Blooms of Mystic Verse and Spiritual Insight

Carol Shelbourne (Compiler) · Mystic Verse and Insights Series · 281 pages

The compendium volume of this series: *281 pages collecting 115 numbered pieces* into a single file, with a detailed table of contents in which the longer items are broken down further into their own sub-headings and page numbers. Its subtitle states the purpose — to enlighten the mind, touch the heart, and uplift the soul.

The contents run alphabetically from Akhenaten's hymn to Aten through to Zoroaster on virtue, wisdom and equity, and the range is deliberately wide. Classical hymns and philosophy appear as Cleanthes' hymn to Zeus, Proclus' hymn to Athena, Orpheus' hymn to Earth, Moschus' hymn to Europa, Synesius' third hymn, Homer on Athena's return to Olympus, Plotinus on the dual Aphrodite-Venus, and Socrates' supercelestial triad. English and European poetry supplies Pope's Universal Prayer, Byron on man being in part divine, Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, Tennyson's The Ancient Sage, Eliot's Four Quartets, Wordsworth, Ruskin, Patmore, du Bellay, Schiller, de Lamartine and Dante's Inferno. Eastern material includes the Katha Upanishad on the secret cave of the heart, Chaitanya's devotional prayer, Hanuman's deepening perception of the One, the Desatir on the eye of the heart, and the formula that Om is the bow, Self the arrow and Brahman the aim. Two of the entries are substantial works in their own right and are given their own internal contents: the selected thoughts of Apollonius of Tyana, and Franz Hartmann's With the Adepts, whose nine chapters run from The Excursion to The End across some sixty pages. Because it holds the entire series in one place, this is the file to download for continuous reading; the individual pieces are listed separately on the series page for anyone who wants only one of them.

Read the full text (PDF, 7.0 MB, 281 pages)