"The heart is more devious than any other thing, and is depraved; who can pierce its secrets? I, YHWH ['I AM'], search the heart, test the motives, to give each person what his conduct and his actions deserve." - Our Creator, and Father God, through the mouthpiece of the prophet Jeremiah; 17:9,10 [NJB]
"And now, O monks, I take leave of you; transient are all conditioned things; try to accomplish your aim with diligence." - Siddhartha Gotama, Buddha; before his death, at the age of 80.
"I am the Way; I am Truth and Life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father too. From this moment you know him and have seen him." - Jesus Christ; The Gospel according to John, 14:6,7 [NJB]
"but now you must give up all these things: human anger, hot temper, malice, abusive language and dirty talk; and do not lie to each other. You have stripped off your old behaviour with your old self, and you have put on a new self which will progress towards true knowledge the more it is renewed in the image of its Creator; and in that image there is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, between the circumcised and uncircumcised, or between barbarian and Scythian, [employee and employer]. There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything." - Saint Paul, the Apostle; Col3:8-11 [NJB]
"no man even though he were to call himself a Christian a thousand times over, or a monk, confesses God when he is sinning: no man who allows those things which the Lord hates, remembereth God, nor calls himself with any truth the servant of Him, whose commands he scorns with obstinate rashness." - Abbot Moses; John Cassian, Conferences, Part 1, 1:14
"A calling is from God whenever some inspiration has taken possession of our heart, and even while we are asleep stirs in us at desire for eternal life and salvation, and bids us follow God and cleave to His commandments with life-giving contrition:" - Abbot Paphnutius, surnamed The Buffalo; John Cassian, Conferences, Part 1, 3:4
"..before Love shall show itself so greatly, before it calls men so utterly to come out of themselves to it, before it touches them that they become one spirit and one life with Love in Love, men must pay to Love the tribute of honorable service and a life of longing exile: honorable service in all the works of virtue, and a life of longing exile in perfect obedience... And in all this there must be no other intention than that Love should be enthroned, as it should be, in men and in all creatures, according to Love's pleasure." - Hadewijch of Brabant (c. 1200s); Discipleship Journal: Issue 98:1997
