Schleiermacher: “Study yourselves with unswerving attention, put aside all that is not self, proceed with the sense ever more closely directed to the purely inward. The more you pass by all foreign elements, making your personality appear diminished almost to the vanishing point, the clearer the Universe stands before you, and the more gloriously theContinue reading “The Mystical Turn”
Tag Archives: ego and soul
Lost and Found
Kierkegaard: “When the wanderer comes away from the much-traveled noisy highway into places of quiet, then it seems to him (for stillness is impressive) as if he must examine himself, as if he must speak out what lies hidden in the depths of his soul. It seems to him, according to the poets’ explanation, asContinue reading “Lost and Found”
The Trance
Kierkegaard: “There is an ignorance about one’s own life that is equally tragic for the learned and for the simple, for both are bound by the same responsibility. This ignorance is called self-deceit.” Each of us, regardless of our ethnicity, class, sex or education level, is living a lie. Well, maybe not an intentional lie,Continue reading “The Trance”
The Narrow Gate
Kierkegaard: “Only the Eternal is … always present, is always true. Only the Eternal applies to each human being, whatever his [or her] age may be. […] If there is, then, something eternal in [an individual], it must be able to exist and to be grasped within every change.” One of the critical mistranslations fromContinue reading “The Narrow Gate”
A Second Look
Watts: “From this deeper point of view, religion is not a system of predictions. Its doctrines have to do, not with the future and the everlasting, but with the present and the eternal. They are not a set of beliefs and hopes but, on the contrary, a set of graphic symbols about present experience.” IContinue reading “A Second Look”
Metaphors of God
Heschel: “God is every [human being’s] pedigree. He is either the Father of all people or of no one. The image of God is either in every individual or in no one. God’s covenant is with all people, and we must never be oblivious of the equality of the divine dignity of all people. TheContinue reading “Metaphors of God”
Out of the Depths
Watts: “One can only attempt a rational, descriptive philosophy of the universe on the assumption that one is totally separate from it. But if you and your thoughts are part of this universe, you cannot stand outside them to describe them. This is why all philosophical and theological systems must ultimately fall apart. To ‘know’Continue reading “Out of the Depths”
Always Here
Heschel: “It takes three things to attain a sense of significant being: God, a soul, and a moment. And the three are always here. Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.” A sign is something that, by definition, points beyond itself. A curved arrow on a sign alongside the road indicatesContinue reading “Always Here”
Breakpoint for Religion
Heschel: “You can affect a person only if you reach his [or her] inner life, the level where every human being is insecure and feels his [or her] incompleteness, the level of awareness that lies beyond articulation. “The soul is discovered in response, in acts of transcending the self, in the awareness of ends thatContinue reading “Breakpoint for Religion”
From Having Answers to Having to Answer
Heschel: “How to save the inner [life] from oblivion – this is the challenge we face. To achieve our goal, we must learn how to activate the soul, how to answer the ultimate, how to relate ourselves to the spirit.” The cultural atmosphere of the 1960s, as it relates to religion and spirituality, was galvanizedContinue reading “From Having Answers to Having to Answer”
Tracts of Revolution 