Quotes from Steven L. Peck

The difference in the quality of consciousness between dreaming and being awake was close to the difference between our old earth life and the one there.

This is why reading the scriptures as a scientific text can do violence to their purpose. They are designed to connect us subjectively, consciously, and spiritually to richer truths and meaning.

Literalism is like giving a child a calculus book as a step stool to reach a washbasin. In so doing, much is lost that lies with the proper use of the book. Certainly children need step stools, but that particular use misses the true potential the book has to offer.

It seemed funny that one day I would go to bed in her arms and the next not feel anything, like a switch had gone off. But no, that wasn't honest either. This had been building for a long time. Our silences were getting longer. Our arguments more frequent. How do you stay with someone when there are no dreams to build? No purpose to accomplish? No meaning? No meaning —that was the monster that drove us away from one another in the end. Always.

The days passed in a dream. I pictured our reunion again and again, played it out in my mind over and over until I'd almost worn a groove in my thoughts, so deep that it seemed the only thing I could think of was our reunion. Anticipation is a gift. Perhaps there is none greater. Anticipation is born of hope. Indeed it is hope's finest expression. In hope's loss, however, is the greatest despair.

Y]ou are here to learn something. Don't try to figure out what it is. This can be frustrating and unproductive.

Strange, how a moment of existence can cut so deeply into our being that while ages pass unnoticed, a brief love can structure and define the very topology of our consciousness ever after.

Remember you are never really alone. Although it may feel like it for very long stretches of time.

I feared the defining point of this Hell was its unrelenting uniformity, its lack of variation from type. If there was a heaven at the end of this, it must be filled with great variety, perhaps a multiplicity of intelligent species spread across universes. Yes, heaven would be as full of difference as Hell was of sameness.

Yet a strange hope remains. A hope that somehow, something, God, the demon, Ahura Mazda, someone, will see I'm trying. I'm really trying, and that will be enough.

Zoroastrianism? Oh, there's never been but a few hundred thousand of them at any one time, mostly located in Iran and India, but that's it. The one true faith. If you're not a Zoroastrian, I'm afraid you are bound for Hell." The man looked stunned and shocked. "It's not fair." The demon gave a mirthful laugh. "Well, it was fair when you were sending all the Chinese to Hell who had never heard of Jesus. Wasn't it?

I could tell you of occasionally, every eon, meeting a person, with whom I might stay for a billion years. But what of it? After a billion years there is nothing left to say, and you wander apart, uncaring in the end.

Anticipation is a gift. Perhaps there is none greater. Anticipation is born of hope. Indeed it is hope's finest expression. In hope's loss, however, is the greatest despair.

There is a despair that goes deeper than existence; it runs to the marrow of consciousness, to the seat of the soul.

Where do all the things you believed go, when all the supporting structure is found to be a myth? How do you know how or on what to take a moral stand, how do you behave when it turns out there are no cosmic rules, no categorical imperatives?

I don't really doubt – I just want to.

Maybe God was a demon – that would explain much of the misery of earth life.

But what worse fate could there be? To remember love and know it is unattainable?

God had created the universe as a way of sorting through the great library, finding those books that were most beautiful and meaningful.

It was not Gilda and a racquet being used reflexively to some purpose. It was not Gilda using a racquet. It was one thing, maybe you could call it a Gilda-racquet-court-net-game-situation-two-other-players-wind-sunshine object. But there was only one thing there. To seperate us out would be to miss the reality.

My dad was still living when I died. I hope he ends up in a nice Hell. A

How do you stay with someone when there are no dreams to build? No purpose to accomplish? No meaning? No meaning – that was the monster that drove us away from one another in the end. Always.

Lastly, you are here to learn something. Don't try to figure out what it is. This can be frustrating and unproductive.

Now the search is all that matters. I know there will come a time when I find my book, but it is far in the future. And I know without doubt that it will not be today. Yet a strange hope remains. A hope that somehow, something, God, the demon, Ahura Mazda, someone, will see I'm trying. I'm really trying, and that will be enough.