March 23rd, 2026

Across every tongue,

every century,

every robe and no-robe —

the same embarrassing secret:

you cannot find what you are

by looking away from what is looking.

The seeker

is the sanctuary. 

Etty Hillesum Below 

Seven voices.

Seven centuries.

Seven languages.

The same silence

breaking open

in the same place —

the exact center

of what you took

to be yourself.

**Sufi**

Rumi: **"I have been knocking from the inside."**

Al-Hallaj: **"Ana'l-Haqq — I am the Truth."**

Ibn Arabi: **"The Self is the mirror in which God contemplates Himself."**

**Christian Mysticism**

Eckhart: **"The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me."**

Julian: **"All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."**

Etty Hillesum: **"There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God."**

Thomas Merton: **"At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth... which belongs entirely to God."**

**Desert Fathers**

Anthony of the Desert: **"Know yourself, and you will know God."**

Abba Pambo: **"If you have a heart, you can be saved."**

**Hindu**

Ramana Maharshi: **"The thought 'who am I?' will destroy all other thoughts. Then Self-realization will dawn."**

Adi Shankaracharya: **"Brahman is real. The world is appearance. The self and Brahman are not two."**

Upanishads: **"Tat tvam asi — Thou art That."**

**Buddhist**

The Buddha: **"In the seen, there is only the seen."**

Huang Po: **"The foolish reject what they see, not what they think. The wise reject what they think, not what they see."**

Dogen: **"To study the self is to forget the self."**

**Taoist**

Lao Tzu: **"Knowing others is wisdom. Knowing yourself is enlightenment."**

Zhuangzi: **"Heaven and I were created together, and all things and I are one."**

**Jewish Mysticism**

Baal Shem Tov: **"Wherever I go, it is I who go."**

Zohar: **"God is the soul of the soul."**

---

Etty Hillesum 

I could live with nothing but a pebble for a long time and still feel that I was living in God's great world of nature. I really did not discover that pebble until the afternoon on the roof in the sun, it came straight from the days of creation, and my amazement at my sudden discovery of so many eternities in just one small pebble has refused to die down to this day.

הייתי יכולה לחיות זמן ממושך רק עם חלוק אבן ועדיין להרגיש שאני חיה בתוך עולם הטבע הגדול של אלוהים. רק אחרי הצהריים מצאתי את החלוק הזה על הגג בשמש, והוא הגיע ישר מתוך ימי הבריאה, ותדהמתי מהגילוי הפתאומי של כל כך הרבה נצחים בתוך חלוק אבן אחד קטן סרבה לשכוך עד עצם היום הזה.

أستطيع العيش مع لا شيء وفقط مع حصاة لفترة طويلة وأبقى أشعر بأنني أعيش في عالم الطبيعة العظيم التابع لله أنا حقا لم أكتشف تلك الحصاة إلا عند الظهيرة على السطح تحت الشمس جاءت مباشرة من أيام التكوين ودهشتي على اكتشافي الفجائي للكثير من الوجودية في حصاة واحدة رفضت . نسيانها حتى يومنا هذا.