Having All - And Nothing

Everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into the one or the other, according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words: 'For my sake was the world created,' and in his left: 'I am earth and ashes.'  Rabbi Bunum of Pzhysha

All glorification of me cometh short of the measure, as doth all contempt.  Al-Alawi

He who clearly sees that, while treating things as things, he is no thing himself - how could he be content only to govern the hundred clans of the world…? He is the Sole Possessor.  Chuang-tzu

Do not your inclinations tell you that the world is yours?  Traherne

You talk about those who renounce the world, but in actual fact it is you yourself who have renounced everything. What is 'everything'? God! Leaving Him aside, everyone is literally practising supreme renunciation!  Anandamayi Ma

If the soul would but stay within, she would have everything.  Eckhart

Man is the dwarf of himself. Once he was permeated and dissolved by spirit. He filled nature with his overflowing currents… But, having made for himself this huge shell, his waters retired; he no longer fills the veins and veinlets; he is shrunk to a drop. He sees that the structure still fits him, but fits him colossally. Say, rather, once it fitted him, now it corresponds to him from far on high.  Emerson

More, more! is the cry of a mistaken soul; less than All cannot satisfy man.  Blake

Zen masters are totally identified with Nature.  D.T. Suzuki

We call the holding in the hand, or the house, or the pocket, having; but things so held cannot really be had.  George Macdonald


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