Great Throughts Treasury

"One morning I went to a place beyond the Dawn. A source of sweetness, that always flows, and is never less. I have been shown a Beauty that would confuse both worlds. I won't cause that uproar. I am nothing but a head, set on the ground, as a gift for the Sun."

"One day you will take my heart completely and make it more fiery than a dragon. Your eyelashes will write on my heart the poem that could never come from the pen of a poet."

"ONE ONE ONE - The lamps are different. But the Light is the same. So many garish lamps in the dying brain's lamp shop, Forget about them. Concentrate on essence, concentrate on Light. In lucid bliss, calmly smoking off its own hold fire, The Light streams toward you from all things, all people, all possible permutations of good, evil, thought, passion. The lamps are different, but the Light is the same. One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind, endlessly emanating all things. One turning and burning diamond, one, one, one. Ground yourself, strip yourself down, To blind loving silence. Stay there, until you see you are gazing at the Light With its own ageless eyes."

"Only from the heart can you reach the sky"

"Open the window in the center of your chest, and let the spirits fly in and out."

"Only love itself can explain love and lovers."

"Open the love window. The moon won't use the door, only the window."

"Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about."

"Our death is our wedding with eternity."

"Pain is a treasure, for it contains mercies."

"Open to me, so that I may open. Provide me your inspiration So that I might see mine."

"Pale sunlight, pale the wall. Love moves away. The light changes I need more grace than I thought."

"Patience is the key to joy."

"Paradise is surrounded by what we dislike; the fires of hell are surrounded by what we desire.5"

"People are distracted by objects of desire, and afterwards repent of the lust they've indulged, because they have indulged with a phantom and are left even farther from Reality than before. Your desire for the illusory is a wing, by means of which a seeker might ascend to Reality. When you have indulged a lust, your wing drops off; you become lame and that fantasy flees. Preserve the wing and don't indulge such lust, so that the wing of desire may bear you to Paradise. People fancy they are enjoying themselves, but they are really tearing out their wings for the sake of an illusion."

"People are going back and forth across the door sill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep."

"People fancy they are enjoying themselves, but they are really tearing out their wings for the sake of an illusion. He whose intellect overcomes his lust is higher than the angels; he whose lust overcomes his intelligence is less than an animal."

"Poems are rough notations for the music we are."

"Pilgrimage to the place of the wise is to find escape from the flame of separateness."

"People of the world don't look at themselves, and so they blame one another."

"Poetry can be dangerous, especially beautiful poetry, because it gives the illusion of having had the experience without actually going through it."

"Pull the thorn of existence out of the heart! Fast! For when you do, you will see thousands of rose gardens in yourself."

"Protect yourself... from your own thoughts."

"Put your thoughts to sleep, do not let them cast a shadow over the moon of your heart. Let go of thinking."

"Purify your eyes, and see the pure world. Your life will fill with radiant forms."

"Quit acting like a wolf, and feel the shepherd's love filling you."

"Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun."

"Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder."

"Reconciling to myself, I emerge into the world bare of all thought, clear love in which the sun on my doorstep dances to your drum the ant walking into it is no less than you."

"Reality is blocked by form and image."

"Regard a king as someone unconcerned with kingship."

"Remember God so much that you are forgotten. Let the caller and the called disappear; be lost in the Call."

"Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you."

"Remember, the way you make love is the way God will be with you."

"Respond to every call that excites your spirit."

"Revile those who flatter you."

"Return from existence to nonexistence. You are seeking the Lord and you belong to him. Nonexistence is a place of income; flee it not. This existence of more and less is a place of expenditure."

"Roar, Lion of the Heart, and tear me open!"

"Rise up nimbly and go on your strange journey to the ocean of meanings.... Leave and don't look away from the sun as you go, in whose light you're sometimes crescent, sometimes full."

"Rush out in the rain to be soaked with the sky."

"Set out now, while you're strong on the heart's vast plain: You'll never discover joy on the plain of the body. The heart's the only house of safety, my friends: It has fountains, and rose gardens within rose gardens. Turn to the heart and go forward, travelers of the night; there's where you'll find trees and streams of Living Water."

"Shadow and Light Source Both - How does a part of the world leave the world? How does wetness leave water? Don’t try to put out fire by throwing on more fire! Don't wash a wound with blood. No matter how fast you run, your shadow keeps up. Sometimes it's in front! Only full overhead sun diminishes your shadow. But that shadow has been serving you. What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle. Your boundaries are your quest. I could explain this, but it will break the glass cover on your heart, and there's no fixing that. You must have shadow and light source both. Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe. When from that tree feathers and wings sprout on you, be quieter than a dove. Don't even open your mouth for even a coo."

"Sadness to me is the happiest time, when a shining city rises from the ruins of my drunken mind. Those times when I'm silent and still as the earth, the thunder of my roar is heard across the universe."

"Shine like the whole universe is yours."

"Since in order to speak, one must first listen, learn to speak by listening."

"Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames."

"Silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation."

"Since Love has made ruins of my heart the sun must come and illumine them. Such generosity has broken me with shame."

"Since Love has made ruins of my heart The sun must come and illumine them. Such generosity has broken me with shame."

"Smiles come best from those who weep. Lightning, then the rain-laughter."