Mystics

"When we meditate, we pass even beyond the deep sleep state and enter the state of the Self. That state is the foundation of all the other states, and it alone is permanent and unchanging."

"We will realize that we are nothing but Consciousness. This physical body is like the clothes we wear. Just as they are merely a covering for the body, in the same way the physical body is merely a covering for our innermost Consciousness."

"The pious will be deemed insane, and the impious wise; the madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good."

"No word of reverence or piety, no utterance worthy of heaven and of the Gods of heaven, will be heard or believed."

"Within the human heart dwells a shimmering effulgence whose brilliance surpasses even that of the sun. This inner Consciousness is the same as that which creates and animates the entire universe. But we are not aware of this. Even though we have come from this Consciousness, we have changed our understanding about ourselves."

"But on the pious soul the Mind doth mount and guide it to the Gnosis' Light. And such a soul doth never tire in songs of praise to God and pouring blessing on all men, and doing good in word and deed to all, in imitation of its Sire (ii, 155)."

"When the Theosophical Society was founded by Blavatsky and others in 1875, she was asked about this Wisdom-Religion by William Q. Judge, one of the co-founders... Her reply indicates that while pre-Vedic Buddhism is a correct designation for the Wisdom-Religion, she considered that it might best be thought of as esoteric Buddhism."

"Now that so many of the Northern Buddhist scriptures have become available, the opportunities to study and interpret them in light of Theosophy as sourcebooks of the Wisdom-Religion are very great indeed."

"While the idea of initiation is not new, these teachings on the initiations are not found in the earlier Theosophical writings of Blavatsky, but are considered by many to have originated with Bailey."

"One of the most defining teachings of Tibetan Buddhism is the teaching of the path to Buddhahood in terms of five... is taught in the Abhisamayalankara, the single most widely studied book in Tibet. This book is said to have been received from the future Buddha, Maitreya... It was memorized by the monks of virtually all the monasteries; and most of the great Tibetan teachers wrote commentaries on it..."

"A human being has the freedom to become anything. By his own power he can make his life sublime or wretched. By his own power he can reach the heavens or descend to the depths."

"If we could only penetrate beneath these roles to our own divinity, then once again we would all know that we are God."

"Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be thought more profitable than life; no one will raise his eyes to heaven."

"Those who struggle for virtue in community life will have greater merit [than hermits]."

"Better death than to be appointed Superior General."

"During the two civil wars of 1840 and 1845, he suffered greatly with his people. His brother, Fr Elisha, suggested he withdraw to a hermitage, but he replied: "Those who struggle for virtue in community life will have greater merit"."

"A monk's first concern, night and day, should be not to hurt or trouble his brother monks."

"Blessed be the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin."

"He observed that the ordinary, everyday life is a continuous martyrdom, since the monk must always be a model to his brother monks, guarding himself from becoming a source of scandal; instead, the hermit lives alone, away from all external temptations."

"We know that Father Nimatullah lived a holy life. He was a man of prayer, totally 'enraptured by God'. He spent days and nights in meditation, prayer and adoration of the Eucharist. The Virgin Mary was his patron and Father Nimatullah prayed Her Rosary. He was also a very humble, sensitive and patient person who lived his monastic vows of 'obedience, chastity and poverty' to perfection."

"Fr Nimatullah was at times also reprimanded by his superiors for being too hard on himself and too merciful and indulgent towards his brothers. He understood holiness in terms of communion and fraternal charity and is said to have remarked: "A monk's first concern, night and day, should be not to hurt or trouble his brother monks"."

"Throughout his life he had a special devotion to the Virgin Mary, his "source of strength"... After the Angelus he would often repeat: "Blessed be the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin"."

"In 1845 the Holy See appointed him Assistant General of the order... He served as Assistant General for two more terms, but refused to be appointed Abbot General."

"For the next 45 nights, a most unusual event occurred: According to many local townspeople, an extraordinarily bright light appeared above his tomb, lighting the night sky. Finally, after the mysterious light persisted, officials at the monastery petitioned the ecclesiastical authorities for permission to exhume Charbel's body. When the grave was opened four months after Charbel's death, his body was found to be incorrupt."

"On Christmas Eve in 1898, Father Charbel died. His body was interred in the ground without a coffin and without embalming, according to the monk's custom, dressed in the full habit of the order."

"Strange things happen to Nohad al-Shami. In 1993 her painting of St Charbel began oozing oil. Around the same time the long-dead saint appeared in her dreams. 'I have come to operate on you,' he said. And so he did, curing her of hemiplegia (paralysis of half of the body), she claims. At the mountain-top monastery of Annaya, in north-west Lebanon, a mass is said every month to mark the miracle and to pray for new ones."

"The priest-monk lived and served in the monastery for 19 years, showing great devotion to the life of prayer, manual work, and contemplative silence. Charbel's superiors observed God's 'supernatural power' at work in his life, and he became known as a wonder-worker even among some Muslims. In 1875, he was granted permission to live as a solitary monk in a nearby hermitage dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. Rigorous asceticism, and a profound union with God, continued to characterise the monk's life for the next 23 years."

"One does not have to look far to see evidence of Satan’s plan in our world today, as the family is further fragmented and divided in modern culture."

"Pray to soften hardened hearts, to open darkened minds."

"The Father's will is always for your good."

"By your prayers you can bring down the rain of mercy."

"Their buildings rise, their morality sinks. Their worldly goods increase, their values diminish. Their speeches multiply, their prayers grow scarce.... An edifice based on man may well rise, but it ends up crushing him."

"Persevere in prayer without ceasing.. to understand and live according to his will, not to change it."

"Pray in your beds."

"Guard your families and keep them from the schemes of the evil one through the presence of God in them. Protect and keep them through prayer and dialog, through mutual understanding and forgiveness, through honesty and faithfulness, and most importantly, through listening. Listen to one another with your ears, eyes, hearts, mouths and the palms of your hands, and keep the roaring of the noise of the world away from your homes because it is like raging storms and violent waves; once it enters the home, it will sweep away everything and disperse everyone. Preserve the warmth of the family, because the warmth of the whole world cannot make up for it."

"No, you're not dreaming... Now you are conscious. You have never been so conscious as you are now."

"A man who prays lives out the mystery of existence, and a man who does not pray scarcely exists."

"The family is the basis of the Lord’s plan; and all forces of evil are focusing all their evil on destroying the family because they know that by destroying the family, the foundations of the plan of God will be shaken. The war of the Evil One against the Lord is his war against the family, and the war of the Evil One against the family is the core of his war against the Lord. Because the family is the image of God, from the beginning of the creation of this universe, The Evil one is focusing on destroying the family, the foundation of God’s plan."

"Success in life consists of standing without shame before God."

"I have come to operate on you."

"It was a universal custom in all religious associations that one of their number during meals should read aloud to the others passages from the Lives of the Saints. This dull and unpopular task having one day been allotted to Giuseppe (probably as a punishment) he straightway proceeded, careless of the consequences, to read out whatever came into his head, substituting for the names of the Saints those of the most notable courtesans of Palermo. The effect of this daring sacrilege was dire and immediate. With fist and foot the scandalized monks instantly fell upon the boy and having belaboured him, as the saying is, within an inch of his life, indignantly packed him back to Palermo as hopelessly incorrigible and utterly unworthy of ever becoming a Benfratello."

"It was in the laboratory of the convent that Cagliostro learnt "the principles of chemistry and medicine" which he afterwards practiced with such astonishing results."

"The band of young desperadoes to which he belonged frequently came into collision with the night-watch, whose prisoners, if any, they would attempt to set free."

"On the day he was set at liberty (for he had no difficulty in proving his innocence) eight or ten thousand people came en masse to offer him their congratulations... But this ovation... was Intended less as a mark of respect to him than as an Insult to the queenQueen, who was known to regard the verdict as a stigma on her honour."

"From the Seminary of San Rocco, where he received his first schooling, he ran away several times. As the rod, which appears to have played an important part in the curriculum of the seminary, failed to produce the beneficial results that are supposed to ensue from its frequent application, his uncles, anxious to get rid of so troublesome a charge, decided to confide the difficult task of coaxing or licking him into shape to the Benfratelli of Cartegirone. Giuseppe was accordingly enrolled as a novice in this brotherhood, whose existence was consecrated to the healing of the sick, and placed under the supervision of the Convent-Apothecary. He was at the time thirteen."

"He more than once saw the inside of the Palermo jail; but from lack of sufficient proof, or from the nature of the charge against him, or owing to the intercession of his estimable uncles, as often as he was arrested he was let off again."

"It could surely be no innocent victim of injustice who aroused contempt so malevolent, hatred so universal. The mystery in which he masqueraded was alone sufficient to excite suspicion."

"The portrait Carlyle has drawn of Cagliostro is the one most familiar to English readers. Now, though Carlyle's judgments have in the main been upheld by the latest historians (who have had the advantage of information to which he was denied access), nevertheless, like everybody else, he made mistakes. In his case, however, these mistakes were inexcusable, for they were due, not to the lack of data, but to the strong prejudices by which he suffered himself to be swayed to the exclusion of that honesty and fairness he deemed so essential to the historian."

"The "noble traveler," as he described himself... on his examination, confessed that Cagliostro was only one of the several names he had assumed in the course of his life. An alias (he had termed it incognito) is always suspicious."

"According to the Inquisition- biographer, one day whilst he and his companions were idling away the time together the conversation having turned upon a certain girl whom they all knew, one of the number wondered what she was doing at that moment, whereupon Giuseppe immediately offered to gratify him. Marking a square on the ground he made some passes with his hands above it, after which the figure of the girl was seen in the square playing at tressette with three of her friends. So great was the effect of this exhibition of clairvoyance... upon the amazed Apaches that they went at once to look for the girl and found her in the same attitude playing the very game and with the very persons that Balsamo had shown them."