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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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Sam Keen
Age: 54
Author
Philosopher
Writer
Lives
Degree
Govern
Sentient
Earth
Market
Bees
Mall
Without
Degrees
Temple
Descend
Life
Planet
Gradually
Luxurious
People
Planets
Temples
Malls
Beings
Reverence
Commonwealth
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Bunting
Depends
Destroying
Bugs
Escalating

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Mystical experiences (unlike scientific conclusions) cannot be communicated from one person to another. Philosophers and little children are continually amazed that we, unaccountably, find ourselves in a somewhat intelligible world.
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What shapes our lives are the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never think to ask.
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Human beings are what I think of as biomythic animals: we're controlled largely by the stories we tell. When we get the story wrong, we get out of harmony with the rest of the natural order.
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The spiritual mind is always metaphorical. Spiritual thinking is poetic thinking. It's always trying to put a very diaphanous experience into words, realizing all the while that words are inadequate.
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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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I think we're inevitably going to be depressed when we focus the major part of our energy and attention on something that doesn't give us meaning, only material things.
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Compassion begins with the acknowledgment of the single inescapable truth that is the foundation for the possibility of love between human beings - an awareness of the tragic sense of life.
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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.
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I've spent my life cultivating knowledge of myself. But the more I know myself, the more utterly mysterious I become.
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There has always been a part of me that saw wilderness and risk-taking as the path to freedom.
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The first part of the spiritual journey should properly be called psychological rather than spiritual because it involves peeling away the myths and illusions that have misinformed us.
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