Chris Abani Quotes

If there is anything besides the Self there is reason to fear? Who sees the second? First, the ego arises and sees objects as external. If the ego does not rise, the Self alone exists and there is no second.

I define a 'good person' as somebody who is fully conscious of their own limitations. They know their strengths, but they also know their 'shadow' - they know their weaknesses. In other words, they understand that there is no good without bad. Good and evil are really one, but we have broken them up in our consciousness. We polarize them.

But I don't actually adopt the point of view that our subjective impression of free will, which is a kind of indeterminacy behavior, comes from quantum mechanical indeterminacy.

At times I think and at times I am.

Free will is to mind, what chance is to matter

That which comes and goes, rises and sets, is born and dies is the ego. That which always abides, never changes, and is devoid of qualities is the Self.

I really like blending two things together that are polar opposites. Because I feel like, in a large aspect, that's kinda like what I am.

Only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent.

I consist of a little body and a soul.

A double-edged sword One side destroys One releases I am your Gordian knot Will you release or destroy me? Follow truth and you shall: Find me on water Purify me through fire Trapped by earth nevermore Air will whisper to you What spirit already knows: That even shattered anything is possible If you believe Then we shall both be free.

Once it has learned to dream the double, the self arrives at this weird crossroad and a moment comes when one realizes that it is the double who dreams the self.

All inquires carry with them some element of risk. There is no guarantee that the universe will conform to our predispositions.

Archetypes, in spite of their conservative nature, are not static but in a continuous dramatic flux. Thus the self as a monad or continuous unit would be dead. But it lives inasmuch as it splits and unites again. There is no energy without opposites!

The sky is one whole, the water another

Ah, Mastery of the Five Elements!" "Is that the one we want?" I asked. "No, but a good one. How to tame the five essential elements of the universe - earth, air, water, fire, and cheese!" "Cheese?

You plant twenty coconut trees over here, and twenty coconut trees over there, and you water this batch and don't water that batch. Of the batch you water, nineteen will survive and one will die. Of the batch you don't water, nineteen will die and one will survive.

If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops of water.

How can you be that which you possess? You cannot be the horse and rider at the same time. Herein lies the secret of mortality and immortality.

The soul is a fire that darts its rays through all the senses; it is in this fire that existence consists; all the observations and all the efforts of philosophers ought to turn towards this ME, the centre and moving power of our sentiments and our ideas.

To solicit the aid of luck is like stirring muddy water to bring objects submerged at the bottom to the top where they can be seen. Every worker would to well to tempt their good luck. Nevertheless, we should not depend on it too much.

What I cannot follow are the manic-depressive fluctuations from total control to no control, from the serialization of all elements to chance.

Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

The ego of man and woman is the soul. If the soul is independent, how then can it be isolated from the infinite whole?

The 2nd law of thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea, you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again.

The Art of Peace is based on four Great Virtues: Bravery, Wisdom, Love, and Friendship, symbolized by Fire, Heaven, Earth, and Water.