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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.

-Joseph Campbell

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This Death To The

Joseph Campbell

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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.

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Life Is Without Meaning. You Bring The Meaning To It.

What Is The Meaning Of Life

The Ultimate Dreamer Is Vishnu Floating On The Cosmic Milky Ocean, Couched Upon The Coils Of The Abyssal Serpent Ananta, The Meaning Of Whose Name Is Unending. In The Foreground Stand The Five Pandava Brothers, Heroes Of The Epic Mahabharata, With Draupadi, Their Wife: Allegorically, She Is The Mind And They Are The Five Senses.

The Myths And Folk Tales Of The Whole World Make Clear That The Refusal Is Essentially A Refusal To Give Up What One Takes To Be One's Own Interest. The Future Is Regarded Not In Terms Of An Unremitting Series Of Deaths And Births, But As Though One's Present System Of Ideals, Virtues, Goals, And Advantages Were To Be Fixed And Made Secure.

All We Really Want To Do Is Dance.

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

A Temple Is A Landscape Of The Soul.

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.

The Idea Of The Bodhisattva Is The One Who Out Of His Realization Of Transcendence Participates In The World. The Imitation Of Christ Is Joyful Participation In The Sorrows Of The World.

Seek To Know The Power That Is Within You.

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.

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.

The Privilege Of A Lifetime Is Beingwho You Are.the Goal Of The Hero Tripdown To The Jewel Pointis To Find Those Levels In The Psychethat Open, Open, Openand Finally Open To The Mystery Of Your Selfbeing Buddha Consciousnessor The Christ.that's The Journey.

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.

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

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

So I Think The Guru Can Be A Delusion. But Everything Can Be Deluding. The Thing Central About The Guru In The West Is That He Represents An Alien Principle Of The Spirit, Namely, That You Don't Follow Your Own Path; You Follow A Given Path. And That's Totaly Contrary To The Western Spirit! Our Spirituality Is Of The Individual Quest, Individual Realization- Authenticity In Your Life Out Of Your Own Center. So You Must Take The Message Of The East, Assimilate It To Your Own Dimension And To Your Own Thrust Of Life, And Not Get Pulled Off Track.

My Writing Is Of A Very Different Kind From Anything I've Heard About. All This Mythological Material Is Out There, A Big Gathering Of Stuff, And I Have Been Reading It For Some Forty- Or Fifty-odd Years. There Are Various Ways Of Handling That. The Most Common Is To Put The Material Together And Publish A Scholarly Book About It. But When I'm Writing, I Try To Get A Sense Of An Experiential Relationship To The Material. In Fact, I Can't Write Unless That Happens ... I Don't Write Unless The Stuff Is Really Working On Me, And My Selection Of Material Depends On What Works.

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.

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.

If You Go To A Master To Study And Learn The Techniques, You Diligently Follow All The Instructions The Master Puts Upon You. But Then Comes The Time For Using The Rules In Your Own Way And Not Being Bound By Them....you Can Actually Forget The Rules Because They Have Been Assimilated. You Are An Artist. Your Own Innocence Now Is Of One Who Has Become An Artist, Who Has Been, As It Were, Transmuted.... You Can't Have Creativity Unless You Leave Behind The Bounded, The Fixed, All The Rules.

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

The Adventure Of The Hero Is The Adventure Of Being Alive

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.

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.

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

Religon Is Misunderstood Mythology

All Babies Are Buddha Babies.

The Actual Point In Question, Throughout The Centuries Of Christian Persecution, Has Never Been Faith In God, But Faith In The Bible As The Word Of God, And In The Church (this Church Or That) As The Interpreter Of That Word.

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

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.

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.

It Is Not Society Which Is To Guide And Save The Creative Hero, But Precisely The Reverse.

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.

You Have To Learn To Recognize Your Own Depth.

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

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

In The Field Of Consciousness Research-and Also In Physics And Astronomy-we Are Breaking Past The Cause-and-effect, Mechanistic Way Of Interpreting Things. In The Biological Sciences, There Is A Vitalism Coming In That Goes Much Further Toward Positing A Common Universal Consciousness Of Which Our Brain Is Simply An Organ. Consciousness Does Not Come From The Brain. The Brain Is An Organ Of Consciousness. It Focuses Consciousness And Pulls It In And Directs It Through A Time And Space Field. But The Antecedent Of That Is The Universal Consciousness Of Which We Are All Just A Part.

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

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

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.

What's Made Up In The Head Is The Fiction. What Comes Out Of The Heart Is A Myth.

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

Following Your Own Path

Where You Stumble, There Lies Your Treasure. The Very Cave You Are Afraid To Enter Turns Out To Be The Source Of What You Are Looking For. The Damned Thing In The Cave That Was So Dreaded Has Become The Center.

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.

Shakespeare Said That Art Is A Mirror Held Up To Nature. And That’s What It Is. The Nature Is Your Nature, And All Of These Wonderful Poetic Images Of Mythology Are Referring To Something In You. When Your Mind Is Trapped By The Image Out There So That You Never Make The Reference To Yourself, You Have Misread The Image.

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.

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

We Save The World By Being Alive Ourselves.

The Dance Is The Highest Symbol Of Life Itself.

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.

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The Garden Is A Metaphor For The Following: Our Minds, And Our Thinking In Terms Of Pairs Of Opposites--man And Woman, Good And Evil--are As Holy As That Of A God. (50)

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

You Are The Hero Of Your Own Story.

Suspense Novels

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.

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.

Everything Starts With A Story.

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

There Is No Security In Following The Call To Adventure.

We Must Let Go Of The Life We Have Planned, So As To Accept The One That Is Waiting For Us.

Poetry Comes Out Of An Elite Experience, The Experience Of People Whose Ears Are Opened To The Song Of The Universe.

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.

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.

Opportunities To Find Deeper Powers Within Ourselves Come When Life Seems Most Challenging.

The Black Moment Is The Moment When The Real Message Of Transformation Is Going To Come. At The Darkest Moment Comes The Light.

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.

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

And So Galahad Decided That It Would Be A Disgrace To Set Off On A Quest With The Other Knights. Alone He Would Enter The Dark Forest Where There Was No Path. This Is The Myth Of The Hero's Journey.

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.

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

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.

The Psychotic Drowns In The Same Waters In Which The Mystic Swims With Delight.

One Cannot Predict The Next Mythology Any More Than One Can Predict Tonight's Dream; For A Mythology Is Not An Ideology. It Is Not Something Projected From The Brain, But Something Experienced From The Heart, From Recognition Of Identities Behind Or Within The Appearances Of Nature, Perceiving With Love A 'thou' Where There Would Otherwise Have Been Only An 'it.'

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

If The Path Before You Is Clear, You're Probably On Someone Else's.

Every Act Has Both Good And Evil Results. The Best We Can Do Is Lean To The Light.

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.

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

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.

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

When You Are Falling --- Dive!

The Mind Of Man, Cleansed Of Secondary And Merely Temporal Concerns, Beholds With The Radiance Of A Cleansed Mirror A Reflection Of The Rational Mind Of God.

All Life Stinks And You Must Embrace That With Compassion.

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?

The Mighty Hero Of Extraordinary Powers, Able To Lift Mount Govardhan On A Finger, And To Fill Himself With The Terrible Glory Of The Universe, Is Each Of Us: Not The Physical Self Visible In The Mirror, But The King Within.

At The Darkest Moment Comes The Light.

You've Got To Find The Force Inside You.

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.

When You No Longer Are Compelled By Desire And Fear . . . When You Have Seen The Radiance In Eternity From All Forms Of Time . . . When You Follow Your Bliss . . . Doors Will Open Where You Would Not Have Thought There Were Doors . . . And The World Will Step In And Help.

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

Christianity Isn’t Moving People’s Lives Today. What’s Moving People’s Lives Is The Stock Market And The Baseball Scores. What Are People Excited About? It’s A Totally Materialistic Level That Has Taken Over The World. There Isn’t Even An Ideal That Anybody’s Fighting For.

[m]yths Are Not Invented As Stories Are. Myths Are Inspired-they Really Are. They Come From The Same Realm That Dream Comes From.

For When The Heart Insists On Its Destiny, Resisting The General Blandishment, Then The Agony Is Great; So Too The Danger. Forces, However, Will Have Been Set In Motion Beyond The Reckoning Of The Senses. Sequences Of Events From The Corners Of The World Will Draw Gradually Together, And Miracles Of Coincidence Bring The Inevitable To Pass.

...suddenly You Hit On Something That The Student Really Responds To, You Can See The Eyes Open And The Complexion Change. The Life Possibility Has Opened There. All You Can Say To Yourself Is, "i Hope This Child Hangs On To That."

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

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.

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?

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.

Eternity Is Not Future Or Past. Eternity Is A Dimension Of Now.

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.

Opportunities To Find Deeper Powers Within Ourselves Come When Life Seems Most Challenging. Negativism To The Pain And Ferocity Of Life Is Negativism To Life. We Are Not There Until We Can Say 'yea' To It All.

We're All Seeking...the Rapture Of Being Alive.

What You Have To Do, You Do With Play. The Universe Is God’s Play.

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

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)

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

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

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.

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

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.

Life Is Not A Problem To Be Solved But A Mystery To Be Lived. Follow The Path That Is No Path, Follow Your Bliss.

There Are Something Like 18 Billion Cells In The Brain Alone. There Are No Two Brains Alike; There Are No Two Hands Alike; There Are No Two Human Beings Alike. You Can Take Your Instructions And Your Guidance From Others, But You Must Find Your Own Path.

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.

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.

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.

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?'

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.

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

Now, When Luke Skywalker Unmasks His Father, He Is Taking Off The Machine Role That The Father Has Played. The Father Was The Uniform. That Is Power, The State Role.

You Become Mature When You Become The Authority Of Your Own Life.

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

The Adventure Evoked A Quality Of His Character That He Didn't Know He Possessed.

The God You Worship Is The One You're Capable Of Becoming.

Essentially, Mythologies Are Enormous Poems That Are Renditions Of Insights, Giving Some Sense Of The Marvel, The Miracle And Wonder Of Life.

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

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. -

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

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.

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

The Influence Of A Vital Being Vitalizes.

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

Perhaps Some Of Us Have To Go Through Dark And Devious Ways Before We Can Find The River Of Peace Or The Highroad To The Soul's Destination.

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)

Participate Joyfully In The Sorrows Of Life

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.

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.

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

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

In Meditating, Meditate On Your Own Divinity. The Goal Of Life Is To Be A Vehicle For Something Higher. Keep Your Eyes Up There Between The World Of Opposites Watching Your 'play' In The World.let The World Be As It Is And Learn To Rock With The Waves.

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?

Your Life Is The Fruit Of Your Own Doing. You Have No One To Blame But Yourself.

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 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.

First You Must Find Your Trajectory, And Then Comes The Social Coordination.

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.

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.

It [music] Has An Awakening Function. Life Is A Rhythm. Art Is An Organization Of Rhythms. Music Is A Fundamental Art That Touches Our Will System. In Schopenhauer's The World As Will And Idea He Speaks Of Music As The Sound That Awakens The Will. The Rhythm Of The Music Awakens Certain Life Rhythms, Ways Of Living And Experiencing Life. So It's An Awakener Of Life.

The Myth Is The Public Dream And The Dream Is The Private Myth.

God Is A Metaphor For That Which Transcends All Levels Of Intellectual Thought. It's As Simple As That.

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.

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.

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

There Is No Make-believe About Heaven, Future Bliss, And Compensation, To Alleviate The Bitter Majesty, But Only Utter Darkness, The Void Of Unfulfillment, To Receive And Eat Back The Lives That Have Been Tossed Forth From The Womb Only To Fail.

Every People Is A Chosen People In Its Own Mind. And It Is Rather Amusing That Their Name For Themselves Usually Means Mankind.

You Must Have A Room, Or A Certain Hour Or So A Day, Where You Don’t Know What Was In The Newspapers That Morning, You Don’t Know Who Your Friends Are, You Don’t Know What You Owe Anybody, You Don’t Know What Anybody Owes To You. This Is A Place Where You Can Simply Experience And Bring Forth What You Are And What You Might Be. This Is The Place Of Creative Incubation. At First You May Find That Nothing Happens There. But If You Have A Sacred Place And Use It, Something Eventually Will Happen.

He Who Thinks He Knows, Doesn't Know. He Who Knows That He Doesn't Know, Knows.

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 Two Greatest Works Of War Mythology In The West ... Are The Iliad And The Old Testament... When We Turn From The Iliad And Athens To Jerusalem And The Old Testament We Find A Single-minded Single Deity With His Sympathies Forever On One Side. And The Enemy, Accordingly, No Matter Who It May Be, Is Handled... Pretty Much As Though He Were Subhuman: Not A "thou" But An "it."

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

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.

Is The God The Source, Or Is The God A Human Manner Of Conceiving Of The Force And Energy That Supports The World? In Our Tradition God Is A Male. This Male And Female Differentiation Is Made, However, Within The Field Of Time And Space, The Field Of Duality. If God Is Beyond Duality, You Cannot Say That God Is A "he." You Cannot Say God Is A "she." You Cannot Say God Is An "it." (18)

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

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.

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.

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. The Objective World Remains What It Was, But, Because Of A Shift Of Emphasis Within The Subject, Is Beheld As Though Transformed. Where Formerly Life And Death Contended, Now Enduring Being Is Made Manifest-as Indifferent To The Accidents Of Time As Water Boiling In A Pot Is To The Destiny Of A Bubble, Or As The Cosmos To The Appearance And Disappearance Of A Galaxy Of Stars.

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.

Love Is Perfect Kindness.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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?'

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

A One Sentence Definition Of Mythology? Mythology Is What We Call Someone Else's Religion.

The First Step To The Knowledge Of The Wonder And Mystery Of Life Is The Recognition Of The Monstrous Nature Of The Earthly Human Realm As Well As Its Glory, The Realization That This Is Just How It Is And That It Cannot And Will Not Be Changed. Those Who Think They Know How The Universe Could Have Been Had They Created It, Without Pain, Without Sorrow, Without Time, Without Death, Are Unfit For Illumination.

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.

How Do You Find The Divine Power In Yourself? The Word Enthusiasm Means 'filled With A God,' So What Makes You Enthusiastic? Follow It. So I Have A Little Word: Follow Your Bliss. The Bliss Is The Message Of God To Yourself. That's Where Your Life Is.

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)

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

If You Do Follow Your Bliss You Put Yourself On A Kind Of Track That Has Been There All The While, Waiting For You, And The Life That You Ought To Be Living Is The One You Are Living... Follow Your Bliss And Don't Be Afraid, And Doors Will Open Where You Didn't Know They Were Going To Be.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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)

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 Passage Of The Mythological Hero May Be Over Ground, Incidentally; Fundamentally It Is Inward--into Depths Where Obscure Resistances Are Overcome, And Long Lost, Forgotten Powers Are Revivified, To Be Made Available For The Transfiguration Of The World.

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

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

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

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.

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