“Today I suddenly experienced an absurd but quite valid sensation. I realized, in an intimate lightning flash, that I am no one. No one, absolutely no one.”
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Fernando Pessoa 288
Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publi… 1888–1935Related quotes
Part 1: U.G.
The Mystique of Enlightenment (1982)
Context: People call me an enlightened man — I detest that term — they can't find any other word to describe the way I am functioning. At the same time, I point out that there is no such thing as enlightenment at all. I say that because all my life I've searched and wanted to be an enlightened man, and I discovered that there is no such thing as enlightenment at all, and so the question whether a particular person is enlightened or not doesn't arise. I don't give a hoot for a sixth-century-BC Buddha, let alone all the other claimants we have in our midst. They are a bunch of exploiters, thriving on the gullibility of the people. There is no power outside of man. Man has created God out of fear. So the problem is fear and not God.
I discovered for myself and by myself that there is no self to realize. That's the realization I am talking about. It comes as a shattering blow. It hits you like a thunderbolt. You have invested everything in one basket, self-realization, and, in the end, suddenly you discover that there is no self to discover, no self to realize.
The Rubaiyat (1120)
A New Earth (2005)
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
“It serves the purpose of not serving a purpose, surely quite a valid one.”
In an interview in Artforum, Nov. 83
Interviews
Act 10, sc. 4
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)
Wartet nur! [Only Wait!] in Poems for the Times ; also in Poems of Heinrich Heine: Three Hundred and Twenty-five Poems (1917) Selected and translated by Louis Untermeyer, p. 262
“To awaken quite alone in a strange town, is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.”
Baghdad Sketches