It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content... it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble and from babble to confusion.
Rene DaumalRead
In the mythic tradition, the Mountain is the bond between Earth and Sky. Its solitary summit reaches the sphere of eternity, and its base spreads out in manifold foothills into the world of mortals. It is the way by which man can raise himself to the divine and by which the divine can reveal itself to man.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the connection between the earthly and the divine through the symbol of a mountain.
Rene Daumal's quote emphasizes the symbolic role of the mountain as a bridge between the mortal world and the divine realm. It suggests that the mountain’s summit represents the ultimate truth or spiritual enlightenment, while its foothills symbolize the complexities and challenges of human existence. This mythic understanding implies that through aspiration and effort, individuals can elevate themselves spiritually, while also suggesting that divine truths can reveal themselves in our earthly experience.
Themes
MountainDivineEarthSkySpiritualityJourney
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about personal growth.
More from Rene Daumal
All quotes →Truth is one, but error proliferates. Man tracks it down and cuts it up into little pieces hoping to turn it into grains of truth. But the ultimate atom will always essentially be an error, a miscalculation.
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The door to the invisible must be visible.
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I am dead because I have no desire,_x000D_ I have no desire because I think I possess,_x000D_ I think I possess because I do not try to give;_x000D_ Trying to give, we see that we have nothing;_x000D_ Seeing that we have nothing, we try to give ourselves,_x000D_ Trying to give ourselves, we see that we are nothing,_x000D_ Seeing that we are nothing, we desire to become,_x000D_ Desiring to become, we live.
Rene DaumalRead
Art has a double face, of expression and illusion, just like science has a double face: the reality of error and the phantom of truth.
Rene DaumalRead
Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are checks drawn on insufficient funds.
Rene DaumalRead
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