The first thing a pretender to philosophy must do is get rid of their presuppositions; a person is not going to undertake to learn anything that they think they already know.
Why are we still lazy, indifferent and dull? Why do we look for excuses to avoid training and exercising our powers of reason?
To have contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years. For what more will you see?
A brief existence is common to all things, and yet you avoid and pursue all things as if they would be eternal.
Every part of me then will be reduced by change into some part of the universe, and that again will change into another part of the universe, and so on forever.
Whether the universe is a concourse of atoms, or nature is a system, let this first be established: that I am a part of the whole that is governed by nature; next, that I stand in some intimate connection with other kindred parts.
It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.
The man who spends his time choosing one resort after another in a hunt for peace and quiet, will in every place he visits find something to prevent him from relaxing.
I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.
Do you understand? Man needs entertainment simply to hide his madness. If he was perfectly sane, he would not need entertainment. He could just sit and watch this bamboo grow. He does not really need entertainment.
Yogis are not against pleasure. It is just that they are unwilling to settle for little pleasures. They are greedy.
Nothing has ever been out of place in this existence. Things have been out of place in human societies.
An intellectual understanding that is not backed by experiential knowledge can lead to mind games and deceptive states.
Why do we refer to the mind as a circus? A circus is not a mess; a circus is a very coordinated activity deliberately made to look like a mess. On one level it is a mess, but on another, it is a highly coordinated activity.
One should use information and logic as a drunkard would use a lamp post, only for support, not for illumination.
Only if you know to what extent your logic should go and where it should not go, your life will be beautiful.
Renunciation, or refusing to identify with that which one gathers (however precious it may be), is the ultimate doorway to knowing.
The whole spiritual process is just this: that you are willing to take the next step not knowing where it will lead you. If you are not ready for that, that means you are not ready for any new possibility.
Once your intellect gets identified with something, it gets chained to the identifications, and leaves you with a completely distorted experience of the world.
Believing means you have assumed something that you do not know; seeking means you have realized that you do not know.
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