Great Throughts Treasury

"The apsu, the tehom symbolize the chaos of waters, the pre-formal modality of cosmic matter, and, at the same time, the world of death, of all that precedes and follows life."

"The breakthrough of the sacred that really establishes the World and makes it what it is today? The Myth is regarded as a sacred story, and hence a "true history," because it always deals with realities."

"The cosmicization of unknown territories is always a consecration; to organize a space is to repeat the paradigmatic work of the gods."

"The cosmological structure of the temple gives room for a new religious valorization; as house of the gods, hence holy place above all others, the temple continually re-sanctifies the world, because it at once represents and contains it. In the last analysis, it is by virtue of the temple that the world is re-sanctified in every part. However impure it may have become, the world is continually purified by the sanctity of sanctuaries."

"The creation of the world becomes an archetype of every creative human gesture, whatever its plane of reference may be."

"Since "our world" is a cosmos, any attack from without threatens to turn it into chaos. And as "our world" was founded by imitating the paradigmatic work of the God's, the cosmogony, so the enemies who attack it are assimilated to the enemies of the gods, the demons, and especially to the archdemon, the primordial dragon conquered by the gods at the beginning of time. An attack on "our world" is equivalent to an act of revenge by the mythical dragon, who rebels against the work of the gods, the cosmos, and struggles to annihilate it."

"Something of the religious conception of the world still persists in the behavior of profane man, although he is not always conscious of his immemorial heritage."

"The "axis mundi", seen in the sky in the form of the Milky Way, appears in the ceremonial house in the form of a sacred pole."

"States of consciousness are only products of prakriti and can have no kind of relation with Spirit the latter, by its very essence, being above all experience. However and for SamPhya and Yoga this is the key to the paradoxical situation the most subtle, most transparent part of mental life, that is, intelligence (buddhi) in its mode of pure luminosity (sattva), has a specific quality that of reflecting Spirit. Comprehension of the external world is possible only by virtue of this reflection of purusha in intelligence. But the Self is not corrupted by this reflection and does not lose its ontological modalities (impassibility, eternity, etc.). The Yoga-sutras (II, 20) say in substance: seeing (drashtri; i.e., purusha) is absolute consciousness ("sight par excellence") and, while remaining pure, it knows cognitions (it "looks at the ideas that are presented to it"). Vyasa interprets: Spirit is reflected in intelligence (buddhi), but is neither like it nor different from it. It is not like intelligence because intelligence is modified by knowledge of objects, which knowledge is ever-changing whereas purusha commands uninterrupted knowledge, in some sort it is knowledge. On the other hand, purusha is not completely different from buddhi, for, although it is pure, it knows knowledge. Patanjali employs a different image to define the relationship between Spirit and intelligence: just as a flower is reflected in a crystal, intelligence reflects purusha. But only ignorance can attribute to the crystal the qualities of the flower (form, dimensions, colors). When the object (the flower) moves, its image moves in the crystal, though the latter remains motionless. It is an illusion to believe that Spirit is dynamic because mental experience is so. In reality, there is here only an illusory relation (upadhi) owing to a "sympathetic correspondence" (yogyata) between the Self and intelligence."

"Temples are replicas of the cosmic mountain and hence constitute the pre-eminent link between earth and heaven."

"The dragon is the paradigmatic figure of the marine monster, of the primordial snake, symbol of the cosmic waters, of darkness, night, and death - in short, of the amorphous and virtual, of everything that has not yet acquired a "form". The dragon must be conquered and cut to pieces by the gods so that the cosmos my come to birth."

"The erection of a fire altar - which alone validates taking possession of a new territory - is equivalent to a cosmogony."

"The essential thing is that everywhere a conception of the end and the beginning of a temporal period, based on the observation of bio-cosmic rhythms and forming part of a larger system ? the system of periodic purifications (cf. purges, fasting, confession of sins, etc.) and of the periodic regeneration of life This need for a periodic regeneration seems to us of considerable significance in itself. ..a periodic regeneration of time presupposes? ? and especially in the historical civilizations ? a new Creation, that is, a repetition of the cosmogonic act. And this conception of a periodic creation, i.e., of the cyclical regeneration of time, poses the problem of the abolition of ?history?"

"The first possible definition of the sacred is that it is the opposite of the profane."

"The habitation constitutes an imago mundi, it is symbolically situated at the Center of the World. The multiplicity, or even the infinity, of centers of the world raises no difficulty for religious thought. For it is not a matter of geometrical space, but of an existential and sacred space that has an entirely different structure, and admits of an infinite number of breaks and hence is capable of an infinite number of communications with the transcendent. ... Thus religious architecture simply took over and developed the cosmological symbolism already present in the structure of primitive habitations. In its turn, the human habitation had been chronologically preceded by the provisional "holy place," by a space provisionally consecrated and cosmicized."

"The Hebrews were the first to discover the meaning of history as the epiphany of Good."

"The history of religions reaches down and makes contact with that which is essentially human: the relation of man to the sacred."

"The house is not an object, "a machine to live in"; it is the universe that man constructs for himself by imitating the paradigmatic creation of the gods, the cosmogony."

"The house is sanctified, in whole or part, by a cosmological symbolism or ritual."

"The man of traditional societies could only live in a space opening outward, where the break in plane was symbolically assured and hence communication with the "other world", the transcendental world, was ritually possible."

"The man who adopts the historical viewpoint would be justified in regarding the traditional conception of archetypes and repetitions as an aberrant re-identification of history (that is, of ?freedom? and ?novelty?) with nature (in which everything repeats itself)."

"The manifestation of the sacred [i.e. in any hierophany] ontologically founds the world. In the homogeneous and infinite expanse, in which no point of reference is possible and hence no orientation can be established, the hierophany reveals an absolute fixed point, a center"

"The manifestation of the sacred ontologically founds the world."

"The mountain occurs among the images that express the connection between heaven and earth."

"The outstanding reality is the sacred; for only the sacred is in an absolute fashion, acts effectively, creates things and makes them endure."

"The Persians were right, in their poetry, to compare women's hair to snakes."

"The religious man sought to live as near as possible to the "Center of the World"."

"The ritual by which man constructs a sacred space is efficacious in the measure in which it reproduces the work of the gods."

"The sacred is pre-eminently the real, at once power, efficacity the source of life and fecundity. Religious man's desire to be in the sacred is in fact equivalent to his desire to take up his abode in objective reality, not to let himself be paralyzed by the never-ceasing relativity of purely subjective experiences, to live in a real and effective worked, and not in an illusion."

"The sacred mountain is an "axis mundi" connecting earth with heaven."

"The sacred pole of the Achilpa supports their world and ensures communication with the sky. Here we have the prototype of a cosmological image that has been very widely disseminated -- the cosmic pillars that support heaven and at the same time open the road to the world of the gods. Until their conversion to Christianity, the Celts and Germans still maintained their worship of such sacred pillars. ... The same assimilation of the cosmic pillar to the sacred pole and of the ceremonial house to the universe is found among the Nad'a of Flores Island. The sacrificial pole is called the "Pole of Heaven" and is believed to support the sky."

"The sacred reveals absolute reality and at the same time makes orientation possible; hence it founds the world in the sense that it fixes the limits and establishes the order of the world."

"The sacred tree, the sacred stone are not adored as stone or tree; they are worshipped precisely because they are hierophanies, because they show something that is no longer stone or tree but sacred, the ganz andere or 'wholly other.'"

"The sacred...founds the world in the sense that it fixes the limits and establishes the order of the world."

"The temple constitutes an opening in the upward direction and ensures communicating with the world of the gods."

"The three cosmic levels -- earth, heaven, underworld -- have been put in communication ... through the image of a universal pillar, axis mundi, which at once connects and supports heaven and earth and whose base is fixed in the world below."

"The threshold has its guardians - gods and spirits who forbid entrance both to human enemies and to demons and the powers of pestilence."

"The transcendent models of temples enjoy a spiritual, incorruptible celestial existence."

"The transformation of the dead person into an ?ancestor? corresponds to the fusion of the individual into an archetypal category. In numerous traditions? the souls of the common dead no longer possess a ?memory,? that is, they lose what may be called their historical individuality. ?only heroes preserve their personality?since [their]acts were impersonal [and exemplary.]"

"The work of the gods, the universe, is repeated and imitated by men on their own scale."

"The world that surrounds us, then, the world in which the presence and the work of man are felt ? the mountains that he climbs, populated and cultivated regions, navigate rivers, cities, sanctuaries ? all these have an extraterrestrial archetype, be it conceived as a plan, as a form, or purely and simply as a ?double? existing on a higher cosmic level. But everything in the world that surrounds us does not have a prototype of this kind. For example, desert regions inhabited by monsters, uncultivated lands, unknown seas? They correspond to a mythical model, but of another nature: all these wild, uncultivated regions and the like are assimilated to chaos"

"There are differences in religious experience explained by differences in economy, culture, and social organization -- in short, by history. Nevertheless, between the nomadic hunters and the sedentary cultivators there is a similarity in behavior that seems to us infinitely more important than their differences: both live in a sacralized cosmos. ... We need only compare their existential institutions with that of a man of the modern societies, living in a desacralized cosmos, and we shall immediately be aware of all that separates him from them. At the same time we realize the validity of comparisons between religious facts pertaining to different cultures; all these facts arise from a single type of behavior, that of homo religiosus."

"There are no illnesses but only ill people."

"This eternal return reveals an ontology uncontaminated by time and becoming. No event is irreversible and no transformation is final? events repeat themselves because they imitate an archetype."

"Through their terrifying visions, the prophets but confirmed and amplified Yahweh?s ineluctable chastisement upon His people who had not kept the faith. And it is only insofar as such prophecies were ratified by catastrophes?that historical events acquired religious significance; i.e., that they clearly appeared as punishments inflicted by the Lord in return for the impiousness of Israel. Because of the prophets, who interpreted contemporary events in the light of a strict faith, these events were transformed into ?negative theophanies,? into Yahweh?s ?wrath.? Thus they not only acquired meaning?but they also revealed their hidden coherence by proving to be the concrete expression of the same single divine will. Thus, for the first time, the prophets placed a value on history, succeeded in transcending the traditional vision of the cycle?, and discovered a one-way time."

"To believe that I could, at twenty-three, sacrifice history and culture for the Absolute was further proof that I had not understood India. My vocation was culture, not sainthood."

"To designate the act of manifestation of the sacred, we have proposed the term hierophany ... something sacred is shown to us. ... The history of religions -- from the most primitive to the most highly developed -- is constituted by a great number of hierophanies ... from the most elementary hierophany -- e.g., manifestation of the sacred in some ordinary object, a stone or a tree -- to the supreme hierophany (which, for a Christian, is the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ) there is no solution of continuity. ... The sacred tree, the sacred stone are not adored as stone or tree; they are worshipped precisely because they are hierophanies, because they show something that is no longer stone or tree but the sacred, the ganz andere [all other]. ... By manifesting the sacred, any object becomes something else, yet it continues to remain itself, for it continues to participate in its surrounding cosmic miieu. ... A sacred stone remains a stone ... from the profane point of view, nothing distinguishes it from all other stones. But for those to whom a stone reveals itself as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted into a supernatural reality. ... All nature is capable of revealings itself ... the cosmos in its entirely can become a hierophany."

"To have solely one thought, but it to be capable to destroy the universe."

"To settle in a territory, to build a dwelling, demand a vital decision for both the whole community and the individual. For what is involved is undertaking the creation of the world that one has chosen to inhabit. Hence it is necessary to imitate the work of the gods, the cosmogony. ... Since the gods had to slay and dismember a marine monster or a primordial being in order to create the world from it, man in his turn must imitate them when he builds his world... The habitation always undergoes a process of sanctification, because it constitutes an imago mundi and the world is a divine creation. ... [Among the ways of] ritually transforming the dwelling place (whether the territory or the house) into cosmos, that is, if giving it the value of an imago mundi: (a) assimilating it to the cosmos by the projection of the four horizons from a central point (in the case of a village) or the symbolic installation of the axis mundi (in the case of a house); (b) repeating, through a ritual of construction, the paradigmatic acts of the gods by virtue of which the world came to birth from the body of a marine dragon or of a primordial giant... The first method ... is already documented in the most archaic stages of culture (cf. the kauwa-auwa pole of the Australian Achilpa), while the second method seems to have been developed in the culture of the earliest cultivators... The habitation possesses a sacred aspect by the simple fact that it reflects the world."

"We have a sequence of religious conceptions and cosmological images that are inseparably connected and form a system that may be called the "system of the world" prevalent in traditional societies: (a) a sacred place constitutes a break in the homogeneity of space; (b) this break is symbolized by an opening by which passage from one cosmic region to another is made possible (from heaven to earth and vice versa; from earth to the underworld); (c) communication with heaven is expressed by one or another of certain images, all of which refer to the axis mundi: pillar (cf. the universalis columna), ladder (cf. Jacob's ladder), mountain [Meru in India, Haraberazaiti in Iran, Gerizim in Palestine], tree, vine, etc.; (d) around this cosmic axis lies the world (= our world), hence the axis is located "in the middle," at the "navel of the earth"; it is the Center of the World. ... The territory that surrounds it, and that constitutes "our world," is held to be the highest among countries."