Quotations
What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.
What I do you cannot do; but what you do, I cannot do. The needs are great, and none of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.
Whoever is spared personal pain must feel himself called to help in diminishing the pain of others. We must all carry our share of the misery which lies upon the world.
A human being is a part of a whole called by us the ’Universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
What makes injustice so unacceptable in our time is the fact that we now possess the know-how to feed the world and provide basics for all its citizens. What is lacking is the will and the way. What is lacking is compassion.
In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
An increasing number of people are growing uncomfortable with the gulf between the world’s rich and the poor. Ostentatiously splashing your money around simply draws attention to that disparity, and to your own position on the lucky higher ground. It suggests a callousness, an inhumanity, a let’s-just-rub-their-noses-in-it arrogance.
A civilization which deprecates the heart, which idolizes objectivity in the forms of scientism, positivism and rationalism, which bases its entire education on the notion that decisions must be taken without interference from the emotions, inevitably exposes itself to the dangers of unlimited violence.
Human beings are not an all powerful life form that is going to destroy the planet, you know. We shouldn’t give ourselves airs. We’re simply another highly successful species that is fast approaching the point where the usual controls kick in. And the usual environmental controls, I’m afraid, are quite harsh. Mass die-offs are commonplace and extinctions are not unknown. What we need now is a new kind of human being who’s adapted to living in a global culture many billions strong. A global villager who can treat all the planet’s people as neighbours.
The search for consciousness begins with an effort to shake off the false consciousness imposed by society… One devise is particularly important; an individual cannot hope to achieve an independent consciousness unless he cultivates, by whatever means are available including clothes, speech, mannerisms, illegal activities and so forth, the feeling of being an outsider. Only the person who feels himself to be an outsider is genuinely free of the lures and temptations of the Corporate State.
Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighbouring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.
There are three things healthy people most need to do – to be creatively productive, to render service, and to act in accordance with their moral impulses. In all three respects modern society frustrates most people most of the time.
A civilization which deprecates the heart, which idolizes objectivity in the forms of scientism, positivism and rationalism, which bases its entire education on the notion that decisions must be taken without interference from the emotions, inevitably exposes itself to the dangers of unlimited violence.
It has been universally recognized, in all authentic teachings of mankind, that every being born into this world has to work, not merely to keep himself alive, but to strive towards perfection.
The truly educated man is not a man who knows a bit of everything, not even a man who knows all the details of all subjects (if such a thing were possible). The whole man in fact may have little detailed knowledge of facts and theories… but he will be truly in touch with the centre. He will not be in doubt about his basic convictions, about his own view on the meaning and purpose of life. He may not be able to explain these matters in words, but the conduct of his life will show a certain sureness of touch which stems from his inner clarity.
Economics without spirituality can give you temporary and physical gratification, but it cannot provide an internal fulfillment. Spiritual economics brings service, compassion and relationships into equal play with profit and efficiency. We need both and we need them simultaneously.
It is a grave error to accuse a man who pursues self-knowledge of ‘turning his back on society’. The opposite would be more nearly true: that a man who fails to pursue self-knowledge is and remains a danger to society, for he will tend to misunderstand everything that other people say or do, and remain blissfully unaware of the significance of many of the things he does himself.
Without self-awareness man acts, speaks studies, reacts, mechanically, like a machine: on the basis of “programs” acquired accidentally, unintentionally, mechanically. He is not aware that he is acting in accordance with programs… when he is awake, no one can program him: he programs himself.
I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
What I do you cannot do; but what you do, I cannot do. The needs are great, and none of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.
In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
The radical will not work through the power structure in order to take it over. Neither will he wait until the establishment is ready to accept his ideas, for he may very well spend his whole life waiting as so many have done. He begins to act now on the vision. He is building a new society which will replace the old.
Legitimately cool people instinctively understand that the psychology of subservience – getting corporately seduced – is a chicken ass way to live. Today such people are an endangered species.
All possessions are by nature unrighteous; when one possesses them for personal advantage and does not bring them into the common stock for those in need.
When someone steals a man’s clothes we call him a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry man; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to the man who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the man who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.
True Godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavours to mend it.
God has no need of your money, but the poor have. You give it to the poor, and God receives it.
To be a Christian is to be subversive, or at least that is how he will be viewed by society. Since his loyalty is to one who is beyond history, he cannot give his ultimate allegiance to any government, business, class, or any other institution. His views cannot be expected to coincide with the majority view around him. He can be expected to be in continual conflict with the structures of society, for to be at peace with God means to be in conflict with the world.
