The Mandala (n.) is an archetypal image whose occurrence is attested throughout the ages. It signifies the wholeness of the self. This circular image represents the wholeness of the psychic ground or, to put it in mythic terms, the divinity incarnate in man.
A Mandala (n.) is the psychological expression of the totality of the self.
A Mandala (n.) dreamed by a European is not Eastern philosophy read into the psyche; Eastern introspection simply found what all introspection finds — the critic has no more experience of it than of a lama building one.
A Mandala (n.) is the protective circle — the traditional antidote for a mind about to burst into little pieces.
A Mandala (n.) is a birthplace, a vessel of birth in the most literal sense — the lotus in which a Buddha comes to life.
A Mandala (n.) spins leftward into the unconscious and rightward out of it — hence "sinister" and "right," and stupas circled clockwise.
The Mandala (n.) is at once a symbol of the self and a God-image; empirically self and God cannot be told apart — “a circle whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere.”
A Mandala (n.) was drawn on the floor of the great temple of Madura by a woman; the pandit said only the women who drew such pictures knew what they meant.
A Mandala (n.) is Nature's attempt at self-healing: a severe circular pattern that compensates disorder — appearing in children of divorcing parents, in neurotics, in schizophrenics.
A Mandala (n.) heals only when made spontaneously; nothing can be expected from an artificial repetition or deliberate imitation of such images.
A Mandala (n.) is a magic circle that binds the lawless powers of darkness and turns chaos into cosmos.
A Mandala (n.) appears out of the restless confusion when conscious and unconscious collide, depicting the union of warring opposites as already accomplished.
A Mandala (n.) is the unconscious answering chaos with order: when a person in the flood holds to a shred of reason or a human bond, symbols of measure and symmetry appear — a gleam of hope.
A Mandala (n.) is the circle of totality found in all epochs — the protective magic circle that organizes the psyche and unites its inner opposites; even a six-year-old dreams one to ward off family troubles.
A Mandala (n.) is a psychological viewfinder superimposed on psychic chaos so that each content falls into place, held together by the protective circle — a yantra, an instrument that brings order into being.
A Mandala (n.) is the first hint of peace in the war between matter and spirit, the flesh and the love of God: all opposites reconciled in a circle.
A Mandala (n.) dreamed today always emphasizes the centre — a star, a flower, a stone, a human being — but never a god.
A Mandala (n.) is an involuntary confession: the place of the deity is taken by the wholeness of man.
A Mandala (n.) is a protective wall for those who can no longer project God outward: concentration on the self that is anything but egocentric.
A Mandala (n.) houses man in the place where the god used to dwell — not as a substitute for the deity but as its symbol.