Markers on the Path to Personal Authenticity
(Note this page of Michael's is part of a global quotation ring)
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What does personal authenticity actually mean? What is the lived psychological experience of being an authentic person? How are we unauthentic? What steps are involved in becoming more authentic? What challenges face the person who would become his/her own authentic self? These and many other questions about personal authenticity deserve the study of persons who pursue personal growth, for inevitably successful psychological growth requires that each of us encounter and embrace our authentic selves.
For over three decades, I have studied authenticity. The issue is central to my own understanding and practice of psychology and spirituality. Over this period, I have gathered from song, drama, literature, psychology, and contemplative traditions various quotes that mark the understanding of of others who grappled with the issue of living authentically. These quotes shed light on some of the many questions that face the person who would become authentic.
Those quotes are provided below. The quotes are markers, if you will, left by others on the path to an authentic life. They are organized into these topics. You may click on the blue button to jump to the associated topic:
Spiritual Emergency: The Call to the Wilderness of the Authentic Self
Choosing to Be One's Authentic Self: Choosing to Differentiate Self from Given Values and Beliefs
Authenticity and Its Relation to Belief
Autonomy and Authenticity
Dangers Inherent to Autonomy
Human Nature as the Source of Autonomy
Authenticity and Psychological Wholeness
Authenticity and Living as Process
Authenticity Expressed as Following Your Bliss
Authenticity and Will
The Dignity of Being Human
Would you like to share a quote or comment?
Please also feel welcomed to recommend a quotation for inclusion. If possible, although not necessary, please a citation of the source of the quote. You can provide the quote by clicking on this email button:
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Theme: Some are fortunate to be called to an authentic life by nature, upbringing, or good fortune. Many however are called by the psychological pain of an inherently inauthentic life. These pains are messengers, as Rumi notes. Rather than run from them or numb ourselves to them, were we to heed them, then we would be lead to an adventure in self-discovery.
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The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. |
~ Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American writer in Walden
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When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle, Oh it was beautiful, magical. And all the birds in the trees, they’d be singing so happily, Oh joyfully, oh playfully, watching me. But then they sent me away, to teach me how to be sensible, There are times when all the world’s asleep, |
~ Richard Davies & Roger Hodgson of SuperTramp, in the song, Logical Song
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I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, - why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. |
~ The character of Hamlet in Hamlet by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright
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My life had got on the wrong track, and my contact with men had become now a mere soliloquy. I had fallen so low that, if I had to choose between falling in love with a woman and reading a book about love, I should have chosen the book. |
~ The narrator in Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957), Greek author, poet, and philosopher
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The context of the general teachings is one of talking to a sentient being who is experiencing uninterrupted bewilderment - one thought or emotion after another like the surface of the ocean in turmoil, without any recognition of mind essence. This confusion is continuous, without almost any break, life after life. |
~ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (1920-1995), Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen Master, in As It Is, Vol. II
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Confucius will deck things out in feathers and paint, and conduct his affairs with flowery phrases, mistaking side issues for the crux. He is willing to distort his inborn nature in order to make himself a model for the people, not even realizing that he is acting in bad faith. |
~ Chuang Tzu (399 BC-295 BC), Chinese philosopher, quoted in Crazy Wisdom by Wes Nisker
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"The same thing's happening to you as happened to the crow."
"What happened to the crow, Zorba?" "Well, you see, he used to walk respectably, properly - well, like a crow. But one day he got it into his head to try and strut about like a pigeon. And from that time on the poor fellow couldn't for the life of him recall his own way of walking. He was all mixed up, don't you see? He just hobbled about." |
~ The character of Zorba in Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957), Greek author, poet, and philosopher
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No man . can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true. |
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), American Author, in The Scarlet Letter
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Similarly, in Christianity, Christ is an exemplar who dwells in every Christian as his integral personality. But historical trends lead to the imitatio Christi whereby the individual does not pursue his own destined road to wholeness, but attempts to imitate the way taken by Christ. |
~ Carl Jung (1875-1961), Swiss depth psychologist, in Memories, Dreams, Reflections
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The call at the beginning is a vague, almost imperceptible and mysterious flame. It shows itself as a questioning of the disharmony you live in. It is your disharmony, as you experience it. It is your own questioning. And it is your personal yearning. |
~ A.H. Almaas (1944-present), Kuwait-born psychologist and philosopher, in Essence: The Diamond Approach to Inner Realization
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These pains that you feel are messengers. Listen to them. Turn them to sweetness. The night is almost over. You were young once, and content. Now you think about money all the time. You used to be that money. You were a healthy vine. Now you're a rotten fruit. You ought to be growing sweeter and sweeter, but you've gone bad. |
~ Jellal ed-Din Rumi (1207-1273), Sufi poet, From "A Man and a Woman Arguing," in The Essential Rumi
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O air-borne voice! long since, severely clear, A cry like thine in my own heart I hear: "Resolve to be thyself; and know that he, Who finds himself, loses his misery!" |
~ Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), American poet, in Self Dependence
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Theme: Some persons will respond to the call of spiritual emergency by resolving to become their authentic selves. The person who does so initiates a psychological process that tends increasingly to differentiate herself from the values and beliefs bestowed her by the happenstance of social and cultural conditioning. Relative to the community of shared values and beliefs that she previously knew, she has metaphorically exiled herself into the isolation of the wilderness of her own undiscovered self. There she will thread her way by distinguishing between the values and beliefs given her by society and those of her own nature and choosing.
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I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints. |
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American author, poet, and philosopher, in Self Reliance
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There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. |
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American author, poet, and philosopher, in Self-Reliance
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On one or on several occasions in the course of their lives, even the most harmless people do not altogether escape coming into conflict with the fine virtues of piety and gratitude. Sooner or later each of us must take the step that separates him from his father, from his mentors; each of us must have some cruelly lonely experience--even if most people cannot take much of this and soon crawl back. |
~ The character of Demian, in Demian, by Herman Hesse (1877-1962), German author
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We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness, which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. |
~ Marcel Proust (1871-1922), French novelist
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I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference |
~ Robert Frost (1874-1963), American poet, in The Road Not Taken
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Conscientious - so call I him who goeth into god-forsaken wildernesses, and hath broken his venerating heart....
Hungry, fierce, lonesome, god-forsaken: so doth the lion will wish itself.
Free from the happiness of slaves, redeemed from deities and adorations, fearless and fear-inspiring, grand and lonesome: so is the will of the conscientious.
In the wilderness have ever dwelt the conscientious, the free spirits as lords of the wilderness; but in the cities dwell the well-foddered, famous wise ones - the draught beasts.
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~ The character of Zarathustra in Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher
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The Philosophy of that law in Nature, which implants in man as well as in every beast a passionate, inherent, and instinctive desire for freedom and self-guidance, pertains to psychology and cannot be touched on now .. Perhaps the best synthesis of this feeling is found in three lines in Milton's Paradise Lost. Says the "Fallen One": -
"Here we may reign secure; and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell! Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven ...." Better be man, the crown of terrestrial production and king over its opus operatum, than be lost among the will-less spiritual Host in Heaven. |
~ H. P. Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian occultist and co-founder of the Theosophical Society, in The Secret Doctrine
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Each man had only one genuine vocation--to find the way to himself.... His task was to discover his own destiny--not an arbitrary one--and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one's own inwardness. The new vision rose up before me, glimpsed a hundred times, possibly even expressed before but now experienced for the first time by me. I was an experiment on the part of Nature, a gamble within the unknown, perhaps for a new purpose, perhaps for nothing, and my only task was to allow this game on the part of primeval depths to take its course, to feel its will within me and make it wholly mine. That or nothing! |
~ The character of Demian, in Demian, by Herman Hesse (1877-1962), German author
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What struck me when I read that in the thirteenth-century Queste de Saint Graal was that it epitomizes an especially Western spiritual aim and ideal, which is, of living the life that is potential in you and was never in anyone else as a possibility.
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.
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~ Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), American educator and mythologist, in The Power of Myth
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The eighteenth-century German philosopher Johann Herder taught that each person has an original and unique manner of being human. The task is to develop it. According to Nietzsche, a person is known by his "style," that is, by the unique pattern that gives unity and distinctiveness to a person's activities. Style articulates the uniqueness of the self. Rather than fitting one's life into the demands of external conformity, rather than living one's life as an imitation of the life of another, one should look to find the authentic self within. One should labor to develop one's own unique style in crafting one's soul. An individual who denies her own individuality articulates life with a voice other than that which is uniquely her own. A person who suppresses his own self is in danger of missing the point of his own existence, of surrendering what being human means. |
~ Rabbi Byron L. Sherwin, contemporary Jewish theologian, in Crafting the Soul
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The wise Rabbi Bunam once said in old age, when he had already grown blind: "I should not like to change places with our father Abraham! What good would it do God if Abraham became like blind Bunam, and blind Bunam became like Abraham? Rather than have this happen, I think I shall try to become a little more myself."
The same idea was expressed with even greater pregnancy by Rabbi Zusya, when he said a short while before his death: "In the world to come I shall not be asked: 'Why were you not Moses?' I shall be asked: 'Why were you not Zusya?'"
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~ Martin Buber (1878-1965), German philosopher, in The Way of Man
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If a person possesses any tolerable amount of common sense and experience, his own mode of laying out his existence is best, not because it is best in itself, but because it is his own mode. |
~ John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), English philosopher, economist, in Three Essays
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Every man has his own destiny; the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him. |
~ Henry Miller (1891-1980), American author, in The Wisdom of the Heart
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Become him who you are! |
~ Pindar (522 BC-443 BC), Greek Poet, quoted by Hollingdale in Nietzsche
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What the superior man seeks is in himself. What the mean man seeks is in others. |
~ Confucius (551-479 BCE), Chinese philosopher, in The Confucian Analects
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I studiously avoided all so-called "holy men." I did so because I had to make do with my own truth, not accept from others what I could not attain on my own. I would have felt it as a theft had I attempted to learn from the holy men and to accept their truth for myself. Neither in Europe can I make any borrowings from the East, but must shape my life out of myself--out of what my inner being tells me, or what nature brings to me. |
~ Carl Jung (1875-1961), Swiss depth psychologist, in Memories, Dreams, Reflections
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I am not a Federalist, because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all. |
~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-1845), American president, in a Letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
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"Why not let me be anything? Why should I try to be so religious?"
"I said nothing about religion. Religion means other people are on your path too: They'll drag you down. No, you must be your own person, and you must resist following others' ideals. Filling yourself with the thinking of other people limits you. You must realize your own nature by yourself. Self-disciplinary realization is the key. You say you want to be free to be anything, but you can't. You must only be free to be yourself. You must know yourself, bring what is within yourself to fruition."
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~ The character of Grand Master teaching little Butterfly, in The Chronicles of Tao by Deng Ming-Dao, contemporary Chinese author
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Theme: Belief is not inherently inauthentic. The question is whether belief is self-chosen, based upon one's own experience, knowledge, assessment of evidence, and values. Still one must be careful to distinguish between belief and knowledge. More importantly both belief and knowledge are mental constructs that preclude an unmediated experience of reality as it is. For most persons, beliefs are personally unsubstantiated knowledge claims that have been given them by others. For many, beliefs are safeguards against existential uncertainty, though those "safeguards" remain unsubstantiated by them.
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The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers. |
~ Erich Fromm (1900-1980), German psychoanalyst and social philosopher, in Man for Himself: An inquiry into the psychology of ethics
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Believe those who are seeking truth. Doubt those who find it. |
~ Andre Gide (1869-1951), French critic, essayist & novelist
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The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. |
~ Lao Tze (c.604 BC-c.521 BC), Taoist philosopher, in the Tao Te Ching
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Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth. |
~ William Blake (1757-1827), British poet, in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
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If you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire. |
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher
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Dare only to believe in yourselves - in yourselves and in your inward parts! He who doth not believe in himself always lieth. |
~ The character of Zarathustra in Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher
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The sacred books of the East are nothing but words. I looked through their covers one day sideways. What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through. If you have not lived through something, it is not true. |
~ Kabir (1440-1518), Indian mystic
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I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. |
~ Krishnamurti (1895-1986), Indian philosopher, text from August 3, 1929 speech, dissolving the Order of the Star, at the Ommen Theosophical Camp
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Until college and minaret have crumbled This holy work of ours will not be done Until faith becomes rejection And rejection belief There will be no True Believer. |
~ Abu Said (967-1049), Persian poet & Sufi, quoted in The Way of The Sufi by Idries Shah
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"What of your training, Hercules, my son? ."
"... One thing, O Teacher, I must tell to you and thus deceive you not. The fact is not so long ago I slew all those who taught me in the past. I killed my teachers, and in my search for liberty, I now stand free. I seek to know myself, within myself and through myself."
"My son, that was a deed of wisdom, and now you can stand free. Proceed to labour now ..."
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~ The characters of Hercules and his Teacher, in The Labours of Hercules by Alice A. Bailey (1880-1949), English esotericist
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None attains to the Degree of Truth until a thousand honest people have testified that he is a heretic. |
~ Junaid of Baghdad (d. 910), Sufi Master, quoted in The Way of The Sufi by Idries Shah
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If someone is guiding you, that is suspicious, because you are relying on something external. Being fully what you are in yourself becomes guidance. |
~ Chogyam Trungpa (1939-1987), Tibetan meditation master, scholar, and artist, in Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
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If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather lead you to the threshold of your own mind. |
~ Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), Lebanese poet, author and artist, in The Prophet
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The age of leaders has come and gone. Every person must be their own leader now. We must remove our projection and contain the Spirit of our time in our own life and our own nature because to go the old way and follow a leader is a form of psychological imprisonment. |
~ Sir Laurens van der Post (1906-1996), South African author
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YYe say, ye believe in Zarathustra? But of what account is Zarathustra! Ye are my believers: but of what account are all believers!
Ye had not yet sought yourselves: then did ye find me. So do all believers; therefore all belief is of so little account.
Now do I bid you lose me and find yourselves...
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~ The character of Zarathustra in Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher
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Theme: Autonomy is the moral freedom of the person who chooses to act according to her own self-direction, not the given values and beliefs of her society. In the context of personal authenticity, this self-direction is not arbitrary. Rather it is a freedom whose direction is sourced consistently by the values and idiosyncratic inclinations of her own unique nature as it is experienced and known at any moment.
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We have given you, Oh Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor any endowment properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgment and decision. The nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within laws which We have laid down; you, by contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature. I have placed you at the very center of the world, so that from that vantage point you may with greater ease glance round about you on all that the world contains. We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine |
~ Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), Italian humanist, in On Human Dignity
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This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. |
~ The character of Polonius, in Hamlet, by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright
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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer? |
~ Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American author and naturalist, in Walden
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Drink from your own wells. Sup at your table. Speak from your own heart. Go where your legs take you. Know your own mind. See through your soul's eyes. Follow none but your own self. For each man has his own pathway, and whoever would be your guide cannot help but lead you astray. |
~ Marcus Tullius Tiro (c.103 BC-4 BC), Roman author, quoted by Tageson in Humanistic Psychology
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One who surpasses his fellow citizens in virtue is no longer a part of the city. Their law is not for him, since he is a law to himself. |
~ Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC), Greek philosopher, Cited in Thoreau 1862 by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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'Autonomy' is in fact a more apt term than 'moral freedom' for capturing this conception of freedom: 'autonomy' means to make one's own laws and to administer them, to be self-legislating. An autonomous being is one which ordains for itself the principles by which it shall live, and is therefore self-governing. |
~ Brian Fay, contemporary American philosopher, in Critical Social Science
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The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of consciousness abides.
And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!
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~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American author, poet, and philosopher, in Self Reliance
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Dharma - Lit., that which holds together. As such, it means the inmost constitution of a thing, the law of its inner being, which hastens its growth and without which it ceases to exist... In order to be true to himself he must act according to his dharma... To mould one's actions according to the law of one's own being is therefore the dharma, the religion or way to liberation, of every individual. |
~ Swami Nikhilananda (1895-1973), Hindu Swami, commenting on The Bhagavad Gita
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I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. |
~ Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American author and naturalist, in Walden
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Ultimately the search for identity, is, in essence, the search for one's own intrinsic, authentic values. |
~ Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), American psychologist, in Towards a Psychology of Being
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The free man is immoral because he is determined in everything to depend upon himself and not upon some tradition: in every primitive state of mankind, 'evil' signified the same thing as 'individual', 'free', 'arbitrary', 'unaccustomed', 'unforseen', 'incalculable'.. What is tradition? A higher authority which is obeyed not because it commands what is useful but because it commands... Originally everything was custom, and he who wanted to raise himself above it had to become a law-giver and medicine-man and a kind of demi-god; that is to say, he had to make customs... Those moralists who, following in the footsteps of Socrates, offer the individual a morality of self-control and temperance as a means to his own advantage, as his personal key to happiness, are the exceptions -- ... they detached themselves from the community, as immoral men, and are in the profoundest sense evil. Thus to a virtuous Roman of the old stamp every Christian who 'considered first of all his own salvation' appeared evil. |
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher, quoted in Hollingdale's Nietzsche
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It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. |
~William Henley (1849-1903), English poet, critic, author, in Invictus
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As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. |
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German poet, dramatist, novelist, and scientist.
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The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to himself. |
~ Don Juan Yaqui Indian shaman, in Tales of Power, by Carlos Castaneda, (1925-present), Peruvian-born American author and mystic
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Better that the mass of mankind should disagree with me and contradict me than that I, a single individual, should be out of harmony with myself and contradict myself. |
~ Socrates (c.469 BC-399 BC), Greek philosopher, in Gorgias by Plato (c. 428 BC-347 BC), Greek philosopher
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A saner man would have found himself, often enough "in formal opposition" to what are deemed "the most sacred laws of society," through obedience to yet more sacred laws, and so have tested his resolution without going out of his way. It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just government, if he should chance to meet with such. |
~ Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American author and naturalist, in Walden
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No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. |
~ William Blake (1757-1827), British poet, in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
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For what is a man? What has he got? If not himself, then he has naught. To say the things he truly feels, And not the words of one who kneels; The record shows I took the blows And did it my way! |
~ Revaux, Francois, and Anka, in the song, My Way
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Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence; The last result of wisdom stamps it true; He only earns his freedom and existence Who daily conquers them anew. |
~ The Character of Faust, in Faust, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German poet, dramatist, novelist, and scientist.
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Theme: The danger of moral autonomy is not that we will be lead astray by a nature that is presumed to be corrupt. Rather it is the misunderstanding of autonomy as license to do whatever we will. The social context in which we live autonomously is one in which we are related inextricably to fellow beings. Autonomy is ever exercised within the context of relationship and interdependence. Given that, autonomy expressed as unregulated license can injure others. Hence the imperative of distinguishing "view" from "conduct", as described here. Persons whose lack adequate psychological development, and who cannot make this distinction, may not act autonomously without being of risk to themselves and others. Autonomy is a state of development; it is not for everyone. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber who was so proud to be the "captain of his soul', is a case in point.
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Some might misunderstand and wonder: Then why bother with virtuous actions and accumulating merits or helping others? Why generate loving-kindness and compassion? Others might think: Why not continue to perform negative actions, since in emptiness everything is equal? This is a grave misunderstanding. This is a danger, a deviation from the view. This is nihilism, where the yawning abyss of pseudo-emptiness beckons. |
~ Nyoshul Khenpo (1932-2001), Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen master, in Natural Great Perfection
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.The actual experience of... taking possession of one's own standards of morality is usually one of joyful liberation. For the first time one is really free to choose; and a person who has worked at the level of the Fellowcraft and has come to terms with the compelling and constraining material in his unconscious can lay claim to genuine free will.
But there is a genuine risk here too; free will is a truly dangerous thing. If the process of psychological growth is seen only as the discarding of compulsion and conventional standards of right and wrong and the replacing of them with one's personal standards of morality, the person working at the level of the Fellowcraft becomes an entirely free agent, responsible to no one but himself. Because such a situation can lead easily to self-indulgent and opportunistic behavior it is at this point that Freemasonry and the schools of psychology based on the scientific paradigm of the twentieth century diverge sharply. From the viewpoint of Freemasonry there is much more to this process than simply the acquisition of free will - important as that is.
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~ W. Kirk MacNulty, contemporary Freemason, in Freemasonry
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Theme: The critics of moral autonomy claim that unfettered personal freedom leads inevitably to immorality. Human nature is flawed, they assert; socially conditioned moral values are necessary to safeguard man from himself. These critics demonstrate only bad faith in human nature. The evidence of visionaries, contemplative traditions, and humanistic and transpersonal psychologies is that human nature is innately benign. Of course there are persons whose actions challenge this view. Still the rule holds - given moral autonomy, what seeks fulfillment through freedom is a benign human nature.
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Some might misunderstand and wonder: Then why bother with virtuous actions and accumulating merits or helping others? Why generate loving-kindness and compassion? Others might think: Why not continue to perform negative actions, since in emptiness everything is equal? This is a grave misunderstanding. This is a danger, a deviation from the view. This is nihilism, where the yawning abyss of pseudo-emptiness beckons. |
~ Nyoshul Khenpo (1932-2001), Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen master, in Natural Great Perfection
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The kingdom of Heaven is within you. |
~ Jesus, in Luke 17:21
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After his great awakening beneath the bodhi tree in Bodhgaya, Lord Buddha said that the ultimate nature of mind is perfectly pure, profound, quiescent, luminous, uncompounded, unconditioned, unborn and undying, and free since the beginningless beginning. When we examine this mind for ourselves, it becomes apparent that its innate openness, clarity, and cognizant quality comprise what is known as innate wakefulness, primordial nondual awareness: rigpa. This is our birthright, our true nature. It is not something missing, to be sought for and obtained, but is the very heart of our original existential being. |
~ Nyoshul Khenpo (1932-2001), Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen master, in Natural Great Perfection
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To spell out only one implication here, these propositions affirm the existence of the higher values within human nature itself, to be discovered there. |
~ Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), American psychologist, in Towards a Psychology of Being
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TRUTH is within ourselves; it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er you may believe. There is an inmost centre in us all, Where truth abides in fullness; and around, Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect, clear perception - which is truth. A baffling and perverting carnal mesh Binds it, and makes all error: and to KNOW Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without. |
~ Robert Browning (1812-1889), English poet, in Paracelsus
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For within you is the light of the world-the only light that can be shed upon the Path. If you are unable to perceive it within you, it is useless to look for it elsewhere. |
~ Mabel Collins (1851-1927), English Theosophist, in Light on the Path
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One cannot choose wisely for a life unless he dares to listen to himself, his own self, at each moment in life.. |
\~ Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), American psychologist, in The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
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Theme: The opposite of being whole is being parted. What is parted is our psyches - our thoughts, feelings, and even sensations. They are parted by dualistic concepts of right/wrong, good/evil, etc. that society necessarily teaches us. That which is "good" or "right", we claim proudly; that which is "wrong" or "evil" we fearfully reject, sever, and repress into the unconscious. Yet how can we faithfully become more of who we are without reclaiming all that we are? The practice of wholeness leads to the reintegration our nature and implicitly to its transformation. Wholeness could be considered the practice of unconditional positive self-regard, unconditional love to all parts of ourselves.
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For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life. |
~ William Blake (1757-1827), British poet, in America: A Prophecy
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All Nature is but Art unknown to thee; All chance, direction which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good; And spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite, One truth is clear: Whatever is, is right. |
~ Alexander Pope (1688-1744), English poet and writer, in Essay on Man
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Tao is the source of the ten thousand things. |
~ Lao Tze (c.604 BC-c.521 BC), Taoist philosopher , in the Tao Te Ching
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Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. |
~ Jellal ed-Din Rumi (1207-1273), Sufi poet, "A Great Wagon," in The Essential Rumi
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Give up those erroneous thoughts leading to false distinctions! There is no 'self' and no 'other'. There is no 'wrong desire', no 'anger', no 'hatred', no 'love, no ' victory, no 'failure'. Only renounce the error of intellectual or conceptual thought-processes and your nature will exhibit its pristine purity-for this alone is the way to attain Enlightenment, to observe the Dharma (Law), to become a Buddha and all the rest. |
~ Huang Po (d. 850), Chinese Zen Master, in Wan Ling Record 26
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Everything living dreams of individuation, for everything strives towards its own wholeness. |
~ C.G. Jung (1875-1961), Swiss depth psychologist, in The Wisdom of Carl Jung, edited by Edward Hoffman, Ph.D.
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For the good man to realize that it is better to be whole than to be good is to enter on a straight and narrow path compared to which his previous rectitude was flowery license. |
~ John Middleton Murray (1889-1957), English literary critic
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The great epochs of our life come when we gain the courage to rechristen our evil as what is best in us. |
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher, in Beyond Good & Evil
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"Shamunatha was a Great Tantric Master. The Way of Tantric Buddhism is the Way of Acceptance, the way of working will all the energies and powers of living, refusing and denying none of them, but using all of them, transforming all of them into wisdom. That is why he is shown surrounded by living things. His is a mind, we say, that makes the world flower; his is a mind that has denied nothing and transformed everything within him and within the world into harmony and spiritual power. This is the way of Tantra. It is the hardest way."
"Why?"
"Because it is the most dangerous. Because it has so many temptations--to hedonism, to the relish of worldly power. It is also the most effective way. The man who can travel it successfully, we believe, can attain Enlightenment in one lifetime."
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~ Nawang, a Tibetan Monk, in A Journey in Ladakh by Andrew Harveny, contemporary British writer/mystic
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'Self-Liberation', in the Zogqen sense, means that whatever manifests in the field of experience of the practitioner is allowed to arise just as it is, without judgment of it as good or bad, beautiful or ugly. And in that same moment, if there is no clinging, or attachment, without effort, or even volition, whatever it is that arises, whether as a thought or as a seemingly external event, automatically liberates itself, by itself, and of itself. Practicing in this way the seeds of the poison tree of dualistic vision never even get a chance to sprout, much less to take root and grow.
So the practitioner lives his or her life in an ordinary way, without needing any rules other than his own awareness, but always remaining in the state of primordial unity by integrating his state with whatever arises as part of his experience, and with absolutely nothing to be seen outwardly to show that he is practicing. This is what is meant by self-liberation, this is what is meant by the name Zogqen, which means 'Great Perfection', and this is what is meant by non-dual contemplation, or simply contemplation.
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~ Namkhai Norbu (1938-present), Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen Master, in The Crystal and the Way of Light
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He who follows the middle way knows an all-embracingness that excludes or changes nothing. This is not an easy way, for it requires a refinement of consciousness. |
~ Helena Roerich (1879-1955), Russian mystic and author, in Supermundane: The Inner Life, Book Two
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Accepting the whole range of one's feelings, expressing them and gaining self-possession are the signposts along the road one travels on the voyage of self-discovery. |
~ Alexander Lowen, M.D. (1910-2002???), American founder of Bioenergetic Therapy, in Joy
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A tree reaching up to heaven must have roots reaching down to hell. |
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher
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The spirit needs spring and winter, beauty and terror, meeting and parting, needs every experience and every energy to achieve wholeness. Milarepa said, "Contemplate all energies without fear or disgust; find their essence, for that is the stone that turns everything to gold." |
~ Thuksey Rinpoche (1916-1983), Tibetan Buddhist Master, in Andrew Harvey's A Journey in Ladakh
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We have to look courageously in the face of the reality and see that it is God and none else who has made this world in His being and that so He has made it. We have to see that Nature devouring her children, Time eating up the lives of creatures, Death universal and ineluctable, and the violence of the Rudra forces in man and Nature are also the supreme Godhead in one of His cosmic figures. We have to see that God the bountiful and prodigal creator, God the helpful, strong, and benignant preserver is also God the devourer and destroyer. The torment of the couch of pain and evil on which we are racked is His touch as much as happiness and sweetness and pleasure. It is only when we see with the eye of the complete union and feel this truth in the depths of our being that we can entirely discover behind that mask, too, the calm and beautiful face of the all-blissful Godhead, and in this touch that tests our imperfection the touch of the friend and builder of the spirit in man. The discords of the world are God's discords, and it is only by accepting and proceeding through them that we can arrive at the greater concords of His supreme harmony, the summits and thrilled vastnesses of His transcendent and cosmic Ananda.... |
~ Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950), Indian mystic, quoted by Satprem in What is Enlightenment? edited by J. White
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What is implied by the fulfillment of the new ethical demand is that the share of evil "allotted" to an individual by his constitution or personal fate should be worked through and deliberately endured by him. In the process, to an extent which varies with the individual, part of the negative side must be consciously lived. And it is no small part of the task of depth psychology to enable the individual to become capable of living in this world by acquiring the moral courage not to want to be either worse or better than he actually is. |
~ Erich Neumann (1905-1960), Jungian analyst, in Depth Psychology and a New Ethic
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One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. |
~ C. G. Jung (1875-1961), Swiss depth psychologist, in Alchemical Studies
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As a poisonous substance does not injure the worm born in that substance, so he who does even an unpleasant duty ordained by his own dharma incurs no evil. That is the only real thing for him. All other duties are alien to his nature. Throughout all of Sri Krishna's exhortation to Arjuna about duty it should not be forgotten that duty must be performed as an act of worship. From our work we must not seek any personal gain; we must regard ourselves only as instruments for the fulfillment of divine purpose. For Arjuna, participation in the cruel battle is more desirable than the life of a recluse living on alms and inflicting no injury on others. Such a life would be entirely alien to Arjuna's inborn nature. |
~ Swami Nikhilananda, (1895-1973), Hindu Swami, commenting on The Bhagavad Gita
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If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. |
~ Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas, translated by Elaine Pagels, scholar, in Beyond Belief
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A person is authentic in that degree to which his being in the world is unqualifiedly in accord with the givenness of his own nature and of the world. |
~ James Bugental (1915-present), American existential humanistic psychologist, in The Search for Authenticity
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Better is one's own dharma, though imperfect, than the dharma of another well performed. He who does the duty ordained by his own nature incurs no sin. |
~ Krishna, in Bhagavad Gita
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To me there is no liberation a tout prix. I cannot be liberated from anything I do not possess, have not done or experienced. Real liberation becomes possible for me only when I have done all that I was able to do, when I have completely devoted myself to a thing and participated in it to the utmost. If I withdraw from participation, I am virtually amputating the corresponding part of my psyche. Naturally, there may be good reasons for my not immersing myself in a given experience. But then I am forced to confess my inability, and must know that I may have neglected to do something of vital importance. In this way I make amends for the lack of a positive act by the clear knowledge of my incompetence.
A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them. They then dwell in the house next door, and at any moment a flame may dart out and set fire to his own house. Whenever we give up, leave behind, and forget too much, there is always the danger that the things we have neglected will return with added force.
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~ Carl Jung (1875-1961), Swiss depth psychologist, in Memories, Dreams, Reflections
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Thou shall bear all things that all things may change. |
~ Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950), Indian mystic, in Savitri
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Individuation does not shut one out from the world, but gathers the world to oneself. |
~ Carl Jung (1875-1961), Swiss depth psychologist, in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche
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"When you know something of Abraxas, you cannot do this any longer. You aren't allowed to be afraid of anything, you can't consider prohibited anything that the soul desires."
Startled, I countered: "But you can't do everything that comes to mind! You can't kill someone because you detest him."
He moved closer to me.
"Under certain circumstances, even that. Yet it is a mistake most of the time. I don't mean that you should simply do everything that pops into your head. No. But you shouldn't harm and drive away those ideas that make good sense by exorcising them or moralizing about them. Instead of crucifying yourself or someone else you can drink wine from a chalice and contemplate the mystery of the sacrifice. Even without such procedures you can treat your drives and so-called temptations with respect and love. Then they will reveal their meaning--and they all do have meaning."
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~ The character of Demian in Demian, by Herman Hesse (1877-1962), German author
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I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, "What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within?" my friend suggested - "But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it. |
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American author, poet, and philosopher, in Self-Reliance
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"We are all born into this life with a destiny," said Butterfly, as he gazed at the still waters. "All that matters is that we fulfill our destiny. That requires total honesty. Above all, I've tried never to be dishonest. I accept myself. I do not trick myself into some artificial conception of myself. I don't take some ideal lifestyle from the sages or some book like the Seven Banboo Tablets and try to bind myself to it. How absurd! The scriptures were written by men, not gods. Why should I accept their word? No, I am determined to live life honestly. I will not violate my nature with the conception of others. I will accept my destiny, no matter what it is, and I will live my life only on the basis of my own identity. That standard is my only right and wrong. Let me explore it, contemplate it, coax its meaning out. Only then can I fell that I am living my life unadulterated by delusion." |
~ The character of Butterfly in The Chronicles of Tao, by Deng Ming-Dao contemporary Chinese author
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Oh you can walk the straight and narrow But with a little bit o' luck, you'll run amuck! .. They're always throwin' goodness at you, But with a little bit o' luck, A man can duck! |
~ The character of Alfie, from song, "With a Little Bit of Luck"
of My Fair Lady (1964) by Alan Lerner (1918-1986) and Fredrick Loewe (1904-1988), contemporary American songwriters
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If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. |
~ William Blake (1757-1827), British poet, in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
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The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. |
~ William Blake (1757-1827), British poet, in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
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.To preserve my internal nature according to its peculiarities, and to let external nature influence me according to its qualities.. |
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German poet, dramatist, novelist, and scientist, in The Autobiography of Goethe
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We cannot deliberately bring about changes in ourselves or others... people who do so typically end up dedicating their lives to actualize a concept of what they should be like rather than to actualize themselves. This difference between self-actualizing and self-image actualizing is very important. |
~ Fritz Perls (1893-1970), gestalt psychologist
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Man cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human: he can approach Him through becoming human. To become human is what he, this individual man, has been created for. |
~ Martin Buber (1878-1965), German philosopher, in Hasidism and Modern Man
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It is extraordinarily important to grasp this, in order to understand the relation between personality and the suprapersonal values, about which I have spoken above. The relation of personality to suprapersonal values may be achieved either in the realm of objectivization, and this easily gives rise to slavery of man, or in the existential realm, in a process of transcension, in which case life with freedom is born. |
~ Nicholas Berdyaev (1874-1948), Russian Christian existentialist philosopher, in Slavery and Freedom
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Whether you are bound by a gold chain or an iron one, you are in captivity. Your virtuous activities are the gold chain, your evil ones the iron one. He who shakes off both the chains of good and evil that imprison him, him I call a Brahmin - he has attained the Supreme Truth. |
~ Frederick Franck, (1923-1924), American artist and author, quoting a Buddhist scripture in The Book of Angelus Silesius
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It is right it should be so; Man was made for Joy & Woe; And when this we rightly know Thro' the World we safely go. Joy & Woe are woven fine, A Clothing for the Soul divine; Under every grief & pine Runs a joy with silken twine. |
~ William Blake (1757-1827), British poet, in Auguries of Innocence
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Theme: What is psychological process? It is the experience of the moment to moment unfolding of our own unique natures in time. We experience process as the ceaseless change of thought, feeling, and sensation that are the content of consciousness. Each instant we are different than before. Our processes change with purpose, towards what psychologists call 'individuation' or self-actualization. The "levels" of development spanned by our processes include physical, emotional, intellectual, psychological and transpersonal or spiritual. Process is not linear. It is holistic, for otherwise which part of our experience would you not consider to be part of your process? Often its direction is hinted at by joy.
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Man is a stream whose source is hidden.. I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine. |
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American author, poet, and philosopher, in The Over-Soul
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Every person must follow her own process. No one else knows what is right for another.
There is no goal in living our process, except to live it. Our processes can change. Our lives can change as we participate in the process. Our only requirement is to trust the process and live in faith. Our responsibility is to live out what our Creator asks of us. To live our lives. Living our process demands a deep spiritual commitment of being one with one's life.
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~ Anne Wilson Schaef, contemporary American writer and lecturer, in Living in Process
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It is through his understanding of the word "process" that the disciple discovers the true meaning of the occult statement that "before a man can tread the path he must become that Path himself." |
~ Alice A. Bailey (1880-1949), English esotericist, in The Rays and the Initiations
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.... Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. |
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American author, poet, and philosopher, in Self-Reliance
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When you're doing the work, you're doing the work. When you're not doing the work, you're doing the work. |
~ G. I. Gurdjieff (1866?-1949), Greek-Armenian mystic
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This very moment is the perfect teacher. |
~ Pema Chodron (1936-present), America Tibetan Buddhist nun, in When Things Fall Apart
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Theme: Not only is pain a calling of our inner nature (as Rumi would tell us), but also our heart's desires.
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You should carefully observe what way your heart draws you and then choose that way with all your strength. |
~ An old Hasidic saying
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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."" |
~ Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), American educator and mythologist, in The Power of Myth
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Respond to every call that excites your spirit. |
~ Jellal ed-Din Rumi (1207-1273), Sufi poet, from "Cry Out in Your Weakness," in The Essential Rumi
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It's the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion. |
~ Rebecca West (1892-1983), Irish author and journalist
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Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
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~ Jellal ed-Din Rumi (1207-1273), Sufi poet, from "A Great Wagon," in The Essential Rumi
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If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be. |
~ Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), American educator and mythologist, in The Power of Myth
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I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. |
~ Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American author and naturalist, in Walden
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If thou thy star do follow, thou canst not fail thee of a glorious port. |
~ Dante (1265-1321), Italian poet, in The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto XV, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Theme: Though living as process may suggest a passive "going with the flow," or an apparent non-action or inaction as is the very commonly misunderstanding of the Taoist concept of wu wei, in fact and fortunately, psychological process and the experience of Tao do include action, even conscious volitional action, comprised of will, valuing, choice, and action. Else which of these experiences would you assert is not part of process? Which aspect of yourself would you claim is not among "the 10,000 things" (the all and everything) sourced by the Tao?.
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Willing emancipateth: that is the true doctrine of will and emancipation - so teacheth you Zarathustra.
No longer willing, and no longer valuing, and no longer creating! Ah, that that great debility may ever be far from me!
And also in discerning do I feel only my will's procreating and evolving delight....
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~ The character of Zarathustra in Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher
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The act of will consists of six sequential phases or stages. They are:
The Purpose, Aim, or Goal, based on Evaluation, Motivation and Intention. Deliberation. Choice and Decision. Affirmation: the Command, or "Fiat," of the Will. Planning and Working out a Program. Direction of the Execution. |
~ Roberto Assagioli (1888 - 1974), Italian psychologist & founder of Psychosynthesis, in The Act of Will
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Valuing is creating; hear it, ye creating ones! Valuation itself is the treasure and jewel of the valued things.
Through valuation only is there value; and without valuation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it ye creating ones!
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~ The character of Zarathustra in Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher
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The biblical passage which says of Abraham and the three visiting angels: "And He stood over them under the tree and they did eat" is interpreted by Rabbi Zusya to the effect that man stands above the angels, because he knows something unknown to them, namely, that eating may be hallowed by the eater's intention.... Any natural act, if hallowed, leads to God, and nature needs man for what no angel can perform on it, namely, its hallowing. |
~ Martin Buber (1878-1965), German philosopher, in The Way of Man
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Before something can be a full value, it must meet these criteria. It must be:
chosen freely chosen from among alternatives chosen after due reflection prized and cherished publicly affirmed acted upon part of a pattern that is a repeated action |
~ Sidney Simon,
contemporary American educator in Meeting Yourself Halfway
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Responsibility starts with the willingness to acknowledge that you are the cause in the matter. |
Werner Erhard, founder of EST
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The only difference between Adamic man and the man of today is that the one was born to paradise and the other has to create it. And that brings me back to the question of choice. A man can only prove that he is free by electing to be so. And he can only do so when he realizes that he himself made himself unfree. And that to me means that he must wrest from God the powers he has given God. The more of God he recognizes in himself the freer he becomes. And the freer he becomes the fewer decisions he has to make, the less choice is presented to him. Freedom is a misnomer. Certitude is more like it. Unerringness. Because truthfully there is always only one way to act in any situation, not two, nor three. Freedom implies choice and choice exists only to the extent that we are aware of our ineptitude. The adept takes no thought, one might say. He is one with thought, the path. |
~ Henry Miller (1891-1980), American author, in Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch
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The basic step in achieving inward freedom is "choosing one's self." This strange sounding phrase of Kierkegaard's means to affirm one's responsibility for one's self and one's existence. It is the attitude which is opposite to blind momentum or routine existence; it is an attitude of aliveness or decisiveness; it means that one recognizes that he exists in his particular spot in the universe, and he accepts the responsibility for his existence. This is what Nietzsche meant by the "will to live" ~ not simply the instinct for self-preservation, but the will to accept the fact that one is one's self, and to accept responsibility for fulfilling one's destiny, which in turn implies accepting the fact that one must make his basic choices himself.
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~ Rollo May (1909-1994), American existential psychologist
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It's when we're given choice that we sit with the gods and design ourselves. |
~ Dorothy Gilman (1923-present), American writer
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He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence. |
~ William Blake (1757-1827), British poet, in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
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Theme: As the Buddhists remind us, it is an exquisite and very rare privilege to be human. As the humanists remind us, it is the beauty of the human form and the magnificence of human nature that is itself the presence and evidence of spirit.
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I am human, so nothing human is foreign to me. |
~ Terrence, (190-159 BCE) Roman Playwright
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Man is the measure of all things. |
~ Protagoras (490-420 BCE), Greek Philosopher
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Many seek happiness higher than man; others beneath him. But happiness is the same height as man. |
~ Confucius, Cited in Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957), Greek author, poet, and philosopher
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Ye look aloft when ye long for exaltation; and I look downward because I am exalted. |
~ The character of Zarathustra in Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher
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Beneath you and external to you lies the entire created universe. Yes, even the sun, the moon, and the stars. They are fixed above you, splendid in the firmament, yet they cannot compare to your exalted dignity as a human being. |
~ Anonymous, in The Cloud of Unkowing and the Book of Privy Counseling
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What (a) piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals.. |
~ The character of Hamlet in Hamlet by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright
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Every Night & every Morn Some to Misery are Born. Every Morn & every Night Some are Born to sweet delight. Some are Born to sweet delight, Some are Born to Endless Night. We are led to Believe a Lie When we see not Thro' the Eye Which was Born in a Night, to perish in a Night, When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light. God Appears & God is Light To those poor Souls who dwell in Night. But does a Human Form Display To those who Dwell in Realms of Day. |
~ William Blake (1757-1827),
British poet,
in Auguries of Innocence
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