Mystics

"There are also, I believe, good addictions of a sort, and I have been blessed (or cursed) by one of them: an addiction to consciousness."

"The one New Age book that has attracted the most attention, and the one that I am most often asked about, is A Course in Miracles. It is a very good book, filled with a lot of first-rate psychiatric wisdom. But A Course in Miracles also denies the reality of evil, saying that evil is unreal, a kind of figment of our imagination. This is not all that far from the truth, because evil does have a great deal to do with unreality. In fact, in my book People of the Lie, I defined Satan as ‘a real spirit of unreality’. So evil does have a great deal to do with unreality — that is, with lies and untruth. But that doesn’t mean that it in itself doesn’t exist. While A Course in Miracles purports to be Christian, it distorts Christian doctrine. It is not all the truth; rather, it is a half-truth, and in failing to deal with the problem of evil, it leaves out a major part of the picture. It runs with only one side of the ‘paradox’ of evil."

"I see no value whatsover in unconstructive suffering."

"From my practice as a psychiatrist and my experience and observations in general, I have become familiar with the common errors related to the failure to think well. One, of course, is simply not thinking. Another is making assumptions in thinking, through the use of one-dimensional logic, stereotypes, and labelling. Another problem is the belief that thinking and communication don’t require much effort. Another is assuming that thinking is a waste of time, which is a particular factor in the quiet rage we experience around the failure to solve many social problems."

"I believe that all psychological disorders are bascially disorders of consciousness. They are not rooted in the unconscious but in a conscious mind that refuses to think and is unwilling to deal with certain issues, bear certain feelings, or tolerate pain. These issues, feelings , or desires are in the unconscious only because a pain-avoiding conscious mind has thrust them there."

"... Thinking and consciousness are inextricably locked together in a parallel relationship. Consciousness is the foundation of all thinking, and thinking is the foundation of all consciousness. Anytime there is a failure in thinking, there is a corresponding deficit in a person’s level of consciousness. Thus, all human behavior—the good, the bad, and the indifferent—is determined by the extent, or lack thereof, of the quality of thinking and consciousness involved."

"It occurred to him (Carl Jung) that it was perhaps no accident that we traditionally referred to alcoholic drinks as ‘spirits’, and that perhaps alcoholics were people who had a greater thirst for the spirit than others, and that perhaps alcoholism was a spiritual disorder or, better yet, a spiritual condition."

"You may remember that The Road Less Travelled opened with the sentence "Life is difficult." And to that great truth, I will now add another translation: Life is complex."

"One issue where Christian theology and the New Age movement tend to part company radically concerns the issue of evil. Christian doctrine holds that evil is real. Eastern religions do not consider it to be real. They consider it to be illusion or false knowledge, what they call maya. I do not claim there is nothing to this view. There is no doubt in my mind that by thinking of evil we can create it. If we read the demonic into everything with which we disagree – as many Stage Two religious folk are prone to do – then we will cause fragmentation and hostility rather than healing. Through the New Age movement, however, the simplistic idea has spread that if we could just change our thinking, we would realise there’s no such thing as evil in the world. It would all just go away, vanish. But the reality is that there really are people out there who like to maim, to torture, and to crush other people. There are people who want war because they profit from war. And you can get into serious trouble if you believe that there aren’t. Because sooner or later you will be accosted with real evil, and dealing with it will not be as easy as some New Age books imply."

"Almost as horrific as evil itself is the denial of it, as in the case of those who go through life wearing rose-coloured glasses."

"In my practice as a psychotherapist, I would routinely tell my patients, "Psychotherapy is not about happiness; it is about power. If you go the whole route here, I cannot guarantee that you will leave one jot happier. What I can guarantee you is that you will leave more competent"."

"The individual with a secular consciousness essentially thinks that he is the center of the universe. Such people tend to be quite intelligent. They know full well that they are but one of six billion human beings scratching out an existence on the surface of a medium-sized planet that is a small fragment of a tiny solar system within a galaxy among countless galaxies, and that each of those other human beings also thinks that he is the center of the universe. Consequently, intelligent though they may be, people with a secular consciousness are prone to feel a bit lost within this hugeness and, despite their "centrality," to often experience a sense of meaninglessness and insignificance. The person with a sacred consciousness, on the other hand, does not think of himself as the center of the universe. For him the center resides elsewhere, specifically in God — in the Sacred. Yet despite this lack of centrality, he is actually less likely to feel himself insignificant or meaningless than the secularist is, because he sees himself existing in relationship with that Sacred Other, and it is from this relationship that he derives his meaning and significance. Sometimes people fall in between, with one foot planted in sacred consciousness and the other in secular consciousness..."

"... It is common for consciousness to be treated almost as it were a common cold, contagious or potentially deadly if one spreads deep thinking too much to those in one's environment.... Being aware is often greeted with suspicion and trepidation..."

"When I wrote The Road Less Travelled, I never gave a definition of maturity, but I did describe in the book a number of immature people. It seems to me that what most characterizes immature people is that they sit around complaining that life does not meet their demands. On the other hand, what characterizes those relative few who are fully mature is that they see life as their responsibility — even as an opportunity to meet its demands. Indeed, when we realize that everything that happens to us has been designed to teach us what we need to know on our journey of life, we begin to see life from a totally different perspective."

"One of the major dilemmas we face both as individuals and as a society is simplistic thinking — or the failure to think at all. It is not just a problem, it is the problem."

"I believe that the differences between those who are actively religious or spiritual and those who are not are generally not so much random as developmental."

"Paraphrase: Evil is actively opposed to love. It is not laziness but militant refusal. It is anti-love."

"Liberation theology proclaims that Christians are called to play an active role in doing battle with the systemic sins and evils of society – called to take responsibility for liberating people from the burdens of poverty and oppression... As (Tom) Langford points out, people who focus exclusively on liberation become fanatic and glum..."

"Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs."

"Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Do we want to teach our children to solve them?"

"In any case, in Vietnam it was the extraordinary power of nationalism, not communism, that brought the United States to its knees. To oppose legitimate nationalism is to do so at our peril."

"I want to scream this from the rooftops: ‘All symptoms are overdetermined.’ Except that I want to expand it way beyond psychiatry. I want to expand it to almost everything. I want to translate it, ‘Anything of any significance is overdetermined. Everything worth thinking about has more than one cause.’ Repeat after me: ‘For any single thing of importance, there are multiple reasons.’ … Because we assume there is a reason for everything, we go looking for it when we should be looking for them."

"Laymen tend to associate sadism and masochism with purely sexual activity, thinking of them as the sexual enjoyment derived from inflicting or receiving physical pain. Actually, true sexual sadomasochism is a relatively uncommon form of psychopathology. Much, much more common, and ultimately more serious, is the phenomenon of social sadomasochism, in which people unconsciously desire to hurt and be hurt by each other through their nonsexual interpersonal relations."

"By masochism I do not mean that they (masochists) get their sexual jollies out of physical pain, but simply that in some strange way they are chronically self-destructive. Masochists are people who perpetually attempt to destroy themselves. They are always, in one way or another, trying to kill themselves. In the long run they almost always succeed. Our task in therapy is to help them empty themselves of their masochism so that life may fill them instead. The problem of masochism is intimately tied up with the problem of responsibility. Masochists are people who, because they hate themselves, believe that they are worthless and deserve only punishment. They are self-destructive because they lack the capacity to assume responsibility for their own lives. Instead of taking care of themselves, they neglect themselves, abuse themselves, and in the end destroy themselves. The genuinely disciplined person, on the other hand, is one who takes responsibility for his or her own life and well-being. Discipline is self-caring. Masochism is not. Discipline is love translated into action; masochism is love turned against the self."

"The only real route to peace is through self-purification. We must purge ourselves of our own pride, our need to control, and our unwillingness to suffer for the sake of others. Peacemaking begins inside each of us."

"The problem of evil is perhaps the most fundamental of all human problems. True community is always in a state of almost constant terror at the problem of human evil."

"Although the act of nurturing another's spiritual growth has the effect of nurturing one's own, a major characteristic of genuine love is that the distinction between oneself and the other is always maintained and preserved."

"At one point I allowed myself to become involved in a project called the Peace Train. It started as a fine idea but soon began to acquire all the trappings of a cult. People were surrendering their critical judgment to the leaders and suppressing their differences for the sake of an emotional high. When I recognized what was happening, I pulled out. I had no desire to become a guru, nor to see community used as a means of control. The Peace Train itself turned out to be terribly boring. What passed for excitement was mostly posturing. I found myself dreading the meetings and relieved when it finally came to an end."

"Paraphrase: Since the primary characteristic of evil is laziness, and since laziness is so common, it is obvious that evil is commonplace."

"Paraphrase: In theological language evil is not just a defect but a real spirit of unreality. It is that which refuses to acknowledge reality, to acknowledge truth; it is, therefore, a form of unconsciousness."

"Paraphrase: Hannah Arendt has written of the ‘banality of evil.’ She was speaking of the Nazi bureaucrats who performed their monstrous duties with the same bland efficiency as they would any other job. It is a fitting phrase. Evil is banal. It is utterly unoriginal. It is simply the absence of love."

"Paraphrase: Many people, because they have not successfully resolved the Oedipal stage, remain emotionally children; they are afraid to grow up, afraid to risk independence, afraid to risk real love."

"Paraphrase: Evil may be thought of as a failure to complete the Oedipal process."

"It would, I believe, be quite appropriate to classify evil people as constituting a specific variant of the narcisstic personality disorder."

"Who in the hell is Satan? I don't know."

"The spirit of evil is one of unreality, but it itself is real. To think otherwise is to be misled."

"Evil can be thought of as the exercise of political power — that is, the imposition of one’s will upon others by overt or covert coercion in order to avoid extending oneself for the purpose of nurturing spiritual growth."

"I have come to suspect that many cases of schizophrenia may in fact be the result of evil being passed from parents to children ... it is possible that some children, faced with the choice of either becoming evil themselves or utterly losing their minds, choose the latter. Evil is contagious. The children of the evil are often damaged for life."

"Paraphrase: I actually think that most people are consciously evil and unconsciously good. I can kind of explain why people are consciously evil, but find it much harder to explain why they are unconsciously good."

"Paraphrase: The successful resolution of the Oedipal situation permits the growth of love beyond the family; failure to resolve it results in dependency, narcissism, and immaturity in one’s capacity to love."

"Paraphrase: Evil has no depth. It is not creative. It is not even in the least bit interesting. It is boring. It is banal."

"Paraphrase: Evil is the complete absence of self-development. It is the refusal to undergo the suffering required for growth. Ordinary laziness is a passive failure to love. Evil, however, is an active failure to love. It is not merely a sin of omission but of commission. The evil are people who refuse to acknowledge their own failures, who instead place the burden of their sins upon others and thereby destroy others in order to preserve their own self-image of perfection. Evil originates not in the absence of guilt but in the effort to escape it."

"Paraphrase: Evil originates in failure to acknowledge one’s own pain and sin."

"Nou goth sonne under wode,— Me reweth, Marie, thi faire Rode. Nou goth sonne under tre,— Me reweth, Marie, thi sone and the."

"Falling leaf’s voice listen the Unborn Sphere"

"Holy breath breathes deeply setting earth and water ablaze false self’s face burns away God-given life endures"

"He was unlike anyone whom I had ever met before, a Zen master, a Buddhist who had met Jesus, a Dominican friar, and a Catholic priest. Yet I felt utterly at home with him, touched at the core of my being."

"It is true, even in Buddhism, there is pain, vain talk about ‘enlightenment’ as though enlightenment were a uniform one could put on. And then there is the problem of the koan. Buddhists and Western followers of Buddhism are attached to the koan because they lack any real sign of tradition. If they do not have sub-currents it is better for them to disappear. The koan is the occasion to cut us off. “If you have faith, you can move mountains” (Matthew 17:20) is a koan. It cuts through! The bonzes do not know the reason for the koan. Therefore the bonzes cannot satisfy. A flower can be a koan. A great master, Gutei, made a koan of his finger."

"In every religion it is the same—each one is unique. Shakyamuni Buddha and Dogen Zenji and others—each is unique. The sutra—the canonical Scripture—in other traditions is another kind of revelation. Don’t compare! Don’t say, “I am superior.” Learn other mystical currents. We should adore by Spirit and bare reality. Don’t condemn! Don’t compare!"

"限りなき なみだの海に 消えず 立たなむ 茂人"