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What If We Choose Not To Do The Things We Are Supposed To Do? The Principal Gain Is A Sense Of An Authentic Act - And An Authentic Life. It May Be A Short One, But It Is An Authentic One, And That's A Lot Better Than Those Short Lives Full Of Boredom. The Principal Loss Is Security. Another Is Respect From The Community. But You Gain The Respect Of Another Community, The One That Is Worth Having The Respect Of.

-Joseph Campbell

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What If We Choose

Joseph Campbell

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What If We Choose Not To Do The Things We Are Supposed To Do? The Principal Gain Is A Sense Of An Authentic Act - And An Authentic Life. It May Be A Short One, But It Is An Authentic One, And That's A Lot Better Than Those Short Lives Full Of Boredom. The Principal Loss Is Security. Another Is Respect From The Community. But You Gain The Respect Of Another Community, The One That Is Worth Having The Respect Of.

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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.

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

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

If We Fix On The Old, We Get Stuck.

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.

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.

Poets And Artists Who Speak Of The Mystery Are Rare.

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

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)

What If We Choose Not To Do The Things We Are Supposed To Do? The Principal Gain Is A Sense Of An Authentic Act - And An Authentic Life. It May Be A Short One, But It Is An Authentic One, And That's A Lot Better Than Those Short Lives Full Of Boredom. The Principal Loss Is Security. Another Is Respect From The Community. But You Gain The Respect Of Another Community, The One That Is Worth Having The Respect Of.

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.

I Don’t Think People Are Really Seeking The Meaning Of Life. I Think We’re Seeking An Experience Of Being Alive…we Want To Feel The Rapture Of Being Alive

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

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

Our True Reality Is In Our Identity And Unity With All Life.

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.

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

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

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.

I Should Have Said, 'follow Your Blisters.'

You Are The Hero Of Your Own Story.

Suspense Novels

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.

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.

This Is An Essential Experience Of Any Mystical Realization. You Die To Your Flesh And Are Born Into Your Spirit. You Identify Yourself With The Consciousness And Life Of Which Your Body Is But The Vehicle. You Die To The Vehicle And Become Identified In Your Consciousness With That Of Which The Vehicle Is But The Carrier. That Is The God.

If You Really Want To Help This World, What You Will Have To Teach Is How To Live In It.

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

When People Get Married Because They Think It's A Long-time Love Affair, They'll Be Divorced Very Soon, Because All Love Affairs End In Disappointment. But Marriage Is A Recognition Of A Spiritual Identity.

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

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

I Don't Need Faith. I Have Experience.

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 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.

A Real Artist Is The One Who Has Learned To Recognize And To Render... The 'radiance' Of All Things As An Epiphany Or Showing Forth Of The Truth.

The Object Becomes Aesthetically Significant When It Becomes Metaphysically Significant.

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

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

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.

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

All Religions Are True But None Are Literal.

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

If You Are To Advance, All Fixed Ideas Must Go.

Eternity Is Not The Hereafter...this Is It. If You Don't Get It Here You Won't Get It Anywhere.

Follow Your Bliss

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

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

Man Was Not Breathed Into The Earth. Man Came Out Of The Earth.

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

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."

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

It Is Within You That The Divine Lives.

Everything Starts With A Story.

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

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

Questing... Is Not An Ego Trip; It Is An Adventure To Bring Into Fulfillment Your Gift To The World, Which Is Yourself.

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

The Usual Marriage In Traditional Cultures Was Arranged For By The Families. It Wasn't A Person-to-person Decision At All. . . . In The Middle Ages, That Was The Kind Of Marriage That Was Sanctified By The Church. And So The Troubadour Idea Of Real Person-to-person Amor Was Very Dangerous. . . . It Is In Direct Contradiction To The Way Of The Church. The Word Amor Spelt Backwards Is Roma, The Roman Catholic Church, Which Was Justifying Marriages That Were Simply Political And Social In Their Character. And So Came This Movement Validating Individual Choice, What I Call Following Your Bliss.

Individual Choice

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.

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?

Modern Romance, Like Greek Tragedy, Celebrates The Mystery Of Dismemberment, Which Is Life In Time. The Happy Ending Is Justly Scorned As A Misrepresentation; For The World, As We Know It, As We Have Seen It, Yields But One Ending: Death, Disintegration, Dismemberment, And The Crucifixion Of Our Heart With The Passing Of The Forms That We Have Loved.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Nothing Can Happen To You That Is Not Positive. Even Though It Looks And Feels At The Moment Like A Negative Crisis, It Is Not. The Crisis Throws You Back, And When You Are Required To Exhibit Strength, It Comes.

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

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.

You've Got To Find The Force Inside You.

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.

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

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.

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.

When We Quit Thinking Primarily About Ourselves And Our Own Self-preservation, We Undergo A Truly Heroic Transformation Of Consciousness.

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

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.

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)

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

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

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

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

The Last Act In The Biography Of The Hero Is That Of The Death Or Departure.

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 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.

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

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

Love Is Exactly As Strong As Life.

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

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

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

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

I Think Of Compassion As The Fundamental Religious Experience And, Unless That Is There, You Have Nothing.

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.

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

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.

It Is The Function Of Art To Carry Us Beyond Speech To Experience.

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

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

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.

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

The Seizure Of Passionate Love Can Be, In Such A Context, Only Illicit, Breaking In Upon The Order Of One's Dutiful Life In Virtue As A Devastating Storm.

The Eternal Principle, Which Never Was Born, Never Will Die: It Is In All Things: It Is In You Now. You Are The Wave On The Face Of The Ocean. When The Wave Is Gone, Is The Water Gone? Has Anything Happened? Nothing Has Happened. It Is A Play, A Game, A Dance.

When You Go Through Life ... It All Seems Accidental At The Time It Is Happening. Then When You Get On In Your 60s Or 70s And Look Back, Your Life Looks Like A Well-planned Novel With A Coherent Theme ... Incidents That Seemed Accidental, Pure Chance, Turn Out To Be Major Elements In The Structuring Of This Novel. Schopenhauer Says, 'who Wrote This Novel? You Did.'

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

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

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

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.

The Experience Of Eternity Right Here And Now, Is The Function Of Life.

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.

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.

In The Orient The Ultimate Divine Mystery Is Sought Beyond All Human Categories Of Thought And Feeling, Beyond Names And Forms, And Absolutely Beyond Any Such Concept As Of A Merciful Or Wrathful Personality, Chooser Of One People Over Another, Comforter Of Folk Who Pray, And Destroyer Of Those Who Do Not. Such Anthropomorphic Attributions Of Human Sentiments And Thoughts To A Mystery Beyond Thought Is-from The Point Of View Of Indian Thought-a Style Of Religion For Children.

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.

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

Sacrificing Yourself

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 Unconscious Sends All Sorts Of Vapors, Odd Beings, Terrors, And Deluding Images Up Into The Mind - Whether In Dream, Broad Daylight, Or Insanity: For The Human Kingdom, Beneath The Floor Of The Comparatively Neat Little Dwelling That We Call Our Consciousness, Goes Down Into Unsuspected Aladdin Caves.

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

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.

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

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

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

Oh My God, Does Art Engender Humanity? It Awakens Your Humanity. But Humanity Has Nothing To Do With Political Theory. Political Theory Is In The Interests Of One Group Of Humanity, Or One Ideal For Humanity. But Humanity-my Heavens, That's What Proper Art Renders. We Have A Paradox. Going Into The Deepest Aspects Of Inner Space Connects You With Something That Is The Most Vital For The Outer Realm.

The Hero, Therefore, Is The Man Or Woman Who Has Been Able To Battle Past His Personal And Local Historical Limitations.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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

The Night Of December 25, To Which Date The Nativity Of Christ Was Ultimately Assigned, Was Exactly That Of The Birth Of The Persian Savior Mithra, Who, As An Incarnation Of Eternal Light, Was Born The Night Of The Winter Solstice (then Dated December 25) At Midnight, The Instant Of The Turn Of The Year From Increasing Darkness To Light.

Seek To Know The Power That Is Within You.

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.

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

Regrets Are Illuminations Come Too Late.

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

What Is The Cause, Though, Of The Growth Of An Acorn? The Oak That Is To Come! What Is To Happen In The Future Is Then The Cause Of What Is Occurring Now; And, At The Same Time, What Occurred In The Past Is Also The Cause Of What Is Happening Now. In Addition, A Great Number Of Things Round About, On Every Side, Are Causing What Is Happening Now. Everything, All The Time, Is Causing Everything Else

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 Hero, Whether God Or Goddess, Man Or Woman, The Figure In A Myth Or The Dreamer Of A Dream Discovers And Assimilates His Opposite (his Own Unsuspected Self) Either By Swallowing It Or By Being Swallowed.

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

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

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 Ground Of Being Is The Ground Of Our Being, And When We Simply Turn Outward, We See All Of These Little Problems Here And There. But, If We Look Inward, We See That We Are The Source Of Them All.

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

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

Marriage Is Not A Simple Love Affair, It's An Ordeal, And The Ordeal Is The Sacrifice Of Ego To A Relationship In Which Two Have Become One.

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

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

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

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

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

Every Story You Tell Is Your Own Story.

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

The Process Of Nature Cannot Be Evil.

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

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

Men Sometimes Confess They Love War Because It Puts Them In Touch With The Experience Of Being Alive. In Going To The Office Every Day, You Don't Get That Experience, But Suddenly In War, You Are Ripped Back Into Being Alive. Life Is Pain; Life Is Suffering; And Life Is Horror - But, By God, You Are Alive.

When You Are Required To Exhibit Strength, It Comes.

Religon Is Misunderstood Mythology

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

What Is The Meaning Of Life

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

He Must Put Aside His Pride, His Virtue, Beauty And Life And Bow Or Submit To The Absolutely Intolerable.

Passion Will Move Men Beyond Themselves, Beyond Their Shortcomings, Beyond Their Failures.

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)

The Sin Of Inadvertence, Not Being Alert, Not Quite Awake, Is The Sin Of Missing The Moment Of Life-live With Unremitting Alertness.

When We Talk About Settling The World's Problems, We're Barking Up The Wrong Tree. The World Is Perfect. It's A Mess. It Has Always Been A Mess. We're Not Going To Change It. Our Job Is To Straighten Out Our Own Lives.

The Big Question Is Whether You Are Going To Be Able To Say A Hearty Yes To Your Adventure.

Where Is Your Bliss Station? You Have To Try To Find It.

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.

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

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

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.

We Are Having Experiences All The Time Which May On Occasion Render Some Sense Of This, A Little Intuition Of Where Your Bliss Is. Grab It. No One Can Tell You What It Is Going To Be. You Have To Learn To Recognize Your Own Depth.

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.

The Job Of An Educator Is To Teach Students To See Vitality In Themselves

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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