What hinders men from seeing and hearing God, is their own hearing, seeing and willing; by their own wills they separate themselves from the will of God. They see and hear within their own desires, which obstructs them from seeing and hearing God. Terrestrial and material things overshadow them, and they cannot see beyond their own human nature. If they would be still, desist from thinking and feeling with their own self-hood, subdue the self-will, enter into a state of resignation, into a divine union with Christ, who sees God, and hears God, and speaks with him, who knows the word and will of God; then would the eternal hearing seeing and speaking become revealed to them. – Jacob Boehme (1575-1624 C.E.)

The alchemical process is a method for self-knowledge that the soul undergoes far outside its realm of existence. – Mary Anne Atwood, Hermetic Philosophy & Alchemy

The jewel has been lost in matter and everybody is looking for it. Some look for it in the east and some in the west, some in water and some among stones. But the servant Kabir has found its value and has it wrapped with care in the seam of the mantle of his heart. – Rabindranath. Tagore, Kabir

I feel that all stars shine in me. The world is breaking as flood through my life. The flowers are opening in my body. Youthfulness of earth and water is burning like incense in my heart, and the breath of all things is playing as on a flute through my thoughts. – Paltu Sahib. ca. 1710

. . . the thing which we think the least of, that part of ourselves which we repress perhaps the most, or which we despise, is just the part which contains the mystery. – C. G. Jung.