
De Pace Fidei (The Peace of Faith) (1453)
The Glass Bead Game (1943)
Context: "If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?"
The Master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said, "There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht — I can see they have already begun."
De Pace Fidei (The Peace of Faith) (1453)
Online interview http://www.zen-deshimaru.com/EN/sangha/deshimaru/q-r/0101.htm
Context: Religions remain what they are. Zen is meditation. Meditation is the foundation of every religion. People today feel an intense need to go back to the source of religious life, to the pure essence in the depths of themselves which they can discover only through actually experiencing it. They also need to be able to concentrate their minds in order to find the highest wisdom and freedom, which is spiritual in nature, in their efforts to deal with the influences of every description imposed upon them by their environment. Human wisdom alone is not enough, it is not complete. Only universal truth can provide the highest wisdom. Take away the word Zen and put Truth or Order of the Universe in its place.
Quoted in Men Against Fire. S.L.A. Marshall (1947), p. 107.
XIV.
Outline of the Doctrine of Knowledge (1810)
Context: Thus then does the Doctrine of Knowledge, which in its substance is the realisation of the absolute Power of intelligising which has now been defined, end with the recognition of itself as a mere Schema in a Doctrine of Wisdom, although indeed a necessary and indispensable means to such a Doctrine: — a Schema, the sole aim of which is, with the knowledge thus acquired, — by which knowledge alone a Will, clear and intelligible to itself and reposing upon itself without wavering or perplexity, is possible, — to return wholly into Actual Life; — not into the Life of blind and irrational Instinct which we have laid bare in all its nothingness, but into the Divine Life which shall become visible to us.
Source: Satgurudev Shri Hans Ji Maharaj, (1970) Albion Press
Source: The Political Doctrine of Fascism (1925), p. 113
Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol. 78, p. 6
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, Religious
“Perfection does not exist -- you can always do better and you can always grow.”