#mysticism

Switters was actually quite fond of Seattle's weather, and not merely because of it's ambivalence. He liked it's subtle, muted qualities and the landscape that those qualities encouraged if not engendered: vistas that seemed to have been sketched with a sumi brush dipped in quicksilver and green tea. It was fresh, it was clean, it was gently primal, and mystically suggestive. ↗

— Tom Robbins

#tom-robbins #mysticism

When you find yourself in one of those mystical/devotional frames of mind or in am emergency and you feel you want to pray, then pray. Don’t ever be ashamed to pray or feel prevented by thinking yourself unworthy in any way. Fact is whatever terrible thing you may have done, praying will always turn your energy around for the better. Pray to whomever, whatever, and whenever you choose. Pray to the mountain, pray to the ancestors, pray to the Earth, pray to the Tao (but it won’t listen!), pray to the Great Mother, pray to Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Jesus, Lakshmi, Siva, pray to the Great Spirit, it makes no difference. Praying is merely a device for realigning the mind, energy, and passion of your local self with the mind, energy and passion of your universal self. When you pray, you are praying to the god or goddess within you. This has an effect on your energy field, which in turn translates into a positive charge that makes something good happen. ↗

— Stephen Russell

#praying #tao #taoism #mysticism

Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science. ↗

— Henri Bergson

#religion #science

A beautiful woman looking at her image in the mirror may very well believe the image is herself. An ugly woman knows it is not. ↗

— Simone Weil

#mysticism #beauty

Religion is nothing but institutionalized mysticism. The catch is, mysticism does not lend itself to institutionalization. The moment we attempt to organize mysticism, we destroy its essence. Religion, then, is mysticism in which the mystical has been killed. Or, at least diminished. ↗

— Tom Robbins

#mystical #mysticism #religion #religion

Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way to the limits of humility or the limits of delight. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#exaggeration #fear #go #humility #limits

Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism. ↗

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

#character #divinity #external #flash #imagination

Liking money like I like it, is nothing less than mysticism. Money is a glory. ↗

— Salvador Dali

#glory #i #less #like #liking

Therefore it is to a practical mysticism that the practical man is here invited: to a training of his latent faculties, a bracing and brightening of his languid consciousness, an emancipation from the fetters of appearance, a turning of his attention to new levels of the world. Thus he may become aware of the universe which the spiritual artist is always trying to disclose to the race. This amount of mystical perception—this “ordinary contemplation,” as the specialists call it—is possible to all men: without it, they are not wholly conscious, nor wholly alive. It is a natural human activity, no more involving the great powers and sublime experiences of the mystical saints and philosophers than the ordinary enjoyment of music involves the special creative powers of the great musician. ↗

— Evelyn Underhill

#spirituality #experience

For if the will has nothing to employ it and love has no present object with which to busy itself, the soul finds itself without either support or occupation, its solitude and aridity cause it great distress and its thoughts involve it in the severest conflict. ↗

— Teresa of Ávila

#love #mysticism #will #business