TERMS STARTING WITH
God of Israel.” They aggregate “thousand times
God of this Age (or God of This World)—see
god of fire and mediator (angel) between gods and
TERMS ANYWHERE
According to one account, the creation of the world and especially of mankind is ascribed to Bel. He is also called father of the gods; and his consort, Belit, is called mother of the gods. His eldest son is Sin, god of the Moon. Bel also brings about the deluge which destroys humanity, showing his dual aspect of evolver and destroyer.
Adad is a national and guardian deity of the Syrian races and the Edomites, found as early as 3000 BC in Syrian cuneiform tablets. In the Babylo-Assyrian pantheon ’Adad is named in the second divine triad, that of the life-giving nature forces, with Shamash (the sun god) and Sin (the moon deity), and is always represented with a bull. In the Babylonian flood myth Adad is the god of storms, rains, and harvests, whose emblem is the thunderbolt, apparently the Semitic equivalent of the Greek Zeus, Roman Jupiter, and Norse Thor. His consort is Atargatis (Astarte, Asthoreth, Ishtar) who at times takes his place. See also AD, SONS OF
Adapa: In Babylonian mythology, the name of a hero created and endowed with wisdom by Ea, whose temple at Eridu he was to tend. Summoned before Anu, god of the sky, he unwittingly refused immortality.
Adonai: Hebrew word, meaning The Lord, used by Jews in speech and in writing instead of the name Jehovah, the mystic name of the God of Israel, which must not be pronounced.
Adunai (Gnostic) Used by the Ophites and Nazarenes in connection with Iurbo. “Iurbo and Adunai, according to the Ophites, are names of Iao-Jehovah, one of the emanations of Ilda-Baoth”; and Adunai “under the polishing hand of Ezra becomes finally the later-vowelled Adonai of the Massorah — the One and Supreme God of the Christians” (IU 2:185, 131).
Aegir: The sea god of Norse mythology.
aeolian ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Aeolia or Aeolis, in Asia Minor, colonized by the Greeks, or to its inhabitants; aeolic; as, the Aeolian dialect.
Pertaining to Aeolus, the mythic god of the winds; pertaining to, or produced by, the wind; aerial.
aeolus ::: n. --> The god of the winds.
Aesculapius, Asklepios God of healing and medicine, son of Apollo by Coronis, educated by the centaur Chiron. When Aesculapius brought the dead back to life, Zeus at the behest of Hades killed him with a thunderbolt.
aesculapius ::: n. --> The god of medicine. Hence, a physician.
Aesculapius: The Roman god of healing and medicine.
Aesir (Icelandic) [from ass the ridgepole supporting a roof] plural ases; feminine asynja, feminine plural asynjor. Creative gods of the Norse Eddas, inhabiting Asgard (gard, yard or estate), where they retire to feast on the “mead” of experience gained in spheres of life. The twelve deities who build their mansions on various “shelves” of our universe are: Odin Allfather, who occurs on every level of life and is inherent in every living thing; his consort, Frigga; Thor, the power of life and electromagnetism, who corresponds to the Tibetan fohat and in one aspect corresponds to Jove; Balder, the sun god; Njord, the Norse Saturn; Tyr, the Norse Mars; Frey, the deity of planet Earth; Freya, of Venus; Hermod (an aspect of Odin), of Mercury. Heimdall, “the whitest Ase,” is the watcher on the rainbow bridge who sounds the gjallarhorn (loud horn) at Ragnarok when a world ends. Brage is poetic inspiration. The most mysterious and lofty ase is Ull, a cold, wintry (unmanifest) world. Paradoxically, “blessed is he who first touches the fire” of that sphere. Forsete is the god of justice who corresponds to the lipikas, agents of karma.
Agneya (Sanskrit) Āgneya [from agni fire] Belonging to or consecrated to fire or the god of fire, Agni. A name of the god of war (Skanda, Karttikeya, etc.); also, the son of Agni.
Agni2 (Agni; Agnih) ::: the god of Fire; in Sri Aurobindo"s interpretation of the Veda, the deva as the master of tapas, "the divine Consciousness formulating itself in universal energy"; he is the "secret inhabitant of Matter and its forms" and "the power of conscious Being, called by us will, effective behind the workings of mind and body"; his "divine birth-place and home, ::: though he is born everywhere and dwells in all things, ::: is the Truth, the Infinity, the vast cosmic Intelligence in which Knowledge and Force are unified".
Agnibhu (Sanskrit) Agnibhū [from agni fire + the verbal root bhū to be, become] Fireborn; one of the names of Karttikeya or Skanda, god of war; applied to the Kshatriyas or warrior caste, whose ancestors were said to have sprung from fire (TG 10). Also a Vedic teacher.
Agniputra (Sanskrit) Agniputra [from agni fire + putra son, offspring] Son of Agni, fire; a name of the god of war, Skanda or Karttikeya (cf MB, skanda 9). While every individual of the numerous hierarchies which infill, and indeed are, space, is an offspring or “son” of the cosmic spirit or fire, Agniputra particularly designates one whose characteristic qualities make him an active instead of a passive or quasi-passive agent in the cosmic drama. Thus it is that the planet Mars and its influences — or Skanda, the god of war of the Mahabharata — because of their characteristic intense activity of a fiery type are referred to as Agniputra.
Agni Rudra ::: Agni2, the god of Force, identified with Rudra2, "the Divine as master of our evolution by violence and battle".Agni Tvasta
Agni (Sanskrit) Agni [from the verbal root ag to move tortuously, wind] Fire; as god of fire, one of the most revered of Vedic deities. As mediator between gods and humans, from whose body issue “a thousand streams of glory and seven tongues of flame,” Agni represents the divine essence or celestial fire present in every atom of the universe. Often used synonymously with the adityas. The three chief gods of Vedas are Agni, Vayu, and Surya — fire, air, and the sun — whose elements respectively are earth, air, and sky. One of the four lokapalas or world-protectors, Agni is guardian of the southeast quarter, and in the Rig-Veda as Matarisvan, messenger of Vivasvat, the sun, Agni brought down the “hidden fire” for humankind. To “kindle a fire,” therefore, is synonymous to evoking one of the three great fire-powers or “to call on God” (SD 2:114).
agni. ::: the fire element; vedic God of fire
Agni: The Vedic god of fire.
Agrasamdhani (Sanskrit) Agrasaṃdhānī [from agra foremost, beginning + sam together, with + the verbal root dhā to fasten, unite] That which is fastened or strung together from the beginning; the register of human actions kept by Yama, Hindu god of the dead; linked with Chitragupta, scribe of Yama, who records in the Agrasamdhani the deeds and thoughts of every human being (cf MB 13). See also LIPIKA
Agruerus (Phoenician) The great god of the Phoenicians, identical with Kronos or Saturn. His seven sons were analogous to the titans or kabiri “connected with the Flood and the seven Rishis” (SD 2:142).
Ahi (Sanskrit) Ahi [from the verbal root aṃh to press together, strangle] A serpent; in the Rig-Veda, the serpent of the sky, also called Vritra, mythologically referred to as the demon of darkness and drought who absorbed the cosmic waters. Indra, god of the sky and rainmaker, battles with Ahi and finally slays him, releasing the waters across the land.
Ahti (Finnish) Finnish god of water, pictured as an old man and helpful to fishermen; his wife is Vellamo. Also a name for Lemminkainen, called the dragon of knowledge in the Kalevala.
Ahuramazda (P) Creator god of the Zoroastrian religion
Aij-Taion The chief god of one of the Yakut tribes of Siberia who dwell principally near the Lena River. This deity presides at the formation of all the worlds, although not producing them itself. Aij-Taion is stationed on the ninth heaven, whereas the minor deities are located in the seventh heaven.
ainsoph ::: Ain Soph Ain-Soph translates into 'without end' (Ain = without, Sof = End). It is a name for the God of Kabbalism, symbolising total unity beyond comprehension. It is within Ain-Soph that all opposites exist in complete ignorance of their differences. The Ain-Soph is NO THING, does not exist, is unable to be described or fathomed, and cannot possibly be discussed in terms of Being or Non-Being. Many people have tried to describe the Ain-Soph by what he is not, without success. See also The Sephiroth.
Akert (Egyptian) Ȧḳert. Name for the underworld, of which Osiris in his aspect of Un-nefer was the lord. Also the name of the god of the fifth hour of the day.
Al-ait (Phoenician) The god of fire, a “very mystic name in Koptic occultism” (TG 14).
Aletae (Phoenician) [from Al-ait the god of fire] Fire worshipers; the seven kabiri or rishis, the titans, sons of Agruerus or Kronos. In one of aspect, synonymous with the maruts.
ama2 ::: the god of Desire (kama1), identified with Aniruddha.
Ammon-Ra (Greek) Ámmōn-Rā Amen-Ra (Egyptian) Ȧmen-Rā. When the princes of Thebes had conquered all rival claimants to the sovereignty of Egypt and established themselves as rulers of the dual Empires, they followed in religious, mystical, and occult matters the thought of the powerful priesthood of Thebes. Thus after the 12th dynasty a new manner of visioning the ancient god Ammon came into prominence, under the name Ammon-Ra, although the latter’s preeminence as chief god of Egypt did not occur until the 17th dynasty. The attributes of the hidden deity Ammon were combined with the solar god Ra, and this deity was acclaimed by the priests as the chief of the gods of Egypt. Ammon-Ra seems to be devoid of most, at least, of the mystical symbols that are present in representations of the older deities, although the hymns to the god that were carefully prepared by the priests incorporated all the attributes and phraseology prevalent in the other scriptures.
Amon; Ammon: Originally a local god of Thebes in ancient Egypt, later identified with Amon-Ra (q.v.).
Amon-Ra: The Egyptian king of the gods, creator of the universe; originally the god of Thebes, later supreme god of all Egypt.
Amun (Coptic) The god of hidden or secret wisdom, equivalent to the Egyptian Ammon or Amen. See also POT AMUN
ana deva ::: a god of knowledge. j ñanadharanasamarthyam
an ancient Semitic god of the flocks who was later
Ananta: Infinite; endless; the name of Sesha, the chief god of the serpent-world.
Anatum or Antum (Chaldean) Consort of the god of heaven, Anu, supreme god of the Assyro-Babylonian pantheon. Whereas Anu represented heaven and height, Anatum represented the earth and depth. She was regarded as the mother of the gods, as well as being the mother of the god Ea or Hea. “Astronomically she is Ishtar, Venus, the Ashtoreth of the Jews” (TG 21). Anu and Anatum correspond to Ouranos and Gaia in Hesiod, and therefore in one of her mystical significances Anatum corresponds with the Hindu prakriti.
Anjana (Sanskrit) Añjanā [feminine of añjana] The mother of Hanumat or Hanuman, the celebrated monkey god of the Ramayana, who is therefore called Anjaneya (son of Anjana). In her previous birth she was a goddess, but due to a curse was born as a monkey in the Himalayas. The birth of her son, Hanuman, lifted the curse and after a period Anjana ascended to svarga (heaven).
An: The Sumerian god of heaven.
anthropomorphology ::: n. --> The application to God of terms descriptive of human beings.
Anu; Anum: The Babylonian and Assyrian god of heaven, ruler of destiny, king of gods, chief of the Babylonian triad of gods (the other two were Ea and Enlil).
Anubis (Greek) Anpu (Egyptian) Ȧnpu. The Egyptian jackal-headed deity, lord of the Silent Land of the West (the underworld). To him with Thoth was entrusted the psychopompic leading of the dead. In the judgment after death, Anubis tests the balance in the scene of the weighing of the heart. His offices were likewise those of the embalmer, mystically speaking. Originally the god of the underworld, he was later replaced by Osiris. In Heliopolis during the later dynasties he was identified with Horus, for he was often regarded as the son of Osiris and Isis — more often of Osiris and Nephthys (Neith). Plutarch writes: “By Anubis they understand the horizontal circle, which divides the invisible part of the world, which they call Nephthys, from the visible, to which they give the name of Isis; and as this circle equally touches upon the confines of both light and darkness, it may be looked upon as common to them both . . . Others again are of opinion that by Anubis is meant Time . . . ” (On Isis and Osiris, sec 44).
Anubis: The jackal-headed god of ancient Egypt, son of Osiris; he presides over the embalming of the dead, leads them to the hall of judgment and supervises the weighing of their hearts.
Anu (Chaldean) Supreme god of the Babylonian pantheon, king of angels and spirits, ruler of destiny, lord of the city of Erech or Uruk — later Ur. One of the loftiest of Babylonian divinities, part of a trinity with Enlil and Ea, he was especially the god of heaven, creator of star spirits and of the demons of cold, rain, and darkness. His consort Antum or Anatum was mother of the gods. Anu was the concealed deity; in the Chaldean account of Genesis, he is the passive deity, however, “the primordial chaos, the god time and world at once, chronos, and kosmos, the uncreated matter issued from the one and fundamental principle of all things” (IU 2:423).
Apis: The bull-headed god of ancient Egypt, regarded as an incarnation of Osiris. Also, a black bull with distinctive markings, whose worship was linked with various deities.
Apollo (Greek) Also called Phoebus (the pure, shining); son of Zeus and Leto (Latona), the polar region or night, and twin brother of Artemis (Diana). His birth shows the emanation of light from darkness. One of the most popular gods of Greek mythology, he is primarily the god of light, and is also associated with the sun, hence a giver of life, light, and wisdom to the earth and humanity. Apollo and Artemis are the mystic sun and the higher occult moon (SD 2:771). Apollo stands for order, justice, law, and purification by penance. His attribute as a punisher of evil is shown by his bow, with which as an infant he slew Python. He is the deity who wards off evil; the healer, father of Aesculapius and often identified with him; and the god of divination, associated especially with the Oracle at Delphi. The other principal seat of his worship was at Delos, his birthplace. He was also the patron of song and music, of new civic foundations, and protector of crops and flocks. His lyre is the sacred heptachord or septenary, seen in the sevenfold manifestations of the Logos in the universe and man; he is also the sun with its seven planets. He answers in some respects to the Hindu Indra and Karttikeya and in others to the Christian archangel Michael; Janus was the Roman god of light.
apollo ::: n. --> A deity among the Greeks and Romans. He was the god of light and day (the "sun god"), of archery, prophecy, medicine, poetry, and music, etc., and was represented as the model of manly grace and beauty; -- called also Phebus.
Apsaras (Sanskrit) Apsaras [from ap water + saras flowing from the verbal root sṛ to flow, glide, blow (as of wind)] Moving in the waters; a class of feminine divinities known as celestial water nymphs, whose location is commonly placed in the sky between the clouds rather than in the waters of earth, although they are often described as visiting earth. These fairy-like wives of the gandharvas (celestial musicians) can change their shape at will, often appearing as aquatic birds. In Manu they are held to be the creations of the seven manus, but in the Puranas and the Ramayana their origin is attributed to the churning of the cosmic waters, and it is said that neither gods nor asuras would have them for wives. Since mythologically they were common to all, they are called Sumadatmajas (self-willed pleasurers) — 35 million of them, of whom Kama, god of love, is lord and king. One of their roles is to act as temptresses to those too ardent for divine status. Only the individual who can withstand the perfumed entreaties of the apsarasas is worthy of full enlightenment. In the Yajur-Veda the apsarasas are called sunbeams because of their connection with the gandharva who personifies the sun.
Ares, Areus (Greek) God of war, equivalent of the Latin Mars; commonly the god of battles, bloodshed, and strife. In a higher sense he is Migmar of the crimson veil, the light of daring burning in the heart, the dauntless energy that fights its way to supernal truth.
Ares: The ancient Greek god of war and pestilence. The Romans identified him with Mars.
Arion (Greek) In Greek mythology, the first and fleetest horse, offspring of Poseidon or Neptune (god of the sea) and Ceres (goddess of the harvest). Also a Greek poet and musician of Lesbos (fl. 625 BC), best known for having been rescued on a dolphin’s back after an attempt was made to drown him at sea for his treasure. “Arion, their progeny, is one of the aspects of that ‘horse,’ which is a cycle.” (SD 2:399n)
Ashur: A national war god of ancient Assyria, represented shooting the bow inside of a winged disk.
As known to the Greeks and Romans, Mithras was the god of the sun, of purity, moral goodness, and knowledge, whose worship spread over the Roman world, especially during the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
Assur (Chaldean or Assyrian) [from a-shir leader] Also Asur, Ashur. Originally the titular deity of an ancient Assyrian city of learning on the Tigris, but with the rise of the Assyrian Empire his prominence was extended so that he became one of the foremost gods of the Assyrian pantheon. The title Asir was also given to other important deities such as Marduk and Nebo. Like Marduk, Assur was first recognized as a solar deity and represented in symbol with the adjunct of the winged disk; but later he became a god of war, so that the winged disk took a minor place under the figure of a man with a bow. Assur remained the chief deity even when the Assyrian capital was moved to Nineveh about the 8th century BC, although he was obliged to share this honor with Ishtar, then regarded as his consort, until the fall of the Assyrian Empire (606 BC).
As time went on certain deities became more prominent in theological thought and speculation, acquiring celestial attributes as well as earthly ones, such as Ba‘al, Astarte (made equivalent to Isis by Plutarch), and the Tyrian Melqarth (associated with Herakles). Originally each masculine deity had the title Ba‘al (“lord,” equivalent to Babylonian Bel), and the feminine deities had the title of ’Amma (mother), just as the ancient Hebrews spoke of their ’em or ’ammah (fountain, beginning, womb, mother). The gods were called ’elomim or ’elim, from the original Shemetic root ’el. The god of the moon was Sin, the deity of the flame or lightning was Resh Reshuf and Eshmun was the god of vital force or healing (worshiped especially at Sidon) — clearly ’Eshmun is from the Shemitic verbal root ’esh (fire, cosmic fire or vitality) — cosmic vital electricity or fohat. Blavatsky states that the Phoenicians also propitiated the kabeiroi, deities of Samothrace.
Athena (Greek) Daughter of Metis (wisdom, wise counsel) and Zeus, said to have sprung fully-formed from her father’s head; with Zeus and Apollo one of a divine triad. Famed for wise counsel both in peace and war, Athena was the strategist, as Homer portrays her in the Iliad. As patron deity of Athens, she was the genius of statesmanship and civic policy. Certain archaic monuments show Athena assisting Prometheus (the intellectual fire-bringer) in shaping the first human body from the plastic stuff of earth. It is equally significant that she was connected with Apollo, the god of the seers and the sun personified, in producing climatic changes due to the shifting of the poles. Athena is to be found, variously named, in every theogony, as one of the kabeiria, those mighty beings “of both sexes, as also terrestrial, celestial and kosmic,” who when incarnated as initiate-teachers or kings, “were also, in the beginning of times, the rulers of mankind,” giving “the first impulse to civilizations” and directing “the mind with which they had endued men to the invention and perfection of all the arts and sciences” (SD 2:363-4).
Atmabhu (Sanskrit) Ātmabhū [from ātman self + bhū to become] Self-existent, self-becoming, hence self-born. Applied to each member of the Hindu Trimurti — Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva — likewise to the god of cosmic desire or unity, Kama-deva.
Atmosphere Any of various aery spheres enveloping a globe. On earth the lowest is familiar air, but there are others in the ethereal realms beyond, and the word is applied to mahat and manas, as mythologically represented by Indra, god of the firmament, the personified atmosphere (SD 2:614). However, mahat and its ray in the human being, manas, are far beyond in quality and ethereality anything that the human imagination understands by atmosphere — unless it is endowed with the mystical sense that spiritus had among the philosophic ancients.
At the formation of the globe earth, in which Frey embodied, the dwarfs fashioned for Frey the magic ship Skidbladnir [from skida ski + blad blade] which contains the seeds of all living things but which can be folded up like a kerchief when its lifetime has elapsed. Frey is also owner of the magic sword (spiritual will) which is invincible in battle against giants (matter) provided the wielder is pure and resourceful. He is the god of sunshine and fertility.
ayu2 ::: the Vedic god of Wind, the universal deva as "the Master of Life, inspirer of that Breath or dynamic energy", later called pran.a, which "was considered to be a great force pervading all material existence and the condition of all its activities".
Azazel (Hebrew) ‘Azā’zēl [from ‘azāz to be firm, strong, powerful (or from ‘ēz goat) + ‘ēl divinity, god] Also Azaziel, Azazyel. God of victory; equivalent of Greek Prometheus, he was chief of the ’ishin (Chaldean) or ’ishim (Hebrew), men-spirits who, according to the Zohar, mixed themselves with mortal men, having come to earth to do so (Genesis 6:2-4). The ’ishin are chained on a mountain in the desert, which means that they undergo descent into material life and confinement in incarnation. Azazel and the six other ’ishin teach humankind to make weapons and utensils, and impart the knowledge of various other arts. These seven were the first instructors of the fourth root-race. The story is a form of the universal myth which represents the descent of the manasaputras and, as usual, the god of might or victory has been turned into a god of evil, his benefits into seductions, and his chivalrous sacrifice into a rebellion. He was, like Baphomet, turned into a goat — the scapegoat of the Old Testament, whose name in the Hebrew is Azazel. The goat in ancient animal symbology signified regeneration and reproductive power, hence strength, might.
Baalsebul, etc. “god of flies”)—originally a
Baal: The chief male divinity of the Phoenicians, to whom he symbolized the Sun. Baal was worshipped in agricultural festivals as the god of fertility of soil and increaser of flocks. In successive periods of the history of the ancient Semitic races, the name (meaning Lord) was assigned to innumerable local deities. (Cf. Bel.)
Babylonian god of thunder was Rimmon.
bacchant ::: n. **1. A priest or votary of Bacchus (the god of wine). 2. A drunken reveller. adj. 3. Inclined to revelry. Bacchant.**
bacchant ::: n. 1. A priest or votary of Bacchus (the god of wine). 2. A drunken reveller. adj. 3. Inclined to revelry. Bacchant.
Bacchus (Greek) Used by both Greeks and Romans, also called Dionysos by the Greeks, Liber by the Romans, Zagreus in the Orphic mysteries, Sabazius in Phrygia and Thrace; the same as Iacchus (connected with Iao and Jehovah). Generally represented as the son of Zeus and Semele, he is spoken of sometimes as a solar and sometimes as a lunar deity; for, like many other personifications of cosmic powers, he has both a solar and lunar (masculine or feminine) aspect. As a solar deity he has a serpent for his symbol and is a man-savior, parallel with Adonis, Osiris, Krishna, Buddha, and Christos. He is often called the god of wine, natural fertility, etc.
bacchus ::: n. --> The god of wine, son of Jupiter and Semele.
Bacchus: The Roman god of wine, identified with the Greek Dionysos.
Balder: In the Norse mythology, the son of Odin and Frigga, the god of peace; he was slain by Hoder, acting as an unintentional and unwitting tool of the evil Loki.
balder ::: n. --> The most beautiful and beloved of the gods; the god of peace; the son of Odin and Freya.
Beelzebub, Beelzebul (Hebrew) Ba‘al zĕbūb [from ba‘al lord + zĕbūb fly] Lord of the flies; a god of the Philistines, popularly worshiped as the destroyer of flies, to whom was erected a temple at Ekron. The mythical zoology of the ancients points directly to an inner and mystical significance: “flies” is used not in the sense of the insect, but for a certain class of elementals whose “flying” around and through the earth is governed directly by lunar influences. Thus Beelzebub is in this connection a lunar divinity.
Beg tse. In Tibetan, "Hidden Coat of Mail"; an important wrathful deity in Tibetan Buddhism, one of the eight DHARMAPALA (chos skyong) or protectors of the dharma. He is also known as Lcam sring ("Brother and Sister") and as Srog bdag or Srog bdag dmar po ("Lord of the Life Force" or "Red Lord of the Life Force"). According to legend, he was a war god of the Mongols prior to their conversion to Buddhism. In 1575, he tried to prevent the third DALAI LAMA BSOD NAMS RGYA MTSHO from visiting the Mongol khan but was defeated by the Buddhist cleric and converted to Buddhism as a protector of the dharma. According to some descriptions, he is a worldly protector ('jig rten pa'i srung ma); according to others, he is a transcendent protector ('jig rten las 'das pa'i srung ma). In texts devoted to HAYAGRĪVA, Beg tse is sometimes represented as the principal protector deity.
Beijve (Sameh) The bright sun god of the nomadic people of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola peninsula of Russia who call themselves Sameh (people of the sun). Beijve is the son of the divine Jubmel, and the Milky Way is the shining trail left by his skis when he hastened to obey the god’s summons. With Beijve’s advice and help, Jubmel caused a bridge to be created between the upper divine worlds “where the light begins” and the lower “dark and silent worlds”; on the upper end of the span he fashioned the earth from his little reindeer doe. Her bones became earth’s armature, her flesh its ground, her blood vessels became its rivers, and her hairs the forests. The little reindeer’s skull protects the earth from the intense light of the sun, and her two eyes are the morning and the evening star. But her heart he hid deep within the earth where the lonely mountaineer may sometimes, in the quiet summer night, hear it beating.
Bel has been associated with the Phoenician Baal, the supreme god of the Canaanites, conceived also as the protective power of generation and fertility, connected with the moon. His female counterpart, Ashtoreth (Astarte, Ishtar) was considered as the receptive goddess, also a lunar divinity. In later times the rites connected with these deities became degraded into licentious orgies; sacrifices were made, apparently even human sacrifices, but at one time Ba‘al was worshiped as a sun god.
Bel: The Babylonian form of Baal (q.v.), a member of the supreme triad of deities: Anu, god of the heavens; Bel, god of the Earth; and Ea, god of the waters.
Bes: An Egyptian god of pleasure, able to counteract witchcraft.
Bes (Egyptian) Bes [from besa, basu panther] A deity of foreign origin, portrayed as a dwarf with large bearded head, flat nose, protruding tongue, shaggy hair with an African headdress, girded with a panther’s skin and tail. He is represented as a god of dance and music, also as a god of war, and as a protector of children. In later periods he became merged with some of the aspects of Horus. Perhaps in most aspects, however, Bes is the Egyptian representation of the Latin Cupid.
God of Israel.” They aggregate “thousand times
God of this Age (or God of This World)—see
bhuta-bhavana bhutesa deva-deva jagatpate ::: lord of existences, cause of their becoming, God of gods, master of the universe. [Gita 10.15]
Birs-Nimrud Modern name of an ancient Babylonian ziggurat or temple-tower of ancient Borsippa. Even today it is the most conspicuous and striking ruin in Iraq, situated on the top of a hill over a hundred feet high. A pyramidal, stepped structure called “the house of the seven divisions of heaven and earth,” it was dedicated to Nebo, the ancient Chaldean god of wisdom. Each of the seven divisions or stages was dedicated to one of the seven planets and was faced with bricks of the color appropriate to the planet.
Boar One of the avataras of Vishnu or Brahma as Prajapati; in Hindu symbology the boar “which plunges into the ‘waters’ of space and lifts up the earth upon his tusks, and so bears it for the remainder of the manvantara, signifies not only the fourth-plane physical vitality, but likewise the cosmical vitality which infills and sustains the earth, rooted as this vitality is in the spiritual life of the god of our solar system” (FSO 493). See also AVATARA
Brahma (Sanskrit) Brahmā [from the verbal root bṛh to expand, grow, fructify] The first god of the Hindu Trimurti or triad, consisting of Brahma, the emanator, evolver, and creator; Vishnu, the sustainer or preserver; and Siva, the regenerator or destroyer. Brahma is the vivifying expansive force of nature in its eternally periodic manvantaras. He stands for the spiritual evolving or developing energy-consciousness of a solar system which is also called the Egg of Brahma (brahmanda). Brahma is called the creator or Logos, but in the theosophic philosophy creator is simply an abstract term or idea, like army. In Burnouf’s words:
Brihaspati (Sanskrit) Bṛhaspati [from bṛh prayer + pati lord] Sometimes Vrihaspati. A Vedic deity, corresponding to the planet Jupiter, commonly translated lord of prayer, the personification of exoteric piety and religion, but mystically the name signifies lord of increase, of expansion, growth. He is frequently called Brahmanaspati, both names having a direct significance with the power of sound as uttered in mantras or prayer united with positive will. He is regarded in Hindu mythology as the chief offerer of prayers and sacrifices, thus representing the Brahmin or priestly caste, being the Purohita (family priest) of the gods, among other things interceding with them for mankind. He has many titles and attributes, being frequently designated as Jiva (the living), Didivis (the bright or golden-colored). In later times he became the god of exoteric knowledge and eloquence — Dhishana (the intelligent), Gish-pati (lord of invocations). In this aspect he is regarded as the son of the rishi Angiras, and hence bears the patronymic Angirasa, and the husband of Tara, who was carried off by Soma (the moon). Tara is
Budha (Sanskrit) Budha [from the verbal root budh to awake] As an adjective, intelligent, wise, clever, fully awake; hence a wise or instructed person, a sage. In mythology, Budha is represented as the son of Tara (or Rohini), the wife of Brihaspati (the planet Jupiter). Tara was carried off by Soma (the Moon), which led to the Tarakamaya — the war in svarga (heaven) — between the gods and asuras (the latter siding with Soma against the divinities). The gods were victorious and Tara was returned to Brihaspati, but the parentage of the son she gave birth to was claimed both by Brihapati and Soma: he was so beautiful he was named Budha (cf SD 2:498-9). Upon Brahma’s demand, Tara admitted that Budha was the offspring of Soma. Budha became the god of wisdom and the husband of Ila (or Ida), daughter of Manu Vaivasvata, and in one sense stands for esoteric wisdom.
by the great Names of the God of gods and Lord
Caduceus (Latin) A herald’s staff; specially, the wand of Mercury or Hermes, god of wisdom, corresponding to Thoth. It consists of a rod or tree with two serpents wound in opposite directions round it, their tails meeting below, and their heads approaching each other above.
“Called in India the Fathers, ‘Pitris’ or the lunar ancestors. They are subdivided, like the rest, into seven classes or Hierarchies. In Egypt although the moon received less worship than in Chaldea or India, still Isis stands as the representative of Luna-Lunus, ‘the celestial Hermaphrodite.’ Strange enough while the modern connect the moon only with lunacy and generation, the ancient nations, who knew better, have, individually and collectively, connected their ‘wisdom gods’ with it. Thus in Egypt the lunar gods are Thoth-Hermes and Chons; in India it is Budha, the Son of Soma, the moon; in Chaldea Nebo is the lunar god of Secret Wisdom, etc., etc. The wife of Thoth, Sifix, the lunar goddess, holds a pole with five rays of the five-points star, symbol of man, the Microcosm, in distinction from the Septenary Macrocosm. As in all theogonies a goddess precedes a god, on the principle most likely that the chick can hardly precede its egg, in Chaldea the moon was held as older and more venerable than the Sun, because, as they said, darkness precedes light at every periodical rebirth (or ‘creation’) of the universe. Osiris although connected with the Sun and a Solar god is, nevertheless, born on Mount Sinai, because Sin is the Chaldeo-Assyrian word for the moon; so was Dio-Nysos, god of Nyssi or Nisi, which latter appellation was that of Sinai in Egypt, where it was called Mount Nissa” (TG 192-3).
Canaan, Canaanites A Biblical term most often applied to the pre-Isrealite people of the land west of the Jordan, although not so ancient as the Amorites. Augustine mentions that the Phoenicians called their land Canaan. Seti I and Rameses III mention the Kan’na, probably referring to the lands of western Syria and Palestine. In Genesis 10, Canaan (kena‘an) is named among the four sons of Ham, and some scholars have suggested that the name here refers to tribes in Arabia which later settled in Palestine; further that the Phoenicians were members of the second great Semitic migration, carrying the name Canaan into the lands which they settled. The chief deity of the Canaanites would seem to be Ashtart (Astarte) from the number of her images discovered, although images closely resembling Egyptian deities have likewise been exhumed. Nebo, the ancient Chaldean god of wisdom, was also reverenced by the Canaanites.
Cancer The Crab. Fourth zodiacal sign, being watery, cardinal, feminine, and the only house of the moon; in astrology it corresponds to the stomach and breast. Its symbol is a crab; in Sanskrit it is called Karkataka, and is dedicated to Surya, the god of the sun. In the Hebrew allocation of the signs to the 12 sons of Jacob, it is give to Benjamin, who is said to ravin as a wolf. This sign is that of the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere and is associated with heat, but in the southern hemisphere it is at the winter solstice, and we are told of times when the earth’s poles were inverted so that the south pole was in Cancer.
Candra2 (Chandra) ::: the god of the moon (candra1); the deity of mind.
carnation. He is also the god of flocks and herds.
Cartesianism: The philosophy of the French thinker, Rene Descartes (Cartesius) 1596-1650. After completing his formal education at the Jesuit College at La Fleche, he spent the years 1612-1621 in travel and military service. The reminder of his life was devoted to study and writing. He died in Sweden, where he had gone in 1649 to tutor Queen Christina. His principal works are: Discours de la methode, (preface to his Geometric, Meteores, Dieptrique) Meditationes de prima philosophia, Principia philosophiae, Passions de l'ame, Regulae ad directionem ingenii, Le monde. Descartes is justly regarded as one of the founders of modern epistemology. Dissatisfied with the lack of agreement among philosophers, he decided that philosophy needed a new method, that of mathematics. He began by resolving to doubt everything which could not pass the test of his criterion of truth, viz. the clearness and distinctness of ideas. Anything which could pass this test was to be readmitted as self-evident. From self-evident truths, he deduced other truths which logically follow from them. Three kinds of ideas were distinguished: innate, by which he seems to mean little more than the mental power to think things or thoughts; adventitious, which come to him from without; factitious, produced within his own mind. He found most difficulty with the second type of ideas. The first reality discovered through his method is the thinking self. Though he might doubt nearly all else, Descartes could not reasonably doubt that he, who was thinking, existed as a res cogitans. This is the intuition enunciated in the famous aphorism: I think, therefore I am, Cogito ergo sum. This is not offered by Descartes as a compressed syllogism, but as an immediate intuition of his own thinking mind. Another reality, whose existence was obvious to Descartes, was God, the Supreme Being. Though he offered several proofs of the Divine Existence, he was convinced that he knew this also by an innate idea, and so, clearly and distinctly. But he did not find any clear ideas of an extra-mental, bodily world. He suspected its existence, but logical demonstration was needed to establish this truth. His adventitious ideas carry the vague suggestion that they are caused by bodies in an external world. By arguing that God would be a deceiver, in allowing him to think that bodies exist if they do not, he eventually convinced himself of the reality of bodies, his own and others. There are, then, three kinds of substance according to Descartes: Created spirits, i.e. the finite soul-substance of each man: these are immaterial agencies capable of performing spiritual operations, loosely united with bodies, but not extended since thought is their very essence. Uncreated Spirit, i.e. God, confined neither to space nor time, All-Good and All-Powerful, though his Existence can be known clearly, his Nature cannot be known adequately by men on earth, He is the God of Christianity, Creator, Providence and Final Cause of the universe. Bodies, i.e. created, physical substances existing independently of human thought and having as their chief attribute, extension. Cartesian physics regards bodies as the result of the introduction of "vortices", i.e. whorls of motion, into extension. Divisibility, figurability and mobility, are the notes of extension, which appears to be little more thin what Descartes' Scholastic teachers called geometrical space. God is the First Cause of all motion in the physical universe, which is conceived as a mechanical system operated by its Maker. Even the bodies of animals are automata. Sensation is the critical problem in Cartesian psychology; it is viewed by Descartes as a function of the soul, but he was never able to find a satisfactory explanation of the apparent fact that the soul is moved by the body when sensation occurs. The theory of animal spirits provided Descartes with a sort of bridge between mind and matter, since these spirits are supposed to be very subtle matter, halfway, as it were, between thought and extension in their nature. However, this theory of sensation is the weakest link in the Cartesian explanation of cognition. Intellectual error is accounted for by Descartes in his theory of assent, which makes judgment an act of free will. Where the will over-reaches the intellect, judgment may be false. That the will is absolutely free in man, capable even of choosing what is presented by the intellect as the less desirable of two alternatives, is probably a vestige of Scotism retained from his college course in Scholasticism. Common-sense and moderation are the keynotes of Descartes' famous rules for the regulation of his own conduct during his nine years of methodic doubt, and this ethical attitude continued throughout his life. He believed that man is responsible ultimately to God for the courses of action that he may choose. He admitted that conflicts may occur between human passions and human reason. A virtuous life is made possible by the knowledge of what is right and the consequent control of the lower tendencies of human nature. Six primary passions are described by Descartes wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sorrow. These are passive states of consciousness, partly caused by the body, acting through the animal spirits, and partly caused by the soul. Under rational control, they enable the soul to will what is good for the body. Descartes' terminology suggests that there are psychological faculties, but he insists that these powers are not really distinct from the soul itself, which is man's sole psychic agency. Descartes was a practical Catholic all his life and he tried to develop proofs of the existence of God, an explanation of the Eucharist, of the nature of religious faith, and of the operation of Divine Providence, using his philosophy as the basis for a new theology. This attempted theology has not found favor with Catholic theologians in general.
cartomancy ::: Cartomancy A form of fortune-telling or divination using a standard deck of playing cards, cartomancy has been practised since playing cards first came into use in Europe in the 14th century, although some practitioners claim its origins date back to Egyptian times, the art being derived from wisdom given to the ancient Egyptians by the god of writing, Thoth.
( cf. Aslepios, ancient Greek god of healing). He is
Cheru (Germanic) Also Heru. The sword god of the Cherusci, an ancient Germanic tribe occupying the basin of the Weser, to the north of the Chatti. Cheru has been associated with the Scandinavian Tyr whose name in Germanic mythology is Tio or Zio. In legend the Sword of Cheru was fashioned by the sons of Ivaldi, the dwarfs who likewise fashioned Thor’s Hammer, Mjolnir. The sword of Cheru was a magical one; and in the Scandinavian mythology is described “as destroying its possessor, should he be unworthy of wielding it. It brings victory and fame only in the hands of a virtuous hero” (TG 80).
Chitragupta (Sanskrit) Citragupta [from citr to depict, color with various colors + gupta hidden] The secret recorder who paints the picture of the person’s life on the astral light; a deva-scribe in the abode of the dead, who records human virtues and vices and reads out the account of every soul’s life from his register when the excarnate soul arrives in the kingdom of Yama, the god of death; a variant of the lipikas.
Crocodile [from Greek champsai, Egyptian emsehiu] In Egypt deified under the name of Sebak (or Sebeq). The principal seat of this worship was the city Crocodilopolis (Arsinoe) where great numbers of mummified beasts have been exhumed. When the canals became dry, the crocodiles would wander about the fields and make such havoc that they were naturally associated with the powers of destruction and evil, the principal malefactor of the pantheon being Set or Typhon. The ancient Egyptians did not regard Set or Typhon, and the crocodile which represented him, as the enemy, the destroyer. In fact, in the earlier dynasties Typhon was one of the most powerful and venerated of the divinities, giving blessings, life, and inspiration to the people, and in especial perhaps to the Royal House or rulers of Egypt. The reason lay in the fact that the earlier mythology showed Typhon or Set mystically as the shadow of Osiris, the god of light and wisdom — Typhon or Set being the alter ego or more material aspect of Osiris himself. “The Crocodile is the Egyptian dragon. It was the dual symbol of Heaven and Earth, of Sun and Moon, and was made sacred, in consequence of its amphibious nature, to Osiris and Isis” (SD 1:409). The crocodile was also named as one of the signs of the zodiac, the regency of which was connected with a group of lofty beings, whose “abode is in Capricornus” (SD 1:219).
cupid ::: n . --> The god of love, son of Venus; usually represented as a naked, winged boy with bow and arrow.
Curetes (Greek) Kouretes. The priests in the Mysteries of Rhea Cybele in Crete, and in Classical mythology daemons or demigods to whom Cybele entrusted the infant Zeus. Identified with the kabiri, who belong to the septenary creative groups of dhyan-chohans which incarnated in the elect of the third and fourth root-races — Zeus is said to be the god of the fourth race (SD 2:360, 766, 776).
Dagon, the national god of the Philistines, commonly represented with the body of a fish. 94
Dagon, the national god of the Philistines, com¬
dagon ::: --> The national god of the Philistines, represented with the face and hands and upper part of a man, and the tail of a fish. ::: n. --> A slip or piece.
Damkina (Chaldean, Babylonian) Sometimes Davkina. Consort of Ea or Hea, god of the watery regions, partaking of Ea’s characteristics, hence named Damgal-nunna (great lady of the waters), likewise Nin-Ki (lady of that which is below, i.e., the watery deeps or underworld). Mother of Marduk (or Merodach).
deified ::: 1. Made a god of; exalted to the rank of a deity. 2. Regarded or adored as a deity.
deify ::: v. t. --> To make a god of; to exalt to the rank of a deity; to enroll among the deities; to apotheosize; as, Julius Caesar was deified.
To praise or revere as a deity; to treat as an object of supreme regard; as, to deify money.
To render godlike.
deva-deva ::: [God of gods], universal deity.
devātideva. (T. lha'i yang lha; C. tian zhong tian; J. tenchuten; K. ch'on chung ch'on 天中天). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "god of gods"; an epithet of the Buddha, as someone whose divinity surpasses that of all other divinities and whose superiority is acknowledged by them, as, for example, when the infant prince SIDDHĀRTHA was taken to the temple by his father, King sUDDHODANA, and the statues of the deities bowed down to the child; and later when, after his enlightenment, the god BRAHMĀ implored the Buddha to teach the dharma. Thus, although the Buddha was reborn as a human, he is superior to the gods because he discovered and taught the path to NIRVĀnA, something that gods, despite their great powers, are unable to do.
Dharmaraja (Sanskrit) Dharmarāja Just and righteous king; a title given to Gautama Buddha, and to Yama, the god of the dead, in the latter instance signifying the strict and utterly impartial justice karmically encountered by those who die.
dhatri &
dionysian ::: 1. Of or relating Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, fruitfulness, and vegetation, worshipped in orgiastic rites and festivals in his name. He was also known as the bestower of ecstasy and god of the drama, and identified with Bacchus. 2. Recklessly uninhibited; unrestrained.
Dionysion ::: Madhav: “Dionysian, belonging to the god of wine, the wine that is intoxicating joy; as if one had drunk from the cup of the god of wine.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Dis (Latin) [contraction of dives rich] Name for Pluto, god of the underworld. The expression “rich” arises in the fact that the presiding deity of the underworld gathers in through the rolling ages whatever is, thus implying a constantly accumulating store of all things that once were, but now belong to the past. There is a distinct mystical similarity between the Greek and Latin Dis.
Donar (Germanic) Also Thunar. The god of thunder in Germanic mythology, equivalent to Thor of the Scandinavian Eddas.
Dyaus: The ancient Aryan god of the sky.
Ea: In Babylonian and Assyrian mythology, the god of waters and of wisdom, crafts and learning, especially of the magical arts; the third member of the Babylonian triad of gods (Anu, Enlil, Ea).
Ea is figured as a man covered with the body of a fish, thus resembling Oannes and Dagon. Marodach and Marduk are also aspects of this same deity. His consort is Damkina (lady of that which is below) or Damgal-nunna (great lady of the waters). Ea is called the god of wisdom, and one of his titles, the Sublime Fish, points directly to his cosmic aspect as the ever-living spirit of and bearer of consciousness in the spatial deeps. “The waters are a symbol of wisdom and of occult learning. Hermes represented the sacred Science under the symbol of fire; the Northern Initiates, under that of water” (SD 2:495n).
Enki: The Sumerian god of the earth, sweet waters, wisdom and profundity of mind. He was sometimes identified with Ea.
Enlil: The Sumerian and Babylonian god of wind and storm, second of the Babylonian triad of gods (the other two were Anu and Ea).
Eridu One of the oldest seats of religious culture in ancient Babylonia, located a few miles SSW of Ur in Chaldea, and mentioned in ancient records as the city of the deep. In it was a temple of Ea, god of the sea and of wisdom. Rediscovered in 1854, it is now about 120 miles from the Persian Gulf, though spoken of in old records as being on the shore; calculations based on the rate of alluvial deposition places its date in the seventh millennium BC. Sayce, by comparing the Akkadian calendar with the present position of the vernal equinox, gives a date going back to 4700 BC.
Eros, god of sexual love, is represented as carrying a hare. The hare was sacred to Osiris and was also a symbol of the moon.
eros ::: n. --> Love; the god of love; -- by earlier writers represented as one of the first and creative gods, by later writers as the son of Aphrodite, equivalent to the Latin god Cupid.
Eros-Phanes (Greek) [from eros god of love + phanes revealed, manifested] One of the Orphic triad — Chaos, Chronos, Phanes — evolving from the divine or cosmic egg, which the aethereal winds of space impregnate. Similar to Eros which Hesiod makes the third person of the original Greek trinity of Ouranos, Gaia, and Eros. There is a relatively close affinity between Eros or Eros-Phanes and the spiritual aspect of fohat.
etad vai tat ::: this truly is that; this is the God of your seeking. [Katha 2 passim]
eyes.” Among Aryans, he is a god of light. In
fate. Jeou deprives the god of his rank and elevates
faun ::: n. --> A god of fields and shipherds, diddering little from the satyr. The fauns are usually represented as half goat and half man.
Four Zoas and the embodiment of the god of
Freya, Freyja, Froja (Icelandic, Scandinavian) Lady; Norse goddess of the planet Venus and sister of Frey, god of the planet Earth. Both are children of Njord, the Norse Saturn-Chronos, patron of the planet Saturn and the representative of time. Hence Frey and Freya are the children of time and due to end in time.
ganesa ::: n. --> The Hindoo god of wisdom or prudence.
Ganesa (Sanskrit) Gaṇeśa The Hindu god of wisdom, son of Siva, who lost his human head which was replaced by that of an elephant. As he who removes obstacles, he is invoked at the commencement of any important undertaking, likewise at the beginning of books. In some respects he is thus equivalent to the Egyptian Thoth or Thoth-Hermes, the scribe of the gods. Ganesa is the chief or head of multitudes of subordinate spiritual entities — a necessity if as the god of wisdom he accomplishes his cosmic labors through subordinate hierarchies of intelligent and semi-intelligent beings, acting as their director or guide in forming and guiding nature.
Ganesha: The elephant-headed divinity of Shivaism. Ganesha, son of Shiva, is the god of good luck, prosperity and wisdom, and the remover of obstacles.
ganesh&
Ganga-Putra (Sanskrit) Gaṅgā-putra Son of the Ganges; among other things, a name of Karttikeya, the Hindu god of war.
Girru: The Babylonian god of fire.
god of fire and mediator (angel) between gods and
(guardian angels). He was also the god of Kutha,
Gullinbursti (Icelandic) [from gullin golden + bursti bristles, mane] In Norse mythology, a golden boar which draws the chariot of Frey, god of the terrestrial world. He received it as a gift from the two dwarfs Brock (mineral kingdom) and Sindri (vegetable kingdom), sons of Ivalde, the moon.
Hachiman. (八幡). In Japanese, "God of Eight Banners," a popular SHINTo deity (KAMI), who is also considered a "great BODHISATTVA"; also known as Hachiman jin. Although his origins are unclear, Hachiman can at least be traced back to his role as the tutelary deity of the Usa clan in Kyushu during the eighth century. Hachiman responded to an oracle in 749, vouchsafing the successful construction of the Great Buddha (DAIBUTSU) image at ToDAIJI and quickly rose in popularity in both Kyushu and the Nara capital. In 859, the Buddhist monk Gyokyo established the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine near the capital of Kyoto that was dedicated to the deity. Hachiman's oracles continued to play decisive roles in Nara politics, leading to a worship cult devoted to him. The Hachiman cult expanded throughout the Heian period (794-1185), and in 809, he was designated a "great bodhisattva" (daibosatsu) by drawing on the concept of HONJI SUIJAKU (buddhas or bodhisattvas appearing in the world as gods). Hachiman also came to be considered a manifestation of the semi-legendary ancient sovereign ojin and was likewise seen as guardian of the monarch. From the eleventh century, the Minamoto warrior clan also linked itself with Hachiman. Through this patronage, Hachiman became increasingly associated with warfare. During the Meiji persecution of Buddhism in 1868, which separated the gods from the buddhas and bodhisattvas (SHINBUTSU BUNRI), Hachiman was divorced from his Buddhist identity and recast as a purely Shinto deity. Currently, there are approximately 25,000 Hachiman shrines across Japan.
Hades: (Gr. Haides) In Greek mythology the god of the underworld, the son of Cronos and Rhea and the brother of Zeus, hence the kingdom ruled over by Hades, or the abode of the dead. -- G.R.M.
Hades: In Greek mythology the god of the underworld, the son of Cronos and Rhea and the brother of Zeus; hence the kingdom ruled over by Hades, or the abode of the dead.
Hanuman or Hanumat (Sanskrit) Hanumān, Hanumat Monkey-god of the Ramayana. The son of Pavana, god of the winds, or spirit, Hanuman is fabled to have assumed any form at will, wielded rocks, removed mountains, mounted the air, seized the clouds, and to have rivaled Garuda in swiftness of flight. According to the epic, Hanuman and his host of semi-human monkey-beings became the allies of Rama, the avatara of Vishnu, in his war with the Rakshasa-king of Lanka, Ravana, who had carried off Rama’s wife, the beautiful Sita. As advisor to Rama and leader of his army, Hanuman showed unparalleled audacity, wit, and wisdom, thereby accomplishing great feats.
Hap or Hapi (Egyptian) Ḥāp or Ḥāpi. God of the Nile; Hep (later Hap) is a name believed to be given to the river by the predynastic Egyptians. The deity is always represented in the form of a man with the breasts of a woman: symbol of fertility and nourishment.
Harpocrates (Greek) Heru-pa-khart (Egyptian) Ḥeru-pa-kharṭ. Horus the Younger, or Horus the Babe. Representations of his mother Isis with an infant are common in Egypt, and with his father, Osiris, a trinity is formed of Father-Mother-Son. Harpocrates came to be regarded as the type of new birth and life, thus the first hours of the day, the first days of the month, and the first days of the year, were especially associated with him. He was the god of silence or of the Mysteries, and little has come down to the present day with regard to this aspect of the deity.
Hayagrīva. (T. Rta mgrin; C. Matou Guanyin; J. Bato Kannon; K. Madu Kwanŭm 馬頭觀音). In Sanskrit, "Horse-Necked One"; an early Buddhist deity who developed from a YAKsA attendant of AVALOKITEsVARA into a tantric wrathful deity important in the second diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet. The name "Hayagrīva" belonged to two different Vedic deities, one an enemy of VIsnU, another a horse-headed avatāra, or manifestation, of that deity. Eventually the two merged, whence he was absorbed into the Buddhist pantheon. In early Buddhist art, Hayagrīva frequently appears as a smallish yaksa figure attending Avalokitesvara, Khasarpana, AMOGHAPĀsA, and TĀRĀ; by the mid-seventh century, however, Hayagrīva had merged with Avalokitesvara to become a wrathful form of that bodhisattva. He appears in this new form, Hayagrīva-Avalokitesvara, in the Avalokitesvara sections of the DhāranīsaMgraha (where his DHĀRAnĪs are said to be effective in destroying mundane obstacles) and later Chinese translations of the Amoghapāsahṛdaya, as well as in the MAHĀVAIROCANASuTRA. While he does appear with a horse's head in Japan (where he is considered a protective deity of horses), Hayagrīva is customarily shown with a horse head emerging from his flaming hair. In the tantric pantheon, Hayagrīva initially occupied outer rings of the MAndALA, but eventually came to be considered a YI DAM in his own right, a transformation that would grant him the status of a fully enlightened being. In Mongolia he is worshipped as the god of horses. In Tibet he is primarily worshipped as a LOKOTTARA (supramundane) DHARMAPĀLA (dharma protector).
He is also credited with being a god of pestilence,
Hermanubis (Greek) Heru-em-Anpu (Egyptian) Ḥeru-em-Ȧnpu [Anubis in connection with Horus] The aspect of Anubis (Anpu) connected with the wisdom of the underworld, particularly in regard to its Mysteries, hence very little is known of this phase except what is mentioned mainly by Plutarch and Apuleius. In this aspect Anubis was “ ‘the revealer of the mysteries of the lower world’ — not of Hell or Hades as interpreted, but of our Earth (the lowest world of the septenary chain of worlds) — and also of the sexual mysteries. . . . The fact is that esoterically, Adam and Eve while representing the early third Root Race — those who, being still mindless, imitated the animals and degraded themselves with the latter — stand also as the dual symbol of the sexes. Hence Anubis, the Egyptian god of generation, is represented with the head of an animal, a dog or a jackal, and is also said to be the ‘Lord of the under world’ or ‘Hades’ into which he introduces the souls of the dead (the reincarnating entities), for Hades is in one sense the womb, as some of the writings of the Church Fathers fully show” (TG 139-40).
hermes ::: n. --> See Mercury.
Originally, a boundary stone dedicated to Hermes as the god of boundaries, and therefore bearing in some cases a head, or head and shoulders, placed upon a quadrangular pillar whose height is that of the body belonging to the head, sometimes having feet or other parts of the body sculptured upon it. These figures, though often representing Hermes, were used for other divinities, and even, in later times, for portraits of human beings. Called also herma. See Terminal statue,
Hermes: The ancient Greek god of herds, guardian of travellers, messenger of the gods, conductor of the dead to the underworld. The Romans identified him with Mercury. In Egypt, he was identified with Hermanubis, and chiefly with Thoth, the god of learning, and in the Roman imperial period he was worshipped as a revealer of divine wisdom by which men may become a new man, a Son of God.
Hermes was the Greek god of mystical thinking and interpretations, corresponding to the Egyptian Thoth, both divinities being overseers or hierophants of works of initiation concealing the archaic secrets of the god-wisdom. Thus the ascription to Hermes of profoundly mystical allegories is properly assigned, whoever their actual writers may have been.
His various names in the Old and New Testaments demonstrate the various aspects in which he was regarded. Thus in Exodus he was named Ba‘al-Tsephon, the god of the crypt. He was likewise named Seth or Sheth, signifying a pillar (phallus); and it was owing to these associations that he was considered a hid god, similar to Ammon of Egypt. Among the Ammonites, a people of East Palestine, he was known as Moloch (the king); at Tyre he was called Melcarth. The worship of Ba‘al was introduced into Israel under Ahab, his wife being a Phoenician princess.
Hler (Icelandic) [from hles shelter from Anglo-Saxon hleo] The Norse god of the sea, more often named Aegir in the Eddas, one of the three sons of the primeval giant Ymir. Comparable to the Greek Oceanos or Okeanos and the Welsh Llyr (sea); his nine daughters, Hles-doetr (daughters of Hler), are the waves.
Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of Sabaoth,
holy sefiroth; he is the “God of concealed form.”
homa. (T. sbyin sreg; C. humo; J. goma; K. homa 護摩). In Sanskrit, "burnt offering," an esoteric Buddhist ritual in which various offerings are consigned to flames. In the older Brahmanical traditions of the Indian subcontinent, burnt offerings were made through the medium of the deity AGNI (the god of fire) to the Vedic gods, in exchange for the boon of cattle and other forms of wealth. These rituals were systematized first in the Brāhmanas, and subsequently in the Āranyaka literature, where the exoteric homa rituals were questioned and reconceptualized as inner worship. Buddhist TANTRA includes both an outer offering of grain and other materials into a fire, and an inner offering into the fire of transcendental wisdom. In the latter, the inner offering is done by visualizing a skull cup (KAPĀLA) atop a triangular fire in a hearth made of three skulls. Impure objects are visualized as melting into a bliss-producing nectar (AMṚTA) that is then offered to one's GURU and to oneself visualized as the meditation deity. In Tibetan Buddhism, a homa ritual is often performed at the end of a meditation retreat as a means of purification.
Hor-Ammon (Greek) Heru-Amen (Egyptian) Ḥeru-Ȧmen. “ ‘The Self-engendered,’ a word in theogony which answers to the Sanskrit Anupadaka, parentless. Hor-Ammon is a combination of the ram-headed god of Thebes and of Horus” (TG 145) (SD 2:464)
Horns Much used in the Bible, often as a symbol of might; and the altar in the tabernacle had horns, which were seized as sanctuary by the fugitive suppliant. In the prophetic and apocalyptic books of Christianity and other religions, we find dragons and other monsters with horns, the number of horns possibly having a symbolical reference to races. Its most general sense is as a symbol of natural generative power, whence it is characteristic of several symbolic animals, as the ram, the bull and cow, the goat, etc. It is seen in Greece in Pan, the god of natural generation and procreative fertility; and in Judaism in the goat which, as the scapegoat, stands among other things for the fall into generation, and was thus said to bear away the burden of the people’s sins in early and medieval Europe. Satan or the Devil is represented with horns in a similar sense, for actually he represents the nether aspect of nature, and in popular belief his horns, like his hoofs and tail, are regarded as horrific and bestial attributes. The moon, the oldest and most graphic symbol of productive generation, is said to have horns and the same are seen in the zodiacal Taurus, the sign of the moon’s elevation, while the ram’s horns are seen in Aries — the one representing the passive, the other the active principle in nature.
Horus: A sun and war god of ancient Egypt, son of Osiris and Isis.
Huitzlipochtli: The Aztec god of war, ruler of the Eastern Paradise to which slain warriors were taken.
hymen ::: n. --> A fold of muscous membrane often found at the orifice of the vagina; the vaginal membrane.
A fabulous deity; according to some, the son of Apollo and Urania, according to others, of Bacchus and Venus. He was the god of marriage, and presided over nuptial solemnities.
Marriage; union as if by marriage.
hyperion ::: n. --> The god of the sun; in the later mythology identified with Apollo, and distinguished for his beauty.
Iacchos, the god of wine in more senses than one, plays an important part in these Mysteries. Demeter’s daughter Persephone, goddess of the underworld, was also honored. The usual accounts, vague and fragmentary only, describe the dramatic representations of the adventures of these deities, the esoteric meaning of which was given in the Greater Mysteries.
Ibis: The Ibis, heron, hawk, phoenix, swan, goose, peacock, etc., have been used as types of the Bird of Return, known in the Egyptian Mysteries as the Bennu Bird. The ibis is especially sacred to Thoth, the God of Magick.
identified by the Greeks with Set, god of darkness.
identified with the God of the Jews. Demiurge
I-em-hetep or Imhetep (Egyptian) I-em-ḥetep Imouthis, Imouthes (Greek) Also Imhotep, Imhot-pou. He who comes in peace; the Egyptian deity presiding over medicine, especially in connection with its learning and science; a son of Ptah who, with his brother Nefer-tem, was regarded as the third member of the great triad of gods at Memphis. The Greeks equated him with Aesculapius. He was regarded as the god of study and in later times took on some of the attributes of Thoth or Tehuti as the scribe of the gods. During their life he healed men’s bodies; after their death he superintended the preservation of their bodies, and was regarded as one of the protectors of the dead in the underworld. He is termed the Logos-Creator in conjunction with Kneph (SD 1:353).
II Corinthians 4, “in whom the god of this world
In Akkadian myth, Nabu was the god of the
In Assyro-Babylonian mythology, the god of
Indra (Sanskrit) Indra Vedic god of the firmament, supporter or guardian of the eastern quarter of the visible kosmos, whose functions somewhat parallel those of the equivalent of the four Maharajas. Indra, Varuna, and Agni were considered among the three highest gods of the Vedas, although the triad of Vayu, Surya, and Agni is frequently mentioned, Indra often taking the place of Vayu. Indra is often described as the champion of all the gods and overthrower of their enemies, especially the conqueror of Vritra, the great cosmic serpent. Indra thus has numerous parallels with the St. Michael of the Occident, and some of his functions are identic with Karttikeya, the god of war.
Indra: The Vedic god of war, storm and fertility, god of the atmosphere and sky, reigning over the deities of the intermediate region or atmosphere.
in Druid mythology, Camael was the god of war.
In each case, the name of the realm indicates the object of meditation of the beings reborn there. Hence, in the first, for example, the beings perceive only infinite space. Rebirth in these different spheres is based on mastery of the corresponding four immaterial meditative absorptions (ĀRuPYĀVACARADHYĀNA; ārupyasamāpatti) in the previous life. While the devas of the sensuous realm and the realm of subtle materiality come to have larger and ever more splendid bodies at the more advanced levels of their heavens, the devas of the immaterial realm do not have even the subtlest foundation in materiality; their existence is so refined that it is not even possible to posit exactly where they dwell spatially. In some schools, such as the Sarvāstivāda, the immaterial realm does not even exist as a discrete place: rather, when a being who has mastered the immaterial absorptions dies, he is reborn at the very same location where he passed away, except now he is "immaterial" or "formless" and thus invisible to coarser beings. According to the Theravāda, even a mind-made body (MANOMAYAKĀYA) is excluded from this realm, for the devas here possess only the mind base (MANĀYATANA), mental objects (P. dhammāyatana), the elements of mental consciousness (P. manoviNNānadhātu), and the element of mental objects (P. dhammadhātu), needing only three nutriments (ĀHĀRA) to survive-contact (P. phassa), mental cognition (P. manosaNcetana), and consciousness (P. viNNāna). The Buddha claims to have lived among the devas of the immaterial realm in certain of his previous lives, but without offering any detailed description of those existences. ¶ In all realms, devas are born apparitionally. In the sensuous realm, devas are born in their mother's lap, appearing as if they are already five to ten years old at birth; by contrast, devas of the subtle-materiality and immaterial realms appear not to need the aid of parents; those in the subtle-materiality realm appear fully grown, while those in the immaterial realm do not appear at all, because they have no form. It is also said that, when devas are reborn, they are aware of their prior existence and of the specific KARMAN that led to their rebirth in the heavenly realms. The different deva realms are also distinguished by differences in nutriment, sexuality, requisites, and life span. The devas of the lower heavens of the sensuous realm consume ordinary food; those in the upper spheres of the sensuous realm and the lower levels of the realm of subtle materiality feed only on sensory contact; the devas of the upper levels of the realm of subtle materiality feed only on contemplation; those in the immaterial realm feed on cognition alone. Sexual differentiation remains only in the sensuous realm: in the heaven of the four heavenly kings and the heaven of the thirty-three, the devas engage in physical copulation, the devas of the yāma heaven engage in sexual union by embracing one another, the devas of the tusita heaven by holding hands, those of the nirmānarati heaven by smiling at one another, and those of the paranirmitavasavartin heaven by exchanging a single glance. Clothes are said to be used in all deva worlds except in the immaterial realm. The life spans of devas in the sensuous realm range from five hundred years for the gods of the heaven of the four heavenly kings to one thousand years for the trāyastriMsa gods, two thousand years for the yāma gods, four thousand years for the tusita gods, eight thousand years for the nirmānarati gods, and sixteen thousand years for the paranirmitavasavartin gods. However, there is a range of opinion of what constitutes a year in these heavens. For example, it is said that in the tusita heaven, four hundred human years equal one day in the life of a god of that heaven. The life spans of devas in the realm of subtle materiality are measured in eons (KALPA). The life spans of devas in the immaterial realm may appear as essentially infinite, but even those divinities, like all devas, are subject to impermanence (ANITYA) and will eventually die and be subject to further rebirths once the salutary meditative deed that caused them to be reborn there has been exhausted. The sutras say that for a deva of the sensuous realm, there are five portents of his impending death: the garlands of flowers he wears begin to fade, his clothes become soiled and his palace dusty, he begins to perspire, his body becomes opaque and loses its luster, and his throne becomes uncomfortable. At that point, the deva experiences a vision of his next place of rebirth. This vision is said to be one of the most horrible sufferings in saMsāra, because of its marked contrast to the magnificence of his current life. There are also said to be four direct reasons why devas die: exhaustion of their life spans, their previous merit, their food, and the arising of anger. ¶ Rebirth as a deva is presumed to be the reward of virtuous karman performed in previous lives and is thus considered a salutary, if provisional, religious goal. In the "graduated discourse" (P. ANUPUBBIKATHĀ; S. ANUPuRVIKATHĀ) taught by the Buddha, for example, the Buddha uses the prospect of heavenly rebirth (svargakathā), and the pleasures accruing thereto, as a means of attracting laypersons to the religious life. Despite the many appealing attributes of these heavenly beings, such as their physical beauty, comfortable lives, and long life span, even heavenly existence is ultimately unsatisfactory because it does not offer a definitive escape from the continued cycle of birth and death (saMsāra). Since devas are merely enjoying the rewards of their previous good deeds rather than performing new wholesome karman, they are considered to be stagnating spiritually. This spiritual passivity explains why they must be reborn in lower levels of existence, and especially as human beings, in order to further their cultivation. For these reasons, Buddhist soteriological literature sometimes condemns religious practice performed solely for the goal of achieving rebirth as a deva. It is only certain higher level of devas, such as the devas belonging to the five pure abodes (suddhāvāsa), that are not subject to further rebirth, because they have already eliminated all the fetters (saMyojana) associated with that realm and are destined to achieve arhatship. Nevertheless, over the history of Buddhism, rebirth in heaven as a deva has been a more common goal for religious practice, especially among the laity, than the achievement of nirvāna. ¶ The sutras include frequent reference to "gods and men" (S. devamanusya; C. tianren) as the objects of the Buddha's teachings. Despite the fact that this is how most Buddhist traditions have chosen to translate the Sanskrit compound, "gods" here is probably meant to refer to the terrestrial divinities of "princes" or "kings," rather than heavenly beings; thus, the compound should be more properly (if, perhaps, pedantically) rendered "princes and peoples." Similarly, as the "divinities" of this world, buddhas, bodhisattvas, and arhats are also sometimes referred to as devas. See also DEVALOKA; DEVATĀ.
In exoteric Buddhist literature, Manjusri is looked upon as the god of wisdom because the title is personalized or anthropomorphized as an individual, but “It is erroneous to take literally the worship of the human Bodhisattvas, or Manjusri. It is true that, exoterically, the Mahayana school teaches adoration of these without distinction, and that Hiuen-Tsang speaks of some disciples of Buddha as being worshipped. But esoterically it is not the disciple or the learned Manjusri personally that received honours, but the divine Bodhisattvas and Dhyani Buddhas that animated . . . the human forms” (SD 2:34n).
In Hindu literature this vajra is the scepter of Indra (similar to the thunderbolt of Zeus), with which he as the god of the skies was said to slay evildoers. In mystical Buddhism it is the magic scepter of priest-initiates and adepts, the symbol of the possessions of siddhis (superhuman powers), wielded during certain mystical ceremonies by initiated priests and theurgists. It is also the symbol of the Buddha’s power over evil spirits or elementals. The possessors of this scepter are called vajrapanins.
In Mexican religion Quetzalcoatl is regarded as a great deity, a god of the air. In the Quiche cosmogony, as told in the Popol Vuh Gucumatz is one of the first deities to appear, and holds the position of a minor creator.
In modern thought: the Substance of Descartes and Spinoza, the God of Malebranche and Berkeley, the Energy of materialism, the Space-Time of realism, the Pure Experience of phenomenalism, the ding-an-sich (q.v.) of Kant.
In patristic and scholastic Christianity: the creator God, the Ens Realissimum, Ens Perfectissimum, Sui Causa, and the God of mysticism generally (Erigena, Hugo of St. Victor, Cusa, Boehme, Bruno).
In the Brahmanical zodiac called Dhanus, its deity being Ganesa, the elephant-headed god of wisdom, son of Siva. In numbers Dhanus is equivalent to 9, being the ninth sign; hence it refers to the nine Brahmas or the nine prajapatis who assist the Demiurgus in constructing the material universe (12 Signs of the Zodiac, Subba Row). Nine is the number of becoming and therefore of change.
In the Brahmanical zodiac Vrischika corresponds to Scorpio and its deity is Kamadeva, the Hindu god of love. “The sign in question properly signifies the Universe in thought or the universe in the divine conception.
In the Hindu zodiac it is Makara. Subba Row (The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac) says that ma is equivalent to the number 5, and kara means hand; thus the word signifies a pentagram. It may be taken to represent objectively both the microcosm and the macrocosm. Makara is the most mysterious of the signs, connected with the fifth group of the hierarchy of creative powers, and with the microcosmic pentagram — the five-pointed star representing man (SD 1:219). In Egypt this sign was called the crocodile; with the Peratae Gnostics, it was represented as a dolphin and identified with Chozzar, god of the waters; it is associated with the Leviathan of Job, and with a group of five kumaras in India (SD 2:577).
In the Hindu zodiac the sixth sign is also named the Virgin, Kanya and is presided over by Karttikeya, the god of war. Subba Row says that Kanya represents Sakti or Mahamaya, and its number six indicates that there are six primary forces in nature, which in their unity represent the astral light, this unity thus making a seventh (Theosophist Nov 1881, p. 43). To this Blavatsky added: “Even the very name of Kanya (Virgin) shows how all the ancient esoteric systems agreed in all their fundamental doctrines. The Kabalists and the Hermetic philosophers call the Astral Light the ‘heavenly or celestial Virgin.’ The Astral Light in its unity is the 7th. Hence the seven principles diffused in every unity or the 6 and one — two triangles and a crown.”
Irkalla (Chaldean) The netherworld or underworld of the Babylonians, also known as Aralu, its entrance approached by a deep cavern. It was ruled over by the goddess Allatu, or Ereshkigal (lady of the netherworld), sister or alter ego of Ishtar, the great nature goddess. The same idea is present in the Egyptian conception of Isis and Nephthys. Irkalla was ruled conjointly by Allatu and Nergal, who was also considered the god of the dead.
Ishwara is supracosmic as well as intracosmic; He is that which exceeds and inhabits and supports all individuality; He is the supreme and universal Brahman, the Absolute, the supreme Self, the supreme Purusha.8 But, very clearly, this is not the personal God of popular religions, a being limited by his qualities, individual and separate from all others; for all such personal gods are only limited representations or names and divine personalities of the one Ishwara. Neither is this the Saguna Brahman active and possessed of qualities, for that is only one side of the being of the Ishwara; the Nirguna immobile and without qualities is another aspect of His existence. Ishwara is Brahman the Reality, Self, Spirit, revealed as possessor, enjoyer of his own self-existence, creator of the universe and one with it, Pantheos, and yet superior to it, the Eternal, the Infinite, the Ineffable, the Divine Transcendence.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 366-367
It is the reproducing agent, principle, or instrument in the constitution of a being such as man, which brings about the repetitive reimbodiments that such being is impelled, and in one sense compelled, by karma to undergo. Such a reimbodiment can be of two types: if the causal instrument is on a high plane, such as buddhi-manas — the treasury of all ingathered seeds of being which will reproduce themselves in future existences as the higher parts of an individual — then in such case it is the buddhi-manas which is the karana-sarira; on the other hand, if the main causal instrument or principle bringing about such repetitive imbodiments is of a lower type, and reproduces existences for the reincarnating entity in lower vehicles, then we can say it is the kama-manas or lower manas which is the karana-sarira. Thus there are in the composite human constitution at least two such karanic or causal elements, one of a higher and one of a lower character. However, neither the karana-sarira nor the karanopadhi is, strictly speaking, the inner god of man which is the atman or fundamental self of our reimbodying monad, called the karanatman.
Izanagi and Izanami (Japanese) In Shintoism, the primordial male and female ancestors of humanity, who begot the first god of earth, Tenshoko doijin. “These ‘gods’ are simply our five races, Isanagi and Isanami being the two kinds of the ‘ancestors,’ the two preceding races which give birth to animal and to rational man” (SD 1:241). This heavenly pair was said to have created Japan from drops of brine. ( )
Jagannatha (Sanskrit) Jagannātha [from jagat world + nātha protector, lord] World protector, governor or lord of the world; title of Vishnu and Krishna, especially in his avataric manifestation from Vishnu; also of Rama, a previous avatara. “This deity is worshipped equally by all the sects of India. . . . He is the god of the Mysteries, and his temples, which are most numerous in Bengal, are all of a pyramidal form” (IU 2:301). Applied specifically to the idol of Vishnu-Krishna at Puri in Orissa, Bengal, which is drawn through the street in a huge vehicle, under the wheels of which devotees were supposed to allow themselves to be crushed — the modern English form is Juggernaut, meaning any law, custom, or belief that demands blind devotion and ruthless sacrifice.
Jambhala. [alt. Jambhāla; Jambhīra] (T. Dzambala, Rmug 'dzin). In Sanskrit, a YAKsA god of wealth; the Buddhist parallel to KUBERA, often equivalent to VAIsRAVAnA. In his various forms, he always holds in his left hand a mongoose with a jewel in its mouth. His sakti is Vasudharā. Statues of Jambhala have been found in Sri Lanka; he was also a popular figure in the Javanese Buddhist pantheon and is common in Tibet.
Janus (Latin) [from janua a gate] Oldest and most exalted of the Roman gods, he was called the oldest of the gods and the beginning of all things, the origin of all organic life and especially human life; from him sprang all wells and rivers, and he had power also on the seas. He had no Greek counterpart, and may originally have been a god of sun and light, who opened and closed the day; later he was especially the god of beginnings and endings, such as the closing and opening of cycles, symbolized in his statues by his having two faces, one before and one behind, visioning the future and the past; also of all doors, entrances, and passages, he being pictured as a porter with a staff and key. He was saluted every morning, at the beginning of all the months (calends), and at the first of the year. When the Romans began their year near the winter solstice (153 BC), they called the month Januarius, the month of Janus, as the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. They connected the name Janus with Dianus, one aspect of the divine sun, whose feminine is Diana, the moon.
Janus: The Roman god of the doorway; two-faced, he became the god of the beginnings.
Jehovah: (From the Hebrew Yahveh, of doubtful origin and meaning.) Personal name of God or the supreme being in Hebrew theological and philosophical writings, common only since the 14th century; the national god of Israel since Mosaic times. Neither name was originally pronounced as written on account of its holiness, but was replaced by Elohim and Adonai.
Jehovah: (Hebrew Yahveh, of doubtful origin and meaning) Personal name of God or the supreme being in Hebrew theological and philosophical writings, common only since the 14th century; the national god of Israel since Mosaic times. Neither name was originally pronounced as written on account of its holiness, but was replaced by Elohim and Adonai. -- K.F.L.
Jehovah (Hebrew) Yĕhovāh In the Bible, the god of the Hebrews; a modern mispronunciation of the Hebrew alphabetic characters, resulting from the combining by the Jews themselves of the Hebrew consonants of this word (YHVH) with the vowels of the word Adonai (my lords) because the Jews, while always writing or copying the alphabetic characters of the name correctly in their manuscripts, when reading it never pronounced the word YHVH, but read “Adonai” in its stead — writing the Massoretic points of Adonai to vocalize YHVH to produce Yahovah. Consequently when the Bible came to be studied by those unfamiliar with the real pronunciation of YHVH, it was read in various ways, commonly as Jehovah. It is now held by some scholars that YHVH should be pronounced yahweh or yave. It is also given as Yihweh (he will be, or it will be) (SD 2:129). However, Josephus, a priest who undoubtedly knew the correct pronunciation, wrote that it would be highly unlawful for him to divulge it as the Jews regarded it as too holy to pronounce aloud.
Jove or Iove (Gnostic) An anglicized form of Jupiter, the highest god of the Romans, corresponding to the Greek Zeus. See also JUPITER; ZEUS
Kadmilos, Kadmos (Greek) One of the kabiri, ancestral god of the inhabitants of Samothrace; sometimes identified with Hermes. See also CADMUS
Kailasa (Sanskrit) Kailāsa A lofty mountain in the Himalayas; in mythology Siva’s paradise is placed upon Kailasa, north of Lake Manasasarovara. The god of wealth, Kuvera, also is said to have his palace there. Because of the occult history attached to Mount Kailasa, Hindu metaphysics not infrequently uses Kailasa for heaven or the abode of the gods.
Kali-deva ::: the god of the kaliyuga; probably Aniruddha, who manifests the divine qualities of the sūdra.
Kamadeva (Sanskrit) Kāmadeva [from kāma desire + deva god, divinity] The Hindu god of love, one of the Visve-devas in the Hindu pantheon. As the Eros of Hesiod was connected in early Greek mythology with the world’s creation, and only afterwards became degraded into the passional Cupid, so was Kama in his original meaning as used in the Vedas, which gives the metaphysical and philosophical significance of his functions in the cosmos. Kama is the first conscious, all-embracing desire for universal good, love, and the first feeling of infinite compassion and mercy for all that lives and feels, needs help and kindness, that arose in the consciousness of the creative One Force, as soon as it came into life and being as a ray from the Absolute. Kama “is in the Rig-Veda (x. 129) the personification of that feeling which leads and propels to creation. He was the first movement that stirred the One, after its manifestation from the purely abstract principle, to create. ‘Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ of mind; and which sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered to be the bond which connects Entity with Non-Entity’ ” (SD 2:176) — or manas with pure atma-buddhi. Only later did kama become the power that gratifies desire on the animal plane.
karmadeva (karmadeva; karma deva) ::: a god of action; one who has achieved divinity by works.
Karttika (Sanskrit) Kārttika [from kṛttikā the Pleiades] A month corresponding to October-November. Also the ancient Hindu god of war, given the name Karttika or Karttikeya because mythologically he is said to have been nursed and reared by the six Krittikas or Pleiades.
Karttikeya (Sanskrit) Kārttikeya [from kṛttikā the Pleiades] The ancient Hindu god of war, given the name Karttika or Karttikeya because mythologically he is said to have been nursed and reared by the six Krittikas or Pleiades. Astronomically he is the planet Mars. He was born from fire and water out of a seed of Rudra-Siva, a phase of the cosmic Logos, via Agni, who dropped the seed into the Ganges. Like the Pleiades, he is represented with six heads, corresponding to the six visible stars of the constellation: Karttikeya is said to be the seventh or hidden Pleiad.
Kaspar One of the three Magi or wise men in Christian legend. In Egypt the scribe of the gods or the recorder was Tehuti (Thoth), who was also the god of wisdom, equivalent to Hermes or Mercury: always present at initiations, and the presiding influence, as initiator, at all ancient initiations. Looking at the Christian story in this context, infant is a name for a “newly born” initiate, who thus is a twice-born (Sanskrit dvija). The star refers to the esoteric wisdom which taught the wise men of the time that the cycle in its turning had brought about the birth of an avatara, a manifestation on this earth of a certain starry or solar divinity. See also BALTHAZAR; MELCHIOR
Kesarin (Sanskrit) Keśarin also Kesarin, Keśarī. Having a mane; a variant name of Anjana, the naga or initiate who was the mother of Hanuman, the monkey-god of the Ramayana. Hanuman’s father, the wind god (Pavana or Vayu), is at times also called Kesarin.
Khepera (Egyptian) Kheperȧ [from kheper to become, be born, arise into manifestation] Originally one of three aspects of the sun: “I am Khepera in the morning, and Ra at noon-day, and Temu in the evening.” Later each of these aspects developed into a separate deity. Khepera was the god of regeneration and development in growth, a spiritual power regulating reimbodiments and transmigrations and the deity presiding over the Egyptian form of the creation, where he is the only thing in existence besides the watery abyss, Nu. The deity of the universe, Nebertcher (a form of Ra) says: “I am he who came into being in the form of the god Khepera,” the hieroglyphic text representing the word by the scarab surmounted by a circle. The universe, then, is but the re-manifestation of a previous universe: the scarab standing for rebirth and regeneration, and the circle for karmic destiny in the universe as containing the seeds of life, brought into activity through reimbodiment or rebirth. The primeval deities Shu and Tefnut were brought forth by Khepera, who was the developer of everything which comes into manifested being from latency. In The Book of the Dead Khepera is called the father of the gods.
Khnum, Khnumu, or Khnemu (Egyptian) Khnum, Khnumu, or Khnemu [from khnem to join, unite] The chief member of the triad of deities revered at Abu or Elephantine, their worship extending from Thebes to Philae. Khnemu was the Father who was in the beginning, who fashioned the first egg from which sprang the sun, raiser up of the heaven upon its four pillars, and supporter of the same in the firmament, builder of gods and men, maker of all things which are, evolver of things which shall be, the source of things which exist. Thus Khnemu is intimately connected with Khepera, perhaps the latter in his active creative functions. His attributes are those of a water deity, one of the recondite cosmic powers in the waters of space; later he became associated with the Nile god, Hapi, taking on the name Hap-ur, and with Nu, the primeval god of the watery abyss or space. But at Abu he united the characteristics of Ra, Shu, Seb, and Osiris. Even in Christian times his worship flourished, for Gnostic gems bear testimony to his popularity. Sometimes pictured as a ram-headed deity fashioning a man on a potter’s wheel.
Kingu: Babylonian god of the powers of darkness and black magic.
Kneph or Knouphis (Egyptian) Kneph or Knouphis. An alternative form of the deity Khnum or Khnemu, associated with Egyptian cosmogony. One of the gods of creative force: “as Chnoumis-Kneph, who represents the Indian Narayana, the Spirit of God moving on the waters of space, as Eichton or Ether he holds in his mouth an Egg, the symbol of evolution; and as Av he is Siva, the Destroyer and the Regenerator; for as Deveria explains: ‘His journey to the lower hemispheres appears to symbolize the evolutions of substances, which are born to die and to be reborn.’ Esoterically, however, . . . Chnoumis-Kneph was pre-eminently the god of reincarnation” (TG 82-3). All these solar gods are the personification of the attributes of one god, representing various aspects of the phases of generation and impregnation.
Krittika (Sanskrit) Kṛttikā [from kṛtti pelt, hide on which a disciple sits from the verbal root kṛt to divide into portions] plural krittikas. The Pleiades; originally the first lunar mansion, in later times the third, having Agni as its regent. The constellation is sometimes represented as a flame, sometimes as a knife. In mythology there are six krittikas represented as nymphs, who became the nurses of the god of war, Karttikeya.
Kubera. (T. Lus ngan po; C. Jufeiluo; J. Kubeira; K. Kup'yera 吠囉). In Sanskrit, the ancient Indian god of wealth and king of the YAKsAs, related to VAIsRAVAnA and JAMBHALA. According to Hindu mythology, Kubera was the son of Visrāva; hence, Vaisravana is his patronym. His abode is said to be in Sri Lanka, although prior to becoming the god of wealth he lived at Mount KAILĀSA. Kubera is especially popular in the Himalayan regions, where he is usually depicted as a rich man with a large potbelly and holding a mongoose, which vomits jewels when he squeezes it.
Kuvera ::: [the god of riches, chief of the yaksas].
Lanka (Sanskrit) Laṅkā The ancient name of the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The third root-race ended its career in that part of a continent which later became the Lanka of the Atlanteans. In the Ramayana it is described as of gigantic extent and magnificence, “with seven broad moats and seven stupendous walls of stone and metal.” Its foundation is attributed to Visvakarman, who built it for Kuvera, the king of the demons, from whom it was taken by Ravana, the great foe of Rama, hero of the Ramayana. The Bhagavata-Purana shows Lanka or Ceylon as primarily the summit of Mount Meru, which was broken off by Vayu, god of the wind, and hurled into the ocean.
Loki: A Norse god of varying character, cunning, skillful, artistic, but treacherous; able to assume human form.
Lubara (Chaldean) The god of pestilence and disease.
Magne (Icelandic) [from magn main, strength] Thor, Norse god of thunder and lightning, in his capacity as electromagnetism in the infinite reaches of space, has two sons: Mode and Magne. Both mean power, though Mode has the connotation of anger, suggesting a repelling force, whereas Magne connotes power that is granted one. These two sons of Thor may represent attraction and repulsion, or gravitation and radiation on the cosmic level.
Mahākāla. (T. Nag po chen po; C. Daheitian; J. Daikokuten; K. Taehŭkch'on 大黑天). In Sanskrit, the "Great Black One"; one of the most important wrathful deities of tantric Buddhism. He is a DHARMAPĀLA or "protector of the dharma," of the LOKOTTARA or "supramundane" variety; that is, one regarded as the manifestation of a buddha or bodhisattva. He is said to be the wrathful manifestation of AVALOKITEsVARA, the bodhisattva of compassion. In the form of Avalokitesvara with a thousand arms and eleven heads (see SĀHASRABHUJASĀHASRANETRĀVALOKITEsVARA), the top head is that of Mahākāla. He has many aspects, including two-, four-, and six-armed forms, and appears in several colors, the most famous being black and white. He wears a crown of five skulls, symbolizing the transmutation of the five afflictions (KLEsA) into the five wisdoms (PANCAJNĀNA) of a buddha. One of his most popular forms in Tibet is as PaNjaranātha or "Protector of the Pavilion." In this form, which derives from the VajrapaNjaratantra, he is the protector of the HEVAJRATANTRA cycle. Here is depicted as a dwarf-like figure, holding a wooden staff across his arms. In Japan, where he is known as Daikokuten, Mahākāla is a less frightening figure and is one of the "seven gods of good fortune" (SHICHIFUKUJIN), extolled as a god of wealth and a god of the household.
mammon ::: n. --> Riches; wealth; the god of riches; riches, personified.
marcionite ::: n. --> A follower of Marcion, a Gnostic of the second century, who adopted the Oriental notion of the two conflicting principles, and imagined that between them there existed a third power, neither wholly good nor evil, the Creator of the world and of man, and the God of the Jewish dispensation.
Marduk: In Babylonian mythology, the king of all the gods, determiner of destiny, god of magicians and magic arts.
mars ::: Mars The 4th planet from the Sun, named after the Roman god of war, the counterpart to Ares in Greek mythology. Astrologically, Mars rules Aries.
mars ::: n. --> The god of war and husbandry.
One of the planets of the solar system, the fourth in order from the sun, or the next beyond the earth, having a diameter of about 4,200 miles, a period of 687 days, and a mean distance of 141,000,000 miles. It is conspicuous for the redness of its light.
The metallic element iron, the symbol of which / was the same as that of the planet Mars.
Mars: Originally a Roman god of agriculture, later the god of war, identified with the Greek Ares.
mercurial ::: a. --> Having the qualities fabled to belong to the god Mercury; swift; active; sprightly; fickle; volatile; changeable; as, a mercurial youth; a mercurial temperament.
Having the form or image of Mercury; -- applied to ancient guideposts.
Of or pertaining to Mercury as the god of trade; hence, money-making; crafty.
Of or pertaining to, or containing, mercury; as,
mercury ::: n. --> A Latin god of commerce and gain; -- treated by the poets as identical with the Greek Hermes, messenger of the gods, conductor of souls to the lower world, and god of eloquence.
A metallic element mostly obtained by reduction from cinnabar, one of its ores. It is a heavy, opaque, glistening liquid (commonly called quicksilver), and is used in barometers, thermometers, ect. Specific gravity 13.6. Symbol Hg (Hydrargyrum). Atomic weight 199.8. Mercury has a molecule which consists of only one atom. It was
messenger “of the God of Light to man.” Zoro¬
Mictlan: The underworld which is the abode of the dead in Aztec mythology; it is ruled by Mictlantecuhtli, god of the dead, and his wife, Mictlancihuatl, goddess of death.
Mistletoe, Mistilteinn (Icelandic) [from mistil + teinn twig] A parasitic plant held in high esteem among the Druids and Anglo-Saxon peoples as well as the Norse. The Druids are said to have used it as a medicinal herb. In Norse mythology it is instrumental in bringing about the death of Balder (the sun god) at the instigation of Loki, through the agency of Hoder, the blind god of darkness and ignorance.
Mithras (Greek) Mithra, Mitra (Avestan) [from Avestan Mithra from mith, myth light + ra subjective form] Ancient Persian deity; Yusti translates Mithra as the medium between the two lights: the invisible and the visible. Therefore, Mithra means the latent potential ability of understanding and the developing force in nature. It is the hidden beingness, the mysterious force of growth and the invisible light; philosophically, the latent power of cognition; astrologically, the source of the light of the heavens; and mystically, the creative force of love. Ahura-Mazda says: “I have created Mithra as worthy of sacrifice, as worthy of glorification, as I, Ahura-Mazda, am myself.” In late Persian times he became the god of the sun and of truth and faith. He punishes the Mithra-druj (he who lies to Mithra). He is represented as a judge in hell, in company with Rashnu (the true one, the god of truth) — who is an aspect of Mithra in his moral character. The Sanskrit Mitra in the Vedas is the god of light and friendship.
mithras ::: n. --> The sun god of the Persians.
mitra. ::: friend; companion; associate; vedic God of harmony
Mixcoatl: An ancient Mexican god of war, thunder and hunting; according to the Aztec cosmology, one of the gods aiding in the creation of the world.
Moabite god of licentiousness who was once,
Mode (Icelandic) [from mod; cf English mood, German Muth wrath] Thor, Norse god of thunder and lightning, in his capacity as electromagnetism in the infinite reaches of space, has two sons: Mode and Magne. Both mean power, though Mode has the connotation of anger, suggesting a repelling force, whereas Magne connotes power that is granted one. These two sons of Thor may represent attraction and repulsion, or gravitation and radiation on the cosmic level.
molech ::: n. --> The fire god of the Ammonites, to whom human sacrifices were offered; Moloch.
moloch ::: n. --> The fire god of the Ammonites in Canaan, to whom human sacrifices were offered; Molech. Also applied figuratively.
A spiny Australian lizard (Moloch horridus). The horns on the head and numerous spines on the body give it a most formidable appearance.
momus ::: n. --> The god of mockery and censure.
morpheus ::: n. --> The god of dreams.
Muspell, Muspellsheim, Muspellsheimr (Icelandic) Muspell, the Norse god of fire, equivalent to the Hindu Agni. From Muspellsheim (home of fire) sparks fell into Ginnungagap (the yawning void) and Niflheim (home of nebulae), creating vapor which became Ymir, the giant from whom the worlds were fashioned by the creative beneficent powers. From Muspellsheim will also come the destructive forces which will bring the end of life to our world at the final great battle called Ragnarok.
Nabi’ (Hebrew) Nābī’ [from nābā’ to deliver an oracle] A prophet, one inspired to foretell future events; the name given to prophecy in the Bible. One of the “spiritual powers, such as divination, clairvoyant visions, trance-conditions, and oracles. But while enchanters, diviners, and even astrologers are strictly condemned in the Mosaic books, prophecy, seership, and nobia appear as the special gifts of heaven. In early ages they were all termed Epoptai, the Greek word for seers, clairvoyants; after which they were designated as Nebim [nebi’im] ‘the plural of Nebo, the Babylonian god of wisdom.’ The kabalist distinguishes between the seer and the magician; one is passive, the other active; Nebirah [nabi’] is one who looks into futurity and a clairvoyant; Nebi-poel [nebi’-po‘el], he who possesses magic powers” (IU 1:xxxvii).
nāga. (T. klu; C. long; J. ryu; K. yong 龍). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "serpent" or "dragon" (as in the Chinese), autochthonous beings said to inhabit bodies of water and the roots of great trees, often guarding treasures hidden there. They are depicted iconographically with human heads and torsos but with the tail and hood of a cobra. They inhabit an underwater kingdom filled with magnificent palaces, and they possess a range of magical powers, including the ability to masquerade as humans. Nāgas appear frequently in Buddhist literature in both benevolent and malevolent forms. They are said to be under the command of VIRuPĀKsA, the god of the west, and are guards of the TRĀYASTRIMsA heaven. They sometimes appear in the audience of Buddha, most famously in the twelfth chapter of the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"), where an eight-year-old nāga princess offers a gem to the Buddha. She instantaneously transforms into a male, traverses the ten bodhisattva stages (BHuMI), and achieves buddhahood. This scene is sometimes cited as evidence that women have the capacity to achieve buddhahood. In the story of the Buddha's enlightenment, the Buddha is protected during a rainstorm by the nāga MUCILINDA. The Buddha is said to have entrusted the sATASĀHASRIKĀPRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ ("Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Lines") to the safekeeping of the nāgas at the bottom of the sea, from whom NĀGĀRJUNA recovered it. Digging the earth is said to displease nāgas, who must therefore be propitiated prior to the construction of a building.
Nebo, Nabu, Nabi’ (Hebrew) Nĕbō The proclaimer by prophecy; one of the chief deities of the Chaldean or Babylonian pantheon, the god of wisdom, recognized as fully by the ancient Hebrews as by the Chaldeans. The name and function of the divinity correspond to the Greek Hermes, the Egyptian Thoth, and the Hindu Budha, all of which are related to the regent of the planet Mercury.
Nebo was among the Chaldeans and other peoples a god of the secret wisdom, and that particular divinity in those lands guiding the inner development of his children or little ones — names for initiated adepts.
Neptune: An ancient Italian water deity, later identified in Roman mythology with the Greek god Poseidon, god of the sea.
neptune ::: Neptune The 8th planet from the sun, Neptune was named after the Roman god of the sea, its counterpart in Greek mythology being Poseidon. Astrologically, Neptune rules Pisces.
neptune ::: n. --> The son of Saturn and Ops, the god of the waters, especially of the sea. He is represented as bearing a trident for a scepter.
The remotest known planet of our system, discovered -- as a result of the computations of Leverrier, of Paris -- by Galle, of Berlin, September 23, 1846. Its mean distance from the sun is about 2,775,000,000 miles, and its period of revolution is about 164,78 years.
Ninib (Babylonian) A Chaldean deity originally with solar attributes, especially prominent at Shirgulla, where he was closely associated with Bel and regarded as his son. In hymns he is described as a healing god who releases men from illness. But he was also classed as a god of war, and represented as armed for the chase. The aspect stressed was the sun at the morning and the springtime season, showering beneficence upon mankind.
Ninurta: In Babylonian and Assyrian mythology, the god of war and of storms, patron of physicians.
Nolini: “Griffin-Golden Hawk + Winged Lion—The piercing eye of soaring aspiration + Upsurging energy of the pure vital—Remember Vishnu’s Garuda + Durga’s lion—With these twin powers you cross safely the borderland between the lower and the upper hemisphere—the twilight world (Night and Day)—Griffin is the guardian God of this passage—dvarapalaka. Mother India—Nolini’s reply to a question from Huta.
Nusku (Babylonian) Prominent Babylonian and Assyrian deity of light and fire, very closely associated with the god Girru or Gibil. As in other countries, fire was regarded as the great purifier, along with Ea, the god of water; hymns were addressed to him as the great cleanser from diseases and illness. Nusku-Girru represented both heavenly and terrestrial fire. He was regarded as the son of Anu, the deity of the heavenly spaces; but at Harran, in Assyria, he was regarded as the son of the moon deity Sin. Because of the connection of fire with productivity and birth, he held a position of the family god somewhat parallel to that of the Lares and Penates in ancient Rome.
Nusku: The Assyrian god of fire.
oceanus ::: n. --> The god of the great outer sea, or the river which was believed to flow around the whole earth.
Odin: One of the Norse triad of deities (the other two were Thor and Freyr); the god of war, the lord of the Valhalla (Hall of the Chosen Dead). Later revered also as the creator of the world and king of all gods.
Of or relating Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, fruitfulness, and vegetation, worshipped in orgiastic rites and festivals in his name. He was also known as the bestower of ecstasy and god of the drama, and identified with Bacchus. 2. Recklessly uninhibited; unrestrained.
Of the god of the Beginning
Ogmius “The god of wisdom and eloquence of the Druids, hence Hermes in a sense” (TG 239).
Orcus (Latin) [from Greek horcos an oath, the object by which one swears, the witness of an oath] Synonym for Hades, Dis, Pluto; Roman name for the presiding god of the Underworld, also for the Underworld itself. Horcos was the son of Eris (strife), who punishes the perjurer.
Originally it was described as the abode of the night-sun, through which the sun god Ra passed during the night, only to arise renewed in the morning. “What is the Tiaou The frequent allusion to it in the ‘Book of the Dead’ contains a mystery. Tiaou is the path of the Night Sun, the inferior hemisphere, or the infernal region of the Egyptians, placed by them on the concealed side of the moon. The human being, in their exotericism, came out from the moon (a triple mystery — astronomical, physiological, and psychical at once); he crossed the whole cycle of existence and then returned to his birth-place before issuing from it again. Thus the defunct is shown arriving in the West, receiving his judgment before Osiris, resurrecting as the god Horus, and circling round the sidereal heavens, which is an allegorical assimilation to Ra, the Sun; then having crossed the Noot (the celestial abyss), returning once more to Tiaou: an assimilation to Osiris, who, as the God of life and reproduction, inhabits the moon” (SD 1:227-8).
Osiris: The most widely worshipped god of ancient Egypt, god of the dead, husband of Isis, father of Horus. He was worshipped also as the great Creator. His cult included human sacrifices, for which in later periods animal sacrifices were permitted to be substituted. His death and resurrection was the central theme of the Isis-Osiris mysteries.
Other forms of this same name were current among the nations surrounding the Jews, as among the Syrians, some sects of whom worshiped their Iao, sometimes spelled Iaho or Yaho. Iao was one of the most sacred divinities of the Phoenicians and was supposed to be the spiritual light understandable only by the highest human intellectual faculty, and this is the idea or spiritual light of the spiritual sun. The Gnostics likewise had a mystery-god of the same name, and with the same variations in spelling, and with the same significance that it had with the Phoenicians as representing the intellectual power or potency of the solar system.
Pan (Greek) [from pa to feed, or pan all] Arcadian pastoral deity originally representing nature as a whole, about in later usage meaning the forms of terrestrial creative forces. In historical times, Pan was the local god of a pastoral people, venerated as giver of fertility to flocks and pastures; as guide to travelers; as healer, revealing medicine in dreams; as patron of song, music, and dance, as shown by the syrinx or pan pipes. Sometimes the name becomes generic, and in the plural becomes the Latin fauni. He was associated with the Roman god Faunus, and also Iunus.
pan ::: n. --> A part; a portion.
The distance comprised between the angle of the epaule and the flanked angle.
A leaf of gold or silver.
The betel leaf; also, the masticatory made of the betel leaf, etc. See /etel.
The god of shepherds, guardian of bees, and patron of fishing and hunting. He is usually represented as having the head and trunk of
Pan: The Arcadian god of shepherds, hunters and rural residents, chief of the minor deities of the Greek pantheon. Represented as a horned, long-eared man with the lower half of the body and legs resembling those of a goat; he plays a pipe on which he can produce music of magic power which “can charm the very gods.”
Pasa (Sanskrit) Pāśa [from the verbal root paś to fasten, bind] A snare, noose, tie, bond, chain, fetter — both literally and figuratively. Especially used in connection with Yama, the Hindu god of death, represented as carrying a noose. The Jains and Buddhists use the term for anything that binds or fetters the soul, e.g., the outer world of matter and sense. “As an emblem of ‘door, gate, mouth, the place of outlet’ it signifies the ‘strait gate’ that leads to the kingdom of heaven, far more than the ‘birth-place’ in a physiological sense.
Pavana (Sanskrit) Pavana [from the verbal root pū to purify] The purifier; often used for the wind. Pavana, as the god of wind, is said to be the father of Hanumat or Hanuman, the monkey king who becomes Rama’s helper in the Ramayana.
Pe har rgyal po. (Pehar Gyalpo). A god of the Tangut people (T. Mi nyag; C. Xixia), who was adopted into Tibetan Buddhism as the state oracle. According to Tibetan legend, at the completion of the BSAM YAS monastery at the end of the eighth century, the monastery was in need of a protector god. At that time, Pe har was in residence at a hermitage in Bhata hor, having come there from Bengal. In the early ninth century, the Tibetan king KHRI SRONG LDE BTSAN sent his nephew Prince Mu rug btsan po to conquer Mi nyag and destroy Bhata hor, which he did with the assistance of the god VAIsRAVAnA. Pe har fled, turning himself into a vulture to escape. A YAKsA in Vaisravana's command shot him with an arrow, and brought him to Bsam yas, where PADMASAMBHAVA installed him as the monastery's protector. Other versions credit Padmasambhava with the actual capture of Pe har, and still others have GE SAR defeat Pe har. The kingdom of Mi nyag was finally destroyed by the Mongol Genghis Khan in the twelfth century, leading to an influx in Mi nyag refugees; this was a time when Pe har's legends were being developed. From that point, Pe har, as a captured deity made to serve the Tibetan state, is a figure much interwoven in the events of the history of Tibetan imperial expansion. Pe har is said to have resided at Bsam yas for some seven centuries before moving to the Gnas chung shrine below 'BRAS SPUNGS monastery outside of LHA SA at the time of the fifth DALAI LAMA. It is at GNAS CHUNG, a monastery with both RNYING MA and DGE LUGS PA affiliations, that he serves as the state oracle. The legends of his move involve an initial move to a Rnying ma monastery on the banks of the Skyid chu upriver from Lha sa. Pe har and the abbot of the monastery did not get along, and, after causing a fair amount of mischief, Pe har was locked in a wooden box that was thrown into the river. Various accounts relate how the box was retrieved by monks of 'Bras spungs, and how Pe har then escaped, alighting in the form of a white dove in a tree below Gnas chung monastery where Pe har subsequently took up residence. (See GNAS CHUNG ORACLE for Pe har's activities as the Tibetan state oracle.) Pe har has been fully integrated into native Tibetan spirit pantheons: he is the head of the worldly DHARMAPĀLA, chief of the three hundred sixty rgyal po spirits, and leader of a group of deities known as the rgyal po sku lnga, the "kings of the five bodies," who in addition to Pe har are Brgya byin, Mon bu pu tra, Shing bya can, and Dgra lha skyes gcig bu, all of whom are also seen as emanations of Pe har. His consort is named Bdud gza' smin dkar. In iconography Pe har is frequently pictured as white, with three faces and six arms riding a white lion, although he is also shown with one face and two hands. Finally, the spelling of his name varies considerably, including Dpe kar, Pe dkar, Spe dkar, Dpe dkar, Be dkar, Dpe ha ra, and Pe ha ra.
Persephone (Greek) Proserpina (Latin) The daughter of Zeus and Demeter who became queen of the Underworld, after being carried off by Hades or Pluto, god of the Underworld. As Kore-Persephone, she becomes one of the great Eleusinian divinities, the Divine Maid. The role played by Persephone, Demeter, or Kore (“maiden,” a title applicable to both) is part of a profound allegory in which is found a great deal of occult truth. Persephone or Demeter has a cosmic significance, as well as one applicable to the human race, for in the cosmic meaning the legend involves what the Hindus refer to under the various manifestations of prakriti running throughout manifested nature as a veil or garment of the indwelling cosmic consciousness; and the various permutations under which Kore-Persephone or Demeter is presented, show the various allegorical stages or modifications which the cosmic prakritis undergo. In the application of the legend to man, Kore-Persephone stands for both the spiritual soul and its child, the human soul, which in one manner of envisioning the facts are two; and in another manner, are one. See also DEMETER; KORE-PERSEPHONE
Persian Philosophy: Persia was a vast empire before the time of Alexander the Great, embracing not only most of the orientnl tribes of Western Asia but also the Greeks of Asia Minor, the Jews and the Egyptians. If we concentrate on the central section of Persia, three philosophic periods may be distinguished Zoroastrianism (including Mithraism and Magianism), Manichaeanism, and medieval Persian thought. Zarathustra (Or. Zoroaster) lived before 600 B.C. and wrote the Avesta, apparently in the Zend language. It is primarily religious, but the teaching that there are two ultimate principles of reality, Ormazd, the God of Light and Goodness, and Ahriman, God of Evil and Darkness, is of philosophic importance. They are eternally fighting Mitra is the intermediary between Ormazd and man. In the third century A. D., Mani of Ecbatana (in Media) combined this dualism of eternal principles with some of the doctrines of Christianity. His seven books are now known only through second-hand reports of Mohammedan (Abu Faradj Ibn Ishaq, 10th c., and Sharastani, 12th c.) and Christian (St. Ephrem, 4th c., and Bar-Khoni, 7th c.) writers. St Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.) has left several works criticizing Manichaeism, which he knew at first-hand. From the ninth century onward, many of the great Arabic philosophers are of Persian origin. Mention might be made of the epicureanism of the Rubaiyat of the Persian poet, Omar Kayyam, and the remarkable metaphysical system of Avicenna, i.e. Ibn Sina (11th c.), who was born in Persia. -- V.J.B.
Personal God The personal anthropomorphic extra-cosmic God of theology is a purely human creation — for personality is a limitation utterly inconsistent with the nature of the boundless and eternal. This theological God is merely a reflection of man. The infinite source of all cannot be defined, since every possible attribute which we might assign to it is a human mental creation. We are forced to speak of God as impersonal, but must beware lest in doing so we reduce the conception to an empty abstraction. God may denote a divine being, a being who was once in our present human stage but has evolved beyond it, having transcended the limit of personality but without losing individuality. Or God may be applied to a being who has emanated from the divine source but is on the downward arc of evolution, not having yet become man; or again it may be a projection of the human mind, like the personal God of theology, but in this case it is a human mental creation — therefore containing human limitations because the human mind is finite — and therefore inadmissible.
Plutarch designates Aroeris as the son of Kronos and Rhea (i.e., Seb and Nut), which would make him the brother of Osiris, also the son of Nut. Originally Heru-ur was the twin god of Set, being the Face of the Sun by day, while Set was the Face by night. One representation of him is with the horns and the solar disk, similar to Khnemu or Khnum, with whom he is equivalent.
Pluto (Latin) [from Greek ploutos wealth, bounty of the earth] The Roman god of the Underworld, the same as the Greek Hades, Dis, and Orcus. The name Plutus, with which Pluto was sometimes confounded, is that of another deity, the god of wealth per se.
pluto ::: n. --> The son of Saturn and Rhea, brother of Jupiter and Neptune; the dark and gloomy god of the Lower World.
pluto ::: Pluto A small planet and the 9th from the sun. Pluto was the god of the underworld in Roman mythology, synonymous with the Greek god Hades. Astrologically, Pluto rules Scorpio.
Pluto: Roman god of the infernal regions, identified with the Greek Hades.
plutus ::: n. --> The son of Jason and Ceres, and the god of wealth. He was represented as bearing a cornucopia, and as blind, because his gifts were bestowed without discrimination of merit.
Poseidon (Greek) One of the twelve great Olympian deities, a son of Ouranos and Gaia, brother of Zeus and Hades; represented by the Latins as Neptunus. The brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades are respectively the gods of heaven, the intermediate world or water, and of the underworld; and these represent the three great generalized powers or forces, each one ruling or vitalizing his respective third of the seven manifest cosmic planes. Poseidon presides over water, especially the ocean, and over horses, which he brought forth by a stroke of his trident on the earth. His symbols are the dolphin, one of his executive ministers; the trident; and the horse. It is Poseidon who shakes the earth and raises and quells storms at sea. He had numerous offspring by many wives, both mortal and immortal; mostly of a violent unruly character like himself — titans and giants. He stands as a personation of the spirit and race of Atlantis; for he is lusty, sensual, and at war with heaven. To consummate his intrigues, he assumes the forms of various animals — a way of alluding to bestial Atlantean black magic. The symbol is complex, for he is also a dragon. He is related to the northern constellations of Draco, Delphinus, and Pegasus (or Equus, the horse). Equivalent to Chozzar of the Peratae Gnostics and the good serpent of the Nazarenes (cf SD 2:578). As god of the waters he parallels Idaspati, Narayana, Vishnu, and Varuna.
Poseidon: In Greek mythology, brother of Zeus and god of the sea.
Pradyumna ::: [a name of the god of Love, a son of Krsna].
Priapus (Greek) A Greek god of fertility, worshiped as a protector of flocks, of the vine, and of other produce. His cult appeared on the coasts of Asia Minor, especially at Lampsacus, and he was undoubtedly well known and accepted as a member of the mythological hierarchy from a date long antedating both Homer and Hesiod. He is variously made the son of Dionysos and Aphrodite, of Adonis and Aphrodite, and of Hermes and Chione. The word also signified the phallus or phallic.
Ptah: A god of ancient Egypt, principle of Light and Life, the pure intellect “which is the ultimate origin of all creation.”
Ptah, the Egyptian god of creation, is represented as bringing forth beings from a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel. This lump of clay represents the world egg, out of which all the beings creep. And the winged globe, so prominent in Egyptian symbology, is another symbol of the world egg. See also EGG
Python (Greek) The serpent slain by Apollo, who was therefore also called Pythius. At one time the world was covered with temples to the sun and dragon: the Ophites adopted it from Egypt, whither it had come from India. It is seen in the story of Bel and the Dragon, of St. George or St. Michael and the Dragon, of Osiris and Typhon, Krishna and Kaliya, and the Lord God and the Serpent of Eden. The cosmic dragon represents the shadow side of the logos, and the opposition between these two is the so-called war in heaven. The dual nature of the serpent is seen in Rahu and Ketu, the Dragon’s head and tail; and Typhon or Apophis, slain by Horus is also called Set, who is in one of his permutations Hermes, god of wisdom, and whose name likewise is that of the Biblical Seth and Satan. In initiations the inner enlightened individual had to confront his lower passions, now personified into a veritable astral monster, and to be either its victor or its victim; when victorious he became the spiritual serpent in its other sense of the dragon of wisdom. This double meaning has its correspondence in the fact that snakes shed their skin and reemerge purified, just as the neophyte through training and initiation sheds the Old Person and reemerges from the tests as the New Person.
Quetzalcoatl: The feathered-serpent god of the Aztecs; creator of men, god of the wind and of the waning moon.
quote :::In the Vedanta the soul is called by three names which denote its three aspects, Atma, Mahatma, Paramatma. Atma is the soul conscious of the life on the surface, Mahatma is the soul conscious as well of the life within, Paramatma is the consciousness that is the soul of souls, conscious of the Absolute within and without, the God of the knower, the Lord of the seer.
(q.v.), god of the underworld, daimon of rein¬
Ra-Hoor-Khuit: The Egyptian God of Force and Fire. He is the child of Nuit and Hadit and therefore the manifested universe, as Hoor-paar-kraat (his twin) is the hidden universe. Ra-Hoor Khuit represents The Crowned and Conquering Child, and as such the fulfilment of the Will of the Magician which he brings to birth or manifests. Ra-HoorKhuit is a form of Horns; he is depicted on the Ste'le' of Revealing throned and crowned; his mother, Nuit, arched above him, with Hadit (his father) in the form of a winged globe of Light beneath her.
Ra: The sun god of the priests of Heliopolis (Egypt). Later, Ra was combined with Amon, god of Thebes, in Amon-Ra. (Also called Re.)
Rudra: A storm god of Vedic Hinduism, representing the destructive effects of the storm.
Rudra ::: "fierce, violent"; [Ved.]: the Divine as master of our evolution by violence and battle, the deva or Deity ascending in the cosmos; [Puranas]: the Terrible one, the God of might and wrath, a member of the divine Triad [trimurti], expressive of the destructive process in the cosmos.
Rudra-Siva (Sanskrit) Rudra-Śiva Siva in the form of the regenerating god; also “the great Yogi, the forefather of all the Adepts — in Esotericism one of the greatest Kings of the Divine Dynasties. Called ‘the Earliest’ and the ‘Last,’ he is the patron of the Third, Fourth, and the Fifth Root-Races. For, in his earliest character, he is the ascetic Dig-ambara, ‘clothed with the Elements,’ Trilochana, ‘the three-eyed’; Pancha-anana, ‘the five-faced,’ an allusion to the past four and the present fifth race, for, though five-faced, he is only ‘four-armed,’ as the fifth race is still alive. He is the ‘God of Time,’ Saturn-Kronos, as his damaru (drum), in the shape of an hour-glass, shows; and if he is accused of having cut off Brahma’s fifth head, and left him with only four, it is again an allusion to a certain degree in initiation, and also to the Races” (SD 2:502n). See also RUDRA
Sa (Babylonian) The god of wisdom or of the cosmic deep; equivalent to Hea or Ea. As the remote and almost inscrutable divinity of the cosmic deep, the enclosure of all its cosmic children, Sa is seen to be the synthetic acme of the seven or twelve great gods — the cosmic hierarch of his own sphere.
Sabazius (Greek) [from sabo a god of health; or sevas reverential awe] A Phrygian or Thracian deity whose worship was connected with that of the Great Mother, Cybele, and of Attis. He was associated with the chthonian deities and his emblem was a serpent. Regularly conducted Mysteries were held, probably similar in nature to the Dionysian Mysteries because the ancient Greeks connected Sabazius with Dionysos, even giving the name to Bacchus (or Dionysos). “Sabasia was a periodical festival with mysteries enacted in honour of some gods, a variant on the Mithraic Mysteries. The whole evolution of the races was performed in them” (SD 2:419n). The Sabazia were revived in Rome during the 2nd century, practiced under the name Sacra Savadia.
Sagittarius (The Archer): The ninth sign of the zodiac. In Hindu astrology: Dhanus. Its symbol represents an arrow and a section of a bow, typifying aspiration. It is usually pictured as the Centaur: half horse, half man—representing the conflict between the philosophical mind and the carnal instinct of conquest; also aspiration supported by effort that aims at the stars. Said to have been named for the Babylonian god of war. The Sun is in Sagittarius annually from November 23 to December 21. Astrologically it is the thirty-degree arc immediately preceding the Sun’s passing over the Tropic of Capricorn, occupying a position along the Ecliptic from 240° to 270°. It is the “mutable” quality of the element Fire: positive, hot, dry, changeable, bicorporeal, obeying. Ruler: Jupiter. Detriment: Mercury. Symbolic interpretation: The centaur; an arrow with a short section of the bow, the symbol of enthusiasm and effort, aiming at the stars.
sakra. (P. Sakka; T. Brgya byin; C. Di-Shi; J. Taishaku; K. Che-Sok 帝釋). Sanskrit name of a divinity who is often identified with the Vedic god INDRA (with whom he shares many epithets), although it is perhaps more accurate to describe him as a Buddhist (and less bellicose) version of Indra. Typically described in Buddhist texts by his full name and title as "sakra, the king of the gods" (sAKRO DEVĀNĀM INDRAḤ), he is the divinity (DEVA) who appears most regularly in Buddhist texts. sakra is chief of the gods of the heaven of the thirty-three (TRĀYASTRIMsA), located on the summit of Mount SUMERU. As such, he is a god of great power and long life, but is also subject to death and rebirth; the Buddha details in various discourses the specific virtues that result in rebirth as sakra. In both the Pāli canon and the MAHĀYĀNA sutras, sakra is depicted as the most devoted of the divine followers of the Buddha, descending from his heaven to listen to the Buddha's teachings and to ask him questions (and according to some accounts, eventually achieving the state of stream-enterer), and rendering all manner of assistance to the Buddha and his followers. In the case of the Buddha, this assistance was extended prior to his achievement of buddhahood, both in his previous lives (as in the story of Vessantara in the VESSANTARA JĀTAKA) and in his last lifetime as Prince SIDDHĀRTHA; when the prince cuts off his royal locks and throws them into the sky, proclaiming that he will achieve buddhahood if his locks remain there, it is sakra who catches them and installs them in a shrine in the heaven of the thirty-three. When the Buddha later visited the heaven of the thirty-three to teach the ABHIDHARMA to his mother MĀYĀ (who had been reborn there), sakra provided the magnificent ladder for his celebrated descent to JAMBUDVĪPA that took place at SĀMKĀsYA. When the Buddha was sick with dysentery near the end of his life, sakra carried his chamber pot. sakra often descends to earth disguised as a brāhmana in order to test the virtue of the Buddha's disciples, both monastic and lay, offering all manner of miraculous boons to those who pass the test. In the Pāli canon, a section of the SAMYUTTANIKĀYA consists of twenty-five short suttas devoted to him.
Sarameyas (Sanskrit) Sārameya-s The two children of Sarama (the female watchdog of Indra), four-eyed brindled watchdogs of Yama, the god of the Underworld, whose duties include watching over the celestial flock (occult wisdom and its students).
saura ::: pertaining to the sun; a worshipper of Surya, the god of the Sun].
Savitri ::: Purani: “The word ‘Savitri’ is derived from the word ‘Savitru’ which in its turn is derived from the root ‘su’ = ‘to give birth to’. The word ‘Soma’ which indicates an ‘exhilarating drink’, symbolising spiritual ecstasy or delight, is also derived from the same root ‘su’. It links therefore the creation and the delight of creation. Savitru therefore, means the Divine Creator One who gives birth to or brings forth from himself into existence, the creation. In the Veda, Savita is the God of illumination, the God of Creation. Usually, he is represented by the material sun which also illuminates the solar system and is its creator and sustainer in the material sense. Savitri therefore would mean etymologically ‘some one descended from the Sun’, ‘one belonging to the Sun’, ‘an energy derived from the Sun, the Divine Creator’. In our poem, Savitri is the princess who embodies the Divine Grace descended in human birth to work out with the aspiring soul of humanity his divine destiny.”“Savitri“—An Approach and a Study
saw Malkuth “under the God of Israel by the river
Schools of the Prophets “Schools established by Samuel for the training of the Nabiim (prophets). Their method was pursued on the same lines as that of a Chela or candidate for initiation into the occult sciences, i.e., the development of abnormal faculties or clairvoyance leading to Seership. Of such schools there were many in days of old in Palestine and Asia Minor. That the Hebrews worshipped Nebo, the Chaldean god of secret learning, is quite certain, since they adopted his name as an equivalent of Wisdom” (TG 294).
[See Angel of Snow.] The Mayans have a god of
Seker: In Egyptian occultism, the haw-headed god of the underworld.
Seker, Seket (Egyptian) Seker, Seket. One of the aspects of Ptah, also the name of Osiris in Memphis, especially in his character of Lord of the Underworld — Ptah-Seker-Asar, the triadic god of the resurrection. Ptah-Seker is the personification of the union of the primeval creative power with a form of the inert power of darkness, or a cosmic rendering of the very mystical thoughts around the term the “night sun.”
Semites, Rimmon was the god of storms, the
Set or Seth (Egyptian) Set or Seth. According to the Heliopolitan mythology, the son of Seb and Nut, is the brother of Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys; and the father of Anubis by Nephthys. In later times he became associated with Typhon. The attributes of the god underwent several changes: he is described as very closely connected with Aroeris (Heru-ur or Horus the Elder), his chief office being that of helper and friend to the deceased; in this association a twin-god is pictured, having the hawk head of Horus (light) and the Set animal (darkness) upon one human body. Furthermore, Horus was the god of the sky by day, while Set was god of the sky by night: in this sense were they opposite yet identic deities in earliest times, one the shadow of the other.
Set (or Sut): Lit. Black. Our word "soot" derives from this incalculably ancient name. Set was the primordial god of the Egyptians; no earlier exists in the recorded history of the present human race. See also Shaitan.
set ::: Set Set is an ancient god, originally the god of the desert, and was associated with sandstorms, and caravans. Due to the developments in the Egyptian language over the 3,000 years that Set was worshiped, by the time of the Greek period, the t in Set was pronounced so indistinguishably from th that the Greeks spelled it as Seth. Set/Seth is the Egyptian god of chaos, evil, drought, thunder and storm, and destruction, embodying the principle of hostility, even outright evil. Seth tore himself from his mother's womb in his hurry to be born, and is associated with the murder of his brother, Osiris. See also The Temple of Set.
Set: The Egyptian god of the atmosphere, adversary and murderer of Osiris. He was represented as a human figure with the head of an animal of an unknown species.
Shamash: In Babylonian mythology, god of the sun and of divination. The Assyrian all-seeing god of right and justice.
Shemoneh Esreh ::: (Heb.eighteen) The main section of Jewish prayers recited in a standing position (see amida) and containing 19 (yes!) "benedictions": praise to (1) God of the fathers/patriarchs, (2) God's power and (3) holiness; prayers for (4) knowledge, (5) repentance, (6) forgiveness, (7) redemption, (8) healing sick persons, (9) agricultural prosperity, (10) ingathering the diaspora, (11) righteous judgment, (12) punishment of the wicked and heretics (birkat haminim, (13) reward of the pious, (14) rebuilding Jerusalem, (15) restoration of the royal house of David, (16) acceptance of prayers, (17) thanks to God, (18) restoration of Temple worship, and (19) peace.
Shichifukujin. (七福神). In Japanese, "Seven Gods of Good Fortune"; an assembly of seven deities dating from at least the fifteenth century, which gained popularity in Japan's folk religious setting and are still well known today. Those who have faith in the group are said to gain happiness and good fortune in their lives. Before their grouping, each of the individual gods existed independently and historically shared little in common. Of the seven, Ebisu is the only god with an identity linked to the Japanese islands. Daikokuten (C. Dahei tian; S. MAHĀKĀLA), Bishamonten (C. Pishamen tian; S. VAIsRAVAnA), and Benzaiten (C. Biancai tian; S. SARASVATĪ) originated in India, and Hotei (C. BUDAI, d. 917), Jurojin (C. Shoulaoren), and Fukurokuju (C. Fulushou) come from the Chinese Buddho-Daoist traditions. Their grouping into seven gods of good fortune likely occurred in the Japanese Kansai region, with the commerce-affiliated Daikoku and Ebisu gaining initial popularity among merchants. Early mention of them appears in a reference from 1420, when they were said to have been escorted in procession through Fushimi, a southern ward of Kyoto, in imitation of a daimyo procession. ¶ Ebisu (a.k.a. Kotoshiro-nushi-no-mikoto, the abandoned child of Izanami and Izanagi) is the god of fishermen and the sea, commerce, good fortune, and labor. Among its etymological roots, the term "ebisu" traces back to the Ainu ethnic group of Hokkaido, connecting them to fishermen who came from abroad. Ebisu is often depicted with a fishing rod in one hand and either a large red sea bream (J. tai) or a folding fan in the other. Since the inception of the Shichifukujin, he is often paired with Daikokuten as either son or brother. ¶ Daikokuten, or "Great Black Spirit," comes originally from India (where is he is called Mahākāla); among the Shichifukujin, he is known as the god of wealth, agriculture, and commerce. Typically portrayed as standing on two bales of rice, Daikokuten carries a sack of treasure over his shoulder and a magic mallet in one hand. He is also considered to be a deity of the kitchen and is sometimes found in monasteries and private kitchens. Prior to the Tokugawa period, he was called Sanmen Daikokuten (Three-Headed Daikokuten), a wrathful protector of the three jewels (RATNATRAYA). ¶ Bishamonten, also originally from India (where he is called Vaisravana), is traditionally the patron deity of the state and warriors. He is often depicted holding a lance in one hand and a small pagoda in the palm of his other hand with which he rewards those he deems worthy. Through these associations, he came to represent wealth and fortune. His traditional residence is Mt. SUMERU, where he protects the Buddha's dais and listens to the dharma. ¶ Benzaiten ([alt. Myoonten]; C. Miaoyin tian) is the Indian goddess Sarasvatī. She is traditionally considered to be a goddess of music, poetry, and learning but among the Shichifukujin, she also represents good fortune. She takes two forms: one playing a lute in both hands, the other with eight arms. ¶ Hotei is the Japanese name of Budai (d. 916), a Chinese thaumaturge who is said to have been an incarnation of the BODHISATTVA MAITREYA (J. Miroku bosatsu). The only historical figure among the Shichifukujin, Hotei represents contentment and happiness. Famous for his fat belly and broad smile, Hotei is often depicted holding a large cloth bag (Hotei literally means "hemp sack"). From this bag, which never empties, he feeds the poor and needy. In some places, he has also become the patron saint of restaurants and bars, since those who drink and eat well are said to be influenced by Hotei. ¶ Jurojin and Fukurokuju, often associated with one another and said to share the same body, originated within the Chinese Daoist tradition. Jurojin (lit. "Gaffer Long Life"), the deity of longevity within the Shichifukujin, is possibly a historical figure from the late eleventh through twelfth century. Depicted as an old man with a long, white beard, he is often accompanied by a crane or white stag. Fukurokuju (lit. "Wealth, Happiness, and Longevity") has an elongated forehead, a long, white beard and usually a staff in one hand; he is likely based on a mythical Daoist hermit from the Song period. ¶ This set of seven gods is most commonly worshipped in Japan. There are, however, other versions. Especially noteworthy is a listing found in the 1697 Nihon Shichifukujinden ("The Exposition on the Japanese Seven Gods of Good Fortune"), according to which Fukurokuju and Jurojin are treated as a single god named Nankyoku rojin and a new god, Kichijoten (C. Jixiang tian; S. srīmahādevī), the goddess of happiness or auspiciousness, is added to the group.
Shu (Egyptian) Shu [from shu dry, parched] The Egyptian god of light, popularly associated with heat and dryness, and the ethereal spaces existing between the earth and the vault of the sky; often depicted as holding up the sky with his two hands, one at the place of sunrise, the other of sunset. The phonetic value of shu is the feather, which is the symbol of this deity, and appears above his headdress. Shu is manifest during the day in the beams of the sun, and at night in the beams of the moon; the solar disk is his home. He is likewise one of the chief deities of the underworld, the gate of the pillars of Shu (tchesert) marking the entrance to this region, the pillars representing the four cardinal points said to hold up the sky. Although the twin brother of Tefnut — often alluded to as the twin lion-deities — Shu is more often represented with Seb and Nut (deities of cosmic space and of its garment of ethereal substance) in his position of holding up the sky, because in theosophical terminology cosmic light as well as cosmic intelligence (the Logos) is born from Brahman and pradhana, or parabrahman and mulaprakriti.
Sibika or Sivika (Sanskrit) Śibikā, Śivikā The weapon of Kuvera, the Vedic god of wealth equivalent to the Greek Pluto; made out of the parts of the divine splendor of Vishnu, a sun god, and filed off by Visvakarman, the architect of the gods.
Siva is known under more than a thousand names or titles and is represented under many different forms in Hindu writings. As the god of generation and of justice, he is represented riding a white bull; his own color, as well as that of the bull, is generally white, referring probably to the unsullied purity of abstract justice. He is sometimes seen with two hands, sometimes with four, eight, or ten; and with five faces, representing among other things his power over the five elements. He has three eyes, one placed in the centre of his forehead, and shaped as a vertical oval. These three eyes are said to denote his view of the three divisions of time: past, present, and future. He holds a trident in his hand to denote his three great attributes of emanator, destroyer, and regenerator, thus combining all the usual qualities or functions attributed to the Trimurti. In his character of time, he not only presides over its beginning and its extinction, but also over its present functioning as represented in astronomical and astrological calculations. A crescent or half-moon on his forehead indicates time measured by the phases of the moon; a serpent forms one of his necklaces to denote the measure of time by cycles, and a second necklace of human skulls signifies the extinction and succession of the races of mankind. He is often pictures as entirely covered with serpents, which are at once emblems of spiritual immortality and his standing as the patron of the nagas or initiates. He is often mystically personated by Mount Meru, which esoterically is both the cosmic and terrestrial axis with their respective poles.
Siva (Sanskrit) Śiva The third god of the Hindu Trimurti (trinity): Brahma the evolver; Vishnu the preserver; and Siva the regenerator or destroyer. Siva is one of the three loftiest divinities of our solar system, and in his character of destroyer stands higher than Vishnu for he is “the destroying deity, evolution and PROGRESS personified, who is the regenerator at the same time; who destroys things under one form but to recall them to life under another more perfect type” (SD 2:182). As the destroyer of outward forms he is called Vamadeva. Endowed with so many powers and attributes, Siva possesses a great number of names, and is represented under a corresponding variety of forms. He corresponds to the Palestinian Ba‘al or Moloch, Saturn, the Phoenician El, the Egyptian Seth, and the Biblical Chiun of Amos, and Greek Typhon.
Skanda Purana (Sanskrit) Skanda Purāṇa One of the 18 principal Hindu Puranas consisting of several samhitas and khandas. The most celebrated of the latter is the Kasi-khanda, in which the temples of Kasi (Benares) are exalted, and legends concerning Kasi are related. In this Purana Skanda (Karttikeya, the god of war) narrates the events of the Tatpurusha Kalpa, embroidered with many tales.
Soma2 ::: a Vedic deity, "lord of the delight of immortality", the god of ananda as symbolised by the "wine of delight" (soma1); also the god of the moon (Candra2), who manifests himself as mind
son of Isis, who was a god of silence. [Rf Wood¬
Sraddha-deva (Sanskrit) Śrāddha-deva Any god presiding over sraddha rites; especially an epithet of Yama, the god of death and king of the Underworld.
Tahuti: Thoth, God of Wisdom and Magic. The Egyptian form of Hermes and Mercury, the latter being the planetary representative of Set.Tarot: Lit. a Wheel or Revolution. The Book of Thoth, which contains the Keys to the 22 Paths of the Tree of Life as well as many other secret cells of the Hermetic Tradition. The pack of cards used for telling fortunes and calculating mundane chances of whatever order, is a debasement of the original sublime Arcana that occurred when the true keys were lost. They have recently been recovered and interpreted according to the Mysteries of the New Aeon, by Aleister Crowley.
“Taken variously to mean a shark, a dolphin, etc.; as it is the vahan of Varuna, the Ocean God . . .” (SD 2:577). It appears on the banner of Kama, god of love, and is connected with the immortal egos (TG 162).
Tarakajit (Sanskrit) Tārakajit Conqueror of Taraka, name given to the Hindu god of war, Karttikeya, because he conquered Taraka, a daitya whose austerities had made him formidable to the gods — the daityas being those early beings or races who, because of their developing intellectual powers, were found to be identical with the asuras, who were opposed to the more or less passive spiritual forces — devas or suras. In another sense, because of this developing intellectuality, the daityas, somewhat like the Greek titans or giants, were the opponents of the gods of mere ritualistic or scholastic theory, and hence the enemies of puja (ritualistic sacrifices).
Taraka (Sanskrit) Tāraka The daitya or giant-demon whose yoga austerities were so extraordinary that he had obtained all the divine knowledge of yoga-vidya and occult powers. The gods feared his superhuman powers and Skanda or Karttikeya, the god of war, was miraculously born to destroy him.
Taurus The bull; second sign of the zodiac, a constellation containing the Pleiades. In astrology a fixed earthy sign, the night house of Venus, corresponding to the throat, neck, and base of the brain. It is the bull among the four sacred animals who are the Maharajas of the four quarters, and presides over the south. Called in Sanskrit Rishabha, dedicated to Yama, the god of the Underworld, it stands in Hindu reckoning for Pranava or Aum (12 Signs of the Zodiac). Frequently it is connected with Logos, Verbum, Vach — for it is another form or aspect of the Third Logos.
Telchines (Greek) [from thelgo to enchant] A race of ethereal or semi-ethereal beings or genii, said in one legend to be descended from Poseidon, god of the sea — supposed to have lived especially in Crete, Cyprus, and Rhodes. They are represented as cultivators of the soil and ministers to the gods; as sorcerers and envious demons; and as teachers of metallurgy and other useful arts to mankind. They are in one aspect the kabeiroi and titans, in another the Atlanteans. The telchines have been connected mystically because of similar attributes with the Latin Vulcan and even with the Hebrew Tubal-cain.
terminalia ::: n. pl. --> A festival celebrated annually by the Romans on February 23 in honor of Terminus, the god of boundaries.
Tezcatlipoca: Warrior god of the Aztecs, punisher of evil-doers, god of the waning moon; a counterpart of the god Quetzalcoatl.
that Astaroth was an ancient god of Syria.
The Brahmanical equivalent to Aquarius, presided over by the sky god Indra, is Kumbha, which Subba Row states is equivalent in its numerical value to 14, a number intended to represent the 14 lokas or chaturdasa-bhuvana (Theos, Nov 1881). Assigning the twelve sons of Jacob in the Hebrew system to the signs of the zodiac, Reuben is ascribed to Aquarius, who is “unstable as water”; also associated with Rimmon, the god of storms and rain (SD 2:353), and equated with Ganymede.
“The cow was in every country the symbol of the passive generative power of nature, Isis, Vach, Venus — the mother of the prolific god of love, Cupid, but, at the same time, that of the Logos whose symbol became with the Egyptians and the Indians — the bull — as testified to by Apis and the Hindu bulls in the most ancient temples. In esoteric philosophy the cow is the symbol of creative nature, and the Bull (her calf) the spirit which vivifies her, or ‘the Holy Spirit’ ” (SD 2:418n). See also BULL; CALF
The four heavenly kings of the first and lowest of the six heavens are DHṚTARĀstRA in the east, VIRudHAKA in the south, VIRuPĀKsA in the west, and VAIsRAVAnA in the north. There are many devas inhabiting this heaven: GANDHARVAs in the east, KUMBHĀndAs in the south, NĀGAs in the west, and YAKsAs in the north. As vassals of sAKRO DEVĀNĀM INDRAḤ (lit. "sakra, the lord of the gods"; see INDRA; sAKRA; DEVARĀJAN), the four heavenly kings serve as protectors of the dharma (DHARMAPĀLA) and of sentient beings who are devoted to the dharma. They dwell at the four gates in each direction at the midslope of the world's central axis, Mt. Sumeru. The thirty-three gods of the second heaven are the eight vāsava, two asvina, eleven rudra, and twelve āditya. They live on the summit of Mt. Sumeru and are arrayed around the city of Sudarsana, the capital of their lord sakra. sakra is also known as Indra, the war god of the Āryans, who became a devotee of the Buddha as well as a protector of the dharma. The remaining four heavens are located in the sky above Mt. Sumeru. At the highest level of the sensuous realm, the paranirmitavasavartin heaven, dwells MĀRA, the Evil One. The four heavenly kings and the thirty-three gods are called the "divinities residing on the ground" (bhumyavacaradeva) because they dwell on Mt. Sumeru, while the gods from the Yāma heaven up to the gods of the realm of subtle materiality are known as "divinities residing in the air" (antariksavāsin, antarīksadeva), because they reside in the sky above the mountain. The higher one ascends into the heavens of both the sensuous realm and the subsequent realm of subtle materiality, the larger and more splendid the bodies of those gods become and the longer their life spans. Related to the devas of the sensuous realm are the demigods or titans (S. ASURA), jealous gods whom Indra drove out of the heaven of the thirty-three; they now live in exile in the shadows of Mt. Sumeru. ¶ The heavens of the realm of subtle materiality (rupadhātu) consist of sixteen (according to the SARVĀSTIVĀDA school), seventeen (the SAUTRĀNTIKA school), or eighteen (the THERAVĀDA/STHAVIRANIKĀYA school) levels of devas. These levels, which are collectively called the BRAHMALOKA (world of the Brahmā gods), are subdivided into the four classes of the dhyāna or "concentration" heavens, and rebirth there is dependent on specific meditative attainments in previous lives. One of the most extensive accounts on these heavens appears in the ABHIDHARMAKOsABHĀsYA, which presents seventeen levels of the subtle-materiality devas. Whereas rebirth in the heavens of the sensuous realm are the result of a variety of virtuous deeds done in a previous life, rebirth in the heavens of the realm of subtle materiality or in the immaterial realm is the result of what is called a "nonfluctuating" or "unwavering" action (ANINJYAKARMAN). Here, the only cause that will produce rebirth in one of these heavens is the achievement of the level of meditative concentration or absorption of that particular heaven in the immediately preceding lifetime. Such meditation is called a "nonfluctuating deed" because it always produces the effect of that particular type of rebirth. The first set of dhyāna heavens, where those who practiced the first meditative absorption in the previous lifetime are born, is comprised of three levels:
“The initiated adept, who had successfully passed through all the trials, was attached, not nailed, but simply tied on a couch in the form of a tau tau(in Egypt) of a Svastika without the four additional prolongations (thus: cross, not svastika ) plunged in a deep sleep (the ‘Sleep of Siloam’ it is called to this day among the Initiates in Asia Minor, in Syria, and even higher Egypt). He was allowed to remain in this state for three days and three nights, during which time his Spiritual Ego was said to confabulate with the ‘gods,’ descend into Hades, Amenti, or Patala (according to the country), and do works of charity to the invisible beings, whether souls of men or Elemental Spirits; his body remaining all the time in a temple crypt or subterranean cave. In Egypt it was placed in the Sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber of the Pyramid of Cheops, and carried during the night of the approaching third day to the entrance of a gallery, where at a certain hour the beams of the rising Sun struck full on the face of the entranced candidate, who awoke to be initiated by Osiris, and Thoth the God of Wisdom” (SD 2:558).
The language of incantations or mantras is the element-language composed of sounds, numbers, and figures. He who knows how to blend the three will call forth the response from the regent-god of the specific element needed. For, in order to communicate with the gods, men must learn to address each one of them in the language of his element. Sound is “the most potent and effectual magic agent, and the first of the keys which opens the door of communication between Mortals and the Immortals” (SD 1:464).
The legendary Orpheus was the son of Apollo, god of music and the sun, and of Calliope, muse of epic poetry. With his seven-stringed lyre, the symbol of the cosmic and human constitution, he became the magical musician: rocks moved, trees bent, flowers sprang forth, mountains bowed themselves before his song. He journeyed with the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece. His mystic union with Eurydice, like the Argonautic quest, is clearly allegorical. Orpheus won his mystic bride by the power of his music and after the mystic union returned to Pimpleia on Mount Olympus where he lived and taught in a cave (recorded also of other great teachers).
Theodice, Theodicy [coined from Greek theos god + dike justice] A vindication of divine justice; a system or method of intellectual theorizing about the nature of so-called divine justice, having in view vindication of the justice and holiness of God, in connection with evil. Ancient philosophers all taught that the heart of things was divine harmony and that whatever evil, distortion, and obliquity might exist in the world is ultimately traceable back to the imperfect intelligence of evolving beings, who by their manifold conflicts of thought and will thus produce disharmony, relative confusion, and hence evil, in the scheme of things. This view was replaced during Christian ages by the attempt of many writers to rescue the reputation of the Christian God, who on the one hand is said to be the creator of everything and who yet is supposed to be the fountain of love, mercy, harmony, and goodness. In view of the evils and suffering in the world, such Christian attempts have been futile, for it is obvious that if God is the creator of all that is, He must have been either directly or indirectly the creator of all the disharmony, wickedness, and misery in the world, as was indeed alleged by many Jewish rabbis, following statements in the Hebrew scriptures. But this thought has been denied by Christians who refuse to accept their God of love and justice as the creator of evil, and thus they had recourse to the Devil, who himself must have been created by their omniscient God.
theomachist ::: n. --> One who fights against the gods; one who resists God of the divine will.
The principal seat of his worship appears to have been at Borsippa (opposite the city of Babylon) where a temple-school flourished until the end of the neo-Babylonian empire — even surviving the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus (538 BC). His original character cannot now be determined and he may have been a solar deity, although associated with water. His consort, Tashmit, is occasionally invoked with him. Nebo’s worship flourished before that of Marduk (the Biblical Merodach, probably the planet Mars and its regent), and when the latter was elevated to the chief position of the Babylonian pantheon, Nebo was regarded as his son and the two thereafter are more or less inseparable. Even in Assyria the worship of Nebo was made more prominent than the chief deity, Assur (’Ashshur) by some of the monarchs (e.g., Assurbanipal, 668-626 BC). His hieroglyph was the stylus, for he was regarded as the god of writing, prophecy, sacred chanting, and hence of song, having charge of the tablets of fate, on which he inscribed the names of men and forecast their destiny. His wisdom was likewise associated with the study of the heavenly bodies, hence the temple-school became famed for its astrologers. “Nebo is a creator, like Budha, of the Fourth and also of the Fifth Race. For the former starts a new race of Adepts, and the latter, the Solar-Lunar Dynasty, or the men of these Races and Round. Both are the Adams of their respective creatures” (SD 2:456).
the Proud King.” The Babylonian god of death
There is a mystic science attached to the caduceus, the classical emblem of medicine. To the priest-physicians in the temples, this symbol was sacred not only to the god of wisdom and healing, but stood for profound cosmic truths, knowledge of which was held in common by all initiates. It symbolized the tree of life and being. Cosmically this symbol stood for the concealed root or origin of universal duality which manifests as positive and negative, good and evil, subjective and objective, light and darkness, male and female, health and sickness, life and death.
“There was a notable difference between the ape-headed gods and the ‘Cynocephalus’ . . ., a dog-headed baboon from upper Egypt. The latter, whose sacred city was Hermopolis, was sacred to the lunar deities and Thoth-Hermes, hence an emblem of secret wisdom — as was Hanuman, the monkey god of India, and later, the elephant-headed Ganesha. The mission of the Cynocephalus was to show the way for the Dead to the Seat of Judgment and Osiris, whereas the ape-gods were all phallic” (TG 92).
“There were Annedoti who came after him, five in number (our race being the fifth) — ‘all like Oannes in form and teaching the same’; but Musarus Oannes was the first to appear, and this he did during the reign of Ammenon, the third [fourth] of the ten antediluvian Kings whose dynasty ended with Xisuthrus, the Chaldean Noah. . . . This allegory of Oannes, the Annedotus, reminds us of the ‘Dragon’ and ‘Snake-Kings’; the Nagas who in Buddhist legends instruct people in wisdom on lakes and rivers, and end by becoming converts to the good Law and Arhats. The meaning is evident. The ‘fish’ is an old and very suggestive symbol in the Mystery-language, as is also ‘water.’ Ea or Hea was the god of the sea and Wisdom, and the sea serpent was one of his emblems, his priests being ‘serpents’ or Initiates. Thus one sees why Occultism places Oannes and the other Annedoti in the group of those ancient ‘adepts’ who were called ‘marine’ or ‘water dragons’ — Nagas. Water typified their human origin (as it is a symbol of earth and matter and also of purification), in distinction to the ‘fire Nagas’ or the immaterial, Spiritual Beings, whether celestial Bodhisattvas or Planetary Dhyanis, also regarded as the instructors of mankind. The hidden meaning becomes clear to the Occultist, once he is told that ‘this being (Oannes) was accustomed to pass the day among men, teaching; and when the Sun had set, he retired again into the sea, passing the night in the deep, ‘for he was amphibious,’ i.e., he belonged to two planes: the spiritual and the physical. For the Greek word amphibios means simply ‘life on two planes,’ . . . The word was often applied in antiquity to those men who, though still wearing a human form, had made themselves almost divine through knowledge, and lived as much in the spiritual supersensuous regions as on earth. Oannes is dimly reflected in Jonah, and even in John, the Precursor, both connected with Fish and Water” (TG 236-7).
The salient feature of Manichaeism is its uncompromising dualism, for it recognized a world of light and a world of darkness as eternally coeval; and there is a God of light opposed to a hostile Satan. Teachings of the esoteric gnosis as taught by Neoplatonists, Gnostics, and others were materialized, and both doctrine and ritual assumed forms less exacting and therefore better calculated for perpetuation in an age of increasing materialism. It showed little affinity for Christianity or facility for combination with it, and Manichaeism and Christianity may be regarded as Oriental and Occidental products of the same materializing influence transforming and adapting the original gnosis. It has more affinity with Gnostic than with ecclesiastical Christianity, for there was a large amount of truly esoteric thought and teaching in what for centuries passed under the name of Manichaeism.
These kumaras are sometimes also called rudras, adityas, gandharvas, asuras, maruts, and vedhas. The seven kumaras — both as groups and as aggregated individuals — are intimately connected with the dhyani-buddhas who watch over the seven rounds of our planetary chain. The four groups of kumaras generally spoken of are connected equally intimately with the four celestial bodhisattvas of the four globes of our round, and by correspondence with the four completed root-races of our earth. They are identical with the angels of the seven planets, and their name shows their connection with the constellation Makara or Capricorn. Makara is connected with the birth of the spiritual microcosm, and the death or dissolution of the physical universe (its passage into the realm of the spiritual) as are the kumaras. Mara is the god of darkness, the Fallen one, and death, i.e., death of every physical thing; but through the karmic lessons learned also the quickener of the birth of the spiritual. The kumaras are connected also with the sage Narada. An allegory in the Puranas says that the kumaras, the first progeny of Brahma, were without desire or passion, inspired with the holy wisdom, and undesirous of progeny. They refused to create, but were compelled later on to complete divine man by incarnating in him. The barhishads or lunar pitris formed the “senseless” astral-physical humanity of the early root-races. Those beings possessing the living spiritual fire were the agnishvattas or solar pitris. The sons of Brahma, the kumaras, being originally themselves unconscious (in our sense) could be of no use in supplying the mental and kamic principles, as they did not possess them: they had attained no individual karmic elevation in merit of their own as had the agnishvattas. The perfection of the kumaras was passive and negative (nirguna). The kumaras eventually “sacrifice” themselves by incarnating in mankind, thus corresponding to the manasaputras and fallen angels cast into hell (material spheres, our earth).
The shield or protection of Ullr has a special meaning as he is the god of a “cold” (unformed) world: one of the most highly spiritual of the globes in our sun’s realm. The lay called Grimnismal promises that “the blessing of Ull and all the gods is his who first touches the fire” of this supernal sphere. The mansion of Ullr is named Ydalar — the primal dells of rain and storms, and the root and sacred source of earth’s existence.
“The star worshipped in Egypt and reverenced by the Occultists; by the former because its heliacal rising with the Sun was a sign of the beneficent inundation of the Nile, and by the latter because it is mysteriously associated with Thoth-Hermes, god of wisdom, and Mercury, in another form. Thus Sothis-Sirius had, and still has, a mystic and direct influence over the whole living heaven, and is connected with almost every god and goddess. It was ‘Isis in the heaven’ and called Isis-Sothis, for Isis was ‘in the constellation of the dog,’ as is declared on her monuments. ‘The soul of Osiris was believed to reside in a personage who walks with great steps in front of sothis, sceptre in hand and a whip upon his shoulder.’ Sirius is also Anubis, and is directly connected with the ring ‘Pass me not’; it is, moreover, identical with Mithra, the Persian Mystery god, and with Horus and even Hathor, called sometimes the goddess Sothis. Being connected with the Pyramid, Sirius was, therefore, connected with the initiations which took place in it. A temple to Sirius-Sothis once existed within the great temple of Denderah. To sum up, all religions are not, as Dufeu, the French Egyptologist, sought to prove, derived from Sirius, the god-star, but Sirius-Sothis is certainly found in connection with every religion of antiquity” (TG 300).
The whole underworld was said to be ruled over by Nergal, god of wisdom, and was divided into seven spheres or regions, each under the guardianship of a watcher stationed at a massive portal. The deceased is represented as a traveler who must surrender a portion of his vestments (his sheaths of consciousness) to each one of the seven guardians in turn. See also ISHTAR
thor ::: n. --> The god of thunder, and son of Odin.
Thor (Scandinavian) Thorr (Icelandic) [from thonor thunder; cf Swedish tordon, German donner] Best known as the Norse god of thunder and lightning, champion of the gods and subduer of giants in the ongoing battle between these opposites: gods meaning energy and giants typifying inertia. Like the Latin Jupiter, Thor controls the weather and represents the planet Jupiter. The hair of his beautiful wife Sif represents the golden harvest, whether of grain or of experience — the mead or nectar of the gods.
Thor: Thunder-god of Norse mythology, a god of fertility and agriculture, patron of sailors.
Thoth: Ibis-headed god of ancient Egypt, god of wisdom, and magical arts, inventor of writing, patron of literature.
thoth ::: n. --> The god of eloquence and letters among the ancient Egyptians, and supposed to be the inventor of writing and philosophy. He corresponded to the Mercury of the Romans, and was usually represented as a human figure with the head of an ibis or a lamb.
The Egyptian sacred baboon.
“Thoth remains changeless from the first to the last Dynasty. . . . the celestial scribe, who records the thoughts, words and deeds of men and weighs them in the balance, liken him to the type of the esoteric Lipikas. His name is one of the first that appears on the oldest monuments. He is the lunar god of the first dynasties, the master of Cynocephalus — the dog-headed ape who stood in Egypt as a living symbol and remembrance of the Third Root-Race” (TG 331).
Thoth, Thot (Greek) Tehuti (Egyptian) Teḥuti. Egyptian god of wisdom, equivalent to the Greek Hermes, Thoth was often represented as an ibis-headed deity, and also with a human head, especially in his aspect of Aah-Tehuti (the moon god), and as the god of Mendes he is depicted as bull-headed. Although best known in his character of the scribe or recorder of the gods, holding stylus and tablet, this is but another manner of showing that Thoth is the god of wisdom, inventor of science and learning; thus to him is attributed the establishment of the worship of the gods and the hymns and sacrifices, and the author of every work on every branch of knowledge both human and divine. He is described in the texts as “self-created, he to whom none hath given birth; the One; he who reckons in heaven, the counter of the stars; the enumerator and measurer of the earth [cosmic space] and all that is contained therein: the heart of Ra cometh forth in the form of the god Tehuti” — for he represents the heart and tongue of Ra, reason and the mental powers of the god and the utterer of speech. It has been suggested that Thoth is thus the equivalent of the Platonic Logos. Many are his epithets: his best known being “thrice greatest” — in later times becoming Hermes Trismegistus.
thoth ::: Thoth In Egyptian mythology, Thoth was the ancient Egyptian God of writing, magick, and learning. He is credited with the creation of language, numbers, and the measurement of time, and is often depicted as the scribe of the Gods. Thoth is considered the patron of magicians and sages, and has been credited as the originator of the Tarot.
Thoth was also arbiter of the gods as in the battle between the god of light and the god of darkness, restoring the equilibrium which had been destroyed during the conflict. Similarly in the fights between Horus and Set, when the evil has a temporary ascendancy, Thoth restores harmony. Interestingly,
thunderbolt ::: an imaginary bolt or dart conceived as the material destructive agent cast to earth in a flash of lightening. Myth & Legend / Norse Myth & Legend) (in mythology) the destructive weapon wielded by several gods, esp. the Greek god Zeus and the Norse god of thunder, Thor.
Thunderer ::: An epithet for Jupiter or the Deity. Jupiter (Latin: Iuppiter; /ˈjʊpɪtɛr/; genitive case: Iovis; /ˈjɔːvɪs/) or Jove is the king of the gods and the god of sky and thunder in myth. Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as sacrifice.
Thus the primeval polarity of all things differentiated on the material plane — including sexual humanity — was of immaculate origin and purpose. This sublime ancient teaching has been degraded generally in theological interpretations of cosmic sex symbols in crude physiological terms, such as the substitution of a Jehovistic god of generation for an ineffable, unknown deity.
Trikuta (Sanskrit) Trikūṭa The three peaks; a “mountain on which Lanka (modern Ceylon) and its city were built. It is said, allegorically, to be a mountain range running south from Meru. And so no doubt it was before Lanka was submerged, leaving now but the highest summits of that range out of the waters. Submarine topography and geological formation must have considerably changed since the Miocene period. There is a legend to the effect that Vayu, the god of the wind, broke the summit off Meru and cast it into the sea, where it forthwith became Lanka” (TG 339-40).
Trivikrama (Sanskrit) Trivikrama [from tri three + vikrama step, stride, pace — progression or permeating possession] The three steps of Vishnu; also applied to this deity in the Rig-Veda in connection with the three strides which he made as he stepped through the seven regions of the universe. “The first step he took on earth, in the form of Agni [god of fire]; the second in the atmosphere, in the form of Vayu, god of the air; and the third in the sky, in the shape of Surya, the sun” (TG 344).
Tyr, Tivi (Icelandic) [Used mainly in plural, tivar gods; cf Latin divus, Sanskrit deva, Greek dios, Zeus] In Norse mythology, often used in combinations like valtiva (god of the slain, or god of the chosen, god of choice). Tyr is the generic name for a lofty divinity. As a planetary deity, Tyr represents the valiant Mars, god of war, of fresh undertakings, and of beginnings. He is associated with the zodiacal constellation Aries, which has similar connotations. Tyr’s day is Tysdagr (Tuesday).
Ukko (Finnish) [cf Magyar agg old, an old being, grandfather] The highest god in the mythological hierarchy of the ancient Finns — the Suomilainen (fen-dwellers), as they called themselves. Ukko was represented as dwelling in Jumala (thunder-home) in the sky: seated on a cloud he bore the heavens on his shoulders. Snow, hail, ice, wind, and rain, sunshine and clouds are due to his activities; thus he is termed the leader of the clouds, the god of breezes, father of the heavens. He is most often depicted like the Scandinavian Thor, swinging a hammer amidst the thunder and lightning, his robe sparkling with fire, striking down evil beings on the mountains.
uranus ::: Uranus The 7th planet from the sun, Uranus is named after the Greek god of the heavens, Ouranus. Astrologically, Uranus rules Aquarius.
Ur Light, city of light; a town famous in ancient times as one of the chief seats of lunar worship in Babylonia, being an important center of the worship of the masculine god of the moon. It was commonly called among the Chaldeans ’ur khasdim (Ur of the Chaldeans).
Utu: The Sumerian god of the sun and of justice.
vaidyuta Agni ::: [Agni (fire) as vidyut (lightning)]; God of electricity.
Vaisravana. (P. Vessavana; T. Rnam sras/Rnam thos kyi bu; C. Duowen tian/Pishamen tian; J. Tamonten/Bishamonten; K. Tamun ch'on/Pisamun ch'on 多聞天/毘沙門天). One of the four LOKAPĀLA, the kings of the four directions who reside on the four faces of Mount SUMERU. He is king of the north, and the northern continent of UTTARAKURU, and resides on the northern face of the central mountain, where he commands armies of YAKsAs. He is described in the Pāli canon as a stream-enterer (see SROTAĀPANNA), who was a devotee of the Buddha and a protector of his monks. Despite having a life span of ninety thousand years, Vaisravana, like all Buddhist divinities (DEVA), will eventually die and be reborn elsewhere, with another being reborn as his successor. Vaisravana is associated with the Indian gods of wealth KUBERA and Jambhala; the three were once individual deities who came to be identified with each other. Vaisravana may have originated as a Central Asian deity, perhaps in the kingdom of KHOTAN, where he was believed to have been the progenitor of the royal lineage. He is the main interlocutor in several chapters of the SUVARnAPRABHĀSOTTAMASuTRA, which sets forth the duties of the lokapāla to the virtuous king and his state. His cult does not seem to have taken hold in China until the ninth century, which is the date of the earliest Chinese images of the divinity. A legend relates that during an invasion of Tang China from ANXI (viz., PARTHIA), the Chinese emperor enlisted the aid of AMOGHAVAJRA, who called upon Vaisravana to guard the city wall. By the middle of the Tang, images of the god and the other lokapālas were commonly placed at city gates. The cult of Vaisravana entered Japan by the Heian period, where, despite his presence in the esoteric tradition there, he took on the appearance of local gods and is regarded as a form of HACHIMAN. In Tibet, the conflation of Vaisravana, Kubera, Jambhala, and PaNcika is more complete than in East Asia. As a lokapāla, Vaisravana wears armor, carries a banner of victory, and holds a mongoose that is vomiting jewels (hence his popularity as a god of wealth).
Vaisvanara: The god of fire; the digestive fire; the gastric fire; the sum-total of the created beings; Brahma in the form of the universe; Virat-purusha.
varuna ::: n. --> The god of the waters; the Indian Neptune. He is regarded as regent of the west, and lord of punishment, and is represented as riding on a sea monster, holding in his hand a snaky cord or noose with which to bind offenders, under water.
Varuna (Sanskrit) Varuṇa [from the verbal root vṛ to surround, envelop] The all-enveloping sky; originally Varuna represented the waters of space, or the all-investing sky, akasa, but in later mythology he became the god of the ocean. In the Mahabharata he was one of the four guardians of our visible kosmos, the guardian of the West.
Varuna: The all-seeing Vedic sky god, god of law and order in the world.
Varun.a ::: "the Lord of Wideness", a Vedic god who "brings to us Varuna the infinite oceanic space of the divine soul and its ethereal, elemental purity", one of the Four who represent the "working of the Truth in the human mind and temperament"; in post-Vedic mythology, the god of the sea.
vayu. ::: the air element; air current related to the "airy" vital forces of the body; vedic God of the wind; the vayus or air currents exist both in the physical and subtle bodies, functioning through the body, mind and senses &
Vishnu has many names and is presented in many different forms in Hindu writings. Riding on Garuda, the allegorical monstrous half-man and half-bird, Vishnu is the symbol of Kala (duration), and Garuda the emblem of cyclic and periodical time. Vishnu as the sun represents the male principle, which vivifies and fructifies all things. The Puranas call Ananta- Sesha a form of Vishnu on which the universe sleeps during pralaya. In the allegorical Vaivasvata-Manu deluge, Vishnu in the shape of a fish towing the ark of salvation represents the divine spirit as a concrete cosmic principle and also as the preserver and generator, or giver of life. In the Rig-Veda Vishnu is a manifestation of the solar energy and strides through the seven regions of the universe in three steps. The Vedic Vishnu is not the prominent god of later times.
Votan A legislator and deified hero of ancient America, regarded as the traditional founder of culture in Central America. The traditions of the people as recorded by Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg tell that he came across the waters in large ships, he and his companions wearing long flowing garments and speaking a language akin to the Nahuatl — which is similar to the story told about Quetzalcoatl. He found the people of Central America, from Darien to California, in a barbarous condition, living in rude huts or caverns, using skins of beasts for clothing. Votan instructed the people in the sciences and arts, such as in the use of agriculture and the art of weaving; established forms of government; and taught them the truth about the gods and their supreme head called the god of truth, who was at first worshiped without temples and without altars. According to legend he founded the city of Palenque, said to be the oldest city in Central America.
Vritra-han, Vritra-jit (Sanskrit) Vṛtra-han, Vṛtra-jit The destroyer of Vritra; a title of Indra, god of the firmament, who was in constant warfare with Vritra, the Vedic demon of drought.
Vritra (Sanskrit) Vṛtra The demon of drought in Vedic literature, the great foe of Indra, god of the firmament, with whom he is constantly at war. Vritra was finally mastered and slain by Indra, hence the latter was named Vritra-han (slayer of Vritra).
vulcan ::: n. --> The god of fire, who presided over the working of metals; -- answering to the Greek Hephaestus.
Vul (Chaldean) The god of the atmosphere, equivalent to the Hindu Indra. He was superseded in later times by Anu, the god of heaven, who with Bel and Ea formed the great Babylonian triad.
Weituo tian. (J. Idaten; K. Wit'a ch'on 韋馱天). A Buddhist guardian deity, who is especially popular in East Asia, where he is often designated as a BODHISATTVA (pusa) or divinity (DEVA; C. tian). Weituo is connected to the god Kārtikeya, also known as Skanda, whom the Buddhist tradition appropriated from the Hindu pantheon. Kārtikeya, the six-headed son of siva, is a Hindu god of war who helps defend the gods; in Buddhism, he became one of the many guardian deities who protect the dispensation, its sacred objects, and its sacred spaces. Weituo is the spirit commander of the thirty-two divine generals subordinate to the four heavenly kings (CATURMAHĀRĀJA; see LOKAPĀLA), as well as one of the eight generals under VIRudHAKA, the heavenly king of the southern quarter of the world. He is also identified with KUMĀRABHuTA (C. Dongzhen). His East Asian name "Weituo" is apparently a mistaken Sinographic transcription from "Sijiantuo" or "Jiantuo tian," both Chinese transcriptions of Skanda. Weituo's role as a dharma protector (DHARMAPĀLA) is reflected in a story from the Daoxuan lüshi gantong lu ("Preceptor Daoxuan's Record of Miraculous Stories," c. seventh century), written by the Chinese VINAYA master DAOXUAN (596-667), which relates that Weituo was instructed by the dying Buddha to protect the dharma whenever it was disturbed by demonic forces (MĀRA). From the Tang dynasty onward in China, Weituo was considered the guardian of monasteries and Buddhist practitioners, as well as a symbol of fierce determination in spiritual training. One of Weituo's specific roles was to protect the STuPAS that enshrine the Buddha's relics (sARĪRA). In a popular story involving Weituo, a group of malevolent demons steals one of the Buddha's tooth relics immediately following his death and cremation. Weituo battles the demons, saves the relic, and thereby earns a reputation as a fierce protector of the dharma. Weituo is typically depicted as a young man in full armor, with the headgear of a Chinese general. He is also often shown leaning on his weapon, sometimes a sword, but usually a VAJRA. In many East Asian monasteries, Weituo's image is found to one side of, and facing, the Buddha image in the main shrine hall (TAEŬNG CHoN). Weituo is also seen in the company of, and sometimes back to back with, AVALOKITEsVARA and MAITREYA. His visage also frequently appears at the end of Chinese editions of the SuTRAs, as a reminder of his role in protecting the dharma.
Yaksha: A being controlled by Kubera, the god of wealth.
yaksha ::: n. --> A kind of demigod attendant on Kuvera, the god of wealth.
yakshas. ::: a broad class of nature-spirits, usually benevolent, who are caretakers of the natural treasures hidden in the earth and tree roots; beings controlled by Kubera, the God of wealth
Yama ::: 1. Controller, Ordainer, Lord of the Law; in the Rg-veda he seems to have been originally a form of the Sun, then one of the twin children of the wide-shining Lord of the Truth; he is the guardian of the dharma, the law of the Truth, which is a condition of immortality, and therefore himself the guardian of immortality; in the later ideas [post-Vedic] he is the God of Death. ::: 2. yama [in raja-yoga]: a rule of moral self-control.
Yama: The God of Death and dispenser of justice; the first limb of Raja Yoga; restraint.
Yudhishthira (Sanskrit) Yudhiṣṭhira One of the principal heroes of the Mahabharata, eldest of the five Pandavas, son of Kunti by the god of justice, Dharma. Because he possessed virtuous character and all the attributes of a model ruler, he was selected as heir apparent to the throne of Hastinapura by his uncle Dhritarashtra: this choice led to the enmity of his cousin Duryodhana and his followers (the Kauravas or Kurus), and eventually to the great conflict on the field of Kurukshetra described in the opening chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita. The Pandavas were victorious in this struggle, and Yudhishthira was crowned king.
Zagreus as Dionysos is known as the god of many names, most of which refer to his twofold character as the suffering mortal Zagreus, and the immortal or reborn god-man. Many titles also refer to him as the mystic savior. He is the All-potent, the Permanent, the Life-blood of the World, the majesty in the forest, in fruit, in the hum of the bee, in the flowing of the stream, etc., the earth in its changes — the list runs on indefinitely, and is strikingly similar to the passage in which Krishna, the Hindu avatara, instructs Arjuna how he shall know him completely: “I am the taste in water, the light in the sun and moon,” etc. (BG ch 7).
Zarpanitu, Sarpanit (Babylonian) Also Zer-banit; Zirat-banit. The shining one, its ideographs suggest the words zer seed, banit producing. A Babylonian goddess consort of Marduk or Merodach. In later Babylonian times (after 1200 BC) when Marduk was elevated to the position of chief deity of the pantheon in place of the older Chaldean deities, Zarpanitu was regarded as the great nature goddess, replacing Belit (consort of Bel). A triad was formed by the addition of Nebo, the god of wisdom, equivalent to the Hindu Budha and the Greek Hermes. “As Budha was the Son of Soma (the Moon) in India, and of the wife of Brihaspati (Jupiter), so Nebo was the son of Zarpa-nitu (the Moon Deity) and of Merodach, who had become Jupiter, after having been a Sun God” (SD 2:456). Herodotus called Zarpanitu “Zeus-Belos.”
zoroastrianism ::: Zoroastrianism A religion of the Persian Empire founded by the sage Zoraster c. 600 BC, Zoroastrianism is a system based on the concept of a struggle between a 'god of light' and a 'god of darkness' who strive for influence over humanity. Zoroastrianism assumes adherents have free-will, and as such can choose between the god of light and god of darkness. Zohar
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9 Matt Chandler
9 Eric Metaxas
9 A W Tozer
8 Richard Dawkins
8 Marie Rutkoski
8 Herman Melville
8 Beth Moore
7 Walter Brueggemann
7 Ralph Waldo Emerson
7 Rachel Held Evans
7 Mahatma Gandhi
1:The God of Vedanta is a living God. In Him we live, through Him we exist, without Him there cannot exist anything. ~ SWAMI ABHEDANANDA, #KEYS
2:But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Micah, 7:7, #KEYS
3:So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, "You are a God of seeing," for she said, "Truly here I have seen him who looks after me." ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Genesis, 16:13, #KEYS
4:The God of Force, the God of Love are one;
Not least He loves whom most He smites. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Epiphany,#KEYS
5:The Jnana-Yoga will attain Jnana and Bhakti. It will be given to him to realize Brahman and, the Lord willing, the personal God of Bhakti. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
6:Fourthly, our REVERENCE for Him is thereby increased, since we no longer deem Him an earthly man, but the God of heaven ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 3.57.6)., #KEYS
7:And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Peter, 5:10,#KEYS
8:My Immaculate Heart is your refuge. It is given to you precisely for these times of yours. Enter in, my dearly beloved children, and thus you will journey along the road which brings you to the God of salvation and peace." ~ Our Lady to Fr. Stefano Gobbi, #KEYS
9:Everywhere something hinders me from meeting God in my brother because he has shut the doors of his inmost temple and recites the fables of his brother's god or the god of his brother's brother. ~ Emerson, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
10:The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast. Its kingdom was plunged into darkness, and people bit their tongues in pain and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and sores. But they did not repent of their works." ~ Revelation 16:10-11, #KEYS
11:When we pray we pray not for one but for all people, because we are all one people together. The God of peace and master of concord, who taught that we should be united, wanted one to pray in this manner for all, as he himself bore all in one. ~ Cyprian, On the Lord's Prayer, #KEYS
12:When you lie down, speak so that the sleep of death may not steal upon you. Listen and learn how you are to speak as you lie down; I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. ~ Saint Ambrose, #KEYS
13:There is not one God for us and another for you, but he alone is God who led your fathers out of Egypt with a strong hand and a high arm. Nor have we trusted any other, for there is no other but him, in whom you also have trusted, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ~ Saint Justin, #KEYS
14:What distinguishes a warrior from a soldier is that a warrior is a mystic, a lover, one possessed by beauty, one alive with radical amazement, one seized by the Cataphatic divinity, the God of Light and Creation." Mathew Fox, from "Meister Eckhart: A Mystic Warrior of Our Times" ~ ?, #KEYS
15:The world is not prepared yet to understand the philosophy of Occult Sciences - let them assure themselves first of all that there are beings in an invisible world, whether 'Spirits' of the dead or Elementals; and that there are hidden powers in man, which are capable of making a God of him on earth. ~ H P Blavatsky, #KEYS
16:God is love personified. He is apparent in everything. Everybody is being drawn to Him whether he knows it or not. The God of Love is to be worshiped & when we think Him to be Love Incarnate, seeing Him in all things & all things in Him, it is then that supreme Bhakti is attaine ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
17:Elohim," the name for the creative power in Genesis, is a female plural, a fact that generations of learned rabbis and Christian theologians have all explained as merely grammatical convention. The King James and most other Bibles translate it as "God," but if you take the grammar literally, it seems to mean "goddesses." Al Shaddai, god of battles, appears later, and YHWH, mispronounced Jehovah, later still. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #KEYS
18:Knowest thou not that thou nurturest in thyself a god? It is a god whom thou usest for thy strength, a god whom thou carriest with thee everywhere, and thou knowest it not at all, O unhappy man. And thinkest thou that I speak of a silver or golden idol outside thee? The god of whom I speak, thou carriest within thee and perceivest not that thou pollutest him by thy impure thoughts and infamous actions. ~ Epictetus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
19:The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all of history.
~ Robert Heinlein, Notebooks Of Lazarus Long, from Time Enough for Love (1973).,#KEYS
20:DISCIPLE: It is said that the psychic is a spark of the Divine.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes.
DISCIPLE: Then it seems that the function of the psychic being is the same as that of Vedic Agni, who is the leader of the journey?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. Agni is the God of the Psychic and, among the other things it does, it leads the upward journey.
DISCIPLE: How does the psychic carry the personalities formed in this life into another life?
SRI AUROBINDO: After death, it gathers its elements and carries them onward to another birth. But it is not the same personality that is born. People easily misunderstand these things, specially when they are put in terms of the mind. The past personality is taken only as the basis but a new personality is put forward. If it was the same personality, then it would act exactly in the same manner and there would be no meaning in that. ~ Sri Aurobindo, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, RECORDED BY A B PURANI (page no 665-666),#KEYS
21:Because I have called, and ye refused . . . I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you." "For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them."
Time Jesum transeuntem et non revertentem: "Dread the passage of Jesus, for he does not return."
The myths and folk tales of the whole world make clear that the refusal is essentially a refusal to give up what one takes to be one's own interest. The future is regarded not in terms of an unremitting series of deaths and births, but as though one's present system of ideals, virtues, goals, and advantages were to be fixed and made secure. King Minos retained the divine bull, when the sacrifice would have signified submission to the will of the god of his society; for he preferred what he conceived to be his economic advantage. Thus he failed to advance into the liferole that he had assumed-and we have seen with what calamitous effect. The divinity itself became his terror; for, obviously, if one is oneself one's god, then God himself, the will of God, the power that would destroy one's egocentric system, becomes a monster. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces,#KEYS
22:The supreme Form is then made visible. It is that of the infinite Godhead whose faces are everywhere and in whom are all the wonders of existence, who multiplies unendingly all the many marvellous revelations of his being, a world-wide Divinity seeing with innumerable eyes, speaking from innumerable mouths, armed for battle with numberless divine uplifted weapons, glorious with divine ornaments of beauty, robed in heavenly raiment of deity, lovely with garlands of divine flowers, fragrant with divine perfumes. Such is the light of this body of God as if a thousand suns had risen at once in heaven. The whole world multitudinously divided and yet unified is visible in the body of the God of Gods. Arjuna sees him, God magnificent and beautiful and terrible, the Lord of souls who has manifested in the glory and greatness of his spirit this wild and monstrous and orderly and wonderful and sweet and terrible world, and overcome with marvel and joy and fear he bows down and adores with words of awe and with clasped hands the tremendous vision. "I see" he cries "all the gods in thy body, O God, and different companies of beings, Brahma the creating lord seated in the Lotus, and the Rishis and the race of the divine Serpents. I see numberless arms and bellies and eyes and faces, I see thy infinite forms on every side, but I see not thy end nor thy middle nor thy beginning, O Lord of the universe, O Form universal. I see thee crowned and with thy mace and thy discus, hard to discern because thou art a luminous mass of energy on all sides of me, an encompassing blaze, a sun-bright fire-bright Immeasurable. Thou art the supreme Immutable whom we have to know, thou art the high foundation and abode of the universe, thou art the imperishable guardian of the eternal laws, thou art the sempiternal soul of existence."
But in the greatness of this vision there is too the terrific image of the Destroyer. This Immeasurable without end or middle or beginning is he in whom all things begin and exist and end.
This Godhead who embraces the worlds with his numberless arms and destroys with his million hands, whose eyes are suns and moons, has a face of blazing fire and is ever burning up the whole universe with the flame of his energy. The form of him is fierce and marvellous and alone it fills all the regions and occupies the whole space between earth and heaven. The companies of the gods enter it, afraid, adoring; the Rishis and the Siddhas crying "May there be peace and weal" praise it with many praises; the eyes of Gods and Titans and Giants are fixed on it in amazement. It has enormous burning eyes; it has mouths that gape to devour, terrible with many tusks of destruction; it has faces like the fires of Death and Time. The kings and the captains and the heroes on both sides of the world-battle are hastening into its tusked and terrible jaws and some are seen with crushed and bleeding heads caught between its teeth of power; the nations are rushing to destruction with helpless speed into its mouths of flame like many rivers hurrying in their course towards the ocean or like moths that cast themselves on a kindled fire. With those burning mouths the Form of Dread is licking all the regions around; the whole world is full of his burning energies and baked in the fierceness of his lustres. The world and its nations are shaken and in anguish with the terror of destruction and Arjuna shares in the trouble and panic around him; troubled and in pain is the soul within him and he finds no peace or gladness. He cries to the dreadful Godhead, "Declare to me who thou art that wearest this form of fierceness. Salutation to thee, O thou great Godhead, turn thy heart to grace. I would know who thou art who wast from the beginning, for I know not the will of thy workings." ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays On The Gita, 2.10_-_The_Vision_of_the_World-Spirit_-_Time_the_Destroyer,#KEYS
23:I am the God of Wealth, the Strong and Splendid, I am the Master of the thousands and the Regent of the millions, I am the puissant Creator, the full-handed gatherer, the opulent disposer of treasures. All the riches of every kind that are in the earth and on the earth and below it and all the riches that are in the waters are mine by right; I have power over all their plenitudes. My power is for the Mother; I call all these riches for her, that I may dedicate them to her, that I may lay them at the feet of the Mother of Radiances, ॐ तथास्तु.. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Knowledge enormous makes a god of me. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 2:The dog is the god of frolic. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 3:Ares (The God of War) hates those who hesitate. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 4:Look up on high, and thank the God of all. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 5:The God of the Bible is a moral monstrosity. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 6:The God of this world is riches, pleasure and pride. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 7:The God of peace is never glorified by human violence. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 8:Prepare yourselves for the roaring voice of the God of Joy! ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 9:The God of the infinite is the God of the infinitesimal. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 10:One who leans on others cannot serve the God of Truth. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 11:God's law is our pleasure when the God of the law is our God. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 12:Humility makes us ready to be blessed by the God of all grace. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 13:The dog was created specially for children. He is a god of frolic. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 14:I do not believe in a God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 15:The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 16:The god of victory is said to be one-handed, but peace gives victory on both sides. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove 17:Those who would like the God of scripture to be more purely ethical, do not know what they ask. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 18:Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self (atman), the God of the universe. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 19:Venerate the martyrs, praise, love, proclaim, honor them. But worship the God of the martyrs. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 20:I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt. ~ thomas-edison, @wisdomtrove 21:First of all it must be known who the God of heaven is, since upon that all the other things depend. ~ emanuel-swedenborg, @wisdomtrove 22:God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful and painful. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 23:What is wrong with Christians today is that we have the gifts of God but have forgotten the God of the gifts. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 24:The Absolute God of the universe, the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe, is impersonal principle. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 25:God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 26:Consumerism is the worship of the god of quantity; advertising is its liturgy. Advertising is schooling in false longing. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 27:When the devil is called the god of this world, it is not because he made it, but because we serve him with our worldliness. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 28:When the devil is called the god of this world, it is not because he made it, but because we serve him with our worldliness. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 29:To know the Creator and the God of all the universe is to revere Him. It is to bow down before Him in wonder and awesome fear. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 30:It is impossible that God, who is the God of Justice, could have made the distinctions that men observe today in the name of religion. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 31:The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the God of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and in short you are for ever floored. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 32:you will not falter, because you will have the Everlasting Arm of the Lord God of Hosts to lean on. Yes. With God’s help you will stand. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 33:We know enough at this moment to say that the God of Abraham is not only unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove 34:As body, mind, or soul, you are a dream; you really are Being, Consciousness, Bliss (satchidananda). You are the God of this universe. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 35:Father of Light! great God of Heaven! Hear'st thou the accents of despair? Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven? Can vice atone for crimes by prayer. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 36:The sublime God of the mystics is more than a particular divine being with characteristics and a personality. God is the Oneness that unites everything. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 37:It is quite easy for me to think of a God of love mainly because I grew up in a family where love was central and where lovely relationships were ever present. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 38:We have genuflected before the god of science only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 39:God of the golden bow, / And of the golden lyre, / And of the golden hair, / And of the golden fire, / Charioteer / Of the patient year, / Where - where slept thine ire? ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 40:Love will not be constrain'd by mastery. When mast'ry comes, the god of love anon Beateth his wings, and, farewell, he is gone. Love is a thing as any spirit free. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 41:A general problem with much of Western theology in my view is that the god portrayed is too small. It is a god of a tiny world and not a god of a galaxy much less of a universe. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 42:To Serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one's neighbor. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 43:God is not a God of sadness, death, etc., but the devil is. Christ is a God of joy, and so the Scriptures often say that we should rejoice ... A Christian should and must be a cheerful person. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 44:A god who gave us everything we wanted would be the most malevolent god of all. With an infantile curiosity, we insist on tasting the cockroach on the floor while our father is preparing a magnificent feast for us. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 45:When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, & 46:Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature gave the word glory a meaning for me. I still do not know where else I could have found one. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 47:God of earth and altar, Bow down and hear our cry, Our earthly rulers falter, Our people drift and die; The walls of gold entomb us, The swords of scorn divide, Take not thy thunder from us, But take away our pride. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 48:The god of dirt came up to me many times and said so many wise and delectable things, I lay on the grass listening to his dog voice, frog voice; now, he said, and now, and never once mentioned forever from, One or Two Things ~ mary-oliver, @wisdomtrove 49:Everyone who has eyes to see can see that if the God of Abraham exists, He is an utter psychopath& 50:For some strange reason murder has always seemed more respectable than fornication. Few people are shocked when they hear God described as the God of Battles; but what an outcry there would be if anyone spoke of him as the God of Brothels. ~ aldous-huxley, @wisdomtrove 51:The Christian's God does not merely consist of a God who is the Author of mathematical truths and the order of the elements. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of the Christians, is a God of love and consolation. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 52:My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence is provided by such a God. We would be unappreciative of that gift if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 53:What do I mean by sin? Answer: Any human condition or act that robs God of glory by stripping one of His children of their right to divine dignity. ... I can offer still another answer: & 54:Knowledge enormous makes a God of me. Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions, Majesties, sovran voices, agonies, Creations and destroyings, all at once Pour into the wide hollows of my brain, And deify me, as if some blithe wine Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk, And so become immortal. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 55:Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval [tropical] forests, ... temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature. No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. ~ charles-darwin, @wisdomtrove 56:I have been asked hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept, by faith, that God is sovereign, and He is a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 57:I choose joy... I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance. I will refuse the temptation to be cynical... the tool of the lazy thinker. I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings, created by God. I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 58:We have not made cricket and football [soccer] professional because of any astonishing avarice or new vulgarity. We have made them professional because we would have them perfect. We have dedicated men to them as to some god of inhuman excellence. We care more for football than for the fun of playing football. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 59:The injustice of defeat lies in the fact that its most innocent victims are made to look like heartless accomplices. It is impossible to see behind defeat, the sacrifices, the austere performance of duty, the self-discipline and the vigilance that are there - those things the god of battle does not take account of. ~ antoine-de-saint-exupery, @wisdomtrove 60:We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 61:It should not be surprising if people believe easily in a God who makes no demands, but this is not the God of the Bible. Satan has cleverly misled people by whispering that they can believe in Jesus Christ without being changed, but this is the Devil's lie. To those who say you can have Christ without giving anything up, Satan is deceiving you. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 62:You are therefore able to run on this path, on which God is found above all vision, hearing, taste, touch, smell, speech, sense, rationality, and intellect. It is found as none of these, but rather above everything as God of gods and King of all kings. Indeed, the King of the world of the intellect is the King of kings and Lord of lords in the universe. ~ nicholas-of-cusa, @wisdomtrove 63:The God of Christians is a God of love and comfort, a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom he possesses, a God who makes them conscious of their inward wretchedness, and his infinite mercy; who unites himself to their inmost soul, who fills it with humility and joy, with confidence and love, who renders them incapable of any other end than himself. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 64:An & 65:But Satan, the god of all dissension, stirreth up daily new sects, and last of all (which of all other I should never have foreseen or once suspected) he hath raised up a sect of such as teach that the Ten Commandments ought to be taken out of the church, and that men should not be terrified with the law, but gently exerted by the preaching of the grace of Christ. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 66:The psychoanalysis of individual human beings, however, teaches us with quite special insistence that the god of each of them is formed in the likeness of his father, that his personal relation to God depends on his relation to his father in the flesh and oscillates and changes along with that relation, and that at bottom God is nothing other than an exalted father. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 67:When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so-called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my rusty lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the most devilish pain burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. - Harry Haller ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 68:Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me - the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love - He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us - nature did it all - not the gods of the religions. ~ thomas-edison, @wisdomtrove 69:Doth not all nature around me praise God? If I were silent, I should be an exception to the universe. Doth not the thunder praise Him as it rolls like drums in the march of the God of armies? Do not the mountains praise Him when the woods upon their summits wave in adoration? Doth not the lightning write His name in letters of fire? Hath not the whole earth a voice? And shall I, can I, silent be? ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 70:For there is one thing I can safely say: that those bound by love must obey each other if they are to keep company long. Love will not be constrained by mastery; when mastery comes, the God of love at once beats his wings, and farewell he is gone. Love is a thing as free as any spirit; women naturally desire liberty, and not to be constrained like slaves; and so do men, if I shall tell the truth. ~ geoffrey-chaucer, @wisdomtrove 71:The God of the modern evangelical rarely astonishes anybody. He manages to stay pretty much with the constitution. Never break our by-laws. He's a very well-behaved God and very denominational and very much like one of us... we ask Him to help us when we're in trouble and look to Him to watch over us when we're asleep. The God of the modern evangelical isn't a God I could have much respect for. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 72:I think the people already know what they're doing wrong, and I certainly believe in Hell. But to me, when I see thousands of people before me, it just doesn't come out of me to say, & 73:The Romans called the Christians atheists. Why? Well, the Christians had a god of sorts, but it wasn't a real god. They didn't believe in the divinity of apotheosized emperors or Olympian gods. They had a peculiar, different kind of god. So it was very easy to call people who believed in a different kind of god atheists. And that general sense that an atheist is anybody who doesn't believe exactly as I do prevails in our own time. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 74:Arabia was idolatrous when, six centuries after Jesus, Muhammad introduced the worship of the God of Abraham, of Ishmael, of Moses, and Jesus. The Ariyans and some other sects had disturbed the tranquility of the east by agitating the question of the nature of the Father, the son, and the Holy Ghost. Muhammad declared that there was none but one God who had no father, no son and that the trinity imported the idea of idolatry. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 75:When it can be proved that the observance of Christmas, Whitsuntide, and other Popish festivals was ever instituted by a divine statute, we also will attend to them, but not till then. It is as much our duty to reject the traditions of men, as to observe the ordinances of the Lord. We ask concerning every rite and rubric, "Is this a law of the God of Jacob?" and if it be not clearly so, it is of no authority with us, who walk in Christian liberty. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 76:There are two loves that have been deeply rooted in the human race for a long time now: love for dominating everyone, and love for possessing everyone’s wealth. If the reins are let out on the first type of love, it rushes on until it wants to be the God of all heaven. If the reins are let out on the second type of love, it rushes on until it wants to be the God of the whole world. All other forms of love for evil are ranked below these two and serve as their army.” ~ emanuel-swedenborg, @wisdomtrove 77:If the suns come down, and the moons crumble into dust, and systems after systems are hurled into annihilation, what is that to you? Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self, the God of the universe. Say - "I am Existence Absolute, Bliss Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, I am He," and like a lion breaking its cage, break your chain and be free forever. What frightens you, what holds you down? Only ignorance and delusion; nothing else can bind you. You are the Pure One, the Ever-blessed. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 78:The farther we get from God, the more the world spirals out of control. My heart aches for America and its deceived people. The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance. In Jonah's day, Nineveh was the lone world superpower-wealthy, unconcerned, and self-centered. When the Prophet Jonah finally traveled to Nineveh and proclaimed God's warning, people heard and repented. I believe the same thing can happen once again, this time in our nation. It's something I long for. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 79:One day Mara, the Buddhist god of ignorance and evil, was traveling through the villages of India with his attendants. He saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up in wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara's attendants asked what that was and Mara replied, "A piece of truth." "Doesn't this bother you when someone finds a piece of the truth, O evil one?" his attendants asked. "No," Mara replied. "Right after this they usually make a belief out of it." ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 80:Isn't it time now for us to declare that the emperor is wearing no clothes? When are we going to admit that we believe in a God of extraordinary contradictions, who we say loves and who we say kills, who we say creates and who we say destroys, who we say accepts and who we say rejects, who we say rewards and who we say punishes, who we say brings us good and who we say visits evil upon us, who we say is the All in All and who we say is separate from everything, who we say is Everywhere Present and who we say is not in us and that we are not? ~ neale-donald-walsch, @wisdomtrove 81:My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god. We would be unappreciative of those gifts (as well as unable to take such a course of action) if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. On the other hand, if such a traditional god does not exist, our curiosity and our intelligence are the essential tools for managing our survival. In either case, the enterprise of knowledge is consistent with both science and religion, and is essential for the welfare of the human species. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 82:God of our life, there are days when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and weigh us down; when the road seems dreary and endless, the skies gray and threatening; when our lives have no music in them, and our hearts are lonely, and our souls have lost their courage. Flood the path with light, run our eyes to where the skies are full of promise; tune our hearts to brave music; give us the sense of comradeship with heroes and saints of every age; and so quicken our spirits that we may be able to encourage the souls of all who journey with us on the road of life, to your honor and glory. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 83:But where is this true possession of God, whereby we really possess him, to be found? This real possession of God is to be found in the heart, in an inner motion of the spirit towards him and striving for him, and not just in thinking about him always and in the same way. For that would be beyond the capacity of our nature and would be very difficult to achieve and would not even be the best thing to do. We should not content ourselves with the God of thoughts for, when the thoughts come to an end, so too shall God. Rather, we should have a living God who is beyond the thoughts of all people and all creatures. That kind of God will not leave us, unless we ourselves choose to turn away from him. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:The God of Thunder has ~ Lois Lowry, #NFDB
2:God of our fathers, ~ Pope John Paul II, #NFDB
3:The God of Abundance. Psalm ~ Joel Osteen, #NFDB
4:the God of More Than Enough. ~ Joel Osteen, #NFDB
5:I praise the God of grace; ~ Horatius Bonar, #NFDB
6:the God of woman is autonomy ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
7:Artillery is the god of war. ~ Joseph Stalin, #NFDB
8:Oh, God of irony, thou art great. ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
9:The hideous god of war. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
10:Every man makes a god of his own desire ~ Virgil, #NFDB
11:O God of earth and altar, ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
12:The God of Love lives in a state of need. ~ Plato, #NFDB
13:Knowledge enormous makes a God of me. ~ John Keats, #NFDB
14:Knowledge enormous makes a god of me. ~ John Keats, #NFDB
15:Manannan Mac Lir, God of the Sea, ~ Cornelia Amiri, #NFDB
16:The dog is the god of frolic. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
17:Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, ~ Rudyard Kipling, #NFDB
18:God of the joystick, give me patience. ~ Kennedy Ryan, #NFDB
19:The God of popular religion is not holy. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
20:May the God of your choice bless you. ~ Kinky Friedman, #NFDB
21:you are the hero of heroes the god of gods ~ Rupi Kaur, #NFDB
22:pray to the God of my childhood that ~ Melanie Benjamin, #NFDB
23:The god of music dwelleth out of doors. ~ Edith M Thomas, #NFDB
24:glowering like a dwarven god of vengeance. ~ Markus Heitz, #NFDB
25:The god of the world's leading religion. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
26:The god of war hates those who hesitate. ~ George S Patton, #NFDB
27:Ares (The God of War) hates those who hesitate. ~ Euripides, #NFDB
28:He is not a God of the dead, but of the living. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
29:I am not a god of forgiveness. (Acheron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
30:Blood is the god of war's rich livery. ~ Christopher Marlowe, #NFDB
31:we don't have a god of bloody stupid ideas ~ Jennifer Fallon, #NFDB
32:Look up on high, and thank the God of all. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer, #NFDB
33:On your eyelids crown the god of sleep, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
34:The God of Thunder has fallen into the milk pail! ~ Lois Lowry, #NFDB
35:All the gods are dead except the god of war. ~ Eldridge Cleaver, #NFDB
36:Cezanne, you see, is a sort of God of painting. ~ Henri Matisse, #NFDB
37:I was a god—the god of cake—and I was unstoppable. ~ Allie Brosh, #NFDB
38:The god of compassion is NOT the god of justice. ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
39:Terminus the Roman god of boundaries and landmarks ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
40:that, he was a dead man. A hot sex-god of a dead ~ Cristin Harber, #NFDB
41:The God of the Bible is a moral monstrosity. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
42:We should create law based on the God of the Bible. ~ Sarah Palin, #NFDB
43:And priests dare babble of a God of peace, ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, #NFDB
44:All my life the god of the Mountain has been wooing me. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
45:...he stood before her, a god of fire and rain... ~ Portia Da Costa, #NFDB
46:The God of this world is riches, pleasure and pride. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
47:Life is a gift of God, of the God of Coincidence! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
48:The God of peace is never glorified by human violence. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
49:The God of the Old Testament is the depiction of evil. ~ Joni Mitchell, #NFDB
50:Prepare yourselves for the roaring voice of the God of Joy! ~ Euripides, #NFDB
51:Ptah? son of ptooey? What is he god of spitting? i asked ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
52:The God of the infinite is the God of the infinitesimal. ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
53:The God of this planet was not worth the religion. ~ Carlton Mellick III, #NFDB
54:A psychiatrist is the god of our age. But they cost money. ~ Sylvia Plath, #NFDB
55:The human brain is the god of technological innovation. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
56:One who leans on others cannot serve the God of Truth. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
57:Prepare yourselves
for the roaring voice of the God of Joy! ~ Euripides,#NFDB
58:So Loki
(the god of being a needless prick all the time) ~ Cory O Brien,#NFDB
59:The god of lies must love you, you see things so clearly. ~ Marie Rutkoski, #NFDB
60:You don't, Krestel, even though the god of lies loves you ~ Marie Rutkoski, #NFDB
61:Have hung My dank and dropping weeds To the stern god of sea. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
62:How terrible to be a god of change and endure grief unending. ~ N K Jemisin, #NFDB
63:If I believed in a god, it would be the god of women's asses. ~ Shay Savage, #NFDB
64:Some days I pray to the God of sex and drums and rock and roll. ~ Meat Loaf, #NFDB
65:The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
66:You don't, Kestrel, even though the god of lies loves you. ~ Marie Rutkoski, #NFDB
67:God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
68:Society is no more indulgent than was the God of Genesis. ~ Honore de Balzac, #NFDB
69:Whoever won the wars in heavens,
He is The God of men today. ~ Toba Beta,#NFDB
70:Flower god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful, ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, #NFDB
71:Money is the god of our time, and Rothschild is his prophet. ~ Heinrich Heine, #NFDB
72:The God of the incarnation is more domestic than monastic. ~ Ronald Rolheiser, #NFDB
73:If I believed in a god, it would be the god of women’s asses. ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
74:The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. ~ David Limbaugh, #NFDB
75:The God of War will see fair play-he's often slain that wants to slay! ~ Homer, #NFDB
76:Wit is the god of moments, but Genius is the god of ages. ~ Jean de la Bruyere, #NFDB
77:Go warn the children of God of the terrible speed of mercy. ~ Flannery O Connor, #NFDB
78:The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. ~ Psalms 46:4 - 7, #NFDB
79:But the boy already had a god of his own. And the gods were selfish. ~ R F Kuang, #NFDB
80:God's law is our pleasure when the God of the law is our God. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
81:I believe there's a god above me, I'm just the god of everything else! ~ Pusha T, #NFDB
82:Why not? If enough people believe, you can be god of anything. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
83:Why not? If enough people believe, you can be god of anything… ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
84:Beware of formulas. If there's a God, he's not a God of formulas. ~ Graham Greene, #NFDB
85:He hadn’t been blessed by the god of death.
Arin was the god. ~ Marie Rutkoski,#NFDB
86:Humility makes us ready to be blessed by the God of all grace. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
87:It’s good to know you won’t be giving the god of archery a swirly. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
88:But the God of the Bible is not only One, but the only possible One. ~ Leo Strauss, #NFDB
89:The God of the Bible is claimed to be the only true God. Jeremiah ~ Henry M Morris, #NFDB
90:His name is Boreas?” Leo had to ask. “What is he, the God of Boring? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
91:The God of the theologians is the creation of their empty heads. ~ Benito Mussolini, #NFDB
92:Honestly, for an evil god of darkness, he certainly can be dull. ~ Brandon Sanderson, #NFDB
93:I am not accusing God of sinning; I am suggesting that he created sin ~ R C Sproul Jr, #NFDB
94:The God of the Puritans...was a monster too horrible to contemplate. ~ John Burroughs, #NFDB
95:22 In all of this, Job did not sin or accuse God of doing anything wrong.* ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
96:I remember holding her in my arms and absolving God of meaninglessness. ~ E L Doctorow, #NFDB
97:The way to forget our miseries, is to remember the God of our mercies. ~ Matthew Henry, #NFDB
98:For the LORD is a God of justice; q blessed are all those who wait for him. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
99:He has come to seduce the god of seduction, and oh, has he come prepared. ~ N K Jemisin, #NFDB
100:May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
101:The dog was created specially for children. He is a god of frolic. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
102:The god of war is impartial: he hands out death to the man who hands out death. ~ Homer, #NFDB
103:Humility makes us ready to be blessed by the God of all grace. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
104:You cannot cut yourself off from the God of the Bible without consequences. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
105:If God is God, he is the God of reality and facts and science and history. ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
106:To name God as a god of love is to strip love of all its precious meaning. ~ C J Anderson, #NFDB
107:18 Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
108:God is a God of endless opportunities to do good; the God of the open door. ~ John Ortberg, #NFDB
109:He held his steaming hands towards her, and she said, "You are the god of fire ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
110:how the word janitor came from Janus, the god of entrances and exits, ~ Guillermo del Toro, #NFDB
111:To defy the God of Progress is often to marry the Goddess of Poverty. ~ David James Duncan, #NFDB
112:Esther came to a proud imperious man; we come to the God of love and grace. ~ Matthew Henry, #NFDB
113:He was the gorgeous one, brute strength wrapped into one sex god of a man. ~ Cristin Harber, #NFDB
114:I never really hated one true god
But the god of all the people I hated ~ Marilyn Manson,#NFDB
115:I will rejoice in the Lord, and glory in the God of my salvation. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
116:Oh, for the god of love, where did time go? [Clockwise swirl going nowhere.] ~ Lauren Groff, #NFDB
117:The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
118:Because he kissed like a god. If there was such a thing as a god of kissing. ~ Robin Bielman, #NFDB
119:bees in Indian love poetry are said to form the bowstring of the god of lust ~ Wendy Doniger, #NFDB
120:Lies are the religion of slaves and masters. Truth is the god of the free man. ~ Maxim Gorky, #NFDB
121:I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
122:The god of sex specializes in taking you further than you ever intended to go. ~ Kyle Idleman, #NFDB
123:O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts. Possess them not with fear. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
124:One is ever young in the presence of the God of Truth, or Truth which is God. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
125:The Bible does not present an art of prayer; it presents the God of prayer. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
126:To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend, All is the purlieu of the god of love. ~ John Donne, #NFDB
127:Eternal is alive! My Rock is blessed, and exalted is the True God of my deliverance ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
128:For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! (30:15–18) ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
129:Whither, O god of wine, art thou hurrying me, whilst under thy all-powerful influence? ~ Horace, #NFDB
130:If you want to grow in true wisdom, grow in a knowledge of the God of the Bible. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
131:Like Milagros, they’d all gotten where they were by worshiping the god of Education. ~ Mia Alvar, #NFDB
132:7 p The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
133:The wisdom that living brings, since I got a telegram from the God of simple things. ~ Don Henley, #NFDB
134:I long to talk with some old lover's ghost, Who died before the god of love was born. ~ John Donne, #NFDB
135:The Allah of Islam is the same as the God of Christians and the Ishwar of Hindus. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
136:Their dad was the god of thieves, but they were about a stealthy as water buffalos. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
137:The more people marginalize the true God of the Bible the more chaotic things become. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
138:Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! Amen and Amen. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
139:If you try to be someone else, you rob God of who He is trying to make YOU to be. ~ Miles McPherson, #NFDB
140:The actual God of many Americans... is simply the current of American life. ~ Charles Horton Cooley, #NFDB
141:The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation— ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
142:19Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loads us with benefits, The God of our salvation! Selah ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
143:I long to talk with some old lover’s ghost
Who died before the god of Love was born. ~ John Donne,#NFDB
144:shall receive a blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation ~ Sarah Price, #NFDB
145:Sir Storm, I have decided that you are a god of poetic justice."
Baka to Storm ~ Victoria Danann,#NFDB
146:The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
147:God of the universe loves you more than anyone on this planet ever has or ever will. ~ Wayne Jacobsen, #NFDB
148:Yes. I have see Him, but He is the god of Death, not some knight to be swooned over. ~ Robin LaFevers, #NFDB
149:JER32.27 Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
150:So, so sorry. Really sorry. Master. Sir. Emperor of the world. God of the universe. ~ Cherise Sinclair, #NFDB
151:Building a dollhouse is a lot like writing a novel because you are God of the Universe. ~ Jill McCorkle, #NFDB
152:Clinging to science was, when you got right down to it, just a god of a different flavor. ~ Ilsa J Bick, #NFDB
153:Dionysus the god of drinking so hard you wake up with TWO hangovers and then they FIGHT. ~ Cory O Brien, #NFDB
154:I imagined loading the God of the Sea into a taxi and taking him to the Upper East Side. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
155:If the wicked flourish and the fittest survive, Nature must be the god of rascals. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
156:It is only when we “rejoice with trembling” that we fully grasp who the God of Scripture is. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
157:PSA80.19 Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
158:The God of the Old testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
159:There is an awesome God of justice who is ready to move in power if you move in obedience. ~ Gary Haugen, #NFDB
160:We may have loved the god that we made up in our minds, but the God of the Bible, we hate. ~ David Platt, #NFDB
161:Whoever extolls him as a God of love, does not think highly enough of love itself. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
162:...even the God of the New Testament is not as forgiving as the consumer credit system. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
163:I just wish,” she said, “that this magnificent, stupendous God of yours could give a fuck. ~ Michel Faber, #NFDB
164:The God of the Declaration does not choose nations or peoples to favor, or others to curse. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
165:The god of Victory is said to be one-handed, but Peace gives victory to both sides. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
166:Even the God of Calvin never judged anyone as harshly as married couples judge each other. ~ Wilfrid Sheed, #NFDB
167:Oh, did you expect me to play fair?" Cupid laughed. "I am the god of love. I am never fair. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
168:We are mad if we imagine that the God of love revealed in Jesus will bless us in waging war. ~ Brian Zahnd, #NFDB
169:You are a God of winds and tides. Of journeys and storms and navigation by stars and faith. ~ Lisa Wingate, #NFDB
170:It's easier for the God of Anger to be angry at everyone else, than to be angry at himself ~ Natalia Jaster, #NFDB
171:No country has ever fallen while it was truly honoring the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. ~ Louie Gohmert, #NFDB
172:Something has got to hold it together. I'm saying my prayers to Elmer, the Greek god of glue. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
173:Those who would like the God of scripture to be more purely ethical, do not know what they ask. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
174:11 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our Refuge (our High Tower and Stronghold). ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
175:1May the LORD answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
176:8By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
177:A woman's vanity is interested in making the object of her choice the god of her idolatry. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB
178:I AM THE GOD OF STORMS! I BRING THE THUNDER! I BRING THE LIGHTNING! STOOOP RAINING ON ME! ~ Tui T Sutherland, #NFDB
179:PSA68.19 Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
180:19 Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
181:I'm going to kill that god of yours, next. Then we'll see what you can do, and what you can't. ~ Janet Morris, #NFDB
182:That’s a Christian concept. No self-respecting witch would worship a Christian god of evil. ~ Katherine Kurtz, #NFDB
183:We as a church need to decide whether we'll seek the Anointing of God or the God of the Anointing ~ Paul Cain, #NFDB
184:20The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
185:God is a God of unity, and where there is disunity and division, His Spirit is not free to dwell. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
186:Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows, Help us to see That without the dust the rainbow Would not be. ~ Langston Hughes, #NFDB
187:God of Truth and Justice can never create distinctions of high and low among His own children. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
188:Lucifer, oh Lucifer, God of evil, you're the god of pain, the darkness is where you find your light. ~ Ludacris, #NFDB
189:Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self (atman), the God of the universe. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
190:Venerate the martyrs, praise, love, proclaim, honor them. But worship the God of the martyrs. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
191:And it came to pass, that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and wept... ~ Joseph Smith Jr, #NFDB
192:Great God of the Ants, thou hast granted victory to thy servants. I appoint thee honorary Colonel. ~ Karel Capek, #NFDB
193:Mammon, n. The god of the world's leading religion. His chief temple is in the city of New York ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
194:The pig is taught by sermons and epistles
To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles. ~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
195:Who is moving in the distance? It is the clock's pendulum, Hired by the god of death To measure life. ~ Gu Cheng, #NFDB
196:God of Thunder made a very small rain shower in the corner of the kitchen floor. Keep an eye on him. ~ Lois Lowry, #NFDB
197:He flung away his rubber-ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
198:I never really hated a one true God, but the God of the people I hated. ~ Marilyn Manson, Disposable Teens (2000), #NFDB
199:Jesus seems to make it clear that the god of money is often God’s main competition for our hearts. ~ Kyle Idleman, #NFDB
200:Think about this. The God of the universe became a wiggling baby in order to get close to you. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
201:3This is what the LORD All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: Change your lives and do what is right! ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
202:Apollo was the damn God of Cock Blocking, and one of his powers was delivering blue balls. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout, #NFDB
203:Henry Ward Beecher once said, “The dog was created especially for children. He is the god of frolic. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
204:The God of the universe is not something we can just add to our lives and keep on as we did before. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
205:There is no god of war. War is built and controlled by human hands--humans start it, humans stop it. ~ Nathan Hale, #NFDB
206:you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and merciful, slow to become angry, and rich in unfailing love. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
207:It may be night in the soul—but there need be no terror, for the God of love changes not. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
208:Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld (the material sphere) [...] ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
209:The God of Creation is not an impersonal cosmic force but a personal, promise-keeping Friend and Guide. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
210:The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. May the grace of our Lord Jesus[*] be with you. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
211:There is a world of difference between knowing the Word of God and knowing the God of the Word. ~ Leonard Ravenhill, #NFDB
212:9 Do what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
213:Come Judgment Day, we may find that Mumbo Jumbo the God of the Congo was the Big Boss all along. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
214:Every fact in this world, the God of the Bible claims, has His stamp indelibly engraved upon it. ~ Cornelius Van Til, #NFDB
215:How could a homeless kid have a dad who was the god of abundance and wealth? Talk about a cruel joke. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
216:The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children. ~ Denis Diderot, #NFDB
217:We have sworn an oath to them by the LORD, the God of Israel, and now we cannot touch them. Joshua 9:19 ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
218:When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
219:I'd sacrificed true love and a popped cherry to the god of deception and hormones." - Zoey Redbird (Ch 24) ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
220:I'm the god of war, the resurrector of the horror-core. The carnivore, destroying you wasn't hard at all ~ Vinnie Paz, #NFDB
221:Love is the true God—not the God of theologians, but the God of Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, the God of the Sufis. ~ Osho, #NFDB
222:Some persons, instead of making a religion for their God, are content to make a god of their religion. ~ Arthur Helps, #NFDB
223:The god of many cannot remain the true god. ~ James Richardson, Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001), #138, #NFDB
224:The Lord’s Supper is a testimony from God of His love for us, not our religious devotion to Him. ~ Thomas R Schreiner, #NFDB
225:Thou hast struck a heavy blow at my pride, at the false god of self, and I lie in pieces before Thee. But ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
226:But when they in their trouble did turn unto the LORD God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
227:I hate possibilities—God of God! I have lived on possibilities, and infernally near starved on them. ~ Rafael Sabatini, #NFDB
228:God's law is our pleasure when the God of the law is our God.
-Commentary on Psalm 119 ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,#NFDB
229:May the pulpits of the land ring with exposition of the Word of God and exultation in the God of the Word. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
230:Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows,
Help us to see
That without the dust the rainbow
Would not be. ~ Langston Hughes,#NFDB
231:One cannot worship the false god of nationalism and the God of Christianity at the same time. . ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
232:Proud is the spirit of Zeus-fostered kings - their honor comes from Zeus, and Zeus, god of council, loves them. ~ Homer, #NFDB
233:Sabbath becomes a decisive, concrete, visible way of opting for and aligning with the God of rest. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
234:To walk into the unknown with a God of unqualified power and unfailing goodness is safer than a known way. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
235:We pity the poor heathen who worships a god of stone, and yet we worship a god of gold. Where ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
236:A god of kindness would be charitable to all. Your god of wrath and punishment is but a monstrous phantasy. ~ Emile Zola, #NFDB
237:Edmund P. Clowney wrote, “The Bible does not present an art of prayer; it presents the God of prayer. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
238:He doubted the hand of God but did not discount it - discarding only the God of the pulpit and the pious. ~ Jeffrey Lent, #NFDB
239:You could've married the god of doctors or the god of lawyers, but noooo. You had to eat the pomegranate. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
240:First of all it must be known who the God of heaven is, since upon that all the other things depend. ~ Emanuel Swedenborg, #NFDB
241:God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful and painful. ~ Henri Nouwen, #NFDB
242:Posing the question: does the god of love use underarm deodorant, vaginal spray and fluoride toothpaste? ~ Harlan Ellison, #NFDB
243:And what could the god of death and destruction possibly give you that warrants your absolute loyalty to him? ~ Terah Edun, #NFDB
244:God is not a God of the edges, with a vested interest in beginnings. God is the God of the whole show. ~ John Polkinghorne, #NFDB
245:I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt. ~ Thomas A Edison, #NFDB
246:Spiritual growth is the gradual, I would say, transition from a God of tradition to a God of experience. ~ Neville Goddard, #NFDB
247:The God of Exodus is the God of history and of political liberation more than he is the God of nature. ~ Gustavo Gutierrez, #NFDB
248:The God of providence has limited the time, manner, intensity and effects of all our sicknesses. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
249:Worship is powerful. It has huge consequences, whether you praise the God of heaven or the god of appetite. ~ Kyle Idleman, #NFDB
250:I no longer believed in the known God of the Bible, but rather in the mysterious God expressed in nature. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
251:May the God of your choice bless and keep you. I respect Him as long as He does not circumcise me anymore. ~ Kinky Friedman, #NFDB
252:Om is that God of love. Like a loving mother Om cleans us of our clutters collected through many incarnations. ~ Banani Ray, #NFDB
253:Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
254:The turning point in history will be the moment man becomes aware that the only god of man is man himself. ~ Henri de Lubac, #NFDB
255:"There is a Zen poem that says, 'If you ask where the flowers come from, even the God of Spring doesn't know.'" ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
256:Happiness is feeling confident that the god of this universe is pleased with the things you say and do. ~ Richelle E Goodrich, #NFDB
257:I’d say the winner of this debate is the God of Death, who’s now several minutes closer to claiming all of us. ~ Jeff Zentner, #NFDB
258:My personal favorite was the week they spent calling him “the God of Absolutely Never Smiling, No, Not Ever. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
259:To trust the God of the Bible is to trust an irascible, vindictive, fierce and ever fickle and changeful master. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
260:We unjustly defraud God of his right, unless each of us lives and dies in dependence on His sovereign pleasure. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
261:A man carries his faith in him, not in some god of book or manifest destiny."
~ R S Belcher Jon Highfather ~ R S Belcher,#NFDB
262:am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27He is not God of the dead, but of the living. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
263:O, God of wonder, enlarge my capacity to be amazed at what is amazing, and end my attraction to the insignificant. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
264:God did not send a concept, an idea, or a virtue. He sent his Son. Follow the God of love, not love as your god. ~ Kevin DeYoung, #NFDB
265:How unfortunate and how narrowing a thing it is for a man to have wealth who makes a god of it instead of a servant ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
266:The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
267:This is the sphinx of the hearthstone, the little god of domesticity, whose presence turns a house into a home. ~ Agnes Repplier, #NFDB
268:and gleaming shaved head, he resembles Mr. Clean. But not the mop-wielding, smiling domestic god of the porcelain. ~ Naima Simone, #NFDB
269:I believe in a God of a second chance and a God of love and mercy, because I need so much more of it myself. ~ Michael Eric Dyson, #NFDB
270:People may love a God of their own imaginations, when they are far from loving such a God as reigns in heaven. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
271:The God of Force, the God of Love are one;
Not least He loves whom most He smites. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Epiphany,#NFDB
272:The God of the Presence imbues the joy of completion. Love is not a “quality” of God but is God’s very essence. ~ David R Hawkins, #NFDB
273:Apollo was held the god of physic and sender of disease. Both were originally the same trade, and still continue. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
274:I used to be the god of poetry, which does not mean I am a walking encyclopedia of every obscure line ever written. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
275:And that day the cultural god of science had shone a bit less brightly, had died a little in the people's minds. ~ Clifford D Simak, #NFDB
276:I ask him to join with me in prayer to the God of Truth that He may grant me the boon of Ahimsa in mind, word and deed. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
277:Later on, he became the god of anybody who felt confused about his or her own gender, because Dionysus could relate. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
278:Rising from the dead? Glowing at sunrise? What did that make him, the god of cheerful mornings and macabre surprises? ~ N K Jemisin, #NFDB
279:Comfort is the god of our generation, so suffering is seen as a problem to be solved, and not a providence from God. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
280:A god of less wrath than the God of the Bible is necessarily a god of less love. His anger is a product of his love. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
281:Do you not know that the God of the Old Testament orders the Jews to consume and enslave the peoples of the earth? ~ Julius Streicher, #NFDB
282:Geri and Freki the war-mighty glutteth, The glorious God of Hosts; But on wine alone the weapon-glorious Odin aye liveth. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
283:I’ve never quite understood the double Janus face of bi – Janus, the Roman god of gates and doors, especially closets. ~ Paul Monette, #NFDB
284:Jews are non-Israelites and YHWH is the god of the non-Semitic Jews, and was NOT The God of the Semitic Israelites. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
285:The Absolute God of the universe, the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe, is impersonal principle. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
286:Apollo was god of poetry as well as archery, and I'd heard him recite in person. I'd almost rather get shot by an arrow ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
287:God is the God of the present as well as of the future...even here on earth, He reigneth, dispensing good and evil. ~ Alfred Edersheim, #NFDB
288:11 (The LORD God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as ye are, and bless you, as he hath promised you!) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
289:Even now, if he closed his eyes, he could still see the God of Evolution beaming so happily as the cockroach stirred. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
290:Favourable Chance, I fancy, is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
291:Now then, you dogs, whom the apostle puts outside and who yelp at the God of truth, let us come to your various questions. ~ Tertullian, #NFDB
292:Poseidon the Greek god of the sea; son of the Titans Kronos and Rhea, and brother of Zeus and Hades. Roman form: Neptune ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
293:Prayer is not a magic formula, but verbal communication with the sovereign God of creation. Examine your own prayer habits. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
294:we try so hard to avoid the rest of the year: how do we deal with the God of darkness as well as the Giver of light? ~ Joan D Chittister, #NFDB
295:Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
296:Capitalism is not a human being. Capitalism is a Moloch, a god, a god of bloody sacrifice that sees human beings as ants ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
297:For me, Rama and Rahim are one and the same deity. I acknowledge no other God but the one God of truth and righteousness. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
298:HAIL THE VISITATION OF THE GOD OF QUESTIONABLE MOTIVATIONS!” Dominic raised his eyebrows. “Is that my divinity this week? ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
299:I believe the sovereign God of the universe justifies us freely, and then we are called to run with him in sanctification. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
300:if you were planning on living forever by tying up the god of death and stuffing him under your bed, you’re out of luck. So ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
301:Michael Varus drew his sword. ''My father is Janus, the god of two faces. I am used to seeing through masks and deceptions. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
302:The writings of leading ID proponents reveal that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity. ~ John E Jones III, #NFDB
303:12When ahe was in distress, he entreated the LORD his God and bhumbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
304:23He said, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
305:Favourable Chance, I fancy, is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. Let ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
306:Master Plato once said that Lux est umbra Dei; light is the shadow of God. I say this way: Light is the god of shadow! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
307:ROM16.20 And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
308:The God of life summons us to life; more, to be lifegivers, especially toward those who lie under the heel of the powers. ~ Daniel Berrigan, #NFDB
309:The God of Worms had evidently left tiny loopholes of chance in the worm’s design, but He still wouldn’t throw dice. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee, #NFDB
310:The true god of your heart is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
311:To rob God of nothing; to refuse Him nothing; to require of Him nothing; this is great perfection. ~ Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon, #NFDB
312:9Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and d seventy of the elders of Israel e went up, 10and they f saw the God of Israel. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
313:Awesome is God from his [7] r sanctuary; the God of Israel—he is the one who gives s power and strength to his people. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
314:MAT22.32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
315:Piety
The pig is taught by sermons and epistles
To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.
Judibras.
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
316:Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are ajust; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
317:Yeah, you’ve got other talents. Was that some kind of magic last night, or are you just the god of fucking me into a coma? ~ E William Brown, #NFDB
318:Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen. ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
319:The God of Loss.
The God of Small Things.
He left no footprints in the sand, no ripples in water, no image in mirrors. ~ Arundhati Roy,#NFDB
320:What’s the will of God for my life? You don’t need to know the will of God in your life, you need to know the God of your life! ~ Paul Washer, #NFDB
321:Your uncle," Poseidon sighed, "has always had a flair for dramatic exits. I think he would've done well as the god of theater. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
322:A day will come when the European god of the nineteenth century will be classed with the gods of Olympus and the Nile. ~ William Winwood Reade, #NFDB
323:So you just randomly follow the god of pain around trying to protect his targets. What are you, the antipain fairy? (Aiden) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
324:The chuckle happens again, and I swear to the Almighty God of Justifiable Homicide, I'm going to murder him with my bare hands. ~ Leisa Rayven, #NFDB
325:The God of love sent the Son of His love to rescue us from the bondage of self-love so that we could be free to love others ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
326:Without self-knowledge, the god that you seek is the god of illusion; and illusion inevitably brings conflict and sorrow. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
327:God will justify us from our sins, but he will not justify the least sin in us: "He is a God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. ~ John Owen, #NFDB
328:He is the Rock, His work is perfect: For all His ways are judgment: A God of truth and without iniquity, Just and right is He. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
329:If I'm going to follow a god, why would I want to follow a god of my creation? That would be an alcoholic idiot nitwit jerk god! ~ Willie Aames, #NFDB
330:my mother gave me islam.
my father gave me the god of absence.
and here i am.
a religion made of myself. ~ Nayyirah Waheed,#NFDB
331:Nay, father.
Some of us have been killing giants today and aren't in the mood to have a tea party.
- Thor, God of Thunder ~ Matt Fraction,#NFDB
332:Think against your feelings; argue yourself out of the gloom they have spread; look up from your problems to the God of the gospel. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
333:Um. I’m really good at first aid. Like, the best.” He was the god of healing, after all. He’d better be good at fucking first aid! ~ Rosanna Leo, #NFDB
334:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
335:The God of Quran is trying to unskin Muslims from their humanity. Muslims are good people. But their God is absolutely bad. ~ Mosab Hassan Yousef, #NFDB
336:Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. ~ Ann H Gabhart, #NFDB
337:Our good God, our overflowing God, our God of yes and amen, has always been able to promise far more than we are able to believe. ~ Douglas Wilson, #NFDB
338:Satan accuses God of falsehoods of envy, and of malignity, and our first parents subscribe to a calumny thus vile and execrable. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
339:Envy is what makes you, when an acquaintance is lustily telling you that she's dating a Greek god of a guy, ask, 'Which one, Hades?' ~ Gina Barreca, #NFDB
340:He was a god of rock. He nearly solved all the world's problems with nothing but power chords and anguished cries into a microphone. ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
341:Posing the question: does the god of love use underarm deodorant, vaginal spray and fluoride toothpaste? ~ Deathbird Stories, by Harlan Ellison [1], #NFDB
342:The Christmas tree, twinkling with lights, had a mountain of gifts piled up beneath it, like offerings to the great god of excess. ~ Tess Gerritsen, #NFDB
343:the words of an ancient Jewish prayer: “Blessed art Thou, Lord God of the Universe, that you have brought us alive to see this day. ~ Elaine Pagels, #NFDB
344:To live by faith is to rest in the object of our faith, the God of the Bible, and to come to terms with all of our “I don’t knows. ~ Barnabas Piper, #NFDB
345:When the devil is called the god of this world, it is not because he made it, but because we serve him with our worldliness. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
346:When we have broken our god of tradition, and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with His presence. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
347:13Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
348:He was the god of tide-lap and wingbeat, talon and pearl. She was the goddess of … herself. And he could not look away from her. ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
349:I'm always running into the Sunday God of churchgoing Christians and cannot help noticing that he doesn't help out much on weekdays. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
350:Reimagining the God of the Bible is what Christians do. More than that, they have to, if they wish to speak of the biblical God at all. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
351:You listen here. I have the living, powerful God of heaven alive in my soul. When I step foot on this land, that oppression feels me. ~ Susie Larson, #NFDB
352:The secret of Caleb’s life is found in a phrase that’s repeated six times in Scripture: “He wholly followed the LORD God of Israel ~ Warren W Wiersbe, #NFDB
353:I AM RIGHTEOUS!! I'm the hero who's liberating people from fear. I'm the savior who's going to be like a god of this perfect new world! ~ Tsugumi Ohba, #NFDB
354:one century after the death of Christ he raised a very ordinary, if beautiful, Greek boy to be the last pagan god of ancient Rome. ~ Elizabeth Speller, #NFDB
355:It is impossible that God, who is the God of Justice, could have made the distinctions that men observe today in the name of religion. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
356:Lord, God of my salvation, you have covered my head in the day of battle. I will not fear the arrow by day, or the terror of night. ~ Cliff Graham, #NFDB
357:Sound theology actually teaches the central importance of love and inclines us to love the God of the Scriptures and other people as well. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
358:The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the God of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and in short you are for ever floored. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
359:you will not falter, because you will have the Everlasting Arm of the Lord God of Hosts to lean on. Yes. With God’s help you will stand. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
360:God of heaven! and is this the destiny of man? Is he only happy before he has acquired his reason, or after he has lost it? ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
361:May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
362:The Ventoux is a god of Evil, to which sacrifices must be made. It never forgives weakness and extracts an unfair tribute of suffering. ~ Roland Barthes, #NFDB
363:We know enough at this moment to say that the God of Abraham is not only unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
364:3 Do not boast so proudly, or let arrogant words come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and actions are weighed by Him. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
365:O LORD, d God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that e you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that f ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
366:The God of love my shepherd is, And he that doth me feed: While he is mine, and I am his, What can I want or need? ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
367:You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin— but I come to you with the Name of the Lord, Master of Legions, God of the battalions. ~ Morgan Rice, #NFDB
368:13May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
369:As body, mind, or soul, you are a dream; you really are Being, Consciousness, Bliss (satchidananda). You are the God of this universe. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
370:Awesome is God from his [7] sanctuary; the God of Israel—he is the one who gives power and strength to his people. Blessed be God! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
371:But “the supreme judge of the world” and “divine providence” were no more specific to the God of the Bible than “Creator” and “Nature’s God. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
372:I think all religions can agree on certain definitions of God and concepts of God, like God being the god of love, the great 'I am' energy. ~ Vera Farmiga, #NFDB
373:The day that man forgets that love is identical with sacrifice, he will ask how a God of love could demand mortification and self-denial. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
374:We should daily feel a deeper union with Life, a greater sense of that Indwelling God - the God of the seen and of the unseen - within us. ~ Ernest Holmes, #NFDB
375:When we fear God rightly, we recognize him for who he truly is: a God of no limits, and therefore, utterly unlike anyone or anything we know. ~ Jen Wilkin, #NFDB
376:Where did Satan get the title of being god of the world? He got it from Adam. Satan is god of the world system, not god over the believer. ~ Charles Capps, #NFDB
377:God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world: peace in the hearts of all men and women and peace among the nations of the Earth. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
378:Odysseus looked up. Could this truly be Hermes, the messenger god of Mount Olympus, son of Zeus, and protector of heroes and travelers? ~ Mary Pope Osborne, #NFDB
379:What mean ye? Ye abeat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor, saith the Lord God of Hosts. ~ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, #NFDB
380:a “The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build, but you have no portion or right or claim [1] in Jerusalem. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
381:covenant to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul; 2CH15.13 That whosoever would not seek the LORD God ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
382:The God of Israel is sometimes a God who hides Himself, but never a God who absents Himself; sometimes in the dark, but never at a distance. ~ Matthew Henry, #NFDB
383:the idea that the God of the universe would humble himself to touch the lives of any of us is, in the end, far beyond our full comprehension. ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
384:Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the day time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
385:Jesus wants to make it clear that the God of whom he speaks is a God of compassion who joyously welcomes repentant sinners into his house. ~ Henri J M Nouwen, #NFDB
386:When it comes to being eaten or slaughtered, the God of the Old Testament is egalitarian. Other than that, you are better off being born a male. ~ Dan Barker, #NFDB
387:Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
388:I haven't got any special religion this morning. My God is the God of Walkers. If you walk hard enough, you probably don't need any other god. ~ Bruce Chatwin, #NFDB
389:Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?” And when he had struck the water, v the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
390:You could even say that the God of Genesis himself is a programmer: language, not manipulation, is his tool of creation. Words become worlds. ~ Pedro Domingos, #NFDB
391:Perhaps it is natural for the god of the poor to be akin to the god of the dead, for there is something about poverty that smells of death ~ Zora Neale Hurston, #NFDB
392:A reckoning formally appointed and now paid to the limit. A tribute to Janus, God of Gates, to prevent that other, deferred payment to Charon. ~ Dorothy Dunnett, #NFDB
393:I don’t believe God wants us to always be doing without. After all, He is the God of “more than enough,” not just “barely get by,” or “do without. ~ Joyce Meyer, #NFDB
394:I pushed down on the firing lever with both thumbs and Null Spot was instantly transformed from frightened pants-pisser into fiery god of thunder. ~ Bobby Adair, #NFDB
395:The living God is a God of justice and mercy and He will be satisfied with nothing less than a people in whom his justice and mercy are alive. ~ Lesslie Newbigin, #NFDB
396:When will the veil be lifted that casts so black a night over the universe? God of Israel, lift at last the gloom: For how long will you be hidden? ~ Jean Racine, #NFDB
397:13So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” [4] for she said, k “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
398:The God of many men is little more than their court of appeal against the damnatory judgment passed on their failures by the opinion of the world. ~ William James, #NFDB
399:Don't touch the ark of God! It is the God of Israel who is wounding people with regards to their sin. Do NOT comfort the soul that God is breaking. ~ Paul Washer, #NFDB
400:Father of Light! great God of Heaven! Hear'st thou the accents of despair? Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven? Can vice atone for crimes by prayer. ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
401:Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
402:I believe that Christianity happens when men and women experience the reckless, raging confidence that comes from knowing the God of Jesus Christ. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
403:Let us see rather that like Janus—or better, like Yama, the Brahmin god of death—religion has two faces, one very friendly, one very gloomy... ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
404:Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
405:You can't see both sides of one coin at once, can you, child? The god of money always keeps a secret.
The god of money was also the god of spies. ~ Marie Rutkoski,#NFDB
406:Genuine self-acceptance is not derived from the power of positive thinking, mind games or pop psychology. IT IS AN ACT OF FAITH in the God of grace. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
407:LORD, the God of Israel, o enthroned above the cherubim, p you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
408:Make me know Your ways, O LORD; Teach me Your paths. 5Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; For You I wait all the day. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
409:Secretly incredible people keep what they do one of God’s best-kept secrets because the only one who needs to know, the God of the universe, already knows. ~ Bob Goff, #NFDB
410:12The LORD repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
411:If I can trust the word of a friend, why do I question the word of the God of the universe? Go figure. Sin is truly bizarre." [Running Scared, p. 111] ~ Edward T Welch, #NFDB
412:The man, he believed with an instant effortlessness which would have impressed even a Scientologist, must be a God of some kind to arouse such fervour. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
413:After a moment, in which he stood with his mouth open, and scratched himself, and looked like he was modeling for a statue of the Greek god of Stupidity, ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
414:Nay, if there be any mistakes in the Bible, there may as well be a thousand. If there be one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of truth ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
415:The God of metaphysics is but an idea. But the God of religion, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sovereign Judge of actions and thoughts, is a power. ~ Joseph Joubert, #NFDB
416:WHAT WE NEED IN AMERICA TODAY IS A VIGOROUS RETURN TO THE GOD OF OUR FATHERS AND A MOST VIGOROUS DEFENSE AGAINST THE MINION OF GODLESSNESS AND ATHEISM. ~ J Edgar Hoover, #NFDB
417:ARES (MARS) The God of War, son of Zeus and Hera, both of whom, Homer says, detested him. Indeed, he is hateful throughout the Iliad, poem of war though ~ Edith Hamilton, #NFDB
418:Not only did he unleash his emotions through rivers of tears, but for several days he denied his body food so he could pray and seek the God of heaven. ~ Craig Groeschel, #NFDB
419:Our faith must grow strong enough to believe for the impossible because we believe in the God of the impossible, and with Him all things are possible. ~ Stormie Omartian, #NFDB
420:The god of creation broke me from stone
The mountain's the only ma I've known
My pa is the blue sky sheltering me
So stone I am and stone I'll be ~ Shannon Hale,#NFDB
421:5Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, Whose hope is in the LORD his God, 6Who made heaven and earth, The sea, and all that is in them; ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
422:The god of love lives in a state of need. It is a need. It is an urge. It is a homeostatic imbalance. Like hunger and thirst, it's almost impossible to stamp out. ~ Plato, #NFDB
423:True patriotism is not worship of our nation but rather, in the light of our worship of the God of justice, to conform our nation's ways of justice. ~ Robert McAfee Brown, #NFDB
424:We have the freedom to pray and the freedom to love the God of our heart. And we have been forgiven by the only one who could condemn us. We are truly free. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
425:If we believe the great God of the universe really loves us, it should make us emotionally unshakable in the face of criticism, suffering, and death. In ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
426:As there were no collusion between Trump's team and Russia, there has never been a collusion between YHWH (i.e. the cow-god of ancient Egypt) and Abraham. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
427:God is a God of galaxies, of storms, of roaring seas and boiling thunder, but He is also the God of bread baking, of a child’s smile, of dust motes in the sun. ~ N D Wilson, #NFDB
428:Heaven always bears some proportion to earth. The god of the cannibal will be a cannibal, of the crusades a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
429:Religion can be one of the greatest hindrances to faith because it creates dependency on a ritual rather than on the God of the universe who can do all things. ~ Tony Evans, #NFDB
430:the secret of Joshua’s victories was not his skill with the sword but his submission to the Word of God (Josh. 1:8) and to the God of the Word (5:13–15). ~ Warren W Wiersbe, #NFDB
431:The sexy, blond, god of a doctor whom I’d masturbated to for weeks after the fish hook incident… was now my roommate. Simon. Simon says… commence freak out. ~ Penelope Ward, #NFDB
432:18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! 18 ¡aun así me alegraré en el SEÑOR! ¡Me gozaré en el Dios de mi salvación! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
433:all-good, like the vain, capricious, cruel God of Job? With all of eternity at His disposal, what fiendish new tortures might He not devise? A limited ~ William Peter Blatty, #NFDB
434:But Simon had a problem. He didn't truly understand God. He couldn't understand a God of scandalous love and grace. His God-box didn't have room for grace ~ Stephen Altrogge, #NFDB
435:If the God of Christianity exists, the evidence for His existence is abundant and plain so that it is both unscientific and sinful not to believe in Him. ~ Cornelius Van Til, #NFDB
436:The emancipatory gift of YHWH to Israel is contrasted with all the seductions of images. The memory of the exodus concerns the God of freedom who frees. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
437:the glory of the God of Israel appeared from the east. The sound of his coming was like the roar of rushing waters, and the whole landscape shone with his glory. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
438:Where logic seems apparent: in bullfrogs or Black-Eyed Susans bird migrations patterns on the skin of newt or carp we go too far imagining a god of purposes. ~ John Burnside, #NFDB
439:But how do we know it's really you? I mean, I could put a saucepan on my head and call myself the God of Boiled Dumplings; wouldn't mean I was telling the truth. ~ K J Parker, #NFDB
440:Grumble is the god of henchmen and minions. Once a former lackey himself, after his deification he chose to look over his own people rather than putting on airs. ~ Drew Hayes, #NFDB
441:I realized my mother had charm and verve. If I blew on her name, ROSE, the letters would shuffle around and come out as EROS, the god of love, winged but lame. ~ Deborah Levy, #NFDB
442:I will not glory, even in my orthodoxy, for even that can be a snare if I make a god of it... Let us rejoice in Him in all His fullness and in Him alone. ~ Martyn Lloyd Jones, #NFDB
443:And they do not want anything too critical said about people who really believe in the God of their fathers, because tolerance, perhaps above all else, is sacred. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
444:Consistent, Timely encouragement has the staggering magnetic power to draw an immortal soul to the God of Hope. The one whose name is Wonderful Counselor. ~ Charles R Swindoll, #NFDB
445:I will not glory, even in my orthodoxy, for even that can be a snare if I make a god of it... Let us rejoice in Him in all His fulness and in Him alone. ~ D Martyn Lloyd Jones, #NFDB
446:My hope is in you, Lord. Be my refuge, for You are my strength.... Into Your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit. You have redeemed me, Lord, God of Truth. ~ Bernadette Soubirous, #NFDB
447:The wavering heart must have a straight path of decision for God and holiness marked out for it. Double-minded men are strangers to the God of truth. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
448:Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world. ~ Alexander Pope,#NFDB
449:You are not the mind itself. For You are the Lord God of the mind. All these things are liable to change, but You remain immutable above all things. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #NFDB
450:You’re the god of fishing,” Blitzen said.
Njord frowned. “Other things as well, Mr. Dwarf.”
“Please, call me Blitz,” said Blitz. “Mr. Dwarf was my father. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
451:Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant. They're quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the 10 Commandments. ~ Sarah Palin, #NFDB
452:It appears that in order to win favor in the eyes of the God of the Old Testament, you have to be an obedient and heartless ethnic cleanser. Otherwise, step aside. ~ Dan Barker, #NFDB
453:You want to protect the innocent. Let me tell you, God isn't just in the rabbits. He's also in the foxes. So your little act of kindness deprived God of a meal. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
454:And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. 26 And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
455:And now was one to believe that there was nowhere a god of hogs, to whom this hog personality was precious, to whom these hog squeals and agonies had a meaning? ~ Upton Sinclair, #NFDB
456:Before all else, the Gospel invites us to respond to the God of love who saves us, to see God in others and to go forth from ourselves to seek the good of others. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
457:But our God is a God of grace. If we desire to be like him, we need to go beyond being people who are saved by grace to be people who are characterized by grace. ~ John H Walton, #NFDB
458:Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to God of gods, for His steadfast love endures forever.”[Ps. 136:1-2] ~ Bodie Thoene, #NFDB
459:The word 'amen' is from Ammon, the father god of Egypt, and was an ancient Egyptian salutation to the supreme power of the universe. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
460:You will never understand Jesus by looking at the God of the Old Testament. You must first look at Jesus and then you will understand the God of the Old Testament. ~ Frank Viola, #NFDB
461:Jesus Christ, being 2000 years old and some change, is a relatively "new" god of the older god category - and has done quite well for himself, in terms of worship. ~ Bryan Fuller, #NFDB
462:May the God of peace arouse in all an authentic desire for dialogue and reconciliation. Violence cannot be overcome with violence. Violence is overcome with peace. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
463:Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature gave the word "glory" a meaning for me. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
464:PSALM 4 Answer me when I call, O God of my f righteousness! You have g given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
465:These passages show that the great and bitter needs of the helpless were reaching up to heaven and changing the god of the strong into the protector of the weak. ~ Edith Hamilton, #NFDB
466:This truly is the God of lesser glory, because of his lesser knowledge, lesser wisdom, lesser discernment, lesser ability, lesser reliability, and lesser guidance. ~ Bruce A Ware, #NFDB
467:We claimed that ours was a rational, logical faith, when it centered on the God of the universe wrapping himself in flesh to be born in a manger in Bethlehem. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
468:They had sacrificed everything to the god of success, but it wasn’t enough. In ancient times, the deities were bloodthirsty and hard to appease. They still are. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
469:Angels will frequently - even when they're comforting us with good news - touch the awe of God's eternal presence and drive us to our knees before our God of glory. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
470:Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose v hope is in the LORD his God, 6 w who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
471:God is the God of the animals in a far lovelier way, I suspect, than many of us dare to think, but he will not be the God of a man by making a good beast of him. ~ George MacDonald, #NFDB
472:Women, children, Tyroleans and preachers want to create a new kingdom of God, but the God of their kingdom looks like women, children, preachers, and Tyrolians. ~ Franz Grillparzer, #NFDB
473:If you love your children, if you love your country, if you love the God of love, clear your hands from slaves, burden not your children or your country with them. ~ Richard V Allen, #NFDB
474:It was those damn wool socks. He didn’t realize he loved her until she
told him about out-negotiating a god of war—the most haggle-loving of the
gods—with socks! ~ G A Aiken,#NFDB
475:Perhaps our triumphs are not even the point. Perhaps struggle is all we have because the god of history is an atheist, and nothing about his world is meant to be. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
476:17“aFor the LORD your God is the God of gods and the bLord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God cwho does not show partiality nor dtake a bribe. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
477:I believe that a woman who loses interest in her Bible has not been equipped to love it as she should. The God of the bible is too lovely to abandon for lesser pursuits. ~ Jen Wilkin, #NFDB
478:In considering God's power, we must not look for a God of the Gaps, a god who is called in for those phenomena for which there is yet no scientific explanation. ~ Nevill Francis Mott, #NFDB
479:Instead of celebrating my birth, my parents and their whole church mourned. “If God is a God of love,” they wondered, “why would He let something like this happen?” MY ~ Nick Vujicic, #NFDB
480:Love will not be constrain'd by mastery. When mast'ry comes, the god of love anon Beateth his wings, and, farewell, he is gone. Love is a thing as any spirit free. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer, #NFDB
481:O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee: Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry; For my soul is full of troubles... ~ William Styron, #NFDB
482:How shall I speak thee, or thy power address Thou God of our idolatry, the Press. . . . . Like Eden's dead probationary tree, Knowledge of good and evil is from thee. ~ William Cowper, #NFDB
483:It is quite easy for me to think of a God of love mainly because I grew up in a family where love was central and where lovely relationships were ever present. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
484:no matter what we might be walking through, we can still have confidence that Jesus is the God of the comeback and that our story is not over as long as Jesus is in it. ~ Louie Giglio, #NFDB
485:Savages cling to a local god of one tribe or town. The broad ethics of Jesus were quickly narrowed to village theologies, which preach an election or favoritism. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
486:The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
487:The Greeks, it will be recalled, regarded Eros, the god of love, as the eldest of the gods; but also as the youngest, born fresh and dewy-eyed in every living heart. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
488:Today God is known as the God of huge cathedrals and massive church complexes, but he wants to be known as the God who loves and cares for the poorest of the poor, ~ Michael D Fortner, #NFDB
489:We have genuflected before the god of science only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
490:You ask me, I welcome new gods. Bring them on. The god of the guns. The god of bombs. All the gods of ignorance and intolerance, of self-righteousness, idiocy and blame. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
491:Perhaps our triumphs are not even the point. Perhaps struggle is all we have because the god of history is an atheist, and nothing about his world is meant to be. So ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
492:The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles? ~ John Adams, #NFDB
493:I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt. ~ Thomas Edison, The Freethinker (1970), G.W. Foote & Company, Volume 90, p. 147, #NFDB
494:my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now. He sees not as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man judges, but far more wisely. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
495:Drinking can not be sacramentalised except in religions which set no store on decorum. The worship of Dionysos or the Celtic god of beer was a loud and disorderly affair. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
496:If you simply write him off as the god of sacrifice and nothing more, then you are way off the mark. He's got more courage, integrity, and heart than anyone I've ever met. ~ Lisa Kessler, #NFDB
497:I realized at that instant just how surely the affirmation of demons or the summoning of Satan somehow can affirm the reality of their mystic antithesis—the God of Abraham. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
498:God is the God of the people who are at their wits end, who are right up against it with their backs to the wall, and He delights to come to our help when we need Him most. ~ James Salter, #NFDB
499:In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
500:Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man. The pig is taught by sermons and epistles / To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
501:When somebody says to me, “I don’t believe in God,” my first response is, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in.” Almost always, it’s the God of supernatural theism. ~ Marcus J Borg, #NFDB
502:You really won’t understand your life as a woman until you understand this: You are passionately loved by the God of the universe. You are passionately hated by his Enemy. ~ John Eldredge, #NFDB
503:I am the god of being messy - I'm trying to get better. I was terrible in my 20s. My kids are much tidier than I am, I don't know where they get it from, maybe their mother. ~ Kevin McKidd, #NFDB
504:Mrs. Windemere always had a cup of hot coffee waiting for me. Black, which, she said, was the only way to drink it if you wanted to be awake to serve the god of Creativity ~ Gary D Schmidt, #NFDB
505:O LORD, God of our ancestors, you alone are the God who is in heaven. You are ruler of all the kingdoms of the earth. You are powerful and mighty; no one can stand against you! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
506:The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
507:The elephant goad represents Yama, the god of death and bondage. Ganesha thus acknowledges the life-giving aspect of nature as well as the life-taking aspect of nature. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
508:Though your experience may indicate that God has forgotten you or has left you alone, He is on your side. He is the God of grace, and He is actively working on your behalf. ~ John Townsend, #NFDB
509:10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. 11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
510:A general problem with much of Western theology in my view is that the god portrayed is too small. It is a god of a tiny world and not a god of a galaxy much less of a universe. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
511:each one appeared looking expectant and quickly tidied, only to find to their confusion that they were meeting a strange man dressed like the prophet of the god of compost. ~ Daniel O Malley, #NFDB
512:Have not all theists painted their Deity as the god of love and goodness? Yet after thousands of years of such preachments the gods remain deaf to the agony of the human race. ~ Emma Goldman, #NFDB
513:Sanctification means more than being freed from sin. It means the deliberate commitment of myself to the God of my salvation, and being willing to pay whatever it may cost. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
514:The Creative Artist and the poet and saint must fight the actual gods of our society—the god of conformism as well as the gods of apathy, material success and exploitative power. ~ Rollo May, #NFDB
515:The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful. ~ Francis Collins, #NFDB
516:Twas easier to disarm the god of strength
Than this Hippolytus, for Hercules
Yielded so often to the eyes of beauty,
As to make triumph cheap.
― Jean Racine, Phèdre ~ Jean Racine,#NFDB
517:Your lines, I maintain it, are poetry, and good poetry.... Friendship... had I been so blest as to have met with you in time, might have led me - God of love only knows where. ~ Robert Burns, #NFDB
518:Given the unfairness that strikes so many people in life, I would rather believe in a God of limited power and unlimited love and justice, rather than the other way around. ~ Harold S Kushner, #NFDB
519:I love all this stuff. I look at all the gadgets that come out and I think, ‘Oh, this fix works for me. But the rest don’t.’ I’m not genuflecting in front of the God of Newness. ~ Carl Honore, #NFDB
520:Love will not be constrain'd by mastery.
When mast'ry comes, the god of love anon
Beateth his wings, and, farewell, he is gone.
Love is a thing as any spirit free. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer,#NFDB
521:Then came the Butlerian Jihad—two generations of chaos. The god of machine-logic was overthrown among the masses and a new concept was raised: “Man may not be replaced.” Those ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
522:The Norse God of Thunder looked at her awkwardly. He had to remove his great horned helmet because it was banging against the ceiling and leaving scratch marks in the plaster. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
523:A god whose creation is so imperfect that he must be continually adjusting it to make it work properly seems to me a god of relatively low order, hardly worthy of any worship. ~ Martin Gardner, #NFDB
524:GEN43.23 And he said, Peace be to you, fear not: your God, and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your sacks: I had your money. And he brought Simeon out unto them. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
525:If Christianity should happen to be true - that is to say, if its God is the real God of the universe - then defending it may mean talking about anything and everything. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
526:If sickness glorifies God more than healing, then any attempt to get well by natural or divine means would be an effort to rob God of the glory that we should want Him to receive. ~ T L Osborn, #NFDB
527:Lukewarm people are continually concerned with playing it safe; they are slaves to the god of control. This focus on safe living keeps them from sacrificing and risking for God. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
528:The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful. ~ Francis S Collins, #NFDB
529:Luke warm people are continually concerned with playing it safe; they are slaves to the god of control. This focus on safe living keeps them from sacrificing and risking for God. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
530:Today secular philosophers call that kind of divine invocation God of the gaps-which comes in handy, because there has never been a shortage of gaps in people's knowledge. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
531:True faith is not a leap in the dark; it’s a leap into the light.* We shouldn’t be afraid of the facts. If God is God, he is the God of reality and facts and science and history. ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
532:and falling upon my knees, I gave thanks to this jealous alien god of an exotic race. And I have since held Yahwe in the greatest respect, although I worship other gods. And ~ Frank Belknap Long, #NFDB
533:ISA45.3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
534:Kate had attended a Presbyterian church with her family in Norfolk; she’d heard how the God of Moses could flip out and go pretty damn nuts when things didn’t turn out His way. ~ Chet Williamson, #NFDB
535:Since the object of our worship is the glorious and majestic God of heaven, when worship becomes empty, the problem lies somewhere with the subject (us), not the object (God). ~ Donald S Whitney, #NFDB
536:There are some things we learn on stormy seas that we never learn on calm smooth waters. The “God of the Storm” has something to teach us, and His love always drives His actions. ~ Danny L Deaub, #NFDB
537:To Serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one's neighbor. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
538:To serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one’s neighbor. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
539:The fundamental failure of most graphic, product, architectural and even urban design is its insistence on serving the God of Looking-Good rather than the God of Being-Good. ~ Richard Saul Wurman, #NFDB
540:There comes a point in our lives when we must decide for ourselves. Will we surrender to the God of the universe and place our trust in Him as our God, or will we fight against Him? ~ Amanda Tero, #NFDB
541:This is the temple of Zeus. And that is a statue of Zeus himself,” said Plato. “The Olympic Games are played in his honor. He is the chief god of the Greek gods and goddesses. ~ Mary Pope Osborne, #NFDB
542:This man was the pope, president, and god of dodging the topic. Too bad for him he was dealing with the queen, holy mother, and empress of seeing through a man’s stream of shit. ~ Nicole Williams, #NFDB
543:Today a woman must ignore her reflection in the eyes of her lover, since he might admire her, and seek it in the gaze of the God of Beauty, in whose perception she is never complete. ~ Naomi Wolf, #NFDB
544:Frigg was the goddess of married women and love. She was also Odin’s wife and queen of Asgard. Frigg and Odin had a son named Baldr. He was a beautiful god of light and purity. ~ Mary Pope Osborne, #NFDB
545:Instinct may not be greater than reason, but it's a million years older. Don't fight your instincts so hard. If they were not good the God of Creation would not have given them to you. ~ Zane Grey, #NFDB
546:24.14 But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets: ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
547:England for him was no longer a real place, but a consecrated isle in the lake of forgetting, where the God of the English still strode through an imaginary Eden, admiring His works. ~ Roger Scruton, #NFDB
548:The sovereign God of the universe said, “This one is Mine.” Over and against all the prerequisites I had invented for placing my faith in God, the Father had placed His Spirit in me. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
549:THIS tale of my sore-troubled life I write, To thank the God of nature, who conveyed My soul to me, and with such care hath stayed That divers noble deeds I’ve brought to light. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
550:Thor was probably the most important god of late paganism, as is suggested by the presentation in medieval Scandinavian sources of the conversion as a struggle between Thor and Christ. ~ John Lindow, #NFDB
551:When we suffer, there will sometimes be mystery. Will there also be faith? Yes, if our attention is focused more on the cross, and on the God of the cross, than on the suffering itself. ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
552:Frey was the god of spring and summer! read the caption. He was the god of wealth, abundance, and fertility. His twin sister, Freya, the goddess of love, was very pretty! She had cats! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
553:God does not give us one shot at responding in faithfulness to his call. He is the God of second chances. Indeed, because of the work of Christ, God will never give up and quit on us. God ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
554:O God of battles, steel my soldier's hearts.
Possess them not with fear. Take from them now
The sense of reckoning ere th' opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
555:Terrorism grows when there are no other options, and when the center of the global economy is the god of money and not the person - men and women - this is already the first terrorism! ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
556:We need food. We need water. We need warmth. And the lover feels he/she needs the beloved. Plato had it right over two thousand years ago. The god of love “lives in a state of need.”41 ~ Helen Fisher, #NFDB
557:What is the difference between the Christian God, and the gods of the other religions?" He simply, yet profoundly answered, "The main difference is this: The God of Christianity exists. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
558:Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? ~ Moses, #NFDB
559:The most brazen lie of all is the lie people tell themselves: "I have nothing to worry about from the wrath of God. My God is a God of love." If that is your thought, your god is an idol. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
560:There is nothing better than giving up everything and stepping into a passionate love relationship with God, the God of the universe who made galaxies, leaves, laughter, and me and you. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
561:Um," Grover said. "Percy?" "Yeah?" "I thought you'd want to know." "Yeah?" "Cerberus? He's saying we've got ten seconds to pray to the god of our choice.After that...well...he's hungry. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
562:ACT24.14 But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets: ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
563:Build slowly if you must, but by all means, build. In pursuing an orderly process [of Bible study], you follow a pattern established by God himself. The God of the Bible is a God of order. ~ Jen Wilkin, #NFDB
564:[The evidence from cosmology] determines that the cause of the universe is functionally equivalent to the God of the Bible, a Being beyond the matter, energy, space, and time of the cosmos. ~ Hugh Ross, #NFDB
565:Certain sincerely devout and spiritually advanced people believe that the God of their understanding helps them find parking places and gives them advice on Mass. Lottery numbers. ~ David Foster Wallace, #NFDB
566:If this is the will of God, it takes a strange and terrible shape. I did not know that the God of Battles was vile like this. I never knew that a saint could summon torment like this. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
567:I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins. ~ Antony Flew, #NFDB
568:Your Lord is a God of mercy and bountifulness: be a source of mercy and bountifulness to your neighbors. If you will be such, you will find salvation yourself with everlasting glory. ~ John of Kronstadt, #NFDB
569:9“And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a y whole heart and with a willing mind, z for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
570:God’s words, however, cannot fail their purposes because, for God, speaking and acting are the same thing. The God of the Bible is a God who “by his very nature, acts through speaking. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
571:He didn’t actually accuse God of gross inefficiency, but when he prayed his tone was loud and angry, like that of a dissatisfied guest in a carelessly managed hotel. (God and My Father) ~ Clarence Day Jr, #NFDB
572:I wondered, not for the first time, why we Greek deities had never created a god of family therapy. We certainly could have used one. Or perhaps we had one before I was born, and she quit. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
573:According to the strange mathematics of the god of mutual affinity, the shadows that clouded their pasts when united became only half as dense instead of darker.
- The World And The Door ~ O Henry,#NFDB
574:bees in Indian love poetry are said to form the bowstring of the god of lust and to plunge deep inside the flowers that ooze with sap even as the rutting elephant’s temples ooze with musk. ~ Wendy Doniger, #NFDB
575:Everywhere something hinders me from meeting God in my brother because he has shut the doors of his inmost temple and recites the fables of his brother's god or the god of his brother's brother. ~ Emerson, #NFDB
576:God of all comfort, 4 i who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
577:In the view of one prominent alienist, she was “a woman of dual personality: a kind and indulgent mother at certain times and at others a demon without fear of God of man or of the law. ~ Harold Schechter, #NFDB
578:Jesus knows our world. He does not disdain us like the God of Aristotle. We can speak to Him and He answers us. Although He is a person like ourselves, He is God and transcends all things. ~ Alexis Carrel, #NFDB
579:Our God is the God of the impossible. When we say yes to doing new things as we step into our destiny, we'll get to see God show up and equip us for the journey ahead in miraculous ways. ~ Christine Caine, #NFDB
580:Somnus, god of sleep, please awaken us. While we sleep, ignorance takes over the world.… Take your spell off us. We don’t have long before ignorance makes a coup d’état of the world.” When ~ Carol S Dweck, #NFDB
581:The God of freedom, the true God, is... not recognized by his power and glory in the history of the world, but through his helplessness and his death on the scandal of the cross of Jesus ~ J rgen Moltmann, #NFDB
582:Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. 19 Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
583:I'm in favour of religion as a tamer of arrogance. For a Greek Orthodox, the idea of God as creator outside the human is not God in God's terms. My God isn't the God of George Bush. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
584:May the God of peace make you whole and holy, may you be kept safe in body, heart, and mind, and thus ready for the presence. God has called you and will not fail you” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
585:The sunlike energy released by the fusion of atoms of the lightest element, hydrogen, is detonated by the fission of one of the heaviest, plutonium, named after the god of the underworld. ~ Rupert Sheldrake, #NFDB
586:When one of England’s finest writers, G. K. Chesterton, spoke of “the furious love of God,” he was referencing the enormous vitality and strength of the God of Jesus seeking union with us. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
587:And now...farewell to kindness, humanity and gratitude. I have substituted myself for Providence in rewarding the good; may the God of vengeance now yield me His place to punish the wicked. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
588:I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
589:If you feel besieged by life today, lean on the God of peace - the God of hope and the future. The same God who has a plan for Israel has a plan for you. Trust that He will direct your path. ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
590:That’s nice. I like that. You’re sure you’re not the god of wisdom?”
“I applied for the job,” I said, “but they gave it to someone else. Something about inventing olives.” I rolled my eyes. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
591:A burdened heart doesn't equate to a lack of faith. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob can heal with a simple command. The burden comes from wondering if that's His will and may it be done. ~ Donna Lynn Hope, #NFDB
592:And now, farewell to kindness, humanity and gratitude... I have substituted myself for Providence in rewarding the good; may the God of vengeance now yield me His place to punish the wicked. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
593:God is not a God of sadness, death, etc., but the devil is. Christ is a God of joy, and so the Scriptures often say that we should rejoice ... A Christian should and must be a cheerful person. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
594:If you add to or subtract from the cross, even if it is to factor in biblically mandated religious practices like prayer and evangelism, you rob God of His glory and Christ of His sufficiency. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
595:I’m the god of funerals. I know every death custom in the world—how to die properly, how to prepare the body and soul for the afterlife. I live for death.” “You must be fun at parties,” I said. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
596:Morality and immorality are not defined by man's changing attitudes and social customs. They are determined by the God of the universe, whose timeless standards cannot be ignored with impunity. ~ James Dobson, #NFDB
597:The power of the gospel is the word of God . . . nobody needs a gospel if there’s no judgment, or law, if God is not a God of judgment. If there is no such thing as hell, what good is the gospel? ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
598:The mind is constituted to accept the god of the more powerful. If you have to choose between the god of the slave owner and the god of the enslaved, naturally you will choose the former . . . ~ Barry Unsworth, #NFDB
599:Whoever extolleth him as a God of love, doth not think highly enough of love itself. Did not that God want also to be judge? But the loving one loveth irrespective of reward and requital. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
600:Father expected a good deal of God. He didn't actually accuse God of inefficiency, but when he prayed his tone was loud and angry, like that of a dissatisfied guest in a carelessly managed hotel. ~ Clarence Day, #NFDB
601:Have you heard the saying, Skeaös? ‘Cats look down upon Man, and dogs look up, but only pigs dare look Man straight in the eye.’” “Y-yes, God-of-Men.” “Pretend that you are a pig, Skeaös.” What ~ R Scott Bakker, #NFDB
602:So far I had the god of evil and the god of terror on my side. My good-guy image was taking a serious beating. Maybe I should recruit some unicorns or kittens with rainbow powers to even us out. ~ Ilona Andrews, #NFDB
603:Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words. They should remain open. Our only comfort is the God of the resurrection, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ... ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
604:Abraham was testing God. By denying the sacrifice at the last moment, by stopping the knife, God had earned the right—in Abraham’s eyes and the hearts of his offspring—to become the God of Abraham. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
605:Faith intervenese not to abolish reason's autonomy nor to reduce its scope for action, but solely to bring the human being to understand that in these events it is the God of Israel who acts. ~ Pope John Paul II, #NFDB
606:I’m the god of funerals. I know every death custom in the world—how to die properly, how to prepare the body and soul for the afterlife. I live for death.”
“You must be fun at parties,” I said. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
607:Then it struck me: Shu was one of those ridiculous godly names I’d heard before. I tried to place it. “Ah. The god of…flip-flops. No, wait. Leaky balloons. No—” “Air!” Shu hissed. “God of the air! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
608:To say that one accepts only the God of Israel and Jesus Christ is to say that one rejects as ultimate any human being, any culture, any political party, any artistic form, or any set of ideas. ~ Robert E Barron, #NFDB
609:We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power... the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. ~ Patrick Henry, #NFDB
610:The whole outlook of mankind might be changed if we could all believe that we live under a friendly sky and that the God of heaven, though exalted in power and majesty, is eager to be friends with us. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
611:Um," Grover said. "Percy?"
"Yeah?"
"I thought you'd want to know."
"Yeah?"
"Cerberus? He's saying we've got ten seconds to pray to the god of our choice.After that...well...he's hungry. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
612:How can we call ourselves a church and not believe in healing and in miracles? I cannot read four pages anywhere in the Bible without encountering miracles! And the God of the bible is the same today! ~ T L Osborn, #NFDB
613:acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. (1 Chron. 28:9) ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
614:in reality it was much simpler. For at least ten years the God of childhood, already fairly weak, had been pushed aside like an old sick person, and I felt no need for the sanctity of marriage. The ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
615:In The Craft the clockwork God of Newtonian determinism has been replaced by the quantum-aware Great Architect who is ready and willing to allow us to contribute to His malleable Plan for the cosmos. ~ Robert Lomas, #NFDB
616:The God whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals. ~ William James, #NFDB
617:The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals. ~ William James, #NFDB
618:These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar. ~ John Muir, #NFDB
619:1 Nephi 6:4 4 For the fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be saved. ~ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, #NFDB
620:The kingdom of God is peace in the Holy Spirit; He will reign in you if your heart is at peace. So, be at peace, Mademoiselle, and you will honor in a sovereign way the God of peace and love. ~ Saint Vincent de Paul, #NFDB
621:The Man-God of old answers from his awful hill, “Was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow?” A great man is not a man so strong that he feels less than other men; he is a man so strong that he feels more. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
622:47The king answered Daniel and said, “Most certainly your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, since you have been able to reveal this mystery!” [Prov 3:32; Rev 19:16] ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
623:A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state. ~ Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine New Brunswick: NJ, Transaction Publishers (2009), first published 1943, p. 258, #NFDB
624:Did my infancy succeed another age of mine that dies before it? Was it that which I spent within my mother's womb?... And what before that life again, O God of my joy, was I anywhere or in any body? ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
625:Many of those who accuse the Christian God of being a “genocidal god” because of the Flood, support the genocidal killing of millions of children in their mother’s wombs, which is a double standard fallacy! ~ Ken Ham, #NFDB
626:Stop comparing or boast at your victories. He was referring to enormous vitality and strength of God of Jesus seeking union with us. The living acts of a Christian become somehow the acts of Christ. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
627:You are blinded and you serve the God of the Jews, who is not the God of love but the God of hatred. Why don't you listen to Christ Himself, who said to the Jews: "Ye are of your father the devil!" ~ Julius Streicher, #NFDB
628:Gide was the tutelary god of my adolescence, and I immersed myself in his work. He wasn’t a very good role model, since he made it clear that he was a pedophile, not a homosexual, and genuinely immoral. ~ Edmund White, #NFDB
629:We give our entire lives on the altar of false gods—money, sex, reputation, work, etc.—and God continues to pursue us. He continues to chase us. He continues to woo us. That is the God of the Bible. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
630:10Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
631:And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
~ Anonymous, The Bible, 1 Peter 5:10,#NFDB
632:The tumalt and shouting dies, The captains and the kings depart. Still stands thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heat. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget. ~ Rudyard Kipling, #NFDB
633:In person, if possible, Anubis was even more drop-dead gorgeous. [Oh . . . ha, ha. I didn't catch the pun, but thank you, Carter. God of the dead, drop-dead gorgeous. Yes, hilarious. Now, may I continue?] ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
634:It is faith that looks up at the creator God and knows him to be the God of love. And it is faith that looks out at the world with the longing to bring that love to bear in healing reconciliation, and hope. ~ N T Wright, #NFDB
635:Our country is Immanuel's land, our hope is above the sky, and therefore, calm as the summer's ocean; we will see the wreck of everything earthborn, and yet rejoice in the God of our salvation. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
636:Race Suicide
'Get children,' says Commodus. Why unbar
The portals of the earth? Pre-natal dead
If you had entered here the god of war
Had slaughtered you to crown ambition's head!
~ Edgar Lee Masters,#NFDB
637:A squat black telephone, I mean an octopus, the god of our Signal Corps, owns a recess in Berlin (more probably Moscow, which one German general has named the core of the enemy's whole being). ~ William T Vollmann, #NFDB
638:He explains the true character of the God of love and reassures us that ultimate power on earth will be good, not evil. It is through God and his Son that I strive to understand the world in which we live. ~ Jimmy Carter, #NFDB
639:If the world stands bewildered and confused in the face of its troubles, it is partly because we Westerners have made a God of activity; we have yet to learn how to be, as we have already learnt how to do. ~ Paul Brunton, #NFDB
640:If we really knew the God of Jesus, we would stop trying to control and manipulate others “for their own good,” knowing full well that this is not how God works among His people. —The Signature of Jesus ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
641:16I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
642:3For I proclaim the †name of the LORD: † Ascribe greatness to our God. 4He is †the Rock, †His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, † A God of truth and †without injustice; Righteous and upright is He. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
643:The art of Peace I practice has room for each of the world's eight million gods, and I cooperate with them all. The God of Peace is very great and enjoins all that is divine and enlightened in every land. ~ Morihei Ueshiba, #NFDB
644:The snow fell on her, it fell on him, but Kestrel knew that no single flake could ever touch them both. She didn’t look back when he spoke again. “You don’t, Kestrel, even though the god of lies loves you. ~ Marie Rutkoski, #NFDB
645:When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe? ~ Quentin Crisp, #NFDB
646:will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron. 3 I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
647:Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. What this century worships is wealth. The God of this century is wealth. To succeed one must have wealth. At all costs one must have wealth. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
648:Heaven is going to be a vast, colorful tapestry of living things. God is a God of life....Does this seem too childish and silly to believe? I certainly hope so, because that's a sure sign that it's true. ~ Anthony DeStefano, #NFDB
649:It’s for my God, the god of dogs, and snakes and dust mites and albino bears and Siamese twins, the god of stars and starships and other dimensions, the god who loves everyone and makes everything marvelous. ~ Jeanne DuPrau, #NFDB
650:When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?' ~ Quentin Crisp, #NFDB
651:I can't help but stare at his swollen eye and bruised jaw. He looks like the god of war, damaged and scarred, but still standing. I'm not thinking as I reach up and gently run a finger across his battered face. ~ Ally Carter, #NFDB
652:Reason looks at necessity as the basis of the world; reason is able to turn chance in your favor and use it. Only by having reasonremain strong and unshakable can we be called a god of the earth. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
653:That there is a God no sane person would deny; that there could be a God of vengeance and hate, having all the characteristics of a huge man in a terrible rage, no person can well believe and keep his sanity. ~ Ernest Holmes, #NFDB
654:...I believe in a God of scandalous grace. I have pledged allegiance to a King who loved evildoers so much he died for them, teaching us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for. ~ Shane Claiborne, #NFDB
655:In order for a man to really understand himself he must be part of a nation; he must have some land of his own, a God of his own, a language of his own. Most of all he must have love and devotion for his own kind. ~ Malcolm X, #NFDB
656:There is a God of awesome grace who meets his children in moments of darkness and difficulty. He is worth running to. He is worth waiting for. He brings rest when it seems like there is no rest to be found. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
657:And yet the God of all comfort promises to meet us and abide with us precisely in those places. He does not invite us to censor what he has said. But he does invite us to find rest in the good that we cannot see. ~ Scott Sauls, #NFDB
658:5May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
659:A god who gave us everything we wanted would be the most malevolent god of all. With an infantile curiosity, we insist on tasting the cockroach on the floor while our father is preparing a magnificent feast for us. ~ Criss Jami, #NFDB
660:I am very conscious that, from the time of The God of Small Things was published 10 years ago, we are in a different world ... which needs to be written about differently, and I really very much want to do that. ~ Arundhati Roy, #NFDB
661:that the truly contented man is not the possessor of vast riches. The crown of happiness goes to the person who has the skill to gain money fairly, use it honorably, and not mistake gold for a god of power and light. ~ Xenophon, #NFDB
662:The idea that God resides in the unknown is what philosophers call the God of the gaps. And we have this thing called science, which marches on and makes discoveries in those gaps, ultimately closing gaps. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
663:We’re not that strong anymore. (Hades) Oops, guess I screwed up. Inability to see the consequences of our thoughtless acts must run in the family. So much for my father being a god of prophecy, huh? (Stryker) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
664:When Elizabeth Cady Stanton said that “The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women’s emancipation,” she was obviously referring to the misogynistic God of the Old Testament. ~ Dan Barker, #NFDB
665:Did you know that according to legend, the guy who became Buddha decided to seek enlightenment the day he got a touch of gray? "Gray hairs," the would-be Buddha said, "are like angels sent by the god of death". ~ Anderson Cooper, #NFDB
666:EXHORTATIONS AND GREETINGS. [2 Cor. 13:11–13] Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
667:Let him submit to me! Only the god of death is so relentless, Death submits to no one—so mortals hate him most of all the gods. Let him bow down to me! I am the greater king, I am the elder-born, I claim—the greater man. ~ Homer, #NFDB
668:Many of our most cherished plans for the glory of God are only inordinate passion in disguise. And the proof of this is found in the excitement which they produce. The God of peace is never glorified by violence. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
669:Our Eternal Father lives. He stands as the great God of the universe, ruling in majesty and power. And yet He is my Father, to whom I may go in prayer with the assurance that He will hear, listen, and answer. ~ Gordon B Hinckley, #NFDB
670:Some men treat the God of their fathers as they treat their father's friend. They do not deny him; by no means: they only deny themselves to him, when he is good enough to call upon them. ~ J. C. and A. W. Hare, Guesses at Truth, #NFDB
671:You sober today, Danno?” “Yes.” “How did that miracle of restraint happen?” He recited, “Thanks to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and the God of my understanding. My sponsor may also have played a small part. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
672:A God whom we could understand exhaustively, and whose revelation of Himself confronted us with no mysteries whatsoever, would be a God in man's image, and therefore an imaginary God, not the God of the Bible at all. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
673:Have you any idea how hard it is to go nine months out of the year with no sex when you’re married to such a fine piece of male anatomy that he should have been the god of fertility instead of the god of death? ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
674:Pray and trust God, and He will show you what to do at the right time. He will show you because He is a God Who never fails His children (see Deut. 31:6, 8). He is a God of faithfulness, and He always comes through. ~ Joyce Meyer, #NFDB
675:Some genealogies claimed to be able to trace the Maclean ancestry even further back, going as far as Julius Caesar, and, in some cases, admittedly more tendentiously, to the ancient Celtic god of the sun. ~ Alexander McCall Smith, #NFDB
676:The god of the Hebrews is wrath. The god of the Christians is forgiveness. The god of rock ’n’ roll is energy. The enemy of that god is arena rock, which looks and feels like real rock but is in truth an abomination. ~ Rich Cohen, #NFDB
677:23 For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith. ~ Joseph Smith Jr, #NFDB
678:Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. (Ps. 86:1) O LORD, God of my salvation; I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry! (Ps. 88:1–2) ~ Edward T Welch, #NFDB
679:ISA30.18 And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
680:It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
681:She's easy to lead around, a shiny present here, a pretty compliment there, and you have true love and a popped cherry sacrificed to the god of deception and hormones. Young girls are so ridiculous--so predictably easy. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
682:The god who exacts the last drop of blood from his Son so that his just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased, is not the God revealed by and in Jesus Christ. And if he is not the God of Jesus, he does not exist. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
683:We’re not that strong anymore. (Hades)
Oops, guess I screwed up. Inability to see the consequences of our thoughtless acts must run in the family. So much for my father being a god of prophecy, huh? (Stryker) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
684:Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words. They should remain open. Our only comfort is the God of the resurrection, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who also was and is his God. ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
685:I wish you’d be quiet,” I muttered. “I also wish we had snowshoes.” “You’d need Uller for that,” said the goat. “Who?” “The god of snowshoes,” said Otis. “He invented them. Also archery and…I don’t know, other stuff. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
686:Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature gave the word glory a meaning for me. I still do not know where else I could have found one. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
687:The church has a huge stake in breaking the silence, because the God of the Bible characteristically appears at the margins of established power arrangements, whether theological or socioeconomic and political. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
688:And what if all of animated nature Be but organic harps diversely framed, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps, Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the soul of each, and God of all? ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, #NFDB
689:I . . . think my name is Bilious. I’m the . . . I’m the oh God of Hangovers.’ ‘There’s a God of Hangovers?’ ‘An oh god,’ he corrected. ‘When people witness me, you see, they clutch their head and say, “Oh God . . . ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
690:The tumalt and shouting dies,
The captains and the kings depart.
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heat.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget. ~ Rudyard Kipling,#NFDB
691:Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words. They should remain open. Our only comfort is the God of the resurrection, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who also was and is his God. In ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
692:23 Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. 24 God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
693:He has accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
694:I pick up my journal, mug, and granola bar wrapper, look up to the sky, and curse the God of Summer Vacations for getting me into this whole albatross-ditching, Sam-avoiding, aiding-and-abetting mess in the first place. ~ Sarah Ockler, #NFDB
695:Job’s friends had no room for any complexity in God’s dealings with human beings, no place for the Lord’s sovereign right to allow suffering even for the righteous. By robbing God of His sovereignty, they spoke ill of Him. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
696:She's easy to lead around, a shiny present here, a pretty compliment there, and you have true love and a popped cherry sacrificed to the god of deception and hormones. Young girls are so ridiculous--so predictably easy. ~ Kristin Cast, #NFDB
697:17You have wearied the LORD with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
698:The conceptions which any nation or individual entertains of the God of its popular worship may be inferred from their own actions and opinions, which are the subjects of their approbation among their fellow-men. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, #NFDB
699:...the distinction between "magick" and "communication" exits only in our traditional ways of thinking. The uncanny Egyptians attributed both inventions to a single deity, Thoth, god of speech and other illusions. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #NFDB
700:To me, there is nothing more comforting than knowing that there is a God of providence who is aware not only of every one of my transgressions but of every one of my tears, every one of my aches, and every one of my fears. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
701:A god of kindness would be charitable to all. Your god of wrath and punishment is but a monstrous phantasy...It is not necessary that one should humble oneself to deserve assistance, it is sufficient that one should suffer. ~ mile Zola, #NFDB
702:I've got this." Apollo stepped forward. His fiery armor was so bright it was hard to look at, and his matching Ray-Bans and perfect smile made him look like a male model for battle gear. "God of medicine, at your service. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
703:Since Dominic's been sleeping with me, the mice have been trying various labels on him, looking for one that fits. My personal favorite was the week they spent calling him "the God of Absolutely Never Smiling, No, Not Ever. ~ Mira Grant, #NFDB
704:God wants you to trust Him and have a happy expectation for something good. If you’re in a tough situation today, expect it to change. If you’re in a good situation today, expect it to get even better. God is a God of hope. ~ Joyce Meyer, #NFDB
705:ROMANCE, n. Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to probability, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination . . . ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
706:I disobeyed Ra's wishes, and so he ordered my onw father, Shu-" "Hang on," I said. "Shoe?" "S-h-u," she said. "The god of the wind." "On." I wished these gods had names that wearn't common household objects. "Go on, please. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
707:Prayer is not informing God of something unknown but drawing oneself in the divine life of the Trinity and into the very mission of God in this world — this God loves us and invites us into his presence with our petitions. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
708:Routine is the god of every social system; it is the seventh heaven of business, the essential component in the success of every factory, the ideal of every statesman. The social machine should run like clockwork. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
709:The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knows us before we are. Before knitting us in our mother’s womb, and it’s this knowing that keeps us from getting lost. It’s this being known that is the compass that guides us home. ~ Emily T Wierenga, #NFDB
710:The god of dirt came up to me many times and said so many wise and delectable things, I lay on the grass listening to his dog voice, frog voice; now, he said, and now, and never once mentioned forever from, One or Two Things ~ Mary Oliver, #NFDB
711:10And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 11To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
712:Don’t go around year after year expecting the same thing the same way. God is a God of increase. He has greater levels. Where you are is not where you’re supposed to stay. You’re supposed to rise higher. Have a bigger vision. ~ Joel Osteen, #NFDB
713:I need to get you out of here,” Buck said. “And I have no idea how.” “Have you prayed?” “Constantly.” “The Lord will make a way somehow.” “It seems impossible right now, sir.” “Yahweh is the God of the impossible,” Tsion said. ~ Tim LaHaye, #NFDB
714:Runes, runes, runes... Runes. An inverted Algiz rune. The caption next to it said “Chernobog.” The Black God. Right. Of course, it wouldn’t be Chernobog, God of Morning Dew on the Rose Petals, but a woman could always hope. ~ Ilona Andrews, #NFDB
715:All who have lived according to God still live unto God, though they have departed this life. For this reason, God is called the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, since He is the God, not of the dead, but of the living ~ Gregory of Nazianzus, #NFDB
716:I was the Sumerian god of fertility. You know what that means, don’t you? (Sin)
You have a lot of penis envy over the other fertility gods? Don’t worry. I won’t tell the other gods about your small penis problem. (Kat) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
717:Since Dominic's been sleeping with me, the mice have been trying various labels on him, looking for one that fits. My personal favorite was the week they spent calling him "the God of Absolutely Never Smiling, No, Not Ever. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
718:The wind stilled a bit and he blinked the sand out of his eyes. Before him stood nothing less than the god of the Scrape. It had to be a god. He was huge, muscled, hung like an elephant, and sandy gold, just like his domain. ~ Erin Kellison, #NFDB
719:Though formless, the God of Abrahamic mythology is addressed, even visualized, in masculine terms. The God of Hindu mythology is visualized as sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes both and sometimes neither. Thus, ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
720:The God of Hell should be held in loathing, contempt and scorn. A God who threatens eternal pain should be hated, not loved - cursed, not worshiped. A heaven presided over by such a God must be below the lowest hell. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
721:Why would the God of the universe want to be submitted to me?'
Because we want you to join us in our circle of relationship. I don't want slaves to my will; I want brothers and sisters who will share life with me. ~ William Paul Young,#NFDB
722:And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of All? ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge,#NFDB
723:But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
724:The God of Christianity never claims to be fair. He goes beyond fair. The Bible teaches that he decided not to give us what we deserve--that's mercy. In addition, God decided to give us what we don't deserve--we call that grace. ~ Andy Stanley, #NFDB
725:El Cielo, god of the sky. He’s always depicted with great wings and a crown of feathers around his smooth, bald head. Here, he stands with arms stretched out toward the sky and his wings stretched down to his taloned feet. The ~ Zoraida C rdova, #NFDB
726:He is here: the One who forms the mountains, i creates the wind, j and reveals His D thoughts to man, k the One who makes the dawn out of darkness and strides on the heights of the earth. l •Yahweh, the God of •Hosts, is His name. m ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
727:Lada remembered that one. She only really cared for the old stories, the ones about battles and lions and armies. She had no use for Jesus with his parables and healing. She liked the wrathful god, the god of vengeance and war. ~ Kiersten White, #NFDB
728:The God of Scales and Silences is not sick,” said the mouse. The others joined in with nods and sounds of rodent agreement. “He is damaged, yes, and will need Tender Care and perhaps Kisses for his Boo-Boos, but he is not sick. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
729:Bhishma to Yudhishtra (Anusashana Parva): But it is not always easy for mere mortals to arrive at dharma-vinischaya (definition of dharma). Only kala (time or Yama, the God of Time or Yamam), knows what is dharma and adharma. ~ Anand Neelakantan, #NFDB
730:I want everybody to worship the God of love instead of worshipping the God of hate and torture. But in the meantime we don't want to force Jesus Christ on anybody and look that we are trying to force our beliefs onto other. ~ Mosab Hassan Yousef, #NFDB
731:the God that the Sufi poet Hafiz writes about: Not the God of names, Nor the God of don’ts, Nor the God who ever does Anything weird, But the God who only knows four words And keeps repeating them, saying: “Come dance with Me. ~ Elizabeth Lesser, #NFDB
732:His body is a piece of sculpture that belongs in a museum. I’m so mesmerized, I watch as he drops his pants. He’s commando… again. His dick bobs, and a part of me wants to fall on my knees and give thanks to the god of cocks. Then ~ Terri E Laine, #NFDB
733:10 ‡ And the God of all grace, who called you† to his eternal glory† in Christ, after you have suffered a little while,† will himself restore you and make you strong,† firm and steadfast. 11To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.† ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
734:be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,h the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts usi in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
735:Grace got out of hand the moment the God of the universe hung on a Roman cross and with outstretched hands looked out upon those who had hung him there and declared, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Grace ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
736:How does allegiance to the Christian Prince of Peace or the God of the Hebrew prophets square with a national security policy that still relies on threatening the use of nuclear weapons—something all of our religious traditions abhor? ~ Jim Wallis, #NFDB
737:I disobeyed Ra's wishes, and so he ordered my onw father, Shu-"
"Hang on," I said. "Shoe?"
"S-h-u," she said. "The god of the wind."
"On." I wished these gods had names that wearn't common household objects. "Go on, please. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
738:In all that ever mattered, you are unchanged. Old? Yes, we must all grow old. Age is nothing but the sum of life. And you are alive, and back with me here. By the great God of heaven, I have you back with me. What should I fear now? ~ Mary Stewart, #NFDB
739:Some Asian American male scholars have claimed this muse to be Guong Goong, God of Literature, and, simultaneously, although not coincidentally or triflingly, God of War, but I did not have such a gendered muse in mind then. ~ Shirley Geok lin Lim, #NFDB
740:The devil never rejoices more,” said Francis of Assisi, “than when he robs a servant of God of his peace of heart.” Peace and joy go a-begging when the heart of a Christian pants for one sign after another of God’s merciful love. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
741:Archaeologists have discovered special-issue gold and silver coins with images of Dionysus (god of liberation) and Mithradatic devices commemorating the communications between Mithradates and the insurgents in Italy from this time. ~ Adrienne Mayor, #NFDB
742:Every child has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don'ts,
Not the God who ever does
Anything weird,
But the God who knows only 4 words
And keeps repeating them, saying:
"Come Dance with Me."
Come Dance. ~ Hafez,#NFDB
743:The god of Judaism is the devil. The Jew will not be recognized by God as one of His chosen people until he abandons his demonic religion and returns to the faith of his fathers--the faith which embraces Jesus Christ and His Gospel. ~ David Chilton, #NFDB
744:Adieu, valour: rust, rapier: be still, drum, for your manager is in love: yea, he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit: write, pen, for I am for whole volumes in folio. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
745:Everyone who has eyes to see can see that if the God of Abraham exists, He is an utter psychopath--and the God of Nature too. If you can't see these things just by looking, you have simply closed your eyes to the realities of our world. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
746:Lord, I’m so grateful for second chances. I’ve messed up so many times and in so many ways. Sometimes I want to hide in the corner. But You’re a God of do-overs. Thank You for redeeming even the worst situation and offering me new chances. ~ Various, #NFDB
747:My son Asclepius had become the god of medicine by the time he was fifteen, and I couldn’t have been happier for him. It left me time for my other interests. Besides, it’s every god’s dream to have a child who grows up to be a doctor. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
748:The study of theology is simply the study of the character of God, whose crowning virtue is love. Sound theology actually teaches the central importance of love and inclines us to love the God of the Scriptures and other people as well. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
749:The God of the universe--the creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and E-minor--loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
750:7Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. 8The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night, A prayer to the God of my life. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
751:If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
752:The God of the Bible is not an ambulance driver who shows up after the wreck and hops out and thinks, Okay, let’s do some triage here. The God of the Bible does not show up after the accident and try to fix it. That’s not what He does. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
753:Apollo, the god of light, of reason, of proportion, harmony, number - Apollo blinds those who press too close in worship. Don't look straight at the sun. Go into a dark bar for a bit and have a beer with Dionysis, every now and then. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
754:fear(s) God or the LORD/fear of the Lord No single English word conveys every aspect of the word fear in this phrase. The meaning includes worshipful submission, reverential awe, and obedient respect to the covenant-keeping God of Israel. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
755:I wouldn’t encourage anyone to believe in a God of heaven if we had no evidence to support that He exists as the Bible says He does. The reason I teach belief in God is that, again and again, I have found Him to be astoundingly believable. ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
756:3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
757:Even the God of the Old Testament, faced with the continual querulousness of the tribes of Israel, had occasionally to ignite a piece of desert shrub to awe his audience into reverence. Technology would be the Modernists' burning bush. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
758:In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed. And this kingdom will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it alone will stand forever, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
759:The God of Abraham praise, Who reigns enthroned above; Ancient of everlasting days, And God of love. Jehovah, great I AM, By earth and heaven confessed; I bow and bless the sacred Name, Forevermore blest. DANIEL BEN JUDAH (FOURTEENTH CENTURY ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
760:[..] a culture committed to bleeding the humanities to death, along with any other labors of love that don't serve the god of capital: the spectacle of someone who likes her pointless, pervers work and gets paid - even paid well - for it. ~ Maggie Nelson, #NFDB
761:A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, infamous and hideous-such is the God of the Pentateuch. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
762:Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls … yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. Habakkuk 3:17–18 ~ Henry T Blackaby, #NFDB
763:For some strange reason murder has always seemed more respectable than fornication. Few people are shocked when they hear God described as the God of Battles; but what an outcry there would be if anyone spoke of him as the God of Brothels. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
764:Liz cleared her throat. "Isn't there a more polite term we're supposed to use nowadays? Like....little person, or vertically challenged,or-" "I'm not going to call myself the god of vertically challenged people," Bes grumbled. "I'm a dwarf! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
765:The god of Islam tells his people, "Beat your wife. Go kill infidels. Go Kill Christians and Jews." This is in the Koran; it has been for 1400 years. Their god tells them to kill everybody who doesn't believe in the god of the Koran. ~ Mosab Hassan Yousef, #NFDB
766:We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
767:Writing after the Holocaust had destroyed a third of the world’s Jews, Yiddish poet Kadia Molodowsky (1894–1975) addressed the “Chosen People” doctrine most poignantly: “O God of Mercy,” she wrote, “For the time being / Choose another people. ~ Leo Rosten, #NFDB
768:Those men who laid the foundation of this American government and signed he Declaration of Independence were the best spirits the God of heaven could find on the face of the earth. They were choice spirits . . . noble spirits before God. ~ Wilford Woodruff, #NFDB
769:The Christian's God does not merely consist of a God who is the Author of mathematical truths and the order of the elements. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of the Christians, is a God of love and consolation. ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
770:Liz cleared her throat. "Isn't there a more polite term we're supposed to use nowadays? Like....little person, or vertically challenged,or-"
"I'm not going to call myself the god of vertically challenged people," Bes grumbled. "I'm a dwarf! ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
771:Walt's face lit up. "Sadie, Ptah was more than the craftsman god, right? Didn't they call him the God of Opening?"
"Um...Possibly."
"I thought you taught us that. Or maybe it was Carter."
"Boring bit of information? Probably Carter. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
772:I could not help but see the hand of the balancer in all of this. Could hatred and determination be a counterweight to organization and experience? I suddenly understood something about the old god of death and why he was also the god of balances. ~ Robin Hobb, #NFDB
773:If there were a god of New York, it would be the Greek's Hermes, the Roman's Mercury. He embodies New York qualities: the quick exchange, the fastness of language and style, craftiness, the mixing of people and crossing of borders, imagination. ~ James Hillman, #NFDB
774:Pride makes a god of self, covetousness makes a god of money, sensuality makes a god of the belly; whatever is esteemed or loved, feared or served, delighted in or depended on, more than God, that (whatever it is) we do in effect make a god of. ~ Matthew Henry, #NFDB
775:The mystery of esthetic like that of material creation is accomplished. The artist, like the god of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
776:3 ‡ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,† the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 ‡ who comforts us† in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
777:There is not the slightest question but that the God of the Old Testament is a jealous, vengeful God, inflicting not only on the sinful pagans but even on his Chosen People fire, lighting, hideous plagues and diseases, brimstone, and other curses. ~ Steve Allen, #NFDB
778:Thor might be god of strength and war, Odin of wisdom, but he sometimes wondered if it wasn’t Loki, the trickster god, who stood behind what unfolded. A lie can run deeper than strength or wisdom. And hadn’t the world proved to be a bitter joke? ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB
779:2CO4.3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 2CO4.4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
780:As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness . But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
781:Is the God of the Mahometan different from the God of the Hindu? Religions are different roads converging to the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads so long as we reach the same goal? Wherein is the cause for quarreling? ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
782:Jarrid Wilson has a passion and heart for God that is contagious. His genuine faith comes through powerfully in his teaching and writing. 30 Words points to the God of all wonder and grace in a way that will expand your faith and experience of God. ~ Jud Wilhite, #NFDB
783:Jung believed that the God of religion was dead because we had killed him with too much piety. We had made God shallow, narrow and good. This served to stifle and suppress the vitality of God; the divine life had been depleted by too much moralism. ~ David Tacey, #NFDB
784:The nature of God’s love for us is outrageous. Why doesn’t this God of ours display some taste and discretion in dealing with us? Why doesn’t He show more restraint? To be blunt about it, couldn’t God arrange to have a little more dignity? Wow! ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
785:Worship is accomplished with the life as well as with the words and attitudes of people. Changed and transformed lives testify to the character and supernatural power of the God of heaven. Closeness to Him produces changes in character and holiness. ~ Max Anders, #NFDB
786:If you are of the truth, if you have learned the truth, if you see the sanctity of the truth, then speak truth. We are not called to be deceivers or liars. God is a God of truth, and His people are called to have an enormously high standard of truth. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
787:Intelligent design is a modest position theologically and philosophically. It attributes the complexity and diversity of life to intelligence, but does not identify that intelligence with the God of any religious faith or philosophical system. ~ William A Dembski, #NFDB
788:My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence is provided by such a God. We would be unappreciative of that gift if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
789:God is a God of motion, of movement, and of mission... Mission is not an activity of the church but an attribute of God. God is a missionary God, Jesus is a missionary Messiah, and the Spirit is a missionary Spirit. Missions is the family business. ~ Leonard Sweet, #NFDB
790:I loved God of course, in the early days, and God loved me. That was something. And I loved animals and nature. And poetry. People were the problem. How do you love another person? How do you trust another person to love you?
I had no idea. ~ Jeanette Winterson,#NFDB
791:Even if the budget is never balanced, even if the stock market crashes, even if food prices skyrocket, even if my child never recovers from her illness, even if I lose my job, and even if we lose our home--yet will I rejoice in the God of my salvation. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
792:Chaos is also the formless potential from which the God of Genesis 1 called forth order using language at the beginning of time. It’s the same potential from which we, made in that Image, call forth the novel and ever-changing moments of our lives. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
793:It is now generally admitted, at any rate by philosophers, that the existence of a being having the attributes which define the god of any non-animistic religion cannot be demonstratively proved... [A]ll utterances about the nature of God are nonsensical. ~ A J Ayer, #NFDB
794:Never let us fall into the false notion that if we magnify Christ, we are depreciating the Father. If any lips have ever spoken concerning the Christ of God so as to depreciate the God of Christ, let those lips be covered with shame!”–1894, ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
795:Today, vast stress is laid on the thought that God is personal, but this truth is so stated as to leave the impression that God is a person of the same sort as we are—weak, inadequate, ineffective, a little pathetic. But this is not the God of the Bible! ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
796:Chaos is also the formless potential from which the God of Genesis 1 called forth order using language at the beginning of time. It’s the same potential from which we, made in that Image, call forth the novel and ever-changing moments of our lives. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
797:When it comes to dealing with God, most of us spend considerable time trying our own hands at either being or making gods. Jesus blocks the way. Jesus is not a god of our own making and he is certainly not a god designed to win popularity contests. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
798:And now,' said the unknown, 'farewell kindness, humanity, and gratitude! Farewell to all the feelings that expand the heart! I have been heaven's substitute to recompense the good - now the god of vengeance yields to me his power to punish the wicked! ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
799:God is dead, the God of love, of gentleness and consolation, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had, under the watchful gaze of this child, vanished forever into the smoke of the human holocaust demanded by the Race, the most voracious of all idols. And ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
800:God is the God of “right now.” He doesn’t want you sitting around regretting yesterday. Nor does He want you wringing your hands and worrying about the future. He wants you focusing on what He is saying to you and putting in front of you … right now. ~ Priscilla Shirer, #NFDB
801:Oh, I see,” Poseidon said. “A shame. I quite like blow-fish. I am Poseidon.”
“Poseidon? That’s an interesting name.”
“Yes, I like it. I’ve gone by other names, but I do prefer Poseidon.”
“Like the god of the sea.”
“Very much like that, yes. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
802:One of the most comforting verses of Scripture is Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” Only a God of sovereign providence could make a promise like that. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
803:Somewhere there is mystery. It impels one to theosophy: to the worship of a space-god, or a god of light.” “Theory dissolves the mystery, though it lays bare a cryptic new stratum. Quite likely there is an endless set of these layers, mystery below mystery. ~ Jack Vance, #NFDB
804:The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things,
I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,
and never once mentioned forever
from, One or Two Things ~ Mary Oliver,#NFDB
805:God is the God of 'right now.' He doesn't want you sitting around regretting yesterday. Nor does He want you wringing your hands and worrying about the future. He wants you focusing on what He is saying to you and putting in front of you ... right now. ~ Priscilla Shirer, #NFDB
806:Our faith teaches that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial and who will not forsake us so long as we obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps ~ William McKinley, #NFDB
807:Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
808:They’d given me a minivan. They could have picked any car, and they picked a minivan. A minivan. O God of Vehicular Justice, why dost thou mock me? Minivan, you albatross around my neck! You mark of Cain! You wretched beast of high ceilings and few horsepower! ~ John Green, #NFDB
809:Being a Christian is not an acquired skill or discipline like diving or ice skating. It is a living, vital relationship with the God of the universe, a relationship that begins when a person becomes a new creation in Him and receives Jesus as Lord by faith. But ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
810:In the 34th chapter of Deuteronomy is described the death of Moses. In verse 1 it is described how Moses went up "unto the mountain of Nebo." The ancient Phoenician god of learning was Nebo. The word itself means height, in the sense of the height of wisdom or of learning.., #NFDB
811:All Thy works with joy surround Thee, God of glory, Lord of Love; Stars and angels sing around Thee, Center of unbroken praise. Field and forest, vale and mountain, Flowery meadow, flashing sea, Chanting bird and flowing fountain, Call us to rejoice in Thee. ~ Henry Van Dyke, #NFDB
812:Spurious prudence, making the senses final, is the god of sots and cowards, and is the subject of all comedy. It is nature's joke, and therefore literature's. True prudence limits this sensualism by admitting the knowledge of an internal and real world. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
813:This is the Scroll of Thoth. Herein are set down the magic words by which Isis raised Osiris from the dead. Oh! Amon-Ra--Oh! God of Gods--Death is but the doorway to new life--We live today-we shall live again--In many forms shall we return-Oh, mighty one. ~ John L Balderston, #NFDB
814:Who upholds the gorsedd if not You? Who counts the ages of the world if not You? Who commands the Wheel of Heaven if not You? Who quickens life in the womb if not You? Therefore, God of All Virtue and Power, sain us and shield us with Your Swift Sure Hand. ~ Stephen R Lawhead, #NFDB
815:Chauntecleer was crowing one of his “Occasional Crows,” a dirge: “The Lord alone has immortality. The God of all comfort comforts us in our tribulations. Therefore comfort one another, My dear ones, By the comfort which we ourselves have received from God. ~ Walter Wangerin Jr, #NFDB
816:Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Corinthians 1:3–4) ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
817:What I heard and saw was a charge to declare his Holy Word in all the wisdom of its counsel and wonder of its strength. It was an invitation to remake the human language in the image if the divine rather than strip the Word of God of its divinity to make it human. ~ Lisa Bevere, #NFDB
818:1CH4.10 And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
819:David Sarnoff had predicted, the radio became the ornate mahogany god of the American living room: there were three million sets in 1924, thirty million in 1936, and fifty million by 1940, by which time a simple radio could be had for less than ten dollars. ~ William J Bernstein, #NFDB
820:I fear that much of the Christianity that surrounds us assumes our task is to save appearances by protecting God from Job-like anguish. But if God is the God of Jesus Christ, then God does not need our protection. What God demands is not protection, but truth. ~ Stanley Hauerwas, #NFDB
821:Inductive Bible study draws you into personal interaction with the Scripture and thus with the God of the Scriptures so that your beliefs are based on a prayerful understanding and legitimate interpretation of Scripture—truth that transforms you when you live by it. ~ Kay Arthur, #NFDB
822:Pearl would smile helplessly back with the sickening feeling that she was collaborating with God. Not the God of her mother's faulty and romantic vision, but the true one. A God of barbaric and unholy appearance, with a mind uncomplimentary to human consciousness. ~ Joy Williams, #NFDB
823:Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.—2 CORINTHIANS 1:3–4 ~ Sarah Young, #NFDB
824:Heydrich was dead. At the end of May, the albino stoat had been ambushed by Czech Resistance fighters while he was riding in his open-topped Mercedes. Eight days later, the architect of the Final Solution fell into the hands of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
825:To impute our recovery to medicine, and to carry our view no further, is to rob God of His honor, and is saying in effect that He has parted with the keys of life and death, and, by giving to a drug the power to heal us, has placed our lives out of His own reach. ~ William Cowper, #NFDB
826:The God of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with what God, as we imagine him, could do and ought to do. If we are to learn what God promises, and what he fulfils, we must persevere in quiet meditation on the life, sayings, deeds, sufferings, and death of Jesus. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
827:Abraham’s servant prayed for success: “O LORD, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today, and show lovingkindness to my master Abraham” (Gen. 24:12 NASB). This is the first time in Scripture that we read of someone asking God for specific guidance. ~ Gary L Thomas, #NFDB
828:On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to god and my country but it might not be the same god as the god of the church and I might not be digging on the message of the president because the windmills of his mind are cracked on a lot of subjects concerning people. ~ Lynda Barry, #NFDB
829:The Tezuman Empire in the jungle valleys of central Klatch is known for it organic market gardens, its exquisite craftsmanship in obsidian, feathers and jade, and its mass human sacrifices in honor of Quezovercoatl, the Feathered Boa, god of mass human sacrifices. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
830:And they did rejoice and cry again with one voice, saying: May the aGod of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, protect this people in righteousness, so long as they shall bcall on the name of their God for cprotection ~ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, #NFDB
831:I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honoring that matter which works for my salvation. I venerate it, though not as God. ~ John of Damascus, #NFDB
832:In order, then, to our performance of good works, let us not have hope in man, making strong the flesh of our arm; nor let our heart ever depart from the Lord, but let it say to him, “Be Thou my helper; forsake me not, nor despise me, O God of my salvation. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #NFDB
833:The mysterious sentence, “You are My Son; this day have I begotten You,” may refer to the deep and secret Truth of God of the Eternal Filiation of our Lord, whatever that may be. But Paul quotes it in the 13th chapter of Acts as referring to His Resurrection. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
834:My people shall dwell in quiet resting places." Isaiah 32:18 Peace and rest belong not to the unregenerate, they are the peculiar possession of the Lord's people, and of them only. The God of Peace gives perfect peace to those whose hearts are stayed upon him. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
835:pg. 231-232: They'd given me a minivan. They could have picked any car and they picked a minivan. A minivan. O God of the Vehicular Justice, why dost thou mock me? Minivan, you albatross around my neck! You mark of Cain! You wretched beast high ceilings and few horsepower! ~ John Green, #NFDB
836:17 Though the fig tree does not bud and there is no fruit on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will triumph in •Yahweh; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
837:I thanked the God of hard-ons … Erectimus? I think that was his name, or was that a transformer? Erectimus Prime? Anyway, I thanked him, the God of hard-ons, that rather than making eye contact with me, she still had her head tilted back and was staring up at the ceiling. ~ Lesley Jones, #NFDB
838:It's crazy, if you think about it. The God of the universe - the creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and E-minor - loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
839:The citadel of Jones was now taken by surprise. All those considerations of honour and prudence which our heroe had lately with so much military wisdom placed as guards over the avenues of his heart, ran away from their posts, and the god of love marched in, in triumph. ~ Henry Fielding, #NFDB
840:Thoth is the Egyptian ibis-headed god of magick and writing, whose name means “Leader”. His worship has been suggested by bronze ibis heads at Chiddingfold (Surrey) and Caerwent (Monmouthshire), indicating his worship found its way to Britain, if only in private villas. ~ David Rankine, #NFDB
841:3 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; 4 who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
842:God is, in truth, the whole universe: what was, what is and what beyond shall ever be. He is the God of life immortal and of all life that lives by food. His hands and feet are everywhere. He has heads and mouths everywhere. He sees all, He hears all. He is in all, and He Is. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
843:114. PEOPLE (AL-NAS) In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful 1 Say, ‘I seek refuge in the Lord of people, 2 the King of people, 3 the God of people, 4 from the mischief of every sneaking whisperer, 5 who whispers into the hearts of people, 6 from jinn and men. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
844:"Civilization" has been thrust upon me since the days of the reservations, and it has not added one whit to my sense of justice, to my reverence for the rights of life, to my love for truth, honesty, and generosity, or to my faith in Wakan Tanka, God of the Lakotas. ~ Luther Standing Bear, #NFDB
845:How far is it between light and dark? They aren’t even in the same room. If there’s any light there at all, then it isn’t dark. Likewise, to live in the state of sin means that you’re completely removed from the God of light—and desperately in need of a Savior. Eternity ~ Henry T Blackaby, #NFDB
846:Shiva’s reluctance to marry is a consistent theme in Shaiva lore. In effect he opposes the birth of the cosmos, preferring the blissful state in which matter is in a state of entropy and the spirit is free of form. Not surprisingly, he is called the god of destruction. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
847:5He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. 6For he held fast to the LORD. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the LORD commanded Moses. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
848:The worship of the church has become a feel-good experience, rather than a meeting with the holy God of the universe. Exciting music has become the new sacrament mediating the presence of God and his grace. Sermons have become pop psychology, moralistic exercises in self-help.8 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
849:Zia’s senile grandfather? Nope. That was Ra, god of the sun, first divine pharaoh of Egypt and archenemy of Apophis. Last spring we’d gone on a quest to find him and revive him from his twilight sleep, trusting he would rise in all his glory and fight the Chaos snake for us. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
850:And all our gods are one God,” Avelyn replied quickly, not wanting to offend the elf. “A God of differing names perhaps, but of similar tenets. And when those tenets are misinterpreted,” the monk went on, his voice turning grave, “when they are used for personal gain or as a ~ R A Salvatore, #NFDB
851:Just because you're the god of vengeance doesn't mean you have to be some brooding cliché, forever cackling to yourself and totting up what you owe to whom. Choose how your nature shapes you. Embrace it. Find the strength in it. Or fight yourself and remain forever incomplete. ~ N K Jemisin, #NFDB
852:The God of the Bible is the God of liberation rather than oppression; a God of justice rather than injustice; a God of freedom and humanity rather than enslavement and subservience; a God of love, righteousness and community rather than hatred, self-interest and exploitation. ~ Allan Boesak, #NFDB
853:'You're Dionysus,' I said. 'The god of wine.' Mr. D rolled his eyes. 'What do they say these days, Grover? Do the children say "Well duh!"?' 'Y-yes, Mr. D.' 'Then, "Well, duh!" Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?' 'You're a god.' 'Yes, child.' 'A god. You.' ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
854:I sacrifice to the God of Beauty — the impulse to beauty in nature. Here are flowers. Here is wine spilled on the floor. I will burn incense & myrhh. I will kneel & strike my breast & touch the dust with my forehead. I will I will! Only do not forsake me, Oh God of beauty. ~ Theodore Dreiser, #NFDB
855:It was this doctrine of the humanity of Jesus that gave rise to Islamism. On one occasion Mohammed is reported to have said: "This Jesus was a good and holy man, a teacher among the Jews, but one day his disciples became mad and made a god of him." ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
856:Because I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I believe in a loving anger of His which will and must devour and destroy all which is decayed, monstrous, abortive in His universe till all enemies shall be put under His feet, and God shall be all in all. ~ Charles Kingsley, #NFDB
857:Historically speaking, the Christian religion is nothing but a Jewish sect... After the destruction of Judaism, the extinction of Christian slave morals must follow logically... Ah, the God of the deserts, that crazed, stupid, vengeful Asiatic despot with his power to make laws! ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
858:Mr. Bradley-Mr. Martin is two people because it is a statement of the impasse of dualistic universe which he has created, they have created. I think that any dualistic universe ends in Nova. Mr. Bradley-Mr. Martin is a kind of God. A God of stupidity, cowardice, ugliness. ~ William S Burroughs, #NFDB
859:It could be any of a billion Gods. It could be God of the Martians or of the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri. The chance of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishingly small - at the least, the onus is on you to demonstrate why you think that's the case. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
860:Let us say plainly: the unredeemed state of the world consists precisely in the failure to understand the meaning of creation, in the failure to recognize truth; as a result, the rule of pragmatism is imposed, by which the strong arm of the powerful becomes the god of this world. ~ Benedict XVI, #NFDB
861:Satan, the god of all dissension stirs up daily new sects. And last of all which of all others I should have foreseen or once suspected. He has raised up a sect such as teach that men should not be terrified by the Law but gently exhorted by the preaching of the grace of Christ. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
862:A priest friend of mine has cautioned me away from the standard God of our childhoods, who loves you and guides you and then, if you are bad, roasts you: God as a high school principal in a gray suit who never remembered your name but is always leafing unhappily through your files. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
863:I held out the painting of the cat and the snake. “It’s a cat and a snake,” Thoth said. Thank you, god of wisdom. You placed it for us to find, didn’t you? You’re trying to give us some sort of clue.” “Who, me?” Just kill him, Horus said. Shut up, I said. At least kill the guitar. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
864:Orpheus began as a reformer of the Dionysian Mysteries, the wild, orgiastic rites of the god of drunkenness & madness. Nietzsche pitted the gods of madness & of order—Dionysus & Apollo—against each other & recognized that in tension between them lay roots of Greek art ~ G Lachman, #NFDB
865:sn God. This frequently used Hebrew name for God (אֱלֹהִים,’elohim ) is a plural form. When it refers to the one true God, the singular verb is normally used, as here. The plural form indicates majesty; the name stresses God’s sovereignty and incomparability – he is the “God of gods. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
866:There are many gods . . . gods of beauty and magic, gods of the garden, gods in our own backyards, but we go off to foreign countries to find new ones, we reach to the stars to find new ones--. . . . The god of the church is a jealous god; he cannot live in peace with other gods. ~ Rudolfo Anaya, #NFDB
867:Jonah wants a God of his own making, a God who simply smites the bad people, for instance, the wicked Ninevites and blesses the good people, for instance, Jonah and his countrymen. When the real God—not Jonah’s counterfeit—keeps showing up, Jonah is thrown into fury or despair. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
868:Kairos was young and wing-footed and forever gorgeous, despite having no hair except a single shock over his forehead. Kairos is the god of golden opportunities and guardian of outlaws, and he could work wonders for you if you were quick enough to grab him by the forelock. ~ Christopher McDougall, #NFDB
869:You and I are living in a universe where there is a God, a loving God, a God whose heart goes out in love and yearning over you. But I want to say this to you: if you turn your back on Him He will judge you even though He still loves you. He is the righteous God of this universe. ~ J Vernon McGee, #NFDB
870:If we were to boil down Christianity to its core, we'd be left with simply this: relationship with God. The living, loving God of the universe has spoken throughout history, and still speaks today - not just to pastors or priests, but to anyone who will listen. God will speak to you. ~ Bill Hybels, #NFDB
871:Just that morning I’d been praying and asking God to show Himself to me. I asked the God of the universe to intersect my life with His revelation, then got up from my prayers and forgot to look. Forgot to seek Him. Forgot to keep my heart in tune with His voice and His invitation. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
872:Let us say plainly: the unredeemed state of the world consists precisely in the failure to understand the meaning of creation, in the failure to recognize truth; as a result, the rule of pragmatism is imposed, by which the strong arm of the powerful becomes the god of this world. At ~ Benedict XVI, #NFDB
873:May thy servant Wilford be prepared for whatever awaits him on earth and have power to perform whatever is required at his hands by the God of Heaven. I ask this blessing of my Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. ~ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, #NFDB
874:Only from chaos does order come. The angry Fates bring death where they will, when war is king, says Enlil, storm god of the armies, and the tip of his crown rends the clouds above their heads. "Wheresoever I rule, death comes shambling after. So it has always been, is, and will be." ~ Janet Morris, #NFDB
875:The God of the Bible and church is manifestly wicked and villainous. But in this Age of Reason, this conclusion did not necessarily lead to the idea that the enemy of God, Satan, must be a hero. The whole Judeo-Christian tradition tended to be rejected as superstitious nonsense. ~ Stephen E Flowers, #NFDB
876:The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day; and, at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, The extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine: and of the truth herein This present object made probation. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
877:Your father wasn’t a positive influence on you, was he? (Simone) Being the god of nightmares, he wasn’t a warm fuzzy bunny. Unless you count Happy Bunny. Amazingly the two of them have a lot in common…And I have to say that I’ve developed a fondness for that pissy rodent. (Xypher) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
878:Hah!” Silas proclaimed. “Then that is the deception right there, for a lesser god of any worth would surely direct their followers to drop to their knees before Twareg.” “That makes no fucking sense!” “Worshipping Twareg isn’t supposed to make sense. That’s what makes it so glorious. ~ Rick Gualtieri, #NFDB
879:No, their weapons will not be carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. They will go to the Covenant God of the kingdom, and they will stand before Him, saying, "Thine are we, David, and on thy side, thou son of Jesse." Scotland will renew her covenant with God. The ~ Various, #NFDB
880:There he was, leaning with casual insolence against a magnificent mantle of carved Italian marble, a glass of brandy dangling from his fingertips. He was a dark angel, some brooding god of judgment, and as he turned his black, smoldering gaze upon her, Juliet felt her courage falter. ~ Danelle Harmon, #NFDB
881:We were granted the right to exist by the God of our fathers at the glimmer of the dawn of human civilization nearly 4,000 years ago. For that right, which has been sanctified in Jewish blood from generation to generation, we have paid a price unexampled in the annals of the nations. ~ Menachem Begin, #NFDB
882:You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."
Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say these days, Grover? Do the children say 'Well duh!'?"
Y-yes, Mr. D."
Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"
You're a god."
Yes, child."
A god. You. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
883:God is not a God of confusion, although at times one's judgment, for a period, may become clouded in the mi(d)st of one's growth process. I stopped fooling myself into thinking that Christ is always for the cool kids and never for those upright and uptight religious people everybody hates. ~ Criss Jami, #NFDB
884:Intelligent Design has been hijacked by a narrow group of creationist fundamentalists in America to mean something it didn't originally mean at all. It's another form of the God of the gaps. It's bad theology in that it turns God once again into the pagan god of thunder and lightning. ~ Guy Consolmagno, #NFDB
885:Your father wasn’t a positive influence on you, was he? (Simone)
Being the god of nightmares, he wasn’t a warm fuzzy bunny. Unless you count Happy Bunny. Amazingly the two of them have a lot in common…And I have to say that I’ve developed a fondness for that pissy rodent. (Xypher) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
886:Certainly the shahadah contained an important theological innovation, but that innovation was not monotheism. With this simple profession of faith, Muhammad was declaring to Mecca that the God of the heavens and the earth required no intermediate whatsoever, but could be accessed by anyone. ~ Reza Aslan, #NFDB
887:How much more beautiful would be the world and the society in which we live if...every mother regarded her children as the jewels of her life, as gifts from the God of heaven, who is their Eternal Father, and brought them up in true affection in the wisdom and admonition of the Lord. ~ Gordon B Hinckley, #NFDB
888:Let us affectionately love His angels as counselors and defenders appointed by the Father and placed over us. They are faithful; they are prudent; they are powerful; Let us only follow them, let us remain close to them, and in the protection of the God of heaven let us abide. ~ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, #NFDB
889:Christians. They’re determined to rid the land of any who worship the Horned One. Murdering all the druids, burning the temples, sometimes whole villages, and knocking over the standing stones.”
The Lady’s face hardened. “This god of peace and love certainly likes to bathe the land in blood. ~ Brom,#NFDB
890:probation. Jesus Christ was and is Jehovah, the God of Adam and of Noah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Israel, the God at whose instance the prophets of the ages have spoken, the God of all nations, and He who shall yet reign on earth as King of kings and Lord of lords. ~ James E Talmage, #NFDB
891:ACT13.16 Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience. ACT13.17 The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought he them out of it. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
892:If God does not enter your kitchen, there is something wrong with your kitchen. If you can't take God into your recreation, there is something wrong with your play. We all believe in the God of the heroic. What we need most these days is the God of the humdrum, the commonplace, the everyday. ~ Peter Marshall, #NFDB
893:Luther was the unwitting harbinger of a new world in which the well-established boundaries of what was acceptable were exploded, never to be restored. Suddenly the individual had not only the freedom and possibility of thinking for himself but the weighty responsibility before God of doing so. ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
894:The other shoe went flying unto the devil-god of that river. I thought, 'By Jove! it's all over. We are too late; he has vanished—the gift has vanished, by means of some spear, arrow, or club. I will never hear that chap speak after all,'—and my sorrow had a startling extravagance of emotion, ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
895:The symbolism seemed so apt. The same technology that can propel apocalyptic weapons from continent to continent would enable the first human voyage to another planet. It was a choice of fitting mythic power: to embrace the planet named after, rather than the madness ascribed to, the god of war. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
896:To suggest that the merciful, longsuffering, gracious and loving God of the Bible would invent a dreadful doctrine like Calvinism, which would have us believe it is an act of 'grace' to select only certain people for heaven and, by exclusion, others for hell, comes perilously close to blasphemy. ~ Tim LaHaye, #NFDB
897:You can't deny Eros. Eros wills trike, like lightning. Our human defenses are frail, ludicrous. Like plasterboard houses in a hurricane. Your triumph is in perfect submission. And the god of Eros will flow through you, as Lawrence says, in the 'perfect obliteration of blood consciousness. ~ Joyce Carol Oates, #NFDB
898:Zeus Zeus was god of the skies and ruler of all the Greek gods and goddesses. Zeus and his family were called Olympians because they lived on top of a mountain called Mount Olympus. The major Greek gods and goddesses were later adopted by the Romans. Zeus was called Jupiter by the Romans. ~ Mary Pope Osborne, #NFDB
899:31 “But now, as to whether there will be a resurrection of the dead—haven’t you ever read about this in the Scriptures? Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said,[*] 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’[*] So he is the God of the living, not the dead. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
900:My own observation is: lovers don't surrender to each other, they surrender to something unknown that exists between them. They surrender to love - call it the 'god of love' - they both surrender to the god of love. Hence nobody's ego is fulfilled by your surrender; both the egos disappear in love. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
901:Odin has many names. He is the all-father, the lord of the slain, the gallows god. He is the god of cargoes and of prisoners. He is called Grimnir and Third. He has different names in every country (for he is worshipped in different forms and in many tongues, but it is always Odin they worship). ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
902:What is your job?"
"Er, well, I'm the god of music."
"Then that is what I shall be. A god of music."
Meg glanced back and smirked.
I tried to give Crest an encouraging smile, but I hoped he would not ask to flay me alive and consume my essence. I already had a waiting list for that. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
903:Often misunderstood, Dionysus is far more than a wine deity. He is the Breaker of Chains, who rescues not only the flesh but the heart and spirit from too much of worldly regulations and duties. He is a god of joy and freedom. Any uncultivated, tangled, and primal woodland is very much his domain. ~ Tanith Lee, #NFDB
904:The Bible shows us that obedience to God is not about cutting and pasting the Bible over our lives, but seeking the path of wisdom—holding the sacred book in one hand and ourselves, our communities of faith, and our world in the other in order to discern how the God of old is present here and now. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
905:We should not content ourselves with a God of thoughts for, when the thoughts come to an end, so too shall God. Rather, we should have a living God who is beyond the thoughts of all people and all creatures. That kind of God will not leave us, unless we ourselves choose to turn away from him. ~ Meister Eckhart, #NFDB
906:Why didn’t you do something about it the first time you found me there?” “Isis, have you ever looked at yourself?” He intently looked into my eyes. I kept silent, listening for the rest of his explanation. “You’re gorgeous. Fit for the god of gods. You are unending beauty to the tips of your fingers. ~ Nely Cab, #NFDB
907:Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation. Selah 20 Our God is a God of salvation, and to GOD, the Lord, belong deliverances from death. 21 But God will strike the heads of his enemies, the hairy crown of him who walks in his guilty ways. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
908:Once again I’ve taken up the readings and meditated on them. The key to everything is the ‘in him’. All that we may rightly expect from God, and ask him for, is to be found in Jesus Christ. The God of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with what God, as we imagine him, could do and ought to do. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
909:God is going to send you someone that will rescue you. Then one day you will rescue them in return and together your story will rescue others. He has always been a God of rescues and a maker of warriors for his grace. You only need to believe that you are part of something greater than you know. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
910:I held out the painting of the cat and the snake.
“It’s a cat and a snake,” Thoth said.
Thank you, god of wisdom. You placed it for us to find, didn’t you? You’re trying to give us some sort of clue.”
“Who, me?”
Just kill him, Horus said.
Shut up, I said.
At least kill the guitar. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
911:Oppressed and oppressors cannot possibly mean the same thing when they speak of God. The God of the oppressed is a God of revolution who breaks the chains of slavery. The oppressors' God is a God of slavery and must be destroyed along with the oppressors. ~ James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), p. 61, #NFDB
912:The key verse to the Book of Daniel is Daniel 2:44: “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom,which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. ~ J Vernon McGee, #NFDB
913:Hello carnivore,' said the mouse priest. He turned and bowed to Uncle Mike and Dominic. 'Hail to the High Priest of Goddammit Eat Something Already, and to the God of Hard Choices in Dark Places.' Ryan blinked. 'What?' 'It's a mouse thing, just roll with it, you'll be happier that way,' I advised. ~ Seanan McGuire, #NFDB
914:In the earliest times, which were so susceptible to vague speculation and the inevitable ordering of the universe, there can have existed no division between the poetic and the prosaic. Everything must have been tinged with magic. Thor was not the god of thunder; he was the thunder and the god. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #NFDB
915:People do not grow until they shift from a natural human view of God to a real, biblical view of God. The first aspect of that shift has to be the shift from a God of law to the God of grace. People must discover that God is for them and not against them. This is what it means to have a God of grace. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
916:The story of Psyche finally made sense to him- why a mortal girl would be so afraid. Why would she risk breaking the rules to look the god of love in the face, because she feared he might be a monster.
Psyche had been right. Cupid was a monster. Love was the most savage monster of all. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
917:Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever. That is what the Christian faith promises. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
918:after a few centuries, the new pharaohs saw our kind as a threat instead of an asset. Too many of us existed. Had we wanted to, we could have challenged the pharaoh’s armies. Pharaoh Mentuhotep the Second changed our name to the Setites, followers of the god Set, god of chaos, mischief, and evil. ~ Janette Rallison, #NFDB
919:Our essential embodiment will keep interrupting our Platonic desire to do away with the body, will keep insinuating itself into our dualistic discourses to remind us that the triune God of creation traffics in ashes and dust, blood and bodies, fish and bread. And he pronounces all of it “very good ~ James K A Smith, #NFDB
920:Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval [tropical] forests, ... temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature. No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
921:Nematos? Who’s that?” “The god of murder.” “That’s, uh, not good.” “Well, he’s supposed to be chained up until the end of the world.” “Maybe he escaped?” “He certainly wasn’t let out for good behavior. Apparently one of the few things all the gods agreed upon was how much they hated Nematos’s guts. ~ Michael McClung, #NFDB
922:The world is not prepared yet to understand the philosophy of Occult Sciences - let them assure themselves first of all that there are beings in an invisible world, whether 'Spirits' of the dead or Elementals; and that there are hidden powers in man, which are capable of making a God of him on earth. ~ H P Blavatsky, #NFDB
923:17Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, Upon the son of man whom You have made strong for Yourself. 18Then we shall not turn back from You; Revive us and we will call on Your name. 19Restore us, O LORD God of hosts; Cause Your face to shine on us [in favor and approval], and we shall be saved. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
924:I choose joy... I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance. I will refuse the temptation to be cynical... the tool of the lazy thinker. I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings, created by God. I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
925:Nico di Angelo came into Olympus to a hero's welcome, his father right behind him, despite the fact that Hades was only supposed to visit Olympus in winter solstice. The God of the dead looked stunned when his relatives clapped him on the back. I doubt he'd ever got such an enthusiastic welcome before. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
926:Preaching that is boring is preaching that talks first about us and then only tangentially about God. Preaching that is faithful is preaching that talks first about God and then only secondarily and derivatively talks about us. The God of Scripture is so much more interestingly than we are. ~ William Henry Willimon, #NFDB
927:The world is not prepared yet to understand the philosophy of Occult Sciences - let them assure themselves first of all that there are beings in an invisible world, whether 'Spirits' of the dead or Elementals; and that there are hidden powers in man, which are capable of making a God of him on earth. ~ H P Blavatsky, #NFDB
928:God is invoked … and He is invoked against the God of the spirit, of intelligence and love - excluding and hating this God. What an extraordinary spiritual phenomenon this is: people believe in God and yet do not know God. The idea of God is affirmed and at the same time disfigured and perverted. ~ John Howard Griffin, #NFDB
929:I felt a strange pang of jealousy. Walt and Anubis seemed to have spent more time talking with each other than with me. Walt was suddenly an expert on all things deathly. Meanwhile, I couldn’t even be near Anubis without invoking the wrath of his chaperone—Shu, the god of hot air. It wasn’t bloody fair! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
930:I have been asked hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept, by faith, that God is sovereign, and He is a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
931:Worshipping the Lord means giving him the place that he must have; worshipping the Lord means stating, believing-not only by our words- that he alone truly guides our lives; worshipping the Lord means that we are convinced before him that he is the only God, the God of our lives, the God of our history. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
932:6 And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and atrue: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must bshortly be done. 7 Behold, I acome quickly: bblessed is he that keepeth the csayings of the prophecy of this book. 8 And I John saw these things, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
933:Atheists who kneel and pray, the voice sings. Begging for just anything. Non-believers bitten down to the core. Pass them a word, give them a string. When you’re dying you cling. Yara, Yara, the god of disbelief. I worship between your legs. Pray to your fallacy, pray to your winter. You kill everything. ~ Tarryn Fisher, #NFDB
934:He is a God of power and love and wisdom, and as His image bearers, we must be women of power and love and wisdom as well. In order to be who we were created to be we must not only acknowledge the brokenness of this world, we must at the same time affirm that the love and power of God is stronger still. ~ Hannah Anderson, #NFDB
935:I have to conclude, oh, the best people are all somebody other than my own race. So that's difficult. How do we interpret the Bible? Should we stress things like justice and that God is somebody who cares about equality of all people? Or is he a God of love and a God who's there to give me an afterlife? ~ Michael Emerson, #NFDB
936:Bonhoeffer recognized that standard-issue “religion” had made God small, having dominion only over those things we could not explain. That “religious” God was merely the “God of the gaps,” the God who concerned himself with our “secret sins” and hidden thoughts. But Bonhoeffer rejected this abbreviated God. ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
937:the Bible (unlike the books on which other religions are based) is not about following moral examples. It is about a God of mercy and long-suffering, who continually works in and through us despite our constant resistance to his purposes. Ultimately, there is only one hero in this book, and he’s divine. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
938:God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. PSALM 46 : 1 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ROMANS 12 : 12 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. ROMANS 15 : 13 ~ Sarah Young, #NFDB
939:The scientist who recognizes God knows only the God of Newton. To him the God imagined by Laplace and Comte is wholly inadequate. He feels that God is in nature, that the orderly ways in which nature works are themselves the manifestations of God's will and purpose. Its laws are his orderly way of working. ~ Arthur Compton, #NFDB
940:They used to worship us, Meshara—they used to worship you. The god of wisdom, the god of beginnings, the god of dreams. They chanted your name in the darkness, dancing naked around the first fires of the ancient world, and now you’re here, hiding and tired and worthless, as scared of living as you are of dying. ~ Dan Wells, #NFDB
941:As far back as 1912, John Muir had protested against the building of the Hetch Hetchy Dam with these words: “These temple destroyers, devotees of raging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar. ~ David Gessner, #NFDB
942:Behold, my love, behold all that I simultaneously do: scandal, seduction, bad example, incest, adultery, sodomy! Oh, Satan! one and unique God of my soul, inspire thou in me something yet more, present further perversions to my smoking heart, and then shalt thou see how I shall plunge myself into them all! ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
943:He continued to build speed, shifting up: third, fourth, fifth. The car rumbled and whined. “Are you sure you should be—” “Don’t worry,” he yelled. “I’ve done it before.” My mother sometimes said, There are guardian angels just for teenagers. Oh, help me, God of Teenagers, I thought. Oh God of Teenagers. ~ Lisa Brennan Jobs, #NFDB
944:Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep athrough the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, 21equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
945:Thus, after a period of about two thousand years the greatest crime became to worship a god other than the God of Moses, whereas injustice became a minor sin. I began to ask myself how this change had come about. Was it linked to a new order in which the female goddesses had been replaced by one male god? ~ Nawal El Saadawi, #NFDB
946:Alert to the manipulations and machinations of Pharisaical self-righteousness, ragamuffins refuse to surrender control of their lives to rules and regulations. They see that the stale religiosity of legalists, trapped in the fatal narcissism of spiritual perfectionism, obscures the face of the God of Jesus. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
947:Organized religion is horseshit. Spirituality -- the spirituality that I've come to know and experience -- has nothing to do with religion. Were it not for my relationship with a God of my experience I would be dead. Actually I did die. Now I'm this other guy with a pencil in one hand and a bullhorn in the other. ~ Dan Fante, #NFDB
948:So too did any doubts about the involvement of Loki, god of mischief. That capricious deity was clearly up to his old tricks. How else to explain how a man who adored women-and who was adored by them-found himself with a bride who faced the marriage bed with less enthusiasm than she would a viper-infested den? ~ Josie Litton, #NFDB
949:Above all, you ask if the God of Christians forgives those who do not believe and who do not seek faith. Given the premise, and this is fundamental, that the mercy of God is limitless for those who turn to him with a sincere and contrite heart, the issue for the unbeliever lies in obeying his or her conscience. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
950:Detritus, that's the word. The awful accumulation of wrong decisions, improper terms. You scrape away the excrescences of history...and maybe you get down to the bedrock of human society, where diamonds hide. God of my fathers, how I wish we could bring in the psychological drills and probe down to bedrock. ~ James A Michener, #NFDB
951:The god of the Christians, as we have seen, is the god who makes promises only to break them; who sends them pestilence and disease in order to heal them; a god who demoralizes mankind in order to improve it. A god who created man after his own image, and still the origin of evil in man is not accredited to him. ~ Johann Most, #NFDB
952:Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls— 18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
953:And then this whole deal of new gods, old gods," said his friend. "You ask me, I welcome new gods. Bring the on. The god of guns. The god of bombs. All the gods of ignorance and intolerance, of self-righteousness, idiocy and blame. All the stuff they try and land me with. Take a lot of the weight off my shoulders. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
954:Believe in the sacred word of God, the Holy Bible, with its treasury of inspiration and sacred truth; in the Book of Mormon as a testimony of the living Christ. Believe in the Church as the organization which the God of Heaven established for the blessing of His sons and daughters of all generations of time. ~ Gordon B Hinckley, #NFDB
955:When we rise out of [the night] into the new life and there begin to receive the signs, what can we know of that which - of him who gives them to us? Only what we experience from time to time from the signs themselves. If we name the speaker of this speech God, then it is always the God of a moment, a moment God. ~ Martin Buber, #NFDB
956:Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may athrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may bfeel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the cGod of Israel, and the God of the whole dearth, and have been slain for the sins of the world. ~ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, #NFDB
957:Cultures have long heard wisdom in non-human voices: Apollo, god of music, medicine and knowledge, came to Delphi in the form of a dolphin. But dolphins, which fill the oceans with blipping and chirping, and whales, which mew and caw in ultramarine jazz - a true rhapsody in blue - are hunted to the edge of silence. ~ Jay Griffiths, #NFDB
958:God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars...Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy...'This is life eternal that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.' Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ...May I not fall from him forever...I will not forget your word. Amen. ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
959:It is the perfection of God's works that they are all done with the greatest simplicity. He is the God of order and not of confusion. And therefore as they would understand the frame of the world must endeavor to reduce their knowledge to all possible simplicity, so must it be in seeking to understand these visions. ~ Isaac Newton, #NFDB
960:I have a friend who calls himself a Jewish-Buddhist, or a JewBu—he attends a synagogue where they meditate and chant Shalommmmmmmm—and when I asked how he reconciles the God of the Old Testament with the absence of a supreme god in Buddhism, he said, “Maybe I don’t believe in God. Maybe I only believe in culture. ~ Suzanne Morrison, #NFDB
961:Pathological dualism does three things. It makes you dehumanise and demonise your enemies. It leads you to see yourself as a victim. And it allows you to commit altruistic evil, killing in the name of the God of life, hating in the name of the God of love and practising cruelty in the name of the God of compassion. ~ Jonathan Sacks, #NFDB
962:She did this not out of fear of him, but out of pity. Because she had come to see the ultimate terrible truth behind all others. Which was that the stupidity and avarice and hatred of mankind had finally begun to make him also stupid, avaricious, hating, and cruel beyond reason. Even though he was a god, a god of love. ~ Tanith Lee, #NFDB
963:20Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us [1] that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
964:If Christianity should happen to be true – that is to say, if its God is the real God of the universe – then defending it may mean talking about anything and everything. Things can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is false, but nothing can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is true. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
965:If the God of revelation is most appropriately worshipped in the temple of religion, the God of nature may be equally honored in the temple of science. Even from its lofty minarets the philosopher may summon the faithful to prayer, and the priest and sage exchange altars without the compromise of faith or knowledge. ~ David Brewster, #NFDB
966:The teaching of their ancient belief is filled with truth for the present day. Its profound sense of justice, nation to nation, man to man, is an essential part of every religious and social order. The health of our society depends upon a deep and abiding respect for the basic commandments of the God of Israel. ~ Dwight D Eisenhower, #NFDB
967:We have not made cricket and football [soccer] professional because of any astonishing avarice or new vulgarity. We have made them professional because we would have them perfect. We have dedicated men to them as to some god of inhuman excellence. We care more for football than for the fun of playing football. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
968:God's love is based on nothing, and the fact that it is based on nothing makes us secure. Were it based on anything we do, and that 'anything' were to collapse, then God's love would crumble as well. But with the God of Jesus no such thing can possibly happen. People who realize this can live freely and to the full. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
969:Odin spoke to Mimir, the god of memory and wisdom, and begged the knowledge of all things, and Mimir spoke and said: "If thou wouldst know all things, pluck out thine eye and cast it into my pool." Odin did so, and received the knowledge of every mystery except the secret of his own death. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
970:For earthly princes lay aside their power when they rise up against God, and are unworthy to be reckoned among the number of mankind. We ought rather utterly to defy than to obey them whenever they are so restive and wish to spoil God of his rights, and, as it were, to seize upon his throne and draw him down from heaven. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
971:O God of our fathers, and Lord of mercy, who has made all things with your word, and ordained man through your wisdom, that he should have dominion over the creatures which you have made, give me wisdom that sits by your throne so that I might understand what is your will and be saved. For I am your servant. Amen. ~ Cyril of Jerusalem, #NFDB
972:The judge remembers to be a parent: a father in wistfulness, a mother in yearning, a God of grief flowing with tears beside the deathbed. The angry God remembers to be a God who cares about the beloved partner. God has noticed. God has noticed the mocking and the dying, the denial and the irrepressible pain.
To ~ Walter Brueggemann,#NFDB
973:We are saved, sanctified, and sustained by what Jesus did for us on the cross and through the power of his resurrection. If you add to or subtract from the cross, even if it is to factor in biblically mandated religious practices like prayer and evangelism, you rob God of his glory and Christ of his sufficiency. Romans ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
974:If we start with such ideas as God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, we will never arrive at a true knowledge of God. However, if we participate by faith in Jesus Christ as the one who “is there for others,” we are liberated from self and experience the transcendence that is truly the God of the Bible. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
975:I heard a man of brilliance cry out that God has withdrawn from nations when they have turned from Him, and surely we are astiff-necked people; why should He not withdraw? But then I remember Jonah accusing God of overlenience, of foolishness, mercy, and compassion. We desperately need the foolishness of God." (233) ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
976:The celebration of Lent, in the context of the Year of Faith, offers us a valuable opportunity to meditate on the relationship between faith and charity: between believing in God - the God of Jesus Christ - and love, which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and which guides us on the path of devotion to God and others. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
977:The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the LORD will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs. ~ Isaiah, #NFDB
978:Now the question is, what could conceivably transform an event that is naturally impossible into a real historical event? Clearly, the answer is the personal God of theism. For if a transcendent, personal God exists, then he could cause events in the universe that could not be produced by causes within the universe. ~ William Lane Craig, #NFDB
979:On Friday the 13th, April 2029, an asteroid large enough to fill the Rose Bowl as though it were an egg cup will fly so close to Earth that it will dip below the altitude of our communication satellites. We did not name this asteroid Bambi. Instead, we named it Apophis, after the Egyptian god of darkness and death. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
980:You cheat yourself if you stay a baby. You cheat yourself if you stay a spiritual young man and all you know is doctrine. You must strive to reach the place where you begin to walk in the very presence of the God of the universe, where you really begin to touch the Person Himself. That’s the ultimate end of growth. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
981:Oh, and it also features God. Yes, God. The Creator. The Lord Of All That Which Is And Is Not. The God of the Earth below and the sky above. The God of the Moon and the stars and Cher. No, I’m not high. At least, not at the moment. Oh, and he doesn’t like me calling him God. He prefers Jack. Yes, Jack. Again, I’m not high. Let ~ J R Rain, #NFDB
982:The creator of the heavens obeys a carpenter; the God of eternal glory listens to a poor virgin. Has anyone ever witnessed anything comparable to this? Let the philosopher no longer disdain from listening to the common laborer; the wise, to the simple; the educated, to the illiterate; a child of a prince, to a peasant. ~ Anthony of Padua, #NFDB
983:When discussing wrath, we must see that God has always been a God of grace. To take away the dark side of God makes religious people mad. They want to kill somebody, so they want their god to kill somebody. But God has no desire to inflict pain or agony on anyone. He came to rescue you from sin, death and self-destruction. ~ John Crowder, #NFDB
984:20Now may †the God of peace †who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, †that great Shepherd of the sheep, †through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21make you fcomplete in every good work to do His will, †working in gyou what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
985:20 ‡ Now may the God of peace,† who through the blood of the eternal covenant† brought back from the dead† our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep,† 21 ‡ equip you with everything good for doing his will,† and may he work in us† what is pleasing to him,† through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.† ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
986:He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. He ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
987:I have written about love obsessively, forensically, and I know/knew it as the highest value. I loved God of course, in the early days, and God loved me. That was something. And I loved animals and nature. And poetry. People were the problem. How do you love another person? How do you trust another person to love you? ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
988:While the details of the Amirs’ religion have been lost to history, most scholars are convinced that by the sixth century C.E., henotheism had become the standard belief of the vast majority of sedentary Arabs, who not only accepted Allah as their High God, but insisted that he was the same god as Yahweh, the god of the Jews. ~ Reza Aslan, #NFDB
989:Dear God, I worship You and thank You that You are greater than anything I face. Thank You that You are a compassionate God of mercy and You hear my prayers and answer them. I thank You that You inhabit my praise, and that in Your presence my life and circumstances are changed. I am grateful that praising You changes me. ~ Stormie Omartian, #NFDB
990:In this real world of sweat and dirt, it seems to me that when a view of things is 'noble,' that ought to count as presumption against its truth, and as a philosophic disqualification. The prince of darkness may be a gentleman, as we are told he is, but whatever the God of earth and heaven is, he can surely be no gentleman. ~ William James, #NFDB
991:Is it our task to force the biblical doctrine of God to answer to modern culture, or (is it our task) to address modern culture with the biblical doctrine of God? If modern culture-or any culture-establishes the baseline for the doctrine of God, such a doctrine will certainly bear little resemblance to the God of the Bible. ~ Albert Mohler, #NFDB
992:Just that morning I’d been praying and asking God to show Himself to me. I asked the God of the universe to intersect my life with His revelation, then got up from my prayers and forgot to look. Forgot to seek Him. Forgot to keep my heart in tune with His voice and His invitation. All because of the chaotic rush of my day. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
993:They turned into the Agarapi and soon afterward saw a great snake, endlessly long, rustling through the leaves and dropping down into the dark water.
“An anaconda,” said the professor.
“Is it dangerous?” asked Miss Minton.
“Not to us,” said the professor. “It’s a good omen--the God of the Water making himself known. ~ Eva Ibbotson,#NFDB
994:If God is the God of all pots and pans, then He is also the God of all shovels and computers and paints and assembly lines and executive offices and classrooms. Peace and joy belong not to the woman who finds the right vocation, but to the woman who finds God in ANY vocation, who looks for the divine around every corner. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
995:This is the God of the gospel of grace. A God who, out of love for us, sent the only Son He ever had wrapped in our skin. He learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for His milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was fixed to a cross, and died whispering forgiveness on us all. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
996:The injustice of defeat lies in the fact that its most innocent victims are made to look like heartless accomplices. It is impossible to see behind defeat, the sacrifices, the austere performance of duty, the self-discipline and the vigilance that are there - those things the god of battle does not take account of. ~ Antoine de Saint Exupery, #NFDB
997:The simplest formular for a fulfilled life is; God+Wisdom+Industry! God is the source of your destiny and purpose; Wisdom is the potential he gives to you to make right choices; Your industry reveals your responsibility to release whatever the God of your purpose introduced you to by your divine thoughts and imaginations! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
998:People still ask questions and hope the answers will be what they think they already know. They need to pray this prayer by an anonymous believer: From the cowardice that shrinks from new truths, From the laziness that is content with half-truths, From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth, O God of truth, deliver us! ~ Warren W Wiersbe, #NFDB
999:We are pushed forward by the social forces, reluctant and stumbling, our faces over our shoulders, clutching at every relic of the past as we are forced along; still adoring whatever is behind us. We insist upon worshipping 'the God of our fathers.' Why not the God of our children? Does eternity only stretch one way? ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman, #NFDB
1000:And then this whole deal of new gods, old gods," said his friend. "You ask me, I welcome new gods. Bring them on. The god of the guns. The god of bombs. All the gods of ignorance and intolerance, of self-righteousness, idiocy and blame. All the stuff they try and land me with. Take a lot of the weight off my shoulders." He sighed. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1001:The God of the gaps argument for God fails when a plausible scientific account for a gap in current knowledge can be given. I do not dispute that the exact nature of the origin of the universe remains a gap in scientific knowledge. But I deny that we are bereft of any conceivable way to account for that origin scientifically. ~ Victor J Stenger, #NFDB
1002:These three ways correspond in our tradition to the main aspects of religious existence: worship, learning, and action. The three are one, and we must go all three ways to reach the one destination. For this is what Israel discovered: the God of nature is the God of history, and the way to know Him is to do His will. To ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
1003:He held his mundu spread above his head to dry. The wind lifted it like a sail. He was suddenly happy. Things will get worse he thought to himself. Then better. He was walking swiftly now, towards the Heart of Darkness. As lonely as a wolf.
The God of Loss.
The God of Small Things.
Naked but for his nail varnish. (274) ~ Arundhati Roy,#NFDB
1004:More often than not, we want him to have fairy wings and spread fairy dust and shine like a precious little star, dispensing nothing but good times on everyone, like some kind of hybrid of Tinker Bell and Aladdin’s Genie. But the God of the Bible, this God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, is a pillar of fire and a column of smoke. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
1005:Thus the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is an act of trust in the subversive, exodus-causing God of the first commandment, an act of submission to the restful God of commandments one, two, and three. Sabbath is a practical divestment so that neighborly engagement, rather than production and consumption, defines our lives. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
1006:At the martyrdom of Faustines and Jovita, brothers and citizens of Brescia, their torments were so many, and their patience so great, that Calocerius, a pagan, beholding them, was struck with admiration, and exclaimed in a kind of ecstacy, "Great is the God of the christians!" for which he was apprehended, and suffered a similar fate. ~ John Foxe, #NFDB
1007:The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis, and of ordinary language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act of intellectual high treason. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1008:Who on Earth are we that the awesome King of all eternity would spare a thought in our direction? Why would the God of yesterday, today, and forever- the One who was, is, and is to come- choose to bestow His loving attention upon the likes of us? The God of unspeakable glory is speaking to us in unmistakable words of love and grace. ~ Matt Redman, #NFDB
1009:I can't believe in the God of my Fathers. If there is one Mind which understands all things, it will comprehend me in my unbelief. I don't know whose hand hung Hesperus in the sky, and fixed the Dog Star, and scattered the shining dust of Heaven, and fired the sun, and froze the darkness between the lonely worlds that spin in space. ~ Gerald Kersh, #NFDB
1010:Most important of all, perhaps, all the childhood images of God—God the Magician, God the Santa Claus, God the wrathful Judge, God the Puppeteer—disappear. We know now that the God of Creation has shared power with us and remains with us to help us see life through. Our role is to do our part, to do our best, to trust the path. ~ Joan D Chittister, #NFDB
1011:An image needs a living object, and a copy can only be formed from a model. Either man models himself on the god of his own invention, or the true and living God moulds the human form in his image. There must be a complete transformation, a 'metamorphosis' (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18), if man is to be restored to the image of God. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
1012:Let’s ask for the grace to be in awe of the God who, when he opened the door of his life to us, had this word consistently on his lips, remembering that even though we have no right to expect anything from him he is pleased to give us everything. He is pleased to open his heart and life to us precisely because he is the God of hesed. ~ Michael Card, #NFDB
1013:9Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and d seventy of the elders of Israel e went up, 10and they f saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of g sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. 11And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and h ate and drank. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1014:Our best feelings, which God himself has planted in our hearts, instinctively revolt against the thought that a God of infinite love and justice should create millions of immortal beings in his own image—probably more than half of the human race—in order to hurry them from the womb to the tomb, and from the tomb to everlasting doom! ~ Philip Schaff, #NFDB
1015:The God of Israel is King of kings and Lord of lords... He know, and foreknows, all things, and his foreknowledge is foreordination; he, therefore, will have the last word, both in world history and in the destiny of every man; his kingdom and righteousness will triumph in the end, for neither men nor angels shall be able to thwart him. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
1016:The God who may have inspired the first successful peasants’ uprising in history is a God of revolution. In all three faiths, he has inspired an ideal of social justice, even though it has to be said that Jews, Christians and Muslims have often failed to live up to this ideal and have transformed him into the God of the status quo. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1017:Trent had just spent an hour describing what he learned as a kid from his church: how the only way to please God, the same being who created him with a sexuality to begin with, was to not engage with his erotic nature whatsoever. As if the God of the Universe had programmed into creation a passive-aggressive test of our willpower. ~ Nadia Bolz Weber, #NFDB
1018:If I were the devil (please, no comment), one of my first aims would be to stop folk from digging into the Bible. Knowing that it is the Word of God, teaching people to know and love and serve the God of the Word, I should do all I could to surround it with the spiritual equivalent of pits, thorn hedges and traps, to frighten people off. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
1019:Some make gods of their pleasures; some choose Mammon for their god; some make gods of their own supposed excellencies, or the outward advantages they have above their neighbors: some choose one thing for their god, and others another. But men can be happy in no other God but the God of Israel: he is the only fountain of happiness. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
1020:As if it had heard his thoughts, the dolphin said, “You love life, that is why you sought to flee from death to a place where there is no death. If you love life, you must keep worshipping the god of life with your body, which means you must fight to stay alive even when it looks hopeless. Give up, and life will turn its back on you. ~ Morgan Llywelyn, #NFDB
1021:The goddess Artemis had a twin brother, Apollo, the many-faceted god of the Sun. He was her male counterpart: his domain was the city, hers the wilderness; his was the sun, hers the moon; his the domesticated flocks, hers the wild, untamed animals; he was the god of music, she was the inspiration for round dances on the mountains. ~ Jean Shinoda Bolen, #NFDB
1022:We also fight our war against hail and storm, against drought and deprivation, against the sharp blade of the weeding hoe and the poisonous emanations of the herbicide-sprayer. We also have a claim on time, and we deserve a god who understands that every day in the life of the common flower is a day of battle.”
-An orchid to the God of War ~ Ken Liu,#NFDB
1023:20Now d may the God of peace e who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, f the great shepherd of the sheep, by g the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 h equip you with everything good that you may do his will, i working in us [1] that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, j to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1024:I was here, by my own
water, singing a song I learned somewhere
south of somewhere worse. that was when
direction mattered. now, everywhere
I am is the center of everything.
I must be the lord of something.
what was I before? a boy? a son?
a warning? a myth? I whistled
now I’m the God of whistling. ~ Danez Smith,#NFDB
1025:11Finally, brothers, [1] rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, [2] agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. 12Greet one another with a holy kiss. 13All the saints greet you. 14The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1026:8Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1027:Amen, actually stems from Amun, the Egyptian god of Thebes,” Edna supplied. “With time, his name became synonymous with justice and truth, and hence saying Amen after a prayer or a proclamation served as joining in it and affirming its truthfulness. However, by using his name in this manner, you’re implying that you’re an Amun worshiper, which ~ I T Lucas, #NFDB
1028:The God of the Hebrews is a God that human language, we're not even supposed to speak the holy name. We were told in the Second Commandment we could make no images of this God, and I don't think that means just building idols, I think that means also trying to believe you've captured God in your words, in the Creeds, in the Scriptures. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
1029:Damin, if you don't want people getting killed, you really should rethink this whole worshipping the God of War philosophy, you know. It's been my observation that people quite often come to harm when you throw them all on a field together, arm them with sharp implements, and tell them to hit each other until there's nobody left standing. ~ Jennifer Fallon, #NFDB
1030:Poseidon raised his eyebrows as they shook hands. “Blowfish, did you say?” "Ah, no. Blofis, actually.” "Oh, I see,” Poseidon said. “A shame. I quite like blowfish. I am Poseidon.” "Poseidon? That’s an interesting name.” "Yes, I like it. I’ve gone by other names, but I do prefer Poseidon.” "Like the god of the sea.” "Very much like that, yes. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1031:Man, suckled at the wolf’s breasts, sheltered in the brute’s den, brought up in the prowling habit of depredation, suddenly discovers that he is Man, and that his true power lies in yielding up his brute power for the freedom of spirit. The God of humanity has arrived at the gates of the ruined temple of the tribe. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, The Religion of Man, #NFDB
1032:Nevertheless, just as I believe that the Book of Scripture illumines the pathway to God, so I believe that the Book of Nature, with its astonishing details-the blade of grass, the Conus cedonulli, or the resonance levels of the carbon atom-also suggest a God of purpose and a God of design. And I think my belief makes me no less a scientist. ~ Owen Gingerich, #NFDB
1033:The god of souls…Kestrel’s throat closed as she remembered Arin invoking that god, who ruled love. My soul is yours, he had said. You know that it is. His expression had been so open, so true. Frightened, even, of what he was saying. And she had been frightened, too, by how he had spoken what she felt. It frightened her still. ~ Marie Rutkoski, #NFDB
1034:This is the Valdezinator, of course!" He puffed out his chest. "It works by, um, translating your feelings into music as you manipulate the gears. It’s really meant for me, a child of Hephaestus, to use, though. I don’t know if you could –" "I am the god of music!" Apollo cried. "I can certainly master the Valdezinator. I must! It is my duty! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1035:You know Janus is where the word January comes from? It’s named after the same god as this island. He’s got two faces, back to back. Pretty ugly fellow.”
“What’s he god of?”
“Doorways. Always looking both ways, torn between two ways of seeing things. January looks forward to the new year and back to the old year. He sees past and future. ~ M L Stedman,#NFDB
1036:All the bourgeois virtues, caution, obedience, zeal and thoughtfulness- they all melt away powerless in the fire of the great fateful moment that always demands only genius and forms it into a a lasting image. Contemptuously it repulses the timid man; it, another god of the earth, with fiery arms, lifts only the bold into the heaven of heroes. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
1037:Safi rolled her eyes. “God of all waves and everything else too, can you please make sure no one comes after us? Especially … him. Just keep him far away. And if you could keep the Veñaza City guards away too, that would be nice.” “This is easily the worst prayer I have ever heard,” Iseult declared. “Weasels piss on you, Iz. I’m not done yet. ~ Susan Dennard, #NFDB
1038:We must obey God rather than men. 30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had murdered by hanging Him on a tree. 31 God exalted this man to His right hand as ruler and Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. 32 We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1039:15 And the LORD God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. 16 But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1040:Essentially, perspective is a form of abstraction. It simplifies the relationship between eye, brain and object. It is an ideal view, imagined as being seen by a one-eyed, motionless person who is clearly detached from what he sees. It makes a God of the spectator, who becomes the person on whom the whole world converges, the Unmoved Onlooker. ~ Robert Hughes, #NFDB
1041:Glorious things are spoken of God; he transcends our thoughts, and the praises of angels. God’s glory lies chiefly in his attributes, which are the several beams by which the divine nature shines forth. Among other of his orient excellencies, this is not the least, The Lord is a God of knowledge; or as the Hebrew word is, ‘A God of knowledges. ~ Thomas Watson, #NFDB
1042:In my book, The Sins of Scripture, I traced the development of tribal religion, which included ideas like God's killing the Egyptians because they hated the chosen people. Then a God of love finally appears in the Book of Hosea, about the 8th century. A God of justice appears in the Book of Amos in the late 8th century or early 7th century. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
1043:I sensed a disturbance in the force,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes as I blew out an aggravated breath. “Did you seriously just quote Star Wars?”
Apollo, the god of the sun and other annoyingly important things that made killing him virtually impossible unless one wanted to end the world, shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe I did. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout,#NFDB
1044:I took her in my arms and kissed her.
And thus in the midst of a city of wild conflict, filled with the alarms of war; with death and destruction reaping their terrible harvest around her, did Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, true daughter of Mars, the God of War, promise herself in marriage to John Carter, Gentleman of Virginia. ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs,#NFDB
1045:It should not be surprising if people believe easily in a God who makes no demands, but this is not the God of the Bible. Satan has cleverly misled people by whispering that they can believe in Jesus Christ without being changed, but this is the Devil's lie. To those who say you can have Christ without giving anything up, Satan is deceiving you. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
1046:The esthetic image in the dramatic form is life purified in and reprojected from the human imagination. The mystery of esthetic, like that of material creation, is accomplished. The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
1047:The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1048:The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. ~ Dan Barker, #NFDB
1049:When we rise out of [the night] into the new life and there begin to receive the signs, what can we know of that which—of him who gives them to us? Only what we experience from time to time from the signs themselves. If we name the speaker of this speech God, then it is always the God of a moment, a moment God. ~ Martin Buber, Between Man and Man (1965), p. 15, #NFDB
1050:God acts toward his people, as much as possible, but since he is a God of persuasion rather than coercion, God also allows his people to act on him and to thereby condition the form his self-revelation takes, as much as this is necessary to remain in solidarity with, and to continue to work through, his fallen and culturally conditioned people. ~ Gregory A Boyd, #NFDB
1051:God is never a God of discouragement. When you have a discouraging spirit or train of thought in your mind, you can be sure it is not from God. He sometimes brings pain to his children-conviction over sin, or repentance over fallenness, or challenges that scare us, or visions of his holiness that overwhelm us. But God never brings discouragement. ~ John Ortberg, #NFDB
1052:the God of the Bible is so immense, omnipotent, and omniscient that for God, knowing each of us in the depths of our beings is an afternoon walk in Sydney’s botanical garden. The God of Jesus knows us by name, knows our minds and hearts and emotions, loves us (anyway), and summons us, as it were, into the divine presence to lay out our requests. ~ Scot McKnight, #NFDB
1053:Following the lead of Moses, Israel seizes upon this revelation as the clue to its future. Israel celebrates that Yahweh is this peculiar God of covenantal relatedness, even as Israel insists that Yahweh must be the God who is self-announced in this way. Israel "prays back" to Yahweh in an imperative, Yahweh's own words of self-announcement. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
1054:The Bible describes a God who is a thousand things to His children, even though some of these are beyond our ability to understand. So when people insist on humanly reasonable theologies to satisfy their need to believe, the lesser god they’re buying is not the God of Scripture. We must beware of recreating an image of God that makes us feel better. ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
1055:We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
1056:It is easier to serve the hate-gods because they thrive on the worship of collective fanaticism. To serve the hate-gods, one has only to be blinded by collective passion. To serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one’s neighbor. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1057:The new goddess contingency could not be erected until the God of heaven was utterly despoiled of his dominion over the sons of men, and in the room thereof a home-bred idol of self-sufficiency set up, and the world persuaded to worship it. But that the building climb no higher, let all men observe how the word of God overthrows this babylonian tower. ~ John Owen, #NFDB
1058:Therefore, we cannot rightly say, “My God is not a God of judgment and anger; my God is a God of love.” Such thinking makes it almost impossible to grow in the fear of the Lord. It suggests that sin only saddens God rather than offends him. Both justice and love are expressions of his holiness, and we must know both to learn the fear of the Lord. ~ Edward T Welch, #NFDB
1059:When Jacob was chosen, Esau was not rejected. God does not reject. “Though my mother and father might abandon me, the Lord will take me in” (Psalms 27:10). Chosenness means two things: intimacy and responsibility. God holds us close and makes special demands on us. Beyond that, God is the God of all mankind – the Author of all, who cares for all. ~ Jonathan Sacks, #NFDB
1060:It's hard to write about this mask because the spiritual disciplines are good things. The problem is not the fact that we do them; it is our good-girl interpretation of what doing these things means. For many years, I lived as a believer in God but I did not live *from* God. I was a child of the God of grace but I was looking for life in the law. ~ Emily P Freeman, #NFDB
1061:Such is the effect of the grace of God in the heart of a pilgrim; while on one hand he sees the propensity of his evil nature to every sin which has been committed by others, and is humbled; he also confesses, that, by no power of his own, is he preserved, but ever gives the glory to the God of all grace, by whose power alone he is kept from falling. ~ John Bunyan, #NFDB
1062:Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1063:The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1064:The other story about Midas is that he was called upon to judge between the music of Pan and Apollo and found in favour of Pan. Apollo, understandably annoyed (he was, after all, god of music, whereas Pan was merely god of shepherds and tootled on the odd pipe in his spare time), punished Midas by making a pair of ass’s ears sprout from his head. ~ Caroline Taggart, #NFDB
1065:This is the Valdezinator, of course!’ He puffed out his chest. ‘It works by, um, translating your feelings into music as you manipulate the gears. It’s really meant for me, a child of Hephaestus, to use, though. I don’t know if you could –’
‘I am the god of music!’ Apollo cried. ‘I can certainly master the Valdezinator. I must! It is my duty! ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1066:The God of revealed religions - and by this I mean religions like yours - is a profoundly inarticulate God. No matter how many times he tries, he can't make himself clearly or completely understood. He speaks for centuries to the Jews, but fails to make himself understood. At last he sends his only-begotten son, and his son can't seem to do any better. ~ Daniel Quinn, #NFDB
1067:Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. ~ Exodus 20:7, (KJV) ~ Similar phrase: "Keep yourselves from evil to take the name of the Lord in vain, for I am the Lord your God, even the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob." ~ Doctrine and Covenants 136:21, #NFDB
1068:The God of Christianity does not erase our individual identity but actually affirms it, calling us to become ever more fully the unique individuals we were created to be. Contrary to Eastern mysticism, the goal is not to suppress our desires, but to direct our desires to what truly satisfies—to a passionate love relationship with the ultimate Person. ~ Nancy R Pearcey, #NFDB
1069:Only a God of love is fully personal. Thus the Trinity is crucial for maintaining a fully personal concept of God. As theologian Robert Letham writes, “Only a God who is triune can be personal.… A solitary monad cannot love and, since it cannot love, neither can it be a person.” Therefore it “has no way to explain or even to maintain human personhood. ~ Nancy R Pearcey, #NFDB
1070:The other one he loved like a slave, like a madman and like a beggar. Why? Ask the dust on the road and the falling leaves, ask the mysterious God of life; for no one knows such things. She gave him nothing, no nothing did she give him and yet he thanked her. She said: Give me your peace and your reason! And he was only sorry she did not ask for his life. ~ Knut Hamsun, #NFDB
1071:Seek the truth in all fields, and in that search you will need at least three virtues: courage, zest and modesty. The ancients put that thought in the form of a prayer. They said, “From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it has all truth – O God of truth, deliver us. ~ Hugh B Brown, #NFDB
1072:Brothers and sisters, white people will come in to chastise us. But since we are no longer forsaken, and are the people of God, God will answer whatever they do of evil to us. I'm warning the government and I am warning General James Mattis, and all those who would kill us outside of the law of justice, that the God of justice will pay you back in full. ~ Louis Farrakhan, #NFDB
1073:The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Those ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1074:An 'impersonal God'-well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads-better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap-best of all. But God himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, King, husband-that is quite another matter. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1075:I desire before I leave the world, as my best legacy to my family,, my serious, solemn advice, to make choice of my God for their God. He has been my father's God, and the God of your Mother's predecessors. I solemnly charge you to make it your first care to seek after peace with God, and being reconciled, to make it your study to please God in all things. ~ Robert Dabney, #NFDB
1076:Pride takes innumerable forms but has only one end: self-glorification. That’s the motive and ultimate purpose of pride—to rob God of legitimate glory and to pursue self-glorification, contending for supremacy with Him. The proud person seeks to glorify himself and not God, thereby attempting in effect to deprive God of something only He is worthy to receive ~ C J Mahaney, #NFDB
1077:You are therefore able to run on this path, on which God is found above all vision, hearing, taste, touch, smell, speech, sense, rationality, and intellect. It is found as none of these, but rather above everything as God of gods and King of all kings. Indeed, the King of the world of the intellect is the King of kings and Lord of lords in the universe. ~ Nicholas of Cusa, #NFDB
1078:Instead of being at the mercy of wild beasts, earthquakes, landslides, and inundations, modern man is battered by the elemental forces of his own psyche. This is the World Power that vastly exceeds all other powers on earth. The Age of Enlightenment, which stripped nature and human institutions of gods, overlooked the God of Terror who dwells in the human soul. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1079:When you pray to God resignedly, as though patiently accepting the punishment of grief at the death of a loved one, and you say: "Thy will be done O Lord. The Lord giveth, and he taketh away", you have not yet known the God of love, for God giveth only. God never takes that which has not been given. What God gives to you you regive to Him for His regiving. ~ Walter Russell, #NFDB
1080:Creep we did, until we were just outside the halo of firelight. Three bent-backed hags were walking a slow circle around a large cauldron, dropping in twisted bits of this and that as they chanted. “Double, double, toil and trouble: Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” “Witches,” whispered Kent, paying tribute to the god of all things bloody fucking obvious. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
1081:ELEVATE Lord, thank You for a fresh view of Your exalted holy nature. Great God of the universe, holy and high, lifted up. I exalt You, Lord. You are the object of my greatest thoughts, the end of my deepest affections. I give myself wholly to You and to You alone. Revive me according to Your Word even as I bow. I ask in Jesus' strong name. Amen. REPLICATE ~ James MacDonald, #NFDB
1082:Only people can relate to JHWH, the animals, the stars they are with Elohim. We are with JHWH and Elohim. We are also with that God who creates the world., not just the personal God. Adonai (i.e., JHWH) is the God of the characteristic of mercy and compassion, and Elohim is the God whose characteristic is justice. And you need BOTH for the world to function. ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
1083:The God of Christians is a God of love and comfort, a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom he possesses, a God who makes them conscious of their inward wretchedness, and his infinite mercy; who unites himself to their inmost soul, who fills it with humility and joy, with confidence and love, who renders them incapable of any other end than himself. ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
1084:And now," said the unknown, "farewell kindness, humanity, and gratitude! Farewell to all the feelings that expand the heart! I have been heaven's substitute to recompense the good — now the god of vengeance yields to me his power to punish the wicked!" At these words he gave a signal, and, as if only awaiting this signal, the yacht instantly put out to sea. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
1085:There are enough in the novelty business without us; and we have something better to do. We have to give an account unto our God of what we do and say, and if we have been murderers of souls, it will be no excuse that we flourished the dagger well, or that when we gave them poison we mixed the draught cleverly, and presented it with poetical phrases. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
1086:A lot of churches and church people give God a bad name. There's a scripture in the Bible that says the traditions of men make the word of God of none effect. That's so true. All our religious rituals dilute the reality of who God is and make a lot of people not want to have anything to do with Him. I had to learn to reject 'Churchianity' and not Christianity. ~ Sherri L Lewis, #NFDB
1087:I began to hear what I was being taught about God, by the priest and my parish, and my exterior teaching did not coincide, did not match up, with my interior reality. And as they were teaching me about that God I was thinking: Who are they talking about? This was not how I experienced God. I gradually began to move away from the God of organized religion. ~ Neale Donald Walsch, #NFDB
1088:And nothing formed against me shall stand. You hold the whole world in Your hands. I'm holding onto Your promises. You are faithful. You are faithful. You are faithful. I know Who goes before me. I know Who stands behind. The God of angel armies is always by my side. The One who reigns forever, He is a Friend of mine. The God of angel armies Is always by my side. ~ Chris Tomlin, #NFDB
1089:Greek is the embodiment of the fluent speech that runs or soars, the speech of a people which could not help giving winged feet toits god of art. Latin is the embodiment of the weighty and concentrated speech which is hammered and pressed and polished into the shape of its perfection, as the ethically minded Romans believed that the soul also should be wrought. ~ Havelock Ellis, #NFDB
1090:Indeed, for Christians, the unending conversation about Jesus is the most important conversation there is. He is for us the decisive revelation of God—of what can be seen of God’s character and passion in a human life. There are other important conversations. But for followers of Jesus, the unending conversation about Jesus is the conversation that matters most. ~ Marcus J Borg, #NFDB
1091:Judaism is supremely a religion of freedom – not freedom in the modern sense, the ability to do what we like, but in the ethical sense of the ability to choose to do what we should, to become co-architects with God of a just and gracious social order. The former leads to a culture of rights, the latter to a culture of responsibilities: freedom as responsibility. ~ Jonathan Sacks, #NFDB
1092:Seeking God first means that we know him as the God of grace who is for us. He is the one who will provide what we need, and we must give up our own self-help programs. But we can’t just have him and have it all done. We also have to be changed into people who can produce the fruit of the life we desire, and we do that by finding his ways and learning to live them. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
1093:But Satan, the god of all dissension, stirreth up daily new sects, and last of all (which of all other I should never have foreseen or once suspected) he hath raised up a sect of such as teach that the Ten Commandments ought to be taken out of the church, and that men should not be terrified with the law, but gently exerted by the preaching of the grace of Christ. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
1094:In the Old Testament, the God of the Prophets never was completely on Israel's side. There was a primitive national religion, but it was always a transcendent God who had judgment first in the House of God. This is the true religion. It has a sense of a transcendent majesty and a transcendent meaning so that that puts myself and the foe under the same judgment. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr, #NFDB
1095:The book of Judges shows us that the Bible is not a “Book of Virtues”; it is not full of inspirational stories. Why? Because the Bible (unlike the books on which other religions are based) is not about following moral examples. It is about a God of mercy and long-suffering, who continually works in and through us despite our constant resistance to his purposes. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1096:a God of ten-year-old boys, a God of playground bullies, a God of rapists, of gangs, of pimps. They worship – despite rhetoric about justice and compassion – a God who sides with the strong against the weak, a God who cheers for privilege and punishes egalitarianism. They worship a God who is a male and who gangs up with other males against women. They worship a thug. ~ Nick Cohen, #NFDB
1097:Perhaps struggle is all we have because the god of history is an atheist, and nothing about his world is meant to be. So you must wake up every morning knowing that no promise is unbreakable, least of all the promises of waking up at all. This is not despair. These are the preferences of universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
1098:The psychoanalysis of individual human beings, however, teaches us with quite special insistence that the god of each of them is formed in the likeness of his father, that his personal relation to God depends on his relation to his father in the flesh and oscillates and changes along with that relation, and that at bottom God is nothing other than an exalted father. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
1099:true encounter with the God of the universe makes me feel gladly small, perfectly puny, and happily so, in my assigned place and actual size! A true experience of eternity leaves us feeling, as C. S. Lewis said, “the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life.”28 ~ James MacDonald, #NFDB
1100:13 But Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid! Go ahead and do just what you’ve said, but make a little bread for me first. Then use what’s left to prepare a meal for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: There will always be flour and olive oil left in your containers until the time when the LORD sends rain and the crops grow again! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1101:Perhaps struggle is all we have because the god of history is an atheist, and nothing about his world is meant to be. So you must wake up every morning knowing that no promise is unbreakable, least of all the promise of waking up at all. This is not despair. These are the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
1102:I have seen things. I saw the great Mantis God of Africa fighting a creature from the primordial depths, a billion-year war until finally the Mantis threw the writhing creature from the heavenly sky into the deepest pit. I’ve seen the past through the lens of the Eye and it wasn’t in tasteful sepia. It was etched in blood and death and filtered through a veil of tears. ~ Charlie Human, #NFDB
1103:we have a theology that is Earth-centered and involves a tiny piece of space, and when we step back, when we attain a broader cosmic perspective, some of it seems very small in scale. And in fact a general problem with much of Western theology in my view is that the God portrayed is too small. It is a god of a tiny world and not a god of a galaxy, much less of a universe. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
1104:Again, if we have any anxiety about our own salvation, we ought to make no peace nor truce with him who is continually laying schemes for its destruction. But such is the character given to Satan in the third chapter of Genesis, where he is seen seducing man from his allegiance to God, that he may both deprive God of his due honour, and plunge man headlong in destruction. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
1105:He was also the god of (take a deep breath) commerce, languages, thievery, cheeseburgers, trickery, eloquent speaking, feasts, cheeseburgers, hospitality, guard dogs, birds of omen, gymnastics, athletic competitions, cheeseburgers, cheeseburgers and telling fortunes with dice. Okay, I just tossed in the cheeseburgers to see if you were paying attention. Also, I’m hungry. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1106:A human judge who viewed his soul would have condemned him, he thought; exacted some penalty; spurned him. But he felt in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament a tranquil, soothing God of intimacy & tolerance & unquenchable love, who knew to each jot & tittle everything about him but chose to focus on what was good, even childhood kindnesses that he’d forgotten. ~ Ron Hansen, #NFDB
1107:These words of Faber find sympathetic response in every heart; yet much as we may deplore the lack of stability in all earthly things, in a fallen world such as this the very ability to change is a golden treasure, a gift from God of such fabulous worth as to call for constant thanksgiving. For human beings the whole possibility of redemption lies in their ability to change. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1108:Whatever troubles come, let us play the man; let us show that we are not such little children as to be cast down by what may happen in this poor fleeting state of time. Our country is Immanuel's land, our hope is above the sky, and therefore, calm as the summer's ocean; we will see the wreck of everything earth-born, and yet rejoice in the God of our salvation. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
1109:God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers. ... It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live. I always thought this meant that no one could see his splendor and live. A friend said perhaps it meant that no one could see his sorrow and live. Or perhaps his sorrow is splendor. ... Instead of explaining our suffering God shares it. ~ Nicholas Wolterstorff, #NFDB
1110:Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words. Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned. And I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest. In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks. They are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still: but an itch of death is in them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak their will. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
1111:Hermes visited him in the Underworld a few days before the spring equinox festival, cajoling Hades to come to it.
Hades wandered across the fields with him, Kerberos limping along at his side. “No one wants the god of death at their fertility festival.”
“Sure they do. I’ve heard plenty of girls sighing over your tasty darkness.”
“Tasty darkness. Really. ~ Molly Ringle,#NFDB
1112:This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the LORD. 6I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.’ ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1113:In my judgment, the Deists were all successfully answered. The god of nature is certainly as bad as the God of the Old Testament. It is only when we discard the idea of a deity, the idea of cruelty or goodness in nature, that we are able ever to bear with patience the ills of life. I feel that I am neither a favorite nor a victim. Nature neither loves nor hates me. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
1114:to say “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy” is to lay our hope in the redeeming work of the God of Easter as though our lives depended on it. Because they do. It means that we are an Easter people, a people who know that resurrection, especially in and among the least likely people and places, is the way that God redeems even the biggest messes we make ~ Nadia Bolz Weber, #NFDB
1115:We humans may say, “Let there be light in this room,” but then we have to flick a switch or light a candle. Our words need deeds to back them up and can fail to achieve their purposes. God’s words, however, cannot fail their purposes because, for God, speaking and acting are the same thing. The God of the Bible is a God who “by his very nature, acts through speaking.”105 ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1116:When there exists anywhere a state of suffering, a wrong, a condition of affairs that men of feeling deplore and that troubles the conscience of the upright, to become resigned to it is wicked. Although the evil flaunts itself before our eyes, and no remedy is in sight, we must go and seek a remedy. In the creation of the God of Justice, evil can be but a transitory state. ~ Charles Wagner, #NFDB
1117:Christ.
No, not Christ. These leavings were made in propitiation of a much older God than the Christian one. People
have called Him different things at different times, but Rachel’s sister gave Him a perfectly good name, I think:
Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, God of dead things left in the ground, God of rotting flowers in drainage ditches,
God of the Mystery. ~ Stephen King,#NFDB
1118:18You have ascended on high, You have led away captive Your captives; You have received gifts among men, Even from the rebellious also, that the LORD God may dwell there. [Eph 4:8] 19Blessed be the Lord, who bears our burden day by day, The God who is our salvation! Selah. 20God is to us a God of acts of salvation; And to dGOD the Lord belong escapes from death [setting us free]. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1119:Edmund P. Clowney wrote, “The Bible does not present an art of prayer; it presents the God of prayer.”129 We should not decide how to pray based on the experiences and feelings we want. Instead, we should do everything possible to behold our God as he is, and prayer will follow. The more clearly we grasp who God is, the more our prayer is shaped and determined accordingly. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1120:El Shaddai, carries with it a possible derivation of “God of the mountain,” a common understanding of deities in the ancient Near East as revealed in power on mountains (Mount Sinai and Mount Zion are God’s locations of self-disclosure).[9] Finally, Yahweh is the “eternally self-existent one” who is the unique covenantal name of Israel’s deity in opposition to the nations.[10] ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1121:Pathetic creatures on their knees...
Tirelessly, naively repeating,
"Don't take our word for it! Alas, we're not all that logical. We say God–though in reality God is a person, a particular individual. We speak to him. We address him by name–he is the God of Abraham and Jacob. We treat him just like anybody else, like a personal being..."
"So he's a whore? ~ Georges Bataille,#NFDB
1122:The God of the universe is not something we can just add to our lives and keep on as we did before. The Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is not someone we can just call on when we want a little extra power in our lives. Jesus Christ did not die in order to follow us. He died and rose again so that we could forget everything else and follow Him to the cross, to true Life. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
1123:Where wildness and disorder are visible in the dance, there Satan, death and all kinds of mischief are likewise upon the floor. For this reason I could wish that the dance of death were painted on the walls of all ball-rooms in order to warn the dancers, not by the levity of their deportment, to provoke the God of righteousness to visit them with a sudden judgment. ~ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, #NFDB
1124:And to say “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy” is to lay our hope in the redeeming work of the God of Easter as though our lives depended on it. Because they do. It means that we are an Easter people, a people who know that resurrection, especially in and among the least likely people and places, is the way that God redeems even the biggest messes we make ~ Nadia Bolz Weber, #NFDB
1125:When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so-called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my rusty lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the most devilish pain burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. - Harry Haller ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1126:fully aware of everything that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people that you did not know before. 12“May the LORD repay you for your kindness, and may your reward be full from the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1127:Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying, “. . . I make a decree that any people, nation, or language which speaks anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made an ash heap; because there is no other God who can deliver like this.” Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego in the province of Babylon. ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
1128:20 Now may the God of peace— who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood— 21 may he equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you,* through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him. All glory to him forever and ever! Amen. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1129:And now, dear Lord, I acknowledge afresh that You are the God of all peace, my Jehovah-Shalom. My job is to receive. you give me Your peace. My job is to take it. You lead me to Your still waters. My role is to follow. You extend Your hand. My role is to take hold. My I enjoy Your presence and the tranquility of the still waters where You pour out your promise of peace. Amen. ~ Elizabeth George, #NFDB
1130:Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavors, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God's calling, can matter forever. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
1131:I'm a Christian, but if God is truly a God of love, then why would he have a private torture chamber where he put people that he was suppose to love and forgive to punish forever? if you actually read the Bible, the idea of hell like in the movies and most books was invented by a writer. Dante's inferno was ripped off by the Church to give people something to ba afraid of... ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
1132:Some Christians have taken all the justice, judgment and hatred of sin out of the nature of God and have nothing left but a soft god. Others have taken love and grace out and have nothing left but a god of judgment. Or they have taken away the personality of God and have nothing left but a mathematical god—the god of the scientists. All these are false, inadequate conceptions of God. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1133:What is it, precisely, that Paul asks for? Paul’s prayer is that the Ephesians might know God better. That is what the text says. Of all the things Paul might have asked for, that is what he puts at the top of his list: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better” (1:17). ~ D A Carson, #NFDB
1134:Your Majesty, you just-" Costis stopped.
"Just what?" the king prompted wickedly.
Nothing would induce Costis to say out loud that the king had almost fallen from the palace wall and that Costis had seen him manifestly saved by the God of Thieves.
The king smiled. "Cat got your tongue?"
"Your Majesty, you are drunk," Costis pleaded.
"I am. What's your excuse? ~ Megan Whalen Turner,#NFDB
1135:Each person is entitled to some version of God that seems real, yet many versions contradict one another. The God of any religion is only a fragment of God. This has to be true, because a being who is unbounded has no image, no role to play, no location either inside or outside the cosmos, whereas religions offer many images--father, mother, lawgiver, judge, ruler of the universe. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1136:Ever notice how Christians quote the Old Testament more then the New Testament? That's so they can say mean things, talk bad about the queers and such. New Testament, that's the Christian book. The stuff in red, that's Jesus talk. That's what they're supposed to live their life by, but, no, they like the God of the Old Testament, the mean, judgmental one, before he was on Zoloft. ~ Joe R Lansdale, #NFDB
1137:Screw you, Ethan. Not even going to look at you.
I pick up my bag and throw it back on the chair.
The chuckle happens again, and I swear to the Almighty God of Justifiable Homicide, I'm going to murder him with my bar hands. Although he's on the other side of the room, he might as well be right next to me, because his voice vibrates through to my bones.
I need a cigarette. ~ Leisa Rayven,#NFDB
1138:The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. ~ Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (2006), p. 31, #NFDB
1139:How many planets are there in the universe with people on them? We don’t know, but we are not alone in the universe! God is not the God of only one planet!
I testify that Jesus is truly the Lord of the universe, “that by [Christ], and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God" D&C 76:24 ~ Neal A Maxwell,#NFDB
1140:Poseidon raised his eyebrows as they shook hands. “Blowfish, did you say?”
"Ah, no. Blofis, actually.”
"Oh, I see,” Poseidon said. “A shame. I quite like blowfish. I am Poseidon.”
"Poseidon? That’s an interesting name.”
"Yes, I like it. I’ve gone by other names, but I do prefer Poseidon.”
"Like the god of the sea.”
"Very much like that, yes. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1141:It is a fundamental misunderstanding of Genesis to expect it to answer questions generated by a modern worldview, such as whether the days were literal or figurative, or whether the days of creation can be lined up with modern science, or whether the flood was local or universal. The question that Genesis is prepared to answer is whether Yahweh, the God of Israel, is worthy of worship. ~ Peter Enns, #NFDB
1142:It is better to allow our lives to speak for us than our words. God did not bear the cross only two thousand years ago. He bears it today, and he dies and is resurrected from day to day. It would be a poor comfort to the world if it had to depend on a historical God who died two thousand years ago. Do not, then, preach the God of history, but show him as he lives today through you. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1143:Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me - the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love - He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us - nature did it all - not the gods of the religions. ~ Thomas A Edison, #NFDB
1144:The gods of all pagan faiths have been allied with the rich rulers. The priests of most religions are the employees of the landowners. But the God of Israel has always claimed to be with the poor—whether in the legislation of Deuteronomy, the words of the prophets, or the experiences of the New Testament. Our God is on the side of the poor. ~ John Howard Yoder, Radical Christian Discipleship, p. 41, #NFDB
1145:We were a proud people. We lost our country. Our only hope for return was to keep ourselves a people. The only hope to keep ourselves a people was to keep our common faith in one God, a God of our own. That God has been our country and our nation. In sorrow and wailing and woe for all that we have lost has been our union. And our rabbis have so taught us, generation after generation. ~ Pearl S Buck, #NFDB
1146:Though the fig tree does not bud and there is no fruit on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will triumph in •Yahweh; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation! 19 Yahweh my Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like those of a deer and enables me to walk on mountain heights! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1147:About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church... As long as I can remember. I have resented mass indoctrination. I cannot prove to you there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1148:But what is worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth—pagans and all included—can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship?—to do the will of God—that is worship. And what is the will of God?—to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me—that is the will of God. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1149:When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so-called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my rusty lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the most devilish pain burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room.
- Harry Haller ~ Hermann Hesse,#NFDB
1150:Cernunnos is a horned god associated with nature and animals. His name is usually translated as “Horned One”, and he is also known as “Lord of all Wild Things”. There was dispute about his name, as it is derived from a piece of altar found in Notre Dame (Paris) dating to 17 CE which reads ERNUNNO, and depicts a bull-horned god, not the stag-horned god of the Gundestrup Cauldron.[202] ~ David Rankine, #NFDB
1151:For others the mourning is over. Others would say that whilst one God has died - the God of ontotheology perhaps? - this allows for the good news of a God who is to come, a God who will be better able to gather up and give justice to all the manifold aspirations of human life towards goodness and meaning (and not just to those who are able to fit into a narrow 'religious' framework). ~ George Pattison, #NFDB
1152:MARCH 11 THE LEVEL OF TRUST WE HAVE FOR GOD IS A MONUMENTAL ISSUE IN THE LIFE OF EVERY BELIEVER. God, even in this difficult place, You have treasures for me here. You will give me the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that I may know that You are the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons me by name (Isa. 45:3). You want me to discover the riches of relationship ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
1153:Drool has sprouted an erection. Let’s ask him what he’s thinking about. Had his way with a knotted oak on the way here. A right spectacular tree-shagging it was, too. Knocked down enough acorns to feed the village for a week. They wanted to have a special feast day in honor of the git—declare him god of the tree-shag—more fertility symbols there than you can shake a stick at, innit? ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
1154:He whose life is one even and smooth path, will see but little of the glory of the Lord, for he has few occasions of self-emptying, and hence, but little fitness for being filled with the revelation of God. They who navigate little streams and shallow creeks, know but little of the God of tempests; but they who "do business in great waters," these see his "wonders in the deep. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
1155:Love reminds us that we are no longer chained in anonymity. We can walk in the confidence, grace and beauty of a woman who is infinitely loved by the God of the universe. Love gives us a way out of even our darkest sins and obsessions and addictions. Just as we are, right at this nanosecond, we are loved completely and fully by God. We're worth waiting for. We were even worth dying for. ~ Natalie Lloyd, #NFDB
1156:The god of Moses would call for other tribes, including his favorite one, to suffer massacre and plague and even extirpation, but when the grave closed over his victims he was essentially finished with them unless he remembered to curse their succeeding progeny. Not until the advent of the Prince of Peace do we hear of the ghastly idea of further punishing and torturing the dead. ~ Christopher Hitchens, #NFDB
1157:To be a slave of Jesus Christ is the greatest benediction imaginable. Not only is He a kind and gracious Lord, but He is also the God of the universe. His character is perfect; His love is infinite; His power, matchless; His wisdom, unsearchable; and His goodness, beyond compare.23 It is no wonder, then, that our relationship to Him as our Master brings us great benefit and honor. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
1158:With the sole aim of liberating themselves from the servitude of religion, which alone could preserve them in society, and, lacking any other restraint, they turned their backs upon the true God of their fathers, Adam and Noah, and descended into a bestial liberty in which, dispersed throughout the great forest of the earth, they lost their language and weakened every social custom. ~ Giambattista Vico, #NFDB
1159:O, the lessons here for us! Name your discouraging setback—personal, political, scholarly, ecclesiastical, cultural, global. Dare any Christian say that God is not in this for the good of his people and the glory of his name? Not if our God is the God of Ezra! Do you think these setbacks are not without some great purpose of righteousness bigger and more stunning than any of us can imagine? ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1160:The Christmas story is not intended to teach you a bunch of moral lessons that require no history to be helpful. It’s a story that is rooted in real history, real acts of God that are intended to provide for you and me the one thing we desperately need: moral rescue. The Christmas story is about a God of glorious grace on the march, invading human history with the grace of redemption. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
1161:Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. ROMANS 3:27–30 ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1162:if he dies, why, perhaps, God of His mercy will take me too. The grave is a sure cure for an aching heart!” She sank back in her chair, quite exhausted by the sudden effort she had made; but if they even offered to speak, she cut them short (whatever the subject might be), with the repetition of the same words, “I shall go to Liverpool.” No more could be said, the doctor’s opinion had ~ Elizabeth Gaskell, #NFDB
1163:Church is missing transcendence. My generation was raised on a religion of moral control. Do this. Don't do that. And a lot of self-help religion. Feel better. Get out of debt. Six ways to overcome your fears. Seven ways not to lust. Ultimately that message didn't work. It was empty. There was no transcendence. The omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful God of the universe wasn't the focus. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
1164:It thrills me to know that the God who created the entire universe, who is the God of space, time, and eternity, who is infinitely holy and completely self-sufficient, should care about supplying my physical needs. Just as loving human fathers want to provide for the needs of their children, so God is concerned that we receive enough food to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to rest. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
1165:The vibration of appreciation is also the highest, fastest vibration we can use for attraction. If we would shoot appreciation at anything and everything, all day long, we'd be guaranteed to have heaven on earth in no time, living happily ever after with more friends, more money, more beautiful relationships, in total safety, and closer to the God of our Being than it's possible to fathom. ~ Lynn Grabhorn, #NFDB
1166:It wasn't the many slashes and scars marring his chest that caused her sudden gasp, though she felt the pain of each one. It was the unparalleled beauty of his physique that stole her breath. Dorian's body was rendered by some ancient god of war. No Greek sculpture could compare, no artist could re-create the sleek, predatory masculinity rippling through the complex landscape of his torso. ~ Kerrigan Byrne, #NFDB
1167:Mona Simpson, rose to honor him at his memorial service, that’s not what she focused on. Yes, she talked about his work and his work ethic. But mostly she raised these as manifestations of his passions. “Steve worked at what he loved,” she said. What really moved him was love. “Love was his supreme virtue,” she said, “his god of gods. “When [his son] Reed was born, he began gushing and ~ Arianna Huffington, #NFDB
1168:Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavours, even the best, will come to naught.
Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavour, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God's calling, can matter forever. ~ Timothy J Keller,#NFDB
1169:I have confused ideas of deity, heavily influenced by mind-altering years of reading science fiction, that do not often trouble me, but one thing I know for certain, and have known since the age of five or six, is that I really can't stand the God of Abraham. In fact, I consider him to constitute the pattern to which every true asshole I have ever known in my life has pretty well conformed. ~ Michael Chabon, #NFDB
1170:Not many are aware that the term amen actually stems from Amun, the Egyptian god of Thebes,” Edna supplied. “With time, his name became synonymous with justice and truth, and hence saying Amen after a prayer or a proclamation served as joining in it and affirming its truthfulness. However, by using his name in this manner, you’re implying that you’re an Amun worshiper, which I’m sure you’re not. ~ I T Lucas, #NFDB
1171:Great are the promises concerning this land of America. We are told unequivocally that it “is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ” (Ether 2:12). This is the crux of the entire matter—obedience to the commandments of God. ~ Gordon B Hinckley, #NFDB
1172:The Devil' is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes... This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade 'Know Thyself!' and taught Initiation. He is 'The Devil' of the Book of Thoth, and His emblem is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection... He is therefore Life, and Love. ~ Aleister Crowley, #NFDB
1173:The first commandment is a declaration that the God of the exodus is unlike all the gods the slaves have known heretofore. This God is not to be confused with or thought parallel to the insatiable gods of imperial productivity. This God is subsequently revealed as a God of mercy, steadfast love, and faithfulness who is committed to covenantal relationships of fidelity (see Exod. 34:6–7). ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
1174:There the original Sumerian Epic of Creation was translated and revised so that Marduk, the Babylonian national god, was assigned a celestial counterpart. By renaming Nibiru "Marduk" in the Babylonian versions of the creation story, the Babylonians usurped for Marduk the attributes of a supreme "God of Heaven and Earth." This version—the most intact one found so far—is known as Enuma elish ~ Zecharia Sitchin, #NFDB
1175:...and God accepted Abel and rejected Cain. I never thought that was a just thing. I never understood it. Do you?”
“Maybe we think out of a different background,” said Lee. “I remember that this story was written by and for a shepherd people. They were not farmers. Wouldn’t the god of shepherds find a fat lamb more valuable than a sheaf of barley? A sacrifice must be the best and most. ~ John Steinbeck,#NFDB
1176:The powerful have invoked God at their side in this war, so that we will accept their power and our weakness as something that has been established by divine plan. But there is no god behind this war other than the god of money, nor any right other than the desire for death and destruction... Today there is a “NO” which shall weaken the powerful and strengthen the weak: the “NO” to war. ~ Subcomandante Marcos, #NFDB
1177:In reading over the Constitutions of all fifty of our states, I discovered something which some of you may not know: there is in all fifty, without exception, an appeal or a prayer to the Almighty God of the universe. Through all fifty state Constitutions, without exception, there runs this same appeal and reference to God who is the Creator of our liberties and the preserver of our freedoms. ~ D James Kennedy, #NFDB
1178:You must be thinking of stories from other cultures. Irish women tend to kick ass and do whatever they want. For exhibits A, B, and C, I give you the Morrigan, Brighid, and Flidais.
Fair enough. So who's the god of cooking among the Tuatha De Danann?
I don't think there is one.
So the ancient Irish had a god of brewing but not cooking?
We had our priorities straight. ~ Kevin Hearne,#NFDB
1179:You’re like a crazy cat lady, but you collect killers instead of fluffy cats.” “I don’t collect killers.” “Yes, you do, and those who aren’t killers turn into killers by the time you’re done. You made Julie into a maniac. That child has more knives on her than a squad of the PAD. Christopher was the only stray who couldn’t fight, and now it turns out he’s a god of terror. Why am I not surprised? ~ Ilona Andrews, #NFDB
1180:26“I issue a decree that in all the dominion of my kingdom men are to [reverently] fear and tremble before the God of Daniel, For He is the living God, enduring and steadfast forever, And His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed, And His dominion will be forever. 27“He rescues and saves and performs signs and wonders In heaven and on earth— He who has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1181:It seems to me that we spend most of our spiritual energies trying to explain why the God of Elijah, Samson, David, and Paul seems to have lost His muscle in our modern age. Did He grow tired of performing heroics? Did He wax feeble after all these years of running this whole universal show? Could it be true that God has really lost His muscle? Maybe it would be more accurate to say God lost His men. ~ Eric Ludy, #NFDB
1182:The irony of all this is that God of perfect justice is both the one for whom we long and the one whom we dread. We long for someone to set things right, to punish those who terrorize, molest, kills and enslave the innocent... we want a judge with total power and piercing commitment to righteousness. But when his eyes turn on us, we realize that we too, are guilty. We, too, deserve his judgement. ~ Joshua Harris, #NFDB
1183:The older lady harrumphed. “I warned you, daughter. This scoundrel Hades is no good. You could’ve married the god of doctors or the god of lawyers, but noooo. You had to eat the pomegranate.” “Mother—” “And get stuck in the Underworld!” “Mother, please—” “And here it is August, and do you come home like you’re supposed to? Do you ever think about your poor lonely mother?” “DEMETER!” Hades shouted. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1184:They tell us, Sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week? Will it be next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed and a guard stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Sir, we are not weak if we make proper use of those means which the God of nature has placed in our power. ~ Louis L Amour, #NFDB
1185:A chaplain is the minister of the Prince of Peace serving the host of the God of War--Mars. As such, he is as incongruous as a musket would be on the altar at Christmas. Why, then, is he there? Because he indirectly subserves the purpose attested by the cannon; because too he lends the sanction of the religion of the meek to that which practically is the abrogation of everything but brute Force. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1186:All of Judaism’s philosophy, ethics, ethos, learning, education, and hierarchy of values are saturated with a sense of, and heightened sensitivity to, rakhmones. God is often called the God of Mercy and Compassion: Adonai El Rakhum Ve-Khanum. The writings of the prophets are permeated with appeals for rakhmones, a divine attribute. (So, too, are the words of Jesus and the books of the New Testament.) ~ Leo Rosten, #NFDB
1187:But this narrative of prophecy would eventually be subverted by the enemies of Elohim, who transformed it into an entire substitute system of astral worship where stars were considered as controlling powers over the lives of men. Though there was no actual power in the stars, it served the purpose of the gods to divert mankind’s attention from the true God of history into a god of one’s own utility. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1188:God who protects my people I call upon you to send away the murahaleen. Protect me God protect my family as they run. Oh God of the sky, keep me safe tonight. Keep me hidden, keep me quiet. Oh God of rain, let me find water. Let me not die of thirst. Oh God of the soul, why are you doing this? I have done nothing to ask for this. I'm a boy. I'm a boy. Would you send this to a lamb? You have no right. ~ Dave Eggers, #NFDB
1189:Knowest thou not that thou nurturest in thyself a god? It is a god whom thou usest for thy strength, a god whom thou carriest with thee everywhere, and thou knowest it not at all, O unhappy man. And thinkest thou that I speak of a silver or golden idol outside thee? The god of whom I speak, thou carriest within thee and perceivest not that thou pollutest him by thy impure thoughts and infamous actions. ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
1190:Sunday morning in America is the greatest hour of idolatry in the whole week. Why? Because most people who are even worshiping God, are worshiping a God they don't know. They're worshiping a god that looks more like Santa Claus than the God of Scripture. They're worshiping a god that is a figment of their own imagination. They created a god in their own likeness and they worship the god they've made. ~ Paul Washer, #NFDB
1191:Doth not all nature around me praise God? If I were silent, I should be an exception to the universe. Doth not the thunder praise Him as it rolls like drums in the march of the God of armies? Do not the mountains praise Him when the woods upon their summits wave in adoration? Doth not the lightning write His name in letters of fire? Hath not the whole earth a voice? And shall I, can I, silent be? ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
1192:For there is one thing I can safely say: that those bound by love must obey each other if they are to keep company long. Love will not be constrained by mastery; when mastery comes, the God of love at once beats his wings, and farewell he is gone. Love is a thing as free as any spirit; women naturally desire liberty, and not to be constrained like slaves; and so do men, if I shall tell the truth. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer, #NFDB
1193:I can look to Hanuman for energy, Varuna (the God of water) if I want rain, Lakshmi (Vishnu's consort, the goddess of wealth) if I need money and Saraswathi (Brahma's consort, the goddess of knowledge) ifI have an exam coming up. Ganesh the elephant god and the child of Shiva and Parvati) can be called on when starting a new journey or venture and Vishnu, Ram or Krishna if I want purity of spirit. ~ Sarah Macdonald, #NFDB
1194:if, when you think of the word “God,” you are thinking of a reality that may or may not exist, you are not thinking of God. Tillich’s point is that the word “God” does not refer to a particular existing being (that’s the God of supernatural theism). Rather, the word “God” is the most common Western name for “what is,” for “ultimate reality,” for “the ground of being,” for “Being itself,” for “isness. ~ Marcus J Borg, #NFDB
1195:Our Little Kinsmen—after Rain
885
Our little Kinsmen—after Rain
In plenty may be seen,
A Pink and Pulpy multitude
The tepid Ground upon.
A needless life, it seemed to me
Until a little Bird
As to a Hospitality
Advanced and breakfasted.
As I of He, so God of Me
I pondered, may have judged,
And left the little Angle Worm
With Modesties enlarged.
~ Emily Dickinson,#NFDB
1196:The pulpit is ever this earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bearthe earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invokedfor favorable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1197:Thou silent power, whose welcome sway charms every anxious thought away; in whose divine oblivion drown'd, sore pain and weary toil grow mild, love is with kinder looks beguiled, and Grief forgets her fondly cherish'd wound; oh, whither hast thou flown, indulgent god? God of kind shadows and of healing dews, whom dost thou touch with thy Lethaean rod? Around whose temples now thy opiate airs diffuse? ~ Mark Akenside, #NFDB
1198:As science advances, there seems to be less and less for God to do. It's a big universe, of course, so He, She, or It, could be profitably employed in many places. But what has clearly been happening is that evolving before our eyes has been a God of the Gaps; that is, whatever it is we cannot explain lately is attributed to God. And then after a while, we explain it, and so that's no longer God's realm. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
1199:We are able to become lovers of God because He already accepts us. We may think we know ourselves, but when we do not accept ourselves, we only prove how little we understand. What a tragedy! The truth is that the God of the universe loves us deeply. We are covered in His blood. That is what allows us to know and love Him. When we understand this fully, we will walk in holiness and be altogether healed. ~ Heidi Baker, #NFDB
1200:Do you believe that the God of Jesus loves you beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity—that he loves you in the morning sun and in the evening rain—that he loves you when your intellect denies it, your emotions refuse it, your whole being rejects it. Do you believe that God loves without condition or reservation and loves you this moment as you are and not as you should be. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
1201:you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotionw and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heartx and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek him,y he will be found by you; but if you forsakez him, he will rejecta you forever. 10Consider now, for the LORD has chosen you to build a house as the sanctuary. Be strong and do the work. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1202:False religion may prevail, iniquity may abound, the love of many may wax cold, the cross of Calvary may be lost sight of, and darkness, like the pall of death, may spread over the world; the whole force of the popular current may be formed to overthrow the people of God; but in the hour of greatest peril the God of Elijah will raise up human instrumentalities to bear a message that will not be silenced. ~ Ellen G White, #NFDB
1203:How was I to know your pet was a god-killer? What kind of idiot ties herself down to one of his kind? (Dionysus) Well, gee, what was I supposed to do? Hook up with Mr. All-powerful God-killer or get myself a Mardi Gras float and hang out with him? (She pointed to Camulus, who looked extremely offended by her comment.) You’re such a moron. No wonder you’re the patron god of drunken frat boys. (Artemis) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
1204:suddenly understood perfectly why Abraham had agreed to sacrifice Isaac, his son, when the Lord commanded him to do so. It was not obedience. It was not even to put the love of God above the love of his son. Abraham was testing God. By denying the sacrifice at the last moment, by stopping the knife, God had earned the right—in Abraham’s eyes and the hearts of his offspring—to become the God of Abraham. Sol ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
1205:This is God’s self-description, the one he would have us remember. He is the God of mercy and forgiveness, the God who never deserts his people, faithful to the end, patient with all our failings however dismaying, but reminding us that a household—a familial environment, holding three (or sometimes four) generations—cannot escape the sins of the oldest generation; they necessarily infect the atmosphere. ~ Thomas Cahill, #NFDB
1206:I can't imagine that the God of the universe is limited to our ideas of God. I can't imagine that God doesn't reveal God's self in countless ways outside of the symbol system of Christianity. In a way, I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine. ~ Nadia Bolz Weber, #NFDB
1207:for the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favorable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1208:Joseph Ratzinger commented that the opening line of the Nicene Creed, Credo in unum Deum (I believe in one God), is a subversive statement because it automatically rules out any rival claimant to ultimate concern. To say that one accepts only the God of Israel and Jesus Christ is to say that one rejects as ultimate any human being, any culture, any political party, any artistic form, or any set of ideas. ~ Robert E Barron, #NFDB
1209:Of God are ye in Christ. It is not as if God placed and planted us in Christ, and left it to us now to maintain the union. No, God is the Eternal One, the God of the everlasting life, who works every moment in a power that does not for one moment cease. What God gives, He continues with a never-ceasing giving. It is He who by the Holy Spirit makes this life in Christ a blessed reality in our consciousness. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
1210:The question before the human race is, Whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether Priests and Kings shall rule it by fictitious Miracles? Or, in other words, whether authority is originally in the People? Or whether it has descended for 1800 Years in a succession of Popes and Bishops, or brought down from Heaven by the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove, in a Phial of holy Oil? ~ John Adams, #NFDB
1211:How was I to know your pet was a god-killer? What kind of idiot ties herself down to one of his kind? (Dionysus)
Well, gee, what was I supposed to do? Hook up with Mr. All-powerful God-killer or get myself a Mardi Gras float and hang out with him? (She pointed to Camulus, who looked extremely offended by her comment.) You’re such a moron. No wonder you’re the patron god of drunken frat boys. (Artemis) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1212:It could not be more perfect. Ba’al, the very god of the Anakim, Israel’s ultimate enemy, was already undermining Yahweh’s inheritance through spiritual adultery, and they had not even yet faced off in confrontation. “Well then,” said Sheshai with a pleased smirk, “We must certainly let the influence of Ba’al do his work on these people, And we will see which god ends up dispossessing which people after all. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1213:It is only by hearsay (by word of mouth passed down from generation to generation) that whole peoples adore the God of their fathers and of their priests: authority, confidence, submission and custom with them take the place of conviction or of proofs: they prostrate themselves and pray, because their fathers taught them to prostrate themselves and pray: but why did their fathers fall on their knees? ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, #NFDB
1214:Our foundation is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The authority of the holy priesthood is here, restored under the hands of those who received it directly from our Lord. The curtains have been parted, and the God of heaven and His Beloved Son have spoken to the boy prophet Joseph in opening this last and final dispensation. Our burden in going forward is tremendous. But our opportunity is glorious. ~ Gordon B Hinckley, #NFDB
1215:The first god stood up. Balding, sweaty, with a stomach that protruded over his belt, he reminded me of a foreman on a low-budget infrastructure project.
"THE NAME'S HOLLER!" he bellowed. "GOD OF DISEASE, DESTRUCTION AND DISASTER! LET ME PLAY FOR YOUR TEAM, AND I WILL STRIKE DOWN THE MASSES WITH DEVASTATING HEAD COLDS! THEN I'LL FOLLOW UP WITH A LEAKY-FAUCET EPIDEMIC AND A RASH OF TEETH-RATTLING POTHOLES! ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1216:The most important gift you can give your child is to help them begin a walk of faith with the God of the universe. From the moment your children arrive in your home, you are teaching them how to see the world, what to consider important, what to seek, what to love. As a mother, you have the opportunity to form your home and family life in such a way that God’s reality comes alive to your children each day. ~ Sally Clarkson, #NFDB
1217:The pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear
the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked
for favorable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow. ~ Herman Melville,#NFDB
1218:David is looking up into the immensity of God’s creation, yet he still knows he has a relationship with the One who made the sun and the moon and the stars and the heavens. He’s blown away by God’s indirect answer. All this, yet God still cares for us. All this, yet the God of the universe still knows our names. All this, yet God has chosen us. He’s made us his sons and daughters. He loves us. He cherishes us. ~ Louie Giglio, #NFDB
1219:Do you know how long God took to destroy the Tower of Babel, folks? Seven minutes. Do you know how long the Lord God took to destroy Babylon and Nineveh? Seven minutes. There’s more wickedness in one block in New York City than there was in a square mile in Nineveh, and how long do you think the Lord God of Sabboath will take to destroy New York City and Brooklyn and the Bronx? Seven seconds. Seven Seconds. ~ John Dos Passos, #NFDB
1220:My thoughts astounded asked me why Towards the whirling wheels on high In ecstasy I rush and fly. The living God is my desire, It carries me on wings of fire, Body and soul to Him aspire. God is at once my joy and fate, This yearning me He did create, At thought of Him I palpitate. Shall song with all its loveliness Submerge my soul with happiness Before the God of Gods it bless?
~ Solomon ibn Gabirol, Ecstasy
,#NFDB
1221:Nico unsheathed his sword. “You know the Underworld? Would you like me to arrange a visit?” Bryce laughed. His front teeth were two different shades of yellow. “Do you think you can frighten me? I’m a descendant of Orcus, the god of broken vows and eternal punishment. I’ve heard the screams in the Fields of Punishment firsthand. They’re music to my ears. Soon, I’ll be adding one more damned soul to the chorus. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1222:29But Peter and the apostles answered, g “We must obey God rather than men. 30 h The God of our fathers i raised Jesus, j whom you killed by hanging him on k a tree. 31God exalted l him at his right hand as m Leader and n Savior, o to give p repentance to Israel and o forgiveness of sins. 32And q we are witnesses to these things, and r so is the Holy Spirit, s whom God has given to those who obey him. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1223:Human learning, with the blessing of God upon it, introduces us to divine wisdom; and while we study the works of nature the God of nature will manifest himself to us; since, to a well-tutored mind, “The heavens,” without a miracle, “declare his glory, and the firmament showeth his handy-work.” ~ George Horne (bp. of Norwich.) (1799). Discourses on several subjects and occasions. Vol. 1,2, p. 357; As quoted in Allibone (1880), #NFDB
1224:If human beings had really tried to invent a god, we would never have invented the God of Christianity. He’s just too terrifying. Our God is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-holy, and omnipresent. There’s no place to run and hide from Him, no place where we might secretly indulge a favorite vice. We can’t even retreat into the dark corners of our minds to fantasize about that vice without God knowing it right away. ~ Scott Hahn, #NFDB
1225:Scientists rightly resist invoking the supernatural in scientific explanations for fear of committing a god-of-the-gaps fallacy (the fallacy of using God as a stop-gap for ignorance). Yet without some restriction on the use of chance, scientists are in danger of committing a logically equivalent fallacy-one we may call the “chance-of-the-gaps fallacy.” Chance, like God, can become a stop-gap for ignorance. ~ William A Dembski, #NFDB
1226:We have no idea how busy God's hands are even when His mouth seems closed. Where God is concerned, silence never equals slumber. For those of us looking for an overall grasp of what the God of the universe is doing with planet Earth, few titles of Christ are more significant than those issued from His own mouth in Revelation 22:13. He is “the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
1227:What do I see in the God of that infamous sect if not an inconsistent and barbarous being, today the creator of a world of destruction he repents of tomorrow; what do I see there but a frail being forever unable to bring man to heel and force him to bend a knee. This creature, although emanated from him, dominates him, knows how to offend him and thereby merit torments eternally! What a weak fellow, this God! ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
1228:It is a fundamental misunderstanding of Genesis,” wrote Peter Enns, “to expect it to answer questions generated by a modern worldview, such as whether the days were literal or figurative, or whether the days of creation can be lined up with modern science, or whether the flood was local or universal. The question that Genesis is prepared to answer is whether Yahweh, the God of Israel, is worthy of worship.”2 ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
1229:Now when you get something like the Apocalypse of John, when this avenging God is going to have blood to the bridle bits for 200 miles, I think that's venous, I don't think that's justice, I don't think that's Jesus, and I don't think it's the God of Jesus. That's the killer God, and the trouble with the killer God is that it justifies us doing the same, and in fact it invites us maybe to start with a bit. ~ John Dominic Crossan, #NFDB
1230:I am not sure but I should betake myself in extremities to the liberal divinities of Greece, rather than to my country's God. Jehovah, though with us he has acquired new attributes, is more absolute and unapproachable, but hardly more divine, than Jove. He is not so much of a gentleman, not so gracious and catholic, he does not exert so intimate and genial an influence on nature, as many a god of the Greeks. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
1231:Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words. They should remain open. Our only comfort is the God of the resurrection, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who also was and is his God. In him we know our brothers and in him is the biding fellowship of those who have overcome and those who still await their hour. God be praised for our dead brother and be merciful to us all at our end. ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
1232:Bluntly put, a chaplain is the minister of the Prince of Peace serving in the host of the God of War—Mars. As such, he is as incongruous as a musket would be on the altar at Christmas. Why, then, is he there? Because he indirectly subserves the purpose attested by the cannon; because too he lends the sanction of the religion of the meek to that which practically is the abrogation of everything but brute Force. 25 ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1233:"Elohim," the name for the creative power in Genesis, is a female plural, a fact that generations of learned rabbis and Christian theologians have all explained as merely grammatical convention. The King James and most other Bibles translate it as "God," but if you take the grammar literally, it seems to mean "goddesses." Al Shaddai, god of battles, appears later, and YHWH, mispronounced Jehovah, later still. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #NFDB
1234:If He does not feel any pity or love towards His creatures, and if nothing that happens can be said to be contrary to His will, does that not make Him somewhat amoral? Perhaps. But the God of traditional religion presents problems of His own and is arguably even worse. For there is undoubtedly a great deal of unmerited misery and pain in the world, yet it seems that He only rarely if ever does anything about it. ~ Anthony Gottlieb, #NFDB
1235:"Elohim," the name for the creative power in Genesis, is a female plural, a fact that generations of learned rabbis and Christian theologians have all explained as merely grammatical convention. The King James and most other Bibles translate it as "God," but if you take the grammar literally, it seems to mean "goddesses." Al Shaddai, god of battles, appears later, and YHWH, mispronounced Jehovah, later still. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #NFDB
1236:He burst from the water. He was facing her now. The muscles bunched on his arms as he slicked his wet, shoulder-length hair back from his face. The mist swirled amber over the surface of the water, adorning his gleaming skin as if he were the tributary god of this ruined garden. Her pity evaporated, burned away by the sudden realization that she had it all wrong. He was… She swallowed. Good Lord. He was magnificent. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt, #NFDB
1237:King continued: “It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, ‘That was not enough! But I was hungry, and ye fed me not. I was naked, and ye clothed me not. I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in, and ye provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. If ye do it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto me.’ That’s the question facing America today. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
1238:Too often in the history of religion, people have killed in the name of the God of life, waged war in the name of the God of peace, hated in the name of the God of love and practised cruelty in the name of the God of compassion. When this happens, God speaks, sometimes in a still, small voice almost inaudible beneath the clamour of those claiming to speak on his behalf. What he says at such times is: Not in My Name. ~ Jonathan Sacks, #NFDB
1239:17 Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, 18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! 19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength! He makes me as surefooted as a deer, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1240:FEU. Dieu d'Abraham, Dieu d'Isaac, Dieu de Jacob, non des philosophes et savants. Certitude. Certitude. Sentiment. Joie. Paix. ~ FIRE. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars. Certainty. Certainty. Feeling. Joy. Peace. ~ Blaise Pascal, Note on a parchment stitched to the lining of Pascal's coat, found by a servant shortly after his death, as quoted in Burkitt Speculum religionis (1929), p. 150, #NFDB
1241:It is not insignificant that my first apprehension of the love of God was granted in an experience with my father. Nor is it generally uncommon that God is apprehended in experience. Nor, in fact, can the divine and human meeting happen any other way. God is not a God of the pulpit, though the pulpit proclaim him. He is a God in and of the histories of humankind. What is significant is that I should have to say so. ~ Walter Wangerin, #NFDB
1242:Sol Weintraub suddenly understood perfectly why Abraham had agreed to sacrifice Isaac, his son, when the Lord commanded him to do so. It was not obedience. It was not even to put the love of God above the love of his son. Abraham was testing God. By denying the sacrifice at the last moment, by stopping the knife, God had earned the right—in Abraham’s eyes and the hearts of his offspring—to become the God of Abraham. Sol ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
1243:Just obey Yahweh. He is the god of gods! The heaven and the earth belong to him. He chose your ancestors to be his people. He is impartial. He accepts no bribes. He defends the helpless. He will send rain for your crops. He will nurture your herds. You will have all the food and wine you can eat and drink. Plus comfortable shoes. He loves you. And he loves the foreigners living among you. All you have to do is obey him. ~ Steve Ebling, #NFDB
1244:5:16Rejoice always; 5:17pray without ceasing, 5:18give thanks on every occasion; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus to us. 5:19Quench not the Spirit, 5:20despise not prophecies. 5:21Prove all things, hold fast the good; 5:22abstain from every form of evil. 5:23And may the God of peace himself purify you wholly, and your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1245:IN 1493, WHEN COLUMBUS returned from his unimaginable voyage, a Spanish-born pope granted all of the lands on the other side of the ocean, everything west of a line of longitude some three hundred miles west of Cape Verde, to Spain, and granted what lay east of that line, western Africa, to Portugal, the pope claiming the authority to divvy up lands inhabited by tens of millions of people as if he were the god of Genesis. ~ Jill Lepore, #NFDB
1246:Society is now really ruled by its own logos; say rather by a whole pantheon of its own hypostases and powers... we are beginning to suspect that the idols are vain, but their demonic influence upon our lives is not thereby allayed. For it is one thing to entertain critical doubts regarding the god of this world, and another thing to perceive the dunamis, the meaning and might of the living God who is building a new world. ~ Karl Barth, #NFDB
1247:Then said the giant, "Thou practices the craft of a kidnapper. Thou gatherest up woman and children and carriest them into a strange country, to the weakening of my master's kingdom." But now Great-Heart replied, "I am a servant of the God of Heaven; my business is to persuade sinners of repentance. I am commanded to do my endeavor to turn men, women and children, fro darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God. ~ John Bunyan, #NFDB
1248:Consistent with Martin Klaproth’s inspiration in 1789 to link his discovery of a new element with the recent discovery of the planet Uranus and with McMillan’s suggestion to extend the scheme to Neptune, Seaborg would name element 94 for Pluto, the ninth planet outward from the sun, discovered in 1930 and named for the Greek god of the underworld, a god of the earth’s fertility but also the god of the dead: plutonium. * ~ Richard Rhodes, #NFDB
1249:Some of us have looked up at the night sky and wondered about other worlds that might be kin to us, other hearths and homes that might welcome us, through which we would experience a different becoming. Some of us yearn for those connections waiting for us on other shores. We seek to feed within us the god of wonder, to open within ourselves dusty rooms we didn’t know existed and let in the air and light of other worlds. ~ Vandana Singh, #NFDB
1250:Father Col, an intrepid defender of the Faith during the French Revolution and the pastor of Bourg-d'Oisans where these good people were married [M/M Eymard], had foretold to them that they would have a son who would become a priest and founder of the Order of the Blessed Sacrament. During the months she bore Peter Julian, Mrs. Eymard used to visit the parish church and offer him to the hidden God of the tabernacle. ~ Peter Julian Eymard, #NFDB
1251:APPANAGE (A'PPANAGE) n.s.[appanagium, low Latin; probably from panis, bread.]Lands set apart by princes for the maintenance of their younger children. He became suitor for the earldom of Chester, a kind of appanage to Wales, and using to go to the king’s son.Bacon. Had he thought it fit,That wealth should be the appanage of wit,The God of light could ne’er have been so blind,To deal it to the worst of human kind.Swift. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
1252:But in terms of the social order, as we have seen, the orthodox teaching on resurrection had a different effect: it legitimized a hierarchy of persons through whose authority all others must approach God. Gnostic teaching, as Irenaeus and Tertullian realized, was potentially subversive of this order: it claimed to offer to every initiate direct access to God of which the priests and bishops themselves might be ignorant.102 ~ Elaine Pagels, #NFDB
1253:Faith deals with the invisible things of God. It refuses to be ruled by the physical senses. Faith is able to say, 'You can do what you like, because I know God is going to take care of me. He has promised to bless me wherever he leads me.' Remember that even when every demon in hell stands against us, the God of Abraham remains faithful to all his promises. Jesus Christ can do anything but fail his own people who trust him. ~ Jim Cymbala, #NFDB
1254:The Jews had been waiting for Yahweh to come and free them ever since their exile in Babylon. Though they were back in their Promised Land, they were still under the principality and power of Rome, the god of this world, Belial. On earth as it is in heaven. They were still slaves in spiritual exile waiting for their promised deliverance. Yahweh had gone silent on them for four hundred years since their last prophet Malachi. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1255:Thus the city repeats its life, identical, shifting up and down on its empty chessboard. The inhabitants repeat the same scenes, with the acton changed; they repeat the same speeches with variously combined accents; they open alternate mouths in identical yawns. Alone, among all the cities of the empire, Eutropia remains always the same. Mercury, god of the fickle, to whom the city is sacred, worked this ambiguous miracle. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
1256:For I choose to follow not men or men's doctrines, but God and the doctrines [delivered] by Him. For if you have fallen in with some who are called Christians, but who do not admit this [truth], and venture to blaspheme the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; who say there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are taken to heaven; do not imagine that they are Christians ~ Justin Martyr, #NFDB
1257:Let not your heart be troubled: …believe in God.” Yes—the God of the Old Testament, the God of the promises, the God of the covenants, the God of whom it is said, “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up” (Ps 27:10). This is the same God who has told mankind from the beginning that His desire was to bless them, and to give them peace and joy, and to have them as His children. Trust Him… ~ D Martyn Lloyd Jones, #NFDB
1258:The LORD was very angry with Solomon, for his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. 10 He had warned Solomon specifically about worshiping other gods, but Solomon did not listen to the LORD’s command. 11 So now the LORD said to him, “Since you have not kept my covenant and have disobeyed my decrees, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1259:He told himself a story. Not at first. At first, there wasn’t time for thoughts that came in the shape of words. His head was blessedly empty of stories then. War was coming. It was upon him. Arin had been born in the year of the god of death, and he was finally glad of it. He surrendered himself to his god, who smiled and came close. Stories will get you killed, he murmured in Arin’s ear. Now, you just listen. Listen to me. ~ Marie Rutkoski, #NFDB
1260:I would particularly observe that wherein the virtuousness of this her resolution consists, viz., that it was for the sake of the God of Israel, and that she might be one of his people, that she was thus resolved to cleave to Naomi: “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” It was for God’s sake that she did thus; and therefore her so doing is afterwards spoken of as a virtuous behavior in her, chap. ii. 11, 12: ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
1261:Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal self-established value of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world – both the world of men and nature – of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence of man’s work and man’s existence, and this alien essence dominates him, and he worships it. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
1262:My attention was quickly riveted by a large red star close to the distant horizon. As I gazed upon it I felt a spell of overpowering fascination—it was Mars, the god of war, and for me, the fighting man, it had always held the power of irresistible enchantment. As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void, to lure me to it, to draw me as the lodestone attracts a particle of iron. ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs, #NFDB
1263:Of old, God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was never depicted. Now, however, when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, (Bar. 3.38) I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I [16] worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honouring that matter which works my salvation. ~ John of Damascus, #NFDB
1264:Do you feel forsaken? Do you feel abandoned? Do you feel like God’s not there? Here’s what you need to see: Jesus Christ did not forsake you on the cross. Jesus Christ took hell rather than forsake you. If Jesus Christ loved you so much he wouldn’t forsake you in spite of everything God the Father (the omnipotent God of the universe) could throw at him, what makes you think he has forsaken you because of something you threw at him? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1265:It is certainly true that most men need some kind of a God. A few, and they are the men of genius, do not bow to an alien law. The rest try to justify their doings and misdoings, their thinking and existence (at least the menial side of it), to some one else, whether it be the personal God of the Jews, or a beloved, respected, and revered human being. It is only in this way that they can bring their lives under the social law. ~ Otto Weininger, #NFDB
1266:The Romans called the Christians atheists. Why? Well, the Christians had a god of sorts, but it wasn't a real god. They didn't believe in the divinity of apotheosized emperors or Olympian gods. They had a peculiar, different kind of god. So it was very easy to call people who believed in a different kind of god atheists. And that general sense that an atheist is anybody who doesn't believe exactly as I do prevails in our own time. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
1267:If the fig tree didn’t blossom and there was no fruit on the vine, there would be no food to eat. If the olives failed, the fields were granite, the flocks were decimated, and there wasn’t a single ox in the barn, he and his family would die a slow, hungry death. But even the prospect of these bleak circumstances couldn’t break Habakkuk’s joy. Why? Because his joy wasn’t anchored in prosperity but in the God of his salvation. ~ Stephen Altrogge, #NFDB
1268:I’m Christian, but if God is truly a God of love, then why would he have a private torture chamber where he put people that he was supposed to love and forgive to be punished forever? If you actually read the Bible, the idea of hell like in the movies and most books was invented by a writer. Dante’s Inferno was ripped off by the Church to give people something to be afraid of, to literally scare people into being Christian. ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
1269:Sure, there were exceptions. The city of Sparta? They loved Ares. Of course, they were the manly men of Greece who ate nails and steroids for breakfast, so I guess that made sense. In the center of town they had a statue of Ares all chained down, the theory being that if they kept Ares in shackles he couldn’t desert them, so the Spartans would always have courage and victory. Still. Chaining down the god of war? That’s hard-core. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1270:I nevertheless understood at that second the ancient obsession of the God-fearing for another kind of fear: the thrill of exorcism, the mindless whirl of Dervish possession, and the almost erotic surrender of seance, speaking in tongues, and Zen Gnostic trance. I realized at that instant just how surely the affirmation of demons or the summoning of Satan somehow can affirm the reality of their mystic antithesis -the God of Abraham. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
1271:The gunslinger said, "I used to think the most terrible thing would be to reach the Dark Tower and find the top room empty. The God of all universes either dead or nonexistent in the first place. But now...suppose there is someone there, Eddie? Someone in charge who turns out to be..." He couldn't finish.
Eddie could. "Someone who turns out to be just another bumhug? Is that it? God not dead but feeble-minded and malicious? ~ Stephen King,#NFDB
1272:Arabia was idolatrous when, six centuries after Jesus, Muhammad introduced the worship of the God of Abraham, of Ishmael, of Moses, and Jesus. The Ariyans and some other sects had disturbed the tranquility of the east by agitating the question of the nature of the Father, the son, and the Holy Ghost. Muhammad declared that there was none but one God who had no father, no son and that the trinity imported the idea of idolatry. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte, #NFDB
1273:Isn’t it good to know that God is a God of the depths as well as a God of the heights? When we’re living on the mountaintop, He is there. When we’re down in the valley, He is there. “The sea is His, for He made it; and His hands formed the dry land” (v. 5). I’m glad that my God is God of the changing places, such as the sea, and of the stable places, such as the dry land. No matter where we are, we can experience His greatness. ~ Warren W Wiersbe, #NFDB
1274:Money is the “god of this world,” and it empowers millions of people to enjoy life by living on substitutes. With money, they can buy entertainment, but they can’t buy joy. They can go to the drugstore and buy sleep, but they can’t buy peace. Their money will attract lots of acquaintances but very few real friends. Wealth gains them admiration and envy but not love. It buys the best in medical services, but it can’t buy health. ~ Warren W Wiersbe, #NFDB
1275:Samuel was, more than all the others, the man of failed works of beauty; – a fantastical and sickly creature, whose poetry shines forth much more in his person than in his works, and who, around one o’clock in the morning, between the dazzling of a coal fire and the clock’s tick-tock, always seemed to be the god of impotence, – a modern and hermaphrodite god, – so colossal an impotence, so enormous, reaching epic proportions! ~ Charles Baudelaire, #NFDB
1276:Woe to the soul which God rejoiceth to punish! . . . . Is it not a terrible thing to a wretched soul, when it shal lie roaring perpetually in the flames of hell, and the God of mercy himself shall laugh at them; when they shall cry out for mercy, yea, for one drop of water, and God shall mock them instead of relieving them; when non in heaven or earth can help them but God, and hell shall rejoice over them in their calamity(244)? ~ Richard Baxter, #NFDB
1277:There is a Hindu myth about the Self or God of the universe who sees life as a form of play. But since the Self is what there is and all that there is and thus has no one separate to play with, he plays the cosmic game of hide-and-seek with himself. He takes on the roles and masks of individual people such as you and I and thus becomes involved in exciting and terrifying adventures, all the time forgetting who he really is. ~ Reginald Horace Blyth, #NFDB
1278:The throw of dice in a gambling match indicates fate while the movement of coins on the board indicates free will. Thus the Vedic game of dice was not just a game but a representation of life controlled by fate and free will. It was a part of fertility rituals. It was said that in the game of life, Yama, god of death and destiny, threw the die while humans guided by Kama, god of life and desire, had the power to move the coins. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
1279:To my way of thinking and working, the greatest service a piece of fiction can do any reader is to leave him with a higher ideal of life than he had when he began. If in one small degree it shows him where he can be…gentler, saner, cleaner, kindlier…it is a wonder-working book. If it opens his eyes to one beauty in nature he never saw for himself and leads him one step toward the God of the Universe, it is a beneficial book… ~ Gene Stratton Porter, #NFDB
1280:And while Trish stared - stared, as it now seemed, into her own eyes - Guy held her hand and watched the crowd: how it bled colour from the enormous room and drew all energy towards itself, forming one triumphal being; how it trembled, then burst or came or died, releasing individuality; and how the champion was borne along on its subsidence, his back slapped, his hair tousled, mimed by female hands and laughing, like the god of mobs. ~ Martin Amis, #NFDB
1281:I spoke the hardest words and almost broke:
'There is another kinsman still
More close to you than I. He will
Be given legal right to take
You if he will. Tomorrow make
Your prayer, and I will settle this
With elder in the gate.' No kiss
That night. But when she left, still dark,
She took my hand and drew and arc
And said, 'The God of Exodus
And flood at dawn will fight for us.'
That was our only touch. ~ John Piper,#NFDB
1282:It is certainly true that most men need some kind of a God. A few, and they are the men of genius, do not bow to an alien law. The rest try to justify their doings and misdoings, their thinking and existence (at least the menial side of it), to some one else, whether it be the personal God of the Jews, or a beloved, respected, and revered human being. It is only in this way that they can bring their lives under the social law. . . . ~ Otto Weininger, #NFDB
1283:It was the sound of the god of death from one of the forgotten religions, the one that got it right, upstaging the pretenders with their billions of duped faithful. Every god ever manufactured by the light of cave fires to explain the thunder or calling forth the fashionable supplications in far-flung temples was the wrong one. He had come around after all this time, preening as he toured the necropolis, his kingdom risen at last. ~ Colson Whitehead, #NFDB
1284:Tormenting Cares
Sleep, sleep today, tormenting cares
Of earth and folly born!
Ye shall not dim the light that streams
From this celestial morn.
Tomorrow will be time enough
To feel your harsh control;
Ye shall not violate this day,
The sabbath of my soul.
Sleep, sleep for ever, guilty thoughts!
Let fires of vengeance die;
And, purged from sin, may I behold
A God of purity!
~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,#NFDB
1285:What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of lead and brass, its pert or solemn dullness of communication, compared with the simple altar-like structure and silent heart-language of the old sundials! It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is it almost everywhere vanished? If its business-use be superseded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. ~ Charles Lamb, #NFDB
1286:When we try to dictate to God the time, place, and manner for him to act, we are testing him. At the same time, we’re trying to see if he is really there. When we do this we are putting limits on God and trying to make him do what we want. It’s nothing less than trying to deprive God of his divinity. But we must realize that God is free—not subject to any limitations. He must dictate to us the place, manner, and time that he will act. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
1287:I knelt and prayed, and the strongest truth came over me. Didn't matter if God in his heaven was a Catholic or a Protestant God, or the God of the Hindus. What mattered was something deeper and older and more powerful than any such image - it was a concept of goodness based upon the affirmation of life, the turning away from destruction, from the perverse, from man using and abusing man. It was the affirmation of the human and the natural. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
1288:Like so many prophets before him, Muhammad never claimed to have invented a new religion. By his own admission, Muhammad’s message was an attempt to reform the existing religious beliefs and cultural practices of pre-Islamic Arabia so as to bring the God of the Jews and Christians to the Arab peoples. “[God] has established for you [the Arabs] the same religion enjoined on Noah, on Abraham, on Moses, and on Jesus,” the Quran says (42:13). ~ Reza Aslan, #NFDB
1289:[N]othingness and freedom can either be the cause of inner defeat, or provide the incentive for the manifestation of a hidden and superior dimension of being. In the latter case, new inner developments occur, such as the transcendence of both theism and atheism: for the individual comes to realize that the only god who 'is dead' is the humanized god of morality and devotion, and not the god of metaphysics and traditional inner doctrines. ~ Julius Evola, #NFDB
1290:All my inhibition left me in a flash, When he robbed me of my clothes, But his body became my new dress. Like a bee hovering on a lotus leaf He was there in my night, on me! True, the god of love never hesitates! He is free and determined like a bird Winging toward the clouds it loves. Yet I remember the mad tricks he played, My heart restlessly burning with desire Was yet filled with fear!
~ Vidyapati, All my inhibition left me in a flash
,#NFDB
1291:But when one researches the meaning behind the original Hebrew words, their truer fuller meaning comes to light. Elohim is revealed as a more generic plural reference to the Creator as all humankind can know through general revelation.[7] El Elyon has a linguistic affinity to the Ugaritic “Elyon Ba’al” a name for the Most High God of Canaan, and therefore a polemical stance against him. Ba’al is not the Most High, the God of Israel is.[8] ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1292:Hermes rolled his eyes. "Surely you've seen network TV lately. It's clear they don't know whether they're coming or going. That's because Janus is in charge of programming. He loves ordering new shows and cancelling them after two episodes. God of beginnings and endings, after all. Anyway, I was bringing him some magic doormats, and I was double-parked -" "You have to worry about double-parking?" "Will you let me tell the story?" "Sorry." ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1293:That joy. That madness. The gods must feel this way every moment of every day. It is as if the world slows. You see the attacker, you see him shouting, though you hear nothing, and you know what he will do, and all his movements are so slow and yours are so quick, and in that moment you can do no wrong and you will live forever and your name will be blazoned across the heavens in a glory of white fire because you are the god of battle. ~ Bernard Cornwell, #NFDB
1294:The greatness of our God lies in the fact that [He] is both tough minded and tender hearted. ... [God] expresses [His] tough mindedness in [His] justice and wrath and [His] tenderheartedness in [His] love and grace. ... On the one hand, God is a God of justice who punished Israel for her wayward deeds, and on the other hand, [He] is a forgiving father whose heart was filled with unutterable joy when the prodigal son returned home. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
1295:Adiyogi’s legacy offers you the licence to believe in the god of your choice, or not to believe at all. And if you do not find a god to your taste, it allows you the freedom to create one. That is how the Indian subcontinent arrived at an exuberant 330 million gods and goddesses at last count! To see the divine in a tree, rock or elephant is not considered absurd because every speck of creation is seen as a portal to the ultimate reality. These ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
1296:In this story the father represents the Heavenly Father Jesus knew so well. St. Paul writes: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses” (2 Corinthians 5:19—American Standard Version). Jesus is showing us the God of Great Expenditure, who is nothing if not prodigal toward us, his children. God’s reckless grace is our greatest hope, a life-changing experience, and the subject of this book. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1297:The main task for us all is that of a new evangelization aimed at helping younger generations to rediscover the true face of God, who is Love. To you young people, who are in search of a firm hope, I address the very words that Saint Paul wrote to the persecuted Christians in Rome at that time: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" (Rom 15:13). ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1298:The most preposterous notion that Homo sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
1299:We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us.4 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The Coming of Jesus in Our Midst ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
1300:Because this history seems to be typical of the calling of the Gentile church, and indeed of the conversion of every believer. Ruth was not originally of Israel, but was a Moabitess, an alien from the commonwealth of Israel: but she forsook her own people, and the idols of the Gentiles, to worship the God of Israel, and to join herself to that people. Herein she seems to be a type of the Gentile church, and also of every sincere convert. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
1301:We are compelled by the theory of God's already achieved perfection to make Him a devil as well as a god, because of the existenceof evil. The god of love, if omnipotent and omniscient, must be the god of cancer and epilepsy as well.... Whoever admits that anything living is evil must either believe that God is malignantly capable of creating evil, or else believe that God has made many mistakes in His attempts to make a perfect being. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
1302:What could be more full of meaning?—for the pulpit is ever this earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favorable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1303:Christians, it would seem, are stuck with a very unattractive product to promote: Christ on the cross. This is a weak, shameful image that offends the sensibilities and shocks the refined emotions of decent people. The claim that Roman soldiers executed the God of the universe on a cross, like a criminal, also assaults our rational minds. It’s an affront to the pride we carry for having the gift of reason that puts us above the animals. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
1304:Proof of the beginning of time probably ranks as the most theologically significant theorem. This great significance arises from the theorem establishing that the universe must be caused by some Entity capable of creating the universe entirely independent of space and time. Such an entity matches the attributes of the God of the Bible but is contradicted by the gods of the eastern (and indeed all other) religions who create within space and time. ~ Hugh Ross, #NFDB
1305:What could be more full of meaning?—for the pulpit is ever this earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1306:In the raising and exaltation of Christ, God has chosen the one whom the moral and political powers of this world rejected – the poor, humiliated, suffering and forsaken Christ. God identified himself with him and made him Lord of the new world ….. The God who creates justice for those who suffer violence, the God who exalts the humiliated and executed Christ – that is the God of hope for the new world of righteousness and justice and peace. ~ J rgen Moltmann, #NFDB
1307:The God of St. Thomas and Dante is a God Who loves, the god of Aristotle is a god who does not refuse to be loved; the love that moves the heavens and the stars in Aristotle is the love of the heavens and the stars for god, but the love that moves them in St. Thomas and Dante is the love of God for the world; between these two motive causes there is all the difference between an efficient cause on the one hand, and a final cause on the other. ~ tienne Gilson, #NFDB
1308:Hermes rolled his eyes. "Surely you've seen network TV lately. It's clear they don't know whether they're coming or going. That's because Janus is in charge of programming. He loves ordering new shows and cancelling them after two episodes. God of beginnings and endings, after all. Anyway, I was bringing him some magic doormats, and I was double-parked-"
"You have to worry about double-parking?"
"Will you let me tell the story?"
"Sorry. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1309:If we wish to be free; if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained - we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms, and to the God of hosts, is all that is left us. ~ Patrick Henry, #NFDB
1310:In any trial, in any bitter situation, you are not alone, you are not helpless, you are not a victim. You have a tree, a cross, shown to you by the Sovereign God of Calvary. Whatever the trial or temptation, it is not more than you can bear. It is bearable. It can be handled. You can know as Joseph knew, "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive" (Genesis 50:20). ~ Kay Arthur, #NFDB
1311:Ceres appeared before Pluto, god of the souls of the dead, and pleaded with him to allow Persephone to return to her home. This the god at first refused to do, because Persephone had eaten of the pomegranate, the fruit of mortality. At last, however, he compromised and agreed to permit Persephone to live in the upper world half of the year if she would stay with him in the darkness of Hades for the remaining half. ~ Manly P Hall, The Secret Teachings of all Ages, #NFDB
1312:Your Lord is Love: love Him and in Him all men, as His children in Christ. Your Lord is a fire: do not let your heart be cold, but burn with faith and love. Your Lord is light: do not walk in darkness of mind, without reasoning or understanding, or without faith. Your Lord is a God of mercy and bountifulness: be a source of mercy and bountifulness to your neighbors. If you will be such, you will find salvation yourself with everlasting glory. ~ John of Kronstadt, #NFDB
1313:In the biblical narrative, hierarchy enters human relationship as part of the curse, and begins with man’s oppression of women—“your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Genesis 3:16). But with Christ, hierarchal relationships are exposed for the sham that they are, as the last are made first, the first are made last, the poor are blessed, the meek inherit the earth, and the God of the universe takes the form of a slave. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
1314:So the Israelites who had returned from the exile ate it, together with all who had separated themselves from the unclean practices of their Gentile neighbors in order to seek the LORD, the God of Israel. For seven days they celebrated with joy the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because the LORD had filled them with joy by changing the attitude of the king of Assyria so that he assisted them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel” (6:21-22). ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1315:Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions.
[October 2, 1910, interview in the NY Times Magazine] ~ Thomas A Edison,#NFDB
1316:Undoubtedly, our path is not of the easiest; but, just as undoubtedly, we are not to be frightened by difficulties. Paraphrasing from the well-known words of Luther, Russia might say: ‘Here I stand on the frontier between the old, capitalist world and the new, socialist world. Here on this frontier I unite the efforts of the proletarians of the West and of the peasantry of the East in order to shatter the old world. May the god of history be my aid! ~ Joseph Stalin, #NFDB
1317:29Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee. And he went up on the mountain and sat down there. 30And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them, 31so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel. Jesus Feeds the ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1318:Pride takes innumerable forms but has only one end: self-glorification. That’s the motive and ultimate purpose of pride—to rob God of legitimate glory and to pursue self-glorification, contending for supremacy with Him. The proud person seeks to glorify himself and not God, thereby attempting in effect to deprive God of something only He is worthy to receive. No wonder God opposes pride. No wonder He hates pride. Let that truth sink into your thinking. ~ C J Mahaney, #NFDB
1319:The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by Homo Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
1320:When it can be proved that the observance of Christmas, Whitsuntide, and other Popish festivals was ever instituted by a divine statute, we also will attend to them, but not till then. It is as much our duty to reject the traditions of men, as to observe the ordinances of the Lord. We ask concerning every rite and rubric, "Is this a law of the God of Jacob?" and if it be not clearly so, it is of no authority with us, who walk in Christian liberty. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
1321:Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man; whether those of Brazil, where the powers of Life are predominant, or those of Tierra del Fuego, where Death and decay prevail. Both are temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature: -- no one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
1322:5 God has gone up with a shout, The LORD with the sound of a trumpet. 6 Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises! 7 For God is the King of all the earth; Sing praises with understanding. 8 God reigns over the nations; God sits on His holy throne. 9 The princes of the people have gathered together, The people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God; He is greatly exalted. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1323:9The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. 10Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the LORD’s command. 11So the LORD said to Solomon, “Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1324:En vandaar dwaalde hij af naar een meningsverschil met Friedrich Schillers hoogdravende theorie dat wat de goden tevergeefs bestreden menselijke domheid was. Daar was Toby het niet mee eens. Dat was voor niemand een excuus, of hij nu een god of een mens was. Waar de goden en alle redelijke mensen zich tevergeefs tegen verzetten was helemaal geen domheid. Dat was pure, moedwillige, kloterige onverschilligheid voor ieders belangen behalve die van henzelf. ~ John le Carr, #NFDB
1325:She started back down the trail. If no dogs find the food, she thought, maybe squirrels will. Or that white bear. Or if no one finds it, then it can all be for God. Only not for the Prophet's God, her mean, picky God who dislikes so many things. It's for my God, the god of dogs and snakes and dust mites and albino bears and Siamese twins, the god of stars and starships and other dimensions, the god who loves everyone and who makes everything marvelous. ~ Jeanne DuPrau, #NFDB
1326:The Bible itself is a dynamic text full of poetry, prose, history, law and myth all clashing together in a cacophony of voices. We are presented with a warrior God and a peacemaker, a God of territorial allegiance and a God who transcends all territorial divides, an unchanging God and a God who can be redirected, a God of peace and a God of war, a God who is always watching the world and a God who fails to notice the oppression against Israel in Egypt. ~ Peter Rollins, #NFDB
1327:It is, moreover, evident from hence that it is a greater matter to be truly and really holy than most persons are aware of. We may learn eminently how great and excellent a work this of sanctification and holiness is from the causes of it. How emphatically doth our apostle ascribe it unto God, even the Father: 1 Thess. v. 23, “Even the God of peace himself sanctify you.” It is so great a work as that it cannot be wrought by any but the God of peace himself. ~ John Owen, #NFDB
1328:The work of atonement took place in the presence of the God of heaven. Indeed, it involved a transaction within the fellowship of the persons of the eternal Trinity in their love for us: the Son was willing, with the aid of the Spirit, to experience the hiding of the Father's face. The shedding of the blood of God's Son opened the way to God for us (Acts 20:28). That is both the horror and the glory of our Great High Priest's ministry.
Terrible ~ Sinclair B Ferguson,#NFDB
1329:It was my doing. I’d just done what I’d destroyed the sharks for doing. And I had destroyed a hundred thousand systems and a million years of lives because I had no other way of dealing with the sharks. Maybe we were meant for each other, the sharks and me. Even Brendan and Elene shrank away from me. Why wouldn’t they? Who wanted to welcome back the god of destruction, the lord of fire? They knew me, knew me all too well, as I was coming to know myself ~ L E Modesitt Jr, #NFDB
1330:One of the marks of a godly woman is that she takes responsibility for her soul's need for joy and delight. A woman is a conductor, who leads the orchestra of her surroundings in the songs and music of her life. God is a God of creativity and dimension, and so He is pleased when we we co-create beauty in our own realm, through the power of His Spirit.
It was a profound realization when I understood that I could become an artist with my very life. ~ Sally Clarkson,#NFDB
1331:I will say something still easier. Take a single flea or louse-since you tempt and mock our God with this talk about curing a lame horse-and if, after combining all the powers and concentrating all the efforts both of your good and all your supporters, you succeed in killing it in the name of free choice, you shall be victorious, your case shall be established, and we too will come at once and worship that god of yours, that wonderful killer of the louse. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
1332:Thankfully you tune the strings of your moldering lyre to a moderated, to a passably joyful, nay, to an even delighted psalm of thanksgiving and with it bore your quiet, flabby and slightly stupefied half-and-half god of contentment; and in the thick warm air of a contented boredom and very welcome painlessness the nodding mandarin of a half-and-half god and the nodding middle-aged gentleman who sings his muffled psalm look as like each other as two peas. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1333:The experience of [the African] bishops is that evangelization itself should be foremost, that the God of Jesus Christ must be known, believed in and loved, and that hearts must be converted if progress is to be made on social issues and reconciliation is to begin, and if - for example - AIDS is to be combated by realistically facing its deeper causes and the sick are to be given the loving care they need. Social issues and the Gospel are inseparable. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1334:Rivulet, seek a better place for your limpid waters to reflect the brightness of the sun, for the desert will one day dry you up,” the god of waters would have said, if perchance one existed. “Crows, there is more food in the forests than among rocks and sand,” the god of the birds would have said. “Plants, spread your seeds far from here, because the world is full of humid, fertile ground, and you will grow more beautiful,” the god of flowers would have said. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1335:Even the God of the Bible uses different names for himself in different instances to communicate his different attributes. While this is not familiar to modern readers and can cause difficulty in keeping all the names and identities straight, I have chosen to employ that peculiar technique as a way of incarnating the ancient worldview and mindset. So reader be warned to watch names carefully and expect them to be changing on you even when you are not looking. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1336:Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy Opinion against Providence;
Call Imperfection what thou fancy'st such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much;
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,(9)
Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If Man alone ingross not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance(10) and the rod,
Re-judge his justice, be the GOD of GOD! ~ Alexander Pope,#NFDB
1337:The god entered some women so completely that they became immortal, or very close to it. Bacchus was the god of the grape, of course, so bars are very interesting to maenads. In fact, so interesting that they don't like other creatures of darkness becoming involved. Maenads consider that the violence sparked by the consumption of alcohol belongs to them; that's what they feed off, now that no one formally worships their god. And they are attracted to pride. ~ Charlaine Harris, #NFDB
1338:Grinning, Atlas followed her inside. He liked this softer side of her. She stood in the center, twirling, clearly trying to take everything in at once. He’d spread furs on the floor and had even carted a small round table here and piled it high with her favorite foods. There was a porcelain tub already filled with steaming water, rose petals floating on the surface. Never let it be said that the Titan god of Strength did not know how to romance a woman. Nike’s ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
1339:Strangely, as much as I heard the word secular as a label on things that should be avoided by good Christians, I don’t ever remember hearing the word sacred as its opposite. Instead, I heard the words clean and safe to describe what was not deemed worldly. Clean and safe. How puny those words are. What a pitiful reduction of the grandeur of the created world and its inhabitants. What a sad commentary on the church’s understanding of the God of the universe. ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
1340:As Jews, Christians and Muslims, we have to be prepared to ask the most uncomfortable questions. Does the God of Abraham want his disciples to kill for his sake? Does he demand human sacrifice? Does he rejoice in holy war? Does he want us to hate our enemies and terrorise unbelievers? Have we read our sacred texts correctly? What is God saying to us, here, now? We are not prophets but we are their heirs and we are not bereft of guidance on these fateful issues. ~ Jonathan Sacks, #NFDB
1341:At the head of the Forum menu, the equivalent of the Hawaiian Room menu’s cheery “Aloha,” was the portentous “Cenabis bene . . . apud me” from Catullus (“You will dine well . . . at my table”).18 The ice buckets for Champagne were modeled on Roman soldiers’ helmets. The head of Bacchus, the god of wine, decorated copper and brass service plates (made in Milan), and the waiters were gotten up in imperial-purple and royal-blue outfits that vaguely suggested togas. ~ Paul Freedman, #NFDB
1342:[Georg Cantor was the first to prove that there could be a series of infinities; that infinities come in an infinite number of sizes.] Thus Cantor's Absolute is a perfect image for what we experience of God. When I speak of a Big Enough God I am not merely thinking of an Infinite God, but the God of infinities, the Absolute, which either chooses to reveal itself or remains veiled in mystery. Modern mathematics does begin to feel like the language that God talks. ~ Sara Maitland, #NFDB
1343:The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather, he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1344:The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the believer's outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human race, or even of life itself; the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing; he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral conception of God. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1345:Dear Heavenly Father, I thank You that You are the God of the breakthrough. Thank You that no matter what it is, my health, my finances, my relationships or my state of mind, You can break through any spiritual obstacle holding me from Your best for me. Thank You that no weapon formed against me will succeed. Thank You that You are my defender against the enemy in every form. Thank You that the victory has already been sealed for me through You, in Jesus name, amen. ~ Glenn Langohr, #NFDB
1346:The truth is, I saw myself in those little faces. I looked at them and felt this love that was unimaginable and knew that this is the way God sees me. The children would run to me with gifts of stones or dirt and I saw myself, filthy and broken, offering my life to the God of the universe and begging Him to make it into something beautiful. I sit here in a broken world, small and dirty at His feet, and He who sits so high chooses to commune with me, to love me anyway. ~ Katie Davis, #NFDB
1347:Because…” Gabriel closed his eyes to his truth. Because the premise that a child must be threatened with harm to earn God’s blessing is no longer acceptable to me; because that smug face cannot be the face of my God; because a rejecting and shaming God is a God of men created by men to serve the agendas of men; because I couldn’t find any stained glass window maker who is able to capture the face of the God I want to see—the God of hope, of compassion, of acceptance. ~ Neil Abramson, #NFDB
1348:III. Happiness is nowhere else to be had, but in their God, and with their people. There are that are called gods many, and lords many. Some make gods of their pleasures; some choose Mammon for their god; some make gods of their own supposed excellencies, or the outward advantages they have above their neighbors: some choose one thing for their god, and others another. But men can be happy in no other God but the God of Israel: he is the only fountain of happiness. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
1349:Saying Good-bye to the God of Disease (2) Thousands of willow branches in a spring wind. Six hundred million of China, land of the gods, and exemplary like the emperors Shun and Yao. A scarlet rain of peach blossoms turned into waves and emerald mountains into bridges. Summits touch the sky. We dig with silver shovels and iron arms shake the earth and the Three Rivers. God of plagues, where are you going? We burn paper boats and bright candles to light his way to heaven. ~ Mao Zedong, #NFDB
1350:Even though I've never met my dad and don't really want to, I share some of his talents. Along with being the messenger of the gods, Hermes is the god of merchants-which explains why I'm good with money-and travelers, which explains why the divine jerk left my mom and never came back. He's also the god of thieves. He's stolen things like-oh, Apollo's cattle, women, good ideas, wallets, my mom's sanity, and my chance at a decent life.
Sorry, did that sound bitter? ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1351:Beloved reader, what is thy desperate case? What heavy matter hast thou in hand this evening? Bring it hither. The God of the prophets lives, and lives to help His saints. He will not suffer thee to lack any good thing. Believe thou in the Lord of hosts! Approach Him pleading the name of Jesus, and the iron shall swim; thou too shalt see the finger of God working marvels for His people. According to thy faith be it unto thee, and yet again the iron shall swim. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
1352:There are two loves that have been deeply rooted in the human race for a long time now: love for dominating everyone, and love for possessing everyone’s wealth. If the reins are let out on the first type of love, it rushes on until it wants to be the God of all heaven. If the reins are let out on the second type of love, it rushes on until it wants to be the God of the whole world. All other forms of love for evil are ranked below these two and serve as their army. ~ Emanuel Swedenborg, #NFDB
1353:What they had in common was that, like us, they believed (or sometimes believed and sometimes didn’t believe; or wanted to believe; or liked to think they believed) that the universe, that everything there is, didn’t come about by chance but was created by God. Like us they believed, on their best days anyway, that all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, this God was a God like Jesus, which is to say a God of love. That, I think, is the crux of the matter. ~ Frederick Buechner, #NFDB
1354:Among the gods, there is a dispute as to which one of them originally thought of Christianity; or, as they call it, the Great Leg Pull. Apollo has the best claim, but a sizeable minority support Pluto, ex-God of the Dead, on the grounds that he has a really sick sense of humour. How would it be, suggested the unidentified god, if first we tell them all to love their neighbour, pack in the killing and thieving, and be nice to each other. Then we let them start burning heretics. ~ Tom Holt, #NFDB
1355:How to dispense with Padma? How give up her ignorance and superstition, necessary counterweights to my miracle-laden omniscience? How to do without her paradoxical earthiness of spirit, which keeps—kept!—my feet on the ground? I have become, it seems to me, the apex of an isosceles triangle, supported equally by twin deities, the wild god of memory and the lotus-goddess of the present … but must I now become reconciled to the narrow one-dimensionality of a straight line? ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
1356:Yes, people will tell us they believe in a “God of love.” But they are self-deceived, and their lives reveal it. They neither love Him with heart, soul, mind, and strength in return, nor do they worship Him with zeal and energy. The truth is that their mantra “My God is a God of love” is a smokescreen, a phantasm of their imagination. Underneath it all is a deep mistrust of God—otherwise, why not yield the whole of life in joyful abandon to whatever He says or asks? ~ Sinclair B Ferguson, #NFDB
1357:His creation was a sort of new religion; the churches, gradually deserted by a wavering faith, were replaced by this bazaar, in the minds of the idle women of Paris. Women now came and spent their leisure time in his establishment, the shivering and anxious hours they formerly passed in churches: a necessary consumption of nervous passion, a growing struggle of the god of dress against the husband, the incessantly renewed religion of the body with the divine future of beauty. ~ mile Zola, #NFDB
1358:When a soul has advanced so far on the spiritual road as to be lost to all the natural methods of communing with God; when it seeks Him no longer by meditation, images, impressions, nor by any other created ways, or representations of sense, but only by rising above them all, in the joyful communion with Him by faith and love, then it may be said to have found God of a truth, because it has truly lost itself as to all that is not God, and also as to its own self. ~ Saint John of the Cross, #NFDB
1359:as if it were owing to the merit of our turning to God that His grace were given us, wherein He Himself even turns unto us. Now the persons who hold this opinion fail to observe that, unless our turning to God were itself God’s gift, it would not be said to Him in prayer, “Turn us again, O God of hosts;” and, “You, O God, wilt turn and quicken us;” and again, “Turn us, O God of our salvation,” — with other passages of similar import, too numerous to mention here. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #NFDB
1360:This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem: 5 “Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. 6 Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! 7 And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1361:James says, "You desire and do not have; so you kill" (Jas. 4:2). We kill marriages and we kill unborn babies because they cut across our desires; they stand in the way of our unencumbered self-enhancement. And we live in a culture where self-enhancement and self-advancement is god. And if self-enhancement is god, then the One who is at work in the womb shaping a person in His own image is not God and the assault on His work is not sacrilegious, but obedience to the god of self. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1362:Yeah, but you’re a god of fate. Can’t you change that? (Kat) You’re thinking like a child, Katra. Things that appear simple very seldom are. It’s like the mechanic who goes to fix the carburetor and in doing so accidentally puts a hole in the radiator and causes even more damage. Every person on this planet is connected. Sometimes those lines are easy to see, and others are more complex. You change one insignificant thing and you change the very core of humanity. (Acheron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
1363:As he stood in the red light of the oil-lamp, strong, tall, and beautiful, his long black hair sweeping over his shoulders, the knife swinging at his neck, and his head crowned with a wreath of white jasmine, he might easily have been mistaken for some wild god of a jungle legend. -"Son," she said at last,—her eyes were full of pride,—"have any told thee that thou art beautiful beyond all men?"
"Hah?" said Mowgli, for naturally he had never heard anything of the kind. ~ Rudyard Kipling,#NFDB
1364:Great graces are in store for you, but to receive them you must be very little, like children who have a limitless confidence in the love of their papa. When you seek to reason out everything, to know everything ahead of time, to control everything by human means, you keep Me from acting as the God of love that I am. I ask neither for ability nor for great preparations on your part; I ask only for confidence, your confidence in Me, in the love of My open Heart for each one of you. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1365:Do you know God as a God of mercy? Do you see your spouse as God sees him or her—through eyes of mercy? If your answer to either question is no, it is unlikely that your marriage is sweet. Mercy sweetens marriage. Where it is absent, two people flog one another over everything from failure to fix the faucet to phone bills. But where it is present, marriage grows sweeter and more delightful, even in the face of challenges, setbacks, and the persistent effects of our remaining sin. ~ Dave Harvey, #NFDB
1366:Among the gods, there is a dispute as to which one of them originally thought of Christianity; or, as they call it, the Great Leg Pull. Apollo has the best claim, but a sizeable minority support Pluto, ex-God of the Dead, on the grounds that he has a really sick sense of humour.
How would it be, suggested the unidentified god, if first we tell them all to love their neighbour, pack in the killing and thieving, and be nice to each other. Then we let them start burning heretics. ~ Tom Holt,#NFDB
1367:IDers argue that such traits, involving many parts that must cooperate for that trait to function at all, defy Darwinian explanation. Therefore, by default, they must have been designed by a supernatural agent. This is commonly called the "God of the gaps" argument, and it is an argument from ignorance. What it really says is that if we don't understand everything about how natural selection built a train, that lack of understanding itself is evidence for super-natural creation. ~ Jerry A Coyne, #NFDB
1368:Let me suggest that at the core of Jewish God-talk is the unshakable conviction that God’s most dominant attribute is His commitment to justice rather than power. Earthly kings lust for power, for total control, and are prepared to sacrifice justice, to hurt innocent people, to hold on to power. But as far as the God of Israel is concerned, in a conflict between justice and power, justice will prevail. God will not do wrong. That more than anything gives Job reason to hope. A ~ Harold S Kushner, #NFDB
1369:Theism, as a way of conceiving God, has become demonstrably inadequate, and the God of theism not only is dying but is probably not revivable. If the religion of the future depends on keeping alive the definitions of theism, then the human phenomenon that we call religion will have come to an end. If Christianity depends on a theistic definition of God, then we must face the fact that we are watching this noble religious system enter the rigor mortis of its own death throes. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
1370:Yeah, but you’re a god of fate. Can’t you change that? (Kat)
You’re thinking like a child, Katra. Things that appear simple very seldom are. It’s like the mechanic who goes to fix the carburetor and in doing so accidentally puts a hole in the radiator and causes even more damage. Every person on this planet is connected. Sometimes those lines are easy to see, and others are more complex. You change one insignificant thing and you change the very core of humanity. (Acheron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1371:But what makes our marriage holy, what makes it “set apart” and sacramental, isn’t the marriage certificate filed away in the basement or the degree to which we follow a list of rules and roles, it’s the way God shows up in those everyday moments—loading the dishwasher, sharing a joke, hosting a meal, enduring an illness, working through a disagreement—and gives us the chance to notice, to pay attention to the divine. It’s the way the God of resurrection makes all things new. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
1372:The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1373:What makes our marriage holy, what makes it "set apart" and sacramental, isn't the marriage certificate filed away in the basement or the degree to which we follow a list of rules and roles, it's the way God shows up in those everyday moments - loading the dishwasher, sharing a joke, hosting a meal, enduring an illness, working through a disagreement - and gives us the chance to notice, to pay attention to the divine. It's the way the God of resurrection makes all things new. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
1374:Are we to conclude that these chief gods, Zeus and Yahweh, did not wish humankind to have moral consciousness and the arts of civilization? It is a mystery indeed.
The most obvious explanation is that the creative artist and poet and saint must fight the actual (as contrasted to the ideal) gods of our society—the god of conformism as well as the gods of apathy, material success, and exploitative power. These are the “idols” of our society that are worshiped by multitudes of people. ~ Rollo May,#NFDB
1375:Glorified is my Lord . . . Who is my Lord? Who are You, Lord? Are You Allah, the God of my father and forefathers? Are You the God I have always worshiped? The God my family has always worshiped? Surely You are the one who sent Muhammad 1 as the final messenger for mankind and the Quran as our guide? You are Allah, the God of Islam, aren’t You? Or are You . . .” I hesitated, fighting the blasphemy I was about to propose. But what if the blasphemy was the truth? “Or are You Jesus? ~ Nabeel Qureshi, #NFDB
1376:We believe in a God who is engaged in our lives, who is not silent, nor absent, nor, as Elijah said of the god of the priests of Baal, is He "[on] a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be [awakened]" (1 Kings 18:27). In this Church, even our young Primary children recite, "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." (Articles of Faith 1:9) ~ Jeffrey R Holland, #NFDB
1377:The Admirations—and Contempts—of Time
906
The Admirations—and Contempts—of time—
Show justest—through an Open Tomb—
The Dying—as it were a Height
Reorganizes Estimate
And what We saw not
We distinguish clear—
And mostly—see not
What We saw before—
'Tis Compound Vision—
Light—enabling Light—
The Finite—furnished
With the Infinite—
Convex—and Concave Witness—
Back—toward Time—
And forward—
Toward the God of Him—
~ Emily Dickinson,#NFDB
1378:Mellas was transported outside himself, beyond himself. It was as if his mind watched eveything coolly while his body raced wildly with passion and fear. He was frightened beyond any fear he had ever known. But this brilliant and intense fear, this terrible here and now, combined with the crucial significance of every movement of his body, pushed him over a barrier whose existence he had not known about until this moment. He gave himself over completely to the god of war within him. ~ Karl Marlantes, #NFDB
1379:If God is indescribable, where does that leave us? It leaves us walking more humbly than we’ve ever walked before—bowed at the thought of such a mighty and mysterious God. It leaves us safe in the knowledge of His ultimate control—that the One who spoke these awe-inspiring, inconceivable wonders into being will never lose the plot or drop the ball. And it leaves us pondering just how much He—this creative God of hidden wonders—has in store for those who’ve chosen to love and follow Him. ~ Louie Giglio, #NFDB
1380:Praise be to you, LORD, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. 11Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. 12Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. 13Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1381:His face still in shadow, Rieux said that he'd already answered: that if he believed in an all-powerful God he would cease curing the sick and leave that to Him. But no one in the world believed in a God of that sort; no, not even Paneloux, who believed that he believed in such a God. And this was proved by the fact that no one ever threw himself on Providence completely. Anyhow, in this respect Rieux believed himself to be on the right road – in fighting against creation as he found it. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1382:Those who believe they have pleased God by the quality of their devotion and moral goodness naturally feel that they and their group deserve deference and power over others. The God of Jesus and the prophets, however, saves completely by grace. He cannot be manipulated by religious and moral performance--he can only be reached through repentance, through the giving up of power. If we are saved by sheer grace we can only become grateful, willing servants of God and of everyone around us. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
1383:Those who believe they have pleased God by the quality of their devotion and moral goodness naturally feel that they and their group deserve deference and power over others. The God of Jesus and the prophets, however, saves completely by grace. He cannot be manipulated by religious and moral performance--he can only be reached through repentance, through the giving up of power. If we are saved by sheer grace we can only become grateful, willing servants of God and of everyone around us. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1384:What a strange fellowship this is, the God seekers in every land, lifting their voices in the most disparate ways imaginable to the God of all life. How does it sound from above? Like bedlam, or do the strains blend in strange ethereal harmony? Does one faith carry the lead or do the parts share in counterpoint and antiphony where not in full throated chorus?
We cannot know. All we can do is to listen carefully and with full attention to each voice in turn as it addresses the divine. ~ Huston Smith,#NFDB
1385:Time alone with God and faithful study of His Word equip and establish us so we can stand firm when Satan attacks our thoughts. “Brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:8-9). ~ Kay Arthur, #NFDB
1386:The god of wine looked around at the assembled crowd. “Miss me?”
The satyrs fell over themselves nodding and bowing. “Oh, yes, very much, sire!”
“Well, I did not miss this place!” Dionysus snapped. “I bear bad news, my friends. Evil news. The minor gods are changing sides. Morpheus has gone over to the enemy. Hecate, Janus, and Nemesis, as well. Zeus knows how many more.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
“Strike that,” Dionysus said. “Even Zeus doesn’t know. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1387:The Jehovah of the Jews is a suspicious tyrant, who breathes nothing but blood, murder, and carnage, and who demands that they should nourish him with the vapours of animals. The Jupiter of the Pagans is a lascivious monster. The Moloch of the Phoenicians is a cannibal. The pure mind of the Christians resolved, in order to appease his fury, to crucify his own son. The savage god of the Mexicans cannot be satisfied without thousands of mortals which are immolated to his sanguinary appetite. ~ Baron d Holbach, #NFDB
1388:To crush fanaticism and to venerate the infinite, such is the law. Let us not confine ourselves to prostrating ourselves before the tree of creation, and to the contemplation of its branches full of stars. We have a duty to labor over the human soul, to defend the mystery against the miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and reject the absurd, to admit, as an inexplicable fact, only what is necessary, to purify belief, to remove superstitions from above religion; to clear God of caterpillars. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
1389:Traditional Muslims stand at the foot of the ladder, living in guilt for not really practicing Islam. At the top are fundamentalists, the ones you see in the news killing women and children for the glory of the god of the Qur'an. Moderates are somewhere in between. A moderate Muslim is actually more dangerous than a fundamentalist, however, because he appears to be harmless, and you can never tell when he has taken that next step toward the top. Most suicide bombers began as moderates. ~ Mosab Hassan Yousef, #NFDB
1390:When we unravel the theological tomes of the ages, the makeup of God becomes quite clear. God is a human being without human limitations who is read into the heavens. We disguised this process by suggesting that the reason God was so much like a human being was that the human beings were in fact created in God's image. However, we now recognize that if was the other way around. The God of theism came into being as a human creation. As such, this God, too, was mortal and is now dying. ~ John Shelby Spong, #NFDB
1391:"Elohim," the name for the creative power in Genesis, is a female plural, a fact that generations of learned rabbis and Christian theologians have all explained as merely grammatical convention. The King James and most other Bibles translate it as "God," but if you take the grammar literally, it seems to mean "goddesses." Al Shaddai, god of battles, appears later, and YHWH, mispronounced Jehovah, later still. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, Everything Is Under Control : Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-Ups (1998), p. 197, #NFDB
1392:Learning to be flexible in values takes a very long time...Of course I felt a little uncomfortable during questioning the concept of God, but then reading about the history and evolution of Gods. There were many different Gods: the God of war, the God of peace, the God of love, which was more like the people that invented them. They behaved, they got angry, they made sacrifices, they created floods when they didn't like the way things are going. This didn't come through as superior intelligence. ~ Jacque Fresco, #NFDB
1393:What's a „culture“? Look it up. „A group of micro-organisms grown in a nutrient substance under controlled conditions“. A squirm of germs on a glass slide is all, a laboratory experiment calling itself a society. Most of us wrigglers make do with life on the slide; we even agree to feel proud of that „culture“. Like slaves voting for slavery or brains for lobotomy, we kneel down before the god of all moronic micro-organisms and pray to be homogenized or killed or engineered; we promise to obey. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
1394:But in the end you cannot serve two masters, Theos and Elohim, the god of the Greco-Roman philosophers and Caesars and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the violent god of profit proclaimed by the empire and the compassionate God of justice proclaimed by the prophets. You can try to hybridize them and compromise them for centuries, but like oil and water they eventually separate and prove incompatible. They refuse to alloy. They produce irreconcilable narratives and create different worlds. ~ Brian D McLaren, #NFDB
1395:This is what the Lord of •Hosts, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles I deported from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and live in them. f Plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters to men in marriage so that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease. 7 Seek the welfare of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the Lord on its behalf, g for when it has prosperity, you will prosper. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1396:may seem strange that a thinker should seek to prove that the God of monotheism cannot possibly exist, and then go on to assert that love of God is the supreme good. What Spinoza is trying to do is bring into a single system of ideas two radically divergent ways of looking at the world – a view from an imaginary Absolute, necessarily infinite and eternal, and the view of a finite, mortal human individual. But these perspectives are too different to be compared, let alone melded into one. Why Spinoza ~ John N Gray, #NFDB
1397:The Watchers were Sons of God, members of Elohim’s divine council, or heavenly host. Two hundred of them rebelled and fell to earth during the ancient days of Jared. Led by the mightiest of the Watchers, Semjaza and Azazel, they had taken on new identities as gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon. They were referred to as gods, Watchers, or even Watcher gods. Semjaza had become Anu, the most high father god of the pantheon. Azazel had become his consort Inanna. Ishtar snorted in disgust at that memory. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1398:EXPECT TO RECEIVE! TO RECEIVE, EXPECT! And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]! Isaiah 30:18 ~ Joyce Meyer, #NFDB
1399:Happy is the one whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, 6 the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them. He remains faithful forever, 7 executing justice for the exploited and giving food to the hungry. The Lord frees prisoners. 8 The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord raises up those who are oppressed. The Lord loves the righteous. 9 The Lord protects foreigners and helps the fatherless and the widow, but He frustrates the ways of the wicked. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1400:I do not doubt that our country will finally come through safe and undivided. But do not misunderstand me... I do not rely on the patriotism of our people... the bravery and devotion of the boys in blue... (or) the loyalty and skill of our generals... But the God of our fathers, Who raised up this country to be the refuge and asylum of the oppressed and downtrodden of all nations, will not let it perish now. I may not live to see it... I do not expect to see it, but God will bring us through safe. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
1401:Taking the God of love and justice and the God of grace seriously has immediate implications for the Christian message. It becomes: God loves us already and has from our very beginning. The Christian life is not about believing or doing what we need to believe or do so that we can be saved. Rather, it’s about seeing what is already true—that God loves us already—and then beginning to live in this relationship. It is about becoming conscious of and intentional about a deepening relationship with God. ~ Marcus J Borg, #NFDB
1402:Thomas Boston wrote: 'I never had such a clear and comfortable view of the Lord's having other use for children than our comfort; for which ends he removes them in infancy; so that they are not brought to the world in vain. I saw reason to bless the Lord, that I had been made father of six children, now in the grave, and that were with me but a very short time; but none of them lost; I will see them all at the resurrection. That clause in the covenant, "And the God of thy seed" was sweet and full of sap. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1403:As a child, my father was a god to me—at times I loved him, at times I feared him, but I always wanted to be like him. As an adolescent, I resented my father for the sin of being human—for not being the god of my childhood. Then, as a young man, I felt sorry for my father because, in my arrogance, I believed he knew nothing and I knew everything. It was not until I held my own son for the first time that I truly understood my father. Now I can appreciate the man he is and the man he helped me to become. ~ Darren Main, #NFDB
1404:Biblically, God is repeatedly depicted as facing a partially open future. Theologically, several unsolvable problems inherent in the classical view can be avoided when one accepts that God is the God of the possible and not simply a God of eternally static certainties. Practically, a God of eternally static certainties is incapable of interacting with humans in a relevant way. The God of the possible, by contrast, is a God who can work with us to truly change what might have been into what should be. ~ Gregory A Boyd, #NFDB
1405:We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God's coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God's coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
1406:Saying Good-bye to the God of Disease (1) Mauve waters and green mountains are nothing when the great ancient doctor Hua To could not defeat a tiny worm. A thousand villages collapsed, were choked with weeds, men were lost arrows. Ghosts sang in the doorway of a few desolate houses. Yet now in a day we leap around the earth or explore a thousand Milky Ways. And if the cowherd who lives on a star asks about the god of plagues, tell him, happy or sad, the god is gone, washed away in the waters. July 1, 1958 ~ Mao Zedong, #NFDB
1407:The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all of history.
~ Robert Heinlein, Notebooks Of Lazarus Long, from Time Enough for Love (1973).,#NFDB
1408:If the suns come down, and the moons crumble into dust, and systems after systems are hurled into annihilation, what is that to you? Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self, the God of the universe. Say - "I am Existence Absolute, Bliss Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, I am He," and like a lion breaking its cage, break your chain and be free forever. What frightens you, what holds you down? Only ignorance and delusion; nothing else can bind you. You are the Pure One, the Ever-blessed. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1409:In Babylonian religious thought the gods are represented by numbers. The number 1 represented the High God. The god of music, Enki, was represented by the number 40 which, in the sexagesimal system, means , that is, or the musical perfect fifth—the same ratio applied to the winter solstice (the New Year). One cannot regain the whole system, only edges of it here and there—a “great worldwide archaic construction” which was “preserved almost intact in the later thought of the Pythagoreans and Plato.”70 ~ Thomas McEvilley, #NFDB
1410:the patron god of children born on Thursdays is Shiva the Destroyer, and that the day has two guiding animal spirits--the lion and the tiger. The official tree of children born on Thursday is the banyan. The official bird is the peacock. A person born on Thursday is always talking first, interrupting everyone else, can be a little aggressive, tends to be handsome ("a playboy or playgirl," in Ketut's words) but has a decent overall character, with an excellent memory and a desire to help other people. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
1411:As the Roman Empire came to its close, all the old gods of the pagan world were seen as demons by the Christians who rose. It was useless to tell them as the centuries passed that their Christ was but another God of the Wood, dying and rising, as Dionysus or Osiris had done before him, and that the Virgin Mary was in fact the Good Mother again enshrined. Theirs was a new age of belief and conviction, and in it we became devils, detached from what they believed, as old knowledge was forgotten or misunderstood. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
1412:God of the battlefield, eh? Gods and devils can look much alike to us little people. You went to a ford, and a bridge, and a hill, and what did you do there except kill? What have you made? Who have you helped?” He stood there for a moment, all his bravado slithering out. She is right. And no one knows it better than me. “Nothing and no one,” he whispered. “So you love war. I used to think you were a decent man. But I see now I was mistaken.” She stabbed at his chest with her forefinger. “You’re a hero. ~ Joe Abercrombie, #NFDB
1413:Or maybe it was my definition of “perfect” that had changed. Somewhere between the chicken soup and the butter-bleeding pie, I’d made peace with the God of pots and pans—not because God wanted to meet me in the kitchen, but because He wanted to meet me everywhere, in all things, big or small. Knowing that God both inhabits and transcends our daily vocations, no matter how glorious or mundane, should be enough to unite all women of faith and end that nasty cycle of judgment we get caught in these days. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
1414:They were all listening to him with the curiosity and, if the truth were known, the utter indifference of practical people who had lost their fear of his God of wrath and chastisement. Why be frightened and deferential and seek pardon when the idea of the devil now merely made them laugh and they no longer believed in an avenging Lord who sent the wind and the hail and the thunder? It was just a waste of time; it was much more sensible to keep your respect for the forces of law and order: they were stronger. ~ mile Zola, #NFDB
1415:All the shall stand about the God of glory, the fountain of love, as it were opening their bosoms to be filled with those effusions of love which are poured forth from thence, as the flowers on the earth in a pleasant spring day open their bosoms to the sun to be filled with his warmth and light, and to flourish in beauty and fragrancy by his rays. Every saint is as a flower in the garden of God, and holy love is the fragrancy and sweet odor which they all send forth, with which they fill that paradise. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
1416:Have not all theists painted their Deity as the god of love and goodness? Yet after thousands of years of such preachments the gods remain deaf to the agony of the human race. Confucius cares not for the poverty, squalor and misery of the people of China. Buddha remains undisturbed in his philosophical indifference to the famine and starvation of outraged Hindoos; Jahve continues deaf to the bitter cry of Israel; while Jesus refuses to rise from the dead against his Christians who are butchering each other. ~ Emma Goldman, #NFDB
1417:Merops
What care I, so they stand the same,
Things of the heavenly mind,
How long the power to give them fame
Tarries yet behind?
Thus far to-day your favors reach,
O fair, appeasing Presences!
Ye taught my lips a single speech,
And a thousand silences.
Space grants beyond his fated road
No inch to the god of day,
And copious language still bestowed
One word, no more, to say.
by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Merops
,#NFDB
1418:The farther we get from God, the more the world spirals out of control. My heart aches for America and its deceived people. The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance. In Jonah's day, Nineveh was the lone world superpower-wealthy, unconcerned, and self-centered. When the Prophet Jonah finally traveled to Nineveh and proclaimed God's warning, people heard and repented. I believe the same thing can happen once again, this time in our nation. It's something I long for. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
1419:A Battle Prayer
God of battles, be with us now:
Guard our sons from the lead of shame,
Watch our sons when the cannons flame,
Let them not to a tyrant bow.
God of battles, to Thee we pray:
Be with each loyal son who fights
In the cause of justice and human rights,
Grant him strength and lead the way.
God of battles, our youth we give
To the battle line on a foreign soil,
To conquer hatred and lust and spoil;
Grant that they and their cause shall live.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,#NFDB
1420:Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature. It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we can preserve no other. ~ John Locke, #NFDB
1421:Leo glanced back, his face streaked with soot. "Apollo, you sense anything?"
"Why is it my job to sense things? Just because I used to be a god of prophecy-"
"You're the one who's been having visions," Calypso reminded me. "You said your friend Meg would be here."
Just hearing Meg's name gave me a twinge of pain. "That doesn't mean I can pinpoint her location with my mind!" Zeus has revoked my access to GPS!"
"GPS?" Calypso asked.
"Godly positioning system."
"That's not a real thing! ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1422:One day Mara, the Buddhist god of ignorance and evil, was traveling through the villages of India with his attendants. He saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up in wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara's attendants asked what that was and Mara replied, "A piece of truth." "Doesn't this bother you when someone finds a piece of the truth, O evil one?" his attendants asked. "No," Mara replied. "Right after this they usually make a belief out of it." ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
1423:The first commandments concern God, God’s aniconic character, and God’s name (Exod. 20:3–7). But when we consider the identity of this God, we are made immediately aware that the God who will brook no rival and who eventually will rest is a God who is embedded in a narrative; this God is not known or available apart from that narrative. The narrative matrix of YHWH, the God of Israel, is the exodus narrative. This is the God “who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (v. 2). ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
1424:The text says that when the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he loved her. God was saying, 'I am the real bridegroom. I am the husband of the husbandless. I am the father of the fatherless.' This is the God who saves by grace. The gods of moralistic religions favor the successful and the overachievers. THe are the ones who climb the moral ladder up to heaven. But the God of the Bible is the one who comes down into this world to accomplish a salvation and give us a grace we could never attain ourselves. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1425:When God first called Moses, not being then an expert prophet, he was addressed in a voice similar to that of his own father, and he thought that his father had come to him from Egypt. God then told him that it was not his earthly father who called him, but the God of his father. Then, we find, Moses hid his face, which he did not do when first called by his name; not in fact until he heard the words, 'I am the God of thy fathers.' ~ Exodus Rabbah 45, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p. 108, #NFDB
1426:By day, or on a cloudless night, a pilot may drink the wine of the gods, but it has an earthly taste; he's a god of the earth, like one of the Grecian deities who lives on worldly mountains and descended for intercourse with men. But at night, over a stratus layer, all sense of the planet may disappear. You know that down below, beneath that heavenly blanket is the earth, factual and hard. But it's an intellectual knowledge; it's a knowledge tucked away in the mind; not a feeling that penetrates the body. ~ Charles Lindbergh, #NFDB
1427:Jesus is arguing for the Trinitarian concept of divine diversity as being compatible with Old Testament monotheism, which was not compatible with man-made traditions of absolute monotheism that Rabbinic Jews followed. Remember, in the Bible, the concept of “god” (elohim) was about a plane of existence not necessarily a “being” of existence, so there were many gods (many elohim) that existed on that supernatural plane, yet only one God of gods who created all things, including those other elohim or sons of God. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1428:The world is evil, the times are waxing late, and the glory of God has departed from the church as the fiery cloud once lifted from the door of the Temple in the sight of Ezekiel the prophet. The God of Abraham has withdrawn His conscious Presence from us, and another God whom our fathers knew not is making himself at home among us. This God we have made and because we have made him we can understand him; because we have created him he can never surprise us, never overwhelm us', nor astonish us, nor transcend us. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1429:What is a tremendous, unspeakable honor may feel insufficient for those who are used to being god of their own blogs and Twitter accounts. It feels insignificant to those who have erected their own shrines on Facebook and Instagram, filled with beautiful pictures of themselves. Herein lies the danger of clamoring for attention: we don’t realize that true joy comes from the opposite. Joy comes as we stand among those Jesus has redeemed and get lost in a sea of worship, becoming fully a part of something sacred. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
1430:{p. 166} Ash Wednesday The Proper Liturgy for this day is on page 264. Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. ~ Episcopal Church, #NFDB
1431:When Israel came out of Egypt, 1 the house of Jacob from a barbarous-tongued folk, Judah became His sanctuary, 2 Israel His dominion. 3 The sea saw and fled, Jordan turned back. 4 The mountains danced like rams, hills like lambs of the flock. 5 What is wrong with you, sea, that you flee, Jordan, that you turn back, 6 mountains, that you dance like rams, hills like lambs of the flock? 7 Before the Master, whirl, O earth, before the God of Jacob, Who turns the rock to a pond of water, 8 flint to a spring of water. ~ Robert Alter, #NFDB
1432:Not many would fault the modern church for being unloving these days, but unloving is exactly what we are. For if we truly loved God, we would obey Him (John 14:21). If we truly loved the church, we would labor to keep it unstained and unmolested by this world (James 1:27). And if we truly loved the lost, we would introduce them to the God of the Bible who is able to save their souls, and not the pitiful god of our own making who is having a hard time saving anything at all (Psalm 50:21). ~ Eric Ludy, #NFDB
1433:Jefferson’s views on religious liberty, however, appealed to many more moderate voters. New Jersey Republicans charged that Jefferson’s enemies used religion as a means of assault “because he is not a fanatic, nor willing that the Quaker, the Baptist, the Methodist, or any other denominations of Christians, should pay the pastors of other sects; because he does not think that a Catholic should be banished for believing in transubstantiation, or a Jew, for believing in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”14 Still, ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
1434:When the boy was grown and out hunting, the goddess brought Callisto before him, intending to have him shoot his mother, in ignorance, of course. But Zeus snatched the bear away and placed her among the stars, where she is called the Great Bear. Later, her son Arcas was placed beside her and called the Lesser Bear. Hera, enraged at this honor to her rival, persuaded the God of the Sea to forbid the Bears to descend into the ocean like the other stars. They alone of the constellations never set below the horizon. ~ Edith Hamilton, #NFDB
1435:It seems the height of antiquated hubris to claim that the universe carried on as it did for billions of years in order to form a comfortable abode for us. Chance and historical contingency give the world of life most of its glory and fascination. I sit here happy to be alive and sure that some reason must exist for "why me?" Or the earth might have been totally covered with water, and an octopus might now be telling its children why the eight-legged God of all things had made such a perfect world for cephalopods. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
1436:Christian rhetoric hardly conceals the fact that it is identically henotheistic, with not just the one God (to whom was later assimilated and originally subordinated the additional gods of the Lord Christ and the Holy Spirit), but many other subordinate gods, including a ‘god of this world’ (i.e., Satan: 2 Cor. 4.4) and a panoply of angels (divine ‘messengers’) and demons (literally, daimones or daimonia, ‘divinities’) possessed of all the same roles, attributes, and powers of pagan gods (see my definitions in §3). ~ Richard C Carrier, #NFDB
1437:If all material were transparent—the ground that supports us, the envelope that sheathes our body—everything would be seen not as a fluttering of impalpable wings but as an inferno of grinding and ingesting. Perhaps at this moment a god of the nether world situated in the center of the earth with his eye that can pierce granite is watching us from below, following the cycle of living and dying, the lacerated victims dissolving in the bellies of their devourers, until they, in their turn, are swallowed by another belly. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
1438:The Allah of Islam is the same as the God of Christians and the Ishwara of Hindus. Even as there are numerous names of God in Hinduism, there are as many names of God in Islam. The names do not indicate individuality but attributes, and little man had tried in his humble way to describe mighty God by giving Him attributes, though He is above all attributes, Indescribable, Inconceivable, Immeasurable. Living faith in this God means acceptance of the brotherhood of mankind. It also means equal respect for all religions. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1439:You know about the Mother Goddess - the first female god, a fat woman with a lion on one side and a child between her legs. She was the first god of humankind.
Do you know why than ancient people of Anatolia chose her as their god? Because men were not aware of their roles as impregnators. They thought that it was the wind, the rain, the rivers, in short, nature, that impregnated women. And this was not at all a strange idea at the time. People viewed themselves as part of nature. They thought birth was magic, a miracle. ~ Ahmet mit,#NFDB
1440:We have turned to a God that we can use rather than a God we must obey; we have turned to a God who will fulfill our needs rather than to a God before whom we must surrender our rights to ourselves. He is a God for us and for our satisfaction, and we have come to assume that it must be so in the church as well. And so we transform the God of mercy into a God who is at our mercy. We imagine that he is benign, that he will acquiesce as we toy with his reality and co-opt him in the promotion of our ventures and careers. ~ R Albert Mohler Jr, #NFDB
1441:Now after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, 2 the son of Shallum, the son of Zadok, the son of Ahitub, 3 the son of Amariah, the son of Azariah, the son of Meraioth, 4 the son of Zerahiah, the son of Uzzi, the son of Bukki, 5 the son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the chief priest— 6 this Ezra came up from Babylon; and he was a skilled scribe in the Law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1442:We are never as thankful as we should be. When good things come to us, we do everything possible to tell ourselves we accomplished that or at least deserve it. We take the credit. And when our lives simply are going along pretty smoothly, without a lot of difficulties, we don’t live in quiet, amazed, thankful consciousness of it. In the end, we not only rob God of the glory due him, but the assumption that we are keeping our lives going robs us of the joy and relief that constant gratitude to an all-powerful God brings. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1443:Surely it is a matter of joy, that your faith in Jesus has been preserved; the Comforter that should relieve you is not far from you. But as you are a Christian, in the name of that Saviour, who was filled with bitterness and made druken with wormwood, I conjre you to have recourse in frequent prayer to 'his God and your God,' the God of mercies, and father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope, almost senseless of the calamity; the unconscious instrument of Divine Providence knows it not, and your mother is in heaven. ~ Charles Lamb, #NFDB
1444:We have turned to a God that we can use rather than a God we must obey; we have turned to a God who will fulfill our needs rather than to a God before whom we must surrender our rights to ourselves. He is a God for us and for our satisfaction, and we have come to assume that it must be so in the church as well. And so we transform the God of mercy into a God who is at our mercy. We imagine that he is benign, that he will acquiesce as we toy with his reality and co-opt him in the promotion of our ventures and careers. In ~ R Albert Mohler Jr, #NFDB
1445:In La Paz, during January, the Bolivians hold a traditional festival called Alasitas. For three weeks, markets . . . are full of tiny objects, tiny everything: tiny horses, tiny computers, tiny diplomats, tiny houses, tiny jeeps, tiny llamas and tiny llama steaks, tiny passports. People buy models of whatever they need most. . . . They offer their miniature figurines to miniature man—Ekeko the midget, the Aymara god of abundance, a smoking doll cloaked in bright wool. They pin their miniature desires to his miniature poncho. ~ Leslie Jamison, #NFDB
1446:Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew - not the Sabbath Jew, as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew. ... What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man - and turns them into commodities. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange. The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
1447:There are stories that explain how the High God was deposed: Ouranos, the Sky God of the Greeks, for example, was actually castrated by his son Kronos, in a myth that horribly illustrates the impotence of these Creators, who were so removed from the ordinary lives of human beings that they had become peripheral. People experienced the sacred power of Baal in every rainstorm; they felt the force of Indra every time they were possessed by the transcendent fury of battle. But the old Sky Gods did not touch people’s lives at all. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1448:Taboos, magic, superstition, personified abstraction, myths, gods, empty verbalisms, in every culture and at every period of history express man's persisting non-logical impulses. Gods and goddesses like Athena or Janus or Ammon are replaced by new divinities such as Progress and Humanity and even Science; hymns to Jupiter give way to invocations to the People; the magic of the votes and electoral manipulations supersedes the magic of dolls and wands; faith in the Historical Process does duty for faith in the God of our Fathers. ~ James Burnham, #NFDB
1449:The charge of blasphemy is loaded. The point is to pack a wallop behind the charge that in our worship services God simply doesn't come through for who he is. He is unwittingly belittled. For those who are stunned by the indescribable magnitude of what God has made, not to mention the infinite greatness of the One who made it, the steady diet on Sunday morning of practical how-to's and psychological soothing and relational therapy and tactical planning seem dramatically out of touch with Reality - the God of overwhelming greatness. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
1450:they were rebels and subversives. They had been carefully sought out and vetted by the leader over years of careful covert deliberations. Some were regular citizens of Gath, more were disillusioned warriors. But they were all united in one commitment: they were secretly devoted to Yahweh, the god of Israel. If any of their neighbors found out about their beliefs, they would be handed over to the authorities, imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Apostasy was considered the highest treason against Dagon and his Philistine pentapolis. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1451:I have you – a god of mixed heritage – on an expedition that could unleash the Destroyer from her hole. Arikos, another god, on the same team who is masquerading as a human. The demigod Solin, who I have to ride herd on constantly anyway, who gave them their permits. Megeara, a human who is sensitive and subjective to the voices of the gods. And the pissed-off goddess, Apollymi, who will do anything to be free, and once free wouldn’t hesitate to destroy every one of us. I can’t imagine why I’m concerned over this, can you? (ZT) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
1452:22 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying, 23 Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD God of heaven has given me. And He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is among you of all His people? May the LORD his God be with him, and let him go up! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1453:The personality of the artist, at first a cry or a cadence or a mood and then a fluid, and lambent narrative, finally refines itself out of existence, impersonalises itself, so to speak. The aesthetic image in the dramatic form is life purified in and reprojected from the human imagination. The mystery of aesthetic like that of material creation is accomplished. The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
1454:Well," I said, "I have to go."
He said, "Can I call you?"
I waited a long time before answering, though not, of course, as long as he'd made me wait. I let him stand there with the question in the air while I took a good long look at him, let him stand there while I stepped to the street and raised my arm for a cab. At exactly that moment, as though dispatched by some god I didn't really believe in anymore - the god of drama or god of perfect things - or maybe by my own fairy god god, a cab came. I got in, and closed the door. ~ Melissa Bank,#NFDB
1455:The universalism of today, the universalism that can only condemn those who condemn and separate those who separate is the product of global commerce. The one true god of the universalist is Mammon, and he embraces anyone with cash who doesn’t scare away other customers. This is why we are told to accept the unacceptable, to condemn religions that condemn, to share cultures with everyone as if they belong to no one, to deny all racial affinity, to pretend that men and women are interchangeable. Because exclusion is bad for business. If ~ Jack Donovan, #NFDB
1456:Impartiality of the state toward all religions. The only adequate option open to Muslims and Christians as citizens of the same state is to advocate the impartiality of the state toward all religions; no religion is preferred by the state, and all religions are impartially supported. This allows Christians and Muslims to be faithful to two fundamental impulses of monotheism simultaneously—to (1) honor the conviction that God is the God of all people and (2) obey God’s command to act justly and practice neighborly love toward all people. ~ Miroslav Volf, #NFDB
1457:At the same time, they are called, “gods” and “not God,” which indicates that they exist as real beings, but are not THE God of Israel. Psalm 106 repeats this same exact theme of Israel worshipping the gods of other nations and making sacrifices to those gods that were in fact demons. Psa. 106:34-37 They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them, but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1458:The gunslinger said, “I used to think the most terrible thing would be to reach the Dark Tower and find the top room empty. The God of all universes either dead or nonexistent in the first place. But now … suppose there is someone there, Eddie? Someone in charge who turns out to be …” He couldn’t finish. Eddie could. “Someone who turns out to be just another bumhug? Is that it? God not dead but feeble-minded and malicious?” Roland nodded. This was not, in fact, precisely what he was afraid of, but he thought Eddie had at least come close. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1459:the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive =blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1460:A PRAYER FOR SUCCESS “Then he prayed, ‘O LORD, God of my master Abraham, give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham.’” GENESIS 24:12 HEAVENLY FATHER, I pray for success in all I do. Guide me in everything. Show me where I have proceeded with something without first inquiring of You. Enable me to understand Your measure of success and not try to impose my own. My goal is to serve You, knowing that any success I have will be achieved only by walking perfectly in Your will. Only if success comes from You can it be enjoyed. ~ Stormie Omartian, #NFDB
1461:Practice resurrection. For me, this means forcing myself to be brave enough to enjoy simple pleasures with my family. I take long walks with Benjamin, pushing the stroller throughout the neighborhood and marveling at the gaudy excess of the bougainvillea. I bake honey wheat bread, listen to folk music, and tend the zucchini plants. I nurse my daughter, which is the most good and rightful thing I've ever done. I breathe. And little by little - baby steps - I invite the real God, the God of love, to banish my fear. How good life is. ~ Katherine Willis Pershey, #NFDB
1462:10 And the LORD spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they would not listen. 11 Therefore the LORD brought upon them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks,* bound him with bronze fetters, and carried him off to Babylon. 12 Now when he was in affliction, he implored the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, 13 and prayed to Him; and He received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1463:For a moment he came near to sharing their incredible belief—it would do no harm to mutter a prayer of thanks to the God of his childhood, the God of the Common and the castle, that no ill had yet come to Sarah's child. Then a sonic boom scattered the words of the hymn and shook the old glass of the west window and rattled the crusader's helmet which hung on a pillar, and he was reminded again of the grown-up world. He went quickly out and bought the Sunday papers. The Sunday Express had a headline on the front page—"Child's Body Found in Wood. ~ Graham Greene, #NFDB
1464:O LORD Increate, who will serve Thee?
Every votary offers his worship to the God of his own creation: each day he receives service
None seek Him, the Perfect: Brahma, the Indivisible Lord.
They believe in ten Avatars; but no Avatar can be the Infinite Spirit, for he suffers the results of his deeds:
The Supreme One must be other than this.
The Yogi, the Sanyasi, the Ascetics, are disputing one with another:
Kabr says, "O brother! he who has seen that radiance of love, he is saved."
Translated by Rabindranath Tagore
~ Kabir, Poem 7
,#NFDB
1465:People who have, in a sense, asked Him to join them on their life journey, to follow them wherever they feel they should go, rather than following Him as we are commanded. The God of the universe is not something we can just add to our lives and keep on as we did before. The Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is not someone we can just call on when we want a little extra power in our lives. Jesus Christ did not die in order to follow us. He died and rose again so that we could forget everything else and follow Him to the cross, to true Life. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
1466:Some of these various sects and denominations are peaceful, but the largest of them—the most successful of them—have been built on the blood, bones, and screams of those who have the effrontery not to bow to their idea of God. The Romans fed Christians to the lions; the Christians dismembered those they deemed to be heretics or sorcerers or witches; Hitler sacrificed the Jews in their millions to the false god of racial purity. Millions have been burned, shot, hung, racked, poisoned, electrocuted, and torn to pieces by dogs . . . all in God’s name. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1467:The exclusiveness of the Christian revelation of God lies here. No one can have an adequate view of the heart and purposes of the God of the universe who does not understand that he permitted his son to die on the cross to reach out to all people, even people who hated him. That is who God is. But that is not just a “right answer” to a theological question. It is God looking at me from the cross with compassion and providing for me, with never-failing readiness to take my hand to walk on through life from wherever I may find myself at the time. ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
1468:The God of Christianity is sovereign, wise, righteous, and ultimately concerned with justice. Not only is God concerned with justice, He assumes the role of judge over us. It is axiomatic to Christianity that our actions will be judged. This theme is conspicuously absent in much Christian teaching today, yet it fills the New Testament and touches virtually every sermon of Jesus of Nazareth. We will be called into account for every idle word we speak. On the
final day, it will not be our consciences that will accuse or excuse us, but God Himself. ~ R C Sproul,#NFDB
1469:First thing we have to do is recognize the time. We're at the end of the time of the White world to dominate Black people and Original People all over the planet.Can't you see that the God of justice is whipping the hell out of America with the storms, with floods, with hell, with hurricanes, with tornadoes; can't you see that things are happening? The clouds of war are gathering. Donald Trump is the right man in the right place in the White House for White people at the time of the end of their power to rule over us. He's going to bring it on. ~ Louis Farrakhan, #NFDB
1470:I am the god of dreams, but not even I would dream of speaking for Hades,” Morpheus replied with a mischievous look in his eyes. “But if I had to guess, I would say it’s because he knows how destructive his little brother is. Hades, unlike most of the other gods, cares for mortals and doesn’t want to see them at war. Probably because he has to tend their souls when they die. He has had to judge millions of souls and that has given him a strong sense of justice. Leaving you to fight Zeus with no training is something he would consider unjust. ~ Josephine Angelini, #NFDB
1471:Taqwā means to protect oneself against the harmful or evil consequences of one's conduct. If, then, by "fear of God" one means fear of the consequences of one's actions—whether in this world or the next (fear of punishment of the Last Day)—one is absolutely right. In other words, it is the fear that comes from an acute sense of responsibility, here and in the hereafter, and not the fear of a wolf or of an uncanny tyrant, for the God of the Qur’ān has unbounded mercy—although He also wields dire punishment, both in this world and in the hereafter. ~ Fazlur Rahman, #NFDB
1472:The Holy Mother has many faces, but you know it's her from her blue cloak. She is said to be the spirit in all women."
"Look, here she is naked and the baby Jesus has wings, " said Lucien.
"That is not the Holy Mother, that's Venus and that's not Jesus, that is Cupid, the Roman god of love."
"Wouldn't she have the spirit of the Holy Mother as well?"
"No, she is a pagan myth."
"What about Maman? Is the spirit of the Holy Mother in her?"
"No, Lucien, your mother is also a pagan myth. Come, look at these paintings of wrestlers. ~ Christopher Moore,#NFDB
1473:Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature gave the word glory a meaning for me. I still do not know where else I could have found one. I do not see how "fear" of God could have ever meant to me anything but the lowest prudential efforts to be safe, if I had never seen certain ominous ravines and unapproachable crags. And if nature had never awakened certain longings in me, huge areas of what I can now mean by "love" of God would never, so far as I can see, have existed. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1474:We claim scriptural authority for the assertion that Jesus Christ was and is God the Creator, the God who revealed Himself to Adam, Enoch, and all the antediluvial patriarchs and prophets down to Noah; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God of Israel as a united people, and the God of Ephraim and Judah after the disruption of the Hebrew nation; the God who made Himself known to the prophets from Moses to Malachi; the God of the Old Testament record; and the God of the Nephites. We affirm that Jesus Christ was and is Jehovah, the Eternal One. ~ James E Talmage, #NFDB
1475:Although the sovereignty of God is universal and absolute, it is not the sovereignty of blind power. It is coupled with infinite wisdom, holiness and love. And this doctrine, when properly understood, is a most comforting and reassuring one. Who would not prefer to have his affairs in the hands of a God of infinite power, wisdom, holiness and love, rather than to have them left to fate, or chance, or irrevocable natural law, or to short-sighted and perverted self? Those who reject God's sovereignty should consider what alternatives they have left. ~ Loraine Boettner, #NFDB
1476:And now the holy couple began here a new married life. They made a sacrifice to God of all the preceding years, and began again as if they had only just now been united. Their only aim was by a life pleasing to God, to attract upon themselves that blessing for which alone they sighed. I saw them both going to and fro among their herds. They divided them into three parts, and drove the best to the Temple. The poor received the second part, and the worst was retained for themselves. They acted in the same manner with all that belonged to them. ~ Anne Catherine Emmerich, #NFDB
1477:Herlia, goddess of justice, weeping as she passes her first judgement (...) She fell in love with a mortal man, but his passion for her drove him to commit a terrible crime and so she judged him, consigning him to the depths of the earth, chained to a rock, where his flesh is eternally eaten by vermin (...) Indeed, he stole a magic sword and with it slew a god, thinking him a rival for her affections. In fact he was her brother, Ixtus, god of dreams. now, whenever we suffer nightmares it is the shade of the fallen god taking his revenge on mortal kind. ~ Anthony Ryan, #NFDB
1478:Perfection... is clearly not achieved simply by being naked, by the lack of wealth or by the rejection of honors, unless there is also that love whose ingredients the apostle described (cf. I Cor. 13) and which is to be found solely in purity of heart. Not to be jealous, not to be puffed up, not to act heedlessly, not to seek what does not belong to one, not to rejoice over some injustice, not to plan evil - what is this and its like if not the continuous offering to God of the heart that is perfect and truly pure, a heart kept free of all disturbance? ~ John Cassian, #NFDB
1479:The Aztecs, so the story goes, routinely disemboweled eight thousand faithful a week in their temples of the sun, a sacrifice to the god of the clouds to make him send them rain. Such things are hard to believe until you get mixed up in a war. Once you’re in a war, you see how it is: the Aztecs’ contempt for other people’s bodies was the same as my humble viscera must have inspired in our above-mentioned General Celadon des Entrayes, who, thanks to a series of promotions, had become a kind of chickenshit god, an abominably exigent little sun. ~ Louis Ferdinand C line, #NFDB
1480:Many more details confirm my work: For example, Sokar (who is located in the 5th hour domain) is a chthonic deity of canals and underground tombs. He is the god of the Mysterious Region which could be identified as the Grand Gallery. This passageway could possibly be recognized as the oval island of Sokar which were guarded by large granite blocks from Afu-Ra's path. The granite slabs were probably securing the pathway to the Grand Gallery from the King's Chamber rather than from the pyramid's entrance against tomb robbers as Mark Lehner's hypothesized. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
1481:El, often refers to God’s powerful preeminence; El Elyon (God Most High) indicates God as possessor of heaven and earth; Adonai means God as lord or master; and Yahweh is the covenantal name for the God of Israel as distinguished from any other deity. Elohim, though it is the most common Hebrew word for God in the Old Testament, was also a word that was used of angels (Psa. 8:5; Heb. 2:7), gods or idols of pagan nations (Psa. 138:1), supernatural beings of the divine council (Psa. 82:6), departed spirits of humans (1Sam. 28:13), and demons (Deut. 32:17).[1] ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1482:Whilst America hath been the land of promise to Europeans, and their descendants, it hath been the vale of death to millions of the wretched sons of Africa... Whilst we were offering up vows at the shrine of Liberty... whilst we swore irreconcilable hostility to her enemies... whilst we adjured the God of Hosts to witness our resolution to live free or die... we were imposing on our fellow men, who differ in complexion from us, a slavery, ten thousand times more cruel than the utmost extremity of those grievances and oppressions, of which we complained. ~ St George Tucker, #NFDB
1483:It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt... In the New Testament, death is not the end, but the beginning of punishment that has no end. In the New Testament the malice of God is infinite and the hunger of his revenge eternal... This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real persecutor. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
1484:8Most importantly, be disciplined and stay on guard. Your enemy the devil is prowling around outside like a roaring lion, just waiting and hoping for the chance to devour someone. 9Resist him and be strong in your faith, knowing that your brothers and sisters throughout the world are fellow sufferers with you. 10After you have suffered for a little while, the God of grace who has called you [to His everlasting presence]* through Jesus the Anointed will restore you, support you, strengthen you, and ground you. 11For all power belongs to God, now and forever. Amen. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1485:What is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness? And if that same cup proved bitter to the God of heaven, under a human form, why should I affect a foolish pride, and call it sweet? Why should I be ashamed of shrinking at that fearful moment when my whole being will tremble between existence and annihilation; when a remembrance of the past, like a flash of lightning, will illuminate the dark gulf of futurity; when everything shall dissolve around me, and the whole world vanish away? ~ William Allan Neilson, #NFDB
1486:It struck him as an odd coincidence that they would happen upon such an extensive display of mass slaughter at a time where he could do nothing to address it. His duty was to watch over Saul. Then Mikael suddenly realized that this atrocity was not happenstance. Human sacrifice empowered Molech. And Saul was within the very lair of the monstrous god of the underworld. Saul was galloping into a trap. Mikael raced ahead to the end of the valley where he knew a narrow pass opened up to a plain leading north toward Gibeah. It was the perfect location for an ambush. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1487:Oh, hear our prayers, undeclared God of Night. God of Darkness, deliver us from Light.” “Hear our prayers.” “Oh, hear our songs, God of the Evening, God of Blackness.” In time, up wells the familiar refrain: …And the Hammer of Darkness will fall from the sky; The old gods must fly, and the summer will die… The black candle remains unlit on the black stone cube. “Deliver us from Light; deliver us from the flame of our oppression, from eternal day that lets us rest not, nor slumber. Hear us, and deliver us, thy servants, from the bondage of eternal brilliance… ~ L E Modesitt Jr, #NFDB
1488:She did not make monsters of us. She simply gave us the power to remake ourselves into those inviolable creatures the God of Equality had intended us to be. We knew she was deconstructing the old disabled versions of our sex, and that her ruthlessness was adopted because those constructs were built to endure. She broke down the walls that had kept us contained. There was a fresh red field on the other side, and in its rich soil were growing all the flowers of war that history never let us gather. It was beautiful to walk in. As beautiful as the fells that autumn. ~ Sarah Hall, #NFDB
1489:Margaret realizes that the demise of her plans had shattered her false god, and now she was free for the first time to worship the True One. When serving the god-of-my-plans, she had been extraordinarily anxious. She had never been sure that God was going to come through for her and “get it right.” She was always trying to figure out how to bring God to do what she had planned. But she had not really been treating him as God—as the all-wise, all-good, all-powerful one. Now she had been liberated to put her hope not in her agendas and plans but in God himself. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1490:3And even d if our gospel is veiled, e it is veiled to f those who are perishing. 4In their case g the god of this world d has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing h the light of i the gospel of the glory of Christ, j who is the image of God. 5For what k we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with l ourselves as your servants [3] for Jesus’ sake. 6For God, who said, m “Let light shine out of darkness,” n has shone in our hearts to give o the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1491:God is a God of galaxies, of storms, of roaring seas and boiling thunder, but He is also the God of bread baking, of a child's smile, of dust motes in the sun. He is who He is, and always shall be. Look around you now. He is speaking always and everywhere. His personality can be seen and known and leaned upon. The sun is belching flares while mountains scrape our sky while ants are milking aphids on their colonial leaves and dolphins are laughing in the surf and wheat is rippling and wind is whipping and a boy is looking into the eyes of a girl and mortals are dying. ~ N D Wilson, #NFDB
1492:She did not make monsters of us. She simply gave us the power to remake ourselves into those inviolable creatures the God of Equality had intended us to be. We knew she was deconstructing the old disabled versions of our sex, and that her ruthlessness was adopted because those constructs were built to endure. She broke down the walls that had kept us contained. There was a fresh red field on the other side, and in its rich soil were growing all the flowers of war that history had never let us gather. It was beautiful to walk in. As beautiful as the fells that autumn. ~ Sarah Hall, #NFDB
1493:David (Paul) Cho now heads Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea, generally regarded as the largest church in the world today. But as a young man he was a Buddhist, dying of tuberculosis in hopeless poverty. He had heard that “the God of the Christians” helped people, healed people, so where he was he simply asked “their” God to help him. And their God did. He healed this young Korean man, and taught him, and gave him an abundance of the kingdom life that was and is in Jesus, the Son of man. And now that same life flows through David Cho to thousands of others. ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
1494:Did you hear it? Can you picture the symmetry? Our God is a God of hospitality, creating a place for a people, a place where all life can flourish. God provides for all creation, as our Story shows. Our God is a God of order; we can trust God to provide for us now as in the beginning. “I know that it may not seem that way today, for here we are, exiles in a foreign land. Life is hard. We know that. And that is why we must tell each other the Story, and keep telling it, to do exactly what God has continually told us to do: remember . . . remember . . . remember.”[5] ~ Sean Gladding, #NFDB
1495:Al-Ikhlas: The Unity (Revealed at Makkah: 4 verses) This is really the concluding chapter of the Holy Qur’an — the two chapters that follow only show how the protection of the Lord is to be sought — and it gives the sum and substance of the teachings of the Holy Qur’an, which is the declaration of the Unity of the Divine Being. Ikhlas means purification of a thing from dross, and as this chapter purifies the Unity of God of all dross of polytheism, it is called al-Ikhlas. The chapter is one of the earliest revelations. In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1496:The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1497:One minute Jacob prayed for God’s help, and the next minute he devised some new way to appease his angry brother. He reminded God of His great promises and then acted as though God had never spoken. This is the conduct of a believer who needed to be broken before God. He prayed to be delivered from Esau (v. 11), but his greatest need was to be delivered from himself. Jacob was broken to be healed and weakened to be strengthened. When he surrendered, he won and became a “prince with God. ” His limp would be a constant reminder that God would be in control of his life. ~ Warren W Wiersbe, #NFDB
1498:With Abraham a new faith is born: the faith of responsibility, in which the divine command and the human act meet and give birth to a new and blessed order, built on the principles of righteousness and justice. Judaism is supremely a religion of freedom – not freedom in the modern sense, the ability to do what we like, but in the ethical sense of the ability to choose to do what we should, to become co-architects with God of a just and gracious social order. The former leads to a culture of rights, the latter to a culture of responsibilities: freedom as responsibility. ~ Jonathan Sacks, #NFDB
1499:As theologian David F. Wells states so powerfully, We have turned to a God that we can use rather than a God we must obey; we have turned to a God who will fulfill our needs rather than to a God before whom we must surrender our rights to ourselves. He is a God for us and for our satisfaction, and we have come to assume that it must be so in the church as well. And so we transform the God of mercy into a God who is at our mercy. We imagine that he is benign, that he will acquiesce as we toy with his reality and co-opt him in the promotion of our ventures and careers. ~ R Albert Mohler Jr, #NFDB
1500:Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer Being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n;
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall. ~ Alexander Pope,#NFDB
67 Integral Yoga
55 Poetry
51 Occultism
40 Christianity
20 Yoga
17 Psychology
16 Philosophy
10 Hinduism
10 Fiction
6 Islam
5 Mythology
4 Philsophy
4 Baha i Faith
3 Mysticism
2 Science
1 Theosophy
1 Thelema
1 Sufism
1 Alchemy
47 Sri Aurobindo
28 James George Frazer
26 The Mother
21 Satprem
19 Saint Augustine of Hippo
19 Nolini Kanta Gupta
17 Carl Jung
14 Sri Ramakrishna
14 Anonymous
11 Aleister Crowley
9 William Wordsworth
9 Vyasa
9 John Keats
6 Swami Vivekananda
6 Plato
6 Muhammad
5 Saint John of Climacus
5 Percy Bysshe Shelley
5 Jorge Luis Borges
5 H P Lovecraft
5 Aldous Huxley
4 Sri Ramana Maharshi
4 Robert Browning
4 Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 Jordan Peterson
4 Baha u llah
3 Ovid
3 George Van Vrekhem
3 Friedrich Schiller
3 Friedrich Nietzsche
3 A B Purani
2 Vidyapati
2 Saint Teresa of Avila
2 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Joseph Campbell
2 Jayadeva
28 The Golden Bough
18 The Bible
13 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
12 City of God
9 Wordsworth - Poems
9 Vishnu Purana
9 Keats - Poems
8 The Synthesis Of Yoga
8 Mysterium Coniunctionis
7 Vedic and Philological Studies
7 The Secret Of The Veda
7 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
7 Liber ABA
7 Agenda Vol 01
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 Quran
6 Essays On The Gita
6 Aion
5 The Perennial Philosophy
5 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
5 Talks
5 Shelley - Poems
5 Lovecraft - Poems
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
4 Maps of Meaning
4 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
4 Emerson - Poems
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
4 Browning - Poems
4 Bhakti-Yoga
4 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
3 The Life Divine
3 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
3 Schiller - Poems
3 Preparing for the Miraculous
3 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
3 Metamorphoses
3 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
3 Essays Divine And Human
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
2 Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit
2 Words Of Long Ago
2 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
2 The Red Book Liber Novus
2 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
2 The Divine Comedy
2 The Book of Certitude
2 Record of Yoga
2 Magick Without Tears
2 Let Me Explain
2 Labyrinths
2 Kena and Other Upanishads
2 Crowley - Poems
2 Anonymous - Poems
2 Agenda Vol 11
2 Agenda Vol 05
2 Agenda Vol 03
2 Agenda Vol 02
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The first boon regards the individual, that is to say, the individual identity and integrity. It asks for the maintenance of that individuality so that it may be saved from the dissolution that Death brings about. Death, of course, means the dissolution of the body, but it represents also dissolution pure and simple. Indeed death is a process which does not stop with the physical phenomenon, but continues even after; for with the body gone, the other elements of the individual organism, the vital and the mental too gradually fall off, fade and dissolve. Nachiketas wishes to secure from Death the safety and preservation of the earthly personality, the particular organisation of mind and vital based upon a recognisable physical frame. That is the first necessity for the aspiring mortalfor, it is said, the body is the first instrument for the working out of one's life ideal. But man's true personality, the real individuality lies beyond, beyond the body, beyond the life, beyond the mind, beyond the triple region that Death lords it over. That is the divine world, the Heaven of the immortals, beyond death and beyond sorrow and grief. It is the hearth secreted in the inner heart where burns the Divine Fire, the God of Life Everlasting. And this is the nodus that binds together the threefold status of the manifested existence, the body, the life and the mind. This triplicity is the structure of name and form built out of the bricks of experience, the kiln, as it were, within which burns the Divine Agni, man's true soul. This soul can be reached only when one exceeds the bounds and limitations of the triple cord and experiences one's communion and identity with all souls and all existence. Agni is the secret divinity within, within the individual and within the world; he is the Immanent Divine, the cosmic godhead that holds together and marshals all the elements and components, all the principles that make up the manifest universe. He it is that has entered into the world and created facets of his own reality in multiple forms: and it is he that lies secret in the human being as the immortal soul through all its adventure of life and death in the series of incarnations in terrestrial evolution. The adoration and realisation of this Immanent Divinity, the worship of Agni taught by Yama in the second boon, consists in the triple sacrifice, the triple work, the triple union in the triple status of the physical, the vital and the mental consciousness, the mastery of which leads one to the other shore, the abode of perennial existence where the human soul enjoys its eternity and unending continuity in cosmic life. Therefore, Agni, the master of the psychic being, is called jtaveds, he who knows the births, all the transmigrations from life to life.
The third boon is the secret of secrets, for it is the knowledge and realisation of Transcendence that is sought here. Beyond the individual lies the universal; is there anything beyond the universal? The release of the individual into the cosmic existence gives him the griefless life eternal: can the cosmos be rolled up and flung into something beyond? What would be the nature of that thing? What is there outside creation, outside manifestation, outside Maya, to use a latter day term? Is there existence or non-existence (utter dissolution or extinctionDeath in his supreme and absolute status)? King Yama did not choose to answer immediately and even endeavoured to dissuade Nachiketas from pursuing the question over which people were confounded, as he said. Evidently it was a much discussed problem in those days. Buddha was asked the same question and he evaded it, saying that the pragmatic man should attend to practical and immediate realities and not, waste time and energy in discussing things ultimate and beyond that have hardly any relation to the present and the actual.
000 - Humans in Universe, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of
Things as They are!"
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
In the twelve Siva temples are installed the emblems of the Great God of renunciation in His various aspects, worshipped daily with proper rites. Siva requires few articles of worship. White flowers and bel-leaves and a little Ganges water offered with devotion are enough to satisfy the benign Deity and win from Him the boon of liberation.
--- RADHAKANTA
--
The real organizer of the Samaj was Devendranath Tagore (1817-1905), the father of the poet Rabindranath. His physical and spiritual beauty, aristocratic aloofness, penetrating intellect, and poetic sensibility made him the foremost leader of the educated Bengalis. These addressed him by the respectful epithet of Maharshi, the "Great Seer". The Maharshi was a Sanskrit scholar and, unlike Raja Rammohan Roy, drew his inspiration entirely from the Upanishads. He was an implacable enemy of image worship ship and also fought to stop the infiltration of Christian ideas into the Samaj. He gave the movement its faith and ritual. Under his influence the Brahmo Samaj professed One Self-existent Supreme Being who had created the universe out of nothing, the God of Truth, Infinite Wisdom, Goodness, and Power, the Eternal and Omnipotent, the One without a Second. Man should love Him and do His will, believe in Him and worship Him, and thus merit salvation in the world to come.
By far the ablest leader of the Brahmo movement was Keshab Chandra Sen (1838-1884). Unlike Raja Rammohan Roy and Devendranath Tagore, Keshab was born of a middle-class Bengali family and had been brought up in an English school. He did not know Sanskrit and very soon broke away from the popular Hindu religion. Even at an early age he came under the spell of Christ and professed to have experienced the special favour of John the Baptist, Christ, and St. Paul. When he strove to introduce Christ to the Brahmo Samaj, a rupture became inevitable with Devendranath. In 1868 Keshab broke with the older leader and founded the Brahmo Samaj of India, Devendra retaining leadership of the first Brahmo Samaj, now called the Adi Samaj.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Tahuti, or Thoth, the Egyptian God of Wisdom.
Mosheh, Moses, the founder of the Hebrew system.
--
God of generation, and 13 is 1, the Phallic unity.
Daleth is the Yoni. And 91 is AMN (Amen), a form
--
God of Midnight, who bears the Sun through the
Underworld; but it is called the Stag-Beetle to emphasise
--
Baphomet is the mysterious name of the God of the
Templars.
--
Thoth, the God of Magick, is the inventor of speech;
Christ is the Logos.
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Though his children received proper attention from him, his real family, both during the Master's lifetime and after, consisted of saints, devotees, Sannysins and spiritual aspirants. His life exemplifies the Master's teaching that an ideal householder must be like a good maidservant of a family, loving and caring properly for the children of the house, but knowing always that her real home and children are elsewhere. During the Master's lifetime he spent all his Sundays and other holidays with him and his devotees, and besides listening to the holy talks and devotional music, practised meditation both on the Personal and the Impersonal aspects of God under the direct guidance of the Master. In the pages of the Gospel the reader gets a picture of M.'s spiritual relationship with the Master how from a hazy belief in the Impersonal God of the Brahmos, he was step by step brought to accept both Personality and Impersonality as the two aspects of the same Non-dual Being, how he was convinced of the manifestation of that Being as Gods, Goddesses and as Incarnations, and how he was established in a life that was both of a Jnni and of a Bhakta. This Jnni-Bhakta outlook and way of living became so dominant a feature of his life that Swami Raghavananda, who was very closely associated with him during his last six years, remarks: "Among those who lived with M. in latter days, some felt that he always lived in this constant and conscious union with God even with open eyes (i.e., even in waking consciousness)." (Swami Raghavananda's article on M. in Prabuddha Bharata vol. XXXVII. P. 442.)
Besides undergoing spiritual disciplines at the feet of the Master, M. used to go to holy places during the Master's lifetime itself and afterwards too as a part of his Sdhan.
01.11 - Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A similar compilation was published in the Arya, called The Eternal Wisdom (Les Paroles ternelles, in French) a portion of which appeared later on in book-form: that was more elaborate, the contents were arranged in such a way that no comments were needed, they were self-explanatory, divided as they were in chapters and sections and subsections with proper headings, the whole thing put in a logical and organised sequence. Huxley's compilation begins under the title of the Upanishadic text "That art Thou" with this saying of Eckhart: "The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more He is within, the more without". It will be interesting to note that the Arya compilation too starts with the same idea under the title "The God of All; the God who is in All", the first quotation being from Philolaus, "The Universe is a Unity".The Eternal Wisdom has an introduction called "The Song of Wisdom" which begins with this saying from the Book of Wisdom: "We fight to win sublime Wisdom; therefore men call us warriors".
Huxley gives only one quotation from Sri Aurobindo under the heading "God in the World". Here it is:
0 1957-01-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
You told me one day that I could be useful to you. Then, by chance, I came across this passage from Sri Aurobindo the other day: Everyone has in him something divine, something his own, a chance of perfection and strength in however small a sphere which God offers him to take or refuse.
Could you tell me, as a favor, what this particular thing is in me which may be useful to you and serve you? If I could only know what my real work is in this world All the conflicting impulses in me stem from my being like an unemployed force, like a being whose place has not yet been determined.
0 1958-07-06, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
You see, this is how it happened: theres this Ganesh2 We had a meditation (this was more than thirty years ago) in the room where Prosperity3 is now distributed. There were eight or ten of us, I believe. We used to make sentences with flowers; I arranged the flowers, and each one made a sentence with the different flowers I had put there. And one day when the subject of prosperity or wealth came up, I thought (they always say that Ganesh is the God of money, of fortune, of the worlds wealth), I thought, Isnt this whole story of the god with an elephant trunk merely a lot of human imagination? Thereupon, we meditated. And who should I see walk in and park himself in front of me but a living being, absolutely alive and luminous, with a trunk that long and smiling! So then, in my meditation, I said, Ah! So its true that you exist!Of course I exist! And you may ask me for whatever you wish, from a monetary standpoint, of course, and I will give it to you!
So I asked. And for about ten years, it poured in, like this (gesture of torrents). It was incredible. I would ask, and at the next Darshan, or a month or several days later, depending, there it was.
0 1958-07-25a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Lord God of Kindness
and Mercy.
0 1958-09-16 - OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Lord, God of kindness and mercy
Lord, God of sovereign oneness
Lord, God of beauty and harmony
Lord, God of power and realization
Lord, God of love and compassion
Lord, God of silence and contemplation
Lord, God of light and knowledge
Lord, God of life and immortality
Lord, God of youth and progress
Lord, God of abundance and plenitude
Lord, God of strength and health.
The words came afterwards, as if they had been superimposed upon the states of consciousness, grafted onto them. Some of the associations seem unexpected, but they were the exact expression of the states of consciousness in their order of unfolding. They came one after another, as if the contact was trying to become more complete. And the last was like a triumph. As soon as I finished writing (in writing, all this becomes rather flat), the impetus within was still alive and it gave me the sense of an all-conquering Truth. And the last mantra sprang forth:
--
Lord, God of victorious Truth!
Like a triumph. But I didnt write that one down because I did not want to spoil my impression.
0 1959-06-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Yama: the God of Death in the Hindu pantheon.
A caravansary, or Indian style shelter.
0 1960-05-16, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
You can be sure that the God youve created is a God of the ego whenever something within you insists, This is what I feel, this is what I think, this is what I see; its my way, my very ownits my way of being, my way of understanding, my relationship with the Divine, etc.
And then they say, I want to close my eyes and see nothing but Him I want nothing more of the outer world. And they forget theres Love! That is the great Secret, that which is behind the Existent and the Non-Existent, the Personal and the ImpersonalLove. Not a love between two things, two beings A love containing everything.
0 1960-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But its explained very well in Savitri! All these things have their laws and their conventions (and truly speaking, a really FORMIDABLE power is needed to change anything of their rights, for they have rightswhat they call laws) Sri Aurobindo explains this very well when Savitri, following Satyavan into death, argues with the God of Death.3 Its the Law, and who has the right to change the Law? he says. And then comes this wonderful passage at the end where she replies, My God can change it. And my God is a God of Love. Oh, how magnificent!
And by force of repeating this to him, he yields She replies in this way to EVERYTHING.
--
Yama: the God of Death. He is also the guardian of the Law.
Night of July 24, 1959.
0 1961-01-10, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
49To feel and love the God of beauty and good in the ugly and the evil, and still yearn in utter love to heal it of its ugliness and its evil, this is real virtue and morality.1
Do you have a question?
0 1961-01-22, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Later, on the 27th, Mother remarked: 'I was reading about this very thing yesterday in The Secret of the Veda, in the first hymn translated by Sri Aurobindo (the reference is to the colloquy between Indra and Agastya, Rig Veda I.170cf. The Secret of the Veda, Cent. Ed., X.241 ff.), and it helped me put my finger on the problem. In this hymn there is a dispute between Indra and the Rishi because the Rishi wants to progress too quickly without first passing through Indra [the God of the Mind], and Indra stops him; finally they reach an agreement. Sri Aurobindo's commentary is quite interesting: when one has the INDIVIDUAL power to go directly, but neglects the steps which are still necessary for the whole, for the universal movement, then one is stopped short. That is absolutely my experience.'
***
0 1962-01-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And to Theon, the God of the Jews and Christians was an Asura. This Asura wanted to be unique; and so he became the most terrible despot imaginable. Anatole France said the same thing (I now know that Anatole France had never read Theons story, but I cant imagine where he picked this up). Its in The Revolt of the Angels. He says that Satan is the true God and that Jehovah, the only God, is the monster. And when the angels wanted Satan to become the one and only God, Satan realized he was immediately taking on all Jehovahs failings! So he refused: Oh, nothank you very much! Its a wonderful story, and in exactly the same spirit as what Theon used to say. The very first thing I asked Anatole France (I told you I met him oncemutual friends introduced us), the first thing I asked him was, Have you ever read The Tradition? He said no. I explained why I had asked, and he was interested. He said his source was his own imagination. He had caught that idea intuitively.
Well, if you speak this way to philosophers and metaphysicians, theyll look at you as if to say, You must be a real simpleton to believe all that claptrap! But these things are not to be taken as concrete truths they are simply splendid images. Through them I really did come in contact, very concretely, with the truth of what caused the worlds distortion, much better than with all the Hindu stories, far more easily.
0 1962-03-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To begin with, I said that the vital is peopled by small entities, small formations, the remnants of human beings who have died. But there is a whole vital world which has nothing to do with that one, a world peopled by beings of the vital proper, beings of great power and even great beauty. Most people who dabble in occultism without having a deep enough spiritual life are immediately deluded by themsome even take them as the supreme God and worship them. Thats generally how religions are created. They are a great success. They are the supreme God of many a religion they are beings of the vital world, and can assume an appearance of overwhelming beauty. They are the biggest impostors in the world, and dangerous at that; it takes the spiritual instinct, the instinct of true spiritual purity, not to be deceived by them. Many religions and sects are founded on revelations and miracles, and every bit of it comes from vital beings.
Its one of the greatest problems in human life; I dont mean spiritual life, but the life of people who deal with the beyond.
0 1964-01-04, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ganapati, or Ganesh: the son of the supreme Mother, God of material knowledge and wealth. He is represented with an elephant's head.
Italics indicate words or sentences spoken by Mother in English.
0 1964-10-24a, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Basically, thats always what men ask of religions; the God of religion is a god who must do them favors: I believe in You, therefore You must do this for me (it isnt formulated so bluntly, but it is like that), It isnt the aspiration to be guided on the path in order to do exactly what should be done for the Transformation to take place. And thats what I was clearly told: It MUST NOT be miraculous powers. The power of the Help is there, fully, of course, but the miraculous power that does things without their being the result of a progress achieved, that must not be.
(Mother goes on copying her note)
0 1965-07-21, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
God of kindness and mercy,
OM, supreme Lord,
God of love and beatitude
When it came to beatitude all the cells seemed to be swollen.
0 1967-11-Prayers of the Consciousness of the Cells, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Om, Supreme Lord, God of kindness and mercy.
Om, Supreme Lord, God of love and beatitude.
I am tired of our infirmity, but it is not to rest that this body aspires, it aspires to the plenitude of Your consciousness, it aspires to the splendour of Your light, it aspires to the magnificence of Your powerabove all, it aspires to the glory of Your all-powerful and eternal love.
0 1968-09-07, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have told you many times, and couldnt repeat it too often, that we are not made of a piece. Within ourselves we have lots of states of being, and each state of being has its own life. All that is gathered together in a single body, as long as you have one, and acts through a single body; thats what gives you the sense of a single person, a single being. But there are many of them, and there are in particular concentrations on different planes: just as you have a physical being, you have a vital being, a mental being, a psychic being, and many others with all possible intermediaries. So when you leave your body, all those beings will scatter. Its only if you are a very advanced yogi and have been capable of unifying your being around the divine center that those beings remain linked together. If you havent been able to unify yourself, then at the time of death, all that will scatter: every being will go back to its own region. With the vital being, for example, your various desires will separate and each of them will go and chase its realization quite independently, because there will no longer be a physical being to hold them together. While if you have united your consciousness to the psychic consciousness, when you die you will remain conscious of your psychic being, and the psychic being will return to the psychic world which is a world of bliss, joy, peace, tranquillity, and growing knowledge. But if you have lived in your vital and all its impulses, each impulse will try to realize itself here and there. For instance, for the miser who was concentrated on his money, when he dies the part of his vital that was concerned with his money will hook on there and will keep watching over the money so no one takes it. People wont see him, but he is there nonetheless, and very unhappy if something happens to his dear money. Now, if you live exclusively in your physical consciousness (which is difficult, because, after all, you have thoughts and feelings), if you live exclusively in your physical, when the physical being disappears, you disappear along with it, its over. There is a spirit of the form: your form has a spirit that lives on for seven days after your death. The doctors have declared you dead, but the spirit of your form is alive, and not only alive but conscious in most cases. It lasts for seven to eight days, and after that, it too dissolves I am not talking about yogis, I am talking about ordinary people. Yogis have no laws, its quite different; for them the world is different. I am talking about ordinary people living an ordinary life; for them its like that. So the conclusion is that if you want to preserve your consciousness, it would be better to center it on a part of your being which is immortal; otherwise it will evaporate like a flame into thin air. And happily so, because if it were otherwise, there might be gods or kinds of superior men who would create hells and heavens as they do in their material imagination, inside which they would shut you up. (Question:) It is said that there is a God of death. Is it true? Yes. As for me, I call him a genius of death. I know him very well. And its an extraordinary organization. You cant imagine how organized it is! I think there are many of those genii of death, hundreds of them. I met at least two of them. One I met in France, the other in Japan, and they were very different. Which leads me to believe that depending on the mental culture, the education, the countries and beliefs, there must be different genii. But there are genii for all manifestations of Nature: there are genii of fire, genii of air, water, rain, wind; and there are genii of death. Any one genius of death is entitled to a certain number of dead every day. Its truly a fantastic organization. Its a sort of alliance between the vital forces and the forces of Nature. If, for example, he decided, Here is the number of people I am entitled to, say four or five, or six, or one or two (it varies from day to day), if he decided so many people would die, hell go straight and set himself up near the person whos going to die. But if you (not the person) happen to be conscious, if you see the genius going to the person but do not want him or her to die, then, if you have a certain occult power, you can tell him, No, I forbid you to take this person. Thats something which happened, not once but several times, in Japan and here. It wasnt the same genius. Which makes me say there must be many of them. If you can tell him, I forbid you to take this person and have the power to send him away, theres nothing he can do but go away; but he wont give up his due and will go elsewhere there will be a death elsewhere. (Question:) Some people, when they are about to die, are aware of it. Why dont they tell the genius to go away? Two things are needed. First, nothing in your being, no part of your being, should wish to die. That doesnt often happen. You always have, somewhere in you, a defeatist: something tired or disgusted, which has had enough, something lazy or which doesnt want to fight and says, Ah, well, let it be over, so much the better. Thats enoughyoure dead. But its a fact: if nothing, absolutely nothing in you consents to die, you will not die. For someone to die, there is always a second, if a hundredth part of a second, when he consents. If there isnt that second of consent, he will not die. But who is certain he doesnt have within himself, somewhere, a tiny bit of a defeatist which just yields and says, Oh well? Hence the need to unify oneself. Whatever the path we may follow, the subject we may study, we always reach the same result. The most important thing for an individual is to unify himself around his divine center; that way he becomes a real individual, master of himself and of his destiny. Otherwise, he is a plaything of the forces, which toss him about like a cork in a stream. He goes where he doesnt want to, is made to do what he doesnt want to, and finally he gets lost in a hole without any way to stop himself doing so. But if you are consciously organized, unified around the divine center, governed and led by it, you are the master of your destiny. Its worth trying. At any rate, I find its better to be the master rather than the slave. The feeling of being pulled by strings and being made to do things you may or may not want to do is a rather unpleasant sensation. Its quite irksome. Well, I dont know, I, for one, found it quite irksome even when I was a small child. When I was five, I began finding it wholly intolerable, and I sought a way for it to be otherwisewithout anyone being able to tell me anything. Because I knew no one capable of helping me, and I didnt have the luck you havesomeone who can tell you, Here is what you must do. There was no one to tell me. I had to find it all by myself. I found it. I began at the age of five. And you, its a long time since you were five?
Well cut out the end.
0 1969-08-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, oh! And you know, if you ask Y (its truthful people who told me), if you ask her, she says, The Bulletin belongs to the past, Sri Aurobindos teaching belongs to the past. While theyre in advance. And theyre so convinced of it! Shes chosen M. as the God of her new creation, so you understand
(silence)
0 1970-03-25, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I can tell you about my own experience. Until the age of about twenty-five, I only knew the God of religions, God as men made him, and I did not want him at any cost. I denied his existence with the certitude that if such a God existed, I detested him.
Around twenty-five, I found the inner God, and at the same time I learned that the God described by most Western religions was none other than the Great Adversary.
0 1970-07-11, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
"The Swami dematerialized his body in January or February 1874, leaving a promise that he would return at the time of the God of the vast Grace-Light."
Sri Aurobindo writes this about the chakra at the base of the spine: "The Muladhar is the centre of the physical consciousness proper, and all below in the body is the sheer physical, which as it goes downward becomes increasingly subconscient, but the real seat of the subconscient is below the body, as the real seat of the higher consciousness (superconscient) is above the body."
02.01 - A Vedic Story, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
One interesting point in the story is the choice of the gods who formed the search party. They were Mitra, Varuna and Yama. Varuna is the God of the vast consciousness (Brihat), the wide universal, the Infinite. His eye naturally penetrates everywhere and nothing can escape his notice. Mitra is harmony and rhythm of the infinity. Every individual element he embraces and he holds them all together in loving unionhis is the friendly tie of comradeship with all. Finally Yama is the master of the lower regions, the underworld of physical and material consciousness, where precisely Agni has taken refuge. Agni is within the jurisdiction of this trinity and it devolves upon them to tackle the truant god.
There is another point which requires clarification. As a reason for his nervousness and flight he alleges that greater people who preceded him had attempted the work, but evidently failed in the attempt; so how can he, a younger novice, dare to go the same way? Putting the imagery back to its psychological bearing, one play explain that the predecessors refer to the deities of the physical, vital and mental consciousness who ruled the earth before the emergence of the psychic or soul consciousness. It is precisely because of the failure or insufficiency of these anteriorin the evolutionary movementand inferior gods that Agni's service is being requisitioned. Mythologically also a parallelism is found in the Greek legends where it is said that the Olympian godsZeus and his companywere a younger generation that replaced, after of course a bloody warfare, their ancestors, the more ancient race of Kronos, the Titans. Titans were the Asuras and Rakshasas who reigned upon earth before the advent of the mentalsattwichuman being, Manu, as referred here.
05.12 - The Revealer and the Revelation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
According to the Dean the qualities themselves are God, the living God whom one can worship. The True, the Good and the Beautiful the Hellenic trinity he adores more than the Holy Trinity. "The God of religion is rather the revelation than the revealer. The source of revelation cannot be revealed: the ground of knowledge cannot be known".2 This, one might say, almost echoes the Upanishadic mantra, "How can one know the knower?" (Vijtram are kena vijnyt). The Upanishad says indeed that he who thinks he knows does not certainly know, but he who says he knows not is the one who knows; he knows who knows not, he knows not who knows. This simply means that God, the supreme Reality, is apprehended in and through other channels than mind and reason. It is a commonplace of spiritual experience that the Spirit is directly, immediately realisable, although its indirect approaches are walled in by a thousand appearances. A direct non-rational experience is not however something vague, nebulous, inarticulate; it is even more concrete, precise and tangible than a sense experience or a rational idea. Not only so, a suprarational knowledge can be grasped and presented by the intellect if it is purified and illumined. A brain mind under the sway of the senses and the outgoing impulse is an obstacle: it disturbs and prevents the higher Light. But passive and transparent it can be a faithful mirror, a docile instrument and channel. That is why the Upanishad says in the first instance that the supreme Reality cannot be seized by the reason, but in another context, it declares that the mind, the intelligence too has to hold and realise the same. Normally intellect acts as a lid, but it can also be a reflector or projector.
One knows the Revealer for one becomes it. Knowledge by identity is the characteristic of spiritual knowledge. If one keeps oneself separate and seeks to apprehend the Divine as an object outside, the Divine escapes or is caught only by the trail it leaves, its echoes and shadows, its apparent qualities and attributes. But one with the Divine, the being realises and possesses it in full consciousness, the Revealer reveals himself as such (vute tanum swm) and not merely in or as his phenomenal formulations.
05.12 - The Soul and its Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The higher Gods, like those, for example, envisaged in the Veda, may be considered each as an emanation of one or other of these Divine Aspects. They are dwellers of Swar or the Overmind. Varuna seems to be an emanation of Mahavira, a son of Maheshwari: for he is pre-eminently the God of the pure and vast consciousness who releases us from the triple bonds and shows us the winding way into the embrace of the infinite Mother. His associate, Mitra, is the lord of love and harmony, evidently an emanation of Pradyumna (or Mahalakshmi). Other gods of the same category are Bhaga and Soma. The Balarama or Mahakali aspect is manifested in Aryaman: Rudra being another form of the same. And Mahasaraswati (or Aniruddha) must have given birth to and inspired the Ribhus, who are artisans of divinity. The Puranic trinityBrahma, Vishnu and Shivawith lndra as the fourth member forms a parallel system embodying a similar conception.
Another tradition gives the Four Supernals as (1) Light or Consciousness, (2) Truth or Knowledge, (3) Life and (4) Love. The tradition also says that the beings representing these four fundamental principles of creation were the first and earliest gods that emanated from the Supreme Divine, and that as they separated themselves from their source and from each other, each followed his own independent line of fulfilment, they lost their divinity and turned into their oppositesLight became obscurity, Consciousness unconsciousness or the inconscient, Truth became falsehood and Knowledge ignorance, Life became death and finally Love and Delight became suffering and hatred. These are the fallen angels, the Asuras that deny their divine essence and now rule the world. They have possessed mankind and are controlling earthly existence. They too have their emanations, forces and beings that are born out of them and serve them in their various degrees of power. Men talk and act inspired and impelled by these beings and when they do so, they lose their humanity and become worse than animals.
08.36 - Buddha and Shankara, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is no doubt that Buddha had the first part of the experience; but he never thought of the second part, for it was contrary to his own theory. That theory was that one must escape. And it is obvious that there is only one way of escaping and that is to die. And yet, as he had said it himself very well, one may die and yet remain attached to life and continue to be in the cycle of rebirths without having the liberation. As a matter of fact, it is through the successive sojourns upon earth that one grows till one arrives at this liberation. For him the ideal is that where the world exists no longer. It is as if he accused God of having committed an error by creating a world and the only thing to be done is to repair the error by annulling it. Naturally, being thoroughly reasonable and logical, he did not admit the existence of God. But then by whom was the error committed? When and how did it come about? He never answered these questionings. He simply said that the world began with desire and with the end of desire it must end.
He was on the verge of saying that the world was purely subjective, that is to say, a collective illusion, and if the illusion ceased the world would also cease. But he did not go so far. It was Shankara who took up the line and completed the teaching.
1.002 - The Heifer, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
133. Or were you witnesses when death approached Jacob, and he said to his sons, “What will you worship after Me?” They said, “We will worship your God, and the God of your fathers, Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac; One God; and to Him we submit.”
134. That was a community that has passed; for them is what they have earned, and for you is what you have earned; and you will not be questioned about what they used to do.
1.004 - Women, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
32. Do not covet what God has given to some of you in preference to others. For men is a share of what they have earned, and for women is a share of what they have earned. And ask God of his bounty. God has knowledge of everything.
33. To everyone We have assigned beneficiaries in what is left by parents and relatives. Those with whom you have made an agreement, give them their share. God is Witness over all things.
10.06 - Looking around with Craziness, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
My sea-foaming God of laughter,
Krishna is proud of my love,
10.07 - The Demon, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Sanharib Sanharib is the God of paradise
Destroy heaven, cremation will be 6
1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Lastly, all work with fire. Fire internal, inherent and latent; fire radiatory and emanative; fire generated, assimilated and radiated; fire vivifying stimulating, and destroying; fire transmitted, reflected, and absorbed; fire, the basis of all life; fire, the essence of all existence; fire, the means of development, and the impulse behind all evolutionary process; fire, the builder, the preserver and the constructor; fire, the originator, the process and the goal; fire the purifier and the consumer. The God of Fire and the fire of God interacting upon each other, till all fires blend and blaze and till all that exists, is passed through the firefrom a solar system to an antand emerges as a triple perfection. Fire then passes out from the ring-pass-not as perfected essence, whether essence emerging from the human ring-pass-not, the planetary ring-pass-not or the solar. The wheel of fire turns and all within that wheel is subjected to the threefold flame, and eventually stands perfected.
III. THE FUNCTION OF THE ETHERIC BODY
1.00 - Main, #The Book of Certitude, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
Endowments dedicated to charity revert to God, the Revealer of Signs. None hath the right to dispose of them without leave from Him Who is the Dawning-place of Revelation. After Him, this authority shall pass to the Aghsan, and after them to the House of Justice-should it be established in the world by then-that they may use these endowments for the benefit of the Places which have been exalted in this Cause, and for whatsoever hath been enjoined upon them by Him Who is the God of might and power. Otherwise, the endowments shall revert to the people of Baha who speak not except by His leave and judge not save in accordance with what God hath decreed in this Tablet-lo, they are the champions of victory betwixt heaven and earth-that they may use them in the manner that hath been laid down in the Book by God, the Mighty, the Bountiful.
Lament not in your hours of trial, neither rejoice therein; seek ye the Middle Way which is the remembrance of Me in your afflictions and reflection over that which may befall you in future. Thus informeth you He Who is the Omniscient, He Who is aware.
Shave not your heads; God hath adorned them with hair, and in this there are signs from the Lord of creation to those who reflect upon the requirements of nature. He, verily, is the God of strength and wisdom. Notwithstanding, it is not seemly to let the hair pass beyond the limit of the ears. Thus hath it been decreed by Him Who is the Lord of all worlds.
Exile and imprisonment are decreed for the thief, and, on the third offence, place ye a mark upon his brow so that, thus identified, he may not be accepted in the cities of God and His countries. Beware lest, through compassion, ye neglect to carry out the statutes of the religion of God; do that which hath been bidden you by Him Who is compassionate and merciful. We school you with the rod of wisdom and laws, like unto the father who educateth his son, and this for naught but the protection of your own selves and the elevation of your stations. By My life, were ye to discover what We have desired for you in revealing Our holy laws, ye would offer up your very souls for this sacred, this mighty, and most exalted Faith.
--
The inscription on these rings should read, for men: "Unto God belongeth all that is in the heavens and on the earth and whatsoever is between them, and He, in truth, hath knowledge of all things"; and for women: "Unto God belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth and whatsoever is between them, and He, in truth, is potent over all things". These are the verses that were revealed aforetime, but lo, the Point of the Bayan now calleth out, exclaiming, "O Best-Beloved of the worlds! Reveal Thou in their stead such words as will waft the fragrance of Thy gracious favours over all mankind. We have announced unto everyone that one single word from Thee excelleth all that hath been sent down in the Bayan. Thou, indeed, hast power to do what pleaseth Thee. Deprive not Thy servants of the overflowing bounties of the ocean of Thy mercy! Thou, in truth, art He Whose grace is infinite." Behold, We have hearkened to His call, and now fulfil His wish. He, verily, is the Best-Beloved, the Answerer of prayers. If the following verse, which hath at this moment been sent down by God, be engraved upon the burial-rings of both men and women, it shall be better for them; We, of a certainty, are the Supreme Ordainer: "I came forth from God, and return unto Him, detached from all save Him, holding fast to His Name, the Merciful, the Compassionate." Thus doth the Lord single out whomsoever He desireth for a bounty from His presence. He is, in very truth, the God of might and power.
130
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Such are the words with which My Forerunner hath extolled My Being, could ye but understand. Whoso reflecteth upon these verses, and realizeth what hidden pearls have been enshrined within them, will, by the righteousness of God, perceive the fragrance of the All-Merciful wafting from the direction of this Prison and will, with his whole heart, hasten unto Him with such ardent longing that the hosts of earth and heaven would be powerless to deter him. Say: This is a Revelation around which every proof and testimony doth circle. Thus hath it been sent down by your Lord, the God of Mercy, if ye be of them that judge aright. Say: This is the very soul of all Scriptures which hath been breathed into the Pen of the Most High, causing all created beings to be dumbfounded, save only those who have been enraptured by the gentle breezes of My loving-kindness and the sweet savours of My bounties which have pervaded the whole of creation.
137
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O people of the Bayan, I adjure you by your Lord, the God of mercy, to look with the eye of fairness upon this utterance which hath been sent down through the power of truth, and not to be of those who see the testimony of God yet reject and deny it. They, in truth, are of those who will assuredly perish. The Point of the Bayan hath explicitly made mention in this verse of the exaltation of My Cause before His own Cause; unto this will testify every just and understanding mind. As ye can readily witness in this day, its exaltation is such as none can deny save those whose eyes are drunken in this mortal life and whom a humiliating chastisement awaiteth in the life to come.
141
1.00 - Preliminary Remarks, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
In the Bhagavadgita a vision of this class is naturally attributed to the apparition of Vishnu, who was the local God of the period. Anna Kingsford, who had dabbled in Hebrew mysticism, and was a feminist, got an almost identical vision; but called the divine figure which she saw alternately Adonai and Maria.
Now this woman, though handicapped by a brain that was a mass of putrid pulp, and a complete lack of social status, education, and moral character, did more in the religious world than any other person had done for generations. She, and she alone, made Theosophy possible, and without Theosophy the world-wide interest in similar matters could never have been aroused. This interest is to the Law of Thelema what the preaching of John the Baptist was to Christianity.
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
we also meet in Jakob Bohme, ill accords with the God of the
New Testament, the loving Father in heaven, and for this
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20 Jakob Bohme, too, knew a God of the "Wrath -fire," a real
Deus absconditus. He was able to bridge the profound and
1.01 - BOOK THE FIRST, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
The God of Nature did his soul inspire,
Or Earth, but new divided from the sky,
--
The God of light, aspiring to her bed,
Hopes what he seeks, with flattering fancies fed;
1.01 - Foreward, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That was the general aspect of the ancient worship in Greece, Rome, India and among other ancient peoples. But in all these countries these gods began to assume a higher, a psychological function; Pallas Athene who may have been originally a Dawn-Goddess springing in flames from the head of Zeus, the Sky-God, Dyaus of the Veda, has in classical Greece a higher function and was identified by the Romans with their Minerva, the Goddess of learning and wisdom; similarly, Saraswati, a river Goddess, becomes in India the goddess of wisdom, learning and the arts and crafts: all the Greek deities have undergone a change in this direction - Apollo, the Sun-God, has become a God of poetry and prophecy, Hephaestus the Fire-God a divine smith, God of labour. In India the process was arrested half-way, and the Vedic Gods developed their psychological functions but retained more fixedly their external character and for higher purposes gave place to a new pantheon. They had to give precedence to Puranic deities who developed out of the early company but assumed larger cosmic functions, Vishnu, Rudra, Brahma - developing from the Vedic Brihaspati, or Brahmanaspati, - Shiva, Lakshmi, Durga. Thus in India the change in the gods was less complete, the earlier deities became the inferior divinities of the Puranic pantheon and this was largely due to the survival of the Rig Veda in which their psychological and their external functions co-existed and are both given a powerful emphasis; there was no such early literary record to maintain the original features of the Gods of Greece and Rome.
This change was evidently due to a cultural development in these early peoples who became progressively more mentalised and less engrossed in the physical life as they advanced in civilisation and needed to read into their religion and their deities finer and subtler aspects which would support their more highly mentalised concepts and interests and find for them a true spiritual being or some celestial figure as their support and sanction.
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profusely! A Naturalistic interpreter might as well argue that as Indra is a God of the sky,
the primitive poet might well believe that rain was the perspiration of Indra's horses.
1.01 - MAPS OF EXPERIENCE - OBJECT AND MEANING, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
marriage]. From their union was born En-lil, the God of the atmosphere. Another fragment informs us
that the latter separated his parents.... The cosmogonic theme of the separation of sky and earth is also
1.01 - On renunciation of the world, #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
20. If an earthly king were to call us and request us to serve in his presence, we should not delay for other orders, we should not make excuses, but we should leave everything and eagerly go to him. Let us then be on the alert, lest when the King of kings and Lord of lords and God of gods calls us to this heavenly office, we cry off out of sloth and cowardice and find ourselves without excuse at the Last Judgment. It is possible to walk, even when tied with the fetters of worldly affairs and iron cares, but only with difficulty. For even those who have iron chains on their feet can often walk; but they are continually stumbling and getting hurt. An unmarried man, who is only tied to the world by business affairs, is like one who has fetters on his hands; and therefore when he wishes to enter the monastic life he has nothing to hinder him. But the married man is like one who is bound hand and foot. (So when he wants to run he cannot.)2
Some people living carelessly in the world have asked me: We have wives and are beset with social cares, and how can we lead the solitary life? I replied to them: Do all the good you can; do not speak evil of anyone; do not steal from anyone; do not lie to anyone; do not be arrogant towards anyone; do not hate any one; be sure you go to church; be compassionate to the needy; do not offend anyone; do not wreck another mans domestic happiness;3 and be content with what your own wives can give you. If you behave in this way you will not be far from the Kingdom of Heaven.
1.01 - Prayer, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
But this danger exists only in that stage of Bhakti which is called the preparatory (Gauni). When Bhakti has become ripe and has passed into that form which is called the supreme (Par), no more is there any fear of these hideous manifestations of fanaticism; that soul which is overpowered by this higher form of Bhakti is too near the God of Love to become an instrument for the diffusion of hatred.
It is not given to all of us to be harmonious in the building up of our characters in this life: yet we know that that character is of the noblest type in which all these three knowledge and love and Yoga are harmoniously fused. Three things are necessary for a bird to fly the two wings and the tail as a rudder for steering. Jnana (Knowledge) is the one wing, Bhakti (Love) is the other, and Yoga is the tail that keeps up the balance. For those who cannot pursue all these three forms of worship together in harmony and take up, therefore, Bhakti alone as their way, it is necessary always to remember that forms and ceremonials, though absolutely necessary for the progressive soul, have no other value than taking us on to that state in which we feel the most intense love to God.
1.01 - SAMADHI PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
cannot be any God of this universe, because if there were He
must be a Soul, and a Soul must be one of two things, either
1.01 - Soul and God, #The Red Book Liber Novus, #unset, #Zen
51. Black Book 2 continues: I must tell myself most clearly: does He use the image of a child that lives in every man's' soul? Were Horus, Tages, and Christ not children? Dionysus and Heracles were also divine children. Did Christ, the God of man, not call himself the son of man? What was his innermost thought in doing so? Should the daughter of man be God's name? (p. 9).
52. The Draft continues: How thick the earlier darkness was! How impetuous and how egotistic my passion was, subjugated by all the daemons of ambition, the desire for glory, greed, uncharitableness, and zeal! How ignorant I was at the time! Life tore me away, and I deliberately moved away from you and I have done so for all these years. I recognize how good all of this was. But I thought that you were lost, even though I sometimes thought that I was lost. But you were not lost. I went on the way of the day. You went invisibly with me and guided me step by step, putting the pieces together meaningfully (pp. 20-21).
1.01 - THAT ARE THOU, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Philo was the exponent of the Hellenistic Mystery Religion which grew up, as Professor Goodenough has shown, among the Jews of the Dispersion, between about 200 B. C. and 100 A. D. Reinterpreting the Pentateuch in terms of a metaphysical system derived from Platonism, Neo-Pythagoreanism and Stoicism, Philo transformed the wholly transcendental and almost anthropomorphically personal God of the Old Testament into the immanent-transcendent Absolute Mind of the Perennial Philosophy. But even from the orthodox scribes and Pharisees of that momentous century which witnessed, along with the dissemination of Philos doctrines, the first beginnings of Christianity and the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem, even from the guardians of the Law we hear significantly mystical utterances. Hillel, the great rabbi whose teachings on humility and the love of God and man read like an earlier, cruder version of some of the Gospel sermons, is reported to have spoken these words to an assemblage in the courts of the Temple. If I am here, (it is Jehovah who is speaking through the mouth of his prophet) everyone is here. If I am not here, no one is here.
The Beloved is all in all; the lover merely veils Him; The Beloved is all that lives, the lover a dead thing.
1.020 - Ta-Ha, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
88. So he produced for them a calf—a mere body which lowed. And they said, “This is your god, and the God of Moses, but he has forgotten.”
89. Did they not see that it cannot return a word to them, and has no power to harm them or benefit them?
10.24 - Savitri, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But there are intermediaries. The fullness of the realisation depends on the fullness of the incarnation. The Evil in the body, the Evil in the vital, the Evil in the mind are, whatever their virulence and intransigence, subsidiary agents, for they serve only a mightier Lord. The first original Sin is Death, the God of Denial, of non-existence. That is the very sourcefons et origo the fount and origin of all the misfortune, the fate that terrestrial life involves. This demon, this anti-Divine has to be tracked and destroyed or dissolved into its original origin. This is the Nihil that negates the DivineAsat that seeks to nullify Sat and that has created this world of ignorance and misery, that is to say, in its outward pragmatic form. So Savitri sees the one source and knows the remedy. Therefore she pursues death, pursues him to the end, that is, to the end of death. The luminous energy of the Supreme faces now its own shadow and blazes it up. The flaming Light corrodes into the substance of the darkness and makes of it her own transfigured substance. This then is the gift that Savitri brings to man, the Divine's own immortality, transfusing the mortality that reigns now upon earth.
In view of the necessity of the age, for the crucial, critical and, in a way, final consummation of Nature's evolutionary urge, the Divine Himself has to come down in the fullness of His divinity; for only then can the earth be radically changed and wholly transformed. In the beginning the Divine once came down, but by sacrificing Himself, being pulverised, scattered and lost in the infinitesimals of a universal, material, unconsciousness. Once again He has to come down, but this time in the supreme glory of His victorious Luminosity.
1.028 - History, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
38. Pharaoh said, “O nobles, I know of no god for you other than me. So fire-up the bricks for me O Hamaan, and build me a tower, that I may ascend to the God of Moses, though I think he is a liar.”
39. He and his troops acted arrogantly in the land, with no justification. They thought they would not be returned to Us.
1.02 - BOOK THE SECOND, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
Still anxious for his son, the God of day,
To make him proof against the burning ray,
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
marriage]. From their union was born En-lil, the God of the atmosphere. Another fragment informs us
that the latter separated his parents.... The cosmogonic theme of the separation of sky and earth is also
--
equally at odds: the little God of earth is also mortal worm, courageous and craven, heroic and deceitful,
possessed of great and dangerous potential, knowing good and evil. The unknown cannot be described, by
--
parents, An (Sky) from Ki (Earth) by En-lil, their son and God of the atmosphere. The ancient Egyptians
regarded the situation similarly:
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they were separated by Shu, the God of the atmosphere [in other similar traditions, Ptah]. From their
union were born Osiris and Isis, Seth and Nephthys [who will be discussed later].218
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form; derived from a tradition at least two thousand years older] the God of the fresh-water sea, Apsu,
was killed and his widow Tiamat, goddess of the bitter or salt waters, threatened the gods with
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transcending that of any individual who is currently possessed. Pan, the Greek God of nature,
produced/represented fear (produced panic); Ares or the Roman Mars, war-like fury and aggression. We
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unknown is inevitably the God of the known (or his progenitor and dependent, the knower). It is the
known that serves as protection from the unknown whether this is understood or not. Ea kills Apsu,
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and Asaru, the God of resurrection, who causes the green herb to spring up.257 Whatever Marduk
represents is also considered central to creation of rich abundance,258 to mercy,259 and justice,260 to familial
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will be assimilated to Apophis [the God of primordial chaos], and the pharaohs victory will reproduce
Res triumph [emphasis added].267
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container of the primordial element.280 The God of Islam, Judaism and Christianity, Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and the end, the first and the last (Revelations 22:13), places himself outside of or beyond
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environment). The God of war (Ares, say, for the sake of argument) might emerge within one child, or
both in which case a fight will ensue. The winner assuming there is one may then be more likely to be
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which is to say, whether her behavior invokes the goddess of love or the God of fear will depend on
her current position in a given social hierarchy. If she is single, and acting in context, she may be
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[Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the
hand of Saul;
1.02 - The Divine Teacher, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
When we thus understand the conception of Avatarhood, we see that whether for the fundamental teaching of the Gita, our present subject, or for spiritual life generally the external aspect has only a secondary importance. Such controversies as the one that has raged in Europe over the historicity of Christ, would seem to a spiritually-minded Indian largely a waste of time; he would concede to it a considerable historical, but hardly any religious importance; for what does it matter in the end whether a Jesus son of the carpenter Joseph was actually born in Nazareth or Bethlehem, lived and taught and was done to death on a real or trumped-up charge of sedition, so long as we can know by spiritual experience the inner Christ, live uplifted in the light of his teaching and escape from the yoke of the natural Law by that atonement of man with God of which the crucifixion is the symbol? If the Christ, God made man, lives within our spiritual being, it would seem to matter little whether or not a son of
Mary physically lived and suffered and died in Judea. So too the Krishna who matters to us is the eternal incarnation of the
1.02 - THE NATURE OF THE GROUND, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Mahayana Buddhism teaches these same metaphysical doctrines in terms of the Three Bodies of Buddha the absolute Dharmakaya, known also as the Primordial Buddha, or Mind, or the Clear Light of the Void; the Sambhogakaya, corresponding to Isvara or the personal God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam; and finally the Nirmanakaya, the material body, in which the Logos is incarnated upon earth as a living, historical Buddha.
Among the Sufis, Al Haqq, the Real, seems to be thought of as the abyss of Godhead underlying the personal Allah, while the Prophet is taken out of history and regarded as the incarnation of the Logos.
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In Eckharts phrase, God, the creator and perpetual re-creator of the world, becomes and disbecomes. In other words He is, to some extent at least, in time. A temporal God might have the nature of the traditional Hebrew God of the Old Testament; or He might be a limited deity of the kind described by certain philosophical theologians of the present century; or alternatively He might be an emergent God, starting unspiritually at Alpha and becoming gradually more divine as the aeons rolled on towards some hypothetical Omega. (Why the movement should be towards more and better rather than less and worse, upwards rather than downwards or in undulations, onwards rather than round and round, one really doesnt know. There seems to be no reason why a God who is exclusively temporala God who merely becomes and is ungrounded in eternityshould not be as completely at the mercy of time as is the individual mind apart from the spirit. A God who becomes is a God who also disbecomes, and it is the disbecoming which may ultimately prevail, so that the last state of emergent deity may be worse than the first.)
The ground in which the multifarious and time-bound psyche is rooted is a simple, timeless awareness. By making ourselves pure in heart and poor in spirit we can discover and be identified with this awareness. In the spirit we not only have, but are, the unitive knowledge of the divine Ground.
1.02 - The Philosophy of Ishvara, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
Who is Ishvara? Janmdyasya yatah "From whom is the birth, continuation, and dissolution of the universe," He is Ishvara "the Eternal, the Pure, the Ever-Free, the Almighty, the AllKnowing, the All-Merciful, the Teacher of all teachers"; and above all, Sa Ishvarah anirvachaniyapremasvarupah "He the Lord is, of His own nature, inexpressible Love." These certainly are the definitions of a Personal God. Are there then two Gods the "Not this, not this," the Sat-chit-nanda, the Existence-Knowledge-Bliss of the philosopher, and this God of Love of the Bhakta? No, it is the same Sat-chit-ananda who is also the God of Love, the impersonal and personal in one. It has always to be understood that the Personal God worshipped by the Bhakta is not separate or different from the Brahman. All is Brahman, the One without a second; only the Brahman, as unity or absolute, is too much of an abstraction to be loved and worshipped; so the Bhakta chooses the relative aspect of Brahman, that is, Ishvara, the Supreme Ruler. To use a simile: Brahman is as the clay or substance out of which an infinite variety of articles are fashioned. As clay, they are all one; but form or manifestation differentiates them. Before every one of them was made, they all existed potentially in the clay, and, of course, they are identical substantially; but when formed, and so long as the form remains, they are separate and different; the clay-mouse can never become a clay-elephant, because, as manifestations, form alone makes them what they are, though as unformed clay they are all one.
Ishvara is the highest manifestation of the Absolute Reality, or in other words, the highest possible reading of the Absolute by the human mind. Creation is eternal, and so also is Ishvara.
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(Bhagavata) "Unto them appeared Krishna with a smile on His lotus face, clad in yellow robes and having garlands on, the embodied conqueror (in beauty) of the God of love."
Now to go back to our Acharya Shankara: "Those", he says, "who by worshipping the qualified Brahman attain conjunction with the Supreme Ruler, preserving their own mind is their glory limited or unlimited? This doubt arising, we get as an argument: Their glory should be unlimited because of the scriptural texts, 'They attain their own kingdom', 'To him all the gods offer worship',
1.02 - The Refusal of the Call, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
The myths and folk tales of the whole world make clear that the refusal is essentially a refusal to give up what one takes to be one's own interest. The future is regarded not in terms of an unremitting series of deaths and births, but as though one's present system of ideals, virtues, goals, and advantages were to be fixed and made secure. King Minos retained the divine bull, when the sacrifice would have signified submission to the will of the God of his society; for he preferred what he conceived to be his economic advantage. Thus he failed to advance into the liferole that he had assumed and we have seen with what calamitous effect. The divinity itself became his terror; for, obviously, if one is oneself one's god, then God himself, the will of God, the power that would destroy one's egocentric system, becomes a monster.
In the above section, and throughout the following pages, I have made no attempt to exhaust the evidence. To have done so (after the manner, for example, of Frazer, in The Golden Bough) would have enlarged my chapters prodigiously without making the main line of the monomyth any clearer. Instead, I am giving in each section a few striking examples from a number of widely scattered, repre sentative traditions. During the course of the work I shift my sources gradually, so that the reader may savor the peculiar qualities of the various styles. By the time he comes to the last page, he will have reviewed an immense number of mythologies. Should he wish to prove whether all might have been cited for every section of the monomyth, he need only turn to some of the source volumes enumerated in the footnotes and ramble through a few of the multitude of tales.
1.03 - Sympathetic Magic, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
the cactus, the gourd of the God of Fire; but inasmuch as the pure
fire cannot benefit the impure, men and women must not only remain
1.03 - The Sephiros, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Atus of Thoth, the latter being the Egyptian God of Wis- dom. Court de Gebelin (Paris, 1781) remarks : " Were we to hear that there exists in our day a work of the ancient
Egyptians, one of their books which had escaped the flames which devoured their superb libraries, and which contains their purest doctrines. . . . Were we to add that this book for several centuries had been accessible to everyone, would it not be surprising ? And would not that surprise be at its height were it asserted that people have never suspected it
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Tahuti or Thoth is attri buted to this Sephirah of Wisdom, for he was the God of writing, learning, and magick. Thoth is represented as an Ibis-headed God, and occasionally has an ape or baboon in attendance. Pallas Athena, insofar as she is the giver of intellectual gifts and one in whom power and wisdom were harmoniously blended, the Goddess of
Wisdom who sprang full-armed from the brain of Zeus, is attri buted to Chokmah. In Greek mythology, she appeared as the preserver of human life, and instituted the ancient court of the Areopagus at Athens. She is also Minerva in
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Greek Kronos, the God of Time. She is Frigg, the wife of
50
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the correspondence of Poseidon the ruler of the seas in mythology, and Jupiter, or rather that aspect of him which was originally, in earliest Rome, an elemental or tutelary divinity, worshipped as the God of Rain, Storms, and
54
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Thunder. His Greek equivalent would be Zeus armed with thunder and lightning, the shaking of whose segis produces storm and tempest. The Hindu attri bution is Indra, lord of fire and lightning. Amoun is the Egyptian God, and Thor, with the thunderbolt in his hand, is the Scandinavian cor- respondence. JEger, the God of the Sea, in the Norse Sagas, might also be placed in this category ; and the legends imply that he was skilled also in magick. U , then, we find is the planet governing that operation of practical Magick called the Formula of Tetragrammaton.
Its Angels are said to be the " Brilliant Ones ", and its
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The gods of Geburah are Mars who, even in popular par- lance, is the accredited God of War, and Ares of the
Greeks, who is depicted as delighting in the din and roar of
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Its gods are Ra, the Egyptian solar god who is sometimes represented as a hawk-headed divinity and at others by a simple solar disk with two wings attached ; the Sun God of the Greeks, Apollo, in whom the brightest side of the
56
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Bacchus, another name of Dionysius for purposes of worship, is the God of intoxication, of inspiration, a giver
THE SEPHIROS 57
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Sephirah, an understanding of Hermes, the Greek God attri buted to it, will be helpful. He is a God of Prudence and Cunning, Shrewdness and Sagacity, and is regarded as the author of a variety of inventions such as the alphabet, mathematics, astronomy, and weights and measures. He also presided over commerce and good luck, and was the messenger and herald of the Olympians.
According to Virgil, the gods employed him to conduct the souls of the deceased from the upper to the lower worlds.
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Its Egyptian God is Shu, who was the God of Space, represented as lifting up Nuit, the Queen of Heaven, from off the body of Seb, the Earth. Its Hindu equivalent is
Ganesha, the elephant God who breaks down all obstacles, and supports the universe while himself standing on a tortoise. Diana was the Goddess of Light and in the
1.040 - Forgiver, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
37. The pathways of the heavens, so that I may glance at the God of Moses; though I think he is lying.” Thus Pharaoh’s evil deeds were made to appear good to him, and he was averted from the path. Pharaoh's guile was only in defeat.
38. The one who had believed said, “O my people, follow me, and I will guide you to the path of rectitude.”
1.04 - BOOK THE FOURTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
A God, and, if a God, the God of love;
But if a mortal, blest thy nurse's breast,
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Great God of waters, whose extended sway
Is next to his, whom Heav'n and Earth obey:
1.04 - GOD IN THE WORLD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Some God of power to cloud his better sense.
Today we recognize and condemn the first kind of imperialism; but most of us ignore the existence and even the very possibility of the second. And yet the author of Erewhon was certainly not a fool, and now that we are paying the appalling price for our much touted conquest of Nature his book seems more than ever topical. And Butler was not the only nineteenth-century sceptic in regard to Inevitable Progress. A generation or more before him, Alfred de Vigny was writing about the new technological marvel of his days, the steam enginewriting in a tone very different from the enthusiastic roarings and trumpetings of his great contemporary, Victor Hugo.
1.04 - On blessed and ever-memorable obedience, #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
At a distance of a mile from the great monastery was a place called the prison, deprived of every comfort. There neither smoke, nor wine, nor oil in the food, nor anything else could ever be seen but only bread and light vegetables. Here the pastor shut up, without permission to go out, those who fell into sin after entering the brotherhood; and not all together, but each in a separate and special cell, or at most in pairs. And he kept them there until the Lord gave him assurance of the amendment of each one. Over them he placed the sub-prior, a great man called Isaac, who required of those entrusted to him almost unceasing prayer. And to prevent despondency they had a large quantity of palm leaves.3 Such is the life, such is the rule, such is the conduct of those who truly seek the face of the God of Jacob!4
To admire the labours of the saints is good; to emulate them wins salvation; but to wish suddenly to imitate their life in every point is unreasonable and impossible.
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
pure, and incorruptible, a symbol for civilized value itself. Light is Apollo, the sun-king, God of
enlightenment, clarity and focus; spirit, opposed to black matter; bright masculinity, opposed to the dark
and unconscious feminine. Light is Marduk, the Babylonian hero, God of the morning and spring day, who
struggles against Tiamat, monstrous goddess of death and the night; is Horus, who fights against evil, and
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offered the option of remaining in that state by the God of Death. The offer is rejected: Buddha returns to
the world, accepting his mortal condition, so that he can disseminate the knowledge he has acquired. It is
1.04 - The Gods of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
These are negative and a priori considerations, but they are supported by more positive indications. The other Aryan religions which are most akin in conception to the Vedic and seem originally to have used the same names for their deities, present themselves to us even at their earliest vaguely historic stage as moralised religions. Their gods had not only distinct moral attri butes, but represented moral & subjective functions. Apollo is not only the God of the sun or of pestilencein Homer indeed Haelios (Saurya) & not Apollo is the Sun God but the divine master of prophecy and poetry; Athene has lost any naturalistic significance she may ever have had and is a pure moral force, the goddess of strong intelligence, force guided by brain; Ares is the lord of battles, not a storm wind; Artemis, if she is the Moon, is also goddess of the free hunting life and of virginity; Aphrodite is only the goddess of Love & Beauty There is therefore a strong moral element in the cult & there are clear subjective notions attached to the divine personalities. But this is not all. There was not only a moral element in the Greek religion as known & practised by the layman, there was also a mystic element and an esoteric belief & practice practised by the initiated. The mysteries of Eleusis, the Thracian rites connected with the name of Orpheus, the Phrygian worship of Cybele, even the Bacchic rites rested on a mystic symbolism which gave a deep internal meaning to the exterior circumstances of creed & cult. Nor was this a modern excrescence; for its origins were lost to the Greeks in a legendary antiquity. Indeed, if we took the trouble to understand alien & primitive mentalities instead of judging & interpreting them by our own standards, I think we should find an element of mysticism even in savage rites & beliefs. The question at any rate may fairly be put, Were the Vedic Rishis, thinkers of a race which has shown itself otherwise the greatest & earliest mystics & moralisers in historical times, the most obstinately spiritual, theosophic & metaphysical of nations, so far behind the Orphic & Homeric Greeks as to be wholly Pagan & naturalistic in their creed, or was their religion too moralised & subjective, were their ceremonies too supported by an esoteric symbolism?
The immediate or at any rate the earliest known successors of the Rishis, the compilers of the Brahmanas, the writers of theUpanishads give a clear & definite answer to this question.The Upanishads everywhere rest their highly spiritual & deeply mystic doctrines on the Veda.We read in the Isha Upanishad of Surya as the Sun God, but it is the Sun of spiritual illumination, of Agni as the Fire, but it is the inner fire that burns up all sin & crookedness. In the Kena Indra, Agni & Vayu seek to know the supreme Brahman and their greatness is estimated by the nearness with which they touched him,nedistham pasparsha. Uma the daughter of Himavan, the Woman, who reveals the truth to them is clearly enough no natural phenomenon. In the Brihadaranyaka, the most profound, subtle & mystical of human scriptures, the gods & Titans are the masters, respectively, of good and of evil. In the Upanishads generally the word devah is used as almost synonymous with the forces & functions of sense, mind & intellect. The element of symbolism is equally clear. To the terms of the Vedic ritual, to their very syllables a profound significance is everywhere attached; several incidents related in the Upanishads show the deep sense then & before entertained that the sacrifices had a spiritual meaning which must be known if they were to be conducted with full profit or even with perfect safety. The Brahmanas everywhere are at pains to bring out a minute symbolism in the least circumstances of the ritual, in the clarified butter, the sacred grass, the dish, the ladle. Moreover, we see even in the earliest Upanishads already developed the firm outlines and minute details of an extraordinary psychology, physics, cosmology which demand an ancient development and centuries of Yogic practice and mystic speculation to account for their perfect form & clearness. This psychology, this physics, this cosmology persist almost unchanged through the whole history of Hinduism. We meet them in the Puranas; they are the foundation of the Tantra; they are still obscurely practised in various systems of Yoga. And throughout, they have rested on a declared Vedic foundation. The Pranava, the Gayatri, the three Vyahritis, the five sheaths, the five (or seven) psychological strata, (bhumi, kshiti of the Vedas), the worlds that await us, the gods who help & the demons who hinder go back to Vedic origins.All this may be a later mystic misconception of the hymns & their ritual, but the other hypothesis of direct & genuine derivation is also possible. If there was no common origin, if Greek & Indian separated during the naturalistic period of the common religion supposed to be recorded in the Vedas it is surprising that even the little we know of Greek rites & mysteries should show us ideas coincident with those of Indian Tantra & Yoga.
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(12) The mantra consists of gayatra, brahma and arka, the formulation of thought into rhythmic speech to bring about a spiritual force or result, the filling of the soul (brahma) with the idea & name of the God of the mantra, the use of the mantra for effectuation of the external object or the activity desired.
(13) The tantra is composed of neshtra, savanam, potra & hotra, the intensifying of the vasu or material (internal or external) so as to prepare it for activity, the production of it in a of it to the god or for action.
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The master word of the address to the Aswins is the verb chanasyatam, take your delight. The Aswins, as I understand them, are the masters of strength, youth, joy, swiftness, pleasure, rapture, the pride and glory of existence, and may almost be described as the twin gods of youth and joy. All the epithets applied to them here support this view. They are dravatpani subhaspati, the swift-footed masters of weal, of happiness and good fortune; they are purubhuja, much enjoying; their office is to take and give delight, chanasyatam. So runs the first verse, Aswin yajwaririsho dravatpani subhaspati, Purubhuja chanasyatam. O Aswins, cries Madhuchchhanda, I am in the full rush, the full ecstasy of the sacrificial action, O swift-footed, much-enjoying masters of happiness, take in me your delight. Again they are purudansasa, wide-distributing, nara, strong. O strong wide-distributing Aswins, continues the singer, with your bright-flashing (or brilliantly-forceful) understanding take pleasure in the words (of the mantra) which are now firmly settled (in the mind). Aswina purudansasa nara shaviraya dhiya, Dhishnya vanatam girah. Again we have the stress on things subjective, intellectual and spiritual. The extreme importance of the mantra, the inspired & potent word in the old Vedic religion is known nor has it diminished in later Hinduism. The mantra in Yoga is only effective when it has settled into the mind, is asina, has taken its seat there and become spontaneous; it is then that divine power enters into, takes possession of it and the mantra itself becomes one with the God of the mantra and does his works in the soul and body. This, as every Yogin knows, is one of the fundamental ideas not only in the Rajayogic practice but in almost all paths of spiritual discipline. Here we have the very word that can most appropriately express this settling in of the mantra, dhishnya, combined with the word girah. And we know that the gods in the Veda are called girvanah, those who delight in the mantra; Indra, the God of mental force, is girvahas, he who supports or bears the mantra. Why should Nature gods delight in speech or the God of thunder & rain be the supporter or bearer of any kind of speech? The hymns? But what is meant by bearing the hymns? We have to give unnatural meanings to vanas & vahas, if we wish to avoid this plain indication. In the next verse the epithets are dasra, bountiful, which, like wide-distributing is again an epithet appropriate to the givers of happiness, weal and youth, rudravartani, fierce & impetuous in all their ways, and Nasatya, a word of doubtful meaning which, for philological reasons, I take to mean gods of movement.As the movement indicated by this and kindred words n, (natare), especially meant a gliding, floating, swimming movement, the Aswins came to be especially the protectors of ships & sailors, and it is in this capacity that we find Castor & Polydeuces (Purudansas) acting, their Western counterparts, the brothers of Helen (Sarama), the swift riders of the Roman legend. O givers, O lords of free movement, runs the closing verse of this invocation, come to the outpourings of my nectar, be ye fierce in action;I feel full of youthful vigour, I have prepared the sacred grass,if that indeed be the true & early meaning of barhis. Dasra yuvakavah suta nasatya vriktabarhishah, Ayatam rudravartani. It is an intense rapture of the soul (rudravartani) which Madhuchchhandas asks first from the gods.Therefore his first call is to the Aswins.
Next, it is to Indra that he turns. I have already said that in my view Indra is the master of mental force. Let us see whether there is anything here to contradict the hypothesis. Indra yahi chitrabhano suta ime tu ayavah, Anwibhis tana putasah. Indrayahi dhiyeshito viprajutah sutavatah Upa brahmani vaghatah. Indrayahi tutujana upa brahmani harivah Sute dadhishwa nas chanah. There are several important words here that are doubtful in their sense, anwi, tana, vaghatah, brahmani; but none of them are of importance for our present purpose except brahmani. For reasons I shall give in the proper place I do not accept Brahma in the Veda as meaning speech of any kind, but as either soul or a mantra of the kind afterwards called dhyana, the object of which was meditation and formation in the soul of the divine Power meditated on whether in an image or in his qualities. It is immaterial which sense we take here. Indra, sings the Rishi, arrive, O thou of rich and varied light, here are these life-streams poured forth, purified, with vital powers, with substance. Arrive, O Indra, controlled by the understanding, impelled forward in various directions to my soul faculties, I who am now full of strength and flourishing increase. Arrive, O Indra, with protection to my soul faculties, O dweller in the brilliance, confirm our delight in the nectar poured. It seems to me that the remarkable descriptions dhiyeshito viprajutah are absolutely conclusive, that they prove the presence of a subjective Nature Power, not a God of rain & tempest, & prove especially a mind-god. What is it but mental force which comes controlled by the understanding and is impelled forward by it in various directions? What else is it that at the same time protects by its might the growing & increasing soul faculties from impairing & corrupting attack and confirms, keeps safe & continuous the delight which the Aswins have brought with them? The epithets chitrabhano, harivas become at once intelligible and appropriate; the God of mental force has indeed a rich and varied light, is indeed a dweller in the brilliance. The progress of the thought is clear. Madhuchchhanda, as a result of Yogic practice, is in a state of spiritual & physical exaltation; he has poured out the nectar of vitality; he is full of strength & ecstasy This is the sacrifice he has prepared for the gods. He wishes it to be prolonged, perhaps to be made, if it may now be, permanent. The Aswins are called to give & take the delight, Indra to supply & preserve that mental force which will sustain the delight otherwise in danger of being exhausted & sinking by its own fierceness rapidly consuming its material in the soul faculties. The state and the movement are one of which every Yogin knows.
But he is not content with the inner sacrifice. He wishes to pour out this strength & joy in action on the world, on his fellows, on the peoples, therefore he calls to the Visve Devah to come, A gata!all the gods in general who help man and busy themselves in supporting his multitudinous & manifold action. They are kindly, omasas, they are charshanidhrito, holders or supporters of all our actions, especially actions that require effort, (it is in this sense that I take charshani, again on good philological grounds), they are to distribute this nectar to all or to divide it among themselves for the action,dasvanso may have either force,for Madhuchchhanda wishes not only to possess, but to give, to distribute, he is dashush. Omasas charshanidhrito visve devasa a gata, daswanso dashushah sutam. He goes on, Visve devaso apturah sutam a ganta turnayah Usra iva swasarani. Visve devaso asridha ehimayaso adruhah, Medham jushanta vahnayah. O you all-gods who are energetic in works, come to the nectar distilled, ye swift ones, (or, come swiftly), like calves to their own stalls,(so at least we must translate this last phrase, till we can get the real meaning, for I do not believe this is the real or, at any rate, the only meaning). O you all-gods unfaltering, with wide capacity of strength, ye who harm not, attach yourselves to the offering as its supporters. And then come the lines about Saraswati. For although Indra can sustain for a moment or for a time he is at present a mental, not an ideal force; it is Saraswati full of the vijnana, of mahas, guiding by it the understanding in all its ways who can give to all these gods the supporting knowledge, light and truth which will confirm and uphold the delight, the mental strength & supply inexhaustibly from the Ocean of Mahas the beneficent & joy-giving action,Saraswati, goddess of inspiration, the flowing goddess who is the intermediary & channel by which divine truth, divine joy, divine being descend through the door of knowledge into this human receptacle. In a word, she is our inspirer, our awakener, our lurer towards Immortality. It is immortality that Madhuchchhandas prepares for himself & the people who do sacrifice to Heaven, devayantah. The Soma-streams he speaks of are evidently no intoxicating vegetable juices; he calls them ayavah, life-forces; & elsewhere amritam, nectar of immortality; somasah, wine-draughts of bliss & internal well being. It is the clear Yogic idea of the amritam, the divine nectar which flows into the system at a certain stage of Yogic practice & gives pure health, pure strength & pure physical joy to the body as a basis for a pure mental & spiritual vigour and activity.
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The characteristics of Varuna in the Veda have given pause even to its naturalistic interpreters and compelled them to admit the presence of moral ideas and a subjective element in the Rishis conception of their divinities. They admit it grudgingly and attempt to give it as crude and primitive an appearance as possible, but the moral & supernatural functions of Varuna are undeniable. Yet Varuna is the Greek Ouranos, which is simply & plainly the sky, Akasha. Ouranos in Greek myth is a colourless presence, parent by his union with Earth, Akasha with Prithivi, of all beings but especially of Kronos & the Titans, the elder gods, the first masters of heaven. There is no resemblance here to Varuna. Farther to complicate the task of the modern mythologists, Varuna in later Sanscrit has fallen from his skies & become the God of the Ocean. By what extraordinary chemical process of the imagination was the God of the sky converted into the God of the Ocean? Because both are blue, one is driven to suppose! That would be material enough and crude enough to satisfy the firmest believer in the intellectual crudity & semi-savagery of the Vedic Rishis. But let us leave aside the shadowy Greek Ouranos and look a little from our own standpoint at this mighty Vedic Varuna.
We get our first mention of Varuna at the end of the second hymn in the Rigveda, the hymn of Madhuchchhandas in which he calls, as in the third, on several gods, first to Vayu, then to Vayu and Indra together, last, Varuna and Mitra. Arrive, he says, O Vayu, O beautiful one, lo these Soma-powers in their array (is it not a battle-array?), protect them, hear their call! O Vayu, strongly thy lovers woo thee with prayers (or, desires), they have distilled the nectar, they have found their strength (or, they know the day?). O Vayu, thy abounding stream moves for the giver, it is wide for the drinking of the Soma-juice. O Indra & Vayu, here are the outpourings, come to them with outputtings of strength, the powers of delight desire you both. Thou, O Vayu, awake, and Indra, to the outpourings of the Soma, you who are rich in power of your plenty; so (that is, rich in power) come to me, for the foe has attacked. Come O Vayu, and Indra, to the distiller of the nectar, expel the foe, swiftly hither strong by the understanding. And then comes the closing call to Mitra & Varuna. I call Mitra of purified discernment and Varuna who destroys the foe, they who effect a bright and gracious understanding. By Law of Truth, Mitra and Varuna, who by the Truth increase and to the Truth attain, enjoy a mighty strength. Mitra and Varuna, the seers, born in Force, dwellers in the Vast, uphold Daksha (the discerning intelligence) at his work.
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Indra and Varuna are called to give victory, because both of them are samrat. The words samrat & swarat have in Veda an ascertained philosophical sense.One is swarat when, having self-mastery & self-knowledge, & being king over his whole system, physical, vital, mental & spiritual, free in his being, [one] is able to guide entirely the harmonious action of that being. Swarajya is spiritual Freedom. One is Samrat when one is master of the laws of being, ritam, rituh, vratani, and can therefore control all forces & creatures. Samrajya is divine Rule resembling the power of God over his world. Varuna especially is Samrat, master of the Law which he follows, governor of the heavens & all they contain, Raja Varuna, Varuna the King as he is often styled by Sunahshepa and other Rishis. He too, like Indra & Agni & the Visvadevas, is an upholder & supporter of mens actions, dharta charshaninam. Finally in the fifth sloka a distinction is drawn between Indra and Varuna of great importance for our purpose. The Rishi wishes, by their protection, to rise to the height of the inner Energies (yuvaku shachinam) and have the full vigour of right thoughts (yuvaku sumatinam) because they give then that fullness of inner plenty (vajadavnam) which is the first condition of enduring calm & perfection & then he says, Indrah sahasradavnam, Varunah shansyanam kratur bhavati ukthyah. Indra is the master-strength, desirable indeed, (ukthya, an object of prayer, of longing and aspiration) of one class of those boons (vara, varyani) for which the Rishis praise him, Varuna is the master-strength, equally desirable, of another class of these Vedic blessings. Those which Indra brings, give force, sahasram, the forceful being that is strong to endure & strong to overcome; those that attend the grace of Varuna are of a loftier & more ample description, they are shansya. The word shansa is frequently used; it is one of the fixed terms of Veda. Shall we translate it praise, the sense most suitable to the ritual explanation, the sense which the finally dominant ritualistic school gave to so many of the fixed terms of Veda? In that case Varuna must be urushansa, because he is widely praised, Agni narashansa because he is strongly praised or praised by men,ought not a wicked or cruel man to be nrishansa because he is praised by men?the Rishis call repeatedly on the gods to protect their praise, & Varuna here must be master of things that are praiseworthy. But these renderings can only be accepted, if we consent to the theory of the Rishis as semi-savage poets, feeble of brain, vague in speech, pointless in their style, using language for barbaric ornament rather than to express ideas. Here for instance there is a very powerful indicated contrast, indicated by the grammatical structure, the order & the rhythm, by the singular kratur bhavati, by the separation of Indra & Varuna who have hitherto been coupled, by the assignment of each governing nominative to its governed genitive and a careful balanced order of words, first giving the master Indra then his province sahasradavnam, exactly balancing them in the second half of the first line the master Varuna & then his province shansyanam, and the contrast thus pointed, in the closing pada of the Gayatri all the words that in their application are common at once to all these four separated & contrasted words in the first line. Here is no careless writer, but a style careful, full of economy, reserve, point, force, and the thought must surely correspond. But what is the contrast forced on us with such a marshalling of the stylists resources? That Indras boons are force-giving, Varunas praiseworthy, excellent, auspicious, what you will? There is not only a pointless contrast, but no contrast at all. No, shansa & shansya must be important, definite, pregnant Vedic terms expressing some prominent idea of the Vedic system. I shall show elsewhere that shansa is in its essential meaning self-expression, the bringing out of our sat or being that which is latent in it and manifesting it in our nature, in speech, in our general impulse & action. It has the connotation of self-expression, aspiration, temperament, expression of our ideas in speech; then divulgation, publication, praiseor in another direction, cursing. Varuna is urushansa because he is the master of wide self-expression, wide aspirations, a wide, calm & spacious temperament, Agni narashansa because he is master of strong self-expression, strong aspirations, a prevailing, forceful & masterful temperament;nrishansa had originally the same sense, but was afterwards diverted to express the fault to which such a temper is prone,tyranny, wrath & cruelty; the Rishis call to the gods to protect their shansa, that which by their yoga & yajna they have been able to bring out in themselves of being, faculty, power, joy,their self-expression. Similarly, shansya here means all that belongs to self-expression, all that is wide, noble, ample in the growth of a soul. It will follow from this rendering that Indra is a God of force, Varuna rather a God of being and as it appears from other epithets, of being when it is calm, noble, wide, self-knowing, self-mastering, moving freely in harmony with the Law of things because it is aware of that Law and accepts it. In that acceptance is his mighty strength; therefore is he even more than the gods of force the king, the giver of internal & external victory, rule, empire, samrajya to his votaries. This is Varuna.
We see the results & the conditions of the action ofVaruna in the four remaining verses. By their protection we have safety from attack, sanema, safety for our shansa, our rayah, our radhas, by the force of Indra, by the protecting greatness of Varuna against which passion & disturbance cast themselves in vain, only to be destroyed. This safety & this settled ananda or delight, we use for deep meditation, ni dhimahi, we go deep into ourselves and the object we have in view in our meditation is prarechanam, the Greek katharsis, the cleansing of the system mental, bodily, vital, of all that is impure, defective, disturbing, inharmonious. Syad uta prarechanam! In this work of purification we are sure to be obstructed by the powers that oppose all healthful change; but Indra & Varuna are to give us victory, jigyushas kritam. The final result of the successful purification is described in the eighth sloka. The powers of the understanding, its various faculties & movements, dhiyah, delivered from self-will & rebellion, become obedient to Indra & Varuna; obedient to Varuna, they move according to the truth & law, the ritam; obedient to Indra they fulfil with that passivity in activity, which we seek by Yoga, all the works to which mental force can apply itself when it is in harmony with Varuna & the ritam. The result is sharma, peace. Nothing is more remarkable in the Veda than the exactness with which hymn after hymn describes with a marvellous simplicity & lucidity the physical & psychological processes through which Indian Yoga proceeds. The process, the progression, the successive movements of the soul here described are exactly what the Yogin experiences today so many thousands of years after the Veda was revealed. No wonder, it is regarded as eternal truth, not the expression of any particular mind, not paurusheya but impersonal, divine & revealed.
1.04 - The Paths, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Its Gods are Athena, insofar as she protected the State from its enemies ; and Shiva and Mars. Minerva is also an attri bution, for she was believed to have guided men in war, where victory was to be gained by prudence, courage, and perseverance. The Egyptian Mentu is also a God of War, depicted with the head of a Hawk. The Scandinavian Tyr is an attri bution to this Path, for he is the most daring and intrepid of the Gods, and it is he who dispenses valour, courage, and honour in the Wars.
The Spear is the weapon appropriate ; the flower Ger- anium, and the jewel Ruby because of its colour.
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Greeks. Apollo also is a correspondence, but only in that aspect of him as the Diviner, having the power to communi- cate the gift of prophecy to both gods and men. Nietzsche, in his Birth of Tragedy, says of Apollo that not only is he a God of all shaping energies, but also the soothsaying god.
" He who (as the etymology of the name indicates) is the
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Auromoth, combining the idea of the God of the Setting
Sun, the King of the Gods, and a purely elemental divinity.
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God, insofar as he was the God of sexual fecundity and fruitfulness. Pan, when represented as the goat of the flock " raving and raping, ripping and rending everlast- ing ", is attri buted here, too.
Bacchus, the jovial representative of the reproductive and intoxicating power of Nature, is another correspondence.
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Geburah, although on a less spiritual plane. Horus, the hawk-headed Lord of Strength, Mentu, the God of War of the Egyptians ; Ares and Mars of the Greeks and Romans, and all other warrior gods, are the deity attri butions.
Krishna, as the charioteer to the Kurukshetra battle, is the
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" are the handmaidens of Odin, and the God of War sends his thoughts and his will to the carnage of the battlefield in the form of mighty armed women, in the same manner as he sends his ravens all over the earth ".
Its metal is Iron, its animals the Bear and Wolf, its jewels the Ruby and any other red stone ; its plants Rue, Pepper, and Absin the ; its perfumes Pepper and all pungent odours, and its colour Red.
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Apostles of Christ at Pentecost - and all its attri butions are fiery. Agni is the Hindu God of Tejas, the tattva or element of fire. Hades is the Greek God of the fiery nether regions, as also are Vulcan and Pluto. Its Egyptian gods denote fiery elemental divinities, Thoum-sesh-neith, Kabeshunt, and Tarpesheth.
Its plants are the Red Poppy and Hibiscus. Knowing the above attri butions one well understands and feels the plaintive cry of the poet : " Crown me with poppy and hibiscus ". The jewel of this Path is the fire Opal, and its perfumes Olibanum and all fiery odours. The Sepher
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personification of the earth. There is also the Norse Vidar, whose name indicates that he is the imperishable nature of the world, likened to the immensity of the indestructible forests, and like the Greek Pan he is the representative of the silent, secret, and peaceful groves. Anderson, again, implies that Vidar is the eternal, wild, original nature, the God of imperishable matter. Saturn, an early Italian god, is an earth deity too, he having taught the people agri- culture, suppressed their savagery, and introduced them to civilization.
In connection with (a), however, we have Sebek, the crocodile god, signifying the grossest form of matter, and such correspondences as Assafcetida and all evil odours, and the Hindu Tamo-gunam, the quality of slothfulness and inertia.
1.04 - What Arjuna Saw - the Dark Side of the Force, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
and yet unified is visible in the body of the God of Gods.
Arjuna, in ecstasy, cries out: Thou art the supreme Immu-
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However, in the absoluteness of the God of Gods there
is also the opposite side, the terrible dark side completing
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gist, but not a God of Good and Love whom we can wor-
ship, only a God of might to whose law we must submit
or whose caprice we may hope to propitiate. For one who
1.05 - Adam Kadmon, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Manas, which, together with Atma-Buddhi, is the God of a high and noble rank, who incarnates in the brute forms of the early races of mankind in order to endow them with mind. The Manasaputras have both Solar and Mercurial connections. The Vedantists call this principle the Vijnana- mayakosa, the Sheath of Knowledge ; and its correspond- ing Chakra in the Yogas is the Yisuddhi, said to be located in the subtle body on the spine at a point opposite to the larynx.
This trinity of the original spiritual Monad, its Creative vehicle, and Intuition, form a synthetic integral Unity which philosophically may be denominated the Transcen- dental Ego. It is a Unity in a unique manner, and its attri butes are summed up in the three Hindu hypostases, more true, perhaps, of the Sephiros than the parts of man, of Sat, Chit, Ananda ; Absolute Being, Wisdom, and Bliss.
1.05 - Christ, A Symbol of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
long before he did. If the devil fell away from God of his own
free will, this proves firstly that evil was in the world before
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not good. The God of Christianity, on the other hand, is only
good. There is no denying that Clement's theology helps us to
1.05 - Ritam, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
We do not find the word ritam in the hymns that follow and are ascribed to Sunahshepa Ajigarti and Hiranyastupa Angirasa, but the first two hymns of Sunahshepa are addressed mainly or entirely to the god Varuna and we glean from them certain indications which are of considerable interest & importance in connection with Varuna & the Truth. He is hymned by Sunahshepa as the master of wide vision, uruchakshasam, the God of august, boundless & universal knowledge. He has made a wide path for Surya,the Vedic God of ideal knowledge, as I shall suggest,to follow in his journeyings; he has made places for him to set his feet in the unfooted vasts of the infinite. He is hymned also as the punisher of sin and the deliverer from sinKritam chid enah pra mumugdhi asmat. And loose from us the sin we have done. Kshayann asmabhyam Asura prachet rjann ennsi sisrathah kritni, Dwelling in us, O Mighty One, O King, in conscious knowledge, cleave from us the sins of our doing.
Now in the 18th hymn, a hymn of Medhatithi to Brahmanaspati, I have passed over designedly a verse in which we have a direct reference to that goddess Dakshina whom I suppose to be the female energy of Daksha, the divine master of the viveka
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Soma is the lord of the immortalising nectar, he is the God of Ananda, the divine bliss which belongs to the Amrita or divine nature of Sacchidananda and is its foundation. The most high seat of the truth, Mahas, the pure ideal principle which links the kingdom of Immortality to our mortal worlds, is peopled with the children of Immortalitywe recall at once the phrase of the Upanishad, visve amritasya putrh, all ye children of immortality & the lord of Ananda is to take them into his being through knowledge, the head, through enjoyment, the navel. By Ritam, the ideal Truth, the Rishi ascends through the gates [of] Ananda, divine beatitude, out of this death into the kingdom of Immortality, mrityum trtw amritam asnute.
And then, to complete this preliminary foundation of our knowledge of the Ritam, we can go back to a neglected passage of the thirteenth hymn, to a couple of riks in which the secret of the Veda, the true symbolic nature of Vedic ritual & Vedic sacrifice, start out clearly before the eyes.
1.05 - Splitting of the Spirit, #The Red Book Liber Novus, #unset, #Zen
Everything that becomes too old becomes evil, the same is true of your highest. Learn from the suffering of the crucified God that one can also betray and crucify a God, namely the God of the old year. If a God ceases being the way of life, he must fall secretly. 109
The God becomes sick if he oversteps the height of the zenith.
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
For Christ, God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. (Matthew 22:32). He pushes morality
beyond strict reliance on codified tradition the explicit Law of Moses not because such tradition was
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of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of
Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. (Genesis 28:12-13).
194
1.06 - Agni and the Truth, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To the sixth Rik the commentator gives a very awkward and abrupt construction and trivial turn of thought which breaks entirely the flow of the verse. "That good (in the shape of varied wealth) which thou shalt effect for the giver, thine is that. This is true, O Angiras," that is to say, there can be no doubt about this fact, for if Agni does good to the giver by providing him with wealth, he in turn will perform fresh sacrifices to Agni, and thus the good of the sacrificer becomes the good of the god. Here again it would be better to render, "The good that thou wilt do for the giver, that is that truth of thee, O Angiras," for we thus get at once a simpler sense and construction and an explanation of the epithet, satya, true, as applied to the God of the sacrificial fire. This is the truth of Agni that to the giver of the sacrifice he surely gives good in return.
The seventh verse offers no difficulty to the ritualistic interpretation except the curious phrase, "we come bearing the prostration." Sayana explains that bearing here means simply doing and he renders, "To thee day by day we, by night and by day, come with the thought performing the prostration." In the eighth verse he takes r.tasya in the sense of truth and explains it as the true fruit of the ritual. "To thee shining, the protector of the sacrifices, manifesting always their truth (that is, their inevitable fruit), increasing in thy own house." Again, it would be simpler and better to take r.tam in the sense of sacrifice and to render, "To thee shining out in the sacrifices, protector of the rite, ever luminous, increasing in thy own house." The "own house" of Agni, says the commentator, is the place of sacrifice and this is indeed called frequently enough in Sanskrit, "the house of Agni".
1.06 - Being Human and the Copernican Principle, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
the decline of the angry and vengeful God of the Hebrews,
whom Christs Father of Love had not succeeded in replac
1.06 - Hymns of Parashara, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
knowledge to the peoples. He is like the God of the Wine,
born of the Truth and a creator. He is like a cow with her
1.06 - Of imperfections with respect to spiritual gluttony., #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
5. These persons, in communicating, strive with every nerve to obtain some kind of sensible sweetness and pleasure, instead of humbly doing reverence and giving praise within themselves to God. And in such wise do they devote themselves to this that, when they have received no pleasure or sweetness in the senses, they think that they have accomplished nothing at all. This is to judge God very unworthily; they have not realized that the least of the benefits which come from this Most Holy Sacrament is that which concerns the senses; and that the invisible part of the grace that it bestows is much greater; for, in order that they may look at it with the eyes of faith, God oftentimes withholds from them these other consolations and sweetnesses of sense. And thus they desire to feel and taste God as though He were comprehensible by them and accessible to them, not only in this, but likewise in other spiritual practices. All this is very great imperfection and completely opposed to the nature of God, since it is Impurity in faith.
6. These persons have the same defect as regards the practice of prayer, for they think that all the business of prayer consists in experiencing sensible pleasure and devotion and they strive to obtain this by great effort,47 wearying and fatiguing their faculties and their heads; and when they have not found this pleasure they become greatly discouraged, thinking that they have accomplished nothing.
1.06 - The Literal Qabalah, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
After having written the above, the writer referred to that section of The Secret Doctrine dealing with Fohat, and discovered that Blavatsky gives Eros, the young God of
Love, as a correspondence of Fohat ! The writer had completely forgotten this fact when investigating this word by number. Moreover, Blavatsky writes elsewhere that
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This can be proved in another manner, by analysing each letter of the word separately, q F is 3 Mars, with its implicit connotation of Strength and Brute Energy, y O is Priapus, the Greek God of sexual fecundity and fruit- fulness. n H is V Aries, in which <$ Mars is exalted. Its
Tarot attri bution was the Emperor wherein was found con- cealed the symbol of Sulphur, or the Hindu Gunam of
1.06 - THE MASTER WITH THE BRAHMO DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
iva Himself, the God of Gods, sings Her praise with His five mouths!
The Master was beside himself with love for the Divine Mother. He sang with fiery enthusiasm:
1.06 - The Sign of the Fishes, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
the God of the Naassenes and the God of Apelles there is evi-
dently a close relationship, and also, it appears, with Yahweh,
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of Pepi I mentions a God of resurrection with four faces: "Homage to thee, O
thou who hast four faces. . . . Thou art endowed with a soul, and thou dost
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was Elogabal of Emera, the God of the emperor Heliogabalus, who caused the
hieros gamos of his god to be celebrated with Urania of Carthage, also called
1.07 - Incarnate Human Gods, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
No God of wood or stone, but godhead true.
Therefore to thee we pray."
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that he alone is God of the earth, for which reason if it rains when
he does not wish it to do so, or is too hot, he shoots arrows at the
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The Baganda of Central Africa believed in a God of Lake Nyanza, who
sometimes took up his abode in a man or woman. The incarnate god was
1.07 - On mourning which causes joy., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
When our soul leaves this world we shall not be blamed for not having worked miracles, or for not having been theologians or contemplatives. But we shall certainly have to give an account to God of why we have not unceasingly mourned.
1 St. Luke xiv, 35.
1.08 - Origin of Rudra: his becoming eight Rudras, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
It was the Rudra of this description that married Satī, who abandoned her corporeal existence in consequence of the displeasure of Dakṣa[5]. She afterwards was the daughter of Himavān (the snowy mountains) by Menā; and in that character, as the only Umā, the mighty Bhava again married her[6]. The divinities Dhātā and Vidhātā were born to Bhrigu by Khyāti, as was a daughter, Śrī, the wife of Nārāyaṇa, the God of gods[7].
Maitreya said:-
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kara (Śiva); and Śrī is the bride of Śiva (Gaurī). Keśava, oh Maitreya, is the sun; and his radiance is the lotus-seated goddess. Viṣṇu is the tribe of progenitors (Pitrigana); Padma. is their bride (Swadhā), the eternal bestower of nutriment. Śrī is the heavens; Viṣṇu, who is one with all things, is wide extended space. The lord of Śrī is the moon; she is his unfading light. She is called the moving principle of the world; he, the wind which bloweth every where. Govinda is the ocean; Lakṣmī its shore. Lakṣmī is the consort of Indra (Indrānī); Madhusūdana is Devendra. The holder of the discus (Viṣṇu) is Yama (the regent of Tartarus); the lotus-throned goddess is his dusky spouse (Dhūmornā). Śrī is wealth; Śridhara (Viṣṇu) is himself the God of riches (Kuvera). Lakṣmī, illustrious Brahman, is Gaurī; and Keśava, is the deity of ocean (Varuna). Śrī is the host of heaven (Devasenā); the deity of war, her lord, is Hari. The wielder of the mace is resistance; the power to oppose is Śrī. Lakṣmī is the Kāṣṭhā and the Kalā; Hari the Nimeṣa and the Muhūrtta. Lakṣmī is the light; and Hari, who is all, and lord of all, the lamp. She, the mother of the world, is the creeping vine; and Viṣṇu the tree round which she clings. She is the night; the god who is armed with the mace and discus is the day. He, the bestower of blessings, is the bridegroom; the lotus-throned goddess is the bride.
The god is one with all male-the goddess one with all female, rivers. The lotus-eyed deity is the standard; the goddess seated on a lotus the banner. Lakṣmī is cupidity; Nārāyaṇa, the master of the world, is covetousness. Oh thou who knowest what righteousness is, Govinda is love; and Lakṣmī, his gentle spouse, is pleasure. But why thus diffusely enumerate their presence: it is enough to say, in a word, that of gods, animals, and men, Hari is all that is called male; Lakṣmī is all that is termed female: there is nothing else than they.
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"In the meanwhile, the virtuous daughter of the mountain king, observing the departure of the divinities, addressed her lord, the God of living beings, and said-Umā spake-'Whither, oh lord, have the gods, preceded by Indra, this day departed? Tell me truly, oh thou who knowest all truth, for a great doubt perplexes me.' Maheśvara spake; Illustrious goddess, the excellent patriarch Dakṣa celebrates the sacrifice of a horse, and thither the gods repair.' Devī spake; Why then, most mighty god, dost thou also not proceed to this solemnity? by what hinderance is thy progress thither impeded?' Maheśvara spake; 'This is the contrivance, mighty queen, of all the gods, that in all sacrifices no portion should be assigned to me. In consequence of an arrangement formerly devised, the gods allow me, of right, no participation of sacrificial offerings.' Devī spake; 'The lord god lives in all bodily forms, and his might is eminent through his superior faculties; he is unsurpassable, he is unapproachable, in splendour and glory and power. That such as he should be excluded from his share of oblations, fills me with deep sorrow, and a trembling, oh sinless, seizes upon my frame. Shall I now practise bounty, restraint, or penance, so that my lord, who is inconceivable, may obtain a share, a half or a third portion, of the sacrifice[4]?'
"Then the mighty and incomprehensible deity, being pleased, said to his bride, thus agitated; and speaking; 'Slender-waisted queen of the gods, thou knowest not the purport of what thou sayest; but I know it, oh thou with large eyes, for the holy declare all things by meditation. By thy perplexity this day are all the gods, with Mahendra and all the three worlds, utterly confounded. In my sacrifice, those who worship me, repeat my praises, and chant the Rathantara song of the Sāma veda; my priests worship me in the sacrifice of true wisdom, where no officiating Brahman is needed; and in this they offer me my portion.' Devī spake; 'The lord is the root of all, and assuredly, in every assemblage of the female world, praises or hides himself at will.' Mahādeva spake; 'Queen of the gods, I praise not myself: approach, and behold whom I shall create for the purpose of claiming my share of the rite.'
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"Then from the gloom emerged fearful and numerous forms, shouting the cry of battle; who instantly broke or overturned the sacrificial columns, trampled upon the altars, and danced amidst the oblations. Running wildly hither and thither, with the speed of wind, they tossed about the implements and vessels of sacrifice, which looked like stars precipitated from the heavens. The piles of food and beverage for the gods, which had been heaped up like mountains; the rivers of milk; the banks of curds and butter; the sands of honey and butter-milk and sugar; the mounds of condiments and spices of every flavour; the undulating knolls of flesh and other viands; the celestial liquors, pastes, and confections, which had been prepared; these the spirits of wrath devoured or defiled or scattered abroad. Then falling upon the host of the gods, these vast and resistless Rudras beat or terrified them, mocked and insulted the nymphs and goddesses, and quickly put an end to the rite, although defended by all the gods; being the ministers of Rudra's wrath, and similar to himself[6]. Some then made a hideous clamour, whilst others fearfully shouted, when Yajña was decapitated. For the divine Yajña, the lord of sacrifice, then began to fly up to heaven, in the shape of a deer; and Vīrabhadra, of immeasurable spirit, apprehending his power, cut off his vast head, after he had mounted into the sky[7]. Dakṣa the patriarch, his sacrifice being destroyed, overcome with terror, and utterly broken in spirit, fell then upon the ground, where his head was spurned by the feet of the cruel Vīrabhadra[8]. The thirty scores of sacred divinities were all presently bound, with a band of fire, by their lion-like foe; and they all then addressed him, crying, 'Oh Rudra, have mercy upon thy servants: oh lord, dismiss thine anger.' Thus spake Brahmā and the other gods, and the patriarch Dakṣa; and raising their hands, they said, 'Declare, mighty being, who thou art.' Vīrabhadra said, 'I am not a god, nor an Āditya; nor am I come hither for enjoyment, nor curious to behold the chiefs of the divinities: know that I am come to destroy the sacrifice of Dakṣa, and that I am called Vīrabhadra, the issue of the wrath of Rudra. Bhadrakālī also, who has sprung from the anger of Devī, is sent here by the God of gods to destroy this rite. Take refuge, king of kings, with him who is the lord of Umā; for better is the anger of Rudra than the blessings of other gods.'
"Having heard the words of Vīrabhadra, the righteous Dakṣa propitiated the mighty god, the holder of the trident, Maheśvara. The hearth of sacrifice, deserted by the Brahmans, had been consumed; Yajña had been metamorphosed to an antelope; the fires of Rudra's wrath had been kindled; the attendants, wounded by the tridents of the servants of the god, were groaning with pain; the pieces of the uprooted sacrificial posts were scattered here and there; and the fragments of the meat-offerings were carried off by flights of hungry vultures, and herds of howling jackals. Suppressing his vital airs, and taking up a posture of meditation, the many-sighted victor of his foes, Dakṣa fixed his eyes every where upon his thoughts. Then the God of gods appeared from the altar, resplendent as a thousand suns, and smiled upon him, and said, 'Dakṣa, thy sacrifice has been destroyed through sacred knowledge: I am well pleased with thee:' and then he smiled again, and said, 'What shall I do for thee; declare, together with the preceptor of the gods.'
"Then Dakṣa, frightened, alarmed, and agitated, his eyes suffused with tears, raised his hands reverentially to his brow, and said, 'If, lord, thou art pleased; if I have found favour in thy sight; if I am to be the object of thy benevolence; if thou wilt confer upon me a boon, this is the blessing I solicit, that all these provisions for the solemn sacrifice, which have been collected with much trouble and during a long time, and which have now been eaten, drunk, devoured, burnt, broken, scattered abroad, may not have been prepared in vain.' 'So let it be,' replied Hara, the subduer of Indra. And thereupon Dakṣa knelt down upon the earth, and praised gratefully the author of righteousness, the three-eyed god Mahādeva, repeating the eight thousand names of the deity whose emblem is a bull."
1.08 - RELIGION AND TEMPERAMENT, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
In the course of history it has often happened that one or other of the imperfect religions has been taken too seriously and regarded as good and true in itself, instead of as a means to the ultimate end of all religion. The effects of such mistakes are often disastrous. For example, many Protestant sects have insisted on the necessity, or at least the extreme desirability, of a violent conversion. But violent conversion, as Sheldon has pointed out, is a phenomenon confined almost exclusively to persons with a high degree of somatotonia. These persons are so intensely extraverted as to be quite unaware of what is happening in the lower levels of their minds. If for any reason their attention comes to be turned inwards, the resulting self-knowledge, because of its novelty and strangeness, presents itself with the force and quality of a revelation and their metanoia, or change of mind, is sudden and thrilling. This change may be to religion, or it may be to something else for example, to psycho-analysis. To insist upon the necessity of violent conversion as the only means to salvation is about as sensible as it would be to insist upon the necessity of having a large face, heavy bones and powerful muscles. To those naturally subject to this kind of emotional upheaval, the doctrine that makes salvation dependent on conversion gives a complacency that is quite fatal to spiritual growth, while those who are incapable of it are filled with a no less fatal despair. Other examples of inadequate theologies based upon psychological ignorance could easily be cited. One remembers, for instance, the sad case of Calvin, the cerebrotonic who took his own intellectual constructions so seriously that he lost all sense of reality, both human and spiritual. And then there is our liberal Protestantism, that predominantly viscerotonic heresy, which seems to have forgotten the very existence of the Father, Spirit and Logos and equates Christianity with an emotional attachment to Christs humanity or, (to use the currently popular phrase) the personality of Jesus, worshipped idolatrously as though there were no other God. Even within all-comprehensive Catholicism we constantly hear complaints of the ignorant and self-centred directors, who impose upon the souls under their charge a religious dharma wholly unsuited to their naturewith results which writers such as St. John of the Cross describe as wholly pernicious. We see, then, that it is natural for us to think of God as possessed of the qualities which our temperament tends to make us perceive in Him; but unless nature finds a way of transcending itself by means of itself, we are lost. In the last analysis Philo is quite right in saying that those who do not conceive God purely and simply as the One injure, not God of course, but themselves and, along with themselves, their fellows.
The way of knowledge comes most naturally to persons whose temperament is predominantly cerebrotonic. By this I do not mean that the following of this way is easy for the cerebrotonic. His specially besetting sins are just as difficult to overcome as are the sins which beset the power-loving somatotonic and the extreme viscerotonic with his gluttony for food and comfort and social approval. Rather I mean that the idea that such a way exists and can be followed (either by discrimination, or through non-attached work and one-pointed devotion) is one which spontaneously occurs to the cerebrotonic. At all levels of culture he is the natural monotheist; and this natural monotheist, as Dr. Radins examples of primitive theology clearly show, is often a monotheist of the tat tvam asi, inner-light school. Persons committed by their temperament to one or other of the two kinds of extraversion are natural polytheists. But natural polytheists can, without much difficulty, be convinced of the theoretical superiority of monotheism. The nature of human reason is such that there is an intrinsic plausibility about any hypothesis which seeks to explain the manifold in terms of unity, to reduce apparent multiplicity to essential identity. And from this theoretical monotheism the half-converted polytheist can, if he chooses, go on (through practices suitable to his own particular temperament) to the actual realization of the divine Ground of his own and all other beings. He can, I repeat, and sometimes he actually does. But very often he does not. There are many theoretical monotheists whose whole life and every action prove that in reality they are still what their temperament inclines them to bepoly theists, worshippers not of the one God they sometimes talk about, but of the many gods, nationalistic and technological, financial and familial, to whom in practice they pay all their allegiance.
1.08 - The Gods of the Veda - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If the Veda is a great religious and psychological document and not an early hymnal of savage ceremonies, there must be in the long procession of the sacred chants passages which preserve, in spite of the unavoidable difficulties of an archaic language, their ancient truth on their surface. The totality of the Veda is so closely knit in its mentality, constant in its ideas and unchanging in its terms that we may hope from even one such text a help considerably beyond the measure of its actual length & scope in fixing the nature of theVedic outlook and helping us to some clue to the secret of its characteristic expressions. Our desideratum is a passage in which the God of the Riks must be a mental or moral Power, the thoughts religious, intellectual or psychological in their substance, the expressions insistent in their clear superphysical intention.We will begin with a striking passage in a hymn, put by Vyasa very early in the order of his collection.It is the third sukta of the first Mandala. Madhuchchhanda, son of the famous Visvamitra, is the seer; Saraswati is the goddess; the three closing riks of the hymn are the indicative passage
Saraswati, a name familiar to the religious conceptions of the race from our earliest eras, & of incessant occurrence in poetic phraseology and image, is worshipped yearly even at the present day in all provinces of the peninsula no less than those many millenniums ago in the prehistoric dawn of our religion and literature. Consistently, subsequent to the Vedic times, she has been worshipped everywhere & is named in all passages as a goddess of speech, poetry, learning and eloquence. Epic, Purana and the popular imagination know her solely as this deity of speech & knowledge. She ranks therefore in the order of religious ideas with the old Hellenic conceptions of Pallas, Aphrodite or the Muses; nor does any least shadow of the material Nature-power linger to lower the clear intellectuality of her powers and functions. But there is also a river Saraswati or several rivers of that name. Therefore, the doubt suggests itself: In any given passage may it not be the Aryan river, Saraswati, which the bards are chanting? even if they sing of her or cry to her as a goddess, may it not still be the River, so dear, sacred & beneficent to them, that they worship? Or even where she is clearly a goddess of speech and thought, may it not be that the Aryans, having had originally no intellectual or moral conceptions and therefore no gods of the mind and heart, converted, when they did feel the need, this sacred flowing River into a goddess of sacred flowing song? In that case we are likely to find in her epithets & activities the traces of this double capacity.
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If we are right, as we must now assume, in our interpretation of these three riks, then the conclusion is irresistible that the whole of this third Sukta in the Veda, & not only its closing verses, relates to an activity of moral & mental sacrifice and the other gods invoked by Madhuchchhandas are equally with Saraswati Powers of subjectiveNature, Indra not the God of rain, but a mental deity, the Aswins not twin stars, or, if stars, then lights of a sublimer heaven, the Visvadevas, gods not of general physical Nature, but supraphysical and in charge of our general subjective or subjective-objective activity. The supposition is inadmissible that the hymn is purely ritual in its body and only in-grafted with a spiritual tail. The physical functions of the gods in the Veda need not be denied; but they must be alien to the thought of Madhuchchhandas in this Sukta,unless as in some hymns of the Veda, there is the slesha or double application to subjective & objective activities. But this is improbable; for in the lines of which Saraswati is the goddess, we have found no reference either open or covert to any material form or function. She is purely the Muse and not at all the material river.
We must examine, then, the rest of the hymn and by an impartial scrutiny discover whether it yields naturally, without forcing or straining, a subjective significance. If we find that no such subjective significance exists & it is the gods of rain & of stars & of material activities who are invoked, a serious if not a fatal doubt will be cast on the validity of the first step we have gained in our second chapter. Here, too, we must follow the clue by which we arrived at the subjective physiognomy of Saraswati. We must see what is the evidence of the epithets & activities assigned to the several deities of the Sukta.
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The modern naturalistic account of Indra is that he is the God of rain, the wielder of lightning, the master of the thunderbolt. It is as the lightning, we presume, that he is addressed as harivas and chitrabhno, brilliant and of a richly varied effulgence. He comes to the brahmni, the hymnal utterances of the Rishis, in the sense of being called by the prayer to the sacrifice, and he comes for the sole purpose of drinking the physical Soma wine, by which he is immediately increased,sadyo vriddho ajyathh, says another Sukta,that is, as soon as the Soma offering is poured out, the rains of the monsoon suddenly increase in force. So at least we must understand, if these hymns are to have any precise naturalistic sense. Otherwise we should have to assume that the Rishis sang without attaching any meaning to their words. If, however, we suppose the hymns to Indra to be sung at monsoon offerings, in the rainy months of the year only, we get ideas, imbecile enough, but still making some attempt at sense. On another hypothesis, we may suppose Indra to be one of the gods of light or day slaying Vritra the lord of night & darkness, and also a God of lightning slaying Vritra the lord of the drought. Stated generally, these hypotheses seem plausible enough; systematically stated & supported by Comparative Mythology and some Puranic details their easy acceptance & great vogue is readily intelligible. It is only when we look carefully at the actual expressions used by the Rishis, that they no longer seem to fit in perfectly and great gulfs of no-sense have to be perfunctorily bridged by empirical guesses. A perfect system of naturalistic Veda fails to evolve.
When we look carefully at the passage before us, we find an expression which strikes one as a very extraordinary phrase in reference to a God of lightning and rain. Indryhi, says Madhuchchhanda, dhiyeshito viprajtah. On any ordinary acceptance of the meaning of words, we have to render this line, Come, O Indra, impelled by the understanding, driven by the Wise One. Sayana thinks that vipra means Brahmin and the idea is that Indra is moved to come by the intelligent sacrificing priests and he explains dhiyeshito, moved to come by our understanding, that is to say, by our devotion. But understanding does not mean devotion and the artificiality of the interpretation is apparent.We will, as usual, put aside the ritualistic & naturalistic traditions and see to what the natural sense of the words themselves leads us. I question the traditional acceptance of viprajta as a compound of vipra & jta; it seems tome clearly to be vi prajtah, driven forward variously or in various directions. I am content to accept the primary sense of impelled for ishita, although, whether we read dhiy ishito with the Padapatha, or dhiy shito, it may equally well mean, controlled by the understanding; but of themselves the expressions impelled & driven forward in various paths imply a perfect control.We have then, Come, O Indra, impelled (or controlled, governed) by the understanding and driven forward in various paths. What is so driven forward? Obviously not the storm, not the lightning, not any force of material Nature, but a subjective force, and, as one can see at a glance, a force of mind. Now Indra is the king of Swar and Swar in the symbolical interpretation of the Vedic terms current in after times is the mental heaven corresponding to the principle of Manas, mind. His name means the Strong. In the Puranas he is that which the Rishis have to conquer in order to attain their goal, that which sends the Apsaras, the lower delights & temptations of the senses to bewilder the sage and the hero; and, as is well known, in the Indian system of Yoga it is the Mind with its snares, sensuous temptations & intellectual delusions which is the enemy that has to be overcome & the strong kingdom that has to be conquered. In this passage Indra is not thought of in his human form, but as embodied in the principle of light or tejas; he is harivas, substance of brightness; he is chitrabhnu, of a rich & various effulgence, epithets not easily applicable to a face or figure, but precisely applicable to the principle of mind which has always been supposed in India to be in its material element made of tejas or pure light.We may conclude, therefore, that in Indra, master of Swarga, we have the divine lord of mental force & power. It is as this mental power that he comes sutvatah upa brahmni vghatah, to the soul-movements of the chanter of the sacred song, of the holder of the nectar-wine. He is asked to come, impelled or controlled by the understanding and driven forward by it in the various paths of sumati & snrit, right thinking & truth. We remember the image in the Kathopanishad in which the mind & senses are compared to reins & horses and the understanding to the driver. We look back & see at once the connection with the function demanded of the Aswins in the preceding verses; we look forward & see easily the connection with the activity of Saraswati in the closing riks. The thought of the whole Sukta begins to outline itself, a strong, coherent and luminous progression of psychological images begins to emerge.
Brahmni, says Sayana, means the hymnal chants; vghatah is the ritwik, the sacrificial priest. These ritual senses belong to the words but we must always inquire how they came to bear them. As to vghat, we have little clue or evidence, but on the system I have developed in another work (the Origins of Aryan Speech), it may be safely concluded that the lost roots vagh & vgh, must have conveyed the sense of motion evident in the Latin vagus & vagari, wandering & to wander & the sense of crying out, calling apparent in the Latin vagire, to cry, & the Sanscrit vangh, to abuse, censure. Vghat may mean the sacrificial priest because he is the one who calls to the deity in the chant of the brahma, the sacred hymn. It may also mean one who increases in being, in his brahma, his soul, who is getting vja or substance.
1.08 - The Historical Significance of the Fish, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
tutelary God of flocks. Another prototype, in his capacity as
shepherd, was Orpheus. 1 This aspect of the Poimen gave rise to
1.09 - Concentration - Its Spiritual Uses, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
What is the result of constant practice of this higher concentration? All old tendencies of restlessness and dullness will be destroyed, as well as the tendencies of goodness too. The case is similar to that of the chemicals used to take the dirt and alloy off gold. When the ore is smelted down, the dross is burnt along with the chemicals. So this constant controlling power will stop the previous bad tendencies, and eventually, the good ones also. Those good and evil tendencies will suppress each other, leaving alone the Soul, in its own splendour untrammelled by either good or bad, the omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. Then the man will know that he had neither birth nor death, nor need for heaven or earth. He will know that he neither came nor went, it was nature which was moving, and that movement was reflected upon the soul. The form of the light reflected by the glass upon the wall moves, and the wall foolishly thinks it is moving. So with all of us; it is the Chitta constantly moving making itself into various forms, and we think that we are these various forms. All these delusions will vanish. When that free Soul will comm and not pray or beg, but comm and then whatever It desires will be immediately fulfilled; whatever It wants It will be able to do. According to the Sankhya philosophy, there is no God. It says that there can be no God of this universe, because if there were one, He must be a soul, and a soul must be either bound or free. How can the soul that is bound by nature, or controlled by nature, create? It is itself a slave. On the other hand, why should the Soul that is free create and manipulate all these things? It has no desires, so it cannot have any need to create. Secondly, it says the theory of God is an unnecessary one; nature explains all. What is the use of any God? But Kapila teaches that there are many souls, who, though nearly attaining perfection, fall short because they cannot perfectly renounce all powers. Their minds for a time merge in nature, to re-emerge as its masters. Such gods there are. We shall all become such gods, and, according to the Sankhyas, the God spoken of in the Vedas really means one of these free souls. Beyond them there is not an eternally free and blessed Creator of the universe. On the other hand, the Yogis say, "Not so, there is a God; there is one Soul separate from all other souls, and He is the eternal Master of all creation, the ever free, the Teacher of all teachers." The Yogis admit that those whom the Sankhyas call "the merged in nature" also exist. They are Yogis who have fallen short of perfection, and though, for a time, debarred from attaining the goal, remain as rulers of parts of the universe.
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1.09 - Legend of Lakshmi, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
The three regions being thus wholly divested of prosperity, and deprived of energy, the Dānavas and sons of Diti, the enemies of the gods, who were incapable of steadiness, and agitated by ambition, put forth their strength against the gods. They engaged in war with the feeble and unfortunate divinities; and Indra and the rest, being overcome in fight, fled for refuge to Brahmā, preceded by the God of flame (Hutāśana). When the great father of the universe had heard all that had come to pass, he said to the deities, "Repair for protection to the God of high and low; the tamer of the demons; the causeless cause of creation, preservation, and destruction; the progenitor of the progenitors; the immortal, unconquerable Viṣṇu; the cause of matter and spirit, of his unengendered products; the remover of the grief of all who humble themselves before him: he will give you aid." Having thus spoken to the deities, Brahmā proceeded along with them to the northern shore of the sea of milk; and with reverential words thus prayed to the supreme Hari:-
"We glorify him who is all things; the lord supreme over all; unborn, imperishable; the protector of the mighty ones of creation; the unperceived, indivisible Nārāyaṇa; the smallest of the smallest, the largest of the largest, of the elements; in whom are all things, from whom are all things; who was before existence; the god who is all beings; who is the end of ultimate objects; who is beyond final spirit, and is one with supreme soul; who is contemplated as the cause of final liberation by sages anxious to be free; in whom are not the qualities of goodness, foulness, or darkness, that belong to undeveloped nature. May that purest of all pure spirits this day be propitious to us. May that Hari be propitious to us, whose inherent might is not an object of the progressive chain of moments or of days, that make up time. May he who is called the supreme god, who is not in need of assistance, Hari, the soul of all embodied substance, be favourable unto us. May that Hari, who is both cause and effect; who is the cause of cause, the effect of effect; he who is the effect of successive effect; who is the effect of the effect of the effect himself; the product of the effect of the effect of the effect, or elemental substance; to him I bow[5]. The cause of the cause; the cause of the cause of the cause; the cause of them all; to him I bow. To him who is the enjoyer and thing to be enjoyed; the creator and thing to be created; who is the agent and the effect; to that supreme being I bow. The infinite nature of Viṣṇu is pure, intelligent, perpetual, unborn, undecayable, inexhaustible, inscrutable, immutable; it is neither gross nor subtile, nor capable of being defined: to that ever holy nature of Viṣṇu I bow. To him whose faculty to create the universe abides in but a part of but the ten-millionth part of him; to him who is one with the inexhaustible supreme spirit, I bow: and to the glorious nature of the supreme Viṣṇu, which nor gods, nor sages, nor I, nor Śa
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Thus prayed to, the supreme deity, the mighty holder of the conch and discus, shewed himself to them: and beholding the lord of gods, bearing a shell, a discus, and a mace, the assemblage of primeval form, and radiant with embodied light, Pitāmahā and the other deities, their eyes moistened with rapture, first paid him homage, and then thus addressed him: "Repeated salutation to thee, who art indefinable: thou art Brahmā; thou art the wielder of the Pināka bow (Śiva); thou art Indra; thou art fire, air, the God of waters, the sun, the king of death (Yama), the Vasus, the Māruts (the winds), the Sādhyas, and Viśvadevas. This assembly of divinities, that now has come before thee, thou art; for, the creator of the world, thou art every where. Thou art the sacrifice, the prayer of oblation, the mystic syllable Om, the sovereign of all creatures: thou art all that is to be known, or to be unknown: oh universal soul, the whole world consists of thee. We, discomfited by the Daityas, have fled to thee, oh Viṣṇu, for refuge. Spirit of all, have compassion upon us; defend us with thy mighty power. There will be affliction, desire, trouble, and grief, until thy protection is obtained: but thou art the remover of all sins. Do thou then, oh pure of spirit, shew favour unto us, who have fled to thee: oh lord of all, protect us with thy great power, in union with the goddess who is thy strength[6]." Hari, the creator of the universe, being thus prayed to by the prostrate divinities, smiled, and thus spake: "With renovated energy, oh gods, I will restore your strength. Do you act as I enjoin. Let all the gods, associated with the Asuras, cast all sorts of medicinal herbs into the sea of milk; and then taking the mountain Mandara for the churning-stick, the serpent Vāsuki for the rope, churn the ocean together for ambrosia; depending upon my aid. To secure the assistance of the Daityas, you must be at peace with them, and engage to give them an equal portion of the fruit of your associated toil; promising them, that by drinking the Amrita that shall be produced from the agitated ocean, they shall become mighty and immortal. I will take care that the enemies of the gods shall not partake of the precious draught; that they shall share in the labour alone."
Being thus instructed by the God of gods, the divinities entered into alliance with the demons, and they jointly undertook the acquirement of the beverage of immortality. They collected various kinds of medicinal herbs, and cast them into the sea of milk, the waters of which were radiant as the thin and shining clouds of autumn. They then took the mountain Mandara for the staff; the serpent Vāsuki for the cord; and commenced to churn the ocean for the Amrita. The assembled gods were stationed by Kṛṣṇa at the tail of the serpent; the Daityas and Dānavas at its head and neck. Scorched by the flames emitted from his inflated hood, the demons were shorn of their glory; whilst the clouds driven towards his tail by the breath of his mouth, refreshed the gods with revivifying showers. In the midst of the milky sea, Hari himself, in the form of a tortoise, served as a pivot for the mountain, as it was whirled around. The holder of the mace and discus was present in other forms amongst the gods and demons, and assisted to drag the monarch of the serpent race: and in another vast body he sat upon the summit of the mountain. With one portion of his energy, unseen by gods or demons, he sustained the serpent king; and with another, infused vigour into the gods.
From the ocean, thus churned by the gods and Dānavas, first uprose the cow Surabhi, the fountain of milk and curds, worshipped by the divinities, and beheld by them and their associates with minds disturbed, and eyes glistening with delight. Then, as the holy Siddhas in the sky wondered what this could be, appeared the goddess Vārunī (the deity of wine), her eyes rolling with intoxication. Next, from the whirlpool of the deep, sprang the celestial Pārijāta tree, the delight of the nymphs of heaven, perfuming the world with its blossoms. The troop of Āpsarasas, the nymphs of heaven, were then produced, of surprising loveliness, endowed with beauty and with taste. The cool-rayed moon next rose, and was seized by Mahādeva: and then poison was engendered from the sea, of which the snake gods (Nāgas) took possession. Dhanwantari, robed in white, and bearing in his hand the cup of Amrita, next came forth: beholding which, the sons of Diti and of Danu, as well as the Munis, were filled with satisfaction and delight. Then, seated on a full-blown lotus, and holding a water-lily in her hand, the goddess Śrī, radiant with beauty, rose from the waves. The great sages, enraptured, hymned her with the song dedicated to her praise[7]. Viśvavasu and other heavenly quiristers sang, and Ghritācī and other celestial nymphs danced before her. Ga
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"I bow down to Śrī, the mother of all beings, seated on her lotus throne, with eyes like full-blown lotuses, reclining on the breast of Viṣṇu. Thou art Siddhi (superhuman power): thou art Swadhā and Svāhā: thou art ambrosia (Sudhā), the purifier of the universe: thou art evening, night, and dawn: thou art power, faith, intellect: thou art the goddess of letters (Sarasvatī). Thou, beautiful goddess, art knowledge of devotion, great knowledge, mystic knowledge, and spiritual knowledge[9]; which confers eternal liberation. Thou art the science of reasoning, the three Vedas, the arts and sciences[10]: thou art moral and political science. The world is peopled by thee with pleasing or displeasing forms. Who else than thou, oh goddess, is seated on that person of the God of gods, the wielder of the mace, which is made up of sacrifice, and contemplated by holy ascetics? Abandoned by thee, the three worlds were on the brink of ruin; but they have been reanimated by thee. From thy propitious gaze, oh mighty goddess, men obtain wives, children, dwellings, friends, harvests, wealth. Health and strength, power, victory, happiness, are easy of attainment to those upon whom thou smilest. Thou art the mother of all beings, as the God of gods, Hari, is their father; and this world, whether animate or inanimate, is pervaded by thee and Viṣṇu. Oh thou who purifiest all things, forsake not our treasures, our granaries, our dwellings, our dependants, our persons, our wives: abandon not our children, our friends, our lineage, our jewels, oh thou who abidest on the bosom of the God of gods. They whom thou desertest are forsaken by truth, by purity, and goodness, by every amiable and excellent quality; whilst the base and worthless upon whom thou lookest favourably become immediately endowed with all excellent qualifications, with families, and with power. He on whom thy countenance is turned is honourable, amiable, prosperous, wise, and of exalted birth; a hero of irresistible prowess: but all his merits and his advantages are converted into worthlessness from whom, beloved of Viṣṇu, mother of the world, thou avertest thy face. The tongues of Brahmā, are unequal to celebrate thy excellence. Be propitious to me, oh goddess, lotus-eyed, and never forsake me more." Being thus praised, the gratified Śrī, abiding in all creatures, and heard by all beings, replied to the God of a hundred rites (Śatakratu); "I am pleased, monarch of the gods, by thine adoration. Demand from me what thou desirest: I have come to fulfil thy wishes." "If, goddess," replied Indra, "thou wilt grant my prayers; if I am worthy of thy bounty; be this my first request, that the three worlds may never again be deprived of thy presence. My second supplication, daughter of ocean, is, that thou wilt not forsake him who shall celebrate thy praises in the words I have addressed to thee." "I will not abandon," the goddess answered, "the three worlds again: this thy first boon is granted; for I am gratified by thy praises: and further, I will never turn my face away from that mortal who morning and evening shall repeat the hymn with which thou hast addressed me."
Parāśara proceeded:-
Thus, Maitreya, in former times the goddess Śrī conferred these boons upon the king of the gods, being pleased by his adorations; but her first birth was as the daughter of Bhrigu by Khyāti: it was at a subsequent period that she was produced from the sea, at the churning of the ocean by the demons and the gods, to obtain ambrosia[11]. For in like manner as the lord of the world, the God of gods, Janārddana, descends amongst mankind (in various shapes), so does his coadjutrix Śrī. Thus when Hari was born as a dwarf, the son of Aditī, Lakṣmī appeared from a lotus (as Padmā, or Kamalā); when he was born as Rāma, of the race of Bhrigu (or Paraśurāma), she was Dharaṇī; when he was Rāghava (Rāmacandra), she was Sītā; and when he was Kṛṣṇa, she became Rukminī. In the other descents of Viṣṇu, she is his associate. If he takes a celestial form, she appears as divine; if a mortal, she becomes a mortal too, transforming her own person agreeably to whatever character it pleases Viṣṇu to put on. Whosoever hears this account of the birth of Lakṣmī, whosoever reads it, shall never lose the goddess Fortune from his dwelling for three generations; and misfortune, the fountain of strife, shall never enter into those houses in which the hymns to Śrī are repeated.
Thus, Brahman, have I narrated to thee, in answer to thy question, how Lakṣmī, formerly the daughter of Bhrigu, sprang from the sea of milk; and misfortune shall never visit those amongst mankind who daily recite the praises of Lakṣmī uttered by Indra, which are the origin and cause of all prosperity.
1.09 - Saraswati and Her Consorts, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
One may doubt whether Agni is anything more than the personification of the sacrificial Fire or of the physical principle of Light and Heat in things, or Indra anything more than the God of the sky and the rain or of physical Light, or Vayu anything more than the divinity in the Wind and Air or at most of the physical
Life-breath. In the lesser gods the naturalistic interpretation has less ground for confidence; for it is obvious that Varuna is not merely a Vedic Uranus or Neptune, but a god with great and important moral functions; Mitra and Bhaga have the same psychological aspect; the Ribhus who form things by the mind and build up immortality by works can with difficulty be crushed into the Procrustean measure of a naturalistic mythology. Still by imputing a chaotic confusion of ideas to the poets of the Vedic hymns the difficulty can be trampled upon, if not overcome.
1.09 - The Ambivalence of the Fish Symbol, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
(e.g., Leviathan and Behemoth). This relieves God of his own
inner conflict, which now appears outside him in the form of a
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the figure of Typhon /Set. In later times he was a God of death,
destruction, and the desert, the treacherous opponent of his
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a God of the day and the other a God of the night. The hiero-
glyph for Set has as a determinative the sign for a stone, or else
11.06 - The Mounting Fire, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The energy at the root of the spine is stored, as it is said, in the muladhara, the root, that is to say, in the root of the very material constitution of the human being. It is the concentrated energy in matter, indeed it is the energy of the mother earth. The Vedic Rishis speak of fire as being a deity of earth, as the Sun or the God of Light is the deity of the heaven. The earth-energy has to be awakened or kindled and it has to move upward and forward, piercing and burning and illumining all the inferior and denser regions of consciousness till it pierces through and enters into the head, and then goes beyond, into the supreme solar light. That is the image given in the Tantras calling it a-chakrabheda.
The inferior parts of the brain are denser and darker than the superior. The lower it is, the denser and darker it becomes. I do not know if physically it is so, but the sensitivity, the vibrations there seem to point to such a direction. So it appears, it is not easy for the Light from above to penetrate, to penetrate to a great depth, to the bottom of the brain. It is not the Light from above but the fire from below, the flaming force of material consciousness that has to do the main or final work. For the light from above is mostly mental or mentalised, the very supreme Light does not descend easily, is not readily available: indeed it is ready and available only at the call of the fire below. Agni is therefore named 'hota,' one who calls the Divine down here below. It is the God here below that can call down the God above.
1.10 - Conscious Force, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
11:But if we suppose or find Existence to be conscious Being, the problem arises. We may indeed suppose a conscious Being which is subject to its nature of Force, compelled by it and without option as to whether it shall manifest in the universe or remain unmanifest. Such is the cosmic God of the Tantriks and the Mayavadins who is subject to Shakti or Maya, Purusha involved in Maya or controlled by Shakti. But it is obvious that such a God is not the supreme infinite Existence with which we have started. Admittedly, it is only a formulation of Brahman in the cosmos by the Brahman which is itself logically anterior to Shakti or Maya and takes her back into its transcendental being when she ceases from her works. In a conscious existence which is absolute, independent of its formations, not determined by its works, we must suppose an inherent freedom to manifest or not to manifest the potentiality of movement. A Brahman compelled by Prakriti is not Brahman, but an inert Infinite with an active content in it more powerful than the continent, a conscious holder of Force of whom his Force is master. If we say that it is compelled by itself as Force, by its own nature, we do not get rid of the contradiction, the evasion of our first postulate. We have got back to an Existence which is really nothing but Force, Force at rest or in movement, absolute Force perhaps, but not absolute Being.
12:It is then necessary to examine into the relation between Force and Consciousness. But what do we mean by the latter term? Ordinarily we mean by it our first obvious idea of a mental waking consciousness such as is possessed by the human being during the major part of his bodily existence, when he is not asleep, stunned or otherwise deprived of his physical and superficial methods of sensation. In this sense it is plain enough that consciousness is the exception and not the rule in the order of the material universe. We ourselves do not always possess it. But this vulgar and shallow idea of the nature of consciousness, though it still colours our ordinary thought and associations, must now definitely disappear out of philosophical thinking. For we know that there is something in us which is conscious when we sleep, when we are stunned or drugged or in a swoon, in all apparently unconscious states of our physical being. Not only so, but we may now be sure that the old thinkers were right when they declared that even in our waking state what we call then our consciousness is only a small selection from our entire conscious being. It is a superficies, it is not even the whole of our mentality. Behind it, much vaster than it, there is a subliminal or subconscient mind which is the greater part of ourselves and contains heights and profundities which no man has yet measured or fathomed. This knowledge gives us a starting-point for the true science of Force and its workings; it delivers us definitely from circumscription by the material and from the illusion of the obvious.
1.10 - Relics of Tree Worship in Modern Europe, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
people really believed that the God of growth was present unseen in
the bough; by the procession he was brought to each house to bestow
1.10 - The Image of the Oceans and the Rivers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Indra the God of the sky, but has a very profound and striking significance if Indra be the illumined Mind and Saraswati the inspiration that proceeds from the hidden plane of the supra-
102
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water of the river Indus or the Ganges and that this wine is a secret name for clarified butter. What he means to say is clearly that out of the subconscient depths in us arises a honeyed wave of Ananda or pure delight of existence, that it is by this Ananda that we can arrive at immortality; this Ananda is the secret being, the secret reality behind the action of the mind in its shining clarities. Soma, the God of the Ananda, the Vedanta also tells us, is that which has become mind or sensational perception; in other words, all mental sensation carries in it a hidden delight of existence and strives to express that secret of its own being.
Therefore Ananda is the tongue of the gods with which they taste the delight of existence; it is the nodus in which all the activities of the immortal state or divine existence are bound together. Vamadeva goes on to say, "Let us give expression to this secret name of the clarity, - that is to say, let us bring out this Soma wine, this hidden delight of existence; let us hold it in this world-sacrifice by our surrenderings or submissions to
1.10 - Theodicy - Nature Makes No Mistakes, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
chologist, but not a God of Good and Love whom we can
worship, only a God of might to whose law we must submit
or whose caprice we may hope to propitiate. For one who
1.10 - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Modern thought & scholarship stands on a different foundation. It proceeds by inference, imagination and conjecture to novel theories of old subjects and regards itself as rational, not traditional. It professes to rebuild lost worlds out of their disjected fragments. By reason, then, and without regard to ancient authority the modern account of the Veda should be judged. The European scholars suppose that the mysticism of the Upanishads was neither founded upon nor, in the main, developed from the substance of the Vedas, but came into being as part of a great movement away from the naturalistic materialism of the early half-savage hymns. Unable to accept a barbarous mummery of ritual and incantation as the highest truth & highest good, yet compelled by religious tradition to regard the ancient hymns as sacred, the early thinkers, it is thought, began to seek an escape from this impasse by reading mystic & esoteric meanings into the simple text of the sacrificial bards; so by speculations sometimes entirely sublime, sometimes grievously silly & childish, they developed Vedanta. This theory, simple, trenchant and attractive, supported to the European mind by parallels from the history of Western religions, is neither so convincing nor, on a broad survey of the facts, so conclusive as it at first appears. It is certainly inconsistent with what the old Vedantic thinkers themselves knew and thought about the tradition of the Veda. From the Brahmanas as well as from the Upanishads it is evident that the Veda came down to the men of those days in a double aspect, as the heart of a great body of effective ritual, but also as the repository of a deep and sacred knowledge, Veda and not merely worship. This idea of a philosophic or theosophic purport in the hymns was not created by the early Hindu mystics, it was inherited by them. Their attitude to the ritual even when it was performed mechanically without the possession of this knowledge was far from hostile; but as ritual, they held it to be inferior in force and value, avaram karma, a lower kind of works and not the highest good; only when performed with possession of the knowledge could it lead to its ultimate results, to Vedanta. By that, says the Chhandogya Upanishad, both perform karma, both he who knows this so and he who knows not. Yet the Ignorance and the Knowledge are different things and only what one does with the knowledge,with faith, with the Upanishad,that has the greater potency. And in the closing section of its second chapter, a passage which sounds merely like ritualistic jargon when one has not the secret of Vedic symbolism but when that secret has once been revealed to us becomes full of meaning and interest, the Upanishad starts by saying The Brahmavadins say, The morning offering to the Vasus, the afternoon offering to the Rudras and the evening offering to the Adityas and all the gods,where then is the world of the Yajamana? (that is to say, what is the spiritual efficacy beyond this material life of the three different sacrifices & why, to what purpose, is the first offered to the Vasus, the second to the Rudras, the third to the Adityas?) He who knows this not, how should he perform (effectively) ,therefore knowing let him perform. There was at any rate the tradition that these things, the sacrifice, the God of the sacrifice, the world or future state of the sacrificer had a deep significance and were not mere ritual arranged superstitiously for material ends. But this deeper significance, this inner Vedic knowledge was difficult and esoteric, not known easily in its profundity and subtlety even by the majority of the Brahmavadins themselves; hence the searching, the mutual questionings, the record of famous discussions that occupy so much space in the Upanishadsdiscussions which, we shall see, are not intellectual debates but comparisons of illuminated knowledge & spiritual experience.
If this traditionlet us call it mystic or esoteric for want of a less abused wordwas already formed at the time of the Brahmanas and Upanishads, when and how did it originally arise? Two possibilities present themselves. The tradition may have grown up gradually in the period between the Vedic hymns and the exegetical writings or else the esoteric sense may have already existed in the Veda itself and descended in a stream of tradition to the later mystics, developing, modifying itself, substituting new terms for oldas is the way of traditions. The former is, practically, the European theory.We are told that this spiritual revolution, this movement away from ritual Nature-worship to Brahmavada, begun in the seed in the later Vedic hymns, is found in a more developed state in the Upanishads & culminated in Buddha. In these writings and in the Brahmanas some record can be found of the speculations by which the development was managed. If it prove to be so, if these ancient writings are really the result of progressive intellectual speculation departing from crude & imperfect beginnings of philosophic thought, the European theory justifies itself to the reason and can no longer easily be disputed. But is this the true character of the Upanishads? It seems to me that in most of their dealings with our religions and our philosophical literature European scholars have erred by imposing their own familiar ideas and the limits of their own mentality on the history of an alien mentality and an alien development. Nowhere has this error been more evident than in the failure to realise the true nature of the Upanishads. In India we have never developed, but only affirmed thought by philosophical speculation, because we have never attached to the mere intellectual idea the amazingly exaggerated value which Europe has attached to it, but regarded it only as a test of the logical value to be attached to particular intellectual statements of truth. That is not truth to us which is merely well & justly thought out & can be justified by ratiocinative argument; only that is truth which has been lived & seen in the inner experience. We meditate not to get ideas, but in order to experience, to realise. When we speak of the Jnani, the knower, we do not mean a competent and logical thinker full of wise or of brilliant ideas, but a soul which has seen and lived & spoken in himself with the living truth. Ratiocination is freely used by the later philosophers, but only for the justification against opponents of the ideas already formed by their own meditation or the meditation of others, Rishis, gurus, ancient Vedantins; it is not itself a sufficient means towards the discovery of truth, but at best a help. The ideas of our great thinkers are not mere intellectual statements or even happy or great intuitions; they are based upon spiritual experiences formalised by the intellect into a philosophy. Shankaras passionate advocacy of the idea of Maya as an explanation of life was not merely the ardour of a great metaphysician enamoured of a beautiful idea or a perfect theory of life, but the passion of a man with a deep & vast spiritual experience which he believed to be the sole means of human salvation. Therefore philosophy in India, instead of tending as in Europe to ignore or combat religion, has always been itself deeply religious. In Europe Buddha and Shankara would have become the heads of metaphysical schools & ranked with Kant or Hegel or Nietzsche1 as strong intellectual influences; in India they became, inevitably, the founders of great religious sects, immense moral & spiritual forces;inevitably because Europe has made thought its highest & noblest aim, while India seeks not after thought but soul-vision and inner experience and even in the realm of ideas believes that they can & ought to be seen & lived inwardly rather than merely thought and allowed indirectly to influence outward action. This has been the mentality of our race for ages.Was the mentality of our Vedic forefa thers entirely different from our own? Was it, as Western scholars seem to insist, a European mentality, the mentality of incursive Western savages, (it is Sergis estimate of the Aryans), changed afterwards by the contact with the cultured & reflective Dravidians into something new and strange, rationality changing to mysticism, materialism to a metaphysical spirituality? If so, the change had already been effected when the Upanishads were written. We speak of the discussions in the Upanishads; but in all truth the twelve Upanishads contain not a single genuine discussion. Only once in that not inconsiderable mass of literature, is there something of the nature of logical argument brought to the support of a philosophical truth. The nature of debate or logical reasoning is absent from the mentality of the Upanishadic thinkers. The grand question they always asked each other was not What hast thou thought out in this matter? or What are thy reasonings & conclusions? but What dost thou know? What hast thou seen in thyself? The Vedantic like the Vedic Rishi is a drashta & srota, not a manota, a kavi, not a manishi. There is question, there is answer; but solely for the comparison of inner knowledge & experience; never for ratiocinative argument, for disputation, for the battles of the logician. Always, knowledge, spiritual vision, experience are what is demanded; and often a questioner is turned back because he is not yet prepared in soul to realise the knowledge of the master. For all knowledge is within us and needs only to be awakened by the fit touch which opens the eyes of the soul or by the powerful revealing word.We find throughout the Vedic era always the same method, always the same theory of knowledge; they persist indeed in India to the present day and later habits of metaphysical debate unknown to the Vedic Brahmavadins have never been able to dethrone them from their primaeval supremacy. Let a man present never so finely reasoned a system of metaphysical philosophy, few will turn to hear, none leave his labour to receive, but let a man say as in the old Vedantic times I have experienced, my soul has seen, & hundreds in India will yet leave all to share in this new light of the eternal Truth.
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The substance of modern philological discovery about the Vedas consists, first, in the picture of an Aryan civilisation introduced by northern invaders and, secondly, in the interpretation of the Vedic religion as a worship of Nature-powers & Vedic myths as allegorical legends of sun & moon & star & the visible phenomena of Nature. The latter generalisation rests partly on new philological renderings of Vedic words, partly on the Science of Comparative Mythology. The method of this Science can be judged from one or two examples. The Greek story of the demigod Heracles is supposed to be an evident sun myth. The two scientific proofs offered for this discovery are first that Hercules performed twelve labours and the solar year is divided into twelve months and, secondly, that Hercules burnt himself on a pyre on Mount Oeta and the sun also sets in a glory of flame behind the mountains. Such proofs seem hardly substantial enough for so strong a conclusion. By the same reasoning one could prove the emperor Napoleon a sun myth, because he was beaten & shorn of his glory by the forces of winter and because his brilliant career set in the western ocean and he passed there a long night of captivity. With the same light confidence the siege of Troy is turned by the scholars into a sun myth because the name of the Greek Helena, sister of the two Greek Aswins, Castor & Pollux, is philologically identical with the Vedic Sarama and that of her abductor Paris is not so very different from the Vedic Pani. It may be noted that in the Vedic story Sarama is not the sister of the Aswins and is not abducted by the Panis and that there is no other resemblance between the Vedic legend & the Greek tradition. So by more recent speculation even Yudhishthira and his brothers and the famous dog of theMahabharat are raised into the skies & vanish in a starry apotheosis,one knows not well upon what grounds except that sometimes the Dog Star rages in heaven. It is evident that these combinations are merely an ingenious play of fancy & prove absolutely nothing. Hercules may be the Sun but it is not proved. Helen & Paris may be Sarama & one of the Panis, but itis not proved. Yudhishthira & his brothers may be an astronomical myth, but it is not proved. For the rest, the unsubstantiality & rash presumption of the Sun myth theory has not failed to give rise in Europe to a hostile school of Comparative Mythologists who adopt other methods & seek the origins of early religious legend & tradition in a more careful and flexible study of the mentality, customs, traditions & symbolisms of primitive races. The theory of Vedic Nature-worship is better founded than these astronomical fancies. Agni is plainly the God of Fire, Surya of the Sun, Usha of the Dawn, Vayu of the Wind; Indra for Sayana is obviously the God of rain; Varuna seems to be the sky, the Greek Ouranos,et cetera. But when we have accepted these identities, the question of Vedic interpretation & the sense of Vedic worship is not settled. In the Greek religion Apollo was the God of the sun, but he was also the God of poetry & prophecy; Athene is identified with Ahana, a Vedic name of the Dawn, but for the Greeks she is the goddess of purity & wisdom; Artemis is the divinity of the moon, but also the goddess of free life & of chastity. It is therefore evident that in early Greek religion, previous to the historic or even the literary period, at an epoch therefore that might conceivably correspond with the Vedic period, many of the deities of the Greek heavens had a double character, the aspect of physical Nature-powers and the aspect of moral Nature-powers. The indications, therefore,for they are not proofs,even of Comparative Mythology would justify us in inquiring whether a similar double character did not attach to the Vedic gods in the Vedic hymns.
The real basis of both the Aryan theory of Vedic civilisation and the astronomical theory of Aryan myth is the new interpretation given to a host of Vedic vocables by the comparative philologists. The Aryan theory rests on the ingenious assumption that anarya, dasyu or dasa in the Veda refer to the unfortunate indigenous races who by a familiar modern device were dubbed robbers & dacoits because they were guilty of defending their country against the invaders & Arya is a national term for the invaders who called themselves, according to Max Muller, the Ploughmen, and according to others, the Noble Race. The elaborate picture of an early culture & history that accompanies and supports this theory rests equally on new interpretations of Vedic words and riks in which with the progress of scholarship the authority of Sayana and Yaska has been more & more set at nought and discredited. My contention is that anarya, dasa and dasyu do not for a moment refer to the Dravidian races,I am, indeed, disposed to doubt whether there was ever any such entity in India as a separate Aryan or a separate Dravidian race,but always to Vritra, Vala & the Panis and other, primarily non-human, opponents of the gods and their worshippers. The new interpretations given to Vedic words & riks seem to me sometimes right & well grounded, often arbitrary & unfounded, but always conjectural. The whole European theory & European interpretation of the Vedas may be [not] unjustly described as a huge conjectural & uncertain generalisation built on an inadequate & shifting mass of conjectural particulars.
1.114 - Mankind, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
3. The God of mankind.
4. From the evil of the sneaky whisperer.
1.11 - Delight of Existence - The Problem, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
7:Sachchidananda, it may be reasoned, is God, is a conscious Being who is the author of existence; how then can God have created a world in which He inflicts suffering on His creatures, sanctions pain, permits evil? God being All-Good, who created pain and evil? If we say that pain is a trial and an ordeal, we do not solve the moral problem, we arrive at an immoral or nonmoral God, - an excellent world-mechanist perhaps, a cunning psychologist, but not a God of Good and of Love whom we can worship, only a God of Might to whose law we must submit or whose caprice we may hope to propitiate. For one who invents torture as a means of test or ordeal, stands convicted either of deliberate cruelty or of moral insensibility and, if a moral being at all, is inferior to the highest instinct of his own creatures. And if to escape this moral difficulty, we say that pain is an inevitable result and natural punishment of moral evil, - an explanation which will not even square with the facts of life unless we admit the theory of Karma and rebirth by which the soul suffers now for antenatal sins in other bodies, - we still do not escape the very root of the ethical problem, - who created or why or whence was created that moral evil which entails the punishment of pain and suffering? And seeing that moral evil is in reality a form of mental disease or ignorance, who or what created this law or inevitable connection which punishes a mental disease or act of ignorance by a recoil so terrible, by tortures often so extreme and monstrous? The inexorable law of Karma is irreconcilable with a supreme moral and personal Deity, and therefore the clear logic of Buddha denied the existence of any free and all-governing personal God; all personality he declared to be a creation of ignorance and subject to Karma.
8:In truth, the difficulty thus sharply presented arises only if we assume the existence of an extra-cosmic personal God, not Himself the universe, one who has created good and evil, pain and suffering for His creatures, but Himself stands above and unaffected by them, watching, ruling, doing His will with a suffering and struggling world or, if not doing His will, if allowing the world to be driven by an inexorable law, unhelped by Him or inefficiently helped, then not God, not omnipotent, not allgood and all-loving. On no theory of an extra-cosmic moral God, can evil and suffering be explained, - the creation of evil and suffering, - except by an unsatisfactory subterfuge which avoids the question at issue instead of answering it or a plain or implied Manicheanism which practically annuls the Godhead in attempting to justify its ways or excuse its works. But such a God is not the Vedantic Sachchidananda. Sachchidananda of the Vedanta is one existence without a second; all that is, is He. If then evil and suffering exist, it is He that bears the evil and suffering in the creature in whom He has embodied Himself. The problem then changes entirely. The question is no longer how came God to create for His creatures a suffering and evil of which He is Himself incapable and therefore immune, but how came the sole and infinite Existence-Consciousness-Bliss to admit into itself that which is not bliss, that which seems to be its positive negation.
1.11 - Oneness, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
making an unbridgeable opposition between world-nature and Godnature, as if Nature were independent of God, or to throw the responsibility on man and his sins, as if he had a preponderant voice in the making of this world or could create anything against the will of God, are clumsily comfortable devices. . . . We erect a God of Love and Mercy, a God of good, a God just, righteous and virtuous according to our own moral conceptions of justice, virtue and righteousness, and all the rest, we say, is not He or is not His, but was made by some diabolical Power which He suffered for some reason to work out its wicked will or by some dark Ahriman counterbalancing our gracious Ormuzd, or was even the fault of selfish and sinful man who has spoiled what was made originally perfect by God . . . . We have to look courageously in the face of the reality and see that it is God and none else who has made this world in His being and that so He has made it. We have to see that Nature devouring her children,
Time eating up the lives of creatures, Death universal and ineluctable and the violence of the Rudra136 forces in man and Nature are also the supreme Godhead in one of his cosmic figures. We have to see that God the bountiful and prodigal creator, God the helpful, strong and benignant preserver is also God the devourer and destroyer. The torment of the couch of pain and evil on which we are racked is his touch as much as happiness and sweetness and pleasure. It is only 136
1.11 - The Broken Rocks. Pope Anastasius. General Description of the Inferno and its Divisions., #The Divine Comedy, #Dante Alighieri, #Christianity
Less God offendeth, and less blame attracts?
If thou regardest this conclusion well,
1.11 - The Master of the Work, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This perception, this sense of a greater Power in us or above and moving us, is not a hallucination or a megalomania. Those who thus feel and see have a larger sight than ordinary men and have advanced a step beyond the limited physical intelligence, but theirs is riot the plenary vision or the direct experience. For, because they are not clear in mind and aware in the soul, because their awakening is more in the vital parts than into the spiritual substance of Self, they cannot be the conscious instruments of the Divine or come face to face with the Master, but are used through their fallible arid imperfect nature. The most they see of the Divinity is a Fate or a cosmic Force or else they give his name to a limited Godhead or, worse, to a titanic or demoniac Power that veils him. Even certain religious founders have erected the image of the God of a sect or a national God or a Power of terror and punishment or a Numen of sattwic love and mercy and virtue and seem not to have seen the One and Eternal. The Divine accepts the image they make of him and does his work in them through that medium, but, since the one Force is felt and acts in their imperfect nature but more intensely than in others, the motive principle of egoism too can be more intense in them than in others. An exalted rajasic or sattwic ego still holds them and stands between them and the integral Truth. Even this is something, a beginning, although far from the true and perfect experience. A much worse thing may befall those who break something of the human bonds but have not purity and have not -- the knowledge, for they may become instruments, but not of the Divine; too often, using his name, they serve unconsciously his masks and black Contraries, the Powers of Darkness. Our nature must house the cosmic Force but not in its lower aspect or in its rajasic or sattwic movement; it must serve the universal Will, but in the light of a greater liberating knowledge. There must be no egoism of any kind in the attitude of the instrument, even when we are fully conscious of the greatness of the Force within us. Every man is knowingly or unknowingly the instrument of a universal Power and, apart from the inner Presence, there is no such essential difference between one action and another, one kind of instrumentation and another as would warrant the folly of an egoistic pride. The difference between knowledge and ignorance is a grace of the Spirit; the breath of divine Power blows where it lists and fills today one and tomorrow another with the word or the puissance. If the potter shapes one pot more perfectly than another, the merit lies not in the vessel but the maker. The attitude of our mind must not be "This is my strength" or "Behold God's power in me", but rather "A Divine Power works in this mind and body and it is the same that works in all men and in the animal, in the plant and in the metal, in conscious and living things and in things appearing to be inconscient arid inanimate." This large view of the One working in all and of the whole world as the equal instrument of a divine action and gradual self-expression, if it becomes our entire experience, will help to eliminate all rajasic egoism out of us and even the sattwic ego-sense will begin to pass away from our nature.
The elimination of this form of ego leads straight towards the true instrumental action which Is the essence of a perfect Karmayoga. For while we cherish the instrumental ego, we may pretend to ourselves that we are conscious instruments of the Divine, but in reality we are trying to make of the Divine shakti an instrument of our own desires or our egoistic purpose. And even if the ego is subjected but not eliminated, we may indeed be engines of the divine Work, but we shall be imperfect tools and deflect or impair the working by our mental errors, our vital distortions or the obstinate incapacities of our physical nature. If this ego disappears, then we can truly become, not only pure instruments consciously consenting to every turn of the divine Hand that moves us, but aware of our true nature, conscious portions of the one Eternal and Infinite put out in herself for her works by the supreme shakti.
1.11 - The Seven Rivers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
increases by knowledge and makes his home and rest in the source of the Truth, of whom Heaven and Earth are the wives and lovers, who is increased by the divine waters in the unobstructed Vast, his own seat, and dwelling in that shoreless infinity yields to the illumined gods the supreme Immortality, cannot be the God of physical Fire. In this passage as in so many others the mystical, the spiritual, the psychological character of the burden of the Veda reveals itself not under the surface, not behind a veil of mere ritualism, but openly, insistently, - in a disguise indeed, but a disguise that is transparent, so that the secret truth of the Veda appears here, like the rivers of Vishwamitra's hymn,
"neither veiled nor naked".
1.12 - Brute Neighbors, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
Walden is deeper than that. How surprised must the fishes be to see this ungainly visitor from another sphere speeding his way amid their schools! Yet he appeared to know his course as surely under water as on the surface, and swam much faster there. Once or twice I saw a ripple where he approached the surface, just put his head out to reconnoitre, and instantly dived again. I found that it was as well for me to rest on my oars and wait his reappearing as to endeavor to calculate where he would rise; for again and again, when I was straining my eyes over the surface one way, I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh behind me. But why, after displaying so much cunning, did he invariably betray himself the moment he came up by that loud laugh? Did not his white breast enough betray him? He was indeed a silly loon, I thought. I could commonly hear the splash of the water when he came up, and so also detected him. But after an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as willingly and swam yet farther than at first. It was surprising to see how serenely he sailed off with unruffled breast when he came to the surface, doing all the work with his webbed feet beneath. His usual note was this demoniac laughter, yet somewhat like that of a water-fowl; but occasionally, when he had balked me most successfully and come up a long way off, he uttered a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like that of a wolf than any bird; as when a beast puts his muzzle to the ground and deliberately howls. This was his looning,perhaps the wildest sound that is ever heard here, making the woods ring far and wide. I concluded that he laughed in derision of my efforts, confident of his own resources. Though the sky was by this time overcast, the pond was so smooth that I could see where he broke the surface when I did not hear him. His white breast, the stillness of the air, and the smoothness of the water were all against him. At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged howls, as if calling on the God of loons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain, and I was impressed as if it were the prayer of the loon answered, and his god was angry with me; and so I left him disappearing far away on the tumultuous surface.
For hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman; tricks which they will have less need to practise in Louisiana bayous. When compelled to rise they would sometimes circle round and round and over the pond at a considerable height, from which they could easily see to other ponds and the river, like black motes in the sky; and, when I thought they had gone off thither long since, they would settle down by a slanting flight of a quarter of a mile on to a distant part which was left free; but what beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of
1.1.2 - Commentary, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
the God of light, not Ether and his regions; for these are only
conditions of vision and hearing.
1.12 - Dhruva commences a course of religious austerities, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
THE prince, having received these instructions, respectfully saluted the sages, and departed from the forest, fully confiding in the accomplishment of his purposes. He repaired to the holy place, on the banks of the Yamunā, called Madhu or Madhuvana, the grove of Madhu, after the demon of that name, who formerly abided there. Śatrughna (the younger brother of Rāma) having slain the Rākṣas Lavaṇa, the son of Madhu, founded a city on the spot, which was named Mathurā. At this holy shrine, the purifier from all sin, which enjoyed the presence of the sanctifying God of gods, Dhruva performed penance, as enjoined by Marīci and the sages: he contemplated Viṣṇu, the sovereign of all the gods, seated in himself. Whilst his mind was wholly absorbed in meditation, the mighty Hari, identical with all beings and with all natures, (took possession of his heart.) Viṣṇu being thus present in his mind, the earth, the supporter of elemental life, could not sustain the weight of the ascetic. As he stood upon his left foot, one hemisphere bent beneath him; and when he stood upon his right, the other half of the earth sank down. When he touched the earth with his toes, it shook with all its mountains, and the rivers and the seas were troubled, and the gods partook of the universal agitation.
The celestials called Yāmas, being excessively alarmed, then took counsel with Indra how they should interrupt the devout exercises of Dhruva; and the divine beings termed Kushmāṇḍas, in company with their king, commenced anxious efforts to distract his meditations. One, assuming the semblance of his mother Sunīti, stood weeping before him, and calling in tender accents, "My son, my son, desist from destroying thy strength by this fearful penance. I have gained thee, my son, after much anxious hope: thou canst not have the cruelty to quit me, helpless, alone, and unprotected, on account of the unkindness of my rival. Thou art my only refuge; I have no hope but thou. What hast thou, a child but five years old, to do with rigorous penance? Desist from such fearful practices, that yield no beneficial fruit. First comes the season of youthful pastime; and when that is over, it is the time for study: then succeeds the period of worldly enjoyment; and lastly, that of austere devotion. This is thy season of pastime, my child. Hast thou engaged in these practices to put an end to thine existence? Thy chief duty is love for me: duties are according to time of life. Lose not thyself in bewildering error: desist from such unrighteous actions. If not, if thou wilt not desist from these austerities, I will terminate my life before thee."
--
The gods, being thus pacified by the supreme, saluted him respectfully and retired, and, preceded by Indra, returned to their habitations: but Hari, who is all things, assuming a shape with four arms, proceeded to Dhruva, being pleased with his identity of nature, and thus addressed him: "Son of Uttānapāda, be prosperous. Contented with thy devotions, I, the giver of boons, am present. Demand what boon thou desirest. In that thou hast wholly disregarded external objects, and fixed thy thoughts on me, I am well pleased with thee. Ask, therefore, a suitable reward." The boy, hearing these words of the God of gods, opened his eyes, and beholding that Hari whom he had before seen in his meditations actually in his presence, bearing in his hands the shell, the discus, the mace, the bow, and scimetar, and crowned with a diadem, the bowed his head down to earth; the hair stood erect on his brow, and his heart was depressed with awe. He reflected how best he should offer thanks to the God of gods; what he could say in his adoration; what words were capable of expressing his praise: and being overwhelmed with perplexity, he had recourse for consolation to the deity. "If," he exclaimed, "the lord is contented with my devotions, let this be my reward, that I may know how to praise him as I wish. How can I, a child, pronounce his praises, whose abode is unknown to Brahmā and to others learned in the Vedas? My heart is overflowing with devotion to thee: oh lord, grant me the faculty worthily to lay mine adorations at thy feet."
Whilst lowly bowing, with his hands uplifted to his forehead, Govinda, the lord of the world, touched the son of Uttānapāda with the tip of his conch-shell, and immediately the royal youth, with a countenance sparkling with delight, praised respectfully the imperishable protector of living beings. "I venerate," exclaimed Dhruva, "him whose forms are earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect, the first element (Aha
--
Viṣṇu said to Dhruva; "The object of thy devotions has in truth been attained, in that thou hast seen me; for the sight of me, young prince, is never unproductive. Ask therefore of me what boon thou desirest; for men in whose sight I appear obtain all their wishes." To this, Dhruva answered; "Lord God of all creatures, who abidest in the hearts of all, how should the wish that I cerish be unknown to thee? I will confess unto thee the hope that my presumptuous heart has entertained; a hope that it would be difficult to gratify, but that nothing is difficult when thou, creator of the world, art pleased. Through thy favour, Indra reigns over the three worlds. The sister-queen of my mother has said to me, loudly and arrogantly, 'The royal throne is not for one who is not born of me;' and I now solicit of the support of the universe an exalted station, superior to all others, and one that shall endure for ever." Viṣṇu said to him; "The station that thou askest thou shalt obtain; for I was satisfied with thee of old in a prior existence. Thou wast formerly a Brahman, whose thoughts were ever devoted to me, ever dutiful to thy parents, and observant of thy duties. In course of time a prince became thy friend, who was in the period of youth, indulged in all sensual pleasures, .and was of handsome appearance and elegant form. Beholding, in consequence of associating with him, his affluence, you formed the desire that you might be subsequently born as the son of a king; and, according to your wish, you obtained a princely birth in the illustrious mansion of Uttānapāda. But that which would have been thought a great boon by others, birth in the race of Svāyambhuva, you have not so considered, and therefore have propitiated me. The man who worships me obtains speedy liberation from life. What is heaven to one whose mind is fixed on me? A station shall be assigned to thee, Dhruva, above the three worlds[8]; one in which thou shalt sustain the stars and the planets; a station above those of the sun, the moon, Mars, the son of Soma (Mercury), Venus, the son of Sūrya (Saturn), and all the other constellations; above the regions of the seven Ṛṣis, and the divinities who traverse the atmosphere[9]. Some celestial beings endure for four ages; some for the reign of a Manu: to thee shall be granted the duration of a Kalpa. Thy mother Sunīti, in the orb of a bright star, shall abide near thee for a similar term; and all those who, with minds attentive, shall glorify thee at dawn or at eventide, shall acquire exceeding religious merit.
Thus the sage Dhruva, having received a boon from Janārddana, the God of gods, and lord of the world, resides in an exalted station. Beholding his glory, Uśanas, the preceptor of the gods and demons, repeated these verses: "Wonderful is the efficacy of this penance, marvellous is its reward, that the seven Ṛṣis should be preceded by Dhruva. This too is the pious Sunīti, his parent, who is called Sūnritā[10]." Who can celebrate her greatness, who, having given birth to Dhruva, has become the asylum of the three worlds, enjoying to all future time an elevated station, a station eminent above all? He who shall worthily describe the ascent into the sky of Dhruva, for ever shall be freed from all sin, and enjoy the heaven of Indra. Whatever be his dignity, whether upon earth or in heaven, he shall never fall from it, but shall long enjoy life, possessed of every blessing[11].
Footnotes and references:
1.12 - The Sacred Marriage, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
goddess of the corn and Bacchus a God of the vine. Her sanctuaries
were commonly in groves, indeed every grove was sacred to her, and
--
At Athens the God of the vine, Dionysus, was annually married to the
Queen, and it appears that the consummation of the divine union, as
--
of Frey, the God of fertility, both animal and vegetable, was drawn
about the country in a waggon attended by a beautiful girl who was
1.12 - TIME AND ETERNITY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Whenever God is thought of as being wholly in time, there is a tendency to regard Him as a numinous rather than a moral being, a God of mere unmitigated Power rather than a God of Power, Wisdom and Love, an inscrutable and dangerous potentate to be propitiated by sacrifices, not a Spirit to be worshipped in spirit. All this is only natural; for time is a perpetual perishing and a God who is wholly in time is a God who destroys as fast as He creates. Nature is as incomprehensibly appalling as it is lovely and bountiful. If the Divine does not transcend the temporal order in which it is immanent, and if the human spirit does not transcend its time-bound soul, then there is no possibility of justifying the ways of God to man. God as manifested in the universe is the irresistible Being who speaks to Job out of the whirlwind, and whose emblems are Behemoth and Leviathan, the war horse and the eagle. It is this same Being who is described in the Apocalyptic eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. O Supreme Spirit, says Arjuna, addressing himself to the Krishna whom he now knows to be the incarnation of the Godhead, I long to see your Isvara-form that is to say, his form as God of the world, Nature, the temporal order. Krishna answers, You shall behold the whole universe, with all things animate and inanimate, within this body of mine. Arjunas reaction to the revelation is one of amazement and fear.
Ah, my God, I see all gods within your body;
--
There follows a long passage, enlarging on the omnipotence and all-comprehensiveness of God in his Isvara-form. Then the quality of the vision changes, and Arjuna realizes, with fear and trembling, that the God of the universe is a God of destruction as well as of creation.
Now with frightful tusks your mouths are gnashing,
--
You of aspect grim. O God of gods, be gracious.
Take my homage, Lord. From me your ways are hidden.
1.13 - Gnostic Symbols of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
from being the God of wrath, changed into the God of Love-
a thought that is expressed very clearly by Nicolaus Caussin in
--
23 Polyhistor symbolicus, p. 348: "God, formerly the God of vengeance, who with
thunders and lightnings brought the world to disorder, took his rest in the lap
--
sephone, who was abducted by the God of the underworld; it
leads "to the grove of adored Aphrodite, who rouses the sickness
--
Yama, the God of death, would instantly carry off these people (the "imperfecti")
if they trod the spiritual path directly, without preparation. The erotic sculp-
1.13 - On despondency., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
2. Despondency is a slackness of soul, a weakening of the mind, neglect of asceticism, hatred of the vow made. It is the blessing of worldlings. It accuses God of being merciless and without love for men. It is being languid in singing psalms, weak in prayer, stubbornly bent on service, resolute in manual labour, indifferent in obedience.
3. A person under obedience does not know despondency, having achieved spiritual things by means of sensory things.
1.13 - Posterity of Dhruva, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
Sunīthā was originally the daughter of Mrityu, by whom she was given to Anga to wife. She bore him Veṇa, who inherited the evil propensities of his maternal grandfather. When he was inaugurated by the Ṛṣis monarch of the earth, he caused. it to be every where proclaimed, that no worship should be performed, no oblations offered, no gifts bestowed upon the Brahmans. "I, the king," said he, "am the lord of sacrifice; for who but I am entitled to the oblations." The Ṛṣis, respectfully approaching the sovereign, addressed him in melodious accents, and said, "Gracious prince, we salute you; hear what we have to represent. For the preservation of your kingdom and your life, and for the benefit of all your subjects, permit us to worship Hari, the lord of all sacrifice, the God of gods, with solemn and protracted rites[2]; a portion of the fruit of which will revert to you[3]. Viṣṇu, the God of oblations, being propitiated with sacrifice by us, will grant you, oh king, all your desires. Those princes have all their wishes gratified, in whose realms Hari, the lord of sacrifice, is adored with sacrificial rites." "Who," exclaimed Veṇa, "is superior to me? who besides me is entitled to worship? who is this Hari, whom you style the lord of sacrifice? Brahmā, Janārddana. Śambhu, Indra, Vāyu, Ravi (the sun), Hutabhuk (fire), Varuṇa, Dhātā, Pūṣā, (the sun), Bhūmi (earth), the lord of night (the moon); all these, and whatever other gods there be who listen to our vows; all these are present in the person of a king: the essence of a sovereign is all that is divine. Conscious of this, I have issued my commands, and look that you obey them. You are not to sacrifice, not to offer oblations, not to give alms. As the first duty of women is obedience to their lords, so observance of my orders is iñcumbent, holy men, on you." "Give command, great king," replied the Ṛṣis, "that piety may suffer no decrease. All this world is but a transmutation of oblations; and if devotion be suppressed, the world is at an end." But Veṇa was entreated in vain; and although this request was repeated by the sages, he refused to give the order they suggested. Then those pious Munis were filled with wrath, and cried out to each other, "Let this wicked wretch be slain. The impious man who has reviled the God of sacrifice who is without beginning or end, is not fit to reign over the earth." And they fell upon the king, and beat him with blades of holy grass, consecrated by prayer, and slew him, who had first been destroyed by his impiety towards god.
Afterwards the Munis beheld a great dust arise, and they said to the people who were nigh, "What is this?" and the people answered and said, "Now that the kingdom is without a king, the dishonest men have begun to seize the property of their neighbours. The great dust that you behold, excellent Munis, is raised by troops of clustering robbers, hastening to fall upon their prey." The sages, hearing this, consulted, and together rubbed the thigh of the king, who had left no offspring, to produce a son. From the thigh, thus rubbed, came forth a being of the complexion of a charred stake, with flattened features (like a negro), and of dwarfish stature. "What am I to do?" cried he eagerly to the Munis. "Sit down" (Nishida), said they; and thence his name was Niṣāda. His descendants, the inhabitants of the Vindhya mountain, great Muni, are still called Niṣādas, and are characterized by the exterior tokens of depravity[4]. By this means the wickedness of Versa was expelled; those Niṣādas being born of his sins, and carrying them away. The Brahmans then proceeded to rub the right arm of the king, from which friction was engendered the illustrious son of Veṇa, named Prithu, resplendent in person, as if the blazing deity of Fire bad been manifested.
1.13 - The Kings of Rome and Alba, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
the God of the sky, of the thunder, and of the oak, it is natural to
suppose that the kings of Alba, from whom the founder of Rome traced
--
Thus, if the kings of Alba and Rome imitated Jupiter as God of the
oak by wearing a crown of oak leaves, they seem also to have copied
--
Jupiter on this his holy mountain; as God of the sky and thunder he
appropriately received the homage of his worshippers in the open
1.13 - THE MASTER AND M., #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "Some say it is a modern thing. That sets me wondering: 'Then is the God of the Brahmo Samaj a new God?' The Brahmos speak of their cult as the Navavidhan, as a New Dispensation. Well, it may be so. Who knows? There are six systems of philosophy; so perhaps it is like one of these.
"But do you know where those who speak of the formless God make their mistake? It is where they say that God is formless only, and that those who differ with them are wrong.
1.14 - Descendants of Prithu, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
The sons of Prācīnaverhis were originally informed by their father, who had been appointed as a patriarch, and whose mind was intent on multiplying mankind, that the had been respectfully enjoined by Brahmā, the God of gods, to labour to this end, and that he had promised obedience: "now therefore," continued he, "do you, my sons, to oblige me, diligently promote the increase of the people, for the orders of the father of all creatures are entitled to respect." The sons of the king, having heard their father's words, replied, "So be it;" but they then inquired of him, as he could best explain it, by what means they might accomplish the augmentation of mankind. He said to them; "Whoever worships Viṣṇu, the bestower of good, attains undoubtedly the object of his desires: there is no other mode. What further can I tell you? Adore therefore Govinda, who is Hari, the lord of all beings, in order to effect the increase of the human race, if you wish to succeed.
The eternal Puruṣottama is to be propitiated by him who wishes for virtue, wealth, enjoyment, or liberation. Adore him, the imperishable, by whom, when propitiated, the world was first created, and mankind will assuredly be multiplied."
1.14 - The Principle of Divine Works, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The quietist, the ascetic, on the other hand cannot see any possibility of perfection into which life and action enter. Are they not the very seat of bondage and imperfection? Is not all action imperfect in its nature, like a fire that must produce smoke, is not the principle of action itself rajasic, the father of desire, a cause that must have its effect of obscuration of knowledge, its round of longing and success and failure, its oscillations of joy and grief, its duality of virtue and sin? God may be in the world, but he is not of the world; he is a God of renunciation and not the Master or cause of our works; the master of our works is desire and the cause of works is ignorance. If the world, the
Kshara is in a sense a manifestation or a lla of the Divine, it is an imperfect play with the ignorance of Nature, an obscuration
1.14 - The Structure and Dynamics of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
who was bracketed with the God of revelation, Hermes. Both
have a pneumatic nature. The serpens Mercurii is a chthonic
--
snake is not only related to the God of revelation, Hermes, but,
as a vegetation numen, calls forth the "blessed greenness," all
1.14 - The Succesion to the Kingdom in Ancient Latium, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
and indeed personated Jupiter, the great God of the sky, the
thunder, and the oak, and in that character made rain, thunder, and
1.14 - The Victory Over Death, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
This is why it is said in the Upanishads that Yama, the God of death, is the son of the Sun.46
The supreme sun is at the bottom of the supreme darkness. Death is the passage to immortality, the keeper of the great total Sun, the ultimate compulsion toward integral Truth. At that moment, whatever is incapable of summoning the Light, all the unpurified fragments of being are immediately snapped up by that NO, dissolved in it, frozen in its black ecstasy, because they are themselves a little spark of that NO, a little refusal of that great Refusal, a chip of that formidable Rock.
1.15 - Prayers, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Lord, God of Beauty and Harmony,
Grant that we may become instruments worthy of manifesting Thy supreme beauty in the world.
1.15 - The world overrun with trees; they are destroyed by the Pracetasas, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
"Who Māṛṣā was of old I will also relate to you, as the recital of her meritorious acts will be beneficial to you. She was the widow of a prince, and left childless at her husband's death: she therefore zealously worshipped Viṣṇu, who, being gratified by her adoration, appeared to her, and desired her to demand a boon; on which she revealed to him the wishes of her heart. 'I have been a widow, lord,' she exclaimed, 'even from my infancy, and my birth has been in vain: unfortunate have I been, and of little use, oh sovereign of the world. Now therefore I pray thee that in succeeding births I may have honourable husbands, and a son equal to a patriarch amongst men: may I be possessed of affluence and beauty: may I he pleasing in the sight of all: and may I be born out of the ordinary course. Grant these prayers, oh thou who art propitious to the devout.' Hṛṣikeśa, the God of gods, the supreme giver of all blessings, thus prayed to, raised her from her prostrate attitude, and said, 'In another life you shall have ten husbands of mighty prowess, and renowned for glorious acts; and you shall have a son magnanimous and valiant, distinguished by the rank of a patriarch, from whom the various races of men shall multiply, and by whose posterity the universe shall be filled. You, virtuous lady, shall be of marvellous birth, and you shall be endowed with grace and loveliness, delighting the hearts of men.' Thus having spoken, the deity disappeared, and the princess was accordingly afterwards born as Māṛṣā, who is given to you for a wife[4]."
Soma having concluded, the Pracetasas took Māṛṣā, as he had enjoined them, righteously to wife, relinquishing their indignation against the trees: and upon her they begot the eminent patriarch Dakṣa, who had (in a former life) been born as the son of Brahmā[5]. This great sage, for the furtherance of creation, and the increase of mankind, created progeny. Obeying the command of Brahmā, he made movable and immovable things, bipeds and quadrupeds; and subsequently, by his will, gave birth to females, ten of whom he bestowed on Dharma, thirteen on Kaśyapa, and twenty-seven, who regulate the course of time, on the moon[6]. Of these, the gods, the Titans, the snake-gods, cattle, and birds, the singers and dancers of the courts of heaven, the spirits of evil, and other beings, were born. From that period forwards living creatures were engendered by sexual intercourse: before the time of Dakṣa they were variously propagated, by the will, by sight, by touch, and by the influence of religious austerities practised by devout sages and holy saints.
1.15 - The Worship of the Oak, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
by acting the part of their kinsman Zeus, the great God of the oak,
the thunder, and the rain? They personified him, apparently, just as
--
great God of the oak and the thunder among the barbarous Aryans who
dwelt in the vast primaeval forests. Thus among the Celts of Gaul
--
especially dedicated to the God of thunder, Donar or Thunar, the
equivalent of the Norse Thor; for a sacred oak near Geismar, in
--
the ancient Teutons, as among the Greeks and Italians, the God of
the oak was also the God of the thunder. Moreover, he was regarded
as the great fertilising power, who sent rain and caused the earth
--
like Zeus and Jupiter, to have been the chief God of his people; for
Procopius tells us that the Slavs "believe that one god, the maker
--
resemblance to Zeus and Jupiter, since he was the God of the oak,
the thunder, and the rain.
From the foregoing survey it appears that a God of the oak, the
thunder, and the rain was worshipped of old by all the main branches
1.16 - Dianus and Diana, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
If the priest of Nemi posed not merely as a king, but as a God of
the grove, we have still to ask, What deity in particular did he
--
Jupiter, the supreme God of the Latins. Hence it follows that the
King of the Wood, whose life was bound up in a fashion with an oak,
--
his original aspect as a God of the greenwood.
The hypothesis that in later times at all events the King of the
--
to decide. But the view mentioned by Varro that Janus was the God of
the sky is supported not only by the etymological identity of his
--
scholars, that Janus was originally nothing but the God of doors.
That a deity of his dignity and importance, whom the Romans revered
as a God of gods and the father of his people, should have started
in life as a humble, though doubtless respectable, doorkeeper
--
only served but embodied the great Aryan God of the oak; and as an
oak-god he would mate with the oak-goddess, whether she went by the
--
man and beast. Further, as the oak-god was also a God of the sky,
the thunder, and the rain, so his human representative would be
--
the lonely hills, the ancient Aryan worship of the God of the oak,
the thunder, and the dripping sky lingered in its early, almost
1.17 - Legend of Prahlada, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
Listen, Maitreya, to the story of the wise and magnanimous Prahlāda, whose adventures are ever interesting and instructive. Hiraṇyakaśipu, the son of Diti, had formerly brought the three worlds under his authority, confiding in a boon bestowed upon him by Brahmā[1]. He had usurped the sovereignty of Indra, and exercised of himself the functions of the sun, of air, of the lord of waters, of fire, and of the moon. He himself was the God of riches; he was the judge of the dead; and he appropriated to himself, without reserve, all that was offered in sacrifice to the gods. The deities therefore, flying from their seats in heaven, wandered, through fear of the Daitya, upon the earth, disguised in mortal shapes. Having conquered the three worlds, he was inflated with pride, and, eulogized by the Gandharvas, enjoyed whatever he desired. The Gandharvas, the Siddhas, and the snake-gods all attended upon the mighty Hiraṇyakaśipu, as he sat at the banquet. The Siddhas delighted stood before him, some playing on musical instruments, some singing songs in his praise, and others shouting cries of victory; whilst the nymphs of heaven danced gracefully in the crystal palace, where the Asura with pleasure quaffed the inebriating cup.
The illustrious son of the Daitya king, Prahlāda, being yet a boy, resided in the dwelling of his preceptor, where he read such writings as are studied in early years. On one occasion he came, accompanied by his teacher, to the court of his father, and bowed before his feet as he was drinking. Hiraṇyakaśipu desired his prostrate son to rise, and said to him, "Repeat, boy, in substance, and agreeably, what during the period of your studies you have acquired." "Hear, sire," replied Prahlāda, "what in obedience to your commands I will repeat, the substance of all I have learned: listen attentively to that which wholly occupies my thoughts. I have learned to adore him who is without beginning, middle, or end, increase or diminution; the imperishable lord of the world, the universal cause of causes." On hearing these words, the sovereign of the Daityas, his eyes red with wrath, and lip swollen with indignation, turned to the preceptor of his son, and said, "Vile Brahman, what is this preposterous commendation of my foe, that, in disrespect to me, you have taught this boy to utter?" "King of the Daityas," replied the Guru, "it is not worthy of you to give way to passion: that which your son has uttered, he has not been taught by me." "By whom then," said Hiraṇyakaśipu to the lad, "by whom has this lesson, boy, been taught you? your teacher denies that it proceeds from him." "Viṣṇu, father," answered Prahlāda, "is the instructor of the whole world: what else should any one teach or learn, save him the supreme spirit?" "Blockhead," exclaimed the king, "who is this Viṣṇu, whose name you thus reiterate so impertinently before me, who am the sovereign of the three worlds?" "The glory of Viṣṇu," replied Prahlāda, "is to be meditated upon by the devout; it cannot be described: he is the supreme lord, who is all things, and from whom all things proceed." To this the king rejoined, "Are you desirous of death, fool, that you give the title of supreme lord to any one whilst I survive?" "Viṣṇu, who is Brahma," said Prahlāda, "is the creator and protector, not of me alone, but of all human beings, and even, father, of you: he is the supreme lord of all. Why should you, sire, be offended?" Hiraṇyakaśipu then exclaimed, "What evil spirit has entered into the breast of this silly boy, that thus, like one possessed, he utters such profanity?" "Not into my heart alone," said Prahlāda, "has Viṣṇu entered, but he pervades all the regions of the universe, and by his omnipresence influences the conduct of all beings, mine, fattier, and thine[2]." "Away with the wretch!" cried the king; "take him to his preceptor's mansion. By whom could he have been instigated to repeat the lying praises of my foe?"
1.19 - Dialogue between Prahlada and his father, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
"It is true that I have been instructed in all these matters by my venerable preceptor, and I have learnt them, but I cannot in all approve them. It is said that conciliation, gifts, punishment, and sowing dissension are the means of securing friends (or overcoming foes)[1]; but I, father-be not angry-know neither friends nor foes; and where no object is to be accomplished, the means of effecting it are superfluous. It were idle to talk of friend or foe in Govinda, who is the supreme soul, lord of the world, consisting of the world, and who is identical with all beings. The divine Viṣṇu is in thee, father, in me, and in all every where else; and hence how can I speak of friend or foe, as distinct from myself? It is therefore waste of time to cultivate such tedious and unprofitable sciences, which are but false knowledge, and all our energies should be dedicated to the acquirement of true wisdom. The notion that ignorance is knowledge arises, father, from ignorance. Does not the child, king of the Asuras, imagine the fire-fly to be a spark of fire. That is active duty, which is not for our bondage; that is knowledge, which is for our liberation: all other duty is good only unto weariness; all other knowledge is only the cleverness of an artist. Knowing this, I look upon all such acquirement as profitless. That which is really profitable hear me, oh mighty monarch, thus prostrate before thee, proclaim. He who cares not for dominion, he who cares not for wealth, shall assuredly obtain both in a life to come. All men, illustrious prince, are toiling to be great; but the destinies of men, and not their own exertions, are the cause of greatness. Kingdoms are the gifts of fate, and are bestowed upon the stupid, the ignorant, the cowardly, and those to whom the science of government is unknown. Let him therefore who covets the goods of fortune be assiduous in the practice of virtue: let him who hopes for final liberation learn to look upon all things as equal and the same. Gods, men, animals, birds, reptiles, all are but forms of one eternal Viṣṇu, existing as it were detached from himself. By him who knows this, all the existing world, fixed or movable, is to be regarded as identical with himself, as proceeding alike from Viṣṇu, assuming a universal form. When this is known, the glorious God of all, who is without beginning or end, is pleased; and when he is pleased, there is an end of affliction."
On hearing this, Hiraṇyakaśipu started up from his throne in a fury, and spurned his son on the breast with his foot. Burning with rage, he wrung his hands, and exclaimed, "Ho Viprachitti! ho Rāhu! ho Bali[2]! bind him with strong bands[3], and cast him into the ocean, or all the regions, the Daityas and Dānavas, will become converts to the doctrines of this silly wretch. Repeatedly prohibited by us, he still persists in the praise of our enemies. Death is the just retribution of the disobedient." The Daityas accordingly bound the prince with strong bands, as their lord had commanded, and threw him into the sea. As he floated on the waters, the ocean was convulsed throughout its whole extent, and rose in mighty undulations, threatening to submerge the earth. This when Hiraṇyakaśipu observed, he commanded the Daityas to hurl rocks into the sea, and pile them closely on one another, burying beneath their iñcumbent mass him whom fire would not burn, nor weapons pierce, nor serpents bite; whom the pestilential gale could not blast, nor poison nor magic spirits nor incantations destroy; who fell from the loftiest heights unhurt; who foiled the elephants of the spheres: a son of depraved heart, whose life was a perpetual curse. "Here," he cried, "since he cannot die, here let him live for thousands of years at the bottom of the ocean, overwhelmed by mountains. Accordingly the Daityas and Dānavas hurled upon Prahlāda, whilst in the great ocean, ponderous rocks, and piled them over him for many thousand miles: but he, still with mind undisturbed, thus offered daily praise to Viṣṇu, lying at the bottom of the sea, under the mountain heap. "Glory to thee, God of the lotus eye: glory to thee, most excellent of spiritual things: glory to thee, soul of all worlds: glory to thee, wielder of the sharp discus: glory to the best of Brahmans; to the friend of Brahmans and of kine; to Kṛṣṇa, the preserver of the world: to Govinda be glory. To him who, as Brahmā, creates the universe; who in its existence is its preserver; be praise. To thee, who at the end of the Kalpa takest the form of Rudra; to thee, who art triform; be adoration. Thou, Achyuta, art the gods, Yakṣas, demons, saints, serpents, choristers and dancers of heaven, goblins, evil spirits, men, animals, birds, insects, reptiles, plants, and stones, earth, water, fire, sky, wind, sound, touch, taste, colour, flavour, mind, intellect, soul, time, and the qualities of nature: thou art all these, and the chief object of them all. Thou art knowledge and ignorance, truth and falsehood, poison and ambrosia. Thou art the performance and discontinuance of acts[4]: thou art the acts which the Vedas enjoin: thou art the enjoyer of the fruit of all acts, and the means by which they are accomplished. Thou, Viṣṇu, who art the soul of all, art the fruit of all acts of piety. Thy universal diffusion, indicating might and goodness, is in me, in others, in all creatures, in all worlds. Holy ascetics meditate on thee: pious priests sacrifice to thee. Thou alone, identical with the gods and the fathers of mankind, receivest burnt-offerings and oblations[5]. The universe is thy intellectual form[6]; whence proceeded thy subtile form, this world: thence art thou all subtile elements and elementary beings, and the subtile principle, that is called soul, within them. Hence the supreme soul of all objects, distinguished as subtile or gross, which is imperceptible, and which cannot be conceived, is even a form of thee. Glory be to thee, Puruṣottama; and glory to that imperishable form which, soul of all, is another manifestation[7] of thy might, the asylum of all qualities, existing in all creatures. I salute her, the supreme goddess, who is beyond the senses; whom the mind, the tongue, cannot define; who is to be distinguished alone by the wisdom of the truly wise. Om! salutation to Vāsudeva: to him who is the eternal lord; he from whom nothing is distinct; he who is distinct from all. Glory be to the great spirit again and again: to him who is without name or shape; who sole is to be known by adoration; whom, in the forms manifested in his descents upon earth, the dwellers in heaven adore; for they behold not his inscrutable nature. I glorify the supreme deity Viṣṇu, the universal witness, who seated internally, beholds the good and ill of all. Glory to that Viṣṇu from whom this world is not distinct. May he, ever to be meditated upon as the beginning of the universe, have compassion upon me: may he, the supporter of all, in whom every thing is warped and woven[8], undecaying, imperishable, have compassion upon me. Glory, again and again, to that being to whom all returns, from whom all proceeds; who is all, and in whom all things are: to him whom I also am; for he is every where; and through whom all things are from me. I am all things: all things are in me, who am everlasting. I am undecayable, ever enduring, the receptacle of the spirit of the supreme. Brahma is my name; the supreme soul, that is before all things, that is after the end of all. ootnotes and references:
[1]: These are the four Upāyas, 'means of success,' specified in the Amera-koṣa.
1.19 - The Third Bolgia Simoniacs. Pope Nicholas III. Dante's Reproof of corrupt Prelates., #The Divine Comedy, #Dante Alighieri, #Christianity
Ye have made yourselves a God of gold and silver;
And from the idolater how differ ye,
1.20 - The Hound of Heaven, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
"funeral" hymn X.14, and it is worth while noting the real character of Yama and his two dogs in the Rig Veda. In the later ideas Yama is the God of Death and has his own special world; but in the Rig Veda he seems to have been originally a form of the Sun, - even as late as the Isha Upanishad we find the name used as an appellation of the Sun, - and then one of the twin children of the wide-shining Lord of Truth. He is the guardian of the dharma, the law of the Truth, satyadharma, which is a condition of immortality, and therefore himself the guardian of immortality. His world is Swar, the world of immortality, amr.te loke aks.ite, where, as we are told in IX.113, is the indestructible Light, where Swar is established, yatra jyotir ajasram, yasmin loke svar hitam. The hymn X.14 is indeed not a hymn of Death so much as a hymn of Life and Immortality.
Yama and the ancient Fathers have discovered the path to that world which is a pasture of the Cows whence the enemy cannot bear away the radiant herds, yamo no gatum prathamo viveda, nais.a gavyutir apabhartava u, yatra nah. purve pitarah. pareyuh..
1.22 - Dominion over different provinces of creation assigned to different beings, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
Brahmā, Dakṣa, time, and all creatures are the four energies of Hari, which are the causes of creation. Viṣṇu, Manu and the rest, time, and all creatures are the four energies of Viṣṇu, which are the causes of duration. Rudra, the destroying fire, time, and all creatures are the four energies of Janārddana that are exerted for universal dissolution. In the beginning and the duration of the world, until the period of its end, creation is the work of Brahmā, the patriarchs, and living animals. Brahmā creates in the beginning; then the patriarchs beget progeny; and then animals incessantly multiply their kinds: but Brahmā is not the active agent in creation, independent of time; neither are the patriarchs, nor living animals. So, in the periods of creation and of dissolution, the four portions of the God of gods are equally essential. Whatever, oh Brahman, is engendered by any living being, the body of Hari is cooperative in the birth of that being; so whatever destroys any existing thing, movable or stationary, at any time, is the destroying form of Janārddana as Rudra. Thus Janārddana is the creator, the preserver, and the destroyer of the whole world-being threefold-in the several seasons of creation, preservation, and destruction, according to his assumption of the three qualities: but his highest glory[3] is detached from all qualities; for the fourfold essence of the supreme spirit is composed of true wisdom, pervades all things, is only to be appreciated by itself, and admits of no similitude.
Maitreya said:-
1.22 - Tabooed Words, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
secret name from Ra, the great Egyptian God of the sun. Isis, so
runs the tale, was a woman mighty in words, and she was weary of the
1.23 - FESTIVAL AT SURENDRAS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Again, a few days afterwards, he went still deeper into the forest and found heaps of diamonds and other precious gems. He took these also and became as rich as the God of wealth himself.
Go forward
--
It was only a mud hut, but he had built it with great labour. A few days after, there came a violent storm and the hut began to rock. The man became very anxious to save it and prayed to the God of the winds,'O God of the winds, please don't wreck the house!'
But the God of the winds paid no heed to his prayer. The house was about to crash. Then he thought of a trick. He remembered that Hanuman was the son of the God of the winds. At once he cried out with great earnestness: 'O revered sir, please don't pull down the house. It belongs to Hanuman. I beseech you to protect it.' But still the house continued to shake violently. Nobody seemed to listen to his prayer. He repeated many times, 'Oh, this house belongs to Hanuman!' But the fury of the wind did not abate. Then he remembered that Hanuman was the devoted servant of Rma, whose younger brother was Lakshmana. Desperately the man prayed, crying aloud, 'Oh, this house belongs to Lakshmana!' But that also failed to help matters. So the man cried out as a last resort: 'This is Rma's house. Don't break it down, O God of the winds! I beseech you most humbly.' But this too proved futile, and the house began to crash down.
Whereupon the man, who now had to save his own life, rushed out of it with the curse: 'Let it go! This is the devil's own hut!'
1.240 - 1.300 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
D.: Meditation of the God of Immanence is hard to understand.
M.: Leave God alone. Hold your Self.
--
M.: Swa swarupanusandhanam bhaktirityabhidheeyate (Reflection on one's own Self is called bhakti). Bhakti and Self-Enquiry are one and the same. The Self of the Advaitins is the God of the bhaktas.
D.: Is there a spiritual hierarchy of all the original propounders of religions watching the spiritual welfare of the humans?
1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
D.: Meditation of the God of Immanence is hard to understand.
M.: Leave God alone. Hold your Self.
--
M.: Swa swarupanusandhanam bhaktirityabhidheeyate (Reflection on ones own Self is called bhakti). Bhakti and Self-Enquiry are one and the same. The Self of the Advaitins is the God of the bhaktas.
D.: Is there a spiritual hierarchy of all the original propounders of religions watching the spiritual welfare of the humans?
1.25 - ADVICE TO PUNDIT SHASHADHAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Seeking a shelter at Her feet, the gods themselves feel safe; And Mahadeva, God of Gods,
Lies prostrate underneath Her feet.
1.26 - On discernment of thoughts, passions and virtues, #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
(F) security of the light of prayer (R) God of the demons
(G) abundance of divine illumination (S) lord of the passions
1.2 - Katha Upanishads, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
birth and death he crosses; for he finds the God of our
3 The Divine Force concealed in the subconscient is that which has originated and built
1.31 - Continues the same subject. Explains what is meant by the Prayer of Quiet. Gives several counsels to those who experience it. This chapter is very noteworthy., #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
recognize it and it will give you great comfort to know what it is. I believe God often grants this
favour together with the other. When this quiet is felt in a high degree and lasts for a long time, I
1.34 - The Myth and Ritual of Attis, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
to have been a God of vegetation, and his death and resurrection
were annually mourned and rejoiced over at a festival in spring. The
1.35 - Attis as a God of Vegetation, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
object:1.35 - Attis as a God of Vegetation
author class:James George Frazer
--
XXXV. Attis as a God of Vegetation
THE ORIGINAL character of Attis as a tree-spirit is brought out
1.36 - Human Representatives of Attis, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
called the Lord of the Gallows or the God of the Hanged, and he is
represented sitting under a gallows tree. Indeed he is said to have
1.37 - Oriential Religions in the West, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
appropriate day for the revival of a God of vegetation who had been
dead or sleeping throughout the winter. But according to an ancient
1.38 - The Myth of Osiris, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
By the advice of the God of wisdom she took refuge in the papyrus
swamps of the Delta. Seven scorpions accompanied her in her flight.
1.39 - The Ritual of Osiris, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
his aspects a God of the corn, nothing could be more natural than
that he should be mourned at midsummer. For by that time the harvest
1.40 - The Nature of Osiris, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
who traced their descent from Frey, the great Scandinavian God of
fertility.
--
character as a God of vegetation in general that they were not
allowed to stop up wells of water, which are so important for the
--
3. Osiris a God of Fertility
AS A God of vegetation Osiris was naturally conceived as a God of
creative energy in general, since men at a certain stage of
--
4. Osiris a God of the Dead
WE have seen that in one of his aspects Osiris was the ruler and
1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: God-vision is only vision of the Self objectified as the God of
ones own faith. Know the Self.
1.43 - Dionysus, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
manifestation of Dionysus, he was also a God of trees in general.
Thus we are told that almost all the Greeks sacrificed to "Dionysus
1.47 - Lityerses, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
slain in the character of Attis, a God of vegetation, and that Attis
was described by an ancient authority as "a reaped ear of corn."
1.49 - Ancient Deities of Vegetation as Animals, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
bull Dionysus was essentially a God of vegetation. The Chinese and
European customs which I have cited may perhaps shed light on the
--
animals or embodiments of the God of the grove. But the inference
would be rash. The goat was at one time a sacred animal or
1.52 - Killing the Divine Animal, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
Shu-lu-wit-si or God of Fire. After they had vanished, I asked old
brother what it all meant.
--
heart they will say, "As for me, I am a child of the God of the
mountains; I am descended from the divine one who rules in the
mountains," meaning by "the God of the mountains" no other than the
bear. It is therefore possible that, as our principal authority, the
--
first offered a libation on the fireplace to the God of the fire,
and the guests followed his example. Then a libation was offered to
--
to the God of the forest. The animal is kept for about two years in
a cage, and then killed at a festival, which always takes place in
--
you and send you to the God of the forest who loves you. We are
about to offer you a good dinner, the best you have ever eaten among
1.56 - The Public Expulsion of Evils, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
open with a sacrifice to the village God of three fowls, a cock and
two hens, one of which must be black. Along with them are offered
--
harvest. At this time they worship Pitteri Pennu, the God of
increase and of gain in every shape. On the first day of the
1.57 - Public Scapegoats, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
was not merely the dying God of vegetation, but also a public
scapegoat, upon whom were laid all the evils that had afflicted the
1.58 - Human Scapegoats in Classical Antiquity, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
year rather than of the old God of vegetation. It is possible that
ceremonies of this kind may have come to be thus interpreted in
--
this; for there is no reason why the God of vegetation, as such,
should be expelled the city. But it is otherwise if he is also a
--
representative of the creative and fertilising God of vegetation.
The representative of the god was annually slain for the purpose I
--
supposed to commemorate the merry reign of Saturn, the God of sowing
and of husbandry, who lived on earth long ago as a righteous and
--
year, were slain in the character of King Saturn, the God of the
sown and sprouting seed.
1.59 - Killing the God in Mexico, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
sacrificed in the character of Tezcatlipoca, "the God of gods,"
after having been maintained and worshipped as that great deity in
--
greatest God of the Mexican pantheon.
The honour of living for a short time in the character of a god and
1.62 - The Fire-Festivals of Europe, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
oak-tree with the God of thunder. Whether the curative and
fertilising virtues ascribed to the ashes of the Yule log, which are
1.63 - Fear, a Bad Astral Vision, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Apollo is the God of Music, pre-eminently; but He is too all-comprehensive, all-pervading, to be much use in a Talisman except as a general background. But there are the Muses: Polymina (or Polyhymnia) seems the one you want: she inspires the sublime hymn. How to invoke her is a matter for prolonged consideration. One would hardly see how to tackle the problem at all, unless by digging out an Angel from one of the Enochian Tablets. (See Equinox I, 7 and 8). Perhaps there is a square ruled by Sol (or Venus), Fire, Air and Water in the Tablet of one of these, with an appropriate Character on the summit of the Pyramid. If so, all would be plain sailing.
Of course, there are other Gods, notably Pan. (I must ask you to set my Hymn to Pan to music). But I doubt if any of these are what you want. Probably the most practical plan would be to make a musical conjuration of Sol: use this as your invocation when you go on the Astral Plane: there find a suitable guide to the proper authority and so on!
1.64 - The Burning of Human Beings in the Fires, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
think, to expose the God of vegetation to a considerable degree of
heat, and it is also advantageous to kill him, and they combine
1.65 - Balder and the Mistletoe, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
idea in mythical form, we might tell how the kindly God of the oak
had his life securely deposited in the imperishable mistletoe which
1.68 - The God-Letters, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The importance of all this: I'm sure I've told you how Thoth, God of all Magick, the Wisdom and the Word, is usually shown with style and papyrus, as inventor of writing, which is the real Magical Art. Hence "grimoire" is nothing but grammar; to cast a "spell" explains itself; and the Angel (e.g. of a Church, see Revelations I, II) was merely the Secretary.[131]
Never mind! I was thinking of language in its (supposed) primal state, when grunts and groans and moans and yells and squeaks and the like were the nearest anybody ever got to:
1.68 - The Golden Bough, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
both Greeks and Romans identified their great God of the sky and of
the oak with the lightning flash which struck the ground; and they
--
association of the tree with the great God of the thunder and the
sky, was suggested or implied long ago by Jacob Grimm, and has been
--
fire in the forest on earth. On that theory the God of the thunder
and the sky was derived from the original God of the oak; on the
present theory, which I now prefer, the God of the sky and the
thunder was the great original deity of our Aryan ancestors, and his
--
the good and kindly God of the oak, who kept his life stowed away
for safety between earth and heaven in the mysterious parasite; but
--
flesh and blood the great Italian God of the sky, Jupiter, who had
kindly come down from heaven in the lightning flash to dwell among
17.01 - Hymn to Dawn, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Even like the God of Life, they bestow as the right impulsions break forth, life's energies;
and these he enjoys who has the immortal drink purified. [18]
1953-07-01, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is said that there is a God of Death. Is it true?
Yes, I call it the spirit of Death. I know it very well. And that is an extraordinary organisation. You do not know to what an extent it is organised.
1956-04-11 - Self-creator - Manifestation of Time and Space - Brahman-Maya and Ishwara-Shakti - Personal and Impersonal, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So, the personal God is the God to whom a form is given. For example, the inner God of each one is a personal God, for He has a personal relation with each one, He is the God who belongs to this person, who is his very own.
But something which has neither form nor characteristics nor any definite outline of any kind, and with which one cannot have a personal relation that is the impersonal Divine.
1958-07-16 - Is religion a necessity?, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There it is a necessity. In ordinary life, an individual, whether he knows it or not, always has a religion but the object of his religion is sometimes of a very inferior kind. The god he worships may be the God of success or the God of money or the God of power, or simply a family god: the God of children, the God of the family, the God of the ancestors. There is always a religion. The quality of the religion is very different according to the individual, but it is difficult for a human being to live and to go on living, to survive in life without having something like a rudiment of an ideal which serves as the centre for his existence. Most of the time he doesnt know it and if he were asked what his ideal is, he would be unable to formulate it; but he has one, vaguely, something that seems to him the most precious thing in life.
For most people, it is security, for instance: living in security, being in conditions where one is sure of being able to go on existing. That is one of the great aims, one might say, one of the great motives of human effort. There are people for whom comfort is the important thing; for others it is pleasure, amusement.
1960 11 12? - 49, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
49To feel and love the God of beauty and good in the ugly and the evil, and still yearn in utter love to heal it of its ugliness and its evil, this is real virtue and morality.
How can one help to cure the evil and the ugliness that one sees everywhere? Through love? What is the power of love? How can an individual phenomenon of consciousness act on the rest of mankind?1
1970 03 24, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I can tell you about my own experience. Until the age of about twenty-five, all I knew was the God of religions, God as men have created him, and I did not want him at any price. I denied his existence but with the certitude that if such a God did exist, I detested him.
When I was about twenty-five I discovered the inner God and at the same time I learned that the God described by most Western religions is none other than the Great Adversary.
1970 04 07, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
458No doubt, when the priest curses, he is crying to God; but it is the God of anger and darkness to whom he devotes himself along with his enemy; for as he approaches God, so shall God receive him.
459I was much plagued by Satan, until I found that it was God who was tempting me; then the anguish of him passed out of my soul for ever.
1.ac - On - On - Poet, #Crowley - Poems, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
For he is the God of the
Sacrifice,
--
Our Chinese God of clay.
Strings of bruises for pearls,
--
No more you'll be the God of Sacrifice,
Nor I the crucified.
1.ac - Ut, #Crowley - Poems, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
My God, and very God of very God
As breath, as death, as all, as naught, unknown,
1.anon - The Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet VII, #Anonymous - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Bur the Sun God of Heavenl replied to valiant Enlil:
'Was it not at my command that they killed the Bull of
1.anon - The Seven Evil Spirits, #Anonymous - Poems, #unset, #Zen
[3] Adad is God of storm, Anu of heaven, Enlil of storm, Sin of the Moon, Shamash of the Sun, and Ishtar of love and fruitfulness. The meaning of Massu is unknown; but Ea was long the chief ruler.
[4] The evil gods darken the moon by an eclipse, Shamash helping them by withdrawing his light from the moon, and Adad by sending cloudy weather.
--
[1 ]The mistress of the netherworld, while Namtar is the God of pestilence.
CHARM AGAINST THE SEVEN EVIL SPIRITS
1f.lovecraft - The Challenge from Beyond, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
This, the deep-grooved memories of Tothe told Campbell, was the God of
Yekub, though why the people of Yekub feared and worshipped it had been
--
Thus spoke the round red God of Yekub in a far-off segment of the
space-time continuum to George Campbell as the latter, with all human
1f.lovecraft - The Crawling Chaos, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
than the evil God of waters, but even if it was it could not turn back;
and the desert had suffered too much from those nightmare waves to help
1f.lovecraft - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
golden palanquin to pray to the God of Oukranos, who sang to him in
youth when he dwelt in a cottage by its banks. All of jasper is that
1f.lovecraft - The Strange High House in the Mist, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Olneys children and stout wife prayed to the bland proper God of
Baptists, and hoped that the traveller would borrow an umbrella and
1f.lovecraft - Under the Pyramids, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
stood poised on the worlds rim like that ancient God of
HeliopolisRe-Harakhte, the Horizon-Sunwe saw silhouetted against its
--
Osiris or Isis, Horus or Anubis, or some vast unknown God of the Dead
still more central and supreme? There is a legend that terrible altars
1.fs - Elegy On The Death Of A Young Man, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
Holy, holy, holy art thou, God of tombs!
We, with awful trembling, worship Thee!
1.fs - Hymn To Joy, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
Mortals, own the God of love!
Seek him high the stars above,
1.fs - The Four Ages Of The World, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
But beauty the God of the world still remained.
At length from the conflict bright victory sprang,
1.jda - When spring came, tender-limbed Radha wandered (from The Gitagovinda), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Barbara Stoler Miller Original Language Sanskrit When spring came, tender-limbed Radha wandered Like a flowering creeper in the forest wilderness, Seeking Krishna in his many haunts. The God of love increased her ordeal, Tormenting her with fevered thoughts, And her friend sang to heighten the mood. Soft sandal mountain winds caress quivering vines of clove. Forest huts hum with droning bees and crying cuckoos. When spring's mood is rich, Hari roams here To dance with young women, friend -- A cruel time for deserted lovers. Lonely wives of travelers whine in love's mad fantasies. Bees swarm over flowers clustered to fill mimosa branches. When spring's mood is rich, Hari roams here To dance with young women, friend -- A cruel time for deserted lovers. Tamala trees' fresh leaves absorb strong scents of deer musk. Flame-tree petals, shining nails of love, tear at young hearts. When spring's mood is rich, Hari roams here To dance with young women, friend -- A cruel time for deserted lovers. Gleaming saffron flower pistils are golden scepters of Love. Trumpet flowers like wanton bees are arrows in Love's quiver. When spring's mood is rich, Hari roams here To dance with young women, friend -- A cruel time for deserted lovers. Tender buds bloom into laughter as creatures abandon modesty. Cactus spikes pierce the sky to wound deserted lovers. When spring's mood is rich, Hari roams here To dance with young women, friend -- A cruel time for deserted lovers. Scents of twining creepers mingle with perfumes of fresh garlands. Intimate bonds with young things bewilder even hermit hearts. When spring's mood is rich, Hari roams here To dance with young women, friend -- A cruel time for deserted lovers. Budding mango trees tremble from the embrace of rising vines. Brindaban forest is washed by meandering Jumna river waters. When spring's mood is rich, Hari roams here To dance with young women, friend -- A cruel time for deserted lovers. Jayadeva's song evokes the potent memory of Hari's feet, Coloring the forest in springtime mood heightened by Love's presence. When spring's mood is rich, Hari roams here To dance with young women, friend -- A cruel time for deserted lovers. Wind perfumes the forest with fine pollen Shaken loose from newly blossomed jasmine As it blows Love's cactus-fragrant breath To torture every heart it touches here. Crying sounds of cuckoos, mating on mango shoots Shaken as bees seek honey scents of opening buds, Raise fever in the ears of lonely travelers -- Somehow they survive these days By tasting the mood of lovers' union In climaxing moments of meditation. [1994.jpg] -- from Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva's Gitagovinda, Translated by Barbara Stoler Miller <
1.jda - You rest on the circle of Sris breast (from The Gitagovinda), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Barbara Stoler Miller Original Language Sanskrit You rest on the circle of Sri's breast, Wearing your earrings, Fondling wanton forest garlands. Triumph, God of Triumph, Hari! The sun's jewel light encircles you As you break through the bond of existence -- A wild Himalayan goose on lakes in minds of holy men. Triumph, God of Triumph, Hari! You defeat the venomous serpent Kaliya, Exciting your Yadu kinsmen Like sunlight inciting lotuses to bloom. Triumph, God of Triumph, Hari! You ride your fierce eagle Garuda To battle demons Madhu and Mura and Naraka, Leaving the other goods free to play. Triumph, God of Triumph, Hari! Watching with long omniscient lotus-petal eyes, You free us from bonds of existence, Preserving life in the world's three realms. Triumph, God of Triumph, Hari! Janaka's daughter Sita adorns you. You conquer demon Dusana. You kill ten-headed Ravana in battle. Triumph, God of Triumph, Hari! Your beauty is fresh as rain clouds. You hold the mountain to churn elixir from the sea. Your eyes are night birds drinking from Sri's moon face. Triumph, God of Triumph, Hari! Poet Jayadeva joyously sings This song of invocation In an auspicious prayer. Triumph, God of Triumph, Hari! As he rests in Sri's embrace, On the soft slope of her breast, The saffroned chest of Madhu's killer Is stained with red marks of passion And sweat from fatigue of tumultuous loving. May his broad chest bring you pleasure too! [1994.jpg] -- from Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva's Gitagovinda, Translated by Barbara Stoler Miller <
1.jk - A Draught Of Sunshine, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Of madness? - God of Song,
Thou bearest me along
1.jk - Endymion - Book II, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
(line 434): It was a peculiarly happy piece of poetic realism to translate Ariadne's relations with Bacchus into her becoming a vintager; and I presume this was Keats's own thought, as well as the idea immediately following, that the God of Orchards conciliated Love with a gift of pears when paying his addresses to Pomona.
(line 676) Hesperan, I presume, not Hesprean as invariably accented by Milton. The precise value of 'capable' as used here is of course regulated by past and not by present custom. In this case it simply stands for receptive, able to receive, as in Hamlet (Act III, Scene IV).
1.jk - Endymion - Book IV, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Great God of breathless cups and chirping mirth!
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be
1.jk - Fancy, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
1.jk - Hyperion. Book I, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
(line 14): It seems to me that the power of realization shown in the first decade, and indeed throughout the fragment, answers all objections to the subject, and is the most absolute security for the nobility of the result which Keats would have achieved had he finished the poem. It is impossible to over-estimate the value of such a landscape, so touched in with a few strokes of titanic meaning and completeness; and the whole sentiment of gigantic despair reflected around the fallen God of the Titan dynasty, and permeating the landscape, is resumed in the most perfect manner in the incident of the motionless fallen leaf, a line almost as intense and full of the essence of poetry as any line in our language. It were ungracious to take exception to the poor Naiad; but she has not the convincing appropriateness of the rest of this sublime opening.'
(line 51): Leigh Hunt's remarks upon Keats's failure to finish the poem are specially appropriate to this passage, "If any living poet could finish this fragment, we believe it is the author himself. But perhaps he feels that he ought not. A story which involves passion, almost of necessity involves speech; and though we may well enough describe beings greater than ourselves by comparison, unfortunately we cannot make them speak by comparison."
1.jk - Hyperion. Book II, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
So ended Saturn; and the God of the sea,
Sophist and sage, from no Athenian grove,
--
Have ye beheld the young God of the seas,
My dispossessor? Have ye seen his face?
1.jk - Hyperion. Book III, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions,
1.jk - Ode To Apollo, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
From thee, great God of Bards, receive their heavenly birth.
'First given among the Literary Remains in the second volume of the Life, Letters &c. 1848. The date to which Lord Houghton assigns the poem is February 1815.'
1.jk - Song Of The Indian Maid, From Endymion, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Great God of breathless cups and chirping mirth!
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be
1.jlb - Remorse for any Death, #Borges - Poems, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
Like the God of the mystics,
whom they insist has no attributes,
1.kbr - Poem 7, #Songs of Kabir, #Kabir, #Sufism
Every votary offers his worship to the God of his own creation: each day he receives service
None seek Him, the Perfect: Brahma, the Indivisible Lord.
1.pbs - Fragments Of An Unfinished Drama, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
God of Heaven!
From such an islet, such a river-spring!
1.pbs - Hymn To Mercury, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
One of his old trickswhich the God of Day
Perceiving, said:I fear thee, Son of May;--
1.pbs - Queen Mab - Part VI., #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
Unlike the God of human error, thou
Requirest no prayers or praises; the caprice
1.pbs - Queen Mab - Part Vi (Excerpts), #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
Unlike the God of human error, thou
Requir'st no prayers or praises; the caprice
1.pbs - Queen Mab - Part VII., #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
And priests dare babble of a God of peace,
Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood,
1.poe - Eureka - A Prose Poem, #Poe - Poems, #unset, #Zen
For my part, I have no patience with fantasies at once so timorous, so idle, and so awkward. They belong to the veriest Cowardice of thought. That Nature and the God of Nature are distinct, no thinking being can long doubt. By the former we imply merely the laws of the latter. But with the very idea of God, omnipotent, omniscient, we entertain, also, the idea of the infallibility of his laws. With Him there being neither Past nor Future -with Him all being Now -do we not insult him in supposing his laws so contrived as not to provide for every possible contingency? -or, rather, what idea can we have of any possible contingency, except that it is at once a result and a manifestation of his laws? He who, divesting himself of prejudice, shall have the rare courage to think absolutely for himself, cannot fail to arrive, in the end, at the condensation of LA0 into LA0 -cannot fail of reaching the conclusion that each law of Nature is dependent at all points upon all other laws, and that all are but consequences of one primary exercise of the Divine Volition. Such is the principle of the Cosmogony which, with all necessary deference, I here venture to suggest and to maintain.
In this view, it will be seen that, dismissing as frivolous, and even impious, the fancy of the tangential force having been imparted to the planets immediately, by "the finger of God," I consider this force as originating in the rotation of the stars: -this rotation as brought about by the in-rushing of the primary atoms, towards their respective centres of aggregation: -this in-rushing as the consequence of the law of Gravity: -this law as but the mode in which is necessarily manifested the tendency of the atoms to return into imparticularity: -this tendency to return as but the inevitable reaction of the first and most sublime of Acts -that act by which a God, self-existing and alone existing, became all things at once, through dint of his volition, while all things were thus constituted a portion of God.
1.rb - Caliban upon Setebos or, Natural Theology in the Island, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
to Browning is true theology: the theology of a God of Love.
This comes to man (as to David in Saul) by revelation.
--
Setebos is merely a God of arbitrary and jealous power. It is
also noteworthy that Browning includes in Caliban's theology
--
Christianity in terms of a God of Love. The passages in brackets
at the beginning and end of the poem represent Caliban's silent
1.rb - Paracelsus - Part II - Paracelsus Attains, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
The God of the place to ban and blast him there,
Both well! What's failure or success to me?
1.rb - Rhyme for a Child Viewing a Naked Venus in a Painting of 'The Judgement of Paris', #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet,
And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was unlooped;
1.rb - Sordello - Book the Fifth, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
This proof, that he, Goito's God of yore,
At duty's instance could demean himself
1.rt - Religious Obsession -- translation from Dharmamoha, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
With his scythe the God of destruction is coming.
Planting him as a stake who comes to liberate
1.rwe - Initial Love, #Emerson - Poems, #Ralph Waldo Emerson, #Philosophy
Or accuse the God of sport?
I must end my true report,
1.rwe - Merops, #Emerson - Poems, #Ralph Waldo Emerson, #Philosophy
No inch to the God of day,
And copious language still bestowed
1.rwe - Terminus, #Emerson - Poems, #Ralph Waldo Emerson, #Philosophy
The God of bounds,
Who sets to seas a shore,
1.rwe - The Apology, #Emerson - Poems, #Ralph Waldo Emerson, #Philosophy
I go to the God of the wood
To fetch his word to men.
1.sfa - The Praises of God, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Regis J. Armstrong, OFM CAP & Ignatius C. Brady, OFM Original Language Italian You are holy, Lord, the only God, You do wonders. You are strong, You are great, You are the most high, You are the almighty King. You, Holy Father, the King of heaven and earth. You are Three and One, Lord God of gods; You are good, all good, the highest good, Lord, God, living and true. You are love, charity. You are wisdom; You are humility; You are patience; You are beauty; You are meekness; You are security; You are inner peace; You are joy; You are our hope and joy; You are justice; You are moderation, You are all our riches. You are beauty, You are meekness; You are the protector, You are the guardian and defender; You are strength; You are refreshment. You are our hope, You are our faith, You are our charity, You are all our sweetness, You are our eternal life: Great and wonderful Lord, God almighty, Merciful Savior. [1495.jpg] -- from Francis and Clare: The Complete Works: The Classics of Western Spirituality, Translated by Regis J. Armstrong, OFM CAP / Translated by Ignatius C. Brady, OFM <
1.sig - Ecstasy, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Israel Zangwill Original Language Hebrew My thoughts astounded asked me why Towards the whirling wheels on high In ecstasy I rush and fly. The living God is my desire, It carries me on wings of fire, Body and soul to Him aspire. God is at once my joy and fate, This yearning me He did create, At thought of Him I palpitate. Shall song with all its loveliness Submerge my soul with happiness Before the God of Gods it bless? <
1.vpt - All my inhibition left me in a flash, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Azfar Hussain Original Language Maithili All my inhibition left me in a flash, When he robbed me of my clothes, But his body became my new dress. Like a bee hovering on a lotus leaf He was there in my night, on me! True, the God of love never hesitates! He is free and determined like a bird Winging toward the clouds it loves. Yet I remember the mad tricks he played, My heart restlessly burning with desire Was yet filled with fear!
1.vpt - The moon has shone upon me, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. and Denise Levertov Original Language Maithili The moon has shone upon me, the face of my beloved. O night of joy! Joy permeates all things. My life: joy, my youth: fulfillment. Today my house is again home, today my body is my body. The God of destiny smiled on me. No more doubt. Let the nightingales sing, then, let there be myriad rising moons, let Kama's five arrows become five thousand and the south wind softly, softly blow: for now my body has meaning in the presence of my beloved Vidyapati says, Your luck is great; may this return of love be blessed. [2203.jpg] -- from In Praise of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali, Translated by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. / Translated by Denise Levertov <
1.wby - Aedh Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
Aedh was a Celtic God of Death, one of the children of Lir.
Yeats seems to have used this character in some of his stories along with Ahearne and Michael Robartes and describes him as fire reflected in water.
1.ww - Address To Kilchurn Castle, Upon Loch Awe, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
All that the God of Nature hath conferred,
All that he holds in common with the stars,
1.ww - Book Fourth [Summer Vacation], #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
He said, "My trust is in the God of Heaven,
And in the eye of him who passes me!"
1.ww - From The Cuckoo And The Nightingale, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
The God of Love"ah, benedicite!"
How mighty and how great a Lord is he!
--
For who is loth the God of Love to obey,
Is only fit to die, I dare well say,
--
The God of Love afflict thee with all teen,
For thou art worse than mad a thousand fold;
--
Now, God of Love; thou help me in some wise,
That vengeance on this Cuckoo I may wreak.
--
Unto the God of Love I make a vow,
That all this May I will thy songstress be.
--
And, God of Love, that can right well and may,
Send unto thee as mickle joy this day,
1.ww - Lines Written As A School Exercise At Hawkshead, Anno Aetatis 14, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
The God of day, in all the pomp of light,
Moves through the vault of heaven, and dissipates the
1.ww - October, 1803, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Sound, healthy, children of the God of heaven,
Are cheerful as the rising sun in May.
1.ww - Ode, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Nor will the God of peace and love
Such martial service disapprove.
--
Tremendous God of battles, Lord of Hosts!
V
--
Just God of christianised Humanity
Shall praises be poured forth, and thanks ascend,
1.ww - O Nightingale! Thou Surely Art, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Thou sing'st as if the God of wine
Had helped thee to a Valentine;
1.ww - The Birth Of Love, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Think all, he is the God of young delight."
Then TENDERNESS with CANDOUR joined,
1.ww - Troilus And Cresida, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
O blissful God of Love! then thus he cried,
When I the process have in memory,
2.01 - Mandala One, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(9) An eternal comradeship held with them the Son of Strength, the God of great deeds, labouring in perfect works. Even in the unripe cows of light thou settest, O Indra, by thy thought, a ripe, even in the black and the dun a shining milk.
(10) And eternally the immortal rivers who dwell in one house run not dry, but keep by their strengths his many thousand workings; sisters, they are to him like wives who are mothers and serve him with their works and he deviates not from his labour.
2.02 - Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But it is evident that whatever the posture taken or relation formed in any individual nodus of Purusha-Prakriti, the Being is in a fundamental cosmic relation lord or ruler of its nature: for even when it allows Nature to have its own way with it, its consent is necessary to support her workings. This comes out in its fullest revelation in the third aspect of the Reality, the Divine Being who is the master and creator of the universe. Here the supreme Person, the Being in its transcendental and cosmic consciousness and force, comes to the front, omnipotent, omniscient, the controller of all energies, the Conscious in all that is conscient or inconscient, the Inhabitant of all souls and minds and hearts and bodies, the Ruler or Overruler of all works, the Enjoyer of all delight, the Creator who has built all things in his own being, the All-Person of whom all beings are personalities, the Power from whom are all powers, the Self, the Spirit in all, by his being the Father of all that is, in his Consciousness-Force the Divine Mother the Friend of all creatures, the All-blissful and All-beautiful of whom beauty and joy are the revelation, the All-Beloved and All-Lover. In a certain sense, so seen and understood, this becomes the most comprehensive of the aspects of the Reality, since here all are united in a single formulation; for the Ishwara is supracosmic as well as intracosmic; He is that which exceeds and inhabits and supports all individuality; He is the supreme and universal Brahman, the Absolute, the supreme Self, the supreme Purusha.8 But, very clearly, this is not the personal God of popular religions, a being limited by his qualities, individual and separate from all others; for all such personal gods are only limited representations or names and divine personalities of the one Ishwara. Neither is this the Saguna Brahman active and possessed of qualities, for that is only one side of the being of the Ishwara; the Nirguna immobile and without qualities is another aspect of His existence. Ishwara is Brahman the Reality, Self, Spirit, revealed as possessor, enjoyer of his own self-existence, creator of the universe and one with it, Pantheos, and yet superior to it, the Eternal, the Infinite, the Ineffable, the Divine Transcendence.
8 Gita.
2.02 - Indra, Giver of Light, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The principle which Indra represents is Mind-Power released from the limits and obscurations of the nervous consciousness. It is this enlightened Intelligence which fashions right or perfect forms of thought or of action not deformed by the nervous impulses, not hampered by the falsehoods of sense. The image presented is that of a cow giving abundantly its yield to the milker of the herds. The word go means in Sanskrit both a cow and a ray of light. This double sense is used by the Vedic symbolists to suggest a double figure which was to them more than a figure; for light, in their view, is not merely an apt poetic image of thought, but is actually its physical form. Thus, the herds that are milked are the Herds of the Sun, - Surya, God of the revelatory and intuitive mind, or else of Dawn, the goddess who manifests the solar glory. The Rishi desires from Indra a daily increase of this light of Truth by his fuller activity pouring rays in a rich yield upon the receptive mind.
The activity of the pure illuminated Intelligence is sustained and increased by the conscious expression in us of the delight in divine existence and divine activity typified by the Soma wine. As the Intelligence feeds upon it, its action becomes an intoxicated ecstasy of inspiration by which the rays come pouring abundantly and joyously in. "Light-giving indeed is the intoxication of thee in thy rapture."
2.02 - On Letters, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Lastly, lest he should think that the psychic being is something weak and inert, let him understand that the presiding Deity the adhiht devat of the psychic plane is Agni. It is the Divine Fire of aspiration. When the psychic being is awakened the God of the plane is also awakened. And even if the whole being is impure it is this Agni which intervenes, removes the obstacles in the way and consumes all the impurities of the being.
21 AUGUST 1926
2.02 - THE SCINTILLA, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[50] In Khunrath113 the scintilla is the same as the elixir: Now the elixir is well and truly called a shining splendour, or perfect scintilla of him who alone is the Mighty and Strong. . . . It is the true Aqua Permanens, eternally living.114 The radical moisture is animated . . . by a fiery spark of the World-Soul, for the spirit of the Lord filleth the whole world.115 He also speaks of a plurality of sparks: There are . . . fiery sparks of the World-Soul, that is of the light of nature, dispersed or scattered at Gods comm and in and through the fabric of the great world into all fruits of the elements everywhere.116 The scintilla is associated with the doctrine of the Anthropos: The Son of the Great World . . . is filled, animated and impregnated . . . with a fiery spark of Ruach Elohim, the spirit, breath, wind or blowing of the triune God, from . . . the Body, Spirit, and Soul of the World, or . . . Sulphur and Salt, Mercury and the universal fiery spark of the light of nature.117 The fiery sparks of the World-Soul were already in the chaos, the prima materia, at the beginning of the world.118 Khunrath rises to Gnostic heights when he exclaims: And our Catholick Mercury, by virtue of his universal fiery spark of the light of nature, is beyond doubt Proteus, the sea God of the ancient pagan sages, who hath the key to the sea and . . . power over all things: son of Oceanos and Tethys.119 Many centuries lie between Monomos and Khunrath. The teachings of Monomos were completely unknown in the Middle Ages,120 and yet Khunrath hit upon very similar thoughts which can hardly be ascribed to tradition.
2.02 - The Synthesis of Devotion and Knowledge, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Buddha, or else some composite of natural qualities, an indulgent God of love and mercy, or a severe God of righteousness and justice, or an awe-inspiring God of wrath and terror and flaming punishments, or some amalgam of any of these, and to that he raises his altars without and in his heart and mind and falls down before it to demand from it worldly good and joy or healing of his wounds or a sectarian sanction for an erring, dogmatic, intellectual, intolerent knowledge. All this up to a certain point is true enough. Very rare is the great soul who knows that Vasudeva the omnipresent Being is all that is, vasudevah. sarvam iti sa mahatma sudurlabhah.. Men are led away by various outer desires which take from them the working
286
2.03 - Indra and the Thought-Forces, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
These verses fix clearly enough the psychological function of the Maruts. They are not properly gods of thought, rather gods of energy; still, it is in the mind that their energies become effective. To the uninstructed Aryan worshipper, the Maruts were powers of wind, storm and rain; it is the images of the tempest that are most commonly applied to them and they are spoken of as the Rudras, the fierce, impetuous ones, - a name that they share with the God of Force, Agni. Although Indra is described sometimes as the eldest of the Maruts, - indrajyes.t.ho
Nr.n. The word nr. seems to have meant originally active, swift or strong. We have nr.mn.a, strength, and nr.tama nr.n.am, most puissant of the Powers. It came afterwards to mean male or man and in the Veda is oftenest applied to the gods as the male powers or
2.03 - The Christian Phenomenon and Faith in the Incarnation, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
a. A God of cosmic synthesis in whom we can be con-
scious of advancing and of joining together by spiritual
--
(1) the arduous, personalizing, unification in God of a
tenuous mass of souls which are distinct from God and at
2.05 - Apotheosis, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
duality is left behind. Awonawilona, chief God of the pueblo of
Zuni, the maker and container of all, is sometimes spoken of as
2.05 - VISIT TO THE SINTHI BRAMO SAMAJ, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Do you know what the God of worldly people is like? It is like children's saying to one another while at play, 'I swear by God.' They have learnt the word from the quarrels of their aunts or grandmo thers. Or it is like God to a dandy. The dandy, all spick and span, his lips red from chewing betel-leaf, walks in the garden, cane in hand, and, plucking a flower, exclaims to his friend, 'Ah! What a beautiful flower God has made!' But this feeling of a worldly person is momentary. It lasts as long as a drop of water on a red-hot frying-pan.
"You must be firm in one ideal. Dive deep. Otherwise you cannot get the gems at the bottom of the ocean. You cannot pick up the gems if you only float on the surface."
2.07 - The Supreme Word of the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This Godhead is not the limited personal God of so many exoteric religions; for those are all only partial and outward formations of this other, this creative and directive, this personal side of his complete truth of existence. This is the one supreme Person, Soul, Being, Purusha of whom all godheads are aspects, all individual personality a limited development in cosmic Nature. This Godhead is not a particularised name and form of Divinity, is.t.a-devata, constructed by the intelligence or embodying the special aspiration of the worshipper. All such names and forms are only powers and faces of the one Deva who is the universal Lord of all worshippers and all religions: but this is itself that universal Deity, deva-deva. This Ishwara is not a reflection of the impersonal and indeterminable Brahman in illusive Maya: for from beyond all cosmos as well as within it he rules and is the Lord of the worlds and their creatures. He is
The Supreme Word of the Gita
2.08 - ALICE IN WONDERLAND, #God Exists, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
So we are now face to face with the great reality, the God of the cosmos. We have passed through the analysis. We have conducted a study of the three stages of consciousness waking, dream and deep sleep. We studied epistomological processes the perception of the world, how we come in contact with things, and how we know that the world exists at all. This also we have concluded. Many of you may not remember it, but think over or see your diaries if you have noted anything down.
Now we are facing the third principle of the ultimate reality of the cosmos, call it the Absolute, call it Satchidananda, God, Isvara, Hiranyagarbha, Virat, whatever it is. Here, true religion begins. Real religion is an awareness of the presence of the Supreme Being. Therefore, it is well said that religion begins where intellect ends, where reasons fails. When religion begins controlling your life, you cease to be a mere intellectual or a scientist or a philosopher. You are no more a thinker, but a person who lives reality.
2.08 - AT THE STAR THEATRE (II), #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
NISHI: "Bhavani Pathak has given me the name of Nishi, Night. I am the sister of Diva, Day. One day I shall introduce my sister to you. Let me continue what I was saying. God alone is the real Husband; and to a woman the husb and is her only God. Sri Krishna is the God of all. Why should we cherish two Deities, two Gods? If you divide to little bhakti of this small heart, how little there will be!"
PRAFULLA: "Don't be silly. Is there any limit to a woman's bhakti?"
2.08 - God in Power of Becoming, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He acclaims in him the original Godhead, adores the Unborn who is the pervading, indwelling, self-extending master of all existence, adi-devam ajam vibhum. He accepts him therefore not only as that Wonderful who is beyond expression of any kind, for nothing is sufficient to manifest him, - "neither the Gods nor the Titans, O blessed Lord, know thy manifestation," na hi te bhagavan vyaktim vidur deva na danavah., - but as the lord of all existences and the one divine efficient cause of all their becoming, God of the gods from whom all godheads have sprung, master of the universe who manifests and governs it from above by the power of his supreme and his universal Nature, bhutabhavana bhutesa deva-deva jagat-pate. And lastly he accepts him as that Vasudeva in and around us who is all things here by virtue of the world-pervading, all-inhabiting, all-constituting master powers of his becoming, vibhutayah., "the sovereign powers of thy becoming by which thou standest pervading these worlds," yabhir vibhutibhir lokan imams tvam vyapya tis.t.hasi.1
He has accepted the truth with the adoration of his heart, the submission of his will and the understanding of his intelligence.
2.08 - The God of Love is his own proof, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
object:2.08 - The God of Love is his own proof
author class:Swami Vivekananda
--
THE God of LOVE IS HIS OWN PROOF
What is the ideal of the lover who has quite passed beyond beyond the idea of selfishness, of bartering and bargaining, and who knows no fear? Even to the great God such a man will say, I will give You my all, and I do not want anything from You; indeed there is nothing that I can call my own. When a man has acquired this conviction, his ideal becomes one of perfect love, one of perfect fearlessness of love. The highest ideal of such a person has no narrowness of particularity about it; it is love universal, love without limits and bonds, love itself, absolute love. This grand ideal of the religion of love is worshipped and loved absolutely as such without the aid of any symbols or suggestions. This is the highest form of Para-Bhakti, the worship of such an all-comprehending ideal as the ideal; all the other forms of Bhakti are only stages on the way to reach it. All our failures and all our successes in following the religion of love are on the road to the reallsatlon of that one ideal. Object after object is taken up, and the inner ideal is successively projected on them all; and all such external objects are found inadequate as exponents of the everexpanding inner ideal, and are naturally rejected one after another. At last the aspirant begins to think that it is vain to try to realise the ideal in external objects, that all external objects are as nothing when compared with the ideal itself; and, in course of time, he acquires the power of realising the highest and the most generalised abstract ideal entirely as an abstraction that is to him quite alive and real. When the devotee has reached this point, he is no more impelled to ask whether God can be demonstrated or not, whether He is omnipotent and omniscient or not. To him He is only the God of Love: He is the highest ideal of love, and that is sufficient for all his purposes; He, as love, is self-evident; it requires no proofs to demonstrate the existence of the beloved to the lover. The magistrate-Gods of other forms of religion may require a good deal of proof to prove Them; but the Bhakta does pot and cannot think of such Gods at all. To him God exists entirely as love. None, O beloved, loves the husb and for the husbands sake, but it is for the sake of the Self who is in the husb and that the husb and is loved; none, O beloved, loves the wife for the wifes sake, but it is for the sake of the Self who is in the wife that the wife is loved. It is said by some that selfishness is the only motive power in regard to all human activities. That also is love lowered by being particularised. When I think of myself as comprehending the Universal, there can surely be no selfishness in me; but when I, by mistake, think that I am a little something, my love becomes particularised and narrowed.
The mistake consists in making the sphere of love narrow and contracted. All things in the universe are of divine origin and deserve to be loved; it has, however, to be borne in mind that the love of the whole includes the love of the parts. This whole is the God of the Bhaktas and all the other Gods, Fathers in Heaven, or Rulers, or Creators, and all theories and doctrines and books have no purpose and no meaning for them, seeing that they have, through their supreme love and devotion, risen above those things altogether. When the heart is purified and cleansed and filled to the brim with the divine nectar of love, all other ideas of God become simply puerile, and are rejected as being inadequate or unworthy. Such is indeed the power of Para-Bhakti or Supreme Love; and the perfected Bhakta no more goes to see God in temples and churches; he knows no place where he will not find Him. He finds Him in the temple as well as out of the temple; he finds Him in the saints saintliness as well as in the wicked mans wickedness, because he has Him already seated in glory in his own heart, as the one Almighty, inextinguishable Light of Love, which is ever shining and eternally present.
2.09 - Human representations of the Divine Ideal of Love, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
The next is what is known as Vatsalya (vaTsLy), loving God not as our father but as our child. This may look peculiar, but it is a discipline to enable us to detach all ideas of power from the concept of God. The idea of power brings with it awe. There should be no awe in love. The ideas of reverence and obedience are necessary for the formation of character, but when character is formed, when the lover has tasted the calm, peaceful love, and tasted also a little of its intense madness, then he need talk no more of ethics and discipline. To conceive God as mighty, majestic, and glorious, as the Lord of the universe, or as the God of gods, the lover says he does not care. It is to avoid this association with God of the fear-creating sense of power, that he worships God as his own child. The mother and the father are not moved by awe in relation to the child; they cannot have any reverence for the child. They cannot think of asking any favour from the child. The childs position is always that of the receiver, and out of love for the child the parents will give up their bodies a hundred times over. A thousand lives they will sacrifice for that one child of theirs.
and therefore God is loved as a child. This idea of loving God as a child comes into existence and grows naturally among those religious sects which believe in the incarnation of God. For the Mohammedan it is Impossible to have this idea of God as a child; they will shrink from it with a kind of horror. But the Christian and the Hindu can realise it easily, because they have the baby Jesus. and the baby Krishna.
2.0 - THE ANTICHRIST, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
is perforce converted into the God of the physiologically degraded,
of the weak. Of course they do not call themselves the weak, they
--
evolution of the concept God, from the " God of Israel," the God of
a people, to the Christian God, the quintessence of all goodness,
--
world on his side. But the God of the "greatest number," the democrat
among gods, did not become a proud hea then god notwithstanding: he
remained a Jew, he remained the God of the back streets, the God of
all dark corners and hovels, of all the unwholesome quarters of the
--
all rain. Jehovah is the God of Israel, and _consequently_ the God
of justice: this is the reasoning of every people which is in the
--
price they paid for retaining him.--Jehovah, the God of "Justice,"--is
no longer one with Israel, no longer the expression of a people's
2.10 - The Vision of the World-Spirit - Time the Destroyer, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
God as if a thousand suns had risen at once in heaven. The whole world multitudinously divided and yet unified is visible in the body of the God of Gods. Arjuna sees him, God magnificent and beautiful and terrible, the Lord of souls who has manifested in the glory and greatness of his spirit this wild and monstrous and orderly and wonderful and sweet and terrible world, and overcome with marvel and joy and fear he bows down and adores with words of awe and with clasped hands the tremendous vision. "I see" he cries "all the gods in thy body,
O God, and different companies of beings, Brahma the creating lord seated in the Lotus, and the Rishis and the race of the divine
2.11 - The Crown, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
2:Instead of this, the Ateph Crown of Thoth is sometimes worn; for Thoth is the God of Truth, of Wisdom, and the Teacher of Magick. The Ateph Crown has two ram's horns, showing energy, dominion, the force that breaks down obstacles, the sign of the spring. Between these horns is the disk of the sun; from this springs a Lotus upheld by the twin plumes of truth, and three other sun-disks are upheld, one by the cup of the lotus, the others beneath the curving feathers.
3:There is still another Crown, the Crown of Amoun, the concealed one, from whom the Hebrews borrowed their holy word "Amen." This Crown consists simply of the plumes of truth. But into the symbolism of these it is not necessary to go, for all this and more is in the Crown first described.
2.11 - The Modes of the Self, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The distinction between the Personal and the Impersonal is substantially the same as the Indian distinction, but the associations of the English words carry within them a certain limitation which is foreign to Indian thought. The personal God of the European religions is a Person in the human sense of the word, limited by His qualities though otherwise possessed of omnipotence and omniscience; it answers to the Indian special conceptions of Shiva or Vishnu or Brahma or of the Divine Mother of all, Durga or Kali. Each religion really erects a different personal Deity according to its own heart and thought to adore and serve. The fierce and inexorable God of Calvin is a different being from the sweet and loving God of St. Francis, as the gracious Vishnu is different from the terrible though always loving and beneficent Kali who has pity even in her slaying and saves by her destructions. Shiva, the God of ascetic renunciation who destroys all things seems to be a different being from Vishnu and Brahma, who act by grace, love, preservation of the creature or for life and creation. It is obvious that such conceptions can be only in a very partial and relative sense true descriptions of the infinite and omnipresent Creator and Ruler of the universe. Nor does Indian religious thought affirm them as adequate descriptions. The Personal God is not limited by His qualities. He is Ananta-guna, capable of infinite qualities and beyond them and lord of them to use them as He will, and He manifests Himself in various names and forms of His infinite godhead to satisfy the desire and need of the individual soul according to its own nature and personality. It is for this reason that the normal European mind finds it so difficult to understand Indian religion as distinct from Vedantic or Sankhya philosophy, because it cannot easily conceive of a personal God with infinite qualities, a personal God who is not a Person, but the sole real Person and the source of all personality. Yet that is the only valid and complete truth of the divine Personality.
The place of the divine Personality in our synthesis will best be considered when we come to speak of the Yoga of devotion; it is enough here to indicate that it has its place and keeps it in the integral Yoga even when liberation has been attained. There are practically three grades of the approach to the personal Deity; the first in which He is conceived with a particular form or particular qualities as the name and form of the Godhead which our nature and personality prefers365; a second in which He is the one real Person, the All-Personality, the Ananta-guna; a third in which we get back to the ultimate source of all idea and fact of personality in that which the Upanishad indicates by the single word Lie without fixing any attributes. It is there that our realisations of the personal and the impersonal Divine meet and become one in the utter Godhead. For the impersonal Divine is not ultimately an abstraction or a mere principle or a mere state or power and degree of being any more than we ourselves are really such abstractions. The intellect first approaches it through such conceptions, but realisation ends by exceeding them. Through the realisation of higher and higher principles of being and states of conscious existence we arrive not at the annullation of all in a sort of positive zero or even an inexpressible state of existence, but at the transcendent Existence itself which is also the Existent who transcends all definition by personality and yet is always that which is the essence of personality.
2.13 - The Difficulties of the Mental Being, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Further, there are two kinds of realisation of Self or Sachchidananda. One is that of the silent passive quietistic, self-absorbed, self-sufficient existence, consciousness and delight, one, impersonal, without play of qualities, turned away from the infinite phenomenon of the universe or viewing it with indifference and without participation. The other is that of the same existence, consciousness, delight sovereign, free, lord of things, acting out of an inalienable calm, pouring itself out in infinite action and quality out of an eternal self-concentration, the one supreme Person holding in himself all this play of personality in a vast equal impersonality, possessing the infinite phenomenon of the universe without attachment but without any inseparable aloofness, with a divine mastery and an innumerable radiation of his eternal luminous self-delight -- as a manifestation which he holds, but by which he is not held, which he governs freely and by which therefore he is not bound. This is not the personal God of the religions or the qualified Brahman of the philosophers, but that in which personal and impersonal, quality and non-quality are reconciled. It is the Transcendent possessing them both in His being and employing them both as modes for His manifestation. This then is the object of realisation for the Sadhaka of the integral Yoga.
We see at once that from this point of view the realisation of the pure quiescent self which we gain by withdrawing from mind, life and body, is for us only the acquisition of the necessary basis for this greater realisation. Therefore that process is not sufficient for our Yoga; something else is needed more ernbracingly positive. As we drew back from all that constitutes our apparent self and the phenomenon of the universe in which it dwells to the self-existent, self-conscious Brahman, so we must now repossess our mind, life and body with the all-embracing self-existence, self-consciousness and self-delight of the Brahman. We must not only have the possession of a pure self-existence independent of the world-play, but possess all existence as our own; not only know ourselves as an infinite unegoistic consciousness beyond all change in Time and Space, but become one with all the outpouring of consciousness and its creative force in Time and Space; not only be capable of a fathomless peace and quiescence, but also of a free and an infinite delight in universal things. For that and not only pure calm is Sachchidananda, is the Brahman.
2.13 - THE MASTER AT THE HOUSES OF BALARM AND GIRISH, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Again, jnna and bhakti are twin paths. Whichever you follow, it is God that you will ultimately reach. The Jnni looks on God in one way and the bhakta looks on Him in another way. The God of the Jnni is full of brilliance, and the God of the bhakta full of sweetness."
Bhavanth was seated near the Master, listening to these words.
--
O God of Gods! O Slayer of Time! Thou the Great Void, the King of Dharma!
iva, Thou Blessed One, redeem me; take away my grievous sin.
2.14 - The Unpacking of God, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
And every I will sing of the Self, and every We will resonate with worship of the Divine, and every It will radiate the light of a Spirit happy to be seen, with dialogue the abode of the Gods and perception the home of Grace, and gone the lonely loveless self, the God of its own perception, and gone the Godless destiny of time and separation.
The blessed, blessed Descent of the World Soul: in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we will be changed, we all will be changed.
2.15 - CAR FESTIVAL AT BALARMS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Thy fun and frolic and Thy glances put to shame the God of love.
O Wielder of the sword! O Thou of terrifying face!
2.18 - January 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Agni is the God of the Psychic and, among the other things it does, it leads the upward journey.
Disciple: How does the psychic carry the personalities formed in this life into another life?
2.21 - 1940, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they are crude conceptions of the primitive instincts of mankind. Even though Odin is considered a God of knowledge it is more or less primitive instincts that he symbolises.
Disciple: Do these Beings know about the existence of the Divine and deny it? or are they ignorant about it?
2.21 - IN THE COMPANY OF DEVOTEES AT SYAMPUKUR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Thy fun and frolic and Thy glances put to shame the God of love. . . .
When this song was over, Sri Ramakrishna asked the devotees to sing "Behold my Mother playing with iva". The devotees sang: Behold my Mother playing with iva, lost in an ecstasy of joy!
2.25 - AFTER THE PASSING AWAY, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Whose fire-darting eyes consumed the God of earthly love; whose throat and ears are decked with snakes;
Whose upper garment is a comely elephant-skin.
24.02 - Notes on Savitri I, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
With these twin powers you cross safely the borderl and between the lower and the upper hemisphere - the twilight world (Night and Day) - Griffin is the guardian God of this passage - Dvarapalaka.1
*Savitri*(Cent. Ed., Vol. 28), Bk.I, C.3, p. 25.
2 - Other Hymns to Agni, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
8. O God of force, there is a substance of plenty that is of the Inspiration and it embraces in its circuit any plane whatsoever of being;
9. Therefore do thou, the universal strength that labours, bring by thy strong fighters that richness of plenty to its goal (of fullness) and by thy wise seers hold it safe.
--
with the offerings, O God of the happy flame.
aA no
30.03 - Spirituality in Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But the problem is: What is God, and what again is the blissful form of God? The word God does not mean any fixed, invariable form. God has many a form. There is no end to the ways in which He has been seen by men. So at the very outset we may be in doubt: the God of a sadhu or saint and that of an artist - are they identical or is there any difference between the two? A sadhu's vision of God may not tally with that of an artist. The blissful aspect of God which has been realised by a sadhu may also be realised in quite a different way by an artist.
In fact, in the eyes of a sadhu, that God alone is holy who is pure, unsullied and who cannot be stained by any earthly impulse. The God of a sadhu shines there alone where there is the complete absence of human impurity, sense-turmoil and grossness. In the eyes of a sadhu he alone is the real artist whose aim is to manifest God who is behind the play of daily transient activities of life and who is All-Good and free from all worldly sin. That artist alone is dear to him who has depicted men as above wants and afflictions and the restlessness of the senses and endowed them with the glow of nobility. To a sadhu God may possibly be a disciplined, liberated Being, but to an artist He is also the slave of the mind, vital and body. A sadhu takes delight in renunciation, sanctity. It is the artist who can reveal that the delight of the physical enjoyment or even of the enjoyment which we call impure is no other than and in no way inferior to the delight of God. A sadhu may remain absorbed in tranquil pure bliss, but, if he fails to appreciate the ambrosial bliss which the artist finds in his artistic work in the midst of the surging current of earthly life, then has he not found God piecemeal? God dwells in the generosity, the nobility of man as well as in the regions beyond the senses. But the same God also dwells in the meanness, narrowness and sensuality of man. The sadhu wants the former. But the artist can portray both the aspects equally in the full manifestation of their truth and beauty.
The aim and object of a sadhu and those of an artist are not the same. A sadhu and a reformer want to mould men and the world after an ideal. Chastity, truthfulness are such ideals. The demand of a sadhu is that all women for all time should remain chaste and all men remain truthful for ever. That is why he is averse to seeing and showing the picture of an unchaste woman or a man addicted to falsehood. For he fears that such an act may awake unchastity and falsehood in the society. The things that are morally undesirable must be undesirable also in art and in all fields of life. But the artist argues: "The things that we do not want to have or to become also harbour God. They too are images of the One who is infinite. They too contain truth. They too have their special nature and the secret reason of their existence and I would comprehend them and manifest them before the world's eyes. I may not like sin, but why should I remain blind to it? In actual life I may very well be a pious man, if it be the Will of God to establish virtue in the world through me, but in spite of being a virtuous man why should I refrain from appreciating the play, the object and the ultimate essence of sin? Nobody likes to grow old. Eternal youth should be the aim of all. The gods have eternal youth. But, for that reason, are we to say that there is no truth or beauty in old age? Or are we to depict the picture of an old man in such a way that men may have disrespect and hatred for years and feel more attracted to the youthful than to the aged?"
3.02 - Aridity in Prayer, #The Interior Castle or The Mansions, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
6.: Something of the same sort happens if such people meet with contempt or want of due respect. God often gives them grace to bear it well, as He loves to see virtue upheld in public, and will not have it condemned in those who practise it, or else because these persons have served Him faithfully, and He, our supreme Good, is exceedingly good to us all; nevertheless, these persons are disturbed, and cannot overcome or get rid of the feeling for some time.15' Alas! have they not long meditated on the pains our Lord endured and how well it is for us to suffer, and have even longed to do so? They wish every one were as virtuous as they are; and God grant they do not consider other people to blame for their troubles and attribute merit to themselves!
7.: You may think, my daughters, that I have wandered from the subject, for all this does not concern you: nothing of the sort occurs to us here, where we neither own nor wish for any property, nor endeavour to gain it, and no one does us any wrong. The instances I have mentioned do not coincide exactly, yet conclusions applicable to us may be drawn from them, which it would be neither well nor necessary to state. These will teach you whether you are really detached from all you have left; trifling occasions often occur, although perhaps not quite of the same kind, by which you can prove to yourselves whether you have obtained the mastery over your passions.
3.03 - The Godward Emotions, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A nearer approach to the beginnings of the way of devotion becomes possible when this element of divine Power disengages itself from these crudities and fixes on the idea of a divine ruler, creator of the world and master of the Law who governs the earth and heavens and is the guide and helper and saviour of his creatures. This larger and higher idea of the divine Being long kept many elements and still keeps some elements of the old crudity. The Jews who brought it forward most prominently and from whom it overspread a great part of the world, could believe in a God of righteousness who was exclusive, arbitrary, wrathful, jealous, often cruel and even wantonly sanguinary. Even now it is possible for some to believe in a Creator who has made heaven and hell, an eternal heaven and an eternal hell, the two poles of his creation, and has even according to some religions predestined the souls he has created not only to sin and punishment, but to an eternal damnation. But even apart from these extravagances of a childish religious belief, the idea of the almighty Judge, Legislator, King, is a crude and imperfect idea of the Divine, when taken by itself, because it takes an inferior and an external truth for the main truth and it tends to prevent a higher approach to a more intimate reality. It exaggerates the importance of the sense of sin and thereby prolongs and increases the soul's fear and self-distrust and weakness. It attaches the pursuit of virtue and the shunning of sin to the idea of rewards and punishment, though given in an after life, and makes them dependent on the lower motives of fear and interest instead of the higher spirit which should govern the ethical being. It makes hell and heaven and not the Divine himself the object of the human soul in its religious living. These crudities have served their turn in the slow education of the human mind, but they are of no utility to the Yogin who knows that whatever truth they may represent belongs rather to the external relations of the developing human soul with the external law of the universe than any intimate truth of the inner relations of the human soul with the Divine; but it is these which are the proper field of Yoga.
Still out of this conception there arise certain developments which bring us nearer to the threshold of the Yoga of devotion. First, there can emerge the idea of the Divine as the source and law and aim of our ethical being and from this there can come the knowledge of him as the highest Self to which our active nature aspires, the Will to which we have to assimilate our will, the eternal Right and Purity and Truth and Wisdom into harmony with which our nature has to grow and towards whose being our being is attracted. By this way we arrive at the Yoga of works, and this Yoga has a place for personal devotion to the Divine, for the divine Will appears as the Master of our works to whose voice we must listen, whose divine impulsion we must obey and whose work it is the sole business of our active life and will to do. Secondly, there emerges the idea of the divine Spirit, the father of all who extends his wings of benignant protection and love over all his creatures, and from that grows between the soul and the Divine the relation of father and child, a relation of love, and as a result, the relation of brotherhood with our fellow-beings. These relations of the Divine into the calm pure light of whose nature we have to grow and the Master whom we approach through works and service, the Father who responds to the love of the soul that approaches him as the child, are admitted elements of the Yoga of devotion.
3.04 - The Flowers, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The God of Death.
The Buddha.
3.04 - The Formula of ALHIM, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
or Indra, the God of Air. Lamed is the Ox-goad, the driving force;
and it is also the Balance, representing the truth and love of the
3.05 - SAL, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
). There the gods of destruction and the God of salvation are all together.469 The Red Sea is a water of death for those that are unconscious, but for those that are conscious it is a baptismal water of rebirth and transcendence.470 By unconscious are meant those who have no gnosis, i.e., are not enlightened as to the nature and destiny of man in the cosmos. In modern language it would be those who have no knowledge of the contents of the personal and collective unconscious. The personal unconscious is the shadow and the inferior function,471 in Gnostic terms the sinfulness and impurity that must be washed away by baptism. The collective unconscious expresses itself in the mythological teachings, characteristic of most mystery religions, which reveal the secret knowledge concerning the origin of all things and the way to salvation. Unconscious people who attempt to cross the sea without being purified and without the guidance of enlightenment are drowned; they get stuck in the unconscious and suffer a spiritual death in so far as they cannot get beyond their one-sidedness. To do this they would have to be more conscious of what is unconscious to them and their age, above all of the inner opposite, namely those contents to which the prevailing views are in any way opposed. This continual process of getting to know the counterposition in the unconscious I have called the transcendent function,472 because the confrontation of conscious (rational) data with those that are unconscious (irrational) necessarily results in a modification of standpoint. But an alteration is possible only if the existence of the other is admitted, at least to the point of taking conscious cognizance of it. A Christian of today, for instance, no longer ought to cling obstinately to a one-sided credo, but should face the fact that Christianity has been in a state of schism for four hundred years, with the result that every single Christian has a split in his psyche. Naturally this lesion cannot be treated or healed if everyone insists on his own standpoint. Behind those barriers he can rejoice in his absolute and consistent convictions and deem himself above the conflict, but outside them he keeps the conflict alive by his intransigence and continues to deplore the pig-headedness and stiff-neckedness of everybody else. It seems as if Christianity had been from the outset the religion of chronic squabblers, and even now it does everything in its power never to let the squabbles rest. Remarkably enough, it never stops preaching the gospel of neighbourly love.
[258] We should get along a lot better if we realized that the majority views of others are condoned by a minority in ourselves. Armed with this psychological insight, which today no longer has the character of revelation since common sense can grasp it, we could set out on the road to the union of the opposites and would then, as in the Peratic doctrine, come to the place where the gods of destruction and the God of salvation are together. By this is obviously meant the destructive and constructive powers of the unconscious. This coincidentia oppositorum forms a parallel to the Messianic state of fulfilment described in Isaiah 11 : 6ff. and 35 : 5ff., though with one important difference: the place of genesis outside of generationpresumably an opus contra naturam is clearly not paradise but
the desert and the wilderness. Everyone who becomes conscious of even a fraction of his unconscious gets outside his own time and social stratum into a kind of solitude, as our text remarks. But only there is it possible to meet the God of salvation. Light is manifest in the darkness, and out of danger the rescue comes. In his sermon on Luke 19: 12 Meister Eckhart says: And who can be nobler than the man who is born half of the highest and best the world has to offer, and half of the innermost ground of Gods nature and Gods loneliness? Therefore the Lord speaks in the prophet Hosea: I will lead the noble souls into the wilderness, and speak into their hearts. One with the One, One from the One, and in the One itself the One, eternally!473
[259] I have gone into this Hippolytus text at some length because the Red Sea was of special significance to the alchemists. Sermo LXII of the Turba mentions the Tyrian dye, which is extracted from our most pure Red Sea. It is the parallel of the tinctura philosophorum, which is described as black and is extracted from the sea.474 The old treatise Rosinus ad Euthiciam says: And know that our Red Sea is more tincturing than all seas, and that the poison,475 when it is cooked and becomes foul and discoloured, penetrates all bodies.476 The tincture is the dip and the baptismal water of the alchemists, here asserted to come from the Red Sea. This idea is understandable in view of the patristic and Gnostic interpretation of the Red Sea as the blood of Christ in which we are baptized; hence the paralleling of the tincture, salt, and aqua pontica with blood.477
--
[274] As I have said, the process of transformation does not come to an end with the production of the quaternity symbol. The continuation of the opus leads to the dangerous crossing of the Red Sea, signifying death and rebirth. It is very remarkable that our author, by his paradox running without running, moving without motion, introduces a coincidence of opposites just at this point, and that the Hippolytus text speaks, equally paradoxically, of the gods of destruction and the God of salvation being together. The quaternity, as we have seen, is a quaternio of opposites, a synthesis of the four originally divergent functions. Their synthesis is here achieved in an image, but in psychic reality becoming conscious of the whole psyche503 faces us with a highly problematical situation. We can indicate its scope in a single question: What am I to do with the unconscious?
[275] For this, unfortunately, there are no recipes or general rules. I have tried to present the main outlines of what the psycho therapist can observe of this wearisome and all too familiar process in my study The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious. For the layman these experiences are a terra incognita which is not made any more accessible by broad generalizations. Even the imagination of the alchemists, otherwise so fertile, fails us completely here. Only a thorough investigation of the texts could shed a little light on this question. The same task challenges our endeavours in the field of psycho therapy. Here too are thousands of images, symbols, dreams, fantasies, and visions that still await comparative research. The only thing that can be said with some certainty at present is that there is a gradual process of approximation whereby the two positions, the conscious and the unconscious, are both modified. Differences in individual cases, however, are just as great as they were among the alchemists.
--
[313] Maiers silence is eloquent, as we soon find when we try to see the psychological equivalent of the descent and of the discovery of Mercurius. The maximal degree of consciousness confronts the ego with its shadow, and individual psychic life with a collective psyche. These psychological terms sound light enough but they weigh heavy, for they denote an almost unendurable conflict, a psychic strait whose terrors only he knows who has passed through it. What one then discovers about oneself and about man and the world is of such a nature that one would rather not speak of it; and besides, it is so difficult to put into words that ones courage fails at the bare attempt. So it need not be at all a frivolous evasion if Maier merely hints at his conversations with Mercurius. In the encounter with life and the world there are experiences that are capable of moving us to long and thorough reflection, from which, in time, insights and convictions grow upa process depicted by the alchemists as the philosophical tree. The unfolding of these experiences is regulated, as it were, by two archetypes: the anima, who expresses life, and the Wise Old Man, who personifies meaning.591 Our author was led in the first place by the anima-sibyl to undertake the journey through the planetary houses as the precondition of all that was to follow. It is therefore only logical that, towards the end of the descent, he should meet Thrice-Greatest Hermes, the fount of all wisdom. This aptly describes the character of that spirit or thinking which you do not, like an intellectual operation, perform yourself, as the little God of this world, but which happens to you as though it came from another, and greater, perhaps the great spirit of the world, not inappositely named Trismegistus. The long reflection, the immensa meditatio of the alchemists is defined as an internal colloquy with another, who is invisible.592
[314] Possibly Maier would have revealed to us something more if Mercurius had not been in such a hurry to take upon himself the role of arbiter between the owl and the birds who were fighting it.593 This is an allusion to a work of Maiers entitled Jocus severus (Frankfurt a. M., 1617), where he defends the wisdom of alchemy against its detractors, a theme that also plays an important part in his Symbola aureae mensae in the form of argument and counterargument. One is therefore justified in assuming that Maier got into increasing conflict with himself and his environment the more he buried himself in the secret speculations of Hermetic philosophy. Indeed nothing else could have been expected, for the world of Hermetic images gravitates round the unconscious, and the unconscious compensation is always aimed at the conscious positions which are the most strongly defended because they are the most questionable, though its apparently hostile aspect merely reflects the surly face which the ego turns towards it. In reality the unconscious compensation is not intended as a hostile act but as a necessary and helpful attempt to restore the balance. For Maier it meant an inner and outer conflict which was not abolished, but only embittered, by the firmness of his convictions. For every one-sided conviction is accompanied by the voice of doubt, and certainties that are mere beliefs turn into uncertainties which may correspond better with the truth. The truth of the sic et non (yes and no), almost, but not quite, recognized by Abelard, is a difficult thing for the intellect to bear; so it is no wonder that Maier got stuck in the conflict and had to postpone his discovery of the phoenix until doomsday. Fortunately he was honest enough not to assert that he had ever made the lapis or the philosophical gold, and for this reason he never spread a veil of deception over his work. Thanks to his scrupulousness his late successors are at least able to guess how far he had progressed in the art, and where his labours came to a standstill. He never succeeded, as we can now see, in reaching the point where conflict and argument become logically superfluous, where yes and no are two aspects of the same thing. Thou wilt never make the One which thou seekest, says the master, except first there be made one thing of thyself.594
3.05 - The Divine Personality, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Even on the cosmic plane we are constantly approaching the Divine on either of these sides. We may think, feel and say that God is Truth, Justice, Righteousness, Power, Love, Delight, Beauty; we may see him as a universal force or as a universal consciousness. But this is only the abstract way of experience. As we ourselves are not merely a number of qualities or powers or a psychological quantity, but a being, a person who so expresses his nature, so is the Divine a Person, a conscious Being who thus expresses his nature to us. And we can adore him through different forms of this nature, a God of righteousness, a God of love and mercy, a God of peace and purity; but it is evident that there are other things in the divine nature which we have put outside the form of personality in which we are thus worshipping him. The courage of an unflinching spiritual vision and experience can meet him also in more severe or in terrible forms. None of these are all the Divinity; yet these forms of his personality are real truths of himself in which he meets us and seems to deal with us, as if the rest had been put away behind him. He is each separately and all altogether.
He is Vishnu, Krishna, Kali; he reveals himself to us in humanity as the Christ personality or the Buddha personality. When we look beyond our first exclusively concentrated vision, we see behind Vishnu all the personality of Shiva and behind Shiva all the personality of Vishnu. He is the Ananta-guna, infinite quality and the infinite divine Personality which manifests itself through it. Again he seems to withdraw into a pure spiritual impersonality or beyond all idea even of impersonal Self and to justify a spiritualised atheism or agnosticism; he becomes to the mind of man an indefinable, anirdesyam. But out of this unknowable the conscious Being, the divine Person, who has manifested himself here, still speaks, ''This too is I; even here beyond the view of mind, I am He, the Purushottama.''
3.07 - ON PASSING BY, #Thus Spoke Zarathustra, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
before the God of Hosts. For it is 'from above' that the
stars and the gracious spittle trickle; every starless chest
--
which is earthliest-but that is the gold of the shopkeeper. The God of Hosts is no God of gold bars; the
prince proposes, but the shopkeeper disposes.
3.08 - Of Equilibrium, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Mythopia in that particular form called Disease of Language. Thoth, God of
Magick, was merely a man who invented writing, as his monuments declare clearly
3.1.01 - The Marbles of Time, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Caesar bleeding at Pompey's sculptured feet, Napoleon's mighty legions thundering victorious at the bidding of that God of war on the field of Austerlitz and Napoleon's panic legions fleeing disordered with pursuit and butchery behind them from that last field of Waterloo, - Time, the Kala Purusha, drunk with the fumes of death and the tears and laughter of mortals, sits and plays there with his marbles. There are marbles there of all kinds, marbles of all colours, and some are dull and grey, some glorious with hearts of many colours, some white and pure as a dove's wings, - but he plays with them all equally and equally he thrusts them all away when he has done with them. Sometimes even, in his drunkenness, he hurls them out of his window or lifts his mace and deals blows here and there smashing into fragments the bright and brittle globes, and he laughs as they smash and crumble. So Time, the god, sits and plays for ever with his marbles.
32.06 - The Novel Alchemy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Culture of the Body The God of the Scientist
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta On Spirituality The Novel Alchemy
--
The Culture of the Body The God of the Scientist
32.07 - The God of the Scientist, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:32.07 - The God of the Scientist
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
--
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta On Spirituality The God of the Scientist
The God of the Scientist
IT is meaningless to hold that a scientist must necessarily be an atheist. There is no need to cite instances of the past. Leaving aside the examples of Newton, Kepler and Tycho Brahe, even in the world of to-day it is not rare to find more than one scientist who believes in God. In this respect Lodge, Eddington, Einstein and Planck are outstanding figures that require no introduction. It is generally said that a scientist may indeed be a God-believer, but not in the capacity of a scientist. The faculty by which he acquires religious certainty has no scientific bearing, it belongs to quite a different sphere of human life. The being of man comprises such a dual nature; on one side he may be a scientist and on the other he may remain a non-scientist.
32.08 - Fit and Unfit (A Letter), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The God of the Scientist On Karmayoga (A Letter)
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta On SpiritualityFit and Unfit (A Letter)
--
The God of the Scientist On Karmayoga (A Letter)
3.20 - Of the Eucharist, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
proportions. Hermes is alike the God of Wisdom, Thaumaturgy,
therapeutics, and physical science. All these may consequently
3.21 - Of Black Magic, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
1. The Devil is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes.
This has led to so much confusion of thought that THE BEAST 666 has preferred to let
33.13 - My Professors, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I was lucky to have his comments on two of my own compositions. One was on my very first essay in college. We were asked to do a home-work, the subject given was "Imitation". He explained what it meant: I still recall he gave as an illustration the protective mimicry of birds. I wrote out a very full essay, dwelling first on the virtues of imitation, next on its drawbacks. I began the second part of my essay by saying, "But Janus has his other face too." I had at the time just heard about the god Janus. You know who is Janus? He is the two-faced God of ancient Rome. He was also known as a God of war, war and peace being his two faces. The doors of his temple were opened in times of war, they were closed during peace. So he symbolised the door; indeed the word in Latin means the door, through which one can pass this way or that. The month of January derives from the name of this god, as this month faces both the old year and the new. Anyway, the professor wrote on my composition, "First-class essay." You can well understand how elated I felt.
The second time it was probably just after I had come to the Degree class. In a tutorial class he set an essay to be written on the spot. We were given the choice of a number of subjects. I chose "Self-Realisation or God-Realisation". I do not now remember which of the two I supported, Self or God! Perhaps I said that Self-Realisation really meant God-Realisation, for the Self was nothing but an illusi'on. Or did I say that to realise God was nothing but Self-Realisation, for God was nothing, Self alone was the reality? I must have introduced a lot of such metaphysical stuff. This brought the following comment from the professor: "He is one of those generalisers who fight shy of facts and figures." I could see these "facts and figures" clearly illustrated in the work of my neighbour. Next to me sat Naren Laha (nowwell-known as Dr. N. N. Law).
35.02 - Hymn to Hara-Gauri, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
She it was who created Kama, the God of love,
And He destroyed him;
35.06 - Who Seeks Holy Places?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
The God of gods, the great God, Mahadeva himself sings
multiple-tongued praises to her.
3.6.01 - Heraclitus, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Heraclitus is using the old language of the Mysteries, though in his own new way and for his own individual purpose, when he speaks of Hades and Dionysus and the ever-living Fire or of the Furies, the succourers of Justice who will find out the Sun if he oversteps his measure. We miss his sense, if we see in these names of the gods only the poorer superficial meanings of the popular mythological religion. When Heraclitus speaks of the dry or the moist soul, it is of the soul and not the intellect that he is thinking, psuchē and not nous. Psuchē corresponds roughly to the cetas or citta of Indian psychology, nous to buddhi; the dry soul of the Greek thinker to the purified heart-consciousness, śuddha citta, of the Indian psychologists, which in their experience was the first basis for a purified intellect, viśuddha buddhi. The moist soul is that which allows itself to be perturbed by the impure wine of sense ecstasy, emotional excitement, an obscure impulse and inspiration whose source is from a dark under-world. Dionysus is the God of this wine-born ecstasy, the God of the Bacchic mysteries,-of the "walkers in the night, mages, bacchanals, mystics": therefore Heraclitus says that Dionysus and Hades are one. In an opposite sense the ecstatic devotee of the Bhakti path in India reproaches the exclusive seeker by the way of thought-discernment with his "dry knowledge", using Heraclitus' epithet, but with a pejorative and not a laudatory significance.
To ignore the influence of the mystic thought and its methods of self-expression on the intellectual thinking of the Greeks from Pythagoras to Plato is to falsify the historical procession of the human mind. It was enveloped at first in the symbolic, intuitive, esoteric style and discipline of the Mystics,-Vedic and Vedantic seers, Orphic secret teachers, Egyptian priests. From that veil it emerged along the path of a metaphysical philosophy still related to the Mystics by the source of its fundamental ideas, its first aphoristic and cryptic style, its attempt to seize directly upon truth by intellectual vision rather than arrive at it by careful ratiocination, but nevertheless intellectual in its method and aim. This is the first period of the Darshanas in India, in Greece of the early intellectual thinkers. Afterwards came the full tide of philosophic rationalism, Buddha or the Buddhists and the logical philosophers in India, in Greece the Sophists and Socrates with all their splendid progeny; with them the intellectual method did not indeed begin, but came to its own and grew to its fullness. Heraclitus belongs to the transition, not to the noontide of the reason; he is even its most characteristic representative. Hence his cryptic style, hence his brief and burdened thought and the difficulty we feel when we try to clarify and entirely rationalise his significances. The ignoring of the Mystics, our pristine fathers, pūrve pitaraḥ, is the great defect of the modern account of our thought-evolution.
37.07 - Ushasti Chakrayana (Chhandogya Upanishad), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
In this manner Ushasti gave the teaching about the Triple Principle, the Trinity represented by Life, Mind and Body; Bhuh, Bhuvah, Svar, that is, Earth, Sky and Heaven. He gave an indication of these three levels of manifested being, the triple world of this universe, spoke of the divinity that presides over this Triplicity. First of all comes the God of Life. This is the deity that is invoked at the outset, has to be so invoked in every act, in all ceremonial function, even in the effort at an inner perfection. He is the Creator, all that is manifested has Him for its driving power, sarvam ejati nihsrtam. Creation begins with a vibration of this Life - Force. The first thing necessary is to infuse Life into things. When we worship a divine image, we begin the rites with an invocation to this Life-force to enter the image; what was just an idol is awakened to life by the infusion of this Force. Life and Life-Force, this comes first. Next comes consciousness, knowledge, light, that is, the Sun-God, Aditya, and ordinarily, mind is His field. But by itself force is not enough, knowledge is not enough; this force and this light have to be embodied and given a form, they have to take physical shape with matter as the basis; they have to become an integral part of this earth of matter. Force and Light and Being are the three cosmic Principles, and. they have three Deities presiding over them. In establishing them in their unity in his awakened being man finds his entire and all round fulfilment.
You may notice here one thing. Many of these Rishis in the Upanishads are found sometimes using a threat that if anything or anyone deviated from the truth or the accepted norm, "the head would fall off". It seems to mean this. If one commits an error or there is a fault in the course of one's spiritual effort and if one continues on the wrong path without acknowledging the error or shortcoming, then it implies a movement, a gesture against the Truth and the Right, and this default carries in itself the possibility of a derangement of the head. The actual physical calamity befell an ancient seeker, Shakalya; we already know that story. In this age we do not perhaps come across an actual physical instance of such a mishap; but we are certainly familiar with something analogous, a derangement of the brain instead of the physical falling off of the head. As the Mother has said, the spiritual force is a kind of fire, to play with this fire without an inner devotion and sincerity invites dangers of this sort.
38.07 - A Poem, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
Whom you call the God of Kindness, the God of Love.
Why does he do so, why does he revel in this violent battle,
3 - Commentaries and Annotated Translations, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
the word ym, applied to the single God of Dharma, Yama. There
is an echo of this use in the Vishnu Purana when it is said that
--
- although the God of the vaidyuta energy is Vishnu himself
who is the Lord of the ananda, the vaidyuto manavah, electrical
--
it has been pointed out, is the God of the tapas or energy at
work disinterestedly on the intellectual plane, one of the higher
--
was great only as the God of fire indispensable in all their ritual,
but to the Yogin he has a much greater importance, as great as
--
the action of the God of tapas; it is in strength, by the force of
tapas that he supports all the gods.
--
mode of address a\g, in a\k,, a\gm^ etc, & in an\g the God of
love. Agni is the bright and strong, the bright God of fire, the
strong, burning God of Tapas, heat and force.
. The root is il^ or Il^, 0^ being a modification which now
--
the God of the sacred flame, ruler of the sacrifice, is described
there as the "shining guardian of the Truth increasing in his
--
the altar. Or if "rita" is the cosmic Law Agni is the God of fire
who is the guardian of the Law - in what sense? - and who
--
he is the God of the inspired workings; if power of workings,
then the god whose power for works is guided by divine knowledge. I suggest that kratu which Sayana sometimes interprets
--
food or portion to the god.2 But if Agni is the God of an inner
Flame, then we must interpret the verse differently. We see that
--
sense for the sacrifice, since only as the God of pure tapas can
Agni cleave to the body of the sacrificer and not as the God of
physical fire. I render: -
--
the physical principle of fire, but inwardly the God of the psychic
godward flame, force, will, Tapas; Surya outwardly the solar
light, inwardly the God of the illuminating revelatory knowledge;
Soma outwardly the moon and the Soma-wine or nectarous
moon plant, inwardly the God of the spiritual ecstasy, Ananda.
The principal psychical conception of this inner Vedic cult was
--
I have given the example of Helios replaced in later times by Apollo. Just so in the Vedic religion Surya undoubtedly becomes a God of inner light, the famous Gayatri verse and its esoteric interpretation are there to prove it as well as the constant appeal of the Upanishads to Vedic riks or Vedic symbols taken in a psychological and spiritual sense, eg, the four closing verses of the Isha Upanishad. Hermes, Athena represent in classical mythology psychical functions, but were originally Nature gods, Athena probably a dawn goddess. I contend that Usha in the Veda shows us this transmutation in its commencement. Dionysus the winegod was intimately connected with the Mysteries; I assign a similar role to Soma, the wine- God of the Vedas.
But the question is whether there is anything to show that there was actually such a doubling of functions in the Veda. Now in the first place, how was the transition effected from the alleged purely materialistic Nature-worship of the Vedas to the extraordinary psychological and spiritual knowledge of the Upanishads unsurpassed in their subtlety and sublimity in ancient times? There are three possible explanations. First, this sudden spirituality may have been brought in from outside; it is hardily suggested by some scholars that it was taken from an alleged highly spiritual non-Aryan southern culture; but this is an assumption, a baseless hypothesis for which no proof has been advanced; it rests as a surmise in the air without foundation. Secondly, it may have developed from within by some such transmutation as I have suggested, but subsequent to the composition of all but the latest Vedic hymns. Still even then it was effected on the basis of the Vedic hymns; the Upanishads claim to be a development from the Vedic knowledge, Vedanta repeatedly appeals to Vedic texts, regards Veda as a book of knowledge. The men who gave the Vedantic knowledge are everywhere represented as teachers of the Veda. Why then should we rigidly assume that this development took place subsequent to the composition of the bulk of the Vedic mantras? For the third possibility is that the whole ground had already been prepared consciently by the Vedic mystics. I do not say that the inner Vedic knowledge was identical with the Brahmavada.
--
Agni, the Lord of Fire, is physically the God of the sacrificial
flame, the fire found in the tinders, in the plants, in the waters,
--
to the God of physical fire; they are of a striking appropriateness
if we take a larger view of the divine nature and functions of
the god Agni. He is a God of the earth, a force of material being,
avm,; but he seems too [to] be a vital (Pranic) force of will in
--
be predicated of the God of physical fire; but they are all just
attri butes of the conscient divine Will in man and the universe.
--
which Agni possesses. Does it at all refer to a God of physical
Fire alone or to the knowledge and wisdom of an inner Fire, the
--
Yogin who attains, move in Surya, the God of the ideal powers,
all that he perceives, creates, distinguishes, is worked out by
--
poured out into the offering to God of human life, Mitro na
yajniyah, and with it in that principle, realising throughout our
--
it the activities of the vijnana. The God of the vijnana, its Nri or
Purusha, is the Lord of the Sun, Sur or Surya. Those who possess
4.03 - Prayer to the Ever-greater Christ, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
Who, then, is this God, no longer simply the God of
the old Cosmos but the God of the new Cosmogenesis -
so constituted precisely because the effect of a mystical
--
19. The God of Evolution (25 October 1953)
20. My Litanies (probably end 1953)
--
120; God of new, 161
creation; evolution expression of,
4.04 - THE REGENERATION OF THE KING, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[375] It will not have escaped the reader how primitive the idea of Gods ageing and need of renewal is. It does in fact derive from ancient Egypt, though one is at a loss to imagine from what sources, other than the Bible, a Canon of Bridlington in the fifteenth century could have borrowed such a theology. His writings at any rate allow no conjectures in this respect. There is something of a clue, however, in the alchemical tradition itself, in the idea of a corrupt arcane substance whose corruption is due to original sin. A similar idea appears in the Grail tradition of the sick king, which has close connections with the transformation mystery of the Mass. The king is the forbear of Parsifal, whom one could describe as a redeemer figure, just as in alchemy the old king has a redeemer son or becomes a redeemer himself (the lapis is the same at the beginning and at the end). Further, we must consider certain medieval speculations concerning Gods need of improvement and the transformation of the wrathful God of the Old Testament into the God of Love in the New: for, like the unicorn, he was softened by love in the lap of a virgin. Ideas of this kind are found as early as Bonaventure, the Franciscan saint, who died in 1274.82 We should also remember that, in the figurative language of the Church, God the Father was represented as an old man and his birth as a rejuvenation in the Son. In a hymn to the Church as an analogy of the Mother of God Paulinus of Nola says:
Sister and wife at once; for without the use of the body
4.05 - THE DARK SIDE OF THE KING, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[483] Like the heroes and spirits of the dead, the gods too (particularly the earth-gods), are associated with the snake, as are Hermes and Asklepios.324 Indeed, the Greek God of healing, on being hatched from the egg, seems to have taken the form of a snake.325 An inscription on the temple of Hathor at Dendereh reads:326
The sun, who has existed from the beginning, rises up like a falcon out of the midst of his lotus-bud. When the doors of his petals open in sapphire-coloured splendour, he has sundered the night from the day. Thou risest up like the sacred snake as a living spirit, creating the beginnings and shining in thy glorious form in the barge of the sunrise. The divine Lord whose image dwells in secret in the temple at Dendereh is made the creator of the world by his work. Coming as one, he multiplies himself a millionfold when the light goes forth from him in the form of a child.327
4.06 - RETIRED, #Thus Spoke Zarathustra, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
"Whoever praises him as a God of love does not have
a high enough opinion of love itself. Did this god not
4.07 - THE RELATION OF THE KING-SYMBOL TO CONSCIOUSNESS, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[507] The Cantilena shows us what that dominant was which is subjected to transformation not only in Ripley but in many other alchemists: it was the Christian view of the world in the Middle Ages. This problem is of such dimensions that one cannot expect a medieval man to have been even remotely conscious of it. It was bound to work itself out in projection, unconsciously. For this reason, too, it can hardly be grasped even todaywhich is why the psychological interpretation of the One, the filius regius, meets with the greatest difficulties. From the hymnlike manner in which the alchemists praised their son it is quite evident that they meant by this symbol either Christ himself or something that corresponded to him. Naturally they were not concerned with the historical personality of Jesus, which at that time was completely covered up by the dogmatic figure of the second Person of the Trinity. The latter symbol had slowly crystallized out in the course of the centuries, though it was clearly prefigured in the Logos of St. John. Nor was the conception of God as senex and puer peculiar to the alchemists, for many clerics who were not alchemists took it as a transformation of the wrathful and vindictive Yahweh of the Old Testament into the God of Love of the New. Thus the archetype of the kings renewal manifested itself not only among the philosophers but also in ecclesiastical circles.390
[508] There can be a psychological explanation of the filius regius only when this image has sloughed off its projected form and become a purely psychic experience. The Christ-lapis parallel shows clearly enough that the filius regius was more a psychic event than a physical one, since as a physical event it can demonstrably never occur and as a religious experience it is beyond question. There are many passages in the texts that can be interpretedstrange as this may soundas an experience of Christ in matter. Others, again, lay so much emphasis on the lapis that one cannot but see in it a renewal and completion of the dogmatic image. An unequivocal substitution of the filius regius for Christ does not, to my knowledge, occur in the literature, for which reason one must call alchemy Christian even though heretical. The Christ-lapis remains an ambiguous figure.
4.1 - Jnana, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
50. To feel & love the God of beauty and good in the ugly and the evil, and still yearn in utter love to heal it of its ugliness and its evil, this is real virtue and morality.
51. To hate the sinner is the worst sin, for it is hating God; yet he who commits it, glories in his superior virtue.
--
64. God often fails in His workings; it is the sign of His illimitable godhead.
65. Because God is invincibly great, He can afford to be weak; because He is immutably pure, He can indulge with impunity in sin; He knows eternally all delight, therefore He tastes also the delight of pain; He is inalienably wise, therefore He has not debarred Himself from folly.
4.2.04 - Epiphany, #Collected Poems, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The God of Force, the God of Love are one;
Not least He loves whom most He smites. Alone
4.3 - Bhakti, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
457. No doubt, when the priest curses, he is crying to God; but it is the God of anger and darkness to whom he devotes himself along with his enemy; for as he approaches God, so shall God receive him.
458. I was much plagued by Satan, until I found that it was God who was tempting me; then the anguish of him passed out of my soul for ever.
4.43 - Chapter Three, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
III,3: Now let it be first understood that I am a God of War and of Vengeance. I shall deal hardly with them.
III,4: Choose ye an island!
5.01 - On the Mysteries of the Ascent towards God, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Tao of the Chinese - The Brahman of the Hindus - The Law of the Buddhists - The Good of Hermes - That which cannot be named, according to the ancient Jewish tradition - The God of the Christians - The Allah of the Muslims - The Justice, the Truth of the materialists.
The purpose of man's life is to become conscious of That.
5.08 - ADAM AS TOTALITY, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[642] The Lapis Sapphireus or Sapphirinus is derived from Ezekiel 1 : 22 and 26, where the firmament above the living creature was like a terrible crystal and a sapphire stone (also 10 : 1), and from Exodus 24 : 10: And they saw the God of Israel: and under his feet as it were a work of sapphire stone, and as the heaven, when clear (DV). In alchemy our gold is crystalline;339 the treasure of the Philosophers is a certain glassy heaven, like crystal, and ductile like gold;340 the tincture of gold is transparent as crystal, fragile as glass.341 The Book of the Cave of Treasures says that Adams body shone like the light of a crystal.342 The crystal, which appears equally pure within and without, refers in ecclesiastical language to the unimpaired purity of the Virgin.343 The throne in Ezekiels vision, says Gregory the Great, is rightly likened to the sapphire, for this stone has the colour of air.344 He compares Christ to the crystal in a way that served as a model for the language and ideas of the alchemists.345
[643] The combination of water and crystal is found also in the Cabalistic Sifra de Zeniutha. 178 of Lurias commentary says: The second form is called crystalline dew, and this is formed of the Severity of the Kingdom346 of the first Adam, which entered into the Wisdom of Macroprosopus:347 hence in the crystal there appears a distinct red colour. And this [form] is the Wisdom whereof they said, that Judgments are rooted in it.348 Although alchemy was undoubtedly influenced by such comparisons, the stone cannot be traced back to Christ, despite all the analogies.349 It was the mystical property of alchemy, this stone that is no stone, or the stone that hath a spirit and is found in the streamings of the Nile.350 It is a symbol that cannot be explained away as yet another supererogatory attempt to obscure the Christian mystery. On the contrary, it appears as a new and singular product which in early times gradually crystallized out through the assimilation of Christian ideas into Gnostic material; later, clear attempts were made in turn to assimilate the alchemical ideas to the Christian, though, as Eleazars text shows, there was an unbridgeable difference between them. The reason for this is that the symbol of the stone, despite the analogy with Christ, contains an element that cannot be reconciled with the purely spiritual assumptions of Christianity. The very concept of the stone indicates the peculiar nature of this symbol. Stone is the essence of everything solid and earthly. It represents feminine matter, and this concept intrudes into the sphere of spirit and its symbolism. The Churchs hermeneutic allegories of the cornerstone and the stone cut out of a mountain without hands,351 which were interpreted as Christ, were not the source of the lapis symbol, but were used by the alchemists in order to justify it, for the
5.3.04 - Roots in M, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
, , etc spring from the same idea of I as the containing self. The mother who bears or contains the child in her womb is , . means too the Goddess of Wealth. This root also gives us , continent, contents, substance, wealth, limit. itself means to be in, contained. From we have , that which we embrace, a friend, lover and who in the Veda, is the God of the emotions, containing, comprising, made of, to comprehend, know. From , meaning bondage, confinement, to bind or fasten, anything bound, collected, woven together. From , , a pot, vessel, cavity, hollow. From this sense of depth, hollowness we get the idea of a deep sound, murmur, roar, bellow; to roar, sound, Latin mugire, to bellow; from , rustle, murmur, the wind-haunted, rustling pine-tree.
But these do not exhaust the uses of the sound which we find in the primary roots of this family. From a study of Vedic Sanskrit and of Tamil it appears that the idea of limitation must have been modified to cover the idea of the extreme limit, the highest finality and hence the significance of extreme, supreme, a general supremacy or excellence. This general idea came to be specified in application to particular forms of extreme being and to cover the idea of flourishing vigour, vigorous life or action, strength, swiftness, brilliance, swift motion etc. Thus it comes about that the same root which means to die or wither (, etc) means also to flourish, grow, bloom; the same peculiarity of opposite meanings which we shall afterwards find in many roots of this and other classes. The idea of a goal, strong in the sound, seems also to have suggested movement towards a goal. So also we find etc. The word , a mortal, seems to have meant in the Veda, strong, like which also came to mean man; even later means a lover, a horse, stallion etc. We have the Hindi in the sense of man, masculine; the Tamil mara, strong, maravar, Kshatriyas, the strong men or fighters. & in the sense of god, and the respectful address appear to have the same origin. We have too for Indra orHanuman, where must mean strong. From the idea of swift or darting motion or merely motion we get , fish, , to go, move; , , the dancing peacock; , urine (flowing discharge); , the moving earth (cf , , & many other synonyms, all with the sense of motion); , , , , the material of earth, clay, dust; , earth; , wind, air, breeze, breath; in the sense of horse; , horse or camel. , , , where there is the sense of water, ocean, have this origin.We know the root to have had the sense of motion from the Latin movere, motus etc. The sense of flourishing, blooming, soft, growing, we get from the Tamil maram, a tree, S. , a granary, , juice of flowers, , soft, unctuous, bland, , a kind of plant, , , , , a pomegranate grove, collection of pomegranate trees. From the sense of shining, glittering, white, bright, we have , tawny or brilliantly coloured gleaming red-brown, , the sun, , flamingo, swan, duck, horse, , a ray of light, light, Krishna (cf meaning also a horse, lion, etc), , mirage. Cf the Latin marmor, Greek . , pepper, is obviously from the kindred sense of applied to the taste & smell. We may also note the words , a high-browed woman and , repeatedly rubbing, where & seem to have the sense of high or persistent from this general sense of excellence or extreme quality.
5.4.01 - Notes on Root-Sounds, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
to be, in the widest sense of the idea, being primal, all pervading, vague and indefinable. Hence it is applicable to any of the three great deities who occupy & represent infinite & universal being, Vishnu, Shiva or Brahma; by a natural figure emphatic of the sense of it became applicable to Vaiswanara or Virat Purusha. By transference to the idea of pervasive life & movement to Vayu, the God of wind, breath & the life principle. Cf
, .
--
the God of love.
Sound.
--
death, decease.. Yama .. Brahma, Vishnu, Kali, Maya.. God of love.
to hurt, kill.
5 - The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
Wotan is also a God of winds and spirits, on which account the
Romans fittingly interpreted him as Mercury.
--
ship with Christ, and since, from ancient times, the God of the
Jews was vulgarly conceived to be an ass a prejudice which
6.07 - THE MONOCOLUS, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[726] This earth is of a watery nature, corresponding to Genesis 1 : 2 and 6: And the earth was without form, and void. . . . And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. . . . And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters In this way heaven can embrace the sea instead of the earth. We may recall the myth of Isis and Osiris: Isis copulated with the spirit of the dead Osiris, and from this union sprang the God of the mysteries, Harpocrates. Osiris plays a certain role in the ancient alchemical texts: the brother/sister or mother/son pair are sometimes called Isis and Osiris.156 In Olympiodorus157 Osiris is lead, as arcane substance, and the principle of moisture;158 in Firmicus Maternus he is the life-principle.159 The alchemical interpretation of him as Mercurius has its parallel in the Naassene comparison of Osiris to Hermes.160 Like the latter, he was represented ithyphallically, and this is significant in regard to the monocolus.161 He is the dying and resurgent God-man and hence a parallel to Christ. He is of a blackish colour (
)162 and was therefore called Aithiops,163 in Christian usage the devil,164 and in alchemical language the prima materia.165 This antithesis is characteristic of Mercurius duplex. Wine as the blood of Osiris occurs in the ancient magical texts.166 In the Egyptian texts Osiris had a sun-and-moon nature, and was therefore hermaphroditic like Mercurius.167
6.0 - Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
Hermes is a magician and God of magicians. As Hermes Tris-
megistus he is the patriarch of alchemy. His magician's wand,
--
distinguishes Asklepios, the God of physicians. 72 The archetype
of these ideas was projected on to me by the patient before ever
--
forget that the God of revelation has from of old the form
of a snake e.g., the agathodaimon. Edem too, as a snake-maiden,
--
on a triadic system. The wheel is held by the God of death,
Yama. (Later we shall meet other "shield-holders": Figs. 34 and
--
the city of jade dwells the God of Utmost Emptiness and life." 30
ness and lite." 3U
6.10 - THE SELF AND THE BOUNDS OF KNOWLEDGE, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[781] Nor is it astonishing that in every attempt to gain an adequate understanding of the numinous experience use must be made of certain parallel religious or metaphysical ideas which have not only been associated with it from ancient times but are constantly used to formulate and elucidate it. The consequence, however, is that any attempt at scientific explanation gets into the grotesque situation of being accused in its turn of offering a metaphysical explanation. It is true that this objection will be raised only by one who imagines himself to be in possession of metaphysical truths, and assumes that they posit or give valid expression to metaphysical facts corresponding to them. It seems to me at least highly improbable that when a man says God there must in consequence exist a God such as he imagines, or that he necessarily speaks of a real being. At any rate he can never prove that there is something to correspond with his statement on the metaphysical side, just as it can never be proved to him that he is wrong. Thus it is at best a question of non liquet, and it seems to me advisable under these circumstances and in view of the limitations of human knowledge to assume from the start that our metaphysical concepts are simply anthropomorphic images and opinions which express transcendental facts either not at all or only in a very hypothetical manner. Indeed we know already from the physical world around us that in itself it does not necessarily agree in the least with the world as we perceive it. The physical world and the perceptual world are two very different things. Knowing this we have no encouragement whatever to think that our metaphysical picture of the world corresponds to the transcendental reality. Moreover, the statements made about the latter are so boundlessly varied that with the best of intentions we cannot know who is right. The denominational religions recognized this long ago and in consequence each of them claims that it is the only true one and, on top of this, that it is not merely a human truth but the truth directly inspired and revealed by God. Every theologian speaks simply of God, by which he intends it to be understood that his god is the God. But one speaks of the paradoxical God of the Old Testament, another of the incarnate God of Love, a third of the God who has a heavenly bride, and so on, and each criticizes the other but never himself.
[782] Nothing provides a better demonstration of the extreme uncertainty of metaphysical assertions than their diversity. But it would be completely wrong to assume that they are altogether worthless. For in the end it has to be explained why such assertions are made at all. There must be some reason for this. Somehow men feel impelled to make transcendental statements. Why this should be so is a matter for dispute. We only know that in genuine cases it is not a question of arbitrary inventions but of involuntary numinous experiences which happen to a man and provide the basis for religious assertions and convictions. Therefore, at the source of the great confessional religions as well as of many smaller mystical movements we find individual historical personalities whose lives were distinguished by numinous experiences. Numerous investigations of such experiences have convinced me that previously unconscious contents then break through into consciousness and overwhelm it in the same way as do the invasions of the unconscious in pathological cases accessible to psychiatric observation. Even Jesus, according to Mark 3 : 21,237 appeared to his followers in that light. The significant difference, however, between merely pathological cases and inspired personalities is that sooner or later the latter find an extensive following and can therefore transmit their effect down the centuries. The fact that the long-lasting effect exerted by the founders of the great religions is due quite as much to their overwhelming spiritual personality, their exemplary life, and their ethical self-commitment does not affect the present discussion. Personality is only one root of success, and there were and always will be genuine religious personalities to whom success is denied. One has only to think of Meister Eckhart. But, if they do meet with success, this only proves that the truth they utter hits on a consensus of opinion, that they are talking of something that is in the air and is spoken from the heart for their followers too. This, as we know to our cost, applies to good and evil alike, to the true as well as the untrue.
7.14 - Modesty, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
spices, horses, mules and many other riches. King Solomon built a splendid temple in honour of the God of his fathers and his nation. But before the temple was built, while the timber for it was still growing in the form of cedar-trees on the mountains,
Solomon had a dream in which his God appeared to him and said:
9.99 - Glossary, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Bhagavan: (Lit., One endowed with the six attributes, viz. infinite treasures, strength, glory, splendour knowledge, and renunciation) An epithet of the Godhead; also the Personal God of the devotee.
Bhagavata: A sacred book of the Hindus, especially of the Vaishnavas dealing with the life of Sri Krishna.
--
Ganesa: The god with the elephant's head; the God of success, the son of Siva.
Ganga: The Ganges.
--
Madan(a): The God of love in Hindu mythology; also a Bengali mystic and writer of songs.
Madhai: See Jagai.
--
Vishnu: The Preserver God; the Second Person of the Hindu Trinity, the other two being Brahma and Siva; the Personal God of the Vaishnavas.
Visishtadvaita: The philosophy of Qualified Non-dualism.
Aeneid, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
longing / becomes a god to him?" And the God of Nisus and
Euryalus plays them false.
--
for here the God of war cannot be tamed.
The Danaans rush the roofs; they storm the threshold
--
o God of Thymbra, our own home; give us
the wearywalls and sons, a lasting city;
--
a black sheep to the Winter, God of storms;
and to the favoring west winds, a white.
--
The very God of gods, whose power sways
both earth and heaven, sends me down to you
--
in kindling with his clang the God of war.
For he had been a comrade of great Hector
--
the God of Hearths he had worshiped yesterday
and then the humble household gods. He offers,
--
the God of Hearths dear to Assaracus,
and by the inner shrines of white-haired Vesta;
--
At this, Mars, God of arms, gave to the Latins
new force and heart. He spurred their breasts with sharp
--
a trophy meant for you, great God of War.
To this Aeneas fastens helmet crests
--
the armor that the God of Fire had forged,
the mortal blade, like brittle ice, had splintered;
--
1. God of the winds. I, 78.
2. father of Misenus. vi, 227. This Aeolus may be a Trojan
--
XII, 731) or the God of the winds.
3. a king of Thessaly; according to post-Homeric legend, the
--
Apol'lo son of Jupiter and Latona, brother of Diana, God of the sun,
inspirer of prophecy, patron of music, he was born at DELOS. I, 465.
--
Bac'chus God of wine. He is also known as Lyaeus, Liber, and
Dionysus, i, 888.
--
Bo'reas God of the north wind. He may be imagined as coming out
of Thrace, x, 486.
--
Cu'pid son of Venus, God of love, i, 919.
Cu'res capital of the Sabines near Rome; TATIUS was its king; and
--
House'hold Gods used in this translation for the Penates, household or family deities, or gods of the state considered as a household. The singular Lar is usually translated here as "the God of
the hearth." i, 100.
--
sacred to Phoebus as the God of healing. An adversary of Aeneas.
x,435.
--
Luper'ci priests of Lupercus, God of the LUPERCAL; each year
they performed the rites of the Lupercalia, which included purification and fertility magic, vm, 860.
--
Mars God of war, son of Jupiter. I, 383.
Mar'sian of the MARSIANS. VII, 996.
--
IMin'cius a river and river God of northern Italy rising from Lake
BENACUS and flowing to the Po. It forms a lake around Mantua,
--
Nep'tune Greek Poseidon, the God of the sea, Jupiter's brother. He
had helped LAOMEDON build the walls of Troy, but became an
--
Or'cus God of the lower world, identifiable with Pluto, brother of
Jupiter. By extension the world of the dead is sometimes called
--
Pan Arcadian God of woods and shepherds; he is goat-footed and
satyr-faced, vm, 451.
--
Pha'ethon son of Helios, the God of the sun, and Clymene. He
tried to drive the sun chariot across the skies but lost control of
--
Pi'cus Italian God of agriculture, grandfa ther of Latinus, father of
Faunus, son of Saturn, first king qf Latium. Circe changed him
--
Portu'nus the God of harbors, v, 318.
Poti'tius eponymous ancestor of the gens Potitia, one of two family
--
Tiberi'nus God of the river Tiber, vm, 38.
Ti'bur ancient town of Italy not far from Rome on the river Anio;
--
Vul'can Greek Hephaestus, God of fire and of the forge; his name
gives us the word volcano. Vulcan fashions the thunderbolts of
Apology, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
I dare say, Athenians, that some one among you will reply, Yes, Socrates, but what is the origin of these accusations which are brought against you; there must have been something strange which you have been doing? All these rumours and this talk about you would never have arisen if you had been like other men: tell us, then, what is the cause of them, for we should be sorry to judge hastily of you. Now I regard this as a fair challenge, and I will endeavour to explain to you the reason why I am called wise and have such an evil fame. Please to attend then. And although some of you may think that I am joking, I declare that I will tell you the entire truth. Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of a certain sort of wisdom which I possess. If you ask me what kind of wisdom, I reply, wisdom such as may perhaps be attained by man, for to that extent I am inclined to believe that I am wise; whereas the persons of whom I was speaking have a superhuman wisdom which I may fail to describe, because I have it not myself; and he who says that I have, speaks falsely, and is taking away my character. And here, O men of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if I seem to say something extravagant. For the word which I will speak is not mine. I will refer you to a witness who is worthy of credit; that witness shall be the God of Delphihe will tell you about my wisdom, if I have any, and of what sort it is. You must have known Chaerephon; he was early a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, for he shared in the recent exile of the people, and returned with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whetheras I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupthe asked the oracle to tell him whether anyone was wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself; but his brother, who is in court, will confirm the truth of what I am saying.
Why do I mention this? Because I am going to explain to you why I have such an evil name. When I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of his riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a god, and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After long consideration, I thought of a method of trying the question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest. Accordingly I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed himhis name I need not mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examinationand the result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is,for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. Then I went to another who had still higher pretensions to wisdom, and my conclusion was exactly the same. Whereupon I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him.
Avatars of the Tortoise, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
multiplication of chimeras, he resolves that in the world there is one sole object: an infinite and absolute substance, comparable to the God of
Spinoza. Transitive causes are reduced to immanent causes; phenomena, to
BOOK II. - A review of the calamities suffered by the Romans before the time of Christ, showing that their gods had plunged them into corruption and vice, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
But will they perhaps remind us of the schools of the philosophers, and their disputations? In the first place, these belong not to Rome, but to Greece; and even if we yield to them that they are now Roman, because Greece itself has become a Roman province, still the teachings of the philosophers are not the commandments of the gods, but the discoveries of men, who, at the prompting of their own speculative ability, made efforts to discover the hidden laws of nature, and the right and wrong in ethics, and in dialectic what was consequent according to the rules of logic, and what was inconsequent and erroneous. And some of them, by God's help, made great discoveries; but when left to themselves they were betrayed by human infirmity, and fell into mistakes. And this was ordered by divine providence, that their pride might be restrained, and that by their example it might be pointed out that it is humility which has access to the highest regions.[Pg 56] But of this we shall have more to say, if the Lord God of truth permit, in its own place.[92] However, if the philosophers have made any discoveries which are sufficient to guide men to virtue and blessedness, would it not have been greater justice to vote divine honours to them? Were it not more accordant with every virtuous sentiment to read Plato's writings in a "Temple of Plato," than to be present in the temples of devils to witness the priests of Cybele[93] mutilating themselves, the effeminate being consecrated, the raving fanatics cutting themselves, and whatever other cruel or shameful, or shamefully cruel or cruelly shameful, ceremony is enjoined by the ritual of such gods as these? Were it not a more suitable education, and more likely to prompt the youth to virtue, if they heard public recitals of the laws of the gods, instead of the vain laudation of the customs and laws of their ancestors? Certainly all the worshippers of the Roman gods, when once they are possessed by what Persius calls "the burning poison of lust,"[94] prefer to witness the deeds of Jupiter rather than to hear what Plato taught or Cato censured. Hence the young profligate in Terence, when he sees on the wall a fresco representing the fabled descent of Jupiter into the lap of Dana in the form of a golden shower, accepts this as authoritative precedent for his own licentiousness, and boasts that he is an imitator of God. "And what God?" he says. "He who with His thunder shakes the loftiest temples. And was I, a poor creature compared to Him, to make bones of it? No; I did it, and with all my heart."[95]
[Pg 57]
BOOK III. - The external calamities of Rome, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
Where, then, were those gods who are supposed to be justly worshipped for the slender and delusive prosperity of this world, when the Romans, who were seduced to their service by lying wiles, were harassed by such calamities? Where were they when Valerius the consul was killed while defending the Capitol, that had been fired by exiles and slaves? He was himself better able to defend the temple of Jupiter, than that crowd of divinities with their most high and mighty king, whose temple he came to the rescue of, were able to defend him. Where were they when the city, worn out with unceasing seditions, was waiting in some kind of calm for the return of the ambassadors who had been sent to Athens to borrow laws, and was desolated by dreadful famine and pestilence? Where were they when the people, again distressed with[Pg 115] famine, created for the first time a prefect of the market; and when Spurius Melius, who, as the famine increased, distributed corn to the famishing masses, was accused of aspiring to royalty, and at the instance of this same prefect, and on the authority of the superannuated dictator L. Quintius, was put to death by Quintus Servilius, master of the horse,an event which occasioned a serious and dangerous riot? Where were they when that very severe pestilence visited Rome, on account of which the people, after long and wearisome and useless supplications of the helpless gods, conceived the idea of celebrating Lectisternia, which had never been done before; that is to say, they set couches in honour of the gods, which accounts for the name of this sacred rite, or rather sacrilege?[147] Where were they when, during ten successive years of reverses, the Roman army suffered frequent and great losses among the Veians, and would have been destroyed but for the succour of Furius Camillus, who was afterwards banished by an ungrateful country? Where were they when the Gauls took, sacked, burned, and desolated Rome? Where were they when that memorable pestilence wrought such destruction, in which Furius Camillus too perished, who first defended the ungrateful republic from the Veians, and afterwards saved it from the Gauls? Nay, during this plague they introduced a new pestilence of scenic entertainments, which spread its more fatal contagion, not to the bodies, but the morals of the Romans? Where were they when another frightful pestilence visited the city I mean the poisonings imputed to an incredible number of noble Roman matrons, whose characters were infected with a disease more fatal than any plague? Or when both consuls at the head of the army were beset by the Samnites in the Caudine Forks, and forced to strike a shameful treaty, 600 Roman knights being kept as hostages; while the troops, having laid down their arms, and being stripped of everything, were made to pass under the yoke with one garment each? Or when, in the midst of a serious pestilence, lightning struck the Roman camp and killed many? Or when Rome was driven, by the violence of another intolerable plague, to send to Epidaurus for sculapius as a God of medicine; since the[Pg 116] frequent adulteries of Jupiter in his youth had not perhaps left this king of all who so long reigned in the Capitol, any leisure for the study of medicine? Or when, at one time, the Lucanians, Brutians, Samnites, Tuscans, and Senonian Gauls conspired against Rome, and first slew her ambassadors, then overthrew an army under the prtor, putting to the sword 13,000 men, besides the commander and seven tribunes? Or when the people, after the serious and long-continued disturbances at Rome, at last plundered the city and withdrew to Janiculus; a danger so grave, that Hortensius was created dictator,an office which they had recourse to only in extreme emergencies; and he, having brought back the people, died while yet he retained his office,an event without precedent in the case of any dictator, and which was a shame to those gods who had now sculapius among them?
At that time, indeed, so many wars were everywhere engaged in, that through scarcity of soldiers they enrolled for military service the proletarii, who received this name, because, being too poor to equip for military service, they had leisure to beget offspring.[148] Pyrrhus, king of Greece, and at that time of wide-spread renown, was invited by the Tarentines to enlist himself against Rome. It was to him that Apollo, when consulted regarding the issue of his enterprise, uttered with some pleasantry so ambiguous an oracle, that whichever alternative happened, the god himself should be counted divine. For he so worded the oracle,[149] that whether Pyrrhus was conquered by the Romans, or the Romans by Pyrrhus, the soothsaying god would securely await the issue. And then what frightful massacres of both armies ensued! Yet Pyrrhus remained conqueror, and would have been able now to proclaim Apollo a true diviner, as he understood the oracle, had not the Romans been the conquerors in the next engagement. And while such disastrous wars were being waged, a terrible disease broke out among the women. For the pregnant women died before delivery. And sculapius, I fancy, excused himself in this matter on the ground that he professed to be arch-physician, not midwife. Cattle, too, similarly perished;[Pg 117] so that it was believed that the whole race of animals was destined to become extinct. Then what shall I say of that memorable winter in which the weather was so incredibly severe, that in the Forum frightfully deep snow lay for forty days together, and the Tiber was frozen? Had such things happened in our time, what accusations we should have heard from our enemies! And that other great pestilence, which raged so long and carried off so many; what shall I say of it? Spite of all the drugs of sculapius, it only grew worse in its second year, till at last recourse was had to the Sibylline books,a kind of oracle which, as Cicero says in his De Divinatione, owes significance to its interpreters, who make doubtful conjectures as they can or as they wish. In this instance, the cause of the plague was said to be that so many temples had been used as private residences. And thus sculapius for the present escaped the charge of either ignominious negligence or want of skill. But why were so many allowed to occupy sacred tenements without interference, unless because supplication had long been addressed in vain to such a crowd of gods, and so by degrees the sacred places were deserted of worshippers, and being thus vacant, could without offence be put at least to some human uses? And the temples, which were at that time laboriously recognised and restored that the plague might be stayed, fell afterwards into disuse, and were again devoted to the same human uses. Had they not thus lapsed into obscurity, it could not have been pointed to as proof of Varro's great erudition, that in his work on sacred places he cites so many that were unknown. Meanwhile, the restoration of the temples procured no cure of the plague, but only a fine excuse for the gods.
BOOK II. -- PART I. ANTHROPOGENESIS., #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
believes it derived from Al-Orit, "the God of fire." Both are right, as in both cases it is a reference to
the Sun (the highest God), toward whom the planetary gods "gravitate" (astronomically and
--
and the "merry God of the wine" were also made to personify the two terrestrial Poles. The telluric,
metalline, magnetic, electric and the fiery elements are all so many allusions and references to the
--
Mercury, one with Thot, the God of wisdom, with Hermes, and so on. The two serpents, entwined
around the rod, are phallic symbols of Jupiter and other gods who transformed themselves into snakes
--
Seth, the reputed forefa ther of Israel, is only a Jewish travesty of Hermes, the God of Wisdom, called
also Thoth, Tat, Seth, Set, and Satan. He is also Typhon -- the same as Apophis, the Dragon slain by
--
gods, who feared such a rival in power.**** While Indra, the bright God of the Firmament, kills Vritra
(or Ahi), the Serpent-Demon -- for which feat he is called Vritra-han, "the destroyer of Vritra"; he also
--
Apollo is pre-eminently the human god, the God of emotional, pomp-loving and theatrical Church
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--
Hezekiah, turned round, and called that symbol of the great or Higher God of every other nation -- a
Devil, and their own usurper -- the "One God."**
--
a prototype of Azazel, "the scapegoat for the sin of (the God of) Israel," the poor Tragos having to pay
the penalty for his Master's and Creator's blunder. This, of course, is addressed only to those who
--
proven, Cain is Mars, the God of power and generation, and of the first (sexual) bloodshed.** TubalCain is a Kabir, "an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron"; or -- if this will please better -- he is
one with Hephaestos or Vulcan; Jabal is taken from the Kabiri -- instructors in agriculture, "such as
--
The God of time was Chium in Egypt, or Saturn, or Seth, and Chium is the same as Cain.
*** See Strabo, comparing them to the Cyclopes -- XIV. p. 653 et seq. (Callim in Del., 31 Stat. Silo.
--
Poseidon is, in Homer, the God of the Horse, and assumes that form himself to please Ceres. Arion,
their progeny, is one of the aspects of that "horse," which is a cycle.
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with the fire God of the Veda, Agni. . . ." Mati, in Sanskrit, is "understanding," and a synonym of
MAHAT and manas, and must be of some account in the origin of the name: Promati is the son of
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the passive generative power of nature, Isis, Vach, Venus -- the mother of the prolific God of love,
Cupid, but, at the same time, that of the Logos whose symbol became with the Egyptians and the
--
Then will Brahma, the Hindu deity; Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd), the Zoroastrian; Zeus, the GrecoOlympian Don Juan; Jehovah, the jealous, repenting, cruel, tribal God of the Israelites, and all their
likes in the universal Pantheon of human fancy -- vanish and disappear in thin air. And along with
BOOK II. -- PART III. ADDENDA. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
south as much as in the north; the latter, were confined to the north solely. Thus Apollo -- preeminently the God of the Seers, whose duty it is to punish desecration -- killed them -- his shafts
representing human passions, fiery and lethal -- and hid his shaft behind a mountain in the
--
appeared four times in his own form (as the God of the four races) and six times in human form, i.e., as
connected with the divine Dynasties of the earlier unseparated Lemurians.
--
of a city, meant thereby the establishment of a doctrine? Thus Neptune, the God of reasoning, and
Apollo, the God of the hidden things, presented themselves as masons before Laomedon, Priam's father,
to help him to build the city of Troy -- that is to say, to establish the Trojan religion." (Maconnerie
BOOK II. -- PART II. THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
Mercury, and Mercury is the God of Wisdom or Hermes, and Budha, which the Jews called
Lord on high, the aspiring," . . . and the Greeks Nabo, [[Nabo]], hence Nabatheans. Notwithstanding
--
Nebo, the oldest God of Wisdom of Babylonia and Mesopotamia, was identical with the Hindu Budha
and Hermes-Mercury of the Greeks. A slight change in the sexes of the parents is the only alteration.
--
that god under another name; for this God of Wisdom was the great creative deity, and was
worshipped as such, not alone at Borsippa in his gorgeous Temple, or planet-tower. He was likewise
--
of Nebo, the prophet God of Wisdom. We are told in the Hibbert Lectures, "The ancient Babylonians
had an intercessor between men and the gods . . . and Nebo, was the 'proclaimer' or 'prophet,' as he
--
in the triad. He was the God of Destinies in Thebes, and appears under two aspects (1) as "Khonsoo,
the Lunar god, and Lord of Thebes, Nofir-hotpoo -- 'he who is in absolute repose'; and (2) as Khonsoo
--
** The candidate for initiation always personified the God of the temple he belonged to, as the High
Priest personified the god at all times; just as the Pope now personates Peter and even Jesus Christ
--
as the Egyptian and Hebrew Mars, God of the generation; and (b) that Jehovah, or Jah, is
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
--
Gnostic sects identical with the God of the Hebrews, who was the same with the Egyptian Horus. This
is undeniably proven on "hea then" as on the Gnostic "Christian" gems. In Matter's collection of such
--
Whence the Christian idea that God cursed the Devil? The God of the Jews, whomsoever he was,
forbids cursing Satan. Philo Judaeus and Josephus both state that the Law (the Pentateuch and the
--
not revile the gods," quoth the God of Moses (Exodus xxii. 28), for it is God who "hath divided (them)
unto all nations" (Deut. iv. 19); and those who speak evil of
--
light, as Eliphas Levi correctly explains. The Devil is not "the God of this period," as he says, for it is
the deity of every age and period, since man appeared on earth, and matter, in its countless forms and
--
THOUGHT, which being the God of Spirit and Fire, constructed seven Regents enclosing within their
circle the world of Senses, named "fatal destiny." The latter refers to Karma; the "seven circles" are the
--
in austerity "in the vast Ocean"; and are shown emerging from it. Ea, the God of Wisdom, is the
"Sublime Fish," and Dagon or Oannes is the Chaldean man-fish, who emerges from the waters to teach
--
exoteric popular and national religions; and Indra -- the God of the visible heaven, the firmament, who,
in the early Veda, is the highest God of Cosmic heaven, the fit habitation for an extra-Cosmic and
personal God, higher than whom no exoteric worship can ever soar.
--
of the gods; and proves that the God of the Israelites was such a tribal God, and no more, even though
the Christian Church, following the lead of the "chosen" people, is pleased to enforce the worship of
--
the personator of the lower God of Abraham and Jacob ought to have been made entirely distinct from
the mystic "Father" of Jesus, or -- the "Fallen" Angels should have been left unslandered by further
--
Every God of the Gentiles is connected with, and closely related to,
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
--
Adam, nor by the Egyptian God of Wisdom -- Teth, Set, Thoth, Tat, Sat (the later Sat-an), or Hermes,
who are all one, -- but by the "sons of the Serpent-god," or "Sons of the Dragon," the name under
--
and which fitted him, the "lord God of Abraham and Jacob" could hardly be crammed without damage
and breakage into the new Christian Canon. Being the weakest, the Judeans could not help the
--
The statement that Jehovah was the tribal God of the Jews and no higher, will be denied like many
other things. Yet the theologians are not in a position to tell us, in that case, the meaning of verses 8
--
Aryans, to do with this Semitic deity, the tribal God of Israel? Astronomically, the "Most High" is the
Sun, and the "Lord" is one of his seven planets, whether it be Iao, the genius of the moon, or IldaBaoth-Jehovah, that of Saturn, according to Origen and the Egyptian Gnostics.* Let the "Angel
--
children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they
shall say, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? and God said unto Moses -- "I am that I am."
--
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, wherein the Rudras, the progeny of Rudra, God of fire, are called the "ten
vital breaths" (prana, life) with manas, as eleventh, whereas as Siva, he is the Destroyer of that life.
--
hides -- has proven virtuous. The Pleiades (Krittika) are the nurses of Karttikeya, the God of War
(Mars of the Western Pagans), who is called the Commander of the celestial armies -- or rather of the
--
l'Univers." The "still greater and still more exacting divinity" than the God of this world, supposed so
"good" -- is KARMA. And this true Divinity shows well that the lesser one, our inner God (personal
--
awoke to be initiated by Osiris, and Thoth the God of Wisdom.
Let the reader who doubts the statement consult the Hebrew originals before he denies. Let him turn to
--
scene of initiation. Two Gods-Hierophants, one with the head of a hawk (the Sun), the other ibisheaded (Mercury, Thoth, the God of Wisdom and secret learning, the assessor of Osiris-Sun), are
standing over the body of a candidate just initiated. They are in the act of pouring on his head a double
--
is mistaken for Agni, the God of Fire, on account of his (Garuda's) "dazzling splendour," and called
thereupon Gaganeswara, "lord of the sky." Again, his being represented as Osiris, and by many heads
--
banner of Kama deva, the Hindu God of love, identified, in Atharva Veda, with Agni (the fire-god), the
son of Lakshmi, as correctly given by Harivansa. For Lakshmi and Venus are one, and Amphitrite is
--
Amalthaea -- Jupiter's foster-mother. Pan, the God of Nature, had goat's feet, and changed himself into
a goat at the approach of Typhon. But this is a mystery which the writer dares not dwell upon at
--
religions, they have become the synonyms of the Angels of Darkness. Mara is the God of Darkness,
the Fallen One, and Death**; and yet it is one of the names of Kama, the first god in the Vedas, the
--
refusing to worship the God of physical generation, he confesses that he can know nothing of the
Cause which underlies the so-called First Cause, the causeless Cause of this Vital Cause. Tacitly
BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
again, necessarily postulates limitation. The personal God of orthodox Theism perceives, thinks, and
is affected by emotion; he repents and feels "fierce anger." But the notion of such mental states clearly
--
became with them the anthropomorphic God of the Christians -- the male Jehovah, roaring amid
thunder and lightning. In its turn, rationalistic science greets the Buddhists and the Svabhavikas as the
--
The God of the Apostle-Initiate and of the Rishi being both the Unseen and the Visible SPACE. Space
is called in the esoteric symbolism "the Seven-Skinned Eternal Mother-Father." It is composed from
--
the God of human dogma and his humanized "Word." In his infinite conceit and inherent pride and
vanity, man shaped it himself with his sacrilegious hand out of the material he found in his own small
--
androgynous god. Thus Shoo is the God of creation and Osiris is, in his original primary form, the "god
whose name is unknown." (See Mariette's Abydos II., p. 63, and Vol. III., pp. 413, 414, No. 1122.)
--
[[Vol. 1, Page]] 133 THE God of MAN AND THE God of THE ANT.
They are Entities of the higher worlds in the hierarchy of Being, so immeasurably high that, to us, they
--
concealed under a thick veil of allegory. Hanuman is the son of Pavana (Vayu, "the God of the wind")
by Anjana, a monster called Kesari, though his genealogy varies. The reader who bears this in mind
--
Tiaou: an assimilation to Osiris, who, as the God of life and reproduction, inhabits the moon. Plutarch
(Isis and Osiris, ch. xliii.) shows the Egyptians celebrating a festival called "The Ingress of Osiris into
BOOK I. -- PART III. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
Divinity, and at the same time to sense within, concealed by the physical Symbol, the bright God of
Spiritual and terrestrial Light. Such belief is now regarded as a superstition only by rank materialism,
--
this we reply: "We deny the anthropomorphic God of the Monotheists, but never the Divine Principle
in nature. We combat Protestants and Roman Catholics on a number of dogmatic theological beliefs of
--
suggestively and undeniably figured in the caduceus of Mercury, the God of Wisdom, and in the
allegorical language of the Archaic Sages. Says a commentary in the esoteric doctrine: -. . . . The trunk of the ASVATTHA (the tree of Life and Being, the ROD of the caduceus) grows from
--
principles of the truly unknown God of Science, called by them PHYSICAL NATURE!
Theology is taken to task and ridiculed for believing in the union of three persons in one Godhead -one God as to substance, three persons as to individuality; and we are laughed at for our belief in
--
work written by Egyptians (vide "Book of the Dead") would speak of the one universal God of the
Monotheistic systems -- the one Absolute cause of all, was as unnameable and unpronounceable in the
--
God of the nome or the city, noutir, noutti, and does not exclude the existence of the one God of that
town or of the neighbouring nome. In short, whenever speaking of Egyptian Monotheism, one ought
--
the god Suhhab; and Hea or Sa, their synthesis, the God of wisdom and of the Deep, identified with
Oannes-Dagon, at the time of the fall, and called (collectively) the Demiurge, or Creator. (See
--
of the Hyperboreans, the country that extended beyond Boreas, the frozen-hearted God of snows and
hurricanes, who loved to slumber heavily on the chain of Mount Riphaeus, was neither an ideal
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i.e., a blessed land beyond the reach of Boreas, the God of winter and of the hurricane, an ideal region
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BOOK I. -- PART II. THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
ready to devour his progeny. (Ibid, Abydos.) Thot, the God of mystery and Wisdom, the sacred Scribe
of Amenti, wearing the Solar disc as head gear, sits with a bull's head (the sacred bull of Mendes being
--
generative faculty in nature. They have ever ignored even the Hebrew secret God of the Kabalists, AinSoph, as grand as Parabrahmam in the earliest Kabalistic and mystical conceptions. But it is not the
Kabala of Rosenroth that can ever give the true original teachings of Simeon-Ben-Iochai, as
--
as the triple Hecate, the Orphic deity, the predecessor of the God of the Rabbins and pre-Christian
Kabalists, and his lunar type. The goddess [[Trimorphos]] was the personified symbol of the various
--
this "Soul" is, in its dual aspect of spirit and matter, the true anthropomorphic God of the Theists; as
this God is a personification of that Universal Creative Agent, pure and impure both, owing to its
--
Wilson failed to see how Vishnu, in this character, closely resembles the Lord God of Israel,
"especially in his policy of deception, temptation, and cunning."
--
place. Vishnu, therefore, is the deity in space and time; the peculiar God of the Vaishnavas (a tribal or
racial God, as they are called in esoteric philosophy): i.e., one of the many Dhyanis or Gods, or
--
group of "Creators" or Builders. Before Osiris became the "One" and the highest God of Egypt he was
worshipped at Abydos as the head or leader of the Heavenly Host of the Builders belonging to the
--
Jehovah, the spiteful and revengeful God of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, who tempted the former and
wrestled with the last. No Vedantin but would repudiate such a Parabrahm.
--
** The animals regarded as sacred in the Bible are not few: the goat for one, the Azaz-el, or God of
Victory. As Aben Ezra says: "If thou art capable of comprehending the mystery of Azazel, thou wilt
--
principle. Venus Aphrodite is the personified Sea, and the mother of the God of love, the generator of
all the gods as much as the Christian Virgin Mary is Mare (the sea), the mother of the Western God of
Love, Mercy and Charity. If the student of Esoteric philosophy thinks deeply over the subject he is
--
sub-races of the Fifth Root-race, when the primitive and grandiose meaning had become nearly lost -was ever the representative in his accumulated titles of all his colleagues. It was the God of fire,
symbolised by thunder, as Jove or Agni; the God of water, symbolised by the fluvial bull or some
sacred river or fountain, as Varuna, Neptune, etc.; the God of air, manifesting in the hurricane and
tempest, as Vayu and Indra; and the god or spirit
--
explanation and definitions to the "Lord God of Israel," under the same circumstances, or renounce
our right of abusing the gods and creeds of other nations.
--
wrath, so did the Lord God of Abraham and Jacob. We find in I. Samuel, that "the Lord thundered
from heaven, and the most High uttered his voice, and he sent out arrows (thunder bolts) and scattered
BOOK IX. - Of those who allege a distinction among demons, some being good and others evil, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
If the Platonists prefer to call these angels gods rather than demons, and to reckon them with those whom Plato, their founder and master, maintains were created by the supreme God,[357] they are welcome to do so, for I will not spend strength in fighting about words. For if they say that these beings are immortal, and yet created by the supreme God, blessed but by cleaving to their Creator and not by their own power, they say what we say, whatever name they call these beings by. And that this is the opinion either of all or the best of[Pg 379] the Platonists can be ascertained by their writings. And regarding the name itself, if they see fit to call such blessed and immortal creatures gods, this need not give rise to any serious discussion between us, since in our own Scriptures we read, "The God of gods, the Lord hath spoken;"[358] and again, "Confess to the God of gods;"[359] and again, "He is a great King above all gods."[360] And where it is said, "He is to be feared above all gods," the reason is forthwith added, for it follows, "for all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens."[361] He said, "above all gods," but added, "of the nations;" that is to say, above all those whom the nations count gods, in other words, demons. By them He is to be feared with that terror in which they cried to the Lord, "Hast Thou come to destroy us?" But where it is said, "the God of gods," it cannot be understood as the God of the demons; and far be it from us to say that "great King above all gods" means "great King above all demons." But the same Scripture also calls men who belong to God's people "gods:" "I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you children of the Most High."[362] Accordingly, when God is styled God of gods, this may be understood of these gods; and so, too, when He is styled a great King above all gods.
Nevertheless, some one may say, if men are called gods because they belong to God's people, whom He addresses by means of men and angels, are not the immortals, who already enjoy that felicity which men seek to attain by worshipping God, much more worthy of the title? And what shall we reply to this, if not that it is not without reason that in holy Scripture men are more expressly styled gods than those immortal and blessed spirits to whom we hope to be equal in the resurrection, because there was a fear that the weakness of unbelief, being overcome with the excellence of these beings, might presume to constitute some of them a god? In the case of men this was a result that need not be guarded against. Besides, it was right that the men belonging to God's people should be more expressly called gods, to assure and certify them that He who is called God of gods is their God; because,[Pg 380] although those immortal and blessed spirits who dwell in the heavens are called gods, yet they are not called gods of gods, that is to say, gods of the men who constitute God's people, and to whom it is said, "I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you the children of the Most High." Hence the saying of the apostle, "Though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be gods many and lords many, but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him."[363]
We need not, therefore, laboriously contend about the name, since the reality is so obvious as to admit of no shadow of doubt. That which we say, that the angels who are sent to announce the will of God to men belong to the order of blessed immortals, does not satisfy the Platonists, because they believe that this ministry is discharged, not by those whom they call gods, in other words, not by blessed immortals, but by demons, whom they dare not affirm to be blessed, but only immortal, or if they do rank them among the blessed immortals, yet only as good demons, and not as gods who dwell in the heaven of heavens remote from all human contact. But, though it may seem mere wrangling about a name, yet the name of demon is so detestable that we cannot bear in any sense to apply it to the holy angels. Now, therefore, let us close this book in the assurance that, whatever we call these immortal and blessed spirits, who yet are only creatures, they do not act as mediators to introduce to everlasting felicity miserable mortals, from whom they are severed by a twofold distinction. And those others who are mediators, in so far as they have immortality in common with their superiors, and misery in common with their inferiors (for they are justly miserable in punishment of their wickedness), cannot bestow upon us, but rather grudge that we should possess, the blessedness from which they themselves are excluded. And so the friends of the demons have nothing considerable to allege why we should rather worship them as our helpers than avoid them as traitors to our interests. As for those spirits who are good, and who are therefore not only immortal but also blessed, and to whom[Pg 381] they suppose we should give the title of gods, and offer worship and sacrifices for the sake of inheriting a future life, we shall, by God's help, endeavour in the following book to show that these spirits, call them by what name, and ascribe to them what nature you will, desire that religious worship be paid to God alone, by whom they were created, and by whose communications of Himself to them they are blessed.
Book of Exodus, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
The Book of Exodus is frequently quoted in the New Testament, as in the following three examples. Jesus quotes Exodus 3:6 as proof of the Resurrection, since the Patriarchs long dead live on in God who is God of the living (Matthew 22:32, Mark 12:26, and Luke 20:37). The Ten Commandments are frequently referred to, as in Matthew 19:18f, Mark 10:19f, and Luke 18:20f, when Jesus answered the young man who asked him, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" St. Paul in Second Corinthians 3:7-18 cited Moses in Exodus 34:33 ("He put a veil over his face") to explain the Jews' inability to recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah.
The following Scripture is from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible, now in the public domain. King James I commissioned a group of Biblical scholars in 1604 to establish an authoritative translation of the Bible from the ancient languages and other translations at the time, and the work was completed in 1611. The original King James Bible included the Apocrypha but in a separate section. A literary masterpiece of the English language, the original King James Bible is still in use today.
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6 Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.
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13 And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
16 Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt: 17 And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.
18 And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.
19 And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand. 20 And I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go. 21 And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty: 22 But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.
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1 And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared unto thee. 2 And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod. 3 And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. 4 And the LORD said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand: 5 That they may believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee.
6 And the LORD said furthermore unto him, Put now thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow. 7 And he said, Put thine hand into thy bosom again. And he put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh. 8 And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign. 9 And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land: and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land.
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Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.
2 And Pharaoh said, Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go. 3 And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the LORD our God; lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword.
4 And the king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works? get you unto your burdens. 5 And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens.
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14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go. 15 Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning; lo, he goeth out unto the water; and thou shalt stand by the river's brink against he come; and the rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand. 16 And thou shalt say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying,
Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness:
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Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
2 For if thou refuse to let them go, and wilt hold them still, 3 Behold, the hand of the LORD is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep: there shall be a very grievous murrain. 4 And the LORD shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt: and there shall nothing die of all that is the children's of Israel. 5 And the LORD appointed a set time, saying, To morrow the LORD shall do this thing in the land. 6 And the LORD did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died: but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one. 7 And Pharaoh sent, and, behold, there was not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.
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Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
14 For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth. 15 For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence; and thou shalt be cut off from the earth. 16 And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. 17 As yet exaltest thou thyself against my people, that thou wilt not let them go? 18 Behold, to morrow about this time I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof even until now. 19 Send therefore now, and gather thy cattle, and all that thou hast in the field; for upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die. 20 He that feared the word of the LORD among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses: 21 And he that regarded not the word of the LORD left his servants and his cattle in the field.
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3 And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews,
How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me?
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1 When Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father in law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, and that the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt; 2 Then Jethro, Moses' father in law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her back, 3 And her two sons; of which the name of the one was Gershom; for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land: 4 And the name of the other was Eliezer; for the God of my father, said he, was mine help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh: 5 And Jethro, Moses' father in law, came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness, where he encamped at the mount of God: 6 And he said unto Moses, I thy father in law Jethro am come unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her.
7 And Moses went out to meet his father in law, and did obeisance, and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare; and they came into the tent. 8 And Moses told his father in law all that the LORD had done unto Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, and all the travail that had come upon them by the way, and how the LORD delivered them. 9 And Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which the LORD had done to Israel, whom he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians. 10 And Jethro said, Blessed be the LORD, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. 11 Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them. 12 And Jethro, Moses' father in law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God: and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses' father in law before God.
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8 And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words. 9 Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: 10 And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. 11 And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink.
Moses on the Mountain
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25 And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:) 26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the LORD's side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. 27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. 28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. 29 For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves to day to the LORD, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day.
The Atonement
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22 And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end. 23 Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel. 24 For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year.
25 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.
Book of Genesis, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
The primeval story of creation in Genesis has been compared to other ancient literatures, such as the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, the Atrahasis Epic, and the Babylonian Enuma Elish, as well as ancient writings of Egypt and Greece. These diverse writings indicate the universal concept of God and the creation of the world. What is unique is that the Book of Genesis records only one God, the Lord God of Israel.
Seven key themes of Hebrew Scripture are initiated in the Book of Genesis and are developed throughout the Torah: God is one; the goodness of creation and the world; God's undying love for his creation mankind in spite of man's sin and disobedience; God presides with justice and mercy; God is active in history by making covenants with Israel, his chosen people; the proper response of obedience to God's Word through observance of traditions and institutions will bring blessings; the gift of Hope through prophecy of the coming Messiah.
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24 When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said, Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers. 26 He also said, Praise be to the Lord, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. 27 May God extend Japheths territory; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be the slave of Japheth. 28 After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29 Noah lived a total of 950 years, and then he died.
CHAPTER 10
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1 And Abraham was old, and well stricken in age: and the LORD had blessed Abraham in all things. 2 And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: 3 And I will make thee swear by the LORD, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell: 4 But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac. 5 And the servant said unto him, Peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land: must I needs bring thy son again unto the land from whence thou camest? 6 And Abraham said unto him, Beware thou that thou bring not my son thither again. 7 The LORD God of heaven, which took me from my father's house, and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that sware unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land; he shall send his angel before thee, and thou shalt take a wife unto my son from thence. 8 And if the woman will not be willing to follow thee, then thou shalt be clear from this my oath: only bring not my son thither again. 9 And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware to him concerning that matter.
10 And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed; for all the goods of his master were in his hand: and he arose, and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor. 11 And he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water. 12 And he said, O LORD God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham. 13 Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water: 14 And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master.
Rebekah at the Well
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22 And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold; 23 And said, Whose daughter art thou? tell me, I pray thee: is there room in thy father's house for us to lodge in? 24 And she said unto him, I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor. 25 She said moreover unto him, We have both straw and provender enough, and room to lodge in. 26 And the man bowed down his head, and worshipped the LORD. 27 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being in the way, the LORD led me to the house of my master's brethren. 28 And the damsel ran, and told them of her mother's house these things.
Laban, the Brother of Rebekah
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42 And I came this day unto the well, and said, O LORD God of my master Abraham, if now thou do prosper my way which I go: 43 Behold, I stand by the well of water; and it shall come to pass, that when the virgin cometh forth to draw water, and I say to her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water of thy pitcher to drink; 44 And she say to me, Both drink thou, and I will also draw for thy camels: let the same be the woman whom the LORD hath appointed out for my master's son.
45 And before I had done speaking in mine heart, behold, Rebekah came forth with her pitcher on her shoulder; and she went down unto the well, and drew water: and I said unto her, Let me drink, I pray thee. 46 And she made haste, and let down her pitcher from her shoulder, and said, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: so I drank, and she made the camels drink also. 47 And I asked her, and said, Whose daughter art thou? And she said, The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor's son, whom Milcah bare unto him: and I put the earring upon her face, and the bracelets upon her hands. 48 And I bowed down my head, and worshipped the LORD, and blessed the LORD God of my master Abraham, which had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son. 49 And now if ye will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me: and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand, or to the left. 50 Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, The thing proceedeth from the LORD: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good. 51 Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master's son's wife, as the LORD hath spoken. 52 And it came to pass, that, when Abraham's servant heard their words, he worshipped the LORD, bowing himself to the earth. 53 And the servant brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah: he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things. 54 And they did eat and drink, he and the men that were with him, and tarried all night; and they rose up in the morning, and he said, Send me away unto my master.
Joseph von Fuhrich of Bohemia - Jacob Meets Rachel at the Well, Austrian Gallery Belvedere, Vienna, 1836.
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23 And he went up from thence to Beersheba. 24 And the LORD appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake. 25 And he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of the LORD, and pitched his tent there: and there Isaac's servants digged a well. 26 Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath one of his friends, and Phichol the chief captain of his army. 27 And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you? 28 And they said, We saw certainly that the LORD was with thee: and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee; 29 That thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace: thou art now the blessed of the LORD. 30 And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink. 31 And they rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. 32 And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac's servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water. 33 And he called it Shebah: therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day. 34 And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite: 35 Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.
CHAPTER 27
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10 And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. 11 And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. 12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. 13 And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; 14 And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. 16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not. 17 And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. 18 And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. 19 And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first. 20 And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, 21 So that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God: 22 And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.
CHAPTER 29
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1 And he heard the words of Laban's sons, saying, Jacob hath taken away all that was our father's; and of that which [was] our father's hath he gotten all this glory. 2 And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban, and, behold, it was not toward him as before. 3 And the LORD said unto Jacob, Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee. 4 And Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field unto his flock, 5 And said unto them, I see your father's countenance, that it is not toward me as before; but the God of my father hath been with me. 6 And ye know that with all my power I have served your father. 7 And your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God suffered him not to hurt me. 8 If he said thus, The speckled shall be thy wages; then all the cattle bare speckled: and if he said thus, The ringstraked shall be thy hire; then bare all the cattle ringstraked. 9 Thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father, and given them to me. 10 And it came to pass at the time that the cattle conceived, that I lifted up mine eyes, and saw in a dream, and, behold, the rams which leaped upon the cattle were ringstraked, speckled, and grisled. 11 And the angel of God spake unto me in a dream, saying, Jacob: And I said, Here am I. 12 And he said, Lift up now thine eyes, and see, all the rams which leap upon the cattle are ringstraked, speckled, and grisled: for I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee. 13 I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred. 14 And Rachel and Leah answered and said unto him, Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father's house? 15 Are we not counted of him strangers? for he hath sold us, and hath quite devoured also our money. 16 For all the riches which God hath taken from our father, that is ours, and our children's: now then, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do.
17 Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives upon camels; 18 And he carried away all his cattle, and all his goods which he had gotten, the cattle of his getting, which he had gotten in Padanaram, for to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan. 19 And Laban went to shear his sheep: and Rachel had stolen the images that were her father's. 20 And Jacob stole away unawares to Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled. 21 So he fled with all that he had; and he rose up, and passed over the river, and set his face toward the mount Gilead.
22 And it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob was fled. 23 And he took his brethren with him, and pursued after him seven days' journey; and they overtook him in the mount Gilead. 24 And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said unto him, Take heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad. 25 Then Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mount: and Laban with his brethren pitched in the mount of Gilead. 26 And Laban said to Jacob, What hast thou done, that thou hast stolen away unawares to me, and carried away my daughters, as captives taken with the sword? 27 Wherefore didst thou flee away secretly, and steal away from me; and didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee away with mirth, and with songs, with tabret, and with harp? 28 And hast not suffered me to kiss my sons and my daughters? thou hast now done foolishly in so doing. 29 It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt: but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight, saying, Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad. 30 And now, though thou wouldest needs be gone, because thou sore longedst after thy father's house, yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods? 31 And Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because I was afraid: for I said, Peradventure thou wouldest take by force thy daughters from me. 32 With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live: before our brethren discern thou what is thine with me, and take it to thee. For Jacob knew not that Rachel had stolen them.
33 And Laban went into Jacob's tent, and into Leah's tent, and into the two maidservants' tents; but he found them not. Then went he out of Leah's tent, and entered into Rachel's tent. 34 Now Rachel had taken the images, and put them in the camel's furniture, and sat upon them. And Laban searched all the tent, but found them not. 35 And she said to her father, Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women is upon me. And he searched, but found not the images. 36 And Jacob was wroth, and chode with Laban: and Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is my trespass? what is my sin, that thou hast so hotly pursued after me? 37 Whereas thou hast searched all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household stuff? set it here before my brethren and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt us both. 38 This twenty years have I been with thee; thy ewes and thy she goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock have I not eaten. 39 That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by night. 40 Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes. 41 Thus have I been twenty years in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle: and thou hast changed my wages ten times. 42 Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty. God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight.
43 And Laban answered and said unto Jacob, These daughters are my daughters, and these children are my children, and these cattle are my cattle, and all that thou seest is mine: and what can I do this day unto these my daughters, or unto their children which they have born? 44 Now therefore come thou, let us make a covenant, I and thou; and let it be for a witness between me and thee. 45 And Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar. 46 And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones, and made an heap: and they did eat there upon the heap. 47 And Laban called it Jegarsahadutha: but Jacob called it Galeed. 48 And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed; 49 And Mizpah; for he said, The LORD watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another. 50 If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us; see, God is witness betwixt me and thee. 51 And Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap, and behold this pillar, which I have cast betwixt me and thee; 52 This heap be witness, and this pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm. 53 The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us. And Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac. 54 Then Jacob offered sacrifice upon the mount, and called his brethren to eat bread: and they did eat bread, and tarried all night in the mount. 55 And early in the morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them: and Laban departed, and returned unto his place.
CHAPTER 32
--
1 And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. 2 And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's host: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim. 3 And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the country of Edom. 4 And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye speak unto my lord Esau; Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now: 5 And I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and menservants, and womenservants: and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight. 6 And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him. 7 Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed: and he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands; 8 And said, If Esau come to the one company, and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape. 9 And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the LORD which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee: 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands. 11 Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children. 12 And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.
13 And he lodged there that same night; and took of that which came to his hand a present for Esau his brother; 14 Two hundred she goats, and twenty he goats, two hundred ewes, and twenty rams, 15 Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine, and ten bulls, twenty she asses, and ten foals. 16 And he delivered them into the hand of his servants, every drove by themselves; and said unto his servants, Pass over before me, and put a space betwixt drove and drove. 17 And he commanded the foremost, saying, When Esau my brother meeteth thee, and asketh thee, saying, Whose art thou? and whither goest thou? and whose are these before thee? 18 Then thou shalt say, They be thy servant Jacob's; it is a present sent unto my lord Esau: and, behold, also he is behind us. 19 And so commanded he the second, and the third, and all that followed the droves, saying, On this manner shall ye speak unto Esau, when ye find him. 20 And say ye moreover, Behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will appease him with the present that goeth before me, and afterward I will see his face; peradventure he will accept of me. 21 So went the present over before him: and himself lodged that night in the company.
--
16 And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the ruler of his house, Bring these men home, and slay, and make ready; for these men shall dine with me at noon. 17 And the man did as Joseph bade; and the man brought the men into Joseph's house. 18 And the men were afraid, because they were brought into Joseph's house; and they said, Because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time are we brought in; that he may seek occasion against us, and fall upon us, and take us for bondmen, and our asses. 19 And they came near to the steward of Joseph's house, and they communed with him at the door of the house, 20 And said, O sir, we came indeed down at the first time to buy food: 21 And it came to pass, when we came to the inn, that we opened our sacks, and, behold, every man's money was in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight: and we have brought it again in our hand. 22 And other money have we brought down in our hands to buy food: we cannot tell who put our money in our sacks. 23 And he said, Peace be to you, fear not: your God, and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your sacks: I had your money. And he brought Simeon out unto them. 24 And the man brought the men into Joseph's house, and gave them water, and they washed their feet; and he gave their asses provender. 25 And they made ready the present against Joseph came at noon: for they heard that they should eat bread there.
26 And when Joseph came home, they brought him the present which was in their hand into the house, and bowed themselves to him to the earth. 27 And he asked them of their welfare, and said, Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake? Is he yet alive? 28 And they answered, Thy servant our father is in good health, he is yet alive. And they bowed down their heads, and made obeisance. 29 And he lifted up his eyes, and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and said, Is this your younger brother, of whom ye spake unto me? And he said, God be gracious unto thee, my son. 30 And Joseph made haste; for his [heart] did yearn upon his brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there. 31 And he washed his face, and went out, and refrained himself, and said, Set on bread. 32 And they set on for him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians, which did eat with him, by themselves: because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews; for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians. 33 And they sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth: and the men marvelled one at another. 34 And he took and sent messes unto them from before him: but Benjamin's mess was five times so much as any of theirs. And they drank, and were merry with him.
--
1 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. 2 And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. 3 And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation: 4 I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes. 5 And Jacob rose up from Beersheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. 6 And they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed with him: 7 His sons, and his sons' sons with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt.
8 And these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons: Reuben, Jacob's firstborn. 9 And the sons of Reuben; Hanoch, and Phallu, and Hezron, and Carmi. 10 And the sons of Simeon; Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanitish woman. 11 And the sons of Levi; Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. 12 And the sons of Judah; Er, and Onan, and Shelah, and Pharez, and Zerah: but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. And the sons of Pharez were Hezron and Hamul. 13 And the sons of Issachar; Tola, and Phuvah, and Job, and Shimron. 14 And the sons of Zebulun; Sered, and Elon, and Jahleel. 15 These be the sons of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob in Padanaram, with his daughter Dinah: all the souls of his sons and his daughters were thirty and three. 16 And the sons of Gad; Ziphion, and Haggi, Shuni, and Ezbon, Eri, and Arodi, and Areli. 17 And the sons of Asher; Jimnah, and Ishuah, and Isui, and Beriah, and Serah their sister: and the sons of Beriah; Heber, and Malchiel. 18 These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter, and these she bare unto Jacob, even sixteen souls. 19 The sons of Rachel Jacob's wife; Joseph, and Benjamin. 20 And unto Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, which Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On bare unto him. 21 And the sons of Benjamin were Belah, and Becher, and Ashbel, Gera, and Naaman, Ehi, and Rosh, Muppim, and Huppim, and Ard. 22 These are the sons of Rachel, which were born to Jacob: all the souls were fourteen. 23 And the sons of Dan; Hushim. 24 And the sons of Naphtali; Jahzeel, and Guni, and Jezer, and Shillem. 25 These are the sons of Bilhah, which Laban gave unto Rachel his daughter, and she bare these unto Jacob: all the souls were seven. 26 All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore and six; 27 And the sons of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls: all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten.
--
22 Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall: 23 The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: 24 But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:) 25 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb: 26 The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.
27 Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.
--
15 And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. 16 And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did comm and before he died, saying, 17 So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. 18 And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants. 19 And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? 20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. 21 Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.
Joseph Dies in Egypt
Book of Imaginary Beings (text), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Vishnu, second God of the triad that rules over the Hindu
pantheon, rides either on the serpent that fills the seas or on
Book of Psalms, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.
6 I have hated them that regard lying vanities:
--- Grep of noun god_of
god of war
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Hades#God_of_the_underworld
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Horus#God_of_war_and_hunting
selforum - god of death in sri aurobindos legend
selforum - thon was actually incarnation of god of
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/GodsOfThisNewWorld
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https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/GodsOfEgypt
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/MagnusChaseAndTheGodsOfAsgard
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheGodsOfManhattan
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheGodsOfPegana
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheGodsOfTheCopybookHeadings
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Podcast/OldGodsOfAppalachia
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https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/TheGodsOfArrKelaan
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Apollo,_God_of_Light,_Eloquence,_Poetry_and_the_Fine_Arts_with_Urania,_Muse_of_Astronomy_-_Charles_Meynier.jpg
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/God_of_Thunder_(video_game)
Good Luck Girl! (2012 - 2012) - Pretty, busty rich girl Sakura Ichiko has been blessed with an inordinate amount of good fortune, so much so that she's actually sucking the fortune from those around her. To correct that massive imbalance, Momiji, a God of Misfortune, has come to Earth to "treat" Sakuraonly Sakura isn't so willing...
Saint Seiya Omega (2012 - 2014) - The god of war and guardian of his namesake planet, Mars, was once sealed away by Seiya, but time has passed and his revival is at hand. Meanwhile, Saori Kido (Athena) is raising the boy Kga, whose life Seiya saved, and he's been training every day to become a Saint in order to prepare for the comi...
Kyran Kazoku Nikki (2008 - Current) - The Diary of a Crazed Family) is a light novel series by Akira (), with illustrations by x6suke. A 26-episode anime adaptation was broadcast in 2008.A thousand years ago, Enka (), the god of destruction, died saying that its "child" would destroy the world. In order to prevent this, the Great J...
https://myanimelist.net/anime/41353/The_God_of_High_School -- Action, Sci-Fi, Adventure, Comedy, Supernatural, Martial Arts, Fantasy
https://myanimelist.net/anime/42893/The_God_of_Highschool -- Action, Sci-Fi, Supernatural, Martial Arts, Fantasy
https://myanimelist.net/manga/111996/The_God_of_High_School
https://myanimelist.net/manga/41961/God_of_Bath
Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods (2013) ::: 7.2/10 -- Dragon Ball Z: Doragon bru Z - Kami to Kami (original title) -- Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods Poster -- The Z-Fighters must contend with Lord Beerus, the God of Destruction, but only a God can fight a God, and none of them are Gods. However with the creation of the Super Saiyan God, will the Z-Fighters be able to defeat Lord Beerus? Director: Masahiro Hosoda
God of Gamblers (1989) ::: 7.3/10 -- Do san (original title) -- God of Gamblers Poster A master gambler loses his memory, and is befriended by a street hustler who discovers his supernatural gambling abilities. Director: Jing Wong Writer: Jing Wong Stars:
Tokyo Godfathers (2003) ::: 7.8/10 -- Tky goddofzzu (original title) -- (Japan) Tokyo Godfathers Poster -- On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo discover a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents. Directors: Satoshi Kon, Shgo Furuya (co-director)
https://12kingdoms.fandom.com/wiki/Sea_God_of_the_East,_Vast_Sea_of_the_West
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https://arrow.fandom.com/wiki/Beebo_the_God_of_War
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https://comics.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War
https://comics.fandom.com/wiki/Thor:_God_of_Thunder
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/DC's_Legends_of_Tomorrow_(TV_Series)_Episode:_Beebo_the_God_of_War
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Deimos,_God_of_Terror_(Prime_Earth)
https://duelmasters.fandom.com/wiki/DMD-33_Masters_Chronicle_Deck_2016:_The_World's_End_by_the_God_of_Devils
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_Schemes
https://fanfiction.fandom.com/wiki/Heiress_Of_The_White_Moon_Kingdom_&_The_God_Of_Time-_Sailor_Moon_Infinity_Galaxy_Star_X-Storm:_A_New_Age_Of_Peace_&_Freedom,_Rising_Of_The_Millennium_Palace_&_Dawn_Of_A_New_Kingdom_In_The_Universe
https://fanfiction.fandom.com/wiki/Rurrlock-God_of_Power
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_the_warren
https://gameideas.fandom.com/wiki/.hack//ReCODE_-Infinity_God_of_the_World-
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https://godofhighschool.fandom.com/wiki/God_Of_High_School_Tournament
https://godofhighschool.fandom.com/wiki/The_God_of_High_School_(anime)
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https://godofhighschool.fandom.com/wiki/The_God_Of_High_School_Wiki:Reference_Guide
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https://godofwar.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War_(2018)
https://godofwar.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War:_Ascension
https://godofwar.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War:_Betrayal
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https://godofwar.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War_(Film)
https://godofwar.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War:_Ghost_of_Sparta
https://godofwar.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War_II
https://godofwar.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War_III
https://godofwar.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War_(Novel)
https://godofwar.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War:_Origins_Collection
https://godofwar.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War:_Ragnar
https://godofwar.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War_(series)
https://godofwar.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War_Wiki
https://gundam.fandom.com/wiki/Mobile_Suit_Vs._Giant_God_of_Legend:_Gigantis'_Counterattack
https://hanako-kun.fandom.com/wiki/No.6_God_of_Death
https://hardcorelevelingwarrior.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_Blessings
https://hardcorelevelingwarrior.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_Combat
https://hardcorelevelingwarrior.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_Death
https://hero.fandom.com/wiki/Atreus_(God_of_War)
https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War
https://magu-chan.fandom.com/wiki/Magu-chan:_God_of_Destruction_Wiki
https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Thor:_God_of_Thunder
https://marveldcfanfiction.fandom.com/wiki/Thor:God_Of_Thunder_Season_1
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https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Thor:_God_of_Thunder_(video_game)
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Thor:_God_of_Thunder_Vol_1_3
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_Lies
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_Sha_Ka_Ree
https://mythus.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War_(2005_video_game)
https://mythus.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War_II
https://mythus.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War_(video_game)
https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Thor:_God_of_Thunder
https://non-aliencreatures.fandom.com/wiki/Basilisk_(God_of_War)
https://non-aliencreatures.fandom.com/wiki/Juggernaut_(God_of_War)
https://playstationallstars.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War
https://redstorm.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_War
https://trillion.fandom.com/wiki/Trillion:_God_of_Destruction
https://valkyrie-anatomia.fandom.com/wiki/False_God_of_Hatred
https://vwars.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_Death_One-shot
Ankoku Shinwa -- -- Ajia-Do -- 2 eps -- Manga -- Demons Fantasy Horror Mystery Psychological Supernatural -- Ankoku Shinwa Ankoku Shinwa -- Long ago there were fierce gods of legends who shook the earth to its foundation with their power. There are now prehistoric rivals from the primitive times in Japan, that fought to protect their secrets in the present day. The God of Darkness Susanoah-oh is now sleeping in the shadows of the underworld waiting for his rebirth. However his coming hasn't gone unoticed. There are agents from the Kikuchi Clan (descendants of Japans first inhabitants) who have seen the warning signs of the spreading of darkness's bringing. These investigators are armed with ancient knowledge and artifacts who are willingly prepared to face the God of Darkness. Now they must fight the assembled spirits of hell to find the one young boy who is chosen by fate to grasp the chaotic might of the deadly Gods. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Manga Entertainment -- OVA - Jan 26, 1990 -- 2,338 4.18
Big Wars: Kami Utsu Akaki Kouya ni -- -- Magic Bus -- 1 ep -- Novel -- Action Military Sci-Fi Space -- Big Wars: Kami Utsu Akaki Kouya ni Big Wars: Kami Utsu Akaki Kouya ni -- It is the dawn of the 21st century. Mankind has terraformed and colonized Mars. But we are not alone in the universe. An ancient race of alien beings, known only as "The Gods," has been watching mankind's progress ...and waiting. Now, these mysterious aliens have returned to halt mankind's expansion into space ...by force. -- -- Now, the planet named after the God of War will become our final battlefield, as mankind fights a desperate battle with the latest in high-tech, military hardware: hyper-advanced aircraft, orbital fighters, and gigantic, desert battleships brimming with the most advanced weaponry. -- -- But will it be enough? The aliens have awesome, incredibly destructive weapons at their disposal—including "Hell"—an unstoppable stealth carrier. But the alien's primary weapon is insidiously quiet and invisible—a mind control plaque. Incurable. Inevitable. Contagious. Humans are powerless to resist its effects, which transforms even the most loyal soldiers into dangerous subversives. -- -- Our last hope lies with Captain Akuh and the crew of the Battleship Aoba. If his top-secret mission is successful, mankind will deal a decisive blow to the alien armada. But Akuh's girlfriend is showing signs of nymphomania—the first symptom of alien subversion! -- -- (Source: AnimeNfo) -- -- Licensor: -- Central Park Media -- OVA - Sep 25, 1993 -- 2,482 5.45
Boku no Tonari ni Ankoku Hakaishin ga Imasu. -- -- EMT Squared -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Comedy School Josei -- Boku no Tonari ni Ankoku Hakaishin ga Imasu. Boku no Tonari ni Ankoku Hakaishin ga Imasu. -- In the distant past, Miguel, the God of Destruction, was sealed inside the knight who ruled over light and darkness, Sturmhurt. Alongside the knight was Gestöber, who accompanied him through countless battles. In the present day, destiny causes them to reincarnate as Kabuto Hanadori and Seri Koyuki, two classmates. -- -- Their reunion should be a joyous moment, if not for the fact that these fantasied heroes are just products of Kabuto's delusions. As the fictional "Gestöber," Seri finds himself in various embarrassing situations due to Kabuto's antics that sometimes grow out of his control. Moreover, his classmate Utsugi Tsukimiya joins the fray with his absurdly accurate mind-reading abilities, slowly destroying Seri's social life. -- -- Seri tries hard to stay away from them, refusing to acknowledge their shenanigans, however with Kabuto's chuunibyou and Utsugi's unpredictability, he is only bound to be swept by the craziness coming his way. -- -- 40,259 6.65
Bungou Stray Dogs 3rd Season -- -- Bones -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Mystery Seinen Super Power Supernatural -- Bungou Stray Dogs 3rd Season Bungou Stray Dogs 3rd Season -- Following the conclusion of the three-way organizational war, government bureaucrat Ango Sakaguchi recalls an event that transpired years ago, after the death of the former Port Mafia boss. Osamu Dazai, still a new recruit at the time, was tasked with investigating rumors related to a mysterious explosion that decimated part of the city years ago—and its connection to the alleged reappearance of the former boss. -- -- Due to circumstances out of his control, he is partnered with Chuuya Nakahara, the gifted yet impulsive leader of a rival clan known as the ''Sheep,'' to uncover the truth behind the case and shine a light on the myth of Arahabaki—the god of fire who might just lead Dazai to the case's solution. -- -- Meanwhile, in the present day, it is business as usual once again for the Armed Detective Agency. Their peaceful break will not last for long, however, as enemies old and new gather their strength and prepare for another face-off. -- -- 337,692 8.18
Campione!: Matsurowanu Kamigami to Kamigoroshi no Maou -- -- Diomedéa -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Ecchi Fantasy Harem Magic Romance -- Campione!: Matsurowanu Kamigami to Kamigoroshi no Maou Campione!: Matsurowanu Kamigami to Kamigoroshi no Maou -- Some people suddenly find religion, but for 16-year-old Kusanagi Godou, it's that REALLY old time religion that's found him! As the result of defeating the God of War in mortal combat, Godou's stuck with the unwanted position of Campione!, or God Slayer, whose duty is to fight Heretical Gods whenever they try to muscle in on the local turf. Not only is this likely to make Godou roadkill on the Highway to Heaven, it's also a job that comes with a lot of other problems. Like how to deal with the fact that his "enhanced status" is attracting a bevy of overly-worshippy female followers. After all, they're just there to aid him in his demi-godly duties, right? So why is it that their leader, the demonically manipulative sword-mistress Erica Blandelli, seems to have such a devilish interest in encouraging some VERY unorthodox activities? Get ready for immortal affairs, heavenly harems and lots of dueling deities taking pious in the face as the ultimate smash, bash and thrash of the Titans rocks both Heaven and Earth. -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Jul 6, 2012 -- 314,959 7.02
Campione!: Matsurowanu Kamigami to Kamigoroshi no Maou -- -- Diomedéa -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Ecchi Fantasy Harem Magic Romance -- Campione!: Matsurowanu Kamigami to Kamigoroshi no Maou Campione!: Matsurowanu Kamigami to Kamigoroshi no Maou -- Some people suddenly find religion, but for 16-year-old Kusanagi Godou, it's that REALLY old time religion that's found him! As the result of defeating the God of War in mortal combat, Godou's stuck with the unwanted position of Campione!, or God Slayer, whose duty is to fight Heretical Gods whenever they try to muscle in on the local turf. Not only is this likely to make Godou roadkill on the Highway to Heaven, it's also a job that comes with a lot of other problems. Like how to deal with the fact that his "enhanced status" is attracting a bevy of overly-worshippy female followers. After all, they're just there to aid him in his demi-godly duties, right? So why is it that their leader, the demonically manipulative sword-mistress Erica Blandelli, seems to have such a devilish interest in encouraging some VERY unorthodox activities? Get ready for immortal affairs, heavenly harems and lots of dueling deities taking pious in the face as the ultimate smash, bash and thrash of the Titans rocks both Heaven and Earth. -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- TV - Jul 6, 2012 -- 314,959 7.02
Choujin Densetsu Urotsukidouji: Mirai-hen -- -- - -- 4 eps -- - -- Fantasy Hentai Demons Horror Sci-Fi -- Choujin Densetsu Urotsukidouji: Mirai-hen Choujin Densetsu Urotsukidouji: Mirai-hen -- Twenty-five years ago, the world was annihilated. With the coming of the Overfiend, God of all Gods, the human, demon, and beast realms collapsed together in chaos. With the promise that he would be born in 100 years to re-create his failed world, the Overfiend settled back to sleep within his mother's womb. -- -- But something has gone terribly wrong... -- -- Now the Overfiend is born prematurely and awaits the coming of his natural the enemy, the Lord of Chaos. His only hope for survival are Amano Jyaku and his sister Megumi. But destiny has moved in ways that even the Overfiend could never predict, as a new race of half-breed demon beasts has evolved. -- -- As Amano travels to the kingdom of Azuma to investigate the appearance of the Lord of Chaos, he is swept up in the world-conquering schemes of Caesar, Azuma's dictator. -- -- Against the backdrop of a demon beast slave revolt and the return of the diabolical Munhihausen, only Amano and the demon beast Buju can save the world from another fiery destruction. With the fate of the earth and its inhabitants hanging in the balance, all wait to see what the coming of the Lord of Chaos will bring... -- OVA - Oct 1, 1992 -- 3,108 5.73
Death Note -- -- Madhouse -- 37 eps -- Manga -- Mystery Police Psychological Supernatural Thriller Shounen -- Death Note Death Note -- A shinigami, as a god of death, can kill any person—provided they see their victim's face and write their victim's name in a notebook called a Death Note. One day, Ryuk, bored by the shinigami lifestyle and interested in seeing how a human would use a Death Note, drops one into the human realm. -- -- High school student and prodigy Light Yagami stumbles upon the Death Note and—since he deplores the state of the world—tests the deadly notebook by writing a criminal's name in it. When the criminal dies immediately following his experiment with the Death Note, Light is greatly surprised and quickly recognizes how devastating the power that has fallen into his hands could be. -- -- With this divine capability, Light decides to extinguish all criminals in order to build a new world where crime does not exist and people worship him as a god. Police, however, quickly discover that a serial killer is targeting criminals and, consequently, try to apprehend the culprit. To do this, the Japanese investigators count on the assistance of the best detective in the world: a young and eccentric man known only by the name of L. -- -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- 2,759,896 8.63
Dragon Ball Super -- -- Toei Animation -- 131 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Comedy Super Power Martial Arts Fantasy Shounen -- Dragon Ball Super Dragon Ball Super -- Seven years after the events of Dragon Ball Z, Earth is at peace, and its people live free from any dangers lurking in the universe. However, this peace is short-lived; a sleeping evil awakens in the dark reaches of the galaxy: Beerus, the ruthless God of Destruction. -- -- Disturbed by a prophecy that he will be defeated by a "Super Saiyan God," Beerus and his angelic attendant Whis start searching the universe for this mysterious being. Before long, they reach Earth where they encounter Gokuu Son, one of the planet's mightiest warriors, and his similarly powerful friends. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 580,136 7.40
Dragon Ball Z Movie 14: Kami to Kami -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Adventure Super Power Martial Arts Fantasy Shounen -- Dragon Ball Z Movie 14: Kami to Kami Dragon Ball Z Movie 14: Kami to Kami -- Following the defeat of a great adversary, Gokuu Son and his friends live peaceful lives on Earth. Meanwhile, in space, Beerus the God of Destruction awakens from his long slumber, having dreamed of an entity known as a Super Saiyan God. With the help of his assistant, Whis, Beerus looks for this powerful being, as he wishes to fight a worthy opponent. After discovering that the Saiyan home planet was destroyed, he tracks down the remaining Saiyans on Earth, looking for Gokuu specifically. -- -- Having only heard of the Super Saiyan God in legends, Gokuu and his comrades summon Shen Long the Eternal Dragon, who they find out is afraid of Beerus. After learning the secret of the Super Saiyan God, an intense battle between Gokuu and Beerus commences, the immense power of which puts the Earth in terrible danger. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- Movie - Mar 30, 2013 -- 161,588 7.40
Dragon Ball Z Movie 14: Kami to Kami -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Adventure Super Power Martial Arts Fantasy Shounen -- Dragon Ball Z Movie 14: Kami to Kami Dragon Ball Z Movie 14: Kami to Kami -- Following the defeat of a great adversary, Gokuu Son and his friends live peaceful lives on Earth. Meanwhile, in space, Beerus the God of Destruction awakens from his long slumber, having dreamed of an entity known as a Super Saiyan God. With the help of his assistant, Whis, Beerus looks for this powerful being, as he wishes to fight a worthy opponent. After discovering that the Saiyan home planet was destroyed, he tracks down the remaining Saiyans on Earth, looking for Gokuu specifically. -- -- Having only heard of the Super Saiyan God in legends, Gokuu and his comrades summon Shen Long the Eternal Dragon, who they find out is afraid of Beerus. After learning the secret of the Super Saiyan God, an intense battle between Gokuu and Beerus commences, the immense power of which puts the Earth in terrible danger. -- -- Movie - Mar 30, 2013 -- 161,588 7.40
Five Star Stories -- -- Sunrise -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Drama Fantasy Mecha Sci-Fi -- Five Star Stories Five Star Stories -- Amaterasu is the god of light, the future emperor of the Joker Star System. Under the guise of young mecha conceptor Ladios Sopp, he is compelled by an old friend, Dr Ballanche, to save his two latest Fatimas Lachesis and Clotho. And so began the stories of the Joker System, as well as Amaterasu's love for Lachesis. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films -- Movie - Mar 11, 1989 -- 10,299 6.60
High School DxD BorN -- -- TNK -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Comedy Demons Ecchi Harem Romance School -- High School DxD BorN High School DxD BorN -- The Red Dragon Emperor, Issei Hyoudou, and the Occult Research Club are back in action as summer break comes for the students of Kuoh Academy. After their fight with Issei’s sworn enemy, Vali and the Chaos Brigade, it is clear just how inexperienced Rias Gremory's team is. As a result, she and Azazel lead the club on an intense training regime in the Underworld to prepare them for the challenges that lie ahead. -- -- While they slowly mature as a team, Issei will once again find himself in intimate situations with the girls of the Occult Research Club. Meanwhile, their adversaries grow stronger and more numerous as they rally their forces. And with the sudden appearance of Loki, the Evil God of Norse Mythology, the stage is set for epic fights and wickedly powerful devils in High School DxD BorN! -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 604,761 7.44
Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni. -- -- Production Reed -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Harem Comedy Magic Romance Fantasy -- Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni. Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni. -- In a thoughtless blunder, God accidentally strikes down Touya Mochizuki with a stray bolt of lightning! As an apology, God offers him one wish and the chance to live again in a magical fantasy world. Touya happily accepts the offer and, for his one wish, asks only to keep his smartphone with him as he begins his journey into this mysterious world. -- -- Starting over in this new world, Touya finds it is filled with magic—which he has an affinity for—and cute girls vying for his attention. These girls—the twins Linze and Elze Silhoueska, Yumina Urnea Belfast, Leen, and Yae Kokonoe—provide Touya with no end of romantic frustrations, but also companionship as he discovers the secrets of this new world. -- -- 367,224 6.21
Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni. -- -- Production Reed -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Harem Comedy Magic Romance Fantasy -- Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni. Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni. -- In a thoughtless blunder, God accidentally strikes down Touya Mochizuki with a stray bolt of lightning! As an apology, God offers him one wish and the chance to live again in a magical fantasy world. Touya happily accepts the offer and, for his one wish, asks only to keep his smartphone with him as he begins his journey into this mysterious world. -- -- Starting over in this new world, Touya finds it is filled with magic—which he has an affinity for—and cute girls vying for his attention. These girls—the twins Linze and Elze Silhoueska, Yumina Urnea Belfast, Leen, and Yae Kokonoe—provide Touya with no end of romantic frustrations, but also companionship as he discovers the secrets of this new world. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 367,224 6.21
Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai -- -- Manglobe -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Harem Romance Shounen Supernatural -- Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai -- Keima Katsuragi, known online as the legendary "God of Conquest," can conquer any girl's heart—in dating sim games, at least. In reality, he opts for the two-dimensional world of gaming over real life because he is an unhealthily obsessed otaku of galge games (a type of Japanese video game centered on interactions with attractive girls). -- -- When he arrogantly accepts an anonymous offer to prove his supremacy at dating sim games, Keima is misled into aiding a naïve and impish demon from hell named Elucia "Elsie" de Lute Ima with her mission: retrieving runaway evil spirits who have escaped from hell and scattered themselves throughout the human world. Keima discovers that the only way to capture these spirits is to conquer what he hates the most: the unpredictable hearts of three-dimensional girls! Shackled to Elsie via a deadly collar, Keima now has his title of "God of Conquest" put to the ultimate test as he is forced to navigate through the hearts of a multitude of real-life girls. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 523,631 7.72
Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II -- -- Manglobe -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Harem Romance Shounen Supernatural -- Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II -- Keima Katsuragi, the "God of Conquest," returns to his quest of expelling runaway spirits that have possessed the hearts of women. Still stuck in his contract with the demon Elsie, he must continue to utilize the knowledge he has gained from mastering multitudes of dating simulators and chase out the phantoms that reside within by capturing the hearts of that which he hates most: three-dimensional girls. -- -- However, the God of Conquest has his work cut out for him. From exorcising karate practitioners and student teachers to the arrival of Elsie's best friend from Hell, he is up against a wide array of girls that will test his wit and may even take him by surprise. Though he would much rather stick to the world of 2D, he is trapped in lousy reality, and so Keima must trudge forward in his conquest of love. -- -- 332,746 7.93
Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II -- -- Manglobe -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Harem Romance Shounen Supernatural -- Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai II -- Keima Katsuragi, the "God of Conquest," returns to his quest of expelling runaway spirits that have possessed the hearts of women. Still stuck in his contract with the demon Elsie, he must continue to utilize the knowledge he has gained from mastering multitudes of dating simulators and chase out the phantoms that reside within by capturing the hearts of that which he hates most: three-dimensional girls. -- -- However, the God of Conquest has his work cut out for him. From exorcising karate practitioners and student teachers to the arrival of Elsie's best friend from Hell, he is up against a wide array of girls that will test his wit and may even take him by surprise. Though he would much rather stick to the world of 2D, he is trapped in lousy reality, and so Keima must trudge forward in his conquest of love. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 332,746 7.93
Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen -- -- Manglobe -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Harem Comedy Supernatural Romance Shounen -- Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen -- Having freed a myriad of women from the runaway spirits possessing their hearts, the "God of Conquest" Keima Katsuragi is confronted with a new task: find the Jupiter Sisters, the goddesses that sealed Old Hell in the past. Diana, the goddess that resides inside his childhood friend Tenri Ayukawa, explains that they have taken shelter in the hearts of the girls he had assisted previously. Moreover, once Diana and her sisters are reunited, their power can seal the runaway spirits away for good and relieve Keima of his exorcising duties. Though he is initially reluctant to get involved in yet another chore, everything changes when tragedy befalls one of the hosts. -- -- Discovering that the goddesses are being targeted by a mysterious organization known as Vintage, Keima is caught in a race against time to reunite the sisters and rescue the girl who has already fallen prey. With deeper resolve than ever before, Keima works together with demons Elsie and Haqua to recapture the hearts of the girls he had charmed in the past. However, the road ahead is a difficult one, as he is soon met with the consequences of his previous conquests. -- -- 281,799 8.07
Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen -- -- Manglobe -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Harem Comedy Supernatural Romance Shounen -- Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen -- Having freed a myriad of women from the runaway spirits possessing their hearts, the "God of Conquest" Keima Katsuragi is confronted with a new task: find the Jupiter Sisters, the goddesses that sealed Old Hell in the past. Diana, the goddess that resides inside his childhood friend Tenri Ayukawa, explains that they have taken shelter in the hearts of the girls he had assisted previously. Moreover, once Diana and her sisters are reunited, their power can seal the runaway spirits away for good and relieve Keima of his exorcising duties. Though he is initially reluctant to get involved in yet another chore, everything changes when tragedy befalls one of the hosts. -- -- Discovering that the goddesses are being targeted by a mysterious organization known as Vintage, Keima is caught in a race against time to reunite the sisters and rescue the girl who has already fallen prey. With deeper resolve than ever before, Keima works together with demons Elsie and Haqua to recapture the hearts of the girls he had charmed in the past. However, the road ahead is a difficult one, as he is soon met with the consequences of his previous conquests. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 281,799 8.07
Kamisama Hajimemashita◎ -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Demons Supernatural Romance Fantasy Shoujo -- Kamisama Hajimemashita◎ Kamisama Hajimemashita◎ -- Nanami Momozono and her familiars Tomoe and Mizuki have survived quite a few challenges since Nanami took up the mantle of Mikage Shrine's patron god. Naturally, the wind god Otohiko comes to invite Nanami to the Divine Assembly in Izumo, the home of the gods, and Nanami chooses to take Mizuki with her, leaving Tomoe to pose as her at school. However, she has an ulterior motive for attending the Divine Assembly: to discover the whereabouts of the missing Lord Mikage, the former god of the shrine. -- -- After her adventures in Izumo, Nanami meets Botanmaru, a tengu child looking for someone she knows all too well—tengu turned goth idol Shinjirou Kurama. Botanmaru needs Shinjirou, their prince, to return home to Mount Kurama and stop the tyranny of Jirou, who has taken over the rule of their hometown. However, Nanami soon discovers a force much darker than Jirou is at work on the mountain. -- -- As a fledgling god becoming more accustomed to divinity, Nanami finds herself dealing with a tengu rebellion, her blooming feelings for Tomoe, and a strange man with ties to both Tomoe's past and Nanami's future. -- -- 265,172 8.16
Kamisama Hajimemashita◎ -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Demons Supernatural Romance Fantasy Shoujo -- Kamisama Hajimemashita◎ Kamisama Hajimemashita◎ -- Nanami Momozono and her familiars Tomoe and Mizuki have survived quite a few challenges since Nanami took up the mantle of Mikage Shrine's patron god. Naturally, the wind god Otohiko comes to invite Nanami to the Divine Assembly in Izumo, the home of the gods, and Nanami chooses to take Mizuki with her, leaving Tomoe to pose as her at school. However, she has an ulterior motive for attending the Divine Assembly: to discover the whereabouts of the missing Lord Mikage, the former god of the shrine. -- -- After her adventures in Izumo, Nanami meets Botanmaru, a tengu child looking for someone she knows all too well—tengu turned goth idol Shinjirou Kurama. Botanmaru needs Shinjirou, their prince, to return home to Mount Kurama and stop the tyranny of Jirou, who has taken over the rule of their hometown. However, Nanami soon discovers a force much darker than Jirou is at work on the mountain. -- -- As a fledgling god becoming more accustomed to divinity, Nanami finds herself dealing with a tengu rebellion, her blooming feelings for Tomoe, and a strange man with ties to both Tomoe's past and Nanami's future. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 265,172 8.16
Kamisama Hajimemashita -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Demons Supernatural Romance Fantasy Shoujo -- Kamisama Hajimemashita Kamisama Hajimemashita -- High schooler Nanami Momozono has quite a few problems of late, beginning with her absentee father being in such extreme debt that they lose everything. Downtrodden and homeless, she runs into a man being harassed by a dog. After helping him, she explains her situation, and to her surprise, he offers her his home in gratitude. But when she discovers that said home is a rundown shrine, she tries to leave; however, she is caught by two shrine spirits and a fox familiar named Tomoe. They mistake her for the man Nanami rescued—the land god of the shrine, Mikage. Realizing that Mikage must have sent her there as a replacement god, Tomoe leaves abruptly, refusing to serve a human. -- -- Rather than going back to being homeless, Nanami immerses herself in her divine duties. But if she must keep things running smoothly, she will need the help of a certain hot-headed fox. In her fumbling attempt to seek out Tomoe, she lands in trouble and ends up sealing a contract with him. Now the two must traverse the path of godhood together as god and familiar; but it will not be easy, for new threats arise in the form of a youkai who wants to devour the girl, a snake that wants to marry her, and Nanami's own unexpected feelings for her new familiar. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 460,758 8.04
Kamisama Hajimemashita: Kamisama, Shiawase ni Naru -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Comedy Demons Supernatural Romance Fantasy Shoujo -- Kamisama Hajimemashita: Kamisama, Shiawase ni Naru Kamisama Hajimemashita: Kamisama, Shiawase ni Naru -- Nanami Momozono, current land god of Mikage Shrine, and her fox familiar Tomoe have faced many obstacles during their time together, but none so challenging as the one posed by the wealth god Ookununishi—if Tomoe’s wish to be human is granted, he must learn to live as one, and Nanami will have to return to being a human. -- -- As the couple look to the future and reflect on their former adventures, Nanami tries to figure out their new living situation as her high school graduation approaches. But no matter the path they choose to walk, Tomoe and Nanami’s love will endure. -- -- OVA - Dec 20, 2016 -- 43,428 8.10
Kyokou Suiri -- -- Brain's Base -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Mystery Demons Supernatural Romance Shounen -- Kyokou Suiri Kyokou Suiri -- Hidden in plain sight, spirits known as youkai inhabit the world. While most are benign, a certain subset threatens the tenuous peace between youkai and humanity. Ever since she agreed to become their "God of Wisdom," Kotoko Iwanaga has served as a mediator between the two realms, resolving any supernatural problems that come her way. -- -- At a local hospital, Kotoko approaches Kurou Sakuragawa, a university student whose long-term relationship ended with an unfortunate breakup. Kotoko harbors feelings for him and suspects that something supernatural lurks within his harmless appearance, so she asks Kurou for his assistance in helping out youkai. -- -- Two years later, news of an idol who was accidentally crushed to death by steel beams flooded the press. However, months later, sightings begin to tell of a faceless woman who wields a steel beam. As is the case for any supernatural problem, Kotoko and her partner set out to stop this spirit from wreaking havoc—but this case may prove to be far more sinister and personal than they could have ever thought. -- -- 284,310 6.94
Kyouran Kazoku Nikki -- -- Nomad -- 26 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Sci-Fi -- Kyouran Kazoku Nikki Kyouran Kazoku Nikki -- Midarezaki Ouka is used to having strange things happen to him -after all, he is the head of the Great Japanese Empire Paranormal Phenomena Bureau of Measures. But when he catches a small cat girl in the shopping district stealing apples, his whole life rearranges to fit a new operation... -- -- OPERATION COZY FAMILY. -- -- Thousands of years ago, Enka the God of Destruction, was killed. However, with a dying breath it claimed that its child would appear and destroy humanity. Now in futuristic Japan, all of the potential children of Enka have been found and placed into a haphazard family. -- -- Teika the lion, Gekka the jellyfish, Yuuka the oni, Ginka the cross-dressing mafia son, and Hyouka the bioweapon--along with their parents Ouka and Kyouka (the ruler of a demon underworld)--all live under one roof in a family frenzy. -- TV - Apr 12, 2008 -- 26,755 7.27
Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei -- -- Connect -- ? eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Magic Fantasy -- Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei -- A century has passed since magic—true magic, the stuff of legends—has returned to the world. It is spring, the season of new beginnings, and a new class of students is about to begin their studies at the First National Magic University Affiliated High School, nickname: First High. -- -- A manga spin-off of the immensely popular light novel series Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei (The Irregular at Magic High School), Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei (The Honor Student at Magic High School) follows the events of the original series as seen through the eyes of Miyuki Shiba, Tatsuya's sister. The life of an honor student comes with a lot of expectations...and unexpected hidden feelings?! -- -- (Source: Yen Press, edited) -- TV - Jul ??, 2021 -- 34,380 N/A -- -- Matantei Loki Ragnarok -- -- Studio Deen -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Magic Mystery Shounen Supernatural -- Matantei Loki Ragnarok Matantei Loki Ragnarok -- Loki, the Norse god of mischief, has been exiled to the human world for what was apparently a bad joke. Along with being exiled, he's forced to take the form of a child. He's told the only way he can get back to the world of the gods is if he can collect auras of evil that take over human hearts, and so to do this he runs a detective agency. Loki is soon joined by a human girl named Mayura who is a maniac for mysteries, and she soon helps out in her own way. However, soon other Norse gods begin to appear, and most have the intent to assassinate Loki for reasons unclear. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films, Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Apr 5, 2003 -- 34,376 7.28
Matantei Loki Ragnarok -- -- Studio Deen -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Magic Mystery Shounen Supernatural -- Matantei Loki Ragnarok Matantei Loki Ragnarok -- Loki, the Norse god of mischief, has been exiled to the human world for what was apparently a bad joke. Along with being exiled, he's forced to take the form of a child. He's told the only way he can get back to the world of the gods is if he can collect auras of evil that take over human hearts, and so to do this he runs a detective agency. Loki is soon joined by a human girl named Mayura who is a maniac for mysteries, and she soon helps out in her own way. However, soon other Norse gods begin to appear, and most have the intent to assassinate Loki for reasons unclear. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films, Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Apr 5, 2003 -- 34,376 7.28
Mirai Nikki (TV) -- -- Asread -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Action Mystery Psychological Supernatural Thriller Shounen -- Mirai Nikki (TV) Mirai Nikki (TV) -- Lonely high school student, Yukiteru Amano, spends his days writing a diary on his cellphone, while conversing with his two seemingly imaginary friends Deus Ex Machina, who is the god of time and space, and Murmur, the god's servant. Revealing himself to be an actual entity, Deus grants Yukiteru a "Random Diary," which shows highly descriptive entries based on the future and forces him into a bloody battle royale with 11 other holders of similarly powerful future diaries. -- -- With the last person standing designated as the new god of time and space, Yukiteru must find and kill the other 11 in order to survive. He reluctantly teams up with his obsessive stalker Yuno Gasai (who also possesses such a diary), and she takes it upon herself to ensure his safety. But there's more to the girl than meets the eye, as she might have other plans for her unrequited love... -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 1,594,291 7.52
No Game No Life -- -- Madhouse -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Game Adventure Comedy Supernatural Ecchi Fantasy -- No Game No Life No Game No Life -- No Game No Life is a surreal comedy that follows Sora and Shiro, shut-in NEET siblings and the online gamer duo behind the legendary username "Blank." They view the real world as just another lousy game; however, a strange e-mail challenging them to a chess match changes everything—the brother and sister are plunged into an otherworldly realm where they meet Tet, the God of Games. -- -- The mysterious god welcomes Sora and Shiro to Disboard, a world where all forms of conflict—from petty squabbles to the fate of whole countries—are settled not through war, but by way of high-stake games. This system works thanks to a fundamental rule wherein each party must wager something they deem to be of equal value to the other party's wager. In this strange land where the very idea of humanity is reduced to child's play, the indifferent genius gamer duo of Sora and Shiro have finally found a real reason to keep playing games: to unite the sixteen races of Disboard, defeat Tet, and become the gods of this new, gaming-is-everything world. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 1,835,953 8.17
Noragami Aragoto -- -- Bones -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Comedy Supernatural Shounen -- Noragami Aragoto Noragami Aragoto -- Yato and Yukine have finally mended their relationship as god and Regalia, and everyone has returned to their daily life. Yato remains a minor and unknown deity who continues taking odd jobs for five yen apiece in the hopes of one day having millions of worshippers and his own grand shrine. Hiyori Iki has yet to have her loose soul fixed by Yato, but she enjoys life and prepares to attend high school nonetheless. -- -- Taking place immediately after the first season, Noragami Aragoto delves into the complicated past between Yato and the god of war Bishamon. The female god holds a mysterious grudge against Yato, which often results in violent clashes between them. It doesn't help that Bishamon's most trusted and beloved Regalia, Kazuma, appears to be indebted to Yato. When lives are on the line, unraveling these mysteries and others may be the only way to correct past mistakes. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 1,100,062 8.20
Romeo no Aoi Sora -- -- Nippon Animation -- 33 eps -- Novel -- Adventure Drama Historical Slice of Life -- Romeo no Aoi Sora Romeo no Aoi Sora -- Romeo is a kindhearted and courageous boy living with his family in a small village in Switzerland. Unfortunately, Romeo becomes the interest of a man named Luini, known as "The God of Death," who is infamous for buying children and selling them as chimney sweeps in Milan. While visiting the village, Luini burns down Romeo's family cornfield in an attempt to have Romeo as his own. With the cornfield gone and his father sustaining a head injury trying to put out the fire, Romeo bravely sells himself to the God of Death in order to help his family afford a doctor. -- -- On his way to Milan, Romeo meets a boy named Alfredo Martini and they quickly become friends. Just as Alfredo is sold to a different master, the two boys swear eternal friendship and vow to meet again. As a chimney sweep, Romeo faces many hardships and abuse, especially from his master's family and a gang known as the Wolf Pack. But after reuniting with Alfredo, the two form a fraternity of chimney sweeps called "The Black Brothers," who will learn to fight against the Wolf Pack and help each other in times of need. -- -- 38,391 8.35
Saint Seiya Omega -- -- Toei Animation -- 97 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Fantasy Shounen -- Saint Seiya Omega Saint Seiya Omega -- The god of war and guardian of his namesake planet, Mars, was once sealed away by Seiya, but time has passed and his revival is at hand. Meanwhile, Saori Kido (Athena) is raising the boy Kouga, whose life Seiya saved, and he's been training every day to become a Saint in order to prepare for the coming crisis... -- -- Unaware of his destiny, when Kouga awakens to the power of his Cosmo hidden inside him, the curtain will rise upon the legend of a new Saint. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- 40,811 6.27
Shika no Ou: Yuna to Yakusoku no Tabi -- -- Production I.G -- 1 ep -- Novel -- Action Adventure Fantasy -- Shika no Ou: Yuna to Yakusoku no Tabi Shika no Ou: Yuna to Yakusoku no Tabi -- Van is the head of a group of soldiers who expected to die fighting for their lands against a large empire looking to incorporate their home into its kingdom. Instead of dying, however, Van is taken as a slave and thrown into a salt mine. One night, a pack of strange dogs attacks the salt mine, and a mysterious illness breaks out. During the attack, Van takes the opportunity to escape, and he meets a young girl. Elsewhere, rumor is spreading that only immigrants are coming down with this mysterious illness. The medical scientist Hossal risks his life to search for a cure. Doctors also study a father and child who seem to have survived the illness. The novels tell the interconnecting stories and bonds of those who fight against a cruel fate. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- Movie - Sep 10, 2021 -- 10,976 N/A -- -- Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Game -- Action Adventure Drama Martial Arts Romance Shounen -- Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture -- Young millionaire Laocorn Gaudeamus is on a crusade to recover six pieces of armour said to give the user the powers of Mars—the legendary God of War. Fearing that her twin brother is slowly losing his sanity with every armour piece he collects, Sulia runs to Terry, Andy, Joe and Mai to form their own global crusade to stop Laocorn from opening a potential Pandora's Box and releasing an uncontrollable form of destruction. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media, VIZ Media -- Movie - Jul 16, 1994 -- 10,963 6.58
The God of Highschool -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Web manga -- Action Sci-Fi Supernatural Martial Arts Fantasy -- The God of Highschool The God of Highschool -- It all began as a fighting tournament to seek out for the best fighter among all high school students in Korea. Mori Jin, a Taekwondo specialist and a high school student, soon learns that there is something much greater beneath the stage of the tournament. -- -- (Source: Webtoon YouTube Channel) -- ONA - May 24, 2016 -- 16,662 6.97
The God of High School -- -- MAPPA -- 13 eps -- Web manga -- Action Sci-Fi Adventure Comedy Supernatural Martial Arts Fantasy -- The God of High School The God of High School -- The "God of High School" tournament has begun, seeking out the greatest fighter among Korean high school students! All martial arts styles, weapons, means, and methods of attaining victory are permitted. The prize? One wish for anything desired by the winner. -- -- Taekwondo expert Jin Mo-Ri is invited to participate in the competition. There he befriends karate specialist Han Dae-Wi and swordswoman Yu Mi-Ra, who both have entered for their own personal reasons. Mo-Ri knows that no opponent will be the same and that the matches will be the most ruthless he has ever fought in his life. But instead of being worried, this prospect excites him beyond belief. -- -- A secret lies beneath the facade of a transparent test of combat prowess the tournament claims to be—one that has Korean political candidate Park Mu-Jin watching every fight with expectant, hungry eyes. Mo-Ri, Dae-Wi, and Mi-Ra are about to discover what it really means to become the God of High School. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Crunchyroll -- 536,956 7.05
Tsugu Tsugumomo -- -- Zero-G -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Supernatural Ecchi School Seinen -- Tsugu Tsugumomo Tsugu Tsugumomo -- When "ordinary boy" Kagami Kazuya meets the beautiful tsukumogami Kiriha, his life gets turned upside-down. As a "Taboo Child" who draws the supernatural towards him, he receives orders from the God of the Land, Kukuri, to become an exorcist and defeat these evil forces. And so, he and Kiriha do battle. -- -- To find out information on these supernatural beings, Kazuya and his friends set up a counselor's club at school. But behind the typical-seeming troubles he hears about, he uncovers a major plot to target Kukuri... -- -- In addition to the sadistic-yet-beautiful tsukumogami Kiriha, the situation draws other girls to Kazuya to join the fray! -- -- (Source: Crunchyroll) -- 63,366 7.49
Tsugu Tsugumomo -- -- Zero-G -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Supernatural Ecchi School Seinen -- Tsugu Tsugumomo Tsugu Tsugumomo -- When "ordinary boy" Kagami Kazuya meets the beautiful tsukumogami Kiriha, his life gets turned upside-down. As a "Taboo Child" who draws the supernatural towards him, he receives orders from the God of the Land, Kukuri, to become an exorcist and defeat these evil forces. And so, he and Kiriha do battle. -- -- To find out information on these supernatural beings, Kazuya and his friends set up a counselor's club at school. But behind the typical-seeming troubles he hears about, he uncovers a major plot to target Kukuri... -- -- In addition to the sadistic-yet-beautiful tsukumogami Kiriha, the situation draws other girls to Kazuya to join the fray! -- -- (Source: Crunchyroll) -- -- Licensor: -- Crunchyroll -- 63,366 7.49
Uchuu no Hou: Reimei-hen -- -- HS Pictures Studio -- 1 ep -- Original -- Sci-Fi Space -- Uchuu no Hou: Reimei-hen Uchuu no Hou: Reimei-hen -- University students, Ray, Anna, Tyler, Halle, and Eisuke are enjoying college life and pursuing their dreams, but in reality, They have a secret mission, to fight against invading Reptilians from outer space. One day, Ray travels back in time to 330 million years ago on Earth, to find his missing friend Tyler who has fallen into a trap set by the evil alien, Dahar. During that time, Alpha, the God of the Earth, was planning to create a new civilization on Earth and invited Queen Zamza and her fellow Reptilian from the planet Zeta, to Earth. -- -- What is the intention of Dahar? What will happen to Ray and Tyler? -- -- And what is “the plan of the God of the Earth"? -- -- (Source: Eleven Arts) -- Movie - Oct 12, 2018 -- 1,370 5.42
Xiong Bing Lian -- -- - -- 33 eps -- Original -- Action Military Sci-Fi Mystery Space Supernatural Mecha -- Xiong Bing Lian Xiong Bing Lian -- Sun Goddess of the Solari, Leona came to Earth in 2014. The genetics of God hidden on Earth has started to awaken. The first few awakenings include the Power of the Galaxy and God of War. An invasion by the alien Tao Tie, just to entertain Death God Karthus, are on the way to Earth. -- -- The Angels, the Devils and God seminary groups that have been monitoring the genetics of God on Earth make their moves. The God Seminary assembled the scattered warriors across Earth who carry the genetics of God to form the Black Troops. Radiant Dawn, Leona, lead the team and train them combat techniques to fight against the invasion. -- -- Morgana, the Fallen Angel came to Earth to sow the seed of darkness and plot to destroy the Holy Kayle. Angel Yan was send to Earth, informing the invasion of Styx galaxy by Tao Tie. -- -- Earth has just become the battlefield for the war of different civilizations. As the disasters continue, the Black Troops will realize they are fighting more than what they are asked for. -- -- (Source: HaxTalks) -- ONA - Jun 1, 2017 -- 887 6.09
Yami no Matsuei -- -- J.C.Staff -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Drama Fantasy Horror Magic Shoujo Shounen Ai Vampire -- Yami no Matsuei Yami no Matsuei -- Even after death, life is full of paperwork and criminals. Tsuzuki Asato is a 26 year old, happy-go-lucky, and dorky shinigami (god of death) whose job is to makes sure that those who are dead remain dead and stay in their proper realms. Even though he's had this job for over 70 years, he is in the worst division with horrible pay. He also has a knack for not keeping partners (since shinigami work in pairs), but now he seems to have one that will stick around; stubborn, smart-mouthed, serious and defensive 16 year old, Kurosaki Hisoka. With each case they investigate, they come closer to the conspiracies of the serial killer Dr. Muraki Kazutaka. Tsuzuki's relationship with Hisoka is growing stronger and closer...but there is a dark past to how Tsuzuki died that will not give him peace. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Central Park Media, Discotek Media -- TV - Oct 2, 2000 -- 48,623 7.06
Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei -- -- Madhouse -- 11 eps -- Novel -- Mystery Comedy Psychological Romance -- Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei -- One autumn evening at a mysterious ramen stand behind the Shimogamo Shrine, a lonely third-year college student bumps into a man with an eggplant-shaped head who calls himself a god of matrimony. Meeting this man causes the student to reflect upon his past two years at college—two years bitterly spent trying to break up couples on campus with his only friend Ozu, a ghoulish-looking man seemingly set on making his life as miserable as possible. Resolving to make the most out of the rest of his college life, the student attempts to ask out the unsociable but kind-hearted underclassman Akashi, yet fails to follow through, prompting him to regret not living out his college life differently. As soon as this thought passes through his head, however, he is hurtled through time and space to the beginning of his years at college and given another chance to live his life. -- -- Surreal, artistic, and mind-bending, Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei chronicles the misadventures of a young man on a journey to make friends, find love, and experience the rose-colored campus life he always dreamed of. -- -- 323,218 8.60
Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei -- -- Madhouse -- 11 eps -- Novel -- Mystery Comedy Psychological Romance -- Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei -- One autumn evening at a mysterious ramen stand behind the Shimogamo Shrine, a lonely third-year college student bumps into a man with an eggplant-shaped head who calls himself a god of matrimony. Meeting this man causes the student to reflect upon his past two years at college—two years bitterly spent trying to break up couples on campus with his only friend Ozu, a ghoulish-looking man seemingly set on making his life as miserable as possible. Resolving to make the most out of the rest of his college life, the student attempts to ask out the unsociable but kind-hearted underclassman Akashi, yet fails to follow through, prompting him to regret not living out his college life differently. As soon as this thought passes through his head, however, he is hurtled through time and space to the beginning of his years at college and given another chance to live his life. -- -- Surreal, artistic, and mind-bending, Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei chronicles the misadventures of a young man on a journey to make friends, find love, and experience the rose-colored campus life he always dreamed of. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 323,218 8.60
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:God_of_Rural_India.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:God_of_stars.jpg
Ancient God of Evil
Characters of God of War
Chinese names for the God of Abrahamic religions
Church of God of Prophecy
Church of God of the Abrahamic Faith
Church of God of the Original Mountain Assembly
Church of God of the Union Assembly
Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of Lucca
Council of the Assemblies of God of Colombia
Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas
General Council of the Assemblies of God of India
God of Abraham
God of Carnage
God of Chaos
God of Cricket
God of destruction
God of Gamblers
God of Gamblers 3: The Early Stage
God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai
God of Gamblers Returns
God of Israel
God of Love
God of the gaps
God of the Sullied
God of This City
God of This City (Bluetree album)
God of Thunder (EP)
God of Thunder (video game)
God of War
God of War (2005 video game)
God of War (2018 video game)
God of War: Ascension
God of War: Betrayal
God of War: Chains of Olympus
God of War (DC Comics)
God of War (film)
God of War (franchise)
God of War: Ghost of Sparta
God of War II
God of War III
God of War (TV series)
God of War video game collections
God of War, Zhao Yun
God of Wonders (album)
Kratos (God of War)
Magu-chan: God of Destruction
Mother of God of Trakai
Pentecostal Assemblies of God of America
Roger Bigod of Norfolk
The God of Cookery
The God of Hell
The God of Music 2
The God of Small Things
The God of Small Things (film)
The God of the Hive
The God of the Machine
The God of the Razor
The God of Wealth
Thor: God of Thunder
Trillion: God of Destruction
Untitled God of War sequel
Vision of Peace (Indian God of Peace)
Whom Shall I Fear (God of Angel Armies)
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