The world is a mirror of Infinite Beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of light and Peace, did not men disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God. It is more to man since he is fallen than it was before. It is the place of Angels and the Gate of Heaven. When Jacob waked out of his dream, he said, God is here, and I wist it not. How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the House of God and the Gate of Heaven.
— Thomas Traherne, The First Century 31
The unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me; but my deaf ears cannot hear it.
— Kabir I.83 (Tagore 1915)
How resplendent the luminaries of knowledge that shine in an atom, and how vast the oceans of wisdom that surge within a drop!
— Bahá’u’lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán ¶107
The messages cease to be messages when nobody can read them.
O ESSENCE OF NEGLIGENCE!
Myriads of mystic tongues find utterance in one speech, and myriads of hidden mysteries are revealed in a single melody; yet, alas, there is no ear to hear, nor heart to understand.— Bahá’u’lláh, The Hidden Words (Persian) 16
The adventure of the universe depends upon our capacity to listen.
— Swimme and Berry (1992, 44)
The world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover. It becomes as small as one song, as one kiss of the eternal.
— Tagore