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Your Adventure Has To Be Coming Out Of Your Own Interior. If You Are Ready For It Then Doors Will Open Where There Were No Doors Before, And Where There Would Not Be Doors For Anyone Else. And You Must Have Courage. It's The Call To Adventure, Which Means There Is No Security, No Rules.

-Joseph Campbell

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Your Adventure Has To

Joseph Campbell

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Your Adventure Has To Be Coming Out Of Your Own Interior. If You Are Ready For It Then Doors Will Open Where There Were No Doors Before, And Where There Would Not Be Doors For Anyone Else. And You Must Have Courage. It's The Call To Adventure, Which Means There Is No Security, No Rules.

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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.

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

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.

The Influence Of A Vital Being Vitalizes.

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

If We Fix On The Old, We Get Stuck.

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.

People Forget Facts, But They Remember Stories.

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

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.

But The Makers Of Legend Have Seldom Rested Content To Regard The World's Great Heroes As Mere Human Beings Who Broke Past The Horizons That Limited Their Fellows And Returned Such Boons As Any Man With Equal Faith And Courage Might Have Found.

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

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.

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.

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.

Thinking In Mythological Terms Helps To Put You In Accord With The Inevitables Of This Vale Of Tears. You Learn To Recognize The Positive Values In What Appear To Be The Negative Moments And Aspects Of Your Life. The Big Question Is Whether You Are Going To Be Able To Say A Hearty Yes To Your Adventure.

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.

There Is Perhaps Nothing Worse Than Reaching The Top Of The Ladder And Discovering That You’re On The Wrong Wall.

Reaching The Top

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

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 World Is Full Of People Who Have Stopped Listening To Themselves Or Have Listened Only To Their Neighbors To Learn What They Ought To Do, How They Ought To Behave, And What The Values Are They Should Be Living For.

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

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

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 A Place Where You Can Simply Experience And Bring Forth What You Are And What You Might Be.

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.

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."

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

In The Older View The Goddess Universe Was Alive, Herself Organically The Earth, The Horizon, And The Heavens. Now She Is Dead, And The Universe Is Not An Organism, But A Building, With Gods At Rest In It In Luxury: Not As Personifications Of The Energies In Their Manners Of Operation, But As Luxury Tenants, Requiring Service. And Man, Accordingly, Is Not As A Child Born To Flower In The Knowledge Of His Own Eternal Portion But As A Robot Fashioned To Serve.

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

You Have To Have A Feeling For Where You Are. You've Got Only One Life To Live And You Don't Have To Live It For Six People. Pay Attention To It.

Do What Gives You Bliss.

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

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.

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

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.

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

There Are Now No More Horizons. And With The Dissolution Of Horizons We Have Experienced And Are Experiencing Collisions, Terrific Collisions, Not Only Of Peoples But Also Of Their Mythologies. It Is As When Dividing Panels Are Withdrawn From Between Chambers Of Very Hot And Very Cold Airs: There Is A Rush Of These Forces Together.

To Find Your Own Way Is To Follow Your Bliss.

Follow Your Bliss

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 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.

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

Knowing Who You Are

Quotation Marks

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Awe Is What Moves Us Forward.

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

Don't Do Anything That Isn't Play

Nonviolent Communication

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

What Is The Meaning Of Life

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.

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

When You Are On Your Path, And It Is Truly Your Path, Doors Will Open For You Where There Were No Doors For Someone Else.

The Old Skin Has To Be Shed Before The New One Can Come.

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

An Old Apache Storyteller Reminds Us

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

There Is A God Inside My Pc. An Old-testament God With Lots Of Arbitrary Rules And Utterly No Mercy.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

The Ultimate Aim Of The Quest Must Be Neither Release Nor Ecstasy For Oneself, But The Wisdom And The Power To Serve Others.

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

Their Task [creative Artists], Therefore, Is To Communicate Directly From One Inward World To Another, In Such A Way That An Actual Shock Of Experience Will Have Been Rendered: Not A Mere Statement For The Information Or Persuasion Of A Brain, But An Effective Communication Across The Void Of Space And Time From One Center Of Consciousness To Another.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Economics And Politics Are The Governing Powers Of Life Today, And That's Why Everything Is So Screwy.

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.

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

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.

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.

Love Is Exactly As Strong As Life.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

We Have Today To Learn To Get Back Into Accord With The Wisdom Of Nature And Realize Again Our Brotherhood With The Animals And With The Water And The Sea.

All Religions Are True But None Are Literal.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Behind All These Manifestations Is The One Radiance, Which Shines Through All Things. The Function Of Art Is To Reveal This Radiance Through The Created Object.

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

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

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

Half The People In The World Think That The Metaphors Of Their Religious Traditions, For Example, Are Facts. And The Other Half Contends That They Are Not Facts At All. As A Result We Have People Who Consider Themselves Believers Because They Accept Metaphors As Facts, And We Have Others Who Classify Themselves As Atheists Because They Think Religious Metaphors Are Lies.

Life Is Like Arriving Late For A Movie, Having To Figure Out What Was Going On Without Bothering Everybody With A Lot Of Questions, And Then Being Unexpectedly Called Away Before You Find Out How It Ends.

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)

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'.

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

All Life Stinks And You Must Embrace That With Compassion.

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

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.

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.

Follow Your Bliss. The Heroic Life Is Living The Individual Adventure.

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)

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?

We Are Kept Out Of The Garden By Our Own Fear And Desire In Relation To What We Think To Be The Goods Of Our Life.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Life Is A Guy Trying To Play A Violin Solo In Public, While Learning The Music And His Instrument At The Same Time.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

......the Interesting Thing Was That The Roman Catholic Monks And The Buddhist Monks Had No Trouble Understanding Each Other. Each Of Them Was Seeking The Same Experience And Knew That The Experience Was Incommunicable. The Communication Is Only An Effort To Bring The Hearer To The Edge Of The Abyss; It Is A Signpost, Not The Thing Itself. But The Secular Clergy Reads The Communication And Gets Stuck With The Letter, And That's Where You Have The Conflict.

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

I Don't Have Faith, I Have Experience.

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

The Best Things Cannot Be Told Because They Transcend Thought. The Second Best Are Misunderstood Because They Are The Thoughts That Are Supposed To Refer To That Which Cannot Be Thought About. The Third Best Are What We Talk About.

We 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.

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.

Everything Starts With A Story.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Myth Is Much More Important And True Than History. History Is Just Journalism And You Know How Reliable That Is.

Myths Are Public Dreams, Dreams Are Private Myths.

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 Images Of Myth Are Reflections Of Spiritual And Depth Potentialities Of Every One Of Us. Through Contemplating Those We Evoke Those Powers In Our Own Lives To Operate Through Ourselves.

There's Something Inside You That Knows When You're In The Center, That Knows When You're On The Beam Or Off The Beam. And If You Get Off The Beam To Earn Money, You've Lost Your Life. And If You Stay In The Center And Don't Get Any Money, You Still Have Your Bliss.

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

The Adventure Of The Hero Is The Adventure Of Being Alive

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 Object Becomes Aesthetically Significant When It Becomes Metaphysically Significant.

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.

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.

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

The Insecure Way Is The Secure Way.

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

The 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.

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.

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

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

Self Improvement

Meaning Of Life

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

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

Knowing Who You Are

You Are The Hero Of Your Own Story.

Suspense Novels

One Way Or Another, We All Have To Find What Best Fosters The Flowering Of Our Humanity In This Contemporary Life, And Dedicate Ourselves To That.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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