John C. Robinson > Quotes

“In this thought world, we experience only our concepts, beliefs, stereotypes and prejudices: a run-down building, an old man, an irritating family member, a chair or table, a frustrating job, an alcoholic. These concepts filter our experience so completely that we stop witnessing what is right before us. Worse, we’re not supposed to see it. The prevailing mindset in this culture is that life is dangerous and we have been expelled from the Garden. Instead of Heaven on Earth, we see scarcity, competition, hardship, struggle, and danger. All the pain, fear and conflict that dominate our world arise from this mindset.”
― John C. Robinson, Three Secrets of Aging

“Transforming the human experience of aging into spiritual enlightenment in the service of peace on Earth.”
― John C. Robinson, Three Secrets of Aging

“On Saturday morning he got out the Monopoly set with the boys, and they got launched into a tournament that went on hours. I remember at a certain point my youngest son, Shuba, landed his silver top hat or racing car on a square where Pete had two hotels built. Shuba had to pay out almost all his money. He flew into a rage, ran to his room, slammed the door screaming “I hate you all!” It took us 15 minutes to coach him out. Pete, on the other hand, was enjoying the game, not to win or lose, but to relax and have fun. It really made no difference to him what the outcome was, and in fact when my older son came through as the victor, Pete was delighted. In one sense, this is the essence of aging with wisdom. You still participate fully. You still play the game with gusto. You still build hotels. You still go to jail and wait to roll a double six. But you do all these things in a spirit of amused detachment. If you win, you win; if you lose, you lose; but you’ve learned that is not the point of being here.”
― John C. Robinson, Three Secrets of Aging

“Joseph Campbell, the renowned scholar of religion and mythology, eloquently summed up, “This is it. This is Eden. When you see the kingdom spread upon the earth, the old way of living in the world is annihilated. That is the end of the world. The end of the world is not an event to come, it is an event of psychological transformation, of visionary transformation. You see not the world of solid things but a world of radiance.”
― John C. Robinson, Three Secrets of Aging

“My past now played like an old movie, one I was no longer interested in, dream-like, progressively fading away. Old attachments, too, began dissolving – I didn’t care so much about the things, places or issues of my past (indeed, I threw away forty years of personal journals without an ounce of regret!). My previous world was gone, had died, but in its place, I started noticing – and exploring – the empty space left by its disappearance. Then, unexpectedly, in this emptiness, I begin to notice subtle and spontaneous changes in consciousness – expanding moments of silence, stillness, and timelessness, moments when it seemed as if the mystery of eternity was leaking into the everyday world. I was moving into a curious new and peaceful space – consciousness without thought, an awareness devoid of purpose, effort, agenda, point of view, or even self. These changes, which had been emerging unappreciated for some time, seemed to increase when observed, and eventually became harbingers of a new kind of consciousness and a new kind of life – intimations of spiritual transformation”
― John C. Robinson, Three Secrets of Aging

“Focusing consciousness without thought into this dark and powerful center of being felt like stepping into a Jacuzzi of joy, and I recalled the ancient Hindu equation sat-chit-ananda, which roughly translates to existence, consciousness, bliss. It is all one and I am that – the incomprehensible and ineffable bliss of being. In”
― John C. Robinson, Three Secrets of Aging

“One day I had the paradoxical realization that humanity’s search for meaning seduces it back into the world of thought and struggle, while pure sensing returns everything to the flow of Divinity. Suddenly the phrase “come to your senses!” is strikingly clear.”
― John C. Robinson, Three Secrets of Aging

“I remember at a certain point my youngest son, Shuba, landed his silver top hat or racing car on a square where Pete had two hotels built. Shuba had to pay out almost all his money. He flew into a rage, ran to his room, slammed the door screaming “I hate you all!” It took us 15 minutes to coach him out. Pete, on the other hand, was enjoying the game, not to win or lose, but to relax and have fun. It really made no difference to him what the outcome was, and in fact when my older son came through as the victor, Pete was delighted. In one sense, this is the essence of aging with wisdom. You still participate fully. You still play the game with gusto. You still build hotels. You still go to jail and wait to roll a double six. But you do all these things in a spirit of amused detachment. If you win, you win; if you lose, you lose; but you’ve learned that is not the point of being here.”
― John C. Robinson, Three Secrets of Aging

“In some ancient cultures, elder rituals helped men shift from warriors to elders. What kind of ritual might allow you to surrender instinctual masculinity for the elder’s spiritual consciousness? Could you create your own ritual?”
― John C. Robinson, What Aging Men Want: The Odyssey as a Parable of Male Aging