Affirmation is difficult
Affirmation is difficult. We always affirm with conditions. I affirm the world on condition that it gets to be the way Santa Claus told me it ought to be. But affirming it the way it is — that’s the hard…
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The divine lives within you.
The divine lives within you.
One of the great disadvantages
One of the great disadvantages of a literary or scriptural tradition like the biblical one is that a deity or context of deities becomes crystallized, petrified at a certain time and place. The deity doesn’t continue to grow, expand, or…
In Martin Buber’s book I and Thou
In Martin Buber’s book I and Thou, he says, “The I that is related to thou is different from the I that is related to an it.” Think about it. Think of yourself: do you have a thou relationship to…
One of the biggest problems in mythology
One of the biggest problems in mythology is this one of putting the individual in accord with nature. The world in which the primitive people are living becomes mythologized. One of the problems in our tradition is that the land…
Maya
On the simplest level, then, the Goddess is the Earth. On the next, archaic level, She is the surrounding sky. On the philosophic level, She is Maya, the forms of sensibility, the limitations of the senses that enclose us so…
It once was possible for the ancients to say
It once was possible for the ancients to say, ‘We are the chosen of God!’ and to save all love and respect for themselves, projecting their malice ‘out there.’ We have now to learn somehow to quench our hate and…
The figure of the tyrant-monster is known
The figure of the tyrant-monster is known to the mythologies, folk traditions, legends, and even nightmares of the world; and his characteristics are everywhere essentially the same… The inflated ego of the tyrant is a curse to himself and his…
The ultimate aim
The ultimate aim of the quest must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and power to serve others.
The Loathly Damsel or
The Loathly Damsel or Ugly Bride is a well-known figure, moreover, in Celtic fairytale and legend. . . The transformation of the fairy bride and the sovereignty she bestows are, finally, of one’s own heart in fulfillment.
Living myths are not
Living myths are not mistaken notions, and they do not spring from books. They are not to be judged as true or false but as effective or ineffective, maturative or pathogenic.
What is the “meaning” of
What is the “meaning” of a tree? of a butterfly? of the birth of a child? or of the universe? What is the “meaning” of the song of a rushing stream? Such wonders simply are. They are antecedent to meaning, though…
The hero-deed
The hero-deed is a continuous shattering of the crystallization of the moment. The cycle rolls: mythology focuses on the growing-point.
What the virgin birth represents
What the virgin birth represents is the birth of the spiritual life in the human animal. It has nothing to do mythologically with a biological anomaly. In the Indian kuṇḍalinī system the first three cakras are our animal zeal to…
Instead of clearing his own heart
Instead of clearing his own heart the zealot tries to clear the world. The laws of the City of God are applied only to his in-group (tribe, church, nation, class, or what not) while the fire of a perpetual holy…
The old in many societies
Furthermore, the old in many societies spend a considerable part of their time playing with and taking care of the youngsters, while the parents delve and spin: so that the old are returned to the sphere of eternal things not…
Just as anyone who listens to the muse
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…
In the West, you have the liberty
In the West, you have the liberty and the obligation of finding out what your destiny is. You can discover it for yourself. But do you? Of course, it doesn’t hurt to be blessed with the accident of money, and…
The modern Western concept of a legal code
The modern Western concept of a legal code is not of a list of unassailable divine edicts but of a rationally contrived, evolving compilation of statutes, shaped by fallible human beings in council, to realize rationally recognized social (and therefore…
Now let us ask: What about the symbolism of the Bible?
Now let us ask: What about the symbolism of the Bible? Based on the Old Sumerian astronomical observations of five to six thousand years ago and an anthropology no longer credible, it is hardly fit today to turn anybody on.…
My magnificent master and great friend
My magnificent master and great friend of many years ago, Heinrich Zimmer (1890-1943), had a saying: “The best things can’t be told: the second best are misunderstood.” The second best are misunderstood because, as metaphors poetically of what cannot be…
There’s a word being used here this evening
“There’s a word being used here this evening that I don’t understand.” He said, “What’s the word?” I said, “God.” “You don’t understand what God means?” he replied. I said, “I don’t know what you mean by God. You’ve told…
It may be a species of impudence
It may be a species of impudence to think that the way you understand God is the way God is.