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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.

-Joseph Campbell

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You Know, I Didn't

Joseph Campbell

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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.

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Do What Gives You Bliss.

When You Translate The Bible With Excessive Literalism, You Demythologize It. The Possibility Of A Convincing Reference To The Individual's Own Spiritual Experience Is Lost. (111)

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.

Instead Of Clearing His Own Heart The Zealot Tries To Clear The World.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Follow Your Bliss

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.

Our Life Evokes Our Character And You Find Out More About Yourself As You Go On.

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

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

For Those In Whom A Local Mythology Still Works, There Is An Experience Both Of Accord With The Social Order, And Of Harmony With The Universe. For Those, However, In Whom The Authorized Signs No Longer Work-or, If Working, Produce Deviant Effects-there Follows Inevitably A Sense Both Of Dissociation From The Local Social Nexus And Of Quest, Within And Without, For Life, Which The Brain Will Take To Be For 'meaning'.

I Don't Need Faith. I Have Experience.

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

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

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

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

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

Don't Do Anything That Isn't Play

Nonviolent Communication

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The Concept Of Time Shuts Off Eternity.

Concept Of Time

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Regrets Are Illuminations Come Too Late.

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

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

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

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

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

The Place To Find Is Within Yourself.

Mythology Is Not A Lie, Mythology Is Poetry, It Is Metaphorical. It Has Been Well Said That Mythology Is The Penultimate Truth--penultimate Because The Ultimate Cannot Be Put Into Words. It Is Beyond Words. Beyond Images, Beyond That Bounding Rim Of The Buddhist Wheel Of Becoming. Mythology Pitches The Mind Beyond That Rim, To What Can Be Known But Not Told.

Man Should Not Be In The Service Of Society, Society Should Be In The Service Of Man. When Man Is In The Service Of Society, You Have A Monster State, And That's What Is Threatening The World At This Minute.

The Latest Incarnation Of Oedipus, The Continued Romance Of Beauty And The Beast, Stand This Afternoon On The Corner Of Forty-second Street And Fifth Avenue, Waiting For The Traffic Light To Change.

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 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.

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

The Ultimate Dragon Is Within You, It Is Your Ego Clamping You Down.

Knowing Who You Are

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

What Is The Meaning Of Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Navajo Have That Wonderful Image Of What They Call The Pollen Path. The Navajo Say, 'oh, Beauty Before Me, Beauty Behind Me, Beauty To The Right Of Me, Beauty To The Left Of Me, Beauty Above Me, Beauty Below Me, I'm On The Pollen Path.'

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

If There Were Already A Path, It Would Have To Be Someone Else's; The Whole Point Is To Find Your Own Way.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Vegetarians Are People Who Cannot Hear Tomatos Screaming.

All Life Stinks And You Must Embrace That With Compassion.

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

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

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

There Is A Condescension On The Part Of The Infinite To The Mind Of Man. That Is What Looks Like God.

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

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

The 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.

At The Darkest Moment Comes The Light.

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.

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)

Wars And Temper Tantrums Are The Makeshifts Of Ignorance; Regrets Are Illuminations Come Too Late.

When You Are Falling --- Dive!

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

The Adventure Of The Hero Is The Adventure Of Being Alive

All Men Are Capable Of Reason. That Is The Fundamental Principle Of Democracy Because Everybody's Mind Is Capable Of True Knowledge, You Don't Have To Have A Special Authority, Or A Special Revelation Telling You That This Is The Way Things Should Be.

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.

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.

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

Mind Your Own Business

There Is No Security In Following The Call To Adventure.

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. -

I Think Of Mythology As The Homeland Of The Muses, The Inspirers Of Art, The Inspirers Of Poetry. To See Life As A Poem And Yourself Participating In A Poem Is What The Myth Does For You.

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.

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

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

[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)

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

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.

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

It's A Shame To Waste [the Uniqueness That Is You], By Doing What Someone Else Has Done.

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

The Object Becomes Aesthetically Significant When It Becomes Metaphysically Significant.

The Perfect Human Being Is Uninteresting.

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.

The Dark Night Of The Soul Comes Just Before Revelation.

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

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

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

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

The World Is Full Of People Who Have Stopped Listening To Themselves.

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.

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

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

An Old Apache Storyteller Reminds Us

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

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

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

All The Old Bindings Are Broken. Cosmological Centers Now Are Anywhere And Everywhere. The Earth Is A Heavenly Body, Most Beautiful Of All, And All Poetry Is Now Archaic That Fails To Match The Wonder Of This View.

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

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

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

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

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.

When You Are Required To Exhibit Strength, It Comes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You Don't Have To Believe That There Was A King Arthur To Get The Significance Of Those Stories, But Christians Say We Have To Believe There Was A Christ, Or The Miracles Don't Make Sense.

The Principle Of Compassion Is That Which Converts Disillusionment Into A Participatory Companionship. This Is The Basic Love, The Charity, That Turns A Critic Into A Living Human Being Who Has Something To Give To - As Well As To Demand Of - The World.

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 Person Who Thinks He Has Found The Ultimate Truth Is Wrong.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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 Influence Of A Vital Being Vitalizes.

Any God Who Can Invent Hell Is No Candidate For The Salvation Army

The Insecure Way Is The Secure Way.

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.

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

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

Sacred Space And Sacred Time And Something Joyous To Do Is All We Need. Almost Anything Then Becomes A Continuous And Increasing Joy. What You Have To Do, You Do With Play. I Think A Good Way To Conceive Of Sacred Space Is As A Playground. If What You're Doing Seems Like Play, You Are In It. But You Can't Play With My Toys, You Have To Have Your Own. Your Life Should Have Yielded Some. Older People Play With Life Experiences And Realizations Or With Thoughts They Like To Entertain. In My Case, I Have Books I Like To Read That Don't Lead Anywhere.

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

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)

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

Our Life Has Become So Economic And Practical In Its Orientation That, As You Get Older, The Claims Of The Moment Upon You Are So Great, You Hardly Know Where The Hell You Are, Or What It Is You Intended. You Are Always Doing Something That Is Required Of You. Where Is Your Bliss Station? You Have To Try To Find It.

If We Fix On The Old, We Get Stuck.

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.

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

Could God Exist If Nobody Else Did? No. That’s Why Gods Are Very Avid For Worshipers. If There Is Nobody To Worship Them, There Are No Gods. There Are As Many Gods As There Are People Thinking About God. In Choosing Your God, You Choose Your Way Of Looking At The Universe. There Are Plenty Of Gods. Choose Yours. The God You Worship Is The God You Deserve.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

Love Is Exactly As Strong As Life.

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

The Privilege Of A Lifetime Is Being Who You Are.

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

The Dance Is The Highest Symbol Of Life Itself.

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.

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

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.

It Is Within You That The Divine Lives.

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.

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.

The Process Of Nature Cannot Be Evil.

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 A Person Does Not Listen To The Demands Of Their Own Spiritual And Heart Life And Insists On A Certain Program, You're Going To Have A Schizophrenic Crackup. The Person Has Put Themselves Off Center. They Have Aligned Themselves With A Programmatic Life And It's Not The One The Body Is Interested In At All.

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

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

Follow Your Inner Heart And The World Moves In And Helps.

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.

If You Have The Guts To Follow The Risk...if One Follows What I Call One's "bliss" - The Thing That Really Gets You Deep In The Gut And That You Feel Is Your Life - Doors Will Open Up...if You Follow Your Bliss, You'll Have Your Bliss, Whether You Have Money Or Not.

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

You Have To Learn To Recognize Your Own Depth.

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

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

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

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