My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.
An Enlightened Master is ideal only if your goal is to become a Benighted Slave.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that following a master blindly may lead to a loss of personal freedom and enlightenment.
Robert Anton Wilson's quote highlights the irony that an enlightened master is only beneficial if one desires to relinquish their own agency and independence. It implies that true enlightenment comes from within and that relying on external authorities can lead to intellectual and spiritual enslavement. It warns against the dangers of surrendering one's critical thinking and personal power to another person, emphasizing that autonomy is essential for growth and understanding.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on independence and personal growth at a self-improvement workshop.
More from Robert Anton Wilson
All quotes βThere is no governor anywhere. You are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped. If anybody could go into dhyana at will, nobody could be controlled - by fear of prison, by fear of whips or electroshock, by fear of death, even. All existing society is based on keeping those fears alive, to control the masses. Ten people who know would be more dangerous than a million armed anarchists.
I see anarchism as the theoretical ideal to which we are all gradually evolving to a point where everybody can tell the truth to everybody else and nobody can get punished for it. That can only happen without hierarchy and without people having the authority to punish other people.
To work for libertarianism - to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual - used to be an idealistic choice taken for purely idealistic reasons. Now it is an act of intelligent and almost desperate self-defense.
The abandoned infant's cry is rage, not fear.
The only way to stave off boredom, in a complex domesticated primate like humankind, is to increase one's intelligence. This is not appealing to the average primate, who instead invents emotional games (soap opera and grand opera dramatics).
Similar quotes
"Some would call you a saint, some a chandala; some a lunatic, others a demon. Go on then straight to thy work without heeding either" - thus saith one of our great Sannyasins, an old emperor of India, King Bhartrihari, who joined the order in old times.
Meditation is another dimension of natural beauty. People talk about appreciating natural beauty-climbing mountains, seeing giraffes and tigers in Africa, and all sorts of things. But nobody seems to appreciate this kind of natural beauty of ourselves. This is actually far more beautiful than flora and fauna, far more fantastic, far more painful and colorful and delightful.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
Banality is like boredom: bored people are boring people, people who think that things are banal are themselves banal. Interesting people can find something interesting in all things.
Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World and it will one day return there.
I drink from a small spring, / my thirst excedes the ocean.