mystery

Love's mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book.

They (the Puritans) saw clearly that of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal could deserve, and as always must, from the constitution of human nature, be dangerous to society. For this reason they demolished the whole system of diocesan episcopacy, and, deriding, as all reasonable and impartial men must do, the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from Episcopal fingers, they established sacerdotal ordination on the foundation of the Bible and common sense.

Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what's known as infinity.

Humility and love are precisely the graces which the men of the world can understand, if they do not comprehend doctrines. They are the graces about which there is no mystery, and they are within reach of all classes... [The poorest] Christian can every day find occasion for practicing love and humility.

The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life's major mysteries.

Know that the science of unveiling has no end to it, for it consists in the journey of the intellect in the stations of Majesty, Beauty, Sublimeness, Grandeur, and Holiness. . . . He to whom the mysteries of La ilaha illa'llah are revealed draws near to God, and his worship of God becomes sincere. He does not turn to anyone but to Him, nor does he have hope in or fear other than Him, nor does he see harm or benefit except as coming from Him. He abandons whosoever is not He and rids himself of inward and outward associationism (shirk).

The mystic Ka'aba is the heart of being. It has been said to him: "The Temple which contains Me is in your heart." The mystery of the Divine Essence is no other than the Temple of the heart, and it is around the heart that the spiritual pilgrim circumambulates.

Bears: When you see a bear, the spot where you see it becomes instantly different from every place else you've seen. Bears make you pay attention. They keep the mountains from turning into a blur. . . . A woods with a bear in it is real to a man walking through it in a way that a woods with no bear is not. Roscoe Black, a man who survived a serious attack by a grizzly in Glacier National Park some years ago, described the moment when the bear had him on the ground: "He lay on me for a few seconds, not doing anything. . . . I could feel his heart beating against my heart." The idea of that heart beating someplace just the other side of ours is what makes people read about bears and tell stories about bears and theorize about bears and argue about bears and dream about bears. Bears are one of the places in the world where big mysteries run close to the surface.

Mystery and innocence are not akin.

Rest enough for the individual man, too much and too soon, and we call it death. But for man, no rest and no ending. He must go on, conquest beyond conquest. First this little planet and all its winds and ways, and then all the laws of mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets about him, and, at last, out across immensities to the stars. And when he has conquered all the deep space, and all the mysteries of time, still he will be beginning.