Inspirational quotes, thoughts, and musings

You must become free of all images of yourself. If you have an image, you are in prison.

Meaning remains a lesser privilege than wonder.

There is no answer, unless wonder constitutes the answer.

Paul Gaugin’s titles: “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” (1887)

Charles Bukowski admitted, "it is all beyond me,/ as most things are."

This 'effortless' actualization is announced by H.M. Balyuzi, describing those who have received the highest calling, so to speak. He states:

"The last thing the world needs is another ‘certain’ person. There aren't enough wildflowers growing, they've all been replanted." Mike Stack

“The mind is its own place,” claims John Milton, “and in itself/ Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.” (Paradise Lost, p253-255)

We persist there to such a detrimental extent because it seems we tend to suffer withdrawal from the opiate of concept when it is suddenly denied to us; we collapse pitifully from the vague, immense obscurity confronting us when the thin veil of interpretation, which builds up a 'reasonable' film over life, collapses.

Colin Wilson describes the outsiders as those "...who awake to the fact that they were not what they had always supposed themselves to be when they felt something that opened up new possibilities..." (p, 155)

As Elaine Pagels describes this movement in an individual, she says, "Gradually his shock gave way to wonder..."(The Gnostic Gospels, p70)

"I know nothing of myself;" exultantly confessed Oscar de L. Milosz, "should I seek to understand your secret? Let us stay as we are; all goes splendidly; let us become drunk with the mystery of the moment." Amorous Initiation, p 68 (Milosz, Oscar de L. Amorous Initiation. Inner Traditions International.)

We can better understand Christ's paradoxical exhortation- "Be ye wise as serpents, and innocent as doves", for the innocence of the dove now requires the wisdom of the serpent in order to live safely in the darkness of Knowledge's lair.

Osho also declares, "Take life at ease. Be unruffled, and move with strength and power and dignity into the unknown, into the dark, joyously, dancingly."(The Rebel, p29)

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These inspirational quotes are taken from the unpublished writings of Jack Haas, selected from the notebooks 1990-2005.