Degrees Of Consciousness Quotes

Of people that hold an opinion that is popular and that makes them look good: I cannot take your opinions seriously. If you are of a persuasion that is popular and that makes you look like a better person, then you hold that persuasion as a result of no inner convictions of your own; rather, you hold that persuasion as a result of self-consciousness. It takes courage and inner strength to hold convictions that go against popular opinion and that go against what would make you feel accepted in the eyes of most. There are three levels to this sort of consciousness: the first level dictates that you are simply unaware and you go about with daily life with no presumptions, simply going with the flow of everything. The second level is the one that the current generation mostly belongs to: the level of those who believe themselves to be enlightened, awakened. This second level belongs to those who would call those belonging to the first level as "sheep". This second level belongs to those who would believe that there are only two levels: one belonging to sheep and another belonging to them. They are unaware of the third level. But the third level of consciousness is the level that belongs not to what those on the lesser level would call as "sheep" and also not belonging to the second level of those who believe themselves to be free thinkers. At this third level, are those who see plainly that the free thinkers of today are simply a different herd of sheep, who all hold a shared opi ~ C. JoyBell C.

A friend is a second self, so that our consciousness of a friend's existence ... makes us more fully conscious of our own existence. ~ Aristotle.

I want to put it back together now, this artistic expression that contains religious feeling. I want to investigate: What was the origin? What's happened in the human mind? Can we trace back the moment of the creation of human consciousness? And why did only humans gain consciousness, not other animals? So, evolution? I don't know whether or not I can believe evolution. Maybe we wait for another 100,000 years and then apes get consciousness. ~ Hiroshi Sugimoto

The poetry of motion is a phrase much in use, and to enjoy the epic form of that gratification it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night, and, having first expanded with a sense of difference from the mass of civilized mankind, who are dreamwrapt and disregardful of all such proceedings at this time, long and quietly watch your stately progress through the stars. After such a nocturnal reconnoitre it is hard to get back to earth, and to believe that the consciousness of such a majestic speeding is derived from a tiny human frame. ~ Thomas Hardy

We are not perfect. But we have doubtlessly fulfilled our obligations to the EU to a greater degree than the EU has its obligations to Italy, when it comes to the relocation or repatriation of refugees that are in our country. Italy does its homework better than the rest of Europe. Instead of the 160,000 migrants that were to be distributed across Europe, we are currently at 300. ~ Paolo Gentiloni

I was never supposed to play in college, let alone the NBA, so I always feel like I have something to prove. No one ever expected me to be here, so that feeling of being an underdog is ingrained in me. It's a natural part of my consciousness. ~ Steve Nash

In the worst attacks of trouble there appears to be always a superficial film of consciousness which is left disengaged and open to the notice of trifles, and Bathsheba was faintly amused at the boy's method, till he too passed on. ~ Thomas Hardy

Spirit of Beauty, whose sweet impulses, flung like rose of dawn across the sea, alone can flush the exalted consciousness with shafts of sensible divinity-light of the world, essential loveliness. ~ Alan Seeger

The problem with the religious solution [for mysteries such as consciousness and moral judgments] was stated by Mencken when he wrote, "Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing." For anyone with a persistent intellectual curiosity, religious explanations are not worth knowing because they pile equally baffling enigmas on top of the original ones. What gave God a mind, free will, knowledge, certainty about right and wrong? How does he infuse them into a universe that seems to run just fine according to physical laws? How does he get ghostly souls to interact with hard matter? And most perplexing of all, if the world unfolds according to a wise and merciful plan, why does it contain so much suffering? As the Yiddish expression says, If God lived on earth, people would break his window. ~ Steven Pinker

I am completely an elitist in the cultural but emphatically not the social sense. I prefer the good to the bad, the articulate to the mumbling, the aesthetically developed to the merely primitive, and full to partial consciousness. I love the spectacle of skill, whether it's an expert gardener at work or a good carpenter chopping dovetails. I don't think stupid or ill-read people are as good to be with as wise and fully literate ones. I would rather watch a great tennis player than a mediocre one, unless the latter is a friend or a relative. Consequently, most of the human race doesn't matter much to me, outside the normal and necessary frame of courtesy and the obligation to respect human rights. I see no reason to squirm around apologizing for this. I am, after all, a cultural critic, and my main job is to distinguish the good from the second-rate, pretentious, sentimental, and boring stuff that saturates culture today, more (perhaps) than it ever has. I hate populist [shit], no matter how much the demos love it. ~ Robert Hughes

Humankind's perpetual affinity for telling stories that depict the weal of life shapes and reflects human consciousness. Stories are the most ancient form of art. All societies, from the tribes scratching the earliest cave drawings, employed the art of storytelling. We hunger to hear other people's stories and to tell our own stories to an appreciative audience. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

One of the reasons we judge each other so harshly in this world of parenting is because ... we perceive anyone else who's doing anything differently than what we're doing as criticizing our choices. ~ Brene Brown

I am in a charming state of confusion. ~ Ada Lovelace

Truth is powerful, and, if not instantly, at least by slow
degrees, may make good her possession. Gleams of good sense may
penetrate through the thickest clouds of error … and, as the true
object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his
preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various
reading should lead him into new trains of thinking; open to him new
mines of science and new incentives to virtue; and perhaps, by a blended
and compound effect, produce in him an improvement which was out of the
limits of his lessons, and raise him to heights the preceptor never
knew. ~ William Godwin

The reality, as I have come to understand it, is that the future is not fixed, and that therefore it cannot be reliably predicted. Consciousness interacts with vast archetypal fields of possibility and probability. What actually happens is the result of the collision of both forces. ~ Steven Forrest

We are the guardians of our beings. ~ Tehya Sky

People can heal themselves, and also during that process they can work together and focus on healing the planet. ~ Andrew Lutts

The integral approach is committed to the full spectrum of consciousness as it manifests in all its extraordinary diversity. This allows the integral approach to recognize and honor the Great Holarchy of Being first elucidated by the perennial philosophy and the great wisdom traditions in general ... The integral vision embodies an attempt to take the best of both worlds, ancient and modern. But that demands a critical stance willing to reject unflinchingly the worst of both as well. ~ Ken Wilber

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relatio ~ Bob Moorehead

But even though catastrophic oppression brought about a process of objectification and dehumanization, the absolute negation of humanity was not possible because a damaged human spirit seeks to resurrect and reconstruct itself; it also seeks self-consciousness. ~ Clovis E. Semmes

In the century now dawning, spirituality, visionary consciousness, and the ability to build and mend human relationships will be more important for the fate and safety of this nation than our capacity to forcefully subdue an enemy. Creating the world we want is a much more subtle but more powerful mode of operation than destroying the one we don't want. ~ Marianne Williamson

To a degree which is difficult to determine, the esoteric impulse in twentieth-century music, literature and the arts reflects calculation. It looks to the flattery of academic and hermeneutic notice. Reciprocally, the academy turns towards that which appears to require its exegetic, cryptographic skills. ~ George Steiner

But my doubt would not be overcome. Kierkegaard had declared that it was only to the consciousness of sin that Christianity was not horror or madness. For me it was sometimes both. ~ Georg Brandes

Navy: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision. Civilian: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to South to avoid a collision. Navy: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert your course. Civilian: No, I say again, divert your course. Navy: This is the aircraft carrier Enterprise. We are a large warship of the US Navy. Divert your course now!! Civilian: This is a lighthouse. Your call. Canadian naval radio conversation38 ~ John D. Barrow

In modern neurotheology we examine the physical bases to spiritual, religious and mystical experiences and beliefs, that implicitly appear to reduce this rich phenomenology to only neuronal functions. So, the thing is, there was no divine intervention necessary in the evolution of spirituality and religiosity. "Human Brain is the true God of all beliefs". ~ Abhijit Naskar

The essence of meditation practice in Dzogchen is encapsulated by these four points:
▪When one past thought has ceased and a future thought has not yet risen, in that gap, in between, isn't there a consciousness of the present moment; fresh, virgin, unaltered by even a hair's breadth of a concept, a luminous, naked awareness?
Well, that is what Rigpa is!
▪Yet it doesn't stay in that state forever, because another thought suddenly arises, doesn't it?
This is the self-radiance of that Rigpa.
▪However, if you do not recognize this thought for what it really is, the very instant it arises, then it will turn into just another ordinary thought, as before. This is called the "chain of delusion," and is the root of samsara.
▪If you are able to recognize the true nature of the thought as soon as it arises, and leave it alone without any follow-up, then whatever thoughts arise all automatically dissolve back into the vast expanse of Rigpa and are liberated.
Clearly this takes a lifetime of practice to understand and realize the full richness and majesty of these four profound yet simple points, and here I can only give you a taste of the vastness of what is meditation in Dzogchen.
…
Dzogchen meditation is subtly powerful in dealing with the arisings of the mind, and has a unique perspective on them. All the risings are seen in their true nature, not as separate from Rigpa, and not as antagonistic to it, but actually as none other–and this is ~ Sogyal Rinpoche

When I look back upon my early days I am stirred by the thought of the number of people whom I have to thank for what they gave me or for what they were to me. At the same time I am haunted by an oppressive consciousness of the little gratitude I really showed them while I was young. How many of them have said farewell to life without having made clear to them what it meant to me to receive from them so much kindness or so much care! Many a time have I, with a feeling of shame, said quietly to myself over a grave the words which my mouth ought to have spoken to the departed, while he was still in the flesh. ~ Albert Schweitzer

However, questions arise. Are there people who aren't naive realists, or special situations in which naive realism disappears? My theory - the self-model theory of subjectivity - predicts that as soon as a conscious representation becomes opaque (that is, as soon as we experience it as a representation), we lose naive realism. Consciousness without naive realism does exist. This happens whenever, with the help of other, second-order representations, we become aware of the construction process - of all the ambiguities and dynamical stages preceding the stable state that emerges at the end. When the window is dirty or cracked, we immediately realize that conscious perception is only an interface, and we become aware of the medium itself. We doubt that our sensory organs are working properly. We doubt the existence of whatever it is we are seeing or feeling, and we realize that the medium itself is fallible. In short, if the book in your hands lost its transparency, you would experience it as a state of your mind rather than as an element of the outside world. You would immediately doubt its independent existence. It would be more like a book-thought than a book-perception. Precisely this happens in various situations - for example, In visual hallucinations during which the patient is aware of hallucinating, or in ordinary optical illusions when we suddenly become aware that we are not in immediate contact with reality. Normally, such experiences make us think something is wrong ~ Thomas Metzinger

Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause ... True courage and manhood come from the consciousness of the right attitude toward the world, the faith in one's purpose, and the sufficiency of one's own approval as a justification for one's own acts. ~ Clarence Darrow

The lucid dream, located as it is at a crossroads between worlds and states of consciousness, places the magician in a unique position to influence the delicate balance of consciousness and the interplay it has on matter in the waking state, and is thus an opportunity to test one's ability in the art of adjusting the mutable fabric of Maya. ~ Zeena Schreck

Grievances and any horror in life are seeds waiting for either manifestation into the physical world or transformation into the multidimensional realm. Grievances regularly emerge in our consciousness as emotions and thoughts. They are massive collective ancestral forces that keep being recycled and fermented. They cannot be eliminated because they constitute the source of our creative energy. Yet we can prevent them from manifesting and becoming our reality if we direct them towards the reality we choose to create.

This is possible if we consciously descend at the deepest level where grievances exist as seeds, experiencing them with total awareness and gaining complete access to the related thoughts and emotions. This allows us to become catalysing conduits of such grievances with the capacity to direct them consciously towards the reality we choose to create. When this is the case grievances are transformed and their separated energy fades away. ~ Franco Santoro

If you don't concentrate on counting the money, people soon realize that money is not the focus of your consciousness, so they give you everything other than money: kudos, acclaim, praise, etc., etc. And sooner or later you'll be in trouble. ~ Stuart Wilde

As radical as it may seem, it is possible to do things only out of play. I believe that to the degree that we engage moment by moment in the playfulness of enriching life- motivated solely by the desire for its enrichment- to that degree are we being compassionate with ourselves. ~ Marshall B. Rosenberg

The path that takes us from here, to the fulfillment of our life purpose is who we are. We are the bridge to our destiny." (From the Secrets to Divine Manifestations) ~ Alain Yaovi M. Dagba

People are not "things" to be manipulated, labeled, boxed, bought, and sold. Above all else, they are not "human resources." They are entire human beings, containing the whole of the evolving universe, limitless until we start limiting them. We must examine the concept of leading and following with new eyes. We must examine the concept of superior and subordinate with increasing skepticism. We must examine the concept of management and labor with new beliefs. And we must examine the nature of organizations that demand such distinctions with an entirely different consciousness. ~ Dee Hock

The founding father of Albanian literature is the nineteenth-century writer Naim Frasheri. Without having the greatness of Dante or Shakespeare, he is nonetheless the founder, the emblematic character. He wrote long epic poems, as well as lyrical poetry, to awaken the national consciousness of Albania. ~ Ismail Kadare

If humankind would accept and acknowledge this responsibility and become creatively engaged in the process of evolution, consciously as well as unconsciously, a new reality would emerge, and a new age could be born. ~ Jonas Salk

The test of observance of Christ's teachings is our consciousness of our failure to attain an ideal perfection. The degree to which we draw near this perfection cannot be seen; all we can see is the extent of our deviation. LEO TOLSTOY The ~ Philip Yancey

To understand karma, you must realize that thoughts are things. The very universe…is composed not of matter but of consciousness. Matter responds, far more than most people realize, to the power of thought. For will power directs energy, and energy in turn acts upon matter. Matter, indeed, is energy. ~ Paramahansa Yoganandamahansa Yogananda

Consciousness is the result of subconscious actions, vibrations, attractions, reflections, and manifestations. ~ Debasish Mridha

. 'Because off-duty cops walk around the city wearing sweatshirts advertising they're cops all the time, never mind it's a hundred degrees outside. And never mind you look like the youngest cop ever recruited in the history of policing.'
He tsks at me. 'Have you never seen 21 Jump Street? ~ Sarah Alderson

Growth of consciousness does not depend on the might of the intellect but on the conviction of the heart. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

We all become different readers in how we respond to books, why we need them, what we take from them. We become different in the questions that arise as we read, in the answers that we find, in the degree of satisfaction or unease we feel with those answers ... In the hands of a different reader, the same story can be a different story. ~ Amy Tan