It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth.
“
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Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)
In the Orient, the gods do not stand as ultimate terms, ultimate ends, substantial beings, to be sought and regarded in and for themselves. They are more like metaphors, to serve as guides, pointing beyond themselves and leading one to an experience of one’s own identity with a mystery that transcends them. I have found that the approach through Freud and Jung greatly helps to make this point clear to students brought up in the mythology of Yahweh—a jealous god, who would hold men to himself and who turned mankind away from the Tree of Immortality, instead of leading us to it. Such a god in the Orient would be regarded as a deluding idol. In fact, heaven itself and our desire for its joys are regarded there as the last barrier, the last obstacle to release, to be transcended.
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Joseph Campbell
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
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Carl Jung
Alan Watts - Living in the present (boat analogy) (by joeybenn)
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
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Carl Jung
The Sleeper Awakens
The Sleeper Awakens
Some are frightened by the shadow inside them
Others learn to accept and cultivate their dark half
Even the least attractive part of our minds have value
The sleeper must awaken — both the good and evil
By transcending our shadow we become whole —
At home with ourselves, without fear or apprehension
In this new world, it snows at the beginning of the spring equinox
Then I pause and reflect on my past and desires for the future
For all who seek truth to find balance between dark and light
Trusting love — Both angels and demons sleep within the deep
Places of our souls — our minds give rise to them when we need them
Even when we don’t want anyone, especially then, they appear
Friends who help us back on the right track, or to keep going
On the right one — Beyond limited definitions of family, they are
Closer than blood, a way of understanding your place in the universe
A reminder that you are beautiful and unique and not ever alone
There is a charming story told of the great nineteenth-century Indian saint Ramakrishna. A lady came to him in some distress because she had realized that she did not actually love and truly worship God. ‘Is there, then, nothing you love?’ he asked her; and when she replied that she loved her baby nephew, ‘There,’ said he, ‘there is your Kṛṣṇa, your Beloved. In your service to him, you are serving God.’
“
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Joseph Campbell, “Myths to Live By” Joseph Campbell Foundation, 2011-03-11. iBooks.
Education is the proper way to promote compassion and tolerance in society. Compassion and peace of mind bring a sense of confidence that reduce stress and anxiety, whereas anger and hatred come from frustration and undermine our sense of trust. Because of ignorance, many of our problems are our own creation. Education, however, is the instrument that increases our ability to employ our own intelligence.
People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That’s what it’s all finally about, and that’s what these clues help us to find within ourselves …
Experience of life. The mind has to do with meaning. What’s the meaning of a flower? … There’s no meaning. What’s the meaning of the universe? What’s the meaning of a flea? It’s just there. That’s it. And your own meaning is that you’re there. We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget that the inner value, the rapture associated with being alive, is what it’s all about.
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Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, Episode 1
Old Man In Nursing Home Reacts To Hearing Music From His Era (by ncaavideos2)
Future of Humanity - Cooperative Transdisciplinarity
Because of the deep systemic problems facing humanity on a global scale and the related opportunities for solving these problems, it has never been more important to foster a worldview and paradigm that promotes cooperation over competition in macroeconomics, international relations, global security, planetary ecology, total human ecosystem sustainability, and every other aspect of planetary human culture.
This is what Joyce called the monomyth: an archetypal story that springs from the collective unconscious. Its motifs can appear not only in myth and literature, but, if you are sensitive to it, in the working out of the plot of your own life. The basic story of the hero journey involves giving up where you are, going into the realm of adventure, coming to some kind of symbolically rendered realization, and then returning to the field of normal life.
Democratic Socialism and Transcendental Pragmatism
Peace in Opposition
Nonviolence in Resolution
Interconnection in Community
Transcendence in Work
Beauty in Art
Sustainability in Balance
Light in Truth
Wisdom in Equality
Love in Cooperation
Unity in Diversity
Freedom in Preservation
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"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."
- John Muir
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." - Kurt Vonnegut
“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” - Pablo Picasso
"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree... Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein
"Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group." - Carl Sagan
"Dreams are the touchstones of our characters." - Henry David Thoreau
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that source in you. Let us work together for unity and love." - Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing." - William Butler Yeats
"By Being, It Is." - Parmenides
"Without music, life would be a mistake." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being." - Carl Jung
"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." - Rene Descartes
"We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on." - Richard Feynman
"Then he said 'Remember Bob: no fear, no envy, no meanness,' and I said 'hmmm, right.'" - Bob Dylan
"The reverse side also has a reverse side." - Japanese Proverb
"We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep." - William James
"If success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do... How would I be? What would I do?" - Buckminster Fuller
"The most vital issue of the age is whether the future progress of humanity is to be governed by the modern economic and materialistic mind of the West or by a nobler pragmatism guided, uplifted and enlightened by spiritual culture and knowledge...." - Sri Aurobindo
"The Self alone exists; and the Self alone is real. Verily the Self alone is the world, the I-I and God. All that exists is but the manifestation of the Supreme Being." - Ramana Maharshi
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
"Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind." - John F. Kennedy
