Just as a reservoir is of little use when the whole countryside is flooded, scriptures are of little use to the illumined man or woman who sees the Lord everywhere.
To find our spiritual being we must travel down the path made by our spiritual activity.
Blame yourself if ever the devil or your own short-sightedness should do you the disservice of making you want to force all my servants to walk by the same path you yourself follow, for this would be contrary to the teaching given you by my Truth.
I have a form and image for each of My servants. Whatever each of them imagines Me to be, that I am. I am bound to images O my servants, cleanse your thoughts, for they are my dwelling places. Now try yourself and see what is more beneficial to you -- weeping, laughter, fasting, prayer, or retreat. Adopt whichever of these suits you best and causes you to advance more.
There are two paths leading to oneness with God.
The first in the path of acceptance.
Affirm everyone and everything.
Freely extend your goodwill and virtue in every direction, regardless of circumstances.
Embrace all things as part of God, and then you will begin to perceive it.
The second path is that of denial.
Recognize that everything you see and think is a falsehood, an illusion, a veil over the truth.
Peel all the veils away, and you will arrive at that Oneness.
Though these paths are entirely different, they will deliver you to the same place: spontaneous awareness of the God.
It really does not matter what we call it: God or the Tao or the Dharma or the Buddha or our true nature. They are all concepts anyway. It is the act of letting go, of surrendering, that matters. The very act of letting go opens you up completely.
God speaking:
Different ways of worshipping should not be ranked as better or worse. Hindus do Hindu things. The Muslims in India do what they do. It's all praise, and it's all right. It's not me that's glorified in acts of worship. It's the worshipers! I don't hear the words they say. I look inside at the humility & love. That humble love is the reality, not the language! All I want is love. Be friends with your love. Extinguish your thinking and your forms of expression & live in my love!
Give yourself up to God, with regard both to things physical and spiritual, and seek your satisfaction only in the fulfilling of His will, whether He leads you by suffering or by consolation, for all would be equal to a soul truly resigned.
God is the master; you are the servant. God is the loved; you are the lover. God is the food; and you are the guest. "Don't be the food. Be the guest."
Our good Redeemer, by speedily granting what is asked, draws to His love those who are grateful. But He keeps ungrateful souls praying a long time before Him, hungering and thirsting for what they want, since a badly trained dog rushes off as soon as it is given bread and leaves the giver behind.
Renounce for the love of Him, everything that was not He, and you will begin to live as if there was none but He and you in the world.
What the Lord expects of His people is that they be the form in which His action and His influx are manifested. His people accomplishes His will by the mere fact of their receptivity as a form manifesting His power, and you are acknowledged by Him thanks to the mere fact that you manifest this power. Have no action outside of your receptivity which accomplishes the intention of his Lord.
The perfect devotee is not an ecstatic devotee lost in contemplation of Oneness, nor a saintly recluse shunning all commerce with mankind, but "the true saint" goes in and out amongst the people and eats and sleeps with them and buys and sells in the market and marries and takes part in social intercourse, and never forgets God for a single moment.
Your soul endlessly preoccupied by day with the word of God will love to be preoccupied by it in sleep too. This second grace of being preoccupied in sleep is properly a reward for the first preoccupied while awake.
Love alone is worth hunting, how can you catch it with your snare? Become God’s prey, leave your snare and enter God’s!
If someone remarks "What an excellent person you are!" and this pleases you more than them saying, "What a bad person you are!" know that you are still a bad man.
To be a lover you must have pain! Where is your pain? Sincerity and patience are required.
God doesn’t look at anything we do, only how much love we do it with. If we try as hard as we can & advance along God’s way, God will give more for you to do each day. We shouldn’t grow weary; but during this short life, which may be shorter than you think, we should offer God whatever interior and exterior sacrifice we are able to give, and Jesus will unite with it what he offered to the God for us on the cross, so it will have the value won for it by your own will, even though your actions may be trivial.
When you contemplate the Creator, realize that His encampment extends beyond, infinitely beyond, and so, too, in front of you, and behind you, east and west, north and south, above and below, infinitely everywhere. Be aware that God fashioned everything and is within everything. There is nothing else.
As soon as you take Something into your Desire, and receive it for your own then this very Something (of what ever Nature it is) is the same with yourself; and this works with you in your Will, and you are then bound to protect it, and to take Care of it even as of your own Being. But if you do receive no Thing into your Desire, then you are free from All Things, and rule over all Things at once, as a Prince of God. For you have received nothing for your own, and are nothing to all Things; and all Things are as nothing to you. You are as a Child, which understands not what a Thing is; and though you do perhaps understand it, yet you understand it without mixing with it, and without sensibly affecting or touching your Perception, even in that Manner wherein God does rule and see all Things.
If a man is crossing a river and an empty boat collides with his own boat,
even though he be a bad-tempered man he will not become very angry.
But if he sees a man in the boat, he will shout at him to steer clear.
If the shout is not heard, he will shout again, and yet again, and begin cursing.
And all because there is somebody in the boat.
Yet if the boat were empty, he would not be shouting, and not be angry.
If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world,
no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you.
Both a swimmer and a drowned man are in the water; the latter is controlled by the water, while the swimmer is controlled by his own power and of his own choice. Every movement made by the drowned man -- indeed, every act and word that issue from him -- comes from the water, not from him... The saints are like this. They have died before death.
Yield and overcome;
Bend and be straight;
Empty and be full;
Wear out and be new;
Have little and gain;
Have much and be confused.
Going forward seems like retreat.
For one gains by losing
And loses by gaining.
The truth often sounds paradoxical.
Hearing, but not with the ear;
hearing, but not with the understanding;
hearing with the spirit, with your whole being.
The hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty, to the ear, or to the mind.
Hence it demands the emptiness of all the faculties.
And when the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens.
There is then a direct grasp of what is right there before you
that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind.
You should know, moreover, that a person energized by God to such love rises, at that moment, even above faith, since by reason of his great love you now sense consciously in your heart the One whom you previously honored by faith.
Do you know how you can tell when your spiritual love is not perfect? If you are distressed when it seems that those you love are not returning your love or not loving you as much as you think you love them. Or if you are distressed when it seems to you that you are being deprived of their company or comfort, or that they love someone else more than you.
May God steal from you, all that steals you from Him.