It is the difficult, but unavoidable, task of the modern individual to assimilate consciously all of the contents - from darkest degradation to profoundest purpose - contained in the psyche. Daniel Pinchbeck More Quotes by Daniel Pinchbeck More Quotes From Daniel Pinchbeck The idea that I really like is December 21st, 2012. Try to get a global moment of collective reflection as a way to bring about an uptick in human consciousness. Daniel Pinchbeck reflection trying ideas People used to make their own clothes, now they buy clothes. People used to take care of their own kids, now they pay other people do it. And that was because capitalism requires more and more things being turned into money - being turned into profit. But that has reached this absurd limit where there's nothing left to turn into money, and the capitalist system is breaking down. Daniel Pinchbeck clothes kids people Shamanism is a kind of universal spiritual practice with indigenous cultures around the world, and one important element of it is taking care of spirits. Daniel Pinchbeck important practice spiritual Synchronicities express themselves through chance meetings and natural events as well as in dreams and supernatural episodes. Daniel Pinchbeck events chance dream The plants that produce visions can function- for those of us who have inherited the New World Order of barren materialism, cut off from our spiritual heritage by a spiteful culture that gives us nothing but ashes- as the talismans of recognition that awaken our minds to reality. Daniel Pinchbeck cutting spiritual reality I grew up in a very artistic, cultured home, but without any kind of spirituality. My parents were secular materialists, so I saw art as having an alternate value. Daniel Pinchbeck parent home art I'm starting to reread a bunch of Gandhi and it was kind of traumatic, because he was so clearly, unbelievably amazing. And the stuff that he is suggesting is so profoundly opposite from what is happening in our world today. Daniel Pinchbeck our-world opposites stuff Cynicism is something that is part of the media production of a certain type of subjectivity or consciousness that is passive and disempowered, cynical, fatalistic, pessimistic. Daniel Pinchbeck subjectivity cynical media Through the last centuries, the effort of capitalism has been to take all the things that were human relations and turn them into monetary exchanges. Daniel Pinchbeck effort century lasts I don't really advocate for psychedelics. I don't really think anybody needs to do them, or has to do them. For me, they were the only way I could have cracked open my own spirit in a way. Daniel Pinchbeck way needs thinking My personal, metaphysical belief is Vedanta, which is that ultimately there is a singular consciousness. It's like a Hindu metaphysics, that basically we're all like characters in a play that consciousness is putting on to discover its own creative capacities. Daniel Pinchbeck creative play character A lot of indigenous cultures are deeply involved in working with ancestor spirits, elemental spirits, and demons. Many of these cultures feel that, if you don't deal properly with ancestor spirits, then they come back and infest the living in the form of things like depression, addictive patterns, and neuroses. We in the modern West completely deny the existence of these spirits or other types of entities. And because we've denied them, we may have opened the gates for them to manipulate us in a lot of ways. Daniel Pinchbeck neurosis may culture I totally think we have a future on the planet. I just think that we have to get away from Western thinking, which is very much founded on dualisms. Daniel Pinchbeck get-away planets thinking Individuals who are really inspirational are always what changes history. Gandhi had a bunch of good ideas, and he led a non - violent revolution that transformed India. Daniel Pinchbeck revolution india ideas Life as an end is qualitatively different from life as a means. Daniel Pinchbeck growth different mean According to Buddhism, each person is a Buddha who has forgotten their original nature. If we in the pampered West, having grown up with so many advantages, could not claim our own health and our agency, preferring to see ourselves as helpless victims, then who would do it? Who would take responsibility for the world? Daniel Pinchbeck buddhism agency responsibility The drive to Black Rock City from San Francisco leads through the Nevada flatlands, past the jittering neon sadness of Reno. Daniel Pinchbeck rocks sadness past Our normal human tendencies are distraction and dissipation. We begin one task, then get seduced by some other option, and lose our focus. We drift away from what is difficult and we know to be true, to what is comfortable and socially condoned. Daniel Pinchbeck independence focus tasks
