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Dragons, You Know, We Have A Good Deal Of Biology And Zoology About The Dragon; We Know Their Habits. The Dragon Tends To Guard Things, And He Usually Has These Guarded In A Cave... Now Dragons Don't Know What To Do Either With Beautiful Girls Or Gold, But They Just Hang On. There Are People Like This. We Call Them Creeps.

-Joseph Campbell

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Dragons, You Know, We

Joseph Campbell

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Dragons, You Know, We Have A Good Deal Of Biology And Zoology About The Dragon; We Know Their Habits. The Dragon Tends To Guard Things, And He Usually Has These Guarded In A Cave... Now Dragons Don't Know What To Do Either With Beautiful Girls Or Gold, But They Just Hang On. There Are People Like This. We Call Them Creeps.

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A Hero Is Not A Champion Of Things Become, But Of Things Becoming; The Dragon To Be Slain By Him Is Precisely The Monster Of The Status Quo.

This Death To The Logic Of Emotional Commitments Of Our Chance Moment In The World Of Space And Time, This Recognition Of, The Shift Of Our Emphasis To, The Universal Life That Throbs And Celebrates Its Victory In The Very Kiss Of Our Own Annihilation, This Amor Fati, 'love Of Fate,' Love Of The Fate That Is Inevitably Death, Constitutes The Experience Of The Tragic Art.

It Is Not Only That There Is No Hiding Place For The Gods From The Searching Telescope And Microscope; There Is No Such Society Any More As The Gods Once Supported.

Every Moment Is Utterly Unique And Will Not Be Continued In Eternity. This Fact Gives Life Its Poignancy And Should Concentrate Your Attention On What You Are Experiencing Now...that Source Of Eternal Energy Is Here, In You, Now.

Revolution Doesn't Have To Do With Smashing Something, It Has To Do With Bringing Something Forth. If You Spend All Your Time Thinking About That Which You Are Attacking, Then You Are Negatively Bound To It. You Have To Find The Zeal In Yourself And Bring That Out.

When Your Mind Is Simply Trapped By The Image Out There So That You Never Make The Reference To Yourself, You Have Misread The Image.

What Each Must Seek In His Life Never Was On Land Or Sea. It Is Something Out Of His Own Unique Potentiality For Experience, Something That Never Has Been And Never Could Have Been Experienced By Anyone Else.

It Would Not Be Too Much To Say That Myth Is The Secret Opening Through Which The Inexhaustible Energies Of The Cosmos Pour Into Human Cultural Manifestation. Religions, Philosophies, Arts, The Social Forms Of Primitive And Historic Man, Prime Discoveries In Science And Technology, The Very Dreams That Blister Sleep, Boil Up From The Basic, Magic Ring Of Myth.

The Notion Of This Universe, Its Heavens, Hells, And Everything Within It, As A Great Dream Dreamed By A Single Being In Which All The Dream Characters Are Dreaming Too, Has In India Enchanted And Shaped The Entire Civilization.

Myths Are Clues To The Spiritual Potentialities Of The Human Life.

The Deadheads Are Doing The Dance Of Life And This I Would Say Is The Answer To The Atom Bomb.

Computers Are Like Old Testament Gods; Lots Of Rules And No Mercy.

Myths Are Public Dreams; Dreams Are Private Myths. By Finding Your Own Dream And Following It Through, It Will Lead You To The Myth-world In Which You Live. But Just As In Dream, The Subject And Object, Though They Seem To Be Separate, Are Really The Same.

Whether You Call Someone A Hero Or A Monster Is All Relative To Where The Focus Of Your Consciousness May Be.

The Problem Of Making The Inner Meet The Outer Of Today Is, Of Course, The Function Of The Artist.

One Of Our Problems Today Is That We Are Not Well Acquainted With The Literature Of The Spirit. We Re Interested In The News Of The Day And The Problems Of The Hour.

Dream Is Personalized Myth, Myth Is Depersonalized Dream; Both Myth And Dream Are Symbolic In The Same General Way Of The Dynamics Of The Psyche. But In The Dream The Forms Are Quirked By The Peculiar Troubles Of The Dreamer, Whereas In Myth The Problem And Solutions Shown Are Directly Valid For All Mankind.

It Has Always Been The Prime Function Of Mythology And Rite To Supply The Symbols That Carry The Human Spirit Forward.

If You're Going To Have A Story, Have A Big Story, Or None At All.

For We Have Not Even To Risk The Adventure Alone, For The Heros Of All Time Have Gone Before Us.

And Then He Says, "the Writer Must Be True To Truth." And That's A Killer, Because The Only Way You Can Describe A Human Being Truly Is By Describing His Imperfections. The Perfect Human Being Is Uninteresting - The Buddha Who Leaves The World, You Know. It Is The Imperfections Of Life That Are Lovable. And When The Writer Sends A Dart Of The True Word, It Hurts. But It Goes With Love. This Is What Mann Called "erotic Irony," The Love For That Which You Are Killing With Your Cruel, Analytical Word.

Follow Your Bliss. The Heroic Life Is Living The Individual Adventure. There Is No Security In Following The Call To Adventure. Nothing Is Exciting If You Know What The Outcome Is Going To Be.

She Was ... The Arch Personification Of The Power Of Space, Time, And Matter, Within Whose Bound All Beings Arise And Die: The Substance Of Their Bodies, Configurator Of Their Lives And Thoughts, And Receiver Of Their Dead. And Everything Having Form Or Name-including God Personified As Good Or Evil, Merciful Or Wrathful-was Her Child, Within Her Womb.

We Are All Born As Animals And Live The Life That Animals Live: We Sleep, Eat, Reproduce, And Fight. There Is, However, Another Order Of Living, Which The Animals Do Not Know, That Of Awe Before The Mystery Of Being ... That Can Be The Root And Branch Of The Spiritual Sense Of One’s Days. That Is The Birth - The Virgin Birth - In The Heart Of A Properly Human, Spiritual Life.

People Forget Facts, But They Remember Stories.

Your Own Path You Make With Every Step You Take. That's Why It's Your Path.

Following Your Own Path

A Temple Is A Landscape Of The Soul.

The Problem In Our Society And In Our Schools Is To Inclulcate, Without Overdoing It, The Notion Of Education, As In The Latin Educere--to Lead, To Bring Out What Is In Someone Rather Than Merely To Indoctrinate Him/her From The Outside. (89)

The Adventure Is Always And Everywhere A Passage Beyond The Veil Of The Known Into The Unknown; The Powers That Watch At The Boundary Are Dangerous; To Deal With Them Is Risky; Yet For Anyone With Competence And Courage The Danger Fades.

The Familiar Life Horizon Has Been Outgrown: The Old Concepts, Ideals, And Emotional Patterns No Longer Fit; The Time For The Passing Of A Threshold Is At Hand.

There Is No Greater Privilege In Life Than Being Yourself.

Economics And Politics Are The Governing Powers Of Life Today, And That's Why Everything Is So Screwy.

Vegetarians Are People Who Cannot Hear Tomatos Screaming.

You Can't Have Creativity Unless You Leave Behind The Bounded, The Fixed, All The Rules

Marriage . . . Is Not A Love Affair; It Is An Ordeal. (92)

You Know, I Didn't Write My Books For Critics And Scholars. I Wrote Them For Students And Artists. When I Hear How Much My Work Has Meant To Them--well, I Can't Tell You How Happy That Makes Me. That Means That This Great Stuff Of Myth, Which I Have Been So Privileged To Work With, Will Be Kept Alive For A Whole New Generation. That's The Function Of The Artists, You Know, To Reinterpret The Old Stories And Make Them Come Alive Again, In Poetry, Painting, And Now In Movies.

As Freud Has Shown, Blunders Are Not The Merest Chance. They Are The Result Of Suppressed Desires And Conflicts. They Are Ripples On The Surface Of Life, Produced By Unsuspected Springs. And These May Be Very Deep - As Deep As The Soul Itself. The Blunder May Amount To The Opening Of A Destiny.

Half The People In The World Think That The Metaphors Of Their Religious Traditions, For Example, Are Facts. And The Other Half Contends That They Are Not Facts At All. As A Result We Have People Who Consider Themselves Believers Because They Accept Metaphors As Facts, And We Have Others Who Classify Themselves As Atheists Because They Think Religious Metaphors Are Lies.

Suddenly You’re Ripped Into Being Alive. And Life Is Pain, And Life Is Suffering, And Life Is Horror, But My God You’re Alive And Its Spectacular.

The Old Skin Has To Be Shed Before The New One Can Come.

You Can't Say Life Is Useless Because It Ends In The Grave.

Art Is The Set Of Wings To Carry You Out Of Your Own Entanglement.

Every Religion Is True One Way Or Another. It Is True When Understood Metaphorically. But When It Gets Stuck In Its Own Metaphors, Interpreting Them As Facts, Then You Are In Trouble.

Mind Your Own Business

We Must Be Willing To Get Rid Of The Life We've Planned, So As To Have The Life That Is Waiting For Us. The Old Skin Has To Be Shed Before The New One Can Come. -

If You Follow Someone Else's Way, You Are Not Going To Realize Your Potential.

Each Of Us Has Capacities. The Real Trick Is Knowing The Machinery Of The Boat In Which You Are Crossing The Channel.

Wisdom And Foolishness Are Practically The Same. Both Are Indifferent To The Opinions Of The World

No Tribal Rite Has Yet Been Recorded Which Attempts To Keep Winter From Descending; On The Contrary: The Rites All Prepare The Community To Endure, Together With The Rest Of Nature, The Season Of The Terrible Cold.

Religon Is Misunderstood Mythology

Heroism Is A Matter Of Integrity--beco Ming More And More At Each Step Ourselves.

The Function Of (heroic) Symbols Is To Give You A Sense Of Aha! Yes, I Know What It Is, It's Myself.

The Cave You Fear To Enter Holds The Treasure You Seek. Fear Of The Unknown Is Our Greatest Fear. Many Of Us Would Enter A Tiger's Lair Before We Would Enter A Dark Cave. While Caution Is A Useful Instinct, We Lose Many Opportunities And Much Of The Adventure Of Life If We Fail To Support The Curious Explorer Within Us.

What Will They Think Of Me? Must Be Put Aside For Bliss

Once You Know The Difference Between Right And Wrong, You Have Lots Fewer Decisions To Make.

All The Gods, All The Heavens, All The Hells, Are Within You.

When You Follow Your Bliss...doors Will Open Where You Would Not Have Thought There Would Be Doors, And Where There Wouldn't Be A Door For Anyone Else.

In The Older View The Goddess Universe Was Alive, Herself Organically The Earth, The Horizon, And The Heavens. Now She Is Dead, And The Universe Is Not An Organism, But A Building, With Gods At Rest In It In Luxury: Not As Personifications Of The Energies In Their Manners Of Operation, But As Luxury Tenants, Requiring Service. And Man, Accordingly, Is Not As A Child Born To Flower In The Knowledge Of His Own Eternal Portion But As A Robot Fashioned To Serve.

There Is No Security In Following The Call To Adventure.

Successful Marriage Is Leading Innovative Lives Together, Being Open, Non-programmed. It’s A Free Fall: How You Handle Each New Thing As It Comes Along. As A Drop Of Oil On The Sea, You Must Float, Using Intellect And Compassion To Ride The Waves.

This Is All I Ever Wanted - To Help Students And Artists See Myth As A Reflection Of The One Sublime Adventure Of Life, And Then To Breathe New Life Into It.

Art Is The Clothing Of A Revelation

‎"make Your God Transparent To The Transcendent, And It Doesn't Matter What His Name Is."

Follow Your Bliss And Don't Be Afraid, And Door Will Open Where You Didn't Know They Were Going To Be.

The Demon That You Can Swallow Gives You It’s Power, And The Greater Life’s Pain, The Greater Life’s Reply.

When You Are In Accord With Nature, Nature Will Yield Its Bounty. This Is Something That Is Coming Up In Our Own Consciousness Now...recognizi Ng That By Violating The Environment In Which We Are Living, We Are Really Cutting Off The Energy And Source Of Our Own Living. And It’s This Sense Of Accord, So That Living Properly In Relation To What Has To Be Done In This World One Fosters The Vitality Of The Environment.

Whatever The Hell Happens, Say, 'this Is What I Need.'

A Hero Is Someone Who Has Given His Or Her Life To Something Bigger Than Oneself.

When I Was In India I Met And Conversed Briefly With Shri Atmananda Guru Of Trivandrum, And The Question He Gave Me To Ponder Was This: 'where Are You Between Two Thoughts?

Regrets Are Illuminations Come Too Late.

Through Dreams A Door Is Opened To Mythology, Since Myths Are Of The Nature Of Dreams, And That, As Dreams Arise From An Inward World Unknown To Waking Consciousness, So Do Myths: So, Indeed, Does Life.

Love Is Perfect Kindness.

I Think What We Lack Isn't Science, But Poetry That Reveals What The Heart Is Ready To Recognize

You Have Been Thinking One Way. Now You Have To Think A Different Way.

Follow Your Bliss. The Heroic Life Is Living The Individual Adventure.

Myths Are So Intimately Bound To Culture, Time, And Place That Unless The Symbols, The Metaphors, Are Kept Alive By Constant Recreation Through The Arts, The Life Just Slips Away From Them.

This, I Believe, Is The Great Western Truth: That Each Of Us Is A Completely Unique Creature And That, If We Are Ever To Give Any Gift To The World, It Will Have To Come Out Of Our Own Experience And Fulfillment Of Our Own Potentialities, Not Someone Else's.

There's Nothing Militant About Jesus. I Don't Read Anything Like That In Any Of The Gospels. Peter Drew His Sword And Cut Off The Servant's Ear, And Jesus Said, "put Back Thy Sword, Peter." But Peter Has Had His Sword Out And At Work Ever Since.

The Usual Hero Adventure Begins With Someone From Whom Something Has Been Taken, Or Who Feels There Is Something Lacking In The Normal Experience Available Or Permitted To The Members Of Society. The Person Then Takes Off On A Series Of Adventures Beyond The Ordinary, Either To Recover What Has Been Lost Or To Discover Some Life-giving Elixir. It's Usually A Cycle, A Coming And A Returning.

You May Have Success In Life, But Then Just Think Of It - What Kind Of Life Was It? What Good Was It - You've Never Done The Thing You Wanted To Do In All Your Life. I Always Tell My Students, Go Where Your Body And Soul Want To Go. When You Have The Feeling, Then Stay With It, And Don't Let Anyone Throw You Off.

Enlarge The Pupil Of The Eye, So That The Body With Its Attendant Personality Will No Longer Obstruct The View. Immortality Is Then Experienced As A Present Fact.

Love Is Exactly As Strong As Life.

Seek To Know The Power That Is Within You.

Money Is Congealed Energy, And Releasing It Releases Life's Possibilities.

Perfection Isn't Human. Human Beings Are Not Perfect. What Evokes Our Love--and I Mean Love, Not Lust--is The Imperfection Of The Human Being. So, When The Imperfection Of The Real Person Peaks Through, Say, 'this Is A Challenge To My Compassion.' Then Make A Try, And Something Might Begin To Get Going.

Myths Are Stories For Our Search Through The Ages For Truth, For Meaning, For Significance. We All Need To Tell Our Story And To Understand Our Story. We All Need To Understand Death And To Cope With Death, And We All Need Help In Our Passages From Birth To Live And Then To Death. We Need For Life To Signify, To Touch The Eternal, To Understand The Mysterious, To Find Out Who We Are.

Life Is Like Arriving Late For A Movie, Having To Figure Out What Was Going On Without Bothering Everybody With A Lot Of Questions, And Then Being Unexpectedly Called Away Before You Find Out How It Ends.

Just As Anyone Who Listens To The Muse Will Hear, You Can Write Out Of Your Own Intention Or Out Of Inspiration. There Is Such A Thing. It Comes Up And Talks. And Those Who Have Heard Deeply The Rhythms And Hymns Of The Gods, Can Recite Those Hymns In Such A Way That The Gods Will Be Attracted.

Poets Are Simply Those Who Have Made A Profession And A Lifestyle Of Being In Touch With Their Bliss.

The Real Important Function Of The Church Is To Present The Symbol, To Perform The Rite, To Let You Behold This Divine Message In Such A Way That You Are Capable Of Experiencing It. What The Relationship Of The Father And The Son And The Holy Ghost To Each Other Might Be, In Technical Terms, Is Not Half Important As You, The Celebrant, Feeling The Virgin Birth Within You, The Birth Of The Mystic, Mythic Being That Is Your Own Spiritual Life.

Not All Who Hesitate Are Lost. The Psyche Has Many Secrets In Reserve. And These Are Not Disclosed Unless Required.

If You Are Falling....dive.

When You See The Earth From The Moon, You Don't See Any Divisions There Of Nations Or States. This Might Be The Symbol, Really, For The New Mythology To Come. That Is The Country That We Are Going To Be Celebrating. And Those Are The People That We Are One With.

Mythology Is The Womb Of Mankind's Initiation To Life And Death.

If Marriage Isn't A First Priority In Your Life, You're Not Married.

You Know, When Real Trouble Comes Your Humanity Is Awakened. The Fundamental Human Experience Is That Of Compassion.

Every Myth Is Psychologically Symbolic. Its Narratives And Images Are To Be Read, Therefore, Not Literally, But As Metaphors.

Life Is Without Meaning. You Bring The Meaning To It. The Meaning Of Life Is Whatever You Ascribe It To Be. Being Alive Is The Meaning.

The Fall [of Your Soul] From Perfection Into Duality...was Naturally Followed By The Discovery Of The Duality Of Good And Evil...this Is The Biblical Version Of A Myth Known To Many Lands.

You Have To Learn To Recognize Your Own Depth.

The Goal Of Life Is To Make Your Heartbeat Match The Beat Of The Universe, To Match Your Nature With Nature.

I Prefer The Gradual Path My Feeling Is That Mythic Forms Reveal Themselves Gradually In The Course Of Your Life If You Know What They Are And How To Pay Attention To Their Emergence. My Own Initiation Into The Mythic Depths Of The Unconscious Has Been Through The Mind, Through The Books That Surround Me In This Library. I Have Recognized In My Quest All The Stages Of The Hero's Journey. I Had My Calls To Adventure, My Guides, Demons, And Illuminations.

A Hero Ventures Forth From The World Of Common Day Into A Region Of Supernatural Wonder. Fabulous Forces Are There Encountered And A Decisive Victory Is Won.

The Adventure That The Hero Is Ready For Is The One He Gets.

Wherever The Poetry Of Myth Is Interpreted As Biography, History, Or Science, It Is Killed.

We Know That Jesus Could Not Have Ascended To Heaven Because There Is No Physical Heaven Anywhere In The Universe. Even Ascending At The Speed Of Light, Jesus Would Still Be In The Galaxy.

Do What Gives You Bliss.

We're So Engaged In Doing Things To Achieve Purposes Of Outer Value That We Forget The Inner Value, The Rapture That Is Associated With Being Alive, Is What It Is All About.

The Idea Of Buddha Consciousness Is That All Beings Are Buddha Beings, And Your Whole Function In Meditation And Everything Else Is To Find That Buddha Consciousness Within And Live Out Of That, Instead Of The Interests Of The Eyes And Ears.

If You Follow Your Bliss You Will Find A Path Laid Out Before You That Has Been Waiting For You All Along And You Will Begin To Live The Life You Ought To Be Living.

Mythology Tells Us That Where You Stumble, There Your Treasure Is ... The World Is A Match For Us, And We’re A Match For The World. And Where It Seems Most Challenging Lies The Greatest Invitation To Find Deeper And Greater Power In Ourselves.

There Seem To Be Only Two Kinds Of People: Those Who Think That Metaphors Are Facts, And Those Who Know That They Are Not Facts. Those Who Know They Are Not Facts Are What We Call "atheists," And Those Who Think They Are Facts Are "religious." Which Group Really Gets The Message?

You Are The Hero Of Your Own Story.

Suspense Novels

There Is No Way You Can Use The Word “reality” Without Quotation Marks Around It.

Knowing Who You Are

Quotation Marks

If You Want To Know What A Given Society Believes In, Look At What Its Largest Buildings Are Devoted To.

Our Demons Are Our Own Limitations, Which Shut Us Off From The Realization Of The Ubiquity Of The Spirit . . . Each Of These Demons Is Conquered In A Vision Quest.

A Sound Precipitates Air, Then Fire, Then Water And Earth- And That's How The World Becomes.

All Life Stinks And You Must Embrace That With Compassion.

Without Passion, Men Are Not Willing To Pay Any Price Or Bear Any Burden To Set The Captives Free.

With The Moon Walk, The Religious Myth That Sustained These Notions Could No Longer Be Held. With Our View Of Earthrise, We Could See That The Earth And The Heavens Were No Longer Divided But That The Earth Is In The Heavens. (105)

The Place To Find Is Within Yourself.

If You Realize What The Real Problem Is-losing Yourself-you Realize That This Itself Is The Ultimate Trial.

We Are Standing On A Whale Fishing For Minnows.

We're Not On Our Journey To Save The World But To Save Ourselves. But In Doing That You Save The World. The Influence Of A Vital Person Vitalizes.

Myths Are The World's Dreams. They Are Archetypal Dreams And Deal With Great Human Problems. Myths And Dreams Come From The Same Place. They Come From Realizations Of Some Kind That Then Have To Find Expression In Symbolic Form.

The Best We Can Do Is Lean Towards The Light.

Every Story You Tell Is Your Own Story.

Both The Artist And The Lover Know That Perfection Is Not Loveable. It Is The Clumsiness Of A Fault That Makes A Person Lovable.

I Think The Person Who Takes A Job In Order To Live - That Is To Say, For The Money - Has Turned Himself Into A Slave.

If You Live With The Myths In Your Mind, You Will Find Yourself Always In Mythological Situations. They Cover Everything That Can Happen To You. And That Enables You To Interpret The Myth In Relation To Life, As Well As Life In Relation To Myth.

Finding Yourself

I Don't Have To Have Faith, I Have Experience.

The Ego Is As You Think Of Yourself. You In Relation To All The Commitments Of Your Life, As You Understand Them. The Self Is The Whole Range Of Possibilities That You've Never Even Thought Of. And You're Stuck With You're Past When You're Stuck With The Ego. Because If All You Know About Yourself Is What You Found Out About Yourself, Well, That Already Happened. The Self Is A Whole Field Of Potentialities To Come Through.

The Very Cave You Are Afraid To Enter Turns Out To Be The Source Of What You Are Looking For.

It Is By Going Down Into The Abyss That We Recover The Treasures Of Life. Where You Stumble, There Lies Your Treasure.

All Babies Are Buddha Babies.

Freud Tells Us To Blame Our Parents For All The Shortcomings Of Our Life, Marx Tells Us To Blame The Upper Class Of Our Society. But The Only One To Blame Is Oneself.

Your Life Is The Fruit Of Your Own Doing. You Have No One To Blame But Yourself... The Problem Is Not To Blame Or Explain But To Handle The Life That Arises... If You Say No To A Single Factor In Your Life, You Have Unraveled The Whole Thing... The Demon That You Swallow Gives You Its Power, And The Greater Life's Pain, The Greater Life's Reply.

Knowing Who You Are

As A White Candle / In A Holy Place, / So Is The Beauty / Of An Aged Face

For People Who Are Really Alive To Have Life Awakened Is More Important Than To Get A Sandwich.

They Thought That It Would Be A Disgrace To Go Forth As A Group. Each Entered The Forest At A Point That He Himself Had Chosen, Where It Was Darkest And There Was No Path. If There Is A Path It Is Someone Else's Path And You Are Not On The Adventure.

Everything Starts With A Story.

When You Make The Sacrifice In Marriage, You're Sacrificing Not To Each Other But To Unity In A Relationship.

The Less There Is Of You, The More You Experience The Sublime.

Find A Place Inside Where There's Joy, And The Joy Will Burn Out The Pain.

The Concept Of Time Shuts Off Eternity.

Concept Of Time

There's Nothing You Can Do That's More Important Than Being Fulfilled. You Become A Sign, You Become A Signal, Transparent To Transcendence; In This Way, You Will Find, Live, And Become A Realization Of Your Own Personal Myth.

Life Is But A Mask Worn On The Face Of Death. And Is Death, Then, But Another Mask? 'how Many Can Say,' Asks The Aztec Poet, 'that There Is, Or Is Not, A Truth Beyond?'

The Folktale Is The Primer Of The Picture-language Of The Soul.

An Old Apache Storyteller Reminds Us

To Find Your Own Way Is To Follow Your Bliss. This Involves Analysis, Watching Yourself And Seeing Where Real Deep Bliss Is -- Not The Quick Little Excitement , But The Real Deep, Life-filling Bliss.

Love Your Enemies, For They Determine Who You Are.

Great Brahma From His Mystic Heaven Groans, And All His Priesthood Moans.

Any Disaster You Can Survive Is An Improvement In Your Character, Your Stature, And Your Life

Following Your Bliss Is Not Self-indulgent, But Vital; Your Whole Physical System Knows That This Is The Way To Be Alive In This World And The Way To Give To The World The Very Best That You Have To Offer. There Is A Track Just Waiting For Each Of Us And Once On It, Doors Will Open That Were Not Open Before And Would Not Open For Anyone Else.

Marriage Is Not A Love Affair. A Love Affair Has To Do With Immediate Personal Satisfaction. Marriage Is An Ordeal; It Means Yielding, Time And Again. That's Why It's A Sacrament; You Give Up Your Personal Simplicity To Participate In A Relationship. And When You're Giving, You're Not Giving To The Other Person; You're Giving To The Relationship.

Awe Is What Moves Us Forward.

Where You Stumble And Fall, There You Will Find Gold.

We Are Kept Out Of The Garden By Our Own Fear And Desire In Relation To What We Think To Be The Goods Of Our Life.

I Think A Person Who Takes A Job In Order To Live - That Is To Say, For The Money - Has Turned Himself Into A Slave. Work Begins When You Don't Like What You're Doing. There's A Wise Saying: Make Your Hobby Your Source Of Income. Then There's No Such Thing As Work, And There's No Such Thing As Getting Tired. That's Been My Own Experience. I Did Just What I Wanted To Do. It Takes A Little Courage At First, Because Who The Hell Wants You To Do Just What You Want To Do; They've All Got Lots Of Plans For You. But You Can Make It Happen.

Your Ego Is Your Embodiment And Your Self Is Your Potentiality And That's What You Listen To When You Listen For The Voice Of Inspiration And The Voice Of 'what Am I Here For? What Can I Possibly Make Of Myself?'

Money Is Congealed Energy And Releasing It Releases Life Possibilities ... Money Experienced As Life Energy Is Indeed A Meditation, And Letting It Flow Out Instead Of Hoarding It Is A Mode Of Participation In The Life Of Others.

Clearly, Mythology Is No Toy For Children. Nor Is It A Matter Of Archaic, Merely Scholarly Concern, Of No Moment To Modern Men Of Action. For Its Symbols (whether In The Tangible Form Of Images Or In The Abstract Form Of Ideas) Touch And Release The Deepest Centers Of Motivation, Moving Literate And Illiterate Alike, Moving Mobs, Moving Civilizations.

Furthermore, We Have Not Even To Risk The Adventure Alone; For The Heroes Of All Time Have Gone Before Us; The Labyrinth Is Thoroughly Known; We Have Only To Follow The Thread Of The Hero-path. And Where We Had Thought To Find An Abomination, We Shall Find A God; Where We Had Thought To Slay Another, We Shall Slay Ourselves; Where We Had Thought To Travel Outward, We Shall Come To The Center Of Our Own Existence; And Where We Had Thought To Be Alone, We Shall Be With All The World.

A Schism In The Body Social, Will Not Be Resolved By Any Scheme Of A Return To The Good Old Days (archaism), Or By Programs Guaranteed To Render An Ideal Projected Future (futurism), Or Even By The Most Realistic, Hardheaded Work To Weld Together Again The Deteriorating Elements. Only Birth Can Conquer Death -- The Birth, Not Of The Old Thing Again, But Of Something New.

Myth Must Be Kept Alive. The People Who Can Keep It Alive Are The Artists Of One Kind Or Another.

No One In The World Was Ever You Before, With Your Particular Gifts And Abilities And Possibilities.

When You Are On Your Path, And It Is Truly Your Path, Doors Will Open For You Where There Were No Doors For Someone Else.

Myth Is The Secret Opening Through Which The Inexhaustible Energies Of The Cosmos Pour Into Human Manifestation.

It May Be A Species Of Impudence To Think That The Way You Understand God Is The Way God Is. (60).

God Is The Experience Of Looking At A Tree And Saying, 'ah!

Positive Thinking

In The Absence Of An Effective General Mythology, Each Of Us Has His Private, Unrecognized, Rudimentary, Yet Secretly Potent Pantheon Of Dreams.

The Purpose Of The Journey Is Compassion. When You Have Come Past The Pairs Of Opposites, You Have Reached Compassion.

Read Myths. They Teach You That You Can Turn Inward, And You Begin To Get The Message Of The Symbols. Read Other People's Myths, Not Those Of Your Own Religion, Because You Tend To Interpret Your Own Religion In Terms Of Facts -- But If You Read The Other Ones, You Begin To Get The Message.

The Function Of Ritual, As I Understand It, Is To Give Form To Human Life, Not In The Way Of A Mere Surface Arrangement, But In Depth.

If You Want To See What A Society Really Believes In, Look At What The Biggest Buildings On The Horizon Are Dedicated To.

I Think It's Important To Live Life With A Knowledge Of Its Mystery, And Of Your Own Mystery.

What Am I? Am I The Bulb That Carries The Light, Or Am I The Light Of Which The Bulb Is A Vehicle?

It's Only When A Man Tames His Own Demons That He Becomes The King Of Himself If Not Of The World.

People Say That What We're All Seeking Is A Meaning For Life. I Don't Think That's What We're Really Seeking. I Think What We're Seeking Is An Experience Of Being Alive, So That Our Life Experiences On The Purely Physical Plane Will Have Resonance Within Our Own Innermost Being And Reality, So That We Actually Feel The Rapture Of Being Alive.

When You Realize That Eternity Is Right Here Now, That It Is Within Your Possibility To Experience The Eternity Of Your Own Truth And Being, Then You Grasp The Following: That Which You Are Was Never Born And Will Never Die. . . . (90)

I Don’t Think There Is Any Such Thing As An Ordinary Mortal. Everybody Has His Own Possibility Of Rapture In The Experience Of Life. All He Has To Do Is Recognize It And Then Cultivate It And Get Going With It. I Always Feel Uncomfortable When People Speak About Ordinary Mortals Because I’ve Never Met An Ordinary Man, Woman, Or Child.

For The Bliss Of The Deep Abode Is Not Lightly Abandoned In Favor Of The Self-scattering Of The Wakened State.

When You Follow Your Bliss, You Begin To Meet People Who Are In The Field Of Your Bliss, And They Open The Doors To You.

The Theme Of The Grail Is The Bringing Of Life Into What Is Known As 'the Wasteland.' The Wasteland Is The Preliminary Theme To Which The Grail Is The Answer. . . It's The World Of People Living Inauthentic Lives - Doing What They Are Supposed To Do.

The Way To Find Out About Your Happiness Is To Keep Your Mind On Those Moments When You Feel Most Happy, When You Really Are Happy-not Excited, Not Just Thrilled, But Deeply Happy. This Requires A Little Bit Of Self Analysis. What Is It That Makes You Happy? Stay With It, No Matter What People Tell You. This Is What I Call "following Your Bliss."

Gods Suppressed Become Devils, And Often It Is These Devils Whom We First Encounter When We Turn Inward.

When You Follow Your Bliss A Kind Of Track Opens Up, That's Always Been There, Waiting For You. And The Life That You Should Be Living, Is The One That You Will Be Living.

The Experience Of Eternity Right Here And Now Is The Function Of Life. Heaven Is Not The Place To Have The Experience; Here Is The Place To Have The Experience.

You Yourself Are Participating In The Evil, Or You Are Not Alive. Whatever You Do Is Evil For Somebody. This Is One Of The Ironies Of The Whole Creation.

Sit In A Room And Read--and Read And Read. And Read The Right Books By The Right People. Your Mind Is Brought Onto That Level, And You Have A Nice, Mild, Slow-burning Rapture All The Time.

You Know The Rule: If You Are Falling, Dive. Do The Thing That Has To Be Done.

The Function Of Artists Is "the Mythologization Of The World."

I Am Shiva-this Is The Great Meditation Of The Yogis In The Himalayas...hea Ven And Hell Are Within Us, And All The Gods Are Within Us. This Is The Great Realization Of The Upanishads Of India In The Ninth Century B.c. All The Gods, All The Heavens, All The Worlds, Are Within Us. They Are Magnified Dreams, And Dreams Are Manifestations In Image Form Of The Energies Of The Body In Conflict With Each Other.

At The Darkest Moment Comes The Light.

There Is An Indian Fable Of Three Beings Who Drank From A River: One Was A God, And He Drank Ambrosia; One Was A Man, And He Drank Water; And One Was A Demon, And He Drank Filth. What You Get Is A Function Of Your Own Consciousness.

[t]he Experience Of Mystery Comes Not From Expecting It But Through Yielding All Your Programs, Because Your Programs Are Based On Fear And Desire. Drop Them And The Radiance Comes. (16)

One Way Or Another, We All Have To Find What Best Fosters The Flowering Of Our Humanity In This Contemporary Life, And Dedicate Ourselves To That.

The Wonder Is That The Characteristic Efficacy To Touch And Inspire Deep Creative Centers Dwells In The Smallest Nursery Fairy Tale-as The Flavor Of The Ocean Is Contained In A Droplet Or The Whole Mystery Of Life Within The Egg Of A Flea. For The Symbols Of Mythology Are Not Manufactured; They Cannot Be Ordered, Invented, Or Permanently Suppressed. They Are Spontaneous Productions Of The Psyche, And Each Bears Within It, Undamaged, The Germ Power Of Its Source.

Eternity Is Not Future Or Past. Eternity Is A Dimension Of Now. It Is A Dimension Of The Human Spirit -- Which Is Eternal. Find That Eternal Dimension In Yourself, And You Will Ride Through Time, And Throughout The Whole Length Of Your Days.

I Always Tell My Students, Go Where Your Body And Soul Want To Go. When You Have The Feeling, Then Stay With It, And Don't Let Anyone Throw You Off.

The Best Things Cannot Be Told Because They Transcend Thought. The Second Best Are Misunderstood Because They Are The Thoughts That Are Supposed To Refer To That Which Cannot Be Thought About. The Third Best Are What We Talk About.

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