The mind that wants to know the truth of something, and that's willing to do the work required for such a discovery, will inevitably find that for which it is searching; our highest aspirations are reflections of unrealized possibilities. All scripture, from the East to the West, confirms this timeless truth: We need only ask, and it shall be given.
But the real question before us isn't how these individuals came to make their discoveries. We already know that the birth of all things great and true requires discipline, patience, and sacrifice. Rather, what we wish to know is where did they find this elevated understanding? In what place are we to seek and search for the timeless laws that alone reveal, and then release us from, our former limitations? The answer is surprising at first glance, but ultimately the most freeing discovery one can make: within each and every one of us already dwells everything that will ever be known; all powers, all possibilities, are a part of our own sacred birthright.
But what is the secret of finding this treasure? There isn't one. This treasure is everywhere... God's activity runs through the universe. It wells up around and penetrates every created being. Where they are, there it is also. It goes ahead of them, it is with them, and it follows them. All they have to do is let its waves sweep them onward, fulfill the simple duties of their religion and state, cheerfully accept all the troubles they meet, and submit to God's will in all they have to do. This is true spirituality, which is valid for all times and for everyone. We cannot become truly good in a better, more marvelous, and yet easier way than by the simple use of the means offered us by God: the ready acceptance of all that comes to us at each moment of our lives.
-Jean Pierre de Caussade (1675-1761, France)
The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
-Frederick Douglass (1818-1895, United States)
The greatest of all crosses is self. If we die in part every day, we shall have but little to do on the last. These little daily deaths will destroy the power of the final dying.
-Francois Fenelon (1651-1715, France)
Another thing that people must sacrifice is their suffering. It is very difficult also to sacrifice one's suffering. A man will renounce any pleasures you like, but he will not give up his suffering. Man is made in such a way that he is never so much attached to anything as he is to his suffering. And it is necessary to be free from suffering. No one who is not free from suffering, who has not sacrificed his suffering, can work.
-P. D. Ouspensky (1878-1947, Russia)
What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage.
-Bruce Barton (1886-1967, United States)
When thou givest to God thy nothingness, He gives to thee His All.
-Abul-Hasan al-Kharqani (963-1033, Persia)
In this patient, though uncheered, obedience, we become prepared for light. The soul gathers force.
-William Ellery Channing (1780-1842, United States)