Source: The Sufis
Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963)
Context: It is only natural that I should constantly have revolved in my mind the question of the relationship of the symbolism of the unconscious to Christianity as well as to other religions. Not only do I leave the door open for the Christian message, but I consider it of central importance for Western man. It needs, however, to be seen in a new light, in accordance with the changes wrought by the contemporary spirit.
Source: The Human Use of Human Beings (1950), p. 16
"Intelligent Machinery." This passage was one of the epigraphs to Cryptonomicon, the influential novel by Neal Stephenson, in which Turing was a fictionalized character. It shared a page with a quote from Imelda Marcos.
“Man is a messenger who forgot the message.”
(2008)
Source: 1970s, Take Today : The Executive as Dropout (1972), p. 90
[2013, From the Divine to the Human, World Wisdom, 127-128, 978-1-936597-32-1]
Miscellaneous, Revelation
After having read a French translation of the Bhagavad Gita given to her by an Indian who had “advised her to envisage Krishna as the immanent Godhead, as the Divine within ourselves, quoted in "Paris (1897-1904)", and in II. PARIS (1897-1904), Sri Aurobindo's Ashram http://www.motherandsriaurobindo.org/Content.aspx?ContentURL=_staticcontent/sriaurobindoashram/-04%20centers/india/pondicherry/sri%20aurobindo%20society/wilfried/The%20Mother%20-%20A%20Short%20Biography/-005_Paris%20(1897-1904).htm.
"The Magic of Science" in Imperial Oil Review (Spring, 1994) http://sites.utoronto.ca/jpolanyi/public_affairs/public_affairs4f.html.
Context: It is not the laws of physics that make science possible but the unprovable proposition that there exists a grand design underlying the physical world. And not just any old "grand design" but one that is accessible to the limited senses and modest reasoning powers of the species to which we belong. Scientists subscribe with such conviction to this article of faith that they are willing to commit a lifetime to the pursuit of scientific discovery. It is hardly surprising that an activity so magical is also undefinable. Science is what scientists do. And what they do is look around themselves for messages written in the sky, the earth, the oceans and all living things – messages that tell of the unity of creation. These messages have been there – unseen, though at times written in letters miles high – since the dawn of history. But we have just passed through an epoch in which, quite suddenly, scientists seem to have learnt speed reading. Discoveries have been coming at an unprecedented pace. In the wake of such a period it is common to consider that we may be approaching the point where all that is readable in nature will have been read. We should be skeptical of such claims. Success in reading some messages brings with it a temporary blindness to others. We forget that between the words written in black in nature's book there are likely to be messages of equal importance written in white. It is a truism that success in science comes to the individuals who ask the right questions.
