Quotes by Nanavira Thera

“People, for the most part, live in the objective-immediate mode (discussed earlier). This means that they are totally absorbed in and identified with positive worldly interests and projects, of whi...”

“The relationship between these four attitudesobjectivity, immediacy, subjectivity, and reflexionis worth consideration. At first sight it might seem that there is no difference between immediacy an...”

“Listening to Beethoven also is sensuality, but when you have said 'sex' you have said all. A man who can give up sex can give up Beethoven.”

“But perhaps the most celebrated of these auto-incendiaries is Kalanos. You will remember, no doubt, that Kalanos (the Greek version of the Sanskrit Kalyna) was an Indian asceticthough not a Buddhis...”

“It is customary, in England at least, for Coroners' courts to give the verdict 'Suicide while the balance of his mind was disturbed'. This insult automatically puts the victim in the wrong and reas...”

“Talking of suicide, it is perhaps noteworthy that both of Dostoievsky's characters kill themselves: Stavrogin out of indifference and self disgust; Kirilov, after years of planning the gesture, in ...”

“If you can find no way of getting the Notes duplicated, why not try the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, who might be sympathetic (provided they do not actually read them)? I must, however, confess to...”

“I have finished Russell's Nightmares and must confess that they did not come up to expectation. No doubt it was my fault for expecting too much, knowing how unsatisfactory I find his philosophical ...”

“Kafka is an ethical, not an aesthetic, writer. There is no conclusion to his books. The Castle was actually unfinished, but what ending could there be to it? And there is some doubt about the prope...”

“You will have noticed that my interpretation of The Trial as the account of a man who, at a certain point in his life, suddenly asks himself why he exists, and then considers various possible justi...”

“Every increase in objectivity takes us further from reality.”

“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...”

“To be completely objective we must say:All men are mortal.Lionel Samaratunga's son is a man.Therefore Lionel Samaratunga's son is mortal.So stated, it is quite generally true, and is the concern of...”

“The word 'inauthentic' is used by Heidegger to describe the ostrich-like attitude of the man who seeks to escape from his inescapable self-responsibility by becoming an anonymous member of a crowd....”

“The relationship between these four attitudes—objectivity, immediacy, subjectivity, and reflexion—is worth consideration. At first sight it might seem that there is no difference between immediacy ...”