“Through fasting, concentration and prayer, mystics shut out the shifting world of the senses in order to reach a timeless reality. Quite often they find what they seek - but it is only a shadow play, an arabesque of their own anxieties, projected onto an inner screen. They end as they began, stuck fast in the personal time of memory and regret.”

— John Gray, book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

As It Is: Turning Back (p. 198)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Through fasting, concentration and prayer, mystics shut out the shifting world of the senses in order to reach a timele…" by John Gray?

John Gray164

British philosopher 1948

Related quotes

“The person one loves never really exists, but is a projection focused through the lens of the mind onto whatever screen it fits with least distortion.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Road to the Sea

The Road to the Sea, p. 269
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

“Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt”

Seth Godin book The Dip

The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit

“The eye projects and focuses the inner image (idea) onto the physical world in the same manner that a motion picture camera transfers an image onto a screen. The mouth creates words. The ears create sound. The difficulty in understanding this principle is due to the fact that we’ve taken it for granted that the image and sound already exist for the senses to interpret. Actually the senses are the channels of creation by which idea is projected into material expression.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Seth Material (1970), p. 13

“Time is tickell, and out of sight out of minde.
Than catche and holde while I may, fast binde fast finde.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Time is fickle, and out of sight out of mind.
Than catch and hold while I may, fast bind fast find.
Part I, chapter 3.
Proverbs (1546)

“Many persons get nothing out of their fasts but hunger and thirst, many more get nothing out of their night prayers but exertions and sleepless nights. Wise and sagacious persons are praiseworthy even if they do not fast and sleep during the nights.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

“How slow the Shadow creeps: but when 'tis past,
How fast the Shadows fall. How fast! How fast!”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

"On the Same" (On a Sundial II)
Sonnets and Verse (1938)

“I think that fasting (in the month of Ramadan for Muslims) is not only a religious rite, but also a symbol of human rights, as there are many places in the world that are going through rough times, and fasting shows our devotion.”

Tsai Ping-kun (1959) Taiwanese politician

Source: Tsai Ping-kun (2019) cited in " Muslims gather at Taipei Railway Station for Eid al-Fitr http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2019/06/06/2003716437" on Taipei Times, 6 June 2019.

“In this era, the old things are being swept away and the new things are still being born. But until this historical era reaches its culmination, all certainty will remain an exception. People sense that everything about their everyday lives is a little out of order, out of order to a terrifying degree. All of us must live within a certain historical era, but this era sinks away from us like a shadow, and we feel we have been abandoned. In order to confirm our own existence, we need to take hold of something real, of something most fundamental, and to that end we seek the help of an ancient memory, the memory of a humanity that has lived through every era, a memory clearer and closer to our hearts than anything we might see gazing far into the future. And this gives rise to a strange apprehension about the reality surrounding us. We begin to suspect that this is an absurd and antiquated world, dark and bright at the same time. Between memory and reality there are awkward discrepancies, producing a solemn but subtle agitation, an intense but as yet indefinable struggle.”

Eileen Chang (1920–1995) Chinese writer and screenwriter

2. "Writing of One's Own" (pp. 17–18)
Liuyan [《流言》] (1968)

“Peace doesn't come through hope, prayer or time; we have to reach out and grasp what is within reach.”

Garry Davis (1921–2013) American actor turned peace activist (1921-2013)

As quoted in Garry Davis Cult, Life (Jan 24, 1949)

“Never play ragtime fast at any time.”

Scott Joplin (1868–1917) American composer, musician, and pianist

"School of Ragtime" (1908)

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

John Gray164

Related quotes

Related topics