We are born for meaning, not pleasure, unless it is pleasure that is steeped in meaning.
Jacob NeedlemanDeath is the great equalizer. I've seen that phenomenon many times. I've had people in my classes come to me, men and women over 50 years old, and they say, "I made it, I'm rich. But what the hell is my life for?"
Jacob NeedlemanThe work of cultivating experiences called "peak experiences" or "mystic moments" or "breakthroughs" until they become more accessible is part of the essential nature of genuine spiritual discipline. These are moments, at the very least, of approaching the experiential verification that there does exist something Higher within and perhaps also outside of ourselves. Moments at the very least of approaching what the religions call God.
Jacob NeedlemanTo search means, first, I need Being, Truth; second, I do not know where to find it; and third, an action takes place that is not based on fantasies of certaintyโ while at the same time a waiting takes place that is rooted not in wishful thinking but in a deep sense of urgency.
Jacob NeedlemanAt the present moment in our culture this yearning for meaning and consciousness, this yearning to give and serve something higher than ourselves, is breaking through the hard crust of our widespread cultural materialism and pseudo-scientific underestimation of what a human being is meant to be together with an equally tragic overestimation of what we human beings are capable of in our present everyday state of being. The intensity of the present confusion about the nature and existence of God is a symptom of this yearning within the whole of our modern culture.
Jacob Needleman