a) 'It may happen many times, but it is certain to happen at
least once that one's whole life depends on a moment's willingness
to lay it on the line. This happens to most people. To anyone willing
to look closely there may come a moment in one's life
which in every sense of the word is a moment of destiny, a moment
to which one can, in later years, look back and realize that everything
was leading to that point, and everything flows thence from it.
There is no way of knowing when such a moment may com
e; indeed, one may not even recognize it until long after. But one
thing is certain: you will muff it unless you have learned how to
lay it on the line. And the secret in that art is simple: you have to
risk all to gain all.'
Matthew Kelty, O.C.S.O., Aspects of the Monastic Calling
(St. Joseph's Abbey, Spencer, MA), 15-16.
b) '. . . there is a widespread opinion that scientists hit on
discoveries merely by trying everything as it happens to cross their
minds. This opinion follows from an inability to recognize man's
capacity for anticipating the approach of hidden truth. The scientist's
surmise or hunches are the spurs and pointers of his search. They
involve high stakes, as hazardous as their prospects are fascinating.
The time and money, the
prestige and self-confidence gambled away in disappointing guesses
will soon exhaust a scientist's courage and standing. His gropings are
weighty decisions.'
Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1966), p76.
c) 'True personality is always a vocation and puts its trust in it as in a God.
. . . vocation acts like a law of God from which there is no escape.
The fact that many a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means
nothing to one who has a vocation. He must obey his own law, as if it
were a daemon, whispering to him of new and wonderful paths. Anyone
with a vocation hears the voice of the inner man: he is called. '
Jung, Development of Personality, 175-176.
d) 'Without cause God gave us Being; without cause give it back again.
Gambling yourself away is beyond religion.'
Jalaluddhin Rumi
e) 'Life is impoverished, it loses in interest, when the highest
stake in the game of living, life itself, may not be risked. It becomes as shallow
and empty as, let us say, a . . . flirtation, in which it is understood from the
first that nothing is to happen, as contrasted with a . . . love affair in which
both partners must constantly bear its serious consequences in mind.'
S. Freud, Attitude Toward Death, 290.
f) Ramakrishna was in a desperate state of mind just before he
attained union:
M., Gospel of Ramakrishna. pp. 12-14, or Saradananda, Ramakrishna the Great Master, pp 162-3.
g) The charge given to his warriors by the Sioux Indian chief,
Sitting Bull, before the battle of the Little Bighorn and the defeat of Custer:
'It is a good day to die'
h) 'There is nothing more blessed than a lawful strife.'
Gita, II:31-32
(The gloss of Radhakrishnan's translation of this
passage states: 'Krishna tells Arjuna that for warriors there is no more
ennobling duty than a fair fight. It is a privilege that leads to heaven.')
i) ' . . . the enigma at the heart of life and the universe . . is the
fact that no life can perpetuate itself without risking death.'
from Mircea Eliade, Ordeal by Labyrinth, (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1982), 125.
j) 'And ye shall seek me, and find me,
When ye shall search for me with
all your heart.'
Jeremiah 29:13
k) Martin Luther King describes a moment of profound crisis
in his life during the Montgomery boycott of 1956:
'In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone,
I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands,
I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke
to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. 'I am here taking a
stand on what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are
looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength
and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have
nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone'.
'At that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I have
never experienced Him before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet
assurance of an inner voice saying: 'Stand up for righteousness, stand
up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.' Almost at once my
fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face
anything.'
from Stride Toward Freedom by Martin Luther King
l) 'Freedom's just another name for nothin' left to lose.'
(from the song Me and Bobby McGee by Kris Kristopherson, 1970's)
m) 'He that findeth his life shall lose it:
and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.'
Jesus (Matthew 10:39)
n) In Laws Plato defines the essence of all true culture, paideia, as
'the education in arete from youth onwards, which makes men
passionately desire to become perfect citizens, knowing both
how to rule and how to be ruled on a basis of justice.... arete is
defined as the finest possible expression of the inspiration of heroic
strife.'
Werner Jaeger, Paideia vol 1
o) 'In love, in battle, in pursuing lofty tasks, men often act without regard for consequences, unconditionally. When a man acts unconditionally his life is not the ultimate, he subordinates it to something else. ...... the only escape from .... emptiness is for man himself as an individual to win authentic being as the foundation of his decisions. This has happened in history when individuals staked their lives through obedience to an absolute imperative: they remain loyal where disloyalty would have destroyed everything, where a life saved through disloyalty would have been poisoned, where a betrayal of absolute being would have made a saved life wretched.
'The purest example is perhaps Socrates. Living in the lucidity of his reason, out of the Comprehensive of nonknowledge, he went his way unswervingly, undeterred by the passions of anger, hatred, self righteousness; he made no concessions, refused to avail himself of the opportunity for flight, and died happy, staking everything on his faith. .......
'Rare are the philosophers who, without firm allegiance
to a community of faith, standing alone before God, have realized the maxim:
To philosophize is to learn how to die.'
Karl Jaspers, Way to Wisdom (Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, 1954) pp52-53