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. Sam Keen More Quotes by Sam Keen More Quotes From Sam Keen 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 men two order We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. Sam Keen anniversary love friendship The best practice is to follow the advice posted on every railroad crossing: Stop. Look. Listen. Sam Keen best-practices railroads advice To love is to return to a home we never left, to remember who we are. Sam Keen sweet-love home cute The more you become a connoisseur of gratitude, the less you are a victim of resentment, depression, and despair. Gratitude will act as an elixir that will gradually dissolve the hard shell of your ego-your need to posses and control-and transform you into a generous being. The sense of gratitude produces true spiritual alchemy, makes us magnanimous-lar ge souled. Sam Keen gratitude ego spiritual I think we're always in the process of writing and rewriting the story of our lives, forming our experiences into a narrative that makes sense. Much of that work involves demythologizing family myths and cultural myths - getting free of what we have been told about ourselves. Sam Keen stories writing thinking The root of humanly caused evil is not man's animal nature, not territorial aggression, or innate selfishness, but our need to gain self-esteem, deny our mortality, and achieve a heroic self-image. Our desire for the best is the cause of the worst. Sam Keen self-esteem animal men 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 fire heart men 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. Sam Keen mind feelings thinking Burnout is nature's way of telling you, you've been going through the motions your soul has departed; you're a zombie, a member of the walking dead, a sleepwalker. False optimism is like administrating stimulants to an exhausted nervous system. Sam Keen walking-dead optimism soul Soul grows in communion. Word by word, story by story, for better or worse, we build our world. From true conversation - speaking and listening - communication deepens into compassion and creates community. Sam Keen our-world communication compassion The more you become a connoisseur of gratitude, the less you are a victim of resentment, depression, and despair. Sam Keen resentment gratitude despair Trust what moves you most deeply. Sam Keen moving 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. Sam Keen foundation compassion love-is The spiritual journey is one that we must take "alone together," in the same way that a good marriage involves a dance between solitude and communion. The life of the spirit entails a continuous alternation between retreating into oneself and going out into the world: it's an inward-outward journey. There is a solitary part to it, but that solitude helps us to develop richer and more in-depth relationships with our friends, our children, our community, and the political world. Sam Keen journey spiritual children Each day befriend a single fear, and the miscellaneous terrors of being human will never join together to form such a morass of vague anxiety that it rules your life from the shadows of the unconscious. We learn to fly not by being fearless, but by the daily practice of courage. Sam Keen fearless anxiety practice 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 blessing expectations teacher The sacred is discovered in what moves and touches us, in what makes us tremble. Sam Keen sacred moving To a large extent, the aged in our society are ghettoized. Old people are seen as useless, bypassed by history, old-fashioned, in the way. So, not surprisingly, when we reach the official mark of old age, we're supposed to go gently into that good night, to get off center stage and hand over the spotlight. Old age is also surrounded by shame - the myth of impotence and inability. Sam Keen good-night hands people You don't go through a deep personal transformation without some kind of dark night of the soul. Sam Keen personal-transformation dark night
