How does the ordinary person come to the transcendent? For a... - Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

"How does the ordinary person come to the transcendent? For a start, I would say, study poetry. Learn how to read a poem. You need not have the experience to get the message, or at least some indication of the message. It may come gradually. (92)"

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More quotes by Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

"With the moon walk, the religious myth that sustained these notions could no longer be held. With our view of earthrise, we could see that the earth and the heavens were no longer divided but that the earth is in the heavens. (105)"
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"There seem to be only two kinds of people: Those who think that metaphors are facts, and those who know that they are not facts. Those who know they are not facts are what we call "atheists,"and those who think they are facts are "religious."Which group really gets the message?"
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"Is the god the source, or is the god a human manner of conceiving of the force and energy that supports the world? In our tradition God is a male. This male and female differentiation is made, however, within the field of time and space, the field of duality. If God is beyond duality, you cannot say that God is a "He."You cannot say God is a "She."You cannot say God is an "It."(18)"
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"The Garden is a metaphor for the following: our minds, and our thinking in terms of pairs of opposites--man and woman, good and evil--are as holy as that of a god. (50)"
— Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor Read More
"It may be a species of impudence to think that the way you understand God is the way God is. (60)."
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