Spiritual Asylum Quotes

Ignorance is the mother of all the evil and all the misery we see. Let men have light, let them be pure and spiritually strong and educated, then alone will misery cease in the world, not before. We may convert every house in the country into a charity asylum, we may fill the land with hospitals, but the misery of man will still continue to exist until man's character changes.

The reader should beware of taking the same step. It is important you be on your guard against any impression that perhaps – to be fair – this version of history hangs together in some way, or that it feels true in some unspecific poetic or, worse, spiritual way. Important because a momentary lapse of concentration in this regard and you might – without at first noticing it and with a light heart and a spring in your step – begin to walk down the road that leads straight to the lunatic asylum.

America must welcome all---Chinese, Irish, German, pauper or not, criminal or not---all, all, without exceptions: become an asylum for all who choose to come. We may have drifted away from this principle temporarily but time will bring us back. … America is not for special types, for the caste, but for the great mass of people---the vast, surging, hopeful, army of workers. Dare we deny them a home---close the doors in their face----take possession of all and fence it in and then sit down satisfied with our system---convinced that we have solved our problem? I for my part refuse to connect America with such a failure---such a tragedy, for tragedy it would be.

But a predominantly scientific and technological education, such as is the usual thing nowadays, can also bring about a spiritual regression and a considerable increase of psychic dissociation. With hygiene and prosperity alone a man is still far from health, otherwise the most enlightened and most comfortably off among us would be the healthiest. But in regard to neuroses that is not the case at all, quite the contrary. Loss of roots and lack of tradition neuroticize the masses and prepare them for collective hysteria. Collective hysteria calls for collective therapy, which consists in abolition of liberty and terrorization. Where rationalistic materialism holds sway, states tend to develop less into prisons than into lunatic asylums.

There is little discipline in government, in school, in the home, or in most individuals. The rebellion against authority is also alive in the apostate church that has thrown discipline overboard and no longer mentions the necessity of submitting to spiritual and civil leadership. The alternative to discipline is mayhem where the nation has become an asylum, and the inmates are in charge.

Jung’s image of the stage of becoming a tree is well illustrated here. The little man is stuck. In the West he would be taken away, perhaps, to an institution and cured back (shock treatment, etc.) to society. Here, he is permitted to sit it out and perhaps go through to Buddhahood—perhaps, on the other hand, simply to remain stuck, as a living symbol of spiritual effort. There are no hospitals, there are no asylums. The lepers sit out on the streets and so do the madmen. But some of the madmen can break through, and these breakthroughs are giving India something that the West really lacks.

I am a man in death. I am not God. I am not man. I am a beast and a predator. I want to make love to prostitutes. I want to live like an unnecessary man. I know that God wants this, and therefore I will live that way. I will live that way until He stops me. I will gamble on the Stock Exchange because I want to do so at other people's expense. I am an evil man. I do not love anyone. I wish harm to everyone and good to myself. I am an egoist. I am not God. I am a beast, a predator. I will practice masturbation and spiritualism. I will eat everyone I can get hold of. I will stop at nothing. I will make love to my wife's mother and my child. I will weep, but I will do everything God commands me to. I know that everyone will be afraid of me and will commit me to a lunatic asylum. But I don't care. I am not afraid of anything. I want death. I will blow my brains out if God wants it.

In order for Claudia to grow peacefully towards womanhood, she needed to gradually accept not only her physical blindness but also her inner depression and anger, the scars, even open wounds, that flowed from her experience of rejection and lack of love and understanding during the years in the asylum. It was important that Claudia discover her shadow areas, even if she could not name them, and that she learn that it was acceptable to be less than perfect. It was for Nadine to show Claudia that we are all subject to a higher, more profound law, one that we do not make but which is given to us, hidden in the heart of every human being, to reveal that life is all about growth and that it is possible for each one of us to evolve out of darkness and chaos into light and into a new order of love. Claudia’s growth was subject then to Nadine’s growth. How could Nadine accept Claudia in all her chaos or madness if Nadine refused to accept the chaotic aspects and shadow areas in her own life? How could she trust in Claudia’s growth if she did not trust in her own growth? In the case of Claudia, there was a place where much of this spiritual struggle and growth occured: in prayer.

The problems which the integration of the unconscious sets modern doctors and psychologists can only be solved along the lines traced out by history, and the upshot will be a new assimilation of the traditional myth. This, however, presupposes the continuity of historical development. Naturally the present tendency to destroy all tradition or render it unconscious could interrupt the normal process of development for several hundred years and substitute an interlude of barbarism. Wherever the Marxist utopia prevails, this has already happened. But a predominantly scientific and technological education, such as is the usual thing nowadays, can also bring about a spiritual regression and a considerable increase of psychic dissociation. With hygiene and prosperity alone a man is still far from health, otherwise the most enlightened and most comfortably off among us would be the healthiest. But in regard to neuroses that is not the case at all, quite the contrary. Loss of roots and lack of tradition neuroticize the masses and prepare them for collective hysteria. Collective hysteria calls for collective therapy, which consists in abolition of liberty and terrorization. Where rationalistic materialism holds sway, states tend to develop less into prisons than into lunatic asylums.

With Landsberg, Vivekananda had resumed vegetarianism and was happy to eat simply after the dinner parties and receptions. But Landsberg could not appreciate how cooking could be in some sense sacred, not least because Vivekananda was also a messy cook and Landsberg hated having to clean up after him: 'I regarded it as unworthy of men of spiritual aspirations to waste the greatest part of their time with thinking and speaking of eating, preparing and cooking the food, and washing dishes, while the frugal meals required by a Yogi could be had quicker and cheaper in any restaurant .... I only wonder that this 'doing our own cooking' suggested by some evil demon, did not land me in the lunatic asylum.

Earthlings tend to believe that they know the reality surrounding them, but such reality is in actuality just a mass schizophrenic manifestation supported by shadowing reflections of their own thoughts. It is not real unless agreed upon. And the more they keep themselves protected by their groups, to which they attach themselves based on emotional and psychological similarities and familiarities, the more arrogant they will become in such view of the world while detaching themselves further away from the truth. Life then becomes like an Asylum for souls who are ignorant of their ignorance, deluded in their own shared perceptions, and randomly wondering why the ghosts of their own reflections keep changing shape.

11. No clerics. What would you think about a religion with no clergy? We here at SoulBoom are all for it. One of the miracles of the Twelve-Step Recovery Program at AA is the lack of leadership roles. The inmates are running the asylum! Elected servant-leaders run the meetings for limited terms while following the adage “principles above personalities.” As expertly quoted in the Twelve Traditions of the AA Big Book, “For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.” What if modern religion was like that? (Or politics, for that matter!) Leaders as trusted servants. We no longer need people with funny hats (whose only historical “expertise” was knowing how to read when most of the population didn’t) to interpret the holy writings for us. What if no member of this faith had more power or authority than any other member? What if, like at an AA meeting, there were regular, democratic elections, where a rotating staff of elected folks helped to serve the needs of the community… and nothing else?

I know that our efforts all come to nothing. Analyze life, tear its trappings off, lay it bare with thought, with logic, with philosophy, and its emptiness is revealed as a bottomless pit; its nothingness frankly confesses to nothingness, and Despair comes to perch in the soulI know the end of us all is nothing, I know that at the end of Time, the reward of our toil will be nothing — and again nothing. I know that all our handiwork and all our ideas will be destroyed. I know that not even ash will be left from the fires that consume us. I know that our ideals, even those we achieve, will vanish in the eternal darkness of oblivion and final non-being. There is no hope, none, in my heart. I know, No promise, none, can I make to myself and to others. No recompense can I expect for my labors. No fruit will be born of my thoughts. I know the time — eternal seducer of all men, eternal cause of all effects — offers me nothing but the blank prospect of annihilation. So, my dignity is broken and weak, in recognition of my impending defeat. The man who is alone, who stands on his own feet, who is stripped bare, who asks for nothing and wants nothing, who has reached the apex of disinterested­ness not through blind renunciation but through ex­cess of clear vision, turns to the world which stretches out before him as a burned prairie, as a devastated city — a world in which no churches, asylums, refuges, ideals, are left — and says: «Though you promise me nothing I am still with you, I am still an atom of your energies, my work is part of your work; I am your companion and your mirror as you march on your merciless way. But I owe nothing to any one. I would be responsible to freedom alone.

Soon after Zecharia Sitchin’s books became more widespread the quality of ancient Mesopo-tamian theology became perverted by the likes of new agers, ufologists, and occultists who lacked true initiation. The results were deplorable. The Western mind has to come to terms with seeing some flaws in their own thinking process before interpreting the spiritual history of an indigenous people. Suddenly the ancient Mesopotamian deities were transformed into aliens,

The Mesopotamians, like other ancient oriental cultures, classified disease and sickness as evil spirits. This was not due to superstition, as many Westerners would like us to believe, but a description of the said ailment and its quality. The reason that we have inserted this topic into our discussion is for the benefit of all who would like to pursue ancient Mesopotamian spirituality as a path. Imagine if the people of Mesopotamia classified a certain disease as an evil spirit, and the Western mind of today insists that this “evil spirit” was just an ancient god. This misconception leaves the dark occultist with the idea of building an altar for this spirit, chanting its name, and dedicating its life to this “evil god.” Now imagine if this evil spirit was actually the name of what the ancient Mesopotamians considered to be tuberculosis by modern physicians. It would be no surprise that our occult practitioner has fallen victim to this disease and his fortune has turned bad. Unfortunately, situations like this have occurred.