Esoteric Quotes - page 4
No word in our language - not even "Socialism" - has been employed more loosely than "Mysticism." The history of the word begins in close connexion with the Greek mysteries. A mystic is one who has been, or is being, initiated into some esoteric knowledge of Divine things, about which he must keep his mouth shut.
William Ralph Inge
[P]rogressives seem to think that conservatives distrust the government because of some esoteric philosophical theory, or because we had some weird dream involving Ayn Rand. In reality, it's because we've been told to trust the government before - and we've gotten burned, time and time again.
Jim Geraghty
You might say that esotericism is the philosophy, or the science, of the evolutionary process, as it pertains to the human and the subhuman kingdoms. But it is about the evolution of consciousness, not of the physical form. If you want to know about the evolution of the physical form, turn to Darwin - he has pretty well summed up the nature of evolution as regards the form of the animal and the human kingdoms. But in terms of the evolution of consciousness, you have to turn to the esoteric - esoteric only so far; for that which is esoteric gradually becomes exoteric.
Benjamin Creme
The Masters of the Hierarchy are now ready to return, for the first time in countless thousands of years, to the everyday world... Under Their great leader, the Master of all the Masters, the World Teacher, the One known in the West as the Christ, the esoteric Hierarchy will walk openly among us and lead us into the Aquarian experience. They stand now, waiting for us to take, of our own free will, the needed first steps in the direction of unity, cooperation and fusion. Then They will emerge with the Christ at Their Head, and Their Presence in the world will be an established fact.
Benjamin Creme
My information (from my own Master) is that the broad general outline and scope of The Secret Doctrine was conveyed verbally to H. P. B. (Helena Petrovna Blavatsky) by the Masters K. H. and Morya, while the bulk, the esoteric lore, was given to her telepathically by D. K.. She herself gave the correspondences between the esoteric science and the exoteric science of her day. It was in fact a group work.
Benjamin Creme
All the great religions posit the idea of a further revelation to be given by a future Teacher. Christians hope for the return of the Christ, the Buddhists look for the coming of another Buddha (the Lord Maitreya), while Moslems await the appearance of the Imam Mahdi, the Hindus a reincarnation of Krishna, and the Jews the Messiah. Students of the esoteric tradition know these as different names for one and the same individual, the World Teacher, the head of the Spiritual Hierarchy of Masters, and they look for His imminent return now.
Benjamin Creme
In the esoteric tradition, the Christ is not the name of an individual but of an Office in the [esoteric spiritual] Hierarchy. The present holder of that Office, the Lord Maitreya, has held it for 2,600 years, and manifested in Palestine through His disciple, Jesus, by the occult method of overshadowing, the most frequent form used for the manifestation of Avatars.
Benjamin Creme
Origen understood it well, having been a pupil of Ammonius Saccas; therefore we see him bravely denying the perpetuity of hell-torments. He maintains that not only men, but even devils (by which term he meant disembodied human sinners), after a certain duration of punishment shall be pardoned and finally restored to heaven. ("De Civit. Dei," I, xxi., c. 17.) In consequence of this and other such heresies Origen was, as a matter of course, exiled. (p. 705)
Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, Chalcidius, Methodius, and Maimonides, on the authority of the Targum of Jerusalem, the orthodox and greatest authority of the Jews, held that the first two words in the book of Genesis--B-RASIT, mean Wisdom, or the Principle. And that the idea of these words meaning "in the beginning" was never shared but by the profane, who were not allowed to penetrate any deeper into the esoteric sense of the sentence. (p. 727)
Origen
Om or Aum (Sk.). A mystic syllable, the most solemn of all words in India. It is "an invocation, a benediction, an affirmation and a promise and it is so sacred, as to be indeed the word at low breath of occult, primitive masonry. No one must be near when the syllable is pronounced for a purpose. This word is usually placed at the beginning of sacred Scriptures, and is prefixed to prayers. It is a compound of three letters a,u,m, which, in the popular belief, are typical of the three Vedas, also of three gods-A (Agni) V (Varuna) and M (Maruts) or Fire, Water and Air. In esoteric philosophy these are the three sacred fires, or the "triple fire”in the Universe and Man, besides many other things...
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Preliminary Clarifications: All groups involved in esoteric work have their own dharma or duty and all have their peculiar objective. In order that you may clearly vision what you, as aspirants to discipleship have to do, and so intelligently cooperate, I will concisely state the purpose: Dharma means duty, or obligation, and it is your definite and specific obligation to develop the intuition. The means or methods whereby this development is to be brought about, can be by the study of symbols.
Alice Bailey
But even if all the other stuff seems a bit esoteric, just think of all those other avatars at all those other gatherings, concerts, dances, ceremonies, parties and meals; think of all that talk, all those ideas, all that sparkle and wit!”
"Think of all that bullshit, the nonsense and non-sequiturs, the self-aggrandisement and self-deception, the boring stupid nonsense, the pathetic attempts to impress or ingratiate, the slow-wittedness, the incomprehension and the incomprehensible, the gland-addled meanderings and general suffocating dullness.
Iain Banks
Esotericism, which is legal, but not too much fun, prescribes to our condition. But when one tries to follow a spiritual path, nothing much happens for most of us. Faced with this lack of results, the esoteric schools put the blame squarely on us rather than on any insufficiency in their doctrines or methods. Finally, they explain our failure by taking refuge in paradoxes. They tell us, for example, that we can attain only by not wanting to attain-a neat double bind.
Some esoteric schools caution the disciple not to practise the extraordinary powers which we will acquire in the course of our work. This is surely an extraordinary statement. Most of us can't muster the power to give up smoking, much less to levitate.
Robert Sheckley
Many, perhaps most, who see the title of this book will at once traverse it, and will deny that there is anything valuable which can be rightly described as "Esoteric Christianity." There is a wide-spread, and withal a popular, idea that there is no such thing as an occult teaching in connection with Christianity, and that "The Mysteries," whether Lesser or Greater, were a purely Pagan institution. The very name of "The Mysteries of Jesus," so familiar in the ears of the Christians of the first centuries, would come with a shock of surprise on those of their modern successors, and, if spoken as denoting a special and definite institution in the Early Church, would cause a smile of incredulity.
Annie Besant
But leaving aside disputes as to what may be to us "happiness” in a future separated from our present by millions of years, so that we are no more fitted now to formulate its conditions than is a child, playing with its dolls, to formulate the deeper joys and interests of its maturity, let us understand that, according to the teachings of the Esoteric Philosophy, the Devachanī is surrounded by all he loved on earth, with pure affection, and the union being on the plane of the Ego, not on the physical plane, it is free from all the sufferings which would be inevitable were the Devachanī present in consciousness on the physical plane with all its illusory and transitory joys and sorrows. It is surrounded by its beloved in the higher consciousness, but is not agonised by the knowledge of what they are suffering in the lower consciousness, held in the bonds of the flesh.
Annie Besant
Part Three begins with my commentary on an article by my Master, ‘Let there be Light', which was previously published in Share International magazine (December 1983). It deals with Light from the esoteric point of view, including the Light of Knowledge, the Christ Principle, Cosmic Electricity and the new Science of Light, which will transform our future.
Benjamin Creme
Any hostility I have encountered has come from two sources: the Christian fundamentalist groups and certain esoteric groups----and for the same reason: they are both defending territory. They are, both of them, the prisoners of their own dogmas. It is not a hostile environment, however, which has delayed Maitreya's emergence but the non-response of humanity---- through its representatives, the media, to the information that He has awaited discovery in London since May 1982. As for His safety, that is assured. He is invulnerable. Chapter One.
Benjamin Creme