Sam Keen - True Quotes

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The carrot of happiness has been dangled in front of me, just beyond my reach for as long as I can remember, and I have never gained on it. It is always still just a step beyond me. And, what's worse, I have been hypnotized by the promise so that I keep going for it, stay in the harness. The moment I turn my eyes from the carrot and ask the radical question about my true desires, I step out of the harness and begin to wander freely in search of what will satisfy my hungers.

Sam Keen
The path that leads from the persona to the self, from the adult to the outlaw, consists of learning to distinguish between false desire and true desire, or superficial desire and profound desire, or obsessive desire and free passion, … or illusory needs and real needs.

Sam Keen
Soul grows in communion. Word by word, story by story, for better or worse, we build our world. From true conversation - speaking and listening - communication deepens into compassion and creates community.

Sam Keen
The sense of gratitude produces true spiritual alchemy, makes us magnanimous - large souled.

Sam Keen
Self-awareness and self-consciousness are entirely different. When I am self-conscious, it is really someone else's eyes that are watching, judging, and criticizing me. … It is these eyes that must be put out if I am to make sense of and remain in touch with my true self. And when we fail to find symbolic ways of destroying the watchers by becoming our own true witness, then the parents or authorities are sometimes literally killed.

Sam Keen