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More quotes from 'The Prophet of the New Millennium'
"You citizens of Orphalese, you are the wisest listeners.
"The wisest listeners hear not with their ears alone but with their heart as well and with their soul.
"The wisest do not listen to the words, and pick at them like the pan-handler scratching at the scree for the
elusive nugget. They penetrate through to the spirit of the words like the sculptor who already within the slab of stone
sees the final figure. And who knows no other sculptor will see the same figure - that truth demands that. And that truth
makes no value judgements between the different figures seen by different sculptors in the same slab of stone.
"The wisest do not exalt in the epiphany of a moment, but allow truth rather to possess them slowly. That it may thoroughly possess them.
"The wisest do not seek answers. They seek only questions leading to further questions. The wisest have come to understand that it is not
in answers but in questions that truth is nestling.
The prophet started to walk a little way amongst them.
"People of Orphalese," he said, "yours is an awesome destiny.
"We live in terrible and dangerous times. You who are listeners, you must teach the world to listen. To listen
as you listen. With wisdom, with its heart and with its soul. For it not to listen will be for the world to die.
"And it must listen not to the talkers but to the streams crying acid tears and to the forests dying by a thousand cuts, to the
shrieks of orphans suckling at hollow breasts and to the thunder of hollow bellies, to the screams of those hit by bullies and by bullets.
"She who would insist you listen only to her knowledge has nothing worth the knowing.
"The greater our knowledge, the greater only our knowledge of our ignorance. Such knowledge
can be imparted only with the humility to recognise nothing else can happen to it beyond it being tendered - its receipt cannot be guaranteed.
"I do not teach.
"I invite you into your own - yes, noiseless - quiet. I invite you to meander through a labyrinth of confusion. One from which only
those determined to be decisive will emerge.
"There is no one more confused than she who must be decisive.
"When we believe these noise-makers we are Aladdin swapping his magic lamp for a virtual one. We swap the miraculous for
the gaudy, the specious for the genuinely special.
"To choose sureness over confusion is to choose the desert over the garden, it is to prefer despotism to free elections. It is
to choose discontent before happiness, and self-deception before self-love.
"If your happiness is not humanity's happiness you are not truly happy. You are bronzed with a suntan that comes from the bottle.
The mirror may lie to you, but your soul will tire of believing it. "The true gift is hacking blindly through a jungle of quicksands and poison
ivies. The true gift is the awareness that such is paradise indeed.
"It is awareness that Paradise is not ours for the taking but ours for the giving away. "We enter Eden by
standing aside that others may enter into it; we savour the fruits of paradise by presenting them to others.
"It is only when we recognise that Paradise is every man's that Everyman can enjoy it.
"God did not expel humankind from Eden. Humankind expelled itself. Each day we expel ourselves.
"We expel ourselves from Eden when we seek to keep others out of it. We expel ourselves when we cheat ourselves and we
cheat ourselves when we deny ourselves our truth.
"Eden is not a never-never land outside ourselves, but an ever-ever land within ourselves. "There is no exile more absolute than
feeling abroad at home.
"We are never further from Eden than when we do not recognise we are within it."
A portly and ruddy-faced man stood up in the crowd. He asked: "And is there no laughter in this scheme of things?"
"Yes," said the prophet. "Oh God, yes. We are looking
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