Jiddu Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti

This morning, a friend of mine inadvertently tipped-me-off to an Eastern philosopher, Jiddu Krishnamurti.  I had encountered his theosophical writings when I was in bible college in 1996.  In particular, I was launched into many years of socio-cultural reflection by this one quote: "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

Having been reminded of this sage this morning, I sifted through some other material I could find on the net, and came across this quote.  I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to comment on it.

"Truth is a pathless land." Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, nor through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation, and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a sense of security – religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these dominates man's thinking, relationships and his daily life. These are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man in every relationship.

Nicely Stated

Paul Cooijmans

"Modesty is the worst form of bragging. It is the vanity of the dishonest; the arrogance of cowards." -- Paul Cooijmans

Love it!

Senecca and Religion

Senecca the Younger

Seneca the Younger penned these famous and portentous words:

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."

Being a contemporary of Christ, it seems significant to me that he would have such a perspective.  

What are your thoughts?

Martin Luther King Jr. on Science and Religion

"Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary. Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism."

Saturday Quote

"Only religion could suppose an unjustified certainty to be an improvement on ignorance." ~Victor Stenger, Philosophy Now, Issue 78, What's New About the New Atheism?

God Talk

"Why is it when we talk to God we're said to be praying; but when God talks to us we're schizophrenic?" Lily Tomlin

Yes. Indeed. Why is that?

True. Sad. But True.

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments." - William E. Borah

Feeling A Little Like Mother Theresa

Do you ever feel like this?

"I call, I cling, I want ... and there is no One to answer ... no One on Whom I can cling ... no, No One. Alone ... Where is my Faith ... even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness ... My God ... how painful is this unknown pain ... I have no Faith ... I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart ... & make me suffer untold agony.

"So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them ... because of the blasphemy ... If there be God ... please forgive me ... When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. I am told God loves me ... and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul." (Mother Theresa of Calcutta)

I do. And there's no shortage of anxiety that comes with feeling that way.

Source.

Nasty Remark

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."  H.L. Mencken

Can I get an 'amen'?

Weekend Chesterton

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people." - ILN, 7/16/10

"The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice." - A Defense of Humilities, The Defendant, 1901

"What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism." - Sidelights on New London and Newer New York

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." - A Short History of England, Ch.10

"Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere." - ILN, 5/5/28

By way of: The American Chesterton Society