Mythology
ChatWisdom Contemplations:
“Mythology does not interest me. Nor does history. But the possible overlap between history and mythology excites me immensely.” -Ashwin Sanghi
“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie (deliberate, contrived and dishonest), but the myth, which is persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” -John F. Kennedy
“A ritual is the enactment of a myth. And, by participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth. And, since myth is a projection of the depth wisdom of the psyche, by participating in a ritual, participating in the myth, you are being put into accord with that wisdom, which is the wisdom that is inherent within you anyhow. Your consciousness is being re-minded of the wisdom of your own life.” -Joseph Campbell
“If we don’t learn to mythologize our lives, inevitably we will pathologize them.” -Fr. Richard Rohr
Simplicity
ChatWisdom Contemplations:
“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.” -Albert Einstein
“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” -Lao Tzu
“When the faith is strong enough, it is sufficient just to be. It's a journey towards simplicity, towards quietness, towards a kind of joy that’s not in time. It's a journey that has taken us from primary identification with our body and our psyche, on to an identification with God, and ultimately beyond identification.” -Ram Dass
“If we are to love sincerely, and with simplicity, we must first of all overcome the fear of not being loved.” -Thomas Merton
“The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity.” -Rev. Douglas Horton
Fate & Destiny
ChatWisdom Contemplations:
“I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfill our destiny, but our fate is sealed.” -Paulo Coelho
“We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours” -Dag Hammarskjold
“Fate leads (her) who follows it, and drags (him) who resists.” -Plutarch
“I know my destiny is moksha or liberation. I will not die for money or success. I am satisfied living the life I am leading, and I will die with dignity.” -Sonu Nigam
The Quest
ChatWisdom Contemplations:
“We're wired somehow to want to be part of something bigger. And we quest to understand what our role is.” -Robert Sawyer
“The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel (humanity) to unfold (its) powers.” -Erich Fromm
“The spiritual quest was always the predominant aspect of my life. It's always been there. But there's also an incredible passion connected to it; it's not just a dry investigative process. I have been extremely emotional about it, and that comes out in the songs.” -Cat Stevens (Yusef)
“Most people are not on a truth quest; they are on a happiness quest. They will continue to attend your church, even if they don't share your beliefs, as long as they find the content engaging and helpful.” -Andy Stanley
Ancestors
ChatWisdom Contemplations:
“When our ancestors crouched about the campfire at night, they told each other tales of gods and heroes, monsters and marvels, to hold back the terrors of the night. Such tales comforted and entertained, diverted and educated those who listened, and helped shape their sense of the world and their place in it.” -Kate Forsyth
“Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.” -Ralph Ellison
“We forget that the soul has its own ancestors” -James Hillman
“The ancestor of every action is a thought.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature
ChatWisdom Contemplations:
“If you wish to know the divine, feel the wind on your face and the warm sun on your hand.” -The Buddha
“I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” -John Muir
“Mother Nature is always speaking. She speaks in a language understood within the peaceful mind of the sincere observer. Leopards, cobras, monkeys, rivers and trees; they all served as my teachers when I lived as a wanderer in the Himalayan foothills” -Radhanath Swami
“Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings.” -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.” -Joseph Campbell
Wonder
ChatWisdom Contemplations:
“The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.” -Ralph Sockman
“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of our desire to understand.” -Neil Armstrong
“Many people in their teens wonder about the big questions - what's the meaning of life, what are we doing here - then somewhere in their 20s, they seem to say, 'I'll just get married. I'll have kids. I'll get back to that later.' But they never do. For me, it kept boiling.” -Yuval Noah Harari
“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” -E.E. Cummings
Belonging
ChatWisdom Contemplations:
“You can't build a society purely on interests, you need a sense of belonging.” -Valery D’Estaing
“That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” -Voltaire
If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or objects.” -Albert Einstein
Transformation
ChatWisdom Contemplations:
“Asking the proper questions is the central action of transformation. Questions are the key that causes the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.” -Clarissa Pinkola Estes
“The way of the Creative works best through change and transformation.” -Alexander Pope
“If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.” -Jiddu Krishnamurti
“It is all very well to copy what one sees, but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one's memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory.” -Edgar Degas
Pilgrimage
ChatWisdom Contemplations:
“The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes” -Marcel Proust
“Religion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage.” -Frederick Buechner
“Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.” -Rabbi Abraham Heschel
“As I make my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain sense of beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow.” -A.C. Benson