Eben Alexander Quotes

Laughter and irony are at heart reminders that we are not prisoners in this world, but voyagers through it.

Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experience imaginable, yet at the same time it's the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times. Omniscient, omnipotent, personal-and loving us without conditions. We are connected as One through our divine link with God.

A story-a true story-can heal as much as medicine can.

Our eternal spiritual self is more real than anything we perceive in this physical realm, and has a divine connection to the infinite love of the Creator.

My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness, that human experience continues beyond the grave. More important, it continues under the gaze of a God who loves and cares about each one of us and about where the Universe itself and all the beings withing it are ultimately goind.

Love is, without a doubt, the basis of everything. Not some abstract, hard-to-fathom kind of love but the day-to-day kind that everyone knows-the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children, or even our animals. In its purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or will ever exist, and no remotely accurate understanding of who and what we are can be achieved by anyone who does not know it, and embody it in all of their actions.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

My journey deep into coma, outside this lowly physical realm and into the loftiest dwelling place of the almighty Creator, revealed the indescribably immense chasm between our human knowledge and the awe-inspiring realm of God.

Evil was necessary because without it free will was impossible, and without free will there could be no growth—no forward movement, no chance for us to become what God longed for us to be. Horrible and all-powerful as evil sometimes seemed to be in a world like ours, in the larger picture love was overwhelmingly dominant, and it would ultimately be triumphant.

You are loved and cherished. You have nothing to fear. There is nothing you can do wrong. If I had to boil this entire message down to one sentence, it would run this way: You are loved. And if I had to boil it down further, to just one word, it would (of course) be, simply: Love.

there are really no “objects” in the world at all, only vibrations of energy, and relationships.

Your family is who you are.

The brain itself does not produce consciousness. That it is, instead, a kind of reducing valve or filter, shifting the larger, nonphysical consciousness that we possess in the non physical worlds down into a more limited capacity for the duration of our mortal lives.

We—each of us—are intricately, irremovably connected to the larger universe. It is our true home, and thinking that this physical world is all that matters is like shutting oneself up in a small closet and imagining that there is nothing else out beyond it.

Physical life is characterized by defensiveness, whereas spiritual life is just the opposite.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

The (false) suspicion that we can somehow be separated from God is the root of every form of anxiety in the universe, and the cure for it—which I received partially within the Gateway and completely within the Core—was the knowledge that nothing can tear us from God, ever.

Science—the science to which I’ve devoted so much of my life—doesn’t contradict what I learned up there. But far, far too many people believe it does, because certain members of the scientific community, who are pledged to the materialist worldview, have insisted again and again that science and spirituality cannot coexist.

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.

I didn’t just believe in God; I knew God.

None of us are ever unloved. Each and every one of us is deeply known and cared for by a Creator who cherishes us beyond any ability we have to comprehend.

The physical side of the universe is as a speck of dust compared to the invisible and spiritual part.

We can only see what our brain’s filter allows through.

observation comes first, then interpretation.

You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.” “You have nothing to fear.” “There is nothing you can do wrong.

Those implications are tremendous beyond description. My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness, that human experience continues beyond the grave. More important, it continues under the gaze of a God who loves and cares about each one of us and about where the universe itself and all the beings within it are ultimately going.

For all the successes of Western civilization, the world paid a dear price in terms of the most crucial component of existence - the human spirit. The shadow side of high technology - modern warfare and thoughtless homicide and suicide, urban blight, ecological mayhem, cataclysmic climate change, polarization of economic resources - is bad enough. Much worse, our focus on exponential progress in science and technology has left many of us relatively bereft in the realm of meaning and joy, and of knowing how our lives fit into the grand scheme of existence for all eternity.

The part of my brain that was responsible for creating the world I lived and moved in and for taking the raw data that came in through my senses and fashioning it into a meaningful universe: that part of my brain was down, and out. And yet despite all of this, I had been alive, and aware, truly aware, in a universe characterized above all by love, consciousness, and reality. There was, for me, simply no arguing this fact. I knew it so completely that I ached.

There is, some say, in God a deep but dazzling darkness . . .” That was it, exactly: an inky darkness that was also full to brimming with light.

Hallucinogens affect the neocortex, and my neocortex wasn’t available to be affected.

Humans are built to adapt.

Omniscient, omnipotent, personal—and loving us without conditions.

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self. —ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879–1955)

There were children, too, laughing and playing. The people sang and danced around in circles, and sometimes I’d see a dog, running and jumping among them, as full of joy as the people were.

When tomorrow starts without me, And I’m not there to see, If the sun should rise and find your eyes All filled with tears for me; I wish so much you wouldn’t cry The way you did today, While thinking of the many things, We didn’t get to say. I know how much you love me, As much as I love you, And each time you think of me, I know you’ll miss me too; But when tomorrow starts without me, Please try to understand, That an angel came and called my name, And took me by the hand, And said my place was ready, In heaven far above And that I’d have to leave behind All those I dearly love. But as I turned to walk away, A tear fell from my eye For all my life, I’d always thought, I didn’t want to die. I had so much to live for, So much left yet to do, It seemed almost impossible, That I was leaving you. I thought of all the yesterdays, The good ones and the bad, The thought of all the love we shared, And all the fun we had. If I could relive yesterday Just even for a while, I’d say good-bye and kiss you And maybe see you smile. But then I fully realized That this could never be, For emptiness and memories, Would take the place of me. And when I thought of worldly things I might miss come tomorrow, I thought of you, and when I did My heart was filled with sorrow. But when I walked through heaven’s gates I felt so much at home When God looked down and smiled at me, From His great golden throne, He said, “This is eternity, And all I’ve promised you. Today your life on earth is past But here it starts anew. I promise no tomorrow, But today will always last, And since each day’s the same way, There’s no longing for the past. You have been so faithful, So trusting and so true. Though there were times You did some things You knew you shouldn’t do. But you have been forgiven And now at last you’re free. So won’t you come and take my hand And share my life with me?” So when tomorrow starts without me, Don’t think we’re far apart, For every time you think of me, I’m right here, in your heart.

On the subatomic level, however, this universe of separate objects turns out to be a complete illusion. In the realm of the super-super-small, every object in the physical universe is intimately connected with every other object.

So I was communicating directly with God? Absolutely. Expressed that way, it sounds grandiose. But when it was happening, it didn't feel that way. Instead, I felt like I was doing what every soul is able to do when they leave their bodies, and what we can all do right now through various methods of prayer or deep meditation. Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experience imaginable, yet at the same time it's the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times. Omniscient, omnipotent, personal--and loving us without conditions. We are connected as One through our divine link with God.

You are loved and cherished, you have nothing to fear, there is nothing you can do wrong.

Everything—the uncanny clarity of my vision, the clearness of my thoughts as pure conceptual flow—suggested higher, not lower, brain functioning.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —SØREN KIERKEGAARD (1813–1855)

The word human itself comes from the same root as humus, earth.

most skeptics aren’t really skeptics at all. To be truly skeptical, one must actually examine something, and take it seriously.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.

If each of us takes personal responsibility for managing our heart’s energy (not someone else’s), imagine how the world might change.

I have learned that contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of what you already have,

To say that there is still a chasm between our current scientific understanding of the universe and the truth as I saw it is a considerable understatement. I still love physics and cosmology, still love studying our vast and wonderful universe. Only I now have a greatly enlarged conception of what “vast” and “wonderful” really mean. The physical side of the universe is as a speck of dust compared to the invisible and spiritual part. In my past view, spiritual wasn’t a word that I would have employed during a scientific conversation. Now I believe it is a word that we cannot afford to leave out.

Small particles of evil were scattered throughout the universe, but the sum total of all that evil was as a grain of sand on a vast beach compared to the goodness, abundance, hope, and unconditional love in which the universe was literally awash. The very fabric of the alternate dimension is love and acceptance, and anything that does not have these qualities appears immediately and obviously out of place there.

There was, quite simply, no way that my experiences, with their intensely sophisticated visual and aural levels, and their high degree of perceived meaning, were the product of the reptilian portion of my brain.

regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.

How did I gain from not remembering my earthly self? It allowed me to go deep into realms beyond the worldly without having to worry about what I was leaving behind. Throughout my entire time in those worlds, I was a soul with nothing to lose. No places to miss, no people to mourn. I had come from nowhere and had no history, so I fully accepted my circumstances—even the initial murk and mess of the Realm of the Earthworm’s-Eye View—with equanimity.

Angels? These words registered when I was writing down my recollections. But neither of these words do justice to the beings themselves, which were quite simply different from anything I have known on this planet. They were more advanced. Higher.

To experience thinking outside the brain is to enter a world of instantaneous connections that make ordinary thinking (i.e those aspects limited by the physical brain and the speed of light_ seem like some hopelessly sleepy and plodding event. Our truest, deepest self is completely free. It is not crippled or compromised by past actions or concerned with identity or status. It comprehends that it has no need to fear the earthly world, and therefore, it has no need to build itself up through fame or wealth or conquest.

It is the responsibility of scientists never to suppress knowledge, no matter how awkward that knowledge is, no matter how it may bother those in power. We are not smart enough to decide which pieces of knowledge are permissible and which are not. —CARL SAGAN (1934–1996)

and struggles to understand. But—again, paradoxically—Om is “human” as well—even more human than you and I are. Om understands and sympathizes with our human situation more profoundly and personally than we can even imagine because Om knows what we have forgotten, and understands the terrible burden it is to live with amnesia of the Divine for even a moment.

To become more aware of your observer, practice being in a completely neutral state, with no attachment to specific outcomes, and offer a wide-open acceptance to whatever shows up. If thoughts arise, simply note them in your mind with no judgment, and no analysis. Watching your thoughts like this on a regular basis brings you more in touch with the inner observer.

Among other things, HeartMath research tests theories about the electromagnetic field of the human heart using machines that measure faint magnetic fields, such as those that are often used in MRIs and cardiologic tests. Remarkably, the heart’s toroidally shaped electrical field is sixty times greater than that of the brain, and its magnetic field is 5,000 times greater than that of the brain. The heart generates the strongest electromagnetic field in the body, and its pumping action transmits powerful rhythmic information patterns containing neurological, hormonal, and electromagnetic data to the brain and throughout the rest of the body. The heart actually sends more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart. In other words, the heart has a mind of its own. Studies reveal this electromagnetic field seems to pick up information in the surrounding environment and also broadcasts one’s emotional state out from the body. Their measurements reveal that the field is large enough to extend several feet (or more) outside our bodies. Positive moods such as gratitude, joy, and happiness correlate to a larger, more expanded heart field, while emotions such as greed, anger, or sadness correlate to a constricted heart field.

This earthly realm is, I believe, where we are meant to learn the lessons of unconditional love, compassion, forgiveness, and acceptance. Our knowing of our eternal spiritual nature is not meant to be as clear to us as the moon rising in the sky at night. Our ability to fully learn the most important lessons of life depends on our being partially veiled from that more complete (yet finite) knowing that our higher souls possess between lives. How

Cuando mañana comience sin mí Y no esté ahí para ver, Si el sol fuera a salir y encontrara tus ojos Llenos de lágrimas por mí; Deseo tanto que no llores De la manera que lo hiciste hoy, Mientras pensabas en las muchas cosas, Que no llegamos a decir. Sé lo mucho que me amas, Tanto como te amo a ti, Y cada vez que pienses en mí, Sé que también me extrañarás; Pero cuando mañana comience sin mí, Por favor trata de comprender, Que un ángel vino y dijo mi nombre, Y me tomó de la mano, Y me dijo que mi lugar estaba listo, En el cielo allá arriba Y que tendría que dejar atrás A todos los que tanto amaba. Pero mientras daba la vuelta para marcharme, Derramé una lágrima Porque toda la vida, siempre creí, Que no quería morir. Tenía tanto por lo que vivir, Tanto aún por hacer, Parecía casi imposible, Que te estuviera dejando a ti. Pensé en todos los ayeres, Los buenos y los malos, El pensamiento de todo el amor que compartimos, Y todo lo que nos divertimos. Si pudiera revivir el ayer Aunque fuera por un rato, Te diría adiós y te besaría Y quizá te vería sonreír. Pero entonces comprendí en su totalidad Que esto nunca podría ser, Porque el vacío y los recuerdos, Tomarían mi lugar. Y cuando pensé en cosas terrenales Que mañana podría extrañar, Pensé en ti, y cuando lo hice Mi corazón se llenó de pena. Pero al cruzar las puertas del cielo Me sentí tan en casa Cuando Dios me miró y me sonrió, Desde Su gran trono dorado, Dijo: “Esta es la eternidad

Love is, without a doubt, the basis of everything. Not some abstract, hard-to-fathom kind of love but the day-to-day kind that everyone knows—the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children, or even our animals. In its purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or that ever will exist, and no remotely accurate

Fascinating research results point to the realization that our hearts interconnect and exchange information with others. In studies, subjects are trained to enact specific heart coherence techniques such as focusing awareness in the area surrounding the heart and generating a feeling of appreciation. Coherence reflects a higher state of balance and synchronization in the body’s cognitive, emotional, and physiological processes, leading to lowering of stress reactions and more efficient function. Positive emotions are correlated with higher degrees of coherence, thus generating appreciation in the heart alone can beneficially affect the person’s physiological functions, including the autonomic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

I finally chalked it up to the fact that the brain is truly an extraordinary device: more extraordinary than we can even guess.

No one knows how old E. coli is precisely, but estimates hover between three and four billion years. The organism has no nucleus and reproduces by the primitive but extremely efficient process known as asexual binary fission (in other words, by splitting in two). Imagine a cell filled, essentially, with DNA, that can take in nutrients (usually from other cells that it attacks and absorbs) directly through its cellular wall. Then imagine that it can simultaneously copy several

Our culture is obsessed with youth because we have lost the ancient knowledge that growth never stops. We are not transient, momentary mistakes in the cosmos- evolutionary curiosities that rise like mayflies, swarm for a day, and are gone. We are players who are here to stay, and the universe was built with us in mind. We reflect it, with our deepest loves and loftiest aspirations, just as it reflects us.

aunque el cerebro es un mecanismo maravilloso, no fue mi cerebro el que me salvó la vida aquel día, para nada. Lo que me impulsó a tomar acción en el segundo en que el paracaídas de Chuck comenzó a abrirse, fue otra parte mucha más profunda dentro de mí. Una parte que pudo moverse así de rápido porque no estaba estancada en el tiempo, como lo están el cerebro y el cuerpo.

Eso no quiere decir que he abandonado mi trabajo médico y mi vida como neurocirujano. Pero ahora que he tenido el privilegio de comprender que nuestra vida no termina con la muerte del cuerpo o el cerebro, lo veo como mi deber, mi llamamiento, contarle a la gente sobre lo que vi más allá del cuerpo y de esta tierra.

Mi experiencia me enseñó que la muerte del cuerpo y el cerebro no son el fin de la conciencia, que la experiencia humana continúa más allá de la tumba. Aún más importante, continúa bajo la mirada de un Dios que ama y se preocupa por cada uno de nosotros y por el destino del universo mismo y de todos los seres que lo habitan.

Y todo lo que te he prometido. Hoy tu vida en la tierra ha pasado Pero aquí comienza de nuevo. No te prometo un mañana, Pero hoy siempre durará, Y como cada día es el mismo, No hay anhelo por el pasado. Has sido tan fiel, Tan confiado y verdadero. Aunque hubo momentos En que hiciste algunas cosas Que sabías no debías hacer. Pero has sido perdonado Y ahora al fin eres libre. ¿Así que por qué no vienes y me tomas de la mano Y compartes mi vida conmigo?”. Así que cuando mañana comience sin mí, No pienses que estamos alejados, Porque cada vez que pienses en mí, Estaré aquí mismo, en tu corazón.

understood what religion was really all about. Or at least was supposed to be about. I didn’t just believe in God; I knew God. As I hobbled to the altar to take Communion, tears streamed down my cheeks.

The universe has no beginning or end, and

function of the physical brain by globally synchronizing my neocortical electrical activity, just as my meningitis might have done, to liberate my out-of-body consciousness. I believe Hemi-Sync has enabled me to return to a realm similar to that which I visited deep in coma, but without having to be deathly ill. But just as in my dreams of flying

This earthly realm is, I believe, where we are meant to learn the lessons of unconditional love, compassion, forgiveness, and acceptance.

The realm of soul is like an ocean.

For most of this time, three questions have been intensely important to us: Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going?

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. —MAX PLANCK (1858–1947), QUANTUM PHYSICIST

My whole life has been a search for belonging.

When tomorrow starts without me, And I’m not there to see, If the sun should rise and find your eyes All filled with tears for me; I wish so much you wouldn’t cry The way you did today, While thinking of the many things, We didn’t get to say. I know how much you love me, As much as I love you, And each time you think of me, I know you’ll miss me too; But when tomorrow starts without me, Please try to understand, That an angel came and called my name, And took me by the hand, And said my place was ready, In heaven far above And that I’d have to leave behind All those I dearly love. But as I turned to walk away, A tear fell from my eye For all my life, I’d always thought, I didn’t want to die. I had so much to live for, So much left yet to do, It seemed almost impossible, That I was leaving you. I thought of all the yesterdays, The good ones and the bad, The thought of all the love we shared, And all the fun we had. If I could relive yesterday Just even for a while, I’d say good-bye and kiss you And maybe see you smile.

Hearing my story seemed to give him a license he had been longing for someone to give him: the license to believe what he had seen with his own eyes--to KNOW that deep and comforting truth: that our eternal spiritual self is more real than anything we perceive in this physical realm, and has a divine connection to the infinite love of the Creator.

Knowledge was stored without memorization, instantly and for good. It didn’t fade, like ordinary information does, and to this day I still possess all of it, much more clearly than I possess the information that I gained over all of my years in school. That’s

In the worlds above, I slowly discovered, to know and be able to think of something is all one needs in order to move toward it.

in this place was different from the simple

It’s a cliché to talk about what a big emphasis people in the South put on family, but like a lot of clichés, it’s also true.

True thought is pre-physical. This is the thinking-behind-the-thinking responsible for all the genuinely consequential choices we make in the world. A thinking that is not dependent on linear deduction, but that moves fast as lightning, making connections on different levels, bringing them together.

How do we get closer to this genuine spiritual self? By manifesting love and compassion. Why? Because love and compassion are far more than the abstractions many of us believe them to be. They are real. They are concrete. And they make up the very fabric of the spiritual realm.

People say things move more slowly in situations like this, and they’re right. My mind watched the action in the microseconds that followed as if it were watching a movie in slow motion. The instant I saw the pilot chute, my arms flew to my sides and I straightened my body into a head dive, bending ever so slightly at the hips. The verticality gave me increased speed, and the bend allowed my body to add first a little, then a blast of horizontal motion as my body became an efficient wing, sending me zipping past Chuck just in front of his colorful blossoming Para-Commander parachute. I passed him going at over 150 miles per hour, or 220 feet per second. Given that speed, I doubt he saw the expression on my face. But if he had, he would have seen a look of sheer astonishment. Somehow I had reacted in microseconds to a situation that, had I actually had time to think about it, would have been much too complex for me to deal with. And yet . . . I had dealt with it, and we both landed safely. It was as if, presented with a situation that required more than its usual ability to respond, my brain had become, for a moment, superpowered. How had I done it? Over the course of my twenty-plus-year career in academic neurosurgery—of studying the brain, observing how it works, and operating on it—I have had plenty of opportunities to ponder this very question. I finally chalked it up to the fact that the brain is truly an extraordinary device: more extraordinary than we can even guess. I realize now that the real answer to that question is much more profound. But I had to go through a complete metamorphosis of my life and worldview to glimpse that answer. This book is about the events that changed my mind on the matter. They convinced me that, as marvelous a mechanism as the brain is, it was not my brain that saved my life that day at all. What sprang into action the second Chuck’s chute started to open was another, much deeper part of me. A part that could move so fast because it was not stuck in time at all, the way the brain and body are.

I continued moving forward and found myself entering an immense void, completely dark, infinite in size, yet also infinitely comforting. Pitch black as it was, it was also brimming over with light:

the answer came instantly in an explosion of light, color, love, and beauty that blew through me like a crashing wave. What was important about these bursts was that they didn’t simply silence my questions by overwhelming them. They answered them, but in a way that bypassed language. Thoughts entered me directly. But it wasn’t thought like we experience on earth. It wasn’t vague, immaterial, or abstract. These thoughts were solid and immediate—hotter than fire and wetter than water—and as I received them I was able to instantly and effortlessly understand concepts that would have taken me years to fully grasp in my earthly life.

« Il n’y a que deux façons de vivre sa vie. L’une en faisant comme si rien n’était un miracle, l’autre en faisant comme si tout était un miracle. » — Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

The cortex mediates consciousness while we are on earth, it does not produce it. Of

Observations,” he wrote, “not only disturb what is to be measured, they produce it.” This doesn’t necessarily mean that we make reality with our imaginations; but it does mean that consciousness is so tied up with reality that there is no way of conceiving reality without it. Consciousness is the true bedrock of existence.

There is no way to separate the observer from the observed.

You are loved and cherished. You have nothing to fear. There is nothing you can do wrong. If I had to boil this entire message down to one sentence, it would run this way: You are loved. And

We can only see what our brain’s filter allows through. The brain—in particular its left-side linguistic/logical part, that which generates our sense of rationality and the feeling of being a sharply defined ego or self—is a barrier to our higher knowledge and experience. It

I saw the earth as a pale blue dot in the immense blackness of physical space. I could see that earth was a place where good and evil mixed, and that this constituted one of its unique features. Even on earth there is much more good than evil, but earth is a place where evil is allowed to gain influence in a way that would be entirely impossible at higher levels of existence. That evil could occasionally have the upper hand was known and allowed by the Creator as a necessary consequence of giving the gift of free will to beings like us.

Our truest, deepest self is completely free. It is not crippled or compromised by past actions or concerned with identity or status. It comprehends that it has no need to fear the earthly world, and therefore, it has no need to build itself up through fame or wealth or conquest. This

Om understands and sympathizes with our human situation more profoundly and personally than we can even imagine because Om knows what we have forgotten, and understands the terrible burden it is to live with amnesia of the Divine for even a moment.

The Scalpel and the Soul: Encounters with Surgery, the Supernatural and the Healing Power of Hope.

wearing

Deerfield, Massachusetts February 29, 1704 Temperature 0 degrees We will freeze to death, thought Mercy. Why go to the trouble of carrying a hundred pairs of moccasins when they won’t make a fire? Her Indian knelt and, with his bare hands, scooped out a hole in a snowbank. She expected him to store his plunder in the cavity. He had to make a lot of hand motions before she understood that this was her shelter for the night. Not a house, nor a bed, nor even a stable. A hole in the snow. Mercy wanted to raise her head to the skies and howl like a dog. But she wanted to survive. There must be no more bodies along this terrible trail. “First, may I look for my brothers?” She held up four fingers. “No,” said the Indian, and motioned her into the cave, tucking Daniel in after her. Mercy would have felt much better if she could have rested her eyes on Tommy and John and Sam and Benny. From her hole she watched the others settle in for the night. Eben’s Indian collected the older boys: Eben, the oldest Kellogg boy, the two Sheldon boys and Joe Alexander, who was in his twenties but looked very young. They were pinioned to the ground a dozen yards from where Mercy was curled. For Eben, however, his Indian made a cradle of spruce boughs. He wrapped a leather rope around Eben’s wrists and linked the cord to his own. If Eben moved, his captor would know it. The rest were made to lie on open snow. There was nothing between them and the weather. No walls, no roof, no parent.

Dogmatic religion is not open to people having direct access to those higher realms.

Our choice is not whether or not to be interested in philosophical questions, but whether or not to become conscious of the fact that, as human beings, we can’t help but be. To