Great Throughts Treasury

"The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels. "

"The world is evolving from imperfection towards perfection; it needs all love and sympathy; "

"There are many paths, and each man considers his own the best and wisest. Let each one choose that which belongs to his own temperament."

"There are those who are like a lighted candle: they can light other candles, but the other candles must be of wax - if they are of steel, they cannot be lighted."

"There is no greater scripture than nature, for nature is life itself."

"There can be no rebirth without a dark night of the soul, a total annihilation of all that you believed in and thought that you were. "

"There should be a balance in all our actions - to be either extreme or lukewarm is equally bad."

"Think, before envying the position of your fellow man, with what difficulty he has arrived at it."

"Those who throw dust at the sun, the dust falls in their own eyes."

"Thought draws the line of fate."

"Those who have given deep thoughts to the world are those who have controlled the activity of their minds."

"Through motion and change, life becomes intelligible; we live a life of change, but it is constancy we seek. It is this innate desire of the soul that leads man to God."

"To bring the sublime into the mundane is the greatest challenge there is. "

"To be resigned means to find satisfaction in self-denial (Self-denial is the denial of one’s lower self.)."

"To give sympathy is sovereignty, to desire it from others is captivity."

"To love is one thing, to understand is another. He who loves is a devotee, but he who understands is a friend."

"To treat every human being as a shrine of God is to fulfill all religion."

"To learn the lesson of how to live is more important than any psychic or occult knowledge."

"Tolerance does not come by learning, but by insight; by understanding that each one should be allowed to travel along the path which is suited to his temperament."

"He is victorious who has conquered himself."

"We are always searching for God afar off, when all the while He is nearer to us than our own soul."

"We can never sufficiently humble our limited self before limitless perfection."

"We blame others for our sorrows and misfortunes, not perceiving that we ourselves are the creators of our world."

"Until the heart is empty, it cannot receive the knowledge of God."

"We grown-up people think that we appreciate music, but if we realized the sense that an infant has brought with it of appreciating sound and rhythm, we would never boast of knowing music. The infant is music itself. "

"When speech is controlled, the eyes speak; the glance says what words can never say."

"When we pay attention to nature's music, we find that everything on the Earth contributes to its harmony. "

"When the mind and body are restless, nothing in life can be accomplished. Success is the result of control."

"While man judges another from his own moral standpoint, the wise man looks also at the point of view of another."

"While man rejoices over his rise and sorrows over his fall, the wise man takes both as the natural consequences of life."

"Wisdom can only be learned gradually, and every soul is not ready to receive or to understand the complexity of the purpose of life… Wisdom is attained in solitude… Wisdom is not in words, it is in understanding."

"Whoever knows the mystery of vibrations indeed knows all things."

"You cannot be both horse and rider at the same time."

"With good will and trust in God, self-confidence, and a hopeful attitude towards life, a man can always win his battle, however difficult."

"Everything in life is speaking in spite of it's apparent silence."

"Words are but the shells of thoughts and feelings."

"A person however learned and qualified in his life's work in whom gratitude is absent, is devoid of that beauty of character which makes personality fragrant."

"It is the balance which enables man to stand the strain of this journey andpermits him to go forward, making his path easy. Never imagine for onemoment that those who show lack of balance can ever proceed further onthe spiritual journey, however greatly in appearance they may seem to bespiritually inclined. It is only the balanced ones who are capable of experiencing the external life as fully as the inner life, to enjoy thought asmuch as feeling, to rest as well as to act. The center of life is rhythm, andrhythm causes balance. "

"Besides its precious work, which makes the eye superior to every other organ of the body, it is the expression of the beauty of body, mind and soul. Sufis, therefore, symbolize the eye by a cup of wine. Through the eyes, the secret hidden in man's heart is reflected into the heart of another. However much a person may try to conceal his secret, yet the reader can read it in his eyes, and can read there his pleasure, his displeasure, his joy, and his sorrow. A seer can see still farther. The seer can see the actual condition of man's soul through his eyes, his grade of evolution, his attitude in life, his outlook on life, and his condition, both hidden and manifest. Besides, to the passive soul of a disciple, knowledge, ecstasy, spiritual joy, and divine peace, all are given through the glance. One sees in everyday life that a person who is laughing in his mind with his lips closed can express his laughter through his glance, and the one who receives the glance at once catches the infectious mirth. Often the same happens through looking in the eyes of the sorrowful, in a moment one becomes filled with depression. And those whose secret is God, whose contemplation is the perfection of beauty, whose joy is endless in the realization of everlasting life, and from whose heart the spring of love is ever flowing, it is most appropriate that their glance should be called, symbolically, the Bowl of Saki, the Bowl of the Wine-Giver."

"The work of the inner life is to make God a reality, so that He is no morean imagination; that this relation that man has with God may seem to himmore real than any other relation in this world. And when this happensthen all relationships, however near and dear, become less binding. But atthe same time a person does not thus become cold, he becomes moreloving."

"The true lover of God keeps his love silently hidden in his heart, like aseed sown in the ground, and if the seedling grows, it grows in his actiontowards his fellow-man. He cannot act except with kindness, he cannotfeel anything but forgiveness; every movement he makes, everything hedoes, speaks of his love, but not his lips."

"In the inner life the greatest principle that one should observe is to beunassuming, quiet, without any show of wisdom, without any manifestation of learning, without any desire to let anyone know how farone has advanced, not even letting oneself know how far one has gone. The task to be accomplished is the entire forgetting of oneself andharmonizing with one’s fellowman; acting in agreement with all, meeting everyone on his own plane, speaking to everyone in his own tongue,answering the laughter of one’s friends with a smile, and the pain of another with tears, standing by one’s friends in their joy and their sorrow, whatever be one’s own grade of evolution."

"There is no greater teacher of morals than love itself, for the first lessonthat one learns from love is: I am not, you are….When the thought of self is removed then every action, every deed that one performs in life,becomes a virtue. "

"A mystic does not urge the knowledge of the unknown or unseen uponanother, but he sees the hand of the unknown working through all things."

"There is one God and one truth, one religion and one mysticism; call itSufism or Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism, whatever you wish. AsGod cannot be divided, so mysticism cannot be divided. "

"The truth is like a piano: the notes may be high or low, one may strike a Cor an E, but they are all notes. So the difference between ideas is like thatbetween notes, and it is the same in daily life with the right and the wrong attitude. If we have the wrong attitude all things are right. The man whomistrusts himself will mistrust his best friend; the man who trusts himself will trust everyone."

"The religion of the mystics is a steady progress towards unity….In thefirst way he sees himself in others, in the good, in the bad, in all; and thushe expands the horizon of his vision. This study goes on throughout hislifetime, and as he progresses he comes closer to the oneness of all things"

"Those who wish to serve the world in the path of truth change complexthings into simple ones. It is in a simple form that we have to realize thetruth."

"No man has the power to teach another the truth; man must discover ithimself. "

"Those who wish to serve the world in the path of truth change complexthings into simple ones. It is in a simple form that we have to realize the truth."