Quotes About Consciousness

This looking from the bottom up is the catalyst for a reversal of consciousness, not only for ourselves but also for the most resistant among us. For when we stop perceiving, assuming, and theorizing from the top, the dominant view, and instead go to the bottom of the social pyramid and identify with those who are oppressed and disenfranchised, a whole new way of relating opens up. Until we look from the bottom up we have seen nothing.

In Christian language, this is plain, old-fashioned surrender—giving up our conscious will and striving, and yielding instead to the inner kingdom. The soul-work involved in this internal restructuring is, I believe, the deepest meaning of spiritual becoming.

Forming a critique is essential to the birth and development of a spiritual feminist consciousness. Until a woman is willing to set aside her unquestioned loyalty and look critically at the tradition and convention of her faith, her awakening will never fully emerge. The extent of her healing, autonomy, and power is related to the depth of the critique she is able to integrate into her life.

Once you wake up, can you wake up any more?

Training your mind to be in the present moment is the #1 key to making healthier choices.

Minds hold more than they know.

Minds hold more than they know," the tall man said.

two LOOKING, LISTENING, AND FEELING: THE MENTAL STATUS EXAM

Whatever else you may need to get clarity, you must start with open eyes.

she was counting the brushstrokes when she brushed her teeth — on the rare days that she did brush her teeth.

For the modern consciousness, the artist (replacing the saint) is the exemplary sufferer.

None of us can ever retrieve that innocence before all theory when art knew no need to justify itself, when one did not ask of a work of art what it said because one knew what it did. From now to the end of consciousness, we are stuck with the task of defending art.

I am trying to check my habits of seeing, to counter them for the sake of a greater freshness. I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing.

Beware of anything that you hear yourself saying often.

Interpretation must itself be evaluated, within a historical view of human consciousness. In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act. It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past. In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, stifling.

If one could amputate part of one's consciousness...

For the modern consciousness, the artist (replacing the saint) is the exemplary sufferer. And among artists, the writer, the man of words, is the person to whom we look to be able best to express his suffering.

Es harto sabido que cuando las personas se aventuran por los confines últimos de la consciencia , arriesgan su cordura, o lo que es lo mismo, su humanidad. La Imaginación Pornográfica

Concerning the death of Gertrude Stein: she came out of a deep coma to ask her companion Alice Toklas, 'Alice, Alice, what is the answer?' Her companion replied, 'There is no answer.' Gertrude Stein continued, 'Well, then, what is the question?' and fell back dead.

Whatever goal is set for art eventually proves restrictive, matched against the widest goals of consciousness.

Art, itself a form of mystification, endures a succession of crises of demystification; older artistic goals are assailed and, ostensibly, replaced; outworn maps of consciousness are redrawn.

an expression of human consciousness, consciousness seeking to know itself.

You're becoming more and more deeply in debt to yourself, and you are already bankrupt. You look at yourself too much. That's the beginning of all absurdity. Look about you. The world is an interesting place.

Sufrir es una cosa; otra es convivir con las imágenes fotográficas del sufrimiento, que no necesariamente fortifican la conciencia ni la capacidad de compasión. También pueden corromperlas. Una vez que se han visto tales imágenes, se recorre la pendiente de ver más. Y más. Las imágenes pasman. Las imágenes anestesian.