The shortest interval between two points is the awareness that they are not two.
A few years ago a practising Harley Street psychiatrist, who was dabbling in Buddhism, came to see me. I opened the conversation by saying 'At some time in his life, every intelligent man questions himself about the purpose of his existence.' Immediately, and with the most manifest disapproval, the psychiatrist replied 'Anybody who thinks such thoughts is mentally diseased.' Thus with a single gesture, he swept half-a-dozen major philosophers (some of whom have held chairs in universities__hich guarantees their respectability if not their philosophy) into the lunatic asylum__he criminal lunatic asylum, to judge from his tone. I have never seen a man in such a funk.
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A few years ago a practising Harley Street psychiatrist, who was dabbling in Buddhism, came to see me. I opened the conversation by saying 'At some time in his life, every intelligent man questions himself about the purpose of his existence.' Immediately, and with the most manifest disapproval, the psychiatrist replied 'Anybody who thinks such thoughts is mentally diseased.' Thus with a single gesture, he swept half-a-dozen major philosophers (some of whom have held chairs in universities__hich guarantees their respectability if not their philosophy) into the lunatic asylum__he criminal lunatic asylum, to judge from his tone. I have never seen a man in such a funk.
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The purpose of life is to reach a point where you can say 'yes' to all of it.
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Sooner or later on this journey, every traveller faces the same question: Are you a human intending to be a god, or a god pretending to be human?
This 'web of discourses' as Robyn called it...is as much a biological product as any of the other constructions to be found in the animal world. (Clothes too, are part of the extended phenotype of Homo Sapiens almost every niche inhabited by that species.An illustrated encyclopedia of zoology should no more picture Homo Sapiens naked than it should picture Ursus arctus-the black bear- wearing a clown suit and riding a bicycle.
Doing philosophy is only a threefold or double kind of waking--being awake--consciousness.