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If You See Your Path Laid Out In Front Of You - Step One, Step Two, Step Three - You Only Know One Thing . . . It Is Not Your Path. Your Path Is Created In The Moment Of Action. If You Can See It Laid Out In Front Of You, You Can Be Sure It Is Someone Else's Path. That Is Why You See It So Clearly.

-Joseph Campbell

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If You See Your

Joseph Campbell

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If You See Your Path Laid Out In Front Of You - Step One, Step Two, Step Three - You Only Know One Thing . . . It Is Not Your Path. Your Path Is Created In The Moment Of Action. If You Can See It Laid Out In Front Of You, You Can Be Sure It Is Someone Else's Path. That Is Why You See It So Clearly.

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

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.

The Conquest Of The Fear Of Death Is The Recovery Of Life's Joy. One Can Experience An Unconditional Affirmation Of Life Only When One Has Accepted Death, Not As Contrary To Life, But As An Aspect Of Life. Life In Its Becoming Is Always Shedding Death, And On The Point Of Death. The Conquest Of Fear Yields The Courage Of Life. That Is The Cardinal Initiation Of Every Heroic Adventure - Fearlessness And Achievement.

Eternity Is Not A Long Time; Rather, It Is Another Dimension. It Is That Dimension To Which Time-thinking Shuts Us. And So There Never Was A Creation. Rather, There Is A Continuous Creating Going On. This Energy Is Pouring Into Every Cell Of Our Being Right Now, Every Board And Brick Of The Buildings We Sit In, Every Grain Of Sand And Wisp Of Wind.

The Key To The Grail Is Compassion, 'suffering With,' Feeling Another's Sorrow As If It Were Your Own. The One Who Finds The Dynamo Of Compassion Is The One Who's Found The Grail.

One Can Experience An Unconditional Affirmation Of Life Only When One Has Accepted Death, Not As Contrary To Life, But As An Aspect Of It.

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

Breaking Out Is Following Your Bliss Pattern, Quitting The Old Place, Starting Your Hero Journey, Following Your Bliss. You Throw Off Yesterday As The Snake Sheds Its Skin.

Mythological Symbols Touch And Exhilarate Centers Of Life Beyond The Reach Of Vocabularies Of Reason And Coercion.

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.

If You Want Resurrection, You Must Have Crucifixion... The Hoarder, The One In Us That Wants To Keep, To Hold On, Must Be Killed.

Life, In Both Its Knowing And Its Doing, Has Become Today A "free Fall," So To Say, Into The Next Minute, Into The Future. So That, Whereas, Formerly, Those Not Wishing To Hazard The Adventure Of An Individual Life Could Rest Within The Pale Of A Comfortably Guaranteed Social Order, Today All The Walls Have Burst. It Is Not Left To Us To Chooseto Hazard The Adventure Of An Unprecedented Life: Adventure Is Upon Us, Like A Tidal Wave.

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.

You've Got To Find The Force Inside You.

Preachers Err By Trying To Talk People Into Belief; Better They Reveal The Radiance Of Their Own Discovery.

You've Got To Say Yes To This Miracle Of Life As It Is, Not On Condition That It Follow Your Rules.

Knowing Who You Are

There Are Mythologies That Are Scattered, Broken Up, All Around Us. We Stand On What I Call A Terminal Moraine Of Shattered Mythic Systems That Once Structured Society. They Can Be Detected All Around Us. You Can Select Any Of These Fragments That Activate Your Imagination For Your Own Use. Let It Help Shape Your Own Relationship To The Unconscious System Out Of Which These Symbols Have Come.

The Senses Are A Kind Of Reason. Taste, Touch And Smell, Hearing And Seeing, Are Not Merely A Means To Sensation, Enjoyable Or Otherwise, But They Are Also A Means To Knowledge - And Are, Indeed, Your Only Actual Means To Knowledge.

We Can Safely Say, Therefore, That Whereas Some Moralists May Find It Possible To Make A Distinction Between Two Spheres And Reigns-one Of Flesh, The Other Of The Spirit, One Of Time, The Other Of Eternity-where Ever Love Arises Such Definitions Vanish, And A Sense Of Life Awakens In Which All Such Oppositions Are At One.

The Privilege Of A Lifetime Is Being Who You Are.

What The Artist Must Render Is A Living Moment Somehow, A Living Moment Actually In Action Or An Inward Experience.

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

Within The Field Of A Secular Society, Which Is A Sort Of Neutral Frame That Allows Individuals To Develop Their Own Lives, So Long As They Don't Annoy Their Neighbors Too Much, Each Of Us Has An Individual Myth That's Driving Us, Which We May Or May Not Know.

Secular Society

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.

If You See Your Path Laid Out In Front Of You - Step One, Step Two, Step Three - You Only Know One Thing . . . It Is Not Your Path. Your Path Is Created In The Moment Of Action. If You Can See It Laid Out In Front Of You, You Can Be Sure It Is Someone Else's Path. That Is Why You See It So Clearly.

Is The System Going To Flatten You Out And Deny You Your Humanity, Or Are You Going To Be Able To Make Use Of The System To The Attainment Of Human Purposes?

The Seat Of The Soul Is Where The Inner World And The Outer World Meet.

The World, As We Know It, Is Coming To An End. The World As The Center Of The Universe, The World Divided From The Heavens, The World Bound By Horizons In Which Love Is Reserved For Members Of The In-group: That Is The World That Is Passing Away. Apocalypse Does Not Point To A Fiery Armageddon But To The Fact That Our Ignorance And Complacency Are Coming To An End.

The Departure From The World Is Regarded Not As A Fault, But As The First Step Into That Noble Path At The Remotest Turn Of Which Illumination Is To Be Won.

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.

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."

What Is Required Is The Finding Of That Immovable Point Within One's Self, Which Is Not Shaken By Any Of Those Tempests Which The Buddhists Call 'the Eight Karmic Winds': 1-fear Of Pain, 2-desire For Pleasure; 3-fear Of Loss; 4-desire For Gain; 5-fear Of Blame, 6-desire For Praise; 7-fear Of Disgrace; [and] 8-desire For Fame.

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.

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. -

The Quest For Fire Occurred Not Because Anyone Knew What The Practical Uses For Fire Would Be, But Because It Was Fascinating.

A Dream Is Your Creative Vision For Your Life In The Future. A Goal Is What Specifically You Intend To Make Happen. Dreams And Goals Should Be Just Out Of Your Present Reach But Not Out Of Sight. Dreams And Goals Are Coming Attractions In Your Life.

One Looks, Looks Long, And The World Comes In.

A Bit Of Advice Given To A Young Native American At The Time Of His Initiation: As You Go The Way Of Life, You Will See A Great Chasm. Jump. It Is Not As Wide As You Think.

Native American

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

If You Want To Find Out What It Means To Have A Society Without Any Rituals, Read The New York Times.

Every Hero Must Have The Courage To Be Alone, To Take The Journey For Himself.

Out Of Perfection Nothing Can Be Made. Every Process Involves Breaking Something Up. The Earth Must Be Broken To Bring Forth Life. If The Seed Does Not Die There Is No Plant. Bread Results From The Death Of Wheat. Life Lives On Lives. Our Own Life Lives On The Acts Of Other People. If You Are Lifeworthy, You Can Take It.

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

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

The Priests Used To Say That Faith Can Move Mountains, And Nobody Believed Them. Today The Scientists Say That They Can Level Mountains, And Nobody Doubts Them.

The Hero Journey Is Inside Of You; Tear Off The Veils And Open The Mystery Of Your Self.

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

The Best We Can Do Is Lean Towards The Light.

You Are The Hero Of Your Own Story.

Suspense Novels

You Are More Than You Think You Are. There Are Dimensions Of Your Being And A Potential For Realization And Consciousness That Are Not Included In Your Concept Of Yourself. Your Life Is Much Deeper And Broader Than You Conceive It To Be Here. What You Are Living Is But A Fractional Inkling Of What Is Really Within You, What Gives You Life, Breadth, And Depth.

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

How Teach Again, However, What Has Been Taught Correctly And Incorrectly Learned A Thousand Thousand Times, Throughout The Millenniums Of Mankind's Prudent Folly? That Is The Hero's Ultimate Difficult Task.

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

If You Want To Change The World, You Have To Change The Metaphor.

Heinrich Zimmerhe Had A Little Saying : The Best Things Cant Be Told - Because They Are Transcendent, Inexpressible Truths. The Second Best Are Misunderstood : Myths, Which Are Metaphoric Attempts To Point To The Way Toward The First. And The Third Best Have To Do With History, Science, Biography, And So On. The Only Kind Of Talking That Can Be Understood Is This Last Kind.

Where There Is A Way Or Path, It Is Someone Else's. Each Of Us Has To Find His Own Way.

And If There Was No Fall, What Then Of The Need For Redemption? What God Was Offended And By Whom? Some Especially Touchy Cave Bear Whose Skull Had Been Improperly Enshrined?

The Best Advise Is To Take It All As If It Had Been Your Intention.

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The Big Problem Of Any Young Person's Life Is To Have Models To Suggest Possibilities. Nietzsche Says, 'man Is The Sick Animal.' Man Is The Animal That Doesn't Know What To Do With Itself. The Mind Has Many Possibilities, But We Can Live No More Than One Life. What Are We Going To Do With Ourselves?

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

The Dreamer And His Dream Are The Same...the Powers Personified In A Dream Are These That Move The World.

I Don't Need Faith. I Have Experience.

Love Your Enemies, For They Determine Who You Are.

Art Is The Clothing Of A Revelation

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.

Everything Starts With A Story.

For If Anything Is Capable Of Making A Poet Of A Literary Man, It Is My Hometown Love Of The Human, The Living And Ordinary.

If You Will Think Of Ourselves As Coming Out Of The Earth, Rather Than Having Been Thrown In Here From Somewhere Else, You See That We Are The Earth, We Are The Consciousness Of The Earth. These Are The Eyes Of The Earth. And This Is The Voice Of The Earth.

[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)

When We Follow Our Bliss, We Are Met By A Thousand Unseen Helping Hands.

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

One Great Thing About Growing Old Is That Nothing Is Going To Lead To Anything. Everything Is Of The Moment.

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

Every Religion, Every Mythology Is True In This Sense: It Is True As Metaphorical Of The Human And Cosmic Mystery.

When An Idea Is Important To A Person Or Culture It Will Find Its Way Into Imagery.

Mythology Is Often Defined As 'other Peoples' Religions', Religion Can Be Thought Of As Misinterpreted Mythology.

The World Without Spirit Is A Wasteland. People Have The Notion Of Saving The World By Shifting Things Around, Changing The Rules, And Who's On Top, And So Forth. No, No! Any World Is A Valid World If It's Alive. The Thing To Do Is To Bring Life To It, And The Only Way To Do That Is To Find In Your Own Case Where The Life Is And Become Alive Yourself.

People Who Don't Have A Concept Of The Whole Can Do Very Unfortunate Things.

Unfortunate Things

When Everything Is Lost, And All Seems Darkness, Then Comes The New Life And All That Is Needed.

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

Respect Your Curses, For They Are The Instruments Of Your Destiny.

Survival Is The Second Law Of Life. The First Is That We Are All One.

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

Privation And Suffering Alone Open The Mind To All That Is Hidden To Others. (igjugarjuk)

Now All The Myths That You Have Heard And That Resonate With You, Those Are The Elements From Round About That You Are Building Into A Form In Your Life. The Thing Worth Considering Is How They Relate To Each Other In Your Context, Not How They Relate To Something Out There-how They Were Relevant On The North American Prairies Or In The Asian Jungles Hundreds Of Years Agon, But How They Are Relevant Now-unless By Contemplating Their Former Meaning You Can Begin To Amplify Your Own Understanding Of The Role They Play In Your Life.

What We Are Really Living For Is The Experience Of Life, Both The Pain And The Pleasure.

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

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

Knowing Who You Are

Quotation Marks

The Perfect Human Being Is Uninteresting-the Buddha Who Leaves The World, You Know. It Is The Imperfections Of Life That Are Lovable.

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

If You Are Falling....dive.

The Psychological Dangers Through Which Earlier Generations Were Guided By The Symbols And Spiritual Exercises Of Their Mythological And Religious Inheritance, We Today (in So Far As We Are Unbelievers, Or, If Believers, In So Far As Our Inherited Beliefs Fail To Represent The Real Problems Of Contemporary Life) Must Face Alone, Or, At Best With Only Tentative, Impromptu, And Not Often Very Effective Guidance. This Is Our Problem As Modern, "enlightened" Individuals, For Whom All Gods And Devils Have Been Rationalized Out Of Existence.

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.

The Rise And Fall Of Civilizations In The Long, Broad Course Of History Can Be Seen To Have Been Largely A Function Of The Integrity And Cogency Of Their Supporting Canons Of Myth; For Not Authority But Aspiration Is The Motivator, Builder, And Transformer Of Civilization.

You Must Have A Place To Which You Can Go In Your Heart, Your Mind, Or Your House, Almost Every Day, Where You Do Not Owe Anyone And Where No One Owes You - A Place That Simply Allows For The Blossoming Of Something New And Promising.

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.

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.

God Is Within You. You Yourself Are Your Creator. If You Find That Place In Yourself From Which You Brought This Thing About, You Will Be Able To Live With It And Affirm It, Perhaps Even Enjoy It, As Your Life.

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.

You Enter The Forest At The Darkest Point, Where There Is No Path. Where There Is A Way Or Path, It Is Someone Else's Path. You Are Not On Your Own Path. If You Follow Someone Else's Way, You Are Not Going To Realize Your Potential.

A Temple Is A Landscape Of The Soul.

It's Characteristic Of Democracy That Majority Rule Is Understood As Being Effective Not Only In Politics But Also In Thinking. In Thinking, Of Course, The Majority Is Always Wrong.

The Warrior’s Approach Is To Say ‘yes’ To Life: ‘yes’ To It All.

The Role Of The Artist I Now Understood As That Of Revealing Through The World-surfaces The Implicit Forms Of The Soul, And The Great Agent To Assist The Artist Was The Myth.

The Dark Night Of The Soul Comes Just Before Revelation.

The Schizophrenic Is Drowning In The Same Waters In Which The Mystic Swims With Delight. Edgar Cayce Made The Same Observation In His Readings

The Call To Adventure Is The Point In A Person’s Life When They Are First Given Notice That Everything Is Going To Change, Whether They Know It Or Not.

When You Find A Writer Who Really Is Saying Something To You, Read Everything That Writer Has Written And You Will Get More Education And Depth Of Understanding Out Of That Than Reading A Scrap Here And A Scrap There And Elsewhere. Then Go To People Who Influenced That Writer, Or Those Who Were Related To Him, And Your World Builds Together In An Organic Way That Is Really Marvelous.

[comedies], In The Ancient World, Were Regarded As Of A Higher Rank Than Tragedy, Of A Deeper Truth, Of A More Difficult Realization, Of A Sounder Structure, And Of A Revelation More Complete. The Happy Ending Of The Fairy Tale, The Myth, And The Divine Comedy Of The Soul, Is To Be Read, Not As A Contradiction, But As A Transcendence Of The Universal Tragedy Of Man. ...tragedy Is The Shattering Of The Forms And Of Our Attachment To The Forms...

The Myth Is The Public Domain And The Dream Is The Private Myth. If Your Private Myth, Your Dream, Happens To Coincide With That Of The Society, You Are In Good Accord With Your Group. If It Isn't, You've Got A Long Adventure In The Dark Forest Ahead Of You.

How To Get Rid Of Ego As Dictator And Turn It Into Messenger And Servant And Scout, To Be In Your Service, Is The Trick.

The Creative Act Is Not Hanging On, But Yielding To A New Creative Movement. Awe Is What Moves Us Forward.

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

Eternity Isn't Some Later Time. Eternity Isn't A Long Time. Eternity Has Nothing To Do With Time. Eternity Is That Dimension Of Here And Now Which Thinking And Time Cuts Out. This Is It. And If You Don't Get It Here, You Won't Get It Anywhere. And The Experience Of Eternity Right Here And Now Is The Function Of Life.

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.

There Have Been Systems Of Religion Where The Mother Is The Prime Parent, The Source, And She's Really A More Immediate Parent Than The Father, Because One Is Born From The Mother...so That The Image Of The Woman Is The Image Of The World.

Mythology Is Composed By Poets Out Of Their Insights And Realizations. Mythologies Are Not Invented; They Are Found. You Can No More Tell Us What Your Dream Is Going To Be Tonight Than We Can Invent A Myth. Myths Come From The Mystical Region Of Essential Experience.

Poets And Artists Who Speak Of The Mystery Are Rare.

We Have To Permit Go With The Everyday Living We Had Prepared So As To Have The Lifetime That's Watching For Us

It Takes Courage To Do What You Want. Other People Have A Lot Of Plans For You... Follow Your Bliss.

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

Just Think, Vishnu Sleeps In The Cosmic Ocean, And The Lotus Of The Universe Grows From His Navel. On The Lotus Sits Brahma, The Creator. Brahma Opens His Eyes, And A World Comes Into Being, Governed By An Indra. Brahma Closes His Eyes, And A World Goes Out Of Being. The Life Of A Brahma Is 432,000 Years. When He Dies, The Lotus Goes Back, And Another Lotus Is Formed, And Another Brahma. Then Think Of The Galaxies Beyond Galaxies In Infinite Space, Each A Lotus, With A Brahma Sitting On It, Opening His Eyes, Closing His Eyes.

The Best Things Cannot Be Told, The Second Best Are Misunderstood. After That Comes Civilized Conversation; After That, Mass Indoctrination; After That, Intercultural Exchange.

A Ritual Is The Enactment Of A Myth. And, By Participating In The Ritual, You Are Participating In The Myth. And Since Myth Is A Projection Of The Depth Wisdom Of The Psyche, By Participating In A Ritual, Participating In The Myth, You Are Being, As It Were, Put In Accord With That Wisdom, Which Is The Wisdom That Is Inherent Within You Anyhow. Your Consciousness Is Being Re-minded Of The Wisdom Of Your Own Life.

What I Think Is That A Good Life Is One Hero Journey After Another. Over And Over Again, You Are Called To The Realm Of Adventure, You Are Called To New Horizons. Each Time, There Is The Same Problem: Do I Dare? And Then If You Do Dare, The Dangers Are There, And The Help Also, And The Fulfillment Or The Fiasco. There's Always The Possibility Of Fiasco. But There's Also The Possibility Of Bliss.

The Hero’s Journey Always Begins With The Call. One Way Or Another, A Guide Must Come To Say, 'look, You’re In Sleepy Land. Wake. Come On A Trip. There Is A Whole Aspect Of Your Consciousness, Your Being, That’s Not Been Touched. So You’re At Home Here? Well, There’s Not Enough Of You There.' And So It Starts.

Let The World Be As It Is And Learn To Rock With The Waves.

Apocalypse Does Not Point To A Fiery Armageddon But To The Fact That Our Ignorance And Our Complacency Are Coming To An End.

The Process Of Nature Cannot Be Evil.

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.

The Concept Of Time Shuts Off Eternity.

Concept Of Time

I Have Found That You Have Only To Take That One Step Toward The Gods, And They Will Then Take Ten Steps Toward You. That Step, The Heroic First Step Of The Journey, Is Out Of, Or Over The Edge Of, Your Boundaries, And It Often Must Be Taken Before You Know That You Will.

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.

Out Of Perfection Nothing Can Be Made. Every Process Involves Breaking Something Up.

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.

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.

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?'

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

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

Mythology May, In A Real Sense, Be Defined As Other People's Religion. And Religion May, In A Sense, Be Understood As Popular Misunderstanding Of Mythology. (8)

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

The Goal Is To Live With God Like Composure On The Full Rush Of Energy, Like Dionysus Riding The Leopard, Without Being Torn To Pieces.

To Find Your Own Way Is To Follow Your Bliss.

Follow Your Bliss

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.

The Place To Find Is Within Yourself.

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

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.

Sometimes The Serpent Is Represented As A Circle Eating Its Own Tail. That’s An Image Of Life. Life Sheds One Generation After Another, To Be Born Again. The Serpent Represents Immortal Energy And Consciousness Engaged In The Field Of Time, Constantly Throwing Off Death And Being Born Again. There Is Something Tremendously Terrifying About Life When You Look At It That Way. And So The Serpent Carries In Itself The Sense Of Both The Fascination And The Terror Of Life.

When You Look At That Nature World It Becomes An Icon, It Becomes A Holy Picture That Speaks Of The Origins Of The World. Almost Every Mythology Sees The Origins Of Life Coming Out Of Water. And, Curiously, That's True. It's Amusing That The Origin Of Life Out Of Water Is In Myths And Then Again, Finally, In Science, We Find The Same Thing. It's Exactly So.

All Babies Are Buddha Babies.

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.

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?

Have You Ever Looked Inside One Of Those Things [computers]? It's A Whole Hierarchy Of Angels- All On Slats. And Those Little Tubes-those Are Miracles.

In Marriage You Are Not Sacrificing Yourself To The Other Person. You Are Sacrificing Yourself To The Relationship.

Sacrificing Yourself

The Realms Of The Gods And Demons - Heaven, Purgatory, Hell - Are Of The Substance Of Dreams. Myth, In This View, Is The Dream Of The World.

I Don't Believe People Are Looking For The Meaning Of Life As Much As They Are Looking For The Experience Of Being Alive.

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

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.

In Choosing Your God, You Choose Your Way Of Looking At The Universe. There Are Plenty Of Gods. Choose Yours.

We're In A Freefall Into Future. We Don't Know Where We're Going. Things Are Changing So Fast, And Always When You're Going Through A Long Tunnel, Anxiety Comes Along. And All You Have To Do To Transform Your Hell Into A Paradise Is To Turn Your Fall Into A Voluntary Act. It's A Very Interesting Shift Of Perspective And That's All It Is... Joyful Participation In The Sorrows And Everything Changes.

This Is An Important Point About Symbols: They Do Not Refer To Historical Events; They Refer Through Historical Events To Spiritual Or Psychological Principles And Powers That Are Of Yesterday, Today, And Tomorrow, And That Are Everywhere.

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

You Have To Strive Every Minute To Get Rid Of The Life That You Have Planned In Order To Have The Life That's Waiting To Be Yours. Move, Move, Move.

The Goal Of Life Is Rapture. Art Is The Way We Experience It.

Mythologies, In Other Words, Mythologies And Religions Are Great Poems And, When Recognized As Such, Point Infallibly Through Things And Events To The Ubiquity Of A

What Is A God? A God Is A Personification Of A Motivating Power Of A Value System That Functions In Human Life And In The Universe.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Function Of The Society Is To Cultivate The Individual. It Is Not The Function Of The Individual To Support Society.

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.

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

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.

The Essence Of Oneself And The Essence Of The World: These Two Are One. [ The Aim Is Not To See, But To Realize That One Is, That Essence; Then One Is Free To Wander As That Essence In The World.] Hence Separateness, Withdrawal, Is No Longer Necessary. Wherever The Hero May Wander, Whatever He May Do, He Is Ever In The Presence Of His Own Essence-for He Has The Perfected Eye To See.

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.

At First You Might Find That Nothing Happens There. But If You Have A Sacred Space And Use It, Eventually Something Will Happen. Your Sacred Space Is Where You Find Yourself Again And Again.

Finding Yourself

Writer’s Block Results From Too Much Head. Cut Off Your Head. Pegasus, Poetry, Was Born Of Medusa When Her Head Was Cut Off. You Have To Be Reckless When Writing. Be As Crazy As Your Conscience Allows.

There Is What I Would Call The Hero Journey, The Night Sea Journey, The Hero Quest, Where The Individual Is Going To Bring Forth In His Life Something That Was Never Beheld Before.

We Need Myths That Will Identify The Individual Not With His Local Group But With The Planet.

Apocalypse Does Not Point To A Fiery Armageddon But To The Fact That Our Ignorance And Our Complacency Are Coming To An End. The Exclusivism Of There Being Only One Way In Which We Can Be Saved, The Idea That There Is A Single Religious Group That Is In Sole Possession Of The Truth—that Is The World As We Know It That Must Pass Away. What Is The Kingdom? It Lies In Our Realization Of The Ubiquity Of The Divine Presence In Our Neighbors, In Our Enemies, In All Of Us.

The Entire Heavenly Realm Is Within Us, But To Find It We Have To Relate To What's Outside.

What Is Unknown Is The Fulfillment Of Your Own Unique Life, The Likes Of Which Has Never Existed On Earth. And You Are The Only One Who Can Do It. People Can Give You Clues How To Fall And When To Stand, And When You Are Falling And When You Are Standing, This Only You Can Know. And In The Way Of Your Own Talents Is The Only Way To Do It.

We Are Standing On A Whale Fishing For Minnows.

The Achievement Of The Hero Is One That He Is Ready For And It's Really A Manifestation Of His Character. It's Amusing The Way In Which The Landscape And Conditions Of The Environment Match The Readiness Of The Hero. The Adventure That He Is Ready For Is The One That He Gets.

An Old Apache Storyteller Reminds Us

Change The Focus Of The Eye. When You Have Done That, Then The End Of The World As You Formerly Knew It Will Have Occurred, And You Will Experience The Radiance Of The Divine Presence Everywhere, Here And Now.

What Gods Are There, What Gods Have There Ever Been, That Were Not From Man's Imagination?

Mephistopheles, The Machine Man, Can Provide Us With All The Means, And Is Thus Likely To Determine The Aims Of Life As Well. But Of Course The Characteristic Of Faust, Which Makes Him Eligible To Be Saved, Is That He Seeks Aims That Are Not Those Of The Machine.

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

There's Always The Possibility Of A Fiasco. But There's Also The Possibility Of Bliss.

All We Really Want To Do Is Dance.

The Fates Lead Him Who Will; Him Who Won't They Drag.

The Dance Is The Highest Symbol Of Life Itself.

The Adventure Of The Hero Is The Adventure Of Being Alive

I Think That Jean Houston Has Broken Through To A New Understanding Of The Sense And Uses Of Inward-turned Contemplation-a N Understanding That Leaves The Freudian Schools Of Technique And Theory Far Behind. The Accent Is Not On The Curing Of Disease But On The Enlargement, Rather, Of Our Health.

How Does The Ordinary Person Come To The Transcendent? For A Start, I Would Say, Study Poetry. Learn How To Read A Poem. You Need Not Have The Experience To Get The Message, Or At Least Some Indication Of The Message. It May Come Gradually. (92)

Whenever Men Have Looked For Something Solid On Which To Found Their Lives, They Have Chosen Not The Facts In Which The World Abounds, But The Myths Of An Immemorial Imagination.

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.

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.

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