Month: December 2018

Aldous Huxley On Appetites Of The Soul

~ The Wisdom Archivist

6881D7FB-8273-46F1-AA7D-5A307DE22670.jpeg Huxley (July 26 1894 – November 22, 1963) 

That humanity at large will ever be able to dispense with artificial paradises seems very unlikely. Most men and women lead lives that at worst seem so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited, that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments is and has always been one of the principal appetites of the soul.

Jiddu Krishnamurti On Killing

~ The Wisdom Archivist

CE764218-EC73-465C-BFC0-D2450F5EDFA1Jiddu Krishnamurti (May 11, 1895 – February 17, 1986)

But apparently man loves to kill things, the fleeting deer, the marvelous gazelle, and the great elephant. We love to kill each other. This killing of other human beings has never stopped throughout the history of man’s life on this earth. If we could, and we must, establish a deep long abiding relationship with nature, then we would never slaughter another human being for any reason whatsoever. Organized murder is war, and though we demonstrate against a particular war, the nuclear, or any other kind of war, we have never demonstrated against war itself. We have never said that to kill another human being is the greatest sin on earth.

Ralph Ellison On The Invisible Man

~ The Wisdom Archivist

E1E839C9-465B-4573-9A51-7CAA2E86C1E0Ralph Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994)

It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.

But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man!…I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

Alan Watts On A Happening

~ The Wisdom Archivist

62FAEC7B-7F6A-4A34-80CC-C4441BE09C64.jpegAlan Watts (January 06, 1915 – November 16, 1973)

For when you see that the universe cannot be distinguished from how you act upon it, there is neither fate nor free will, self nor other. There is simply one all-inclusive ‘Happening,’ in which your personal sensation of being alive occurs in just the same way as the river flowing and the stars shinning far out in space. There is no question of submitting or accepting or going with it, for what happens in and as you is no different from what happens as it.

Wendell Berry On How To Be A Poet

~ The Wisdom Archivist

79323C23-8876-47BA-AAAA-0C6A9A8804D6Wendell Berry (August 05, 1934 -)

(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill – more of each
than you have – inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.