TODAY'S CONSIDERATIONS
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From Philosophers And Sages And Seers Of Truth:
Miscellaneous Quotations And Pointers That Are Relevant To Advaitins / Non-Dualists
excerpted from the book
Next, notice that with the exception of Maharaj and me, most of the quotes in this series are from those that never sought via a non-duality method or non-dual yoga or with any non-dual teacher; nevertheless, they were obviously aware to one degree or another of certain universal truths by way of having tapped into the universal consciousness either via the inner guru / the inner resource or via the way which Maharaj did:
M.: “I have no faith in anything which has ever been told, not even what has been told by the Vedas. Only my own experience.” (And of course even that happened in the absence of any "experiencer.")
To continue:
Transcendentalist Walt Whitman
“Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her, it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.”
"After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains."
"I accept reality and dare not question it."
" . . . A leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars."
" . . . I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep."
"I exist as I am . . . ."
"Re-examine all that you have been told . . . ."
"The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything."
"To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier."
Brad Thor
Consider the point of this exchange:
Character 1: "He started by using his wealth to co-opt anyone who could have an impact on popular culture or public opinion. Newspapers, actors, journalists, publishers, politicians, business people, unions - you name it. The idea was to be able to control the media, as well as any other voices Americans trusted. It's ideological subversion, plain and simple. To get it to take hold, though, they needed to begin planting this new way of thinking in the most fertile minds that could get a hold of."
Character 2: "Which means kids."
Character 1: "Precisely. But it wasn't enough to simply plant this new ideology. For it to blossom, it had to grow without being challenged."
Character 2: "Couldn't they be deprogrammed? I'm sure it'd be a monumental task, but . . . ."
Character 1: "No. They're completely immune to anything that deviates from their ideological perception of reality and what they have been taught is the 'real' truth. The lens they look through life at has forever been altered. It's both terrifying and brilliant in its totality."
Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi
"I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before anyone, even at the cost of your life."
"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.
"A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion."
"Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances."
"Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone."
"I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
"I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason . . . ."
"Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
"We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
" . . . Unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality."
"Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality."
Nelson Mandela
"There is no such thing as part freedom."
"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. "
"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."
“The time comes in the life of any nation when there remains only two choices - submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa."
Immanuel Kant
"All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason."
" . . . Although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience."
"From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned."
"Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason."
"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life."
"Seek not the favor of the multitude . . . but seek the testimony of few; number not voices, but weigh them."
"The history of the human race . . . may be regarded as the realization of . . . nature . . . to bring about . . . the only state in which all of the capacities implanted by her in mankind can be fully developed."
Bruce Lipton
He reported that most of the subconscious programming of every person on the planet takes place from birth to six years of age; that the habits and beliefs that form the subconscious mind are implanted by the age of six; and that the brain is operating in the delta and theta brain wave states during those early childhood years, making a person susceptible to programming and to accepting even the craziest concepts as truth.
Clive Cussler
(or, more accurately, written by one of his many ghost writers)
A character explaining what happened during his trips to the ocean: "An inner feeling always overcame Pitt when he was alone and near the sea. It was as though his soul seeped out of his body, and he became a thing without substance, without form. His mind was purified and cleansed; all mental labor ceased and all thoughts vanished. He was only vaguely aware of hot and cold, smells, touch, and all the other senses, except hearing. He listened to the nothingness of silence . . . . Forgotten for the moment were all his failures, all his victories and all his loves, even life itself was buried and lost in the stillness. He lay dead and floated in the water . . . . Finally, a small swell slapped at his face and he unwittingly inhaled a few drops of salt water."
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
"I am convinced that an important stage of human thought will have been reached when the physiological and the psychological, the objective and the subjective, are actually united, when the tormenting conflicts or contradictions between my consciousness and my body will have been factually resolved or discarded."
Lewis Thomas
" . . . Awareness exists in all the individual creatures on the planet—worms, sea urchins, gnats, whales, subhuman primates, superprimate humans, the lot."
Max Planck
"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."
Heinrich Hertz
"Outside our consciousness there lies the cold and alien world of actual things. Between the two stretches the narrow borderland of the senses. No communication between the two worlds is possible excepting across the narrow strip. For a proper understanding of ourselves and of the world, it is of the highest importance that this borderland should be thoroughly explored."
To be continued.
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