846. To say that the passions may be quieted and destroyed without right reasoning and scriptural teaching is the view and discourse of the philosophers; this is not to be practised by the intelligent. – The Lankavatara Sutra (p. 371)

From the highest point of view I saw that matter is frozen energy, and energy is nothing more than mind in motion. That all of it is just mentation! The whole universe is only a mentation. The whole thing is an image in our minds. – Lester Levenson (2003, p. 119)

It is no small thing, God’s kingdom. If one were to consider all possible worlds God might make, that constitutes God’s kingdom. – Meister Eckhart (Walshe, Vol. II, p. 166)

We see that not then for the first time did Divinity begin its work when it made this visible world, but just as after the destruction of this visible world there will be another world, its product, so also we believe that other worlds existed before the present came into being. (Origen, de Principiis, Bk. III, ch. iii, sec.3)

Nothing is born, yet things are being born; nothing dies and yet things are passing away. Across millions of worlds what is seen is like the simultaneous reflection of the moon in many bodies of water. – The Lankavatara Sutra (p. 312)

You are the master of your body and you are the master of your destiny. You create that which is manifest in front of you. You are co-creator here. That which you find in front of you is of your own making and creation, whether on the physical or spiritual planes. – (Cannon, 1996)

And then all of a sudden powers fell in on me. I could know anything anywhere. I saw there were people just like us on endless numbers of planets. – Lester Levenson (2003, p. 70)

Chang drinks; Li becomes tipsy. – Li-Po, poet of the T’ang Dynasty

Yeshua: (Speaking for the first time at the synagogue in Nazareth)

The universes are like a tapestry: you look on the back side and it’s woven like a cloth; you look on the front side and there are pictures and action going on. The back side where it’s woven like a cloth is like the structure of the universes; and the front side where you can see a pattern to it, that is our lives imposed upon the universes. (Cannon, p. 226)

Meister Eckhart:

I take a bowl of water and put a mirror in it and set it out in the sun (to look at the sun without harming the eyes). Then the sun sends forth its light-rays, yet it suffers no diminution. The reflection in the mirror set out in the sun is a sun, and yet the mirror is what it is. So it is with God. God is in the soul with His nature, with His being and with His Godhead, and yet He is not the soul. The reflection in the mirror that is the soul is God, and yet the soul is what she is. God becomes (bhava) when all creatures say ‘God’—then God comes to be. (Sermon Fifty Six, Walshe, Vol. II, p. 81)

Meister Eckhart: (Blakney, 1941)

Being is God . . . because if being is something different from God, God does not exist and there is no God. God and being are the same. If being is something different from God, a thing has its being from something other than God. . . . From God and God alone do all things have their being, one being, true being, good being . . . Every being and every single thing has all its being, and all its unity, truth and goodness immediately from God. . . . God is being. (vii)

All creatures are pure nothing. I do not say they are a trifle or they are anything: they are pure nothing. What has no being, is not. All creatures have no being, for their being consists in the presence of God. If God turned away for an instant from all creatures, they would perish. (Sermon Forty)

He who sees any distinction surely does not see God. For God is one, without number and above number, and He is not numbered with anything. . . . Being and all form are from God . . . therefore no distinction can exist in Him or be thought of. (vii) (From “The Defense”)

Yogananda:

The whole cosmos is a materialized thought of the Creator. This heavy, earthly clod, floating in space, is a dream of God. He made all things out of His consciousness, even as man in his dream consciousness reproduces and animates a creation with its creatures. God first created the earth as an idea. Then He quickened it; energy atoms came into being. He coordinated the atoms into this solid sphere. All its molecules are held together by the will of God. When He withdraws His will, the earth again will disintegrate into energy. Energy will dissolve into consciousness; the earth-idea will disappear from objectivity. (Autobiography of a Yogi)

Deepak Chopra:

Some months ago I was in my office looking over a project that needed some cover art, but I knew no professional illustrators. As soon as I had the thought “I wonder whom I can find?” the phone rang. It was my grown daughter, Mallika, calling from India, and when I mentioned my problem, she immediately suggested an Irish artist named Suzanne Malcolm (not her real name). Neither of us had any idea where she lived. I hung up and thought nothing more about it, until that afternoon when a publisher friend called from London. On the off chance, I asked if he knew Suzanne Malcolm, but he didn’t. An hour later he found himself at a cocktail party when the person next to him got a call on his cellular phone. He put it to his ear and said, “Suzanne?”

My publisher friend gave in to a sudden impulse. “Could that possibly be Suzanne Malcolm you’re talking to?” he asked. Astonishingly, it was. My friend took down her telephone number and also asked her to call me. By this time–we are still on the same day–I had flown to Los Angeles for a scheduled lecture. I was early, however, so I pulled my rental car over to the curb; I had no idea exactly where I was. Checking my messages on the cell phone, I found one from Suzanne Malcolm. This was good news, and I dialed the number she had left me.

“Hello?” a woman’s voice answered.
“Suzanne,” I said, introducing myself, “I was wondering whether you could fly over from Dublin. I think I have an art assignment for you.”
“Well, actually, I’m not in Ireland at the moment. I’m in Los Angeles.”
“Really? Where are you staying?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “Oh yes, it’s 3312 Dominic.” I looked outside the car window and felt a shudder pass through me–I was parked directly in front of her house.

The Buddha: (The Lankavatara Sutra)

Lord of Lanka, beings are appearances; they are like figures painted on a wall that is unchanged by them. Lord of Lanka, all that is in the world is devoid of effort and action because all things have no reality. The teaching is thus: there is nothing heard, no one hearing. Lord of Lanka, all that is in the world is like an image magically transformed. This is not comprehended by the philosophers and the ignorant. Lord of Lanka, he who thus sees things is the one who sees truly. Those who see things otherwise walk in discrimination; as they depend on discrimination, they cling to dualism. It is like seeing one’s own image reflected in a mirror, or the reflection of the moon in water, or seeing one’s shadow in a house, or hearing an echo in a valley. People grasping their own shadows of discrimination uphold the discrimination of dharma and adharma (things and concepts) and, failing to abandon dualism, they go on discriminating and never attain tranquillity. By tranquillity is meant oneness (ekagra), and oneness gives birth to the highest samadhi, which is gained by entering into the Tathagata-womb, which is the realm of noble wisdom realised in one’s inmost self. (Suzuki, 1932, pp. 20-21)

Lester Levenson: (1993)

The material world is just an outward projection of our minds into what we call the world. And when we realize that it is just an outward projection of our minds, just a picture out there that we have created, we begin to understand how easily we can change it, even instantly, by changing our thought. (“Mastering Mind and Matter,” p. 81)

D. T. Suzuki:

“Mind only” (Cittamatra) is an uncouth term. It means absolute mind, to be distinguished from an empirical mind that is the subject of psychological study. When it begins with a capital letter, Cittamatra, it is the ultimate reality on which the entire world of individual objects depends for its value. To realise this truth is the aim of the Buddhist life.

By “what is seen of the Mind-only” is meant this visible world—including that which is generally known as the mind. Our ordinary experience takes this world for something that has its ‘self-nature’, i.e. existing by itself. But a higher intuition tells us that this is not so, that it is an illusion, and that what really exists is Mind, which being absolute knows no other. All that we see and hear and think of as objects of discriminating consciousness are what rise and disappear in and of the Mind-only.

Ordinarily, all our cognitive apparatus is made to work outwardly in a world of relativity, and for this reason we become deeply involved in it so that we fail to realize the freedom we all intrinsically possess; as a result we are beset on all sides. To turn away from all this . . . a ‘turning-about’ or ‘revolution’ (paravrittasraya) must take place in our inmost consciousness. This is not however a mere empirical psychological fact to be explained in terms of consciousness; rather, it takes place in the deepest recesses of our being.  (The Lankavatara Sutra, 1932)

Meister Eckhart: (On Detachment)

A master called Avicenna declares that the mind of him who stands detached is of such nobility that whatever he sees is true, and whatever he desires he obtains, and whatever he commands must be obeyed. And this you must know for sure: when the free mind is quite detached, it constrains God to itself . . . (Walshe, Vol. III, p. 120)

Yen-shou: (Tsung-ching lu, 961)

Moreover, the monk Fa-tsung obtained freedom in his mind, and was without troubles because he had heard the preaching of the teacher Hui-min. He came to realize that all sense data are the same. If one does not contemplate the mind, everything revolves around the movement of things. For this reason, the Ta-ch-eng Ju-tao An-hsin fa says,

“If you consider something that is right to be right, then there is something that is wrong. If you consider the wrong to be right, then there is nothing that is wrong. One gate of wisdom enters into 100,000 gates of wisdom. If one sees a pillar and sees it to be a pillar, this is to see the appearance of a pillar, and so interpret it to be a pillar. Observe that the mind is the phenomenon of ‘pillar’ without the appearance of the pillar. Therefore, as soon as one sees a pillar, one will seize the phenomenon of ‘pillar’. See all forms and matter as being the same.”

An elegy of the Hua-yen ching says, “All the things of the world take the mind as the master. . . .” (from Jorgensen, p. 387)

D. T. Suzuki: (1953)

When a Zen disciple asked Tung-shan, “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the west?” he said, “Wait until the dark stone turtle begins to talk, when I’ll tell you the meaning of the Patriarch’s coming here.”

Tung-shan’s answer to Lung-ya was of the same impossible order when the latter wished to know the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming, for he said, “Wait until the River Dong flows backward when this will be told to you.” The strange thing was that the river did run backwards and Lung-ya understood the meaning of this remark. (“The Secret Message of Bodhidharma,” p. 235)

Hakuin: (As told to him by the sage Hakuyo)

“The true essence does not exist apart from the Tao; the Tao does not exist apart from the true essence. Once the six desires are dispelled and the working of the five senses is forgotten, the primal, undifferentiated energy will gather to repletion before your very eyes. One morning, you will experience a sudden overturning, and then everywhere, within and without the entire universe, will become a single immense piece of pure essence.

“When that happens, you will realize for the first time that you yourself are a genuine sage, as unborn as heaven and earth, as undying as empty space. At that moment, your efforts to refine the essence will attain fruition. This is not a superficial feat such as raising winds or riding mists, shrinking space, or walking over water, the kind of thing that can be performed by lesser sages. For you, the object is to churn the Great Sea into finest butter, to transform the great Earth into purest gold.” (Waddell, pp. 98-99)

Meister Eckhart: (Sermon Eighty Seven)

For in that essence of God in which God is above being and distinction, there I was myself and knew myself so as to make this man. Therefore I am my own cause according to my essence, which is eternal, and not according to my becoming, which is temporal. Therefore I am unborn, and according to my unborn mode I can never die. According to my unborn mode I have eternally been, am now and shall eternally remain. That which I am by virtue of birth must die and perish, for it is mortal, and so must perish with time. In my birth all things were born, and I was the cause of myself and all things: and if I had so willed it, I would not have been, and all things would not have been. (Walshe, Vol. II, p. 274-275)

The Buddha: (The Lankavatara Sutra)

Said Mahamati, What is meant by the will-body (manomakaya), Blessed One?

The Blessed One replied: It means that one can speedily move unobstructed as he wills; hence the will-body, Mahamati. For instance, Mahamati, the will travels unobstructed over mountains, walls, rivers, trees, etc., no matter how far away they may be, when a man recollects the scenes which he had previously viewed, while his own mind keeps on functioning in his body without the least interruption or hindrance. (Suzuki, 1932, p. 81)

The Diamond Sutra: (Goddard and Suzuki, 1932)

The Lord Buddha continued: “If there were as many river Ganges as there are grains of sand in the river Ganges, and if there were as many Buddha-lands as there are grains of sand in all the innumerable rivers, would these Buddha-lands be numerous?”

Subhuti replied: “Buddha-lands are innumerable.”

The Lord Buddha continued: “Subhuti, within these innumerable worlds are every form of sentient life with all their various mental capacities, dispositions, and temperaments, all alike are fully known to the Tathagatas, and the Tathagatas are filled with compassion for them.

Lester Levenson: (1993)

Q: What does it feel like to be infinite?
Lester: Absolutely no limitation in any direction whatsoever. No limitations, total freedom from everything—needing no food, no oxygen, no job. Instantly materializing anything you want. Being anywhere in the universe. Being as tall as you want, or the size of an atom. Being at perfect peace and contentment, Being in the most delightful state possible.
Q: What happens to this body when that happens?
Lester: To really know that you should experience what you are. Otherwise the reality of the body cannot be understood. When you see what you are, only then do you know what the body is. It turns out to be a thought. A thought just like in a night dream, when you dreamed about being a body in a situation. And when you awoke you said, “Oh my gosh, that was all in my mind.” The same thing happens to this body when you wake up from this dream, called the waking state. You see the body, but you know it to be the dream-nature that it is. (Session 35, “Thou Art That” p. 358)

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Three problems are put by nature to the mind; What is matter? Whence is it? and Whereto? The first of these questions only, the ideal theory answers. Idealism saith: matter is a phenomenon, not a substance. . . the world is a divine dream, from which we may presently awake to the glories and certainties of day. . . . But when we come to inquire, Whence is matter? and Whereto? many truths arise to us out of the recesses of consciousness. We learn that the highest is present to the soul of man, that the dread universal essence, which is not wisdom, or love, or beauty, or power, but all in one, and each entirely, is that for which all things exist, and that by which they are; that spirit creates; that behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is present; one and not compound, it does not act upon us from without, that is, in space and time, but spiritually, or through ourselves: therefore, that spirit, that is, the Supreme Being, does not build up nature around us, but puts it forth through us. As a plant upon the earth, so a man rests upon the bosom of God; he is nourished by unfailing fountains, and draws, at his need, inexhaustible power. Who can set bounds to the possibilities of man? Once inhale the upper air, being admitted to behold the absolute natures of justice and truth, and we learn that man has access to the entire mind of the Creator, is himself the creator in the finite. This view, which admonishes me where the sources of wisdom and power lie, and points to virtue as to “The golden key which opens the palace of eternity,” carries upon its face the highest certificate of truth, because it [motivates] me to create my own world through the purification of my soul. (Nature)

Lester: 

There is life all over the universe, and it goes on forever. After I went free, I parked my carcass on land outside of town and decided to take a look at space. What I found is that humans are the highest form of life. They only differ in three things: body size, body density, and spiritual awareness. There are some planets so large that the people living there are one mile tall; of course, they are relative in size to the world they live in.  (A man standing next to a being one mile tall would be comparable to a being two millimeters tall standing next to a man. – Editor)

You just think yourself there, and you arrive. I went to Mars and landed in a field of elephant-ear plants. It was when Mars was a physical planet like Earth. Now it is an astral planet, and what we see is the remainder of a bygone age. (Seretan, 2008)

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Cannon, Dolores (1992). Jesus and the Essenes: Fresh insights into Christ’s ministry and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Bath: Gateway Books.

Cannon, Dolores (1996). Between Death and Life: Conversations with a Spirit. Bath: Gateway Books.

Chopra, Deepak (2000). How-to-Know-God: The Soul’s Journey into the Mystery of Mysteries. New York: Harmony Books.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1849). Nature. Boston and Cambridge: James Munroe and Company. (Project Gutenberg ebook)

Goddard, Dwight (1932). A Buddhist Bible (First Edition). (http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bb/index.htm)

Jorgensen, John A. (1979). The Earliest Text of Ch’an Buddhism: The Long Scroll. The Australian National University. (download)

Lanza, Robert (2009). Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe. Dallas, Texas: BenBella Books, Inc. (download)

Levenson, Lester (1993). Keys to the Ultimate Freedom: Thoughts and Talks on Personal Transformation. Phoenix, Arizona: Sedona Institute. (http://www.freespiritualebooks.com/keys-to-the-ultimate-freedom.html)

Levenson, Lester (2003). No Attachments, No Aversions: The Autobiography of a Master. Lawrence Crane Enterprises.

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M. O’C. Walshe (1990). Meister Eckhart: Sermons & Treatises Volume III. UK: Element Books Limited.