Top 10 Joseph Campbell Quotes at QuotationFun

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Campbell: Eternity isn't some later time. Eternity isn't a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now which thinking and time cuts out. This is it. And if you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere. And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. There's a wonderful formula that the Buddhists have for the Bodhisattva, the one whose being (sattva) is illumination (bodhi), who realizes his identity with eternity and at the same time his participation in time. And the attitude is not to withdraw from the world when you realize how horrible it is, but to realize that this horror is simply the foreground of a wonder and to come back and participate in it. "All life is sorrowful" is the first Buddhist saying, and it is. It wouldn't be life if there were not temporality involved which is sorrow. Loss, loss, loss. Moyers: That's a pessimistic note. Campbell: Well, you have to say yes to it, you have to say it's great this way. It's the way God intended it.

The The Power of Myth - 2001 Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers PBS television series, Mystic Fire Video - 2001.

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People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it's all finally about.

The The Power of Myth - 2001 Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers PBS television series, Mystic Fire Video - 2001.

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This thing up here, this consciousness, thinks it's running the shop. It's a secondary organ. It's a secondary organ of a total human being, and it must not put itself in control. It must submit and serve the humanity of the body.

The The Power of Myth - 2001 Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers PBS television series, Mystic Fire Video - 2001.

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Our life evokes our character and you find out more about yourself as you go on.

The The Power of Myth - 2001 Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers PBS television series, Mystic Fire Video - 2001.

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People ask me, "Do you have optimism about the world, about how terrible it is?" And I say, "Yes, it's great the way is it" ... I had the wonderful privilege of sitting face to face with a Hindu guru and the first thing he said to me was "Do you have a question?", cause the teacher always answers questions... I said, "Yes, I have a question." I said, " Since in Hindu thinking all the universe is divine, a manifestation of divinity itself, how can we say no to anything in the world? How can we say no to brutality to stupidity to vulgarity to thoughtlessness?" And he said, "For you and me, you must say yes." Well, I learned from my friends who were students of his that that happened to be the first question he asked his guru, and we had a wonderful conversation for an hour there.

The The Power of Myth - 2001 Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers PBS television series, Mystic Fire Video - 2001.

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Moyers: Do you ever have the sense of being helped by hidden hands? Campbell: All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time - namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.

The Power of Myth - 2001 Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers PBS television series, Mystic Fire Video - 2001.

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Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.

The The Power of Myth - 2001 Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers PBS television series, Mystic Fire Video - 2001.

Religion, Computers

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It's a wonderful, wonderful opera, except that it hurts.

The The Power of Myth - 2001 Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers PBS television series, Mystic Fire Video - 2001.

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We're in a freefall into future. We don't know where we're going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you're going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It's a very interesting shift of perspective and that's all it is... joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.

Sukhavati - 2007

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I think it's important to live life with a knowledge of its mystery, and of your own mystery. We are standing on a whale fishing for minnows.

The The Power of Myth - 2001 Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers PBS television series, Mystic Fire Video - 2001.

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