Community

First worship the Immortal gods, as they are established and ordained by the Law. Reverence the Oath, and next the Heroes, full of goodness and light. Honour likewise the Terrestrial Daemons by rendering them the worship lawfully due to them. Honour likewise your parents, and those most nearly related to you.

It must be a totally resigned and yielded will, in which God himself searches and works, and which continually pierces into God, in yielding and resigned humility, seeking nothing but his eternal native country, and to do his neighbor service with it.

Of all the rest of mankind, make him your friend who distinguishes himself by his virtue. Always give ear to his mild exhortations, and take example from his virtuous and useful actions. Avoid as much as possible hating your friend for a slight fault.

Wrestle to continue to be the man Philosophy wished to make you. Reverence the gods, save men. Life is brief; there is one harvest of earthly existence, a holy disposition and neighbourly acts.

But if nothing higher is revealed than the very divinity seated within you, subordinating your private impulses to itself, examining your thoughts, having withdrawn itself, as Socrates used to say, from the sense-affections, and subordinated itself to the gods and making men its first care.

Here is a man whose disposition is naturally of a low order. To let him take his own unprincipled way is to endanger the State. To try to restrain him is to endanger one's personal safety. He has just wit enough to see faults in others, but not to see his own. I am consequently at a loss what to do.

Real saints know that he who does not master his appetites does not deserve the name of a man, and that the true Moslem is one who will cheerfully acknowledge the limits imposed by the Law.

Cultivate unity. You hear not with the ears, but with the mind; not with the mind, but with your soul. But let hearing stop with the ears. Let the working of the mind stop with itself. Then the soul will be a negative existence, passively responsive to externals. In such a negative existence, only Tao can abide. And that negative state is the fasting of the heart.

He never preaches at people, but puts himself into sympathy with them.

Let the performance and completion of the pleasure of the Universal Nature seem to you to be your pleasure, precisely as the conduct of your health is seen to be, and so welcome all that comes to pass, even though it appears rather cruel, because it leads to that end, to the health of the universe, that is to the welfare and well-being of Zeus.

Wait in peace, whether for extinction or a change of state; and until its due time arrives, what is sufficient? What else than to worship and bless the gods, to do good to men, to bear them and to forbear; and, for all that lies within the limits of mere flesh and spirit, to remember that this is neither thine nor in thy power.

Habituate yourself not to be inattentive to what another has to say and, so far as possible, be in the mind of the speaker. What does not benefit the hive is no benefit to the bee.

When a man offends against you, think at once what conception of good or ill it was which made him offend. And, seeing this, you will pity him, and feel neither surprise nor anger. For you yourself still conceive either the same object as he does to be good, or something else of the same type; you are bound, therefore, to excuse him. If, on the other hand, you no longer conceive things of that kind to be goods or ills, you will the more easily be kind to one whose eye is darkened.

Man was intended to mirror forth the light of the knowledge of God, but if he arrives in the next world with his soul thickly coated with the rust of sensual indulgence he will entirely fail of the object for which he was made.

Some may object, "If such is the case, then who can escape hell, for who is not more or less bound to the world by various ties of affection and interest?" To this we answer that there are some, notably the faqirs, who have entirely disengaged themselves from love of the world. But even among those who have worldly possessions such as wife, children, houses, etc., there are those, who, though they have some affection for these, love God yet more.

No one wearies of receiving benefits, and to benefit another is to act according to Nature. Do not weary then of the benefits you receive by the doing of them.

There are three relations: one to your environment, one to the divine cause from which all things come to pass for all, one to those who live at the same time with you.

The goodness of a wise ruler covers the whole empire, yet he himself seems to know it not. It influences all creation, yet none is conscious thereof.

The men of this world all rejoice in others being like themselves, and object to others not being like themselves.

To serve one's prince without reference to the act, but only to the service, is the perfection of a subject's loyalty.

One vital spirit is distributed in irrational creatures: one mind spirit is divided in rational creatures; just as one element earth is in all earthy things and we see by one light and breathe one atmosphere, all that have sight and vital spirit.

All that partakes of a common mind similarly, or even more swiftly, hastens to what is akin; for in proportion as it is superior to the rest, so is it more ready to mix and be blended with its own kind. At any rate there were found from the first among irrational creatures, hives, and flocks, care for nestlings, and what resembles love.

Among the yet higher, even among beings in a sense separated, there subsisted a unity such as obtains among the stars. Thus progress towards the higher was able to produce a sympathy even in what are separated.

If you can, change him by teaching, but if you cannot, remember that kindness was given you for this. The gods, too, are kind to such men and even co-operate with them to some objects, to health, to wealth, to reputation, so good are they to men; and you may be so too; or say, who is there to prevent you?

Calm, in respect of what comes to pass from a cause outside you; justice, in acts done in accord with a cause from yourself: that is to say, impulse and act terminating simply in neighbourly conduct, because for you this is according to Nature.

It is in your power to convert the man who has gone astray, for every man who does wrong is going wrong from the goal set before him and has gone astray. And what harm have you suffered? For you will find that none of those with whom you are angry has done the kind of thing by which your understanding was likely to become worse and it is there that your ills and harms have their entire existence.

The prayers of children profit their parents when the latter are dead, and children who die before their parents intercede for them on the Day of Judgment.

Remember that nothing harms the natural citizen which does not harm the city and nothing harms the city which does not harm the law. Now none of what are called strokes of bad luck harms the law: wherefore, not harming the law, it harms neither city nor citizen.

Just as those who oppose you as you progress in agreement with right principle will not be able to divert you from sound conduct, so do not let them force you to abandon your kindness towards them; but be equally on your guard in both respects, in steady judgement and behaviour as well as in gentleness towards those who try to hinder you or are difficult in other ways. For to be hard upon them is a weakness just as much as to abandon your course and to give in, from fright; for both are equally deserters from their post, the man who is in a panic as well as the man who is alienated from his natural kinsman and friend.

The fourth test is that he will love the Koran, which is the Word of God, and Muhammad, who is the Prophet of God; if his love is really strong, he will love all men, for all are God's servants, nay, his love will embrace the whole creation, for he who loves any one loves the works he composes and his handwriting.

Consider the causes of reality stripped of their covering; the relations of your actions; the nature of pain, pleasure, death, fame; who is not the author of his own unrest; how none is hindered by his neighbour; that all things are what we judge them to be.

First, do nothing aimlessly nor without relation to an end. Secondly, relate your action to no other end except the good of human fellowship.

Any single activity you choose, which ceases in due season, suffers no evil because it has ceased, neither has he, whose activity it was, suffered any evil merely because his activity has ceased. Similarly, therefore, the complex of all activities, which is a man's life, suffers no evil merely because it has ceased, provided that it ceases in due season, nor is he badly used who in due season brings his series of activities to a close. But the season and the term Nature assigns-sometimes the individual nature, as in old age, but in any event Universal Nature, for by the changes of her parts the whole world continues ever young and in her prime. Now what tends to the advantage of the Whole is ever altogether lovely and in season; therefore for each individual the cessation of his life is no evil, for it is no dishonour to him, being neither of his choosing nor without relation to the common good: rather is it good, because it is in due season for the Whole, benefiting it and itself benefited by it. For thus is he both carried by God, who is borne along the same course with God, and of purpose borne to the same ends as God.

Whenever you feel something hard to bear, you have forgotten (a) that all comes to pass according to the Nature of the Whole, (b) that the wrong is not your own but another's, further (c) that all that is coming to pass always did, always will, and does now everywhere thus come to pass, (d) the great kinship of man with all mankind, for the bond of kind is not blood nor the seed of life, but mind. You have forgotten, moreover, (e) that every individual's mind is of God and has flowed from that other world, (f) that nothing is a man's own, but even his child, his body, and his vital spirit itself have come from that other world, (g) that all is judgement, (h) that every man lives only the present life and this is what he is losing.

Mortal man, you have been a citizen in this great City; what does it matter to you whether for five or fifty years? For what is according to its laws is equal for every man. Why is it hard, then, if Nature who brought you in, and no despot nor unjust judge, sends you out of the City as though the master of the show, who engaged an actor, were to dismiss him from the stage? 'But I have not spoken my five acts, only three?' 'What you say is true, but in life three acts are the whole play. For He determines the perfect whole, the cause yesterday of your composition, today of your dissolution; you are the cause of neither. Leave the stage, therefore, and be reconciled, for He also who lets his servant depart is reconciled.

Jewish mysticism is as old as the Old Testament - nay, as old as some of the oldest parts of the Old Testament.

Nowhere in Jewish literature is the idea of prayer raised to such a pitch of sublimity as it is in the lives and writings of the Jewish mystics.

Mystical religion does, of course, transcend all the barriers which separate race from race and religion from religion. The mystic is a cosmopolitan, and, to him, the differences between the demands and beliefs and observances of one creed and those of another are entirely obliterated in his one all-absorbing and all-overshadowing passion for union with Reality.

A certain esoteric wisdom and capacity for doing things, unknown to the multitudes, was vouchsafed to certain bodies of men, who by the superior purity of their living, by their unabated devotion to the things of the spirit, and by their cultivation of a kind of brotherhood in which simplicity, single-mindedness, and charity were the reigning virtues, were enabled to enjoy a living in the world of the unseen.

The whole of Jewish mysticism is really nothing but a commentary on the Jewish Bible, an attempt to pierce through to its most intimate and truest meaning; and what is the Bible to the Jew but the admonisher to be loyal to the traditions of his fathers?

The best authorities regard him as a contemporary of Abraham, and some of the Jewish traditions go so far as to claim that Abraham acquired a portion of his mystic knowledge from Hermes himself.

These Unseen Divinities and Angelic Helpers extend their influence freely and powerfully, in the process of Evolution, and Cosmic Progress.

All manifestation of thought, emotion, reason, will or desire, or any mental state or condition, are accompanied by vibrations, a portion of which are thrown off and which tend to affect the minds of other persons by "induction."

Thou shalt confess thy transgressions in the church, and shalt not come unto prayer with an evil conscience. This is the path of life.

The Principle manifests in the creation and destruction of worlds; in the rise and fall of nations; in the life history of all things; and finally in the mental states of Man.

Bless them that curse you, and pray for your enemies.

Fast on behalf of those that persecute you; for what thank is there if ye love them that love you? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? But love them that hate you, and ye will not have an enemy.

Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not corrupt youth; thou shalt not commit fornication; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not use soothsaying; thou shalt not practise sorcery; thou shalt not kill a child by abortion, neither shalt thou slay it when born; thou shalt not covet the goods of thy neighbor.

Thou shalt not hate any man, but some thou shalt confute, concerning some thou shalt pray, and some thou shalt love beyond thine own soul.

Now the path of life is this — first, thou shalt love the God who made thee, thy neighbour as thyself, and all things that thou wouldest not should be done unto thee, do not thou unto another.

Give to every one that asketh of thee, and ask not again, for the Father wishes that from his own gifts there should be given to all.

Thou shalt seek out day by day the favour of the saints, that thou mayest rest in their words.

Thou shalt not turn away from him that is in need, but shalt share with thy brother in all things, and shalt not say that things are thine own; for if ye are partners in what is immortal, how much more in what is mortal?

Concerning the Eucharist, after this fashion give ye thanks. First, concerning the cup. We thank thee, our Father, for the holy vine, David thy Son, which thou hast made known unto us through Jesus Christ thy Son; to thee be the glory for ever.

Let none eat or drink of your Eucharist but such as have been baptized into the name of the Lord, for of a truth the Lord hath said concerning this, Give not that which is holy unto dogs.

We thank thee, holy Father, for thy holy name, which thou hast caused to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which thou hast made known unto us through Jesus thy Son; to thee be the glory for ever.

But concerning the apostles and prophets, thus do ye according to the doctrine of the Gospel. Let every apostle who cometh unto you be received as the Lord.

Let the apostle when departing take nothing but bread until he arrive at his resting-place; but if he ask for money, he is a false prophet. He will remain one day, and if it be necessary, a second; but if he remain three days, he is a false prophet.

Let every one that cometh in the name of the Lord be received, but afterwards ye shall examine him and know his character, for ye have knowledge both of good and evil.

But if he wish to settle with you, being a craftsman, let him work, and so eat; but if he know not any craft, provide ye according to your own discretion, that a Christian may not live idle among you.

Thou shalt, therefore, take the first-fruits of every produce of the wine-press and threshing-floor, of oxen and sheep, and shalt give it to the prophets, for they are your chief priests; but if ye have not a prophet, give it unto the poor.

But let not any one who hath a quarrel with his companion join with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be polluted.

Watch concerning your life; let not your lamps be quenched or your loins be loosed, but be ye ready, for ye know not the hour at which our Lord cometh. But be ye gathered together frequently, seeking what is suitable for your souls; for the whole time of your faith shall profit you not, unless ye be found perfect in the last time.

Elect, therefore, for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men who are meek and not covetous, and true and approved, for they perform for you the service of prophets and teachers. Do not, therefore, despise them, for they are those who are honoured among you, together with the prophets and teachers. Rebuke one another, not in wrath, but peaceably, as ye have commandment in the Gospel; and let no one speak to any one who walketh disorderly with regard to his neighbour, neither let him be heard by you until he repent.

The Old Testament shines forth with sublime examples of men whose communion with God was a thing of intensest reality to them, and whose conviction of the 'nearness' of the Divine was beyond the slightest doubt.

The earliest beginnings of this mysticism are usually accredited, by modern Jewish scholars, to the Essenes.

The remark that 'the Shechinah is with us and the ministering angels are accompanying us' emphasises two salient features of Rabbinic mysticism.

In the Mishna, Ḥaggigah, ii. 1, it is said: "It is forbidden to explain the first chapters of Genesis to two persons, but it is only to be explained to one by himself.

In the same passage another Rabbi (Ze‘era) of the 3rd century A.D. remarks, with a greater stringency: "We may not divulge even the first words of the chapters [neither of Genesis nor Ezekiel] unless it be to a 'chief of the Beth Din' 1 or to one whose heart is tempered by age or responsibility".

With clasped hands I entreat the perfectly Enlightened Ones who stand in all regions that they kindle the lamp of the Law for them who in their blindness fall into sorrow.

A lamp for them who need a lamp, a bed for them who need a bed, a stave for all beings who need a slave.

It is an elixir made to destroy death in the world, an unfailing treasure to relieve the world's poverty, a supreme balm to allay the world's sickness.

For the caravan of beings who wander through life's paths hungering to taste of happiness this banquet of bliss is prepared, that will satisfy all creatures coming to it.

This branch of Philonic theology is mirrored in the early Jewish, as well as in the early Christian, teaching about God.

Metatron is the helper to the Deity. Metatron is the guide and instructor.

'Shechinah' comes from shachan = to dwell. The whole edifice of thought about the Shechinah is based upon such passages in the Old Testament as "And let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them" (Exodus, xxv. 8). "Defile ye not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I the Lord dwell among the children of Israel" (Numbers, xxxv. 34). "And I will set my tabernacle among you and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and ye shall be my people" (Leviticus, xxvi. 11, 12)

The fatherhood of God necessarily involves the sonship of man.

A feature of the Shechinah mysticism which deserves a deeper appreciation than is usually accorded it, is to be found in the reiterated Rabbinic belief that goodness and piety radiate an atmosphere of divinity which infects all who breathe it, with a new impulse towards the good, the beautiful and the true.

Companionship with the good must be acquired at all costs. It is the dynamic power for opening the door to the spiritual world.

From the first of the quotations just given, it follows that 'Jew' is a term of the widest scope. From the second one infers that the Jew fills no higher a place in the Divine favour than do the good and worthy of all men and races.

Companionship with the good must be acquired at all costs. It is the dynamic power for opening the door to the spiritual world. The man of virtue is Shechinah-possessed; and to touch only the hem of his garment is to become Shechinah-possessed too.

The Shechinah is for Israel only. The Shechinah is primarily for Israel. God is near to the Jew, far from the non-Jew. These are seemingly natural and correct deductions from the Rabbinic records. If so, is not the term 'mysticism' as applied to the Shechinah a misnomer, seeing that the primal assumption of mysticism is the truth that every soul, notwithstanding race or religion, can have intimate intercourse with the Divine? The answer is this: The title 'Jew' or 'Israelite' is frequently used by the Rabbis in a more comprehensive sense than they are usually given credit for.

Thus T.B. Ḳiddushin says: "Whosoever denies the truth of idolatry becomes a believer in the whole Torah." T.B. Megillah, says: "Whosoever denies idolatry is called a Jew." In the Midrash Sifra on Leviticus there is a comment on Psalm, "Do good, O Lord, unto those that be good, and to them that are upright in their heart." "The Psalmist," says the Sifra, "does not say 'Do good to the Priests or to the Levites or to the Israelites.' But he says 'Do good unto those that be good.'" From the first of the quotations just given, it follows that 'Jew' is a term of the widest scope. From the second one infers that the Jew fills no higher a place in the Divine favour than do the good and worthy of all men and races.

Rabbi Samuel b. Meir, the great Rabbinic commentator of the 12th century says, "God loveth also the nations of the world." Of King Solomon's chariot it is said (Canticles, iii. 10) that "the midst thereof is paved with love." "This love in the midst thereof," say the Rabbis, "is the Shechinah." It is certainly not meant in any sectarian sense. The Divine Chariot in Jewish mysticism is, broadly, the idealised universe. And all degrees of creation from amoeba to man hold and reveal the traces of the Divine love which is ever born anew in our hearts and which guarantees the ultimate goodness of the world.

The Perfect Charity is declared to be the thought of surrendering to all beings our whole possessions and likewise the merit thereof; thus it is but a thought.

He who is thus master of himself will ever bear a smiling face; he will put away frowns and be first to greet others, a friend of the world.

Beyond ail doubt these Merciful Ones have made the whole universe their own; truly it is our Lords who shew themselves in the form of creatures, and dare we despise them?

It shows how both Jewish and Christian mysticism are alike indebted to one and the same set of sources. Gnosticism and its development - the Alexandrian Neoplatonism.

Thou art willing for thy neighbour to be glad when he praises thy worth; but thou art loth to be thyself glad when another's worth is praised.

"Nay, I am glad, forsooth, because my neighbour is pleased with me." But what is it to me whether my neighbour is pleased with me or with another? the joy is his; not the smallest share of it is mine.

Thus this fruit of my patience is won by me and by him together; to him must be given the first share, for be is the cause of my patience.

The greatness of creatures is that he who has the spirit of kindliness towards them wins worship; the greatness of the Enlightened is that merit is won by love toward them.

The Zohar is, par excellence, the textbook of Jewish mediæval mysticism. Its language is partly Aramaic and partly Hebrew. While purporting to be but a commentary on the Pentateuch, it is, in reality, quite an independent compendium of Kabbalistic theosophy.

The spirit that knows not despair, the troops of the Army, devoted heed, self-submission, equal esteem of self and others, and regard of others in place of self are the supports of strength.

ALL finite creatures are, in divergent senses and varying degrees, part and parcel of the Deity.

The Blessed Ones have said that the fool is no man's friend; for the fool has no love save where his interest lies.

I will think of myself as a sinner, of others as oceans of virtue; I will cease to live as self, and will take as my self my fellow-creatures.

We love our hands and other limbs, as members of the body; then why not love other living beings, as members of the universe?

Neoplatonism gave to the Zohar the idea of the soul as an emanation from the 'Overmind' of the universe. There was originally one 'Universal Soul,' or 'Over-soul,' which, as it were, broke itself up and encased itself in individual bodies. All individual souls are, hence, fragments of the 'Oversoul,' so that although they are distinct from one another they are, in reality, all one.