Brilliant quotes by Henry Miller

“To keep the mind empty is a feat, a very healthy feat too. To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself. The book-learning gradually dribbles away; problems melt and dissolve; thinking, when you deign to indulge in it, becomes very primitive; the body becomes a new and wonderful instrument; you look at plants or stones or fish with different eyes...”

Henry Miller (Colossus of Marousi, p47)

“Imagine, if you can, what it would be like if your heart began to beat with cosmic rhythm. Most people’s hearts don’t even beat with human rhythm. [But] there will come a time when man will no longer distinguish between man and god. When the human being is raised to his full powers he will be divine, his human consciousness will have fallen away. …Man will be free, that’s what I mean. Once he becomes the god which he is, he will have realised his destiny- which is freedom. Freedom includes everything. …Don’t think I am talking religion or philosophy. I disclaim them both, utterly. They are not even stepping stones, as people like to think. They must be hurdled at one jump. …There is only one thing, spirit. It’s all, everything, and when you realise it you’re it. You’re all there is and there is nothing more. …Understanding is nothing. The eyes must be kept open, constantly. To open your eyes you must relax, not strain. …You are to liberate yourself. There is no exercise, physical or spiritual, to practice. All such things are like incense- they awaken a feeling of holiness. We must be holy without holiness. …Any other kind of holiness is false, a snare and a delusion. …There is no need for redemption, because what men call sin and guilt have no ultimate meaning. …When you reach to the quick of things you will find neither acceleration nor retardation, neither birth nor death. There is, and you are- that is it in a nutshell. Don’t break your skull over it, because to the mind it makes no sense. Accept it, and forget it, or it will drive you mad.”

Henry Miller relates the monologue of an odd man named Claude whom he met in the early years of his struggles, who seemed to sum up the whole process quite nicely, stating: (Plexus, p409-411) (Granada Publishing, London. 1965) 

"...the stupendous fact that we stand in the midst of reality will always be something far more wonderful than anything we do" Erich Gutkind (quoted in Henry Miller's insightful essays, The Absolute Collective, which eloquently describes the perils of profane participation).

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