Great Throughts Treasury

"We ourselves initiate and perpetuate the Light's presence in our lives. Interactions between the physical and the supernal are always "ground-based.""

"We must accept responsibility for everything that comes into our lives, even our own death."

"What "universe" would be redeemed? Will this corrupt world will be redeemed rather than destroyed?"

"When a miracle occurs, a channel is opened and never closed, so that the power of the miracle can easily be called upon forever thereafter."

"When a person, by means of his studies, reaches the level at which he wants nothing but spiritual elevation and at which he accepts only the bare necessities of life in order to sustain his physical existence, not for pleasure?s sake, this is the first step of his ascent to the spiritual world."

"Whatsoever belongs to the domain [literally 'side,' sitr?] of the Spirit, thrusts itself forward and is visible". The universe is Divine Spirit materialized, and it is given to man to have contact with it. The Rabbis of the Talmud and Midrashim had an idea of a sort of image of God which is immanent in the universe. Thus, a passage in the Tan?uma says: "If a mortal king engraves his image upon a tablet, the tablet is greater than the image. But God is great, and yet His image is greater than the whole world.""

"When a soul comes down from Heaven, it is both male and female. The male aspects enter a male child and the female aspects enter a female child. If they are deserving, God will cause them to find each other and to join in marriage. This is a true union."

"When I got the name Deva Deep (Divine Light) from my spiritual Master Osho, my whole life changed and I started doing things, I had never done before. It has always been an expression of my ultimate potential and in this way a guiding light."

"When King Solomon "penetrated into the depths of the nut garden" (Song of Solomon 6.11), he took up a nut shell and studying it, he saw an analogy in its layers with the spirits which motivate the sensual desires of humans... God saw that it was necessary to put into the world so as to make sure of permanence all things having, so to speak, a brain surrounded by numerous membranes. The whole world, upper and lower, is organized on this principle, from the primary mystic center to the very outermost of all the layers. All are coverings, the one to the other, brain within brain, spirit inside of spirit, shell within shell. The primal center is the innermost light, of a translucence, subtlety, and purity beyond comprehension. That inner point extends to become a "palace" which acts as an enclosure for the center, and is also of a radiance translucent beyond the power to know it. The "palace" vestment for the incognizable inner point, while it is an unknowable radiance in itself, is nevertheless of a lesser subtlety and translucency than the primal point. The palace extends into a vestment for itself, the primal light. From then outward, there is extension upon extension, each constituting a vesture to the one before, as a membrane to the brain. Though membrane first, each extension becomes brain to the next extension. Likewise does the process go on below; and after this design, man in the world combines brain and membrane, spirit and body, all to the more perfect ordering of the world."

"When the Messiah hears of the great suffering of Israel in their dispersion, and of the wicked amongst them who seek not to know their Master, he weeps aloud on account of those wicked amongst them, as it is written: ?But he was wounded because of our transgression, he was crushed because of our iniquities?. The souls then return to their place. The Messiah, on his part, enters a certain Hall in the Garden of Eden, called the Hall of the Afflicted. There he calls for all the diseases and pains and sufferings of Israel, bidding them settle on himself, which they do. And were it not that he thus eases the burden from Israel, taking it on himself, no one could endure the sufferings meted out to Israel in expiation on account of their neglect of the Torah. So Scripture says; ?Surely our diseases he did bear.?"

"When God thought of making man, He said: ?Let us make man in our image, etc.? i.e. He intended to make him head over the celestial beings, who were to be his deputies, like Joseph over the governors of Egypt. The angels thereupon began to malign him and say, ?What is man that Thou shouldst remember him, seeing that he will assuredly sin before Thee.? Said God to them, ?If ye were on earth like him, ye would sin worse.?"

"When Abraham saw the sun issuing in the morning from the east, he was first moved to think that that was God, and said, "This is the King that created me," and worshipped it the whole day. In the evening when the sun went down and the moon commenced to shine, he said, "Verily this rules over the orb which I worshipped the whole day, since the latter is darkened before it and does not shine any more." So he served the moon all that night. In the morning when he saw the darkness depart and the east grow light, he said, "Of a surety there is a King who rules over all these orbs and orders them.""

"Woe to the [people of the] world who hide the heart and cover the eyes, not gazing into the secrets of the Torah!"