When hope appears, the soul clings to it like a drowning person to a straw and begins to act on its own. And when hope is not fulfilled, a person falls into despair, which leads to helplessness. The soul suffers, and vigilance grows dull.
(Haruki Murakami, “1Q84: A Thousand and One Nights”)
And among countless paintings
we recognize one—
one in which the Archetype of Light
of ineffable purity comes alive.
In it, everything insignificant sinks forever,
like in an ocean of infinite beauty.
The painting glows, sparkles, and shines.
Everything in it sings, trembles, and blooms.
And our thought creates and fills it
with tender love. And the soul longs to take flight
from captivity toward primordial distances,
toward the native worlds from which we all came.
(S. Veretennikov, “The Ship Sails,” A Little More Than Silence)
You have become a victim of your own creation. You created so many images, but they are not outside you; they exist only within you.
The only thing that exists now is you, as a being, and the five senses with which you paint this entire material world, taking it for reality. But this world does not exist; it was created entirely by you and exists only in your mind. When you awaken, the whole world will disappear, and only matter will remain, like an artist’s paints and a perfectly clean canvas.
Shanti Gita
Mantra 2. The Colors of the World.
Sergey Veretennikov (OM Shanti)
One more circumstance tormented me at the time: the very fact that no one resembled me and that I resembled no one. “I am alone, while they are all together,” I thought, and became pensive.
... Take you, for example: you want to wean a person from old habits and reform their will in accordance with the demands of science and common sense. But how do you know that a person can—and should—be remade in this way? What makes you conclude that the human will must necessarily be corrected? In a word, how do you know that such correction will actually benefit a person?
(Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Notes from Underground”)
People are like rivers: the water is the same in all of them and everywhere, but each river may be narrow, fast-flowing, broad, or tranquil. So it is with people. Each person carries within them the seeds of all human qualities, sometimes displaying one, sometimes another, and often being completely unlike themselves while remaining one and the same person.
(L. N. Tolstoy, "Resurrection")
I am neither exaggerating nor making anything up when I say that one day I myself witnessed the transformation of a shaman who called himself the “River Man,” the “River Shaman,” or the “One Who Came from the River and Returns to the River”... This shaman was searching for his Source—that was how he put it. Once, he and I were walking along the riverbank, ...
He simply walked into the water, fully clothed. When the water reached his calves—it was a broad but shallow mountain stream—the shaman simply disappeared, dissolved. But before entering the water, he whispered in my ear that I should walk downstream and wait for him. He showed me the exact place where I was to wait. I found the place and saw the shaman emerge from the water. Although it is foolish to say that he “emerged from the water.” I saw the shaman turn into water and then re-create himself from water.
Carlos and Bill
Carlos Castaneda
The Active Side of Infinity
And after that, a little note about the incident appeared. They said that the Mistress of the Copper Mountain had begun to split in two: people had seen two young women in malachite dresses at once.
(P. Bazhov, "The Malachite Casket").
Someone appeared before me, wholly permeated by sunlight,
Not shining with colors, but with light,
So radiant that eyes unaccustomed to recognition could not endure it.
...Thus I entered into conversation with that spirit,
Who addressed me—and behold! in waves
The light grew dense, shining more brightly to the eye.
(Dante Alighieri, "The Divine Comedy. Paradise")
Only greed for the true good is safe.
– “But what is that,” you will ask, “and where does it come from?”
– I will answer: it is given by a clear conscience, honest intentions, righteous deeds, contempt for chance, and the even course of a tranquil life rolling along a single track. And those who leap from one intention to another—or rather, do not even leap but are tossed about by every chance occurrence—how can such irresolute and restless people acquire anything reliable and lasting?
Only a few are in control of themselves and their possessions as they see fit; the rest are like wreckage in a river: they do not move themselves, but are carried along. Some, driven by a weaker wave, move more slowly and fall behind; others are swept along faster; some are cast onto the nearer bank by the ebbing current, while others are carried out to sea by the force of the stream. Therefore, we should determine what we want and pursue what we desire with perseverance.
(Seneca, "Moral Letters to Lucilius")
Why is it that, having awakened from sleep and fully entered reality, you feel almost every time—and sometimes with extraordinarily powerful intensity—that, along with your dream, you are leaving behind something that remains unexplained to you? You smile at the absurdity of your dream and at the same time feel that some kind of thought lies interwoven within these absurdities—but a thought that is already real, something belonging to your present life, something that exists and has always existed in your heart; it is as though your dream had told you something new, prophetic, something you had been awaiting; your impression is powerful, joyful or tormenting, but what exactly it consists of, and what was said to you—you can neither understand nor recall any of it.
(F. Dostoevsky, “The Idiot”)
— In any dream, sweetheart, the main thing is to wake up in time.
— You see, — he says, — life does not flow in a straight line. It is like circles spreading across water. Old stories repeat themselves on each circle, slightly changed, but no one notices. No one recognizes them. It is customary to think that the time in which you live is brand-new, fresh off the loom, only just woven. But in nature, the same pattern is always repeated. There really aren’t very many of these patterns.
(Mariam Petrosyan, “The House in Which…”)
ALICE: How can one win after losing all hope?
HATTER: First you lose all hope, and then everything works out for the best.
ALICE: Yet hope dies last.
HATTER: Ha-ha-ha! Break free from the captivity of your own patterns. Do you think that beyond hope there is nothing but disappointment? In reality, only by losing your last hope can you become truly free. Nothing holds you back anymore, you stop caring, and at last you have the opportunity to focus on thoughts about what should be DONE, rather than on what will HAPPEN now. Therefore, when hope dies, know this: everything is only just beginning—and act differently.
ALICE: Act differently in relation to what?
HATTER: It doesn’t matter. In relation to anything… To yourself, for example. Hope is a consequence of habit—the deadly inertia of preserving the status quo. Kill hope.
(Lewis Carroll, “Alice in Wonderland”)
Accustomed to seeing all her dreams perish and all her hopes collapse, she would hesitate for entire days before deciding to take even the most insignificant action.
And in her heart there was born again something resembling an interest in a thousand insignificant details of ordinary life, a concern for simple, commonplace, everyday occupations. She was overcome by a contemplative melancholy, a vague disappointment with life. What did she need? What did she desire? She herself did not know.
(Guy de Maupassant, “A Life”)
There is a Great Desire living deep within our hearts. It is the desire to return home. To return to our primordial home, which we left behind for the sake of our human journey. How can we find the way back? Where is that one and only path leading home?
Our life is determined by what we want. Do our desires lead us astray, or, on the contrary, carry us toward our goal? Desires are the foundation of action. Actions create our karma. We reap what we have sown, yet often, looking around us, we are utterly unable to understand how we came to be where we are, or how any of this happened to us.
Everything begins with what we want. What do we truly want? Deep within, hidden beneath our small, momentary wants, does there not exist one all-consuming Desire? Yes, there does. It is the desire to return to the Self. The desire to return home.
“Home is always better!” the girl replied warmly.
The Scarecrow smiled slyly.
“ The straw I’m stuffed with grew in a field, a tailor made my coat, and a shoemaker made my boots. So where is my home? In the field, at the tailor’s, or at the shoemaker’s?”
None of the disciples noticed when this red-haired, ugly Jew first appeared near Christ, but for a long time he had already been following their path relentlessly, intruding into their conversations, performing small services, bowing, smiling, and ingratiating himself. At times he became so familiar that he deceived their tired eyes; then suddenly he would leap into their sight and hearing, irritating them like something grotesquely ugly, deceitful, and repulsive. Then they would drive him away with harsh words, and for a short while he would disappear somewhere by the roadside—only to reappear unnoticed, helpful, flattering, and cunning as a one-eyed demon. Some of the disciples had no doubt that his desire to draw closer to Jesus concealed some secret intention, some evil and treacherous calculation. But Jesus did not heed their counsel; their prophetic voice did not reach his ears. With that spirit of luminous contrariness which irresistibly drew him toward the rejected and unloved, he resolutely accepted Judas and included him among the chosen.
...
And from that very day, Jesus’s attitude toward him somehow changed strangely. Previously, for some reason, Judas had never spoken directly to Jesus, nor had Jesus ever addressed him directly; yet he would often look at him with tender eyes, smile at some of his jokes, and, if he had not seen him for a long time, ask: “Where is Judas?”
Be radiant.
Reprogram yourself so that every minute only thoughts that make you grow come into your mind. If you fall into a rage or confusion, try laughing at yourself. Laugh, cackle at this worried, oppressed, melancholy woman, convinced that her problems are the most important. Laugh at this absurd situation, for you are an expression of the Mother. And also believe that God is a person who follows rules. In fact, most of our problems come down to this—the need to follow rules. (Paulo Coelho. "The Witch of Portobello")
You are a multidimensional personality who leads all these lives, so to speak, creating and participating in these cosmic plays. You identify yourself with this particular role only because you are currently focused on it. You created these rules for yourself for a specific reason. And consciousness evolves, so this multidimensional “self” I am talking about is not a complete psychological structure. It evolves as well.
This is the study of the art of manifestation. Consciousness contains infinite sources of creativity and unlimited possibilities for development. But it must still learn the means of manifestation and discover within itself ways to complement existence with the indescribable creations it contains.
“Jane Roberts: The Multidimensional Reality of Your ‘Self.’ The Seth Book”
The Wizard of the Emerald City. A. Volkov