The temples of Nara
Jim Eliason 1:31 p.m., May 20
Literary and Spiritual Excerpts
The Narada Smriti
Truth is said to be the one unequalled means of purification of the soul. Truth is the ladder by which man ascends to heaven, as a ferry plies from one bank of a river to ...
The Vishnu Smriti
Even were he to die with him, a kinsman is unable to follow his dead relative: all excepting his wife are forbidden to follow him on the path of Yama [the god of death]…. Of ...
The Manu-Smrti
This universe existed in the shape of darkness, unperceived, destitute of distinctive marks, unattainable by reasoning, unknowable, wholly immersed, as it were, in deep sleep. Then the divine self-existent, himself indiscernible, but making all this, ...
The Satapatha-Brahmana (The Brahmana of the Hundred Paths)
Death spake unto the gods, “Surely, on this wise all men will become immortal, and what share will then be mine?” They spake, “Henceforward no one shall be immortal with the body: only when thou ...
The Atharva-veda
The great guardian among these gods sees as if from anear. He that thinketh he is moving stealthily — all this the gods know. If a man stands, walks, or sneaks about, if he goes ...
Al-Juwayni
[The prophets] bring both what reason cannot deny and would not be guided to independently; provisions of the Law, the Divine promises and threats, on which depend judgments and which reason would not perceive, even ...
Al-Ash’ari
Question: Is God free to inflict pain on infants in the next life? Answer: God is free to do that, and in doing it He would be just. Likewise, whenever He inflicts an infinite punishment ...
Official Proclamation of the First Thanksgiving
To all ye Pilgrims: Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, squashes, and garden vegetable, and has made the forest to abound with game ...
Al-Maturidi
The Maker must be one, since if there were two they would necessarily either concur or not concur in their creating. Now agreement would be evidence of the weakness of both or either of them, ...
Mary Karr
After ten months praying in a cave in Manresa, St. Ignatius received a vision that permitted him “to see God in all things” — the stated goal of his Spiritual Exercises, which are part of ...
Thomas More
Many things know we that we seldom think on: and in the things of the soul, the knowledge without the remembrance little profiteth. What availeth it to know that there is a God, which thou ...
Francois Villon
Unto thy Son say thou that I am His, And to me graceless make Him gracious. Sad Mary of Egypt lacked not of that bliss, Nor yet when sorrowful clerk Theophilus, Whose bitter sins were ...
Francesco Petrarch
How often on that day, think you, did I not on the return journey look back upon the peak of the mountain! In comparison with the loftiness of human contemplation, unless one is mired in ...
Lucretius
This terror, then, this darkness of the mind, Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light, Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse, But only Nature’s aspect and her law, Which, teaching us, hath this ...
Homeric Hymn
O universal Mother, who dost keep From everlasting thy foundations deep, Eldest of things, Great Earth, I sing of thee! All shapes that have their dwelling in the sea, All things that fly, or on ...
