WISDOM'S CORNER

     There are people who dispense blessings to the whole world. Every increase in power that comes to them benefits the whole of mankind and therefore does not bring decrease to others. Through perseverance and zealous work a man wins success and finds helpers as they are needed. But what he accomplishes is not a limited private advantage; it is a public good and available to everyone. (From the I Ching, Hexagram 41, Decrease. Line 6.)
     Here are six folks who have certainly blessed the whole world by their very presence:

• When asked by Virginia Lee what he thought had been his greatest accomplishment, Ram Dass answered, "Taking psychedelics. I wouldn't be who I am without that experience." He went on to add that he would like to be remembered "as a free spirit." (From the Ram Dass Website: Ramdasstapes.org.)
  
  
• Nobody can tell me they're God. You can God in front of me and I'll be respectful, but don't tell me you're God. I am tired of hearing that old jive. I've heard it thousands of times from folks who wanted me to know that they alone, uniquely and individually, to the exclusion of everyone else, are God. In a pig's ear, they are. (From Stephen Gaskin, Mind at Play, p. 6.)
  
  
• But couldn't it be that there's some kind of new force loose on the world . . . a new kind of energy that's trying to put us all back on the right track before it's too late? (From Spider Robinson, Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, p. 168.)
  
  
• In the West there has been a steady focus on the ego and on the god of the ego - the monotheistic ideal. Monotheism exhibits what is essentially a pathological personality pattern projected onto the ideal of God: the pattern of the paranoid, possessive, power-obsessed male ego. (From Terence McKenna, Food of the Gods, p. 62.)
  
  
• Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don't do that so much anymore. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering. Despite the awesome powers of technology many of us still do not live very well. We may need to listen to each other's stories once again. (From Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom, introduction.)
  
  
• My life is a story of the self-realization of the unconscious. Everything in the unconscious seeks outward manifestation, and the personality too desires to evolve out of its unconscious conditions and to experience itself as a whole. (From C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, p. 3.)