Spiritual Direction

.....It is because the reality of Progress can never be determined that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have had to treat it as an article of religious faith. To the exponents of the Perennial Philosophy, the question whether Progress is inevitable or even real is not a matter of primary importance. For them, the important thing is that individual men and women should come to the unitive knowledge of the divine Ground, and what interests them in regard to the social environment is not its progressiveness or non-progressiveness (whatever those terms may mean), but the degree to which it helps or hinders individuals in their advance towards man's final end.
— Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, p. 80.

God, if I worship Thee in fear of hell, burn me in hell. And if I worship Thee in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise; but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, withhold not Thine everlasting Beauty.    — Rabi'a
— Ibid., p. 102.

This is, perhaps, the most difficult of all mortifications — to achieve a "holy indifference" to the temporal success or failure of the cause to which one has devoted one's best energies. If it triumphs, well and good; and if it meets defeat, that also is well and good, if only in ways that, to a limited and timebound mind, are here and now entirely incomprehensible.
— Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, p. 103.

Suppose a boat is crossing a river and another boat, an empty one, is about to collide with it. Even an irritable man would not lose his temper. But suppose there was someone in the second boat. Then the occupant of the first would shout to him to keep clear. And if he did not hear the first time, nor even when called to three times, bad language would inevitably follow. In the first case there was no anger, in the second there was — because in the first case the boat was empty, in the second it was occupied. And so it is with man. If he could only pass empty through life, who would be able to injure him?
— Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, p. 106.

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment; Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderness is intuition.    — Jalal-uddin Rumi
— Ibid., p. 141.

Reason is like an officer when the King appears; The officer then loses his power and hides himself. Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun.    — Jalal-uddin Rumi
— Ibid., p. 141.

....If you dwelt in self-knowledge alone, you would despair; if you dwelt in the knowledge of God alone, you would be tempted to presumption. One must go with the other, and thus you will reach perfection.    — St. Catherine of Siena
— Ibid., p. 165.