No subscription or hidden extras
Read through the most famous quotes by topic #sm
Two ideas are psychologically deep-rooted in man: self-protection and self-preservation. For self-protection man has created God, on whom he depends for his own protection, safety and security, just as a child depends on its parent. For self-preservation man has conceived the idea of an immortal Soul or Atman, which will live eternally. In his ignorance, weakness, fear, and desire, man needs these two things to console himself. Hence he clings to them deeply and fanatically. ↗
the mystic must be steadily told,—All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it. Let us have a little algebra, instead of this trite rhetoric,—universal signs, instead of these village symbols,—and we shall both be gainers. The history of hierarchies seems to show that all religious error consisted in making the symbol too stark and solid, and was at last nothing but an excess of the organ of language. ↗
The thing that really is trying to tyrannize through government is Science. The thing that really does use the secular arm is Science. And the creed that really is levying tithes and capturing schools, the creed that really is enforced by fine and imprisonment, the creed that really is proclaimed not in sermons but in statues, and spread not by pilgrims but by policemen—that creed is the great but disputed system of thought which began with Evolution and has ended in Eugenics. Materialism is really our established Church; for the government will really help it to persecute its heretics…I am not frightened of the word ‘persecution’…It is a term of legal fact. If it means the imposition by the police of a widely disputed theory, incapable of final proof—then our priests are not now persecuting, but our doctors are. ↗
And the Buddha pointed out that his confusion was justified, for 'the dharma is profound, difficult to see, difficult to understand, peaceful, excellent, beyond the sphere of logic, subtle, and to be understood by the wise'. The reason for this is that it is not readily comprehended by one who holds a different view and has different learnings and inclinations, different involvements and instruction. It is clear from this statement that the conception of nibbāna in beyond logical reasoning, not because it is an Ultimate Reality transcending logic, but because logic or reason, being the 'slave of passions', makes it difficult for one who has a passion for an alien tradition to understand the conception of nibbāna. ↗
#buddhism #logic #nirvana #philosophy #reason
When I first came here it was a pure country. There was music and dancing and magic every day in the streets. "Now it's finished, everything. Even the religion. In a few more years the whole country will be like all the other Moslem countries, just a huge European slum, full of poverty and hatred. ↗
The most dangerous aspect of religion is its tendency to glorify the absurd and justify the abhorrent. ↗
