The Coptic Gospel of Thomas
Tr. Thomas O. Lambdin
2) Jesus said, “Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All.”
3) Jesus said, “If those who lead you say, ‘See, the Kingdom is
in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they
say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you.
Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you.
When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and
you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living
Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty
and it is you who are that poverty.”
[Source]
Buddha, The Gospel: Enlightenment
Paul Carus
There is self and there is truth. Where self is, truth is not. Where truth is, self is not. Self is the fleeting error of samsara; it is individual separateness and that egotism which begets envy and hatred. Self is the yearning for pleasure and the lust after vanity.
Truth is the correct comprehension of things; it is the permanent and everlasting, the real in all existence, the bliss of righteousness.
The existence of self is an illusion, and here is no wrong in this world, no vice, no evil, except what flows from the assertion of self. The attainment of truth is possible only when self is recognized as an illusion. Righteousness can be practiced only when we have freed our mind from passions of egotism. Perfect peace can dwell only where all vanity has disappeared.
Blessed is he who has understood the Dharma. Blessed is he who does no harm to his fellow-beings. Blessed is he who overcomes wrong and is free from passion. To the highest bliss has he attained who has conquered all selfishness and vanity. He has become the Buddha, the Perfect One.
[Source]
The Vishnu Purana: Book 1, Ch. XXII
Tr. Horace Hayman Wilson
The supreme condition of Vishńu, who is one with wisdom, is the knowledge of truth; which requires no exercise; which is not to be taught; which is internally diffused; which is unequalled; the object of which is self-illumination; which is simply existent, and is not to be defined; which is tranquil, fearless, pure; which is not the theme of reasoning; which stands in need of no support.
Those Yogis who, by the annihilation of ignorance, are resolved into this fourfold Brahma, lose the seminal property, and can no longer germinate in the ploughed field of worldly existence.
This is the supreme condition, that is called Vishńu, perfect, perpetual, universal, undecaying, entire, and uniform: and the Yogi who attains this supreme spirit (Brahma) returns not to life again; for there he is freed from the distinction of virtue and vice, from suffering, and from soil.
[Source]
Photo Credit: LadyDragonflyCC – >;< via Compfight cc