Ways of Seeing
- Exploring Modern Metaphysics -
Miscellaneous Quotations
"I could not blame them, for I knew how strong a hold a creed, however ridiculous it may be, can have upon an otherwise intelligent people.", Edgar Rice Burroughs in "The Gods of Mars".
"The moving finger writes and having writ moves on; not all your piety nor wit can change a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it.", Omar Khayyám.
"I understand now about freedom, and why we must fight for it always.", unknown source.
"A gentility that belies the strength it took to build it.", unknown source.
"We glide along the tides of time as swiftly as a racing river and vanish quickly as a dream.", Moses.
"In time all things are seeking completion, but in the now all things are complete.", Maurice Nicoll
"Looked for, it cannot be seen. Listened for, it cannot be heard. Reached for, it cannot be held. Return to the source of stillness. That is the Way.", Tao Te Ching.
"Endlessly men prate about freedom, and shout and demonstrate and riot and demand Congressional legislation and civil rights. All in vain. The fetters are inward, the bondage is spiritual.", DeRopp.
"The way that can be said is not the Way.", Lao Tzu.
"(Experience) is a tale told by an idiot to a fool, full of fury and signifying nothing.", Shakespeare.
"It isn't faith that makes good Science, it's Curiosity.", unknown source.
"Subject to the push of scrutiny, all scientific suppositions sit at truth's precarious edge.", unknown source.
"Science as a Candle in the Dark", subtitle of the last book by Carl Sagan.
"The Pope is strongly opposed to the use of contraceptives since they take the decision of life and death out of the hands of God and put them into the hands of people.
But when the Pope rides down the street inside a plastic bubble, isn't the intent and effect just as if the bubble was a condom: attempting to take the decision of his own life and death out of God's hands and into his own?", Bill Joyner.
"There is a growing movement of people of many different persuasions who are looking in another direction for abundant life. Instead of looking outside of themselves to a God off in the sky or knowledge in books or scientific gadgets or economic production or political revolution, they are looking inside themselves.
They are looking to the intelligence, energy and productivity that they claim everyone has within. The most useful methods they are trying are different kinds of meditation.
These practices are not necessarily new. The Eastern disciplines such as Yoga and Zen Buddhism have taught the practice of meditation for thousands of years.
Meditation is quieting the mind and its restless thoughts, tuning in to the inner power which may or may not be thought of in a religious way, and thus improving the practitioner's daily life.
It is the removing of mental blocks in order to get a clear channel to the power within. Simply described, meditation is the practice of regularly turning the attention away from the five outer senses and toward the inner mind.", unknown source.
"The International Karate Championship uses my three stages of cultivation of kung fu in its international karate emblem. The first stage is the primitive stage.
It is a stage of original ignorance in which a person knows nothing about the art of combat. In a fight, he simply blocks and strikes instinctively without a concern for what is right and wrong.
Of course, he may not be so-called scientific, but, nevertheless, being himself, his attacks or defenses are fluid. The second stage - the stage of sophistication, or mechanical stage - begins when a person starts his training.
He is taught the different ways of blocking, striking, kicking, standing, breathing, and thinking. Unquestionably, he has gained the scientific knowledge of combat, but unfortunately his original self and sense of freedom are lost, and his action no longer flows by itself.
His mind tends to freeze at different movements for calculations and analysis, and, even worse, he might be called 'intellectually bound' and maintain himself outside the actual reality.
The third stage - the stage of alertness, or spontaneous stage - occurs when, after years of serious and hard practice, he realizes that after all, kung fu is nothing special.
And instead of trying to impose on his mind, he adjusts himself to his opponent like water pressing on an earthen wall. It flows through the slightest crack.
There is nothing to do but try to be purposeless and formless, like water. All of his classical techniques and standard styles are minimized, if not wiped out, and nothingness prevails. He is no longer confined.", Bruce Lee.
"Integrity Without Compromise: Having integrity means more to us than simply the absence of deception. It means we are completely forthright in all our dealings. We say what needs to be said, not simply what people want to hear.", Bill Joyner.
"There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions, and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said,
'Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me.
She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.'
The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.
Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw Death standing in the crowd and he came to Death and said, 'Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?'
'That was not a threatening gesture,' Death said. 'It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.", Somerset Maugham.
"Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.", Moses per God (Numbers 31, 17-18).
"He who is plenteously provided for from within, needs but little from without.", Goethe.
"Some people have a strange way of putting themselves in compartments and groups. They build up barriers of religion, of caste, of color, of party, of nation, of province, of language, of custom and of wealth and poverty. Thus they live in prisons of their own making.", Nehru.
"I sent my soul through the invisible, Some letter of that after-live to spell, And after many days my soul return'd, And said, 'Behold, myself am Heav'n and Hell.'", Omar Khayyám.
"And have you traveled very far? Far as the eye can see. How often have you been there? Often enough to know. What did you see when you were there? Nothing that doesn't show.", Lennon/McCartney.
"The man of understanding is not entranced. He is not elsewhere. He is not having an experience. He is not passionless and inoffensive. He is awake. He is present. He knows no obstruction in the form of mind, identity, defferentiation and desire.
He uses mind, identity, differentiation and desire. He is passionate. His quality is an offense to those who are entranced, elsewhere, contained in the mechanics of experience, asleep, living as various forms of identity, separation and dependence.
He is acceptable only to those who understand. He may appear no different from any other man. How could he appear otherwise? There is nothing by which to appear except the qualities of life. He may appear to have learned nothing.
He may seem to be addicted to every kind of foolishness and error. How could it be otherwise? Understanding is not a different communication than the ordinary. There is no special and exclusive communication that is the truth.
There is no exclusive state of truth. But there is the understanding of the ordinary. Therefore the man of understanding cannot be found. He cannot be followed. He can only be understood as ordinary. He is not spiritual. He is not religious.
He is not philosophical. He is not fastidious, lean and lawful. He always appears to be the opposite of what you are. He always seems to sympathize with what you deny. Therefore, at times and over time he appears as every kind of persuasion.
He is not consistent. He has no image. At times he denies. At times he asserts. At times he asserts what he has already denied. At times he denies what he has already asserted. He is not useful. His teaching is every kind of nonsense.
His wisdom is vanished. Altogether, that is his wisdom. At last he represents no truth at all. Therefore, his living coaxes everyone only to understand. His existence denies every truth, every path by which men depend on certain truths, certain experiences,
certain simulations of freedom and enjoyment. He is a seducer, a madman, a hoax, a libertine, a fool, a moralist, a sayher of truths, a bearer of all experience, a reghteous knave, a prince, a child, an old one, a ascetic, a god.
Therefore, he makes understanding the only possibility. And understanding makes no difference at all. Except it is reality, which was already the case.", Franklin Jones in "The Knee of Listening" (Epilogue: The Man of Understanding).
"Be still, and know that I am God.", unknown source.
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