“To see through the mask of evil, search for the light that is the essence of everything. The fruit of this search is revelation; the light reveals itself of its own accord.”

“Finally, the Kingdom of God could never be one thing. It had to serve too many purposes and was entangled in too many aspects of traditional religion. I think the only way to solve the riddles posed by the Kingdom of God is to say that God exists in different places depending on your level of consciousness. This becomes critical on the spiritual path, because as your own awareness shifts, God does, too.”

“To the wizard death is merely a belief.”

“If all of the steps of surrender are present, then a great Rembrandt or Monet will evoke love because the artist is simply there in all his naked humanity.”

“There is a wellspring of life within you where you can go for cleansing and transformation.”

“Don’t you realize,” Merlin said to his pupil, “that the history of the universe has brought us here to this second?”

“Now take all these qualities together: order, balance, evolution and intelligence. What you have is a description of love. It’s not the popular ideal, it is the wizard’s love – the force that upholds life and nurtures it.”

“Two chemicals called actin and myosin evolved eons ago to allow the muscles in insect wings to contract and relax. Thus, insects learned to fly. When one of those paired molecules are absent, wings will grow but they cannot flap and are therefore useless. Today, the same two proteins are responsible for the beating of the human heart, and when one is absent, the person’s heartbeat is inefficient and weak, ultimately leading to heart failure.Again, science marvels at the way molecules adapt over millions of years, but isn’t there a deeper intent? In our hearts, we feel the impulse to fly, to break free of boundaries. Isn’t that the same impulse nature expressed when insects began to take flight? The prolactin that generates milk in a mother’s breast is unchanged from the prolactin that sends salmon upstream to breed, enabling them to cross from saltwater to fresh.”

“Time exists so that you can experience these flavors as deeply as possible. On the path of devotion, if you can experience even a glimmer of love, its possible to experience a little more love. When you experience that a little more, then the next degree of intensity is possible. Thus, love engenders love until you reach the point of saturation, when you totally merge with the divine love. this is what the mystics mean when they say that they plunge into the ocean of love to drown themselves.”

“The same faint song is heard in everything: “Behold yourself”.”

“The basis of everything in the wizards’ world rests upon the insight “All this is myself.” Therefore, in accepting the world as it is, the wizard views everything in the light of self-acceptance, which is the light of love.”

“The willingness to reach inside every part of yourself opens the door to total understanding. You place your entire identity on the line, not just an isolated part. This may sound daunting, but actually it’s the most natural way to approach any situation. When you hold some part of yourself in reserve you deny it exposure to life; you repress its energy and keep it form understanding what it needs to know.”

“Nature loves efficiency, which is very odd for something supposedly working at random. When you drop a ball, it falls straight down without taking any unexpected detours. When two molecules with the potential for bonding meet, they always bond- there is no room for indecision. This expenditure of least energy, also called the law of least effort, covers human beings, too. Certainly our bodies cannot escape the efficiency of the chemical processes goings on in each cell, so it is probable that our whole being is wrapped up in the same principle. This argument also applies to personal growth- the idea that everyone is doing the best he or she can from his or her own level of consciousness”

“We live in the Age of the Higher Brain, the cerebral cortex that has grown enormously over the last few millennia, overshadowing the ancient, instinctive lower brain. The cortex is often called the new brain, yet the old brain held sway in humans for millions of years, as it does today in most living things. The old brain can’t conjure up ideas or read. But it does possess the power to feel and, above all, to be. It was the old brain that caused our forebears to sense the closeness of a mysterious presence everywhere in Nature.”

“it’s as if the universe has a sense of humor, since at a deep level it’s impossible not to lead a spiritual life…the universe is living through you at this moment. with or without belief in god, the chain of events leading from silent awareness to physical reality remains intact.”