1.055 - The Compassionate

* WISDOM TROVE *

1:Practice the healing power of the compassionate mind. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove

2:Practice the healing power of the compassionate mind. ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove

3:The compassionate are not rich; therefore, the rich are not compassionate. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove

4:The only things standing between you and the compassionate, wise, and creative person you want to be are matters of choice. Your choice. No one can occupy your generosity except you. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove

5:Compassion is an act of tolerance where kindness and forgiveness reign. When we make the compassionate choice, we enhance the dignity of each individual, which is the very essence of loving them. ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove

6:When we take the one seat on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove

* NEWFULLDB 2.4M *

1:the compassionate mind is the mind that transforms. ~ Paul B Gilbert,

2:Practice the healing power of the compassionate mind. ~ Caroline Myss,

3:The Criticizer, the Criticized, and the Compassionate Observer ~ Kristin Neff,

4:The compassionate are not rich; therefore, the rich are not compassionate. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

5:That which gives us true freedom and true happiness is the compassionate love of Christ. ~ Pope Francis,

6:The compassionate actions of a Buddha are essential to reforming and revitalizing society. ~ Vinessa Shaw,

7:There is always a beautiful light around the compassionate people: The shining light of goodness! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,

8:You 're making the compassionate decision."
There will be no miracles.
There will be no tomorrows. ~ Steven Rowley,

9:God the Compassionate and the Merciful, Tolerance incarnate, allows Mammon to have his nine days' wonder. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,

10:The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members. ~ Coretta Scott King,

11:Life will teach or beat you all you need to know. My advice; take the compassionate class and peaceful path ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru,

12:The Compassionate Classroom is a fabulous book! If teachers will read it, they can transform their classrooms. ~ William Glasser,

13:Your heart, the compassionate part of you, knows that it’s impossible to feel better at the expense of someone else. ~ Richard Carlson,

14:I was certainly typecast for a while on television because I was always being cast as the compassionate mother or whatever. ~ Michael Learned,

15:Those caught in the cycle of self-concern suffer helplessly, while the compassionate are more free and, implicitly, more happy. ~ Robert Thurman,

16:"Humans are like mirrors. The compassionate gaze of the wounded soul is more beautiful than the naive smile of the inexperienced youth." ~ Haemin Sunim,

17:Does God know if I am ignored or rejected? Find the answer in the compassionate eyes of Christ as he stands to defend the adulterous woman. ~ Max Lucado,

18:Action with and for those who suffer is the concrete expression of the compassionate life and the final criterion of being a Christian. ~ Henri J M Nouwen,

19:"Inside us there lie a mountain of fear and a deep river of grief. But there is also the compassionate eye witnessing your inner landscape." ~ Haemin Sunim,

20:We, like the Mother of the World, become the compassionate presence that can hold, with tenderness, the rising and passing waves of suffering. ~ Tara Brach,

21:We can exaggerate about many things; but we can never exaggerate our obligation to Jesus, or the compassionate abundance of the love of Jesus to us. ~ A W Tozer,

22:Citizen Grissom Bunt of the yulp caste, in the name of the Compassionate Society you are under arrest for a Category Twelve PainCrime and LifeRight Violation; ~ Ian McDonald,

23:Tell me this, then, what are you giving them that the Compassionate Society cannot? Questions? Doubt? Uncertainty? Criticism, cynicism, sneering cheap laughs? Hurt? Pain? ~ Ian McDonald,

24:It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn will not practice elementary compassion toward our fellow creatures. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,

25:Prayer for others, therefore, cannot be seen as an extraordinary exercise that must be practiced from time to time. Rather, it is the very beat of the compassionate heart. ~ Henri J M Nouwen,

26:The only things standing between you and the compassionate, wise, and creative person you want to be are matters of choice. Your choice. No one can occupy your generosity except you. ~ Gary Zukav,

27:And Doc Mom, being the compassionate therapist that she is, laughed until she had tears in her eyes (just like Annie does) and said that was one of the funniest stories she'd ever heard. ~ Andrew Smith,

28:... one of art photography's most vigorous enterprises--[is] concentrating on victims, on the unfortunate--but without the compassionate purpose that such a project is expected to serve. ~ Susan Sontag,

29:On she flew, through the place of the spirit powers, which, in their wisdom or their folly, had stooped low to touch the earth and bring the Compassionate Society out of the chaos of the Break. ~ Ian McDonald,

30:The compassionate person does not require other people to be stupid, in order to be intelligent. Their intelligence is for everyone, so as to have a world in which there is less ignorance. (118) ~ Jean Yves Leloup,

31:Leonard Cohen, even though when I met him I was too tongue-tied to say anything. Anyway, I’ve given away a number of copies of his Book of Longing, since it articulates a sense of the compassionate ~ Timothy Ferriss,

32:The path towards peace is not for the righteous, the ethical, the active and the compassionate to shit on the malicious, the complacent, the violent and the ignorant. The path towards peace is to be peaceful. ~ Ilyas Kassam,

33:It wasn’t the victory of one man or the death of another. It was the death of the future, and of our youth, because we might be rather old before the conservers left and the compassionate men came back. Saturday. ~ Gloria Steinem,

34:And for you who will make this spiritual journey with me, I hope and pray that you too will discover within yourselves not only the lost children of God, but also the compassionate mother and father that is God. ~ Henri J M Nouwen,

35:satire is not a thing the Compassionate Society has a need for anymore. It’s good, it’s clever, damn it, it’s funny, but it’s not Socially Responsible.” She could hear the capitals slamming into place like steel teeth. ~ Ian McDonald,

36:She wished she had Benji Dog back. At least he would have been something to talk to. No famulus. She felt very naked, as if she had slipped through the sustaining fingers of the Compassionate Society and had not been missed. ~ Ian McDonald,

37:What right have you to try and take away happiness, false or not, illusory or not?” “Because I believe there must be something more important than happiness. Accountability. Quality. Satire.” “Not in the Compassionate Society. ~ Ian McDonald,

38:When we take the one seat on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness. ~ Jack Kornfield,

39:People are not always what they say there are - or even what they think they are. There is but One who sees us objectively, and heave reason to be thankful that He is called the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Forgiving ~ Charles Le Gai Eaton,

40:The tears of the compassionate are sweeter than dewdrops falling from roses on the bosom of the earth. Shut not thine ear, therefore, against the cries of the poor, neither harden thine heart against the calamities of the innocent. ~ Robert Dodsley,

41:It's a phenomenal experience jumping from the devious mind of a sorceress bent on conquering the world to the compassionate musing of a queen capable of healing life with a touch—all in a flicker of thought. That's why I love writing. ~ Richelle E Goodrich,

42:Allah protect us,' Bold said politely. Then, in Arabic, 'In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.' In his years in Temur's army he had learned to be as much a Muslim as anyone. The Buddha did not mind what you said to be polite. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson,

43:For those of us who are not members of a biker gang or the Marine Corps, solidarity means little more than the compassionate impulse that leads us to comfort a bereft friend; for Beezer and his merry band, solidarity is the assurance that someone's always got your back. ~ Stephen King,

44:There is a universe within you—a unified field of all possibilities that you can reach as you become the compassionate witness. Be silent and shut down the inner dialogue. Most important, transcend the false self that we call the ego. That is when the healing will occur. ~ Wayne W Dyer,

45:We can exaggerate about many things; but we can never exaggerate our obligation to Jesus, or the compassionate abundance of the love of Jesus to us. All our lives long we might talk of Jesus, and yet we should never come to an end of the sweet things that might be said of Him. ~ A W Tozer,

46:Huge imbalance in power has resulted in the alienation, rage, fury, and awful amoral terrorism that has erupted and is erupting at the present time. And in order to counter this, we need to make the compassionate voice of religion and morality a dynamic force in our world. ~ Karen Armstrong,

47:I think the mirror should be tilted slightly upward when it's reflecting life -- toward the cheerful, the tender, the compassionate, the brave, the funny, the encouraging, all those things -- and not tilted down to the gutter part of the time, into the troubled vistas of conflict. ~ Greer Garson,

48:On each twinkling scrap of paper Courtney Hall had drawn what she had glimpsed in that instant of the things that lay beyond the wall, the things the Compassionate Society had pushed away and abandoned and forgotten, the old things, the things of wonder and terror and joy and pain. ~ Ian McDonald,

49:: “Behold the Rooster who suffers much more than he must. Ah, Chauntecleer, Chauntecleer. Why do you suffer today and tomorrow?” oozed the compassionate voice. “Curse God. Curse him, and all will be done. Or, lest you forget the truth of things, remember: I am Wyrm. And I am here. ~ Walter Wangerin Jr,

50:We can exaggerate about many things; but we can never exaggerate our obligation to Jesus, or the compassionate abundance of the love of Jesus to us. All our lives long we might talk of Jesus, and yet we should never come to an end of the sweet things that might be said of Him. ~ Frederick William Faber,

51:Compassionate robots or compassionate cyborgs are the compassionate, self-regulating, sentience machine with the qualities of superhumanization. They are just opposite to dehumanization machines and medicines. They do not negate the positive human qualities but empowered humanity with super positive qualities. ~ Amit Ray,

52:Daily meditation keeps me sane. I memorize prayers or poems that express my highest spiritual ideals, and quietly, word for word, go through the prayer first thing in the morning. Julian of Norwich or St. Francis or the compassionate Buddha. It's called passage meditation. You internalize the perennial philosophies. ~ Ashley Judd,

53:Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look. That’s the compassionate thing to do. That’s the brave thing to do. We could smell that piece of shit. We could feel it; what is its texture, color, and shape? ~ Pema Ch dr n,

54:The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation. ~ Anonymous,

55:So, what happened? CLIMATOS: We happened. The Compassionate Society happened. It took all the big, selfish corporations and monopolies and transformed them into the Seven Servants so that instead of serving themselves, from then on they served everyone by making sure that everyone had what they needed to make them completely happy. ~ Ian McDonald,

56:Gross and subtle, pure and mixed, simple and complex - in the end that there is no place where God is not. In every atom, He alone is present. From the ant to the universe, He spreads. The Lord who cares equally for all, the compassionate one who is all knowledge, tenderness, skill, holiness and beauty - He stands on all sides everywhere. ~ Vinoba Bhave,

57:Here in Manto's own words that he wanted to mark his grave with: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful Here lies Saadat Hasan Manto and with him lie buried all the secrets and mysteries of the art of short-story writing.... Under tons of earth he lies, still wondering who among the two is greater short-story writer: God or He. ~ Saadat Hasan Manto,

58:Here in Manto's own words that he wanted to mark his grave with:

"In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Here lies Saadat Hasan Manto and with him lie buried all the secrets and mysteries of the art of short-story writing....
Under tons of earth he lies, still wondering who among the two is greater short-story writer: God or He. ~ Saadat Hasan Manto,

59:And God says to all of us, you are no chicken; you are an eagle. Fly, eagle, fly. And God wants us to shake ourselves, spread our pinions, and then lift off and soar and rise, and rise toward the confident and the good and the beautiful. Rise towards the compassionate and the gentle and the caring. Rise to become what God intends us to be - eagles, not chickens. ~ Desmond Tutu,

60:You can at least let sick people have marijuana because it's helpful. But the compassionate conservatives say, well we can't do this, we're going to put people who are sick and dying with cancer and are being helped with marijuana if they have multiple sclerosis - the federal government is going in there and overriding state laws and putting people like that in prison. ~ Ron Paul,

61:Our refuge is being exactly where we are - not dramatizing problems by replaying them in our heads, telling stories to our friends, eliciting sympathy and convincing ourselves that this is a very big deal. Our refuge is in the stillness of being the compassionate witness to our panic and fear - not judging it as good or bad, just accepting the what is of the moment. ~ Charlotte Kasl,

62:Lincoln's appeal to "the better angels of our nature" failed to avert a fratricidal war. But the compassionate wisdom of Lincoln's first and second inaugurals bequeathed to the Union, cemented with blood, a moral heritage which, when drawn upon in times of stress and strife, is sure to find specific ways and means to surmount difficulties that may appear to be insurmountable. ~ Felix Frankfurter,

63:Cumulatively, taking the pre-Easter Jesus seriously as an epiphany of God suggests a massive subversion of the monarchical model of God and the way of life (individually and socially) to which it leads. God is not a distant being but is near at hand. God is not primarily a lawgiver and judge but the compassionate one. The religious life is not about requirements but about relationship. ~ Marcus J Borg,

64:Alas, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the compassionate?
And what in the world has caused more suffering than the follies of the compassionate?
Woe to all lovers who cannot surmount pity!
Thus spoke the Devil to me once: Even God has his Hell: it is his love for man.
And I lately heard him say these words: God is dead; God has died of his pity for man. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

65:Compassion is a chameleon: it can wear the face of fear, anger, sadness, joy or even dispassion, depending on what's needed at the time. The compassionate Buddha has a smile in one eye and a tear in the other, and our Buddha mission is to lead people to true freedom, not to hold their hand and tell them that everything is going to be all right. In teaching, compassion means doing whatever needs to be done to get to the next phase. ~ Gabrielle Roth,

66:people of every caste and subcaste and sept and clan scrambled to grab some Stardust and paper, and what they found in their clutching hands sent them to their knees in joy and sadness. On each twinkling scrap of paper Courtney Hall had drawn what she had glimpsed in that instant of the things that lay beyond the wall, the things the Compassionate Society had pushed away and abandoned and forgotten, the old things, the things of wonder and terror and joy and pain. ~ Ian McDonald,

67:I'm convinced that welfare reforms deserve our support, both because they are better (or at least much less bad) for the animals involved (the Golden Rule), and because they push the envelope, moving us closer to the compassionate world that all animal rights activists are working toward...On the other hand, working toward welfare reforms has the immediate benefit of helping improve animals' lives today and acts as a crucial stepping stone toward animal liberation. ~ Bruce Friedrich,

68:As long as religious people are well dressed, well fed, and well cared for, words about being in solidarity with the poor will remain pious words more likely to evoke good feelings than creative actions. As long as we are doing well what others are doing better and more efficiently, we can hardly expect to be considered the salt of the earth or the light of the world. In short, as long as we avoid displacement, we will miss the compassionate life to which our Lord calls us. ~ Henri J M Nouwen,

69:I'm reading the Gospels at the moment and I can find no evidence of the kind of Christ people seem to have invented and created. There is no evidence of Christ, meek and mild. I can find Christ the compassionate, the gentle, but I also find a very temperamental, aggressive, passionate and often angry man a lot of the time. We will go for a man with that sort of breadth who is an enormous figure. I do believe Christ lived as a person. I don't think there is any disputing that. ~ Franco Zeffirelli,

70:All countries must be governed by the modern people; they must be governed by the progressive people; they must be governed by those who believe in the reason and science; they must be governed by the compassionate and just, by the ethical and honest, by the nonviolent and peaceful people; they must be governed by the libertarians; they must be governed by the people who believe in the enlightenment and who refuse to shape the society based on some childish religious stories! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,

71:Rembrandt portrays the father as the man who has transcended the ways of his children. His own loneliness and anger may have been there, but they have been transformed by suffering and tears. His loneliness has become endless solitude, his anger boundless gratitude. This is who I have to become. I see it as clearly as I see the immense beauty of the father’s emptiness and compassion. Can I let the younger and the elder son grow in me to the maturity of the compassionate father? ~ Henri J M Nouwen,

72:Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look. That’s the compassionate thing to do. That’s the brave thing to do. We could smell that piece of shit. We could feel it; what is its texture, color, and shape? We can explore the nature of that piece of shit. We can know the nature of dislike, shame, and embarrassment and not believe there’s something wrong with that. ~ Pema Ch dr n,

73:You must be some kind of arrogant creature if you think that just because something is true for you it must be true for everyone. What right have you to tell them, ‘Sorry, it’s all false, all an illusion’?” Courtney Hall rallied under the stunning attack. “Even if it is?” “Even if it is. The Compassionate Society isn’t perfect, I’m not naive enough to believe that it is, but it’s the most perfect we’ve got. What right have you to try and take away happiness, false or not, illusory or not? ~ Ian McDonald,

74:Compassion in the Bible has rich resonances of meaning. It is linguistically related to the Hebrew and Aramaic word for “womb” and sometimes refers to what a mother feels for the children of her womb.5 Thus naming “compassion” as God’s primary quality means that God, like a mother, is “womb-like”: life-giving, nourishing, willing the well-being of her children, and desiring our maturation. So also we are to be like that: centering in God the compassionate one leads to growth in compassion. ~ Marcus J Borg,

75:But in the end you cannot serve two masters, Theos and Elohim, the god of the Greco-Roman philosophers and Caesars and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the violent god of profit proclaimed by the empire and the compassionate God of justice proclaimed by the prophets. You can try to hybridize them and compromise them for centuries, but like oil and water they eventually separate and prove incompatible. They refuse to alloy. They produce irreconcilable narratives and create different worlds. ~ Brian D McLaren,

76:We looked at your proposals. The entire editorial and directorial board studied them all carefully; and yes, we all agree, the plotlines are excellent, the new characters are wonderful, and the standard of the artwork is the finest we’ve ever seen from you since you joined us. However … satire is not a thing the Compassionate Society has a need for anymore. It’s good, it’s clever, damn it, it’s funny, but it’s not Socially Responsible.” She could hear the capitals slamming into place like steel teeth. ~ Ian McDonald,

77:The emphasis and the reason for a pure humility is to result in love for others; not always necessarily the belittlement of self. When there is pride and self-righteousness and being pretentiously too far above, generally, one has a difficult time reaching the compassionate side of love for others, the side that understands (or at least attempts to understand): 'I am aware that I am not so far from falling in the same way.' Humility seeks to understand, and sometimes even relate; and in result, the love lovingly, properly, effectively wills the removal of the destructive sins of another as from oneself. ~ Criss Jami,

78:Citizen Courtney Hall of the yulp caste, in the name of the Compassionate Society, you are under arrest for a Category Eight PainCrime violation; namely that you did, at or about twenty-thirty of the previous day, unlawfully gain access to, and utilize, a restricted security code, and through use of same, did with full cognizance and malice aforethought cause the general publication of Material Detrimental to the General Populace as specified under Section 29C, Paragraph 12, subsection 6, of the Social Responsibility (Publications and Mass Media) Act: Satire, Irony, and Associated Nonconstructive Criticism. ~ Ian McDonald,

79:As an epiphany of God, Jesus discloses that at the center of everything is a reality that is in love with us and wills our well-being, both as individuals and as individuals within society. As an image of God, Jesus challenges the most widespread image of reality in both the ancient and modern world, countering conventional wisdom’s understanding of God as one with demands that must be met by the anxious self in search of its own security. In its place is an image of God as the compassionate one who invites people into a relationship which is the source of transformation of human life in both its individual and social aspects. ~ Marcus J Borg,

80:Citizen Courtney Hall of the yulp caste, in the name of the Compassionate Society, you are under arrest for a Category Eight PainCrime violation; namely that you did, at or about twenty-thirty of the previous day, unlawfully gain access to, and utilize, a restricted security code, and through use of same, did with full cognizance and malice aforethought cause the general publication of Material Detrimental to the General Populace as specified under Section 29C, Paragraph 12, subsection 6, of the Social Responsibility (Publications and Mass Media) Act: Satire, Irony, and Associated Nonconstructive Criticism. Have you anything to say for yourself? ~ Ian McDonald,

81:Allah has names of Beauty: the Compassionate, the Merciful, the Gentle, and many others. But He also has Names of Rigour: the Overwhelming, the Just, the Avenger. The world in which we live exists as the interaction and the manifestation of all of the divine attributes. Hence it is a place of ease and of hardship, of joy and of sorrow. It has to be this way: a world in which there was only ease could not be a place in which we can discover ourselves to be true human beings. It is only by experiencing hardship, and loss, and bereavement, and disease, that we rise above our egos, and show that we can live for others, and for principles, rather than only for ourselves. ~ Abdal Hakim Murad,

82:Mostly we think of people with great authority as higher up, far away, hard to reach. But spiritual authority comes from compassion and emerges from deep inner solidarity with those who are 'subject' to authority. The one who is fully like us, who deeply understands our joys and pains or hopes and desires, and who is willing and able to walk with us, that is the one to whom we gladly give authority and whose 'subjects' we are willing to be.
It is the compassionate authority that empowers, encourages, calls forth hidden gifts, and enables great things to happen. True spiritual authorities are located in the point of an upside-down triangle, supporting and holding into the light everyone they offer their leadership to. ~ Henri J M Nouwen,

83:Ultimately, forgiveness is usually about one thing—“This is for me, not for you.” Hatred is exhausting; forgiveness, or even just indifference, is freeing. To quote Booker T. Washington, “I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.” Belittle and distort and consume. Forgiveness seems to be at least somewhat good for your health—victims who show spontaneous forgiveness, or who have gone through forgiveness therapy (as opposed to “anger validation therapy”) show improvements in general health, cardiovascular function, and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Chapter 14 explored how compassion readily, perhaps inevitably, contains elements of self-interest. The compassionate granting of forgiveness epitomizes this.41 ~ Robert M Sapolsky,

84:English version by K. N. Upadhyaya Destroy delusion, O mind, by means of the Name of God and the Word bestowed by the Guru. The mind is then united with the One untouched by karmas. Liquidate thereby thy karmas, O Dadu. If the mind stays with the Name of the Supreme Lord even for a moment, O Dadu, All its karmas will be destroyed then and there, within the twinkling of an eye. The aspirant who fills his pot with drops of Celestial Melody, alone survives. How can he die, O Dadu? He drinks the divine Nectar. The artistic Creator is playing the instrument in perfect harmony. Melody is the essence of the five elements, and through the self is the Melody expressed, O Dadu. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Dadu: The Compassionate Mystic, Translated by K. N. Upadhyaya

~ Dadu Dayal, The Creator Plays His Cosmic Instrument In Perfect Harmony
,

85:Laziness is not particularly terrible or wonderful. Rather it has a basic living quality that deserves to be experienced just as it is. Perhaps we’ll find an irritating, pulsating quality in laziness. We might feel it as dull and heavy or as vulnerable and raw. Whatever we discover, as we explore it further, we find nothing to hold on to, nothing solid, only groundless, wakeful energy.

This process of experiencing laziness directly and nonverbally is transformative. It unlocks a tremendous energy that is usually blocked by our habit of running away. This is because when we stop resisting laziness, our identity as the one who is lazy begins to fall apart completely. Without the blinders of ego, we connect with a fresh outlook, a greater vision. This is how laziness—or any other demon—introduces us to the compassionate life. ~ Pema Ch dr n,

86:Sheriff Goodman was dog tired. And he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to take Delfuenso’s daughter out of school for the day. Or for a couple of days, or a week, or a month, or whatever Special Agent Sorenson might have in mind. His attitude was the opposite. He felt work and structure and familiarity were useful crutches in stressful times. He encouraged his own people to come in as normal no matter what had happened. Bereavement, divorce, illness in the family, whatever. In his experience routine helped people cope. Obviously he had to go through the compassionate motions, telling people to take all the time they needed, stuff like that, but he always added that no one would think less of them if they stuck to their tasks. And most of them seemed grateful for it. Most of them worked on as usual, and they seemed to benefit in the long term. ~ Lee Child,

87:It’s all very clever, all very droll, it may even be true, it may even be deserved, but it’s still criticism. Do you think those folk down there really want to know that the Seven Servants are nothing but a pack of computer-run, money-grabbing, capitalist leftovers from an unhappier age; that the Polytheon is nothing but a jumble of corporate-personality simulation programs that got out of hand; that their beloved Elector is just a crazy athleto who got pulled out of a gym one night and stuck on the Salamander Throne; that the Ministry of Pain is run by professional incompetents who got promoted beyond their natural ability because the Compassionate Society wants everyone to do the job which makes them happiest, irrespective of whether they are any good at it? You think that would make them any happier, no matter how funny you make the faces or the walks or the words? ~ Ian McDonald,

88:Where do any of us come from in this cold country? Oh Canada, whether you admitted it or not, we come from you we come from you. From the same soil, the slugs and slime and bogs and twigs and roots. We come from the country that plucks its people out like weeds and flings them into the roadside. We grow in ditches and sloughs, untended and spindly. We erupt in the valleys and mountainsides, in small towns and back alleys, sprouting upside-down on the prairies, our hair wild as spiders' legs, our feet rooted nowhere. We grow where we are not seen, we flourish where we are not heard, the thick undergrowth of an unlikely planting. Where do we come from Obasan? We come from cemetaries full of skeletons with wild roses in their grinning teeth. We come from our untold tales that wait for their telling. We come from Canada, this land that is like every land, filled with the wise, the fearful, the compassionate, the corrupt. ~ Joy Kogawa,

89:Wherever we turn in the church of God, there is Jesus. He is the beginning, middle and end of everything to us.... There is nothing good, nothing holy, nothing beautiful, nothing joyous which He is not to His servants. No one need be poor, because, if he chooses, he can have Jesus for his own property and possession. No one need be downcast, for Jesus is the joy of heaven, and it is His joy to enter into sorrowful hearts. We can exaggerate about many things; but we can never exaggerate our obligation to Jesus, or the compassionate abundance of the love of Jesus to us. All our lives long we might talk of Jesus, and yet we should never come to an end of the sweet things that might be said of Him. Eternity will not be long enough to learn all He is, or to praise Him for all He has done, but then, that matters not; for we shall be always with Him, and we desire nothing more." And addressing our Lord directly he says to Him: ~ A W Tozer,

90:When the Creator banished from his sight
Frail man to dark mortality's abode,
And granted him a late return to light,
Only by treading reason's arduous road,—
When each immortal turned his face away,
She, the compassionate, alone
Took up her dwelling in that house of clay,
With the deserted, banished one.
With drooping wing she hovers here
Around her darling, near the senses' land,
And on his prison-walls so drear
Elysium paints with fond deceptive hand.

While soft humanity still lay at rest,
Within her tender arms extended,
No flame was stirred by bigots' murderous zest,
No guiltless blood on high ascended.
The heart that she in gentle fetters binds,
Views duty's slavish escort scornfully;
Her path of light, though fairer far it winds,
Sinks in the sun-track of morality.
Those who in her chaste service still remain,
No grovelling thought can tempt, no fate affright;
The spiritual life, so free from stain,
Freedom's sweet birthright, they receive again,
Under the mystic sway of holy might. ~ Friedrich Schiller,

91:The great mystics of all religions agree that in the very depths of the unconscious, in every one of us, there is a living presence that is not touched by time, place or circumstance. Life has only one purpose, they add, and that is to discover this presence. The men and women who have done this – Francis of Assisi, for example, Mahatma Gandhi, Teresa of Avila, the Compassionate Buddha – are living proof of the words of Jesus Christ, ‘The kingdom of heaven is within.'

But they are quick to tell us — every one of them – that no one can enter that kingdom, and discover the Ruler who lives there, who has not brought the movement of the mind under control. And they do not pretend that our own efforts to tame the mind will suffice in themselves. Grace, they remind us, is all-important. ‘Increase in my grace,’ Thomas Kempis prays, ‘that I may be able to fulfill thy words, and to work out mine own salvation.’

“The hallmark of the man or woman of God is gratitude – endless, passionate gratitude for the previous gift of spiritual awareness…. it surrounds us always. Like a wind that is always blowing," said Francis de Sales; "like fire," said Catherine of Genoa, "that never stops burning... ~ Eknath Easwaran,

92:Why, for example, is it still acceptable to profess the philosophy of a Communist or, if not that, to at least admire the work of Marx? Why is it still acceptable to regard the Marxist doctrine as essentially accurate in its diagnosis of the hypothetical evils of the free-market, democratic West; to still consider that doctrine “progressive,” and fit for the compassionate and proper thinking person? Twenty-five million dead through internal repression in the Soviet Union. Sixty million dead in Mao’s China. The horrors of Cambodia’s Killing Fields, with their two million corpses. The barely animate body politic of Cuba, where people struggle even now to feed themselves. Venezuela, where it has now been made illegal to attribute a child’s death in hospital to starvation. No political experiment has ever been tried so widely, with so many disparate people, in so many different countries and failed so absolutely and so catastrophically. Is it mere ignorance that allows today’s Marxists to flaunt their continued allegiance – to present it as compassion and care? Or is it instead, envy of the successful, in near-infinite proportions? Or something akin to hatred for mankind itself? How much proof do we need? ~ Jordan Peterson,

93:Why, for example, is it still acceptable to profess the philosophy of a Communist or, if not that, to at least admire the work of Marx? Why is it still acceptable to regard the Marxist doctrine as essentially accurate in its diagnosis of the hypothetical evils of the free-market, democratic West; to still consider that doctrine “progressive,” and fit for the compassionate and proper thinking person? Twenty-five million dead through internal repression in the Soviet Union. Sixty million dead in Mao’s China. The horrors of Cambodia’s Killing Fields, with their two million corpses. The barely animate body politic of Cuba, where people struggle even now to feed themselves. Venezuela, where it has now been made illegal to attribute a child’s death in hospital to starvation. No political experiment has ever been tried so widely, with so many disparate people, in so many different countries and failed so absolutely and so catastrophically. Is it mere ignorance that allows today’s Marxists to flaunt their continued allegiance – to present it as compassion and care? Or is it instead, envy of the successful, in near-infinite proportions? Or something akin to hatred for mankind itself? How much proof do we need? ~ Jordan B Peterson,

94:English version by K. N. Upadhyaya As many as are the waves of the sea, so many are the desires of the mind. Stilling them all, one sits with contentment holding the thought of the One in his self. As in the presence of a magnet the iron is drawn, So do thou attach thy senses, mind and dispositions to the One alone. When one discovers the true seat of the mind, then all regions come to his sight. When he brings back all five senses to that one point, then the secrets of the holy scriptures are revealed to him. The fickle mind wanders in the four directions. Bind it with the instructions of the Master, And bring it into the company of the Saint, then will it be united with the Supreme Lord, O Dadu. Making millions of efforts, many were consumed by death, but the mind continued to run in all ten directions. Only with God's Name as the barrier will it stop; no other way is there. Let the mind be the horse, the vigilant aspirant the rider, and one-pointed attention the bridle; Using the Word as a whip, some wise, holy aspirant will reach the goal. Vanquish the mind by means of the Name; discipline it through the teachings of the Saints. Remove whatever duality is there, then will there be bliss within, O Dadu. Once the mind is attached to God, how can it go anywhere else? Like salt dissolves in water, it enters into the Lord, O Dadu. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Dadu: The Compassionate Mystic, Translated by K. N. Upadhyaya

~ Dadu Dayal, As many as are the waves of the sea
,

95:To become a Compassionate One is to become the likeness of
the Compassionate God experiencing infinite sadness over
undisclosed virtualities; it is to embrace, in a total religious
sympathy, the theophanies of these divine Names in all faiths.
But this sympathy, precisely, does not signify acceptance of
their limits; it signifies rather that in opening ourselves to them
we open them to the expansion that the primordial divine sym-
pathesis demands of them; that we increase their divine light to
the maximum; that we "emancipate" them-as the divine
Compassion did in pre-eternity-that is, emancipate them from
the virtuality and the ignorance which still confine them in their
narrow intransigence. By thus taking them in hand, religious
sympathy enables them to escape from the impasse, that is, the
sin of metaphysical idolatry. For this sympathy alone renders a
being accessible to the light of theophanies. Mankind discloses
the refusal of the divine Names in many forms, ranging from
atheism pure and simple to fanaticism with all its variants. All
come from the same ignorance of the infinite divine Sadness,
yearning to find a compassionate servant for His divine Names.
The Gnostic's apprenticeship consists in learning to practice
fidelity to his own Lord, that is, to the divine Name with which
he, in his essential being, is invested, but at the same time to hear the precept of Ibn •Arabi: "Let thy soul be as matter for all
forms of all beliefs. " One who has risen to that capacity is an
• arif, an initiate, "one who through God sees in God with the
eye of God. "Those who accept and those who decline are
subject to the same authority: the God in function of whom you
live is He for whom you bear witness, and your testimony is
also the judgment you pronounce on yourself. ~ Henry Corbin,

96:Make a ritual ablution before each prayer, beginning every action with "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." First wash your hands, intending to pull them away from the affairs of this world. Then wash your mouth, remember and reciting God's name, purifying it in order to utter His Name. Wash your nose wishing to inhale the perfumes of the Divine. Wash your face feeling shame, and intending to wipe from it arrogance and hypocrisy. Wash your forearms trusting God to make you do what is good. Wet the top of your head feeling humility and wash your ears (in preparation) to hear the address of your Lord. Wash from your feet the dirt of the world so that you don't stain the sands of Paradise. Then thank and praise the Lord, and send prayers of peace and blessing upon our Master, who brought the canons of Islam and taught them to us.

After you leave the place of your ablution without turning your back to it, perform two cycles of prayer out of hope and thankfulness for His making you clean.

Next, stand in the place where you are going to make your prayers as if between the two hands of your Lord. Imagine, without forms and lines, that you are facing the Ka'bah, and that there is no one else on the face of this earth but you. Bring yourself to express your servanthood physically. Choose the verses you are going to recite, understanding their meanings within you. With the verses that start with "Say..." feel that you are talking to your Lord as He wishes you to do: let every word contain praise. Allow time between the sentences, contemplating what our Master, the Messenger of God, gave us, trying to keep it in your heart. Believing that your destiny is written on your forehead, place it humbly on the floor in prostration. When you finish and give salutations to your right and to your left, keep your eyes on yourself and your connection with your Lord, for you are saluting the One under whose power you are and who is within you... ~ Ibn Arabi,

97:The creative life! Ascension. Passing beyond oneself. Rocketing out into the blue, grasping at flying ladders, mounting, soaring, lifting the world up by the scalp, rousing the angels from their ethereal lairs, drowning in stellar depths, clinging to the tails of comets. Nietzsche had written of it ecstatically —and then swooned forward into the mirror to die in root and flower. «Stairs and contradictory stairs,» he wrote, and then suddenly there was no longer any bottom; the mind, like a splintered diamond, was pulverized by the hammer−blows of truth. There was a time when I acted as my father's keeper. I was left alone for long hours, cooped up in the little booth which we used as an office. While he was drinking with his cronies I was feeding from the bottle of creative life. My companions were the free spirits, the overlords of the soul. The young man sitting there in the mingy yellow light became completely unhinged; he lived in the crevices of great thoughts, crouched like a hermit in the barren folds of a lofty mountain range. From truth he passed to imagination and from imagination to invention. At this last portal, through which there is no return, fear beset him. To venture farther was to wander alone, to rely wholly upon oneself. The purpose of discipline is to promote freedom. But freedom leads to infinity and infinity is terrifying. Then arose the comforting thought of stopping at the brink, of setting down in words the mysteries of impulsion, compulsion, propulsion, of bathing the senses in human odors. To become utterly human, the compassionate fiend incarnate, the locksmith of the great door leading beyond and away and forever isolate.
Men founder like ships. Children also. There are children who settle to the bottom at the age of nine, carrying with them the secret of their betrayal. There are perfidious monsters who look at you with the bland, innocent eyes of youth; their crimes are unregistered, because we have no names for them. ~ Henry Miller,

98:There is something quite amazing and monstrous about the education of upper-class women. What could be more paradoxical? All the world is agreed that they are to be brought up as ignorant as possible of erotic matters, and that one has to imbue their souls with a profound sense of shame in such matters until the merest suggestion of such things triggers the most extreme impatience and flight. The "honor" of women really comes into play only here: what else would one not forgive them? But here they are supposed to remain ignorant even in their hearts: they are supposed to have neither eyes nor ears, nor words, nor thoughts for this -- their "evil;" and mere knowledge is considered evil. And then to be hurled as by a gruesome lightning bolt, into reality and knowledge, by marriage -- precisely by the man they love and esteem most! To catch love and shame in a contradiction and to be forced to experience at the same time delight, surrender, duty, pity, terror, and who knows what else, in the face of the unexpected neighborliness of god and beast!
Thus a psychic knot has been tied that may have no equal. Even the compassionate curiosity of the wisest student of humanity is inadequate for guessing how this or that woman manages to accommodate herself to this solution of the riddle, and to the riddle of a solution, and what dreadful, far-reaching suspicions must stir in her poor, unhinged soul -- and how the ultimate philosophy and skepsis of woman casts anchor at this point!
Afterward, the same deep silence as before. Often a silence directed at herself, too. She closes her eyes to herself.
Young women try hard to appear superficial and thoughtless. The most refined simulate a kind of impertinence.
Women easily experience their husbands as a question mark concerning their honor, and their children as an apology or atonement. They need children and wish for them in a way that is altogether different from that in which a man may wish for children.
In sum, one cannot be too kind about women. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

99:Commencez!' cried I, when they had all produced their books. The moon-faced youth (by name of Jules Vanderkelkov, as I afterwards learned) took the first sentence. The 'livre de lecteur' was 'The Vicar of Wakefield', much used in foreign schools, because it is supposed to contain prime samples of conversational English. It might, however, have been a Runic scroll for any resemblance the worse, as enunciated by Jules, bore to the language in ordinary use amongst the natives of Great Britain. My God! how he did snuffle, snort, and wheeze! All he said was said in his throat and nose, for it is thus the Flamands speak; but I heard him to the end of his paragraph without proffering a word of correction, whereat he looked vastly self-complacent, convinced, no doubt, that he had acquitted himself like a real born and bred 'Anglais'. In the same unmoved silence I listened to a dozen in rotation; and when the twelfth had concluded with splutter, hiss, and mumble, I solemnly laid down the book.
'Arrêtez!', said I. There was a pause, during which I regarded them all with a steady and somewhat stern gaze. A dog, if stared at hard enough and long enough, will show symptoms of embarrassment, and so at length did my bench of Belgians. Perceiving that some of the faces before me were beginning to look sullen, and others ashamed, I slowly joined my hands, and ejaculated in a deep 'voix de poitrine' -
'Comme c'est affreux!'
They looked at each other, pouted, coloured, swung their heels, they were not pleased, I saw, but they were impressed, and in the way I wished them to be. Having thus taken them down a peg in their self-conceit, the next step was to raise myself in their estimation - not a very easy thing, considering that I hardly dared to speak for fear of betraying my own deficiencies.
'Ecoutez, messieurs!' I said, and I endeavoured to throw into my accents the compassionate tone of a superior being, who, touched by the extremity of the helplessness which at first only excited his scorn, deigns at length to bestow aid. I then began at the very beginning of 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' and read, in a slow, distinct voice, some twenty pages, they all the while sitting mute and listening with fixed attention. By the time I had done nearly an hour had elapsed. I then rose and said, -
'C'est assez pour aujourd'hui, messieurs; demain nous recommençerons, et j'espère que tout ira bien.'
With this oracular sentence I bowed, and in company with M. Pelet quitted the schoolroom. ~ Charlotte Bront,

100:English version by K. N. Upadhyaya So priceless is the birth, O brother, That in it, the Supreme Lord can be met. The human body is the Door to salvation. If the meeting is not accomplished while alive, If the contact is not made while alive, If the Lord of the universe is not found while alive, Then one is simply drowned. The One who has made this temple of our hearts, He alone dwells in this temple. None else but our Beloved is in our hearts. With thee is thy Friend. Let thyself recognize Him. Look not at a distance. Know Him as thy reflection, O Dadu. God is within all beings. He accompanies all and is close by. Musk is in the musk deer, and yet it goes around smelling grass. The self knows not God, although God is with the self. Being deaf to the Holy Sound of the Master, sadly does he wander. He for whom thou searchest in the world dwells within thyself. Thou knowest Him not, because the veil of 'mine' and 'thine' is there. He dwells within all beings, yet rarely anyone knows Him. He alone who is a devotee of God will know Him. A true Master unites us with God And shows all within the body. Within the body is the Creator, And within the body is Onkar [divinity of the second heaven]. The sky is within the body, and close by Is the earth within the body. Air and light are within the body. So is water contained within the body. Within the body are the Sun and the Moon. And the Bagpipe is played within the body. By rendering service within the heart, See thou the One who is indestructible and boundless, Having no limit either on this end or on that end, sayeth Dadu. After entering within, let one, O Dadu, bolt the doors of the house. Let one, O Dadu, serve the Lord at the Door of Eternity. God is within the self, His worship alone is to be done. Search thou for the Beloved close to the place Wherefrom the Sound emerges, and thou shalt find Him, sayeth Dadu. There is solitude there, and there is luster of Light. One who, turning the attention inward, Brings it within the self, And fixes it on the Radiant Form of the Master, Is indeed wise, O Dadu. Where the self is, there is God; all is filled with Him. Fix thine attention within, O valiant servant. So does Dadu proclaim. Fix thine attention within, and sing always within the self. This mind then dances with ecstasy, and beats with pleasure the rhythm. God is within the self; He is close to the worshipper. But leaving Him aside, men serve external constructions, lamenteth Dadu. This is the true mosque, this is the true temple. So hath the Master shown. The service and worship are performed within. Destroy delusion, O mind, by means of the Name of God and the Word bestowed by the Guru. The mind is then united with the One untouched by karmas. Liquidate thereby thy karmas, O Dadu. If the mind stays with the Name of the Supreme Lord even for a moment, O Dadu, All its karmas will be destroyed then and there, within the twinkling of an eye. The aspirant who fills his pot with drops of Celestial Melody, alone survives. How can he die, O Dadu? He drinks the divine Nectar. The artistic Creator is playing the instrument in perfect harmony. Melody is the essence of the five [elements], and through the self is the Melody expressed, O Dadu. By enabling people to hear the Sound, the Master can awaken them at His will. He may, at His pleasure, speak within them, and merge them in his own form. The knowledge of the Sound Current imparted by the Guru merges one easily into Truth. It carries me to the abode of my Beloved, says Dadu. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Dadu: The Compassionate Mystic, Translated by K. N. Upadhyaya

~ Dadu Dayal, So priceless is the birth, O brother
,

101:How gracefully, O man, with thy palm-bough,
Upon the waning century standest thou,
In proud and noble manhood's prime,
With unlocked senses, with a spirit freed,
Of firmness mild,though silent, rich in deed,
The ripest son of Time,
Through meekness great, through precepts strong,
Through treasures rich, that time had long
Hid in thy bosom, and through reason free,
Master of Nature, who thy fetters loves,
And who thy strength in thousand conflicts proves,
And from the desert soared in pride with thee!

Flushed with the glow of victory,
Never forget to prize the hand
That found the weeping orphan child
Deserted on life's barren strand,
And left a prey to hazard wild,
That, ere thy spirit-honor saw the day,
Thy youthful heart watched over silently,
And from thy tender bosom turned away
Each thought that might have stained its purity;
That kind one ne'er forget who, as in sport,
Thy youth to noble aspirations trained,
And who to thee in easy riddles taught
The secret how each virtue might be gained;
Who, to receive him back more perfect still,
E'en into strangers' arms her favorite gave
Oh, may'st thou never with degenerate will,
Humble thyself to be her abject slave!
In industry, the bee the palm may bear;
In skill, the worm a lesson may impart;
With spirits blest thy knowledge thou dost share,
But thou, O man, alone hast art!

Only through beauty's morning gate
Didst thou the land of knowledge find.
To merit a more glorious fate,
In graces trains itself the mind.
What thrilled thee through with trembling blessed,
When erst the Muses swept the chord,
That power created in thy breast,
Which to the mighty spirit soared.

When first was seen by doting reason's ken,
When many a thousand years had passed away,
A symbol of the fair and great e'en then,
Before the childlike mind uncovered lay.
Its blessed form bade us honor virtue's cause,
The honest sense 'gainst vice put forth its powers,
Before a Solon had devised the laws
That slowly bring to light their languid flowers.
Before Eternity's vast scheme
Was to the thinker's mind revealed,
Was't not foreshadowed in his dream,
Whose eyes explored yon starry field?

Urania,the majestic dreaded one,
Who wears a glory of Orions twined
Around her brow, and who is seen by none
Save purest spirits, when, in splendor shrined,
She soars above the stars in pride,
Ascending to her sunny throne,
Her fiery chaplet lays aside,
And now, as beauty, stands alone;
While, with the Graces' girdle round her cast,
She seems a child, by children understood;
For we shall recognize as truth at last,
What here as beauty only we have viewed.

When the Creator banished from his sight
Frail man to dark mortality's abode,
And granted him a late return to light,
Only by treading reason's arduous road,
When each immortal turned his face away,
She, the compassionate, alone
Took up her dwelling in that house of clay,
With the deserted, banished one.
With drooping wing she hovers here
Around her darling, near the senses' land,
And on his prison-walls so drear
Elysium paints with fond deceptive hand.

While soft humanity still lay at rest,
Within her tender arms extended,
No flame was stirred by bigots' murderous zest,
No guiltless blood on high ascended.
The heart that she in gentle fetters binds,
Views duty's slavish escort scornfully;
Her path of light, though fairer far it winds,
Sinks in the sun-track of morality.
Those who in her chaste service still remain,
No grovelling thought can tempt, no fate affright;
The spiritual life, so free from stain,
Freedom's sweet birthright, they receive again,
Under the mystic sway of holy might.

The purest among millions, happy they
Whom to her service she has sanctified,
Whose mouths the mighty one's commands convey,
Within whose breasts she deigneth to abide;
Whom she ordained to feed her holy fire
Upon her altar's ever-flaming pyre,
Whose eyes alone her unveiled graces meet,
And whom she gathers round in union sweet
In the much-honored place be glad
Where noble order bade ye climb,
For in the spirit-world sublime,
Man's loftiest rank ye've ever had!

Ere to the world proportion ye revealed,
That every being joyfully obeys,
A boundless structure, in night's veil concealed,
Illumed by naught but faint and languid rays,
A band of phantoms, struggling ceaselessly,
Holding his mind in slavish fetters bound,
Unsociable and rude as be,
Assailing him on every side around,
Thus seemed to man creation in that day!
United to surrounding forms alone
By the blind chains the passions had put on,
Whilst Nature's beauteous spirit fled away
Unfelt, untasted, and unknown.

And, as it hovered o'er with parting ray,
Ye seized the shades so neighborly,
With silent hand, with feeling mind,
And taught how they might be combined
In one firm bond of harmony.
The gaze, light-soaring, felt uplifted then,
When first the cedar's slender trunk it viewed;
And pleasingly the ocean's crystal flood
Reflected back the dancing form again.
Could ye mistake the look, with beauty fraught,
That Nature gave to help ye on your way?
The image floating on the billows taught
The art the fleeting shadow to portray.

From her own being torn apart,
Her phantom, beauteous as a dream,
She plunged into the silvery stream,
Surrendering to her spoiler's art.
Creative power soon in your breast unfolded;
Too noble far, not idly to conceive,
The shadow's form in sand, in clay ye moulded,
And made it in the sketch its being leave.
The longing thirst for action then awoke,
And from your breast the first creation broke.

By contemplation captive made,
Ensnared by your discerning eye,
The friendly phantom's soon betrayed
The talisman that roused your ecstasy.
The laws of wonder-working might,
The stores by beauty brought to light,
Inventive reason in soft union planned
To blend together 'neath your forming hand.
The obelisk, the pyramid ascended,
The Hermes stood, the column sprang on high,
The reed poured forth the woodland melody,
Immortal song on victor's deeds attended.

The fairest flowers that decked the earth,
Into a nosegay, with wise choice combined,
Thus the first art from Nature had its birth;
Into a garland then were nosegays twined,
And from the works that mortal hands had made,
A second, nobler art was now displayed.
The child of beauty, self-sufficient now,
That issued from your hands to perfect day,
Loses the chaplet that adorned its brow,
Soon as reality asserts its sway.
The column, yielding to proportion's chains,
Must with its sisters join in friendly link,
The hero in the hero-band must sink,
The Muses' harp peals forth its tuneful strains.

The wondering savages soon came
To view the new creation's plan
"Behold!"the joyous crowds exclaim,
"Behold, all this is done by man!"
With jocund and more social aim
The minstrel's lyre their awe awoke,
Telling of Titans, and of giant's frays
And lion-slayers, turning, as he spoke,
Even into heroes those who heard his lays.
For the first time the soul feels joy,
By raptures blessed that calmer are,
That only greet it from afar,
That passions wild can ne'er destroy,
And that, when tasted, do not cloy.

And now the spirit, free and fair,
Awoke from out its sensual sleep;
By you unchained, the slave of care
Into the arms of joy could leap.
Each brutish barrier soon was set at naught,
Humanity first graced the cloudless brow,
And the majestic, noble stranger, thought,
From out the wondering brain sprang boldly now.
Man in his glory stood upright,
And showed the stars his kingly face;
His speaking glance the sun's bright light
Blessed in the realms sublime of space.
Upon the cheek now bloomed the smile,
The voice's soulful harmony
Expanded into song the while,
And feeling swam in the moist eye;
And from the mouth, with spirit teeming o'er,
Jest, sweetly linked with grace, began to pour.

Sunk in the instincts of the worm,
By naught but sensual lust possessed,
Ye recognized within his breast
Love-spiritual's noble germ;
And that this germ of love so blest
Escaped the senses' abject load,
To the first pastoral song he owed.
Raised to the dignity of thought,
Passions more calm to flow were taught
From the bard's mouth with melody.
The cheeks with dewy softness burned;
The longing that, though quenched, still yearned,
Proclaimed the spirit-harmony.

The wisest's wisdom, and the strongest's vigor,
The meekest's meekness, and the noblest's grace,
By you were knit together in one figure,
Wreathing a radiant glory round the place.
Man at the Unknown's sight must tremble,
Yet its refulgence needs must love;
That mighty Being to resemble,
Each glorious hero madly strove;
The prototype of beauty's earliest strain
Ye made resound through Nature's wide domain.

The passions' wild and headlong course,
The ever-varying plan of fate,
Duty and instinct's twofold force,
With proving mind and guidance straight
Ye then conducted to their ends.
What Nature, as she moves along,
Far from each other ever rends,
Become upon the stage, in song,
Members of order, firmly bound.
Awed by the Furies' chorus dread,
Murder draws down upon its head
The doom of death from their wild sound.
Long e'er the wise to give a verdict dared,
An Iliad had fate's mysteries declared
To early ages from afar;
While Providence in silence fared
Into the world from Thespis' car.
Yet into that world's current so sublime
Your symmetry was borne before its time,
When the dark hand of destiny
Failed in your sight to part by force.

What it had fashioned 'neath your eye,
In darkness life made haste to die,
Ere it fulfilled its beauteous course.
Then ye with bold and self-sufficient might
Led the arch further through the future's night:
Then, too, ye plunged, without a fear,
Into Avernus' ocean black,
And found the vanished life so dear
Beyond the urn, and brought it back.
A blooming Pollux-form appeared now soon,
On Castor leaning, and enshrined in light
The shadow that is seen upon the moon,
Ere she has filled her silvery circle bright!

Yet higher,higher still above the earth
Inventive genius never ceased to rise:
Creations from creations had their birth,
And harmonies from harmonies.
What here alone enchants the ravished sight,
A nobler beauty yonder must obey;
The graceful charms that in the nymph unite,
In the divine Athene melt away;
The strength with which the wrestler is endowed,
In the god's beauty we no longer find:
The wonder of his timeJove's image proud
In the Olympian temple is enshrined.

The world, transformed by industry's bold hand,
The human heart, by new-born instincts moved,
That have in burning fights been fully proved,
Your circle of creation now expand.
Advancing man bears on his soaring pinions,
In gratitude, art with him in his flight,
And out of Nature's now-enriched dominions
New worlds of beauty issue forth to light.
The barriers upon knowledge are o'erthrown;
The spirit that, with pleasure soon matured,
Has in your easy triumphs been inured
To hasten through an artist-whole of graces,
Nature's more distant columns duly places.
And overtakes her on her pathway lone.
He weighs her now with weights that human are,
Metes her with measures that she lent of old;
While in her beauty's rites more practised far,
She now must let his eye her form behold.
With youthful and self-pleasing bliss,
He lends the spheres his harmony,
And, if he praise earth's edifice,
'Tis for its wondrous symmetry.
In all that now around him breathes,
Proportion sweet is ever rife;
And beauty's golden girdle wreathes
With mildness round his path through life;
Perfection blest, triumphantly,
Before him in your works soars high;
Wherever boisterous rapture swells,
Wherever silent sorrow flees,
Where pensive contemplation dwells,
Where he the tears of anguish sees,
Where thousand terrors on him glare,
Harmonious streams are yet behind
He sees the Graces sporting there,
With feeling silent and refined.
Gentle as beauty's lines together linking,
As the appearances that round him play,
In tender outline in each other sinking,
The soft breath of his life thus fleets away.
His spirit melts in the harmonious sea,
That, rich in rapture, round his senses flows,
And the dissolving thought all silently
To omnipresent Cytherea grows.
Joining in lofty union with the Fates,
On Graces and on Muses calm relying,
With freely-offered bosom he awaits
The shaft that soon against him will be flying
From the soft bow necessity creates.

Favorites beloved of blissful harmony,
Welcome attendants on life's dreary road,
The noblest and the dearest far that she,
Who gave us life, to bless that life bestowed!
That unyoked man his duties bears in mind,
And loves the fetters that his motions bind,
That Chance with brazen sceptre rules him not,
For this eternity is now your lot,
Your heart has won a bright reward for this.
That round the cup where freedom flows,
Merrily sport the gods of bliss,
The beauteous dream its fragrance throws,
For this, receive a loving kiss!

The spirit, glorious and serene,
Who round necessity the graces trains,
Who bids his ether and his starry plains
Upon us wait with pleasing mien,
Who, 'mid his terrors, by his majesty gives joy,
And who is beauteous e'en when seeking to destroy,
Him imitate, the artist good!
As o'er the streamlet's crystal flood
The banks with checkered dances hover,
The flowery mead, the sunset's light,
Thus gleams, life's barren pathway over,
Poesy's shadowy world so bright.
In bridal dress ye led us on
Before the terrible Unknown,
Before the inexorable fate,
As in your urns the bones are laid,
With beauteous magic veil ye shade
The chorus dread that cares create.
Thousands of years I hastened through
The boundless realm of vanished time
How sad it seems when left by you
But where ye linger, how sublime!

She who, with fleeting wing, of yore
From your creating hand arose in might,
Within your arms was found once more,
When, vanquished by Time's silent flight,
Life's blossoms faded from the cheek,
And from the limbs all vigor went,
And mournfully, with footstep weak,
Upon his staff the gray-beard leant.
Then gave ye to the languishing,
Life's waters from a new-born spring;
Twice was the youth of time renewed,
Twice, from the seeds that ye had strewed.

When chased by fierce barbarian hordes away,
The last remaining votive brand ye tore
From Orient's altars, now pollution's prey,
And to these western lands in safety bore.
The fugitive from yonder eastern shore,
The youthful day, the West her dwelling made;
And on Hesperia's plains sprang up once more
Ionia's flowers, in pristine bloom arrayed.
Over the spirit fairer Nature shed,
With soft refulgence, a reflection bright,
And through the graceful soul with stately tread
Advanced the mighty Deity of light.
Millions of chains were burst asunder then,
And to the slave then human laws applied,
And mildly rose the younger race of men,
As brethren, gently wandering side by side,
With noble inward ecstasy,
The bliss imparted ye receive,
And in the veil of modesty,
With silent merit take your leave.
If on the paths of thought, so freely given,
The searcher now with daring fortune stands,
And, by triumphant Paeans onward driven,
Would seize upon the crown with dauntless hands
If he with grovelling hireling's pay
Thinks to dismiss his glorious guide
Or, with the first slave's-place array
Art near the throne his dream supplied
Forgive him!O'er your head to-day
Hovers perfection's crown in pride,
With you the earliest plant Spring had,
Soul-forming Nature first began;
With you, the harvest-chaplet glad,
Perfected Nature ends her plan.

The art creative, that all-modestly arose
From clay and stone, with silent triumph throws
Its arms around the spirit's vast domain.
What in the land of knowledge the discoverer knows,
He knows, discovers, only for your gain
The treasures that the thinker has amassed,
He will enjoy within your arms alone,
Soon as his knowledge, beauty-ripe at last.
To art ennobled shall have grown,
Soon as with you he scales a mountain-height,
And there, illumined by the setting sun,
The smiling valley bursts upon his sight.
The richer ye reward the eager gaze
The higher, fairer orders that the mind
May traverse with its magic rays,
Or compass with enjoyment unconfined
The wider thoughts and feelings open lie
To more luxuriant floods of harmony.
To beauty's richer, more majestic stream,
The fair members of the world's vast scheme,
That, maimed, disgrace on his creation bring,
He sees the lofty forms then perfecting

The fairer riddles come from out the night
The richer is the world his arms enclose,
The broader stream the sea with which he flows
The weaker, too, is destiny's blind might
The nobler instincts does he prove
The smaller he himself, the greater grows his love.
Thus is he led, in still and hidden race,
By poetry, who strews his path with flowers,
Through ever-purer forms, and purer powers,
Through ever higher heights, and fairer grace.
At length, arrived at the ripe goal of time,
Yet one more inspiration all-sublime,
Poetic outburst of man's latest youth,
Andhe will glide into the arms of truth!

Herself, the gentle Cypria,
Illumined by her fiery crown,
Then stands before her full-grown son
Unveiledas great Urania;
The sooner only by him caught,
The fairer he had fled away!
Thus stood, in wonder rapture-fraught,
Ulysses' noble son that day,
When the sage mentor who his youth beguiled;
Herself transfigured as Jove's glorious child!

Man's honor is confided to your hand,
There let it well protected be!
It sinks with you! with you it will expand!
Poesy's sacred sorcery
Obeys a world-plan wise and good;
In silence let it swell the flood
Of mighty-rolling harmony.

By her own time viewed with disdain,
Let solemn truth in song remain,
And let the Muses' band defend her!
In all the fullness of her splendor,
Let her survive in numbers glorious,
More dread, when veiled her charms appear,
And vengeance take, with strains victorious,
On her tormentor's ear!

The freest mother's children free,
With steadfast countenance then rise
To highest beauty's radiancy,
And every other crown despise!
The sisters who escaped you here,
Within your mother's arms ye'll meet;
What noble spirits may revere,
Must be deserving and complete.
High over your own course of time
Exalt yourselves with pinion bold,
And dimly let your glass sublime
The coming century unfold!
On thousand roads advancing fast
Of ever-rich variety,
With fond embraces meet at last
Before the throne of harmony!
As into seven mild rays we view
With softness break the glimmer white,
As rainbow-beams of sevenfold hue
Dissolve again in that soft light,
In clearness thousandfold thus throw
Your magic round the ravished gaze,
Into one stream of light thus flow,
One bond of truth that ne'er decays!

~ Friedrich Schiller, The Artists
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