THE UNFOLDING SELF: VARIETIES OF TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE
Ralph Metzner
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"The true origin, root, and source of our life is the One Spirit."
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"From the many to the one, from duality to unity – the direction of growth and evolution is toward integration, toward oneness."
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"According to the Jewish Kabbalah teachings, evil occurs when the function of discrimination or judgment (Gevurah) is separated from its natural complement – loving kindness or mercy (Hesed). The implication is that discriminative judgment must be integrated with kindness or compassion for this opposition to be transformed. A similar moral attitude is implied by the Buddhist teachings that advocate a balanced integration of discriminative wisdom and compassion."
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"The evolutionary transformation of society and of humanity must take place first in the individual, and the transformation of the individual requires a turning inward, toward self – not in narcissistic self-absorption but in aware self-confrontation."
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"The eye or voice of conscience…is the eye of the Self within."
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"The Inner Self abides always in the heart…One should draw him out, as one may the wind from the reed. Him one should know as the pure, the immortal." Katha Upanishad
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"According to Christ's teaching, every man and woman has, and is, a being of light within."
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"A ray of clear light travels throughout all creation."
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"Divinity is the fire of life within every being."
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"As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated building blocks, but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole." Fritjof Capra, 'The Tao of Physics'
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"Archetypal images are found in virtually all cultures and during all ages, thus representing a kind of universal language."
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"With some variations in language and emphasis, the essential human process of evolutionary growth is described in similar terms in all major cultures and sacred traditions the world over."
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"The mandala is the central symbol of individuation, integration, or wholeness. One could say that a key component of the transformation of vision in psychospiritual development is the perceiving of the visual field as a kind of mandala. American Indian vision seekers have reported that they see the 'circle of the Sky' touch the 'circle of the Earth', forming one great hoop…it is Buckminster Fuller's sphere of 'omnidirectional awareness', moving always with us."
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"Pilgrimages by groups of people to holy places – whether Chaucer's rowdy band of travelers on the road to Canterbury, devout Christian monks on the way to Jerusalem, or Muslim caravans on the road to Mecca – all share the same purpose: travelers seeking God, seeking to find the Self."
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"We have an eye of contemplation, which sees with higher or spiritual light the ultimate reality of oneness."
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"Ancient sacred texts refer to the intelligence of the heart, the eye of the heart. This is the heart center, where we see with the feeling light of love."
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"A mandala represents the whole, unified field of consciousness."
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"Modern scientists have concluded that all phenomena are interrelated in complex networks of energy transformation. Teilhard deChardin's concept of the noosphere, a network of thought ecompassing the planet, is one such idea. The notion of networks of individuals who share a common interest and provide information and support to one another has enormous potential for furthering individual and social transformation."
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"The individual and the world are linked by a relationship of micro-macro-correspondence."
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"I live my life in growing orbits, which move out over the things of the world…I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years." Rainer Maria Rilke, 'Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke'
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"Evolution, or order of process, is more than just a paradigm for the biological domain; it is a view of how a totality that hangs together in all of its interactive processes moves. This dynamic totality spans a vast spectrum from the subatomic processes to social and further on to noetic (mental and psychic) processes." Erich Jantsch, 'Evolution and Consciousness: Human Systems in Transition'
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"Those who are asleep live each in a private world; those who are awake live in the one Great World." Herakleitos, ancient Greek sage
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"Each human being is, in essence, a divine spirit of pure light. This light can come 'down' or 'through', into mind and body, into outward expression and manifestation."
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"God stands in the same relationship to the universe as Self stands to the body and personality…in the words of one of the aphorisms of the Gurdjieff student A. R. Orage; 'God is the I of the universe.'"
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"We are not the victims or the effects of uncontrollable external circumstances: the journey of transformation is within us. Therefore, we choose the destination."
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