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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.

-Joseph Campbell

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Sometimes The Serpent Is

Joseph Campbell

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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.

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

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Truth Is One, The Sages Speak Of It By Many Names.

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.

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.

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The Conquest Of Fear Yields The Courage Of Life. That Is The Cardinal Initiation Of Every Heroic Adventure-- Fearlessness And Achievement.

To Find Your Own Way Is To Follow Your Bliss.

Follow Your Bliss

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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.

The Fates Guide Those Who Will And Drag Those Who Won't!

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.

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

Love Is Exactly As Strong As Life.

I Always Feel Uncomfortable When People Speak About Ordinary Mortals Because I've Never Met An Ordinary Man, Woman Or Child.

If You Have A Sacred Place And Use It, Take Advantage Of It, Something Will Happen.

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

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.

The Call To Adventure Signifies That Destiny Has Summoned The Hero.

[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...

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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.

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.

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.

The Influence Of A Vital Being Vitalizes.

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

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Man Actually Needs The Striving And Struggling For Some Goal Worthy Of Him.

Follow Your Bliss And The Universe Will Open Doors Where There Were Only Walls.

I Should Have Said, 'follow Your Blisters.'

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.

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

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

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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.

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.

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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.

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)

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.

In One Of The Upanishads It Says, When The Glow Of A Sunset Holds You And You Say 'aha,' That Is The Recognition Of The Divinity. And When You Say 'aha' To An Art Object, That Is A Recognition Of Divinity. And What Divinity Is It? It Is Your Divinity, Which Is The Only Divinity There Is. We Are All Phenomenal Manifestations Of A Divine Will To Live, And That Will And The Consciousness Of Life Is One In All Of Us, And That Is What Artwork Expresses.

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

One Of The Great Disadvantages Of A Literary Or Scriptural Tradition Like The Biblical One Is That A Deity Or Context Of Deities Becomes Crystallized, Petrified At A Certain Time And Place. The Deity Doesn’t Continue To Grow, Expand, Or Take Into Account New Cultural Forces And New Realizations In The Sciences, And The Result Is This Make-believe Conflict We Have In Our Culture Between Science And Religion.

Myths Are Public Dreams, Dreams Are Private Myths. We Must Be Willing To Get Rid Of The Life We Planned, So As To Have The Life That Is Waiting For Us. I Have Bought This Wonderful Machine — A Computer ... It Seems To Me To Be An Old Testament God, With A Lot Of Rules And No Mercy.

Life Has No Meaning. Each Of Us Has Meaning And We Bring It To Life. It Is A Waste To Be Asking The Question When You Are The Answer.

Self Improvement

Meaning Of Life

Awe Is What Moves Us Forward.

I Think Of Mythology As A Function Of Biology; The Energies Of The Body Are The Energies That Move The Imagination. These Energies Are The Source, Then, Of Mythological Imagery; In A Mythological Organization Of Symbols, The Conflicts Between The Different Organic Impulses Within The Body Are Resolved And Harmonized. You Might Say Mythology Is A Formula For The Harmonization Of The Energies Of Life.

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

The Courage To Face The Trials And To Bring A Whole New Body Of Possibilities Into The Field Of Interpreted Experience For Other People To Experience - That Is The Hero's Deed.

We Are The Consciousness Of The Earth. We Are The Eyes Of The Earth. The Voice Of The Earth.

Participate Joyfully In The Sorrows Of The World. We Cannot Cure The World Of Sorrows, But We Can Choose To Live In Joy.

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.

If We Fix On The Old, We Get Stuck.

If You Want The Whole Thing, The Gods Will Give It To You. But You Must Be Ready For It.

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 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.

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Your Sacred Space Is Where You Can Find Yourself Again And Again.

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

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

And That Aha! That You Get When You See An Artwork That Really Hits You Is, 'i Am That.' I Am The Very Radiance Of Energy That Is Talking To Me Through This Painting.

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.

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

What We're Learning In Our Schools Is Not The Wisdom Of Life. We're Learning Technologies, We're Getting Information. There's A Curious Reluctance On The Part Of Faculties To Indicate The Life Values Of Their Subjects.

Nietzsche Was The One Who Did The Job For Me. At A Certain Moment In His Life, The Idea Came To Him Of What He Called "the Love Of Your Fate." Whatever Your Fate Is, Whatever The Hell Happens, You Say, "this Is What I Need." It May Look Like A Wreck, But Go At It As Though It Were An Opportunity, A Challenge. If You Bring Love To That Moment-not Discouragement-you Will Find The Strength Is There. Any Disaster You Can Survive Is An Improvement In Your Character, Your Stature, And Your Life. What A Privilege! This Is When The Spontaneity Of Your Own Nature Will Have A Chance To Flow.

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.

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

Everything Starts With A Story.

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.

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

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.

[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)

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

Unfortunate Things

When Before The Beauty Of A Sunset Or A Mountain, You Pause And Exclaim, 'ah,' You Are Participating In Divinity.

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 Importance Of The End Of Time Is As ... A Psychological Event ... When You Have Seen The Radiance Of Eternity Through All The Forms Of Time ... And It Is The Function Of Art To Make That Visible To You ... Then You Have Really Have Ended Life In The World As It Is Lived By Those Who Only Think Only In The Historical, Concretizing Terms. This Is The Function Of Mythology.

Art Is The Clothing Of A Revelation

The Modern Hero-deed Must Be That Of Questing To Bring To Light Again The Lost Atlantis Of The Co-ordinated Soul.

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

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)

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.

When People Find Out What It Is That's Ticking In Them, They Get Straightened Out.

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

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

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.

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

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

Nothing Is Exciting If You Know What The Outcome Is Going To Be.

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.

The Dark Night Of The Soul Comes Just Before Revelation.

If You Can See Your Path Clearly In Front Of You, It's Probably Someone Else's.

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.

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

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.

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

Knowing Who You Are

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

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

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

The Function Of The Artist Is The Mythologization Of The Culture And The World. In The Visual Arts There Were Two Men Whose Work Handled Mythological Themes In A Marvelous Way: Paul Klee And Pablo Picasso.

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