Mandala
Quotes

Once you turn the light around, everything in the world is turned around.The light rays are concentrated upward into the eyes; this is the great key of the human body. You should reflect on this. If you do not sit quietly each day, this light flows and whirls, stopping who knows where. If you can sit quietly for a while, all time-ten thousand ages, a thousand lifetimes—is penetrated from this. All phenomena revert to stillness. Truly inconceivable is this sublime truth.—Secret of the Golden Flower

From the body of the unborn essence (Consciousness) arises the sphere of light, and from that sphere of light arises wisdom. From the wisdom arises the seed syllable and from the seed syllable arises the complete Mandala, the deity and the retinue.—Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

That incomprehensible, omnipresent, transcendent Divine Radiance, that illumines the All-Mind, and glows in the heart of all living things, is the Clear Light. In its glory the Bodhic Path ends. —Seven Books of Wisdom of the Great Path

Apart from thought, there is no independent entity called “world.” Just as the spider emits the thread (of the web) out of itself and then withdraws it, likewise, the mind projects the world out of itself and then withdraws it back into itself.—Ramana Maharshi

Thought is the primary energy and vibration that emanated from God and is thus the creator of life, electrons, atoms, and all forms of energy.—Paramahansa Yogananda

Creation is a continual process of Divine intention made manifest. Starting from ultimate potential and possibility, creation flows down through four levels of reality: spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical. Jewish tradition teaches that we are made in the image of the Divine (tzelem Elohim), eternal Divine essence that condenses into human form. Our task is to remember our true Selves as vibrations of Divine light. Just as God created the world through speech—energy vibrations in the forms of sound, light, and color—we are Divine co-creators, continuing the creation process through our thoughts, words, and actions. Individually and collectively, we are responsible for the world we create.— Jennifer Judelsohn

I was seeing in a sacred manner the shape of all things in the Spirit, and the Shape of all Shapes as they must live together like one being and I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.—Black Elk

Particular symbols, or even particular interpretations of universal symbols, differ according to the various traditions. They are sensible or intelligible forms consecrated by God through revelation to become vehicles of Divine Grace. In Sufism, universal metaphysical symbols … stem from the Quran, the Word. … The Word is both a sound and a light, for the light is the meaning of the Word.—Laleh Bakhtiar, Sufi: Expressions of the Mystic Quest

For the shape of the world exists everlastingly in the knowledge of the true Love which is God: constantly circling, wonderful for human nature, and such that it is not consumed by age and cannot be increased by anything new . . . in its workings the Godhead is like a wheel, a whole. In no way is it to be divided because the Godhead has neither beginning nor end.—Hildegard of Bingen

I had to abandon the idea of the superordinate position of the ego. ... I saw that everything, all paths I had been following, all steps I had taken, were leading back to a single point -- namely, to the mid-point. It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the centre. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the centre, to individuation.... I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate.— C. G. Jung

Our Being is a brilliant pattern of energies: a spectrum of possibilities. The mystic discovers symbols. . . Symbols are windows through which we can view the Essential Nature of our Being.—Ngakpa Chogyam

A human being is a part of the whole called by us “the universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.—Albert Einstein

Circles

The moon is most happy When it is full.
And the sun always looks Like a perfectly minted gold coin
That was just Polished And placed in flight By God's playful Kiss.

And so many varieties of fruit Hang plump and round
From branches that seem like a Sculptor's hands.
I see the beautiful curve of a pregnant belly Shaped by a soul within,

And the Earth itself, And the planets and the Spheres­
I have gotten the hint: There is something about circles The Beloved likes.
Hafiz, Within the Circle of a Perfect One There is an Infinite CommunityOf Light.—HAFIZ, The Great Sufi Master