Great Throughts Treasury

"We must not suppose that human work is in question here [in the establishment of a sacred space], that it is through his own efforts that man can consecrate a space. In reality the ritual by which he constructs a sacred space is efficacious in the measure in which it reproduces the work of the gods."

"We must return to these theories [of cosmic cycles], for it is here that two distinct orientations first define themselves: the one traditional adumbrated in all primitive cultures, that of cyclical time, periodically regenerating itself ad infinitum; the other modern, that of finite time, a fragment between two atemporal eternities."

"What is essential in mythic behavior--the exemplary pattern, the repetition, the break with profane duration and integration into primordial time--the first two at least are consubstantial with every human condition."

"When one approaches an exotic spirituality, one understands principally what one is predestined to understand by one's own vocation, by one's own cultural orientation and that of the historical moment to which one belongs."

"Whether religion is man-made is a question for philosophers or theologians. But the forms are man-made. They are a human response to something. As a historian of religions, I am interested in those expressions."

"Within the sacred precincts the profane is transcended. On the most archaic levels of culture this possibility of transcendence is expressed by various "images of an opening"; here, in the sacred enclosure, communication with gods is made possible; hence there must be a door to the world above, by which the gods can descend to earth and man can symbolically ascend to heaven."

"Yoga, as a science of achieving this transformation of finite man into the infinite One, has to be recognized as something intrinsically Indian or, as 'a specific dimension of the Indian mind. Yoga constitutes a characteristic dimension of the Indian mind, to such a point that whatever Indian religion and culture have made their way, we also find a more or less pure form of Yoga. In India, Yoga was adopted and valorized by all religious movements, whether Hinduist or 'heretical. The various Christian or syncretistic Yogas of modern India constitutes another proof that Indian religious experience finds the yogic methods of 'meditation' and 'concentration' a necessity."