All is but seeming, even solitude
Compositions of quotes
from the manuscript Revelation of Fire,
which could exist
Each one is His messenger.
As many fates, so many are His messages.
*
Who seeks only His name, finds only His name.
Who seeks many His names, finds many His names.
Who seeks Him beyond His names, walks out into space.
Who does not begin to seek Him, is plunged into the dream.
Who ceases to seek Him, will meet Him.
*
The child, not understanding the revelation of water,
takes fright at fire.
The youth, not studied in the revelation of fire,
despises earth.
The man, not drawn to earth, is not honored
with the revelation of air.
The old man, not having received the revelation of air,
lapses into childhood.
*
Falling to earth,
gliding to the sides,
going off into the Unseen,
ascending to the heights,
downcast, direct, fiercely burning, gloomy, fixed –
how changeable is thy glance, my dear,
and the world changes with it.
The world is small,
the world is great,
the world is full,
the world is empty.
It seems this world is alone.
It seems thou art also alone.
All is but seeming, my dear,
even solitude…
*
‘The warmth descends into the abyss.
The abyss is cold.
Look thou into it, thou canst not turn away.
The darkness breathes unevenly.
Breathe along with it, and thy fear will vanish.
The roaring reaches to the very heights.
The heights reach within.
The depths rise up, fly off to the side.
Seest thou the Milky Way below?
Seest thou Orion?
There is no measure in space, no proportion.
Everywhere is playing…
*
This unease, my dear, is not foreboding,
this is what hides behind feelings,
this is the glimmer of recollection.
Thou sayest: ‘my life’, I say: ‘thy forgetting’.
For is it not forgetting,
when thou knowest not the Father’s voice in echoes?
And is it not forgetting,
when thou seest nothing in reflections?
And is it not forgetting, when thou takest desire for love?
In the depths of the memory glimmer recollections –
recalling the Father,
recalling the Fire,
recalling Love,
recalling the Game.
*
I give to thee words:
once
unique
one
alone
unity.
What can we say of them?
Knowest thou not?
Then I shall tell thee:
they are united.
And behind them
lies
one.
*
This fire does not burn.
Invisible,
in the night it will seem white,
gold
or black.
Draw thy breath –
and it will pass through thee.
Ask thou not of it –
for all that another shall say
is too much.
Thou knowest this fire.
Remember it.
*
To the weak, the word; to the strong, silence.
To the weak, order; to the strong, space.
To the weak, warmth; to the strong, coolness.
To the weak, morning; to the strong, night.
*
Every birth is His breathing out.
Every death, His breathing in.
*
The black angel flies to the white angel,
the white angel flies from the black angel.
The white angel attracts the black angel,
no-one attracts the white angel.
The white angel flies into the light,
the black angel cannot bear the light.
*
The sun is blinding. Dear ones deafen.
Comforters destroy.
Sweet singers abduct to a foreign land.
Peacemakers cloud the gaze.
Fathers compel. Mothers lull to sleep.
Daughters-in-law inflame.
Enemies exhaust.
How shalt thou be saved, my dear?
*
There is a golden flame, it is in the heights.
There is a crimson flame, it is in the fire.
There is a black flame, it can be seen only by angels.
There is a white flame – it is the core of all flames.
*
Light the fire, and study the revelation of fire.
See the unseeable, when thou hast looked at the visible.
Insight is the fullness of sight.
*
All things go round,
and in so doing
are turned to another,
departing for another.
They return as another,
depart and return,
depart and return,
keep turning,
turning,
turning.
No circle is drawn,
but we cannot break out
of its turning.
From: Revelation of Fire