Ascent Quotes

“If I am in love, many things about the world, not just the immediate object of my love, seem lovable. To say 'I love X' is somehow really to say 'X inspires love in me', and that love then attaches itself to objects other than X as well. The expansiveness of love is a natural means of ascent between levels.”
― Robin Waterfield

“I tried to establish order over the chaos of my imagination, but this essence, the same that presented itself to me still hazily when I was a child, has always struck me as the very heart of truth. It is our duty to set ourselves an end beyond our individual concerns, beyond our convenient, agreeable habits, higher than our own selves, and disdaining laughter, hunger, even death, to toil night and day to attain that end. No, not to attain it. The self-respecting soul, as soon as he reaches his goal, places it still further away. Not to attain it, but never to halt in the ascent. Only thus does life acquire nobility and oneness.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“We can only climb the mountains because there’s a valley that makes the mountain a mountain.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Without mountains, we might find ourselves relieved that we can avoid the pain of the ascent, but we will forever miss the thrill of the summit. And in such a terribly scandalous trade-off, it is the absence of pain that becomes the thief of life.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“The length of the fall is dictated by how far we had climbed. The outcome of the fall is dictated by whether we’re holding on to that which we’re climbing, or we’re letting God hold onto us.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“When a great multitude is making a pilgrimage, I should never advise him to do so, for as a rule people return on these occasions in a state of greater distraction than when they went. And many set out and make these pilgrimages for recreation rather than devotion.”
― Saint John of the Cross, The Complete Works of Saint John of the Cross, of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

“Through the waters spilled by the spring, I was remade. Forth I fared, a new plant with new leaves in a new time. The stars were there, and I was set to climb.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“This is the ultimate heresy, then, and a possible outcome of a history of ascent, of system-breaks and paradigm-shifts that are exciting on one level, tedious on another: life characterized by so much somatic security, so much incarnation, that the need for “truth” is far less important than the need for love; and finally, not really in conflict with it. Incarnation means living in life, not transcending it. The last paradigm-shift has to be a shift to a world in which paradigm-shifts become unnecessary, if not actually banal.”
― Morris Berman, Coming to Our Senses: Body and Spirit in the Hidden History of the West

“They place more reliance upon methods and kinds of ceremony than upon the reality of their prayer, and herein they greatly offend and displease God.

I refer, for example, to a Mass which is said with so many candles, neither more nor fewer; which is said by a priest in such and such a way; and must be at such and such an hour, neither sooner nor later; and the prayers and stations must be made at such time and with such ceremonies and in no other manner; and the person who makes them must have such qualities or qualifications.

And there are those who think that if any of these details which they have laid down be wanting, nothing is accomplished.

What is worse, and indeed intolerable, is that certain persons desire to feel some effect in themselves, or to have petitions fulfilled, or to know that the purpose of these ceremonious prayers of theirs will be accomplished.

This is nothing less than to tempt God and to offend Him greatly, so much so that He sometimes gives leave for the devil to deceive them.”
― Saint John of the Cross, The Complete Works of Saint John of the Cross, of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

“The most dangerous roads are those that provide sea level adapted humans rapid ascent to very high altitudes.”
― Steven Magee

“Roads that provide rapid ascent to high altitudes should be clearly marked with the appropriate warning signs detailing the altitude disease risks.”
― Steven Magee

“Ascent with all its sportive forms of God is blissful. It terminates in Absolute. Then Descent comes and every state of it is full of Bliss. God is ever Blissful at every condition and realization in the body. It is called “from Absolute to His sportive forms and from sportive from to Absolute”. Nitya to Lila and Lila to Nitya. Its Bliss is enjoyed only by Avatars and none else.”
― Sri Jibankrishma or Diamond

“Pindar said, neither by land nor by sea shall you find us. Maybe you will have to fly to discover us. Or slither under the earth. Perhaps a great subterranean tunnel – the Underworld – will bring you to us. You must go down before you can come up. Katabasis, the going down, precedes anabasis, the going up. By the same token, the advance is followed by the retreat, the march forward so often turns into the march back. Even great Alexander learned that. Does descent precede ascent, or ascent precede descent?”
― David Sinclair, The Church of the Serpent: The Philosophy of the Snake and Attaining Transcendent Knowledge

“To refuse the sacrifice of the ascent is to miss the fact that the grandeur of the valley can only be fully appreciated when we see the whole of it rather than spending the entirety of our lives simply walking a part of it.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough