cæsar but dates back to the most ancient days of Babylonian tradition. She was from the start of history the great Magna Mater, the All-Mother and Queen to whom the people appealed in all their needs, especially in war. In Greece she is frequently addressed as νικηφόρος, bringer of victory."

"The ancient pagans were not so very unlike the Christians; e. g., Istar, like the Virgin Mary, represented at the same time eternal virginity and motherhood, and the name of the temple on the Acropolis might truly be translated “Church of the Holy Virgin,” for Parthenon is derived from παρθένος, “virgin.” In prehistoric times there was more reverence for the female deity than for the male god. So Ares (or Mars) is the god of fight, of combativeness, while Athene is the teacher of the art of warfare, of generalship, of strategy in battle... The character of Aphrodite as a universal principle was never lost sight of. She was and remained the giver of life, joy, love, loveliness, grace, fertility, increase, exuberance, rejuvenescence, springtime, restoration of life, immortality, prosperity and the charm of existence,—and all this she was in one, all as a universal principle and in its cosmic significance.... Eros is said to have existed prior to Aphrodite, for when she rose out of the sea, Eros met her at the shore, while according to another version he was regarded as her son. The notion that Aphrodite is the cosmic principle of love has found expression in poetry and philosophy, but her mythical nature has never been definitely settled. Homer, who calls Aphrodite Cypris (Κύπις) speaks of her in the Iliad (V, 312) as the daughter of Zeus[10] and Dione, the goddess."

"Infinity is the land of mathematical hocus pocus. There Zero the magician is king. When Zero divides any number he changes it without regard to its magnitude into the infinitely small [great?], and inversely, when divided by any number he begets the infinitely great [small?]. In this domain the circumference of the circle becomes a straight line, and then the circle can be squared. Here all ranks are abolished, for Zero reduces everything to the same level one way or another. Happy is the kingdom where Zero rules!"

"I am not the first Buddha Who came upon this earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time, another Buddha will arise in the world, a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One ... knowing the universe, an Incomparable Leader of men... He will reveal to you the same eternal truths which I have taught you. He will preach to you His religion, glorious in its origin, glorious at the climax and glorious at the goal ... He will proclaim a religious life, wholly perfect and pure, such as I now proclaim. His disciples will number many thousands, while mine number many hundreds."

"Some imagine that science is limited to the lower sorts of natural facts only. Religious and moral facts have been too little heeded by our scientists. Thus people came to think that science and religion move in two different spheres. That is not so. The facts of our soul-life must be investigated and stated with scientific accuracy, and our clergy should be taught to purify religion with the criticism of scientific methods. They need not fear for their religious ideals. So far as they are true, and their moral kernel is true, they will not suffer in the crucible of science. Religion will not lose one iota of its grandeur, if it is based upon a scientific foundation; all that it will lose is the errors that are connected with religion and the sooner they are lost the better for us."

"The early centuries of the Christian era were troublesome times. Lawlessness prevailed and a general decadence had set in, which was due to the many civil wars in both Greece and Italy. The establishment of the Roman empire checked the progress of degeneration but only in external appearance. In reality a moral and social deterioration continued to take an ever stronger hold upon the people. The old religion broke down and the new faith was by no means so ideal in the beginning as it is frequently represented by writers of ecclesiastical history. Our notions concerning the vicious character of ancient paganism are entirely wrong. Even the worship of Aphrodite and of the Phenician Astarte was by no means degraded by that gross sensualism of which the fathers of the church frequently accuse it. Wherever we meet with original expressions of the pagan faith we find deep reverence and childlike piety. In many respects the worship of Istar in Babylonia and Astarte in Phenicia, of Isis in Egypt, of Athene, Aphrodite and Hera in Greece, of the Roman Juno, and Venus, the special protectress of the imperial family, was noble in all main features, and did not differ greatly from the cult of the Virgin Mary during the Middle Ages."

"When Luther stood before the emperor and the representatives of church and state, he begged to be refuted, and if he were refuted, he promised to keep silence; but as he was not, he continued to preach and he preached boldly in the name of truth as one that had authority. Therefore let religious progress be made as in the era of the Reformation, not in complaisance to popular opinion, but squarely in the name of truth."

"Soon after the time of Açoka, the great Buddhist emperor of the third century before Christ, India became the theater of protracted invasions and wars. Vigorous tribes from the North conquered the region of the upper Pan jab and founded several states, among which the Kingdom of Gandhâra became most powerful. Despoliations, epidemics, and famines visited the valley of the Ganges, but all these tribulations passed over the religious institutions without doing them any harm. Kings lost their crowns and the wealthy their riches, but the monks chanted their hymns in the selfsame way. Thus the storm breaks down mighty trees, but only bends the yielding reed. By the virtues, especially the equanimity and thoughtfulness, of the Buddhist priests, the conquerors in their turn were spiritually conquered by the conquered, and they embraced the religion of enlightenment."

"The deva asked, What causes ruin in the world? What breaks off friendships? What is the most violent fever? Who is the best physician?" The Blessed One replied, Ruin in the world is caused by ignorance; friendships are broken off by envy and selfishness; the most violent fever is hatred; the best physician is the Buddha."

"The truth is that other systems of geometry are possible, yet after all, these other systems are not spaces but other methods of space measurements. There is one space only, though we may conceive of many different manifolds, which are contrivances or ideal constructions invented for the purpose of determining space."

"The monks intoned a solemn chant, and its long-drawn cadences filled the hall with a spirit of sanctity, impressing the hearers as though Buddha himself had descended on its notes from his blissful rest in Nirvâna to instruct, to convert, and to gladden his faithful disciples. The monks chanted a hymn, of which the novice could catch some of the lines as they were sung; and these were the words that rang in his ears: In the mountain hall we are taking our seats, In solitude calming the mind; Still are our souls, and in silence prepared By degrees the truth to find."

"Sensuality is enervating; the self-indulgent man is a slave to his passions, and pleasure-seeking is degrading and vulgar. But to satisfy the necessities of life is not evil. To keep the body in good health is a duty, for otherwise we shall not be able to trim the lamp of wisdom, and keep our minds strong and clear. Water surrounds the lotus flower, but does not wet its petals. This is the middle path, bhikkhus, that keeps aloof from both extremes."

"No one saves us but ourselves, No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path Buddhas merely teach the way. By ourselves is evil done, By ourselves we pain endure, By ourselves we cease from wrong, By ourselves become we pure."

"Pythagoras says that number is the origin of all things, and certainly the law of number is the key that unlocks the secrets of the universe. But the law of number possesses an immanent order, which is at first sight mystifying, but on a more intimate acquaintance we easily understand it to be intrinsically necessary; and this law of number explains the wondrous consistency of the laws of nature."

"There is no prophet which preaches the superpersonal God more plainly than mathematics."

"There is no science which teaches the harmonies of nature more clearly than mathematics."

"I don't feel that you are sincere, neither you nor your flock. You all went there to fulfill a social duty and social custom, but not at all because you really wanted to enter into communion with God."

"The Gita was an important scripture which elucidated an important Truth, and yet one thing was missing in it: the idea of the transformation of the outer nature of man, which is one main object of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga."

"Listen, even before your religion was born not even two thousand years ago the Chinese had a very high philosophy and knew a path leading them to the Divine; and when they think of Westerners, they think of them as barbarians. And you are going there to convert those who know more about it than you? What are you going to teach them? To be insincere, to perform hollow ceremonies instead of following a profound philosophy and a detachment from life which lead them to a more spiritual consciousness?"

"They do not feel bound by the customary rules of conduct and have not yet found an inner law that would replace them."

"It is in accordance with the impression that the plate ought to be painted; it gives you an impact, you translate the impact, and it is this which is truly artistic. It is like this that modern art began. And note that he was right. His plates were not round, but he was right in principle."

"Between the age of eighteen and twenty I had attained a conscious and constant union with the divine Presence and … I had done it all alone, with absolutely nobody to help me, not even books, you understand! When I found one — I had in my hands a little later Vivekananda's Raja Yoga — it seemed to me so wonderful a thing, you see, that someone could explain something to me! This made me gain in a few months what would have perhaps taken me years to do."

"It matters little that there are thousands of beings plunged in the densest ignorance; He whom we saw yesterday is on earth; his presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into light, and Thy reign shall actually be established upon earth."

"When I was a child of about thirteen, for nearly a year every night as soon as I had gone to bed it seemed to me that I went out of my body and rose straight up above the house, then above the city, very high above. Then I used to see myself clad in a magnificent golden robe, much longer than myself; and as I rose higher, the robe would stretch, spreading out in a circle around me to form a kind of immense roof over the city. Then I would see men, women, children, old men, the sick, the unfortunate coming out from every side; they would gather under the outspread robe, begging for help, telling of their miseries, their suffering, their hardships. In reply, the robe, supple and alive, would extend towards each one of them individually, and as soon as they had touched it, they were comforted or healed, and went back into their bodies happier and stronger than they had come out of them."

"Between the ages of 11 and 13 a series of psychic and spiritual experiences revealed to me not only the existence of God, but man's possibility of uniting with Him, of realising Him integrally in consciousness and action, of manifesting Him upon earth in a life divine. This, along with a practical discipline for its fulfilment, was given to me during my body's sleep by several teachers, some of whom I met afterwards on the physical plane. Later on, as the interior and exterior development proceeded, the spiritual and psychic relation with one of these Beings became more and more clear and frequent."

"Will you shut up now?"

"I started contemplating or doing my Yoga from the age of 4. There was a small chair for me on which I used to sit still, engrossed in my meditation. A very brilliant light would then descend over my head and produce some turmoil inside my brain. Of course I understood nothing, it was not the age for understanding. But gradually I began to feel, "I shall have to do some tremendously great work that nobody yet knows.""

"Yes, indeed, I do feel the weight of the world's miseries pressing upon me!"

"I knew a painter, a disciple of Gustave Moreau; he was truly a very fine artist, he knew his work quite well, and then … he was starving, he did not know how to make both ends meet and he used to lament. Then one day, a well-wishing friend sent a picture-dealer to his studio. The latter inspected all his works, without discovering anything of interest: the works of the painter were simply not fashionable and therefore without commercial value. But at last the dealer found a canvas with some palette-scrapings in a dusty corner and was suddenly full of enthusiasm: "Here you are! my friend, you are a genius, this is a miracle, it is this you should show! Look at this richness of tones, this variety of forms, and what an imagination."

"It is a rather unpleasant sensation to feel yourself pulled by the strings and made to do things whether you want to or not — that is quite irrelevant — but to be compelled to act because something pulls you by the strings, something which you do not even see — that is exasperating. … I knew nobody who could help me and I did not have the chance that you have, someone who can tell you: "This is what you have to do!" There was nobody to tell me that. I had to find it out all by myself. And I found it. I started at five."

"It seems to me that I am being born into a new life and that all the methods and habits of the past can no longer be of any use. It seems to me that what was once a result is now only a preparation … It is as if I was stripped of all my past, of my errors as well as my conquests, as if all that had disappeared to give place to one new-born whose whole existence has yet to take shape … An immense gratitude rises from my heart. I seem to have at last arrived at the threshold which I have long sought."