A Quote by Kenny Smith

As always, the illusion of self-transcendence is far more facile and available than self-transcendence itself: in the vast majority of cases what human consciousness opens up to is merely a more encompassing form of finitude (another captivating illusion or delusion).

Kenny Smith

Quote Topics

Always Another Available Captivating Cases Consciousness Delusion Facile Far Finitude Form Human Human Consciousness Illusion Itself Majority Merely More Opens Self Than Transcendence Up Vast Vast Majority

Quote Author

Kenny Smith
American - Athlete
Born: March 8, 1965

...being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself—be it meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.... What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.

Viktor E. Frankl

According to the Buddha, the failure to recognize the illusion of the self is the source of all ignorance and unhappiness. It is only by renouncing the self, that is, by dropping his ego defences and committing metaphorical suicide, that a person can open up to different modes of being and relating and thereby transform himself into a pure essence of humanity. In so doing, he becomes free to recast himself as a much more joyful and productive person, and attains the only species of transcendence and immortality that is open to man.

Neel Burton

Self-awareness is a trait that not only makes us human but also paradoxically makes us want to be more than merely human. As I said in my BBC Reith Lectures, “Science tells us we are merely beasts, but we don’t feel like that. We feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, forever craving transcendence

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

Self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence.

Viktor E. Frankl

As each one of us awakens, it is like a light going on, followed by another light, another light, and another light. The darkness of human unconsciousness is slowly, gradually and gently lit, until there comes a day when there is more light than dark, more consciousness than unconsciousness , more joy than pain, ...more truth than illusion. That would indeed be a day for celebration.

Leonard Jacobson

Action painting has to do with self-creation or self-definition or self-transcendence; but this dissociates it from self-expression, which assumes the acceptance of the ego as it is, with its wound and its magic.

Hannah Arendt

The most transformative experiences people have - bliss, devotion, self transcendence - are currently anchored to the worst parts of culture and to ways of thinking that merely amplify superstition, self-deception, and conflict.

Sam Harris

The part of you that is unhampered by illusion-the illusion of time, the illusion of powerlessness, the illusion of impossibility-i s waiting for you to slow down and open up so that it can speak to your consciousness. In some unguarded moment, you will hear its wildly improbable words and know that they are guiding you home.

Martha Beck

When you are in the mundane from what is deeper than your self, you realize the mundane to be more than your self, and your self opens. It opens in its structuring and in its form, enabling you as the form of your self to move in the deeper levels of the mundane

John de Ruiter

Speaking of Self-realizatio n is a delusion. It is only because people have been under the delusion that the non-Self is the Self and the unreal the Real that they have to be weaned out of it by the other delusion called Self-realizatio n; because actually the Self always is the Self and there is no such thing as realizing it.

Ramana Maharshi

The illusion that we are separate from one another is an optical delusion of our consciousness.

Albert Einstein

Only to the extent that someone is living out this self transcendence of human existence, is he truly human or does he become his true self. He becomes so, not by concerning himself with his self's actualization, but by forgetting himself and giving himself, overlooking himself and focusing outward.

Viktor E. Frankl

My urge to write is an urge not to self-expressionism but to self-transcendence. My work is both bigger and smaller than I am.

Susan Sontag

Sexuality, for the person who practices tantra, is a marvelous way to experience illusion. Illusion is just another way of seeing things. There are no illusions because there is no self.

Frederick Lenz

It is human self-renunciation when a man denies himself and the world opens up to him. But it is Christian self-renunciation when he denies himself and, because the world precisely for this shuts itself up to him, he must as one thrust out by the world seek God's confidence. The double-danger lies precisely in meeting opposition there where he had expected to find support, and he has to turn about twice; whereas the merely human self-resignation turns once.