Respect your curses, for they are the instruments of your destiny. Joseph Campbell More Quotes by Joseph Campbell More Quotes From Joseph Campbell But the makers of legend have seldom rested content to regard the world's great heroes as mere human beings who broke past the horizons that limited their fellows and returned such boons as any man with equal faith and courage might have found. Joseph Campbell heroinspirationalpast So I think the Guru can be a delusion. But everything can be deluding. The thing central about the Guru in the West is that he represents an alien principle of the spirit, namely, that you don't follow your own path; you follow a given path. And that's totaly contrary to the Western Spirit! Our spirituality is of the individual quest, individual realization- authenticity in your life out of your own center. So you must take the message of the East, assimilate it to your own dimension and to your own thrust of life, and not get pulled off track. Joseph Campbell trackrealizationthinking It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward. Joseph Campbell primefunctionspirit The problem of making the inner meet the outer of today is, of course, the function of the artist. Joseph Campbell functionartist The goal is to live with God like composure on the full rush of energy, like Dionysus riding the leopard, without being torn to pieces. Joseph Campbell ridingenergygoal I think it's important to live life with a knowledge of its mystery, and of your own mystery. Joseph Campbell live-lifeimportantthinking When you translate the Bible with excessive literalism, you demythologize it. The possibility of a convincing reference to the individual's own spiritual experience is lost. (111) Joseph Campbell possibilityspiritualinspirational In meditating, meditate on your own divinity. The goal of life is to be a vehicle for something higher. Keep your eyes up there between the world of opposites watching your 'play' in the world.Let the world be as it is and learn to rock with the waves. Joseph Campbell rockseyeopposites All religions are true but none are literal. Joseph Campbell hero-journeyinspirationalreligion And so Galahad decided that it would be a disgrace to set off on a quest with the other knights. Alone he would enter the dark forest where there was no path. This is the myth of The Hero's Journey. Joseph Campbell journeyherodark Awe is what moves us forward. Joseph Campbell awemoving In the older view the goddess Universe was alive, herself organically the Earth, the horizon, and the heavens. Now she is dead, and the universe is not an organism, but a building, with gods at rest in it in luxury: not as personifications of the energies in their manners of operation, but as luxury tenants, requiring service. And Man, accordingly, is not as a child born to flower in the knowledge of his own eternal portion but as a robot fashioned to serve. Joseph Campbell flowermenchildren Just as anyone who listens to the muse will hear, you can write out of your own intention or out of inspiration. There is such a thing. It comes up and talks. And those who have heard deeply the rhythms and hymns of the gods, can recite those hymns in such a way that the gods will be attracted. Joseph Campbell writinginspirationalart One of the great disadvantages of a literary or scriptural tradition like the biblical one is that a deity or context of deities becomes crystallized, petrified at a certain time and place. The deity doesn’t continue to grow, expand, or take into account new cultural forces and new realizations in the sciences, and the result is this make-believe conflict we have in our culture between science and religion. Joseph Campbell biblicalbelieveculture Heinrich Zimmerhe had a little saying : The best things cant be told - because they are transcendent, inexpressible truths. The second best are misunderstood : myths, which are metaphoric attempts to point to the way toward the first. And the third best have to do with history, science, biography, and so on. The only kind of talking that can be understood is this last kind. Joseph Campbell misunderstoodlittlestalking You don't ask what a dance means. You enjoy it. You don't ask what the world means. You enjoy it. You don't ask what you mean. You enjoy it. Joseph Campbell enjoymeanworld Eternity is not future or past. Eternity is a dimension of now. It is a dimension of the human spirit -- which is eternal. Find that eternal dimension in yourself, and you will ride through time, and throughout the whole length of your days. Joseph Campbell dimensionsspiritpast Life is but a mask worn on the face of death. And is death, then, but another mask? 'How many can say,' asks the Aztec poet, 'that there is, or is not, a truth beyond?' Joseph Campbell azteclife-isfaces People who don't have a concept of the whole can do very unfortunate things. Joseph Campbell unfortunate-thingswholepeople You may have success in life, but then just think of it - what kind of life was it? What good was it - you've never done the thing you wanted to do in all your life. I always tell my students, go where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling, then stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off. Joseph Campbell soulfeelingsthinking
