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1 " Om is not just a sound or vibration. It is not just a symbol. It is the entire cosmos, whatever we can see, touch, hear and feel. Moreover, it is all that is within our perception and all that is beyond our perception. It is the core of our very existence. If you think of Om only as a sound, a technique or a symbol of the Divine, you will miss it altogether. Om is the mysterious cosmic energy that is the substratum of all the things and all the beings of the entire universe. It is an eternal song of the Divine. It is continuously resounding in silence on the background of everything that exists. "
― Amit Ray , Om Chanting and Meditation
2 " You may have read or heard about the so-called positive thinkers of the West. They sayjust the opposite -- they don't know what they are saying. They say, " When you breatheout, throw out all your misery and negativity; and when you breathe in, breathe in joy,positivity, happiness, cheerfulness." Atisha's method is just the opposite: when you breathe in, breathe in all the misery andsuffering of all the beings of the world -- past, present and future. And when you breatheout, breathe out all the joy that you have, all the blissfulness that you have, all thebenediction that you have. Breathe out, pour yourself into existence. This is the methodof compassion: drink in all the suffering and pour out all the blessings.And you will be surprised if you do it. The moment you take all the sufferings of theworld inside you, they are no longer sufferings. The heart immediately transforms theenergy. The heart is a transforming force: drink in misery, and it is transformed intoblissfulness... then pour it out.Once you have learned that your heart can do this magic, this miracle, you would like todo it again and again. Try it. It is one of the most practical methods -- simple, and itbrings immediate results. Do it today, and see.That is one of the approaches of Buddha and all his disciples. Atisha is one of hisdisciples, in the same tradition, in the same line. Buddha says again and again to hisdisciples, " IHI PASSIKO: come and see!" They are very scientific people. Buddhism isthe most scientific religion on the earth; hence, Buddhism is gaining more and moreground in the world every day. As the world becomes more intelligent, Buddha willbecome more and more important. It is bound to be so. As more and more people come toknow about science, Buddha will have great appeal, because he will convince thescientific mind -- because he says, " Whatsoever I am saying can be practiced." And Idon't say to you, " Believe it," I say, " Experiment with it, experience it, and only then ifyou feel it yourself, trust it. Otherwise there is no need to believe. "
3 " We, of all the beings that we know of, can think. We can eat, write, build, save. We can predict, estimate, and count. We can preserve food for lifetimes, and in times of crisis, we can find ways to ensure our survival. With each passing generation, our sphere of control of our existence is larger. What if the earth is hit by an asteroid or there is no way to stop global warming? We look to colonize other planets. The fate of our species, in a few years, will not be tied to the fate of the earth. Our home planet must be cared for ... but as we go interplanetary and then interstellar, our control on our lives and the evolution of our species grows. As far as we know, we are the only species that has a say in the development of its future. "
― Tarun Betala , The Things We Don't Know (A Shared Human Future #1)
4 " My father,' I replied, 'I am fond of action. I like to succour the afflicted, and make people happy. Command that there be built for me a tower, from whose top I can see the whole earth, and thus discover the places where my help would be of most avai1.''To do good, without ceasing, to mankind, a race at once flighty and ungrateful, is a more painful task than you imagine,' said Asfendarmod. ------After saying these words, my father motioned to us to retire; and immediately I found myself in a tower, built on the summit of Mount Caf - a tower whose outer walls were lined with numberless mirrors that reflected, though hazily and as in a kind of dream, a thousand varied scenes then being enacted on the earth. Asfendarmod's power had indeed annihilated space, and brought me not only within sight of all the beings thus reflected in the mirrors, but also within sound of their voices and of the very words they uttered. (“The Story of The Peri Homaiouna”) "
― William Beckford , The Episodes of Vathek
5 " The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree.I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during former years may represent the long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all the growing twigs have tried to branch out on all sides, and to overtop and kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species and groups of species have at all times overmastered other species in the great battle for life. The limbs divided into great branches, and these into lesser and lesser branches, were themselves once, when the tree was young, budding twigs; and this connection of the former and present buds by ramifying branches may well represent the classification of all extinct and living species in groups subordinate to groups. Of the many twigs which flourished when the tree was a mere bush, only two or three, now grown into great branches, yet survive and bear the other branches; so with the species which lived during long-past geological periods, very few have left living and modified descendants. From the first growth of the tree, many a limb and branch has decayed and dropped off; and these fallen branches of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and genera which have now no living representatives, and which are known to us only in a fossil state. As we here and there see a thin straggling branch springing from a fork low down in a tree, and which by some chance has been favoured and is still alive on its summit, so we occasionally see an animal like the Ornithorhynchus or Lepidosiren, which in some small degree connects by its affinities two large branches of life, and which has apparently been saved from fatal competition by having inhabited a protected station. As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications. "
― Charles Darwin
6 " My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness, that human experience continues beyond the grave. More important, it continues under the gaze of a God who loves and cares about each one of us and about where the Universe itself and all the beings withing it are ultimately goind. "
― Eben Alexander , Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife
