“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.

The mind has to do with meaning. But what’s the meaning of a flower? What’s the meaning of the universe? What’s the meaning of a flea? We are so focused on doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget that the inner value—the rapture that is associated with being alive—is what it’s all about.

The ultimate mystery of being is beyond all categories of thought. My friend Heinrich Zimmer years ago used to say, ‘The best things can’t be told.’”

—Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers