Showing posts with label Henry Miller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henry Miller. Show all posts

Sunday, February 4, 2024

struggle?

 






When you surrender, the problem ceases to exist. Try to solve it, or conquer it, 
and you only set up more resistance. I am very certain now that… 
if I truly become what I wish to be, the burden will fall away. 
The most difficult thing to admit, and to realize with one’s whole being, 
is that you alone control nothing. 
To be able to put yourself in tune or rhythm with the forces beyond, 
which are the truly operative ones, that is the task
 — and the solution, if we can speak of “solutions.”

One thing I don’t worry about… is what people think, 
how they misinterpret things. There’s nothing you can do about that… 
What amazes me more and more is how much people do understand 
when you give them the full dose, when you hold back nothing.

One has to permit people to become desperate, to become wholly lost, 
that only then are they ready for the right word, only then can they 
avail themselves of the truth. To withhold it then is a crime. 
But to nurse them along is a worse crime. And there is where much
 of the conflict centers, about that point. The human instinct to spare 
the other person his agony (which is his means of salvation, 
in any sense of the word) is a fallacious instinct. Here the subtle temptations, 
the vicious and insidious ones, because so confused and entangled, 
enter in. On this so-called human plane it is the ego which commands — 
often in the most amazing disguises. The temptation to be good, 
to do good, gets us all some time or other.
 It’s the last ruse, I feel, of the ego.

This clamor and agitation which I seem to create all about me, 
even from a distance, 
proceeds from me. 
I know it.

Have I not become more and more aware latterly that the things 
I deeply desire come without struggle? … 
All the struggle, then, is phantom play. 
The fighting with shadows. 
This I know.




~ Henry Miller
from A Literate Passion: 
Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller
with thanks to The Marginalian by Maria Popova
photo Henry Miller on his bike




Friday, February 7, 2020

no places to go to







For some it a terrifying prospect. It would be better, think they, 
if Heaven were above and Hell below—anywhere outside, but not within.
 But that comfort has been knocked from under us. There are no places
 to go to, either for reward or punishment. The place is always here and now,
 in your own person and according to your own fancy. The world is exactly 
what you picture it to be, always, every instant. It is impossible to shift
 the scenery about and pretend that you will enjoy another, a different act. 
The setting is permanent, changing with the mind and heart, 
not according to the dictates of an invisible stage director. 
You are the author, director and actor all in one: the drama is always going
 to be your own life, not some one else’s. A beautiful, terrible, ineluctable drama,
 like a suit made of your own skin. Would you want it otherwise? 
Could you invent a better drama?




~ Henry Miller
from Sexus
photo by Christine de Grancy




Thursday, October 24, 2019

full surrender






The art of living is based on rhythm - on give and take, ebb and flow, light and dark, life and death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good and bad, right and wrong, yours and mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, ‘the dance of life,’ metamorphosis. One can dance to sorrow or to joy; one can even dance abstractly. But the point is that, by the mere act of dancing, the elements which compose it are transformed; the dance is an end in itself, just like life. The acceptance of the situation, any situation, brings about a flow, a rhythmic impulse towards self-expression. To relax is, of course, the first thing a dancer has to learn. It is also the first thing a patient has to learn when he confronts the analyst. It is the first thing any one has to learn in order to live. It is extremely difficult, because it means surrender, full surrender. 



~  Henry Miller
from The Wisdom of the Heart



Saturday, October 3, 2015

open







What I want is to open up. I want to know what's inside me. I want everybody to open up. I'm like an imbecile with a can-opener in his hand, wondering where to begin - to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I'm sure of it.

I know it because I feel so marvelous myself most of the time. And when I feel that way everybody seems marvelous … everybody and everything … even pebbles and pieces of cardboard … a match stick lying in the gutter . . . anything . . . a goat's beard, if you like. That's what I want to write about … and then we're all going to see clearly, see what a staggering, wonderful, beautiful world it is.




~ Henry Miller
from Sexus