The Self Quotes

Once I knew, then I forgot. It was as if I had fallen asleep in a field only to discover at waking that a grove of trees had grown up around me. “Doubt nothing, believe everything,” was my friend’s idea of metaphysics, although his brother ran away with his wife. He still bought her a rose every day, sat in the empty house for the next twenty years talking to her about the weather. I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it! My friend’s empty house with every one of its windows lit. The dark trees multiplying all around it.

Charles Simic

Thus he has two standpoints from which he can consider himself...: first, as belonging to the world of sense, under the laws of nature (heteronomy), and, second, as belonging to the intelligible world under laws which, independent of nature, are not empirical but founded only on reason.

Immanuel Kant

The embodiment of his mystic precepts, he appeared at any given moment to be on the verge of an amazing disintegration, his particular complex of atoms ready to go shooting off into the great void like a burst of fireworks.

Thomas Ligotti

Conflict is the essence of the self.

J.Krishnamurti

The beauty of theatre was that it was a moving, changing art form—only those who watch the same performance night in after night out see the real naturalistic drama at work—the small changes, adjustments, changes in articulation or intonation, the addition of a cough or hiccup, a longer pause rife with more (or less) meaning, the character’s movement across the stage a step slower, a step closer to the audience, the change of a word here and there, an overall change in mood and tone, the actors becoming (or not) the characters more fully, blending in with them, losing themselves in the lines, in the characterizations, in a drama that is simultaneously unfolding and becoming more and more verisimilitudinous as time marches on. This is the real narrative—while the character changes on stage in an instant, the play changes slowly, unnoticeably (unnoticeable to those closest to it perhaps), like the face of a man in his thirties, like his beliefs about life, his motives, all slowly as if duplicating itself day by day, filling itself and becoming more and more itself, the rehearsal of Self, the dress rehearsal of Self, the performance of Self, the extended performance of Self, the encore…—it appears to be the same show, played over and over again with the same details to different crowds, and yet something happens. Something changes. It is not the same show.

John M. Keller

We are the mountains we must cross.

Marty Rubin

Hence it is a superficial view (which presumably has never seen a person in despair, not even one’s own self) when it is said of a man in despair, "He is consuming himself." For precisely this it is he despairs of, and to his torment it is precisely this he cannot do, since by despair fire has entered into something that cannot burn, or cannot burn up, that is, into the self.

Søren Kierkegaard

An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this pregnant little fact. Your pierglass or extensive surface of polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially, and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, the candle is the egoism of any party now absent.

George Eliot

The self is a self-made Procrustean bedof little comfort

Ulf Wolf

A life of joy awaits the man who sits alone quietly in a room and determines what he himself believes rather than simply adopting the values of another.

Chris Matakas

If you do not worship God, you worship something, and nine times out of ten it will be yourself. You have a duty to worship God, not because He will be imperfect and unhappy if you do not, but because you will be imperfect and unhappy.

Fulton J. Sheen

The more we have outside ourselves the harder it is to get inside ourselves.

Chris Matakas

The very fact that you can observe this thinking mind is proof that you are not this thinking mind.

Chris Matakas

Polarities of the 'authentic' vs. the 'inauthentic' are easily discernible in recreational modes. The criteria of authenticity are not necessarily objective but rather have to do with the rules by which the self allows or disallows its own experience.

Walker Percy

The price we paid for the volumes of ourselves that we suffocated in the dark.

Nicole Krauss

The self is the class (not the collection) of the experiences (or autopsychological states). The self does not belong to the expression of the basic experience, but is constructed only on a very high level.

Rudolf Carnap

Lord, how excellent are Thy ways, and how devious and dark are the ways of man. Show us how to die, that we may rise again to newness of life. Rend the veil of our self-life from the top down as Thou didst rend the veil of the Temple. We would draw near in full assurance of faith. We would dwell with Thee in daily experience here on this earth so that we may be accustomed to the glory when we enter Thy heaven to dwell with Thee there. In Jesus' name, Amen.

A.W. Tozer

It's the words we whisper to ourselves that make us who we are.

Marty Rubin

Begin. . . where you are, NOT where you want to be. Begin stuck in the doldrums of your false story--if that is where you are. Begin there because, in truth, there is no other place to start from. Tell yourself that you are going to listen for the sound of your own voice--and remind yourself when you forget. And you will forget, over and over again.

Florence Falk

The goal and meaning of individual life (which is the only real life) no longer lie in individual development but in the policy of the State, which is thrust upon the individual from outside and consists in the execution of an abstract idea which ultimately tends to attract all life to itself.

C.G. Jung

Society is a collection of selves perpetuating their myth.

Chris Matakas

The State in particular is turned into a quasi-animate personality from whom everything is expected. In reality it is only a camouflage for those individuals who know how to manipulate it.

C.G. Jung

If only a world-wide consciousness could arise that all division and fission are due to the splitting of opposites in the psyche, then we should know where to begin.

C.G. Jung

The peculiar predicament of the present-day self surely came to pass as a consequence of the disappointment of the high expectations of the self as it entered the age of science and technology. Dazzled by the overwhelming credentials of science, the beauty and elegance of the scientific method, the triumph of modern medicine over physical ailments, and the technological transformation of the very world itself, the self finds itself in the end disappointed by the failure of science and technique in those very sectors of life which had been its main source of ordinary satisfaction in past ages.As John Cheever said, the main emotion of the adult Northeastern American who has had all the advantages of wealth, education, and culture is disappointment.Work is disappointing. In spite of all the talk about making work more creative and self-fulfilling, most people hate their jobs, and with good reason. Most work in modern technological societies is intolerably dull and repetitive.Marriage and family life are disappointing. Even among defenders of traditional family values, e.g., Christians and Jews, a certain dreariness must be inferred, if only from the average time of TV viewing. Dreary as TV is, it is evidently not as dreary as Mom talking to Dad or the kids talking to either.School is disappointing. If science is exciting and art is exhilarating, the schools and universities have achieved the not inconsiderable feat of rendering both dull. As every scientist and poet knows, one discovers both vocations in spite of, not because of, school. It takes years to recover from the stupor of being taught Shakespeare in English Lit and Wheatstone's bridge in Physics.Politics is disappointing. Most young people turn their backs on politics, not because of the lack of excitement of politics as it is practiced, but because of the shallowness, venality, and image-making as these are perceived through the media--one of the technology's greatest achievements.The churches are disappointing, even for most believers. If Christ brings us new life, it is all the more remarkable that the church, the bearer of this good news, should be among the most dispirited institutions of the age. The alternatives to the institutional churches are even more grossly disappointing, from TV evangelists with their blown-dry hairdos to California cults led by prosperous gurus ignored in India but embraced in La Jolla.Social life is disappointing. The very franticness of attempts to reestablish community and festival, by partying, by groups, by club, by touristy Mardi Gras, is the best evidence of the loss of true community and festival and of the loneliness of self, stranded as it is as an unspeakable consciousness in a world from which it perceives itself as somehow estranged, stranded even within its own body, with which it sees no clear connection. But there remains the one unquestioned benefit of science: the longer and healthier life made possible by modern medicine, the shorter work-hours made possible by technology, hence what is perceived as the one certain reward of dreary life of home and the marketplace: recreation.Recreation and good physical health appear to be the only ambivalent benefits of the technological revolution.

Walker Percy

He sees her looking at him with interest, and is encouraged to go on. 'I wouldn't be here with you now. This wouldn't be real - something else would. You'd have been another you, instead of the one you are now. You can't be tied down to a predestined fate when you change according to your situation, and your fate must change too. Everything depends on circumstances - on which "you" you happen to be at a given time...

Anna Kavan

In Ephesians 5, Paul shows us that even on earth Jesus did not use his power to oppress us but sacrificed everything to bring us into union with him. And this takes us beyond the philosophical to the personal and the practical. If God had the gospel of Jesus's salvation in mind when he established marriage, then marriage only 'works' to the degree that approximates the pattern of God's self-giving love in Christ.

Timothy J. Keller

Those dreaming of the perfect match are outnumbered by those who don't really want it at all, though perhaps they can't admit it. After all, our culture makes individual freedom, autonomy and fulfillment the very highest values, and thoughtful people know deep down that any love relationship at all means the loss of all three. You can say, 'I want someone who will accept me just as I am,' but in your heart of hearts you know that you are not perfect, that there are plenty of things about you that need to be changed, and that anyone who gets to know you up close and personal will want to change them.

Timothy J. Keller

Artifacts are alive. Each has a voice. They remind us what it means to be human - that it is our nature to survive, to create works of beauty to be resourceful, to be attentive to the world we live in.

Terry Tempest Williams

The modern age, with its growing world-alienation, has led to a situation where man, wherever he goes, encounters only himself. All the processes of the earth and the universe have revealed themselves either as man-made or as potentially man-made. These processes, after having devoured, as it were, the solid objectivity of the given, ended by rendering meaningless the one over-all process which originally was conceived in order to give meaning to them, and to act, so to speak, as the eternal time-space into which they could all flow and thus be rid of their mutual conflicts and exclusiveness. This is what happened to our concept of history, as it happened to our concept of nature. In the situation of the radical world-alienation, neither history nor nature is at all conceivable. This twofold loss of the world— the loss of nature and the loss of human artifice in the widest sense, which would include all history, has left behind it a society of men who, without a common world which would at once relate and separate them, either live in desperate lonely separation or are pressed together into a mass. For a mass-society is nothing more than that kind of organized living which automatically establishes itself among human beings who are still related to one another but have lost the world once common to all of them.

Hannah Arendt

When one sees his own faults, he will not have the time to see the others’ faults.

Dada Bhagwan

What is the difference between aradhana (worship) and bhajana (to be one with)? Aradhana (worship) means the attention will go over and over again there, and bhajana (oneness) means continuous engrossment. One is to do aradhana (worship) and bhajana (oneness) for only one’s own Self; everything else will carry on naturally.

Dada Bhagwan

If there is true ‘Selfishness,’ then there is ‘liberation of the Self’, and that indeed is one’s own form (the Self).

Dada Bhagwan

Books are a portable kind of time travel. We go back as well as forward when we read them. When we come back into the now, after being immersed in worlds previously unknown to us, we find ourselves, transformed. Touched by their magic, nothing we ever perceived beforehand remains quite the same.

Suzy Davies

Natural Self is the Soul and illusion is the relative self [prakruti].

Dada Bhagwa

He who can see his own mistake can become absolute supreme Self (Parmatma)!

Dada Bhagwa

Once a person starts seeing his own mistakes, he starts to become Parmatma, (absolute supreme Self)!

Dada Bhagwan

As long as one finds faults with the world, he won’t be able to find anything about the Soul (Self). He who sees his own faults is the Soul (Self) himself!

Dada Bhagwan

When one sees one’s own faults, he attains a state of an abode of Self-illuminated Bliss!

Dada Bhagwan

To ‘us’, nothing except the Soul (Atma) is beautiful, and there is indeed no such thing as bad in this world. Bad is to deviate from one’s own ‘boundary’ (to not remain as the Self).

Dada Bhagwan

Life is there to attain Liberation while going through the experience of it. It should not be ‘above normal’ or ‘below normal,’ it should be ‘normal’.

Dada Bhagwan

Worshipping ‘Gnani Purush’ [the enlightened one] is equal to worshiping the Pure Soul and it is indeed same as the worship of absolute supreme Self (Parmatma). And it is the main cause for moksha [final liberation].

Dada Bhagwan

Chit’s tendencies can become pure [transparent] in front of God, but people don’t have this knowhow. The easiest solution to purify chit’s tendencies is to associate with a person who has the least amount of desires and the ultimate solution to make them pure is the inner visual contemplation (niddidhyasan) of the Vitarag (the enlightened ones who are free of all attachments).

Dada Bhagwan

What is the nature of the Self (Soul)? To ‘see’ the dharma (function) of everything, to see ‘who is performing what function, and how that function is being performed.’ To ‘see’ it, is called the function of the Self (Soul).

Dada Bhagwan

Why is there so much problem just to know one’s own Soul? The Soul resides in one’s own abode (body), but one doesn’t know it and then he says, ‘I know this and I know that so’. Instead why don’t you get to know your own ‘Self’?

Dada Bhagwan

One enjoyed the mental pleasures through ignorance (of the Self), and that is cause of the worldly life. Only the bliss of the ‘Knowledge’ [of the Soul, one’s True Self] is to be enjoyed.

Dada Bhagwan

As long as one is involved in worldly interactions, there is pleasure of the mind; and after knowing the Self (Soul), there is bliss of the Soul.

Dada Bhagwan

If one were to worship the Soul (self) for even a moment, he will attain moksha without fail. Such is the elegance of the body-complex (paudgalik ramanta) in this world!

Dada Bhagwan

Once the bliss of the Soul (Self) is attained, it never leaves you. Bliss of the Soul (Self) is eternal.

Dada Bhagwan

What does ‘experience of the soul’ mean? It is a state of constant eternal bliss.

Dada Bhagwan

Who am I?’- Not knowing this is the greatest death to the Soul (one’s own self)!

Dada Bhagwan

Samkit’ (right belief) means knowing the Soul (self).

Dada Bhagwan

The greatest wonder of this world is the “Soul”. Once It is realized (attained), everything is attained!!!

Dada Bhagwan

Knowledge that brings closure [settlement] to the mind in every way is Absolute Knowledge and it indeed is the all encompassing Knowledge that always gives complete closure [settlement, solutions].

Dada Bhagwan

One is said to be enlightened with the Right Knowledge when his conduct is appropriate in any situation.

Dada Bhagwan

One who does wrong is considered illusioned (mithyatvi - ignorance of the Self). One who does right is considered enlightened (samkit).

Dada Bhagwan

In order to make the egoism non-existent [zero], the Gnani Purush [the enlightened one] establishes the awareness of the Pure Soul within.

Dada Bhagwan

The mind is the foundation for the next life. The foundation of the body will diminish [in this life itself].

Dada Bhagwan

One achieves the Self-state (swa-artha) while searching for the highest truth (param-artha). The search for the highest truth is solely for the purpose of attaining the Self, and once the Self is attained there is no need to search for the highest truth.

Dada Bhagwan

A true swarthi (interested in the Self) will become the absolute Self! This is considered paraartha (for the non-Self). A swarthi will attain the ‘Self’.

Dada Bhagwan

Dharma (function or properties) of the mind, dharma of the intellect, dharma of the chit, dharma of the ego – when all these dharma and the dharma of the Self (Soul) come into their own dharma (functions); that is known as Gnan (Knowledge of Self). And if we (self) insist upon any one’s dharma; it becomes ignorance (agnan).

Dada Bhagwan

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The Self Quotes

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