Jacob Needleman Quotes & Sayings

Man must have results, real results, in his inner and outer life. I do not mean the results which modern people strive after in their attempts at self-development. These are not results, but only rearrangements of psychic material, a process the Buddhists call 'samsara' and which our Holy Bible calls 'dust'. — Jacob Needleman

Death 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 Needleman

What is it that makes all of us end each day with the sense that we have not lived our time, but have been lived, used by what we do? — Jacob Needleman

This is the mark of great ideas: they unify people and they also act to unify the disparate parts of the human being; they speak of a social order that is possible on the basis of an ordering within the individual self. — Jacob Needleman

Any serious man or woman in search of spiritual ideas will find a surprising challenge and an authentic source of inspiration and intellectual nourishment in the writings of Paul Brunton. — Jacob Needleman

Money is like a mirror to our culture. What we see tells us who we are. — Jacob Needleman

Our world, so we see and hear on all sides, is drowning in materialism, commercialism, consumerism. But the problem is not really there. What we ordinarily speak of as materialism is a result, not a cause. The root of materialism is a poverty of ideas about the inner and the outer world. Less and less does our contemporary culture have, or even seek, commerce with great ideas, and it is that lack that is weakening the human spirit. This is the essence of materialism. Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas. — Jacob Needleman

To be totally engaged with all my functions and all my faculties and all my capacities in life to me that would be success. — Jacob Needleman

The only really interesting questions are the unanswerable ones. — Jacob Needleman

For the growing number of people seeking to approach the ideas of Gurdjieff, Toward Awakening by Jean Vaysse offers reliable guidance, as well as evidence of the continuing vitality of this remarkable teaching. It may be counted as among the small handful of books that communicate something of what Gurdjieff brought. — Jacob Needleman

Faith cannot be shaken, it is the result of being shaken. — Jacob Needleman

What is most necessary for people and what is given us in great abundance, are experiences, especially experiences of the forces within us. This is our most essential food, our most essential wealth. If we consciously receive all this abundance, the universe will pour into us what is called life in Judaism, spirit in Christianity, light in Islam, power in Taoism. — Jacob Needleman

To love my neighbor is to assist the arising and unfolding in him of that which can harmonize the real elements of his nature. — Jacob Needleman

We lose our time because we lose our attention — Jacob Needleman

If the group is an art form of the future, then convening groups is an artistry we must cultivate to fully harvest the promise of the future. — Jacob Needleman

Frederick Franck is one of a rare and precious breed - an authentic troubadour whose lyricism is pure in word and image. He quietly roams our materialistic world and shows us that even here, even now, there is hope for our soul. — Jacob Needleman

Why has time disappeared in our culture? How is it that after decades of inventions and new technologies devoted to saving time and labor, the result is that there is no time left? We are a time-poor society; we are temporally impoverished. And there is no issue, no aspect of human life, that exceeds this in importance. The destruction of time is literally the destruction of life. — Jacob Needleman

We are human beings, beings whose fundamental food is the experience of truth. — Jacob Needleman

We are born for meaning, not pleasure, unless it is pleasure that is steeped in meaning. — Jacob Needleman

To 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 certainty - while at the same time a waiting takes place that is rooted not in wishful thinking but in a deep sense of urgency. — Jacob Needleman

When thought races ahead of Being, a civilization is racing towards destruction. — Jacob Needleman

God acts in history: that is, God provides ideas, methods, and experiences intended to bring comprehension to man, an understanding heart, a conscious life. — Jacob Needleman

If one steps out on a starry night and observes one's inner state, one asks if one could hate or be overwhelmed by envy or resentment ... Is it not true that no man or woman has ever committed a crime while in a state of wonder? — Jacob Needleman

The problem of money dogs our steps throughout the whole of our lives, exerting a pressure that, in its way, is as powerful and insistent as any other problem of human existence. And it haunts the spiritual search as well. — Jacob Needleman

What is [the role of money] in the search for meaning? Is our relationship to it one of the chief factors that keeps us in our prison, or could it also be a tool for breaking out, for awakening to a life filled with intensity of purpose? — Jacob Needleman

Life is not so much defined by the external situation as it is by the internal one. — Jacob Needleman

Real inquiry is a tremendous moral transforming force. It's not just questioning and looking for a quick answer or explanation, but the process of inquiry-of questioning, of opening-opens something in the human being which has not been touched in our culture. Everybody who is human has in themselves the potential of passionate inquiry after truth, and that's the transforming force. — Jacob Needleman