Quotes about Veil

Each thing tends to move towards its own nature. I always desire happiness which is my true nature. My nature is never a burden to me. Happiness is never a burden to me, whilst sorrow is.

And a poet said, "Speak to us of Beauty."
Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?

The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind and gentle.
Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us."
And the passionate say, "Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.
Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us."

The tired and the weary say, "beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow."
But the restless say, "We have heard her shouting among the mountains,
And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions."

At night the watchmen of the city say, "Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east."
And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, "we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset."
In winter say the snow-bound, "She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills."
And in the summer heat the reapers say, "We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair."
All these things have you said of beauty.
Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied,
And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,
But rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.

People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

Auto-ravissement

La conscience elle-même n'a pas besoin d'affirmation externe; elle est toujours déjà parfaitement accomplie et complète. Mais elle veut se connaître. Elle est perpétuellement à la recherche d'elle-même, et quand elle se trouve, elle est toujours affirmée dans la découverte d'elle-même. Tout ce que la conscience veut faire, c'est se ravir d'elle-même, pour toujours, absorbée sans fin par elle-même. Il semble que la vraie nature du soi, au niveau le plus profond, soit l'auto-ravissement.

Si vous portez votre attention sur le fond vide de votre expérience de la conscience, vous verrez par vous-même que l'auto-ravissement est sa nature. La conscience n'est pas un objet ; la conscience est le sujet et le sujet médite en permanence sur lui-même. Quand vous avez localisé cette pure subjectivité et cultivé assez de concentration pour être éveillé à ses qualités, vous découvrirez, en fait, qu'il y a quelque chose de mystérieux et d'infiniment attractif au plus profond de la conscience elle-même. Chaque fois que vous redécouvrirez ce fond sans fond, que ce soit après cinq minutes ou cinq ans, vous trouverez que, miraculeusement, c'est toujours nouveau.