I f your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

quote 4412  |   Jesus Christ Matthew 5.29-30

W hen the senses contact sense objects, a person experiences cold or heat, pleasure or pain. These experiences are fleeting; they come and go. Bear them patiently, Arjuna. Those who are not affected by these changes, who are the same in pleasure and pain, are truly wise and fit for immortality. Assert your strength and realize this!... The disunited mind is far from wise; how can it meditate? How can it be at peace? When you know no peace, how can you know joy? When you let your mind follow the call of the senses, they carry away your better judgement as storms drive a boat off its charted course on the sea. Use all of your power to free the senses from attachment and aversion alike, and live in the full wisdom of the Self.

quote 4411  |   The Bhagavat Gita Bhagavad Gita 2.14-15, 66-68

B eloved, I beseech you... to abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against your soul.

quote 4402  |   The Bible 1 Peter 2.11

T his body is mortal, always gripped by death, but within it dwells the immortal Self. This Self, when associated in our consciousness with the body, is subject to pleasure and pain; and so long as this association continues, freedom from pleasure and pain can no man find.

quote 4259  |   The Upanishads Chandogya Upanishad 8.12.1

N ow a man may be striving for a perfect union in this life through grace ….. But, manifestly, the perfect union in this life through grace and love demands that he live in darkness to all the objects of sight, hearing, imagination, and everything comprehensible to the heart, that is, to the soul.

quote 3842  |   Saint John of the Cross The Ascent Of Mount Carmel, II.4.4; Kavanaugh & Rodriguez, 1973; pp. 113-114

W isdom is not to be found in the art of oratory, or in great books, but in a withdrawal from these sensible things and in a turning to the most simple and infinite forms. You will learn how to receive it into a temple purged from all vice, and by fervent love to cling to it until you may taste it and see how sweet That is which is all sweetness. Once this has been tasted, all things which you now consider as important will appear as vile, and you will be so humbled that no arrogance or other vice will remain in you. Once having tasted this wisdom, you will inseparably adhere to it with a chaste and pure heart. You will choose rather to forsake this world and all else that is not of this wisdom, and living with unspeakable happiness you will die.

quote 3840  |   Nicholas of Cusa De sapientia; Dolan, 1962; pp. 115-116

S eated in a solitary place, free from desires and with senses controlled, one should meditate free of thought on that one infinite Self.

quote 3698  |  (Adi Shankaracharya) Shankara Atma Bodha: 38

H e that has the strength, let him arise and withdraw into himself, foregoing all that is known by the eyes, turning away forever from the material beauty that once made his joy.

quote 3658  |   Plotinus Enneads, 1:8; in Porphyry, Life Of Plotinus, Turnbull, 1936; p. 48

H e who wishes to be spared all misfortunes should associate God with everything through prayer; with his intellect he should set his hope in Him, putting aside, so far as possible, all concern about things of the senses.

quote 3386  |   Saint Mark the Ascetic On the Spiritual Law: ("Philokalia (Vol. 1)", p. 140, text 172)

I n diligent exercise of mystical contemplation, leave behind the senses and the operations of the intellect, and all things sensible and intellectual, and all things in the world of being and non-being, that you may arise by unknowing towards the union, as far as is attainable, with Him who transcends all being and all knowledge. For by the unceasing and absolute renunciation of yourself and of all things you may be borne on high, through pure and entire self-abnegation, into the superessential Radiance of the Divine Darkness.

quote 3362  |   Dionysius the Areopagite Mystical Theology, Chapter 1

S hut all the gates of your soul, that is the senses, so as to not be lured astay. When the intellect sees that it is not dominated by anything, it prepares itself for immortality, gathering its senses together and forming them into one body.

quote 3355  |   The Philokalia Abba Isaiah the Solitary: "On Guarding the Intellect", taken from the Philokalia

K now that the World of Unity lies in the other direction from the senses. If you want Oneness, go in that direction!

quote 3335  |  Jalâl ud Dîn Rumi The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi, p. 251, Trans. William C. Chittick. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1983

H is mental questionings form the barrier. His physical eyesight bandages his knowing. Self-consciousness plugs his ears.

quote 3296  |  Jalâl ud Dîn Rumi The Essential Rumi, p. 256, Trans. Coleman Barks with John Moyne. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995

I f a tablet is not wiped clean of it's figures, nothing can be written upon it. A single heart cannot serve as the place for two things, let alone for several things. If the heart is filled with the forms of sensory perceptions, it is rare that it would perceive the meaning of Allah, even if one were to say Allah a thousand times. When the heart is empty of all that is other-than-God, if one uttered Allah only once, one would find such bliss that the tongue could not describe.

quote 3279  |   Ibn' Ata' Allah The Key To Salvation: A Sufi Manual of Invocation. Trans. Mary Ann Koury Danner. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1996, p. 92-93

L eave the senses and the workings of the intellect, and all that the sense and the intellect can perceive, and all that is not and that is; and through unknowing reach out, so far as this is possible, toward oneness with him who is beyond all being and knowledge. In this way, through an uncompromising, absolute, and pure detachment from yourself and from all things, transcending all things and released from all, you will be led upwards toward that radiance of the divine darkness that is beyond all being. Entering the darkness that surpasses understanding, we shall find ourselves brought, not just to brevity of speech, but to perfect silence and unknowing. Emptied of all knowledge, man is joined in the highest part of himself, not with any created thing, nor with himself, nor with another, but with the one who is altogether unknowable; and in knowing nothing, he knows in a manner that surpasses understanding.

quote 2804  |   Dionysius the Areopagite Dionysius the Areopagite, adapted from the translation of the Mystical Theology by Colm Luibheid in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press).

T o cease to be identified with the body, to separate oneself from the body-consciousness, is a recognized and necessary step whether toward spiritual liberation or toward spiritual perfection and mastery over Nature.

quote 2713  |   Aurobindo Ghose The New Body, in the Teaching of the Hindu Mystics, by Andrew Harvey, Shambala.

T hat one I love who is incapable of ill will, who is friendly and compassionate. Living beyond the reach of I and mine and of pleasure and pain, patient, contented, self-controlled, firm in faith, with all his heart and all his mind given to me-with such a one I am in love. Not agitating the world or by it agitated, he stands above the sway of competition and fear: he is my beloved.

quote 2667  |   The Bhagavat Gita translated by Eknath Easwaran, Nilgiri Press, Tomales, California

W hat now is the effort to avoid? There the disciple incites his mind to avoid the arising of evil, demeritorious things, that have not yet arisen; and he strives, puts forth his energy, strains his mind and struggles. Thus, when he perceives a form with the eye, a sound with the ear, an odor with the nose, a taste with the tongue, a contact with the body, or an object with the mind, he neither adheres to the whole, nor to its parts. And he strives to ward off that, through which evil and demeritorious things, greed and sorrow, would arise, if he remained with unguarded senses; and he watches over his senses, restrains his senses. Possessed of this noble Control over the Senses, he experiences inwardly a feeling of joy, into which no evil thing can enter.

quote 2489  |   Buddha Sakyamuni Anguttara Nikaya, V 13, 14

A nd further, people take the evil way in deeds, the evil way in words, the evil way in thoughts; and by taking the evil way in deeds, words and thoughts, at the dissolution of the body, after death, they fall into a downward state of existence, a state of suffering, into perdition and the abyss of hell. But his is the misery of sensuous craving, the heaping up of suffering in the future life, due to sensuous craving, conditioned through sensuous craving, caused by sensuous craving, entirely dependent on sensuous craving.

quote 2464  |   Buddha Sakyamuni Majjhima Nikaya, 38

S oon afterward Tzu-yu fell ill and Tzu-ssu went to see him. "Great is the Creator!" said the sick man. "See how he (or it) has made me crumbled up like this!" (1) His back was hunched and his backbone was protruding. His internal organs were on the top of his body. His cheeks were level with his navel. His shoulders were higher than his head. The hair on top of his head pointed up toward the sky. The yin and yang (passive and active cosmic forces) in him were out of order, but his mind was at ease as though nothing had happened. He limped and walked quickly to the well and looked at his reflection, and said, "Alas! The Creator has made crumbled up like this!" "Do you dislike it?" asked Tzu-ssu. "No," said Tzu-yu, "why should I dislike it? Suppose my left arm is transformed into a cock. With it I should herald the dawn. Suppose my right arm is transformed into a sling. With it I should look for a dove to roast. Suppose my buttocks were transformed into wheels and my spirit into a horse. I should mount them. What need do I have for a chariot? When we come, it is because it was the occasion to be born. When we go, it is to follow the natural course of things. Those who are contented and at ease when the occasion comes and live in accord with the course of Nature cannot be affected by sorrow or joy. This is what the ancients called release (2) from bondage. Those who cannot release themselves are so because they are bound by material things. That material things cannot overcome Nature, however, has been a fact from time immemorial. Why, then, should I dislike it?"

quote 2241  |   Tchuang Tzu Chuang Tzu, chapter VI, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 8.  (1) Comment. The term "Creator" (Tso-wu che) seems to suggest a personal God. But as Kuo Hsiang points out, this means Nature which also creates. (2) Comment. Release here means spiritual freedom and is to be sharply differentiated from Buddhist Nirvana.