Seeker

“ The marks of the Seeker are as follows. He is happy if he does not get the desired object, so that he may be liberated from all bonds; he opposes the desire-nature so much, that he would not gratify its craving, even if it cried therefor for seventy years; he is so harmonised with God that ease and uneasiness, a boon and a curse, admission and rejection are the same to him; he is too resigned to beg for anything either from God or from the world; his asceticism keeps him as fully satisfied with his little all—a garment or a blanket—as others might be with the whole world.... ”

“ These are among the attributes of the exalted, and constitute the hall-mark of the spiritually-minded. They have already been mentioned in connection with the requirements of the wayfarers that tread the path of Positive Knowledge. When the detached wayfarer and sincere seeker hath fulfilled these essential conditions, then and only then can he be called a true seeker. Whensoever he hath fulfilled the conditions implied in the verse: “Whoso maketh efforts for Us,” he shall enjoy the blessings conferred by the words: “In Our Ways shall We assuredly guide him.” ”

“ For ere long the assayers of mankind shall, in the holy presence of the Adored, accept naught but purest virtue and deeds of stainless holiness.
“36: O SON OF DUST! The wise are they that speak not unless they...” O SON OF DUST! The wise are they that speak not unless they obtain a hearing, even as the cup-bearer, who proffereth not his cup till he findeth a seeker, and the lover who crieth not out from the depths of his heart until he gazeth upon the beauty of his beloved. ”

“ All passionate seekers after undiscovered truth know that much mental toil, and probably years of wearisome watching, are demanded before any one can hope to snatch a new secret from the close keeping of the unknown. ”

“ Unless one sees a glimpse of truth at fifteen, enough to recognize it, one is not likely to discern it later, through the mist of unformed knowledge. And at fifteen one craves this something that can relate and shape all thought. So it happened that I organized the club of Seekers, composed of very different girls and boys, because of this one common need. ”

“ As no other, feeling dependent, he is a seeker, and even a confident seeker after what is perfect. He truly and confidently seeketh, for he seeketh after what hath neither visible form nor body, what is without habitation or name, what, like the Son of Man, hath not where to lay its head. ”

“ A genuine seer and speaker, under what conditions soever, shall be welcome to us: has he not seen somewhat of great Nature our common mother's bringing forth,—seen it, loved it, laid his heart open to it and to the mother of it, so that he can now rationally speak it for us? ”

“ I want to convince you that I see the truth clearly now. Let me walk behind you, let me follow you, as a servant follows her master. Ah, give me a little strength you who are strong, you who have never erred, you who have conquered yourself and the world. ”

“ For my friends names were Seek-truth and Weary-o’th’-World, whom we have in our company now. So when Tender-conscience came by, and was looking on the pillar of History, Seek-truth happen’d to see him, and knowing by his habit that he was a pilgrim, he presently struck up a bargain with him to bear him company, and called the rest of us out of the cave, a little way off which we overtook Spiritual-man, and so we all joined company, and came along together, not one of us but Yielding being lost. ”

“ I felt towards my companions as the seer might feel towards the ordinary masses of men. I held conversations with nature in a tongue which they could not understand. I was in daily communication with living wonders, such as they never imagined in their wildest visions. ”

“ If the reception of so many visitors was occasionally troublesome, it repaid itself occasionally, either by making me acquainted with remarkable personages, or by bringing out a wonderful sort of seer-gift, which I called my inward vision, and which has always remained an enigma to me. ”

“ They were school girls and bosom friends; he their instructor in French; the walk one attached to a well-known seminary. When they had entered this walk, it had been empty. Now it held for one of them—and possibly for the other, too—a world of joy and promise;—the world of seventeen. Innocent and unthinking, neither of them had known her own heart, much less that of her fellow. But when in face of that approach, eye met eye with an askance look of eager question, revelation came, crimsoning the cheeks of both, and marking an epoch in either life. ”

“ That, indeed, is the function of the seer,—poet, prophet, or philosopher. But if only these see life in all its panoramic vastness, there are others who at least splash at a ten-league canvas, and insist on having real figures to draw from, whether saint or sinner. ”

“ Should he reply that he was willing to endure everything for God's sake, and to be all his life long the servant and slave of the order, they asked him if he had a wife or was betrothed? if he had made profession or vows in any other order? if he owed to any man in the world more than he could pay? if he was of sound body, and had no secret infirmity, and if he was the servant of any one? Should his answers be in the negative, the brethren went back to the chapter and informed the Master or his representative of the result of the examination. ”

“ When the exciting time of this listening had gone and she stepped from the train into the lazy spring silence of the village, her own heart spelled the thing in quick, loud, hammering beats—a thing which, now that she faced it, was so wildly impossible that her cheeks burned at the first second of actual realisation of its enormity; and her knees weakened in a deathly tremble, quite as if they might bend embarrassingly in either direction.
Then in the outer spaces of her mind there grew, to save her, a sense of her crass fatuity. ”

“ Can the blind lead the blind? do they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one shall be perfect, if he be as his master. And why seest thou the mote in thy brother’s eye: but the beam that is in thy own eye thou considerest not? Or how canst thou say to thy brother: Brother, let me pull the mote out of thy eye, when thou thyself seest not the beam in thy own eye? ”

“ These are qualifications with which the seer or seeress should be invested, and if with these the quest of the vision is unsuccessful after a period of earnest trial, it must be taken as sufficient warrant that the faculty of clairvoyance is not in the category of one's individual powers. ”

“ Does he not fill heaven and earth with his presence? The presence of our fellow-creatures affects our senses, and our senses give us the knowledge of their presence; which hath different kinds of influence upon us; love, joy, sorrow, restraint, encouragement, reverence. ”

“ If they are so anxious to have such an opportunity, so ready to be tested, and to show that they would have discernment enough to see genuine truth, though heard for the first time, and to acknowledge a great teacher and apostle, though yet unknown to the world—that opportunity is now before them. ”

“ She frequently visited towns where a popular preacher or lecturer was announced, and made one of the vast throng that passed about him; then, taking a favourable position, rapidly scanned the upturned faces, wondering, meanwhile, what that strange, subtle something is, by which we recognise each other; that unerring consciousness, so that among ten thousand faces, could we view them one by one, we know at a glance that the one we seek is not there; we do not stop, and doubt, and compare—we know. ”

“ The stranger, or Submission, as we may in future have frequent occasion to call him, led the way in silence to a point of the eminence, without the buildings, where the eye might overlook the palisadoes that hedged the sides of the acclivity, and command a view beyond of all that the dusky and imperfect light would reveal. ”

“ A question easy to settle by most young men! very easy to settle by Guy, if he had had the clue of Christian truth to guide him through the labyrinth. But the clue was wanting, and the world seemed to him a world of confusion. ”

“ It is an ordinary thing for them (the seers) to see a Man who is to come to the house shortly after, and if he is not of the Seer's acquaintance, yet he gives such a lively description of his Stature, Complexion, Habit, &c., that upon his arrival he answers the character given him in all respects. ”

“ As you pass about nine, you observe, on looking in, that the discipline and rigour of shop-life has dissolved. Master, men, and boys, feel the approach of the moment of emancipation, with a peculiar salience of thought, alternating with a deep and tranquil delight. The confessor reigns in the spirit of this glorious hour, and his laugh, and his joke, and his news, and his proffered pinch, are listened to, re-echoed, and partaken of by his devotee, with a pleasure of the keenest nature, and ominous, you may make sure, of oysters and gin punch on the way home. ”

“ He rode on with a set and brooding face, and the Resident fell once more to pondering the queer scene of which he had been the witness. Even at that moment when his life was in the balance his thoughts would play with it, so complete a piece of artistry it seemed. ”

“ The seer of the Inward Truth sings its glory to a world of fools, who mistake his [190] symbols for the Truth itself and the seer for the Master of it, building states and religions of the symbols; whereat the True Master laughs, and the building tumbles, crushing men in its ruins. ”

“ I have already hinted at the qualities of the third class of preachers—those who make me want to be good. They seem to throw goodness as upon a screen, some vast screen of the world, of this real world about me. They turn their souls, like still stereopticons, upon the faces of men—men who are like the men and women I know. ”

“ She drew her finger across her temple from the tip of eyebrow to hair. "I now know. He is the man!" she repeated with the calmness of one who is sure of her knowledge, and her deep black eyes were set in the far-off stare of a seer who looks upon what is hidden. ”

“ When people search in that way, unless they get discouraged, their search is apt to come to something; unless, indeed, they are going after a mirage, and it was no mirage that hovered before Esther,—no vision of anything, indeed ”

“ Then he looked at me and said, ‘O my son, speak the truth and tell me how thou camest by the necklet.’ And he repeated the following verse:
To tell the whole truth is thy duty, although It bring thee to burn on the brasier of woe! ”

“ It is our conscience, not our pride, that has put doorkeepers at our doors; ”

“ See the servant whom he delighteth to honour, fulfilling the counsel of his will, and in his name speaking the word whereby is raised a new spiritual creation. Impowered by him, he says to the dark, unformed void of nature, let there be light: and there is light. ”

“ A distinction is here made between asking, seeking, and knocking; also between what is given, what is found, and what is opened; from which distinction it would appear, that asking has relation to the desire of saving good, or love and charity in the will; seeking has relation to the desire of saving knowledge, or truth in the understanding; and knocking has relation to the communication and conjunction of both with their Divine Source, Jesus Christ. ”

“ Our name “the Concealer” hath shed such a light upon men that the froward hath imagined himself to be numbered with the pious. No man that seeketh Us will We ever disappoint, neither shall he that hath set his face towards Us be denied access unto Our court....
O friends! Help ye the one true God, exalted be His glory, by your goodly deeds, by such conduct and character as shall be acceptable in His sight. He that seeketh to be a helper of God in this Day, let him close his eyes to whatever he may possess, and open them to the things of God. ”

“ They shall be happy in the success of their enquiries after him: " Those that seek me early, seek an acquaintance with me and an interest in me, seek me early, that is, seek me earnestly, seek me first before any thing else, that begin betimes in the days of their youth to seek me, they shall find what they seek." ”

“ Who will replace them in counsel? They know everything that has been, that is, and that will be on earth and in heaven; they know the most secret thoughts of mankind, and they direct hearts as the wind directs tree leaves. ”

“ We, too, have found him clean and fairly honest; and if we have anything left to desire, it is only that he will realise, a little more constantly, the extent of his knowledge of us, and the extent to which his position as a visitor should qualify his bearing towards us. ”

“ But those who, even when they do not expect to be observed or seen or recognized by anyone, show their ardour and neglect nothing, however paltry, that may be laid to their charge,— they have that strength of mind which we seek in our Courtier. ”

“ I told you to bring him to see me, didn't I? The first moment I heard you were with him, I said to you, 'Tell him to come to see me!' But you were both so smart; you wanted to do everything yourself. He didn't come. ”

“ To the man and his wife it seemed the one link that bound them to civilization—which spoke to them of the great world that they might else well forget. Through the windows they got many a lightning glance of that society they had left. ”

“ I thought I heard him say; "either he must listen to reason, or I must have recourse to the last resource of civilization." Then, addressing me in a louder tone, he hurriedly exclaimed, "Listen: no stranger must witness what you have witnessed. ”

“ I know, O God, thou didst empty thyself of thy eternal glory, and tookest upon thee the form of a servant. Thou who madest all men to serve and please thee, didst not please thyself, but wast the servant of all. Thou O Lord of the hosts of heaven and earth, didst yield thy cheeks to be smitten, thy back to be scourged, and thy hands and feet to be nailed to an accursed tree. ”