Quote collection
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"In Hindu philosophy the whole creation is regarded as the Vishnu Lila, the play of Vishnu. Lila means dance or play. Also in Hindu philosophy, they call the world illusion; and in Latin the root of the word illusion is ludere, to play."
"The trouble with many religions, accused of wishful thinking, is that they are not wishful enough. They show a deplorable lack of imagination."
"Where-so-ever beings exist throughout all galaxies, it doesn't make any difference - you are all of them....and when they come into being, that's you coming into being."
"Make a spurious division of one process into two, forget that you have done it, and then puzzle for centuries as to how the two get together."
"There is a peculiar contradiction in trying to be a member of a republic while believing that the universe is a monarchy."
"When we look for things there is nothing but mind, and when we look for mind there is nothing but things."
"For me, being literate and articulate is a form of judo, of overcoming the [system] by its own method."
"You will begin to realize that if you contemplate long enough on the leaf of the flower, that it involves the whole universe."
"To feel that life is meaningless unless “I” can be permanent is like having fallen desperately in love with an inch."
"To be free from convention is not to spurn it but not to be deceived by it."
"But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is. If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death - or shall I say, death implies life - you can conceive yourself."
"Do you have any control over being conscious? Do you know how you will?"
"For if you know what you want, and will be content with it, you can be trusted. But if you do not know, your desires are limitless and no one can tell how to deal with you. Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment."
"Someone once described “Christian Secularism” as the assumption that there is nothing at all to life except a pilgrimage between the maternity ward and the crematorium, and that it is within that span that Christian concern must be exercised because that is all there is."
"Increasingly, we're developing all kinds of systems for verifying reality by echoing it."
"Buddhism ... is not a culture but a critique of culture, an enduring nonviolent revolution or "loyal opposition" to the culture in which it is involved."
"You can't figure out the Universe, especially if you're using figures to figure it."
"If the human race develops an electronic nervous system, outside the bodies of individual people, thus giving us all one mind and one global body, this is almost precisely what has happened in the organization of cells which compose our own bodies. We have already done it. [...] If all this ends with the human race leaving no more trace of itself in the universe than a system of electronic patterns, why should that trouble us? For that is exactly what we are now!"
"How could you say the best form of government is a republic if you think the universe is a monarchy?"
"Playing a violin is, after all, only scraping a cat's entrails with horsehair."