Losing Everything

Peeling The Onion

"I think I'll go and meet her," said Alice…
"You can't possibly do that," said the Rose, "I should advise you to walk the other way."
This sounded nonsense to Alice, so she said nothing, but set off at once towards the Red Queen. To her surprise, she lost sight of her in a moment.  Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass"

You are like a mirage in the desert, which the thirsty man thinks is water; but when he comes up to it he finds it is nothing. And where he thought it was, there he finds God. Similarly, if you were to examine yourself, you would find it to be nothing, and instead you would find God. That is to say, you would find God instead of yourself, and there would be nothing left of you but a name without a form.  Al-Alawi

As rivers lose name and shape in the sea, wise men lose name and shape in God, glittering beyond all distance.  Mundaka Upanishad

The notion that a man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do by… melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid.  Blake

The outward and the inward man are as different as earth and heaven.  Eckhart

Jesus said: What I now seem to be, that am I not… And so speak I, separating off the manhood.  Acts of John

He (Ezekiel) saw a city set on a hill sloping towards the south, which measured no more than a rod in length and breadth, that is, six cubits and a palm. But when he was brought into the city and looked about him he thought it was very spacious… many hundred cubits in length and breadth. It was extraordinary to him that this city which was so spacious within appeared so small when he stood outside.  Walter Hilton

The Tathagata divides his own body into innumerable bodies, and also restores an infinite number of bodies to one body. Now he becomes cities, villages, houses… Now he has a large body, now he has a small body.  Mahaparinirvana Sutra

Through the Unity shall everyone find himself. Through knowledge shall he be purified from a manifold creature to a unity, in that like a fire he absorbs the material in himself, darkness into light, death into life.  Gospel of Truth

I have no concern for my composite form. I no longer have colour or tangibility or size; I am a stranger to all these things. Now you see me, my child, with your eyes, but cannot understand what I am by staring at me.  Hermetica

All that has form, sound, colour, may be classed under the head thing… But a man can attain to formlessness and vanquish death. And with that which is in possession of the eternal, how can mere things compare?  Chuang-tzu

You must tear off from around you this tunic which you wear - this fabric of ignorance, this support of wickedness, this bondage of corruption, this cloak of darkness, this living death, this sensate corpse, this tomb you carry around with you.  Hermetica

When Pu-liang Yi put the world and all things and all life outside himself, he achieved the brightness of dawn and could see his aloneness.  Chuang-tzu

The reality of the formless, the unreality of that which has form!  Chuang-tzu

When all things are reduced to naught in you then ye shall see God.  Eckhart

Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb,
Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him?  Tennyson

Destroy yourself, because any form or shape is the cause of the trouble. Give up the notion 'I am so and so.' 'I am this, I am that' is the ego.  Ramana Maharshi

Unform thyself.  Tauler

While keeping my physical frame, I lost sight of my real self. Gazing at muddy water, I lost sight of the clear abyss.  Chuang-tzu

For a Self-realised being the body does not exist.  Anandamayi Ma

When the kingdom of Pure Consciousness has been attained, form is revealed as the Essence itself. What was sorrow from the worldly point of view is now viraha, separation from THAT; in other words, the agony of existing in a particular form.  Anandamayi Ma

Every visible and invisible creature is a theophany or appearance of God.  Erigena


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