Somewhere , I think on Facebook, I posted some very esoteric stuff that I said made sense to me. It was about the make-up of the universe and the relationship between thought and matter. (Just to be clear, I also love reading junk magazines about Angelina and Brad).
It made sense to me.
The following quotes come from Joseph Campbell, my personal St Joseph.
These quotes feel true to me, a much stronger statement than making sense. They are from
A Joseph Campbell Companion. Both center around 'growing awareness'.
——Yet there’s also some great strength to be gained by giving up that religion, by going beyond it. I mean, if you really do. If you just “drop out,” that’s something else. But if you think it through—if you learn to read the symbols as metaphors instead of accepting them as the facts they’re purported to be—if you know, in other words, why you are out, then it can be a source of great strength. But when you do break out, you then have to set up your own sacred field——
I share my very naked reflections and prayers and personal history in I PRAY ANYWAY:Devotions for the Ambivalent. It was a book that didn't need to be published but pulled me to publish it. I think it is because I was setting up my own sacred field. And it gives permission for others to do the same, which may mean staying in your original religion or doing something very different. I think many of us are going to create a new sacred field that shares what's common in our religions and honor the differences. I'm getting clearer and clearer about that. But first we need to 'play' with the idea, grow possibilities and experiment with new forms--interspirituality. That sounds surer than I think or feel but I'm heading that way.
——The only Western teacher I have found who gets it is Meister Eckhart, who says, “The ultimate leave-taking is the leaving of God for God.” All of our religions hang onto the image. None has gone past its god. The still point is going past the god. Goethe says, “Everything temporal is but a symbol.” Nietzsche says, “Everything eternal is but a metaphor.” They are saying the same thing. “Everything” includes God, heaven, hell, the whole works. So as long as you are living to get to heaven, you won’t find that still place—
One has to go beyond
the pairs of opposites
to find the real source.
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