Mystics

"Stirum sukham asanam. Meaning: Seated posture should be steady and comfortable."

"When right posture (asana) has been attained there follows right control of prana and proper inspiration and expiration of the breath."

"The posture assumed must be steady and easy"

"The Yoga of action, leading to union with the soul is fiery aspiration, spiritual reading and devotion to Ishvara."

"Yoga is the cessation of movements of the mind. Then there is abiding in the seer's own form."

"In deep meditation the flow of concentration is continuous like the flow of oil."

"Asanas bring perfection in body, beauty in form,grace, strength, compactness, and the harness and brilliance of a diamond."

"Perfection in asana is achieved when the effort to perform it becomes effortless and the infinite being within is reached."

"Peace can be reached through meditation on the knowledge which dreams give. Peace can also be reached through concentration upon that which is dearest to the heart."

"Patanjali was a compiler of teaching which, up to the time of his advent, had been given orally for many centuries... The Yoga Sutras are the basic teaching of the Trans Himalayan School to which many of the Masters of the Wisdom belong, and many students hold that the Essenes and other schools of mystical training and thought, closely connected with the founder of Christianity and the early Christians, are based upon the same system... the Sutras have been dictated and paraphrased by the Tibetan Brother and the commentary upon them has been written by myself, and subjected to revision and comment by the Tibetan."

"The world I knew, the "real" world, was ruled by money and desires. But the words in Patanjali's Yoga Aphorisms struck a deep chord. Unlike Christianity and Judaism, which insist on unquestioning faith, Patanjali tells us to believe nothing without first testing it. This was just right for me. It was the way I had chosen long ago, when I was still a child. (Chapter Nineteen)"

"When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be."

"When a gifted team dedicates itself to unselfish trust and combines instinct with boldness and effort, it is ready to climb."

"When a man becomes steadfast in his abstention from harming others, then all living creatures will cease to feel enmity in his presence"

"Patañjali wrote when theism was at a low ebb. In modern self-presentations of Hinduism, you would not know that it was ever anything else than devotional-theistic... Nowhere does Patañjali say that “union” is sought with God nor with anything else. On the contrary, the stated goal of his system is kaivalya, “isolation, separation”, the very opposite of “union”, and equivalent with the notion kevala of the atheistic Jaina system. Patañjali accommodates the devotee yet avoids burdening the unbeliever with a requirement to believe.... The proper and intended meaning of yoga in Patañjali’s system is the one suggested by its English cognate “yoke”, viz. “subjection, disciplining, control, restraint”.... Unfortunately, in his word-for-word explanation, Chapple forgets his own translation of this definition and explains yoga as “union, connection, joining”, without problematizing this common interpretation. With this, I must find fault, even if it is the majority view by far."

"Progress in meditation comes swiftly for those who try their hardest."

"Upon thy so sore loss Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross."

"All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms."

"O world invisible, we view thee, O world intangible, we touch thee, O world unknowable, we know thee, Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!"

"In the rash lustihead of my young powers, I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years— My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream."

"But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbéd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat—and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet— "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.""

"Across the margent of the world I fled, And troubled the gold gateways of the stars, Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars: Fretted to dulcet jars And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon."

"I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter."

"The drift of pinions, would we hearken, Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors."

"Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of today. It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism; it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its soul; it is to live in a nutshell and to count yourself the king of infinite space; it is To see a world in a grain of sand, And a Heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour; it is to know not as yet that you are under sentence of life, nor petition that it be commuted into death."

"Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare; And left the flushed print in a poppy there: Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came, And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame."

"I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon."

"Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven, So ready is Heaven to stoop to him."

"Nothing begins, and nothing ends, That is not paid with moan, For we are born in other's pain, And perish in our own."

"Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven."

"The fairest things have fleetest end, Their scent survives their close: But the rose's scent is bitterness To him that loved the rose."

"O GAIN that lurk’st ungainèd in all gain! O love we just fall short of in all love! O height that in all heights art still above! O beauty that dost leave all beauty pain! Thou unpossessed that mak’st possession vain,"

"The hills look over on the South, And Southward dreams the sea; And with the sea-breeze hand in hand, Came innocence and she."

"Thou canst not stir a flower / Without troubling of a star."

"The innocent moon, that nothing does but shine, Moves all the labouring surges of the world."

"The angels keep their ancient places;— Turn but a stone, and start a wing! ‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estrangèd faces, That miss the many-splendoured thing."

"These men — Yeats, James Stephens, and the rest — had aristocratic minds. For them, the world was not fragmented. An idea did not suddenly grow … all alone and separate. For them, all things had long family trees. They saw nothing shameful or silly in myths and fairy stories, nor did they shovel them out of sight and some cupboard marked "Only For Children." They were always willing to concede that there was more things in heaven and earth than philosophy dreamed of. They allowed for the unknown. And, as you can imagine, I took great heart from this. It was Æ who showed me how to look and learn from one's own writing. "Popkins" he said once — he always called her just plain Popkins, whether deliberately mistaking the name or not I never knew. His humor was always subtle — "Popkins had she lived in another age, in the old times to which she certainly belongs, she would undoubtedly have had long golden tresses, a wreath of flowers in one hand, and perhaps a spear in the other. Her eyes would have been like the sea, her nose comely, and on her feet winged sandals. But, this age being the Kali Yuga, as the Indus call it — in our terms, the Iron Age — she comes in habiliments suited to it.""

"I have met other women who were tender, As you were cold, dear! with a grace as rare. Think you, I turned to them, or made surrender, I who had found you fair?"

"Late, late, I come to you, now death discloses Love that in life was not to be our part: On your low lying mound between the roses, Sadly I cast my heart."

"Nay, let this earth, your portion, likewise cover All the old anger, setting us apart: Always, in all, in truth was I your lover; Always, I held your heart."

"You would have understood me, had you waited; I could have loved you, dear! as well as he: Had we not been impatient, dear! and fated Always to disagree."

"What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter: Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid. Though all the words we ever spake were bitter, Shall I reproach you, dead?"

"I read Æ’s poems when I was a child in Australia. Later I came to England to see my relatives. But before I did that, I sent a poem to Æ, who was then editing The Irish Statesman, and with all the arrogance of youth I didn’t put any letter with it explaining myself or saying that I was Irish or anything. I just sent it with a stamped addressed envelope. And sure enough, the stamped envelope came back. But in it was a check for two guineas and a letter that said, “I’m accepting your poem, which is a very good one, and I think it could not have been written by anyone who wasn’t Irish. If you’re ever coming to Ireland, be sure to come and see me.” Since I was going to Ireland, I did go to see him and was greatly welcomed and more poems were taken. I felt immediate mutuality with him, this great elderly man bothering about me. But he bothered about all young poets. They were always welcome. After our visit he said to me, “On your way back through Dublin you come and see me again.” I said, “Of course, I will.” But when the time arrived and I was back in Dublin, an awful timidity came upon me. I thought he was a great man and I shouldn’t take up his time; he was doing this for politesse. And so I refrained from going to see him and went back to England. Sometime later when I opened the door, there was Æ. He said to me, “You’re a faithless girl. You promised to see me on your way back through Dublin and you didn’t.” And he added, “I meant to give you my books then and, as you weren’t there, I brought them.” And there were all his books."

"Here's to you, men I never met, Yet hope to meet behind the veil, Thronged on some starry parapet, That looks down upon Innisfail, And sees the confluence of dreams That clashed together in our night, One river, born from many streams, Roll in one blaze of blinding light."

"Cry aloud to heaven for new souls. The souls you have got cast upon the screens of publicity appear like the horrid and writhing creatures enlarged from the insect world, and revealed to us by the cinematographer. You may succeed in your policy and ensure your own damnation by your victory. The men whose manhood you have broken will loathe you, and will always be brooding and scheming to strike a fresh blow. The children will be taught to curse you. The infant being moulded in the womb will have breathed into its starved body the vitality of hate. It is not they — it is you who are the blind Samsons pulling down the pillars of the social order."

"There was autocracy in political life, and it was superseded by democracy. So surely will democratic power wrest from you the control of industry. The fate of you, the aristocracy of industry, will be as the fate of the aristocracy of land if you do not now show that you have some humanity still among you. Humanity abhors, above all things, a vacuum in itself, and your class will be cut off from humanity as the surgeon cuts the cancer and alien growth from the body. Be warned ere it is too late."

"Your insolence and ignorance of the rights conceded to workers universally in the modern world were incredible, and as great as your inhumanity. If you had between you collectively a portion of human soul as large as a threepenny bit, you would have sat night and day with the representatives of labour, trying this or that solution of the trouble, mindful of the women and children, who at least were innocent of wrong against you. But no! You reminded labour you could always have your three square meals a day while it went hungry."

"The conception of yourselves as altogether virtuous and wronged is, I assure you, not at all the one which onlookers hold of you. No doubt, you have rights on your side. No doubt, some of you suffered without just cause. But nothing which has been done to you cries aloud to Heaven for condemnation as your own actions."

"You assumed that no other guarantees than those you asked were possible, and you determined deliberately, in cold anger, to starve out one third of the population of the city, to break the manhood of the men by the sight of the suffering of their wives and the hunger of their children. We read in the Dark Ages of the rack and thumb screw. But these iniquities were hidden and concealed from the knowledge of men in dungeons and torture chambers. Even in the Dark Ages, humanity could not endure the sight of such suffering, and it learnt of such misuse of power by slow degrees, through rumour, and when it was certain it razed its Bastilles to their foundations. It remained for the twentieth century and the capital city of Ireland to see an oligarchy of four hundred masters deciding openly upon starving one hundred thousand people, and refusing to consider any solution except that fixed by their pride. You, masters, asked men to do that which masters of labour in any other city in these islands had not dared to do. You insolently demanded of those men who were members of a trade union that they should resign from that union; and from those who were not members, you insisted on a vow that they would never join it."

"Their dream had left me numb and cold, But yet my spirit rose in pride, Refashioning in burnished gold The images of those who died, Or were shut in the penal cell. Here's to you, Pearse, your dream not mine, But yet the thought, for this you fell, Has turned life's water into wine."