#transcendence

Redefined soul anew, bow now with pride. Reborn from the darkness, a man now wise. ↗

— Tyler J. Hebert

#motivational #spirituality #transcendence #wisdom #motivational

Mac Rebennack, better known as Dr. John, once told me that when a brass band plays at a small club back up in one of the neighborhoods, it's as if the audience--dancing, singing to the refrains, laughing--is part of the band. They are two parts of the same thing. The dancers interpret, or it might be better to say literally embody, the sounds of the band, answering the instruments. Since everyone is listening to different parts of the music--she to the trumpet melody, he to the bass drum, she to the trombone--the audience is a working model in three dimensions of the music, a synesthesic transformation of materials. And of course the band is also watching the dancers, and getting ideas from the dancers' gestures. The relationship between band and audience is in that sense like the relationship between two lovers making love, where cause and effect becomes very hard to see, even impossible to call by its right name; one is literally getting down, as in particle physics, to some root stratum where one is freed from the lockstop of time itself, where time might even run backward, or sideways, and something eternal and transcendent is accessed. ↗

— Tom Piazza

#music #new-orleans #transcendence #love

A fish cannot drown in water, A bird does not fall in air. In the fire of creation, God doesn't vanish: The fire brightens. Each creature God made must live in its own true nature; How could I resist my nature, That lives for oneness with God? ↗

— Mechthild of Magdeburg

#god #inner-nature #transcendence #wind #nature

What obligation is more binding than to protect the cherished, to defend whoever or whatever cannot defend itself, and to nurture in turn that which has given nourishment? I’m reminded of words written by John Seed, an Australian environmentalist. When he began considering these questions, he believed, “I am protecting the rain forest.” But as his thought evolved, he realized, “I am part of the rain forest protecting myself. ↗

— Richard Nelson

#nature #transcendence #nature

The mountains are intimations of transcendence, which he is now free to pursue, and the walking writes messages in every cell of his body, telling him that he is not locked inside a cement box, nor in a water drum, but is moving forward. ↗

— Michael D. O'Brien

#nature #transcendence #nature

Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? ... No other human institution comes close. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#reason #science #science-vs-religion #scientific-method #sense-of-wonder

Christianity grasped perfectly that there is an element in the apparent contingency of love that can’t be reduced to that contingency. But it immediately raised it to the level of transcendence, and that is the root of the problem. This universal element I too recognize in love as immanent. But Christianity has somehow managed to elevate it and refocus it onto a transcendent power. It’s an ideal that was already partly present in Plato, through the idea of the Good. It is a brilliant first manipulation of the power of love and one we must now bring back to earth. I mean we must demonstrate that love really does have universal power, but that it is simply the opportunity we are given to enjoy a positive, creative, affirmative experience of difference. The Other, no doubt, but without the “Almighty-Other”, without the “Great Other” of transcendence. ↗

— Alain Badiou

#difference #god #identity #love #otherness

It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable. ↗

— Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#dissociation #mind #stoicism #transcendence #zen

Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space? ↗

— D.T. Suzuki

#transcendence #universe #zen #zen

Leaving the age of materialism and duality behind us, we now seek to become Masters of the Spiritual Kingdom ~ moving into the penthouse of ourselves, the crown chakra, as it were. Herein lays all our joy, our progress and our discovery of our superior and limitless Divine powers. By loosening identification with the sense world, we begin to access the greater causal gifts and realms. I believe we must always learn to use our power of choice ~ to develop Spiritual authority, and come out of victim consciousness. It is important to encourage the setting of strong goals (focusing around fulfillment of pure heart’s desires). When the will is highly focused, the reader become receptive to the Higher Way and technologies of God I wish to impart. ↗

— Linda De Coff

#healing #inspirational #spiritual-evolution #transcendence #transformation