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Alexander Lowen

Alexander Lowen Quotes

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Famous Alexander Lowen Quotes

“We must realize that we are all, like Dr. Faust, ready to accept the devil's inducements. The devil is in each one of us in the form of an ego that promises the fulfillment of desire on condition that we become subservient to its striving to dominate. The domination of the personality by the ego is a diabolical perversion of the nature of man. The ego was never intended to be the master of the body, but its loyal and obedient servant. The body, as opposed to the ego, desires pleasure, not power. Bodily pleasure is the source from which all our good feelings and good thinking stems. If the bodily pleasure of an individual is destroyed, he becomes an angry, frustrated, and hateful person. His thinking becomes distorted, and his creative potential is lost. He develops self-destructive attitudes.”

SelfBodyPersonalityEgoSelfhelp
Book:Pleasure: A Creative Approach To Life
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“The function of the ego is to test reality. However, the ego subverts this function if it begins to dictate the nature of reality instead of merely testing it. This happens when the ego denies its subservience to the body and asserts its supremacy. It is then like the hero who, after liberating the populace from one form of tyranny, becomes a dictator and subjects it to another. The ego originally functioned to protect the personality against witchcraft and sorcery. Now it beguiles the personality with words and images.”

PsychologyEgo
Book:The Betrayal of the Body
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“Mature love is not a surrender of the self but a surrender to the self. The ego surrenders its hegemony of the personality to the heart, but in this surrender it is not annihilated. Rather it is strengthened because its roots in the body are nourished by the joy that the body feels.”

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Book:Joy: The Surrender to the Body and to Life
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“As one grows older, the sense of separateness is slowly reduced. Old people do not live on an ego level. Their concerns are not about their individuality but about the river of life, the family, the community, the nation, people, animals, nature, life. They can die easily if they are assured that life will continue positively, for they feel part of the river again, and soon they will be part of the ocean. When they are very old, they no longer belong to our time and space, but to all time and all space.”

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Author:Alexander Lowen
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