#mysticism

The argument is made that naming God is never really naming God but only naming our understanding of God. To take our ideas of the divine and hold them as if they correspond to the reality of God is thus to construct a conceptual idol built from the materials of our mind. ↗

— Peter Rollins

#religion #spirituality #religion

For glory befits God because of His majesty,while lowliness befits man because it unites us with God. ↗

— St. Diadochos

#humility #mysticism #religion #religion

God created hand, head, and heart; the hand for the deed, the head for the world, the heart for mysticism. ↗

— Abraham Kuyper

#god #intellect #mysticism #religion #soul

the mystic must be steadily told,—All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it. Let us have a little algebra, instead of this trite rhetoric,—universal signs, instead of these village symbols,—and we shall both be gainers. The history of hierarchies seems to show that all religious error consisted in making the symbol too stark and solid, and was at last nothing but an excess of the organ of language. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#mysticism #religion #symbol #religion

But personally, I think [sainthood] is not so much the growth of virtue, as simply the replacement of prior vices with an addiction to one's god. ↗

— Lois McMaster Bujold

#religion #saints #religion

Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description. ↗

— Anthony de Mello

#knowledge #mysticism #unknowing #description

There is a kind of mysticism to writing. ↗

— Irvine Welsh

#mysticism #writing

I'll tell you what: I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it. ↗

— Elie Wiesel

#endeavor #equipped #i #i believe #must

...You see I believe in that stuff to: yoga and mystical powers. I once knew a man who could kill himself on command. Can you believe that? . . . Why do you laugh? . . . Believe it! By will of his own mind, he could make his heart stop beating for good' My neighbor poised and looked seriously at me, searching in my eyes. '...You laugh!' he repeated once more… 'You laugh, but he was a master at it! He could commit suicide at his own will!' Indeed, hearty laughter streamed through my nose. 'Could he do it perpetually?' I asked. 'Perpetually...?' My neighbor rubbed his waxy chin. 'I mean, is he still able to do it?' 'I’m not sure I understand.' 'Well? Then is he dead…?!' My neighbor's puzzled face slowly began to transform into a look of realization. 'But sir,' he said, 'Of course he’s dead! I mean to say... this man could kill himself on command, you see. And you don’t come back from the dead!' The two of us found ourselves crossing to the door so I could let my visitor out. I slapped him with friendliness on the shoulder. 'No, you don’t come back from the dead,' I agreed. ↗

— Roman Payne

#death #funny #mind-powers #mystical-powers #mysticism

Unless you are here: this garden refuses to exist. Pink dragonflies fall from the air and become scorpions scratching blood out of rocks. The rainbows that dangle upon this mist: shatter. Like the smile of a child separated from his mother’s milk for the very first time. --from poem Blood and Blossoms ↗

— Aberjhani

#gardens #mysticism #paranormal-poetry #poetry #romaniticism