Section 8
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Source: The Meaning of Culture (1929), pp. 27-28
“(From the enclosed booklet) Jamaican Air -- Every flight is the red-eye!”
Do You Believe in Gosh?
“Extreme pride or dejection indicates extreme ignorance of self.”
Maxima superbia vel abjectio est maxima sui ignorantia.
Part IV, Prop. LV
Ethics (1677)
“Openness to all attitudes no matter how extreme or unrealistic they may seem”
Carl Rogers on Personal Power (1977)
“I say that Auschwitz is an extreme manifestation of an attitude that still thrives in our midst.”
pg 309
Farewell to Reason (1987)
Context: I say that Auschwitz is an extreme manifestation of an attitude that still thrives in our midst. It shows itself in the treatment of minorities in industrial democracies; in education, education to a humanitarian point of view included, which most of the time consists of turning wonderful young people into colorless and self-righteous copies of their teachers; it becomes manifest in the nuclear threat, the constant increase in the number and power of deadly weapons and the readiness of some so-called patriots to start a war compared with which the holocaust will shrink into insignificance. It shows itself in the killing of nature and of "primitive" cultures with never a thought spent on those thus deprived of meaning for their lives; in the colossal conceit of our intellectuals, their belief that they know precisely what humanity needs and their relentless efforts to recreate people in their sorry image; in the infantile megalomania of some of our physicians who blackmail their patients with fear, mutilate them and then persecute them with large bills; in the lack of feeling of so many so-called searchers for truth who systematically torture animals, study their discomfort and receive prizes for their cruelty. As far as I am concerned there exists no difference between the henchmen of Aushwitz and these "benefactors of mankind."
The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert
Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 79
“It is your false self that keeps you away from your true Self by every trick it knows.”
7 Absolute Honesty, p. 8.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)
Context: Absolute honesty is essential in one's search for God (Truth). The subtleties of the Path are finer than a hair. The least hypocrisy becomes a wave that washes one off the Path.
It is your false self that keeps you away from your true Self by every trick it knows. In the guise of honesty this self even deceives itself. For instance your self claims, I love Baba. The fact is, if you really loved Baba you would not be your false self making the self-asserting statement!
Daniel Katz (1960). "The functional approach to the study of attitudes". In: Public opinion quarterly, 24 (1960). p. 173
