The Way of the White Clouds

it is our consciousness which by its selective faculties of perception and co-ordination determines the type of world in which we live. it is our higher aspirations and our ultimate aim that make us immortal - not the permanence of an immutable separate soul, whose very sameness would exclude us from life and growth and from the infinite adventure of the spirit and condemn us for ever to the prison of our own limitations. only a man who is capable of great passions is capable of great deeds and great accomplishments in the realm of the spirit. only a man who had gone through the fire of suffering and despair could have accomplished the highest aim within a lifetime. the juxtaposition of the sublime and the the ridiculous seems to deepen the sense of reality, in which the highest and the lowest have their place and condition each other, thus giving perspective and proportion to our conception of the world and of ourselves.