Modernity sees humanity as having ascended from what is inferior to it - life begins in slime and ends in intelligence - whereas traditional cultures see it as descended from its superiors. As the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins put the matter:… — Huston Smith Copy Share
Human intelligence is a reflection of the intelligence that produces everything. In knowing, we are simply extending the intelligence that comes to and constitutes us. We mimic the mind of God, so to speak. Or better, we continue and extend… — Huston Smith Copy Share Image
“The Transcendent was my morning meal, we had the Eternal at lunch, and I ate a slice of the Infinite at dinner.” — Huston Smith Copy Share Image
The first koan do not have rational answers. They are techniques devised over the millennia for triggering an actual experience. — Huston Smith Copy Share Image
We all carry it within us: supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted, and cannot be destroyed. — Huston Smith Copy Share Image
A nation can assume that the addition of the words "under God" to its pledge of allegiance gives evidence that its citizens actually believe… — Huston Smith Copy Share Image
“Some friends accused me of whoring after the Infinite. Well, what better whoredom is there?” — Huston Smith Copy Share Image
Imagine a man besottedly in love: he won't waste time speculating whether other women equally merit his affection. — Huston Smith Copy Share Image
“If my opinion that substance requires a true unity were founded only on a definition I had formulated in opposition to common usage, *then the dispute would be only one of words*. But besides the fact that most philosophers have taken the term in almost the same fashion, distinguishing between a unity in itself and an accidental unity, between substantial… — Huston Smith Copy Share
The New Age movement looks like a mixed bag. I see much in it that seems good: It's optimistic; it's enthusiastic; it has the capacity for belief. On the debit side, I think one needs to distinguish between belief and credulity. How deep does New Age go? Has it come to terms with radical evil? More, I am not sure… — Huston Smith Copy Share
Science can prove nothing about God, because God lies outside its province. — Huston Smith Copy Share Image
I had assumed that Bush's seemingly inflexible policy to support Sharon was for political reasons of his getting elected. But as to whether he… — Huston Smith Copy Share Image
“How many planes there are, we do not know. The levels of nature that science discriminates give us no clue, for these all pertain to size which, being an aspect of space, belongs to our plane only. (We discount as irrelevant for present purposes the peculiar modes of space we experience when dreaming.) The entire size-continuum, from minutest particle to… — Huston Smith Copy Share
