"....there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as
not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to
worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god
or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the
Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set
of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship
will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where
you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never
feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and
sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start
showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.
On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as
myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every
great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily
consciousness...."
"
there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most
precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside
world of wanting and achieving.... The really important kind of freedom
involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to
care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in
myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how
to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the
rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some
infinite thing..."
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