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The abyss beyond our beliefs is something we have to pass through in order to see the world anew, to see it in terms not dictated so much by our culture, our parents, or our religious convictions.

Sam Keen

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Sam Keen
Age: 54
Author
Philosopher
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World
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Convictions
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Abyss
Belief
Beliefs
Religious
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More quotes by Sam Keen

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The more you become a connoisseur of gratitude, the less you are a victim of resentment, depression, and despair.
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Paranoia reduces anxiety and guilt by transferring to the other all the characteristics one does not want to recognize in oneself. It is maintained by selective perception and recall. We only see and acknowledge those negative aspects of the enemy that support the stereotype we have already created.
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When you genuinely lose your illusions, you begin to marvel at things, because you don't have the answers any more.
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Being pretty successful, I can, of course, afford some luxuries. But I realize again and again how we have to disillusion ourselves of the idea that these things are going to give us real satisfaction.
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Without reverence we [people] will gradually descend into ecocide. In the degree that the imperatives of the market - the temple of the Mall - govern our lives, we are in escalating danger of destroying the commonwealth of all sentient beings - bugs and bees and buntings - on which we depend for a luxurious life on planet earth.
Sam Keen
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The more we chase away the false mysteries - those things we think we know about ourselves and others - the more mysterious our existence becomes.
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What shapes our lives are the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never think to ask.
Sam Keen
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In the degree that we remember and retell our stories and create new ones we become the authors, the authorities, of our own lives.
Sam Keen
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I think we have to trust ourselves in the darkness of not knowing. The God out of which we came and into which we go is an unknown God. It's the luminosity of that darkness and that unknowing that is, I think, the most human - and the most sacred - place of all.
Sam Keen
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Enter each day with the expectation that the happenings of the day may contain a clandestine message addressed to you personally. Expect omens, epiphanies, casual blessings and teachers who unknowingly speak to your condition.
Sam Keen
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Neurotic identity crises come when our defense mechanisms have been too successful and we're encapsulated in the fortress we have constructed with nothing to refresh us in our solitary confinement. So we play the old movies with their stale fears and their unrealistic hopes until we become bored enough to risk disarmament and engagement.
Sam Keen
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Freud articulated the standard opinion when he asked with supposed seriousness, 'What does a woman want?'... Today the question that is the yeast in the social dough is, 'What do men want?
Sam Keen
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Our minds, bodies, feelings, relationships are all informed by our questions. What you ask is who you are. What you find depends on what you search for. And what shapes our lives are the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never think of asking.
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Throughout my life, I've had different metaphors for freedom. At one time, it was skin diving. In the ocean you feel weightless you escape from gravity.
Sam Keen
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Down to earth advice about the path that leads away from the kingdom of the hollow men.
Sam Keen
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The telling of your stories is a revolutionary act.
Sam Keen
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If some incarnation of evil as unambiguous as Hitler appeared again, I would have no moral qualms about killing the enemy. But in the modern world of moral murkiness, I prefer to keep my hands as clean of enemy blood as possible.
Sam Keen
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A man must go on a quest / to discover the sacred fire / in the sanctuary of his own belly / to ignite the flame in his heart / to fuel the blaze in the hearth / to rekindle his ardor for the earth
Sam Keen
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There are two questions a man must ask himself: The first is 'Where am I going?' and the second is 'Who will go with me?' If you ever get these questions in the wrong order you are in trouble.
Sam Keen
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The major impediment to experiencing the sacred depths of ordinary moments is the speed and distraction of contemporary life that moves to the imperatives of the global economic order.In addition, we increasingly live in a virtual world in which our reality is filtered through media and information technology.
Sam Keen