Importance of the human stage (E.J. Gold)

The act of being human is a necessary and important stage in the evolution of a planet and more importantly to you, in the personal evolution of the being. It allows us to actively participate in self-evolution by fusing the intellectual, emotional and physical centers into a single unified presence through the process of intentional suffering; to perfect ourselves through conscious labors; and to attain crystallization of the soul through the process of the collection and transformation of higher substances.

-- E.J. Gold, from Autobiography of a Sufi

Shobogenzo (Dogen)

To carry yourself forward experiencing myriad things is delusion. The fact that myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.

-- Dogen, from Shobogenzo, part 1: Genjo Koan (Actualizing the Fundamental Point)

Rays of consciousness (Ouspensky)

If the world is a Great Something, possessing the consciousness of itself, so we are rays of that consciousness which is conscious of itself, but unconcious of the whole.

-- P.D. Ouspensky, from Tertium Organum

Direct perception (E.J. Gold)

The disintegration of ordinary perception in favor of direct perception is the chemistry of symbolic reality exploding inside the psyche.

-- E.J. Gold, from Autobiography of a Sufi

The whole and the fraction (DFJ)

Only a fraction of the Whole can pass away in any moment, since only a fraction of the Whole appears in any moment.

-- Da Free John, from The Eating Gorilla Comes in Peace

Projecting the universe (Rudhyar)

Man projects upon the outer universe what he potentially is, yet does not know he is, in order to discover and actualize his innate potential of being. Man collectively "creates" the universe he needs, simply because he needs it in order to operate with maximum efficiency.

-- Dane Rudhyar, from The Sun is Also a Star: The Galactic Dimension of Astrology

Being and Time (Heidegger)

"Being" cannot be derived from higher concepts by definition, nor can it be presented through lower ones. But does this imply that "Being" no longer offers a problem? Not at all. We can infer only that "Being" cannot have the character of an entity. Thus we cannot apply to "Being" the concept of definition as presented in traditional logic, which itself has its foundation in ancient ontology and which, within certain limits, provides a quite justifiable way of defining "entities." The indefinability of "Being" does not eliminate the question of its meaning; it demands that we look that question in the face.

-- Heidegger, from Being and Time

Selfhood and Realization (Osho)

If you realize, you know that there is no self. If you do not realize, then there is a self. Selfhood is nonrealization and realization is non-selfhood.

-- Osho

Enlightenment linked to brain function

According to a new study by the University of Missouri, spiritual feelings may actually be the result of a lower-functioning right parietal lobe, the area of the brain that defines one's egoic sense. The study monitored the brain activity of monks and nuns as well as non-religious subjects who had experienced recent brain damage. Results showed that more religious subjects had lower electrical activity in the right parietal lobe, a region of the brain related to egoic individuation.

http://tinyurl.com/8zzp3o

Universe B (Grant)

Primitive man intuited the existence of that unknown Universe B on the other side of the Tree, with the Abyss (Choronzon) as its copula. This supreme dread was inspired by the metaphysical certainty (the original gnosis) that the phenomenal world is but the manifestation of subjectivity or non-manifestation, and that the physiological formula of the female somehow adumbrated the mechanics of an awful mystery that was unknowable by the mind in its normal state. The 'fall' consisted in accepting the delusion at its face value. The initiates, the gnostics, knew (perhaps intuitively) that reality lay somewhere beyond or behind the total negation of this glamour.

-- from Nightside of Eden (Kenneth Grant)