TERMS STARTING WITH
TERMS ANYWHERE
Abhutarajas (Sanskrit) Abhūtarajas [from a not + the verbal root bhū to be born, produced + rajas passion] Those not produced by or born with the quality of passion; a class of 14 gods or divinities belonging to the “fifth manvantara,” the fifth Manu of which was Raivata (cf VP 3:1). The abhutarajasas are a hierarchy of divine beings, similar to the kumaras and manasaputras, who have passed through the material worlds in previous evolutionary periods. Having risen above all passional attractions to the lower spheres, these three classes of deities are reckoned as exempt from passion — in the sense of suffering passively, one of passion’s original connotations. These divinities are masters of themselves, not passive subjects.
Adi-buddha (Sanskrit) Ādi-buddha [from ādi first, original + the verbal root budh to awaken, perceive, know] First or primeval buddha; the supreme being above all other buddhas and bodhisattvas in the later Mahayana Buddhism of Tibet, Nepal, Java, and Japan. In theosophical writings, the highest aspect or subentity of the supreme Wondrous Being of our universe, existing in the most exalted dharmakaya state.
Ad or Adad, Hadad (Semitic) [from ’adad to be powerful, strong] Powerful, mighty; the primeval One, similar to the Sanskrit ad (first, primeval). In the Babylonian system, according to Blavatsky, Ad or Ad-ad is the great first cause “who is never named, but only acknowledged in thought as the Hindu Swayambhuva. From this he becomes manifest as Anu or Ana — the one above all — Monas” (IU 2:170). Ad or Adad is without attributes and therefore viewed as the source from which the Demiurge or world builder came into manifestation.
"A new humanity means for us the appearance, the development of a type or race of mental beings whose principle of mentality would be no longer a mind in the Ignorance seeking for knowledge but even in its knowledge bound to the Ignorance, a seeker after Light but not its natural possessor, open to the Light but not an inhabitant of the Light, not yet a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it would be capable of passing into the supermind and from the new race would be recruited the race of supramental beings who would appear as the leaders of the evolution in earth-nature. Even, the highest manifestations of a mind of Light would be an instrumentality of the supermind, a part of it or a projection from it, a stepping beyond humanity into the superhumanity of the supramental principle. Above all, its possession would enable the human being to rise beyond the normalities of his present thinking, feeling and being into those highest powers of the mind in its self-exceedings which intervene between our mentality and supermind and can be regarded as steps leading towards the greater and more luminous principle. This advance like others in the evolution might not be reached and would naturally not be reached at one bound, but from the very beginning it would be inevitable: the pressure of the supermind creating from above out of itself the mind of Light would compel this certainty of the eventual outcome.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“A new humanity means for us the appearance, the development of a type or race of mental beings whose principle of mentality would be no longer a mind in the Ignorance seeking for knowledge but even in its knowledge bound to the Ignorance, a seeker after Light but not its natural possessor, open to the Light but not an inhabitant of the Light, not yet a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it would be capable of passing into the supermind and from the new race would be recruited the race of supramental beings who would appear as the leaders of the evolution in earth-nature. Even, the highest manifestations of a mind of Light would be an instrumentality of the supermind, a part of it or a projection from it, a stepping beyond humanity into the superhumanity of the supramental principle. Above all, its possession would enable the human being to rise beyond the normalities of his present thinking, feeling and being into those highest powers of the mind in its self-exceedings which intervene between our mentality and supermind and can be regarded as steps leading towards the greater and more luminous principle. This advance like others in the evolution might not be reached and would naturally not be reached at one bound, but from the very beginning it would be inevitable: the pressure of the supermind creating from above out of itself the mind of Light would compel this certainty of the eventual outcome.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
angel of prayer, love, joy, and light. Above all,
AUM ::: another spelling of the mystic syllable OM; its three letters,.28A, U and M, symbolise the states of brahman as, respectively, "the spirit of the gross and external" (virat.), "the spirit of the subtle and internal" (hiran.yagarbha), and "the spirit of the secret superconscient omnipotence" (prajña), while the syllable as a whole represents the Absolute (turiya), "the supreme Intangible, the original Unity, the timeless Mystery self-existent above all manifestation in supernal being".
Aum ::: OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should th
refore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence OM if rightly used (not mechanically) might very well help the opening upwards and outwards (cosmic consciousness) as well as the descent.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 35, Page: 825-826
bounded "theory" In {domain theory}, a subset S of a {cpo} X is bounded if there exists x in X such that for all s in S, s "= x. In other words, there is some element above all of S. If every bounded subset of X has a least upper bound then X is boundedly {complete}. (""=" is written in {LaTeX} as {\subseteq}). (1995-02-03)
bounded ::: (theory) In domain theory, a subset S of a cpo X is bounded if there exists x in X such that for all s in S, s = x. In other words, there is some element above all of S. If every bounded subset of X has a least upper bound then X is boundedly complete.(= is written in LaTeX as \subseteq). (1995-02-03)
Computer Telephone Integration ::: (communications) (CTI or - Telephony -) Enabling computers to know about and control telephony functions such as making and receiving voice, fax, integration of telephone and computer systems and is a major development in the evolution of the automated office.CTI is not a new concept - such links have been used in the past in large telephone networks - but only dedicated call centres could justify the costs of Novell, Microsoft and Intel are developing better telephony services and capabilities which should eventually enable low cost CTI.The main CTI functions are integrating messaging with databases, word processors etc.; controlling voice, fax, and e-mail messaging systems from a single answered or transferred; speech synthesis and speech recognition; automatic logging of call related information for invoicing purposes or callback.Typical productivity benefits are improved customer service; increased productivity; reduced costs; enhanced workflow automation; protected investment in computers and telephony; computerised telephony intelligence.IBM were one of the first with workable CTI, now sold as CallPath. Callware's Phonetastic is typical of the new breed of middleware.CTI came out of the 1980s call centre boom, where it linked central servers and IVRs with PBXes to provide call transfer and screen popping. In the 1990s, TAPI, to provide a desktop version that would allow control of a desktop telephone and assist in hot desking.Desktop CTI was made obsolete by the mobile phone revolution, e-mail and, above all, VoIP, and CTI has never advanced outside the call centre.See also Telephony Application Programming Interface.(2003-12-04)
CONCENTRATION ::: Fixing the consciousness in one place or on one object and in a single condition.
A gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g. the Divine; there can also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point.
Concentration is necessary, first to turn the whole will and mind from the discursive divagation natural to them, following a dispersed movement of the thoughts, running after many-branching desires, led away in the track of the senses and the outward mental response to phenomena; we have to fix the will and the thought on the eternal and real behind all, and this demands an immense effort, a one-pointed concentration. Secondly, it is necessary in order to break down the veil which is erected by our ordinary mentality between ourselves and the truth; for outer knowledge can be picked up by the way, by ordinary attention and reception, but the inner, hidden and higher truth can only be seized by an absolute concentration of the mind on its object, an absolute concentration of the will to attain it and, once attained, to hold it habitually and securely unite oneself with it.
Centre of Concentration: The two main places where one can centre the consciousness for yoga are in the head and in the heart - the mind-centre and the soul-centre.
Brain concentration is always a tapasyā and necessarily brings a strain. It is only if one is lifted out of the brain mind altogether that the strain of mental concentration disappears.
At the top of the head or above it is the right place for yogic concentration in reading or thinking.
In whatever centre the concentration takes place, the yoga force generated extends to the others and produces concentration or workings there.
Modes of Concentration: There is no harm in concentrating sometimes in the heart and sometimes above the head. But concentration in either place does not mean keeping the attention fixed on a particular spot; you have to take your station of consciousness in either place and concentrate there not on the place, but on the Divine. This can be done with eyes shut or with eyes open, according as it best suits.
If one concentrates on a thought or a word, one has to dwell on the essential idea contained in the word with the aspiration to feel the thing which it expresses.
There is no method in this yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force to transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be.
Powers (three) of Concentration ::: By concentration on anything whatsoever we are able to know that thing, to make it deliver up its concealed secrets; we must use this power to know not things, but the one Thing-in-itself. By concentration again the whole will can be gathered up for the acquisition of that which is still ungrasped, still beyond us; this power, if it is sufficiently trained, sufficiently single-minded, sufficiently sincere, sure of itself, faithful to itself alone, absolute in faith, we can use for the acquisition of any object whatsoever; but we ought to use it not for the acquisition of the many objects which the world offers to us, but to grasp spiritually that one object worthy of pursuit which is also the one subject worthy of knowledge. By concentration of our whole being on one status of itself we can become whatever we choose ; we can become, for instance, even if we were before a mass of weaknesses and fears, a mass instead of strength and courage, or we can become all a great purity, holiness and peace or a single universal soul of Love ; but we ought, it is said, to use this power to become not even these things, high as they may be in comparison with what we now are, but rather to become that which is above all things and free from all action and attributes, the pure and absolute Being. All else, all other concentration can only be valuable for preparation, for previous steps, for a gradual training of the dissolute and self-dissipating thought, will and being towards their grand and unique object.
Stages in Concentration (Rajayogic) ::: that in which the object is seized, that in which it is held, that in which the mind is lost in the status which the object represents or to which the concentration leads.
Concentration and Meditation ::: Concentration means fixing the consciousness in one place or one object and in a single condition Meditation can be diffusive,e.g. thinking about the Divine, receiving impressions and discriminating, watching what goes on in the nature and acting upon it etc. Meditation is when the inner mind is looking at things to get the right knowledge.
vide Dhyāna.
Deustua, Alejandro: Born in Huancayo, Junin (Peru), 1849. Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru. According to Deustua, there are two kinds of freedom, the Static and the Dynamic. The former accounts for the cosmic order and harmony of phenomena. Dynamic liberty, however, is, above all, creativity and novelty. The world, not as it is ontologically, but as we experience it, that is, as it comes within the area of consciousness, results from a Hegelian contraposition of the two types of freedom. In this contraposition, the synthesis is always more of the nature of dynamic freedom than it is static. With these presuppositions, Deustua finally works up a kind of practical philosophy leading up to an axiology which he himself finds implied in his concept of freedom. The following are among Deustua's most important works: Las Ideas de Orden Libertad en la Historia del Pensamiento Humano; Historia de las Ideas Esteticas; Estetica General; Estetica Aplicada. -- J.A.F.
divine Mother ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates.” *The Mother
fascism ::: A political ideology and mass movement that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and historical terms, above all other loyalties, and to create a mobilized national community. Many different characteristics are attributed to fascism by different scholars, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, corporatism, totalitarianism, collectivism, anti-liberalism, and anti-communism.
HUMANITY, STAGE OF The fourth of man&
inestimable ::: a. --> Incapable of being estimated or computed; especially, too valuable or excellent to be measured or fully appreciated; above all price; as, inestimable rights or privileges.
INTEGRAL YOGA ::: This yoga accepts the value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine Supramental Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ānanda. But for that, the surrender of the mortal mind, life and body to the Higher Consciousnessis indispensable, since it is too difficult for the mortal human being to pass by its own effort beyond mind to a Supramental Consciousness in which the dynamism is no longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call to such a change should enter into this yoga.
Aim of the Integral Yoga ::: It is not merely to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.
Conditions of the Integral Yoga ::: This yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasyā needed too constant and intense.
Method in the Integral Yoga ::: To concentrate, preferably in the heart and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness. One can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is the beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power and Presence.
Integral method ::: The method we have to pursue is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform Our entire being into His, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the sādhaka of the sādhana* as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is used as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon that which we are in our entirety, produces its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.
In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sādhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for the weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It” makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills.” The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a Succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga.
Secondly, the process, being integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organised by our past evolution and without rejecting anything essential compels all to undergo a divine change. Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-progressive experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some elements or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefathers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.
Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in Nature, in the other it becomes swift and selfconscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
Key-methods ::: The way to devotion and surrender. It is the psychic movement that brings the constant and pure devotion and the removal of the ego that makes it possible to surrender.
The way to knowledge. Meditation in the head by which there comes the opening above, the quietude or silence of the mind and the descent of peace etc. of the higher consciousness generally till it envelops the being and fills the body and begins to take up all the movements.
Yoga by works ::: Separation of the Purusha from the Prakriti, the inner silent being from the outer active one, so that one has two consciousnesses or a double consciousness, one behind watching and observing and finally controlling and changing the other which is active in front. The other way of beginning the yoga of works is by doing them for the Divine, for the Mother, and not for oneself, consecrating and dedicating them till one concretely feels the Divine Force taking up the activities and doing them for one.
Object of the Integral Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine’s sake alone, to be tuned in our nature into the nature of the Divine, and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine.
Principle of the Integral Yoga ::: The whole principle of Integral Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother all the transcendent light, power, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ānanda of the Supramental Divine.
Central purpose of the Integral Yoga ::: Transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life.
Fundamental realisations of the Integral Yoga ::: The psychic change so that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.
Results ::: First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures.
Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sāyujya mukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the sālokya mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda ; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sādharmya mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. In integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ānanda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ānanda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Sādhanā of the Integral Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by a self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.
The yoga does not proceed by upadeśa but by inner influence.
Integral Yoga and Gita ::: The Gita’s Yoga consists in the offering of one’s work as a sacrifice to the Divine, the conquest of desire, egoless and desireless action, bhakti for the Divine, an entering into the cosmic consciousness, the sense of unity with all creatures, oneness with the Divine. This yoga adds the bringing down of the supramental Light and Force (its ultimate aim) and the transformation of the nature.
Our yoga is not identical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita’s yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress ; or else we make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse.
Integral Yoga, Gita and Tantra ::: The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishvara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it.
The Tantric tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishvari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it.
This yoga insists on both the aspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfilment of the object of the yoga.
Integral Yoga and Hatha-Raja Yogas ::: For an integral yoga the special methods of Rajayoga and Hathayoga may be useful at times in certain stages of the progress, but are not indispensable. Their principal aims must be included in the integrality of the yoga; but they can be brought about by other means. For the methods of the integral yoga must be mainly spiritual, and dependence on physical methods or fixed psychic or psychophysical processes on a large scale would be the substitution of a lower for a higher action. Integral Yoga and Kundalini Yoga: There is a feeling of waves surging up, mounting to the head, which brings an outer unconsciousness and an inner waking. It is the ascending of the lower consciousness in the ādhāra to meet the greater consciousness above. It is a movement analogous to that on which so much stress is laid in the Tantric process, the awakening of the Kundalini, the Energy coiled up and latent in the body and its mounting through the spinal cord and the centres (cakras) and the Brahmarandhra to meet the Divine above. In our yoga it is not a specialised process, but a spontaneous upnish of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete motion, and on the other side a descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force into the body.
Integral Yoga and other Yogas ::: The old yogas reach Sachchidananda through the spiritualised mind and depart into the eternally static oneness of Sachchidananda or rather pure Sat (Existence), absolute and eternal or else a pure Non-exist- ence, absolute and eternal. Ours having realised Sachchidananda in the spiritualised mind plane proceeds to realise it in the Supramcntal plane.
The suprcfhe supra-cosmic Sachchidananda is above all. Supermind may be described as its power of self-awareness and W’orld- awareness, the world being known as within itself and not out- side. So to live consciously in the supreme Sachchidananda one must pass through the Supermind.
Distinction ::: The realisation of Self and of the Cosmic being (without which the realisation of the Self is incomplete) are essential steps in our yoga ; it is the end of other yogas, but it is, as it were, the beginning of outs, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic realisation can commence.
It is new as compared with the old yogas (1) Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into Heaven and Nir- vana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object.
If there is a descent in other yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent — the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new coosdousness attain- ed by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life ; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.
(2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic acbievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing of a Power of consciousness (the Supramental) not yet organised or active directly in earth-nature, even in the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.
(3) Because a method has been preconized for achieving this purpose which is as total and integral as the aim set before it, viz., the total and integral change of the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods, but only as a part action and present aid to others that are distinctive.
Integral Yoga and Patanjali Yoga ::: Cilia is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse etc.
It is these that in the Patanjali system have to be stilled altogether so that the consciousness may be immobile and go into Samadhi.
Our yoga has a different function. The movements of the ordinary consciousness have to be quieted and into the quietude there has to be brought down a higher consciousness and its powers which will transform the nature.
In the Vedas, amrita is applied to the mystical soma juice, which makes a new man of the initiate and enables his spiritual nature to overcome and govern the lower elements of his nature. It is beyond any guna (quality), for it is unconditioned per se (cf SD 1:348). Mystically speaking, therefore, amrita is the “drinking” of the water of supernal wisdom and the spiritual bathing in its life-giving power. It means the rising above all the unawakened or prakritic elements of the constitution, and becoming at one with and thus living in the kosmic life-intelligence-substance.
It is in his biology that the distinctive concepts of Aristotle show to best advantage. The conception of process as the actualization of determinate potentiality is well adapted to the comprehension of biological phenomena, where the immanent teleology of structure and function is almost a part of the observed facts. It is here also that the persistence of the form, or species, through a succession of individuals is most strikingly evident. His psychology is scarcely separable from his biology, since for Aristotle (as for Greek thought generally) the soul is the principle of life; it is "the primary actualization of a natural organic body." But souls differ from one another in the variety and complexity of the functions they exercise, and this difference in turn corresponds to differences in the organic structures involved. Fundamental to all other physical activities are the functions of nutrition, growth and reproduction, which are possessed by all living beings, plants as well as animals. Next come sensation, desire, and locomotion, exhibited in animals in varying degrees. Above all are deliberative choice and theoretical inquiry, the exercise of which makes the rational soul, peculiar to man among the animals. Aristotle devotes special attention to the various activities of the rational soul. Sense perception is the faculty of receiving the sensible form of outward objects without their matter. Besides the five senses Aristotle posits a "common sense," which enables the rational soul to unite the data of the separate senses into a single object, and which also accounts for the soul's awareness of these very activities of perception and of its other states. Reason is the faculty of apprehending the universals and first principles involved in all knowledge, and while helpless without sense perception it is not limited to the concrete and sensuous, but can grasp the universal and the ideal. The reason thus described as apprehending the intelligible world is in one difficult passage characterized as passive reason, requiring for its actualization a higher informing reason as the source of all intelligibility in things and of realized intelligence in man.
“It is one of the ‘Books of Hermes,’ and it is referred to and quotations are made from it in the works of a number of ancient and mediaeval philosophical authors. Among these authorities are Arnoldo di Villanova’s ‘Rosarium philosoph.’; Francesco Arnolphim’s ‘Lucensis opus de lapide,’ Hermes Trismegistus’ ‘Tractatus de transmutatione metallorum,’ ‘Tabula smaragdina,’ and above all in the treatise of Raymond Lulli, ‘Ab angelis opus divinum de quinta essentia’ ” (IU 1:254n).
“It might be said again that, even so, in Sachchidananda itself at least, above all worlds of manifestation, there could be nothing but the self-awareness of pure existence and consciousness and a pure delight of existence. Or, indeed, this triune being itself might well be only a trinity of original spiritual self-determinations of the Infinite; these too, like all determinations, would cease to exist in the ineffable Absolute. But our position is that these must be inherent truths of the supreme being; their utmost reality must be pre-existent in the Absolute even if they are ineffably other there than what they are in the spiritual mind’s highest possible experience. The Absolute is not a mystery of infinite blankness nor a supreme sum of negations; nothing can manifest that is not justified by some self-power of the original and omnipresent Reality.” The Life Divine
KNOWLEDGE, HYLOZOIC THEORY OF As regards the theory of knowledge, everything is above all what it appears to be: physical material reality, but beside that always something totally different and immensely more. K 1.4.3, 4.1.1
In the main, there are three totally different kinds of so-called theory of knowledge; that of Western ignorance of life, Indian illusionist philosophy (advaita), and hylozoics, respectively.
The Western theory is either the usual agnostic or skeptical physicalism that denies the existence of anything that cannot be ascertained by everybody, and regards consciousness as a quality of organic matter; or philosophic subjectivism that attributes man's different kinds of consciousness to a fictitious immaterial or
spiritual world of consciousness.
The advaita philosophy makes the cardinal mistake of judging reality in one world from the apprehension of reality in another world, and therefore arrives at nothing but absurdities. The apprehension of reality in world 45, for example, is logically impossible to both 47- selves and 43-selves. The philosophers must learn to let &
Mahāyāna. (T. theg pa chen po; C. dasheng; J. daijo; K. taesŭng 大乘). In Sanskrit, "great vehicle"; a term, originally of self-appellation, which is used historically to refer to a movement that began some four centuries after the Buddha's death, marked by the composition of texts that purported to be his words (BUDDHAVACANA). Although ranging widely in content, these texts generally set forth the bodhisattva path to buddhahood as the ideal to which all should aspire and described BODHISATTVAs and buddhas as objects of devotion. The key doctrines of the Mahāyāna include the perfection of wisdom (PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ), the skillful methods (UPĀYAKAUsALYA) of a buddha, the three bodies (TRIKĀYA) of a buddha, the inherency of buddha-nature (BUDDHADHĀTU; TATHĀGATAGARBHA), and PURE LANDs or buddha-fields (BUDDHAKsETRA). The term Mahāyāna is also appended to two of the leading schools of Indian Buddhism, the YOGĀCĀRA and the MADHYAMAKA, because they accepted the Mahāyāna sutras as the word of the Buddha. However, the tenets of these schools were not restricted to expositions of the philosophy and practice of the bodhisattva but sought to set forth the nature of wisdom and the constituents of the path for the ARHAT as well. The term Mahāyāna often appears in contrast to HĪNAYĀNA, the "lesser vehicle," a pejorative term used to refer to those who do not accept the Mahāyāna sutras as the word of the Buddha. Mahāyāna became the dominant form of Buddhism in China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, and Mongolia, and therefore is sometimes referred to as "Northern Buddhism," especially in nineteenth-century sources. Because of the predominance of the Mahāyāna in East Asia and Tibet, it is sometimes assumed that the Mahāyāna displaced earlier forms of Buddhism (sometimes referred to by scholars as "Nikāya Buddhism" or "MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS") in India, but the testimony of Chinese pilgrims, such as XUANZANG and YIJING, suggests that the Mahāyāna remained a minority movement in India. These pilgrims report that Mahāyāna and "hīnayāna" monks lived together in the same monasteries and followed the same VINAYA. The supremacy of the Mahāyāna is also sometimes assumed because of the large corpus of Mahāyāna literature in India. However, scholars have begun to speculate that the size of this corpus may not be a sign of the Mahāyāna's dominance but rather of its secondary status, with more and more works composed but few gaining adherents. Scholars find it significant that the first mention of the term "Mahāyāna" in a stone inscription does not appear in India until some five centuries after the first Mahāyāna sutras were presumably composed, perhaps reflecting its minority, or even marginal, status on the Indian subcontinent. The origins of the Mahāyāna remain the subject of scholarly debate. Earlier theories that saw the Mahāyāna as largely a lay movement against entrenched conservative monastics have given way to views of the Mahāyāna as beginning as disconnected cults (of monastic and sometimes lay members) centered around an individual sutra, in some instances proclaimed by charismatic teachers called DHARMABHĀnAKA. The teachings contained in these sutras varied widely, with some extolling a particular buddha or bodhisattva above all others, some saying that the text itself functioned as a STuPA. Each of these sutras sought to represent itself as the authentic word of sĀKYAMUNI Buddha, which was more or less independent from other sutras; hence, the trope in so many Mahāyāna sutras in which the Buddha proclaims the supremacy of that particular text and describes the benefits that will accrue to those who recite, copy, and worship it. The late appearance of these texts had to be accounted for, and various arguments were set forth, most making some appeal to UPĀYA, the Buddha's skillful methods whereby he teaches what is most appropriate for a given person or audience. Thus, in the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"), the Buddha famously proclaims that the three vehicles (TRIYĀNA) that he had previously set forth were in fact expedient stratagems to reach different audiences and that there is in fact only one vehicle (EKAYĀNA), revealed in the Saddharmapundarīkasutra, the BUDDHAYĀNA, which had been taught many times in the past by previous buddhas. These early Mahāyāna sutras seem to have been deemed complete unto themselves, each representing its own world. This relatively disconnected assemblage of various cults of the book would eventually become a self-conscious scholastic entity that thought of itself as the Mahāyāna; this exegetical endeavor devoted a good deal of energy to surveying what was by then a large corpus of such books and then attempting to craft the myriad doctrines contained therein into coherent philosophical and religious systems, such as Yogācāra and Madhyamaka. The authority of the Mahāyāna sutras as the word of the Buddha seems to have remained a sensitive issue throughout the history of the Mahāyāna in India, since many of the most important authors, from the second to the twelfth century, often offered a defense of these sutras' authenticity. Another influential strand of early Mahāyāna was that associated with the RĀstRAPĀLAPARIPṚCCHĀ, KĀsYAPAPARIVARTA, and UGRAPARIPṚCCHĀ, which viewed the large urban monasteries as being ill-suited to serious spiritual cultivation and instead advocated forest dwelling (see ARANNAVĀSI) away from the cities, following a rigorous asceticism (S. dhutaguna; P. DHUTAnGA) that was thought to characterize the early SAMGHA. This conscious estrangement from the monks of the city, where the great majority of monks would have resided, again suggests the Mahāyāna's minority status in India. Although one often reads in Western sources of the three vehicles of Buddhism-the hīnayāna, Mahāyāna, and VAJRAYĀNA-the distinction of the Mahāyāna from the vajrayāna is less clear, at least polemically speaking, than the distinction between the Mahāyāna and the hīnayāna, with followers of the vajrayāna considering themselves as following the path to buddhahood set forth in the Mahāyāna sutras, although via a shorter route. Thus, in some expositions, the Mahāyāna is said to subsume two vehicles, the PĀRAMITĀYĀNA, that is, the path to buddhahood by following the six perfections (PĀRAMITĀ) as set forth in the Mahāyāna sutras, and the MANTRAYĀNA or vajrayāna, that is, the path to buddhahood set forth in the tantras.
man ngag sde. (me ngak de). In Tibetan, "instruction class"; comprising the third of three main divisions of RDZOGS CHEN doctrine according to the RNYING MA sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The other two are SEMS SDE (mental class) and KLONG SDE (spatial class). The man ngag sde teachings, regarded as the highest of the three, have constituted the core of Rnying ma practice since the eleventh century. It is said that sems sde teaches the clarity/awareness side of enlightenment, klong sde teaches the spatial side of enlightenment, and man ngag sde combines the two. A wide range of practices are included in the man ngag sde, concerned above all with the presentation by the teacher of a "pure awareness" (RIG PA) that is free from dualistic conceptions, and the recognition and maintenance of that state by the student; the instructions on the BAR DO emerged from these texts. The most famous practices of man ngag sde are "cutting through" (KHREGS CHOD) and "leaping over" (THOD RGAL). The man ngag sde has a number of subcategories, the most famous of which is the SNYING THIG. The root tantras of the man ngag sde are said to be the seventeen tantras.
mother ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates.” The Mother ::: "The one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands above all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine.
"That which we call Nature or Prakriti is only her [the Mother"s] most outward executive aspect; she marshals and arranges the harmony of her forces and processes, impels the operations of Nature and moves among them secret or manifest in all that can be seen or experienced or put into motion of life.” *The Mother
: "The Mother comes in order to bring down the Supramental and it is the descent which makes her full manifestation here possible.” *Letters on the Mother
"When one does sadhana, the inner consciousness begins to open and one is able to go inside and have all kinds of experiences there. As the sadhana progresses, one begins to live more and more in this inner being and the outer becomes more and more superficial. At first the inner consciousness seems to be the dream and the outer the waking reality. Afterwards the inner consciousness becomes the reality and the outer is felt by many as a dream or delusion, or else as something superficial and external. The inner consciousness begins to be a place of deep peace, light, happiness, love, closeness to the Divine or the presence of the Divine, the Mother.” Letters on Yoga ::: **mighty Mother, World-Mother, World-Mother"s.**
Mother ::: “The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates.” The Mother
Mother, The ::: ...the Mother is One but she comes before us with differing aspects, many are her powers and personalities, many her emanations and Vibhutis that do her work in the universe. The whom who we adore as the Mother is the Divine Consciousness Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freeest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the Conciousness and Force of the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the godess forms in who she consents to be manifest to her creatures. ::: There are three ways of being of which you can become aware when you enter into touch of Oneness with the Consciousness Force that upholds us and the universe. Transcendent, the original Supreme shakti, she stands above the worlds and links the creation to the ever unmanifest mystery of the Supreme. Universal the cosmic Mahashakti, she creates all these beings and contains and enters, supports and conducts all these million processes and forces. Individual she embodies the power of these two vaster ways of her existence, makes them living and near to us and mediates between the human personality and the Divine Nature....
Ref: CWSA Vol. 35, Page: 111
namu Myohorengekyo. (C. namo Miaofa lianhua jing; K. namu Myobop yonhwa kyong 南無妙法蓮華經). In Japanese, lit. "Homage to the Lotus Flower of the Sublime Dharma Scripture," the phrase chanted as the primary practice of the various subtraditions of the NICHIRENSHu, including NICHIREN SHOSHu and SOKKA GAKKAI. The first syllable of the phrase, "namu," is a transcription of the Sanskrit term "namas," meaning "homage"; "Myohorengekyo" is the Japanese pronunciation of the title of KUMĀRAJĪVA's (344-413) Chinese translation of the influential SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"). The phrase is also known in the Nichiren tradition as the DAIMOKU (lit. "title"). Chanting or meditating on the title of the Saddharmapundarīkasutra seems to have had a long history in the TENDAISHu (TIANTAI ZONG) in Japan. The practice was further developed and popularized by the Tendai monk NICHIREN, who placed this practice above all others. Relying on the FAHUA XUANYI, an important commentary on the Saddharmapundarīkasutra by the Chinese monk TIANTAI ZHIYI (538-597), Nichiren claimed that the essence of the scripture is distilled in its title, or daimoku, and that chanting the title can therefore lead to the attainment of buddhahood in this very body (SOKUSHIN JoBUTSU). He also drew on the notion that the dharma was then in decline (J. mappo; see C. MOFA) to promote the chanting of namu Myohorengekyo as the optimal approach to enlightenment in this degenerate age. The ONGI DUDEN ("Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings"), the transcription of Nichiren's lectures on the sutra compiled by his disciple Nichiko (1246-1332), gives a detailed exegesis of the meaning of the phrase. In the Nichiren interpretation, namu represents the dedication of one's whole life to the essential truth of Buddhism, which is the daimoku Myohorengekyo. Myoho refers to the "sublime dharma" of the nonduality of enlightenment and ignorance. Renge is the "lotus flower" (PUndARĪKA), which, because it is able to bear seeds and yet bloom at the same time, symbolizes the simultaneity of cause and effect. Finally, kyo represents the voices and sounds of all sentient beings, which affirm the universal presence of the buddha-nature (C. FOXING). The chanting of the phrase is therefore considered to be the ultimate means to attain buddhahood, regardless of whether or not one knows its meaning. In addition to its soteriological dimension, the chanting of the phrase is believed by some to convey such practical benefits as good health and financial well-being.
Nirvana: In the Oriental philosophical doctrines, the absolute and final extinction of individuality, without loss of consciousness. In occult and esoteric philosophical terminology, the ultimate absolute existence and consciousness attained by the Ego of one who in his life achieved supreme perfection and holiness. It is defined as a condition in which all pain, suffering, mental anguish and, above all, samsara (q.v.) have ceased.
Nirvana: (Skr. blown out) The complete extinction of individuality, without loss of consciousness, in the beatific rejoining of the liberated with the metaphysical world-ground. A term used principally by Buddhists though denoting a state the attainment of which has been counselled from the Upanishads (q.v.) on as the summum bonum. It is invariably defined as a condition in which all pain, suffering, mental anguish and, above all, samsara (q.v.) have ceased. It is doubtful that complete extinction of life and consciousness or absolute annihilation is meant. -- K.F.L.
Nishida Kitaro. (西田幾太郎) (1870-1945). Influential Japanese philosopher of the modern era and founder of what came to be known as the KYOTO SCHOOL, a contemporary school of Japanese philosophy that sought to synthesize ZEN Buddhist thought with modern Western, and especially Germanic, philosophy. Nishida was instrumental in establishing in Japan the discipline of philosophy as practiced in Europe and North America, as well as in exploring possible intersections between European philosophy and such Buddhist ontological notions as the idea of nonduality (ADVAYA). Nishida was born in 1870, just north of Ishikawa prefecture's capital city of Kanazawa. In 1894, he graduated from Tokyo Imperial University with a degree in philosophy and eventually took an appointment at Kyoto University, where he taught from 1910 until his retirement in 1927. At Kyoto University, Nishida attracted a group of students who would later become known collectively as the "Kyoto School." These philosophers addressed an array of philosophical concerns, including metaphysics, ontology, phenomenology, and epistemology, using Western critical methods but in conjunction with Eastern religious concepts. Nishida's influential 1911 publication Zen no kenkyu ("A Study of Goodness") synthesized Zen Buddhist and German phenomenology to explore the unity between the ordinary and the transcendent. He argued that, through "pure experience" (J. junsui keiken), an individual human being is able to come in contact with a limitless, absolute reality that can be described either as God or emptiness (suNYATĀ). In Nishida's treatment, philosophy is subsumed under the broader soteriological quest for individual awakening, and its significance derives from its effectiveness in bringing about this goal of awakening. Other important works by Nishida include Jikaku ni okeru chokkan to hansei ("Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness," 1917), Geijutsu to dotoku ("Art and Morality," 1923), Tetsugaku no konpon mondai ("Fundamental Problems of Philosophy," 1933), and Bashoteki ronri to shukyoteki sekaikan ("The Logic of the Place of Nothingness and the Religious Worldview," 1945). Nishida's Zen no kenkyu also helped lay the foundation for what later became regarded as Nihonjinron, a nationalist discourse that advocated the uniqueness and superiority of the Japanese race. Prominent in Nishida's philosophy is the idea that the Japanese-as exemplified in their exceptional cultivation of Zen, which here can stand for both Zen Buddhism and the homophonous word for "goodness"-are uniquely in tune with this concept of "pure experience." This familiarity, in part influenced by his longtime friend DAISETZ TEITARO SUZUKI, elevates the Japanese race mentally and spiritually above all other races in the world. This view grew in popularity during the era of Japanese colonial expansion and remained strong in some quarters even after the end of World War II. Since at least the 1970s, Nishida's work has been translated and widely read among English-speaking audiences. Beginning in the 1990s, however, his writings have come under critical scrutiny in light of their ties with Nihonjinron and Japanese nationalism.
Non-ego In European metaphysics, that which is external to or other than the ego; the object as opposed to the subject. Non-ego means both that which has risen above all lower egoities and become universal in its consciousness — in other words a jivanmukta, a monad which has attained mukti or moksha; and that which is beneath the state of egoity in its evolutionary development, in which this egoity has not yet been emanated or brought forth, such as the minerals, plants, and nearly all of the animal. Non-ego, therefore, in another sense corresponds to the term Absolute, that which is freed or above the circumscribing limitations of even egoity, which nevertheless is the abstract self or individual; or paradoxically enough the monad or ego in its jivanmukta form, where the ego becomes one with the surrounding cosmic spirit, while retaining its own individuality.
Nuñez Regüeiro, Manuel: Born in Uruguay, March 21, 1883. Professor of Philosophy at the National University of the Litoral in Argentine. Author of about twenty-five books, among which the following are the most important from a philosophical point of view: Fundamentos de la Anterosofia, 1925; Anterosofia Racional, 1926; De Nuevo Hablo Jesus, 1928; Filosofia Integral, 1932; Del Conocimiento y Progreso de Si Mismo, 1934; Tratado de Metalogica, o Fundamentos de Una Nueva Metodologia, 1936; Suma Contra Una Nueva Edad Media, 1938; Metafisica y Ciencia, 1941; La Honda Inquietud, 1915; Conocimiento y Creencia, 1916. Three fundamental questions and a tenacious effort to answer them run throughout the entire thought of Nuñez Regüeiro, namely the three questions of Kant: What can I know? What must I do? What can I expect? Science as auch does not write finis to anything. We experience in science the same realm of contradictions and inconsistencies which we experience elsewhere. Fundamentally, this chaos is of the nature of dysteleology. At the root of the conflict lies a crisis of values. The problem of doing is above all a problem of valuing. From a point of view of values, life ennobles itself, man lifts himself above the trammels of matter, and the world becomes meaning-full. Is there a possibility for the realization of this ideal? Has this plan ever been tried out? History offers us a living example: The Fact of Jesus. He is the only possible expectation. In him and through him we come to fruition and fulfilment. Nuñez Regüeiro's philosophy is fundamentally religious. -- J.A.F.
Om (Aum) ::: OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should th
refore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence. The last is usually the main preoccupation with those who use the mantra.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 35, Page: 825-26
::: "OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence.” *Letters on Yoga
“OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence.” Letters on Yoga
“OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in itsfour domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence.” Letters on Yoga
Om Mani Padme Hum Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ (Sanskrit) Om! the jewel in the lotus, hum! One of the most sacred Buddhist mantras or verbal formulas; used very frequently in Tibet and in surrounding countries of the Far East. Not only is every syllable said to have a secret power of producing a definite result, but the whole invocation has a number of meanings. When properly pronounced or changed, it produces different results, differing from the others according to the intonation and will given to the formula and its syllables. This mystic sentence above all refers to the indissoluble union between man and the universe, and thus conveys “I am in thee and thou art in me.” Each of us has within himself the jewel in the lotus or the divine self within. When understood in a kosmic sense, it signifies the divine kosmic self within, inspiring all beings within the range of that kosmic divinity.
Our renunciation must obwously be an inward renunciation, especially and above all, a renunciation of attachment and the craving of desire in the senses and the heart, of self-will in the thought and action and of egoism in the centre of the conscious- ness.
overmost ::: a. --> Over the rest in authority; above all others; highest.
Platonic Realism: See Realism. Platonism: The philosophy of Plato marks one of the high points in the development of Greek philosophical genius Platomsm is characterised by a partial contempt for sense knowledge and empirical studies, by a high regard for mathematics and its method, by a longing for another and better world, by a frankly spiritualistic view of life, by its use of a method of discussion involving an accumulation of ever more profound insights rather than the formal logic of Aristotle, and, above all, by an unswerving faith in the capacity of the human mind to attain absolute truth and to use this truth in the rational direction of human life and affairs.
principally ::: adv. --> In a principal manner; primarily; above all; chiefly; mainly.
purus.a (akshara purusha) ::: the immutable spirit, the unchang. ara purusa ing purus.a: "the inactive Purusha free from Prakriti and her works", who stands above all things "in his imperturbable immobility of eternal silence and calm".
Renunciation ::: Renunciation must be for us merely an instrument and not an object; nor can it be the only or the chief instrument since our object is the fulfilment of the Divine in the human being, a positive aim which cannot be reached by negative means. The negative means can only be for the removal of that which stands in the way of the positive fulfilment. It must be a renunciation, a complete renunciation of all that is other than and opposed to the divine self-fulfilment and a progressive renunciation of all that is a lesser or only a partial achievement. our renunciation must obviously be an inward renunciation; especially and above all, a renunciation of attachment and the craving of desire in the senses and the heart, of self-will in the thought and action and of egoism in the centre of the consciousness.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 329
Re’shith (Hebrew) Rē’shīth [from rosh head, chief, principal, first, beginning] Beginning, headship, the most excellent or highest of a series; wisdom. The first word in the Bible (prefixed by the prepositional letter B, meaning in, through, or by means of). “The fathers . . . dreaded above all to have the esoteric and true meaning of the word Rasit [re’shith] unveiled to the multitudes; for if once the true sense of this sentence, as well as that of the Hebrew word asdt . . . were understood rightly, the mystery of the Christian trinity would have crumbled, carrying in its downfall the new religion into the same heap of ruins with the ancient Mysteries”; “Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, Chalcidius, Methodius, and Maimonides, on the authority of the Targum of Jerusalem, the orthodox and greatest authority of the Jews, held that the first two words in the book of Genesis — b-rasit, mean Wisdom, or the Principle. And that the idea of these words meaning “in the beginning” was never shared but by the profane, who were not allowed to penetrate any deeper into the esoteric sense of the sentence” (IU 2:34, 35). The beginning of Genesis is quite correctly translated “by wisdom,” or “by means of wisdom,” (cf Fund 98-102). See also BERE’SHITH
romanticism: The term refers to a movement around 1780-1840. Romanticism rejected the philosophy of the enlightenment, and instead turned to the gothic, the notion of carpe diem and above all placed importance on nature and the wilderness. Romantic poets included William Blake, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Gordon Byron.
“Sanskrit was not known as a spoken tongue to the Atlanteans in their prime, but in the degenerate or later times of Atlantis, when the earliest Aryans already had appeared on the scene of history, this early Aryan speech above alluded to, was already in existence; and the Aryan initiates were then in the course of perfecting it as their temple-language or mystery-tongue . . . Thus Sanskrit was not spoken among the Atlanteans, nor can it therefore be called an Atlantean language; although its verbal roots of course go back to earliest Atlantean times, but only its verbal roots” — G. de Purucker
sovereign ::: n. 1. One that exercises supreme, permanent authority, as a king, queen or monarch. Often applied to the Divine. child-sovereign. adj. 2. Supreme; pre-eminent; indisputable. 3. Being above all others in character, importance, excellence, etc. 4. Having supreme rank, power or authority. 5. Belonging to or characteristic of a king, queen or other supreme ruler; royal, regal, majestic.
Sri Aurobindo: "It might be said again that, even so, in Sachchidananda itself at least, above all worlds of manifestation, there could be nothing but the self-awareness of pure existence and consciousness and a pure delight of existence. Or, indeed, this triune being itself might well be only a trinity of original spiritual self-determinations of the Infinite; these too, like all determinations, would cease to exist in the ineffable Absolute. But our position is that these must be inherent truths of the supreme being; their utmost reality must be pre-existent in the Absolute even if they are ineffably other there than what they are in the spiritual mind"s highest possible experience. The Absolute is not a mystery of infinite blankness nor a supreme sum of negations; nothing can manifest that is not justified by some self-power of the original and omnipresent Reality.” The Life Divine
surrealism ::: A cultural movement that began in the early-1920s, best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members. The works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur, however many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost with the works being an artifact, and leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement.[24]
Surya is only the appearance on this cosmic plane of the solar heart or central spiritual sun; although in a more mystical sense, Surya, our sun, is one of the reflections of a galactic center, which astronomically is the prototype, albeit far more advanced in cosmic evolution than is the sun itself. The visible reflection of the sun is composed of highly ethereal matter belonging to the fifth, sixth, and seventh substrates of the lowest cosmic plane or prithivi. Within and above all these rise in ever more sublime steps six other cosmic planes, on and in which are the other globes of the solar chain. The sun’s primary essence belongs to the highest division of the seventh state of mother-substance (adi-tattva). This primary sun, of which our visible sun is the reflection, is concealed from the gaze of all but the very highest dhyani-chohans.
The ancient deities of Phoenicia and their religion, as with other ancient peoples, were connected spiritually and physically with the great powers and processes of universal nature; indeed so far did this go that each river, spring, headland, etc., was under the influence of a deity; yet undoubtedly beyond and above all these hierarchical divisions there was always the ineffable, unthinkable, eternal, intelligence-life.
“the basic syllable OM, which is the foundation of all the perfect creative sounds of the revealed word; OM is the one universal formulation of the energy of sound and speech, that which contains and sums up, synthesises and releases, all the spiritual power and all the potentiality of Vak (speech, the goddess Speech) and Shabda (sound, vibration, word). The mantra of the divine consciousness brings its light of revelation, the Mantra of the divine Power, its will of effectuation, the Mantra of the divine Ananda is equal fulfilment of the spiritual delight of existence. All word and thought are an outflowing of he great OM,—OM, the Word, the Eternal Manifest in the forms of sensible objects; manifest in that conscious play of creative self-conception of which forms and objects are the figures, manifest behind in the self-gathered superconscient power of the Infinite, OM is the sovereign source, seed, womb of thing and idea, form and name—it is itself, integrally, the supreme Intangible, the original Unity, the timeless Mystery self—existent above all manifestation in supernal being.” SABCL Volume 13—Page 315
"the basic syllable OM, which is the foundation of all the perfect creative sounds of the revealed word; OM is the one universal formulation of the energy of sound and speech, that which contains and sums up, synthesises and releases, all the spiritual power and all the potentiality of Vak (speech, the goddess Speech) and Shabda (sound, vibration, word). The mantra of the divine consciousness brings its light of revelation, the Mantra of the divine Power, its will of effectuation, the Mantra of the divine Ananda is equal fulfilment of the spiritual delight of existence. All word and thought are an outflowing of he great OM, - OM, the Word, the Eternal Manifest in the forms of sensible objects; manifest in that conscious play of creative self-conception of which forms and objects are the figures, manifest behind in the self-gathered superconscient power of the Infinite, OM is the sovereign source, seed, womb of thing and idea, form and name – it is itself, integrally, the supreme Intangible, the original Unity, the timeless Mystery self- existent above all manifestation in supernal being.” SABCL Volume 13 – Page 315*
“The Chhandogya,… is to be a work in the right and perfect way of devoting oneself to the Brahman; its subject is the Brahman, but the Brahman as symbolised in the OM, the sacred syllable of the Veda, not therefore, the pure state of existence only, but that existence in all its parts… OM is the symbol and the thing symbolised.”the basic syllable OM, which is the foundation of all the perfect creative sounds of the revealed word; OM is the one universal formulation of the energy of sound and speech, that which contains and sums up, synthesises and releases, all the spiritual power and all the potentiality of Vak (speech, the goddess Speech) and Shabda (sound, vibration, word). The mantra of the divine consciousness brings its light of revelation, the Mantra of the divine Power, its will of effectuation, the Mantra of the divine Ananda is equal fulfilment of the spiritual delight of existence. All word and thought are an outflowing of he great OM,—OM, the Word, the Eternal Manifest in the forms of sensible objects; manifest in that conscious play of creative self-conception of which forms and objects are the figures, manifest behind in the self-gathered superconscient power of the Infinite, OM is the sovereign source, seed, womb of thing and idea, form and name—it is itself, integrally, the supreme Intangible, the original Unity, the timeless Mystery self—existent above all manifestation in supernal being.” SABCL Volume 13—Page 315
The general superiority of theology in this system over the admittedly distinct discipline of philosophy, makes it impossible for unaided reason to solve certain problems which Thomism claims are quite within the province of the latter, e.g., the omnipotence of God, the immortality of the soul. Indeed the Scotist position on this latter question has been thought by some critics to come quite close to the double standard of truth of Averroes, (q.v.) namely, that which is true in theology may be false in philosophy. The univocal assertion of being in God and creatures; the doctrine of universal prime matter (q.v.) in all created substances, even angels, though characteristically there are three kinds of prime matter); the plurality of forms in substances (e.g., two in man) giving successive generic and specific determinations of the substance; all indicate the opposition of Scotistic metaphysics to that of Thomism despite the large body of ideas the two systems have in common. The denial of real distinction between the soul and its faculties; the superiority of will over intellect, the attainment of perfect happiness through a will act of love; the denial of the absolute unchangeableness of the natural law in view of its dependence on the will of God, acts being good because God commanded them; indicate the further rejection of St. Thomas who holds the opposite on each of these questions. However the opposition is not merely for itself but that of a voluntarist against an intellectualist. This has caused many students to point out the affinity of Duns Scotus with Immanuel Kant. (q.v.) But unlike the great German philosopher who relies entirely upon the supremacy of moral consciousness, Duns Scotus makes a constant appeal to revelation and its order of truth as above all philosophy. In his own age, which followed immediately upon the great constructive synthesis of Saints Albert, Bonaventure, and Thomas, this lesser light was less a philosopher because he and his School were incapable of powerful synthesis and so gave themselves to analysis and controversy. The principal Scotists were Francis of Mayron (d. 1327) and Antonio Andrea (d. 1320); and later John of Basoles, John Dumbleton, Walter Burleigh, Alexander of Alexandria, Lychetus of Brescia and Nicholas de Orbellis. The complete works with a life of Duns Scotus were published in 1639 by Luke Wadding (Lyons) and reprinted by Vives in 1891. (Paris) -- C.A.H.
The mantra Om should lead towards the opening of the con- sciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence.
::: ". . . the modern man, even the modern cultured man, is or tends to be to a degree quite unprecedented politikon zôon, a political, economic and social being valuing above all things the efficiency of the outward existence and the things of the mind and spirit mainly, when not exclusively, for their aid to humanity"s vital and mechanical progress: he has not that regard of the ancients which looked up towards the highest heights and regarded an achievement in the things of the mind and the spirit with an unquestioning admiration or a deep veneration for its own sake as the greatest possible contribution to human culture and progress. And although this modern tendency is exaggerated and ugly and degrading in its exaggeration, inimical to humanity"s spiritual evolution, it has this much of truth behind it that while the first value of a culture is its power to raise and enlarge the internal man, the mind, the soul, the spirit, its soundness is not complete unless it has shaped also his external existence and made of it a rhythm of advance towards high and great ideals. This is the true sense of progress and there must be as part of it a sound political, economic and social life, a power and efficiency enabling a people to survive, to grow and to move securely towards a collective perfection, and a vital elasticity and responsiveness that will give room for a constant advance in the outward expression of the mind and the spirit.” The Renaissance in India
“… the modern man, even the modern cultured man, is or tends to be to a degree quite unprecedented politikon zôon, a political, economic and social being valuing above all things the efficiency of the outward existence and the things of the mind and spirit mainly, when not exclusively, for their aid to humanity’s vital and mechanical progress: he has not that regard of the ancients which looked up towards the highest heights and regarded an achievement in the things of the mind and the spirit with an unquestioning admiration or a deep veneration for its own sake as the greatest possible contribution to human culture and progress. And although this modern tendency is exaggerated and ugly and degrading in its exaggeration, inimical to humanity’s spiritual evolution, it has this much of truth behind it that while the first value of a culture is its power to raise and enlarge the internal man, the mind, the soul, the spirit, its soundness is not complete unless it has shaped also his external existence and made of it a rhythm of advance towards high and great ideals. This is the true sense of progress and there must be as part of it a sound political, economic and social life, a power and efficiency enabling a people to survive, to grow and to move securely towards a collective perfection, and a vital elasticity and responsiveness that will give room for a constant advance in the outward expression of the mind and the spirit.” The Renaissance in India
"The one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands above all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine. Alone, she harbours the absolute Power and the ineffable Presence; containing or calling the Truths that have to be manifested, she brings them down from the Mystery in which they were hidden into the light of her infinite consciousness and gives them a form of force in her omnipotent power and her boundless life and a body in the universe.” The Mother
“The one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands above all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine. Alone, she harbours the absolute Power and the ineffable Presence; containing or calling the Truths that have to be manifested, she brings them down from the Mystery in which they were hidden into the light of her infinite consciousness and gives them a form of force in her omnipotent power and her boundless life and a body in the universe.” The Mother
“The one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands above all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine.
“The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates.” The Mother
“The Unknown Absolute, above all number, manifested Itself through an emanation in which it was immanent yet as to which it was transcendental. It first withdrew Itself into Itself, to form an infinite Space, the Abyss; which It then filled with a modified and gradually diminishing Light or Vitalization, first appearing in the Abyss, as the centre of a mathematical point which gradually spread Its Life-giving energy or force throughout all Space. This concentration or contraction and its expansion, being the centripetal and centrifugal energies of creation and existence, the Qabbalists called Tzimtzum. The Will of Ain Soph then manifests Itself through the Ideal Perfect Model or Vitalizing Form, first principle and perfect prototype in idea, of all the to be created, whether spiritual or material. This is the Mikrokosm to the Ain Soph, the Makrokosm as to all the created. It is called the Son of Elohim, i.e., God, and the Adam Illa-ah or Adam Qadmon, the Man of the East or Heavenly Adam” (Myer, Qabbalah p. 231).
Ugraparipṛcchā. (T. Drag shul can gyis zhus pa; C. Yuqie zhangzhe hui; J. Ikuga chojae; K. Ukka changja hoe 郁伽長者會). In Sanskrit, "The Inquiry of Ugra," an influential MAHĀYĀNA SuTRA, dating perhaps from the first century BCE, making it one of the earliest Mahāyāna sutras. The text has not survived in any Indic-language version, but has been preserved in five translated versions: three in Chinese, one in Tibetan, and one in Mongolian. The sutra is structured as a dialogue, mainly between the Buddha and the lay BODHISATTVA UGRA, whose inquiry prompts the Buddha to launch into a protracted discourse on the bodhisattva path (MĀRGA). Ugra is labeled a GṚHAPATI, a term that literally means "lord of the house" but that comes to refer to men belonging to the upper stratum of what would later be labeled as the vaisya (often rendered as "merchant") caste. The sutra is divided into two parts, one directed toward the lay bodhisattva and the other toward renunciants. In the oldest version of the sutra, Ugra and his friends, after hearing the Buddha's discourse, ask for and receive ordination as monks; in later translations, this event takes place in the middle of the sutra. In all versions, however, the overall message is that, although a lay practitioner may be capable of performing at least preliminary parts of the bodhisattva path, to attain the final goal of buddhahood he must become a monk. The Buddha declares, "For no bodhisattva who lives at home has ever attained supreme perfect enlightenment." Accordingly, the sutra urges the lay bodhisattva to break the ties of affection that bind him to his family and, above all, to his wife; the condemnation of marriage and family life is striking. Moreover, he is urged to emulate the conduct of the monks in his local monastery even while he still lives at home-involving, among other things, complete celibacy. This sort of practice is congruent with what was required of the UPĀSAKA, the lay adherent who has taken the three refuges and the five or eight precepts and dresses in white as a sign of his semirenunciant status. The lay bodhisattva described in the Ugraparipṛcchā is repeatedly urged to seek ordination as soon as he possibly can. If the lay bodhisattva is portrayed as the best of all possible laymen, the renunciant bodhisattva is portrayed as the best of all possible monks. Not only does he follow the standard requirements of the monastic life, but he goes beyond them, spending large periods of time (ideally, his whole lifetime) performing strict ascetic practices in the wilderness. This is a reenactment of the biography of sĀKYAMUNI Buddha; it appears that aspiring bodhisattvas, both lay and monastic, took the stories of the Buddha's life-including his previous lives, described in the JĀTAKA stories-as prescriptive for those who wished to become buddhas themselves. The Ugraparipṛcchā never portrays any actual female practitioner, whether lay or monastic, as a bodhisattva. Apart from a formulaic reference to "sons and daughters of good lineage," which appears at the beginning and the end of the sutra (and may have been added long after its initial composition), there is no indication that the authors of the sutra believed that women were capable of embarking upon the bodhisattva path. The Ugraparipṛcchā was a highly influential sutra in both India and East Asia, where it was widely quoted and commented upon and is regarded by scholars as an important and influential work in the formative period of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
Xirau Palau, Joaquin: Born in Figueras, Spain, 1805. At present, in Mexico. Xirau specialized in philosophy, literature and law, obtaining his Ph.D. from the Central University of Madrid in 1918. Studied and worked under Ortega y Gasset, Serra Hunter, Cossio, and Morente. Main Works: Las Condiciones de la Verdad Eterna en Leibniz, 1921; Rousseau y las Ideas Politicas Modernas, 1923; El Sentido de la Verdad, 1927; Descartes y el Idealismo Subjectivista Moderna, 1927; Amor y Mundo, 1940; Introduccion a la Fenomenologia, 1941. According to Xirau the way essence of philosophic thought (Influence of Husserl and Heidegger) opposes the conception of philosophy as mere play of ideas or speculation of concepts. Philosophy is, above all, called upon to develop man in the sense of actualizing his inborn potentialities and bringing the fact and concept of personality to full fruition. Philosophy thus becomes pedagogical, and as such it will always have a great destiny to realize. -- J.A.F.
KEYS (10k)
17 The Mother
11 Sri Aurobindo
4 Friedrich Nietzsche
3 Saint Thomas Aquinas
2 Athanasius
2 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
1 Yogananda
1 Seneca
1 Saint John Chrysostom
1 Saint Gregory of Nyssa
1 Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
1 Pythagoras
1 Our Lady to Fr. Stefano Gobbi
1 Our Lady how this thread
1 Naval Ravikant
1 Mother Mirra
1 Mols-Te
1 Max Scheler
1 Louis Dupré
1 Lewis Carroll
1 J. Taulcr
1 John Amos Comenius
1 Howard Gardner
1 Hermes
1 Hermann Hesse
1 Henri Poincare
1 Hazrat Inayat Khan
1 George Orwell
1 Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1 Fyodor Dostoevsky
1 Fo-shu-hiug-tsan-king
1 Fo-shu-hing-tsan-kiug
1 Dionysius the Areopagite
1 collab summer & fall 2011
1 Carl Jung
1 Bertrand Russell
1 Arundhati Roy
1 Swami Vivekananda
1 Rudolf Steiner
1 Aleister Crowley
1 Abraham Joshua Heschel
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
42 Anonymous
18 Friedrich Nietzsche
11 Victor Hugo
11 Paulo Coelho
11 Leo Tolstoy
10 William Shakespeare
9 Stephen King
9 John Piper
8 Pope Francis
8 Fyodor Dostoyevsky
7 C S Lewis
6 Thomas Merton
6 Dietrich Bonhoeffer
6 Dean Koontz
6 Albert Camus
5 Thomas Jefferson
5 Pythagoras
5 Miguel de Unamuno
5 Mehmet Murat ildan
5 Marie Curie
1:Be present above all else." ~ Naval Ravikant, #KEYS
2:Above all, respect thy sell. ~ Pythagoras, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
3:Above all banish the thought of the "I." ~ Fo-shu-hing-tsan-kiug, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
4:Everything in the world displeases me: but, above all, my displeasure in everything displeases me.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#KEYS
5:. ... Above all, they are the Angels who reveal to you the final events described in the sealed Book." ~ Our Lady how this thread, #KEYS
6:Above all things avoid heedlessness; it is the enemy of all virtues. ~ Fo-shu-hiug-tsan-king, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
7:Do not take life's experiences too seriously. Above all, do not let them hurt you, for in reality they are nothing but dream experiences. ~ Yogananda, #KEYS
8:... Repent, seek pardon, make amends and, above all, be once again faithful to the task which has been entrusted to you." ~ Our Lady to Fr. Stefano Gobbi, #KEYS
9:It is possible to be one with all, yet above all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Vision of the World-Spirit - The Double Aspect, #KEYS
10:God is above all things as Father, for he is principle and source; he is through all things through the Word; and he is in all things in the Holy Spirit. ~ Athanasius, #KEYS
11:Do not torment yourself, do not worry; above all try to banish all fear; fear is a dangerous thing which can give importance to something which has none at all. ~ Mother Mirra, #KEYS
12:One must exploit the asynchronies that have befallen one, link them to a promising issue or domain, reframe frustrations as opportunities, and, above all, persevere. ~ Howard Gardner, #KEYS
13:There is a self-law of supreme Truth which is above all standards. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil, #KEYS
14:A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions — as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, #KEYS
15:Without discipline no proper work is possible. Without discipline no proper life is possible.
And above all, without discipline no Sadhana is possible. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
16:For then alone do we know God truly, when we believe that He is far above all that man can possibly think of God. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, I, 5, par. 3, #KEYS
17:Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power...Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, #KEYS
18:Things are said to be distant from God by the unlikeness to Him in NATURE or GRACE. And God is also above all by the EXCELLENCE of His own nature ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.81ad1)., #KEYS
19:The cup which Christ offered to the disciples at the Last Supper was not made of gold. Yet it was precious above all measure. If you want to honor Christ, do it when you see Him naked, in the person of the poor. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #KEYS
20:The emphasis of the Western mind is on life, the outer life above all, the things that are grasped, visible, tangible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Renaissance in India, A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture - IV, #KEYS
21:They, above all, are pre-eminently worthy of the name Angel because they first receive the Divine Light, and through them are transmitted to us the revelations which are above us. ~ Dionysius the Areopagite, The Celestial Hierarchies, IV #KEYS
22:Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #KEYS
23:The phenomenological philosopher, thirsting for the lived-experience of being, will above all seek to drink at the very sources in which the contents of the world reveal themselves. ~ Max Scheler, ' Phenomenology and the Theory of Cognition', #KEYS
24:The whole human race is so miserable and above all so blind that it is not conscious of its own miseries…" ~ John Amos Comenius, (1592-1670), a Czech philosopher, pedagogue and theologian, considered the father of modern education. His quotes:, #KEYS
25:Let us take care above all not to walk like a flock of sheep each in the other's traces; let us inform ourselves rather of the place where we ought to go than of that where others are going. ~ Seneca, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
26:The firm determination to submit to experiment is not enough; there are still dangerous hypotheses; first, and above all, those which are tacit and unconscious. Since we make them without knowing it, we are powerless to abandon them. (417) ~ Henri Poincare, #KEYS
27:Knowledge for its own sake. But also, and perhaps still more, knowledge for power. ... Increased power for increased action. But, finally and above all, increased action for increased being.
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,#KEYS
28:Above all thou must tear this robe that thou wearest, this garment of ignorance which is the principle of wickedness, this dark covering, this living death, this tomb which thou carriest about with thee. ~ Hermes, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
29:Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power...Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art." ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, (1907-1972) a Polish-born American rabbi and mystic. Wikipedia., #KEYS
30:Metaphysics requires more than debunking epistemological foundationalism: it presupposes a receptivity to principles that lie beyond linguistic pragmatism as well as beyond epistemic subjectivism. Above all, it must accept the fundamental givenness of the real. ~ Louis Dupré, #KEYS
31:Therefore, keep yourselves clean from these and watch over the tradition of the Fathers, and, above all, the orthodox faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, as you have learned it from the Scriptures and as you have often been put in mind of by me." ~ Athanasius, Life of Antony, 89(ACW), #KEYS
32:The Divine is everywhere on all the planes of consciousness seen by us in different ways and aspects of his being. But there is a Supreme which is above all these planes and ways and aspects and from which they come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, #KEYS
33:Tell me, you whom my soul loves. This is how I address you, because your true name is above all other names; it is unutterable and incomprehensible to all rational creatures. And so the name I use for you is simply the statement of my soul's love for you.... ~ Saint Gregory of Nyssa, #KEYS
34:Be content to work, and, above all, be true to yourself. Be pure, staunch, and sincere to the very backbone, and everything will be all right. If you have marked anything in the disciples of Shri Ramakrishna, it is this — they are sincere to the backbone. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
35:Men are educated to consider wealth and glory above all things and they think only of getting as much as they can of glory and wealth. They ought to be educated to place love above all things and to consecrate all their powers to learn how to love. ~ Mols-Te, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
36:Tell us, Mother, why do things go against us?
You must not worry about these little things, and above all do not believe in fatality. These little failures always have a cause that can be avoided with a little more experience, which is sure to come.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
37:No words can express what is of Christ: "Glorify the Lord as much as you ever can, for he will yet far exceed, and his magnificence is wonderful. Blessing the Lord, exalt him as much as you can, for he is above all praise" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Sir. 43:30)(Commentary on Hebrews 5, lect. 2)., #KEYS
38:The ideal attitude is to belong only to the Divine, to work only for the Divine and above all to expect only from the Divine strength, peace and satisfaction. The Divine is all-merciful and gives us all that we need to lead us as quickly as possible to the goal.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II, The Divine Is with You, [15],#KEYS
39:Nor does he achieve his destiny as the individual Man for the sake of the individual soul alone,—a lonely salvation is not his complete ideal,—but for the world also or rather for God in the world, for God in all as well as above all and not for God solely and separately in one. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Ideal Law of Social Development, #KEYS
40:three knots binding us to our lower nature :::
Again our renunciation must obviously be an inward renunciation; especially and above all, a renunciation of attachment and the craving of desire in the senses and the heart, of self-will in the thought and action and of egoism in the centre of the consciousness.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Renunciation, [T5],#KEYS
41:The soul of man is the spark of God. Though this spark is limited on the earth, still God is all-powerful; and by teaching the prayer 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven', the Master has given a key to every soul who repeats this prayer; a key to open that door behind which is the secret of that almighty power and perfect wisdom which raises the soul above all limitations. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, #KEYS
42:To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget. ~ Arundhati Roy, #KEYS
43:[Contemporary man] is blind to the fact that, with all his rationality and efficiency, he is possessed by 'powers' that are beyond his control. His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. They keep him on the run with restlessness, vague apprehensions, psychological complications, an insatiable need for pills, alcohol, tobacco, food - and, above all, a large array of neuroses.
~ Carl Jung,#KEYS
44:Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems bad to you in yourself is purified by the very fact that you have noticed it in yourself. And avoid fear, though fear is simply the consequence of every lie. Never be frightened at your own faintheartedness in attaining love, and meanwhile do not even be very frightened by your own bad acts. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #KEYS
45:What is to be done if a person comes to quarrel because one has accepted in one case and refused in another? What is to be done to avoid such bitterness around one, provoked by repeated refusals?
As for ill-will, jealousy, quarrels and reproaches, one must sincerely be above all that and reply with a benevolent smile to the bitterest words; and unless one is absolutely sure of himself and his reactions, it would be better, as a general rule, to keep silent.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
46:You are here now, I mean on earth, because you once chose to be - you don't remember it, but I know; that's why you are here. Well, you must stand up to the task. You must make an effort, you must conquer pettiness and limitations, and above all tell the ego: your time is over. We want a race without ego, with the divine consciousness in place of the ego. That's what we want: the divine consciousness, which will enable the race to develop and the superman to be born.
~ The Mother, Agenda Vol 13, Satprem,#KEYS
47:The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, [T4], #KEYS
48:One can mount higher in a singular sort when the spirit soars above Time as high as eternity and there uniting itself with God becomes one thing with him and by that union knows and loves, not what is more or less noble, but all things in all things, considering them in that Object which is infinitely noble, all eminently reunited and in an equal degree of nobility. It is there that the spirit after it has raised itself above all that is, surpasses itself also and dwells imperturbable in an eternal repose, and the more it knows and loves, the more this eternity is affirmed and it becomes there itself eternal. ~ J. Taulcr, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
49:Nobility and Refinement
Nobility: the incapacity for any pettiness either of sentiments or of action.
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Aristocracy: incapable of baseness and pettiness, it asserts itself with dignity and authority.
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Dignity affirms its worth, but demands nothing.
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Dignity of the emotions: not to permit one's emotions to contradict the inner Divinity.
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Dignity in the physical: above all bargaining.
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Psychic dignity refuses to accept anything that lowers or debases.
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Refinement: gradually grossness is eliminated from the being.
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Sensitivity: one of the results of the refinement of the being.
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Gentleness: always gracious and wishing to give pleasure. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
50:Why does one feel afraid?
I suppose it is because one is egoistic.
There are three reasons. First, an excessive concern about one's security. Next, what one does not know always gives an uneasy feeling which is translated in the consciousness by fear. And above all, one doesn't have the habit of a spontaneous trust in the Divine. If you look into things sufficiently deeply, this is the true reason. There are people who do not even know that That exists, but one could tell them in other words, 'You have no faith in your destiny' or 'You know nothing about Grace' - anything whatever, you may put it as you like, but the root of the matter is a lack of trust. If one always had the feeling that it is the best that happens in all circumstances, one would not be afraid
~ The Mother,#KEYS
51:The most spiritual men, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their downfall: in the labyrinth, in hardness towards oneself and others, in experiment; their delight lies in self-mastery: asceticism is with them nature, need, instinct. The difficult task they consider a privilege; to play with burdens that crush others, a recreation... Knowledge - a form of asceticism. - They are the most venerable kind of man: that does not exclude their being the cheerfullest, the kindliest. They rule not because they want to but because they are; they are not free to be second. - The second type: they are the guardians of the law, the keepers of order and security; they are the noble warriors, with the king above all as the highest formula of warrior, judge, and upholder of the law. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist, #KEYS
52:To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink. ~ George Orwell, 1984, #KEYS
53:Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability- and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually-let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don't try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,#KEYS
54:Find That Something :::
We can, simply by a sincere aspiration, open a sealed door in us and find... that Something which will change the whole significance of life, reply to all our questions, solve all our problems and lead us to the perfection we aspire for without knowing it, to that Reality which alone can satisfy us and give us lasting joy, equilibrium, strength, life.
All have heard it - Oh! there are even some here who are so used to it that for them it seems to be the same thing as drinking a glass of water or opening a window to let in the sunlight....
We have tried a little, but now we are going to try seriously!
The starting-point: to want it, truly want it, to need it. The next step: to think, above all, of that. A day comes, very quickly, when one is unable to think of anything else.
That is the one thing which counts. And then... One formulates one's aspiration, lets the true prayer spring up from one's heart, the prayer which expresses the sincerity of the need. And then... well, one will see what happens.
Something will happen. Surely something will happen. For each one it will take a different form.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,#KEYS
55:Anyway, in instances of this kind, I think it is people's faith, above all, which saves them. When they have performed their little ceremony properly, they feel confident, "Oh! now it will be over, for she is satisfied." And because they feel confident, it helps them to react and the illness disappears. I have seen this very often in the street. There might be a small hostile entity there, but these are very insignificant things.
In other cases, in some temples, there are vital beings who are more or less powerful and have made their home there. But what Sri Aurobindo means here is that there is nothing, not even the most anti-divine force, which in its origin is not the Supreme Divine. So, necessarily, everything goes back to Him, consciously or unconsciously. In the consciousness of the one who makes the offering it does not go to the Divine: it goes to the greater or smaller demon to whom he turns. But through everything, through the wood of the idol or even the ill-will of the vital adversary, ultimately, all returns to the Divine, since all comes from Him. Only, the one who has made the offering or the sacrifice receives but in proportion to his own consciousness... ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1956,#KEYS
56:
Mother, you told us one day that all that happens to us has been decided in advance. What does that mean?
This is but a way of speaking. This happens because to express a thing I can't be saying all the words at the same time, can I? I am obliged to say them one after another. Otherwise, if all the words were spoken at the same time, it would make a big noise and nobody would understand anything! Well, when you try to explain the universe, you do as you would when you speak. You say one thing after another, but to tell the truth, you must say everything at one go. Now, how can that be done?... Indeed, since you repeat it to me, it is very likely that I must have said that somewhere.... I must have said the contrary also! But if you put it in this way, that everything that happens has been decided in advance, then with the consciousness of time that you have now, it is as if you said: yesterday it was decided what would happen today; and this year it is decided what will happen next year. It is in this way that the thing is translated in your consciousness - naturally, because it is thus that we see, think, understand and above all speak and express ourselves. But it is not like that. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953,#KEYS
57:I have been accused of a habit of changing my opinions. I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available; but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. The kind of philosophy that I value and have endeavoured to pursue is scientific, in the sense that there is some definite knowledge to be obtained and that new discoveries can make the admission of former error inevitable to any candid mind. For what I have said, whether early or late, I do not claim the kind of truth which theologians claim for their creeds. I claim only, at best, that the opinion expressed was a sensible one to hold at the time when it was expressed. I should be much surprised if subsequent research did not show that it needed to be modified. I hope, therefore, that whoever uses this dictionary will not suppose the remarks which it quotes to be intended as pontifical pronouncements, but only as the best I could do at the time towards the promotion of clear and accurate thinking. Clarity, above all, has been my aim.
~ Bertrand Russell,#KEYS
58:There are beings in the spiritual realms for whom anxiety and fear emanating from human beings offer welcome food. When humans have no anxiety and fear, then these creatures starve. People not yet sufficiently convinced of this statement could understand it to be meant comparatively only. But for those who are familiar with this phenomenon, it is a reality. If fear and anxiety radiates from people and they break out in panic, then these creatures find welcome nutrition and they become more and more powerful. These beings are hostile towards humanity. Everything that feeds on negative feelings, on anxiety, fear and superstition, despair or doubt, are in reality hostile forces in supersensible worlds, launching cruel attacks on human beings, while they are being fed. Therefore, it is above all necessary to begin with that the person who enters the spiritual world overcomes fear, feelings of helplessness, despair and anxiety. But these are exactly the feelings that belong to contemporary culture and materialism; because it estranges people from the spiritual world, it is especially suited to evoke hopelessness and fear of the unknown in people, thereby calling up the above mentioned hostile forces against them. ~ Rudolf Steiner, #KEYS
59:A book like this, a problem like this, is in no hurry; we both, I just as much as my book, are friends of lento. It is not for nothing that I have been a philologist, perhaps I am a philologist still, that is to say, A TEACHER OF SLOW READING:- in the end I also write slowly. Nowadays it is not only my habit, it is also to my taste - a malicious taste, perhaps? - no longer to write anything which does not reduce to despair every sort of man who is 'in a hurry'. For philology is that venerable art which demands of its votaries one thing above all: to go aside, to take time, to become still, to become slow - it is a goldsmith's art and connoisseurship of the WORD which has nothing but delicate, cautious work to do and achieves nothing if it does not achieve it lento. But precisely for this reason it is more necessary than ever today, by precisely this means does it entice and enchant us the most, in the midst of an age of 'work', that is to say, of hurry, of indecent and perspiring haste, which wants to 'get everything done' at once, including every old or new book:- this art does not so easily get anything done, it teaches to read WELL, that is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft, with reservations, with doors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers...My patient friends, this book desires for itself only perfect readers and philologists: LEARN to read me well! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
60:the powers of concentration :::
By concentration on anything whatsoever we are able to know that thing, to make it deliver up its concealed secrets; we must use this power to know not things, but the one Thing-in-itself. By concentration again the whole will can be gathered up for the acquisition of that which is still ungrasped, still beyond us; this power, if it is sufficiently trained, sufficiently single-minded, sufficiently sincere, sure of itself, faithful to itself alone, absolute in faith, we can use for the acquisition of any object whatsoever; but we ought to use it not for the acquisition of the many objects which the world offers to us, but to grasp spiritually that one object worthy of pursuit which is also the one subject worthy of knowledge. By concentration of our whole being on one status of itself, we can become whatever we choose; we can become, for instance, even if we were before a mass of weaknesses and fear, a mass instead of strength and courage, or we can become all a great purity, holiness and peace or a single universal soul of Love; but we ought, it is said, to use this power to become not even these things, high as they may be in comparison with what we now are, but rather to become that which is above all things and free from all action and attributes, the pure and absolute Being. All else, all other concentration can only be valuable for preparation, for previous steps, for a gradual training of the dissolute and self-dissipating thought, will and being towards their grand and unique object.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Concentration, [318],#KEYS
61:The Lord has veiled himself and his absolute wisdom and eternal consciousness in ignorant Nature-Force and suffers her to drive the individual being, with its complicity, as the ego; this lower action of Nature continues to prevail, often even in spite of man's half-lit imperfect efforts at a nobler motive and a purer self-knowledge. Our human effort at perfection fails, or progresses very incompletely, owing to the force of Nature's past actions in us, her past formations, her long-rooted associations; it turns towards a true and high-climbing success only when a greater Knowledge and Power than our own breaks through the lid of our ignorance and guides or takes up our personal will. For our human will is a misled and wandering ray that has parted from the supreme Puissance. The period of slow emergence out of this lower working into a higher light and purer force is the valley of the shadow of death for the striver after perfection; it is a dreadful passage full of trials, sufferings, sorrows, obscurations, stumblings, errors, pitfalls. To abridge and alleviate this ordeal or to penetrate it with the divine delight faith is necessary, an increasing surrender of the mind to the knowledge that imposes itself from within and, above all, a true aspiration and a right and unfaltering and sincere practice. "Practise unfalteringly," says the Gita, "with a heart free from despondency," the Yoga; for even though in the earlier stage of the path we drink deep of the bitter poison of internal discord and suffering, the last taste of this cup is the sweetness of the nectar of immortality and the honey-wine of an eternal Ananda. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 219, #KEYS
62:35 - Men are still in love with grief; when they see one who is too high for grief or joy, they curse him and cry, "O thou insensible!" Therefore Christ still hangs on the cross in Jerusalem.
36 - Men are in love with sin; when they see one who is too high for vice or virtue, they curse him and cry, "O thou breaker of bonds, thou wicked and immoral one!" Therefore Sri Krishna does not live as yet in Brindavan.(5)
- Sri Aurobindo
I would like to have an explanation of these two aphorisms.
When Christ came upon earth, he brought a message of brotherhood, love and peace. But he had to die in pain, on the cross, so that his message might be heard. For men cherish suffering and hatred and want their God to suffer with them. They wanted this when Christ came and, in spite of his teaching and sacrifice, they still want it; and they are so attached to their pain that, symbolically, Christ is still bound to his cross, suffering perpetually for the salvation of men.
As for Krishna, he came upon earth to bring freedom and delight. He came to announce to men, enslaved to Nature, to their passions and errors, that if they took refuge in the Supreme Lord they would be free from all bondage and sin. But men are very attached to their vices and virtues (for without vice there would be no virtue); they are in love with their sins and cannot tolerate anyone being free and above all error.
That is why Krishna, although immortal, is not present at Brindavan in a body at this moment.
3 June 1960
(5 The village where Shri Krishna Spent His Childhood, and where He danced with Radha and other Gopis.) ~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms, volume-10, page no.59-60,#KEYS
63:...that personality, like consciousness, life, soul is not a brief-lived stranger in an impersonal Eternity, but contains the very meaning of existence. This fine flower of the cosmic Energy carries in it a forecast of the aim and a hint of the very motive of the universal labour. As an occult vision opens in him, he becomes aware of worlds behind in which consciousness and personality hold an enormous place and assume a premier value; even here in the material world to this occult vision the inconscience of Matter fills with a secret pervading consciousness, its inanimation harbours a vibrant life, its mechanism is the device of an indwelling Intelligence, God and soul are everywhere. Above all stands an infinite conscious Being who is variously self-expressed in all these worlds; impersonality is only a first means of that expression. It is a field of principles and forces, an equal basis of manifestation; but these forces express themselves through beings, have conscious spirits at their head and are the emanation of a One Conscious Being who is their sorce. A multiple innumberable personality expressing that One is the very sense and central aim of the manifestation and if now personality seems to be narrow, fragmentary, restrictive, it is only because it has not opened to its source or flowered into its own divine truth and fullness packing itself with the universal and the infinite. Thus the world-creation is no more an illusion, a fortuitous mechanism, a play that need not have happened, a flux without consequence; it is an intimate dynamism of the conscious and living Eternal.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Sacrifice and the Lord of the Sacrifice, 127,#KEYS
64:I know some individuals who make this their daily practice: starting at the beginning and reading a canto or half a canto every day till they reach the end and then starting at the beginning again, and in that way they have gone through the whole of Savitri many times. When this is done in groups there's really no doubt that by this going through the whole soundbody of the epic from beginning to end aloud, there must be built up a very strong force field of vibrations. It is definitely of benefit to the people who participate in it. But again I would say that the effect or benefit of this sacrifice will be richer to the extent that the reading is done with understanding and above all with soul surrender. It shouldn't become a mere ritual.
Sri Aurobindo's mantric lines, repeated one after the other, will always have their power; but the power will be much greater if the mind can participate, and the will and the heart.
I have also heard of some groups who select one line that seems to have a particular mantric power and then within the group they chant that line many, many times. They concentrate on that one special line, and try to take its vibrations deep into themselves. Again I am sure that this is very beneficial to those who practice it.
In that way the words enter very deeply into the consciousness. There they resonate and do their work, and perhaps not just the surface meaning but the deeper meaning and the deeper vibrations may reveal their full depth to those who undertake this exercise if it is done with self-dedication, with a true aspiration to internalise the heart of the meaning, not just as a mere repetition.
At another end of the spectrum of possible approaches to Savitri, we can say there would be the aesthetic approach, the approach of enjoying it for its poetic beauty. I met a gentleman a couple of months ago, who told me, "We have faith in Sri Aurobindo, but it is so difficult to understand his books. We tried with The Life Divine, we tried with The Synthesis of Yoga but we found them so difficult. ~ collab summer & fall 2011,#KEYS
65:For centuries and centuries humanity has waited for this time. It is come. But it is difficult.
I don't simply tell you we are here upon earth to rest and enjoy ourselves, now is not the time for that. We are here..... to prepare the way for the new creation.
The body has some difficulty, so I can't be active, alas. It is not because I am old, I am not old, I am younger than most of you. If I am here inactive, it is because the body has given itself definitely to prepare the transformation. But the consciousness is clear and we are here to work - rest and enjoyment will come afterwards. Let us do our work here.
So I have called you to tell you that. Take what you can, do what you can, my help will be with you. All sincere effort will be helped to the maximum.
It is the hour to be the heroic. Heroism is not what it is said to be; it is to become wholly unified - and the Divine help will always be with those who have resolved to be heroic in full sincerity.
There!
You are here at this moment that is to say upon earth, because you chose it at one time - you do not remember it any more, but I know it - that is why you are here. Well, you must rise to the height of the task. You must strive, you must conquer all weakness and limitations; above all you must tell your ego: "Your hour is gone." We want a race that has no ego, that has in place of the ego the Divine Consciousness. It is that which we want: the Divine Consciousness which will allow the race to develop itself and the Supramental being to take birth.
If you believe that I am here because I am bound - it is not true. I am not bound, I am here because my body has been given for the first attempt at transformation. Sri Aurobindo told me so. Well, I am doing it. I do not wish anyone to do it for me because.... Because it is not very pleasant, but I do it willingly because of the result; everybody will be able to benefit from it. I ask only one thing: do not listen to the ego.
If there is in your hearts a sincere Yes, you will satisfy me completely. I do not need words, I need the sincere adhesion of your hearts. That's all. ~ The Mother, (This talk was given by the Mother on April 2,1972,#KEYS
66:Imperial Maheshwari is seated in the wideness above the thinking mind and will and sublimates and greatens them into wisdom and largeness or floods with a splendour beyond them. For she is the mighty and wise One who opens us to supramental infinities and the cosmic vastness, to the grandeur of the supreme Light, to a treasure-house of miraculous knowledge, to the measureless movement of the Mother's eternal forces. Tranquil is she and wonderful, great and calm for ever. Nothing can move her because all wisdom is in her; nothing is hidden from her that she chooses to know; she comprehends all things and all beings and their nature and what moves them and the law of the world and its times and how all was and is and must be. A strength is in her that meets everything and masters and none can prevail in the end against her vast intangible wisdom and high tranquil power. Equal, patient, unalterable in her will she deals with men according to their nature and with things and happenings according to their Force and truth that is in them. Partiality she has none, but she follows the decrees of the Supreme and some she raises up and some she casts down or puts away into the darkness. To the wise she gives a greater and more luminous wisdom; those that have vision she admits to her counsels; on the hostile she imposes the consequence of their hostility; the ignorant and foolish she leads them according to their blindness. In each man she answers and handles the different elements of his nature according to their need and their urge and the return they call for, puts on them the required pressure or leaves them to their cherished liberty to prosper in the ways of the Ignorance or to perish. For she is above all, bound by nothing, attached to nothing in the universe. Yet she has more than any other the heart of the universal Mother. For her compassion is endless and inexhaustible; all are to her eyes her children and portions of the One, even the Asura and Rakshasa and Pisacha and those that are revolted and hostile. Even her rejections are only a postponement, even her punishments are a grace. But her compassion does not blind her wisdom or turn her action from the course decreed; for the Truth of things is her one concern, knowledge her centre of power and to build our soul and our nature into the divine Truth her mission and her labour.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, [39],#KEYS
67:On that spring day in the park I saw a young woman who attracted me. She was tall and slender, elegantly dressed, and had an intelligent and boyish face. I liked her at once. She was my type and began to fill my imagination. She probably was not much older than I but seemed far more mature, well-defined, a full-grown woman, but with a touch of exuberance and boyishness in her face, and this was what I liked above all .
I had never managed to approach a girl with whom I had fallen in love, nor did I manage in this case. But the impression she made on me was deeper than any previous one had been and the infatuation had a profound influence on my life.
Suddenly a new image had risen up before me, a lofty and cherished image. And no need, no urge was as deep or as fervent within me as the craving to worship and admire. I gave her the name Beatrice, for, even though I had not read Dante, I knew about Beatrice from an English painting of which I owned a reproduction. It showed a young pre-Raphaelite woman, long-limbed and slender, with long head and etherealized hands and features. My beautiful young woman did not quite resemble her, even though she, too, revealed that slender and boyish figure which I loved, and something of the ethereal, soulful quality of her face.
Although I never addressed a single word to Beatrice, she exerted a profound influence on me at that time. She raised her image before me, she gave me access to a holy shrine, she transformed me into a worshiper in a temple.
From one day to the next I stayed clear of all bars and nocturnal exploits. I could be alone with myself again and enjoyed reading and going for long walks.
My sudden conversion drew a good deal of mockery in its wake. But now I had something I loved and venerated, I had an ideal again, life was rich with intimations of mystery and a feeling of dawn that made me immune to all taunts. I had come home again to myself, even if only as the slave and servant of a cherished image.
I find it difficult to think back to that time without a certain fondness. Once more I was trying most strenuously to construct an intimate "world of light" for myself out of the shambles of a period of devastation; once more I sacrificed everything within me to the aim of banishing darkness and evil from myself. And, furthermore, this present "world of light" was to some extent my own creation; it was no longer an escape, no crawling back to -nether and the safety of irresponsibility; it was a new duty, one I had invented and desired on my own, with responsibility and self-control. My sexuality, a torment from which I was in constant flight, was to be transfigured nto spirituality and devotion by this holy fire. Everything :brk and hateful was to be banished, there were to be no more tortured nights, no excitement before lascivious picures, no eavesdropping at forbidden doors, no lust. In place of all this I raised my altar to the image of Beatrice, :.. and by consecrating myself to her I consecrated myself to the spirit and to the gods, sacrificing that part of life which I withdrew from the forces of darkness to those of light. My goal was not joy but purity, not happiness but beauty, and spirituality.
This cult of Beatrice completely changed my life.
~ Hermann Hesse, Demian,#KEYS
68:THE WAND
THE Magical Will is in its essence twofold, for it presupposes a beginning and an end; to will to be a thing is to admit that you are not that thing.
Hence to will anything but the supreme thing, is to wander still further from it - any will but that to give up the self to the Beloved is Black Magick - yet this surrender is so simple an act that to our complex minds it is the most difficult of all acts; and hence training is necessary. Further, the Self surrendered must not be less than the All-Self; one must not come before the altar of the Most High with an impure or an imperfect offering. As it is written in Liber LXV, "To await Thee is the end, not the beginning."
This training may lead through all sorts of complications, varying according to the nature of the student, and hence it may be necessary for him at any moment to will all sorts of things which to others might seem unconnected with the goal. Thus it is not "a priori" obvious why a billiard player should need a file.
Since, then, we may want "anything," let us see to it that our will is strong enough to obtain anything we want without loss of time.
It is therefore necessary to develop the will to its highest point, even though the last task but one is the total surrender of this will. Partial surrender of an imperfect will is of no account in Magick.
The will being a lever, a fulcrum is necessary; this fulcrum is the main aspiration of the student to attain. All wills which are not dependent upon this principal will are so many leakages; they are like fat to the athlete.
The majority of the people in this world are ataxic; they cannot coordinate their mental muscles to make a purposed movement. They have no real will, only a set of wishes, many of which contradict others. The victim wobbles from one to the other (and it is no less wobbling because the movements may occasionally be very violent) and at the end of life the movements cancel each other out. Nothing has been achieved; except the one thing of which the victim is not conscious: the destruction of his own character, the confirming of indecision. Such an one is torn limb from limb by Choronzon.
How then is the will to be trained? All these wishes, whims, caprices, inclinations, tendencies, appetites, must be detected, examined, judged by the standard of whether they help or hinder the main purpose, and treated accordingly.
Vigilance and courage are obviously required. I was about to add self-denial, in deference to conventional speech; but how could I call that self-denial which is merely denial of those things which hamper the self? It is not suicide to kill the germs of malaria in one's blood.
Now there are very great difficulties to be overcome in the training of the mind. Perhaps the greatest is forgetfulness, which is probably the worst form of what the Buddhists call ignorance. Special practices for training the memory may be of some use as a preliminary for persons whose memory is naturally poor. In any case the Magical Record prescribed for Probationers of the A.'.A.'. is useful and necessary.
Above all the practices of Liber III must be done again and again, for these practices develop not only vigilance but those inhibiting centres in the brain which are, according to some psychologists, the mainspring of the mechanism by which civilized man has raised himself above the savage.
So far it has been spoken, as it were, in the negative. Aaron's rod has become a serpent, and swallowed the serpents of the other Magicians; it is now necessary to turn it once more into a rod.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, The Wand,#KEYS
69:
What is the exact way of feeling that we belong to the Divine and that the Divine is acting in us?
You must not feel with your head (because you may think so, but that's something vague); you must feel with your sense-feeling. Naturally one begins by wanting it with the mind, because that is the first thing that understands. And then one has an aspiration here (pointing to the heart), with a flame which pushes you to realise it. But if you want it to be truly the thing, well, you must feel it.
You are doing something, suppose, for example, you are doing exercises, weight-lifting. Now suddenly without your knowing how it happened, suddenly you have the feeling that there is a force infinitely greater than you, greater, more powerful, a force that does the lifting for you. Your body becomes something almost non-existent and there is this Something that lifts. And then you will see; when that happens to you, you will no longer ask how it should be done, you will know. That does happen.
It depends upon people, depends upon what dominates in their being. Those who think have suddenly the feeling that it is no longer they who think, that there is something which knows much better, sees much more clearly, which is infinitely more luminous, more conscious in them, which organises the thoughts and words; and then they write. But if the experience is complete, it is even no longer they who write, it is that same Thing that takes hold of their hand and makes it write. Well, one knows at that moment that the little physical person is just a tiny insignificant tool trying to remain as quiet as possible in order not to disturb the experience.
Yes, at no cost must the experience be disturbed. If suddenly you say: "Oh, look, how strange it is!"...
How can we reach that state?
Aspire for it, want it. Try to be less and less selfish, but not in the sense of becoming nice to other people or forgetting yourself, not that: have less and less the feeling that you are a person, a separate entity, something existing in itself, isolated from the rest.
And then, above all, above all, it is that inner flame, that aspiration, that need for the light. It is a kind of - how to put it? - luminous enthusiasm that seizes you. It is an irresistible need to melt away, to give oneself, to exist only in the Divine.
At that moment you have the experience of your aspiration.
But that moment should be absolutely sincere and as integral as possible; and all this must occur not only in the head, not only here, but must take place everywhere, in all the cells of the body. The consciousness integrally must have this irresistible need.... The thing lasts for some time, then diminishes, gets extinguished. You cannot keep these things for very long. But then it so happens that a moment later or the next day or some time later, suddenly you have the opposite experience. Instead of feeling this ascent, and all that, this is no longer there and you have the feeling of the Descent, the Answer. And nothing but the Answer exists. Nothing but the divine thought, the divine will, the divine energy, the divine action exists any longer. And you too, you are no longer there.
That is to say, it is the answer to our aspiration. It may happen immediately afterwards - that is very rare but may happen. If you have both simultaneously, then the state is perfect; usually they alternate; they alternate more and more closely until the moment there is a total fusion. Then there is no more distinction. I heard a Sufi mystic, who was besides a great musician, an Indian, saying that for the Sufis there was a state higher than that of adoration and surrender to the Divine, than that of devotion, that this was not the last stage; the last stage of the progress is when there is no longer any distinction; you have no longer this kind of adoration or surrender or consecration; it is a very simple state in which one makes no distinction between the Divine and oneself. They know this. It is even written in their books. It is a commonly known condition in which everything becomes quite simple. There is no longer any difference. There is no longer that kind of ecstatic surrender to "Something" which is beyond you in every way, which you do not understand, which is merely the result of your aspiration, your devotion. There is no difference any longer. When the union is perfect, there is no longer any difference.
Is this the end of self-progress?
There is never any end to progress - never any end, you can never put a full stop there. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
70:Education
THE EDUCATION of a human being should begin at birth and continue throughout his life.
Indeed, if we want this education to have its maximum result, it should begin even before birth; in this case it is the mother herself who proceeds with this education by means of a twofold action: first, upon herself for her own improvement, and secondly, upon the child whom she is forming physically. For it is certain that the nature of the child to be born depends very much upon the mother who forms it, upon her aspiration and will as well as upon the material surroundings in which she lives. To see that her thoughts are always beautiful and pure, her feelings always noble and fine, her material surroundings as harmonious as possible and full of a great simplicity - this is the part of education which should apply to the mother herself. And if she has in addition a conscious and definite will to form the child according to the highest ideal she can conceive, then the very best conditions will be realised so that the child can come into the world with his utmost potentialities. How many difficult efforts and useless complications would be avoided in this way!
Education to be complete must have five principal aspects corresponding to the five principal activities of the human being: the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic and the spiritual. Usually, these phases of education follow chronologically the growth of the individual; this, however, does not mean that one of them should replace another, but that all must continue, completing one another until the end of his life.
We propose to study these five aspects of education one by one and also their interrelationships. But before we enter into the details of the subject, I wish to make a recommendation to parents. Most parents, for various reasons, give very little thought to the true education which should be imparted to children. When they have brought a child into the world, provided him with food, satisfied his various material needs and looked after his health more or less carefully, they think they have fully discharged their duty. Later on, they will send him to school and hand over to the teachers the responsibility for his education.
There are other parents who know that their children must be educated and who try to do what they can. But very few, even among those who are most serious and sincere, know that the first thing to do, in order to be able to educate a child, is to educate oneself, to become conscious and master of oneself so that one never sets a bad example to one's child. For it is above all through example that education becomes effective. To speak good words and to give wise advice to a child has very little effect if one does not oneself give him an example of what one teaches. Sincerity, honesty, straightforwardness, courage, disinterestedness, unselfishness, patience, endurance, perseverance, peace, calm, self-control are all things that are taught infinitely better by example than by beautiful speeches. Parents, have a high ideal and always act in accordance with it and you will see that little by little your child will reflect this ideal in himself and spontaneously manifest the qualities you would like to see expressed in his nature. Quite naturally a child has respect and admiration for his parents; unless they are quite unworthy, they will always appear to their child as demigods whom he will try to imitate as best he can.
With very few exceptions, parents are not aware of the disastrous influence that their own defects, impulses, weaknesses and lack of self-control have on their children. If you wish to be respected by a child, have respect for yourself and be worthy of respect at every moment. Never be authoritarian, despotic, impatient or ill-tempered. When your child asks you a question, do not give him a stupid or silly answer under the pretext that he cannot understand you. You can always make yourself understood if you take enough trouble; and in spite of the popular saying that it is not always good to tell the truth, I affirm that it is always good to tell the truth, but that the art consists in telling it in such a way as to make it accessible to the mind of the hearer. In early life, until he is twelve or fourteen, the child's mind is hardly open to abstract notions and general ideas. And yet you can train it to understand these things by using concrete images, symbols or parables. Up to quite an advanced age and for some who mentally always remain children, a narrative, a story, a tale well told teach much more than any number of theoretical explanations.
Another pitfall to avoid: do not scold your child without good reason and only when it is quite indispensable. A child who is too often scolded gets hardened to rebuke and no longer attaches much importance to words or severity of tone. And above all, take good care never to scold him for a fault which you yourself commit. Children are very keen and clear-sighted observers; they soon find out your weaknesses and note them without pity.
When a child has done something wrong, see that he confesses it to you spontaneously and frankly; and when he has confessed, with kindness and affection make him understand what was wrong in his movement so that he will not repeat it, but never scold him; a fault confessed must always be forgiven. You should not allow any fear to come between you and your child; fear is a pernicious means of education: it invariably gives birth to deceit and lying. Only a discerning affection that is firm yet gentle and an adequate practical knowledge will create the bonds of trust that are indispensable for you to be able to educate your child effectively. And do not forget that you have to control yourself constantly in order to be equal to your task and truly fulfil the duty which you owe your child by the mere fact of having brought him into the world.
Bulletin, February 1951
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
71:
Why do we forget our dreams?
Because you do not dream always at the same place. It is not always the same part of your being that dreams and it is not at the same place that you dream. If you were in conscious, direct, continuous communication with all the parts of your being, you would remember all your dreams. But very few parts of the being are in communication.
For example, you have a dream in the subtle physical, that is to say, quite close to the physical. Generally, these dreams occur in the early hours of the morning, that is between four and five o'clock, at the end of the sleep. If you do not make a sudden movement when you wake up, if you remain very quiet, very still and a little attentive - quietly attentive - and concentrated, you will remember them, for the communication between the subtle physical and the physical is established - very rarely is there no communication.
Now, dreams are mostly forgotten because you have a dream while in a certain state and then pass into another. For instance, when you sleep, your body is asleep, your vital is asleep, but your mind is still active. So your mind begins to have dreams, that is, its activity is more or less coordinated, the imagination is very active and you see all kinds of things, take part in extraordinary happenings.... After some time, all that calms down and the mind also begins to doze. The vital that was resting wakes up; it comes out of the body, walks about, goes here and there, does all kinds of things, reacts, sometimes fights, and finally eats. It does all kinds of things. The vital is very adventurous. It watches. When it is heroic it rushes to save people who are in prison or to destroy enemies or it makes wonderful discoveries. But this pushes back the whole mental dream very far behind. It is rubbed off, forgotten: naturally you cannot remember it because the vital dream takes its place. But if you wake up suddenly at that moment, you remember it. There are people who have made the experiment, who have got up at certain fixed hours of the night and when they wake up suddenly, they do remember. You must not move brusquely, but awake in the natural course, then you remember.
After a time, the vital having taken a good stroll, needs to rest also, and so it goes into repose and quietness, quite tired at the end of all kinds of adventures. Then something else wakes up. Let us suppose that it is the subtle physical that goes for a walk. It starts moving and begins wandering, seeing the rooms and... why, this thing that was there, but it has come here and that other thing which was in that room is now in this one, and so on. If you wake up without stirring, you remembeR But this has pushed away far to the back of the consciousness all the stories of the vital. They are forgotten and so you cannot recollect your dreams. But if at the time of waking up you are not in a hurry, you are not obliged to leave your bed, on the contrary you can remain there as long as you wish, you need not even open your eyes; you keep your head exactly where it was and you make yourself like a tranquil mirror within and concentrate there. You catch just a tiny end of the tail of your dream. You catch it and start pulling gently, without stirring in the least. You begin pulling quite gently, and then first one part comes, a little later another. You go backward; the last comes up first. Everything goes backward, slowly, and suddenly the whole dream reappears: "Ah, there! it was like that." Above all, do not jump up, do not stir; you repeat the dream to yourself several times - once, twice - until it becomes clear in all its details. Once that dream is settled, you continue not to stir, you try to go further in, and suddenly you catch the tail of something else. It is more distant, more vague, but you can still seize it. And here also you hang on, get hold of it and pull, and you see that everything changes and you enter another world; all of a sudden you have an extraordinary adventure - it is another dream. You follow the same process. You repeat the dream to yourself once, twice, until you are sure of it. You remain very quiet all the time. Then you begin to penetrate still more deeply into yourself, as though you were going in very far, very far; and again suddenly you see a vague form, you have a feeling, a sensation... like a current of air, a slight breeze, a little breath; and you say, "Well, well...." It takes a form, it becomes clear - and the third category comes. You must have a lot of time, a lot of patience, you must be very quiet in your mind and body, very quiet, and you can tell the story of your whole night from the end right up to the beginning.
Even without doing this exercise which is very long and difficult, in order to recollect a dream, whether it be the last one or the one in the middle that has made a violent impression on your being, you must do what I have said when you wake up: take particular care not even to move your head on the pillow, remain absolutely still and let the dream return.
Some people do not have a passage between one state and another, there is a little gap and so they leap from one to the other; there is no highway passing through all the states of being with no break of the consciousness. A small dark hole, and you do not remember. It is like a precipice across which one has to extend the consciousness. To build a bridge takes a very long time; it takes much longer than building a physical bridge.... Very few people want to and know how to do it. They may have had magnificent activities, they do not remember them or sometimes only the last, the nearest, the most physical activity, with an uncoordinated movement - dreams having no sense.
But there are as many different kinds of nights and sleep as there are different days and activities. There are not many days that are alike, each day is different. The days are not the same, the nights are not the same. You and your friends are doing apparently the same thing, but for each one it is very different. And each one must have his own procedure.
Why are two dreams never alike?
Because all things are different. No two minutes are alike in the universe and it will be so till the end of the universe, no two minutes will ever be alike. And men obstinately want to make rules! One must do this and not that.... Well! we must let people please themselves.
You could have put to me a very interesting question: "Why am I fourteen years old today?" Intelligent people will say: "It is because it is the fourteenth year since you were born." That is the answer of someone who believes himself to be very intelligent. But there is another reason. I shall tell this to you alone.... I have drowned you all sufficiently well! Now you must begin to learn swimming!
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 36?,#KEYS
72:Mental Education
OF ALL lines of education, mental education is the most widely known and practised, yet except in a few rare cases there are gaps which make it something very incomplete and in the end quite insufficient.
Generally speaking, schooling is considered to be all the mental education that is necessary. And when a child has been made to undergo, for a number of years, a methodical training which is more like cramming than true schooling, it is considered that whatever is necessary for his mental development has been done. Nothing of the kind. Even conceding that the training is given with due measure and discrimination and does not permanently damage the brain, it cannot impart to the human mind the faculties it needs to become a good and useful instrument. The schooling that is usually given can, at the most, serve as a system of gymnastics to increase the suppleness of the brain. From this standpoint, each branch of human learning represents a special kind of mental gymnastics, and the verbal formulations given to these various branches each constitute a special and well-defined language.
A true mental education, which will prepare man for a higher life, has five principal phases. Normally these phases follow one after another, but in exceptional individuals they may alternate or even proceed simultaneously. These five phases, in brief, are:
(1) Development of the power of concentration, the capacity of attention.
(2) Development of the capacities of expansion, widening, complexity and richness.
(3) Organisation of one's ideas around a central idea, a higher ideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life.
(4) Thought-control, rejection of undesirable thoughts, to become able to think only what one wants and when one wants.
(5) Development of mental silence, perfect calm and a more and more total receptivity to inspirations coming from the higher regions of the being.
It is not possible to give here all the details concerning the methods to be employed in the application of these five phases of education to different individuals. Still, a few explanations on points of detail can be given.
Undeniably, what most impedes mental progress in children is the constant dispersion of their thoughts. Their thoughts flutter hither and thither like butterflies and they have to make a great effort to fix them. Yet this capacity is latent in them, for when you succeed in arousing their interest, they are capable of a good deal of attention. By his ingenuity, therefore, the educator will gradually help the child to become capable of a sustained effort of attention and a faculty of more and more complete absorption in the work in hand. All methods that can develop this faculty of attention from games to rewards are good and can all be utilised according to the need and the circumstances. But it is the psychological action that is most important and the sovereign method is to arouse in the child an interest in what you want to teach him, a liking for work, a will to progress. To love to learn is the most precious gift that one can give to a child: to love to learn always and everywhere, so that all circumstances, all happenings in life may be constantly renewed opportunities for learning more and always more.
For that, to attention and concentration should be added observation, precise recording and faithfulness of memory. This faculty of observation can be developed by varied and spontaneous exercises, making use of every opportunity that presents itself to keep the child's thought wakeful, alert and prompt. The growth of the understanding should be stressed much more than that of memory. One knows well only what one has understood. Things learnt by heart, mechanically, fade away little by little and finally disappear; what is understood is never forgotten. Moreover, you must never refuse to explain to a child the how and the why of things. If you cannot do it yourself, you must direct the child to those who are qualified to answer or point out to him some books that deal with the question. In this way you will progressively awaken in the child the taste for true study and the habit of making a persistent effort to know.
This will bring us quite naturally to the second phase of development in which the mind should be widened and enriched.
You will gradually show the child that everything can become an interesting subject for study if it is approached in the right way. The life of every day, of every moment, is the best school of all, varied, complex, full of unexpected experiences, problems to be solved, clear and striking examples and obvious consequences. It is so easy to arouse healthy curiosity in children, if you answer with intelligence and clarity the numerous questions they ask. An interesting reply to one readily brings others in its train and so the attentive child learns without effort much more than he usually does in the classroom. By a choice made with care and insight, you should also teach him to enjoy good reading-matter which is both instructive and attractive. Do not be afraid of anything that awakens and pleases his imagination; imagination develops the creative mental faculty and through it study becomes living and the mind develops in joy.
In order to increase the suppleness and comprehensiveness of his mind, one should see not only that he studies many varied topics, but above all that a single subject is approached in various ways, so that the child understands in a practical manner that there are many ways of facing the same intellectual problem, of considering it and solving it. This will remove all rigidity from his brain and at the same time it will make his thinking richer and more supple and prepare it for a more complex and comprehensive synthesis. In this way also the child will be imbued with the sense of the extreme relativity of mental learning and, little by little, an aspiration for a truer source of knowledge will awaken in him.
Indeed, as the child grows older and progresses in his studies, his mind too ripens and becomes more and more capable of forming general ideas, and with them almost always comes a need for certitude, for a knowledge that is stable enough to form the basis of a mental construction which will permit all the diverse and scattered and often contradictory ideas accumulated in his brain to be organised and put in order. This ordering is indeed very necessary if one is to avoid chaos in one's thoughts. All contradictions can be transformed into complements, but for that one must discover the higher idea that will have the power to bring them harmoniously together. It is always good to consider every problem from all possible standpoints so as to avoid partiality and exclusiveness; but if the thought is to be active and creative, it must, in every case, be the natural and logical synthesis of all the points of view adopted. And if you want to make the totality of your thoughts into a dynamic and constructive force, you must also take great care as to the choice of the central idea of your mental synthesis; for upon that will depend the value of this synthesis. The higher and larger the central idea and the more universal it is, rising above time and space, the more numerous and the more complex will be the ideas, notions and thoughts which it will be able to organise and harmonise.
It goes without saying that this work of organisation cannot be done once and for all. The mind, if it is to keep its vigour and youth, must progress constantly, revise its notions in the light of new knowledge, enlarge its frame-work to include fresh notions and constantly reclassify and reorganise its thoughts, so that each of them may find its true place in relation to the others and the whole remain harmonious and orderly.
All that has just been said concerns the speculative mind, the mind that learns. But learning is only one aspect of mental activity; the other, which is at least equally important, is the constructive faculty, the capacity to form and thus prepare action. This very important part of mental activity has rarely been the subject of any special study or discipline. Only those who want, for some reason, to exercise a strict control over their mental activities think of observing and disciplining this faculty of formation; and as soon as they try it, they have to face difficulties so great that they appear almost insurmountable.
And yet control over this formative activity of the mind is one of the most important aspects of self-education; one can say that without it no mental mastery is possible. As far as study is concerned, all ideas are acceptable and should be included in the synthesis, whose very function is to become more and more rich and complex; but where action is concerned, it is just the opposite. The ideas that are accepted for translation into action should be strictly controlled and only those that agree with the general trend of the central idea forming the basis of the mental synthesis should be permitted to express themselves in action. This means that every thought entering the mental consciousness should be set before the central idea; if it finds a logical place among the thoughts already grouped, it will be admitted into the synthesis; if not, it will be rejected so that it can have no influence on the action. This work of mental purification should be done very regularly in order to secure a complete control over one's actions.
For this purpose, it is good to set apart some time every day when one can quietly go over one's thoughts and put one's synthesis in order. Once the habit is acquired, you can maintain control over your thoughts even during work and action, allowing only those which are useful for what you are doing to come to the surface. Particularly, if you have continued to cultivate the power of concentration and attention, only the thoughts that are needed will be allowed to enter the active external consciousness and they then become all the more dynamic and effective. And if, in the intensity of concentration, it becomes necessary not to think at all, all mental vibration can be stilled and an almost total silence secured. In this silence one can gradually open to the higher regions of the mind and learn to record the inspirations that come from there.
But even before reaching this point, silence in itself is supremely useful, because in most people who have a somewhat developed and active mind, the mind is never at rest. During the day, its activity is kept under a certain control, but at night, during the sleep of the body, the control of the waking state is almost completely removed and the mind indulges in activities which are sometimes excessive and often incoherent. This creates a great stress which leads to fatigue and the diminution of the intellectual faculties.
The fact is that like all the other parts of the human being, the mind too needs rest and it will not have this rest unless we know how to provide it. The art of resting one's mind is something to be acquired. Changing one's mental activity is certainly one way of resting; but the greatest possible rest is silence. And as far as the mental faculties are concerned a few minutes passed in the calm of silence are a more effective rest than hours of sleep.
When one has learned to silence the mind at will and to concentrate it in receptive silence, then there will be no problem that cannot be solved, no mental difficulty whose solution cannot be found. When it is agitated, thought becomes confused and impotent; in an attentive tranquillity, the light can manifest itself and open up new horizons to man's capacity. Bulletin, November 1951
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
73:It does not matter if you do not understand it - Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see that something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you re-read them. This is what happens invariably. Always your experience is enriched, it is a revelation at each step.
But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open; then the words, rhythms, vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making any effort.
Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs. For him who wishes to follow this path, it is a concrete help as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds its solution herein; indeed there is everything that is necessary for doing the Yoga.
*He has crammed the whole universe in a single book.* It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection.
You know, before writing Savitri Sri Aurobindo said to me, *I am impelled to launch on a new adventure; I was hesitant in the beginning, but now I am decided. Still, I do not know how far I shall succeed. I pray for help.* And you know what it was? It was - before beginning, I warn you in advance - it was His way of speaking, so full of divine humility and modesty. He never... *asserted Himself*. And the day He actually began it, He told me: *I have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the Infinite.* And once having started, He wrote page after page without intermission, as though it were a thing already complete up there and He had only to transcribe it in ink down here on these pages.
In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended "en masse" from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with His genius only arranged the lines - in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and He has left them intact; He worked hard, untiringly, so that the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work He has created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. My child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works in Greek, Latin, English and of course French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything comparable with Savitri. All these literary works seems to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality - apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal He has created. I tell you once again there is nothing like in it the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, that is, the essential substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What He has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything.
It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.
My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all that is going to come is presented with the precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga.
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
These are experiences lived by Him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighborhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to breathe the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He crossed all these realms, went through the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like Him. He accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something that has never happened before, He is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown, so that we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is His whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga appears now for the first time in the earth-consciousness.
And I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The farther one advances on the path of Yoga, the more does one assimilate and the better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which He has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined, - it is not in the mind or through the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed.
And men have the audacity to compare it with the work of Virgil or Homer and to find it inferior. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. Men will know what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super-epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines He has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value - spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come into contact with it, the higher will you be uplifted. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be seen.
My child, every day you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as if Savitri were a being, a real guide. I tell you, whoever, wanting to practice Yoga, tries sincerely and feels the necessity for it, will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practice it anywhere. For him Savitri alone will be the guide, for all that he needs he will find Savitri. If he remains very quiet when before a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains very calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if lead by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity he will reach the final goal.
Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, living, it is all replete, packed with consciousness, it is the supreme knowledge above all human philosophies and religions. It is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, Tapasya, Sadhana, in its single body. Savitri has an extraordinary power, it gives out vibrations for him who can receive them, the true vibrations of each stage of consciousness. It is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth. My child, one must try to find the secret that Savitri represents, the prophetic message Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us. This is the work before you, it is hard but it is worth the trouble. - 5 November 1967
~ The Mother, Sweet Mother, The Mother to Mona Sarkar, [T0],#KEYS
74:One little picture in this book, the Magic Locket, was drawn by 'Miss Alice Havers.' I did not state this on the title-page, since it seemed only due, to the artist of all these (to my mind) wonderful pictures, that his name should stand there alone.
The descriptions, of Sunday as spent by children of the last generation, are quoted verbatim from a speech made to me by a child-friend and a letter written to me by a lady-friend.
The Chapters, headed 'Fairy Sylvie' and 'Bruno's Revenge,' are a reprint, with a few alterations, of a little fairy-tale which I wrote in the year 1867, at the request of the late Mrs. Gatty, for 'Aunt Judy's Magazine,' which she was then editing.
It was in 1874, I believe, that the idea first occurred to me of making it the nucleus of a longer story.
As the years went on, I jotted down, at odd moments, all sorts of odd ideas, and fragments of dialogue, that occurred to me--who knows how?--with a transitory suddenness that left me no choice but either to record them then and there, or to abandon them to oblivion. Sometimes one could trace to their source these random flashes of thought--as being suggested by the book one was reading, or struck out from the 'flint' of one's own mind by the 'steel' of a friend's chance remark but they had also a way of their own, of occurring, a propos of nothing --specimens of that hopelessly illogical phenomenon, 'an effect without a cause.' Such, for example, was the last line of 'The Hunting of the Snark,' which came into my head (as I have already related in 'The Theatre' for April, 1887) quite suddenly, during a solitary walk: and such, again, have been passages which occurred in dreams, and which I cannot trace to any antecedent cause whatever. There are at least two instances of such dream-suggestions in this book--one, my Lady's remark, 'it often runs in families, just as a love for pastry does', the other, Eric Lindon's badinage about having been in domestic service.
And thus it came to pass that I found myself at last in possession of a huge unwieldy mass of litterature--if the reader will kindly excuse the spelling --which only needed stringing together, upon the thread of a consecutive story, to constitute the book I hoped to write. Only! The task, at first, seemed absolutely hopeless, and gave me a far clearer idea, than I ever had before, of the meaning of the word 'chaos': and I think it must have been ten years, or more, before I had succeeded in classifying these odds-and-ends sufficiently to see what sort of a story they indicated: for the story had to grow out of the incidents, not the incidents out of the story I am telling all this, in no spirit of egoism, but because I really believe that some of my readers will be interested in these details of the 'genesis' of a book, which looks so simple and straight-forward a matter, when completed, that they might suppose it to have been written straight off, page by page, as one would write a letter, beginning at the beginning; and ending at the end.
It is, no doubt, possible to write a story in that way: and, if it be not vanity to say so, I believe that I could, myself,--if I were in the unfortunate position (for I do hold it to be a real misfortune) of being obliged to produce a given amount of fiction in a given time,--that I could 'fulfil my task,' and produce my 'tale of bricks,' as other slaves have done. One thing, at any rate, I could guarantee as to the story so produced--that it should be utterly commonplace, should contain no new ideas whatever, and should be very very weary reading!
This species of literature has received the very appropriate name of 'padding' which might fitly be defined as 'that which all can write and none can read.' That the present volume contains no such writing I dare not avow: sometimes, in order to bring a picture into its proper place, it has been necessary to eke out a page with two or three extra lines : but I can honestly say I have put in no more than I was absolutely compelled to do.
My readers may perhaps like to amuse themselves by trying to detect, in a given passage, the one piece of 'padding' it contains. While arranging the 'slips' into pages, I found that the passage was 3 lines too short. I supplied the deficiency, not by interpolating a word here and a word there, but by writing in 3 consecutive lines. Now can my readers guess which they are?
A harder puzzle if a harder be desired would be to determine, as to the Gardener's Song, in which cases (if any) the stanza was adapted to the surrounding text, and in which (if any) the text was adapted to the stanza.
Perhaps the hardest thing in all literature--at least I have found it so: by no voluntary effort can I accomplish it: I have to take it as it come's is to write anything original. And perhaps the easiest is, when once an original line has been struck out, to follow it up, and to write any amount more to the same tune. I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story--I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it--but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen storybooks have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea'--is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.
Hence it is that, in 'Sylvie and Bruno,' I have striven with I know not what success to strike out yet another new path: be it bad or good, it is the best I can do. It is written, not for money, and not for fame, but in the hope of supplying, for the children whom I love, some thoughts that may suit those hours of innocent merriment which are the very life of Childhood; and also in the hope of suggesting, to them and to others, some thoughts that may prove, I would fain hope, not wholly out of harmony with the graver cadences of Life.
If I have not already exhausted the patience of my readers, I would like to seize this opportunity perhaps the last I shall have of addressing so many friends at once of putting on record some ideas that have occurred to me, as to books desirable to be written--which I should much like to attempt, but may not ever have the time or power to carry through--in the hope that, if I should fail (and the years are gliding away very fast) to finish the task I have set myself, other hands may take it up.
First, a Child's Bible. The only real essentials of this would be, carefully selected passages, suitable for a child's reading, and pictures. One principle of selection, which I would adopt, would be that Religion should be put before a child as a revelation of love--no need to pain and puzzle the young mind with the history of crime and punishment. (On such a principle I should, for example, omit the history of the Flood.) The supplying of the pictures would involve no great difficulty: no new ones would be needed : hundreds of excellent pictures already exist, the copyright of which has long ago expired, and which simply need photo-zincography, or some similar process, for their successful reproduction. The book should be handy in size with a pretty attractive looking cover--in a clear legible type--and, above all, with abundance of pictures, pictures, pictures!
Secondly, a book of pieces selected from the Bible--not single texts, but passages of from 10 to 20 verses each--to be committed to memory. Such passages would be found useful, to repeat to one's self and to ponder over, on many occasions when reading is difficult, if not impossible: for instance, when lying awake at night--on a railway-journey --when taking a solitary walk-in old age, when eyesight is failing or wholly lost--and, best of all, when illness, while incapacitating us for reading or any other occupation, condemns us to lie awake through many weary silent hours: at such a time how keenly one may realise the truth of David's rapturous cry "O how sweet are thy words unto my throat: yea, sweeter than honey unto my mouth!"
I have said 'passages,' rather than single texts, because we have no means of recalling single texts: memory needs links, and here are none: one may have a hundred texts stored in the memory, and not be able to recall, at will, more than half-a-dozen--and those by mere chance: whereas, once get hold of any portion of a chapter that has been committed to memory, and the whole can be recovered: all hangs together.
Thirdly, a collection of passages, both prose and verse, from books other than the Bible. There is not perhaps much, in what is called 'un-inspired' literature (a misnomer, I hold: if Shakespeare was not inspired, one may well doubt if any man ever was), that will bear the process of being pondered over, a hundred times: still there are such passages--enough, I think, to make a goodly store for the memory.
These two books of sacred, and secular, passages for memory--will serve other good purposes besides merely occupying vacant hours: they will help to keep at bay many anxious thoughts, worrying thoughts, uncharitable thoughts, unholy thoughts. Let me say this, in better words than my own, by copying a passage from that most interesting book, Robertson's Lectures on the Epistles to the Corinthians, Lecture XLIX. "If a man finds himself haunted by evil desires and unholy images, which will generally be at periodical hours, let him commit to memory passages of Scripture, or passages from the best writers in verse or prose. Let him store his mind with these, as safeguards to repeat when he lies awake in some restless night, or when despairing imaginations, or gloomy, suicidal thoughts, beset him. Let these be to him the sword, turning everywhere to keep the way of the Garden of Life from the intrusion of profaner footsteps."
Fourthly, a "Shakespeare" for girls: that is, an edition in which everything, not suitable for the perusal of girls of (say) from 10 to 17, should be omitted. Few children under 10 would be likely to understand or enjoy the greatest of poets: and those, who have passed out of girlhood, may safely be left to read Shakespeare, in any edition, 'expurgated' or not, that they may prefer: but it seems a pity that so many children, in the intermediate stage, should be debarred from a great pleasure for want of an edition suitable to them. Neither Bowdler's, Chambers's, Brandram's, nor Cundell's 'Boudoir' Shakespeare, seems to me to meet the want: they are not sufficiently 'expurgated.' Bowdler's is the most extraordinary of all: looking through it, I am filled with a deep sense of wonder, considering what he has left in, that he should have cut anything out! Besides relentlessly erasing all that is unsuitable on the score of reverence or decency, I should be inclined to omit also all that seems too difficult, or not likely to interest young readers. The resulting book might be slightly fragmentary: but it would be a real treasure to all British maidens who have any taste for poetry.
If it be needful to apologize to any one for the new departure I have taken in this story--by introducing, along with what will, I hope, prove to be acceptable nonsense for children, some of the graver thoughts of human life--it must be to one who has learned the Art of keeping such thoughts wholly at a distance in hours of mirth and careless ease. To him such a mixture will seem, no doubt, ill-judged and repulsive. And that such an Art exists I do not dispute: with youth, good health, and sufficient money, it seems quite possible to lead, for years together, a life of unmixed gaiety--with the exception of one solemn fact, with which we are liable to be confronted at any moment, even in the midst of the most brilliant company or the most sparkling entertainment. A man may fix his own times for admitting serious thought, for attending public worship, for prayer, for reading the Bible: all such matters he can defer to that 'convenient season', which is so apt never to occur at all: but he cannot defer, for one single moment, the necessity of attending to a message, which may come before he has finished reading this page,' this night shalt thy soul be required of thee.'
The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages, 1 an incubus that men have striven to shake off. Few more interesting subjects of enquiry could be found, by a student of history, than the various weapons that have been used against this shadowy foe. Saddest of all must have been the thoughts of those who saw indeed an existence beyond the grave, but an existence far more terrible than annihilation--an existence as filmy, impalpable, all but invisible spectres, drifting about, through endless ages, in a world of shadows, with nothing to do, nothing to hope for, nothing to love! In the midst of the gay verses of that genial 'bon vivant' Horace, there stands one dreary word whose utter sadness goes to one's heart. It is the word 'exilium' in the well-known passage
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae.
Yes, to him this present life--spite of all its weariness and all its sorrow--was the only life worth having: all else was 'exile'! Does it not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever have smiled?
And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard it as a sort of 'exile' from all the joys of life, and so adopt Horace's theory, and say 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'
We go to entertainments, such as the theatre--I say 'we', for I also go to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one and keep at arm's length, if possible, the thought that we may not return alive. Yet how do you know--dear friend, whose patience has carried you through this garrulous preface that it may not be your lot, when mirth is fastest and most furious, to feel the sharp pang, or the deadly faintness, which heralds the final crisis--to see, with vague wonder, anxious friends bending over you to hear their troubled whispers perhaps yourself to shape the question, with trembling lips, "Is it serious?", and to be told "Yes: the end is near" (and oh, how different all Life will look when those words are said!)--how do you know, I say, that all this may not happen to you, this night?
And dare you, knowing this, say to yourself "Well, perhaps it is an immoral play: perhaps the situations are a little too 'risky', the dialogue a little too strong, the 'business' a little too suggestive.
I don't say that conscience is quite easy: but the piece is so clever, I must see it this once! I'll begin a stricter life to-morrow." To-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow!
"Who sins in hope, who, sinning, says,
'Sorrow for sin God's judgement stays!'
Against God's Spirit he lies; quite stops Mercy with insult; dares, and drops,
Like a scorch'd fly, that spins in vain
Upon the axis of its pain,
Then takes its doom, to limp and crawl,
Blind and forgot, from fall to fall."
Let me pause for a moment to say that I believe this thought, of the possibility of death--if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die.
But, once realise what the true object is in life--that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds'--but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man--and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!
One other matter may perhaps seem to call for apology--that I should have treated with such entire want of sympathy the British passion for 'Sport', which no doubt has been in by-gone days, and is still, in some forms of it, an excellent school for hardihood and for coolness in moments of danger.
But I am not entirely without sympathy for genuine 'Sport': I can heartily admire the courage of the man who, with severe bodily toil, and at the risk of his life, hunts down some 'man-eating' tiger: and I can heartily sympathize with him when he exults in the glorious excitement of the chase and the hand-to-hand struggle with the monster brought to bay. But I can but look with deep wonder and sorrow on the hunter who, at his ease and in safety, can find pleasure in what involves, for some defenceless creature, wild terror and a death of agony: deeper, if the hunter be one who has pledged himself to preach to men the Religion of universal Love: deepest of all, if it be one of those 'tender and delicate' beings, whose very name serves as a symbol of Love--'thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women'--whose mission here is surely to help and comfort all that are in pain or sorrow!
'Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.' ~ Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Above all else, be consistent. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 2:Above all shadows rides the sun. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 3:Above all, don't lie to yourself. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 4:Above all, do not lie to yourself. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 5:What I am after, above all, is expression. ~ henri-matisse, @wisdomtrove 6:You shall above all things be glad and young. ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 7:Above all, India is the land of religion. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 8:For a host, above all, must be kind to his guests. ~ dr-seuss, @wisdomtrove 9:Man is, above all, he who creates. ~ antoine-de-saint-exupery, @wisdomtrove 10:Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 11:This above all: be true, be true, be true. ~ nathaniel-hawthorne, @wisdomtrove 12:Zeus detests above all the boasts of a proud tongue. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 13:Above all else , the devil can not stand to be mocked. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 14:One reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking. ~ aldous-huxley, @wisdomtrove 15:The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 16:The organization is, above all, social. It is people. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 17:Above all, you want to create something you're proud of. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 18:Faith is, above all, openness; an act of trust in the unknown. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 19:Christ is not valued at all, unless he is valued above all. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 20:To sell is above all to master the art and science of listening. ~ tom-peters, @wisdomtrove 21:I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all. ~ michelangelo, @wisdomtrove 22:Only one flagFlies above all the rest:The flag of universal oneness. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 23:Above all I commend the study of Christ. Let Him be your library. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 24:Men honor property above all else; it has the greatest power in human life. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 25:A peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 26:Nothing is so high and above all danger that is not below and in the power of God. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove 27:It's all right for a woman to be, above all, human. I am a woman first of all. ~ anais-nin, @wisdomtrove 28:Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 29:Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all be pure ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 30:Above all, an artist must never be too easily satisfied with what he has done. ~ henri-matisse, @wisdomtrove 31:I think, above all, the characters in my novels feel universal to the readers. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 32:There must be must be a first mover existing above all ‚Äì and this we call God. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 33:Freedom is a very great reality, but it means above all things, freedom from lies. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 34:There must be must be a first mover existing above all ‚Äì and this we call God. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 35:To succeed, work hard, never give up and above all cherish a magnificent obsession. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove 36:Humility is my best friend, I've always valued it above all other spiritual qualities. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 37:If there is one path above all others to war, it is the path of weakness and disunity. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 38:For whoever knows how to return a kindness he has received must be a friend above all price. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 39:Above all, innovation is not invention. It is a term of economics rather than of technology. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 40:What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 41:Purity, patience and perseverance are the three essentials to success and above all love. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 42:Defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom, and above all futility. ~ antoine-de-saint-exupery, @wisdomtrove 43:Man is effective in the world not only through what he does, but above all through what he is. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 44:Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your good health has vanished. ~ og-mandino, @wisdomtrove 45:Above all, we are coming to understand that the arts incarnate the creativity of a free people. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 46:Whoever loves above all the approach of love will never know the joy of attaining it. ~ antoine-de-saint-exupery, @wisdomtrove 47:In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 48:When everything that can be let go of is let go of, what remains is what we desire above all else. ~ rupert-spira, @wisdomtrove 49:To get someone to pose, you have to be very good friends and above all speak the language. ~ pierre-auguste-renoir, @wisdomtrove 50:The best way to live above all fear of death is to die every morning before you leave your bedroom. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 51:Remember above all that mental stability comes by examining the contents of the mind, not by avoidence. ~ vernon-howard, @wisdomtrove 52:I put the Scriptures above all the sayings of the fathers, angels, men and devils. Here I take my stand. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 53:What Christ does in us and through us will always be & 54:Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all else, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 55:There are some elements in life - above all, sexual pleasure - about which it isn't necessary to have a position. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove 56:But man is freer than all the animals, on account of his free-will, with which he is endowed above all other animals. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 57:Oh, now, now, now, the only now, and above all now, and there is no other now but thou now and now is thy prophet. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 58:Virgil, above all poets, had a stock which I may call almost inexhaustible, of figurative, elegant, and sounding words. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 59:But man is freer than all the animals, on account of his free-will, with which he is endowed above all other animals. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 60:Parliament will train you to talk; and above all things to hear, with patience, unlimited quantities of foolish talk. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 61:Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 62:His love for Frodo rose above all other thoughts, and forgetting his peril he cried aloud: & 63:You are engaged in a work so spiritual, so far above all human power, that to forget the Spirit is to ensure defeat. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 64:It took me twenty years to discover painting: twenty years looking at nature, and above all, going to the Louvre. ~ pierre-auguste-renoir, @wisdomtrove 65:Drawing is . . . not an exercise of particular dexterity, but above all a means of expressing intimate feelings and moods. ~ henri-matisse, @wisdomtrove 66:Desire nothing except desirelessness. Hope for nothing except to rise above all hopes. Want nothing and you will have everything. ~ meher-baba, @wisdomtrove 67:I have always been a martial artist by choice, an actor by profession, but above all, am actualising myself to be an artist of life. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 68:This above all; to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 69:Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart: for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 70:We must seek, above all, a world of peace; a world in which peoples dwell together in mutual respect and work together in mutual regard. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 71:Face your path with courage, don't be scared of people's criticism. And, above all, don't let yourself get paralyzed by your own criticism. ~ paulo-coelho, @wisdomtrove 72:I came to feel how far above All fancy, pride, and fickle maidenhood, All earthly pleasure, all imagined good, Was the warm tremble of a devout kiss. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 73:A man in the right, with God on his side, is in the majority, though he be alone, for God is multitudinous above all populations of the earth. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 74:As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 75:Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 76:True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 77:Hold on to your own ideal. . . . Above all, never attempt to guide or rule others, or, as the Yankees say, "boss" others. Be the servant of all. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 78:The main motive for nonattachment is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 79:Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure. ~ oliver-sacks, @wisdomtrove 80:Serenity is when you get above all this, when it doesn't matter what they think, say or want, but when you do as you are, and see God and Devil as one. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 81:Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 82:Above all, you must maintain a positive mental attitude, looking for the good in every situation, and remain determined to be a completely positive person. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 83:I am Thy servant to do Thy will, and that will is sweeter to me than position or riches or fame, and I choose it above all things on Earth or in Heaven. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 84:Lack of money means discomfort, means squalid worries, means shortage of tobacco, means ever-present consciousness of failure-above all, it means loneliness. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 85:The atmosphere of orthodoxy is always damaging to prose, and above all it is completely ruinous to the novel, the most anarchical of all forms of literature. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 86:Let it not be a beautiful face,' I thought, & 87:Be hopeful at all times and walk in faith, but above all seek love an walk in it. God is love, and when we walk in love we show Him to those we come in contact with. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 88:Your most important tasks and priorities are those that can have the most serious consequences, positive or negative, on your life or work. Focus on these above all. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 89:God dwells in His creation and is everywhere indivisibly present in all His works. He is transcendent above all His works even while He is immanent within them. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 90:If you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 91:Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 92:If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 93:you shall above all things be glad and young For if you're young, whatever life you wear it will become you and if you are glad whatever's living will yourself become. ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove 94:Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 95:The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 96:And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 97:If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else. I know. An overwhelming passion for it. No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong. ~ anthony-de-mello, @wisdomtrove 98:Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes. ~ henri-cartier-bresson, @wisdomtrove 99:Divine love does not weigh down, nor carry his servant captive and enslaved to the lowest depths, but raises him, supports him and magnifies him above all liberty whatsoever. ~ giordano-bruno, @wisdomtrove 100:Be guided by the axiom: There are no limits to the ability to contribute on the part of a properly selected, well-trained, appropriately supported, and, above all, committed person. ~ tom-peters, @wisdomtrove 101:I no longer think that learning how to manage people, especially subordinates, is the most important for executives to learn. I am teaching above all else, how to manage oneself. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 102:When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 103:Government should uphold-and not undermine-those institutions which are custodians of the very values upon which civilization is founded: religion, education and, above all, family. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 104:You get to know people as individuals. The dreams of people may differ, but everybody wants their dreams to come true. And America, above all places, gives us the freedom to do that ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 105:But how shall I get ideas? "Keep your wits open! Observe! Observe! Study! Study! But above all, Think! Think! And when a noble image is indelibly impressed upon the mind - Act! ~ orison-swett-marden, @wisdomtrove 106:The book [ A Passage to India ] shows signs of fatigue and disillusionment; but it has chapters of clear and triumphant beauty, and above all it makes us wonder, what will he write next? ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 107:Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defence against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can‚Äôt touch and see. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 108:Everything in my past, in my training, everything that has been most essential in my activity up to now has made me above all a man who writes, and it is too late for that to change. ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 109:And not only the pride of intellect, but the stupidity of intellect. And, above all, the dishonesty, yes, the dishonesty of intellect. Yes, indeed, the dishonesty and trickery of intellect. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 110:When pressure mounts and strain increases everyone begins to show the weaknesses in his makeup. It is up to the Commander to conceal his: above all to conceal doubt, fear, and distrust. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove 111:Let us show, not merely in great crises, but in every day of life, qualities of practical intelligence, of hardihood and endurance, and above all, the power of devotion to a lofty ideal. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 112:But if you search further, you find in yourself nothing similar to God, but rather you affirm that God stands above all this as cause, origin, and the light of life of your intellective soul. ~ nicholas-of-cusa, @wisdomtrove 113:Closer of lovely eyes to lovely dreams, Lover of loneliness, and wandering, Of upcast eye, and tender pondering! Thee must I praise above all other glories That smile us on to tell delightful stories. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 114:After all, what is reading but a vice, like drink or venery or any other form of excessive self-indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one's mind; one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking. ~ aldous-huxley, @wisdomtrove 115:By patriotism is meant, not only spontaneous, instinctive love for one's own nation, and preference for it above all other nations, but also the belief that such love and preference are good and useful. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 116:[Chinese] are a huge empire now, you'll soon be - in a few years two billion people in the world. So, you should be more compassionate, more understanding. And above all, you don't need all their trouble. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 117:Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should forget civility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined nature. Above all, it should never ask for leave where there is a right of way. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 118:... if there was anything at all in the Book, anything of hope and peace for His blind and bewildered spawn which He had chosen above all others to offer immortality, THOU SHALT NOT KILL must be it... ~ william-faulkner, @wisdomtrove 119:Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good - above all, that we are better than someone else - I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 120:Whatever the political affiliation of our next President, whatever his views may be on all the issues and problems that rush in upon us, he must above all be the chief executive in every sense of the word. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 121:Above all, during the interval, change from ego orientation to task orientation. Think: I know this seems like a personal insult, but it is not. It is a challenge to be overcome that calls on skills I have. ~ martin-seligman, @wisdomtrove 122:At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is. And, above all, accept these things. ~ albert-camus, @wisdomtrove 123:Lying is not only excusable; it is not only innocent; it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. Without the ameliorations that it offers, life would become a mere syllogism and hence too metallic to be borne. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 124:[T]here is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men, and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 125:Above all, meditation is about letting the mind be as it is and knowing something about how it is in this moment. It’s not about getting somewhere else, but about allowing yourself to be where you already are. ~ jon-kabat-zinn, @wisdomtrove 126:A growing community must integrate three elements: a life of silent prayer, a life of service and above all of listening to the poor, and a community life through which all its members can grow in their own gift. ~ jean-vanier, @wisdomtrove 127:I want you to adore the Universe, to be easily delighted, but to be prompt as well with impatience with those artists who offend your own deep notions of what the Universe is or should be. ‘This above all ... ’ ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 128:True friends don‚Äôt spend time gazing into each other‚Äôs eyes. They may show great tenderness towards each other but they face in the same direction - toward common projects, goals - above all, towards a common Lord. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 129:Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, openness - an act of trust in the unknown. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 130:Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 131:A living language is like a man suffering incessantly from small hemorrhages, and what it needs above all else is constant transactions of new blood from other tongues. The day the gates go up, that day it begins to die. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 132:For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 133:To be a minister means above all to become powerless, or in more precise terms, to speak with our powerlessness to the condition of powerlessness which is so keenly felt but so seldom expressed by the people of our age. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 134:In religion above all things the only thing of use is an objective truth. The only God that is of use is a being who is personal, supreme and good, and whose existence is as certain as that two and two make four. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove 135:But I'm glad you'll see me as I am. Above all, I wouldn't want people to think that I want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything, I just want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. I have that right, haven't I? ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 136:The Earth should not be cut up into hundreds of different sections, each inhabited by a self-defined segment of humanity that considers its own welfare and its own "national security" to be paramount above all other consideration. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 137:We delight in one knowable thing, which comprehends all that is knowable; in one apprehensible, which draws together all that can be apprehended; in a single being that includes all, above all in the one which is itself the all. ~ giordano-bruno, @wisdomtrove 138:To be truly Catholic is not merely to be correct according to an abstractly universal standard of truth, but also and above all to be able to enter into the problems and the joys of all, to understand all, to be all things to all. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 139:Do not resist the evil-doer and take no part in doing so, either in the violent deeds of the administration, in the law courts, the collection of taxes, or above all in soldiering, and no one in the world will be able to enslave you. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 140:The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 141:It is a harmful feeling, because it disturbs advantageous and joyous, peaceful relations with other peoples, and above all produces that governmental organization under which power may fall, and does fall, into the, hands of the worst men. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 142:But the power of God cannot be so determined and measured, for it is uncircumscribed and immeasurable, beyond and above all that is or may be. On the other hand, it must be essentially present at all places, even in the tiniest tree leaf. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 143:Though here at journey's end I lie In darkness buried deep, Beyond all towers strong and high, Beyond all mountains steep, Above all shadows rides the Sun And Stars for ever dwell: I will not say the Day is done, Nor bid the Stars farewell. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 144:Above all, beware of compromises. I do not mean that you are to get into antagonism with anybody, but you have to hold on to your own principles in weal or woe and never adjust them to others "fads" thought the greed of getting supporters. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 145:You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 146:Above all you must illumine your own soul with its profundities and its shallows, and its vanities and its generosities, and say what your beauty means to you or your plainness, and what is your relation to the ever-changing and turning world. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 147:The parallel circumstances and kindred images to which we readily conform our minds are, above all other writings, to be found in the lives of particular persons, and therefore no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 148:But if Soul is sinless, how come the expiations? Here surely is a contradiction; on the one side the Soul is above all guilt; on the other, we hear of its sin, its purification, its expiation; it is doomed to the lower world, it passes from body to body. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove 149:If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot‚ ¶reading is the creative center of a writer’s life,¶you cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 150:Above all, the sitter must be made to forget about the camera and the photographer who is handling it. Complicated equipment and light reflectors and various other items of hardware are enough, to my mind, to prevent the birdie from coming out. ~ henri-cartier-bresson, @wisdomtrove 151:What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 152:I began to realize that the most profound wisdom of man was rooted in the answers given by faith and that I did not have the right to deny them on the grounds of reason; above all, I realized that these answers alone can form a reply to the question of life. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 153:I don't paint women, I paint pictures. . . What I am after above all is expression. If in a portrait I put eyes, a nose, a mouth, there isn't much use; on the contrary it paralyses the imagination of the spectator, and obliges us to see the person in a certain way. ~ henri-matisse, @wisdomtrove 154:Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 155:Hitherto the plans of the educationalists have achieved very little of what they attempted, and indeed we may well thank the beneficent obstinacy of real mothers, real nurses, and (above all) real children for preserving the human race in such sanity as it still possesses. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 156:I hate this world, this dream, this horrible nightmare, with its churches and chicaneries, its books and blackguardisms, its fair faces and false hearts, its howling righteousness on the surface and utter hollowness beneath and, above all, its sanctified shopkeeping! ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 157:I've translated a lot of American literature into Japanese, and I think that what makes a good translator is, above all, a feel for language and also a great affection for the work you're translating. If one of those elements is missing the translation won't be worth much. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 158:Once we know our own soul rising still higher, we sing the divinity of the Mind [which produced it], and above all these, the mighty King of that dominion (the Absolute), who, while remaining as He is, yet creates that multitude, all dependent on Him, existing by Him and from Him. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove 159:Among many other weighty objections to the Measure, it has been suggested, that it has a tendency to introduce religious disputes into the Army, which above all things should be avoided, and in many instances would compel men to a mode of Worship which they do not profess. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 160:Above all, a query letter is a sales pitch and it is the single most important page an unpublished writer will ever write. It's the first impression and will either open the door or close it. It's that important, so don't mess it up. Mine took 17 drafts and two weeks to write. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 161:There is indeed one element in human destiny that not blindness itself can controvert: whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed; failure is the fate allotted. It is so in every art and study; it is so above all in the continent art of living well. ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove 162:A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and - above all - responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 163:The whole function of the life of prayer is, then, to enlighten and strengthen our conscience so that it not only knows and perceives the outward, written precepts of the moral and divine laws, but above all lives God's law in concrete reality by perfect and continual union with His will. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 164:It is not only our hatred of others that is dangerous but also and above all our hatred of ourselves: particularly that hatred of ourselves which is too deep and too powerful to be consciously faced. For it is this which makes us see our own evil in others and unable to see it in ourselves. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 165:My writing model is my mother, who is a writer as well. She always valued clarity and simplicity above all else. If someone doesn't understand what you're writing, then everything else you do is superfluous. Irrelevant. If any thoughtful, curious reader finds what I do impenetrable, I've failed. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 166:..have always known that my destiny was, above all, a literary destiny ‚ that bad things and some good things would happen to me, but that, in the long run, all of it would be converted into words. Particularly the bad things, since happiness does not need to be transformed: happiness is its own end. ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove 167:May I be born again and again, and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls-and, above all, my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species, is the special object of my worship. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 168:All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life; but among all those which the world has invented there is none more to be feared than the theater. It is a representation of the passions so natural and so delicate that it excites them and gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 169:Don't take the ego too seriously. When you detect egoic behaviour in yourself, smile. At times you may even laugh. How could humanity have been taken in by this for so long? Above all, know that the ego isn't personal. It isn't who you are. If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that's just more ego. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 170:Children, don't waste a single second. Serve others, above all the poor, expecting nothing in return. Just as the person who offers God flowers is the first to enjoy their fragrance, the person who offers compassion is the first to receive its blessing. Wherever a heart beats with compassion: God is there. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 171:The universe may be made up of atoms bouncing around like billiard balls, or quantum particles coming in and out of existence, or superstrings weaving some vast web of appearances. But above all, surely, life is a story. The story of you. The story of me. The story of nature. The story of endlessly unfolding possibilities. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 172:Yoga is the rule book for playing the game of Life, but in this game no one needs to lose. It is tough, and you need to train hard. It requires the willingness to think for yourself, to observe and correct, and to surmount occasional setbacks. It demands honesty, sustained application, and above all love in your heart. ~ b-k-s-iyengar, @wisdomtrove 173:When you begin to worry, go find something to do. Get busy being a blessing to someone; do something fruitful. Talking about your problem or sitting alone, thinking about it, does no good; it serves only to make you miserable. Above all else, remember that worrying is totally useless. Worrying will not solve your problem. ~ joyce-meyer, @wisdomtrove 174:I am made by a God: from that God I came perfect above all forms of life, adequate to my function, self-sufficing, lacking nothing: for I am the container of all, that is, of every plant and every animal, of all the Kinds of created things, and many Gods and nations of Spirit-Beings and lofty souls and men happy in their goodness. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove 175:Patriotism is "a very definite feeling of preference for one's own people or State above all other peoples and States, and a consequent wish to get for that people or State the greatest advantages and power that can be got - things which are obtainable only at the expense of the advantages and power of other peoples or States." ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 176:Teach him a certain refinement in sorting out and selecting his arguments, with an affection for relevance and so for brevity. Above all let him be taught to throw down his arms and surrender to truth as soon as he perceives it, whether the truth is born at his rival's doing or within himself from some change in his ideas. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove 177:The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 178:Not thine the sorrow, but ours, sainted soul! Thou hast indeed entered into the promised land, while we are yet on the march. To us remain the rocking of the deep, the storm upon the land, days of duty and nights of watching; but thou are sphered high above all darkness and fear, beyond all sorrow and weariness. Rest, oh, weary heart! ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 179:Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove 180:If the earth is man's extended body, to be loved and respected as one's own body, those who do no greening of themselves will hardly bring about the greening of America. The idea of & 181:love wasn't possible in just a couple of days. Love could be set in motion quickly, but true love needed time to grow into something strong and enduring. Love was, above all, about commitment and dedication and a belief that spending years with a certain person would create something greater than the sum of what the two can accomplish separately. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 182:You can go through your whole life telling yourself that life is logical, life is prosaic, life is sane. Above all sane. And I think it is. I've had a lot of time to think about that. And what I keep coming back to is [her] dying declaration: & 183:You are therefore able to run on this path, on which God is found above all vision, hearing, taste, touch, smell, speech, sense, rationality, and intellect. It is found as none of these, but rather above everything as God of gods and King of all kings. Indeed, the King of the world of the intellect is the King of kings and Lord of lords in the universe. ~ nicholas-of-cusa, @wisdomtrove 184:Others, one suspects, are afraid that the crossing of space , and above all contact with intelligent but nonhuman races, may destroy the foundations of their religious faith . They may be right, but in any event their attitude is one which does not bear logical examination for a faith which cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets. ~ arthur-c-carke, @wisdomtrove 185:There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what, are at once disposed to turn their backs on everything good in him, and to see only what is bad. There are people, on the other hand, who desire above all to find in that lucky rival the qualities by which he has outstripped them, and seek with a throbbing ache at heart only what is good. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 186:Because we are unqualifiedly and without reservation against any system of denominational schools, maintained by the adherents of any creed with the help of state aid, therefore, we as strenuously insist that the public schools shall be free from sectarian influences, and above all, free from any attitude of hostility to the adherents of any particular creed. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 187:There are two famous labyrinths where our reason very often goes astray. One concerns the great question of the free and the necessary, above all in the production and the origin of Evil. The other consists in the discussion of continuity, and of the indivisibles which appear to be the elements thereof, and where the consideration of the infinite must enter in. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 188:The deeper we look, the more we shall be convinced that the one thing wanting, which we must strive to acquire before all others, is strength strength physical, strength mental, strength moral, but above all strength spiritual which is the one inexhaustible and imperishable source of all the others. If we have strength everything else will be added to us easily and naturally. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 189:Let the Negro march. Let him make pilgrimages to city hall. Let him go on freedom rides. And above all, make an effort to understand why he must do this. For if his frustration and despair are allowed to continue piling up, millions of Negroes will seek solace and security in black-nationalist ideologies. And this, inevitably, would lead to a frightening racial nightmare. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 190:Rama, the ancient idol of the heroic ages, the embodiment of truth, of morality, the ideal son, the ideal husband, and above all, the ideal king, this Rama has been presented before us by the great sage Valmiki. No language can be purer, none chaster, none more beautiful, and at the same time simpler, than the language in which the great poet has depicted the life of Rama. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 191:Yet suppose further. Suppose that all worlds, all universes, met at a single nexus, a single pylon, a Tower. And within it, a stairway, perhaps rising to the Godhead itself. Would you dare climb to the top, gunslinger? Could it be that somewhere above all of endless reality, there exists a room?... ' You dare not.' And in the gunslinger's mind, those words echoed: You dare not. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 192:To be honest, to be kind-to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends but these without capitulation-above all, on the same grim condition to keep friends with himself-here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy. ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove 193:New York! The white prisons, the sidewalks swarming with maggots, the breadlines, the opium joints that are built like palaces, the kikes that are there, the lepers, the thugs, and above all, the ennui, the monotony of faces, streets, legs, houses, skyscrapers, meals, posters, jobs, crimes, loves... A whole city erected over a hollow pit of nothingness. Meaningless. Absolute meaningless. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 194:Ending inflation means freeing all Americans from the terror of runaway living costs. ... We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we are in a time when there are no heroes just don't know where to look. ... Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 195:This above all — ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple “I must,” then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it. ~ rainer-maria-rilke, @wisdomtrove 196:Begin this moment, wherever you find yourself, and take no thought of the morrow. Look not to Russia, China, India, not to Washington, not to the adjoining county, city or state, but to your immediate surroundings. Forget Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and all the others. Do your part to the best of your ability, regardless of the consequences. Above all, do not wait for the next man to follow suit. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 197:Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 198:All things in the natural world symbolize God, yet none of them speak of him but in broken and imperfect words. High above all he sits, sublimer than mountains, grander than storms, sweeter than blossoms and tender fruits, nobler than lords, truer than parents, more loving than lovers. His feet tread the lowest places of the earth; but his head is above all glory, and everywhere he is supreme. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 199:And above all, you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and panelling‚Ķthe question should never be: ‚ÄòDo I like that kind of service?‚Äô but ‚ÄòAre these doctrines true: Is holiness there? Does my conscience move me towards this? Is my reluctance to move to this door due to my pride, or my mere taste, or my personal dislike for this particular door-keeper? ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 200:Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 201:It was not reason that besieged Troy; it was not reason that sent forth the Saracen from the desert to conquer the world; that inspired the crusades; that instituted the monastic orders; it was not reason that produced the Jesuits; above all, it was not reason that created the French Revolution. Man is only great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 202:Contemporary man is blind to the fact that, with all his rationality and efficiency, he is possessed by "powers" that are beyond his control. His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. They keep him on the run with restlessness, vague apprehensions, psychological complications, an insatiable need for pills, alcohol, tobacco, food - and, above all, a large array of neuroses. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove 203:People who have intended and loved what is evil in the world intend and love what is evil in the other life, and then they no longer allow themselves to be led away from it. This is why people who are absorbed in evil are connected to hell and actually are there in spirit; and after death they crave above all to be where their evil is. So after death, it is we, not the Lord, who cast ourselves into hell. ~ emanuel-swedenborg, @wisdomtrove 204:Learn obedience first. Among these Western nations, with such a high spirit of independence, the spirit of obedience is equally strong. We are all of us self-important, which never produces any work. Great enterprise, boundless courage, tremendous energy, and, above all, perfect obedience; these are the only traits that lead to individual and national regeneration. These traits are altogether lacking in us. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 205:God's love has a width, length, height, and depth, but we will never reach the end of it. Our capacity to experience God's love will be exhausted long before God's capacity to give it is strained. The picture of having Christ dwell inside us by faith presents us with compelling and comforting possibilities. What Christ does in us and through us will always be & 206:The English tourist in American literature wants above all things something different from what he has at home. For this reason the one American writer whom the English whole-heartedly admire is Walt Whitman. There, you will hear them say, is the real American undisguised. In the whole of English literature there is no figure which resembles his - among all our poetry none in the least comparable to Leaves of Grass ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 207:Commonly, people believe that defeat is characterized by a general bustle and a feverish rush. Bustle and rush are the signs of victory, not of defeat. Victory is a thing of action. It is a house in the act of being built. Every participant in victory sweats and puffs, carrying the stones for the building of the house. But defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom. And above all of futility. ~ antoine-de-saint-exupery, @wisdomtrove 208:For, above all, I hold a notion of possibility and necessity according to which there are some things that are possible, but yet not necessary, and which do not really exist. From this it follows that a reason that always forces a free mind to choose one thing over another (whether that reason derives from the perfection of a thing, as it does in God, or from our imperfection) does not eliminate our freedom. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 209:If there's one American belief I hold above all others, it's that those who would set themselves up in judgment on matters of what is "right" and what is "best" should be given no rest; that they should have to defend their behavior most stringently. ... As a nation, we've been through too many fights to preserve our rights of free thought to let them go just because some prude with a highlighter doesn't approve of them ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 210:Whatever discipline you exercise should be based on the goal your child is eventually to reach, namely, freedom and happiness. I would show him towards what he is growing, his ultimate fulfilment, and help him to adapt himself to that. In everything that you do, you should keep the goal in view, and hence your discipline must aim at helping the child to realize that at a certain stage he will be above all discipline. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 211:To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 212:Too many writers think that all you need to do is write well-but that's only part of what a good book is. Above all, a good book tells a good story. Focus on the story first. Ask yourself, & 213:All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer sight to almost everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things. ~ aristotle, @wisdomtrove 214:Your goal in life should be to enjoy the highest levels of health and energy possible. This requires that you eat the right foods and fewer of them. It requires you to get regular exercise and move every joint of your body daily. To enjoy superb physical health, you must get lots of rest and recreation. Above all, you maintain a positive mental attitude, looking for the good in every situation, and remain determined to be a completely positive person. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 215:Human beings need community. If there are no communities available for constructive ends, there will be destructive, murderous communities... Only the social sector, that is, the nongovernmental, nonprofit organization, can create what we now need, communities for citizens... What the dawning 21st century needs above all is equally explosive growth of the nonprofit social sector in building communities in the newly dominant social environment, the city. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 216:If people lacked the capacity to receive the thoughts of the men who preceded them and to pass on to others their own thoughts, men would be like wild beasts. And if men lacked this other capacity of being infected by art, people would be almost more savage still, and, above all, more separated from and more hostile to one another. Therefore the activity of art is a most important one, as important as the activity of speech itself and as generally diffused. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 217:No matter how successful, beloved, influential her work was, when a woman author dies, nine times out of ten, she gets dropped from the lists, the courses, the anthologies, while the men get kept. ... If she had the nerve to have children, her chances of getting dropped are higher still. ... So if you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 218:The enemies of living life; outdated little liberals, afraid of their own independence; lackeys of thought, enemies of the person and freedom, decrepit preachers of carrion and rot! What do they have: gray heads, the golden mean, the most abject and philistine giftlessness, envious equality, equality without personal dignity, equality as understood by a lackey or a Frenchman of the year ninety-three... And scoundrells, above all, scoundrels, scoundrels everywhere! ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 219:Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been before the general gaze from the foundations of the world - the figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine. It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure for headache, it infallibly prevented hair from turning gray, it imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the National Razor which shaved close: who kissed La Guillotine looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 220:There cannot be two almighty beings in this world. [Imagine having] two or three Gods; one will create the world, another says, "I will destroy the world." It [can] never happen. There must be one God. The soul attains to perfection; [it becomes] almost omnipotent [and] omniscient. This is the worshipper. Who is the worshipped? He, the Lord God Himself, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient, and so on. And above all, He is Love. How is [the soul] to attain this perfection? By worship. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 221:Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems bad to you in yourself is purified by the very fact that you have noticed it in yourself. And avoid fear, though fear is simply the consequence of every lie. Never be frightened at your own faintheartedness in attaining love, and meanwhile do not even be very frightened by your own bad acts. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 222:Above all, it is imperative to extirpate the idea that any fantastic, mysterious practices are required for the attainment of higher knowledge. It must be clearly realized that a start has to be made with the thoughts and feelings with which we continually live, and that these feelings and thoughts must merely be given a new direction. Everyone must say to himself: In my own world of thought and feeling the deepest mysteries lie hidden, only hitherto I have been unable to perceive them. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 223:So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern... Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 224:For even satire is a form of sympathy. It is the way our sympathy flows and recoils that really determines our lives. And here lies the vast importance of the novel, properly handled. It can inform and lead into new places our sympathy away in recoil from things gone dead. Therefore the novel, properly handled, can reveal the most secret places of life: for it is the passional secret places of life, above all, that the tide of sensitive awareness needs to ebb and flow, cleansing and freshening. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 225:Journey’s end In western lands beneath the Sun The flowers may rise in Spring, The trees may bud, the waters run, The merry finches sing. Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night, And swaying branches bear The Elven-stars as jewels white Amid their branching hair. Though here at journey's end I lie In darkness buried deep, Beyond all towers strong and high, Beyond all mountains steep, Above all shadows rides the Sun And Stars for ever dwell: I will not say the Day is done, Nor bid the Stars farewell.J. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 226:I believe this nation hungers for a spiritual revival; hungers to once again see honor placed above political expediency; to see government once again the protector of our liberties, not the distributor of gifts and privilege. Government should uphold and not undermine those institutions which are custodians of the very values upon which civilization is founded-religion, education and, above all, family. Government cannot be clergyman, teacher and patriot. It government is our servant, beholden to us. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 227:In a really equal democracy, every or any section would be represented, not disproportionately, but proportionately. ... Unless they are, there is not equal government, but a government of inequality and privilege: one part of the people rule over the rest: there is a part whose fair and equal share of influence in the representation is withheld from them, contrary to all just government, but, above all, contrary to the principle of democracy, which professes equality as its very root and foundation. ~ john-stuart-mill, @wisdomtrove 228:Taste, if it mean anything but a paltry connoisseurship, must mean a general susceptibility to truth and nobleness, a sense to discern, and a heart to love and reverence all beauty, order, goodness, wheresoever, or in whatsoever forms and accompaniments they are to be seen. This surely implies, as its chief condition, not any given external rank or situation, but a finely-gifted mind, purified into harmony with itself, into keenness and justness of vision; above all, kindled into love and generous admiration. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 229:Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 230:We in the United States, above all, must remember that lesson, for we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. And so we must remain. Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 231:No man could bring himself to reveal his true character, and, above all, his true limitations as a citizen and a Christian, his true meannesses, his true imbecilities, to his friends, or even to his wife. Honest autobiography is therefore a contradiction in terms: the moment a man considers himself, even in petto, he tries to gild and fresco himself. Thus a man's wife, however realistic her view of him, always flatters him in the end, for the worst she sees in him is appreciably better, by the time she sees it, than what is actually there. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 232:There is much to be done, there is much that can be done... One person of integrity, can make a difference, a difference of life and death. As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 233:What are the characters that I discern most clearly in the so-called Anglo-Saxon type of man? I may answer at once that two stickout above all others. One is his curious and apparently incurable incompetence& 234:I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure that God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do enter your room, you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep on praying for light: and of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and paneling. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 235:We shall not attempt to give the reader an idea of that tetrahedron nose-that horse-shoe mouth-that small left eye over-shadowed by a red bushy brow, while the right eye disappeared entirely under an enormous wart-of those straggling teeth with breaches here and there like the battlements of a fortress-of that horny lip, over which one of those teeth projected like the tusk of an elephant-of that forked chin-and, above all, of the expression diffused over the whole-that mixture of malice, astonishment, and melancholy. Let the reader, if he can, figure to himself this combination. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 236:Another thing I noticed was that I do not need to make an effort; the deed follows the thought, without delay and friction. I have also found that thoughts become self-fulfilling; things would fall in place smoothly and rightly. The main change was in the mind; it became motionless and silent, responding quickly, but not perpetuating the response. Spontaneity became a way of life, the real became natural and the natural became real. And above all, infinite affection, love, dark and quiet, radiating in all directions, embracing all, making all interesting and beautiful, significant and auspicious. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 237:We say that the cause of all things, who is Himself above all things, is neither without being nor without life, nor without reason nor without intelligence; nor is He a body nor has He form or shape, or quality or quantity or mass; He is not localised or visible or tangible; He is neither sensitive nor sensible; He is subject to no disorder or disturbance arising from material passion; He is not subject to failure of power, or to the accidents of sensible things; He needs no light; He suffers no change or corruption or division, or privation or flux; and He neither has nor is anything else that belongs to the senses. ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove 238:Thus the divine Bartholomew says that Theology is both much and very little, and that the Gospel is great and ample, and yet short. His sublime meaning is, I think, that the beneficent cause of all things says much, and says little, and is altogether silent, as having neither (human) speech nor (human) understanding, since He is essentially above all created things, and manifests Himself unveiled, and as He truly is to those only who pass beyond all that is either pure or impure, who rise above the highest height of holy things, who abandon all divine light and sound and heavenly speech, and are absorbed into that darkness where, as the Scripture says, He truly is, who is beyond all things. ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove 239:Darkness is destroyed by light, especially by much light; ignorance is destroyed by knowledge, especially by much knowledge. You must understand this as implying not privation, but transcendence and so you must say with absolute truth, that the ignorance which is of God is unknown by those who have the created light and the knowledge of created things, and that His transcendent darkness is obscured by any light, and itself obscures all knowledge. And if any one, seeing God, knows what he sees, it is by no means God that he so sees, but something created and knowable. For God abides above created intellect and existence, and is in such sense unknowable and non-existent that He exists above all existence and is known above all power of knowledge. Thus the knowledge of Him who is above all that can be known is for the most part ignorance. ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove 240:The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance. The great discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was the discovery that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions. Premodern traditions of knowledge such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism asserted that everything that is important to know about the world was already known. The great gods, or the one almighty God, or the wise people of the past possessed all-encompassing wisdom, which they revealed to us in scriptures and oral traditions. Ordinary mortals gained knowledge by delving into these ancient texts and traditions and understanding them properly. It was inconceivable that the Bible, the Qur’an or the Vedas were missing out on a crucial secret of the universe – a secret that might yet be discovered by flesh-and-blood creatures. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 241:The divine darkness is the inaccessible light in which God is said to dwell. And since He is invisible by reason of the abundant outpouring of supernatural light, it follows that whosoever is counted worthy to know and see God, by the very fact that he neither sees nor knows Him, attains to that which is above sight and knowledge, and at the same time perceives that God is beyond all things both sensible and intelligible, saying with the Prophet, Thy knowledge is become wonderful to me; it is high, and I cannot reach to it. In like manner, St Paul, we are told, knew God, when he knew Him to be above all knowledge and understanding; wherefore he says that His ways are unsearchable and His judgments inscrutable, His gifts unspeakable, and His peace passing all understanding; as one who had found Him who is above all things, and whom he had perceived to be above knowledge, and separate from all things, being the Creator of all. ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove 242:The divine darkness is the inaccessible light in which God is said to dwell. And since He is invisible by reason of the abundant outpouring of supernatural light, it follows that whosoever is counted worthy to know and see God, by the very fact that he neither sees nor knows Him, attains to that which is above sight and knowledge, and at the same time perceives that God is beyond all things both sensible and intelligible, saying with the Prophet, “Thy knowledge is become wonderful to me; it is high, and I cannot reach to it. In like manner, St Paul, we are told, knew God, when he knew Him to be above all knowledge and understanding; wherefore he says that His ways are unsearchable and His judgments inscrutable, His gifts unspeakable, and His peace passing all understanding; as one who had found Him who is above all things, and whom he had perceived to be above knowledge, and separate from all things, being the Creator of all. ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove 243:But see that none of the uninitiated hear these things. I mean those who cleave to created things, and suppose not that anything exists after a supernatural manner, above nature; but imagine that by their own natural understanding they know Him who has made darkness His secret place. But if the principles of the divine mysteries are above the understanding of these, what is to be said of those yet more untaught, who call the absolute First Cause of all after the lowest things in nature, and say that He is in no way above the images which they fashion after various designs; of whom they should declare and affirm that in Him as the cause of all, is all that may be predicated positively of created things; while yet they might with more propriety deny these predicates to Him, as being far above all; holding that here denial is not contrary to affirmation, since He is infinitely above all notion of deprivation, and above all affirmation and negation. ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove 244:Divinity above all knowledge, whose goodness passes understanding . . . direct our way to the summit of thy mystical oracles, most incomprehensible, most lucid and most exalted, where the simple and pure and unchangeable mysteries of theology are revealed in the darkness, clearer than light, of that silence in which secret things are hidden; a darkness that shines brighter than light, that invisibly and intangibly illuminates with splendours of inconceivable beauty the soul that sees not. Let this be my prayer; but do thou, diligently giving thyself to mystical contemplation, leave the senses, and the operations of the intellect, and all things sensible and intelligible, and things that are and things that are not, that thou mayest rise as may be lawful for thee, by ways above knowledge to union with Him who is above all knowledge and all being; that in freedom and abandonment of all, thou mayest be borne, through pure, entire and absolute abstraction of thyself from all things, into the supernatural radiance of the divine darkness. ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove 245:“Divinity above all knowledge, whose goodness passes understanding . . . direct our way to the summit of thy mystical oracles, most incomprehensible, most lucid and most exalted, where the simple and pure and unchangeable mysteries of theology are revealed in the darkness, clearer than light, of that silence in which secret things are hidden; a darkness that shines brighter than light, that invisibly and intangibly illuminates with splendours of inconceivable beauty the soul that sees not. Let this be my prayer; but do thou, diligently giving thyself to mystical contemplation, leave the senses, and the operations of the intellect, and all things sensible and intelligible, and things that are and things that are not, that thou mayest rise as may be lawful for thee, by ways above knowledge to union with Him who is above all knowledge and all being; that in freedom and abandonment of all, thou mayest be borne, through pure, entire and absolute abstraction of thyself from all things, into the supernatural radiance of the divine darkness. ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove 246:Because in proportion as we ascend higher our speech is contracted to the limits of our view of the purely intelligible; and so now, when we enter that darkness which is above understanding, we pass not merely into brevity of speech, but even into absolute silence, and the negation of thought. Thus in the other treatises our subject took us from the highest to the lowest, and in the measure of this descent our treatment of it extended itself; whereas now we rise from beneath to that which is the highest, and accordingly our speech is restrained in proportion to the height of our ascent; but when our ascent is accomplished, speech will cease altogether, and be absorbed into the ineffable. But why, you will ask, do we add in the first and begin to abstract in the last? The reason is that we affirmed that which is above all affirmation by comparison with that which is most nearly related to it, and were therefore compelled to make a hypothetical affirmation; but when we abstract that which is above all abstraction, we must distinguish it also from those things which are most remote from it. Is not God more nearly life and goodness than air or a stone; must we not deny more fully that He is drunken or enraged, than that He can be spoken of or understood? ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove 247:Again, ascending, we say that He is neither soul nor intellect; nor has He imagination, nor opinion or reason; He has neither speech nor understanding, and is neither declared nor understood; He is neither number nor order, nor greatness nor smallness, nor equality nor likeness nor unlikeness; He does not stand or move or rest; He neither has power nor is power; nor is He light, nor does He live, nor is He life; He is neither being nor age nor time; nor is He subject to intellectual contact; He is neither knowledge nor truth. nor royalty nor wisdom; He is neither one nor unity, nor divinity, nor goodness; nor is He spirit, as we understand spirit; He is neither sonship nor fatherhood nor anything else known to us or to any other beings, either of the things that are or the things that are not; nor does anything that is, know Him as He is, nor does He know anything that is as it is; He has neither word nor name nor knowledge; He is neither darkness nor light nor truth nor error; He can neither be affirmed nor denied; nay, though we may affirm or deny the things that are beneath Him, we can neither affirm nor deny Him; for the perfect and sole cause of all is above all affirmation, and that which transcends all is above all subtraction, absolutely separate, and beyond all that is. ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove 248:It was not without a deeper meaning that the divine Moses was commanded first to be himself purified, and then to separate himself from the impure; and after all this purification heard many voices of trumpets, and saw many lights shedding manifold pure beams: and that he was thereafter separated from the multitude and together with the elect priests came to the height of the divine ascents. Yet hereby he did not attain to the presence of God Himself; he saw not Him (for He cannot be looked upon), but the place where He was. This, I think, signifies that the divinest and most exalted of visible and intelligible things are, as it were, suggestions of those that are immediately beneath Him who is above all, whereby is indicated the presence of Him who passes all understanding, and stands, as it were, in that spot which is conceived by the intellect as the highest of His holy places; then that they who are free and untrammelled by all that is seen and all that sees enter into the true mystical darkness of ignorance, whence all perception of understanding is excluded, and abide in that which is intangible and invisible, being wholly absorbed in Him who is beyond all things, and belong no more to any, neither to themselves nor to another, but are united in their higher part to Him who is wholly unintelligible, and whom, by understanding nothing, they understand after a manner above all intelligence. ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Above all, don't lose hope ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
2:Above all, respect thy sell. ~ Pythagoras, #NFDB
3:A man is above all his will ~ Prabhavananda, #NFDB
4:Above all else, be consistent. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
5:Above all, tell the truth. ~ Grover Cleveland, #NFDB
6:Above all else show the data. ~ Edward R Tufte, #NFDB
7:Above all, I dislike vulgarity. ~ Diane Kruger, #NFDB
8:Above all, keep it simple. ~ Auguste Escoffier, #NFDB
9:Chess is, above all, a fight. ~ Emanuel Lasker, #NFDB
10:Above all, try something ~ Franklin D Roosevelt, #NFDB
11:Above all, art should be fun. ~ Alexander Calder, #NFDB
12:Above all shadows rides the sun. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
13:Above all things, respect yourself. ~ Pythagoras, #NFDB
14:Place principle above all else. ~ Haile Selassie, #NFDB
15:Above all have respect for yourself. ~ Pythagoras, #NFDB
16:People's Fury is above all the furies. ~ Chanakya, #NFDB
17:Above all, keep your colors fresh! ~ Edouard Manet, #NFDB
18:Above all things, reverence yourself. ~ Pythagoras, #NFDB
19:Above all things I believe in love. ~ Ewan McGregor, #NFDB
20:I value loyalty above all else. ~ Alexandra Christo, #NFDB
21:Above all the mighty detest change. ~ R Scott Bakker, #NFDB
22:Humankind above all is lazy. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe, #NFDB
23:Above all, be the heroine of your life. ~ Nora Ephron, #NFDB
24:Above all, don't lie to yourself. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
25:above all, don’t share your secrets. ~ Laura Thalassa, #NFDB
26:Above all, do not lie to yourself. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
27:Fashion is above all an art of change. ~ John Galliano, #NFDB
28:the heart is deceitful above all things, ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
29:Clarity, above all, has been my aim. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
30:Family is important above all else. ~ Tess Uriza Holthe, #NFDB
31:Love is, above all, the gift of oneself. ~ Jean Anouilh, #NFDB
32:To bee beloved is above all bargaines. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
33:What I'd like to be above all is a writer. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
34:Above all things, reverence yourself. ~ A P J Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
35:What people want, above all, is order. ~ Stephen Gardiner, #NFDB
36:Above all else, I want to See. ~ A Course in Miracles#acim, #NFDB
37:But the heart is deceitful above all things. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
38:I love you above all things, even pie. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
39:Peace above all, until the War comes... ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
40:What I am after, above all, is expression. ~ Henri Matisse, #NFDB
41:You must write for yourself, above all. ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
42:But Above all things truth beareth away the victory ~ Plato, #NFDB
43:My daughter loves singing above all else. ~ Vanessa Paradis, #NFDB
44:...the heart is deceitful above all things... ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
45:This above all, to refuse to be a victim. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
46:you shall above all things be glad and young ~ E E Cummings, #NFDB
47:Above all, do not attempt to be exhaustive. ~ Roland Barthes, #NFDB
48:Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
49:You shall above all things be glad and young. ~ e e cummings, #NFDB
50:Above all, India is the land of religion. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
51:For a host, above all, must be kind to his guests. ~ Dr Seuss, #NFDB
52:Man is, above all, he who creates. ~ Antoine de Saint Exupery, #NFDB
53:Writing is above all a question of instinct. ~ Anthony Powell, #NFDB
54:Adoration is caring for God above all else. ~ Evelyn Underhill, #NFDB
55:Human nature is above all things lazy. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe, #NFDB
56:Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
57:Art seems to me to be above all a state of soul. ~ Marc Chagall, #NFDB
58:This Above All: To Thine Own Self Be True ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
59:This above all; to your own self be true. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
60:Above all banish the thought of the “I.” ~ Fo-shu-hing-tsan-kiug, #NFDB
61:But above all, in order to be, never try to seem. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
62:I admit it: above all things, I fear absurdity. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
63:This above all: be true, be true, be true. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
64:This above all: to thine own self be true. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
65:This above all; to thine own self be true. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
66:Though God may be Love, God is Truth above all. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
67:When we worship God, we reverence Him above all ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
68:Youth is above all a collection of possibilities. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
69:Zeus detests above all the boasts of a proud tongue. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
70:Above all, a director has to be a good captain. ~ Charlton Heston, #NFDB
71:Above all, leadership is a position of servanthood. ~ Max De Pree, #NFDB
72:I've always had an obligation to creation, above all. ~ Nick Cave, #NFDB
73:What Ireland needs now above all else is peace. ~ Albert Reynolds, #NFDB
74:Above all else , the devil can not stand to be mocked. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
75:Daughter . . . above all else, guard your heart. ~ Karen Kingsbury, #NFDB
76:Wealth is above all an accumulation of possibilities ~ Gabriel Zaid, #NFDB
77:Above all, practice being loyal to your Soul. ~ Roger Delano Hinkins, #NFDB
78:The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
79:Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim. ~ Nora Ephron, #NFDB
80:Above all, don’t get clever, just think as others do. ~ Anton Chekhov, #NFDB
81:Above all, don’t think, for what you think happens! ~ Jeff VanderMeer, #NFDB
82:Above all else I am a dilettante in life. ~ Leopold von Sacher Masoch, #NFDB
83:Above all, war was a reminder of the savagery of life. ~ Max Hastings, #NFDB
84:A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind. ~ Eugene Ionesco, #NFDB
85:The organization is, above all, social. It is people. ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB
86:Above all else, do not fear to climb the victory tower. ~ Kate Elliott, #NFDB
87:Above all else, never think you're not good enough. ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB
88:Above all, trust in the slow work of God. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #NFDB
89:... one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
90:She listened to her heart above all the other voices. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
91:Three cheers for war, noble and beautiful above all. ~ Benito Mussolini, #NFDB
92:Music is still above all else the thing that does it for me ~ Bob Geldof, #NFDB
93:Above all, be the heroine of your own life, not the victim. ~ Nora Ephron, #NFDB
94:Chanel is above all a style. Fashion passes, style remains. ~ Coco Chanel, #NFDB
95:Do what you must, but do it well, above all enjoy yourself! ~ Oliver Reed, #NFDB
96:Trust few men; above all, keep your follies to yourself. ~ Walter Raleigh, #NFDB
97:Above all, you want to create something you're proud of. ~ Richard Branson, #NFDB
98:power created two things above all else: corruption and sheep ~ Sean Platt, #NFDB
99:To know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. ~ Flannery O Connor, #NFDB
100:Faith is, above all, openness; an act of trust in the unknown. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
101:I love poetry and my country above all else in the world. ~ Fyodor Tyutchev, #NFDB
102:A work of art really is above all an adventure of the mind. ~ Eug ne Ionesco, #NFDB
103:I love good sense above all, perhaps because I have none. ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
104:Madison loathed Hamilton and loved Jefferson above all. ~ Richard Brookhiser, #NFDB
105:Poetry is, above all, an approach to the truth of feeling. ~ Muriel Rukeyser, #NFDB
106:Self-discovery is above all the realization that we are alone. ~ Octavio Paz, #NFDB
107:Christ is not valued at all, unless he is valued above all. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
108:Paradise is, above all, the state in which the soul feels clean. ~ Ivan Kl ma, #NFDB
109:The most tremendous genius raised Mozart above all masters, ~ Richard Wagner, #NFDB
110:The saying of Vatican II is above all, 'Conscience is supreme.' ~ Dorothy Day, #NFDB
111:The task I'm trying to achieve, above all, is to make you see. ~ D W Griffith, #NFDB
112:To sell is above all to master the art and science of listening. ~ Tom Peters, #NFDB
113:Above all, it is a matter of loving art, not understanding it. ~ Fernand Leger, #NFDB
114:Above all, I try to create an emotion to which others can respond. ~ Hal David, #NFDB
115:Beauty lies mainly, above all, in personality, not in the skin. ~ Eva Longoria, #NFDB
116:I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all. ~ Michelangelo, #NFDB
117:True science teaches, above all, to doubt and be ignorant. ~ Miguel de Unamuno, #NFDB
118:We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. ~ Marie Curie, #NFDB
119:Artists are, above all, men who want to become inhuman. ~ Guillaume Apollinaire, #NFDB
120:Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself. ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #NFDB
121:Strategy is, above all else, the search for above average returns. ~ Gary Hamel, #NFDB
122:The human body is something that I truly love, above all else. ~ Giorgio Armani, #NFDB
123:what we are above all other things, is individual and different. ~ Gitta Sereny, #NFDB
124:Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. ~ Solomon, #NFDB
125:All ancient polytheisms revered one high god above all others. ~ Lesley Hazleton, #NFDB
126:God is the finger; God is writing; God, is above all else, words. ~ Simon Schama, #NFDB
127:It means that a programming language should, above all, be malleable. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
128:Keats longed for fame, but longed above all to deserve it. ~ James Russell Lowell, #NFDB
129:Rabbits need dignity and above all the will to accept their fate. ~ Richard Adams, #NFDB
130:That which the Fascists hate above all else, is intelligence. ~ Miguel de Unamuno, #NFDB
131:This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, ~ Michael A Singer, #NFDB
132:Truth above all, even when it upsets us and overwhelms us. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel, #NFDB
133:What cannot be said above all must not be silenced but written. ~ Jacques Derrida, #NFDB
134:Only one flagFlies above all the rest:The flag of universal oneness. ~ Sri Chinmoy, #NFDB
135:That which the fascists hate, above all else, is intelligence. ~ Miguel de Unamuno, #NFDB
136:The true vagrant is the only king above all comparison. ~ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, #NFDB
137:Who values gold above all, considers all else as trifling. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater, #NFDB
138:Above all else, guard your heart for it affects everything else you do. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
139:A garden is a grand teacher... above all it teaches entire trust. ~ Gertrude Jekyll, #NFDB
140:Courage, above all things, is the first quality of a warrior. ~ Carl von Clausewitz, #NFDB
141:Happiness is above all things the calm, glad certainty of innocence. ~ Henrik Ibsen, #NFDB
142:Lastly, do I vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things. ~ Catherine of Aragon, #NFDB
143:Rabbits need dignity and, above all, the will to accept their fate. ~ Richard Adams, #NFDB
144:Above all I commend the study of Christ. Let Him be your library. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
145:Above all, life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference ~ Robert Frank, #NFDB
146:Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
147:Death has no sense of the ridiculous, above all at our age. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
148:No one can be a painter unless he cares for painting above all else. ~ Edouard Manet, #NFDB
149:Pleas don't above all, plant me in your heart. I grow to quick. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
150:Precepts, conventions - above all traditions - have no value in art. ~ Eleanora Duse, #NFDB
151:What I perceive, is above all justice, where everyone has the same law. ~ Imran Khan, #NFDB
152:Above all, my dear Lucilius, make this your business: learn how to feel joy. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
153:For above all else, the Christian life is a love affair of the heart. ~ John Eldredge, #NFDB
154:Resistance hates two qualities above all others: concentration and depth. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
155:What I learned on the road. Above all else - to love my native land. ~ Charles Kuralt, #NFDB
156:Above all else, products spread when they're useful and they're usable ~ Kevin Systrom, #NFDB
157:Above all, let the poor hang up the amulet of temperance in their homes. ~ Horace Mann, #NFDB
158:Christ is not valued at all, unless he is valued above all. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #NFDB
159:It is so good, so sweet and above all, so beneficial to suffer. ~ Bernadette Soubirous, #NFDB
160:It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
161:Never charge a player and, above all, no pointing your finger or yelling. ~ Ford Frick, #NFDB
162:The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable. Who can know it? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
163:Without one friend, above all foes, Britannia gives the world repose. ~ William Cowper, #NFDB
164:Above all things, and at all times, practice yourself in good humor. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
165:I advocate glamour. Everyday. Every minute" "Glamour above all things. ~ Dita Von Teese, #NFDB
166:I wish to you, joy and happiness. But above all this, I wish you love ~ Whitney Houston, #NFDB
167:Men honor property above all else; it has the greatest power in human life. ~ Euripides, #NFDB
168:Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
169:Silence is a profound melody, for those who can hear it above all the noise. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
170:Take care of God’s creation. But above all, take care of people in need. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
171:The prison, above all others, should be the most human of institutions. ~ Eugene V Debs, #NFDB
172:Above all, don’t fear difficult moments. The best comes from them ~ Rita Levi Montalcini, #NFDB
173:The man Jack was, above all things, a professional, or so he told himself, ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
174:Above all, if what you've done is stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid. ~ Robert Fulghum, #NFDB
175:Be your own guide, confidant and advisor. Trust yourself above all others. ~ Truth Devour, #NFDB
176:I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all. ~ Michelangelo Buonarroti, #NFDB
177:Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet ~ Henry Mintzberg, #NFDB
178:Nothing is so high and above all danger that is not below and in the power of God. ~ Ovid, #NFDB
179:The conclusion I have reached is that, above all, dogs are witnesses. ~ Carolyn Parkhurst, #NFDB
180:Why does evil seek out the weakest and the humblest? And above all, why me? ~ Jason Letts, #NFDB
181:I care about life and I have a record of fighting for people above all else. ~ Wendy Davis, #NFDB
182:It's all right for a woman to be, above all, human. I am a woman first of all. ~ Anais Nin, #NFDB
183:Phoenix was square and straight, boxy and boxed in, and above all, fake. ~ Jeannette Walls, #NFDB
184:Then live your life, above all things. Make use of your I while you have it. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
185:Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones. ~ Benjamin Disraeli, #NFDB
186:For this game you need, above all things, to be in a tranquil frame of mind. ~ Harry Vardon, #NFDB
187:Men of action, above all those whose actions are guided by love, live forever. ~ Jose Marti, #NFDB
188:The heart is deceitful above all things and desperated wicked: who can know it? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
189:Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
190:Above all things avoid heedlessness; it is the enemy of all virtues. ~ Fo-shu-hiug-tsan-king, #NFDB
191:Above all things we must be aware of what I will call 'inert ideas' ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
192:But beautiful girl above all beautiful girls,' he wrote back, 'This is my home. ~ Junot D az, #NFDB
193:Every sin flows from the failure to treasure the glory of God above all things. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
194:Good things are gradual; bad things are sudden. Above all, good things evolve. ~ Matt Ridley, #NFDB
195:Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge, That no king can corrupt. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
196:Love is a sickness. Some kind of a pathogen existing above all explanation. ~ Craig Davidson, #NFDB
197:Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all be pure ~ Virginia Woolf, #NFDB
198:The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? ~ Jeremiah, #NFDB
199:True love is above all reliable. So we do the best we can to follow through, ~ Heather Lende, #NFDB
200:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
201:Above all else, align with customers. Win when they win. Win only when they win. ~ Jeff Bezos, #NFDB
202:"Above all, Freud's attitude toward the spirit seemed to me highly questionable." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
203:Above all, man must learn once again what he is and why he was created. ~ Rama P Coomaraswamy, #NFDB
204:The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
205:Therefore, there must be a first mover existing above all—and this we call God. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
206:Under stress, they seek composure above all. But they do not find equanimity. ~ Sherry Turkle, #NFDB
207:Above all, an artist must never be too easily satisfied with what he has done. ~ Henri Matisse, #NFDB
208:Above all, be patient. Transforming yourself and your life is a gradual process. ~ Roger Walsh, #NFDB
209:..home INSIDE is home shining brightly above all homes in physical world. ~ Christina Westover, #NFDB
210:One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem,above all other sciences,is ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
211:That which above all other yields the sweetest smell in the air is the violet. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
212:Who we love above all else is who we worship, and who we worship controls us. ~ Edward T Welch, #NFDB
213:Genius does not only pertain to the brain, it belongs above all to the heart. ~ Juliette Drouet, #NFDB
214:23 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
215:Above all, I am a sister, and a fierce one at that. I will find my brother. ~ MarcyKate Connolly, #NFDB
216:Above all, I shall see to it that the enemy will not be able to drop any bombs. ~ Hermann Goring, #NFDB
217:Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. ~ Katie Cotugno, #NFDB
218:COL3.14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
219:If thou wouldst he happy and easie in thy Family, above all things observe Discipline. ~ Various, #NFDB
220:In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish only for the attainable. ~ Heinrich Heine, #NFDB
221:I think, above all, the characters in my novels feel universal to the readers. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
222:There are boys and girls, there is night and day, but above all there is love. ~ Dries van Noten, #NFDB
223:Above all, cancer is a spiritual practice that teaches me about faith and resilience. ~ Kris Carr, #NFDB
224:Above all, I know that life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference. ~ Robert Frank, #NFDB
225:Above all, train hard, eat light, and avoid TV and people with negative attitudes. ~ Scott Tinley, #NFDB
226:A man is rich not only by what he has, but also, and above all, by what he doesn't. ~ Neel Burton, #NFDB
227:Freedom is a very great reality, but it means above all things, freedom from lies. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
228:Please don’t, above all,
plant me in your heart.
I grow too quick. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
229:To succeed, work hard, never give up and above all cherish a magnificent obsession. ~ Walt Disney, #NFDB
230:Understanding that he relies on all that surrounds him, a knight is kind above all. ~ Ethan Hawke, #NFDB
231:We must wash literature off ourselves. We want to be men above all, to be human. ~ Antonin Artaud, #NFDB
232:Writers learn their craft, above all, from the work of other writers. From reading. ~ Marie Arana, #NFDB
233:14And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
234:...above all, do not fret until you know that you really have a cause for it. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #NFDB
235:Death does not frighten me, but dying obscurely and above all uselessly does. ~ Isabelle Eberhardt, #NFDB
236:How can one remain free of every weakness, above all of the most deadly, of love? ~ Bertolt Brecht, #NFDB
237:Love is kind, love is patient but also, mainly, above all—yes—Love is perverted. ~ Caroline Kepnes, #NFDB
238:Man is a foolish creature who wants above all to have someone else know about him. ~ Yasushi Inoue, #NFDB
239:Men from the mountains always dream of the sea, and above all things I love to travel. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
240:That was what Christians were called to do, after all, choose love above all else. ~ Sierra Simone, #NFDB
241:The art of those who govern consists above all in the science of employing words. ~ Gustave Le Bon, #NFDB
242:Above all, remember that the computer simply isn't as intelligent as you are. ~ John Paul Caponigro, #NFDB
243:Above all, our freedom endures because of the men and women in uniform who defend it. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
244:A foraging wild creature, intent above all upon survival, is as strong as the grass. ~ Richard Adams, #NFDB
245:call on the lives of his people has always been, above all else, a call to himself. He ~ Russ Ramsey, #NFDB
246:I choose this story above all others because it's a story I'm struggling to end. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
247:Our wardrobe needs to be more versatile, and, above all, it needs to be comfortable. ~ Giorgio Armani, #NFDB
248:PSA57.11 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
249:The Lord shall have made his American Israel high above all nations which he hath made. ~ Ezra Stiles, #NFDB
250:There must be must be a first mover existing above all – and this we call God. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
251:The word "hedonistic" to me means pleasure above all else. My pleasure above all else. ~ Fred Melamed, #NFDB
252:Above all, live in the present moment and God will give you all the grace you need. ~ Francois Fenelon, #NFDB
253:Above all things, I delight in listening to stories, and sometimes in telling them. ~ George MacDonald, #NFDB
254:A man's passion for the mountain is, above all, his childhood which refuses to die. ~ Francois Mauriac, #NFDB
255:Britain is characterized not just by its independence but, above all, by its openness. ~ David Cameron, #NFDB
256:I possess every good quality, but the one that distinguishes me above all is modesty. ~ Charles Richet, #NFDB
257:It is by our power to suffer, above all, that we are of more value than the sparrows. ~ Edith Hamilton, #NFDB
258:"Life is unfair" "The goalposts will move" and above all: "other people matter" ~ Christopher Peterson, #NFDB
259:Objectification is above all exteriorization, the alienation of spirit from itself. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev, #NFDB
260:The true feeling of sex is that of a deep intimacy, but above all of a deep complicity. ~ James Dickey, #NFDB
261:Above all, be compassionate. This is a stand against all evil and it opens your spirit. ~ Ming Dao Deng, #NFDB
262:Above all Christians are not allowed to correct by violence sinful wrongdoings. ~ Clement of Alexandria, #NFDB
263:Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). ~ John Townsend, #NFDB
264:above all, I knew love. In me and beside me and around me. Behind me and before me. ~ Lisa Tawn Bergren, #NFDB
265:Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
266:Humility is my best friend, I've always valued it above all other spiritual qualities. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
267:If there is one path above all others to war, it is the path of weakness and disunity. ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
268:I reminded myself that the heart is deceitful above all things - Addison Goodheart pg. 88 ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
269:One who is always deeply involved in what he is doing is above all embarrassment. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
270:She liked the idea of 'cordially'. It had a rich, a thick and above all an alcoholic sound. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
271:The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? ~ James MacDonald, #NFDB
272:There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit. ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
273:To speak...means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization. ~ Frantz Fanon, #NFDB
274:A living being seeks, above all, to discharge its strength. Life is will to power. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
275:And above all, have fervent love for one another: for love shall cover the multitude of sins ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
276:But above all preserve peace of heart. This is more valuable than any treasure. ~ Margaret Mary Alacoque, #NFDB
277:Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
278:Education with inert ideas is not only useless; it is above all things harmful. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
279:For whoever knows how to return a kindness he has received must be a friend above all price. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
280:Love is a great thing, a good above all others, which alone maketh every burden light. ~ Thomas a Kempis, #NFDB
281:The highest ideals are human intelligence, creativity and love. Respect these above all. ~ Penn Jillette, #NFDB
282:The spiritual leader should outpace the rest of the church, above all, in prayer. And ~ J Oswald Sanders, #NFDB
283:Watch against lip religion. Above all abide in Christ and he will abide in you. ~ Robert Murray M Cheyne, #NFDB
284:As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all we must dare to fail. ~ John Cassavetes, #NFDB
285:But the one who seeks the Lord above all will find himself fully satisfied and secure in God. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
286:Humans seek connection above all else, and we are willing to destroy things to attain it. ~ Tarryn Fisher, #NFDB
287:I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
288:I'm an intellectual, but I've always had jobs that required physical labor above all else. ~ Niall Matter, #NFDB
289:I would like to explain that I consider prayer above all an act of gratitude for existence. ~ Saul Bellow, #NFDB
290:Love thyself above all, because everything in the world is founded on self-interest. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
291:Scorpios, above all others, have the ability to transform selfish poison into universal love. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
292:She was the whole package. She was beautiful, educated, independent, and above all witty. ~ Jennifer Foor, #NFDB
293:The constitution is an instrument, above all, for LIMITING the functions of government. ~ Barry Goldwater, #NFDB
294:The one truth he knew above all else was that faith had no power unless it was chosen freely. ~ Ryk Brown, #NFDB
295:Careerism: the self-centered philosophy of governing to win the next election above all else. ~ Tom Coburn, #NFDB
296:Do you, like Hector, think of your family above all and weaken your resolve by doing that? ~ Adam Nicolson, #NFDB
297:God aims to look valuable in the world, and that happens when we treasure him above all else. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
298:In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all, be a sheep. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
299:Law school teaches you one thing above all: how to speak while saying absolutely nothing. ~ Krysten Ritter, #NFDB
300:Those who seek peace above all else, they say, will always deceive to keep the water calm. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
301:We should write, above all, because we are writers, whether we call ourselves that or not. ~ Julia Cameron, #NFDB
302:14And above all these put on j love, which k binds everything together in l perfect harmony. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
303:Above all else, above the mechanics, even, a doctor should be thoroughly grounded in morality. ~ M R Graham, #NFDB
304:Above all else, tragedy requires the finest appreciation by the writer of cause and effect. ~ Arthur Miller, #NFDB
305:For Christians above all men are forbidden to correct the stumblings of sinners by force. ~ John Chrysostom, #NFDB
306:Happiness is a combination of inner peace, economic viability, and above all, world peace. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
307:Never underestimate the enemy, above all if he is a stupid one and deserves to be killed. ~ William C Brown, #NFDB
308:Seek above all for a game worth playing- such is the advice of the oracle to modern man. ~ Robert S de Ropp, #NFDB
309:Some people wish above all to conform to the rules, I wish only to render what I can hear. ~ Claude Debussy, #NFDB
310:There is one rule, above all others, for being a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet. ~ Robert Jordan, #NFDB
311:Those who seek to honor the Lord above all else will put thought into what they say in worship. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
312:Above all, innovation is not invention. It is a term of economics rather than of technology. ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB
313:Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.” – Peter 4:18 ~ Corinne Michaels, #NFDB
314:Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with its light. Above all things reverence thyself. ~ Pythagoras, #NFDB
315:Being a Christian... is a character which I prize far above all this world has or can boast. ~ Patrick Henry, #NFDB
316:I 1wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
317:Instrumental or mechanical science is the noblest and above all others, the most useful. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB
318:Nihilism is not only despair and negation, but above all the desire to despair and to negate. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
319:What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ. ~ George Washington, #NFDB
320:Instrumental or mechanical science is the noblest and, above all others, the most useful. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB
321:Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty. ~ John Grogan, #NFDB
322:Purity, patience and perseverance are the three essentials to success and above all love. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
323:The human being places sexual intercourse above all other joys, but leaves it out of his heaven. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
324:1CH16.25 For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised: he also is to be feared above all gods. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
325:Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. —KING SOLOMON (PROV. 4:23) ~ John Eldredge, #NFDB
326:Art requires, above all things, a suppression of self, a subordination of one's self to an idea. ~ Henry James, #NFDB
327:Defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom, and above all futility. ~ Antoine de Saint Exupery, #NFDB
328:Greedy corporations sought profits above all else and a corrupt Senate did nothing to stop them, ~ Paul S Kemp, #NFDB
329:May God in his mercy lead us through these times; but above all, may he lead us to himself. . . ~ Eric Metaxas, #NFDB
330:Put profit above all else—country, family, God—and there wasn’t much left to stop you getting it. ~ Kate Quinn, #NFDB
331:The novel is, above all, an intense experience of prolonged intimacy with another consciousness. ~ Jane Smiley, #NFDB
332:Why do we desire, above all other things, that which has the greatest power to destroy us? ~ Margaret Rogerson, #NFDB
333:With this life,” Petal told her, “may you learn to love friendship and loyalty above all things. ~ Erin Hunter, #NFDB
334:Above all, we know that the Most High God is with us, and what enemy can conquer Him? ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
335:A heart like mine, which never got any kind of affection growing up, is terrible above all things. ~ Junot D az, #NFDB
336:He is my king, he is my warrior, he is my husband and I am proud to say above all… he is mine. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
337:If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
338:I keep my work in perspective. I place my happiness, health, relationships, and joy above all else. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
339:I prayed the Lord would sort (my prayers) out and answer as needed. Above all that he would hurry. ~ Leif Enger, #NFDB
340:It’s that kind of energy and creativity and above all faith in yourself that you need right now. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
341:Man is effective in the world not only through what he does, but above all through what he is. ~ Rudolf Steiner, #NFDB
342:One is always a little afraid of love, but above all, one is afraid of pain or causing pain. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
343:The power of the harasser, the abuser, the rapist depends above all on the silence of women. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
344:Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your good health has vanished. ~ Og Mandino, #NFDB
345:Vanity, shame, and above all disposition, often make men brave and women chaste. ~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld, #NFDB
346:What raises great poetry above all else--it is the entire person and also the entire world. ~ Franz Grillparzer, #NFDB
347:Above all things being fervent in your love among yourselves; for love covereth a multitude of sins. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
348:Above all, we are coming to understand that the arts incarnate the creativity of a free people. ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
349:Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success and, above all, love. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
350:Whoever loves above all the approach of love will never know the joy of attaining it. ~ Antoine de Saint Exupery, #NFDB
351:Above all things expand the frontiers of science: without this the rest counts for nothing. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #NFDB
352:For Christians above all men are forbidden to correct the stumblings of sinners by force. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #NFDB
353:In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
354:May God in His mercy lead us through these times; but above all, may He lead us to Himself. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
355:May God in his mercy lead us through these times; but above all, may he lead us to himself. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
356:The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
357:a boundless contempt for everything outside their art, for society, and above all, for politics. (64) ~ mile Zola, #NFDB
358:Above all, it is not decency or goodness of gentleness that impresses the Middle East, but strength. ~ Meir Kahane, #NFDB
359:Above all the babble of her age and ours, she makes one blunt assertion. And there alone lies Hope. ~ Evelyn Waugh, #NFDB
360:Man is above all else mind, consciousness -- that is, he is a product of history, not of nature. ~ Antonio Gramsci, #NFDB
361:The first reason for people's slavery is our ignorance, and above all, our ignorance of ourselves. ~ G I Gurdjieff, #NFDB
362:To get someone to pose, you have to be very good friends and above all speak the language. ~ Pierre Auguste Renoir, #NFDB
363:You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful. ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
364:Above all, do not talk yourself out of good ideas by trying to expound them at haphazard meetings. ~ Jacques Barzun, #NFDB
365:Above all, I strive to be the best I can - to be better than I was yesterday and better tomorrow. ~ Ellen DeGeneres, #NFDB
366:One can easily tell that the creator of the paintings in the Sistine Chapel was above all a sculptor ~ Edvard Munch, #NFDB
367:Well, God's above all; and there be souls must be saved, and there be souls must not be saved. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
368:A hit man's character is defined above all by narcissism, that complex mix of egotism and self-hatred. ~ Suketu Mehta, #NFDB
369:What Christ does in us and through us will always be 'exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think.' ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
370:Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
371:I was never motivated by money. I think above all else about the happiness of my family, regardless of money. ~ Neymar, #NFDB
372:Society values cooperation over independence, obedience over individuality, and niceness above all else. ~ Sue Grafton, #NFDB
373:The best way to live above all fear of death is to die every morning before you leave your bedroom. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
374:True salvation is freedom from negativity, and above all from past and future as a psychological need. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
375:We learn many virtues in our Christian families. Above all, we learn to love, asking nothing in return. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
376:Above all be of single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it. ~ James Allen, #NFDB
377:Above all, put yourself in partnership with higher power and make love the center of your life. ~ Rosemary Ellen Guiley, #NFDB
378:God doesn’t test us because he enjoys it. He tests us to find out whether we love him above all things. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
379:It is clear that Messi is on a level above all others. Those who do not see that are blind. ~ Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, #NFDB
380:Kate wondered what part of the male brain prioritized movie scene storage above all other details in life. ~ A G Riddle, #NFDB
381:Remember above all that mental stability comes by examining the contents of the mind, not by avoidence. ~ Vernon Howard, #NFDB
382:The liberty of conscience, which above all other things ought to be to all men dearest and most precious. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
383:We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see. ~ Charles Peguy, #NFDB
384:We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see. ~ Charles P guy, #NFDB
385:Above all else, I felt his love. He’d said he couldn’t keep me. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t always be his. ~ T M Frazier, #NFDB
386:Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self. ~ Saint Francis of Assisi, #NFDB
387:Be a physical chemist, an analytical chemist, an organic chemist, if you will; but above all, be a chemist. ~ Ira Remsen, #NFDB
388:But now I knew that true love was above all that and that it would be better to die than to fail to love. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
389:Everything in the world displeases me: but, above all, my displeasure in everything displeases me. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
390:In a sense, every form of expression is imposed upon one by social factors, one's own language above all. ~ Edward Sapir, #NFDB
391:I put the Scriptures above all the sayings of the fathers, angels, men and devils. Here I take my stand. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
392:I think above all else [The Social Network] is a love story. And something of a tragic one, I suppose. ~ Andrew Garfield, #NFDB
393:Prayer succeeds by avoiding conflict. Prayer is, above all things, easy. Its greatest enemy is effort. ~ Neville Goddard, #NFDB
394:You're crying?"
"I'm a woman of the desert," she said, averting her face. "But above all, I'm a woman. ~ Paulo Coelho,#NFDB
395:Above all, Peter, we must be gentle. Self-controlled. This is how others see the love of Christ in us. ~ Roseanna M White, #NFDB
396:Above all, what socialist, without flushing with shame, maintains he is not a revolutionary? We say: none!. ~ Johann Most, #NFDB
397:Great novels are above all great fairy tales . . . literature does not tell the truth but makes it up. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
398:May we generally be happy, generally be witty, generally be honest, but above all always be interesting. ~ Daniel Handler, #NFDB
399:You’re the empire I’d protect. You’re my reason for serving. I want you above all else. You’re my freedom. ~ Sarah Noffke, #NFDB
400:A book which, above all others in the world, should be forbidden, is a catalogue of forbidden books. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #NFDB
401:...above all things; to remember that hypocrisy is the most hopeless as well as the meanest of crimes... ~ Margaret Fuller, #NFDB
402:And above all, I am not interested enough in politics to let them encumber my last days. —DRIEU LA ROCHELLE, ~ Clive James, #NFDB
403:Challenging the status quo takes commitment, courage, imagination, and, above all, dedication to learning. ~ Marshall Ganz, #NFDB
404:I don't want to be chosen above all things, one thing most of all. I want to be a part of someone's whole. ~ Tessa Gratton, #NFDB
405:I only know this, that she thanks God for all her tribulations, and, above all, because her husband is dead. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
406:I’ve missed kissing you,” Murdo said. “I never thought I’d miss kissing above all other activities.” The ~ Joanna Chambers, #NFDB
407:Seek above all for a game worth playing. Play as if your life and sanity depend on it, because they do! ~ Robert S de Ropp, #NFDB
408:Sweet or bitter, I am now convinced that all experience is enriching and rewarding. Above all, instructive. ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
409:Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. ~ Che Guevara, #NFDB
410:Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. ~ Wilfred Owen, #NFDB
411:Every Christian can witness to God in the workplace, not only with words, but above all with an honest life. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
412:Everything in the world displeases me: but, above all, my displeasure in everything displeases me.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#NFDB
413:God is our supreme pleasure. We prefer above all else to know him and see him and be with him and be like him. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
414:Your fellow soldiers had to know that you had their back. That was rule one, lesson one, and above all else. ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
415:Above all avoid taking the advice of men who have no brains and do not know what they are talking about. ~ Sherwood Anderson, #NFDB
416:Friendship above all ties does bind the heart; And faith in friendship is the noblest part. ~ Roger Boyle 1st Earl of Orrery, #NFDB
417:Real freedom is freedom from the opinions of others. Above all, freedom from your opinions about yourself. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
418:This above all makes history useful and desirable; it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions. ~ Livy, #NFDB
419:Valuing knowledge above all else results in a lust for power, and that leads men into dark and empty places. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
420:A peace above all earthly dignities,” she quoted. Then turned back to the room. “A still and quiet conscience. ~ Louise Penny, #NFDB
421:A teacher should, above all things, first induce a desire in the pupil for the acquisition he wishes to impart. ~ Horace Mann, #NFDB
422:It's important to think of every customer as an online celebrity with followers, friends, & above all influence ~ Dave Kerpen, #NFDB
423:Live a while in these books, learn from them what seems to you worth learning, but above all, love them. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
424:Privacy above all else. Some day, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was. ~ Jodie Foster, #NFDB
425:We have had, alas, and still have, the doubtful habit of reverence. Above all, we respect things as they are. ~ Cynthia Ozick, #NFDB
426:What, then, should we have learned from 1989? Perhaps, above all, that nothing is either necessary or inevitable. ~ Tony Judt, #NFDB
427:Above all, she wanted to look as though she had not given the matter a moment's thought, and that would take time ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
428:But I believe above all that I wanted to build the palace of my memory, because my memory is my only homeland. ~ Anselm Kiefer, #NFDB
429:Doggedness depends on emotional traits - enthusiasm and persistence in the face of setbacks - above all else. ~ Daniel Goleman, #NFDB
430:Prayer is, above all, a means of forming character. It combines freedom and power with service and love. What ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
431:They were the makers and enslavers of that life, and above all doubt the originals of the fiendish elder myths ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
432:Yet above all these hangs the moon as our proof, between our legs runs honey and blood. She teaches us in dreams. ~ Peter Grey, #NFDB
433:Above all, she wanted to look as though she had not given the matter a moment's thought, and that would take time. ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
434:Above all, she wanted to look as though she had not given the matter a moment's thought, and that would take time. ~ Ian Mcewan, #NFDB
435:Above all, we know that although Americans can be led to make great sacrifices, they do not like to be driven. ~ Herbert Hoover, #NFDB
436:I like good stories above all else... and kickin' art really goes the final stretch to ensure a comic is good. ~ Robert Kirkman, #NFDB
437:Isn't it funny that in a society that values freedom above all things, things that are free are not valued? ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen, #NFDB
438:She knew that he loved her above all else, more than anything in the world, but only for his own sake. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
439:She knew that he loved her above all else, more than anything in the world, but only for his own sake. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez, #NFDB
440:Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all else, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
441:The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers
But above all
The world needs dreamers who do. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach,#NFDB
442:Treasure the friendship you receive above all. It will survive long after your gold and good health have vanished. ~ Og Mandino, #NFDB
443:Above all, I would not expect a wise race, at great expense, to set loose an army of self-replicating robots. ~ Bernard M Oliver, #NFDB
444:Deregulation has been, above all else, a means of reducing corporate business's accountability to the public. ~ Herbert Schiller, #NFDB
445:Drummed into me, above all, by my dad, by the whole family, was that without your good name, you would be nothing. ~ Arthur Ashe, #NFDB
446:Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. ~ Marie Curie, #NFDB
447:my task is to make you hear,to make you feel ,and ,above all,to make you see,that is all,and it is everything ~ Luis J Rodr guez, #NFDB
448:The brain best remembers things that are repeated, rhythmic, rhyming, structured, and above all easily visualized. ~ Joshua Foer, #NFDB
449:There are some elements in life - above all, sexual pleasure - about which it isn't necessary to have a position. ~ Susan Sontag, #NFDB
450:Xena, above all, remember your destiny. Remember it and fight, fight to come back. This world needs you. I need you. ~ Gabrielle, #NFDB
451:And above all else, remember that the end of a movie (or a TV show, or a play, or a book) is never really the end. ~ Jen Calonita, #NFDB
452:Follow your passion, be prepared to work hard and sacrifice, and, above all, don't let anyone limit your dreams. ~ Donovan Bailey, #NFDB
453:Good was above all kind; it was to be gentle. It was to waste nothing. It was to paint, to read, to study, to listen. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
454:His love for Frodo rose above all other thoughts, and forgetting his peril he cried aloud: 'I'm coming Mr. Frodo! ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
455:Imagination gives the man the ability to poject himself through time and space and rise above all limitations. ~ Charles Fillmore, #NFDB
456:My task is to make you hear, to make you feel,and, above all, to make you see. That is all, and it is everything. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
457:No one is a man of learning unless he is also a heretic and a madman, and above all , aggressively perverse. ~ Francesco Petrarca, #NFDB
458:People who always want to be happy and pursue it above all else are some of the most miserable people in the world. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
459:Reading is pleasure and happiness to be alive or sadness to be alive and above all it's knowledge and questions. ~ Roberto Bolano, #NFDB
460:Reading is pleasure and happiness to be alive or sadness to be alive and above all it's knowledge and questions. ~ Roberto Bola o, #NFDB
461:Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. Matthew 6:33 ~ Tony Dungy, #NFDB
462:The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training - sacrifice. ~ Douglas MacArthur, #NFDB
463:To lie is always a necessity for women; above all when they choose to deceive, falsehood becomes vital to them. ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
464:We must have perserverence and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something. ~ Marie Curie, #NFDB
465:At our present bad moment, we need above all to recover our sense of literary individuality and of poetic autonomy. ~ Harold Bloom, #NFDB
466:Jeremiah 17 it is written, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure, and who can understand it? ~ Abraham Verghese, #NFDB
467:No one remains discouraged by his own failures except he who was vain enough to believe himself above all failure. ~ Rodney Collin, #NFDB
468:The task of pastoral ministry, above all else, is to arrange contingencies for an encounter with the divine. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
469:[W]hen people are ashamed they hold aloof, above all from those nearest to them, and are unreserved with strangers ~ Anton Chekhov, #NFDB
470:Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara, #NFDB
471:Above all, be suspicious of your fatherland. Nobody is more inclined to become a murderer than a fatherland. ~ Friedrich Durrenmatt, #NFDB
472:Above all, never think you're not good enough. Never think that. In life people will take you at your own reckoning. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
473:be creative, and above all to fulfill their highest needs and to feel a sense of purpose. These qualities would make ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
474:I have a responsibility to the woman of today - to make her feel confident, modern and above all else beautiful. ~ Carolina Herrera, #NFDB
475:To find Me and hear My voice, you must seek Me above all else. Anything that you desire more than Me becomes an idol. ~ Sarah Young, #NFDB
476:We need above all to know about changes; no one wants or needs to be reminded 16 hours a day that his shoes are on. ~ David H Hubel, #NFDB
477:What we must remember above all in the education of our children is that their love of life should never weaken. ~ Natalia Ginzburg, #NFDB
478:Above all, saying no became a crucial way of keeping everyone, including himself, focused on what really mattered. ~ Brent Schlender, #NFDB
479:Above all things, never be afraid. The enemy who forces you to retreat is himself afraid of you at that very moment. ~ Andre Maurois, #NFDB
480:And, my friend, above all things, you most definitely, definitely, do not get away with stepping over the red rope. ~ Adrienne Kress, #NFDB
481:As soon as one promises not to do something, it becomes the one thing above all others that one most wishes to do. ~ Georgette Heyer, #NFDB
482:During my medical education at the University of Basle I found vivisection horrible, barbarous and above all unnecessary ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
483:If the choice is between her dignity and having a relationship, the bitch will prioritize her dignity above all else. ~ Sherry Argov, #NFDB
484:Reverence for human personality is the beginning of wisdom, in every social question, but above all in education. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
485:Shall any man be above justice? Above all, shall that man be above it who can commit the most extensive injustice? ~ Andrew McCarthy, #NFDB
486:... the poem reminds us of what we ourselves know, but did not know we knew; reminds us, above all, of what we are. ~ Kathleen Raine, #NFDB
487:We are adjusters. We empathize, we change rhythm and above all we listen to our fellow actors-if they're good actors. ~ Ben Kingsley, #NFDB
488:Above all, ascribe no decent motives to the federal government. Always and everywhere, it is the enemy of truth. ~ Llewellyn Rockwell, #NFDB
489:Above all, have a good time. If you aren’t enjoying writing it, you can hardly expect someone else to enjoy reading it. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
490:But above all with a patriarchal love for his followers. Virtue was rewarded. Injuries avenged. A livelihood guaranteed. ~ Mario Puzo, #NFDB
491:I put artistic values above all others. Because writing, for me, is an expanded world, a limitless world, containing all. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
492:My past life is abundantly full of God's mercy, and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the Crucified. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
493:My past life is abundantly full of God’s mercy, and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the Crucified. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
494:Oh, now, now, now, the only now, and above all now, and there is no other now but thou now and now is thy prophet. ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
495:Socialism isn't just a list of economic prescriptions for government. Perhaps above all, socialism is a moral view. ~ Anderson Cooper, #NFDB
496:There are certain things that our age needs. It needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
497:To love a book is, above all, to love its author: we want to meet him again, we want to spend our days with him. ~ Michel Houellebecq, #NFDB
498:Virgil, above all poets, had a stock which I may call almost inexhaustible, of figurative, elegant, and sounding words. ~ John Dryden, #NFDB
499:We have the men--the skill--the wealth--and above all, the will.... We must be the great arsenal of democracy. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt, #NFDB
500:Lofty peaks of ambition remain to be conquered. With inner strength and fortitude. And a positive attitude, above all. ~ Rashmi Bansal, #NFDB
501:Parliament will train you to talk; and above all things to hear, with patience, unlimited quantities of foolish talk. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
502:You will not succeed unless your men have tenacity and unity of purpose, and above all, a spirit of sympathetic cooperation. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
503:Don't write for the market or for others. Write what you know, love and above all, write what you would love to read. ~ Mark Rubinstein, #NFDB
504:For her a day of pampering meant comic books, black liquorice, serious exercise, veggie curry and, above all, solitude. ~ Salla Simukka, #NFDB
505:Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
506:I make one pledge above all others - to seek and speak the truth with all the resources of mind and spirit I command. ~ George McGovern, #NFDB
507:The child must come first above all else. And pace yourself every day. There is quite a lot you will have to give up. ~ Iman Abdulmajid, #NFDB
508:You are engaged in a work so spiritual, so far above all human power, that to forget the Spirit is to ensure defeat. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
509:Above all, John Galliano menswear is all about good design. And men have been short-changed by good design for too long. ~ John Galliano, #NFDB
510:Above all, the new Left—and its overwhelmingly youthful constituency—rejected the inherited collectivism of its predecessor. ~ Tony Judt, #NFDB
511:someone whose safety and happiness you put above all others. Even if that meant impressing her particularly stuffy family. ~ Chloe Neill, #NFDB
512:There is always a choice, and humanity is constantly seeking to destroy itself. Hate, above all, is the greatest scourge. ~ Jeff Wheeler, #NFDB
513:To be an ethical slut you need to have very good boundaries that are clear, strong, flexible, and, above all, conscious. ~ Dossie Easton, #NFDB
514:Above all, enjoy one another's company. We never know when we'll be able to tell someone "I love you" again - say it often. ~ Chris Kluwe, #NFDB
515:Above all, the Stoics sought wisdom, a condition that I myself hope to achieve after I stop wrecking and burning things. ~ James K Morrow, #NFDB
516:All we know of science or of religion comes from philosophy. It lies behind and above all other knowledge we have or use. ~ L Ron Hubbard, #NFDB
517:If we love God's fame and are committed to magnifying His name above all things, we cannot be indifferent to world missions. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
518:It took me twenty years to discover painting: twenty years looking at nature, and above all, going to the Louvre. ~ Pierre Auguste Renoir, #NFDB
519:Man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
520:One thing above all gives charm to men's thoughts, and this is unrest. A mind that is not uneasy irritates and bores me. ~ Anatole France, #NFDB
521:The man who loves his wife above all else on earth gains the freedom and power to pursue other noble, but lesser, loves. ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
522:the post-9/11 American veneration of security above all else has created a climate particularly conducive to abuses of power. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
523:Drawing is . . . not an exercise of particular dexterity, but above all a means of expressing intimate feelings and moods. ~ Henri Matisse, #NFDB
524:Humility is not weak, powerless, faint, a pushover, a punching bag or an abuse magnet, because above all — humility cares. ~ Bryant McGill, #NFDB
525:In your efforts to dazzle us your reasoning has gone awry. You know very well that love is, above all, the gift of oneself. ~ Jean Anouilh, #NFDB
526:It is possible to be one with all, yet above all. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Vision of the World-Spirit - The Double Aspect, #NFDB
527:Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms. ~ Andrew Jackson, #NFDB
528:The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. ~ Douglas MacArthur, #NFDB
529:What is certain is that for thinking believers to-day, faith is, before all and above all, wishing that God may exist. ~ Miguel de Unamuno, #NFDB
530:Above all, she went on thinking, she understands life because she is not sufficiently intelligent not to understand it. ~ Clarice Lispector, #NFDB
531:He's a husband, he's a king, he's a man but remember above all, my queen, always remember, above all, he...is...a warrior. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
532:I am an actress, a producer, a philanthropist, a wife, and above all a mommy to my beautiful babies, Leonardo and Valentino. ~ Joyce Giraud, #NFDB
533:It is not enough to long for a person as a good for oneself, one must also, and above all, long for that person's good. ~ Pope John Paul II, #NFDB
534:Make your body your prized possession above all physical things. Spare no expense, re-prioritize and invest in your health. ~ Bryant McGill, #NFDB
535:One cannot love a world. It is too large. But a fleck of ground so far as his eye can see, one may hold precious above all. ~ Michael Flynn, #NFDB
536:Optimism approves of everything, submits to everything, believes everything; it is the virtue above all of the taxpayer. ~ Georges Bernanos, #NFDB
537:Poetry, above all is a series of intense moments its power is not in narrative. I'm not dealing with facts, I'm dealing ~ Carol Ann Duffy, #NFDB
538:The old watch the young with anguish, pain, fear. Above all what each has learned is what things cost, what has to be paid. ~ Doris Lessing, #NFDB
539:Above all things-read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied. ~ Ngaio Marsh, #NFDB
540:But man is freer than all the animals, on account of his free-will, with which he is endowed above all other animals. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
541:I got a woman I'm loyal to above all things, above my career. She's profound to me. I'm quiet. I live in Kansas City. I work. ~ James Ellroy, #NFDB
542:I observed a thousand acts of courage, compassion and love [as a POW] and I will always treasure that memory above all others. ~ John McCain, #NFDB
543:It is above all man's social position that decides whether he will sublimate his sadism as a butcher, surgeon, or policeman. ~ Wilhelm Reich, #NFDB
544:life worth living might be measured in many ways, but the one way that stands above all others is living a life of no regrets. ~ Gary Keller, #NFDB
545:Man without religion is the creature of circumstances: Religion is above all circumstances, and will lift him up above them. ~ Augustus Hare, #NFDB
546:The first step of humility is unhesitating obedience which comes naturally to those who cherish Christ above all. ~ Saint Benedict of Nursia, #NFDB
547:The Great Spirit Chief who rules above all will smile upon this land... and this time the Indian race is waiting and praying. ~ Chief Joseph, #NFDB
548:These long-haired girls seemed to glide above all that was happening around them, tragic and separate. Like royalty in exile. I ~ Emma Cline, #NFDB
549:The theatre, like the fresco, is art fitted to its place. And therefore it is above all else the human art, the living art. ~ Romain Rolland, #NFDB
550:Above all, the thrall in which an ideology holds a people is best measured by their collective inability to imagine alternatives. ~ Tony Judt, #NFDB
551:Be brave, be bold and above all be honest, some people will hate you and some will love you but they will all see the real you ~ Renzo Gracie, #NFDB
552:Feminists is something people hate above all. Nothing worse than being a woman in this [movie] business. I really believe that. ~ Julie Delpy, #NFDB
553:Listening to a sermonizer who above all loves to hear himself sermonize is about as much fun as having your toes sheared off ~ David Baldacci, #NFDB
554:Realise well, proud little man that even the highest clouds don't shine! For above all things there lie brightest stars. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
555:This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. ~ Eleanor Brown, #NFDB
556:We must never forget that spiritual experience is above all a practical experience of love. And with love, there are no rules. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
557:You are the Kali-aastra and the weapon rakshasas fear above all. And I am a rakshasa. Where will it end between us? - Parvati ~ Sarwat Chadda, #NFDB
558:Above all, being a Democrat means having compassion for others. ... It means standing up for people who have been kept down. ~ George McGovern, #NFDB
559:A life worth living might be measured in many ways, but the one way that stands above all others is living a life of no regrets. ~ Gary Keller, #NFDB
560:Fact One: Races are won or lost in key moments. Fact Two: Success in the sport is, above all else, about enduring suffering. ~ Chris McCormack, #NFDB
561:I had heard it many times before, and I didn’t believe it even a little. Lindsay once told me that, above all, Mom was a survivor. ~ J D Vance, #NFDB
562:I'm most proud of my work in the LGBTQ space. Feels like, above all else, that's something I want to do for the rest of my life. ~ Troye Sivan, #NFDB
563:Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so also you must forgive. Above all, put on love—the perfect bond of unity. Colossians 3:13–14 ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
564:Our default faith mode is to trust, above all things, our own ability to create a safe, controllable, predictable world. ~ Tullian Tchividjian, #NFDB
565:What was love but a lifetime of conversations. And silences. Knowing when to be silent. Above all, knowing when to laugh. ~ Bernard MacLaverty, #NFDB
566:Above all, don’t dwell on yesterday’s victory. If your focus is on what’s behind you rather than what’s ahead, you will crash. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
567:Above all things -- read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied. ~ Ngaio Marsh, #NFDB
568:Although He is above all the regulations of the revealed scriptures, He does not do anything that violates the revealed scriptures. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
569:Art seems to me to be above all a state of soul. All souls are sacred, the soul of all the bipeds in every quarter of the globe. ~ Marc Chagall, #NFDB
570:God loved rocks, houseflies, weeds, and poor people above all the rest of His creations, and that’s why He made so many of them. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
571:Prison itself is a tremendous education in the need for patience and perseverance. It is above all a test of one's commitment. ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
572:A life worth living might be measured in many ways, but the one way that stands above all others is living a life of no regrets. ~ Gary W Keller, #NFDB
573:I have always been a martial artist by choice, an actor by profession, but above all, am actualising myself to be an artist of life. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB
574:The grandeur of a profession is...above all, uniting men: there is only one true luxury, that of human relationships. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry, #NFDB
575:The immigrant experience of all of us is what makes us Americans, because we value in our DNA liberty and opportunity above all else. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
576:The thing that matters is not what they show me but what they hide from me and, above all, what they do not suspect is in them. ~ Robert Bresson, #NFDB
577:The way she said his name, the tenderness in those two words, the loss, told me that it was Charlie who she mourned above all. ~ Gilly Macmillan, #NFDB
578:We all want, above all, to be heard. We want to be understood—heard for what we think we are saying, for what we know we meant. ~ Deborah Tannen, #NFDB
579:We must bring a message of solidarity, of mutual respect and, above all, of hope. Business cannot afford to be seen as the problem. ~ Kofi Annan, #NFDB
580:Above all, a horse should never be chastised out of foul mood or anger, but always with complete dispassion. ~ Francois Robichon de La Gueriniere, #NFDB
581:Above all else, steady, productive, unrelenting perseverance. Just be “The Terminator” – never stop, never give up, never relent. ~ Jason Navallo, #NFDB
582:A record, if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted. ~ Vannevar Bush, #NFDB
583:Art furnishes us with eyes and hands and above all the good conscience to be able to turn ourselves into such a phenomenon. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
584:God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth. ~ William Ellery Channing, #NFDB
585:I used to love stage above all, but that was when I was a single man. As I get older, the time commitment gets harder for theatre. ~ Seamus Dever, #NFDB
586:The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world. ~ Max Weber, #NFDB
587:To do good whenever one can, to love liberty above all else, never to deny the truth, even though it be before the throne. ~ Ludwig van Beethoven, #NFDB
588:War is the province of danger and therefore courage above all things is the first quality of a warrior, von Clausewitz maintained. ~ Joe Haldeman, #NFDB
589:Being free brings a lightness, a carefree surrender to all that is happening around you, and, above all, an acceptance of reality. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
590:But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #NFDB
591:Criticism is above all a gift, an intuition, a matter of tact and flair; it cannot be taught or demonstrated--it is an art. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel, #NFDB
592:History belongs above all to the man...who needs models, teachers, comforters and cannot find them among his contemporaries. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
593:I love you, my Abby, above all else, know this. I would give up everything for a life together. Heaven could never compare to you. ~ Ashlan Thomas, #NFDB
594:Let your words be as few as will express the sense you wish to convey and above all let what you say be true. —Stonewall Jackson ~ Donald Rumsfeld, #NFDB
595:The Oedipal mother makes a pact with herself, her children, and the devil himself. The deal is this: “Above all, never leave me. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
596:Time is love, above all else. It is the most precious commodity in the world and should be lavished on those we care most about. ~ Sydney J Harris, #NFDB
597:Above all, they had the cinema. And this was probably the only area where they had learned everything from their own sensibilities. ~ Georges Perec, #NFDB
598:Entitlement is: The man who thinks he is above all the rules. The woman who feels mistreated and needs others to make it up to her. ~ John Townsend, #NFDB
599:Happy endings are popular. Do you not watch movies?"
"Yeah, but that's movies," Darcy groaned. "Books are above all that! ~ Scott Westerfeld,#NFDB
600:It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt, #NFDB
601:Above all, joy should come from the true story of the joyful God bringing salvation to sinners so they could become His children. ~ Warren W Wiersbe, #NFDB
602:Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish. ~ John Jakes, #NFDB
603:EPH3.20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
604:I am a Liberal, yet I am a Liberal tempered by experience, reflexion, and renouncement, and I am, above all, a believer in culture. ~ Matthew Arnold, #NFDB
605:Incestuous, homogeneous fiefdoms of self-proclaimed expertise are always rank-closing and mutually self-defending, above all else. ~ Glenn Greenwald, #NFDB
606:It [the Euro] is a decisive step towards ever closer political and institutional union in Europe. Above all, it is political. ~ Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, #NFDB
607:that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
608:The British bombing of Caen beginning on D-Day in particular was stupid, counter-productive and above all very close to a war crime. ~ Antony Beevor, #NFDB
609:The Oedipal mother makes a pact with herself, her children, and the devil himself. The deal is this: “Above all, never leave me. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
610:Above all I hope that the education of the common people will be attended to so they won't forget the basic principles of freedom. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
611:And above all, children need our unconditional love - whether they succeed or make mistakes; when life is easy and when life is tough. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
612:Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish. ~ John Jakes, #NFDB
613:If a philosopher is not a man, he is anything but a philosopher; he is above all a pedant, and a pedant is a caricature of a man. ~ Miguel de Unamuno, #NFDB
614:The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. ~ Douglas MacArthur, #NFDB
615:The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears. ~ Charles Simeon, #NFDB
616:The truth of the matter is the real story are the people who rise above all of this incredible cruelty. Otherwise that cruelty wins. ~ George Clooney, #NFDB
617:A good mother is protective but not over-protective. She's patient, she's affectionate, she's playful, but above all she is supportive. ~ Jane Goodall, #NFDB
618:Catering to me. Serving me. Envying me. She was going to stay small and insignificant. Uneducated and opportunity-less. And above all—mine. ~ L J Shen, #NFDB
619:Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil. ~ Pope John Paul II, #NFDB
620:No, while most people have been at their unhappiest when in love, it is nevertheless the state the human being yearns for above all. ~ Julian Fellowes, #NFDB
621:People have no human rights, only the rights that they can gain on the labour market. Above all, wealth and power have to be protected. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
622:The users of a language, above all, will tend to a naive realism, to see their language as a reflection of reality, not as a construct. ~ Oliver Sacks, #NFDB
623:Above all, Rasala wanted around him engineers who took an interest in the entire computer, not just in the parts that they had designed. ~ Tracy Kidder, #NFDB
624:Don't forget the small things, above all, don't forget the small things—the smaller the trace, the more important it sometimes is. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
625:Friendship involves many things but, above all the power of going outside oneself and appreciating what is noble and loving in another. ~ Thomas Huxley, #NFDB
626:In the past, most wars were motivated by the idea of nationhood. Today, however, wars are incited above all using religion as an excuse. ~ Shimon Peres, #NFDB
627:I think the British have the distinction above all other nations of being able to put new wine into old bottles without bursting them. ~ Clement Attlee, #NFDB
628:Please, compete in the spirit of fair play, mutual understanding and respect. And above all, please compete cleanly by refusing doping. ~ Jacques Rogge, #NFDB
629:With yoga, not only your body should become flexible - your mind and emotions, and above all your consciousness should become flexible. ~ Jaggi Vasudev, #NFDB
630:Above all things, I must not get angry. If I do get angry I knock all the teeth out of the mouth of the poor wretch who has angered me. ~ Franz Schubert, #NFDB
631:And Eddie found a certain love with Marguerite, a grateful love, a deep but quiet love, one that he knew, above all else, was irreplaceable. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
632:It was one of the rules which above all others made Doctr. Franklin the most amiable of men in society, "never to contradict anybody. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
633:Make portraits of people in typical, familiar poses, being sure above all to give their faces the same kind of expression as their bodies. ~ Edgar Degas, #NFDB
634:They made it plain to everyone, however, and above all to the king himself, that although he had plenty of troops, he did not have many men. ~ Herodotus, #NFDB
635:This above all: to thine own self be true, 85 And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
636:This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun! ~ Julia Child, #NFDB
637:Unsafe people will never identify with others as fellow sinners and strugglers, because they see themselves as somehow “above all of that. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
638:Above all, know that ego isn't personal. It isn't who you are. If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that's just more ego. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
639:Above all, she is the girl who "feels" things, who has hung on to the freshness and pain of adolescence, the girl ever wounded, ever young. ~ Joan Didion, #NFDB
640:Certainly all virtues are very dear to God, but humility pleases Him above all the others, and it seems that He can refuse it nothing. ~ Francis de Sales, #NFDB
641:O Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart: for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
642:Rule # 48
Love your wife above all else...after all, she is the one who can either keep you warm at night or make sure you never wake up. ~ J J McAvoy,#NFDB
643:We must seek, above all, a world of peace; a world in which peoples dwell together in mutual respect and work together in mutual regard. ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
644:Above all, the ability to feel the force of an argument apart from the substance it deals with is the strongest weapon against prejudice. ~ Jacques Barzun, #NFDB
645:Above all we should not forget, that government is an evil, an usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind. ~ William Godwin, #NFDB
646:Above all, you can believe in Providence in either of two ways, either as thirst believes in the orange, or as the ass believes in the whip. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
647:Face your path with courage, don't be scared of people's criticism. And, above all, don't let yourself get paralyzed by your own criticism. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
648:I’m not grieving, I’m not angry,
and only darkness accompanies me.
How deep it is and velvety,
above all, always familiar to me… ~ Anna Akhmatova,#NFDB
649:In my life, the one thing I have learned above all is that no individual can reach the height of their potential without the love of others ~ Ren e Ahdieh, #NFDB
650:Poetry, above all, is a series of intense moments - its power is not in narrative. I'm not dealing with facts, I'm dealing with emotion. ~ Carol Ann Duffy, #NFDB
651:Sometimes war takes an arm, or an eye, or it takes two legs from us, but above all the war takes our belief in humanity away from us! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
652:. . .what's important is something other than I'm proven to be right. What's important is truth and hope and, and above all these, love. ~ Russell D Moore, #NFDB
653:A brilliant treatment of the history of Purgatory in England and its survivals and echoes throughout Shakespeare's plays, above all Hamlet. ~ Carol Zaleski, #NFDB
654:An artist worthy of the name should express all the truth of nature, not only the exterior truth, but also, and above all, the inner truth. ~ Auguste Rodin, #NFDB
655:Books are one thing I love above all else. In a story, I can become anyone, travel any place. In those pages lives my only true freedom. ~ Sherry D Ficklin, #NFDB
656:Good steel bends, but never breaks. Good steel stays always sharp and ready. Good steel feels no pain, no pity, and above all, no remorse ~ Joe Abercrombie, #NFDB
657:In my life, the one thing I have learned above all is that no individual can reach the height of their potential without the love of others. ~ Ren e Ahdieh, #NFDB
658:Jesus Messiah, name above all names, blessed Redeemer, Emmanuel, the rescue for sinners, the ransom from Heaven, Jesus Messiah, Lord of all. ~ Chris Tomlin, #NFDB
659:Marx himself wrote that capitalism produces above all its own gravediggers. Do you think that perhaps he wasn't talking about capitalism? ~ Paullina Simons, #NFDB
660:My landscapes are not only beautiful or nostalgic, with a Romantic or classical suggestion of lost Paradises, but above all 'untruthful'. ~ Gerhard Richter, #NFDB
661:Ordinary goodness is fraught with veins of vanity and self-interest and above all with pleasure--because goodness makes you feel more alive. ~ Susan Neiman, #NFDB
662:The greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens. ~ Galileo Galilei, #NFDB
663:This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
664:We now know that unity, the cornerstone of Canada's greatness and prosperity, is above all a matter of emotion and reason for every citizen. ~ Kim Campbell, #NFDB
665:Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “Ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
666:Four packs precede the four you should fear above all others. Kill the packs and seal the doorway with the blood you cherish above all else. ~ Shannon Mayer, #NFDB
667:I've learned much, Father, and this above all: that no station in life is above any other, if it's occupied by someone with a good heart. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
668:Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe. ~ Adrienne Rich, #NFDB
669:You don't know what would have happened if I hadn't pushed. Nobody knows. I did it the way I did it, and it worked. Above all, it worked. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
670:And do Men despise ignorance?’ I asked. ‘No,’ he said, ‘they prize it above all things—all things!—but only so long as it remains invisible. ~ R Scott Bakker, #NFDB
671:I wish I could fly like that hawk, rising and falling with the still spaces in the air, far above all this sickness and death and evil. ~ Heather Day Gilbert, #NFDB
672:This is what a control freak learns inside the compressed otherworld of college, maybe above all else: There are simply other ways of being. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
673:Above all, film is a business... Independence is a really cool thing as you can be a bit more bold, and take a few more chances with what you do. ~ Mel Gibson, #NFDB
674:Above all never forget that a marriage is in one way very much like a newspaper. It has to be made fresh every damn day of every damn year. ~ Raymond Chandler, #NFDB
675:Above all we have to go beyond words and images and concepts. No imaginative vision or conceptual framework is adequate to the great reality. ~ Bede Griffiths, #NFDB
676:ALL ART, OF COURSE, IS INTELLECTUAL, BUT FOR ME, ALL THE ARTS, AND CINEMA EVEN MORE SO, MUST ABOVE ALL BE EMOTIONAL AND ACT UPON THE HEART. ~ Andrei Tarkovsky, #NFDB
677:...Because love is confusing and strange and difficult and uncomfortable and unbelievable inconvenient. But above all, love is transcendent. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
678:Each culture might lend its own dialect, but above all that is the language of music itself, and it doesn't care about politics or boundaries. ~ Geoff Zanelli, #NFDB
679:If there’s one thing that stands out above all others in my research, it’s that history doesn’t sit still. Doesn’t sit silent. It makes noise. ~ Josh Malerman, #NFDB
680:New York is large, glamorous, easy-going, kindly and incurious, but above all it is a crucible - because it is large enough to be incurious. ~ Ford Madox Ford, #NFDB
681:Now patience; and remember patience is the great thing, and above all things else we must avoid anything like being or becoming out of patience. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
682:The food in Sydney is an Asian Pacific cuisine. It's eclectic but above all it's fresh, inventive and creative and that's what I love about it. ~ Baz Luhrmann, #NFDB
683:What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
684:Above all, enter into the Church’s liturgy and make the liturgical cycle part of your life—let its rhythm work its way into your body and soul. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
685:Above all things physical, it is more important to be beautiful on the inside - to have a big hear and an open mind and a spectacular spleen. ~ Ellen DeGeneres, #NFDB
686:Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here. ~ Golda Meir, #NFDB
687:A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust. ~ Gertrude Jekyll, #NFDB
688:Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself...do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage. ~ Francis de Sales, #NFDB
689:Certainly all virtues are very dear to God, but humility pleases Him above all the others, and it seems that He can refuse it nothing. ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #NFDB
690:The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
691:There is a self-law of supreme Truth which is above all standards. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil, #NFDB
692:This above all: To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. —William Shakespeare ~ Robyn Carr, #NFDB
693:Above all else, I had learned the one thing every person has to learn to make it through life: the only person you can truly count on is yourself. ~ C J Roberts, #NFDB
694:Above all, I will keep an open heart. As I move on the right path I will recieve great happiness as a reward without asking for anything in return. ~ Sun Simiao, #NFDB
695:Above all, the only thing you have to heal is the present thought. Get that right and the whole picture will change into one of harmony and joy. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
696:And above all, study, study, study ! All the genius in the world will not help you along with any art unless you become a hard student. It ~ Orison Swett Marden, #NFDB
697:a society of equal laws, governed by equality of status and of speech, and of rulers who respect the liberty of their subjects above all else. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
698:But the guilty person is only one of the targets of punishment. For punishment is directed above all at others, at all the potentially guilty. ~ Michel Foucault, #NFDB
699:Do portraits of people in familiar and typical attitudes, above all give to their face the same choice of expression that one gives to their body. ~ Edgar Degas, #NFDB
700:Education...is a painful, continual and difficult work to be done in kindness, by watching, by warning,... by praise, but above all -- by example. ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
701:Flow wherever you go. You can’t be limited. Dare to rise above all limitations and become better than you were. Strive to arrive at the top. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
702:I think the cultural task is to separate our impulses and needs and desires from the supernatural and, above all, from the superstitious. ~ Christopher Hitchens, #NFDB
703:It is proof of sincerity, which I value above all things; as, between those who practice it, falsehood and malice work their efforts in vain. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
704:People trust their eyes above all else - but most people see what they wish to see, or what they believe they should see; not what is really there ~ Zo Marriott, #NFDB
705:People trust their eyes above all else- but most people see what they wish to see, or what they believe they should see; not what is really there. ~ Zo Marriott, #NFDB
706:The boys wore jeans, or tracksuits with big ticks on them as if their clothing had been marked by a teacher who valued, above all else, conformity. ~ Monica Ali, #NFDB
707:The church is, above all, a place to receive grace: it brings forgiven people together with the aim of equipping us to dispense grace to others. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
708:The forest, like a casino, always wins. That's why you should never gamble, or enter the forest. And above all, never underestimate Schmidty. ~ Gitty Daneshvari, #NFDB
709:There are two types of genius; one which above all begets and wants to beget, and another which prefers being fertilized and giving birth. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
710:[The world] is not a pretty place; and the only way to keep a footing in it is to fight it on its own terms - and above all, my dear, not alone! ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
711:To be a great composer requires immense experience... One acquires this by listening not only to other men's work, but above all to one's own! ~ Frederic Chopin, #NFDB
712:To call a thing good not a day longer than it appears to us good, and above all not a day earlier - that is the only way to keep joy pure. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
713:You were the one who made things different, you were the one who took me in. You were the one thing I could count on, above all, you were my friend. ~ Tom Petty, #NFDB
714:Above all, God wanted us to love others. We have to love each other and get on with each other, she added. It's not up to me to judge anybody. ~ Carrie Underwood, #NFDB
715:A good title holds magic, some cognitive dissonance, a little grit between the teeth, but above all it is the jumping-off place into wonder. ~ Barbara Kingsolver, #NFDB
716:Don't wish...DO! Don't try...BE! Don't think...KNOW! And above all: Bless a stranger with a small, yet powerful, random act of kindness. You feel me? ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
717:If you wish to educate a child who has gone wrong, then you must, above all, keep your attention fixed on the intersection of two charmed circles. ~ Alfred Adler, #NFDB
718:I welcome all the signs indicating that a more manly and warlike age is commencing, which will, above all, bring heroism again into honour! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
719:My philosophy of leadership is to surround myself with good people who have ability, judgment and knowledge, but above all, a passion for service. ~ Sonny Perdue, #NFDB
720:Obsession with a consumerist lifestyle, above all when few people are capable of maintaining it, can only lead to violence and mutual destruction. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
721:The efficiency of information exchanges reflects, above all, the nature and regularity of contacts and exchanges between different communities. ~ David Christian, #NFDB
722:...It was then, for the first time, that she understood above all her virtues what was in command was the vanity of a metaphysical woman. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
723:True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
724:True or false, that which is set of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
725:Above all it is important to point out that we can only maintain our prosperity in Europe if we belong to the most innovative regions in the world. ~ Angela Merkel, #NFDB
726:A man in the right, with God on his side, is in the majority, though he be alone, for God is multitudinous above all populations of the earth. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
727:As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
728:Before all, and above all, attention shall be paid to the care of the sick, so that they shall be served as if they were Christ Himself. ~ Saint Benedict of Nursia, #NFDB
729:Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. 24 Avoid all perverse talk; stay away from corrupt speech. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
730:I'm finished ... I'm done. What I want above all things is to take some active part in beating the Germans ... I'd go out to the Front at once. ~ Winston Churchill, #NFDB
731:Is getting filthy rich still your goal above all goals, your be-all and end-all, the mist-shrouded high-altitude spawning pond to your inner salmon? ~ Mohsin Hamid, #NFDB
732:Liberalism, above all, means emancipation - emancipation from one's fears, his inadequacies, from prejudice, from discrimination, from poverty. ~ Hubert H Humphrey, #NFDB
733:Popular culture - above all rock 'n' roll, with its African-American R & B roots - did far more to radicalize us than did any feminist leader. ~ Camille Paglia, #NFDB
734:Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
735:That required living in Dietland, which meant control, constriction—paralysis, even—but above all it meant obedience. I was tired of being obedient. ~ Sarai Walker, #NFDB
736:The Brill brothers fled to the cockpit, trying to simultaneously bow, look at their feet, not think anything dangerous, and above all, not pass wind. ~ Eoin Colfer, #NFDB
737:True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. ~ Bill Dedman, #NFDB
738:True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
739:What the short story needs above all is for one of the big publishers to get an equivalent series up and running and to support it and promote it. ~ Nicholas Royle, #NFDB
740:Above all, remember that the most important thing you can take anywhere is not a Gucci bag or French-cut jeans; it’s an open mind.—GAIL RUBIN BERENY ~ Annette Blair, #NFDB
741:And above all you understand that fitness is not some statistical or mathematical measurement but an experience of freedom and joy within the body. ~ Rujuta Diwekar, #NFDB
742:Attention must be paid’ is the cardinal rule of design discipline, for the designer is above all someone who pays attention to the situation at hand. ~ Ralph Caplan, #NFDB
743:Hold on to your own ideal. . . . Above all, never attempt to guide or rule others, or, as the Yankees say, "boss" others. Be the servant of all. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
744:I am Thy servant to do Thy will, and that will is sweeter to me than position or riches or fame, and I choose it above all things on Earth or in Heaven. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
745:Judges ought above all to remember the conclusion of the Roman Twelve Tables :The supreme law of all is the weal [weatlh/ well-being] of the people. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
746:Nostalgia is stronger here than knowledge...[Reason] is an instrument of thought and not thought itself. Above all, a man's thought is his nostalgia. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
747:The main motive for nonattachment is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
748:There are many faces to war. There is the face of courage, of bravery, of fellowship.There is the face of fear. Above all, there is love of country. ~ Barbara Boxer, #NFDB
749:Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure. ~ Oliver Sacks, #NFDB
750:A man will be effective to the degree that he is able to concentrate! Concentration is not basically a mode of doing but above all a mode of Being. ~ Lawrence LeShan, #NFDB
751:Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself...do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage. ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #NFDB
752:If there's one thing above all that sets me apart from Tony Blair, its this: Im not embarrassed to articulate the instincts of the British people. ~ William Hague, #NFDB
753:Judge the goodness of a book by the energy of the punches it has given you. I believe the greatest characteristic of genius, is, above all, force. ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
754:Love all. Trust a few. Do wrong to none. This above all: to thine own self be true. No legacy is so rich as honesty. Brevity is the soul of wit ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
755:There are moments in your life that stand out above all the rest - moments of pure bliss, pure anger, pure sorrow. Moments that take your breath away. ~ K A Robinson, #NFDB
756:what she hated above all was that most men in her presence wilted, grew small and feeble. only the timid ones approached her, as if to seek her strength. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
757:Above all, faith is grounded in one's body, in one's humanity, and in one's animal nature. It is an biological phenomenon and not a psychic creation ~ Alexander Lowen, #NFDB
758:find a man who treats you like a queen, who puts you above all others. You find him, and you hold on to him. And don’t you dare settle for anything less. ~ T L Haddix, #NFDB
759:Packaged foods, partially hydrogenated oils and enriched flours are not your friends. Above all, remember this one word: transfats. Avoid it at all costs. ~ Mehmet Oz, #NFDB
760:Serenity is when you get above all this, when it doesn't matter what they think, say or want, but when you do as you are, and see God and Devil as one. ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
761:This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” —William Shakespeare ~ Michael A Singer, #NFDB
762:True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. M. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
763:When one of those skirt-bearing animals has set herself up above all by permitting herself to be deified, no power on earth can be as proud as she. ~ Honore de Balzac, #NFDB
764:I hope life treats you kind, and I hope you have all that you ever dreamed of, and I wish you joy and happiness. But above all of this, I wish you love. ~ Dolly Parton, #NFDB
765:I'm a writer obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past of America and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia. ~ Eduardo Galeano, #NFDB
766:Make me proud my little first-grader" he said, fist pumping robbie "and, remember rule number one above all"
"Right" he replies "don't talk politics ~ Jenny B Jones,#NFDB
767:People trembled when he addressed them, and he loved two things above all else in the world, after Christ’s holy Church: namely, spiced wine and knowledge. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
768:Above all else she mustn't think that using her body will help her attain her goal. Men use women who play seductively, and then they look down on them. ~ Dacia Maraini, #NFDB
769:A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
770:If time is money, it seems moral to save time, above all one's own, and such parsimony is excused by consideration for others. One is straight-forward. ~ Theodor Adorno, #NFDB
771:In order to determine this question, it is above all essential to put one's personality in contradiction to one's reality.' Do you understand that? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
772:The coming of the printing press must have seemed as if it would turn the world upside down in the way it spread and, above all, democratized knowledge. ~ James E Burke, #NFDB
773:The main reason God has given us minds is that we might seek out and find all the reasons that exist for treasuring him in all things and above all things. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
774:the main reason God has given us minds is that we might seek out and find all the reasons that exist for treasuring him in all things and above all things. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
775:To know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. —Flannery O’Connor ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, #NFDB
776:true success—financial, personal, and professional—lies above all in loving your family, working hard, and living your passion. In telling your story. ~ Gary Vaynerchuk, #NFDB
777:Two characteristic marks have above all others been recognized as distinguishing that which has soul in it from that which has not - movement and sensation. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
778:What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty, and, above all, it eats creativity. It eats quality and sh*ts quantity. ~ William S Burroughs, #NFDB
779:When our souls shall leave this dwelling, the glory of one fair and virtuous action is above all the 'scutcheons on our tomb, or silken banners over us. ~ James Shirley, #NFDB
780:Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
781:Don't forget that everything you deal with is only one thing and nothing else.......above all dont forget to follow your destiny through to its conclusion ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
782:he listened to the workers’ comments on events. He wondered how they could know so much, but above all he marvelled at how much misery grown men could cause. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
783:I have always looked upon the life of our Savior who descended beneath all things that He might rise above all things as an example for His followers. ~ Wilford Woodruff, #NFDB
784:I'm easy driving, But I'm not a person who loves living pleasantly above all else. I'm not that way at all. I might think I'm that, but I'm not really that. ~ Ray Davies, #NFDB
785:It is important both for the preparation for war and the conduct of war that they know that Fourth Generation war is, above all, light infantry warfare. ~ William S Lind, #NFDB
786:Let it not be a beautiful face,' I thought, 'but to make up for that, let it be a noble, an expressive, and, above all, an extremely intelligent one. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
787:What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty and above all it eats creativity. It eats quality and shits out quantity. ~ William S Burroughs, #NFDB
788:What we venerate in the Saints, beyond and above all that we know is this secret; the mystery of an innocence and of an identity perfectly hidden in God. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
789:Above all, a book is a riverbank for the river of language. Language without the riverbank is only television talk - a free fall, a loose splash, a spill. ~ Cynthia Ozick, #NFDB
790:Above all, she was a baby, not a 'big baby' like so many adults, but a small baby perfectly preserved in the pickling jar of money, alcohol and fantasy. ~ Edward St Aubyn, #NFDB
791:Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself. I mean do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #NFDB
792:But if I am to speak in earnest, what I desire above all in a wife is firmness of character - a woman who knows her own mind." --Captain Frederick Wentworth ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
793:Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
794:Let it not be a beautiful face,' I thought, 'but to make up for that, let it be a noble, an expressive, and, above all, an extremely intelligent one. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
795:And because his narrator was characterized above all by his anxiety regarding the disconnect between his internal experience and his social self-presentation, ~ Ben Lerner, #NFDB
796:Do you wish to be free? Then above all things, love God, love your neighbor, love one another, love the common weal; then you will have true liberty. ~ Girolamo Savonarola, #NFDB
797:I was a barbarian, tender and full of violence. I translated by instinct, without any method, not merely an artistic truth but above all a human one. ~ Maurice de Vlaminck, #NFDB
798:Now if you think about the 20th century and the idea of visual vocabulary the album occupies a really important space in the cultural landscape and, above all. ~ DJ Spooky, #NFDB
799:Send me the article beforehand, don't forget, and try and let it be free from nonsense. Facts, facts, facts. And above all, let it be short. Good-bye. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
800:That which interests me above all else is the calligraphy of a tree or the tiles of a roof, and I mean leaf by leaf, branch by branch, blade by blade of grass. ~ Joan Miro, #NFDB
801:The kingdom grows, he says, because the kingdom is already planted. It grows of itself and in its own good time. Above all, it grows we know not how. ~ Robert Farrar Capon, #NFDB
802:To realize that new world we must prefer the values of freedom and equality above all other values - above personal wealth, technical power and nationalism. ~ Herbert Read, #NFDB
803:Without discipline no proper work is possible. Without discipline no proper life is possible.
And above all, without discipline no Sadhana is possible. ~ The Mother,#NFDB
804:diocese. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
805:For watching death, and above all, after death; not death in battle, but death after battle, brings one to certain indifferences that are also a form of death. ~ Mary Butts, #NFDB
806:If you manage a situation, not just things happening there, people should feel elevated just being in that space. Above all, you must feel wonderful being there. ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
807:I thank God,” he used to say, “that I was born Greek and not barbarian, freeman and not slave, man and not woman; but above all, that I was born in the age of ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
808:We share in the certainty that people labeled with mental illness are first and above all, human beings. Our lives are precious and are of infinite value. ~ Patricia Deegan, #NFDB
809:Above all, I wouldn’t want to prove anything, I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. I have that right haven’t I? - Anna Karenina, p.616 ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
810:Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
811:A man should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey, and above all things look he have then nothing to do but with himself. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
812:Lack of money means discomfort, means squalid worries, means shortage of tobacco, means ever-present consciousness of failure-above all, it means loneliness. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
813:My daddy used to tell me that God loved rocks, houseflies, weeds, and poor people above all the rest of His creations, and that’s why He made so many of them. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
814:So, what I say to people is that politics has got to be about principle and values above all. Of course, there are times when you have to make accommodations. ~ Chris Patten, #NFDB
815:The atmosphere of orthodoxy is always damaging to prose, and above all it is completely ruinous to the novel, the most anarchical of all forms of literature. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
816:Those two overarching concerns are these: we Athenians are concerned above all with improvement; the Spartans seek only – stasis. Two opposite objectives. If ~ David Deutsch, #NFDB
817:We like people who are honest. Honest in argument, honest with clients, honest with suppliers, honest with the company - and above all, honest with consumers. ~ David Ogilvy, #NFDB
818:Above all, such an understanding of loneliness should help liberate us. It should teach us that loneliness is both a good and a natural force in our lives. ~ Ronald Rolheiser, #NFDB
819:Above all, there is no exception to this rule: that the idea of political superiority always resolves itself into the idea of psychological superiority. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
820:Be sure to get away often enough that you are regularly exposed to God’s art and able to remember that He is transcendent above all the details of your life. ~ Sally Clarkson, #NFDB
821:For then alone do we know God truly, when we believe that He is far above all that man can possibly think of God. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, I, 5, par. 3, #NFDB
822:I'd learned a lot in the Army. I knew that above all things in the world I had to become so big, so strong that people and their hatred could never touch me. ~ Sammy Davis Jr, #NFDB
823:In his time on earth, he’d learned one truth above all else when it came to power—those who lost it usually didn’t see it vanishing until it was already gone. ~ Dennis Lehane, #NFDB
824:The human heart will seek to be known, understood, and connected with above all else. If you do not connect, the ones you care about will find someone who will. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
825:the purpose of civilization is to make violence the final resort, while to a barbarian it is the first, preferred, only and above all most enjoyable option. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
826:This is a labyrinth of wickedness and destruction and pleasure and, above all, love, because in the end it's all just one big, mind-bending love story, isn't it? ~ Ted Dekker, #NFDB
827:To see the truth, make a habit of looking at everything from a distance and above all, look at yourself from a distance too see the truth about yourself! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
828:Your fellow soldiers had to know that you had their back. That was rule one, lesson one, and above all else. If the enemy goes after you, he goes after me too. ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
829:All happiness depends on courage and work. I have had many periods of wretchedness, but with energy and above all with illusions, I pulled through them all. ~ Honore de Balzac, #NFDB
830:And they do not want anything too critical said about people who really believe in the God of their fathers, because tolerance, perhaps above all else, is sacred. ~ Sam Harris, #NFDB
831:And this must be especially so, when those with newfound power are men who distrust any form of hesitation or nuance, and who prize self-assurance above all. For ~ Amor Towles, #NFDB
832:If you focus on near-term growth above all else, you miss the most important question you should be asking: will this business still be around a decade from now? ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
833:[...] if you're going to waste an opportunity, there are a few important things to remember. Do it in style. Do it in public. And, above all, do it in Manchester. ~ Peter Hook, #NFDB
834:If you set out to seek freedom, then learn above all things to govern your soul and your senses . . . only through discipline may a man learn to be free. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
835:I’ll tell you a story, (…) A story about books, dragons and roses, as befits the date, but above all, a story about shadows and ashes, as befits the times… ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
836:That is why the center of our faith isn't just a book, but a history of Salvation, and above all, it's about a person: Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
837:The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity. ~ John Adams, #NFDB
838:The dirty alliance between religious preachers and possessors of power brought the boon of prisons, gallows, knouts and above all such theories for the mankind. ~ Bhagat Singh, #NFDB
839:The primitive magician, the medicine man or shaman is not only a sick man, he is above all, a sick man who has been cured, who has succeeded in curing himself. ~ Mircea Eliade, #NFDB
840:The public schools shall be free from sectarian influences and, above all, free from any attitude of hostility to the adherents of any particular creed. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt, #NFDB
841:We have to be role models. We have to be curious. Above all, we have to pay attention and be part of the conversation while our kids are still listening to us. ~ Anya Kamenetz, #NFDB
842:You are not the mind itself. For You are the Lord God of the mind. All these things are liable to change, but You remain immutable above all things. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #NFDB
843:Above all things, one should maintain his self-respect, and there is but one way to do that, and that is to live in accordance with your highest ideal. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
844:developing a life in God’s presence above all else is the only way to fulfill our God-given destinies. Keys to our callings are released when we spend time there. ~ Heidi Baker, #NFDB
845:Friendship affords total certitude above all and that is what distinguishes it from love. It means respect as well and total acceptance of another being. ~ Marguerite Yourcenar, #NFDB
846:I call upon my God to judge me, he knows that I love my friends and above all others my wife and children, the, oppinion of the world to contrary notwithstanding. ~ Stand Watie, #NFDB
847:I usually am very specific about how I engage information, how I engage people, what context I'm engaging and, above all, the research that goes into each of those. ~ DJ Spooky, #NFDB
848:I want to see my wife and children every day, I want to see my grass and blossoms and corn ... But above all, except the wife and children, I want to see my books. ~ John Adams, #NFDB
849:Liberty is no heirloom. It requires the daily bread of self-denial, the salt of law and, above all, the backbone of acknowledging responsibility for our deeds. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
850:Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography. ~ George Eastman, #NFDB
851:No matter how tired you are, no matter how tempting the situation seems, please be sure that you put your baby’s safety above all else. I’ve gathered safety ~ Elizabeth Pantley, #NFDB
852:Scholarship was, above all else, honored among the Jews—scholarship not as “pure” activity, not as intellectual release, but as the pathway, sometimes treacherous ~ Irving Howe, #NFDB
853:Surely we ought to show them (animals) great kindness and gentleness for many reasons, but, above all, because they are of the same origin as ourselves. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #NFDB
854:These critics organize and practice in my case a sort of obsessive personality cult which philosophers should know how to question and above all, to moderate. ~ Jacques Derrida, #NFDB
855:As use-values, commodities differ above all in quality, while as exchange-values they can only differ in quantity, and therefore do not contain an atom of use-value. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
856:Condition a woman (or a man) to value submission above all other attitudes and you will produce a character type whose most readily expressed emotion will be sadness. ~ Sam Keen, #NFDB
857:Cursed be he above all others Who's enslaved by love of money. Money takes the place of brothers, Money takes the place of parents, Money brings us war and slaughter. ~ Anacreon, #NFDB
858:Humanity abhors, above all things, a vacuum in itself, and your class will be cut off from humanity as the surgeon cuts the cancer and alien growth from the body. ~ James Larkin, #NFDB
859:Let us use texts of Scripture as fuel for our heart’s fire, they are live coals; let us attend sermons, but above all, let us be much alone with Jesus. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
860:Above all remember this: that magic belongs as much to the heart as to the head and everything which is done, should be done from love or joy or righteous anger. ~ Susanna Clarke, #NFDB
861:Air Power is, above all, a psychological weapon - and only short-sighted soldiers, too battle-minded, underrate the importance of psychological factors in war. ~ B H Liddell Hart, #NFDB
862:"A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions — as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all." ~ Nietzsche, The Gay Science, #NFDB
863:But above all he must refrain from seizing the property of others, because a man is quicker to forget the death of his father than the loss of his patrimony. ~ Niccol Machiavelli, #NFDB
864:I believe that to do anything in this world one needs a love for risk and adventure, and above all, to be able to do without what middle-class families call "future." ~ Joan Miro, #NFDB
865:My father valued patriotism above all other social obligations, but he had his own particular interpretation of just how true patriotism was meant to function. ~ Thomas Steinbeck, #NFDB
866:Of the women in my childhood, I retain above all the memory of their perfumes, perfumes that lingered - filling the lift with fragrance long after they had gone. ~ Christian Dior, #NFDB
867:The man of God set his heart to exalt God above all; God accepted his intention as fact and acted accordingly. Not perfection, but holy intention made the difference. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
868:we should be wary of elevating the vocation of homemaking above all others by insinuating that for women, God’s presence is somehow restricted to that sphere. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
869:What a mistake, above all, it had been to believe that I couldn't live without him, when for a long time I had not been at all certain that I was alive with him. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
870:Above all things have intense and unfailing love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins [forgives and disregards the offenses of others]. 1 PETER 4:8 AMP ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
871:Always be the best, my boy, the bravest, and hold your head up high above all the others. Never disgrace the generation of your fathers. They were the bravest champions... ~ Homer, #NFDB
872:A Settlement is above all a place for enthusiasms, a spot to which those who have a passion for the equalization of human joys and opportunities are early attracted. ~ Jane Addams, #NFDB
873:I never enjoyed my work more than when I worked with William Powell. He was a brilliant actor, a delightful companion, a great friend and, above all, a true gentleman. ~ Myrna Loy, #NFDB
874:Painting as it is now promises to become more subtle - more like music and less like sculpture - and above all it promises color. If only it keeps this promise. ~ Vincent Van Gogh, #NFDB
875:Power fears truth above all things—more than bullets, more than bombs, more than death itself, because truth can destroy powerful men even as they lie in their graves. ~ J L Bryan, #NFDB
876:Rather than building your self-esteem on being right, you might reform your picture of yourself into that of one who, above all, wants to find the truth. Listening ~ Matthew McKay, #NFDB
877:The angels that dry our eyes bear the form and the features of all we have said and thought—above all, of what we have done, prior to the hour of misfortune. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck, #NFDB
878:What wisdom is there in keeping a person alive above all considerations ? Why should doctors keep restarting someone's heart if they're never going to get well? ~ Lurlene McDaniel, #NFDB
879:When you are setting yourself up for success, above all put on love, because love never fails and with one-size-fits-all solution to every situation you will ever encounter. ~ Joo, #NFDB
880:Above all do not ask that justice be just: It is just, because it is justice. The idea of a just justice could have originated only in the brain of an anarchist. ~ Honore de Balzac, #NFDB
881:All was shattered, and all but memory lost, and one memory above all others, of him who brought the Shadow and the Breaking of the World. And him they named Dragon. ~ Robert Jordan, #NFDB
882:A smile or a tear has not nationality; joy and sorrow speak alike to all nations, and they, above all the confusion of tongues, proclaim the brotherhood of man ~ Frederick Douglass, #NFDB
883:Black is modest and arrogant at the same time. Black is lazy and easy - but mysterious. [...] But above all black says this: 'I don't bother you - don't bother me' ~ Yohji Yamamoto, #NFDB
884:Every person, as every institution, and, above all, every religion is to be judged not by the amount of atrocities or the wrong committed but by the right conduct. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
885:He'd watch the loading and unloading of boats; the building of houses, shacks, and huts; and above all, the people, each carrying a bundle of stories inside them. ~ Marcus Sedgwick, #NFDB
886:In my crazy world, above all others...you were the only one who was the ugliest. And you were the only one...who was the most beautiful.... This is the unspoken truth. ~ Kaori Yuki, #NFDB
887:The wealth of the country, its capital, its credit, must be saved from the predatory poor as well as the predatory rich, but above all from the predatory politician. ~ James J Hill, #NFDB
888:The work I care about is terribly simple. I observe. I try to entertain. But above all I want my pictures to be emotional. Little else interests me in photography. ~ Elliott Erwitt, #NFDB
889:Within my heart is lurking suspicion, and base fear, and shame and hate; but above all, tyrannous love sits throned, crowned with her graces, silent and in tears. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB
890:Above all, it taught him how to listen—how to listen with a quiet heart and a waiting, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinion. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
891:f you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
892:If you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
893:Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
894:Loving God with all our mind means that our thinking is wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express the heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
895:One is neither too scrupulous nor too sincere nor too submissive to nature; but one is more or less master of one's model, and, above all, of the means of expression. ~ Paul Cezanne, #NFDB
896:Only man can stop being fully man. He can ascend above all degres of universal existence and by the same token fall below the level of the basest of creatures. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr, #NFDB
897:Scotland is the country above all others that I have seen, in which a man of imagination may carve out his own pleasures; there are so many inhabited solitudes. ~ Dorothy Wordsworth, #NFDB
898:you shall above all things be glad and young For if you're young,whatever life you wear it will become you;and if you are glad whatever's living will yourself become. ~ e e cummings, #NFDB
899:And what, above all, I blame in you is that you have not married in compliance with the law and given children to the Republic, as every good citizen is bound to do. ~ Anatole France, #NFDB
900:Finally, but perhaps above all, human nature is a factor in all this. Scientists have a natural tendency to interpret finds in the way that most flatters their stature. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
901:He saw that Fatima's eyes were filled with tears.
“You're crying?”
“I'm a woman of the desert,” she said, averting her face. “But above all, I'm a woman. ~ Paulo Coelho,#NFDB
902:If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
903:If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
904:One must exploit the asynchronies that have befallen one, link them to a promising issue or domain, reframe frustrations as opportunities, and, above all, persevere. ~ Howard Gardner, #NFDB
905:Such, then, is our God: unknowable in his essence, yet known in his energies; beyond and above all that we can think or express, yet closer to us than our own heart. ~ Kallistos Ware, #NFDB
906:we may well thank the beneficent obstinacy of real mothers, real nurses, and (above all) real children for preserving the human race in such sanity as it still possesses. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
907:Yes, this world is full of falsehood... But for yourself, you must be above all that and take shelter in the Lord's arms because it is the only shelter that never fails. ~ The Mother, #NFDB
908:Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
909:Above all, for his merciless, contemptuous treatment of Clifford Chatterley, blown to bits in Flanders in 1918, Lawrence can be damned to hell. Damned but not banned. ~ Germaine Greer, #NFDB
910:Above all, try always to be able to feel deeply any injustice committed against any person in any part of the world. It is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary. ~ Che Guevara, #NFDB
911:A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles,Mthat was what distinguished him. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
912:Being a film director involves, above all, a lot of hard work and resolve and determination. The glamour doesn't come until the premiere and the thing is all long done. ~ D W Griffith, #NFDB
913:Children don’t need beating. They need love and encouragement. They need fathers to whom they can look with respect rather than fear. Above all, they need example. ~ Gordon B Hinckley, #NFDB
914:For above all, love is a sharing. Love is a power. Love is a change that takes place in our own heart. Sometimes it may change others, but always it changes us. ~ James Dillet Freeman, #NFDB
915:From Clive, head blackboard and confidant to our noble mage, Alex Stowe: Artimé is under attack! Please read and follow your instructions. And above all . . . DON’T DIE. ~ Lisa McMann, #NFDB
916:My generation saw in The Graduate that there is one romantic strategy to use above all others: persistence. This same strategy is at the core of every stalking case. ~ Gavin de Becker, #NFDB
917:One must exploit the asynchronies that have befallen one, link them to a promising issue or domain, reframe frustrations as opportunities, and, above all, persevere. ~ Howard Gardner, #NFDB
918:She knew a cutting, incisive, withering and above all a self-evident answer existed. It was just that, to her extreme annoyance, she couldn't quite bring it to mind. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
919:The brave man uses wrath for his own act, above all in attack, 'for it is peculiar to wrath to pounce upon evil. Thus fortitude and wrath work directly upon each other. ~ Josef Pieper, #NFDB
920:Thousands of channels there are through which the beauty of your soul may sail even unto our thoughts. Above all is there the wonderful, central channel of love. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck, #NFDB
921:To Eva, Cousin Randy was an untouchable demigod—an angel’s wing broken from an ancient statue, sent here to help her hover above all things insipid and heartbreaking. ~ J Ryan Stradal, #NFDB
922:Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
923:Above all, I am motivated by the most mysterious drive we ever experience -that of love - I don't think there's any influence on my life that compares with love. ~ R Buckminster Fuller, #NFDB
924:Britain is characterised not just by its independence but, above all, by its openness. We have always been a country that reaches out. That turns its face to the world. ~ David Cameron, #NFDB
925:For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity. ~ Frantz Fanon, #NFDB
926:If there is one thing I long for above all else, it's that the years to come may see Christianity in this country able again to capture the imagination of our culture. ~ Rowan Williams, #NFDB
927:I think the sheer fact of women talking, being, paradoxical, inexplicable, flip, self-destructiv e but above all else public is the most revolutionary thing in the world. ~ Chris Kraus, #NFDB
928:It is not surprising that Venice is known above all for mirrors and glass since Venice is the most narcissistic city in the world, the city that celebrates self-mirroring. ~ Erica Jong, #NFDB
929:It sometimes occurred to her, which perhaps he too knew deep down inside, that the violence he inflicted on her was above all a manifestation of his own weakness. ~ Arnaldur Indri ason, #NFDB
930:Look em in the eye. Make a gesture of inclusion, which he did all the time. And above all, have a chorus. So I learned from Pete Seeger to have something for them to sing. ~ Tom Paxton, #NFDB
931:The Biblical story of the creation is an excellent parable of movement. The work of art, too, is above all a process of creation, it is never experienced as a mere product. ~ Paul Klee, #NFDB
932:Its entry on the scene was not generally peaceful. A flood of mistrust, sometimes of hatred, above all of moral indignation, regularly opposed itself to the first innovator. ~ Max Weber, #NFDB
933:Locked in a debate over Israel’s alleged vices, they miss the salient truth running through the long history of anti-Semitism: Israel is hated above all for its virtues. ~ George Gilder, #NFDB
934:Man has risen so far above all other species that he competes in ways unique in nature. He fights by means of complicated weapons; he fights for ends remote in time. ~ Charles Lindbergh, #NFDB
935:Reason is the light, the sun of the brain. It is the compass of the mind, the ever-constant Northern Star, the mountain peak that lifts itself above all clouds. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
936:The conclusion I have reached is that, above all, dogs are witnesses. They are allowed access to our most private moments. They are there when we think we are alone. ~ Carolyn Parkhurst, #NFDB
937:There is one thing above all others that I despise. It is fingers, especially female fingers, messing around in my guts. My guts, like Victorian marriage, are private. ~ Wallace Stegner, #NFDB
938:The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
939:Totalitarianism spells simplification: an enormous reduction in the variety of aims, motives, interests, human types, and, above all, in the categories and units of power. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
940:You can't let doubt or fear or guilt eat away at you. You are good and you need to remember that above all else. Love is stronger than hatred, and you are made of love. ~ Amanda Hocking, #NFDB
941:Above all, I regret that scientific experiments-some of them mine-should have produced such a terrible weapon as the hydrogen bomb. Regret, with all my soul, but not guilt. ~ Harold Urey, #NFDB
942:Good design is probably 98% common sense. Above all, an object must function well and efficiently-and getting that part right requires a good deal of time and attention. ~ Terence Conran, #NFDB
943:I am essentially a painter of the kind of still life composition that communicates a sense of tranquillity and privacy, moods which I have always valued above all else. ~ Giorgio Morandi, #NFDB
944:I can't say I prefer blondes, brunettes, or redheads. I like emotion and elegance. Even expensive clothes do not guarantee a good look. You must be yourself above all! ~ Robert Pattinson, #NFDB
945:I like that color you turn. It makes you look like a tomato. A very dignified tomato. A tomato above all other tomatoes, one that rules his garden with a squishy iron fist. ~ James Riley, #NFDB
946:May the stars carry your sadness away, may the flowers fill your heart with beauty, may hope forever wipe away your tears. And, above all, may silence make you strong. ~ Chief Dan George, #NFDB
947:The goal of our mission is that people from all the nations worship the true God. But worship means cherishing the preciousness of God above all else, including life itself. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
948:The scholar may lose himself in schools, in words, and become a pedant; but when he comprehends his duties, he above all men is arealist, and converses with things. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
949:The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens ... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
950:above all, simplify the French language and abolish irregular verbs – a measure that would have rescued countless schoolchildren from the despotism of pernickety pedagogues. ~ Graham Robb, #NFDB
951:Above all, the state of grace is absolutely necessary at the moment of death; without it, salvation and supernatural happiness the beatific vision of God - are impossible. ~ Pope Pius XII, #NFDB
952:Above all, TRIBES is fun, and even kind of sexy... in that every round features an Opportunity for Reproduction, which is the main aim of the game, as it is in most of Nature ~ David Brin, #NFDB
953:And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
954:And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
955:A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions — as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, #NFDB
956:Judo has helped me to understand that pictorial space is above all the product of spiritual exercises. Judo is, in fact, the discovery by the human body of a spiritual space. ~ Yves Klein, #NFDB
957:Lansens is a willing storyteller.... As a writer, she desires a particular kind of reader, one who wants above all to be transported--who might sit at her knee, the hearth. ~ Noah Richler, #NFDB
958:That which interest me above all else,' he wrote,'is the caligraphy of a tree or the tiles of a roof, and I mean leaf by leaf, branch by branch, blade by blade of the grass. ~ Colm T ib n, #NFDB
959:With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent than we were before. ~ Carol S Dweck, #NFDB
960:Above all, I feel that the sounds of this world are so beautiful in themselves that if only we could listen to them properly, cinema would have no need for music at all. ~ Andrei Tarkovsky, #NFDB
961:Ancient philosophy proposed to mankind an art of living. By contrast, modern philosophy appears above all as the construction of a technical jargon reserved for specialists. ~ Pierre Hadot, #NFDB
962:Loving God with all our mind means that our thinking is wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express the heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
963:Self-discovery is above all the realization that we are alone: it is the opening of an impalpable, transparent wall-that of our consciousness-between the world and ourselves. ~ Octavio Paz, #NFDB
964:We were sweet, lovely people who wanted to throw out all the staid institutions who placed money and wars above all else. When you're young you think that's how life works. ~ Margot Kidder, #NFDB
965:While we are grateful to all the brave men and officers for the events of the past few days, we should, above all, be very grateful to Almighty God, who gives us victory. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
966:above all things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony. Besides, ~ Niccol Machiavelli, #NFDB
967:A living thing seeks above all to DISCHARGE its strength—life itself is WILL TO POWER; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent RESULTS thereof. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
968:I find above all that the expression, atonal music, is most unfortunate — it is on a par with calling flying the art of not falling, or swimming the art of not drowning. ~ Arnold Schoenberg, #NFDB
969:Improve on upon your limit of thinking; it is the best step to repair what has been destroyed by limited thinking. Think big, think wide, and above all think positively! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
970:Judges ought to be more learned, than witty, more reverend, than plausible, and more advised, than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
971:Today majesty is the length from where I stand to the summit of the mountain we are climbing. This mountain has majesty and hold its own authority above all others. ~ Terry Tempest Williams, #NFDB
972:Above all, she loved being loved, and he had flooded her with attentions. Making her feel so often that she existed for him, he made her existence real. No, she was not alone. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
973:Above all, Suharto had been hunting down communists, presumed communists, suspected communists, possible communists, highly unlikely communists, and the odd innocent person. ~ Jonas Jonasson, #NFDB
974:Happiness is determined by factors like your health, your family relationships and friendships, and above all by feeling that you are in control of how you spend your time. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
975:since when have you known any truth to be popular? Eh? Since when have you seen truth revered above all other considerations? Will crowds follow the man of truth, or flee? ~ D Barkley Briggs, #NFDB
976:The secret is to throw yourself into the water of life again and again, not to hang back, no reservations, risk everything, but above all strike out boldly with all you have. ~ Arshile Gorky, #NFDB
977:To know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility ~ Ian Morgan Cron, #NFDB
978:What I found in Kabul was a sisterhood unlike any I had seen before, marked by empathy, laughter, courage, curiosity about the world, and above all a passion for work. ~ Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, #NFDB
979:Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes. ~ Henri Cartier Bresson, #NFDB
980:Above all, try always to be able to feel deeply any injustice committed against any person in any part of the world. It is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara, #NFDB
981:Compulsory education... It is a painful, continual, and difficult work; to be done by kindness, by watching, by warning, by precept, and by praise, — but above all — by example. ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
982:Divine love does not weigh down, nor carry his servant captive and enslaved to the lowest depths, but raises him, supports him and magnifies him above all liberty whatsoever. ~ Giordano Bruno, #NFDB
983:I have not sought during my life to amass wealth and to adorn my body, but I have sought to adorn my soul with the jewels of wisdom, patience, and above all with a love of liberty. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
984:I must take care above all that I cultivate communion with Christ, for though that can never be the basis of my peace - mark that - yet it will be the channel of it. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
985:It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli, #NFDB
986:I will be able to love above all discontentment. To give even when I am stripped of everything. To dry tears even when I am still crying. To believe even when I am discredited. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
987:LIBRA Today you must leave it alone. Walk away from it. Be strong, be sensible and above all else, be less bothered. Practise the art of ‘not caring’. There’s your solution. ~ Teresa Driscoll, #NFDB
988:The race was not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, he told himself. Time and chance happened to them all, and it was vital, above all, to hold a steady course. ~ James Runcie, #NFDB
989:This religion takes away the courage of thinking of unusual things and prohibits self-examination above all as the most egregiousof sins.... It is one step away from protestantism. ~ Stendhal, #NFDB
990:With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent than we were before. Who ~ Carol S Dweck, #NFDB
991:With Women, Chloe Caldwell is to Millennials what Anais Nin was to previous generations–a voice that is raw, intimate, thoughtful, compelling. Above all, heartbreakingly real. ~ Samantha Dunn, #NFDB
992:A camera alone does not make a picture. To make a picture you need a camera, a photographer and above all a subject. It is the subject that determines the interest of the photograph. ~ Man Ray, #NFDB
993:According to new research emerging from many quarters that our continued devotion to growth above all is, on balance, making our lives worse, both collectively and individually ~ Bill McKibben, #NFDB
994:Civilization means, above all, an unwillingness to inflict unnecessary pain ... those of us who heedlessly accept the commands of authority cannot yet claim to be civilized men. ~ Harold Laski, #NFDB
995:one bald statistic stands out above all: only 55 per cent of people who have been a victim or a witness in criminal proceedings would be prepared to go through it again. ~ The Secret Barrister, #NFDB
996:Self-discovery is above all the realization that we are alone: it is the opening of an impalpable, transparent wall - that of our consciousness - between the world and ourselves. ~ Octavio Paz, #NFDB
997:Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been before the general gaze from the foundations of the world—the figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
998:Above all things let us never forget that mankind constitutes one great brotherhood; all born to encounter suffering and sorrow, and therefore bound to sympathize with each other. ~ Albert Pike, #NFDB
999:As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above all, provided that it consents to be dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack it, and we try to kill it. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
1000:As much as we like to think we grieve for others, she said, it bears keeping in mind that we are also grieving for ourselves and, above all, what has inevitably passed us by. ~ Matthew Gallaway, #NFDB
1001:At his best, we are more than all right. At his best he rises above all of it and he is more than any of them. But there is something in him. A flaw that poisons all the rest. ~ Gabriel Tallent, #NFDB
1002:Audiences don't care if you sing correctly. They care if they feel something. If they don't, they forget you. Emotional honesty creates loyalty and a lifelong connection above all else. ~ Jewel, #NFDB
1003:For above all things Love means sweetness, and truth, and measure; yea, loyalty to the loved one and to your word. And because of this I dare not meddle with so high a matter. ~ Marie de France, #NFDB
1004:He who, in questions of right, virtue, or duty, sets himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end with truer mirth than ever he was laughed at. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater, #NFDB
1005:In the end, it is always the ruling classes, bourgeois certainly, but above all aristocratic, that long mourn the empires, and their grief always has a stagey quality to it. ~ Benedict Anderson, #NFDB
1006:I think above all else it is freedom I search for in my work, in these far-flung places, to find a group of people who give each other the room to be in whatever way they need to be ~ Lily King, #NFDB
1007:Leadership must be likeable, affable, cordial, and above all emotional. The fashion of authoritarian leadership is gone. Football is about life. You can't be angry all day. ~ Vicente del Bosque, #NFDB
1008:learn. The courage not to fear a change in one’s lifestyle, the importance of having time on your side. And above all, discovering your own uniquely creative style and themes. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1009:Let us, above all, be clear that, without a convincing program of debt relief to start the new millennium, our objective of halving world poverty by 2015 will be only a pipe dream. ~ Kofi Annan, #NFDB
1010:Lola Montes is, in my unhumble opinion, the greatest film of all time, and I am willing to stake my critical reputation, such as it is, on this one proposition above all others. ~ Andrew Sarris, #NFDB
1011:My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored; people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth. ~ W H Auden, #NFDB
1012:Be guided by the axiom: There are no limits to the ability to contribute on the part of a properly selected, well-trained, appropriately supported, and, above all, committed person. ~ Tom Peters, #NFDB
1013: He places placidity above all And refuses to prettify weapons; If one prettifies weapons, This is to delight in the killing of other.. ~ Victor H Mair, #NFDB
1014:If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else.” “I know. An overwhelming passion for it.” “No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong. ~ Anthony de Mello, #NFDB
1015:If you don't keep and guard and mature your force, and above all, have time and quiet to perfect your work, you will be writing things not much better than you did five years ago. ~ Willa Cather, #NFDB
1016:I miss him still today: his long, whiskery eyebrows, his huge hands and hugs, his warmth, his prayers, his stories, but above all his shining example of how to live and how to die. ~ Bear Grylls, #NFDB
1017:I no longer think that learning how to manage people, especially subordinates, is the most important for executives to learn. I am teaching above all else, how to manage oneself. ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB
1018:I think above all else it is freedom I search for in my work, in these far-flung places, to find a group of people who give each other the room to be in whatever way they need to be. ~ Lily King, #NFDB
1019:It is not just power, but impotence, that corrupts people. It gives them the mind and soul of slaves. It makes them indifferent, lazy, cynical, irresponsible, and, above all, stupid. ~ John Holt, #NFDB
1020:you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young,whatever life you wear
it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become. ~ E E Cummings,#NFDB
1021:Above all marriage is a new task and a new seriousness—a new challenge and a question regarding the strength and kindness of each participant and a new great danger for both. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
1022:Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck—and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
1023:and above all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to who he is,—that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature stand to each other. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1024:...Love, my lads! And above all, love pretty, charming girls; they are the remedy for evil, they give a sweet smell to rottenness, they exchange life for death...Love, my lads! ~ Machado de Assis, #NFDB
1025:She is, above all else, tired; she wants more than anything to return to her bed and her book. The world, this world, feels suddenly stunned and stunted, far from everything. ~ Michael Cunningham, #NFDB
1026:Tell me a story" is as old as humankind. It's a prehistoric request, going back to when people sat around fires in caves. A novelist's first goal, above all, is to tell a story. ~ Mark Rubinstein, #NFDB
1027:You exist if and only if you are free to do things without a visible objective, with no justification and, above all, outside the dictatorship of someone else's narrative. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
1028:Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible. Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, #NFDB
1029:A man's truest self realizations might require him, above all, to learn to close his eyes: to let himself be taken unawares, to follow his dark angel, to risk his illegal instincts. ~ Jean Cocteau, #NFDB
1030:Beware, above all else, of cultivating humanitarian sentiments. Humanitarianism is a vulgarity. I write coldly, rationally, thinking of your own good, you poor unhappily married women. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1031:...civilization means, above all, an unwillingness to inflict unnecessary pain... those of us who heedlessly accept the commands of authority cannot yet claim to be civilized men. ~ Harold J Laski, #NFDB
1032:For the stone from the top for geologists, the knowledge of the limits of endurance for the doctors, but above all for the spirit of adventure to keep alive the soul of man. ~ George Leigh Mallory, #NFDB
1033:Henry-despite his youth, his inexperience, and above all his profound gratitude for having just lost his virginity-made a mental note that this girl Lila was something of an idiot. ~ Lisa Grunwald, #NFDB
1034:politics is the indispensable foundation for things elegant and beautiful. First and above all else, you must secure life, liberty and the right to pursue your own happiness. ~ Charles Krauthammer, #NFDB
1035:Pure mathematics is on the whole distinctly more useful than applied... For what is useful above all is technique, and mathematical technique is taught mainly through pure mathematics. ~ G H Hardy, #NFDB
1036:The novelist Reynolds Price says there is one sentence above all that people crave from stories: The Maker of all things loves and wants me. Christians still believe in that truth. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
1037:True leadership, true and genuine leading requires intelligence, an independent mind, the ability to delay gratification, the ability to think long term, and above all else a spine. ~ Aaron Clarey, #NFDB
1038:What knowing the Mother means above all is daring to put love into action. The Mother herself is love-in-action, love acting everywhere and in everything to make creation possible. ~ Andrew Harvey, #NFDB
1039:When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1040:Above all, in my anger, I was sad. Isn’t that always the way, that at the heart of the fire is a frozen kernel of sorrow that the fire is trying—valiantly, fruitlessly—to eradicate. ~ Claire Messud, #NFDB
1041:Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
1042:But above all, meetings have to be the exception rather than the rule. An organization in which everybody meets all the time is an organization in which no one gets anything done. ~ Peter F Drucker, #NFDB
1043:Government should uphold-and not undermine-those institutions which are custodians of the very values upon which civilization is founded: religion, education and, above all, family. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
1044:The two things most human beings would choose above all — the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.” Harry lay there, lost for ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1045:What the artist must aim at above all else is this: to produce, by any process whatever, a work which by the life and humanity emanating from it communicates to the beholder . . . . ~ Medardo Rosso, #NFDB
1046:You get to know people as individuals. The dreams of people may differ, but everybody wants their dreams to come true. And America, above all places, gives us the freedom to do that ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
1047:He urged freedom above all, and self-realization, and spurned “the contemptible sort of well-being dreamed of by shopkeepers, Christians, cows, women, Englishmen and other democrats. ~ Ben Macintyre, #NFDB
1048:In an era that exalts individual autonomy above all other values, the state as a practical matter has long since forfeited its authority to command citizens to defend the nation. ~ Andrew J Bacevich, #NFDB
1049:I try to be specific. One thought at a time. Clear. Articulate. And above all, memorable, if you can be. You'd like to write phrases that people can't forget as soon as they read them. ~ Clive James, #NFDB
1050:Marie had professors who said, “don’t trust what people teach you, and above all what I teach you.” In other words, think independently and test supposed “facts.” She was in heaven. ~ Kathleen Krull, #NFDB
1051:Nonetheless, what I saw was: better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
1052:One is happy once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness: simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and above all, a clear conscience. ~ George Sand, #NFDB
1053:The State must play an ever-widening part; it must, for example, ‘increasingly and earnestly concern itself with the care of the sick and the aged, and, above all, of the children’. ~ Martin Gilbert, #NFDB
1054:To know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility . . . ~ Flannery O Connor, #NFDB
1055:Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defence against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can’t touch and see. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1056:Above all I needed to be made to think about what it meant that I was a woman, instead of acting unreflectingly as though I were a man, bound to live out the script of a man’s life. ~ Jill Ker Conway, #NFDB
1057:Above all, the normalcy of society’s routines tells us that this way of life is normal. For many people, the most powerful enforcer of the habits of separation is money. Usually, ~ Charles Eisenstein, #NFDB
1058:But how shall I get ideas? ''Keep your wits open! Observe! Observe! Study! Study! But above all, Think! Think! And when a noble image is indelibly impressed upon the mind - Act! ~ Orison Swett Marden, #NFDB
1059:I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other. ~ John Locke, #NFDB
1060:It is an illusion to suppose that a Dictator makes himself; at most he seizes an opportunity made for him by passive, stupid, incompetent, and above all, unsatisfied and fearful men. ~ Susan Stebbing, #NFDB
1061:Let us remember the poor, and not forget kindness to strangers; above all, let us love God with all our soul, and might, and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves. ~ Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, #NFDB
1062:Let us take care above all not to walk like a flock of sheep each in the other's traces; let us inform ourselves rather of the place where we ought to go than of that where others are going. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
1063:Marriage partners are to serve each other. Elevate, help, teach, strengthen each other, but above all, serve. Raise their children honorably, lovingly and with detachment. A child is a ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
1064:Nordstrom • Service to the customer above all else • Hard work and individual productivity • Never being satisfied • Excellence in reputation; being part of something special Philip ~ James C Collins, #NFDB
1065:Above all else, we need a reaffirmation of political commitment at the highest levels to reducing the dangers that arise both from existing nuclear weapons and from further proliferation. ~ Kofi Annan, #NFDB
1066:Above all Siddartha learned from the river how to listen, to listen with a still heart, with a waiting, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgments, without opinions. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1067:A garden should be in a constant state of fluid change, expansion, experiment, adventure; above all it should be an inquisitive, loving, but self-critical journey on the part of its owner. ~ H E Bates, #NFDB
1068:At first it will be mortifying to see that she is not always good, understanding, tolerant, controlled, and, above all, without needs, for these have been the basis of her self-respect. ~ Alice Miller, #NFDB
1069:But two other important reasons also help explain the triumph of Islam in the early part of the seventh century: the support provided by Christians, and above all that given by Jews. ~ Peter Frankopan, #NFDB
1070:I will be able to love above all discontentment.
To give even when I am stripped of everything.
To dry tears even when I am still crying.
To believe even when I am discredited. ~ Paulo Coelho,#NFDB
1071:My message to businessmen of this country when they go abroad on business is that there is one thing above all they can take with them to stop them catching AIDS, and that is the wife. ~ Edwina Currie, #NFDB
1072:The book [ A Passage to India ] shows signs of fatigue and disillusionment; but it has chapters of clear and triumphant beauty, and above all it makes us wonder, what will he write next? ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
1073:The search for ground lights is not enough. There is the axis to be followed and ‘—dot dot dot—’ forgotten. You must above all find lightness, buoyancy, the permanent defiance of gravity. ~ Paul Celan, #NFDB
1074:The trouble with truth is that people are unwilling to be convinced that they have been deceived. It impugns their judgment. It stains their character. People love themselves above all. ~ Jeff Wheeler, #NFDB
1075:To harness the power of television for the education of our nation's children, everyone must get involved - television programmers, government leaders, teachers, and above all, parents. ~ Edwin Newman, #NFDB
1076:[To] know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility . . . ~ Flannery O Connor, #NFDB
1077:destruction. The work of the Church seeks not only to remind everyone of the duty to care for nature, but at the same time “she must above all protect mankind from self-destruction”.[47] ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1078:Everything in my past, in my training, everything that has been most essential in my activity up to now has made me above all a man who writes, and it is too late for that to change. ~ Jean Paul Sartre, #NFDB
1079:It was very much a cry for democratic control at that time. Above all, breaking the accomplished power of a few people to rule the lives of everybody else. ~ Barbara Castle Baroness Castle of Blackburn, #NFDB
1080:the neighborhood is nothing but a protective zone- remodeling, disinfection, a snobbish and hygenic design- but above all in a figurative sense: it is a machine for making emptiness. ~ Jean Baudrillard, #NFDB
1081:When a man conclusively exalts one woman, and one woman only, “above all others,” you can be pretty sure you are dealing with a misogynist. It frees him up for thinking the rest are shit. ~ Martin Amis, #NFDB
1082:Above all, it behooves us to repress, and if possible to extinguish once and for all, our inveterate tendency to judge others by the extent to which they contrive to be like ourselves. ~ George F Kennan, #NFDB
1083:Above all, Vasya wanted her horse. She wanted his strength, his warm breath, his uncomplicated affection. Without him, she was a lost girl in a dress; on his back, she felt invincible. ~ Katherine Arden, #NFDB
1084:And, above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning. ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB
1085:But, above all it is the education of adolescents that is important, because adolescence is the time when the child enters on the state of [adult]hood and becomes a member of society. ~ Maria Montessori, #NFDB
1086:Every good composition is above all a work of abstraction. All good painters know this. But the painter cannot dispense with subjects altogether without his work suffering impoverishment. ~ Diego Rivera, #NFDB
1087:For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1088:I want to do something challenging and I want to take risks, but above all, I want people to be entertained...Because the only way of talking about some issues sometimes is through humor. ~ Shazia Mirza, #NFDB
1089:Let a man fear, above all, me, his God, and so much the gentler will he become toward my creatures and animals, on whom, on account of me, their Creator, he ought to have compassion. ~ Bridget of Sweden, #NFDB
1090:Nihil ita sublime est, supraque pericula tendit Non sit ut inferius suppositumque deo. - Nothing is so high and above all danger that is not below and in the power of God. ~ Ovid, Tristium, IV. 8. 47, #NFDB
1091:Several travelers noted that American masters wanted above all to be “popular” with their slaves—a characteristically American need that was probably rare in Brazil or the Caribbean. ~ David Brion Davis, #NFDB
1092:There are, above all, times in which the human reality, always mobile, accelerates, and bursts into vertiginous speeds. Our time is such a one, for it is made of descent and fall. ~ Jose Ortega y Gasset, #NFDB
1093:When she spoke again it was in the thin, careful and above all brave voice of someone who has pulled themselves together despite overwhelming odds but might let go again at any moment. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1094:Above all, in my anger, I was sad. Isn't that always the way, that at the heart of the fire is a frozen kernel of sorrow that the fire is trying -- valiantly, fruitlessly -- to eradicate. ~ Claire Messud, #NFDB
1095:And not only the pride of intellect, but the stupidity of intellect. And, above all, the dishonesty, yes, the dishonesty of intellect. Yes, indeed, the dishonesty and trickery of intellect. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1096:In its sentimental mode, compassion is an exercise in moral indignation, in feeling good rather than doing good ... In its unsentimental mode, compassion seeks above all to do good. ~ Gertrude Himmelfarb, #NFDB
1097:It is literature which for me opened the mysterious and decisive doors of imagination and understanding. To see the way others see. To think the way others think. And above all, to feel. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
1098:You don't need to condemn. Just observe, That is sin. That is insanity. That is unconsciousness. Above all, don't forget to observe your own mind. Seek out the root of the insanity there. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1099:Faith is not simply a patience that passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things - with resignations, yes, but above all, with blazing, serene hope. ~ Corazon Aquino, #NFDB
1100:He was moderately truthful towards men, but to women lied like a Cretan-a system of ethics above all others calculated to win popularity at the first flush of admission into lively society. ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
1101:...she found herself blessing God for her creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life, but above all for His inestimable Love; out loud; in a burst of acknowledgement. ~ Elizabeth von Arnim, #NFDB
1102:That makes me think of the 2002 World Cup Final above all else. Nobody thought at the time that our team would get through to the Final against Brazil. We should remember that this summer. ~ Angela Merkel, #NFDB
1103:The primary point of this existence is to live, and all living things move and grow. Therefore meditation should be integrated with the flow of life. It should not dominate above all else. ~ Ming Dao Deng, #NFDB
1104:Know that you are loved, my dear...Know that you can and will rise above all your fears. I now call you water walker. Water Walker? Yes, you walked through the waters of your fear, didn't you? ~ Ted Dekker, #NFDB
1105:No, obviously what strength was all along was the ability to say “Fuck off” to the lot of it, to turn your back on all the suffering and contemplate, unmolested, your own desires above all. ~ Claire Messud, #NFDB
1106:The commonplace expression that life is nothing but a play is verified above all in this: the world speaks absolutely consistently in one way and acts absolutely consistently in another. ~ Giacomo Leopardi, #NFDB
1107:The Spain of today looks at the Second Republic with great appreciation and above all with satisfaction and pride for what we have been able to do in this constitutional age. ~ Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, #NFDB
1108:You cannot just quote from history and above all you cannot take it out of context, in however humorous a fashion . On the contrary history has a natural continuity which must be respected ~ Gottfried Bohm, #NFDB
1109:Protect me (Book) from oil, water, insects and loose bonding, and above all, O Lord, protect me from falling into the hands of a fool. ~ A frequent scribal appearing at the end of Ancient Indian manuscript., #NFDB
1110:The prince in The Leopard was a very complex character - at times autocratic, rude, strong - at times romantic, good, understanding - and sometimes even stupid, and above all, mysterious. ~ Luchino Visconti, #NFDB
1111:The War on Terror has been and continues to be, above all, a war on the most basic liberties and political safeguards that we're all taught are what distinguishes the US and keeps it free. ~ Glenn Greenwald, #NFDB
1112:We don't yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people. ~ Alice Miller, #NFDB
1113:We must imbue our children with principles of the higher-self, principles which see all people as true equals, and above all, which are sensitive to the delicate and fragile balance of life. ~ Bryant McGill, #NFDB
1114:Whoever fears God stands above all manner of fear. He has become a stranger to all the fear of this world and placed it far from himself, and no manner of trembling comes near him. ~ Saint Ephrem the Syrian, #NFDB
1115:You must achieve the confidence of knowing that you possess absolute, unbending, unimpeachable integrity. Everyone must know that. Above all else, it is integrity that defines your character. ~ Dave Calhoun, #NFDB
1116:Above all remember this: that magic belongs as much to the heart as to the head and everything which is done, should be done from love or joy or righteous anger (from Ladies of Grace Adieu). ~ Susanna Clarke, #NFDB
1117:A single mom tries when things are hard. She never gives up. She believes in her family, even when things are tough. She knows that above all things... a mother's love is more than enough. ~ Deniece Williams, #NFDB
1118:It's not that women don't feel things, we do. We fall in love, we get our hearts broken, we're disappointed and sad, but we've also been taught that you must always have your pride. Above all. ~ Liz Tuccillo, #NFDB
1119:[J]ust as the human body shows a common anatomy over and above all racial differences, so, too, the psyche possesses a common substratum transcending all differences in culture and consciousness. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1120:Let us show, not merely in great crises, but in every day of life, qualities of practical intelligence, of hardihood and endurance, and above all, the power of devotion to a lofty ideal. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
1121:Lose yourself in the far off worlds that are right under your feet. Switch below with above all the way up into infinity. We should be thankful who we are, whether we know ourselves or not. ~ John Frusciante, #NFDB
1122:Personally I do not resort to force - not even the force of law - to advance moral reforms. I prefer education, argument, persuasion, and above all the influence of example - of fashion. ~ Rutherford B Hayes, #NFDB
1123:“Seek, above all, for a game worth playing. Such is the advice of the oracle to modern man. Having found the game, play it with intensity — play as if your life and sanity depended on it." ~ Robert S. Deropp, #NFDB
1124:When pressure mounts and strain increases everyone begins to show the weaknesses in his makeup. It is up to the Commander to conceal his: above all to conceal doubt, fear, and distrust. ~ Dwight D Eisenhower, #NFDB
1125:Above all, beware the crowd! The crowd only feels; it has no mind of its own which can plan. The crowd is credulous, it destroys, it consumes, it hates, and it dreams—but it never builds. ~ William Manchester, #NFDB
1126:'cause humans, above all, fear intelligence. how humans, scared out of their minds, gather whatever intelligence they can put their hands on and put it all in a central penitentiary named facts. ~ Kathy Acker, #NFDB
1127:Chav-bashing draws on a long, ignoble tradition of class hatred. But it cannot be understood without looking at more recent events. Above all, it is the bastard child of a very British class war. ~ Owen Jones, #NFDB
1128:Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power...Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
1129:The emphasis of the Western mind is on life, the outer life above all, the things that are grasped, visible, tangible. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Renaissance in India, A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture - IV, #NFDB
1130:We must imbue our children with principles of the higher-self, principles which see all people as true equals, and above all, which are sensitive to the delicate and fragile balance of life. ~ Bryant H McGill, #NFDB
1131:Above all, the translation of books into digital formats means the destruction of boundaries. Bound, printed texts are discrete objects: immutable, individual, lendable, cut off from the world. ~ Tom Chatfield, #NFDB
1132:Don't spend too much time planning, release early and often, some things will work, others won't, refine and move forward and above all forget the money, just make sure you love what you're doing. ~ Kevin Rose, #NFDB
1133:I am extraordinarily lucky, I was born in a family of strong moral values, and in my life I was able to do what I liked best: debuts, great theatres, but above all, inner and deep satisfaction. ~ Jose Carreras, #NFDB
1134:It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power — power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors. They want to retaliate. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
1135:It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power - power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors; they want to retaliate. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
1136:There is one gift above all others that makes man unique among the animals, and it is the gift displayed everywhere here: his immense pleasure in exercising and pushing forward his own skill. ~ Jacob Bronowski, #NFDB
1137:To write the lives of the great in separating them from their works necessarily ends by above all stressing their pettiness, because it is in their work that they have put the best of themselves. ~ Simone Weil, #NFDB
1138:Above all, the photographs I use are not arty in any sense of the word. I think photography is dead as fine art; its only place is in the commercial world, for technical or information purposes. ~ Edward Ruscha, #NFDB
1139:And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it. ~ Roald Dahl, #NFDB
1140:A painting is above all a product of the artist's imagination, it must never be a copy. If, at a later stage, he wants to add two or three touches from nature, of course it doesn't spoil anything. ~ Edgar Degas, #NFDB
1141:A reader wants, above all, to feel a range of emotions--excitement, love, hate, misery, and everything in between them; wants to breathe characters’ air & see the world through their eyes. ~ Mark Rubinstein, #NFDB
1142:But if you search further, you find in yourself nothing similar to God, but rather you affirm that God stands above all this as cause, origin, and the light of life of your intellective soul. ~ Nicholas of Cusa, #NFDB
1143:It is for the poor people's sake, above all, that we urgently need more unity and better organization and need to concentrate our reform efforts in order to really to achieve reforms, one by one. ~ Thomas Pogge, #NFDB
1144:It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
1145:It wasn’t only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
1146:It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. ~ Ian Mcewan, #NFDB
1147:I will never forget my time with Athletic Club and I'd like to thank the fans and staff for all their support and, above all, wish all my fantastic former team-mates all the best for the future. ~ Ander Herrera, #NFDB
1148:Mr. Arthur Brisbane says: "One thing above all brings success—to like your work and to be interested in it; and not to like your work is the one thing above all others that brings failure. ~ Orison Swett Marden, #NFDB
1149:...revolutions are not won by enlisting the masses. Revolution is a science for the few who are competent to practice it. It depends on correct organisation and above all, on communications. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
1150:she had to fight for qualities that had not been even in her vocabulary. Patience. Self-discipline. Self-control. Self-abnegation. Chastity. Adaptability to others - this above all. This always. ~ Doris Lessing, #NFDB
1151:Above all, men are beguiled who are either bewitched by pleasure or terrified by fear. And all these are voluntary changes, but by none of these will knowledge ever be attained. ~ Clement of Alexandria, #NFDB
1152:As every lord giveth a certain livery to his servants, charity is the very livery of Christ. Our Saviour, Who is the Lord above all lords, would have His servants known their badge, which is love. ~ Hugh Latimer, #NFDB
1153:I wanted to join them, wanted, above all, to console Mr. Pirzada somehow. But apart from eating a piece of candy for the sake of his family and praying for their safety, there was nothing I could do. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1154:Ultimately, the reason why love and compassion bring the greatest happiness is simply that our nature cherishes them above all else. The need for love lies at the very foundation of human existence. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
1155:Above all thou must tear this robe that thou wearest, this garment of ignorance which is the principle of wickedness, this dark covering, this living death, this tomb which thou carriest about with thee. ~ Hermes, #NFDB
1156:And above all else, follow your gut. You may be right sometimes; you may be wrong sometimes. But if you always do what you believe is right at that moment in time, you will never have any regrets. ~ Nate Miyaki, #NFDB
1157:As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1158:As one reads Hegel one realizes how much inspiration Hitler, like Marx, drew from him, even if it was at second hand. Above all else, Hegel in his theory of “heroes,” those great agents who are ~ William L Shirer, #NFDB
1159:Christendom is not primarily a mental construct. It is above all a fact, indeed the longest historical experience the Church has had. Hence the deep impact it has made on its life and thought. ~ Gustavo Gutierrez, #NFDB
1160:Even the determination of what is healthy for your body depends on your goal, your horizon, your energies, your impulses, your errors, and above all on the ideals and phantasms of your soul. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1161:In our long and obsessive passion for youth, we have - more than any other modern society - avoided direct approach to age and to dying by denying them in word, in fact, and - above all - in worth. ~ Marya Mannes, #NFDB
1162:Not happiness, perhaps, but something like New England itself—struggle, occasional triumph over adversity, above all the power to endure and to be renewed. For here the roses grow beside the granite. ~ May Sarton, #NFDB
1163:The knowledge of the soul admittedly contributes greatly to the advance of truth in general, and, above all, to our understanding of Nature, for the soul is in some sense the principle of animal life. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1164:Truly, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy when I teach that "above all things there stands the heaven of chance, the heaven of innocence, the heaven of accident, the heaven of wantonness". ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1165:Above all things, good policy is to be used that the treasure and monies in a state be not gathered into few hands.… And money is like muck, not good except it be spread. “Of Seditions and Troubles ~ George Seldes, #NFDB
1166:Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
1167:Above all, Tony wanted to hold Claire in his arms, tell her how sorry he was, and how much he loved her. As the plane neared the water, Anthony Rawlings hoped she would give him that opportunity. ~ Aleatha Romig, #NFDB
1168:Closer of lovely eyes to lovely dreams, Lover of loneliness, and wandering, Of upcast eye, and tender pondering! Thee must I praise above all other glories That smile us on to tell delightful stories. ~ John Keats, #NFDB
1169:If there was anything at all in the Book, anything of hope and peace for His blind and bewildered spawn which He had chosen above all others to offer immortality, THOU SHALT NOT KILL must be it. ~ William Faulkner, #NFDB
1170:I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
1171:Nothing beats having a genuine compassion for human souls. If there is one thing I know, it's that people want to be acknowledged; they want to be heard; and above all, they want to be appreciated. ~ Sasha Azevedo, #NFDB
1172:Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature, it befits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God. ~ Johannes Kepler, #NFDB
1173:4. Consider the consequences: Your most important tasks and priorities are those that can have the most serious consequences, positive or negative, on your life or work. Focus on these above all else. ~ Brian Tracy, #NFDB
1174:All things are from God; and above all, reason and imagination and the great gifts of the mind. They are good in themselves; and we must not altogether forget their origin even in their perversion. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1175:Ephesians 3:20 says that God is able to do "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." And I'm praying that Ephesians 3:20 will be fulfilled-in my life personally, and also in the church. ~ Cliff Barrows, #NFDB
1176:For me a work of art must be an elevated interpretation of nature. The search for the ideal has been the purpose of my life. In landscape or seascape, I love above all the poetic motif. ~ William Adolphe Bouguereau, #NFDB
1177:No more stalemates because they thought her unqualified and unhinged.
No more tiptoeing around a room because women oughtn’t to run. To shout. To rule.
And above all: no more blighted regrets. ~ Susan Dennard,#NFDB
1178:There is nothing tougher than a tough Mexican, just as there is nothing gentler than a gentle Mexican, nothing more honest than an honest Mexican, and above all nothing sadder than a sad Mexican. ~ Raymond Chandler, #NFDB
1179:To be wise was to be above joy and sorrow, fear and pity, ambition and humiliation. It was to hate nothing and to love nothing, and above all to be utterly indifferent to the love and hate of others. ~ Michael Ende, #NFDB
1180:Above all, we must understand that in leaving the toxic ways of the present we are healing ourselves, our places, and our planet. We rebel not as a last act of desperation but as a first act of creation. ~ Sam Smith, #NFDB
1181:After years of struggle, my purpose became clear; for above all, I came to realize that America was truly the land where one could come from less than humble beginnings, to become a winner from within. ~ Dave Pelzer, #NFDB
1182:It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to the west, such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals and the decimal system. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
1183:Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained. ~ Marie Curie, #NFDB
1184:Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power...Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art. ~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
1185:After all, what is reading but a vice, like drink or venery or any other form of excessive self-indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one's mind; one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
1186:But we must never forget that spiritual experience is above all a practical experience of love. And with love, there is no rules. (….) The heart decides, and what it decides is all that really matters. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1187:By patriotism is meant, not only spontaneous, instinctive love for one's own nation, and preference for it above all other nations, but also the belief that such love and preference are good and useful. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1188:Every factory must be a school to educate, like Che Guevara said, to produce not only briquettes, steel, and aluminum, but also, above all, the new man and woman, the new society, the socialist society. ~ Hugo Chavez, #NFDB
1189:I am not good. I am not virtuous. I am not sympathetic. I am not generous. I am merely and above all a creature of intense passionate feeling. I feel—everything. It is my genius. It burns me like fire. ~ Mary MacLane, #NFDB
1190:Intellectualism—the conception of man as above all a thinking animal, consciously adapting means to rationally chosen ends—fell sick with Rousseau, took to its bed with Kant, and died with Schopenhauer. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
1191:No matter how much money you make or don't, how many friends you think you have or lack or how much you know you are loved - or not, we all cherish one thing above all else, the intrinsic need to connect ~ Lisa Bloom, #NFDB
1192:Poetry helps me understand who I am. It helps me understand the world around me. But above all, what poetry has taught me is the fact that I need to embrace mystery in order to be completely human. ~ Yusef Komunyakaa, #NFDB
1193:the recognition of Evil, not as it was portrayed by Disney villains, but as it was in fact: ruthless and irrational, selfish above all else, convinced of its righteousness and of the beauty of disorder. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1194:Above all, a game is an opportunity, an easy- to-understand instrument by which context is defamiliarized just enough to allow what Huizinga famously refers to as his “a magic circle” of play to occur. ~ Mary Flanagan, #NFDB
1195:Above all, the listener should be able to understand the poem or the song, not be forced to unravel a complicated, self-indulgent puzzle. Offer your art up to the whole world, not just an elite few. ~ Lucinda Williams, #NFDB
1196:As there is one Face above all worlds merely to see which is irrevocable joy, so at the bottom of all worlds that face is waiting whose sight alone is the misery from which none who beholds it can recover. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1197:Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family. I can only reiterate the importance and, above all, the richness and the beauty of family life. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1198:I had an aching sense that our time is short, shorter than we ever know, shorter as a morning run, and I wanted mine to be meaningful. And purposeful. And creative. And important. Above all... different. ~ Phil Knight, #NFDB
1199:It was she who did away with my generation's virginity. She taught us much more than we should have learned, but she taught us above all that there's no place in life sadder than an empty bed. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
1200:It would ’a’ been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft; for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1201:'Solutionism' for me is, above all, an unthinking pursuit of perfection - by means of technology - without coming to grips with the fact that imperfection is an essential feature of liberal democracy. ~ Evgeny Morozov, #NFDB
1202:That above all else. They did not look out their windows. No matter what noises or dreadful possibilities, no matter how awful the unknown, there was an even worse thing: to look the Gorgon in the face. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1203:The sound came again. There was a whistle to it, and a moan. It was almost a hiss, and it could’ve been a strangled gasp. Above all, it was quiet, and it seemed to have no source.
It whispered. ~ Cherie Priest,#NFDB
1204:Above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is Nunc dimittis, when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
1205:Above all, look for the loving, which is how all of this works. Without love, no matter what else we have, it will not work. And if we have love, no matter what else we do not have, it will work. ~ Roger Delano Hinkins, #NFDB
1206:[Chinese] are a huge empire now, you'll soon be - in a few years two billion people in the world. So, you should be more compassionate, more understanding. And above all, you don't need all their trouble. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
1207:The art of love is like your painting, it requires technique, patience, and above all, practice by the couple. It requires boldness, the courage to go beyond what people conventionally call "making love. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1208:The man with the average mentality, but with control, with a definite goal, and a clear conception of how it can be gained, and above all, with the power of application and labor, wins in the end. ~ William Howard Taft, #NFDB
1209:To explain away the mystery of a great painting - if such a feat were possible - would do irreparable harm... If there is no mystery, then there is no poetry, the quality I value above all else in art. ~ Georges Braque, #NFDB
1210:Above all, we know that there’s a physical basis for every psychological attribute we have: if just the right spot gets damaged, we can lose just about anything in our mental repertoire, no matter how sacred. ~ Sam Kean, #NFDB
1211:A man needs many things in his life to make it bearable. A good woman. Sons and daughters. Comradeship. Warmth. Food and shelter. But above all these things, he needs to be able to know that he is a man. ~ David Gemmell, #NFDB
1212:And how could I hope to sense God’s presence when I continually broke the silence, frequently had uncharitable thoughts, and above all, constantly yearned for human affection and wept when reprimanded? ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1213:A warrior feeds his body well; he trains it; works on it. Where he lacks knowledge, he studies. But above all he must believe. He must believe in his strength of will, of purpose, of heart and soul. ~ David Gemmell, #NFDB
1214:but above all, I wish for you to have the strength to stand up against the tyrants around you, those who are merely individuals bent on achieving their own desires without a thought for their fellow man. ~ Misty Griffin, #NFDB
1215:Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should forget civility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined nature. Above all, it should never ask for leave where there is a right of way. ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
1216:Surrealism! What is Surrealism? In my opinion, it is above all a reawakening of the poetic idea in art, the reintroduction of the subject but in a very particular sense, that of the strange and illogical. ~ Paul Delvaux, #NFDB
1217:Trusting each other is the beginning of a certain secular faith, a faith that allows us to live in families and communities and nations. Democracy, above all other forms of government, requires this faith. ~ Sue Halpern, #NFDB
1218:When you are older you will understand how precious little things, seemingly of no value in themselves, can be loved and prized above all price when they convey the love and thoughtfulness of a good heart. ~ Edwin Booth, #NFDB
1219:You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your words. Talk really is cheap. Extraordinary human beings live their message. They walk their talk. And above all else, they are inspirational. ~ Robin S Sharma, #NFDB
1220:Above all, for every cat who is liked, accepted, or worshipped from afar, there is another who peers into our eyes—those hopeless orbs, superfluous at night—and spies only horror, indifference, and fear. ~ The New Yorker, #NFDB
1221:All things are from God; and above all, reason and imagination and the great gifts of the mind. They are good in themselves; and we must not altogether forget their origin even in their perversion. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
1222:Don’t forget that everything you deal with is only one thing and nothing else. And don’t forget the language of omens. And, above all, don’t forget to follow your Personal Legend through to its conclusion. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1223:He was much changed and grown even thinner since Pyotr Ivanovich had last seen him, but, as is always the case with the dead, his face was handsomer and above all more dignified than than when he was alive. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1224:Lord, we need a generation of believers who are not ashamed of the gospel. We need an army of believers who hate to be lukewarm and will stand on Your Word above all else. Raise ’em up, Lord. Raise them up. ~ Chris Fabry, #NFDB
1225:The more English is heard in the world, the more gratifying it seems to speak French, and above all to know the culture of our country. They find a kind of French social grace in the language and culture. ~ Bernard Pivot, #NFDB
1226:To Aristotle or to Plato the State is, above all, a large and powerful educative agency which gives the individual increased opportunities of self-development and greater capacities for the enjoyment of life. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1227:We stand for the dismantling of foreign military bases. We stand for a reduction of armed forces and armaments in areas where military confrontation is especially dangerous, above all in central Europe. ~ Leonid Brezhnev, #NFDB
1228:Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good - above all, that we are better than someone else - I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1229:Above all, don’t ask what to believe—ask what to anticipate. Every question of belief should flow from a question of anticipation, and that question of anticipation should be the center of the inquiry. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky, #NFDB
1230:Art gives its vision to beauty not always recognized. And it surrenders freely -- whatever power it possesses to every sincere soul that seeks it. But above all else--it presents us with the gift of ourselves. ~ Aberjhani, #NFDB
1231:he had made his choice, chosen Ophelia, chosen the sweet poison and drunk it. Wanting above all to brave and kind, he had wanted, even more than that, to be loved. So it had been. So it would ever be… ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
1232:If a man were so placed or could so place himself as to be absolutely above all dependence on his fellow-beings he would become so proud and arrogant as to be a veritable burden and nuisance to the world. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1233:I've seen a lot of movies that were great and scary, but not particularly fancy in their filmmaking or performance. And they're still scary, and I think a good horror movie should be scary above all things. ~ Fede Alvarez, #NFDB
1234:They are as they are because they live in the light, the gunslinger thought suddenly. That light of civilization you were taught to adore above all other things. They live in a world which has not moved on. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1235:Truth is objective because God exists outside ourselves; it is universal because God is above all; it is constant because God is eternal. Absolute truth is absolute because it originates from the original. ~ Josh McDowell, #NFDB
1236:What a sight there is in that "smile!" it changes like a chameleon. There is a vacant smile, a cold smile, a smile of hate, a satiric smile, an affected smile; but, above all, a smile of love. ~ Thomas Chandler Haliburton, #NFDB
1237:Abjection is above all ambiguity. Because, while releasing a hold, it does not radically cut off the subject from what threatens it --- on the contrary, abjection acknowledges it to be in perpetual danger. ~ Julia Kristeva, #NFDB
1238:I wished it had turned out differently. I wished I had been better all around. I wished above all that when I believed something, like that I was finally over her, that I knew myself even the slightest bit. ~ Joshua Ferris, #NFDB
1239:Knowledge for its own sake. But also, and perhaps still more, knowledge for power. ... Increased power for increased action. But, finally and above all, increased action for increased being.
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,#NFDB
1240:The culture of drink endures because it offers so many rewards: confidence for the shy, clarity for the uncertain, solace to the wounded and lonely, and above all, the elusive promises of friendship and love. ~ Pete Hamill, #NFDB
1241:Whatever the political affiliation of our next President, whatever his views may be on all the issues and problems that rush in upon us, he must above all be the chief executive in every sense of the word. ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
1242:Above all I am hoping for trees, which may afford me some means of concealment and food and shelter. Often there are trees because barren landscapes are dull and the Games resolve too quickly without them. ~ Suzanne Collins, #NFDB
1243:Christianity, above all, consoles; but there are naturally happy souls who do not need consolation. Consequently Christianity begins by making such souls unhappy, for otherwise it would have no power over them. ~ Andre Gide, #NFDB
1244:In the due exercise of your official power, in strictest accordance with law and the Constitution, you can deprive the enemy of that which, above all else, has given, and still gives him, aid and comfort. ~ Robert Dale Owen, #NFDB
1245:The average English critic is a don manqué, hopelessly parochial when not exaggeratedly teutonophile, over whose desk must surely hang the motto (presumably in Gothic lettering) "Above all no enthusiasm". ~ Constant Lambert, #NFDB
1246:The discernment of a vocation is above all the fruit of an intimate dialogue between the Lord and his disciples. Young people, if they know how to pray, can be trusted to know what to do with God's call. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1247:Because above all else, readers pick up a book to have an emotional experience. They read to connect with characters who provide entertainment and whose trials may add meaning to their own life journeys. As ~ Angela Ackerman, #NFDB
1248:...If we believe that God wants us happy above all else, rather than acknowledging that our role is to serve God, we wrongly believe that God exists to serve us. God becomes a a means to our end: happiness. ~ Craig Groeschel, #NFDB
1249:Perhaps it was because of his wife that Pippo the farmer dreamt of becoming a sailor. There are certain people on this earth who make you want to sail very far away, and above all for a very long time. ~ Timoth e de Fombelle, #NFDB
1250:Sometimes the heart makes decisions the mind cannot, and though we know that the heart is deceitful above all things, we know that at rare moments of stress and profound loss it can be purged pure by suffering. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1251:The European problem is that it assumes that the minute a woman has a child, the mother identity subsumes the professional identity. Now she's the mother, above all, and we must give her all this time. ~ Anne Marie Slaughter, #NFDB
1252:The movie has, above all, effortless charm. Once we catch on that nothing much is going to happen, we can relax and share the amusement of the actors, who are essentially being asked to share their playfulness. ~ Roger Ebert, #NFDB
1253:The product here is not so much books as that goal of ten thousand years of history, the thing the human brain craves above all else and nature will die refusing to give: convenience. Ease is the disease ... ~ Richard Powers, #NFDB
1254:This is not the time for partisan bickering. This is not the time for politics as usual. Some of us are Democrats. Some of us are Republicans. Some of us are Independents. Above all, we must be Oklahomans first. ~ Brad Henry, #NFDB
1255:Trust your inner voice…above all others. Acknowledge your fears, but never, ever let them guide your decisions. And walk forward in faith by embracing your now, even if you are blind to the path in front of you. ~ Tessa Dawn, #NFDB
1256:Above all, I am grateful to A.A. for my sobriety, which means so much to my family, friends, and business associates, because God and A.A. were able to do for me something I was unable to do for myself. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, #NFDB
1257:A jazz musician is not a jazz musician when he or she is eating dinner or when he or she is with his parents or spouse or neighbors. He's above all a human being . . . the true artform is being a human being. ~ Herbie Hancock, #NFDB
1258:At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is. And, above all, accept these things. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1259:Closer of lovely eyes to lovely dreams,
Lover of loneliness, and wandering,
Of upcast eye, and tender pondering!
Thee must I praise above all other glories
That smile us on to tell delightful stories. ~ John Keats,#NFDB
1260:In Paris... I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to "combat" anti-Semitism. ~ Theodor Herzl, #NFDB
1261:Lying is not only excusable; it is not only innocent; it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. Without the ameliorations that it offers, life would become a mere syllogism and hence too metallic to be borne. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
1262:Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over-looker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
1263:The bloodbath was indeed about guns and toxic versions of masculinity and entitlement, and also about misery, cliché, and action-movie solutions to emotional problems. It was, above all, about the hatred of women. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1264:[T]here is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men, and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
1265:True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
1266:Above all else, He loves you and chose to measure that love out not in words, but in blood. He loves you enough to give you the greatest gift conceivable. Would such a love allow you to suffer without purpose? ~ David Jeremiah, #NFDB
1267:Above all, in comedy, and again and again since classical times, passages can be found in which the level of representation is interrupted by references to the spectators or to the fictive nature of the play. ~ Paul Watzlawick, #NFDB
1268:Above all, meditation is about letting the mind be as it is and knowing something about how it is in this moment. It’s not about getting somewhere else, but about allowing yourself to be where you already are. ~ Jon Kabat Zinn, #NFDB
1269:Above all there's a love which is real, the ultimate love. We merge not only physically, but mentally and spiritually, in arc-line, aura and subtle body. We amalgamate with each other. That is real love. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi, #NFDB
1270:A growing community must integrate three elements: a life of silent prayer, a life of service and above all of listening to the poor, and a community life through which all its members can grow in their own gift. ~ Jean Vanier, #NFDB
1271:A love letter can be very short or it can be long; it can be literary or non-literary; it can be bright or dark, cheerful or tragic. But above all, for a love letter to be a love letter it must be sincere! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1272:Although I have these problems, I know that You, Lord, are greater than they are. You are my heavenly Father. You are a good God. In You is everything I need for my life, and I choose to exalt You above all. ~ Stormie Omartian, #NFDB
1273:And above all you ought to guard against leading an army to fight which is afraid or which is not confident of victory. For the greatest sign of an impending loss is when one does not believe one can win. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli, #NFDB
1274:Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete. And Truth comes somewhere above all of them, where, ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
1275:Pray that, above all things, the gates of light may be opened to you; for these things cannot be perceived or understood by all, but only by the man to whom God and his Christ have imparted wisdom” (Dial. 7, 3). ~ Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1276:To avoid arousal more generally, women were instructed to get plenty of fresh air, avoid stimulating pastimes like reading and card games, and above all never to use their brains more than was strictly necessary. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
1277:True friends don’t spend time gazing into each other’s eyes. They may show great tenderness towards each other but they face in the same direction - toward common projects, goals - above all, towards a common Lord. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1278:Crime is a fact of the human species, a fact of that species alone, but it is above all the secret aspect, impenetrable and hidden. Crime hides, and by far the most terrifying things are those which elude us. ~ Georges Bataille, #NFDB
1279:I say to myself that I mustn't let myself be cut off in there, and yet the moment I enter my bag is taken out of my hand, I'm pushed in, shepherded, nursed and above all cut off, alone. Whitehall envelops me. ~ Richard Crossman, #NFDB
1280:I think you have to be flexible above all as an actor; different characters have different demands, actors that you work with are different in their approach, or how you get along or don't get along with them. ~ Viggo Mortensen, #NFDB
1281:It was all very purposeful and sad when Anthony told Gloria one night that he wanted, above all things, to be killed. But, as always, they were sorry for each other for the wrong things at the wrong time... ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
1282:I wanted all of her, her dreams so that I could make them real, her fears so that I could chase they away. Above all I wanted her trust. I wanted her to give herself to me completely, without any reservation. But ~ Josie Litton, #NFDB
1283:John Henry Newman views the visible world as a veil “so that all that exists or happens visibly, conceals and yet suggests, and above all serves, a greater system of persons, facts and events beyond itself.”3 ~ Henri J M Nouwen, #NFDB
1284:Knowledge workers who do not ask themselves, “What can I contribute?” are not only likely to aim too low, they are likely to aim at the wrong things. Above all, they may define their contribution too narrowly. ~ Peter F Drucker, #NFDB
1285:Simplicity and purity are the two wings by which a man is lifted above all earthly things. Simplicity is in the intention - purity in the affection. Simplicity tends to God, - purity apprehends and tastes Him. ~ Thomas a Kempis, #NFDB
1286:The dead of Auschwitz should have brought upon us a total transformation; nothing should have been allowed to remain as it was, neither among our people nor in our churches. Above all, not in the churches. ~ Johann Baptist Metz, #NFDB
1287:Between hindsight bias, fake causality, positive bias, anchoring/priming, et cetera et cetera, and above all the dreaded confirmation bias, once an idea gets into your head, it's probably going to stay there. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky, #NFDB
1288:But ‘art’ is not anything serious or exclusive: it is the smell of oil paint, Henri Murger’s Vie de Boheme, corduroy trousers, the operatic Italian model: but the poetry, above all, of linseed oil and turpentine. ~ Wyndham Lewis, #NFDB
1289:fleeting fun. This is the kind of love celebrated in most movies, novels, television programs, and songs. You’ve been conditioned to value it above all else and have been told that it’s the only “authentic” love. ~ Gary L Thomas, #NFDB
1290:It may be, of course, above all, that what suddenly broke into this gives the previous time a charm of stillness—that hush in which something gathers or crouches. The change was actually like the spring of a beast. ~ Henry James, #NFDB
1291:May you walk a lighted path. May you fight for truth - your truth, not someone else's - and may you understand, above all things, that you are the most important concept, theory, and philosophy I have ever known. ~ Marisha Pessl, #NFDB
1292:The one thing I seek above all else is understanding. Sometimes I'm so frustrated and I don't get it. But I'm lucky to have a good management team and people around me who explain things and answer my questions. ~ Justin Guarini, #NFDB
1293:The priest is not and must not be a civil servant of the Church. Above all the priest is a man who lives for the spirit for God. This being the case the Seminary is the place where he learns 'to be with Him.' ~ Pope John Paul II, #NFDB
1294:Thus, America, above all countries, was born in an explicitly libertarian revolution, a revolution against empire; against taxation, trade monopoly, and regulation; and against militarism and executive power. ~ Murray N Rothbard, #NFDB
1295:You will rise above all limitations once you begin to live life with the right attitude. People who fail and fall are the people who see difficulties in every opportunity and call it "impossibility". Rise up! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
1296:And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” —Roald Dahl ~ Benjamin P Hardy, #NFDB
1297:As mankind spread out upon the face of the earth, so did the evil that followed them. For it is the heart that is taken with man wherever he goes, and the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1298:Ward Churchill might be more valuable to the opponents of the academic left employed than unemployed. Above all, he can serve as a living window into the intellectual, moral, and political bankruptcy of the left. ~ Mort Kondracke, #NFDB
1299:Above all things, be not made an ass to carry the burdens of other men if any friend desire thee to be his surety, give him a part of what thou has to spare if he presses thee further, he is not thy friend at all. ~ Walter Raleigh, #NFDB
1300:Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other. ~ Jane Goodall, #NFDB
1301:Every sunset is different, because every day sun is different, clouds are different, space is different, reflections are different, mountains are different, fogs are different, and above all, we are different! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1302:It was a staggering moment when I first heard the news. Lennon was a most talented man and above all, a gentle soul. John and his colleagues set a high standard by which contemporary music continues to be measured. ~ Frank Sinatra, #NFDB
1303:We cannot expect God to bless and honor our efforts to help the needy if part of our “help” includes distributing chemicals and devices that may kill children who belong not to us, but to them, and above all to God. ~ Randy Alcorn, #NFDB
1304:You ask me why I spend my life writing? Do I find entertainment? Is it worthwhile? Above all, does it pay? If not, then, is there a reason?... I write only because there is a voice within me. That will not be still. ~ Sylvia Plath, #NFDB
1305:After the collapse of socialism, capitalism remained without a rival. This unusual situation unleashed its greedy and - above all - its suicidal power. The belief is now that everything - and everyone - is fair game. ~ G nter Grass, #NFDB
1306:After the collapse of socialism, capitalism remained without a rival. This unusual situation unleashed its greedy and - above all - its suicidal power. The belief is now that everything - and everyone - is fair game. ~ Gunter Grass, #NFDB
1307:Go to inspirational meetings, get to know men and women who are doing inspiring things. Above all, run as hard as you can from the cynics and gripers and the negativists. They are not going anywhere. You are. ~ Norman Vincent Peale, #NFDB
1308:Human beings are emotional amoral egoists, driven above all by emotional self-interest. All of our thoughts, beliefs and motivations are neurochemically mediated, some predetermined for survival, others alterable. ~ Nayef Al Rodhan, #NFDB
1309:Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, openness - an act of trust in the unknown. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
1310:I shall have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love, love, love, above all. Love as there has never been in a play. Unbiddable, ungovernable, like a riot in the heart and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture. ~ Tom Stoppard, #NFDB
1311:One is happy as a result of one's own efforts once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness: simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and above all, a clear conscience. ~ George Sand, #NFDB
1312:We ought to remind ourselves daily, repeat it like a litany, that in our being lies concealed the whole gamut of existence... Above all, we should cease postponing the act of becoming what in fact and essence we are. ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
1313:Cook, judging from his journals, was not a pious man. A product of the eighteenth century Enlightenment, he valued reason above all else, and showed little patience for what he called “Priest craft” and “superstition. ~ Tony Horwitz, #NFDB
1314:Jews are known for many things, but strength, swiftness, and agility are not among them. There is one trait, as controversial as it is familiar, for which Jews are above all known, and that is shrewdness in business. ~ Steven Pinker, #NFDB
1315:Of course, in order to do this, here and there they had to kill some of the occupying forces and attack some of the military targets. But above all they had to kill their own people who collaborated with the enemy. ~ David Kilcullen, #NFDB
1316:There is much to be known," said Adaon, "and above all much to be loved, be it the turn of the seasons or the shape of a river pebble. Indeed, the more we find to love, the more we add to the measure of our hearts. ~ Lloyd Alexander, #NFDB
1317:There is much to be known,” said Adaon, “and above all much to be loved, be it the turn of the seasons or the shape of a river pebble. Indeed, the more we find to love, the more we add to the measure of our hearts. ~ Lloyd Alexander, #NFDB
1318:This then remains: Remember to retire into this little territory of thy own, and, above all, do not distract or strain thyself, but be free, at look and things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1319:Above all, during the interval, change from “ego orientation” to “task orientation.” Think: “I know this seems like a personal insult, but it is not. It is a challenge to be overcome that calls on skills I have. ~ Martin E P Seligman, #NFDB
1320:Above all, the Trump campaign, like the British Vote Leave campaign, made full use of Facebook’s ad-testing capability, trying tens of thousands of variants to establish what worked best on the voters being targeted. ~ Niall Ferguson, #NFDB
1321:Above all, those to whom the care of young minds has been entrusted should see to it that they respect both the smallest and largest animals as beings which, like people, have been summoned to the joy of life. ~ Samson Raphael Hirsch, #NFDB
1322:Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
1323:Do not commit yourself to anybody or anything, for that is to be a slave, a slave to every man Above all, keep yourself free of commitments and obligations - they are the device of another to get you into his power ~ Baltasar Gracian, #NFDB
1324:If a person loves something above all else, if he values the work of his heart and hands, then he should naturally, without hesitation, pour into it his whole soul, undivided and pure. Great art demands nothing less. ~ Susan Vreeland, #NFDB
1325:I look for a thematic idea running through my movies and I see that it's the outsider struggling for recognition. I realize that all my life I've been an outsider, and above all, being lonely but never realizing it. ~ Martin Scorsese, #NFDB
1326:In religion above all things the only thing of use is an objective truth. The only God that is of use is a being who is personal, supreme and good, and whose existence is as certain as that two and two make four. ~ W Somerset Maugham, #NFDB
1327:Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, openness - an act of trust in the unknown. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1328:It was by his death that he wished above all else to be remembered. There is then, it is safe to say, no Christianity without the cross. If the cross is not central to our religion, ours is not the religion of Jesus. ~ John R W Stott, #NFDB
1329:Practice sharing the fullness of your being, your best self, your enthusiasm, your vitality, your spirit, your trust, your openness, above all, your presence. Share it with yourself, with your family, with the world. ~ Jon Kabat Zinn, #NFDB
1330:Saint John Henry Newman views the visible world as a veil “so that all that exists or happens visibly, conceals and yet suggests, and above all serves, a greater system of persons, facts and events beyond itself.”3 ~ Henri J M Nouwen, #NFDB
1331:So basically it's very simple: to start with, if you want to win the match, you shouldn't be afraid of him. There are still many, many things to do, but above all this is the most important: Don't be scared of him! ~ Vladimir Kramnik, #NFDB
1332:Something in me whispered that I needed to stop thinking, that I should above all not go too far
with thinking. But that never worked; I always thought things through to the end, to their most
extreme consequence. ~ Herman Koch,#NFDB
1333:The little black dress must be luxurious, rich, sensual, diaphanous, exotic, severe, lush, demure, demanding, frivolous, amusing, and it must linger in memory, but above all, it must be simple and little and black. ~ Carolina Herrera, #NFDB
1334:There is us living the Cuban experience that we believe is ours. We do not believe that it is perfect, but it has been above all counting truly on the people, which is where the origins of true democracy lie. ~ Alejandro Castro Espin, #NFDB
1335:We are called to be 'ambassadors for Christ' (2 Cor 5:20). Ours is a ministry of reconciliation ... To be an ambassador for Christ means above all to invite everyone to a renewed personal encounter with the Lord Jesus. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1336:13Put up with one another. Forgive. Pardon any offenses against one another, as the Lord has pardoned you, because you should act in kind. 14But above all these, put on love! Love is the perfect tie to bind these together. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1337:A living language is like a man suffering incessantly from small hemorrhages, and what it needs above all else is constant transactions of new blood from other tongues. The day the gates go up, that day it begins to die. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
1338:For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1339:The nearest thing we have to a defence against [the gods] (but there is no real defence) is to be very wide awake and sober and hard at work, to hear no music, never to look at earth or sky, and (above all) to love no one. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1340:To be a minister means above all to become powerless, or in more precise terms, to speak with our powerlessness to the condition of powerlessness which is so keenly felt but so seldom expressed by the people of our age. ~ Henri Nouwen, #NFDB
1341:Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, open-ness—an act of trust in the unknown. An ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1342:Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. ~ Marie Curie, #NFDB
1343:Tell your children your mother was a woman who, with all her multitude of shortcomings, was more ferocious than kind, more contentious than agreeable, more irate than placid; but who cherished her family above all else. ~ Kathleen Kent, #NFDB
1344:The thing he's learnt, the thing he knows above all else, is that with enough determination and persistence, you will get whatever it is you want. You decide what it is, you focus on it and you go get it. It is that simple. ~ S E Lynes, #NFDB
1345:America has everything most countries envy. A Constitution which is the treasure of mankind, a strong military, natural resources of every kind. Above all, as Tocqueville said, a good people, which is what makes us great. ~ John F Kerry, #NFDB
1346:As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all we must dare to fail...Say what you are. Not what you would like to be. Not what you have to be. Just say what you are. And what you are is good enough. ~ John Cassavetes, #NFDB
1347:But above all pursue his kingdom44 and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 6:34 So then, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.45 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1348:Creation signifies, above all, emotion, and that not in literature or art alone. We all know the concentration and effort implied in scientific discovery. Genius has been defined as an infinite capacity for taking pains. ~ Henri Bergson, #NFDB
1349:It is apparent that only a certain kind of person will want to make ethnographic films, It will, above all, be those who sense the profound affinity that exists between the film medium and a desire to understand people. ~ Robert Gardner, #NFDB
1350:Success always makes obsolete the very behavior that achieved it. It always creates new realities. It always creates, above all, its own and different problems. Only the fairy tale ends, “They lived happily ever after. ~ Peter F Drucker, #NFDB
1351:Surely anyone who has ever been elected to public office understands that one commodity above all others, namely the trust and confidence of the people, is fundamental in maintaining a free and open political system. ~ Hubert H Humphrey, #NFDB
1352:We have great faith, though yours at present is uncrystallized; we have a terrible honesty that all our sophistry cannot destroy and, above all, a childlike simplicity that keeps us from ever being really malicious. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
1353:Charlie Hebdo mocked everyone. They mocked the left. They mocked the right. They mocked, above all, the extreme right, the extreme right of Le Pen's. If anything could identify their politics, they were kinds of anarchists. ~ Scott Simon, #NFDB
1354:I am suspicious - first of all, in myself - of adopted mysticisms of glib spirituality, above all of white people's tendency to ... vampirize American Indian, or African, or Asian, or other 'exotic' ways of understanding. ~ Adrienne Rich, #NFDB
1355:If you want a free society, teach your children what oppression tastes like. Tell them how many miracles it takes to get from here to there. Above all, encourage them to ask questions. Teach them to think for themselves. ~ Jonathan Sacks, #NFDB
1356:She felt above all, as a sort of categorical imperative, the desire to set Hannah free, to smash up all her eerie magical surroundings, to let the fresh air in at last; even if the result should be some dreadful suffering. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
1357:Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful, both to others and to yourself. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1358:All holy books are, above all, great stories whose plots deal with the basic aspects of human nature, setting them within a particular moral context and a particular framework of supernatural dogma.
-Andreas Corelli ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n,#NFDB
1359:An entrepreneur is born with the mentality to take risks, though there are several important characteristics: courage, faith in yourself, and above all, even when you fail, to learn from failure and get up and try again. ~ Sheldon Adelson, #NFDB
1360:The world values the seer above all men, and has always done so. Nay, it values all men in proportion as they partake of the character of seers. You love them because you say, These things were not made, they were seen. ~ John Jay Chapman, #NFDB
1361:Above all his confused and contradictory emotions he had a sense of ... of destiny. If he had admitted it, he had also a sense of youthful pride for knowledge of things may not necessarily be a knowledge of self-awareness. ~ Peter Tremayne, #NFDB
1362:Above all, in order to gain respect, you need to be true to yourself. There is no point in trying to be brutal if it's not in your nature; there is no point in trying to be suave and sophisticated if it doesn't come naturally. ~ Alan Sugar, #NFDB
1363:Almsgiving above all else requires money, but even this shines with a brighter luster when the alms are given from our poverty. The widow who paid in the two mites was poorer than any human, but she outdid them all. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #NFDB
1364:Consider the public. Never fear it nor despise it. Coax it, charm it, interest it, stimulate it, shock it now and then if you must, make it laugh, make it cry, but above all never, never, never bore the living hell out of it. ~ Noel Coward, #NFDB
1365:Holiness does not consist in not making mistakes or never sinning. Holiness grows with capacity for conversion, repentance, willingness to begin again, and above all with the capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1366:I don't particularly like babies. They are loud and smelly and, above all other things, demanding. No matter how much free day care you throw at women, babies are still time-sucking monsters with their constant neediness. ~ Amanda Marcotte, #NFDB
1367:I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams... Man...is above all the plaything of his memory. ~ Andre Breton, #NFDB
1368:In Italy, above all in view of the next general election, political parties, movements and new politicians continue to proliferate, naturally all inspired by the logic of the most severe, rigorous and atavistic stupidity. ~ William C Brown, #NFDB
1369:share with me"
share with me
the daily bread of my loneliness
fill with your presence
the absent walls
gild
the nonexistent window
be a door
above all a door
which can be thrown
wide open ~ Halina Po wiatowska,#NFDB
1370:So she had dried her eyes and decided on that day that there was one thing she wanted in a man above all else: loyalty. And that was the one thing Jende was best at, above all other men she’d ever known: keeping his promises. ~ Imbolo Mbue, #NFDB
1371:There was one person I had abused above all others, a person who had elicited ornate cruelty from me, a person who had lived with my foot on his throat for years: me. And if that was true, how to apologize, how to forgive? ~ Mishka Shubaly, #NFDB
1372:Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God's best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of one's self, and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another. ~ Thomas Hughes, #NFDB
1373:In my madness I was actually in love with her for the few hours it all lasted; it was the same unmistakable ache and stab across the mind, the same sighs, the same pain, and above all the same reluctance and fear to approach. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
1374:It's the quintessential Greek sport: harmonious, competitive, agonizing, nautical, and above all, intelligent. It combines Odysseus's brains and brawn and love of the sea with the tactical precision of the Spartan pikeman. ~ Barry S Strauss, #NFDB
1375:Lord brayton is a very attractive man,' she called out above all their guffaws. 'And if he were to wear tis in my presence outside the bounds if this school, I would bed him. Repeatedly. Until I was unable to walk. ~ Delilah Marvelle, #NFDB
1376:Please make me empty, if I'm empty then I can receive, if I can receive it means it comes from somewhere outside of me, if it comes from outside of me I'm not alone! I cannot bear this loneliness. Above all it is loneliness. ~ Leonard Cohen, #NFDB
1377:The HiiiPower Movement is a movement that's going on all throughout the world like a virus. It's about being on a higher level than the industry. It's a movement we started to be above all the bullshit that's been going on. ~ Kendrick Lamar, #NFDB
1378:The unit had organized itself like a small-market baseball team enjoying an unlikely pennant run: talented journeymen working together, no stars, no egos, mutually supportive, and above all ruthlessly and relentlessly effective. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
1379:5‘Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. 6‘And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
1380:As a general rule, desire is always marketable: we don’t do anything but sell, buy, exchange desires. . . . And I think of Bloy’s words: “there is nothing perfectly beautiful except what is invisible and above all unbuyable. ~ Roland Barthes, #NFDB
1381:Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1382:Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help… ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1383:He prescribed more physical exercise as far as possible, and as far as possible less mental strain, and above all no worry—in other words, just what was as much out of Alexey Alexandrovitch's power as abstaining from breathing. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1384:In Vietnam, the statistically minded war managers focused, above all, on the notion of achieving a “crossover point”: the moment when American soldiers would be killing more enemies than their Vietnamese opponents could replace. ~ Nick Turse, #NFDB
1385:I wanted to do London Boulevard because I saw the potential of a story about two people who need each other desperately, who love at first sight, as one does, and above all a story in which no one is what they appear to be. ~ William Monahan, #NFDB
1386:The Engineer is one who, in the world of physics and applied sciences, begets new things, or adapts old things to new and better uses; above all, one who, in that field, attains new results in the best way and at lowest cost. ~ Henry R Towne, #NFDB
1387:The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It soothes. It is easy to grasp. Above all, it fits more snugly than the truth into a universe of false appearances—of complex and irrational phenomena, defectively grasped. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1388:Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
1389:All saints revile her, and all sober menRuled by the God Apollo’s golden mean—In scorn of which I sailed to find herIn distant regions likeliest to hold herWhom I desired above all things to know,Sister of the mirage and echo. ~ Robert Graves, #NFDB
1390:Beware, my body and my soul, beware above all of crossing your arms and assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of griefs is not a proscenium, and a man who wails is not a dancing bear. ~ Aim C saire, #NFDB
1391:Christianity has the rancor of the sick at its very core-the instinct against the healthy, against health. Everything that is well-constructed, proud, gallant and, above all, beautiful gives offense to its ears and eyes. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1392:Combination does not produce though mergers and combinations are still the accepted panacea. In Big business there appears to be increasing aridity, bureaucracy, and stultifying sacrifice of initiative and above all fear. ~ Reginald Fessenden, #NFDB
1393:From film to film, even documentaries, I was learning the medium and learning how to bring form into some kind of relationship with the content, how to work it, and above all, how to create some kind of order out of chaos. ~ Pawel Pawlikowski, #NFDB
1394:The Bible towers in content above all earlier religious literature; and it towers just as impressively over all subsequent literature in the direct simplicity of its message and...its appeal to men of all lands and times. ~ William F Albright, #NFDB
1395:With honesty of purpose, balance, a respect for tradition, courage, and, above all, a philosophy of life, any young person who embraces the historical profession will find it rich in rewards and durable in satisfaction. ~ Samuel Eliot Morison, #NFDB
1396:Above all, I feel a quiet pride that for the rest of my days I can look at myself in the mirror and know that once upon a time I was good enough. Good enough to call myself a member of the SAS. Some things don’t have a price tag. ~ Bear Grylls, #NFDB
1397:Above all, we must awaken to and overcome the great hidden anthropocentric projection that has virtually defined the modern mind: the pervasive projection of soullessness onto the cosmos by the modern self's own will to power. ~ Richard Tarnas, #NFDB
1398:A revolution does not march a straight line. It wanders where it can, retreats before superior forces, advances wherever it has room, attacks whenever the enemy retreats or bluffs, and above all, is possessed of enormous patience. ~ Mao Zedong, #NFDB
1399:Be ready. Be seated. See what courage sounds like. See how brave it is to reveal yourself in this way. But above all, see what it is to still live, to profoundly influence the lives of others after you are gone, by your words. ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
1400:Beware, my body and my soul, beware above all of crossing your arms and assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of griefs is not a proscenium, and a man who wails is not a dancing bear. ~ Aime Cesaire, #NFDB
1401:Finally, therefore, remember your retreat into this little domain which is yourself, and above all be not disturbed nor on the rack, but be free and look at things as a man, a human being, a citizen, a creature that must die. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1402:He that loveth, flieth, runneth, and rejoiceth. He is free, and cannot be held in. He giveth all for all, and hath all in all, because he resteth in one highest above all things, from whom all that is good flows and proceeds. ~ Thomas a Kempis, #NFDB
1403:...it is only in the darkness of the grave that man will find the peace which the wickedness of his fellows, the tumult of his own passions, and, above all, the inevitability of his fate shall eternally deny him in this life. ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
1404:The individual who dares commit a crime is guilty in a two-fold sense; first, he is guilty against human conscience, and, above all, he is guilty against the State in arrogating to himself one of its most precious privileges. ~ Mikhail Bakunin, #NFDB
1405:Above all else, Abigail was a survivor; she was no helpless princess waiting around to be saved by the hero of the story: she made her own way in life. If there was a hero in her story, it was up to her to be that hero for herself. ~ Joel Ohman, #NFDB
1406:Above all we must realize that each of us makes a difference with our life. Each of us impacts the world around us every single day. We have a choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place - or not to bother ~ Jane Goodall, #NFDB
1407:To my thinking, a woman’s religion ought not to lessen her devotion to her earthly lord. She should have enough to purify and etherealise her soul, but not enough to refine away her heart, and raise her above all human sympathies. ~ Anne Bront, #NFDB
1408:What ranks above all else for economic and political reconstruction is a radical change of ideologies. Economic prosperity is not so much a material problem; it is, first of all, an intellectual, spiritual, and moral problem. ~ Ludwig von Mises, #NFDB
1409:Above all else, I think that you are a compulsive liar."
My laughter was tense, but sincere. "Hardly. In fact, I consider myself a compulsive truth teller. It's only that everyone else seems compelled to misunderstand me. ~ Jennifer A Nielsen,#NFDB
1410:And here is the paradox at the heart of the Christian life: The one who embraces suffering, who dies to himself in order to die for others, is actually happier than the one who shuns suffering and who puts himself above all else. ~ Joseph Pearce, #NFDB
1411:Be ready. Be seated. See what courage sounds like. See how brave it is to reveal yourself in this way. But above all, see what it is to still live, to profoundly influence the lives of others after you are gone, by your words. ~ Abraham Verghese, #NFDB
1412:But I'm glad you'll see me as I am. Above all, I wouldn't want people to think that I want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything, I just want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. I have that right, haven't I? ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1413:Every living being on earth loves life above all else. The smallest insect, whose life lasts only an instant, tries to escape from any danger in order to live a moment longer. And the desire to live is most developed in man. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, #NFDB
1414:For the entire earth is but a point, and the place of your own habitation but a minute corner in it. (...) Remember then to withdraw into the little field of self. Above all, never struggle or strain; but be master of yourself. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1415:He is only a philosopher in the manner of Socrates, whom he revered above all others because he left behind no dogma, no teachings, no law, no system, only an example: the man who seeks himself in all and who seeks all in himself. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
1416:The Earth should not be cut up into hundreds of different sections, each inhabited by a self-defined segment of humanity that considers its own welfare and its own "national security" to be paramount above all other consideration. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
1417:The public official must pick his way nicely, must learn to placate though not to yield too much, to have the art of honeyed words but not to seem neutral, and above all to keep constantly audible, visible, likable, even kissable. ~ Learned Hand, #NFDB
1418:We delight in one knowable thing, which comprehends all that is knowable; in one apprehensible, which draws together all that can be apprehended; in a single being that includes all, above all in the one which is itself the all. ~ Giordano Bruno, #NFDB
1419:Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is in itself an act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest heights of our soul. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck, #NFDB
1420:Applaud us when we prevail, correct us when we fail; but, above all, do not let this indispensable, irreplaceable institution wither, languish or perish as a result of Member States' indifference, inattention or financial starvation. ~ Kofi Annan, #NFDB
1421:In the chaos of sentiments and passions which defend a barricade, there is something of everything; there is bravery, youth, honor, enthusiasm, the ideal, conviction, the eager fury of the gamester, and above all, intervals of hope. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
1422:My true personality will be fulfilled in the Mystical Christ in this one way above all, that through me, Christ and His Spirit will be able to love you and all men and God the Father in a way that would be possible in no one else. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1423:People who are obsessed with Jesus aren't consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else. Obsessed people care more about God's kingdom coming to this earth than their own lives being shielded from pain or distress. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
1424:People who are obsessed with Jesus aren’t consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else. Obsessed people care more about God’s kingdom coming to this earth than their own lives being shielded from pain or distress. ~ Francis Chan, #NFDB
1425:The player of the inner game comes to value the art of relaxed concentration above all other skills; he discovers the true basis for self-confidence; and he learns that the secret to winning any game lies in not trying too hard. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
1426:The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, #NFDB
1427:To be truly Catholic is not merely to be correct according to an abstractly universal standard of truth, but also and above all to be able to enter into the problems and the joys of all, to understand all, to be all things to all. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1428:To Be Written On The Mirror In Whitewash
I live only here, between your eyes and you,
But I live in your world. What do I do?
--Collect no interest--otherwise what I can;
Above all I am not that staring man.
~ Elizabeth Bishop,#NFDB
1429:What Sam Walton did was to go into one of the most mature industries of all and find a way to make it grow, grow, grow, double-digit, month after month, year after year. He did it by innovation, customer focus, and above all, speed. ~ Jack Welch, #NFDB
1430:Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1431:Do not resist the evil-doer and take no part in doing so, either in the violent deeds of the administration, in the law courts, the collection of taxes, or above all in soldiering, and no one in the world will be able to enslave you. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1432:I see in Sarah M. much to be proud of and much to correct, but I wish above all things to preserve her confidence & affection & not appear to be a severe judge,” she wrote, in an effort to rein in her husband’s criticisms. ~ Megan Marshall, #NFDB
1433:Mamà believed in loyalty above all, even at the cost of self-denial. She also believed it was always best to tell the truth, to tell it plainly, without fanfare, and the more disagreeable the truth, the sooner you had to tell it. ~ Khaled Hosseini, #NFDB
1434:Marry me, love me, above all, look after me. somebody had to be responsible for her, besides herself. That was what women had been led to expect and hardly any price was too high. Loneliness, heartache, denial, all grist to the mill. ~ Manju Kapur, #NFDB
1435:Your hands are not your own,’” Jaime quoted. “‘Neither your breasts, nor, above all, is any orifice of your body, which we are at liberty to explore and into which we may, whenever we so please, introduce ourselves.’” “Precisely! ~ Claire Thompson, #NFDB
1436:Above all, though, children are linked to adults by the simple fact that they are in process of turning into them. For this they may be forgiven much. Children are bound to be inferior to adults, or there is no incentive to grow up. ~ Philip Larkin, #NFDB
1437:a cozy social atmosphere above all else. . . . For those seeking a refuge from the world, the cup of coffee they bought was really just the price of admission to partake of the coffeehouse scene.”9 Starbucks is selling us hospitality. ~ Tim Chester, #NFDB
1438:Ancient philosophy proposed to mankind an art of living. By contrast, modern philosophy appears above all as the construction of a technical jargon reserved for specialists. ~ Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, trans. Michael Chase, p. 272., #NFDB
1439:A thing chosen always as an end and never as a means we call absolutely final. Now happiness above all else appears to be absolutely final in this sense, since we always choose it for its own sake and never as a means to something else. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1440:Eight days later he sent to Congress the most sweeping bill for civil rights up to that time, and urged it ‘not merely for reasons of economic efficiency, world diplomacy and domestic tranquility—but above all because it is right. ~ C Vann Woodward, #NFDB
1441:I placed discipline above all else and it might have cost us several titles. If I had to repeat things, I’d do precisely the same, because once you bid farewell to discipline you say goodbye to success and set the stage for anarchy. ~ Alex Ferguson, #NFDB
1442:I want to lose all harshness of jagged nerves, to be above all gentle. I feel we have achieved victory for that almost more than anything-to be able to cultivate gentleness.
George Malory to his wife Ruth at the end of the Great War ~ Wade Davis,#NFDB
1443:Kate wondered what part of the male brain prioritized movie scene storage above all other details in life. Maybe the answer was in the Atlantean research database somewhere. It was all she could do not to launch a query for the answer. ~ A G Riddle, #NFDB
1444:Stay down!” Wolf yelled, pushing Scarlet to the ground and hunkering over her body. A living shield. His instinct was still there, at least. The desire to protect her above all else. That was all the confirmation she needed. Feeling ~ Marissa Meyer, #NFDB
1445:The philosophic outlook rises above all sectarian controversy. It finds its own position not only by appreciating and synthesizing what is solidly based in the rival sects but also by capping them all with the keystone of nonduality. ~ Paul Brunton, #NFDB
1446:Your education never stops and college is just the beginning. You come out of college with a huge advantage in that you've ideally and more times than not you've come out with a love of learning and that's what matters above all. ~ David McCullough, #NFDB
1447:12 As holy people whom God has chosen and loved, be sympathetic, kind, humble, gentle, and patient. 13 Put up with each other, and forgive each other if anyone has a complaint. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 Above all, be loving. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1448:He picks up a book and begins to read, but he is not attending to what he reads and he has got to page 22 before he discovers it is a novel – the sort of work which above all others he most despises – and he puts it down in disgust. ~ Susanna Clarke, #NFDB
1449:It was the hushed daybreak of the Roman revelation in particular that he could usually best recover – the way that there above all, where the princes and popes had been before him, his divination of his faculty had gone to his head. He ~ Henry James, #NFDB
1450:Let these innocent people be careful not to invest in corporations where those in control are not men of probity, men who respect the laws; above all let them avoid the men who make it their one effort to evade or defy the laws. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
1451:The fact was that between the autumn of 1941, when he started being given hormone and steroid injections, and the second half of 1944, when first the cocaine and then above all the Eukodal kicked in, Hitler hardly enjoyed a sober day. ~ Norman Ohler, #NFDB
1452:The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage. ~ Warren Buffett, #NFDB
1453:The spy boom has been a beautiful windfall for architects, construction companies, IT specialists, and above all defense contractors, enriching thousands of private companies and dozens of local economies hugging the Capital Beltway. ~ Rachel Maddow, #NFDB
1454:Emptiness is only a disguise for an intimacy of God's, that God's silence, the eerie stillness, is filled by the Word without words, by Him who is above all names, by Him who is all in all. And his silence is telling us that He is here. ~ Karl Rahner, #NFDB
1455:Equal and united people can above all become a part of the civilization toward which mankind is moving. If we cannot be at the head of the column leading to such a civilization, there is certainly no need for us to be at is tail. ~ Slobodan Milosevic, #NFDB
1456:The passion for finding the system in experience, replacing surprise with order, is a persistent part of human nature...Science came to mean the elimination of surprise. It outlawed miracles, because miracles are above all unexpected. ~ George Gilder, #NFDB
1457:There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”
Ephesians 4:4-6 (King James Version) ~ Anonymous,#NFDB
1458:A little too much anger, too often or at the wrong time, can destroy more than you would ever imagine. Above all, mind what you say. “Behold how much wood is kindled by how small a fire, and the tongue is a fire”—that’s the truth. ~ Marilynne Robinson, #NFDB
1459:And do not forget that the blood of rebellion flows through your veins, that around your soul meanders the river of perfection; above all stay devoted to your art — even if it is only the art of living! — above all remain loyal to it. ~ Philippe Petit, #NFDB
1460:It's daring to be curious about the unknown, to dream big dreams, to live outside prescribed boxes, to take risks, and above all, daring to investigate the way we live until we discover the deepest treasured purpose of why we are here. ~ Luci Swindoll, #NFDB
1461:It was a beautiful place - wild, untouched, above all untouched, with an alien, disturbing, secret loveliness. And it kept its secret. I'd fins myself thinking, 'What I see is nothing - I want what it hides - that is not nothing'. ~ Jean Rhys, #NFDB
1462:My true personality will be fulfilled in the Mystical Christ in this one way above all, that through me, Christ and His Spirit will be able to love you and all men and God the Father in a way that would be possible in no one else. Love ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1463:Real civilisation means an education that extends to the whole of life, in contradistinction to that of school or college: it means an education that forms speech, forms manners, forms taste, forms ideals, and above all forms judgment. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
1464:Sure, love vincit omnia; is immeasurably above all ambition, more precious than wealth, more noble than name. He knows not life who knows not that: he hath not felt the highest faculty of the soul who hath not enjoyed it. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray, #NFDB
1465:Even a man persuaded that the great powers of the heavens loved him above all else could starve. However powerful a story might be, it had its limits, and the brute material world didn't listen or care what priests and bankers told it. ~ Daniel Abraham, #NFDB
1466:Exude Optimism Above all, leaders cannot have a bad day. No matter how scared and depressed you are, you cannot show fear, uncertainty, or doubt. You must exude optimism every day. “I cannot remember a time when Steve Jobs looked beaten. ~ Guy Kawasaki, #NFDB
1467:It is the press, above all, which wages a positively fanatical and slanderous struggle, tearing down everything which can be regarded as a support of national independence, cultural elevation, and the economic independence of the nation. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
1468:Rome is the city above all cities which loses most of its meaning to those who do not bring to it some historical sense, a decent knowledge of art, and a good amount of time. Rome therefore is particularly disturbing to an American. ~ Clare Boothe Luce, #NFDB
1469:She cried for the life she could not control. She cried for the mentor who had died before her eyes. She cried for the profound loneliness that filled her heart. But, above all, she cried for the future ... which suddenly felt so uncertain. ~ Dan Brown, #NFDB
1470:Stay hungry, stay young, stay foolish, stay curious, and above all, stay humble because just when you think you got all the answers, is the moment when some bitter twist of fate in the universe will remind you that you very much don't. ~ Tom Hiddleston, #NFDB
1471:To walk before God and in His presence, is the ground and the costly jewel of true Christian living. I would have you above all things to grasp this firmly,because, when it is rightly understood and practiced, it includes all else. ~ Gerhard Tersteegen, #NFDB
1472:Above all, it's hard learning to live with vivid mental images of scenes I cared for and failed to photograph. It is the edgy existence within me of these unmade images that is the only assurance that the best photographs are yet to be made. ~ Sam Abell, #NFDB
1473:I don't believe that one has to tear down the cinema screen in order to renew cinema. But new input and new energy are lacking. They are flowing above all into the television technologies. We must, therefore, concentrate on the CD-ROM. ~ Peter Greenaway, #NFDB
1474:If you had no devil to tempt you, no enemies to fight you, and no world to ensnare you, you would still find in yourself enough evil to be a sore trial to you, for “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
1475:It is a harmful feeling, because it disturbs advantageous and joyous, peaceful relations with other peoples, and above all produces that governmental organization under which power may fall, and does fall, into the, hands of the worst men. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1476:It is important for leaders to know their stories; to get them straight; to communicate them effectively, particularly to those who are in the thrall of rival stories; and, above all, to embody in their lives the stories that they tell. ~ Howard Gardner, #NFDB
1477:Life is not an easy matter…. You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness. ~ Leon Trotsky, #NFDB
1478:The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin, #NFDB
1479:There is this presumption, in those who feel destined for art and above all literature: we act as if we had received an investiture, but in fact no one has invested us with anything, it is we who have authorized ourselves to be authors. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
1480:What have I left,from loving you?
Just my voice,with no sudden echo
Just my fingers,which grasp nothing
Just my skin,which seeks your hands
And above all fear,of loving you still
Tomorrow,almost dead.
Charles Aznavour ~ Guillaume Musso,#NFDB
1481:And for all he had learned to bandage himself up on the outside, the wound remained just as bad and deep as the moment it had been made - when it became obvious that the one male he wanted above all others was never, ever going to be with him. ~ J R Ward, #NFDB
1482:But the power of God cannot be so determined and measured, for it is uncircumscribed and immeasurable, beyond and above all that is or may be. On the other hand, it must be essentially present at all places, even in the tiniest tree leaf. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
1483:Do not fear to put novels into the hands of young people as an occasional holiday experiment, but above all, good poetry in all kinds,--epic, tragedy, lyric. If we can touch the imagination, we serve them; they will never forget it. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1484:In the kingdom of ends everything has either a price or a dignity. What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what on the other hand is raised above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
1485:Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness. ~ Leon Trotsky, #NFDB
1486:Love is the essence of all religion, mysticism, and philosophy, and for the one who has learned this, love fulfills the purpose of religion, ethics, and philosophy, and the lover is raised above all diversities of faiths and beliefs. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, #NFDB
1487:Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger or higher or wider, nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in heaven or on earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is created above all things. ~ Thomas Kempis, #NFDB
1488:The Cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble labourer in the vineyard of the Lord. The fact that the Lord knows how to work and to act even with inadequate instruments comforts me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1489:The Divine is everywhere on all the planes of consciousness seen by us in different ways and aspects of his being. But there is a Supreme which is above all these planes and ways and aspects and from which they come. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, #NFDB
1490:Usury was seen above all as an assault on Christian charity, on Jesus’s injunction to treat the poor as they would treat the Christ himself, giving without expectation of return and allowing the borrower to decide on recompense (Luke 6:34 ~ David Graeber, #NFDB
1491:What poetry does above all else is develop sensibility. And that's what makes poetry so dangerous. That's why poetry is so good at undermining governments and so bad at building them. There's nothing harder to organize than a group of poets. ~ Sam Hamill, #NFDB
1492:In the case of someone who is spiritual receptive, it is possible to talk of an analogy between the impact made by a work of art and that of a purely religious experience. Arts acts above all on the soul shaping its spiritual structure. ~ Andrei Tarkovsky, #NFDB
1493:Success in science and scientific work come not through the provision of unlimited or big resources, but in the wise and careful selection of problems and objectives. Above all, what is required is hard sustained work and dedication. ~ Lal Bahadur Shastri, #NFDB
1494:We no longer talked about our love affairs, for either they had failed, were failing, or were serious. Above all they were private—how can love be talked about? It is probably the most awful of all the revelations this little life affords. ~ James Baldwin, #NFDB
1495:Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more courageous, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller nor better in heaven and earth; because love is born of God, and cannot rest but in God, above all created things. ~ Thomas a Kempis, #NFDB
1496:Though here at journey's end I lie In darkness buried deep, Beyond all towers strong and high, Beyond all mountains steep, Above all shadows rides the Sun And Stars for ever dwell: I will not say the Day is done, Nor bid the Stars farewell. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
1497:Time, what God first deemed holy above all else (Genesis 2:3). Thank God for the time, and very God enters that time, presence hallowing it.... I awake to I AM here. When I'm present, I meet I AM, the very presence of a present God. (page 70) ~ Ann Voskamp, #NFDB
1498:Travel enables us to enrich our lives with new experiences, to enjoy and to be educated, to learn respect for foreign cultures, to establish friendships, and above all to contribute to international cooperation and peace throughout the world. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
1499:What has once been settled by a precedent will not be unsettled overnight, for certainty and uniformity are gains not lightly sacrificed. Above all is this true when honest men have shaped their conduct on the faith of the pronouncement. ~ Benjamin Cardozo, #NFDB
1500:Wherever people defend the rights of the individual, I stand with them above all, over and beyond any wishes relating to how an economy should be managed or how people should govern themselves. This is a very strong commitment on my part. ~ Murray Bookchin, #NFDB
290 Integral Yoga
70 Christianity
66 Occultism
50 Poetry
46 Philosophy
41 Psychology
16 Science
14 Fiction
8 Education
7 Integral Theory
6 Theosophy
6 Baha i Faith
5 Yoga
4 Cybernetics
3 Hinduism
1 Mythology
1 Mysticism
1 Kabbalah
1 Buddhism
1 Alchemy
234 The Mother
128 Satprem
82 Sri Aurobindo
42 Carl Jung
34 Nolini Kanta Gupta
29 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
18 William Wordsworth
18 Saint Augustine of Hippo
17 Aleister Crowley
16 Plotinus
13 James George Frazer
12 Rudolf Steiner
12 H P Lovecraft
12 Friedrich Nietzsche
8 Plato
7 Walt Whitman
7 Saint John of Climacus
7 Aldous Huxley
6 Jordan Peterson
6 Baha u llah
5 Saint Teresa of Avila
4 Sri Ramakrishna
4 Norbert Wiener
4 John Keats
4 Franz Bardon
3 Edgar Allan Poe
3 Anonymous
2 Vyasa
2 Swami Vivekananda
2 Robert Browning
2 Percy Bysshe Shelley
2 Nirodbaran
2 Lucretius
2 Ken Wilber
2 Henry David Thoreau
23 The Synthesis Of Yoga
18 Wordsworth - Poems
17 Mysterium Coniunctionis
16 Agenda Vol 08
15 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
15 Agenda Vol 06
15 Agenda Vol 01
14 Questions And Answers 1956
13 The Golden Bough
13 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
12 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
12 Questions And Answers 1955
12 Lovecraft - Poems
12 Agenda Vol 04
11 The Future of Man
11 Questions And Answers 1953
11 Essays On The Gita
10 The Practice of Psycho therapy
10 On Education
10 City of God
10 Agenda Vol 09
9 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
9 Prayers And Meditations
8 Words Of Long Ago
8 The Life Divine
8 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
8 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
8 Magick Without Tears
8 Liber ABA
8 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
8 Agenda Vol 10
8 Agenda Vol 05
8 Agenda Vol 02
7 Whitman - Poems
7 The Phenomenon of Man
7 The Perennial Philosophy
7 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
7 The Bible
7 Some Answers From The Mother
7 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
7 Aion
7 Agenda Vol 03
6 Twilight of the Idols
6 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
6 Questions And Answers 1954
6 Maps of Meaning
6 Hymn of the Universe
6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
6 Agenda Vol 13
6 Agenda Vol 07
5 Theosophy
5 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
5 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
5 Letters On Yoga IV
5 Let Me Explain
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
4 The Secret Doctrine
4 The Practice of Magical Evocation
4 Keats - Poems
4 Cybernetics
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
4 Agenda Vol 11
3 Words Of The Mother II
3 Vedic and Philological Studies
3 The Red Book Liber Novus
3 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
3 The Human Cycle
3 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
3 The Book of Certitude
3 Poe - Poems
3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
3 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
3 Essays Divine And Human
3 Agenda Vol 12
2 Walden
2 Vishnu Purana
2 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
2 The Way of Perfection
2 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
2 Shelley - Poems
2 Sex Ecology Spirituality
2 Record of Yoga
2 On the Way to Supermanhood
2 Of The Nature Of Things
2 Letters On Yoga III
2 Letters On Yoga II
2 Letters On Yoga I
2 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
2 Crowley - Poems
2 Browning - Poems
0 0.01 - Introduction, #Agenda Vol 1, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo! They would be fossils. The truth is always on the move. It is with those who dare, who have courage, and Above all the courage to shatter all the effigies, to de-mystify, and to go
TRULY to the conquest of the new. The 'new' is painful, discouraging, it resembles nothing we know! We cannot hoist the flag of an unconquered country - but this is what is so marvelous: it does not yet exist. We must MAKE IT EXIST. The adventure has not been carved out: it is to be carved out. Truth is not entrapped and fossilized, 'spiritualized': it is to be discovered. We are in a nothing that we must force to become a something. We are in the adventure of the new species. A new species is obviously contradictory to the old species and to the little flags of the alreadyknown. It has nothing in common with the spiritual summits of the old world, nor even with its abysms - which might be delightfully tempting for those who have had enough of the summits, but everything is the same, in black or white, it is fraternal above and below. SOMETHING ELSE is needed.
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Zen
Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, living, it is all replete, packed with consciousness, it is the supreme knowledge Above all human philosophies and religions. It is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, Tapasya, Sadhana, everything, in its single body. Savitri has an extraordinary power, it gives out vibrations for him who can receive them, the true vibrations of each stage of consciousness. It is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth. My child, one must try to find the secret that Savitri represents, the prophetic message Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us. This is the work before you, it is hard but it is worth the trouble. - 5 November 1967
~ The Mother Sweet Mother The Mother to Mona Sarkar, [T0]
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Sri Ramakrishna — henceforth we shall call Gadadhar by this familiar name —1 came to the temple garden with his elder brother Ramkumar, who was appointed priest of the Kali temple. Sri Ramakrishna did not at first approve of Ramkumar's working for the sudra Rasmani. The example of their orthodox father was still fresh in Sri Ramakrishna's mind. He objected also to the eating of the cooked offerings of the temple, since, according to orthodox Hindu custom, such food can be offered to the Deity only in the house of a brahmin. But the holy atmosphere of the temple grounds, the solitude of the surrounding wood, the loving care of his brother, the respect shown him by Rani Rasmani and Mathur Babu, the living presence of the Goddess Kali in the temple, and; Above all, the proximity of the sacred Ganges, which Sri Ramakrishna always held in the highest respect, gradually overcame his disapproval, and he began to feel at home.
Within a very short time Sri Ramakrishna attracted the notice of Mathur Babu, who was impressed by the young man's religious fervour and wanted him to participate in the worship in the Kali temple. But Sri Ramakrishna loved his freedom and was indifferent to any worldly career. The profession of the priesthood in a temple founded by a rich woman did not appeal to his mind. Further, he hesitated to take upon himself the responsibility for the ornaments and jewelry of the temple. Mathur had to wait for a suitable occasion.
--
The Europeanized Kristodas Pal did not approve of the Master's emphasis on renunciation and said; "Sir, this cant of renunciation has almost ruined the country. It is for this reason that the Indians are a subject nation today. Doing good to others, bringing education to the door of the ignorant, and Above all, improving the material conditions of the country — these should be our duty now. The cry of religion and renunciation would, on the contrary, only weaken us. You should advise the young men of Bengal to resort only to such acts as will uplift the country." Sri Ramakrishna gave him a searching look and found no divine light within, "You man of poor understanding!" Sri Ramakrishna said sharply. "You dare to slight in these terms renunciation and piety, which our scriptures describe as the greatest of all virtues! After reading two pages of English you think you have come to know the world! You appear to think you are omniscient. Well, have you seen those tiny crabs that are born in the Ganges just when the rains set in? In this big universe you are even less significant than one of those small creatures. How dare you talk of helping the world? The Lord will look to that. You haven't the power in you to do it." After a pause the Master continued: "Can you explain to me how you can work for others? I know what you mean by helping them. To feed a number of persons, to treat them when they are sick, to construct a road or dig a well — isn't that all? These, are good deeds, no doubt, but how trifling in comparison with the vastness of the universe! How far can a man advance in this line? How many people can you save from famine? Malaria has ruined a whole province; what could you do to stop its onslaught? God alone looks after the world. Let a man first realize Him. Let a man get the authority from God and be endowed with His power; then, and then alone, may he think of doing good to others. A man should first be purged of all egotism. Then alone will the Blissful Mother ask him to work for the world." Sri Ramakrishna mistrusted philanthropy that presumed to pose as charity. He warned people against it. He saw in most acts of philanthropy nothing but egotism, vanity, a desire for glory, a barren excitement to kill the boredom of life, or an attempt to soothe a guilty conscience. True charity, he taught, is the result of love of God — service to man in a spirit of worship.
--- MONASTIC DISCIPLES
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It follows that the object of the material life must be to fulfil, Above all things, the vital aim of Nature. The whole aim of the material man is to live, to pass from birth to death with as much comfort or enjoyment as may be on the way, but anyhow to live.
He can subordinate this aim, but only to physical Nature's other instincts, the reproduction of the individual and the conservation of the type in the family, class or community. Self, domesticity, the accustomed order of the society and of the nation are the constituents of the material existence. Its immense importance in the economy of Nature is self-evident, and commensurate is the importance of the human type which represents it. He assures her of the safety of the framework she has made and of the orderly continuance and conservation of her past gains.
0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
again. But Above all you must not believe the suggestions of incapacity and failure; they come from an adverse source and ought
not to be given any credence. Certainly there are difficulties on
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sadhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and Above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine
Strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for our weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It "makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills." The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet, in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is good to be Above all enjoyments the world can give, but
why accept to be hurt by it?
--
The true divine love is Above all quarrels. It is the experience of
perfect union in an invariable joy and peace.
--
expect to control others, Above all, children, who feel it immediately when someone is not master of himself?
The students cannot learn their lessons even when they
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Will that I should do so. But Above all, I must have the
Darshan of the World-Mother, Adya Shakti Mahakali.
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The psychic being itself is Above all possibility of degradation.
28 July 1960
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We have been speaking of philosophy and the philosophic manner. But what are the exact implications of the words, let us ask again. They mean nothing more and nothing lessthan the force of thought and the mass of thought content. After all, that seems to be almost the whole difference between the past and the present human consciousness in so far at least as it has found expression in poetry. That element, we wish to point out, is precisely what the old-world poets lacked or did not care to possess or express or stress. A poet meant Above all, if not all in all, emotion, passion, sensuousness, sensibility, nervous enthusiasm and imagination and fancy: remember the classic definition given by Shakespeare of the poet
Of imagination all compact.. . .
01.05 - Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In an age when Reason was considered as the highest light given to man, Tagore pointed to the Vision of the mystics as always the still greater light; when man was elated with undreamt-of worldly success, puffed up with incomparable material possessions and powers, Tagore's voice rang clear and emphatic in tune with the cry of the ancients: "What shall I do with all this mass of things, if I am not made immortal by that?" When men, in their individual as well as collective egoism, were scrambling for earthly gains and hoards, he held before them vaster and cleaner horizons, higher and deeper ways of being and living, maintained the sacred sense of human solidarity, the living consciousness of the Divine, one and indivisible. When the Gospel of Power had all but hypnotised men's minds, and Superman or God-man came to be equated with the Titan, Tagore saw through the falsehood and placed in front and Above all the old-world eternal verities of love and self-giving, harmony and mutuality, sweetness and light. When pessimism, cynicism, agnosticism struck the major chord of human temperament, and grief and frustration and death and decay were taken as a matter of course to be the inevitable order of earthlylifebhasmantam idam shariramhe continued to sing the song of the Rishis that Ananda and Immortality are the breath of things, the birth right of human beings. When Modernism declared with a certitude never tobe contested that Matter is Brahman, Tagore said with the voice of one who knows that Spirit is Brahman.
Tagore is in direct line with those bards who have sung of the Spirit, who always soared high above the falsehoods and uglinesses of a merely mundane life and lived in the undecaying delights and beauties of a diviner consciousness. Spiritual reality was the central theme of his poetic creation: only and naturally he viewed it in a special way and endowed it with a special grace. We know of another God-intoxicated man, the Jewish philosopher Spinoza, who saw things sub specie aeternitatis, under the figure or mode of eternity. Well, Tagore can be said to see things, in their essential spiritual reality, under the figure or mode of beauty. Keats indeed spoke of truth being beauty and beauty truth. But there is a great difference in the outlook and inner experience. A worshipper of beauty, unless he rises to the Upanishadic norm, is prone to become sensuous and pagan. Keats was that, Kalidasa was that, even Shelley was not far different. The spiritual vein in all these poets remains secondary. In the old Indian master, it is part of his intellectual equipment, no doubt, but nothing much more than that. In the other two it comes in as strange flashes from an unknown country, as a sort of irruption or on the peak of the poetic afflatus or enthousiasmos.
01.05 - The Nietzschean Antichrist, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This is the Nietzsche we all know. But there is another aspect of his which the world has yet been slow to recognise. For, at bottom, Nietzsche is not all storm and fury. If his Superman is a Destroying Angel, he is none the less an angel. If he is endowed with a supreme sense of strength and power, there is also secreted in the core of his heart a sense of the beautiful that illumines his somewhat sombre aspect. For although Nietzsche is by birth a Slavo-Teuton, by culture and education he is pre-eminently Hellenic. His earliest works are on the subject of Greek tragedy and form what he describes as an "Apollonian dream." And to this dream, to this Greek aesthetic sense more than to any thing else he sacrifices justice and pity and charity. To him the weak and the miserable, the sick and the maimed are a sort of blot, a kind of ulcer on the beautiful face of humanity. The herd that wallow in suffering and relish suffering disfigure the aspect of the world and should therefore be relentlessly mowed out of existence. By being pitiful to them we give our tacit assent to their persistence. And it is precisely because of this that Nietzsche has a horror of Christianity. For compassion gives indulgence to all the ugliness of the world and thus renders that ugliness a necessary and indispensable element of existence. To protect the weak, to sympathise with the lowly brings about more of weakness and more of lowliness. Nietzsche has an aristocratic taste par excellencewhat he aims at is health and vigour and beauty. But Above all it is an aristocracy of the spirit, an aristocracy endowed with all the richness and beauty of the soul that Nietzsche wants to establish. The beggar of the street is the symbol of ugliness, of the poverty of the spirit. And the so-called aristocrat, die millionaire of today is as poor and ugly as any helpless leper. The soul of either of them is made of the same dirty, sickly stuff. The tattered rags, the crouching heart, the effeminate nerve, the unenlightened soul are the standing ugliness of the world and they have no place in the ideal, the perfect humanity. Humanity, according to Nietzsche, is made in order to be beautiful, to conceive the beautiful, to create the beautiful. Nietzsche's Superman has its perfect image in a Grecian statue of Zeus cut out in white marble-Olympian grandeur shedding in every lineament Apollonian beauty and Dionysian vigour.
The real secret of Nietzsche's philosophy is not an adoration of brute force, of blind irrational joy in fighting and killing. Far from it, Nietzsche has no kinship with Treitschke or Bernhard. What Nietzsche wanted was a world purged of littleness and ugliness, a humanity, not of saints, perhaps, but of heroes, lofty in their ideal, great in their achievement, majestic in their empirea race of titanic gods breathing the glory of heaven itself.
01.07 - The Bases of Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The French Revolution wanted to remould human society and its ideal was liberty, equality and fraternity. It pulled down the old machinery and set up a new one in its stead. And the result? "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" remained always in effect a cry in the wilderness. Another wave of idealism is now running over the earth and the Bolshevists are its most fiercely practical exponents. Instead of dealing merely with the political machinery, the Socialistic Revolution tries to break and remake, Above all, the social machinery. But judged from the results as yet attained and the tendencies at work, few are the reasons to hope but many to fear the worst. Even education does not seem to promise us anything better. Which nation was better educatedin the sense we understood and still commonly understand the wordthan Germany?
And yet we have no hesitation today to call them Huns and Barbarians. That education is not giving us the right thing is proved further by the fact that we are constantly changing our programmes and curriculums, everyday remodelling old institutions and founding new ones. Even a revolution in the educational system will not bring about the desired millennium, so long as we lay so much stress upon the system and not upon man himself. And finally, look to all the religions of the worldwe have enough of creeds and dogmas, of sermons and mantras, of churches and templesand yet human life and society do not seem to be any the more worthy for it.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It would be more proper to write (and Above all, to think):
"Would it be possible to have an electric lamp in the corridor?"
--
has to read, study and, Above all, practise.
4 October 1961
--
are - by regular, daily exercise. Above all, turn towards the
Divine Force in a sincere aspiration and implore It to deliver
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The year 1949 has just celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great force of light that was Goethe. We too remember him on the occasion, and will try to present in a few words, as we see it, the fundamental experience, the major Intuition that stirred this human soul, the lesson he brought to mankind. Goe the was a great poet. He showed how a language, perhaps least poetical by nature, can be moulded to embody the great beauty of great poetry. He made the German language sing, even as the sun's ray made the stone of Memnon sing when falling upon it. Goe the was a man of consummate culture. Truly and almost literally it could be said of him that nothing human he considered foreign to his inquiring mind. And Goe the was a man of great wisdom. His observation and judgment on thingsno matter to whatever realm they belonghave an arresting appropriateness, a happy and revealing insight. But Above all, he was an aspiring soulaspiring to know and be in touch with the hidden Divinity in man and the world.
Goe the and the Problem of Evil
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
stands Above all the worlds and bears in her eternal
consciousness the Supreme Divine."20
--
Yes, one can put it that way. But Above all, it is the attitude
towards the outward appearance that changes completely.
0.14 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
progress are essential for a happy and fruitful life. Above all, one
must be convinced that the possibility of progress is unlimited.
0 1955-09-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Mother, I would like you to forgive me, to understand me and, Above all, not to deprive me of your Love. I would like you to tell me if I may leave for a few weeks and how you feel about it. It seems to me that I am profoundly your child, in spite of all this??
Signed: Bernard
0 1957-07-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It went something like this: somewhere, in the center of this enormous edifice, there was a room reservedas it seemed in the story for a mother and her daughter. The mother was a lady, an elderly lady, a very influential matron who had a great deal of authority and her own views concerning the entire organization. Her daughter seemed to have a power of movement and activity enabling her to be everywhere at once while at the same time remaining in her room, which was well, a bit more than a roomit was a kind of apartment which, Above all, had the characteristic of being very central. But she was constantly arguing with her mother. The mother wanted to keep things just as they were, with their usual rhythm, which precisely meant the habit of tearing down one thing to rebuild another, then again tearing down that to build still another, thus giving the building an appearance of frightful confusion. But the daughter did not like this, and she had another plan. Most of all, she wanted to bring something completely new into the organization: a kind of super-organization that would render all this confusion unnecessary. Finally, as it was impossible for them to reach an understanding, the daughter left the room to go on a kind of general inspection She went out, looked everything over, and then wanted to return to her room to decide upon some final measures. But this is where something rather peculiar began happening.
She clearly remembered where her room was, but each time she set out to go there, either the staircase disappeared or things were so changed that she could no longer find her way! So she went here and there, up and down, searched, went in and out but it was impossible to find the way to her room! Since all of this assumed a physical appearanceas I said, a very familiar and very common appearance, as is always the case in these symbolic visions there was somewhere (how shall I put it?) the hotels administrative office and a woman who seemed to be the manager, who had all the keys and who knew where everyone was staying. So the daughter went to this person and asked her, Could you show me the way to my room?But of course! Easily! Everyone around the manager looked at her as if to say, How can you say that? However, she got up, and with authority asked for a key the key to the daughters roomsaying, I shall take you there. And off she went along all kinds of paths, but all so complicated, so bizarre! The daughter was following along behind her very attentively, you see, so as not to lose sight of her. But just as they should have come to the place where the daughters room was supposed to be, suddenly the manageress (let us call her the manageress), both the manageress and her key vanished! And the sense of this vanishing was so acute that at the same time, everything vanished!
0 1958-04-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I want it to come out of this tempered forever, Above all attacks.
May the joy of luminous love be with you.
0 1958-11-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
If you can when the attack comes, if you can cling to something that knows, or to something in you that has had the experience, and if you can hold onto that memory, even if it is only a memory, and cling to that in spite of all that denies and revolts Above all not To keep your head as still as possible. And not follow the movement, not succumb to the vibration.
Because from what I have seen and from what I was told, I am sure that it is decisive, that what is offered to you is the possibility of a decisive victory, which means that it will no longer recur in the same way.
0 1958-11-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It is difficult without a strong will; and Above all, Above all the capacity to resist the temptation, which was the fatal temptation throughout all ones livesbecause its power builds up. Each defeat gives it renewed force. But a tiny victory can dissolve it.
Oh, the most terrible of all is when one does not have the strength, the courage, something indomitable! How many times do they come to tell me, I want to die, I want to flee, I want to die.I say, But die, then, die to yourself! No one is asking you to let your ego survive! Die to yourself since you want to die! Have that courage, the true courage, to die to your egoism.
--
I dont know. Thats not how I see it, in any case To live in the forest physically, an intense physical life where one is free, where one is pure, where one is far away Above all, to stop this thing from grinding on, finished with the head, and finished with thinking whatever it might be. If there is a yoga, it would be done spontaneously, naturally, physically, and without the least questioning from up there Above all, a complete cessation of that (the head).
The first tantric guru whom the disciple joined in Ceylon and with whom he travelled in the Himalayas.
0 1959-06-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
3) X has not yet begun his work with me nor for you, as he has been unwell until today. One evening, he made a very beautiful reflection concerning you and your mantra, but it is inexpressible in words, it was Above all the tone in which he said, Who, who, is there a single person in the world who can repeat like that TRIOMPHE TOI MAHIMA MAHIMA? etc. And three or four times he repeated your mantra with such an expression
He has not yet done what he plans to do with your mantra in his puja, for he has been unwell and had to interrupt his pujas. But now he is better.
0 1960-06-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This is the main reason for my japa. Theres a power in the sound itself, and by forcing the body to repeat the sound, you force it to receive the vibration at the same time. But Ive noticed that if something in the bodys working gets disturbed (a pain or disorder, the onset of some illness) and I repeat my mantra in a certain waystill the same words, the same mantra, but said with a certain purpose and Above all in a movement of surrender, surrender of the pain, the disorder, and a call, like an openingit has a marvelous effect. The mantra acts in just the right way, in this way and in no other. And after a while everything is put back in order. And simultaneously, of course, the precise knowledge of what lies behind the disorder and what I must do to set it right comes to me. But quite apart from this, the mantra acts directly upon the pain itself.
I also use my mantra to go into trance. After relaxing on the bed and making as total a self-offering as possible of everything, from top to bottom, and after removing as fully as possible all resistance of the ego, I start repeating the mantra.1 After repeating it two or three times, I am in trance (at the beginning it took longer). And from this trance I pass into sleep; the trance lasts as long as necessary and, quite naturally, spontaneously, I pass into sleep. And when I come back, I remember everything. The sleep was like a continuation of the trance. And essentially, the only reason for sleep is to allow the body to assimilate the results of the trance, then to allow these results to be accepted throughout and to let the body do its natural nights work of eliminating toxins. My periods of sleep practically dont exist sometimes they are as short as half an hour or 15 minutes. But in the beginning, I had long periods of sleep, one or even two hours in succession. And when I woke up, I did not feel this residue of heaviness which comes from sleep the effects of the trance continued.
0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Afterwards, I kept very still so as not to disturb it. I didnt speak, Above all I refrained from thinking and held it, held it tight against me I said to myself, make it last, make it last, make it last
Later on, I heard Sri Aurobindo saying that there were two people here to whom he had done this and as soon as there was silence, they panicked: My God, Ive gone stupid!! And they threw it all overboard by starting to think again.
0 1960-10-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And its true, those things I saw this morning which seemed so Above all stupid and ugly (Ive never had a sense of morality at any time in my life, thank God! But stupid and ugly things have always seemed Ive always done my best to distance myself from them, even when I was very small). And now I see that these things which seem not only ridiculous but, well, almost shameful were considered, as I recall, remarkably noble earlier on and they represented an exceptionally lofty attitude in life the very same things. So then I understood that its quite simply a question of proportion.
And thats how the world isthings which now seem totally unacceptable to us, things we CANNOT tolerate, were quite all right in the past.
The day before yesterday, I spent the whole night looking on. I had read the passage by Sri Aurobindo in The Synthesis on supramental time (wherein past, present and future coexist in a global consciousness). While youre in it, its marvelous! You understand things perfectly. But when youre not in it Above all, theres this problem of how to keep the force of ones aspiration, the power of progress, this power which seems so inevitableso inevitable if existence (lets simply take terrestrial existence) is to mean anything and its presence to be justified. (This ascending movement towards a progressive better that will be eternally better)How is this to be kept when you have the total vision this vision in which everything coexists. At that moment, the other becomes something like a game, an amusement, if you will. (Not everyone finds it amusing!) And when you contain all that, why allow yourself the pleasure of succession? Is this pleasure of succession, of seeing things one after the other, equal to this intensity of the will for progress? Words are foolish!
The effort to see and to understand this gripped me all night. And when I woke up this morning, I thanked the Lord; I said to Him, Obviously, if You were to keep me totally in that consciousness, I could no longer I could no longer do my work! How could I do my work? For I can only say something to people when I feel it or see it, when I see that its what must be said, but if I am simultaneously in a consciousness in which Im aware of everything that has led to that situation, everything that is going to happen, everything Im going to say, everything the others going to feel then how could I do it!
0 1960-10-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Im counting Above all on your force to put my body back in order.
Yes, of course! But to be put back in order, it must become a bit stronger. The more fragile you are, the more it breaks down.
0 1960-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
So for persons who are severe and grave (there are two such examples here, but its not necessary to name them) There are beings who are grave, so serious, so sincere, who find it hypocritical; and when it borders on certain (how shall I put it?) vital excesses, they call it vice. There are others who have lived their entire lives in a yogic or religious discipline, and they see this as an obstacle, illusion, dirtyness (Mother makes a gesture of rejecting with disgust), but Above all, its this terrible illusion that prevents you from nearing the Divine. And when I saw the way these two people here reacted, in fact, I said to myself, but you see, I FELT So strongly that this too is the Divine, it too is a way of getting out of something that has had its place in evolution, and still has a place, individually, for certain individuals. Naturally, if you remain there, you keep turning in circles; it will always be (not eternally, but indefinitely) the woman of my life, to take that as a symbol. But once youre out of it, you see that this had its place, its utilityit made you emerge from a kind of very animal-like wisdom and quietude that of the herd or of the being who sees no further than his daily round. It was necessary. We mustnt condemn it, we mustnt use harsh words.
The mistake we make is to remain there too long, for if you spend your whole life in that, well, youll probably need many more lifetimes. But once the chance to get out of it comes, you can look at it with a smile and say, Yes, its really a sort of love for fiction!people love fiction, they want fiction, they need fiction! Otherwise its boring and all much too flat.
0 1960-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Its a lack of plasticity in the mind, and they are bound by the expression of things; for them, words are rigid. Sri Aurobindo explained it so well in The Secret of the Veda; he shows how language evolves and how, before, it was very supple and evocative. For example, one could at once think of a river and of inspiration. Sri Aurobindo also gives the example of a sailboat and the forward march of life. And he says that for those of the Vedic age it was quite natural, the two could go together, superimposed; it was merely a way of looking at the same thing from two sides, whereas now, when a word is said, we think only of this word all by itself, and to get a clear picture we need a whole literary or poetic imagery (with explanations to boot!). Thats exactly the case with these children; theyre at a stage where everything is rigid. Such is the product of modern education. It even extracts the subtlest nuance between two words and FIXES it: And Above all, dont make any mistake, dont use this word for that word, for otherwise your writings no good. But its just the opposite.
(silence)
0 1960-12-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
For the last several days, Ive been at grips fighting with it. How can I stop this idiotic, coarse and Above all defeatist automatism from constantly manifesting? Its truly an automatism; it doesnt respond to any conscious will, nothing. So what will it take to ? And its QUITE INTIMATELY related to the bodys illnesses (the old habits the body has of coming out of its rhythmic movement, of entering into confusion)the two things are very intimately linked.
Im deep in the problem.
0 1960-12-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
If I could only note all this down Its been so interesting all morning, right from the starton the balcony, then upstairs while walking for my japa! And it was on this same theme (experience of the speck of dust) This habit people have (especially in India, but more or less everywhere among those who have a religious nature), this habit of doing all things religious with respect and compunction and no mixing of things, Above all there should be no mixing; in some circumstances, at certain times, you MUST NOT think of God, for then it would be a kind of blasphemy.
Theres the religious attitude, and then theres ordinary life where people do thingsworking, living, eating, enjoying life; they regard these as the essentials, and as for the rest, well, when theres time they think about it. But what Sri Aurobindo brought down, precisely I remember at Tlemcen, Theon used to say that there was a whole world of things, such as eating, for example, or taking care of your body, that should be done automatically, without giving it any importanceits not the time to think of things divine.(!) Thats what he preached. So you have the religious attitude of all the religious types, and then ordinary life I found both of them equally unsatisfactory. Then I came here and told Sri Aurobindo my feeling; I said that if someone is truly in union with the Divine, it CANNOT change no matter what he does (the quality of what youre doing may change, but the union cant change no matter what youre doing). And when he said that this was the truth, I felt a relief. And that feeling has stayed with me all through my life.
0 1960-12-31, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
X seemed happy about his visit this time. We had long meditations of half an hourhe never seemed to want to leave at all! There was Above all a kind of extremely calm universalization. An absolute and universal calm in all the cells of the body. I dont know if it was only me, but it seemed he was in the same stateunable to move, quite content, smiling. Once I heard the clock chime, and as I thought it was time and that perhaps he was ready to leave, I looked; he had removed the mala3 that he wears around his neck and I found him doing japa. As soon as he saw me looking, he quickly put it back on!
But whats most surprising is that with me, not a word, nothing, neither he nor I. And it seems to be just as comfortable for him as it is for me!
0 1961-01-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I came out of this trance two hours later, at 3 a.m. And during these two hours I saw with a new consciousness, a new vision, and Above all a NEW POWERI had a vision of the entire Work: all the people, all the things, all the systems, all of it. And it was it was different in appearance (this is only because appearances depend upon the needs of the moment), but mainly it differed IN POWERA considerable difference. Considerable. The power itself was no longer the same.9
A truly ESSENTIAL change in the body has occurred.
0 1961-01-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have done these things beforeits a knowledge I already hadand it always had its effect when I did them; its not that I am passing from powerlessness to power, not at all. But its this kind of yes, something definite, absolutea kind of absolute in vision, in knowledge, in action and Above all in powera kind of absolute that doesnt need to conquer obstacles and resistances, but ANNULS the resistance automatically. Then I saw that something had truly changed.
(After a digression, Mother gives another example of the change:)
0 1961-03-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Truly, they have ruined the earth, they have ruined itthey have ruined the atmosphere, they have ruined everything; and for it to become something like the earthly paradise again, ohh! What a long way to gopsychologically, Above all. Even the very structure of Matter (Mother fingers the air around her), with their bombs and their experiments and their oh, they have made a mess of it all! They have truly made a mess of Matter.
Probably no, not probably, its absolutely certain that this was necessary for kneading matter, churning it, to prepare it to receive THAT, the new thing yet to manifest.
0 1961-04-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But you have to have a firm head on your shoulders. You must always be able to refer to THAT (pointing above) and then here, silence (Mother touches her forehead): peace, peace, peace, stop everything, stop everything. Dont try, Above all, dont try to understand! Oh, there is nothing more dangerous! We try to understand with an instrument not made for understanding, thats incapable of understanding.
In any case, for your question its very simple: we dont need to go to these extremes!
--
An illustration of this is the well-known story about the man who refused to move out of the path of an elephant on the pretext that he was Brahman and that Brahman had told him to stay put. And the mahout replied, 'But Brahman has told me that you should get out of the way and let the elephant Brahman pass.' Although childishly simplified, it's the same thing. It's because we look 'in this way' yet not , in that way' at the same time, and Above all, because we don't look at EVERYTHING at the same time. From the minute we could be integral in our perception, all relationships would remain the same, but instead of being in a state of ignorance, we would experience them in a state of knowledge.
Would remain the same? You mean they would physically be the same as they are now, but would be seen in a different way?
0 1961-05-23, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I never knew Vivekananda. I only know what I have heard or read about him, but that isnt what I call knowing. So I cant say anything, and Above all I dont want to seem to give credence to all the gossip that has been spread about him. I have had no personal contact with him, neither in the physical nor elsewherenot with him personally. Naturally I could if I made an effort, but.
To tell the truth, this question seems stupid to me, because one can have mastery over circumstances only if one becomes the Supremebecause the Supreme alone has mastery over circumstances. So the question is senseless.
0 1961-08-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Listen, mon petit, they are conscious of their own divinity, and of that Above all!
They are connected with the Divine, yes, but I know from experience that they havent the faintest notion of what surrender is!
0 1961-10-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Above all, he would like the end to be brief. Thats something I felt from the very first daylet the end surge up and leave you in suspense; Above all, dont try to be reasonable. An upsurge of light like a door bursting open onto a very luminous and unknown future, but with no attempt to make it tangible and approachable. I am sure of thisthis impression of a closed door (people live behind doors, you know), and then abruptly the door is flung wide-open on an explosion of light and you are left there: sit down, look, contemplate and wait for the moment to be ripe for venturing forth.
Above all, have no ambition to make anyone understand anything whatsoever.
But you have to make people understand the work of Sri Aurobindowhat he came to do, what his work is!
0 1961-12-20, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A book like that (sufficiently veiled, of course), written in the simplest way possible (like I wrote The Science of Living, I believe)and its fine, you speak to people in their own language. Above all, no philosophy! None! You simply tell some extraordinary stories in the same way you would tell an ordinary story. But the Story is there, thats the most important thing.
It started in my infancy the Story was already there.
0 1962-03-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, all those little rules were enjoined to follow: Above all, dont do that; and be sure to do this, dont forget that. Like ablutions, for instance, or attitudes, or what to eattheres no dearth of them. A mountain of dos and dontsall completely swept away! And swept away to the point where sometimes a rule, something highly recommended (Be sure to do this, be careful to do thatan attitude or an action) becomes an obstacle. I hardly dare say it, but one example is having a regular schedulealways making ablutions at the same hour, always doing japa in the same manner and so on. And I am perfectly aware that Sri Aurobindo himself puts all sorts of trivial obstacles in my wayobstacles I could hurdle with a single second of reflection; he sets them up as if in play. Do you remember the aphorism where he says he was quarreling with the Lord and the Lord made him fall in the mud?2 Thats just what I feel. He puts a stick in my spokes and laughs. So I say, All right, thats enough, I dont give a hoot! Ill do whatever You want, its not my problem; I can do it or not do it, do it this way or that. It has all gone up in smoke now.
What has become constant, though. I shouldnt say it, because its going to get me into trouble again! But anyway, whats trying to be constant is DISCRIMINATION: taking all circumstances, vibrations, relationships, what comes from the people around me, what responds, and putting each in its proper place. A second-to-second discrimination. I know where things are coming from, why they come, their effect, where theyre going to lead me, and so on. Its growing more and more frequent, constant, automaticlike a state of being.
0 1962-03-11, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Actually, thats the main reason I dont like to talk about occultism. It puts people in touch with an extremely dangerous world which cant be safely entered unless one is (I cant even say a saint, because its not true; some saints enter the vital world and get right into it!) unless one is transformed, unless one has the true spiritual consciousness. On this condition alone are you perfectly safe. So where are the people with the spiritual consciousness? There are really very few of them, very few. And Above all, in those who have this occult curiosity there are also all sorts of vital movements, which make it dangerous for them to enter that world. Unless, of course, they go shielded by the gurus presence; with that, you can go anywhere, its the same as going there with him. And if you do go with him, all is well; he has the knowledge and he protects you. But going there all on your own is you need the Divine Protection itself! Or the protection of the guru who represents the Divine. With the gurus protection you are safe.
But isnt it possible to have a fruitful collaboration with those beings? Should they be avoided altogether, or what?
0 1962-05-29, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Human beings arent that limited, after all! It is rather yes, its a matter of atavism, of education, of all sorts of things; and Above all, I think the main reason is that you have no desire toits no fun for you!
(Satprem laughs in complete agreement)
0 1962-06-02, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And then, dont be in a hurry to get up, Above all dont say, Oh, Ill be late. Just stay there, as if you had all eternity before you.
I.e., the crystalline river and the muddy river, the room of pain and the true room. Mother later clarified: "At a given moment, the water was either one way or the other; I wasn't changing place, the STATE was changing."
0 1962-07-14, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But you mustnt rush; and Above all, no desire. Be very calm. The calmer you are, the longer it lasts. If youre in too much of a hurry, it goes away.
I can see it takes an EXTRAORDINARY capacity and solidity to bear That without exploding and this capacity is slowly being prepared.
0 1962-10-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Above all, of course, when we come to the heart: to replace the heart with the center of Power, a formidable, dynamic power! (Mother laughs) At what precise MOMENT are you going to eliminate the circulation and throw in the Force!
It is its difficult.
0 1962-10-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Higher up, there is a fourth zone, a zone of colored lights, plays of colored lights. Thats the order: first form, then sound, then ideas, then colored lights. But that zone is already more distant from humanity; it is a zone of forces, a zone which appears as colored lights. No formscolored lights representing forces. And one can combine these forces so that they work in the terrestrial atmosphere and bring about certain events. Its a zone of action, independent of form, sound and thought; it is Above all that. A zone of active power and might you can use for a particular purposeif you have the capacity to do so.
Thats the highest zone.
0 1963-01-02, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
While I would need Oh, at times I withdraw from action altogetherby action, I mean talking and Above all receiving swarms of vibrations terrible, terrible vibrations!
I feel the work is going fairly fast inside, there are some interesting things (what shall I say?) like promises. But the [bodys] sensitivity and the possibility of imbalance have heightened, in the sense that a mere trifle, which in other circumstances would have been totally unimportant and would have just gone by smoothly, throws the body off balance the body has grown terribly sensitive. For example, a wrong reaction in someone, a tension or some reaction of a quite ordinary order, causes a sudden weariness in my body, as if it were exhausted. Then I have to collect myself and plunge back into the Source so that
0 1963-02-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats what I always tell those who criticize the government: You deserve to be put in the place of the Prime Minister, or any other minister, with decisions to make; and with the responsibility placed on you, suppose you suddenly had to decide on things of which you know nothingyoud soon see what fun it is! You see, to govern properly, you have to be you have to be a sage! You should have a universal vision and be Above all personal questions. There is not onenot one.
Some are sluggish (theyre the best, because I can make them do what I want them to do); theyre like automatons, so you can get something out of them. But unfortunately they think they are they have the sense of their responsibility, so they think they are very superior then its terrible!
0 1963-02-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For the first time in a year, Mother appeared on the new balcony Above all the assembled disciples.
This far less physical vision was more accurate IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD.
0 1963-07-10, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It takes a very sharp, attentive, and Above all impersonal observation (impersonal in the sense of objective, without any reaction) to see those things.
Only little by little, little by little do you learn the true functioning; because those things that are added on and spoil everything arent deliberate additions arising from a desire or impatience or overenthusiasmits none of that, its due to a habit. Its quite simply a habit. That is, the psychological element is purified and doesnt interfere: its just a habit. The SUBSTANCE has the habit of doing things that way, and so it does them that way. So it must be taught not to stir, to keep quiet, so that when the Vibration comes, the something that always rushes forward doesnt do so.
0 1963-07-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So there is a period when you are in suspense: no longer this, not yet that, just in between. Its a difficult period when you have to be very quiet, very patient, and Above all Above allnever become afraid or irritated or impatient, because thats catastrophic. And the difficulty is that from all quarters and without letup come all the idiotic suggestions of ordinary thinking: age, deterioration, the possibility of death, the constant threat of illness, of the slightest thingillness, dotage decay. It comes all the time, all the time, all the time; and all the time this poor harried body has to remain very quiet and not to listen, preoccupied only with maintaining its vibrations in a harmonious state.
Sometimes I catch it (that must be something quite common among human beings) in a sort of hastea haste, a kind of impatience, and also, I cant say fear or anxiety, but a sense of uncertainty. The two together: impatience to get out of the present moment to the immediately next, and at the same time uncertainty as to what that immediately next moment is going to bring. The whole thing makes a vibration of restlessnesswhats the word in French?
0 1963-08-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That consciousness feels a sort of anxiety towards mental force; the moment a mental force manifests, it goes like this (gesture of recoil): Oh, no! Enough of that, enough, enough! As though mental force were the cause of all its torment. It feels mental force as something so hard, dry, rigid, ruthless, Above all drydry, emptyempty of the true Vibration.
Thats becoming quite clear. For example, whenever there is no need to do anything outwardly and all activity stops, then theres rest, and there comes that thirst and aspiration for a luminous Peace. It comes, and not only does it come, it seems to be firmly established. But if in that rest something suddenly flags and the old mental activity starts up (an activity of the mind of the cells, the most material mind), immediately that consciousness comes out of its rest with a jerk: Ah, no! Not that, not that, not that! Instantly the mental activity is stopped, and there is an aspiration for the PresenceNot that, not that!
0 1963-08-28, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Above all, they think theyve understood everything.
Ah, the less you know, the more you think you know.
0 1963-09-18, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Above all, there is a kind of coexistence, of juxtaposition of two things that are really opposite states yet always seem to be together: a Peace in which everything is harmonious (I am speaking of the bodys cells), everything is harmonious to the point that no disorder can occur, no illness, no suffering, no disorganization or decomposition can occurimpossible; its a Peace thats eternal, absolutely beyond time (though it is felt in the bodys cells); and at the same time, a tremoran ignorant and bustling and dark tremor, dark in the sense that its unaware of its ignorance, not knowing what to do and doing useless things all the time. And in that state you find disorder, decomposition, disorganization, suffering and at times it becomes acute, acute, all the nerves are tense and it aches all over and both states are together.4
Are together, I mean to the point that you dont even feel you make a movement of reversal, you dont even know how you go from one state to the other, you the reversal is imperceptible.
0 1963-10-05, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I kept going up, but all the ways I knew stopped short. First I had started up a very large staircase, a magnificent staircase of pink marble, that was the way I had to go upstairs, but just as I turned on the landingplop! impossible to get through. (But how is it? Impossible to get through, yet I went up just the same?..) And I find myself on another landing, I try again to go up from thereplop! stopped, impossible to get through. I try again and find myself on the third landing (but in fact I was on a higher floor, because I had already climbed two flights before I was stopped), I reach the third landing and find myself on a squarea perfect squareedged with a parapet of pink marble, but with reddish veins, very beautiful: very beautiful, it was chiseledmagnificent. Then a door, a sort of bronze door behind me, which was closed. So I watched and saw the water rising and rising (it wasnt water, but it was liquid like water). And in front of me: an immensity. No limits. I seemed to be Above all the other houses; there were no trees, no mountains, nothingan immensity, like a perfectly cloudless sky; and it wasnt white, but there was light in it. I was looking down and I saw the water rising and rising and risinglike the Flood. But it wasnt water.
It will come back until I understand.
0 1963-11-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are times when one is disgusted, and thats just when one should remember this. Now, your disgust may have reasons of its own (!) But you have only to endure. You know, there is one thing, I dont know if you have savored it yet: as soon as you have a difficulty, dissatisfaction, revolt, disgustanythingfatigue, tension, discomfort, all, all that negative side (there are lots and lots and lots of such things, they take on all kinds of different colors), the immediate movementimmediateof calling the Lord and saying, Its up to You. As long as you try (instinctively you try to arrange things with your best light, your best consciousness, your best knowledge), its stupid, because that prolongs the struggle, and ultimately its not very effective. There is only one effective thing, thats to step back from whats still called me and with or without words, it doesnt matter, but Above all with the flame of aspiration, this (gesture to the heart), and something perfectly, perfectly sincere: Lord, its You; and only You can do it, You alone can do it, I cant. Its excellent, you cant imagine how excellent! For instance, someone comes and deluges you with impossible problems, wants you to make instant decisions; you have to write, you have to answer, you have to sayall of itand its like truckloads of darkness and stupidity and wrong movements and all that being dumped on you; and its dumped and dumped and dumpedyou are almost stoned to death with all that. You begin to stiffen, you get tense; then, immediately (gesture of stepping back): O Lord. You stay quiet, take a little step back (gesture of offering): Its up to you.
But you cant imagine, its wonderful! Immediately there comesclear, simple, effortlessly, without seeking for itexactly what has to be done or said or written: the whole tension stops, its over. And then, if you need paper, the paper is there; if you need a fountain pen, you find just the one you need; if you need (theres no seeking: Above all dont seek, dont try to seek, youll just make another mess)its there. And thats a fact of EVERY MINUTE. You have the field of experience every second. For instance, youre dealing with a servant who doesnt do things properly or as you think they should be done, or youre dealing with a stomach that doesnt work the way youd like it to and it hurts: its the same method, there is no other. You know, at times situations get so tense that you feel as if youre about to faint, the body cant stand it any more, its so tense; or else theres a pain, something wrong, things arent sorting themselves out, and theres a tension; so immediately you stop everything: Lord, You, its up to You. At first there comes a peace, as if you were entirely outside existence, and then its gone the pain goes, the dizziness disappears. And what is to happen happens automatically. And, you see, its not in meditation, not in actions of terrestrial importance: its the field of experience you have ALL the time, without interruptionwhen you know how to put it to use. And for everything: when something hurts, for instance, when things resist or grate or howl inside there, instead of your saying, Oh, how it hurts! you call the Lord in there: Come in here, and then you stay calm, not thinking of anythingyou simply stay still in your sensation. And more than a thousand times, you know, I was almost bewildered: Look! The pain is gone! You didnt even notice how it went. So people who want to lead a special life or have a special organization to have experiences, thats quite silly the greatest possible diversity of experiences is at your disposal every minute, every minute. Only you must learn not to have a mental ambition for great things. Just the other day, I was shown in such a clear way a very small thing I had done (I, its the body speaking), a very small things that had been done by the Lord in this body (thats a long sentence!), and I was shown the terrestrial consequence of that very small thingit was visible, I mean, as my hand is visible to my eyesand the terrestrial correspondence. Then I understood.
We are given everythingEVERYTHING. All the difficulties that have to be overcome, all of them (and the more capable we are, that is, the more complex the instrument is, the more numerous the difficulties are), all the difficulties, all the opportunities to overcome them, all the possible experiences, and limited in time and space so they can be innumerable. And it has repercussions and consequences all over the earth (I am not concerned with what goes on in the universe because, for the time being, that isnt my work). But it is certain (because it has been said so and I know it) that what goes on on the earth has repercussions throughout the universe. Sitting there, you live the everyday life with its usual insignificance, its unimportance, its lack of interest and its a WONDERFUL field of experiences, of innumerable experiences, not only innumerable but as varied as can be, from the most subtle to the most material, without leaving your body. Only, you should have RETURNED to it. You cannot have authority over your body without having left it.
0 1963-11-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, (Mother holds up her head) that feeling of the head rising Above all that, of emerging above
But were so totally enslaved to very small things the very small things of the body: its needs (or supposed needs). I see all the entreaties that come from everywhere, and it all revolves around the same thing (even those who think theyve understood that the consciousness must be generalnot collective, but terrestrial theyre slaves to the reactions of their body), it all revolves around two things: sleep-food-sleep-food-sleep (Mother draws a circle). Even with those who profess that they have no interest in those things, they still have the power to cause reactions in their consciousness: a sleepless night or poor digestion, or an upset digestive system there you are. It has the power to weigh down on their faith and to take away its capacity of action. Its a kind of attachmentan involuntary and mechanical attachmentto that need for sleep and that need for food. And I dont mean people who love to eat or lazy people who like to sleep I dont even mean that, which is all the way down, thats not it: I mean those who arent interested in food and would really like to replace sleep with something else, something more interesting, even thoseall, all, all of them.
0 1963-12-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I would like to be able to pass this experience on to others, because, well, its definitive: once you LIVE that for several hours, its over, you can no longer entertain any illusion,3 its not possibleits impossible, its so STUPID, you know! Above all, so silly, so flatits impossible (Mother makes the same gesture of a round, moving totality). But then you cannot say, I said this, the other answered that! How can we express ourselves? Our language is still truly inadequate. Its not that way its (same round gesture) and there isnt even either sense or direction: its not that this goes that way and that goes this way (gesture from one person to another, or from inside to outside), or that it goes this way and comes back that way (gesture from low to high and high to low), thats not it; its a whole a whole that moves, moves always forward, and with internal vibrations, internal movements. So according to the given point of concentration, this or that action is done.
Very long ago, many times over, when I looked at the universe (I dont mean the earth: the universe), it was that way (same gesture of a round totality). How can I put it? It gave the feeling of moving forward, of moving forward towards a progressive perfection. For years on end, my perception of the earth has been that way; and now, it takes place completely at will, in the sense that it takes only just a small movement in the consciousness (gesture of a trigger or a slight reversal, a drawing within) for the whole earth to move that way, along with the events and the inner complications. But now, that same consciousness of the whole works that way: when it thinks of something (for some reason of work, not because of an arbitrary decision), the thing imposes itself; its a whole set of things that presents itself as the TOTALITY on which the action must take place. So it may be a small thing like this sports festival, it may be the Ashram (very often the Ashram as a whole), it may be a part of the earth, or sometimes even a single individual (who is no longer an individual but a set or a world of things, a totality4). A totality of things (round gesture) that move within themselves in (Mother draws within that totality small movements, individual and local, like waves or currents of force). Oh, its most interesting! And even there, there is no more notion of this person, that person, so-and-soall that vanishes.
0 1964-01-04, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Imperial MAHESHWARI is seated in the wideness above the thinking mind and will and sublimates and greatens them into wisdom and largeness or floods with a splendour beyond them. For she is the mighty and wise One who opens us to the supramental infinities and the cosmic vastness, to the grandeur of the supreme Light, to a treasure-house of miraculous knowledge, to the measureless movement of the Mothers eternal forces. Tranquil is she and wonderful, great and calm for ever. Nothing can move her because all wisdom is in her; nothing is hidden from her that she chooses to know; she comprehends all things and all beings and their nature and what moves them and the law of the world and its times and how all was and is and must be. A strength is in her that meets everything and masters and none can prevail in the end against her vast intangible wisdom and high tranquil power. Equal, patient and unalterable in her will she deals with men according to their nature and with things and happenings according to their Force and the truth that is in them. Partiality she has none, but she follows the decrees of the Supreme and some she raises up and some she casts down or puts away from her into the darkness. To the wise she gives a greater and more luminous wisdom; those that have vision she admits to her counsels; on the hostile she imposes the consequence of their hostility; the ignorant and foolish she leads according to their blindness. In each man she answers and handles the different elements of his nature according to their need and their urge and the return they call for, puts on them the required pressure or leaves them to their cherished liberty to prosper in the ways of the Ignorance or to perish. For she is Above all, bound by nothing, attached to nothing in the universe. Yet has she more than any other the heart of the universal Mother. For her compassion is endless and inexhaustible; all are to her eyes her children and portions of the One, even the Asura and Rakshasa and Pisacha6 and those that are revolted and hostile. Even her rejections are only a postponement, even her punishments are a grace. But her compassion does not blind her wisdom or turn her action from the course decreed; for the Truth of things is her one concern, knowledge her centre of power and to build our soul and our nature into the divine Truth her mission and her labour.
Ganapati, or Ganesh: the son of the supreme Mother, god of material knowledge and wealth. He is represented with an elephant's head.
0 1964-02-05, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They come more and more often, those things that I scribble on a slip of paper, and they always follow the same process: first, always a sort of explosionlike the explosion of a power of truth; it makes great dazzling white fireworks (Mother smiles), much more than fireworks! Then it rolls and rolls (gesture above the head), it works and works; and then comes the impression of an idea (but the idea is lower down, its like clothing), and the idea contains its sensation, it brings the sensation along with it the sensation was there before, but without any idea, so you couldnt define it. There is only one thing: its always the explosion of a luminous Power. Then, afterwards, if you look at it while remaining very still, while Above all the head keeps quieteverything keeps quiet (gesture of a stillness turned upward)then, all of a sudden, somebody speaks in your head (!), somebody speaks. Its the explosion that speaks. Then I take a pencil and my paper, and I write. But between what speaks and what writes, there is still a difficult little passage, with the result that when I have written, something above isnt satisfied. So I again keep still: Ah, no, not that wordthis one sometimes it takes two days for the thing to be really definitive. But those who are satisfied with the power of the experience skimp it all and send you off into the world of sensational revelations, which are distortions of the Truth.
One must be very level-headed, very still, very criticalespecially very still, silent, silent, silent, without trying to grab at the experience: Ah, is it this? Ah, is it that? Then one spoils it all. But one must looklook at it very attentively. And in the words, there is a remnant, something left of the original vibration (so little), something remains, something which makes you smile, which is pleasant, it bubbles like a sparkling wine, and then here (Mother shows a word or a passage in an imaginary note), its lackluster; so you look at it with your knowledge of the language or sense of the rhythm of the words, and you notice: Here, a pebble the pebble must be removed; so then you wait, until suddenly it comesplop!it falls into place: the true word. If you are patient, after a day or two it becomes quite exact.
0 1964-03-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was luminousluminous the whole time. That diamond-like sparkling turning into something much more compact, but less intense, that is, less brightfar more powerful. There was, Above all, that sense of power: a power that can crush everything and rebuild everything. And in such an Ananda! But with nothing, absolutely nothing that had the slightest excitement, nothing of that bubbling which comes from the mind the mind was like this (gesture, both hands open towards the Eternal), peaceful, peaceful, quiet, absolutely quiet. And while the experience went on, I knew (because the consciousness above was watching it all), I knew that only when the flash the dazzlingly intense flash of the mental transformation through the supramental descentonly when the Light, the burst of Light, joins the ananda of Power will there occur things that will be a bit indisputable.
Because in an experience of this type, only the one who has it can be sure. The effects are visible in tiny details that can be observed only by those who are already well-disposed, that is (to translate), by those who have faiththose who have faith can see. And I know that because they tell me: they see examples of those tiny miracles of every minute (they arent miracles) multiply; theyre everywhere, all the time, all the timelittle facts, harmonies, realizations, concords all of which are quite unusual in this world of Disorder. But while the experience was there, I knew there would be another one, which is yet to come (God knows when!), and which would join with this one to form a third. And it is that junction that will then probably cause something to be changed in the appearances.
0 1964-03-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother added this parenthesis later. (The father was furious Above all because his daughter did not feel like going to the circus... which he adored!)
***
0 1964-09-16, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In this connection, there has been a whole period of study of this subject, on the purely physical level. To rise Above all possibility of error, you tend to eliminate the opportunities for error; for instance, if you dont want to utter unnecessary words, you stop speaking. People who make a vow of silence imagine it gives a control over speech thats not true! It only eliminates the opportunities to speak, and therefore of saying unnecessary things. For food, its the same problem: how to eat only just what is needed? In the transitional state we find ourselves in, we no longer want to live that wholly animal life based on material exchanges and food, but it would be folly to think we have reached the state in which the body can live on without any food at all (still, there is already a big difference, since they are trying to find the nutritional essence in foods in order to reduce their volume); but the natural tendency is fastingwhich is a mistake!
For fear of acting wrongly, we stop doing anything; for fear of speaking wrongly, we stop saying anything; for fear of eating for the pleasure of eating, we stop eating anything thats not freedom, its simply reducing the manifestation to its minimum. And the natural outcome is Nirvana. But if the Lord wanted only Nirvana, there would be only Nirvana! He obviously conceives the coexistence of all opposites and that, to Him, must be the beginning of a totality. So, of course, you may, if you feel that you are meant for that, choose only one of His manifestations, that is to say, the absence of manifestation. But thats still a limitation. And its not the only way of finding Him, far from it!
0 1964-10-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Above all, one should be trusting.
The big difficulty, in Matter, is that the material consciousness, that is to say, the mind in Matter, was formed under the pressure of difficultiesdifficulties, obstacles, suffering, struggle. It was, so to speak, worked out by those things, and that gave it an imprint almost of pessimism and defeatism, which is certainly the greatest obstacle.
--
Naturally, the thirst for progress, the thirst to know, the thirst to transform yourself, and Above all the thirst for Love and Truthif you can keep that, then you go faster. Really a thirst, a need, you know, a need. All the rest doesnt matter, what you need is THAT.
(silence)
0 1964-10-30, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But its something thats all the way down, that doesnt depend on a reasonable consciousness. Because, otherwise, it doesnt bother me, I am Above all that. Its only there, on the material level.
Dont you know how long it has been there?
0 1964-11-04, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It wasnt a defined form, but it was a personal form. And it came in the wake of a series of experiences in which I saw the different attitudes of different categories of people or thinkers, according to their conviction. And it came as if that form were saying to my body (it was a PHYSICAL presence), as if it were saying, really with words (it was a translation; the words are always a translation I dont know what language the Supreme speaks (!), but it is translated, it must be translated in everyones brain according to his own language), as if He were telling me, Through you (that is, through this, the body) I am charging (it was like a conquest, a battle), I am charging to conquer the physical world. Thats how it was. And the sensation was really of an all-powerful Being whose proportions were like ours, but who was everywhere at once, and really of a physical charge to chase away all the dark little demons of Ignorance, and those little demons were like black vibrations. But He had something like a form, a color and Above all, there was a contacta contact, a sensation. Thats the first time.
I have never tried to see a personal form, and it always seemed to me an impossibility, as if it were childishness and a diminishing; but this came quite unexpectedly, spontaneously, stunningly: a flash. I was so astonished. The astonishment made it go away.
0 1965-01-09, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And for that, we must do just what we are obliged to do to keep our balance: total inertia wouldnt help, but an effort of action is bad. So dont worry too much, and Above all dont see people.
***
0 1965-02-24, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
February 21: Above all the complications of the so-called human wisdom stands the luminous simplicity of the Divine's Grace, ready to act if we allow It to do so.
Message of January 1, 1965.
0 1965-03-06, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yesterday, I wrote something to someone else (it was in English). There was first a quotation from Sri Aurobindo: The Power that governs the world is at least as wise as you ([Mother laughs] dont you know this quotation from Sri Aurobindo? Its marvelous), and you need not be consulted for its organization, God looks to it. Something like that. Then, below, I put my message of February 21: Above all the complications of the so-called human wisdom stands the luminous simplicity of the Divines Grace, ready to act if we allow It to do so. And on the other page I wrote this in English (Mother looks for a note):
In conscious communion with
0 1965-03-24, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Without exception. Without exception, it brings you down, and Above all its something that makes you dull, so dull something that doesnt vibrate.
Its heavy.
--
Let us assume you have a pain somewhere; the instinct (the instinct of the body, of the cells) is to tense up and try to rejectwhich is the worst thing to do: it invariably increases the pain. So the first thing that must be taught to the body is to stay stillnot to have any reactions. Above all no tensing up, and not even a movement of rejectiona perfect stillness. Thats corporeal equanimity.
A perfect stillness.
0 1965-03-27, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When the nerves have really calmed down because one has eaten well, one can go into a blissful contemplationdont be occupied with anything, Above all dont try to think: like this (gesture of floating, offered), invoking the Lord and his Harmonya luminous harmony and then lying like that at least half an hour, three quarters of an hour after the meal. Its very good, its excellent. Dont fall asleep: blissfulnothing, being nothing. Nothing but a blissful tranquillity. Thats the best remedy.
I think thats easier after eating well!
0 1965-05-11, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And Above all I shouldnt be asked, because if they come and tell me, Oh, so-and-so wants to see you; oh, so-and-so has sent a letter , I cant very well answer, Ah, no! Now I am resting! Its a bit Its not a pleasant feeling and the rest wouldnt be very restful. But it has reached the point (there are four secretaries, as you know) where one chap said, Ill shoot himone of the four secretaries, because he didnt pass on the letters. So you understand (laughing), your police force would be in danger!
We can only smile, its the best remedylaugh and smile.
0 1965-06-09, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In fact, we should have a childrens section with answers for children I, for one, find it much more instructive than philosophical things. I find it much more direct than intellectual transcendences, in which there is always a bit of pretension; you know, they are Above all that childishnessand its just as childish.
***
0 1965-06-23, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
where men and women of all countries will be able to live in peace and progressive harmony Above all creed, all politics and all nationalities, straining to realize human unity.
It was only three years later, in February, 1968, that Auroville would be founded.
0 1965-07-10, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I can tell you (if it helps your physical mind) that in Japan I had a sort of measles (which had its own rather deep reasons) and that the Japanese doctor (who, besides, had studied in Germany, anyway he was a doctor through and through) told me very gravely that I should take care, that I was in the early stages of this wonderful disease, that Above all I should never live in a cold climate, and this and that. I was losing weight and so on. That was in Japan. Then I came here and I said that to Sri Aurobindo, who looked at me and smiled; and it was over, we didnt talk about it anymore. We didnt talk about it anymore and it wasnt there anymore! (laughing) It was all over. When I met Dr. S., years later, I asked him. Nothing at all, he said, everything is fine, there is absolutely nothing, not a trace. And I hadnt done anything, I hadnt taken any medicine or any precaution. Only, I had told Sri Aurobindo about it, who had looked at me and smiled.
Well, I am convinced thats how it is, thats all. But the physical mind doesnt believe in that. It believes that thats all very well in the higher realms, but when we are in Matter things follow a law of Matter and are material and mechanical, and there is a mechanism, and when the mechanism and so on and so forth (not with these words, but with this thought). And one has to keep forever working on that, forever saying, Oh, put a stop to all your difficulties, keep quiet!
--
But did I tell you the story of I. who was with Dilip? Before meeting Dilip, she had been with a guru, a sannyasin or whatever, and he was absolutely furious at her leaving him, so he cursed her. His curse gave her a sort of thrombosis (you know, when the blood stops flowing and coagulates), anyway it was here, in the neck, near the right arm, I think, and it was very painfulit was even dangerous. She told me about it. I in turn told Sri Aurobindo about it and Sri Aurobindo told me to protect her. I sent my light to the gentleman. That man, frightful things happened to him! He died of a horrible disease. I. went and saw him at that time, a little before he died, and the man (who was conscious) told her, Here is what your Mother has done with me. He had been conscious. Then I saw that my affair was perfectly objective, because I had never said a word about it to anyone, nothing. And Above all, that light had gone through Sri Aurobindo. I quite simply did that, I put the light, and the gentleman left for the curse to stop. And as he wasnt too pure, it resulted in a horrible disease.
Now, my children, good-bye.
0 1965-07-21, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
it is not to rest that this body aspires, it is to the glory of Your Consciousness, the glory of Your Light, the glory of Your Power, and Above all
Here, it became still much more intense:
--
I am tired of our infirmity. But it is not to rest that this body aspires, it aspires to the plenitude of Your Consciousness, it aspires to the splendor of Your Light, it aspires to the magnificence of Your Power; Above all, it aspires to the glory of Your all-powerful and eternal Love.
There is a sort of concrete content in the words, which has nothing to do with the mind. It is something livednot just felt: lived.
0 1965-07-31, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And Above all the selection will be done with the idea of being easy to understand. I had an example yesterday when I spoke to a Dutch woman: I explained to her the difference between the old spirituality that denied Matter and tried to escape from it completely, and the new spirituality, tomorrows spirituality, which accepts Matter, dominates it and transforms it. For me, its simple, of courseshe didnt understand a thing!
So if one adopts the frame of mind of saying to people things they can understand, one distorts everything.
0 1965-08-04, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But, oh, how many little experiences Ive had about this, and so interesting! Something is wrong here or there in the body, a small thing; as long as you dont pay attention to itas long, Above all, as you dont mention it to anyone and you give it up to the Lord (if it happens to hurt, you give it up to the Lord), its all rightits fine, you arent sick: its a disorder somewhere. If you are unfortunate enough to utter a word about it to anyone, and especially to the doctor, whoever he is, it instantly becomes an illness. And I know why, its because the cells that are in disorder feel all of a sudden they are very important and very interesting persons! So then, as they are very interesting, they must make themselves still more interesting. If they have a movement that isnt harmonious, they exaggerate itit becomes even less harmonious in order to assert itself more.
It sounds like a joke, but its true! Thats how it is, I know it. I have observed it carefully in my cells. So when they are told (Mother slaps her armrest), You fools! Thats not your duty at all, you are ridiculous, they keep quiet.
0 1965-10-16, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I always saw him with a perfectly peaceful and smiling face, and Above all, the dominant expression was compassion. That was what predominated in his appearance. An expression of compassion so so peaceful, so tranquil, oh, magnificent.
That bust was made by a German woman (Else Fraenkel) and installed in Sri Aurobindo's room in 1958 at the disciples' instance. (One wonders why a bust, with golden illumination, was needed in this room.)
0 1965-11-15, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not out of taste for food, its out of taste for (how can I put it?) the expansion of consciousness, the elimination of limits, and Above all to prevent the slavery of habits thats a horrible thing. To be the slave of ones habits is disgusting. Even when I was very small, thats how it was: no slavery. I was told, But you must do this, because thats the habit, and I used to answer in a very little polite way, Rubbish! To do things that way because the habit is to do them that way is no argument to mefree, free, free! The taste for freedom.
You mustnt be a little slave just because you were born from certain parents in such and such a placeits by chance, not fate!
0 1965-12-10, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, the big difficulty is that importance and Above all that sense of absolute reality we attach to physical life.
Its not physical life thats important: its Life; its not physical consciousness thats important: its Consciousness. So when you are free, you can use well, all the materiality you want. One should be able to pick and choose and leave the rest out and make use of it as one wants; one should be the master of Matter, not Matter sitting on top of you and coercing youwhats that!
0 1966-01-22, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Recently (for some time), there was that same difficulty of the body, which isnt limited and shut inside a shell as is generally the case, and which freely receives not even with the feeling of receivingwhich HAS the vibrations of everything around it; and then, when everything around it is, mentally or morally, closed, unwilling to understand, its a bit difficult, which means that the elements that come have to be transformed. Its a sort of totalitya very manifold and unsteady totalityrepresenting your field of consciousness and action and on which you must work constantly to reestablish a harmony (a minimum of harmony), and when something around you goes wrong according to the ordinary idea, it makes the work a bit difficult. Its subtle, persistent, and obstinate at the same time. I remember, last night when I stretched out on my bed, there was in the body an aspiration for Harmony, for Light, for a sort of smiling peace; the body aspired Above all for harmony because of all those things that grate and scrape. And the experience was probably the result of that aspiration: I went there and met a pink and light-blue Purani (!)what a blue! The pretty, very pretty light blue of Sri Aurobindo.
Only, I have noticed that in this bodys life, Ive never had the same experience twice I may have the same type of experience to a higher degree or to a much vaster degree, but never identically the same. And I dont retain the experience: I am constantly, constantly (gesture forward), constantly forging ahead; you know, the work of transformation of the consciousness is so rapid, it must be done so fast that you dont have time to enjoy or dwell upon an experience or draw long-lasting satisfaction from it, its impossible. It comes powerfully, very powerfully, it changes everything, then something else comes. Its the same thing with the transformation of the cells: all kinds of little disorders come, but to the consciousness they are clearly disorders related to the transformation, so you see to that particular point, you want order to be restored; at the same time, something knows full well that the disorder came to make the transition from the ordinary automatic functioning to the conscious functioning under the direct Direction and the direct Influence of the Supreme. And the body itself knows this (still, its no fun to have a pain here or a pain there, or this or that being disorganized, but it KNOWS). And when that point has reached a certain stage of transformation, you move on to another point, then on to another, and on to another again. So nothing is done, no work is definitively done until everything is ready. So you have to do the same work again, but on a higher or a vaster level, or with more intensity or in greater detail (it depends on the case), until EVERYTHING has been brought to a homogeneous point and is ready in the same way.
0 1966-03-19, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Whats lamentable Above all is the way men confuse power with violence. That sort of ignorant feeling that thinks power must manifest as violence.3 Violence is an asuric deformation. True power acts in peacea peace like this (gesture of massive descent), which nothing can disturb.
See Agenda V, August 14, 1964.
0 1966-06-02, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So then, the result (laughing) is that the body is a little better! It no longer feels that tension so much. But it has been advised to be very peaceful, very peaceful, Above all no excitement, no joy as one usually has it (the vital joy that is aware of itself and expresses itself), not that, nothing of all that: very peaceful, very peaceful. Its something so pure, oh! So translucent, transparent, light.
Its the first time I have felt this physically. Meaning its the first time these cells have had this experience.
0 1966-08-13, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I told him many things (Mother makes a gesture of mental communication), but Above all, I insisted a lot on the fact that it would be better to build the city first! And that we would see afterwards. Because he told me it was important for him that we should remain in the democratic system until something better has been found. I felt like answering him, How do you know that something better hasnt been found? But I didnt say anything.
Then I also wrote something for J. He had asked me for a message for his school (Mother hands another note):
0 1966-09-14, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You should interfere in anothers affairs only if, first, you are infinitely wiser than the other (of course, you always think you are wiser!), but I mean, objectively and not according to your own opinion: if you see more, better, and if you are yourself beyond passions, desires, blind reactions. You must yourself be Above all those things in order to have the right to intervene in anothers lifeeven when they ask you to. And when they dont ask you to, its simply interfering in other peoples business.
(Mother goes into a long contemplation, then suddenly opens her eyes)
0 1966-11-03, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its generally fragmentsfragments of life that were individualized, and when in the present life you follow a normal development with the [various beings] gathering around the central consciousness, all those elements come back to gather together. They come back, each with its own memories. For instance, I had a memory like that (I tell you, Ive had hundreds of them) when I was very young (I must have been twenty or so). It wasnt at night, but I was lying down, resting: suddenly I felt myself riding a horse, with tremendous warlike power and the sense a will for victory and the POWER of victory. And I felt as if I was riding a horse: I saw a white horse, I saw my legs, with riding breeches, you understand, and a red velvet costume. And there I was, at a gallop. I couldnt tell what the head was like or anything, naturally! And also, the crowd, the armies, and the rising sun. It was so strong, the sense that it was the sense of the will for victory and the POWER of victory. It came just like that. Then, sometime later, I read somewhere the story of Murat (I forget I think his victory was Magenta3 I no longer remember all that), and I immediately understood that my vision was at the moment of launching the battle: he had an inner call to a Power, so there was an identification [with Mothers power], and thats what I remembered and what came back. If I said (as the Theosophists tell you), I was Murat, it would be stupid. But it was a consciousness coming back. It was so strong! The impression lasted long enough, with the sense of the battle but Above all the sense of that POWER making you invincible. It was interesting, because at the time (it was just in the beginning, I was beginning to take interest in these things and I had just come across the Cosmic teaching), I was convinced that a womans psychic being was always reincarnated in a woman and a mans psychic being was always reincarnated in a man (many schools teach that; Thon too believed so, he insisted on it). So it came as a surprise, because it wasnt in conformity with what I thought (!). Afterwards (long afterwards), I realized that naturally all those dogmas were nonsense, but
It fits with what I told you last time: the STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS are what reincarnate, evolving, developing, growing more perfect. Thats rather how it was, thats how that memory came. Its like that with many memories. And I know that to say states of consciousness are what reincarnate, to adopt that as the sole explanation would be incorrectits absolutely incorrect but its one way of looking at the question beyond the sense of the little personality. It broadens the consciousness: one has in oneself things far more universal and far less limited than personal experiences. Just as in life some people have an exceptional life, in the same way they also have exceptional moments in their life, when they no longer are one single little person: they are a force in action. Thats how it is.
0 1967-01-14, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Above all, no doctors! This body must be left in peace.1 Do not hasten, either, to announce my death (Mother laughs) and to give the government the right to intervene. Keep me carefully sheltered from all injuries2 that may come from outsideinfection, poisoning, etc.and have UNTIRING patience: it may last days, perhaps weeks, perhaps even longer, and you will have to wait patiently for me to come naturally out of that state once the work of transformation is accomplished.
I didnt have the time to write it down. But Sri Aurobindo himself said to me, On Saturday, when you see Satprem.
0 1967-01-31, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Whats necessary Above all is to eat without hurrying: to eat very peacefully. Thats indispensable. But very peacefully, not just slowly: there must be inwardly a sort of very slow rhythm, as if one had all the time one needed, in total peace.
All this (gesture to the forehead) must be calm, it must live in a kind of eternity. Then one digests well. If the thought is very active, its bad. There must be a kind of inner relaxation and the sense of a very regular, very vast rhythm.
0 1967-02-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thon, for his part, insisted very much on adverse forces, while Sri Aurobindo didnt talk about them. So when I came here I asked him, But do hostile beings and adverse forces exist? He said to me, Yes, they exist, but in order to master them its easier to regard them as being outside, rather than inside as a part of your nature. He insisted on the One: everything is the One distorted to a greater or lesser extent, even the adverse forces. What we call adverse forces are, at bottom, distortions of consciousness. When those distortions predominate in a being, that is to say, when his nature obeys distorted influences and no longer responds to the divine influence, we may call it a hostile being (they do exist, God knows!). But here in India, they have insisted Above all on the notion of Oneness. Of course, at the origin of the worlds a separation took place, but its mainly the Tantrics who have insisted on that; they say that in order to re-form Godhead, the two poles must be reunited. All this is words, a manner of speaking that fills the gaps and complements each other. And depending on the individuals, the times and countries, there were manners of speaking more or less pure, some closer than others. But all said and done We could say that the Lord enjoys narrating Himself in all possible ways.
And when you are on the very lowest rung of the ladder of consciousness, those manners of speaking become increasingly concrete, absolute, hard, and exclusive of all that isnt themselves: those are religions. Oh, by the way, it seems the Pope was approached about Auroville and he asked if there would be a Catholic church! They put the question to me. I said, No. No churches, no temples.
0 1967-03-22, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And Above all, they want a truth expressed in a few very clear and well-defined words, so they can say, This is true. The old calamity of religions: This is trueconsequently the rest is falsehood.
How many times how many times have we said, Sri Aurobindo (and I too) said, When a thing is true, you can be sure that its opposite is also true. When you have understood this, then you will begin to understand.
0 1967-03-29, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And Above all, the most important:
To be young is never to admit the irreparable.
0 1967-04-05, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But Above all, what is most important is to get rid of that division. And they all have it in their mindseach and everyone of them! The division between living a spiritual life or living the ordinary life, having a spiritual consciousness or having an ordinary consciousness there is only ONE consciousness!
In most people its three-quarters asleep and distorted; in many its still quite distorted. But whats necessary is not to leap from one consciousness to the otherit is, quite simply, to open ones consciousness (gesture upward) and fill it with the vibrations of the Truth, putting it in harmony with what must be here (up there, its from all eternity), but HERE, what must be HERE: the tomorrow of the earth. And if you weigh yourself down with a whole burden that you have to drag along if you drag behind you all that you should let go of, you wont be able to move forward very fast.
--
Understand and see clearly why this movement took place, why that impulse, what the childs inner constitution is, which point needs to be streng thened and brought to the fore. Thats all you have to do, and then leave them: leave them free to blossom, just give them the opportunity to see many things, touch many things, do as many things as possible. Its great fun. And Above all, do not try to impose on them something you think you know.
Never scold, always understand, and, if the child is capable, explain. If he isnt capable of understanding an explanation (if you are yourself capable of it), replace the false vibration by a true one. But that thats asking of the teachers a perfection they rarely have.
0 1967-05-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But Above all, I dont want anyone to know what I am saying here: everyone must be left to his own conception. As for him, he is convinced its Mahasaraswati who gave him back his life (all the same, he has much devotion for me, but that doesnt matter ). I dont want it known. I didnt say anything to him, I smiled at himyes, I told him, You are receptive. And when he expressed his gratitude, I said, We needed you to do some work. Like that, quite simply.
But I found that interesting, because Its generally like this: the Force is there, working, and if something comes (a call from someone, a prayer or something), all this (gesture to the forehead) generally remains absolutely still, immobile, letting only the Force pass through, and all I sometimes do is simply (gesture of offering or presenting something upward): Lord, here is this task, its for You. Thats all, and I leave it. But in this case, I was sitting at my table (the telegram had just come), and I concentrated and quite deliberately and consciously I put him in contact with the Force. Because there was a whole world of suggestions, he expected the end: This time its the end. So because of that, I concentrated and put a formation.
0 1967-05-20, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The goodwill was obvious, but theres Above all a sense of imbecility, something so blind in the perception.
(silence)
0 1967-06-07, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In order to understand and follow Sri Aurobindos teaching, one must learn to rise Above all possibility of contradiction.
That is, to reach the region where contradictions no longer exist. Thats true. You understand, if you take quotations from Sri Aurobindo on a particular subject, you can put side by side things that are just the opposite of each other: he says one thing, then its opposite, then again something else. So, to understand him and not keep saying to yourself, But why does he constantly say the contrary of what he has said! you must learn to rise up aboveup above, its quite fine(!) There, its very interesting. Once you are above, its very interesting.
0 1967-06-14, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because what took place is nothing new, it has happened so many times before, but the bodys experience was different. Previously, the consciousness of all the other inner beings was there and would fortunately counterbalance this idiotic tendency: even the vital, the vital being which also loves grand effects, but provided at least they are great, vast, powerful enough to be on a large scale and save it from being ridiculous; and then, positively Above all that, all the rest, with a smile. But this time, this body was left TO ITSELF, to learn. And it has learned.
But death too, is the result of the taste for dramawhat a pretty drama, ugh!
0 1967-06-21, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(The disciple ventures to publish here a text he wrote on June 24, 1967, despite its daring or extreme predictions, for it may hold a grain of truth that time will reveal, and Above all because it is obviously influenced by Mothers vision. Thus it is not so much an exercise in prediction as food for thought.)
THE END OF THE ASURA
0 1967-07-26, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As if that was constantly saying, But dont take things seriously! Dont take things seriously, dont take things seriously thats what makes you unhappy! Thats what makes you unhappy, it makes you unhappy, you must learn to smile, like that. And Above all, to make fun of ourselves, thats the most important thing: to see how ridiculous we are the slightest pain and we are full of self-pity, oh!
At times one protests.
0 1967-08-02, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a sort of not anxiety, but Above all a vigilance, as if they were on the alert: May we do nothing but what You want, think nothing but what You want, feel nothing but what You want, say nothing but what You want. Constantly, uninterruptedly, night and day, whether in the middle of activity or in the middle of rest, To be what You want, to feel what You want, to do what You want, to exist without distinction.
The slightest pain, any discomfort, the slightest clumsy gesture, the slightest thing, and immediately, Ah! (with a start) This isnt You.
0 1967-10-11, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As for me, I said, Very well! (Mother laughs) I said, What the Lord wants will be. But since then, I have been treating her as (what should I say?) more than an equalas a superior, and with assertions that are crushing for her. And I never miss an opportunity to tell her that in order to do this or that, or to manifest That or one must SPONTANEOUSLY AND DEFINITIVELY be Above all desires, all ambitions, all preferencesevery time, like this (Mother makes a hammering gesture).
Nothing in her apparently budges, but Very well (laughing), if she stands the test, well see.
0 1967-11-Prayers of the Consciousness of the Cells, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am tired of our unworthiness. But it is not to rest that this body aspires, it is to the glory of your consciousness, the glory of your light, the glory of your power, and Above all, to the glory of your all-powerful and eternal love.1
See Agenda VI of July 21, 1965.
0 1967-12-20, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I take the simplest and most concrete things like, for instance, brushing ones teeth; its extremely flexible and things are done, not out of habit but by a sort of choice based on personal experience and routine, so there is no necessity for a special concentration (the real purpose of routine is to avoid the need for a special concentration: things can be done almost automatically). But that automatism is very flexible, very plastic, because depending, as I said, on the intensity of the concentration, the time varies the time varies: you can (you can know by looking at your watch before and after), you can certainly reduce the time by more than half, yet things are done in exactly the same way. Thats right: you dont do away with anything, you do everything in the same way. To make sure, you can, for instance, count the number of times you brush your teeth or the number of times you rinse your mouth I am DELIBERATELY taking the most banal thing, because in other activities there is a natural suppleness that allows you to spread yourself and concentrate (and so its easier to understand with such things). But it works in the same way with the most concrete and banal things too. And there isnt any Oh, I wont do this today or I am neglecting thattheres none of that, nothing at all: everything is done in the same way, BUT with a sort of concentration and constant call the constant call is always there. The constant call which might find a material expression in saying the mantra, but its not even that: its the SENSE, the sense of the call, of the aspirationits Above all a call. A call. You know, when the mind wants to make sentences, it says, Lord, take possession of Your kingdom. For certain things, I remember, when there are certain disorders, something wrong (and with the perception of a consciousness that has become very sharp, you can see when that disorder is the natural origin of an illness, for example, or of something very serious), with the call, the concentration and the response [the disorder is dissolved]. Its almost a surrender, because its an uncalculating self-giving: the damaged spot opens to the Influence, not with an idea of getting cured, but like this (gesture like a flower opening out), simply like this, unconditionally that is the most potent gesture.
But the interesting part is that formulating it in words makes it sound artificialits much more sincere, much truer, much more spontaneous than anything expressed or expressible by the mind. No formula can render the sinceritysimplicity, sincerity, spontaneity, something uncalculatingof the material movement. There was a time when expressing or formulating caused a very unpleasant sensation, like putting something artificial on something spontaneously true; and that unpleasantness was cured only, to begin with, by a higher knowledge that all that is formulated must be surpassed. For instance, every experience expressed or described CALLS FOR a new progress, a new experience. In other words, it hastens the movement. That has been a consolation, because in fact, with the old sensation of something very stable and solid and immobile because of inertia (a past inertia, which is now being transformed but has left marks), because of that inertia there is a tendency to prefer things to be solid; so there is a thrill at being forced to No, no! No rest, no halt, go on!farther and farther and farther on When an experience has been very fruitful and highly pleasant, let us say, when its had a great force and a great effect, the first movement is to say, We wont talk about that, well keep it. Then after comes, Well say it in order to go farther onto go farther on, ever farther, ever farther.
0 1968-01-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That makes speaking difficult, because of this old habit (maybe also a necessity to make oneself understood) of using the word II, whats this I? It no longer corresponds to anything, except for a mere appearance. And this appearance is the only contradiction. Thats the interesting point: this appearance is clearly a contradiction of the truth; its something that still belongs to the old laws, at least, in fact, in its appearance. And because of that, you are forced to say things in a certain way, but it doesnt correspondit doesnt correspond to your state of consciousness, not in the least. There is a fluidity, a breadth, a sort of totality, and Above all, more and more strongly the sense that this (pointing to the body) must grow INCREASINGLY SUPPLEsupple, fluid, so to speak, so as to express without resistance or distortion the vision the real vision, the real state of consciousness. To the consciousness, this possibility of fluidity, of plasticity, is growing more and more evident, with only, only just something outwardly which is increasingly becoming an illusion. And yet, yet thats what others see, understand, know and call me. And it truly strives and strives to adapt more and more, but time still appears to have its importance.
(long silence)
0 1968-01-12, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For the little one no. I dont know if I told you about the little one: I hadnt seen anything, hadnt foreseen anything, Above all hadnt formed anything, I was simply looking at these two [the childs father and mother]; she hadnt yet got her divorce, anyway they were living on the fringe of society; so I thought the best was to have the child born in Auroville, where there is full freedom. That was all. It began there and ended there. I never thought it would be an extraordinary being, nothing of the sortjust a child. But then, the evening before the child was born (he was born around one in the morning, I think), the evening before, I got a telegram from America announcing Paul Richards death. Now, I dont know what became of him, but I had taught him occultism: he knew occultism, he knew how to enter another body. And I also knew (through other people) that for a long time he had had a sort of ambition to come back here. So the two things together made me Well, I said, this is surprising! You understand, just enough time to go out of his body normally and enter another normally. I didnt say anything, but it was Amrita who brought me the telegram; we looked at each other, and I said, Well, well! Thats all. The next day, the whole Ashram knew that Paul Richard had reincarnated in R.! Someone even wrote to me, I hear you have reincarnated Richard Oh, I said, enough, enough! (Mother laughs) There.
So the result is Paul Richard had a quite unhealthy sexual side, not at all healthy, far from it. He had much mental knowledge (a great deal, a very strong intelligence), but no spiritual life. So he wasnt an exceptional beingwhats happening to him is what must happen.
0 1968-04-13, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
R. [Aurovilles architect] has come for five days, and he wants to make what he calls a district of Auroville, that is to say, instead of tackling the problem of ten or twenty thousand people at once, he wants to start with two or three thousand, on the level of infrastructure, but Above all to see how it will work: the experiment of life in Auroville. I had thought about it, and when I spoke to you last time, thats what came: in what direction should the experiment be carried out? You see, Y. has ideas in the field of education (I am not intervening); as for R., he has ideas in the field of construction (I am not intervening); but no one has studied the problem on the level of administration or organization, and of money, and that was precisely what I spoke of to you about last time.
So if you could read me what I told you, if it does Ill give them the text. There is also this communist Russian architect, who has become quite enthusiastic: to him Auroville is the ideal realization. He is a very strong boy, with some power (also a power of conviction over people). So it would be interesting if he could have a glimpse of the direction in which were going.
0 1968-05-18, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What I admired (I often admire this) was that its often apparently mediocre or rather unimportant things (all that people regard as insignificant), its generally what brings on the most considerable progress. In the course of yesterday, and apparently (I know its only an appearance), apparently through D.s visit and those childrens answers, that entire phase of the manifestation became clear, found its place and lost all its power of influence and all its grip on the consciousness. It was as if the consciousness rose wholly free and luminous, joyous, Above all that.
Very small things.
0 1968-07-03, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I also put (and this is from me), the essential unity of the creation and the divine origin of life. That whole formula, I know, was an attempt to express the thing without using the word God, because There was in my life a period of at least twenty years during which those words used to make me bristle, so I understand very well the feeling it evokes in people. Later, it was Sri Aurobindo who made me rise Above all that; but its because he pulled me very high up that I rose Above all that, otherwise, on an intellectual level, it didnt do at all. It evokes the narrowest religiosity, and it wont do. So I dont want that the country is now fully in it, here in India. I dont want to raise that first obstacle. Thats why I made this long sentence.
***
0 1968-08-28, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And it was so expressive, so revealing! So expressive. One night, for two hours, there were those temples I mentioned (it wasnt physical), with such immensity and majesty and LIVING godheads, mon petit! Not pictures. And I know what it is. And then, the state of consciousness of Eternity, oh! As if Above all circumstances.
There were UNIQUE things, but how to tell them? Impossible. Impossible: not even enough consciousness to be able to write.
0 1968-11-16, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It has had several experiences of this Presence. Spontaneously, for the body, its a conscious Light; a conscious Light it sees everywhere, feels everywhere, whose presence it constantly feels. But once or twice it saw a figure. That surprised it a lot and it wasnt too reassured (!), it wondered if it wasnt an imposture or But a great Presence (gesture like a human figure). The details of shape werent there, but It was like a concretization meant for the physical, of this conscious Light which was there, you see, and was as if concretized (gesture of gathering) into a shape which was luminous, too, which could be seen, and with such power! Above all, it was like the Power of the Lordit was awesome. And the bodys impression was that That could do anything. There was nothing That couldnt do. I cant say arms or hands or legs could be seen; it wasnt that, it was a shape, but as if with a head and shoulders: a shape, you understand. And to begin with, as I said, the first time the body saw it, it was slightly alarmed: Whats this? Is it an imposture? Then, as always, the Thing came over it and said, Quiet, quiet, quiet. Not words: like waves. So it kept very still, and it felt an awesome Power. It came when the body was very still and had stopped worrying, and That seemed to be telling it, This is how I act on people. And it was a sort of concretization or materialization of this conscious Light. You couldnt see any eyes or a nose or a mouth or anything of the sort: it was an immense figure (immense, anyway the part that was like a head was touching the ceiling).
I saw it twice, and both times it was when I was calling the Lord so He might act; for some reason I was calling the Lord onto someone or for something, and the body was like this (gesture of aspiration or call). And once I saw it behind someone. It was like (Mother clenches her two fists) like condensed Power.
0 1968-11-23, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ive had an interesting experience. Not yesterday evening but the evening before, someone I wont name told me, I am fully in the physical consciousness: no more meditations, and the Divine has become something up above, so far away. Then, instantly, while he was speaking, the whole room FILLED with the divine Presence. Oh, I told him, Not up above: HERE, right here. And at that moment, EVERYTHING, the whole atmosphere you know, the very air seemed to change into divine Presence (Mother touches her hands, her face, her body): you understand, everything was touched, touched, permeated, but with Above all, there was a dazzling Light, a Peace like this (massive gesture), a Power, and also such Sweetness something you felt it would be enough to melt a rock.
And it hasnt left. It has remained.
--
And Above all, there was: NO NEW RELIGIONS! No dogmas, no fixed teaching. Avoidat any cost avoid turning it into a new religion. Because the moment it was formulated in an elegant way that imposed itself and had a force, IT WOULD BE OVER.
You get the impression that He is everywhere, but everywhere, and theres nothing else. And we arent aware of it because we are shriveled up (I dont know how to put it), dried. up. Weve made (laughing) tremendous efforts to separate ourselvesand weve succeeded! Weve succeeded, but only in our consciousness, not in the fact. In the fact, Its there. Its there. Theres NOTHING but That. What we know, what we see, what we touch is as if bathing, floating within That; but its permeable; its permeable, absolutely: That goes through it. The sense of separateness comes from here (Mother touches her forehead).
0 1968-12-11, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, Above all its this I, this huge I in everyone, which comescomes to falsify everything. But the body is beginning to wonder how, how one can how? Its not a thought, its a sort of sensation, I dont know, of perception (language is BELOW its consciousness; it says I out of habit; maybe out of need to make itself understood, but mostly out of habit), and the I? Its so conscious that theres ONE I (gesture with one finger pointing above).
(Mother smiles, shakes her head and remains silent)
0 1968-12-14, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When one lives in the Truth, one is Above all contradictions.
The other two came afterwards:
Living in the Truth means being Above all contradictions.
Then:
He who lives in the Truth is Above all contradictions and all oppositions.
Its completely silent here (gesture to the forehead); I just turn (gesture upward) and wait, and I think what comes first is the purest, that is, the least mixed with activities; afterwards, its as if here in the atmosphere it got mixed with mental vibrations.
0 1969-01-01, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not the physical work that tires, its what people add. With some, after five minutes you feel as if everything is about to break apart; with others its fine. With most people, I must say, whats tiring is Above all an ignorant solicitude: people who have all this thought that they shouldnt tire, shouldnt do this, shouldnt do that thats quite oppressive. But otherwise, when they are tranquil and receptive, its not tiring at all, not at all.
But the medical atmosphere is dangerous.
0 1969-02-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am sure that whats recorded here (Mother points to the tape recorder), if three people listen to it, each one will hear differentlywill UNDERSTAND differently. Thats why I am not sure its really useful to play these recordings. Each one goes away with the certainty that he has heard, but then he has understood something else altogether. And Above all Above allwhat I say is seen here (gesture above), while (gesture showing that it is heard at ground level) it becomes so stupid, so flat!
Anyway, youll see with Nolini, but
--
Sri Aurobindo was very, very conscious of this general confusion, and so he didnt much like he wanted absolutely no propaganda, but he also didnt much like attempts to explain things to people and make them understand, because he very well knew how useless it is. He very, very often said it to me: no propaganda whatsoever, of course, and Above all, Above all, no attempt to make people understand: the maximum effect one can obtain is the effect of the Consciousness at work in the world (universal gesture), because in everyone it produces the utmost the person can do the utmost of what he can understand, he understands through the influence of the pressure of the Consciousness. As soon as words intervene, the whole mind makes a mess of it.
Certainly, Sri Aurobindo must have had experiences analogous to the ones Ive had; now I am absolutely convinced of that. Because people who are fullfullof a complete goodwill, who are under the constant Influence, who make an effort, they are (gesture at ground level) from another world. So those who dont put any goodwill into it
0 1969-06-25, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And Above all, Above all, the chatter of words For instance, it has become very hard for me to read a letter: there are always at least a hundred times too many words. And its easy to see its in the head that it goes like this (gesture of a jumble). But then, here (gesture to the forehead), it has remained mar-vel-ous-ly tranquil and calm and white and oh, thats really a Grace. It has remained like that. So all those things that come and try to entertheres no response, they are kept at a distance. And then, the Solicitude, the Care taken to make the thing as easy as we permit it to beits wonderful! Wonderful Naturally, from time to time, one is crushed under the weight of stupidity, but behind, there is nevertheless a benevolent Goodness, smiling and so TREMENDOUS that nothing matters, no worry There. So
The body has the sensation of hanging between two states: one which people call life, and the other which people call death. The body feels its hanging between the two: neither alive nor (laughing) dead, like that, neither one nor the other. Its between the two. And thats very odd. Very odd. There is an impression (not an impression, its a perception) that the slightest disorder (gesture of tipping over to the left) would be enough to fling it to the other side, and that this very slight movement this way (gesture of tipping over to the right, into life) is made impossible by something one doesnt understand. And it takes very little to
0 1969-08-16, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And in the contact with people and the contact with the things of life, the simplicity of a child. That is, you do things without Above all, without speculation.
With those workers, for instance You know that the workers (not the workers, the servants) sent me a threatening letter three days ago (have you heard about that?); a threatening letter (in English) telling me I had to receive them and discuss with them their working conditions, or else they would wreak havoc on August 15, yesterday The letter was read out to me. I was like this (gesture turned upward), and there simply came (ah, I forgot: they also wrote that if I didnt reply, they would conclude the letter hadnt been given to me, that I hadnt seen it, and they would start their agitation). So it came like thatno thought, you understand, completely blank, like thatit came, I took a piece of paper, and I wrote (in English), I have received your letter and read it and then, If you have the slightest fear of God, keep quiet. The letter was sentthey didnt do anything, not a move.
--
And Above all, Above all, no fearabove anything else. Of all things thats the most needed.
I generally dont talk about it because because I think its given to everyone only when he is ready.
0 1969-08-30, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Things are beginning to come for Auroville (Mother points to several written notes); there are many, many others, but there is Above all the internal financial question: I would like there to be no money within Auroville (we would have to work out something), I would like money to be retained only for relations with outside. But that I havent written; I wrote something else (Mother gives a first note). This I have told you several times:
Auroville wants to be the cradle of the superman.
0 1969-09-10, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, you say Above all that one shouldnt have either desires or fears or preferences, and so on.
Thats obvious.
0 1969-09-20, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes. And Above all without any mental preferences: its mostly the mind that stands in the way Material desires, things of that sort, it doesnt care, but mental ideas, rigid conceptions, oh! It doesnt seem to be touched by that, its not interested.
Its very hard to know what comes from the true source and whats an old reaction from our makeup.
--
But I fear old reactions Above all. Ideas, no, there arent any.
Then
0 1969-11-22, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One must really reach the state in which one doesnt care about living and one doesnt care about not living: absolutely indifferentits not indifference, its a what should I call it? A peaceful and unquestioning acceptance. And Above all, Above all, no alarm.
You see, the movement of surrender is a preliminary movement (the movement of surrender is total and constant), well, its a preliminary movement; theres another movement in which one no longer has anything to surrender! Its like that, its quite natural.
0 1970-01-17, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(To understand which Auroville and Above all which AuroviliansMo ther is referring to here, it must be said that almost all the first newcomers, with a few remarkable exceptions, made up a rather heterogeneous group seeking holidays of sorts on an exotic Riviera and dragging behind themselves a number of unsatisfactory habits. That is what Aurovilles enemies later based themselves on to spread all kinds of mischief. It took a few years for the situation to settle and change completely, and for most of the undesirable elements to go away on their own, while fresh newcomers brought a truer aspiration.)
What else do you have?
0 1970-01-28, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But there are many kinds of elsewheres. Those of drugs are uncertain and fraught with danger, and Above all dependent on outer meansan experience ought to be obtainable at will and anywhere, in the marketplace as in the solitude of our room, or else it is not an experience but an anomaly or slavery. Those of psychoanalysis are limited, for the moment, to a few dimly lit caves, and Above all lack that lever of consciousness which enables us to move about at will, as our own masters and not as helpless witnesses or sickly victims. Those of religion are more illumined, but they too depend on a god or a dogma, and Above all confine us within one type of experience, for one can be a prisoner of other worlds as much as of this oneeven more so.
Yes, yes.
0 1970-05-23, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Above all, he was afraid it was again a question of spiritual discipline.
No, no, no! Theres no question of that.
0 1970-06-20, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Above all, you know, you mustnt think or remember things. Thats very bad, very bad.
***
0 1971-01-16, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Above all, I thought that if it had gone down into your legs, that meant it had now completely gone down into matter.
Yes, exactly! But I took it that way too. Not only was it the leg, but the lower part of the leg (Mother points to her feet). This one (Mother touches her right leg) was on the verge of being paralyzed also, but the day it happened, I concentrated with a vengeance, I walked for a long, long time to keep it from being paralyzed. I managed to keep it from being paralyzed; only this one (left one) was stricken.
0 1971-01-27, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But Above all I am expecting the book to have a tremendous impact in America, ESPECIALLY there. I dont think I am wrong.
To tell you the truth, I wish this book could be translated into American English by an American.
0 1971-03-03, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And I see only that. Not what they think or say (all that seems superficial and uninteresting): only the state of receptivity they are in. Thats what I see Above all.
(silence)
0 1972-01-15, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sincerity, humility, perseverance and an insatiable thirst for progress are essential for a happy and fruitful life, and Above all, to be convinced that the possibility of progress is limitless. Progress is youth; one can be young at a hundred years.
January 14, 1972
0 1972-04-02b, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You are here now, I mean on earth, because you once chose to beyou dont remember it, but I know; thats why you are here. Well, you must stand up to the task. You must make an effort, you must conquer pettiness and limitations, and Above all tell the ego: your time is over. We want a race without ego, with the divine consciousness in place of the ego. Thats what we want: the divine consciousness, which will enable the race to develop and the superman1 to be born.
If you think I am here because I am bound, you are wrong. I am not bound. I am here because my body has given itself for the first attempt at transformation. Sri Aurobindo told me so, he told me, I know of no one who can do it, except you. I said, All right, I will do it. Its not I dont wish anyone to do it in my place, because because its not very pleasant, but I am doing it gladly, because everybody will benefit from the results. I ask only one thing: dont listen to the ego. Thats all. The time of the ego is over. We want to go beyond humanity and its ego, to leave it behind, we want a race without ego, with a divine consciousness in place of the ego. There, thats all.
0 1972-04-05, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Stricken with cancer, Vasudha could no longer serve Mother actively but came and saw her every day for a few moments. Her exit was a real tragedy. Had she been there, nothing would have happenedshe knew and she understood. For so many years she had discreetly kept watch not only over Mother but also over the privacy and secrecy of our conversations with Mother, making sure that no one disturbed us and Above all encroached on the time Mother gave us. I can never express enough gratitude to herand my infinite regret. There was someone in that pack who understood and that someone was taken away from Motherwhy?
Which was not the case, since in Pranab's own words, "it [Mother's passing] looked to me as if a candle was slowly extinguishing."
0 1972-07-22, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I know that when it came, it was meant on the contrary to tell you not to pay attention to peoples mistakes because things had to be seen from the standpoint of the whole, within the Whole. That was it. I felt this was the last stage, which would propel you into the Vision, the vision of the whole I mentioned. When I wrote that, I felt you were ready to have that vision of the whole and had to be told just so that you would give your external consent to it. When I was told you were unhappy [with my letter], I was puzzled I didnt understand. How come? On the contrary the feeling was that the time had come for you to rise Above all human conceptions and to look at the creation and all circumstancesALL circumstanceswithin the Great Plane, the immense divine plane. Such was my impression.
Yes. But what is to be done, then? Should one withdraw in that Consciousness, seek to attain it and, well, just let the material world unfold as it can with the fakers and liars, or else.
0 1972-10-07, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The more the body is able to do this (same gesture), the better its conditions of life. Truly. I mean solicitude isnt the word, we would need a special word . In English, I could say: The care the Divine takes of my body (you understand?) is beyond all description. And Above all beyond all the bodys physical shortcomings.
There you are.
0 1973-02-18, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Above all, make them understand that moral violence is just as bad as physical violence. It can even be worse, that is, at least physical violence forces you to become strong and control yourself, whereas moral violence is. You may be like this [apparently quiet] and harbor the worst moral violence in yourself.
***
02.06 - Boris Pasternak, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This is one world, one and indivisible, and it moves, whole and entire, through a kind of wintry blizzard, bearing its heavy cross, moves yet to a new life, a miracle that shall happen for such is the lesson of the life that the lord of life, the Son of Man lived and showed. Even like his master and guide, Pasternak says, to himself, Above all
Surely it is my calling
02.09 - The Way to Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Common love, common labour and, Above all, as the great French thinker, Ernest Renan,1 pointed out, common suffering that is the cement which welds together the disparate elements of a nationa nation is not formed otherwise. A nation means peoples differing in race and religion, caste and creed and even language, fused together into a composite but indivisible unit. Not pact nor balancing of interests nor sharing of power and profit can permanently combine and unify conflicting groups and collectivities. Hindus and Muslims, the two major sections that are at loggerheads today in India, must be given a field, indeed more than one field, where they can, work together; they must be made to come in contact with each other, to coalesce and dovetail into each other in as many ways and directions as possible. Instead of keeping them separate in water-tight compartments, in barred cages, as it were, lest they pounce upon each other like wild beasts, it would be wiser to throw them together; let them brea the the same air, live the same life, share the same troubles, the same difficulties, solve the same problems. That is how they will best understand, appreciate and even love each other, become comrades and companions, not rivals and opponents.
Ernest Renan: "Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?"
03.02 - The Philosopher as an Artist and Philosophy as an Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the face of established opinion and tradition (and in the wake of the prophetic poet) I propose to demonstrate that Philosophy has as much claim to be called an art, as any other orthodox art, painting or sculpture or music or architecture. I do not refer to the element of philosophyperhaps the very large element of philosophy that is imbedded and ingrained in every Art; I speak of Philosophy by itself as a distinct type of au thentic art. I mean that Philosophy is composed or created in the same way as any other art and the philosopher is moved and driven by the inspiration and impulsion of a genuine artist. Now, what is Art? Please do not be perturbed by the question. I am not trying to enter into the philosophy the metaphysicsof it, but only into the science the physicsof it. Whatever else it may be, the sine qua non, the minimum requisite of art is that it must be a thing of beauty, that is to say, it must possess a beautiful form. Even the Vedic Rishi says that the poet by his poetic power created a heavenly formkavi kavitva divi rpam asajat. As a matter of fact, a supreme beauty of form has often marked the very apex of artistic creation. Now, what does the Philosopher do? The sculptor hews beautiful forms out of marble, the poet fashions beautiful forms out of words, the musician shapes beautiful forms out of sounds. And the philosopher? The philosopher, I submit, builds beautiful forms out of thoughts and concepts. Thoughts and concepts are the raw materials out of which the artist philosopher creates mosaics and patterns and designs architectonic edifices. For what else are philosophic systems? A system means, Above all, a form of beauty, symmetrical and harmonious, a unified whole, rounded and polished and firmly holding together. Even as in Art, truth, bare sheer truth is not the object of philosophical inquiry either. Has it not been considered sufficient for a truth to be philosophically true, if it is consistent, if it does not involve self-contradiction? The equation runs: Truth=Self-consistency; Error=Self-contradiction. To discover the absolute truth is not the philosopher's taskit is an ambitious enterprise as futile and as much of a my as the pursuit of absolute space, absolute time or absolute motion in Science. Philosophy has nothing more to doand nothing lessthan to evolve or build up a system, in other words, a self-consistent whole (of concepts, in this case). Art also does exactly the same thing. Self-contradiction means at bottom, want of harmony, balance, symmetry, unity, and self-consistency means the contrary of these things the two terms used by philosophy are only the logical formulation of an essentially aesthetic value.
Take, for example, the philosophical system of Kant or of Hegel or of our own Shankara. What a beautiful edifice of thought each one has reared! How cogent and compact, organised and poised and finely modelled! Shankara's reminds me of a tower, strong and slender, mounting straight and tapering into a vanishing point among the clouds; it has the characteristic linear movement of Indian melody. On the otherhand, the march of the Kantian Critiques or of the Hegelian Dialectic has a broader base and involves a composite strain, a balancing of contraries, a blending of diverse notes: thereis something here of the amplitude and comprehensiveness of harmonic architecture (without perhaps a corresponding degree of altitude).
03.05 - The Spiritual Genius of India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Keeping this difference in view, we may at once point out that Europe, when she is non-materialist, is primarily religious and only secondarily spiritual, but India is always primarily spiritual and only secondarily religious. The vein of real spirituality in European culture runs underground and follows narrow and circuitous by-paths; rarely does it appear on the top in sudden and momentary flashes and even then only to dive back again into its subterranean hiding-place; upon the collective life and culture it acts more as an indirect influence, an auxiliary leaven than as a direct and dynamic Force. In India there is an abundance, a superfluity even, of religious paraphernalia, but it is the note of spirituality that rings clear and high Above all lesser tones and wields a power vivid and manifest. We could say in terms of modern Biology that spirituality tends to be a recessive character in European culture, while in India, it is dominant.
But when we say that India is spiritual, we do not mean that all or most Indians, or even a very large minority among them, are adepts in spirituality, or that the attachment to life, the passion for earthly possessions, the sway of the six ripus are in any way less prevalent in the Indian character. On the contrary, it may well seem to the casual onlooker whose eyes are occupied with the surface actualities of the situation, that the Indian nature, as it is today, shut out from this world's larger spaces, cut off from its deeper channels and movements of greater magnitude, has been given over more and more to petty worldlinesses that hardly fill the same space even in the life of peoples who are notorious for their worldly and unspiritual temperament.
It is not so much a question of concrete realisation, of attainment and achievement arrived at by the Indian people in their work-a-day life, but primarily and Above all a question of ultimate valuation, of what they hold as the supreme ideal, of what they cherish in their heart of hearts, and of the extent to which that standard has obtained general currency among them. It is not a fact with which we are concerned, but the force behind the fact, and the special nature and purpose of that force. It is the power that we discover in the general atmosphere, or that emerges in the stress and rhythm of the cultural life of the people, in the level of its inner consciousness, in the expression of its highest and most wide-spread aspirations, in the particular stamp of its soul.
The psychological atmosphere in India is of a luminous tenuity. Here, it appears, the veil between this world and the other has so thinned away that the two meet and interpenetrate easily and freely; immersed in one, you can at the same time ba the in the other. Owing to the cumulative effect of the sadhana of her saints and sages who appeared in countless number down countless ages, or, perhaps, owing to the grace of a descent into her consciousness, or some immanence there, of the breath and light of a Superior World, India has developed and possesses, already prepared, a magnetic field, a luminous zone of spiritual consciousness; and to enter into it the Indian has only to turn aside, to go round a corner, to take one step forward. However thick and hard the crust of the Ignorance may lie upon the Indian soul, once that soul awakes and is upon the path, it finds itself on a familiar ground; it is in a domain which it has the impression of having frequented often and anon and for long.
--
All other nations have this one, or that other, line of self-expression, special to each; but it is India's characteristic not to have had any such single and definite modus Vivendiwhat was single and definite in her case was a mode not of living but of being. India looked Above all to the very self in things; and in all her life-expression it was the soul per se which mattered to her,even as the-great Yajnavalkya said to his wife Maitreyi,tmanastu kmay sarvam priyam bhavati. The expressions of the self had no intrinsic value of their own and mattered only so far as they symbolised or embodied or pointed to the secret reality of the Atman. And perhaps it was on this account that India's creative activities, even in external life, were once upon a time so rich and varied, so stupendous and, full of marvel. Because she was attached and limited to no one dominating power of life, she could create infinite forms, so many channels of power for the soul whose realisation was her end and aim.
There was no department of life or culture in which it could be said of India that she was not great, or even, in a way, supreme. From hard practical politics touching our earth, to the nebulous regions of abstract metaphysics, everywhere India expressed the power of her genius equally well. And yet none of these, neither severally nor collectively, constituted her specific genius; none showed the full height to which she could raise herself, none compassed the veritable amplitude of her innermost reality. It is when we come to the domain of the Spirit, of God-realisation that we find the real nature and stature and genius of the Indian people; it is here that India lives and moves as in her own home of Truth. The greatest and the most popular names in Indian history are not names of warriors or statesmen, nor of poets who were only poets, nor of mere intellectual philosophers, however great they might be, but of Rishis, who saw and lived the Truth and communed with the gods, of Avataras who brought down and incarnated here below something of the supreme realities beyond.
03.08 - The Standpoint of Indian Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
An Indian Madonna owes its conception to an experience at the very other end of consciousness. The Indian artist does not at all think of a human mother; he has not before his mind's eye an idealized mother, nor even a subtilized feeling of motherhood. He goes deep into the very origin of things, and, from there seeks to bring out that which belongs to the absolute I and the universal. He endeavours to grasp the sense that : motherhood bears in its ultimate truth and reality. Beyond the form, beyond even the rhythm, he enters into bhva, the: spiritual substance of things. An Indian Madonna (Ganesh-janani, for example) is not solely or even primarily a human I mother, but the mother, universal and transcendent, of sentientand insentient creatures and supersentient beings. She embodies not the human affection only, but also the parallel sentiment that finds play in the lower and in the higher creations as well. She expresses in her limbs not only the gladness of the mother animal tending its young, but also the exhilaration that a plant feels in the uprush of its sap while giving out new shoots, and, Above all, the supreme nanda which has given birth to the creation itself. The lines that portray such motherhood must have the largeness, the sweep, the au thenticity of elemental forces, the magic and the mystery of things behind the veil.
It is this quality which has sometimes made Indian art seem deficient in its human appeal: the artist chose deliberately to be non-human, even in the portrayal of human subjects, in order to bring out the universal and the transcendent element in the truth and beauty of things. Man is not the measure of creation, nor human motives the highest or the deepest of nature's movements: at best, man is but a symbol of truths beyond his humanity.
03.12 - Communism: What does it Mean?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Be that as it may, if one demands a fair share of the riches of the commonwealth, one must lend one's hand honestly and whole-heartedly to its production. That is the line of true communism. Above all, one must cultivate the civic sense, the very primary thing one must have for a harmoniously prosperous collective life, we have to learn again the first lesson of civilised living in these days when the brute and the vampire are seated in human hearts. We must not always clamour for selfish gains, gains for oneself, for one's class or community, or even for one's country. We must have a global view of the human society which is a complex and multifoliate organism. Many interests have to be served, many lines of growth have to be encouraged, liberty for contraries all in the framework of a wider harmony. The ancient Rishis invoked the aid of the gods Mitra and Varuna for the establishment of that wide harmony, the builders of the new age too can do no better.
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03.12 - TagorePoet and Seer, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Tagore is modern in respect of all these higher aptitudes that man has gained today. He has the brilliance and curiosity of an alert and strong intelligence, the refined sensibility of a pagan and scientific intellect, he has an infinite sense of irony and humour and, Above all, he has that in him,a genial plasticity and sympathy and a warm sense of wide commonalty,which makes him easily a citizen of the world, feeling absolutely at home all over the world.
The breath of modernism that Tagore has brought into the life and letters of the Bengali race is, I repeat, suffused with a soul-feelinga sense of refinement and dignity, wideness and catholicity and urbanity in the inner make-up of life-attitude and consciousness, a feeling that one no longer lives in his village, confined to its insular limits, but that one lives a life coterminous with human life at large and at its best; one is cosmopolitan in the noblest sense of the word and one has to move and act and speak in a manner becoming such a position. A high sense of all the aristocratic virtues, plus a certain sunshine of wit and playful intelligence that prevents the serious and the lofty from becoming grim and Dantesque are part of the gifts that Tagore has brought us and made a living element of our literary and even social character.
05.05 - Man the Prototype, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, all the luminaries of heaven have each its conscious personality, the planets, the moon and Above all the great sun. It is not a fancy or idle imagination that made the astrologers ascribe definite influences to these heavenly bodies. In Hindu astrology, for example, they are considered as real persons, each with a definite form and character, a dhyna rpa. The so-called Nature-gods in the Vedas or in ancient mythology generally are in the same way not creations of mere poetic imagination: they are realities, more real in a sense than the real objects that represent and incarnate them.
Not only so. Our limited mind and senses are accustomed to view and recognise individuals alone as persons. But there are group personalities too. Thus each species has a generic personality, a consciousness and an ideal or intrinsic form also: the individuals on the physical plane are its various incarnations, projections and formations. Old Plato was not so naive, as we of today are apt to believe, when he spoke of the real reality of general ideas. The attributes, qualities and functions of the generic personality are the source and pattern of what the individuals that form the group actually are. The group person is the king, he is also the body of the Dharma ruling the domain. Any change in the law of being of the group person is necessarily translated in a similar change in the nature and activity of the individuals of the species. What evolutionists describe as sudden variation or mutation and whose cause or genesis they are at a loss to trace, is precisely due to an occult change in the consciousness and will of the group soul.
05.06 - Physics or philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The scientific view of things thus discovered or affirmed certain universal and immutable factsaxiomatic truthswhich were called constants of Nature. These were the very basic foundations upon which the whole edifice of scientific knowledge was erected. The chief among them were:(I) conservation of matter, (2) conservation of energy, (3) uniformity of nature and (4) the chain of causality and continuity. Above all, there was the fundamental implication of an independentan absolutetime and space in which all things existed and moved and had their being.
The whole business of experimental science was just to find the absolutes of Nature, that is to say, facts and laws governing facts that do not depend for their existence upon anything but themselves. The purely objective world without any taint of an intruding subject was the field of its inquiry. In fact, the old-world or Mediaeval Science there was a Science even thencould not develop properly, did not strike the right line of growth, precisely because it had a strong subjective bias: the human factor, the personal element of the observer or experimenter was unconsciously (at times even deliberately) introduced into the facts and explanations of Nature. The new departure of Modern Science consisted exactly in the elimination of this personal element and making observation and experiment absolutely impersonal and thoroughly objective.
05.07 - Man and Superman, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Even so mankind, at the crucial parting of the ways, would very naturally look askance at the diminished value of many of its qualities and attri butes in the new status to come. First of all, as it has been pointed out, the intellect and reasoning power will have to surrender and abdicate. The very power by which man has attained his present high status and maintains it in the world has to be sacrificed for something else called intuition or revelation whose value and efficacy are unknown and have to be rigorously tested. Anyhow, is not the known devil by far and large preferable to the unknown entity? And then the zest of life, peculiar to man, that works through contradictionsdelight and suffering, victory and defeat, war and peace, doubt and knowledge, all the play of light and shade, the spirit of adventure, of combat and struggle and heroic effort, will have to go and give place to something, peaceful and harmonious perhaps but monotonous, insipid, unprogressive. The very character of human life is its passion to battle through, even if it is not always through. For it is often said that the end or goal does not matter, the goal is always something uncertain; it is the way, the means, the immediate action that is of supreme consequence: for it is that that tests man's manhood, gives him the value he may have. And Above all man is asked to give up the very thing which he has laboured to build up through millenniums of his terrestrial life, his individuality, his personality, for the demand is that he must lose his ego in order to attain the superhuman status.
So, the probability is that a large part of humanity will remain wedded to the normal human life. But this does not lessen in any way the value, the tremendous importance of what happens to the other part, may be, not insignificant or inconsiderable. Along with those that doubt and deny, there will be those who believe and affirm, who will stand for divinisation, whatever dehumanisation it may imply.
05.10 - Children and Child Mentality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There are two failings which a teacher must guard againstto which he is usually proneif he wishes to secure respect and obedience and trust from children: (I) telling a lie and (2) losing temper. A child can easily find out whether you are spinning a long yarn or not. He is inquisitive, irrepressively curious and, Above all, he has his own manner and angle of looking at things. He puts questions about all things and subjects and in all ways that seem queer to an adult view. His answers too to questions, his solutions of problems are very unorthodox, bizarre. But it is all the more the task of the elder not only to put up with all these vagaries, but also with great sympathy and patience to appreciate and understand what the child attempts to express. If you get irritated or angry and try to snub or brush him away, it would mean the end of all cordial relation between you and him. Or, again, if you try to hoodwink him, give a false answer to hide your ignorance, in that case too the child will not be deceived, he will find you out and lose all respect for you. It is far better to own your ignorance, saying you do not know than to pose as a knowing man; although that may affect to some extent his sense of hero-worship and he may not entertain any longer the unspoilt awe and esteem with which he was accustomed to look up to you, still you will not lose his affection and confidence. Infinite patience and a temper that is never frayed or ruffled are demanded of the teacher and the parent who wish to guide and control successfully and happily a child. With that you can mould in the end the most refractory child, without that you will fail even with a child of goodwill.
Wordsworth: We Are Seven
06.04 - The Conscious Being, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The mind, however, has a central consciousness which may be called the Witness Mind, the Purusha in the mind. It stands apart and observes whatever is happening in the mind and in other parts as well; it is in fact the observer of the whole dhra. The other parts are the vital and the physical. The vital too has its own central consciousness, its witness Purusha, which observes all the vital movements and also through its own angle the other parts. Likewise the physical has a Purusha and it too observes through its own consciousness. The mental Purusha says, I see I am thinking, reasoning, etc.; the vital Purusha says, I see I am angry, violent or enjoying, energising, etc.; the physical Purusha says, I see I am acting, walking, running, etc. Now each of these three Purushas, in an ordinary person, stands separately, each is conscious in its own way; they are not clearly conscious of each other; they intermix, but not happily, they are more often than not at cross purposes. Very rarely are they unified and harmonised or bound together as a team for serving a common purpose, a single aim. That union and harmonisation can be done only through the supreme Purusha, the Divine Witness who is the true conscious Being, the one Purusha behind or Above all the others, whose light first of all centralises in the psychic being and then through it is canalised into its delegates or emanations on the lower levels, the mind, the vital and the physical.
What is consciousness? It is the inverse of Inconscience. It is the creative essence of the universe: without consciousness there is no creation. Inconscience means non-existence. The supreme Non-manifest becomes conscious of itself, that is, objectifies itself, sees itself created or reflected in multiple centres: that is the origin of all creation. By consciousness all is, by unconsciousness nothing is. Consciousness is light, consciousness is life.
07.13 - Divine Justice, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
You must understand once for all that the Divine, when he acts is not moved by human notions. Possibly he does things even without what we call reason. In any case the reasons are not of the human kind; Above all, the Divine has not that sense of justice which man has. For example, when you see a man full of greed for money, trying to cheat people just for the sake of getting a few rupees, your idea of justice cries out that such a man should be deprived of all money, he must be reduced to poverty. But actually you find things happening to the contrary. Although that is only the appearance of the situation; behind there is an altogether different picture. The greedy gets the object of his greed, but he has to make an exchange, give up some other possibilities. He gets money but he loses in his consciousness. And then it also happens very often that when he does get what he desired so much, he finds himself not so happy, generally he is even less happy than before: he is tormented by the wealth he has gained. You must not judge things by apparent success or by apparent failure. One can say, on the whole, that the Divine gives what one asks for and that is the best way in which one gets his lesson. If your desire is ignorant, unconscious, obscure, selfish, you increase in yourself ignorance, unconsciousness, obscurity and selfishness, that is to say, you move away more and more from truth and consciousness and happiness, in other words, away from the Divine. For the Divine, however, there is only one thing which is true, the Divine Consciousness, the Divine Union. Each time you put material things in front of you, you become more and more material, you push behind more and more the Divine. To the eye of the ignorant you may have all the appearance of wonderful success, but this success, from the standpoint of truth, is a terrible defeat, you have bartered truth for falsehood.
To judge by appearances, by apparent success is an act of complete ignorance. Even in the case of a person hardened to the core, who has apparently the utmost success, there is a counterpart: exactly this hardening, this evil that is put up thicker and thicker between the outer consciousness and the inner truth becomes also more and more unbearable. The outer success has to be paid for very dearly. One must be very great, very pure, one must have a very high, very unselfish spiritual consciousness to be able to succeed and yet not be affected. There is nothing so difficult to bear than success. That is the true test in life. When you are not successful, you turn very naturally to yourself, go within you, seek there comfort for the outer failure. And they who have the Flame within them and the Divine helping them truly, that is to say, if they are mature enough to get the help, if they are ready to follow the path, must expect blows coming upon them one after another, because that helps. Indeed that is the most powerful, most direct and most effective help. But if you have 'Success, take care! Ask yourself, at what price you have had it? What is the thing you have paid for the success? Of course, there are people of a different kind. They who have gone beyond, who are conscious of their soul, who are entirely surrender they can succeed and success does not touch them. But one has to rise very high to be able to shoulder the burden of success. It is perhaps the last and final test that the Divine puts to anyone. He says: Now that you are noble and high and unselfish, you belong to Me alone. I shall make you triumph. We shall see if you can bear the blow!
07.24 - Meditation and Meditation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Meditation will come to you as much as is necessary for you. When it comes it seizes you; then you should not resist. You sit down and go within yourself, withdraw yourself inside and you make the needed inner advance. When that is done you come out and start again with your work. But Above all, do not be vain. People who believe they are exceptional creatures and have more merit, put a bar to all their progress. I must insist on the need of humility. People have often spoken much about it but without understanding it very well. Be humble, but in the right way. If you could but root out this weed that is vanity! How difficult it is, yes, how difficult! You cannot do a single good thing, make the slightest progress, without being puffed up secretly somewhere, cherishing a hidden self-satisfaction! You have to deal hammer blows to break that hard core of egoism. You have to work all your life to destroy this poisonous herb. You think you have done it and you are so satisfied with the idea of having done it at last.
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07.38 - Past Lives and the Psychic Being, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Most people are not at all conscious of what is happening in them. Their consciousness or being is a mixture of mental, vital and physical elements, a kind of hotchpotch. There are a few, very few indeed, who are consciousconscious of what is beyond the three, viz, their psychic being. For it is only that element which endures, persists through successive lives. Certain people have known or learnt some rudiments of the matterwho believe in rebirth, but conceive it in the most childish manner. Their idea is as if the person changed his body like a robe. There are persons even who have written books describing seriously all the lives they had passed through since the time they were monkeys! As I have said, it is the psychic element alone that persists after death, all the rest gets dissolved. And in 999 cases out of 1,000, the psychic is a very small formation lying behind and taking little part in the actual life of the person. I speak of the average man, not of the Yogi, that is to say, one who has a developed psychic being to the extent that it is capable of controlling and guiding the outer life. How often does an ordinary man get in contact with his psychic being? Years and years pass for many or most to have just a passing taste of this movement. It is this moment that abides and is carried over to the next life, all other things are simply effaced. At a given point of our life, there comes a special circumstance, there is a call within, an absolute inner necessity that brings forward the psychic and the contact is made perhaps for an instant. That experience is preserved in the psychic memory. More than the outer circumstances and the physical events, however, what is cherished in the consciousness is the intimate emotion, the vibration that accompanied the perception at the time. At the most, a word said, a phrase heard, just a passing scene is all that is stored, net and clear, engraved as it were. But Above all it is the soul's state that is the most important thing. I t is these scattered elements that serve as stepping-stones or sign-posts on the soul's forward journey. They are the constants that build up the personality of a man. On rare occasions there is a larger clearing, the circumstances preserved are sufficiently definite to point to a date and a historical person. Usually, however, one cannot say, I was such a person, I lived in such a country or did such things. These psychic flashes, more in some cases, less in others, are the only genuine and au thentic records of the story of a person's lives.
It is a being who is completely identified with his psychic, who has organised his whole person, in all its parts, around this centre, in fact, a being of one piece, entirely and solely turned to the Divine that can alone remember or hold in his consciousness something like a totality of his personal history. For in his case even when the body drops, the other parts being integrated and taken up into the soul substance maintain their individual existence; the personality formed around the psychic continues to exist with its memory intact: even it can pass from one life to another without losing the consciousness.
07.42 - The Nature and Destiny of Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Here in India things are and should be a little different. In spite of the modern European invasion and in spite of certain lapses in some directions I may refer to what Sri Aurobindo calls the Ravi Varma interlude the heart of India is not anglicised or Europeanised. The Calcutta School is a signalthough their attempt is rather on a small scaleyet it is a sign that India's artistic taste, in spite of a modern education, still turns to what is essential and permanent in her culture and civilisation. You have still before you, within your reach, the old temples, the old paintings, to teach you that art creation is meant to express a faith, to give you the sense of totality and organisation. You will note in this connection another fact which is very significant. All these paintings, all these sculptures in caves and temples bear no signature. They were not done with the idea of making a name. Today you fix your name to every bit of work you do, announce the event with a great noise in the papers, so that the thing may not be forgotten. In those days the artist did what he had to do, without caring whether posterity would remember his name or not. The work was done in an urge of aspiration towards expressing a higher beauty, Above all with the idea of preparing a dwelling fit for the deity whom one invokes. In Europe in the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, things were done in the same spirit. There too at that time works were anonymous and bore no signature of the author. If any name came to be preserved, it was more or less by accident.
However, even the commercialism of today, hideous as it is, has an advantage of its own. Commercialism means the mixing together of all parts of the world. It effaces the distinction between Orient and Occident, brings the Orient near to the Occident and the Occident near to the Orient. With the exchange of goods, there happens an exchange of ideas and even of habits and manners. In ancient days Rome conquered Greece and through that conquest was herself conquered by the culture and civilisation of Greece. The thing is happening today on a much greater scale and more intensely perhaps. At one time Japan was educating herself on the American pattern; now that America has conquered Japan physically, she is being conquered by the spirit of Japan; even in objects manufactured in America, you notice the Japanese influence in some way or other.
08.10 - Are Not Dogs More Faithful Than Men?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Yes, for it is their nature to be faithful and they have not man's mental complications. What prevents men from becoming faithful is the complexes of their mind. Most men are not faithful because they are afraid of being dupes, afraid of being cheated, exploited. Also behind the faithfulness they have there is always a large dose of egoism hidden, there is a bargaining more or less conscious, a give and take: 'I am faithful to you. You too must be faithful to me, in other words, you must be nice to me, must not exploit me etc. Dogs do not have these complexities, for they have a very rudimentary mind. They have not this marvellous capacity of reasoning which drives man to commit such follies. But, of course, we cannot go back to the dog state. What we have to do is to rise higher, to become a superman, to have the dog's quality on a higher level, if I am allowed to say so, i.e. instead of being faithful instinctively, blindly, half-consciously, through a kind of binding need, it must be a conscious, willing, deliberate faithfulness, Above all, free from egoism. There is a point where all the virtues meet: it is the point that is beyond egoism. If we take faithfulness or devotion or love or the will to serve,all these when they are above the level of egoism are similar to one another in the sense that they give themselves and ask no return. And if you get up a step higher, you see they are done not through the sense of duty or abnegation but out of an intense joy that carries its own reward, which needs nothing in exchange, for it is joy itself. But for that you should have risen very high where there is no longer any turn-back on oneself, these movements that draw you down that kind of sympathy for oneself, the self-pity that one feels for oneself and says "Poor me I" This is a most degrading sentiment and it pulls you immediately into a dark hole.
You must leave that far behind if you will have the joy of faithfulness, the joy of self-giving, that does not notice at all whether it is properly received or not, whether there is a response or not. Never to wait for a return in exchange for what one does, wait for nothing, not through asceticism or the sense of sacrifice, but because of the joy of being in that consciousness: that is sufficient, that is much more that what one can receive from anything outside.
08.11 - The Work Here, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But this does not mean that I ask you to feel superior to others. The true consciousness is incapable of feeling superior. It is only the small consciousness that seeks to show superiority. Even a child is more developed than such a being; for it is spontaneous in its movements. Rise Above all smallness. Do not be interested in any other thing than your relation with the Divine, what you wish to do for Him. That is the only thing interesting.
Now the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education
08.19 - Asceticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
You have seen Sannyasins lying upon nails. Why do they do that? Perhaps to prove their saintliness. But when they do so in public, well, the suspicion is legitimate that it is something like a pose. There are some perhaps who do the thing sincerely and seriously, that is to say, they do not do it merely to make a show. In their case we might ask why they do so. They say it is to prove to themselves their detachment from the body. There are others: they go a little further and say that one must make the body suffer in order to free the soul. But I tell you that the vital has a taste for suffering and imposes suffering on the body because of this perverse taste for suffering. I have seen children who, when they got hurt, would press the part hurt in order to get more pain and it was a pleasure to them. I have seen bigger persons also doing the same thingmorally I mean. It is a very well-known fact. I always tell people 'If you are unhappy, it is because you want to be unhappy. If you suffer, it is because you like suffering, otherwise you would not have the thing.' I call it an unhealthy state; for it is contrary to harmony and beauty; it is a kind of unhealthy need for strong sensations. Do you know, China is a country where they have invented the most atrocious kinds of torture, unthinkable ways? When I was in Japan I asked a Japanese who liked the Chinese very much, why it was so. He told me: 'It is because the people of the Far East, including the Japanese, possess very dull sensibility. They feel very little; unless the suffering is very strong they feel nothing.' They were obliged to use their intelligence for the discovery of extremely strong sufferings. Well, all people who are inconscient or tamasic the more inconscient they are the greater the tamashave their sensibility blunted; they need strong sensations if they have to feel them. This is what usually makes them cruel, because cruelty gives very strong sensations. The nerve tension produced in you when you impose suffering on someone, well, it does bring a sensation: they need that in order to feel, otherwise they would not feel. It is for that reason that whole races are particularly cruel. They are inconscient, inconscient vitally. They may not be unconscious mentally or otherwise. But they are unconscious vitally and physically, physically Above all.
If one has a sense of beauty can he be cruel?
09.06 - How Can Time Be a Friend?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So then, you should not consider yourself superior to others and I shall tell you why; you must know that in a being, human or other, it is the consciousness that matters and you are either conscious or unconscious: you can consider yourself superior only when you are unconscious; the very moment you are conscious, truly conscious, you lose the sense of superiority or inferiority. In either case you must not feel superior, for it is smallness, pettiness; but you must be full of goodwill and sympathy and care little about what one says or does not say; however, be always polite, for it is always better to be polite than to be impolite. In that way you put yourself in relation with forces that are more harmonious and you can fight better against the forces of destruction and ugliness. But in reality you must rise Above all that and feel yourself interested only in the Divine, in what He expects of you and in what to do for Him, for that is the only thing that counts. The rest has no importance.
Madame Alexandra David-Neele.
1.00a - Introduction, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Astral travel development of the Astral Body is essential to research; and, Above all, to the attainment of "the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel."
You ought to demonstrate your performance of the Pentagram Ritual to me; you are probably making any number of mistakes. I will, of course, take you carefully through the O.T.O. rituals to III as soon as you are fairly familiar with them. The plan of the grades is this:
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4. Quite right, dear lady, about your incarnation memories acting as a "Guide to the Way Back." Of course, if you "missed an Egyptian Incarnation," you would not be so likely to be a little Martha, worried "about much serving." Don't get surfeited with knowledge, Above all things; it is so very fascinating, so dreadfully easy; and the danger of becoming a pedant "Deuce take all your pedants! say I." Don't "dry-rot at ease 'till the Judgment Day."
No, I will NOT recommend a book. It should not hurt you too much to browse on condensed hay (or thistles) such as articles in Encyclopedias. Take Roget's Thesaurus or Smith's Smaller Classical Dictionary (and the like) to read yourself to sleep on. But don't stultify yourself by taking up such study too seriously. You only make yourself ridiculous by trying to do at 50 what you ought to have done at 15. As you didn't tant pis! You can't possibly get the spirit; if you could, it would mean merely mental indigestion. We have all read how Cato started to learn Greek at 90: but the story stops there. We have never been told what good it did to himself or anyone else.
1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
All these different periods show different triangular radiances. We must not infer from this that when the fire is centred in one triangle it is not demonstrating in others. Once the fire has free passage along any triangle it flames continuously, but always there is one triangle more radiant and luminous than the others, and it is from these glowing triangles of light, issuing from wheels and vortices of fire that the clairvoyant and the teachers of the race can appraise a man's position in the scheme of things, and judge of his attainment. At the culmination of life experience, and when man has reached his goal, each triangle is a radiant path of fire, and each centre a wheel of living fiery force rotating at terrific speed; the centre at this stage not only rotates in a specific direction, but literally turns upon itself, forming a living flaming iridescent globe of pure fire, and holding within it a certain geometrical shape, yet withal vibrating so rapidly that the eye can scarcely follow it. Above all, at the top of the head will be seen a fiery display that seems to put all the other centres into insignificance; from the heart of this many-petalled lotus issues a flame of fire with the basic hue of a man's ray. This flame [171] mounts upward and seems to attract downward a sheet of electric light, which is the downflow from the spirit on the highest plane. This marks the blending of the fires and the deliverance of man from the trammels of matter.
We might now note that the evolution of these centres of force can be portrayed, not only in words, but under the same five symbols that have so often a cosmic interpretation.
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The permanent atoms are enclosed within the periphery of the causal body, yet that relatively permanent body is built and enlarged, expanded and wrought into [179] a central receiving and transmitting station (using inadequate words to convey an occult idea) by the direct action of the centres, and of the centres Above all. Just as it was spiritual force, or the will aspect, that built the solar system, so it is the same force in the man that builds the causal body. By the bringing together of spirit and matter (Father-Mother) in the macrocosm, and their union through the action of the will, the objective solar system, or the Son, was produced that Son of desire, Whose characteristic is love, and Whose nature is buddhi or spiritual wisdom. By the bringing together (in microcosm) of Spirit and matter, and their coherence by means of force (or the spiritual will) that objective system, the causal body, is being produced; it is the product of transmuted desire, whose characteristic (when fully demonstrated) will be love, the expression eventually on the physical plane of buddhi. The causal body is but the sheath of the Ego. The solar system is but the sheath of the Son. In both the greater and the lesser systems, force centres exist which are productive of objectivity. The centres in the human being are reflections in the three worlds of those higher force centres.
Before taking up the subject of kundalini and the centres, it would be well to extend the information given above, from its prime significance for man, as that which concerns himself, to the solar system, the macrocosm, and to the cosmos. What can be predicated of the microcosm is naturally true of the macrocosm and of the cosmos. It will not be possible to give the systemic triangles, for the information would have to be so blinded that, except for those who have occult knowledge and the intuition developed, it would be practically useless intellectually, but certain things may be pointed out in this connection that may be of interest.
1.00 - Main, #The Book of Certitude, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
God hath decreed, in token of His mercy unto His creatures, that semen is not unclean. Yield thanks unto Him with joy and radiance, and follow not such as are remote from the Dawning-place of His nearness. Arise ye, under all conditions, to render service to the Cause, for God will assuredly assist you through the power of His sovereignty which overshadoweth the worlds. Cleave ye unto the cord of refinement with such tenacity as to allow no trace of dirt to be seen upon your garments. Such is the injunction of One Who is sanctified Above all refinement. Whoso falleth short of this standard with good reason shall incur no blame. God, verily, is the Forgiving, the Merciful. Wash ye every soiled thing with water that hath undergone no alteration in any one of the three respects; take heed not to use water that hath been altered through exposure to the air or to some other agent. Be ye the very essence of cleanliness amongst mankind. This, truly, is what your Lord, the Incomparable, the All-Wise, desireth for you.
God hath, likewise, as a bounty from His presence, abolished the concept of "uncleanness", whereby divers things and peoples have been held to be impure. He, of a certainty, is the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Generous. Verily, all created things were immersed in the sea of purification when, on that first day of Ridvan, We shed upon the whole of creation the splendours of Our most excellent Names and Our most exalted Attri butes. This, verily, is a token of My loving providence, which hath encompassed all the worlds. Consort ye then with the followers of all religions, and proclaim ye the Cause of your Lord, the Most Compassionate; this is the very crown of deeds, if ye be of them who understand.
1.00 - PREFACE, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
But there are many kinds of "elsewheres." Those of drugs are uncertain and fraught with danger, and Above all they depend upon an outer agent; an experience ought to be possible at will, anywhere, at the grocery store as well as in the solitude of one's room otherwise it is not an experience but an anomaly or an enslavement. Those of psychoanalysis are limited, for the moment, to the dimly lit caves of the "unconscious," and most importantly, they lack the agency of consciousness, through which a person can be in full control, instead of being an impotent witness or a sickly patient. Those of religion may be more enlightened, but they too depend upon a god or a dogma; for the most part they confine us in one type of experience, for it is just as
possible to be a prisoner of other worlds as it is of this one in fact,
1.00 - PREFACE - DESCENSUS AD INFERNOS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
nightmare from which I am trying to awake.6 For me, history literally was a nightmare. I wanted Above all
else at that moment to wake up, and make my terrible dreams go away.
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
the essential point; for what we can Above all establish as the one
thing consistent with their nature is their manifold meaning,
1.01 - Economy, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
Undoubtedly, in this case, what is true for one is truer still for a thousand, as a large house is not proportionally more expensive than a small one, since one roof may cover, one cellar underlie, and one wall separate several apartments. But for my part, I preferred the solitary dwelling. Moreover, it will commonly be cheaper to build the whole yourself than to convince another of the advantage of the common wall; and when you have done this, the common partition, to be much cheaper, must be a thin one, and that other may prove a bad neighbor, and also not keep his side in repair. The only coperation which is commonly possible is exceedingly partial and superficial; and what little true coperation there is, is as if it were not, being a harmony inaudible to men. If a man has faith, he will coperate with equal faith everywhere; if he has not faith, he will continue to live like the rest of the world, whatever company he is joined to. To coperate, in the highest as well as the lowest sense, means _to get our living together_. I heard it proposed lately that two young men should travel together over the world, the one without money, earning his means as he went, before the mast and behind the plow, the other carrying a bill of exchange in his pocket. It was easy to see that they could not long be companions or coperate, since one would not _operate_ at all. They would part at the first interesting crisis in their adventures. Above all, as I have implied, the man who goes alone can start to-day; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.
But all this is very selfish, I have heard some of my townsmen say. I confess that I have hitherto indulged very little in philanthropic enterprises. I have made some sacrifices to a sense of duty, and among others have sacrificed this pleasure also. There are those who have used all their arts to persuade me to undertake the support of some poor family in the town; and if I had nothing to do,for the devil finds employment for the idle,I might try my hand at some such pastime as that. However, when I have thought to indulge myself in this respect, and lay their Heaven under an obligation by maintaining certain poor persons in all respects as comfortably as I maintain myself, and have even ventured so far as to make them the offer, they have one and all unhesitatingly preferred to remain poor. While my townsmen and women are devoted in so many ways to the good of their fellows, I trust that one at least may be spared to other and less humane pursuits. You must have a genius for charity as well as for any thing else. As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution. Probably I should not consciously and deliberately forsake my particular calling to do the good which society demands of me, to save the universe from annihilation; and I believe that a like but infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves it. But I would not stand between any man and his genius; and to him who does this work, which I decline, with his whole heart and soul and life, I would say,
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Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it. A robust poor man, one sunny day here in Concord, praised a fellow-townsman to me, because, as he said, he was kind to the poor; meaning himself. The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers. I once heard a reverend lecturer on England, a man of learning and intelligence, after enumerating her scientific, literary, and political worthies, Shakespeare, Bacon, Cromwell, Milton, Newton, and others, speak next of her Christian heroes, whom, as if his profession required it of him, he elevated to a place far Above all the rest, as the greatest of the great. They were Penn, Howard, and Mrs. Fry. Every one must feel the falsehood and cant of this. The last were not Englands best men and women; only, perhaps, her best philanthropists.
I would not subtract any thing from the praise that is due to philanthropy, but merely demand justice for all who by their lives and works are a blessing to mankind. I do not value chiefly a mans uprightness and benevolence, which are, as it were, his stem and leaves. Those plants of whose greenness withered we make herb tea for the sick, serve but a humble use, and are most employed by quacks. I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse. His goodness must not be a partial and transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a charity that hides a multitude of sins. The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own cast-off griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion. From what southern plains comes up the voice of wailing? Under what latitudes reside the hea then to whom we would send light? Who is that intemperate and brutal man whom we would redeem? If any thing ail a man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even,for that is the seat of sympathy,he forthwith sets about reforming the world.
1.01 - MAPS OF EXPERIENCE - OBJECT AND MEANING, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
example, in a universe that was moral where everything, even ores and metals, strived Above all for
perfection. Things, for the alchemical mind, were therefore characterized in large part by their moral
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empirical or post-experimental description. It is this fundamentally absurd insistence that, Above all, has
destabilized the effect of religious tradition upon the organization of modern human moral reasoning and
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The Sumerians were concerned, Above all, with how to act (with the value of things). Their descriptions
of reality (to which we attri bute the qualities of proto-science) in fact comprised their summary of the
1.01 - Newtonian and Bergsonian Time, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
principles of the day. The living organism is Above all a heat
engine, burning glucose or glycogen or starch, fats, and proteins
1.01 - Our Demand and Need from the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
No doubt in this attempt we may mix a good deal of error born of our own individuality and of the ideas in which we live, as did greater men before us, but if we steep ourselves in the spirit of this great Scripture and, Above all, if we have tried to live in that spirit, we may be sure of finding in it as much real truth as we are capable of receiving as well as the spiritual influence and actual help that, personally, we were intended to derive from it. And that is after all what Scriptures were written to give; the rest is academical disputation or theological dogma.
Only those Scriptures, religions, philosophies which can be thus constantly renewed, relived, their stuff of permanent truth constantly reshaped and developed in the inner thought and spiritual experience of a developing humanity, continue to be of living importance to mankind. The rest remain as monuments of the past, but have no actual force or vital impulse for the future.
1.01 - Principles of Practical Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
of individual development, it is Above all the unconscious that is thrust into the forefront of our interest. The deeper reason for this may lie in the fact
that the conscious attitude of the neurotic is unnaturally one-sided and must
1.01 - Soul and God, #The Red Book Liber Novus, #unset, #Zen
I learn Above all the most extreme humility, as what I most need.
The spirit of this time of course allowed me to believe in my reason. He let me see myself in the image of a leader with ripe thoughts. But the spirit of the depths teaches me that I am a servant, in fact the servant of a child: This dictum was repugnant to me and I hated it. But I had to recognize and accept that my soul is a child and that my God in my soul is a child. 57
1.01 - The Offering, #Hymn of the Universe, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
who come, and those who go; Above all, those
who in office, laboratory and factory, through their
1.01 - Two Powers Alone, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
0:The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far Above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures.
1: There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult thing which is the aim of our endeavour, a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a supreme Grace from above that answers.
1.02 - Education, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are other parents who know that their children must be educated and who try to do what they can. But very few, even among those who are most serious and sincere, know that the first thing to do, in order to be able to educate a child, is to educate oneself, to become conscious and master of oneself so that one never sets a bad example to ones child. For it is Above all through example that education becomes effective. To speak good words and to give wise advice to a child has very little effect if one does not oneself give him an example of what one teaches. Sincerity, honesty, straightforwardness, courage, disinterestedness, unselfishness, patience, endurance, perseverance, peace, calm, self-control are all things that are taught infinitely better by example than by beautiful speeches. Parents, have a high ideal and always act in accordance with it and you will see that little by little your child will reflect this ideal in himself and spontaneously manifest the qualities you would like to see expressed in his nature. Quite naturally a child has respect and admiration for his parents; unless they are quite unworthy, they will always appear to their child as demigods whom he will try to imitate as best he can.
With very few exceptions, parents are not aware of the disastrous influence that their own defects, impulses, weaknesses and lack of self-control have on their children. If you wish to be respected by a child, have respect for yourself and be worthy of respect at every moment. Never be authoritarian, despotic, impatient or ill-tempered. When your child asks you a question, do not give him a stupid or silly answer under the pretext that he cannot understand you. You can always make yourself understood if you take enough trouble; and in spite of the popular saying that it is not always good to tell the truth, I affirm that it is always good to tell the truth, but that the art consists in telling it in such a way as to make it accessible to the mind of the hearer. In early life, until he is twelve or fourteen, the childs mind is hardly open to abstract notions and general ideas. And yet you can train it to understand these things by using concrete images, symbols or parables. Up to quite an advanced age and for some who mentally always remain children, a narrative, a story, a tale well told teach much more than any number of theoretical explanations.
Another pitfall to avoid: do not scold your child without good reason and only when it is quite indispensable. A child who is too often scolded gets hardened to rebuke and no longer attaches much importance to words or severity of tone. And Above all, take good care never to scold him for a fault which you yourself commit. Children are very keen and clear-sighted observers; they soon find out your weaknesses and note them without pity.
When a child has done something wrong, see that he confesses it to you spontaneously and frankly; and when he has confessed, with kindness and affection make him understand what was wrong in his movement so that he will not repeat it, but never scold him; a fault confessed must always be forgiven. You should not allow any fear to come between you and your child; fear is a pernicious means of education: it invariably gives birth to deceit and lying. Only a discerning affection that is firm yet gentle and an adequate practical knowledge will create the bonds of trust that are indispensable for you to be able to educate your child effectively. And do not forget that you have to control yourself constantly in order to be equal to your task and truly fulfil the duty which you owe your child by the mere fact of having brought him into the world.
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
initially predominates, but may be superseded by curiosity expressed in hope, excitement and, Above all,
in creative exploratory behavior. Creative exploration of the unknown, and consequent generation of
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whereas Re, the Sun, is Above all the manifest God....) The stages of creation cosmogony, theogony,
creation of living beings, etc. are variously presented. According to the solar theology of Heliopolis, a
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capacity of fire). He is the sun-god, Above all, which means that he is assimilated to (or, more accurately,
occupies the same categorical space) as sight, vision, illumination, enlightenment, dawn, the
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shares in the fluid and larval modality of chaos. By occupying it and, Above all, by settling in it, man
symbolically transforms it into a cosmos through a ritual repetition of the cosmogony. What is to
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inexpressible and Above all creatures.291
Nothing that is not represented can be said to be understood not as we normally use that term.
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spirit is, Above all, humble which is a very paradoxical term, in this context. Arrogance is belief in
personal omniscience. Heroic humility, set against such arrogance, means recognition of constant personal
1.02 - SOCIAL HEREDITY AND PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
sions, the demands, potentialities and hopes; Above all of the pro-
found unity of the world within and around us. In the passage of
1.02 - The Divine Is with You, #Words Of The Mother II, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
for the Divine and Above all to expect only from the Divine
strength, peace and satisfaction. The Divine is all-merciful and
1.02 - The Eternal Law, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
It was not metaphysical questions that preoccupied him, but questions of action. To act: we are in the world to act. But what action? And Above all, what method of action would be the most effective? This very practical concern would remain with Sri Aurobindo from his very first days in India right up to his highest yogic realizations. I
personally recall (if you will excuse the digression) traveling to the Himalayas and enjoying a few wonderful days there in the company of a holy man, lost among the pines and the red laurels, with snow sparkling all around us between sky and valley. It was very beautiful,
1.02 - The Magic Circle, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
A true magic circle represents the symbolic lay-out of the macrocosm and the microcosm, that is, of the perfect man. It stands for the Beginning and the Ending for the Alpha and the Omega, as well as for Eternity, which has no beginning and no end. The magic circle, therefore, is a symbolic diagram of the Infinite, of Divinity in all its aspects, as can be comprehended by the microcosm, i. e. by the true adept, the perfect magician. To draw a magic circle means to symbolize the Divine in His perfection, to get into contact with Him. This happens, Above all, at the moment the magician is standing in the centre of the magic circle, for it is by this act that the contact with the Divinity is demonstrated graphically. It is the magician's contact with the macrocosm in his highest step of consciousness. Therefore, from the point of view of true magic, it is quite logical that standing in the centre of the magic circle is equivalent to being, in one's consciousness, a unity with the Universal Divinity. From this one can see clearly that a magic circle is not only a diagram for protection from unwanted negative influences, but security and inviolability are brought about by this conscious and spiritual contact with the Highest. The magician who stands in the centre of the magic circle is protected from any influence, no matter, whether good or evil, for himself is, in fact, symbolizing the Divine in the universe. Furthermore, by standing in the centre of the magic circle, the magician also represents the Divinity in the microcosm and controls and rules the beings of the universe in a totalitarian manner.
The esoteric essence of the magician's standing in the centre of the magic circle is, therefore, quite different from that which the books on evocations usually maintain. If a magician standing in the centre of the magic circle were not conscious of the fact that he is, at that moment, symbolizing God the Divine and Infinite, he would not be able to practise any influence on any being whatsoever. The magician is, at that instant, a perfect magic authority whom all powers and beings must absolutely obey. His will and the orders he gives to beings or powers are equivalent to the will and orders of the Infinite, the Divine, and must therefore be unconditionally respected by the beings and powers the magician has conjured up. If the magician, during such an operation, has not the right attitude towards his doings, he degrades himself to a sorcerer, a charlatan, who simply mimics and has no true contact with the Highest. The magician's authority would, in such a case, be rather doubtful. Moreover, he would be in danger of losing his control over such beings and powers, or, what would even be worse, he could be mocked by them, not to speak of other unwanted and unforeseen surprises and accompanying phenomena that he would be exposed, especially if negative forces were involved.
1.02 - THE NATURE OF THE GROUND, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
When I came out of the Godhead into multiplicity, then all things proclaimed, There is a God (the personal Creator). Now this cannot make me blessed, for hereby I realize myself as creature. But in the breaking through I am more than all creatures; I am neither God nor creature; I am that which I was and shall remain, now and for ever more. There I receive a thrust which carries me Above all angels. By this thrust I become so rich that God is not sufficient for me, in so far as He is only God in his divine works. For in thus breaking through, I perceive what God and I are in common. There I am what I was. There I neither increase or decrease. For there I am the immovable which moves all things. Here man has won again what he is eternally and ever shall be. Here God is received into the soul.
Eckhart
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The simple, absolute and immutable mysteries of divine Truth are hidden in the super-luminous darkness of that silence which revealeth in secret. For this darkness, though of deepest obscurity, is yet radiantly clear; and, though beyond touch and sight, it more than fills our unseeing minds with splendours of transcendent beauty. We long exceedingly to dwell in this translucent darkness and, through not seeing and not knowing, to see Him who is beyond both vision and knowledgeby the very fact of neither seeing Him nor knowing Him. For this is truly to see and to know and, through the abandonment of all things, to praise Him who is beyond and Above all things. For this is not unlike the art of those who carve a life-like image from stone; removing from around it all that impedes clear vision of the latent form, revealing its hidden beauty solely by taking away. For it is, as I believe, more fitting to praise Him by taking away than by ascription; for we ascribe attri butes to Him, when we start from universals and come down through the intermediate to the particulars. But here we take away all things from Him going up from particulars to universals, that we may know openly the unknowable, which is hidden in and under all things that may be known. And we behold that darkness beyond being, concealed under all natural light.
Dionysius the Areopagite
1.02 - The Philosophy of Ishvara, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
Who is Ishvara? Janmdyasya yatah "From whom is the birth, continuation, and dissolution of the universe," He is Ishvara "the Eternal, the Pure, the Ever-Free, the Almighty, the AllKnowing, the All-Merciful, the Teacher of all teachers"; and Above all, Sa Ishvarah anirvachaniyapremasvarupah "He the Lord is, of His own nature, inexpressible Love." These certainly are the definitions of a Personal God. Are there then two Gods the "Not this, not this," the Sat-chit-nanda, the Existence-Knowledge-Bliss of the philosopher, and this God of Love of the Bhakta? No, it is the same Sat-chit-ananda who is also the God of Love, the impersonal and personal in one. It has always to be understood that the Personal God worshipped by the Bhakta is not separate or different from the Brahman. All is Brahman, the One without a second; only the Brahman, as unity or absolute, is too much of an abstraction to be loved and worshipped; so the Bhakta chooses the relative aspect of Brahman, that is, Ishvara, the Supreme Ruler. To use a simile: Brahman is as the clay or substance out of which an infinite variety of articles are fashioned. As clay, they are all one; but form or manifestation differentiates them. Before every one of them was made, they all existed potentially in the clay, and, of course, they are identical substantially; but when formed, and so long as the form remains, they are separate and different; the clay-mouse can never become a clay-elephant, because, as manifestations, form alone makes them what they are, though as unformed clay they are all one.
Ishvara is the highest manifestation of the Absolute Reality, or in other words, the highest possible reading of the Absolute by the human mind. Creation is eternal, and so also is Ishvara.
1.02 - THE QUATERNIO AND THE MEDIATING ROLE OF MERCURIUS, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[12] In addition, we learn from the scholia that the circle and the Hermetic vessel are one and the same, with the result that the mandala, which we find so often in the drawings of our patients, corresponds to the vessel of transformation. Consequently, the usual quaternary structure of the mandala57 would coincide with the alchemists quaternio of opposites. Lastly, there is the interesting statement that an Ecclesia spiritualis Above all creeds and owing allegiance solely to Christ, the Anthropos, is the real aim of the alchemists endeavours. Whereas the treatise of Hermes is, comparatively speaking, very old, and in place of the Christian Anthropos mystery58 contains a peculiar paraphrase of it, or rather, its antique parallel,59 the scholia cannot be dated earlier than the beginning of the seventeenth century.60 The author seems to have been a Paracelsist physician. Mercurius corresponds to the Holy Ghost as well as to the Anthropos; he is, as Gerhard Dorn says, the true hermaphroditic Adam and Microcosm:
Our Mercurius is therefore that same [Microcosm], who contains within him the perfections, virtues, and powers of Sol [in the dual sense of sun and gold], and who goes through the streets [vicos] and houses of all the planets, and in his regeneration has obtained the power of Above and Below, wherefore he is to be likened to their marriage, as is evident from the white and the red that are conjoined in him. The sages have affirmed in their wisdom that all creatures are to be brought to one united substance.61
1.02 - The Stages of Initiation, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
Long before any distinct perception of progress, there rises in the student, from the hidden depths of the soul, a feeling that he is on the right path. This feeling should be cherished and fostered, for it can develop into a trustworthy guide. Above all, it is imperative to extirpate the idea that any fantastic, mysterious practices are required for the attainment of higher knowledge. It must be clearly realized that a start has to be made with the thoughts and feelings with which we continually live, and that these feelings and thoughts must merely be given a new direction. Everyone must say to himself: "In my own world of thought and feeling the deepest mysteries lie hidden, only hitherto I have been unable to perceive them." In the end it all resolves itself into the fact that man ordinarily carries body, soul and spirit about with him, and yet is conscious in a true sense only of his body, and not of his soul and spirit. The student becomes conscious of soul and spirit, just as the ordinary person is conscious of his body. Hence it is highly important to give the
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were disturbed through such exercises, if he were hampered in judging the matters of his daily life as sanely and as soundly as before. He should examine himself again and again to find out if he has remained unaltered in relation to the circumstances among which he lives, or whether he may perhaps have become unbalanced. Above all, strict care must be taken not to drift at random into vague reveries, or to experiment with all kinds of exercises. The trains of thought here indicated have been tested and practiced in esoteric training since the earliest times, and only such are given in these pages. Anyone attempting to use others devised by himself, or of which he may have heard or read at one place or another, will inevitably go astray and find himself on the path of boundless chimera.
As a further exercise to succeed the one just described, the following may be taken: Let the student place before him a plant which has attained the stage of full development. Now let him fill his mind with the thought that the time will come when this plant will wither and die. "Nothing will be left of what I now see before me. But this plant will have developed seeds which, in their turn,
1.02 - The Vision of the Past, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
nivores and Above all the primates. So much so that one could
draw a steadily rising Curve of Life taking Time as one co-
1.02 - What is Psycho therapy?, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
the fact that the number of neuroses (and Above all the frequency of psychic
complications in organic diseases) is very great and thus concerns the
1.02 - Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were; its complete retirement, being, about two miles from the village, half a mile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by a broad field; its bounding on the river, which the owner said protected it by its fogs from frosts in the spring, though that was nothing to me; the gray color and ruinous state of the house and barn, and the dilapidated fences, which put such an interval between me and the last occupant; the hollow and lichen-covered apple trees, gnawed by rabbits, showing what kind of neighbors I should have; but Above all, the recollection I had of it from my earliest voyages up the river, when the house was concealed behind a dense grove of red maples, through which I heard the house-dog bark. I was in haste to buy it, before the proprietor finished getting out some rocks, cutting down the hollow apple trees, and grubbing up some young birches which had sprung up in the pasture, or, in short, had made any more of his improvements. To enjoy these advantages I was ready to carry it on; like Atlas, to take the world on my shoulders,I never heard what compensation he received for that, and do all those things which had no other motive or excuse but that I might pay for it and be unmolested in my possession of it; for I knew all the while that it would yield the most abundant crop of the kind I wanted if I could only afford to let it alone. But it turned out as I have said.
All that I could say, then, with respect to farming on a large scale,
10.35 - The Moral and the Spiritual, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The states of being or consciousness from the animal, or down from Matter itself up to the Supremebrahmastambaconstitute what is called a hierarchy. Hierarchy means a structure rising upward tier upon tier, step by step: it is a scale, as it were, of increasing values, only the values are not moral, they indicate only a measure, a neutral measure respecting position or a kind of mass content. As in a building where brick is laid upon brick, or stone upon stone, the one laid above is not superior to the one laid below; the terms inferior and superior indicate only the simple position of the objects. Even the system of the four social orders in ancient" India was originally such a hierarchy. The higher and lower orders did not carry any moral appreciation or depreciation. The four orders placed one above the other schematically denote only the respective social functions classified according to the nature of each, even as the human body represents such a hierarchy, rising from the feet at the bottom towards the head at the top. This is to say all objects and movements in nature are right when they are confined each to its own domain, following its own dharma of that domain. Thus one can be perfectly calm and at ease witnessing the catastrophes and cataclysms in nature, for one knows it is the dharma of material nature. Man terms them disasters for he judges them according to his own convenience. Even so, one should not be perturbed at the wild behaviourman calls it wildof wild animals. Likewise the gods in their sovereign tranquillity smile at the crudeness and stupidities of human beings. One has to lift oneself up, withdraw and stand high Above all that one wishes to surpass and look at it, with a benign godly smile.
The world is a gradation of developing consciousness, of growing states or status of being. There is a higher and lower level in point of the measure of consciousness but that involves no moral judgement: the moral judgement is man's; it is man's, one might almost say, idiosyncrasy, that is to say, a notion that is a prop to help him mount the ladder. Though it might be necessary at a certain stage, in certain circumstances, it is not a universal or ineluctable law, not even in his personal domain. The growing consciousness is like the growing tree rising upward first into a trunk, then spreading out into branches, into twigs and tendrils, then in flowers and finally, in fruits. These are mounting grades of growth, but the growth above is not superior to the growth below. It is a one unified whole and each portion has its own absolute value, beauty and utility.
1.03 - APPRENTICESHIP AND ENCULTURATION - ADOPTION OF A SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
them are concerned Above all with self-maintenance and preservation of predictability and order. The
(necessarily) conservative tendencies of great systems makes them tyrannical, and more than willing to
--
individuals matter to her?), but to peoples, races, ages, classes but Above all to the whole human
animal, to man.361
1.03 - Concerning the Archetypes, with Special Reference to the Anima Concept, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
historically Above all in the divine syzygies, the male-female
pairs of deities. These reach down, on the one side, into the ob-
--
in Kundalini yoga, 28 in Gnosticism, 29 and Above all in alchemi-
cal philosophy, 30 quite apart from the spontaneous fantasy-prod-
1.03 - Invocation of Tara, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
who represent Above all the buddha's activity, we
consider that, even if one has not received the
1.03 - Preparing for the Miraculous, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
the superhumanity of the supramental principle. Above all,
its possession would enable the human being to rise beyond
1.03 - .REASON. IN PHILOSOPHY, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
monotono-theists, grave-diggers!--And Above all, away with the _body,_
this wretched _ide fixe_ of the senses, infected with all the faults
1.03 - Some Practical Aspects, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
Patience has the effect of attraction, impatience the effect of repulsion on the treasures of higher knowledge. In the higher regions of existence nothing can be attained by haste and unrest. Above all things, desire and craving must be silenced, for these are qualities of the soul before which all higher knowledge shyly withdraws. However precious this knowledge is accounted, the student must not crave it if he wishes to attain it. If he wishes to have it for his own sake, he will never attain it. This requires him to be honest with himself in his innermost soul. He must in no case be under any illusion concerning
p. 102
1.03 - Sympathetic Magic, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
work their full effect upon his person. On his birthday, Above all,
he hardly ever fails to don it, for in China common sense bids a man
1.03 - The Desert, #The Red Book Liber Novus, #unset, #Zen
My faith is weak, my face is blind from all that shimmering blaze of the desert sun. The heat lies on me like lead. Thirst torments me, I dare not think how unendingly long my way is, and Above all, I see nothing in front of me. But the soul answered, You speak as if you have still learned nothing. Can you not wait? Should everything fall into your lap ripe and finished? You are full, yes, you teem with intentions and desirousness! Do you still not know that the way to truth stands open only to those without intentions?
I know that everything you say, Oh my soul, is also my thought. But I hardly live according to it. The soul said, How, tell
1.03 - THE ORPHAN, THE WIDOW, AND THE MOON, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[14] The terms son of the widow and children of the widow appear to be of Manichaean origin. The Manichaeans themselves were called children of the widow.69 The orphan referred to by Hermes must therefore have for his counterpart a vidua (widow) as the prima materia. For this there are synonyms such as mater, matrix, Venus, regina, femina, virgo, puella praegnans, virgin in the centre of the earth,70 Luna,71 meretrix (whore), vetula (old woman), more specifically vetula extenuata (enfeebled, exhausted),72 Mater Alchimia, who is dropsical in the lower limbs and paralysed from the knees down,73 and finally virago. All these synonyms allude to the virginal or maternal quality of the prima materia, which exists without a man74 and yet is the matter of all things.75 Above all, the prima materia is the mother of the lapis, the filius philosophorum. Michael Maier76 mentions the treatise of an anonymous author Delphinas, which he dates to some time before 1447.77 He stresses that this author insisted particularly on the mother-son incest. Maier even constructs a genealogical tree showing the origin of the seven metals. At the top of the tree is the lapis. Its father is Gabritius, who in turn was born of Isis and Osiris. After the death of Osiris Isis married their son Gabritius;78 she is identified with Beya the widow marries her son. The widow appears here as the classical figure of the mourning Isis. To this event Maier devotes a special Epithalamium in Honour of the Nuptials of the Mother Beya and Her Son Gabritius.79 But this marriage, which was begun with the expression of great joyfulness, ended in the bitterness of mourning, says Maier, adding the verses:
Within the flower itself there grows the gnawing canker:
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[27] The motif of wounding in alchemy goes back to Zosimos (3rd cent.) and his visions of a sacrificial drama.180 The motif does not occur in such complete form again. One next meets it in the Turba: The dew is joined to him who is wounded and given over to death.181 The dew comes from the moon, and he who is wounded is the sun.182 In the treatise of Philaletha, Introitus apertus ad occlusum Regis palatium,183 the wounding is caused by the bite of the rabid Corascene dog,184 in consequence of which the hermaphrodite child suffered from hydrophobia.185 Dorn, in his De tenebris contra naturam, associates the motif of wounding and the poisonous snake-bite with Genesis 3: For the sickness introduced into nature by the serpent, and the deadly wound she inflicted, a remedy is to be sought.186 Accordingly it is the task of alchemy to root out the original sin, and this is accomplished with the aid of the balsamum vitae (balsam of life), which is a true mixture of the natural heat with its radical moisture. The life of the world is the light of nature and the celestial sulphur,187 whose substance is the aetheric moisture and heat of the firmament, like to the sun and moon.188 The conjunction of the moist (= moon) and the hot (= sun) thus produces the balsam, which is the original and incorrupt life of the world. Genesis 3 : 15, he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel (RSV), was generally taken as a prefiguration of the Redeemer. But since Christ was free from the stain of sin the wiles of the serpent could not touch him, though of course mankind was poisoned. Whereas the Christian belief is that man is freed from sin by the redemptory act of Christ, the alchemist was evidently of the opinion that the restitution to the likeness of original and incorrupt nature had still to be accomplished by the art, and this can only mean that Christs work of redemption was regarded as incomplete. In view of the wickednesses which the Prince of this world,189 undeterred, goes on perpetrating as liberally as before, one cannot withhold all sympathy from such an opinion. For an alchemist who professed allegiance to the Ecclesia spiritualis it was naturally of supreme importance to make himself an unspotted vessel of the Paraclete and thus to realize the idea Christ on a plane far transcending a mere imitation of him. It is tragic to see how this tremendous thought got bogged down again and again in the welter of human folly. A shattering example of this is afforded not only by the history of the Church, but Above all by alchemy itself, which richly merited its own condemnationin ironical fulfilment of the dictum In sterquiliniis invenitur (it is found in cesspools). Agrippa von Nettesheim was not far wrong when he opined that Chymists are of all men the most perverse.190
[28] In his Mysterium Lunae, an extremely valuable study for the history of alchemical symbolism, Rahner191 mentions that the waxing and waning of the bride (Luna, Ecclesia) is based on the kenosis192 of the bridegroom, in accordance with the words of St. Ambrose:193
1.03 - The Phenomenon of Man, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
places him head and shoulders Above all other conscious
beings known to us. (F.M., p. 87.)
--
edifice; the body with its thousand billion cells, and Above all
the brain, with its thousand millions of nervous nuclei. But
1.03 - The Syzygy - Anima and Animus, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
man, on his ardour, Above all on his courage and resolution
when it comes to throwing his whole being into the scales. For
1.04 - ALCHEMY AND MANICHAEISM, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[34] The inflammation by desire has its analogy in the alchemists gradual warming of the substances that contain the arcanum. Here the symbol of the sweat-bath plays an important role, as the illustrations show.227 Just as for the Manichaeans the sweat of the archons signified rain,228 so for the alchemists sweat meant dew.229 In this connection we should also mention the strange legend reported in the Acta Archelai, concerning the apparatus which the son of the living Father invented to save human souls. He constructed a great wheel with twelve buckets which, as they revolved, scooped up the souls from the deep and deposited them on the moon-ship.230 In alchemy the rota is the symbol of the opus circulatorium. Like the alchemists, the Manichaeans had a virago, the male virgin Joel,231 who gave Eve a certain amount of the light-substance.232 The role she plays in regard to the princes of darkness corresponds to that of Mercurius duplex, who like her sets free the secret hidden in matter, the light Above all lights, the filius philosophorum. I would not venture to decide how much in these parallels is to be ascribed directly to Manichaean tradition, how much to indirect influence, and how much to spontaneous revival.
[35] Our starting-point for these remarks was the designation of the lapis as orphan, which Dorn mentions apparently out of the blue when discussing the union of opposites. The material we have adduced shows what an archetypal drama of death and rebirth lies hidden in the coniunctio, and what immemorial human emotions clash together in this problem. It is the moral task of alchemy to bring the feminine, maternal background of the masculine psyche, seething with passions, into harmony with the principle of the spirittruly a labour of Hercules! In Dorns words:
1.04 - BOOK THE FOURTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
Yet Above all, her length of hair, they own,
In golden ringlets wav'd, and graceful shone.
1.04 - Descent into Future Hell, #The Red Book Liber Novus, #unset, #Zen
But Above all protect me from the serpent of judgment, which only appears to be a healing serpent, yet in your depths is infernal poison and agonizing death. I want to go down cleansed into your depths with white garments and not rush in like some thief seizing whatever
I can and fleeing breathlessly. Let me persist in divine 87 astonishment, so that I am ready to behold your wonders. Let me lay my head on a stone before your door, so that I am prepared to receive your light.
1.04 - On blessed and ever-memorable obedience, #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
I will not be silent about something which it is not right to leave in silence lest I should inhumanly keep to myself what ought to be made known. The famous John the Sabbaite told me things worth hearing. And that he was detached and Above all falsehood, and free from words and deeds of
evil, you know from your own experience, holy father. This man told me: In my monastery in Asia (for that is where the good man came from) there was a certain elder who was extremely careless and undisciplined. I say this without passing judgment on him, but simply to state the truth. He obtained, I do not know how, a disciple, a youth called Acacius, simple-hearted but prudent in thought. And he endured so much from this elder that to many people it will perhaps seem incredible. For the elder tormented him daily not only with insults and indignities, but even with blows. But his patience was not mere senseless endurance. And so, seeing him daily in wretched plight like the lowest slave, I would ask him when I met him: What is the matter, Brother Acacius, how are you today? And he would at once show me a black eye, or a scarred neck or head. But knowing that he was a worker, I would say to him: Well done, well done; endure and it will be for your good. Having done nine years with this pitiless elder, he departed to the Lord. Five days after his burial in the cemetery of the fathers, Acaciuss master went to a certain elder living there and said to him: Father, Brother Acacius is dead. As soon as the elder heard this he said: Believe me, elder, I do not believe it. The other replied: Come and see. The elder at once rose and went to the cemetery with the master of the blessed ascetic. And he called as to a living person to him who was truly alive in his falling asleep, and said: Are you dead, Brother Acacius? And the good doer of obedience, showing his obedience even after his death, replied to the great elder: How is it possible, Father, for a man who is a doer of obedience to die ? Then the elder who had been Acaciuss master became terrified and fell on his face in tears. Afterwards he asked the abbot of the Laura for a cell near the tomb, and lived in it devoutly, always saying to the fathers: I have committed murder. And it seemed to me, Father John, that the one who spoke to the dead man was the great John himself. For that blessed soul told me another story as if it were about someone else, when it was really about himself, as I was afterwards able to learn for certain.
1.04 - ON THE DESPISERS OF THE BODY, #Thus Spoke Zarathustra, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
longer capable of what it would do Above all else: to
create beyond itself. That is what it would do above
1.04 - SOME REFLECTIONS ON PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
carnivores and Above all the primates. So much so that one could
draw a steadily rising Curve of Life taking Time as one coordinate
--
it SEEMS TO me clear Above all else, setting aside the countless
minor divergences, and ignoring the dull, inert mass of those who
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
The Edenic serpent is, Above all, the unknown (power) still lurking inside the nervous system, inside the
world-tree is the innate capacity of the mind, its ability to generate revelatory thought, its capacity to
1.04 - The Conditions of Esoteric Training, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
[paragraph continues] The good counsels of others, freely bestowed though generally unsought, are as a rule superfluous. Each must endeavor to take care of himself. From the physical aspect it will be more a question of warding off harmful influences than of anything else. In fulfilling our duties we must often do things that are detrimental to our health. We must decide at the right moment to place duty higher than the care of our health. But just think how much can be avoided with a little good will. Duty must in many cases stand higher than health, often, even, than life itself; but pleasure must never stand higher, as far as the student is concerned. For him pleasure can only be a means to health and to life, and in this connection we must, Above all, be honest and truthful with ourselves. There is no use in leading an ascetic life when the underlying motive is the same in this case as in other enjoyments. Some may derive satisfaction from asceticism just as others can from wine-bibbing, but they must not imagine that this sort of asceticism will assist them in attaining higher knowledge. Many ascribe to their circumstances everything which apparently prevents them from making progress. They say they
p. 118
1.04 - The Core of the Teaching, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
in no circumstances is it permissible to take human life any more than to eat human flesh? It is obvious that here the moral law which is Above all relative duties must prevail; and that law depends on no social relation or conception of duty but on the awakened inner perception of man, the moral being.
There are in the world, in fact, two different laws of conduct each valid on its own plane, the rule principally dependent on external status and the rule independent of status and entirely dependent on the thought and conscience. The Gita does not teach us to subordinate the higher plane to the lower, it does not ask the awakened moral consciousness to slay itself on the altar of duty as a sacrifice and victim to the law of the social status. It calls us higher and not lower; from the conflict of the two planes it bids us ascend to a supreme poise above the mainly practical, above the purely ethical, to the Brahmic consciousness. It replaces the conception of social duty by a divine obligation. The subjection to external law gives place to a certain principle of inner self-determination of action proceeding by the soul's freedom from the tangled law of works. And this, as we shall see, - the Brahmic consciousness, the soul's freedom from works and the determination of works in the nature by the Lord within and above us, - is the kernel of the Gita's teaching with regard to action.
1.04 - The Divine Mother - This Is She, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
She played very well for her age, and her claim that she had become a champion in her youth was amply borne out by her steady, sharp forehand strokes which were Above all a marvel of precision. Naturally she could not run a great deal, but her agility was remarkable. In her vision tennis is the best game spiritually and physically. She used it not only for her physical fitness, but as in everything else, as a medium for her spiritual action on the players. It was this inner movement that interested her as much as the outer one. For, playing with the Divine meant an aspiration, opening, right attitude, reception of her force through the game, as through other means like physical and mental activity. Here, of course, the manner is more direct and more joyful. In other words, it was used more as a means of sadhana. When someone had some inner difficulties, she would invite him for a game with her and the effect was almost miraculous. On the other hand, she would suddenly stop calling for many days or altogether, a person with whom she had played almost regularly. These are nothing but vagaries, one would be inclined to observe. But they were not; the person involved often knew very well the inner reason. Someone asked the Mother in another context which involved certain hardships, if she put people to test. She replied, "Never! people have already enough difficulties, why should we add more? But there are inner tests." Too subtle, swift and mysterious are her ways to be grasped by our human mind; so I will refrain from going into the matter. On our birthdays she used to invite us specially to play a set with her. The joy that she imparted to us by this means can be compared to the joy that we had in our talks with Sri Aurobindo, different in kind, of course.
I shall relate an interesting account of the Mother's diplomacy in this field of tennis. There used to be friendly tournaments under the Mother's supervision. Once my partner and I had reached the finals and were to face a younger pair who were known to be the Mother's favourites. Gods, goddesses especially, have their chosen ones, if the Puranas are to be believed, and they always win. Of course we are to assume that there are larger purposes which we cannot guess, behind the seeming partialities. The Mother broached the topic of the game to Sri Aurobindo and asked me naively how we were going to fare, what would be our tactics, etc., etc. I would not be caught so easily. Then she employed a familiar strategy, "You know they are a very good pair; you have no chance against them." Thus she went on battering me. Sri Aurobindo listened to it with an amused smile. When, finishing my duty, I was going for the game, I asked Champaklal to plead to Sri Aurobindo on our behalf. The play started, there was quite a crowd. The Mother was watching with keen interest. The upshot was that we lost sadly and badly. Curiously enough, we missed even simple shots. On my return in the evening, I told Champaklal of our ignoble defeat. Later on, Sri Aurobindo himself enquired and learning from Champaklal about the result, he enjoyed the joke and laughed aloud. I did not know what gave him so much amusement. Failure of his own force? Did he give force at all? Success of the Mother's favourites? The Mother, however, in her turn, gave a long report of the game. She said, "Oh, they became so nervous! I tried all the while to make them steady, but of no use. They missed even simple shots!" I made no outer comment but was inwardly muttering, "What chance could we have if you had already decided our doom as Krishna that of the Kauravas?" Doom is the word, in a deeper sense too, for as I have hinted, I became inordinately attached to tennis and neglected even my duty. It was like an old love that had revived with all its insensate passion and I had to receive persistent psychological beating from the Mother before I could get rid of this folly. Sri Aurobindo once wrote to me, "Never! [forsake you] But beat a lot." The beating came mostly from the Mother.
--
To end the sad story: the case was not showing any improvement; one after another complications began to develop. Above all, his outer consciousness failed to respond actively to the Force. The Mother saw that the only way that could save the patient was to send him to Bangalore where he could be treated by an efficient German doctor well-known to us, Sri Aurobindo asked me to prepare a clear and complete history of the patient's malady, let the Mother hear it and then send it to the doctor. When it was ready, I read it out to both of them. Sri Aurobindo commented, "Excellent!" I felt gratified. On receiving the report the doctor came down to take the patient. He concurred with our view that it must be a case of septicaemia. When the patient was being sent off, the Mother came and stood on her terrace waiting a long time for him. At last the car came before her and she and the patient looked at each other for quite a while. He had a premonition that he would not come back.
We felt very sad, indeed, but there was no other choice. Next day, a telegram arrived carrying the news that the patient had suddenly collapsed and died in the train. As soon as I heard it, my head began to reel and I had to sit down before Sri Aurobindo. It was a most treacherous blow! The post-mortem revealed that there was an inflammation of the heart's envelope with a little collection of fluid behind the heart, and yet clinically there was no sign of it.
1.04 - The Future of Man, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
a. Satisfying to the intelligence Above all For if it be true that
at this moment mankind is embarking upon what I have called
1.04 - The Qabalah The Best Training for Memory, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
For a start, of course, you should put down the words that are bound to come in your way in any case: numbers like 11, 13, 31, 37, and their multiples; the names of God and the principal angels; the planetary and geomantic names; and your own private and particular name with its branches. After that, let your work on the Astral Plane guide you. When investigating the name and other words communicated to you by such beings as you meet there, or invoke, many more will come up in their proper connections. Very soon you will have quite a nice little Sepher Sephiroth of your very own. Remember to aim, Above all things, at coherence.
It is excellent practice, but the way, to do some mental arithmetic on your walks; acquire the habit of adding up any names that you have come across in your morning's reading. Nietzsche has well observed that the best thoughts come by walking; and it has happened to me, more than once or twice, that really important correspondences have come, as by a flashlight, when I was padding the old hoof.
1.04 - The Sacrifice the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But still to the seeker standing at the opposite pole of the Duality another line of experience appears which justifies an intuition deeply-seated behind the heart and in our very life-force, that personality, like consciousness, life, soul, is not a brief-lived stranger in an impersonal Eternity, but contains the very meaning of existence. This fine flower of the cosmic Energy carries in it a forecast of the aim and a hint of the very motive of the universal labour. As an occult vision opens in him, he becomes aware of worlds behind in which consciousness and personality hold an enormous place and assume a premier value; even here in the material world to this occult vision the inconscience of Matter fills with a secret pervading consciousness, its inanimation harbours a vibrant life, its mechanism is the device of an indwelling Intelligence, God and soul are everywhere. Above all stands an infinite conscious Being who is variously self-expressed in all these worlds; impersonality is only a first means of that expression. It is a field of principles and forces, an equal basis of manifestation; but these forces express themselves through beings, have conscious spirits at their head and are the emanation of a One Conscious Being who is their source. A multiple innumerable personality expressing that One is the very sense and central aim of the manifestation and if now personality seems to be narrow, fragmentary, restrictive, it is only because it has not opened to its source or flowered into its own divine truth and fullness packing itself with the universal and the infinite. Thus the world-creation is no more an illusion, a fortuitous mechanism, a play that need not have happened, a flux without consequence; it is an intimate dynamism of the conscious and living Eternal.
This extreme opposition of view from the two poles of one Existence creates no fundamental difficulty for the seeker of the integral Yoga; for his whole experience has shown him the necessity of these double terms and their currents of Energy, negative and positive in relation to each other, for the manifestation of what is within the one Existence. For himself Personality and Impersonality have been the two wings of his spiritual ascension and he has the prevision that he will reach a height where their helpful interaction will pass into a fusion of their powers and disclose the integral Reality and release into action the original force of the Divine. Not only in the fundamental Aspects but in all the working of his sadhana he has felt their double truth and mutually complementary working. An impersonal Presence has dominated from above or penetrated and occupied his nature; a Light descending has suffused his mind, life-power, the very cells of his body, illumined them with knowledge, revealed him to himself down to his most disguised and unsuspected movements, exposing, purifying, destroying or brilliantly changing all that belonged to the Ignorance. A Force has poured into him in currents or like a sea, worked in his being and all its members, dissolved, new-made, reshaped, transfigured everywhere. A Bliss has invaded him and shown that it can make suffering and sorrow impossible and turn pain itself into divine pleasure. A Love without limits has joined him to all creatures or revealed to him a world of inseparable intimacy and unspeakable sweetness and beauty and begun to impose its law of perfection and its ecstasy even amidst the disharmony of terrestrial life. A spiritual Truth and Right have convicted the good and evil of this world of imperfection or of falsehood and unveiled a supreme good and its clue of subtle harmony and its sublimation of action and feeling and knowledge. But behind all these and in them he has felt a Divinity who is all these things, a Bringer of Light, a Guide and All-Knower, a Master of Force, a Giver of Bliss, Friend, Helper, Father, Mother, Playmate in the world-game, an absolute Master of his being, his souls Beloved and Lover. All relations known to human personality are there in the souls contact with the Divine; but they rise towards superhuman levels and compel him towards a divine nature.
1.04 - The Silent Mind, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
we are not seeking a lesser being but a better being and Above all a vaster one: Has it not occurred to you that if they really sought for something cold, dark and gloomy as the supreme good, they would not be sages but asses?28 Sri Aurobindo once humorously remarked.
Actually, one makes all kinds of discoveries when the mental machine stops, and first of all one realizes that if the power to think is a remarkable gift, the power not to think29 is a far greater one yet; let the seeker try it for just a few minutes, and he will soon see what this means! He will realize that he lives in a surreptitious racket, an exhausting and ceaseless whirlwind exclusively filled with his thoughts, his feelings, his impulses, his reactions him, always him,
--
Active Meditation When we sit with our eyes closed to silence the mind, we are at first submerged by a torrent of thoughts; they crop up from every side, like frightened or even aggressive rats. There is only one way to stop this racket: to try and try again, patiently and persistently; Above all, we must shift our concentration elsewhere, and not make the mistake of struggling mentally with the mind. All of us have, above the mind or deep inside ourselves, an aspiration, the very thing that has put us on the path in the first place, a yearning of our being, a password that has a special meaning for us; if we cling to that, the work becomes easier,
positively rather than negatively oriented, and the more we repeat our password, the more powerful it becomes. We can also use an image,
--
The Descent of the Force Little by little the void is filled. We then make a series of observations and experiences of considerable importance, which cannot be listed in a logical sequence, because from the moment we leave the old world we find that everything is possible, and, Above all, that no two cases are alike hence, the falsehood of all spiritual dogmas. We can only mention a few broad lines of experience.
First, when calm, if not absolute silence, is relatively well established in the mind, when our aspiration, our need, has grown and become constant, throbbing, as if we carried a hole within ourselves,
1.04 - Vital Education, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
- Above all, the example of the educator shown constantly and sincerely.
But still the direction in which the effort has to be made can be known only by the training of the mind and by the opening of the secret knowledge that is within our psychic being. To develop therefore in the vital the habit to open to this light and to. act in that light would be to place the vital in its proper place as a will-force executing the inner and higher knowledge.
1.05 - Christ, A Symbol of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
wonders /car' evepyeiav rod oarava. (according to the working of Satan). Above all,
he will reveal himself by his lying and deceitfulness. Daniel 1 1 : 36ft. is regarded
1.05 - Computing Machines and the Nervous System, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
rate, the numerical machines are preferable, and Above all, those
numerical machines constructed on the binary scale, in which
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phosphorescent substances; and Above all, photography. Pho-
tography is indeed ideal for the permanence and detail of its
1.05 - Consciousness, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
an ever denser strength and, Above all, an independence, as if there were both a force and a being within his own being. He will notice,
first in his passive meditations (when he is quiet, at home, his eyes closed), that this force in him has mass, varying intensity, and movement, that it moves up and down inside him as if it were fluid
1.05 - Mental Education, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In order to increase the suppleness and comprehensiveness of his mind, one should see not only that he studies many varied topics, but Above all that a single subject is approached in various ways, so that the child understands in a practical manner that there are many ways of facing the same intellectual problem, of considering it and solving it. This will remove all rigidity from his brain and at the same time it will make his thinking richer and more supple and prepare it for a more complex and comprehensive synthesis. In this way also the child will be imbued with the sense of the extreme relativity of mental learning and, little by little, an aspiration for a truer source of knowledge will awaken in him.
Indeed, as the child grows older and progresses in his studies, his mind too ripens and becomes more and more capable of forming general ideas, and with them almost always comes a need for certitude, for a knowledge that is stable enough to form the basis of a mental construction which will permit all the diverse and scattered and often contradictory ideas accumulated in his brain to be organised and put in order. This ordering is indeed very necessary if one is to avoid chaos in one's thoughts. All contradictions can be transformed into complements, but for that one must discover the higher idea that will have the power to bring them harmoniously together. It is always good to consider every problem from all possible standpoints so as to avoid partiality and exclusiveness; but if the thought is to be active and creative, it must, in every case, be the natural and logical synthesis of all the points of view adopted. And if you want to make the totality of your thoughts into a dynamic and constructive force, you must also take great care as to the choice of the central idea of your mental synthesis; for upon that will depend the value of this synthesis. The higher and larger the central idea and the more universal it is, rising above time and space, the more numerous and the more complex will be the ideas, notions and thoughts which it will be able to organise and harmonise.
1.05 - On painstaking and true repentance which constitute the life of the holy convicts; and about the prison., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
The sorrowful humility of penitents is one thing; the condemnation of the conscience of those who are still living in sin is another; and the blessed wealth of humility which the perfect attain by the action of God is yet another. Let us not be in a hurry to find words to describe this third kind of humility, for our effort will be in vain. But a sign of the second is the perfect bearing of indignity. Previous habit often tyrannizes even over him who deplores it. And no wonder! The account of the judgments of God and our falls is shrouded in darkness, and it is impossible to know which are the falls that come from carelessness, and which from providential abandonment, and which from Gods turning away from us. But someone told me that in the case of falls which come to us by Divine Providence we acquire a swift revulsion from them, because He who delivers us does not allow us to be held for long. And let us who fall wrestle Above all with the demon of grief. For he stands by us at the time of our prayer, and by reminding us of our former favour with God, he tries to divert our attention from prayer.
Do not be surprised that you fall every day; do not give up, but stand your ground courageously. And assuredly the angel who guards you will honour your patience. While a wound is still fresh and warm it is easy to heal, but old, neglected and festering ones are hard to cure, and require for their care much treatment, cutting, plastering and cauterization. Many from long neglect become incurable. But with God all things are possible.3
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
The Devil is the desire to be right, Above all, to be right once and for all and finally, rather than to
constantly admit to insufficiency and ignorance, and to therefore partake in the process of creation itself.
--
itself may become paramount Above all else particularly for the unfairly oppressed. Shakespeares
crippled Richard the Third speaks for all revolutionaries, all rebels, so motivated:
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The fascistic mode of adaptation is, Above all, a method for the direct control of the unknown and
unpredictable. Modern human beings, like the ancients, identify the stranger implicitly with the dragon of
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subjugated, in the course of individual and social existence. If security or power is valued Above all else,
then all will become subject to the philosophy of expedience. In the long term, adoption of such a policy
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Christ said, put truth and regard for the divine in humanity Above all else, and everything you need will
follow not everything you think you need, as such thought is fallible, and cannot serve as an accurate
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And how skillful such an ambition makes them! Admire Above all the forgers skill with which the stamp of
virtue, even the ring, the golden-sounding ring of virtue, is here counterfeited. They monopolize virtue,
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isnt greed, and the desire, Above all else, for constant material gain; it isnt denial of experience we know
full well to be real, and the infliction of suffering, for the purpose of suffering. Perhaps it is possible to stop
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Love God, with all thy mind, and all thy acts, and all thy heart. This means, serve truth Above all else, and
treat your fellow man as if he were yourself not with the pity that undermines his self-respect, and not
--
The lie, Above all else, threatens the individual and the interpersonal. The lie is predicated upon the
presupposition that the tragedy of individuality is unbearable that human experience itself is evil. The
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themselves, however, whether alchemy could assist nature in this process, and Above all whether those alchemists who
claimed to have done so already were honest men, fools, or impostors [see Dobbs, B.J.T. (1975). p. 44). Herman
1.05 - THE NEW SPIRIT, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
and shoulders Above all other conscious beings known to us.
80 THE FUTURE OF MAN
1.06 - Dhyana and Samadhi, #Raja-Yoga, #Swami Vivkenanda, #unset
This, in short, is the idea of Samadhi. What is its application? The application is here. The field of reason, or of the conscious workings of the mind, is narrow and limited. There is a little circle within which human reason must move. It cannot go beyond. Every attempt to go beyond is impossible, yet it is beyond this circle of reason that there lies all that humanity holds most dear. All these questions, whether there is an immortal soul, whether there is a God, whether there is any supreme intelligence guiding this universe or not, are beyond the field of reason. Reason can never answer these questions. What does reason say? It says, "I am agnostic; I do not know either yea or nay." Yet these questions are so important to us. Without a proper answer to them, human life will be purposeless. All our ethical theories, all our moral attitudes, all that is good and great in human nature, have been moulded upon answers that have come from beyond the circle. It is very important, therefore, that we should have answers to these questions. If life is only a short play, if the universe is only a "fortuitous combination of atoms," then why should I do good to another? Why should there be mercy, justice, or fellow-feeling? The best thing for this world would be to make hay while the sun shines, each man for himself. If there is no hope, why should I love my brother, and not cut his throat? If there is nothing beyond, if there is no freedom, but only rigorous dead laws, I should only try to make myself happy here. You will find people saying nowadays that they have utilitarian grounds as the basis of morality. What is this basis? Procuring the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number. Why should I do this? Why should I not produce the greatest unhappiness to the greatest number, if that serves my purpose? How will utilitarians answer this question? How do you know what is right, or what is wrong? I am impelled by my desire for happiness, and I fulfil it, and it is in my nature; I know nothing beyond. I have these desires, and must fulfil them; why should you complain? Whence come all these truths about human life, about morality, about the immortal soul, about God, about love and sympathy, about being good, and, Above all, about being unselfish?
All ethics, all human action and all human thought, hang upon this one idea of unselfishness. The whole idea of human life can be put into that one word, unselfishness. Why should we be unselfish? Where is the necessity, the force, the power, of my being unselfish? You call yourself a rational man, a utilitarian; but if you do not show me a reason for utility, I say you are irrational. Show me the reason why I should not be selfish. To ask one to be unselfish may be good as poetry, but poetry is not reason. Show me a reason. Why shall I be unselfish, and why be good? Because Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so say so does not weigh with me. Where is the utility of my being unselfish? My utility is to be selfish if utility means the greatest amount of happiness. What is the answer? The utilitarian can never give it. The answer is that this world is only one drop in an infinite ocean, one link in an infinite chain. Where did those that preached unselfishness, and taught it to the human race, get this idea? We know it is not instinctive; the animals, which have instinct, do not know it. Neither is it reason; reason does not know anything about these ideas. Whence then did they come?
1.06 - Dhyana, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
25:Worrying about clothes, food, money, what people may think, how and why, and Above all the fear of consequences, clog nearly every one. Nothing is easier, theoretically, than for an anarchist to kill a king. He has only to buy a rifle, make himself a first-class shot, and shoot the king from a quarter of a mile away. And yet, although there are plenty of anarchists, outrages are very few. At the same time, the police would probably be the first to admit that if any man were really tired of life, in his deepest being, a state very different from that in which a man goes about saying he is tired of life, he could manage somehow or other to kill someone first.
26:Now the man who has experienced any of the more intense forms of Dhyana is thus liberated. The Universe is thus destroyed for him, and he for it. His will can therefore go on its way unhampered. One may imagine that in the case of Mohammed he had cherished for years a tremendous ambition, and never done anything because those qualities which were subsequently manifested as statesmanship warned him that he was impotent. His vision in the cave gave him that confidence which was required, the faith that moves mountains. There are a lot of solid-seeming things in this world which a child could push over; but not one has the courage to push.
1.06 - Gestalt and Universals, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
color or Above all by motion, there is a reflex feedback to bring
it into the fovea. This feedback is accompanied by a compli-
1.06 - LIFE AND THE PLANETS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
Satisfying to the intelligence Above all. For if it be true that at this
moment Mankind is embarking upon what I have called its "phase
1.06 - Magicians as Kings, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
generally the chiefs. Their authority rests Above all upon their
supposed power of making rain, for "rain is the one thing which
1.06 - MORTIFICATION, NON-ATTACHMENT, RIGHT LIVELIHOOD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
There are some who are newly delivered from their sins and so, though they are resolved to love God, they are still novices and apprentices, soft and weak. They love a number of superfluous, vain and dangerous things at the same time as Our Lord. Though they love God Above all things, they yet continue to take pleasure in many things which they do not love according to God, but besides Himthings such as slight inordinations in word, gesture, clothing, pastimes and frivolities.
St. Franois de Sales
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Happy is the man who, by continually effacing all images and through introversion and the lifting up of his mind to God, at last forgets and leaves behind all such hindrances. For by such means only, he operates inwardly, with his naked, pure, simple intellect and affections, about the most pure and simple object, God. Therefore see that thy whole exercise about God within thee may depend wholly and only on that naked intellect, affection and will. For indeed, this exercise cannot be discharged by any bodily organ, or by the external senses, but only by that which constitutes the essence of manunderstanding and love. If, therefore, thou desirest a safe stair and short path to arrive at the end of true bliss, then, with an intent mind, earnestly desire and aspire after continual cleanness of heart and purity of mind. Add to this a constant calm and tranquillity of the senses, and a recollecting of the affections of the heart, continually fixing them above. Work to simplify the heart, that being immovable and at peace from any invading vain phantasms, thou mayest always stand fast in the Lord within thee, to that degree as if thy soul had already entered the always present now of eternity that is, the state of the deity. To mount to God is to enter into oneself. For he who so mounts and enters and goes above and beyond himself, he truly mounts up to God. The mind must then raise itself above itself and say, He who Above all I need is Above all I know. And so carried into the darkness of the mind, gathering itself into that all-sufficient good, it learns to stay at home and with its whole affection it cleaves and becomes habitually fixed in the supreme good within. Thus continue, until thou becomest immutable and dost arrive at that true life which is God Himself, perpetually, without any vicissitude of space or time, reposing in that inward quiet and secret mansion of the deity.
Albertus Magnus (?)
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In the first seven branches of his Eightfold Path the Buddha describes the conditions that must be fulfilled by anyone who desires to come to that right contemplation which is the eighth and final branch. The fulfilment of these conditions entails the undertaking of a course of the most searching and comprehensive mortificationmortification of intellect and will, craving and emotion, thought, speech, action and, finally, means of livelihood. Certain professions are more or less completely incompatible with the achievement of mans final end; and there are certain ways of making a living which do so much physical and, Above all, so much moral, intellectual and spiritual harm that, even if they could be practised in a non-attached spirit (which is generally impossible), they would still have to be eschewed by anyone dedicated to the task of liberating, not only himself, but others. The exponents of the Perennial Philosophy are not content to avoid and forbid the practice of criminal professions, such as brothel-keeping, forgery, racketeering and the like; they also avoid themselves, and warn others against, a number of ways of livelihood commonly regarded as legitimate. Thus, in many Buddhist societies, the manufacture of arms, the concoction of intoxicating liquors and the wholesale purveying of butchers meat were not, as in contemporary Christendom, rewarded by wealth, peerages and political influence; they were deplored as businesses which, it was thought, made it particularly difficult for their practitioners and for other members of the communities in which they were practised to achieve enlightenment and liberation. Similarly, in mediaeval Europe, Christians were forbidden to make a living by the taking of interest on money or by cornering the market. As Tawney and others have shown, it was only after the Reformation that coupon-clipping, usury and gambling in stocks and commodities became respectable and received ecclesiastical approval.
For the Quakers, soldiering was and is a form of wrong livelihoodwar being, in their eyes, anti-Christian, not so much because it causes suffering as because it propagates hatred, puts a premium on fraud and cruelty, infects whole societies with anger, fear, pride and uncharitableness. Such passions eclipse the Inner Light, and therefore the wars by which they are aroused and intensified, must be regarded, whatever their immediate political outcome, as crusades to make the world safe for spiritual darkness.
1.06 - On Thought, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Since we have goodwill and endeavour to be integrally sincere, that is, to make our actions conform to our thoughts, we are now convinced that we act according to mental laws we receive from outside, not after having maturely considered and analysed them, not by deliberately and consciously receiving them, but because unconsciously we are subjected to them through atavism, by our upbringing and education, and Above all because we are dominated by a collective suggestion which is so powerful, so overwhelming, that very few succeed in avoiding it altogether.
How far we are from the mental individuality we want to acquire!
1.06 - Psycho therapy and a Philosophy of Life, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
battleground for the most contradictory theories, and Above all for partially
or wholly unrealized prejudices regarding ones philosophy of life. With
1.06 - The Ascent of the Sacrifice 2 The Works of Love - The Works of Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Spirit. Above all, the psychic being imposes on life the law of the sacrifice of all its works as an offering to the Divine and the Eternal. Life becomes a call to that which is beyond Life; its every smallest act enlarges with the sense of the Infinite.
As an inner equality increases and with it the sense of the true vital being waiting for the greater direction it has to serve, as the psychic call too increases in all the members of our nature, That to which the call is addressed begins to reveal itself, descends to take possession of the life and its energies and fills them with the height, intimacy, vastness of its presence and its purpose. In many, if not most, it manifests something of itself even before the equality and the open psychic urge or guidance are there. A call of the veiled psychic element oppressed by the mass of the outer ignorance and crying for deliverance, a stress of eager meditation and seeking for knowledge, a longing of the
1.06 - The Breaking of the Limits, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
To tell the truth, they do not reveal themselves easily because they are too simple. It takes tireless experimenting, looking, observing, and Above all Above all looking at the microscopic. We imagine that the great primates of the past that were uncertainly progressing toward manhood must have discovered the secret of the other state gradually, in thousands of little split seconds, when they noticed that the mysterious little vibration that came between them and their mechanical act had the power to make their gesture and the result of their gesture different: a nonmaterial principle was surreptitiously starting to change matter and the laws of tree climbing. And, we further image, they were perhaps eventually struck by the insignificance of the movement that triggered such formidable consequences (which is why it escaped them for so long; it was too simple): It never concerned itself with big things, the great affairs of apes, but with minuscule gestures, the chance pebble one picks up on the edge of the path and holds a moment in one's palm, the ray of sun playing on one young sapling among millions of other identical but vain saplings in the forest. But that sapling and that pebble are looked at differently. And everything is in that difference.
Therefore, nothing is too small for the seeker of the new world; the slightest fluctuation of the inner vibratory state is carefully noted, along with the gesture that accompanies it, the circumstance that springs up or the face that passes. But we did say vibration: thoughts have very little to do with this; they belong to the old mental acrobatics and are about as consequential for the new consciousness as tree climbing was for the first thought. It is more like a change of inner coloration, a play of fleeting shadows and sudden sunshine, of lightness and heaviness, a minute alteration of the rhythm sharp jolts or leisurely flowings, abrupt pressures that compel our attention, sudden breaks in the clouds, moments of malaise, inexplicable sinkings. Nothing is useless; there are no vain saplings in the forest, no nuisances, nothing to discard, no unhappy circumstances, no adverse locations, no untimely encounters, no unfortunate accidents everything is good for the seeker of the new world, everything is his field of study.... It almost seems as though everything were given to him so he could learn the trade. Thus, the seeker begins to put his finger on the first rule of the passage: Everything is part of it. Everything points in that direction! There is no nuisance, no foes, no obstacles, no accidents, no negative things everything is supremely positive, gives us signs, invites us to the discovery. There are no insignificant things, only moments of unconsciousness. There are no contrary circumstances, only wrong attitudes.
1.06 - The Four Powers of the Mother, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1:The four Powers of the Mother are four of her outstanding Personalities, portions and embodiments of her divinity through whom she acts on her creatures, orders and harmonises her creations in the worlds and directs the working out of her thousand forces. For the Mother is one but she comes before us with differing aspects; many are her powers and personalities, many her emanations and Vibhutis that do her work in the universe. The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far Above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures.
2:There are three ways of being of the Mother of which you can become aware when you enter into touch of oneness with the Conscious Force that upholds us and the universe. Transcendent, the original supreme Shakti, she stands above the worlds and links the creation to the ever unmanifest mystery of the Supreme. Universal, the cosmic Mahashakti, she creates all these beings and contains and enters, supports and conducts all these million processes and forces. Individual, she embodies the power of these two vaster ways of her existence, makes them living and near to us and mediates between the human personality and the divine Nature.
3:The one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands Above all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine. Alone, she harbours the absolute Power and the ineffable Presence; containing or calling the Truths that have to be manifested, she brings them down from the Mystery in which they were hidden into the light of her infinite consciousness and gives them a form of force in her omnipotent power and her boundless life and a body in the universe. The Supreme is manifest in her for ever as the everlasting Sachchidananda, manifested through her in the worlds as the one and dual consciousness of Ishwara-Shakti and the dual principle of Purusha-Prakriti, embodied by her in the Worlds and the Planes and the Gods and their Energies and figured because of her as all that is in the known worlds and in unknown others. All is her play with the Supreme; all is her manifestation of the mysteries of the Eternal, the miracles of the Infinite. All is she, for all are parcel and portion of the divine Conscious-Force. Nothing can be here or elsewhere but what she decides and the Supreme sanctions; nothing can take shape except what she moved by the Supreme perceives and forms after casting it into seed in her creating Ananda.
4:The Mahashakti, the universal Mother works out whatever is transmitted by her transcendent consciousness from the Supreme and enters into the worlds that she has made; her presence fills and supports them with the divine spirit and the divine all-sustaining force and delight without which they could not exist. That which we call Nature or Prakriti is only her most outward executive aspect; she marshals and arranges the harmony of her forces and processes, impels the operations of Nature and moves among them secret or manifest in all that can be seen or experienced or put into motion of life. Each of the worlds is nothing but one play of the Mahashakti of that system of worlds or universe, who is there as the cosmic Soul and Personality of the transcendent Mother Each is something that she has seen in her vision, gathered into her heart of beauty and power and created in her Ananda. But there are many planes of her creation, many steps of the Divine Shakti. At the summit of this manifestation of which we are a part there are worlds of infinite existence, consciousness, force and bliss over which the Mother stands as the unveiled eternal Power. All beings there live and move in an ineffable completeness and unalterable oneness, because she carries them safe in her arms for ever. Nearer to us are the worlds of a perfect supramental creation in which the Mother is the supramental Mahashakti, a Power of divine omniscient Will and omnipotent Knowledge always apparent in its unfailing works and spontaneously perfect in every process. There all movements are the steps of the Truth; there all beings are souls and powers and bodies of the divine Light; there all experiences are seas and floods and waves of an intense and absolute Ananda. But here where we dwell are the worlds of the Ignorance, worlds of mind and life and body separated in consciousness from their source, of which this earth is a significant centre and its evolution a crucial process. This too with all its obscurity and struggle and imperfection is upheld by the Universal Mother this too is impelled and guided to its secret aim by the Mahashakti.
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8:Imperial MAHESHWARI is seated in the wideness above the thinking mind and will and sublimates and greatens them into wisdom and largeness or floods with a splendour beyond them. For she is the mighty and wise One who opens us to the supramental infinities and the cosmic vastness, to the grandeur of the supreme Light, to a treasure-house of miraculous knowledge, to the measureless movement of the Mother s eternal forces. Tranquil is she and wonderful, great and calm for ever. Nothing can move her because all wisdom is in her; nothing is hidden from her that she chooses to know; she comprehends all things and all beings and their nature and what moves them and the law of the world and its times and how all was and is and must be. A strength is in her that meets everything and masters and none can prevail in the end against her vast intangible wisdom and high tranquil power. Equal, patient and unalterable in her will she deals with men according to their nature and with things and happenings according to their force and the truth that is in them. Partiality she has none, but she follows the decrees of the Supreme and some she raises up and some she casts down or puts away from her into the darkness. To the wise she gives a greater and more luminous wisdom; those that have vision she admits to her counsels; on the hostile she imposes the consequence of their hostility; the ignorant and foolish she leads according to their blindness. In each man she answers and handles the different elements of his nature according to their need and their urge and the return they call for, puts on them the required pressure or leaves them to their cherished liberty to prosper in the ways of the Ignorance or to perish. For she is Above all, bound by nothing, attached to nothing in the universe. Yet has she more than any other the heart of the universal Mother For her compassion is endless and inexhaustible; all are to her eyes her children and portions of the One, even the Asura and Rakshasa and Pisacha and those that are revolted and hostile. Even her rejections are only a postponement, even her punishments are a grace. But her compassion does not blind her wisdom or turn her action from the course decreed; for the Truth of things is her one concern, knowledge her centre of power and to build our soul and our nature into the divine Truth her mission and her labour.
9:MAHAKALI is of another nature. Not wideness but height, not wisdom but force and strength are her peculiar power. There is in her an overwhelming intensity, a mighty passion of force to achieve, a divine violence rushing to shatter every limit and obstacle. All her divinity leaps out in a splendour of tempestuous action; she is there for swiftness, for the immediately effective process, the rapid and direct stroke, the frontal assault that carries everything before it. Terrible is her face to the Asura, dangerous and ruthless her mood against the haters of the Divine; for she is the Warrior of the Worlds who never shrinks from the battle. Intolerant of imperfection, she deals roughly with all in man that is unwilling and she is severe to all that is obstinately ignorant and obscure; her wrath is immediate and dire against treachery and falsehood and malignity, ill-will is smitten at once by her scourge. Indifference, negligence and sloth in the divine work she cannot bear and she smites awake at once with sharp pain, if need be, the untimely slumberer and the loiterer. The impulses that are swift and straight and frank, the movements that are unreserved and absolute, the aspiration that mounts in flame are the motion of Mahakali. Her spirit is tameless, her vision and will are high and far-reaching like the flight of an eagle, her feet are rapid on the upward way and her hands are outstretched to strike and to succour. For she too is the Mother and her love is as intense as her wrath and she has a deep and passionate kindness. When she is allowed to intervene in her strength, then in one moment are broken like things without consistence the obstacles that immobilise or the enemies that assail the seeker. If her anger is dreadful to the hostile and the vehemence of her pressure painful to the weak and timid, she is loved and worshipped by the great, the strong and the noble; for they feel that her blows beat what is rebellious in their material into strength and perfect truth, hammer straight what is wry and perverse and expel what is impure or defective. But for her what is done in a day might have taken centuries; without her Ananda might be wide and grave or soft and sweet and beautiful but would lose the flaming joy of its most absolute intensities. To knowledge she gives a conquering might, brings to beauty and harmony a high and mounting movement and imparts to the slow and difficult labour after perfection an impetus that multiplies the power and shortens the long way. Nothing can satisfy her that falls short of the supreme ecstasies, the highest heights, the noblest aims, the largest vistas. Therefore with her is the victorious force of the Divine and it is by grace of her fire and passion and speed if the great achievement can be done now rather than hereafter.
1.06 - The Sign of the Fishes, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
HI Above all it is the connections with the age of the Fishes
which are attested by the fish symbolism, either contemporane-
1.06 - The Transformation of Dream Life, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
When the student has acquired this faculty there arises before his spiritual eyes something of the picture described in the preceding chapter, and he can henceforth discern all that the spiritual world contains as the cause of the physical world. Above all things he can perceive and gain knowledge of his own higher self in this world. The next task now confronting him is to grow, as it were, into this higher self, that is, really to regard it as his own true self and to act accordingly. He realizes ever more clearly and intensely that his physical body and what he hitherto called his "I" are merely the instruments of his higher self. He adopts an attitude toward his lower self such as a person limited to the world of the senses adopts toward some instrument or vehicle that serves him. No one includes as part of himself the vehicle in which he is traveling, even though he says: "I travel"; so, too, when an inwardly developed person says: "I go through the door," his actual conception is: "I carry my body
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1.06 - Wealth and Government, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As for ill-will, jealousy, quarrels and reproaches, one must sincerely be Above all that and reply with a benevolent smile to the bitterest words; and unless one is absolutely sure of himself and his reactions, it would be better, as a general rule, to keep silent.
6 October 1960
1.07 - Medicine and Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
although actually they lay ready to hand: Above all the fact that in every
child consciousness grows out of the unconscious in the course of a few
1.07 - On Dreams, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Moreover, as a general rule, we should take great intellectual precautions before interpreting a dream, and Above all, we should review exhaustively all the subjective explanations before we assign to it the value of an objective reality.
However, especially in those who have unlearnt the habit of always directing their thoughts towards themselves, there are cases where we can observe events outside ourselves, events which are not the reflection of our personal mental constructions. And if we know how to translate into intellectual language the more or less inadequate images into which the brain has translated these events, we can learn many things that our too limited physical faculties do not allow us to perceive.
1.07 - Samadhi, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
24:The Hindus assert that the nature of the object determines the Samadhi; that is, the nature of those lower Samadhis which confer so-called "magic powers." For example, there are the Yogapravritti. Meditating on the tip of the nose, one obtains what may be called the "ideal smell"; that is, a smell which is not any particular smell, but is the archetypal smell, of which all actual smells are modifications. It is "the smell which is "not" a smell." This is the only reasonable description; for the experience being contrary to reason, it is only reasonable that the words describing it should be contrary to reason too. footnote: Hence the Athanasian Creed. Compare the precise parallel in the Zohar: "The Head which is Above all heads; the Head which is "not" a Head.'
25:Similarly, concentration on the tip of the tongue gives the "ideal taste"; on the dorsum of the tongue, "ideal contact." "Every atom of the body comes into contact with every atom in the Universe all at once," is the description Bhikku Ananda Metteya gives of it. The root of the tongue gives the "ideal sound"; and the pharynx the "ideal sight." footnote: Similarly Patanjali tells us that by making Samyama on the strength of an elephant or a tiger, the student acquires that strength. Conquer "the nerve Udana," and you can walk on the water; "Samana," and you begin to flash with light; the "elements" fire, air, earth, and water, and you can do whatever in natural life they prevent you from doing. For instance, by conquering earth, one could take a short cut to Australia; or by conquering water, one can live at the bottom of the Ganges. They say there is a holy man at Benares who does this, coming up only once a year to comfort and instruct his disciples. But nobody need believe this unless he wants to; and you are even advised to conquer that desire should it arise. It will be interesting when science really determines the variables and constants of these equations.
1.07 - The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
The contemplative traditions, on the other hand, have always come first and foremost with a set of injunctions in hand. They are, Above all else, a set of practices, practices that require years to master (much longer than the training of the average scientist). These injunctions (zazen, shikan-taza, vipassana, contemplative introspection, satsang, darshan-all of which we will discuss)-these are not things to think, they are things to do.
Once one masters the exemplar or the paradigmatic practice (strand one), then one is ushered into a worldspace in which new data disclose themselves (strand two). These are direct apprehensions or illuminations-in a word, direct spiritual experiences (unio mystica, satori, kensho, shaktipat, nada, shabd, etc.). These data are rigorously checked (strand three) in the community of those who have also completed the first two strands (injunction and illumination). Bad data are rebuffed by the community (the sangha) of those whose cognitive eyes are adequate to the addressed domain.
1.07 - The Ideal Law of Social Development, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This is done primarily through the individual man; for this end man has become an individual soul, that the One may find and manifest Himself in each human being. That end is not indeed achieved by the individual human being in his unaided mental force. He needs the help of the secret Divine above his mentality in his superconscient self; he needs the help also of the secret Divine around him in Nature and in his fellow-men. Everything in Nature is an occasion for him to develop his divine potentiality, an occasion which he has a certain relative freedom to use or to misuse, although in the end both his use and misuse of his materials are overruled in their results by the universal Will so as to assist eventually the development of his law of being and his destiny. All life around him is a help towards the divine purpose in him; every human being is his fellow worker and assists him whether by association and union or by strife and opposition. Nor does he achieve his destiny as the individual Man for the sake of the individual soul alone,a lonely salvation is not his complete ideal,but for the world also or rather for God in the world, for God in all as well as Above all and not for God solely and separately in one. And he achieves it by the stress, not really of his separate individual Will, but of the universal Will in its movement towards the goal of its cycles.
The object of all society should be, therefore, and must become, as man grows conscious of his real being, nature and destiny and not as now only of a part of it, first to provide the conditions of life and growth by which individual Man,not isolated men or a class or a privileged race, but all individual men according to their capacity, and the race through the growth of its individuals may travel towards this divine perfection. It must be, secondly, as mankind generally more and more grows near to some figure of the Divine in life and more and more men arrive at it,for the cycles are many and each cycle has its own figure of the Divine in man,to express in the general life of mankind, the light, the power, the beauty, the harmony, the joy of the Self that has been attained and that pours itself out in a freer and nobler humanity. Freedom and harmony express the two necessary principles of variation and oneness,freedom of the individual, the group, the race, coordinated harmony of the individuals forces and of the efforts of all individuals in the group, of all groups in the race, of all races in the kind, and these are the two conditions of healthy progression and successful arrival. To realise them and to combine them has been the obscure or half-enlightened effort of mankind throughout its history,a task difficult indeed and too imperfectly seen and too clumsily and mechanically pursued by the reason and desires to be satisfactorily achieved until man grows by self-knowledge and self-mastery to the possession of a spiritual and psychical unity with his fellow-men. As we realise more and more the right conditions, we shall travel more luminously and spontaneously towards our goal and, as we draw nearer to a clear sight of our goal, we shall realise better and better the right conditions. The Self in man enlarging light and knowledge and harmonising will with light and knowledge so as to fulfil in life what he has seen in his increasing vision and idea of the Self, this is mans source and law of progress and the secret of his impulse towards perfection.
1.07 - THE .IMPROVERS. OF MANKIND, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
have been people who wished to "improve" mankind: this Above all
is what was called morality. But the most different tendencies
--
distinctly and Above all a menagerie, the most beautiful examples of
the "blond beast" were hunted down in all directions,--the noble
1.07 - TRUTH, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
In all faces is shown the Face of faces, veiled and in a riddle. Howbeit, unveiled it is not seen, until, Above all faces, a man enter into a certain secret and mystic silence, where there is no knowing or concept of a face. This mist, cloud, darkness or ignorance, into which he that seeketh thy Face entereth, when he goeth beyond all knowledge or concept, is the state below which thy Face cannot be found, except veiled; but that very darkness revealeth thy Face to be there beyond all veils. Hence I observe how needful it is for me to enter into the darkness and to admit the coincidence of opposites, beyond all the grasp of reason, and there to seek the Truth, where impossibility meeteth us.
Nicholas of Cusa
1.08 - Attendants, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
Purani was already known to Sri Aurobindo from the twenties and had enjoyed his closeness during those years. It was thus with him a resumption or the old relation after a lapse of many years. Compared with him, we were youngsters and had the passport of entry by virtue of our medical profession, but some individual contact was established with the Master through correspondence so that he knew each one of us by name at least. In my own case, perhaps, I can go a little further. Had our written contact not been so intimate and various, I do not know if I could have been so free with him and of use to him in diverse ways. I have always wondered at and failed to probe the mystery of that intimacy. I have even imagined that Sri Aurobindo must have seen in his timeless vision that one day this humble self might be physically of some service to him. He prepared me for that eventual day, initiated me into love for poetry that I might at least transcribe his epic Savitri from his dictation, gave some intellectual training that I might be useful to him in his literary work. He even made me familiar with his often baffling handwriting so that I could read his manuscripts and decipher them. These may be all weavings of fancy, but if I have been of any help in his intellectual pursuits, most of it was undoubtedly due to his previous coaching through voluminous letters, literary training and Above all, his patient and persuasive manner. This long preparation had put out all fear of his awe-inspiring personality and made my approach to him free and almost unconventional, sometimes leading to an unpardonable abuse of that unstinted freedom. Things went on like a song and life would have made itself a transformed vision of the Supreme, but alas, after the novelty of the soul-contact had worn off, the other face of our nature, the subconscient, came to light and the pressure of the physical nearness began to tell. Work was no longer a joyous offering, but a duty; service alone was not a sufficient reward, it needed more concrete spiritual touches, failing which other lesser joys and satisfactions were regarded as legitimate recompense. My old maladies doubt and depression renewed their hold and transfused into the act of service their bitter stuff. The Master could at once feel the vibration, even though no word was uttered by the lips. Quite often by a look, by a quiet pressure of hands, he would communicate his understanding sympathy and the affliction would withdraw for a time. Never have I seen any displeasure or loss of temper at my delinquency, no harsh word of disapproval though he was quite aware of all inner and outer movements. A largeness, compassionate forgiveness and divine consideration have made life's stream flow through an apparently trackless solitary journey towards the ultimate vastness.
I do not know if I have the right to speak of my other colleagues, but of Champaklal particularly I must write a few heart-felt words, for his spirit of service has left an indelible impression on my soul and taught me what true service is. Let me prelude it with the Mother's opinion about him when she introduced him to Andre, her son, in 1949. She said with great warmth: "He came here when he was very young. I taught him many kinds of work. He has himself taken up Sri Aurobindo's personal service. He looks into practically everything with regard to Sri Aurobindo. He is extremely careful, meticulous and very particular about details. He has no regular time for food; he takes it when he can. So it is with his sleep. That is why he cannot join the sports activities. He works with joy and devotion. He collects all our little things and keeps them with great care our clothes, nails, hair, etc."
1.08 - Information, Language, and Society, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
attract Above all those ambitious for such power. That system
which more than all others should contribute to social homeo-
1.08 - Psycho therapy Today, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
view. Paracelsus, who was Above all a physician of genius, emphasized
that nobody could be a doctor who did not understand the art of
1.08 - SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE SPIRITUAL REPERCUSSIONS OF THE ATOM BOMB, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
i," is boredom. So long as Life did not think, and Above all did not
have time to think that is to say, while it was still developing and
1.08 - The Depths of the Divine, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
In the breakthrough, where I stand free of my own will and of the will of God and of all his works and of God himself, there I am Above all creatures and am neither God nor creature. Rather, I am what I was and what I shall remain now and forever. Then I receive an impulse [awareness] which shall bring me Above all the angels.
In this impulse I receive wealth so vast that God cannot be enough for me in all that makes him God, and with all his divine works. For in this breakthrough I discover that I and God are one. There I am what I was, and I grow neither smaller nor bigger, for I am an immovable cause that moves all things.
1.08 - The Four Austerities and the Four Liberations, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It may happen that the very nature of your occupation makes it your duty to report what is taking place in a particular department, undertaking or communal work. But then the report should be confined to the work alone and not touch upon private matters. And as an absolute rule, it must be wholly objective. You should not allow any personal reaction, any preference, any like or dislike to creep in. And Above all, never introduce your own petty personal grudges into the work that is assigned to you.
In all cases and as a general rule, the less one speaks of others, even to praise them, the better. It is already so difficult to know exactly what is happening in oneselfhow can one know with certainty what is happening in others?So you must totally abstain from pronouncing upon anybody one of those final judgments which cannot but be foolish if not spiteful.
--
To a lesser degree, and Above all, in a less durable way, there are other contented people in the world whose contentment is due to the magic effect of love. Each time an individual breaks the narrow limitations in which he is imprisoned by his ego and emerges into the open air, through self-giving, whether for the sake of another human being or his family, his country or his faith, he finds in this self-forgetfulness a foretaste of the marvellous delight of love, and this gives him the impression that he has come into contact with the Divine. But most often it is only a fleeting contact, for in the human being love is immediately mixed with lower egoistic movements which debase it and rob it of its power of purity. But even if it remained pure, this contact with the divine existence could not last for ever, for love is only one aspect of the Divine, an aspect which here on earth has suffered the same distortions as the others.
Besides, all these experiences are very good and useful for the ordinary man who follows the normal way of Nature in her stumbling march towards the future unity. But they cannot satisfy those who want to hasten the movement, or rather, who aspire to belong to another line of more direct and rapid movement, to an exceptional movement that will liberate them from ordinary mankind and its interminable march, so that they may take part in the spiritual advance which will lead them along the swiftest paths towards the creation of the new race, the race that will express the supramental truth upon earth. These rare souls must reject all forms of love between human beings, for however beautiful and pure they may be, they cause a kind of short-circuit and cut off the direct connection with the Divine.
1.08 - The Gods of the Veda - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Greatly has this short passage helped us. It has shown us the true physiognomy of Saraswati as the goddess of inspiration & inspired knowledge & the true nature of the Vedic Yajna; it has fixed the great Vedic terms, vja, dh & ketu; but Above all it has given us a firm foundation for a religious & spiritual interpretation of Veda, a brilliant starting point for an inquiry into its truth & its ancient secret. We can now hope to be delivered from the obscuration of Veda by the ritualists & its modern degradation into the document of a primitive & barbarous religion. Its higher & truer sense shows itself in this brief passage like the dim line of land seen on the far horizon.
The metre of the Vedic hymns depends as in English on the number of syllables in the line, quantity only entering in [as] an element of rhythmic variation. The sign marks a naturally long a, i, u,to which e & o must be added. Vowels followed by a double consonant are long as in Latin & Greek. V & y are often interpreted as separate short syllables as if they were u and i.
1.08 - The Splitting of the Human Personality during Spiritual Training, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
these especially important experiences, for instance, the meeting with Guardian of the Threshold, will be described in the following chapters. Yet we must realize that the hostile powers are none the less present, even though we know nothing of them. It is true that in this case their relation to man is ordained by higher power, and that this relation alters when the human being consciously enters this world hitherto concealed from him. But at the same time his own existence is enhanced and the circle of his life enriched by a great and new field of experience. A real danger can only arise if the student, through impatience or arrogance, assumes too early a certain independence with regard to the experiences of the higher worlds; if he cannot wait to gain really sufficient insight into the supersensible laws. In these spheres, modesty and humility are far less empty words than in ordinary life. If the student possesses these qualities in the very best sense he may be certain that his ascent into the higher life will be achieved without danger to all that is commonly called health and life. Above all things, no disharmony must ensue between the higher experiences and the events and demands of every-day life. Man's task must be entirely
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1.08 - The Supreme Will, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
18:The Lord has veiled himself and his absolute wisdom and eternal consciousness in ignorant Nature-Force and suffers her to drive the individual being, with its complicity, as the ego; this lower action of Nature continues to prevail, often even in spite of man's half-lit imperfect efforts at a nobler motive and a purer self-knowledge. Our human effort at perfection fails, or progresses very incompletely, owing to the force of Nature's past actions in us, her past formations, her long-rooted associations; it turns towards a true and high-climbing success only when a greater Knowledge and Power than our own breaks through the lid of our ignorance and guides or takes up our personal will. For our human will is a misled and wandering ray that has parted from the supreme Puissance. The period of slow emergence out of this lower working into a higher light and purer force is the valley of the shadow of death for the striver after perfection; it is a dreadful passage full of trials, sufferings, sorrows, obscurations, stumblings, errors, pitfalls. To abridge and alleviate this ordeal or to penetrate it with the divine delight faith is necessary, an increasing surrender of the mind to the knowledge that imposes itself from within and, Above all, a true aspiration and a right and unfaltering and sincere practice. "Practise unfalteringly," says the Gita, "with a heart free from despondency," the Yoga; for even though in the earlier stage of the path we drink deep of the bitter poison of internal discord and suffering, the last taste of this cup is the sweetness of the nectar of immortality and the honey-wine of an eternal Ananda.
1.08 - THINGS THE GERMANS LACK, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
things--"Germany, Germany Above all."[1] I fear this was the death-blow
to German philosophy. "Are there any German philosophers? Are there any
--
rise of the Empire signifies, Above all, a displacement of the centre
of gravity. Everywhere people are already aware of this: in things that
--
friend Jacob Burckhardt of Ble: to him Above all is Ble indebted
for its foremost position in human culture What the higher schools
1.09 - Civilisation and Culture, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The pursuit of the mental life for its own sake is what we ordinarily mean by culture; but the word is still a little equivocal and capable of a wider or a narrower sense according to our ideas and predilections. For our mental existence is a very complex matter and is made up of many elements. First, we have its lower and fundamental stratum, which is in the scale of evolution nearest to the vital. And we have in that stratum two sides, the mental life of the senses, sensations and emotions in which the subjective purpose of Nature predominates although with the objective as its occasion, and the active or dynamic life of the mental being concerned with the organs of action and the field of conduct in which her objective purpose predominates although with the subjective as its occasion. We have next in the scale, more sublimated, on one side the moral being and its ethical life, on the other the aesthetic; each of them attempts to possess and dominate the fundamental mind stratum and turn its experiences and activities to its own benefit, one for the culture and worship of Right, the other for the culture and worship of Beauty. And we have, Above all these, taking advantage of them, helping, forming, trying often to govern them entirely, the intellectual being. Mans highest accomplished range is the life of the reason or ordered and harmonised intelligence with its dynamic power of intelligent will, the buddhi, which is or should be the driver of mans chariot.
But the intelligence of man is not composed entirely and exclusively of the rational intellect and the rational will; there enters into it a deeper, more intuitive, more splendid and powerful, but much less clear, much less developed and as yet hardly at all self-possessing light and force for which we have not even a name. But, at any rate, its character is to drive at a kind of illumination,not the dry light of the reason, nor the moist and suffused light of the heart, but a lightning and a solar splendour. It may indeed subordinate itself and merely help the reason and heart with its flashes; but there is another urge in it, its natural urge, which exceeds the reason. It tries to illuminate the intellectual being, to illuminate the ethical and aesthetic, to illuminate the emotional and the active, to illuminate even the senses and the sensations. It offers in words of revelation, it unveils as if by lightning flashes, it shows in a sort of mystic or psychic glamour or brings out into a settled but for mental man almost a supernatural light a Truth greater and truer than the knowledge given by Reason and Science, a Right larger and more divine than the moralists scheme of virtues, a Beauty more profound, universal and entrancing than the sensuous or imaginative beauty worshipped by the artist, a joy and divine sensibility which leaves the ordinary emotions poor and pallid, a Sense beyond the senses and sensations, the possibility of a diviner Life and action which mans ordinary conduct of life hides away from his impulses and from his vision. Very various, very fragmentary, often very confused and misleading are its effects upon all the lower members from the reason downward, but this in the end is what it is driving at in the midst of a hundred deformations. It is caught and killed or at least diminished and stifled in formal creeds and pious observances; it is unmercifully traded in and turned into poor and base coin by the vulgarity of conventional religions; but it is still the light of which the religious spirit and the spirituality of man is in pursuit and some pale glow of it lingers even in their worst degradations.
1.09 - SKIRMISHES IN A WAY WITH THE AGE, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
this power to create art, and Above all the state dependent upon sexual
excitement--this most venerable and primitive form of ecstasy. The same
--
and more subtle than Carlyle; but Above all, he is happier. He is one
who instinctively lives on ambrosia and who leaves the indigestible
--
cramp, or paralysis; and Above all the smells, colours and forms
associated with decomposition and putrefaction, however much they may
--
pursued differently in Athens; Above all, publicly. Nothing is less
Greek than the cobweb-spinning with concepts by an anchorite, _amor
--
begun to appropriate even Art, including the book, Above all the
newspaper,--and how much more so beautiful nature, Italy! This man
1.09 - The Ambivalence of the Fish Symbol, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
necessary relation to everything hell stands for. Above all it
was Jakob Bohme who, influenced by alchemy and the Cabala
1.09 - The Guardian of the Threshold, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
these spirits will withdraw their guiding hand from him. He must step out of the circle of his community. Yet as an isolated personality he would become hardened in himself and decline into ruin, did he not, himself, acquire those powers which are vested in the national and racial spirits. Many, no doubt, will say: "Oh, I have entirely freed myself from all lineal and racial connections; I only want to be a human being and nothing but a human being." To these one must reply: "Who, then, brought you to this freedom? Was it not your family who placed you in the world where you now stand? Have you not your lineage, your nation, your race to thank for being what you are? They have brought you up. And if now, exalted Above all prejudices, you are one of the light-bringers and benefactors of your stock and even of your race, it is to their up-bringing that you owe it. Yes, even when you say you are `nothing but a human being,' even the fact that you have become such a personality you owe to the spirits of your communities." Only the esoteric student learns what it means to be entirely cut off from his family, national, or racial spirit. He alone realizes, through personal experience, the insignificance of all such education in respect
p. 243
1.09 - To the Students, Young and Old, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sometimes, if you are not in a very good mood, you say, How boring it is going to be! Yes, perhaps the teacher who is taking your class does not know how to amuse you. He may be a very good teacher, but at the same time he may not know how to entertain you, for it is not always easy. There are days when one does not feel like being entertaining. There are days, for him as for you, when one would like to be elsewhere than in school. But still, you go to your class. You go because you must, for if you obey all your fancies you will never have any control over yourselves; your fancies will control you. So you go to your class, but instead of going there and thinking, How bored I am going to be; I am sure it is not going to be interesting, you should tell yourselves, There is not a single minute in life, not one circumstance that is not an opportunity for progress. So what progress am I going to make today? The class I am going to now is on a subject that does not interest me. But perhaps that is because something is lacking in me; perhaps, in my brain, a certain number of cells are deficient and that is why I cannot find any interest in the subject. If so, I shall try, I shall listen carefully, concentrate hard and Above all drive out of my mind this aimlessness, this superficial shallowness which makes me feel bored when there is something I cannot grasp. I am bored because I do not make an effort to understand, because I do not have this will for progress. When one does not progress, one feels bored, everyone, young or old; for we are here on earth to progress. How tedious life would be without progress! Life is monotonous. Most often it is not fun. It is far from being beautiful. But if you take it as a field for progress, then everything changes, everything becomes interesting and there is no longer any room for boredom. Next time your teacher seems boring to you, instead of wasting your time doing nothing, try to understand why he bores you. Then if you have a capacity of observation and if you make an effort to understand, you will soon see that a kind of miracle has occurred and that you are no longer feeling bored at all.
This remedy is good in almost every case. Sometimes, in certain circumstances, everything seems dull, boring, stupid; this means that you are as boring as the circumstances and it clearly shows that you are not in a state of progress. It is simply a passing wave of boredom, and nothing is more contrary to the purpose of existence. At such a moment you might make an effort and ask yourself, This boredom shows that I have something to learn, some progress to make in myself, some inertia to conquer, some weakness to overcome. Boredom is a dullness of the consciousness; and if you seek the cure within yourself, you will see that it immediately dissolves. Most people, when they feel bored, instead of making an effort to rise one step higher in their consciousness, come down one step lower; they come down even lower than they were before and do stupid things, they make themselves vulgar in the hope of amusing themselves. That is why men intoxicate themselves, spoil their health, deaden their brains. If they had risen instead of falling, they would have made use of this opportunity to progress.
1.1.01 - The Divine and Its Aspects, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But there is a Supreme which is Above all these planes and ways and aspects and from which they come.
*
1.1.04 - Philosophy, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He treads down his emotions, because emotion distorts reason and replaces it by passions, desires, preferences, prejudices, prejudgments. He avoids life, because life awakes all his sensational being and puts his reason at the mercy of egoism, of sensational reactions of anger, fear, hope, hunger, ambition, instead of allowing it to act justly and do disinterested work. It becomes merely the paid pleader of a party, a cause, a creed, a dogma, an intellectual faction. Passion and eagerness, even intellectual eagerness, so disfigure the greatest minds that even Shankara becomes a sophist and a word-twister, and even Buddha argues in a circle. The philosopher wishes Above all to preserve his intellectual righteousness; he is or should be as careful of his mental rectitude as the saint of his moral stainlessness. Therefore he avoids, as far as the world will let him, the conditions which disturb. But in this way he cuts himself off from experience and only the gods can know without experience. Sieyes said that politics was a subject of which he had made a science.
He had, but the pity was that though he knew the science of politics perfectly, he did not know politics itself in the least and when he did enter political life, he had formed too rigidly the logical habit to replace it in any degree by the practical. If he had reversed the order or at least coordinated experiment with his theories before they were formed, he might have succeeded better. His readymade Constitutions are monuments of logical perfection and practical ineffectiveness. They have the weakness
1.10 - Life and Death. The Greater Guardian of the Threshold, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
"Thou hast released thyself from the world of the senses. Thou hast won the right to become a citizen of the supersensible world, whence thine activity can now be directed. For thine own sake, thou dost no longer require thy physical body in its present form. If thine intention were merely to acquire the faculties necessary for life in the supersensible world, thou needest no longer return to the sense-world. But now behold me. See how sublimely I tower Above all that thou hast made of thyself thus far. Thou hast attained thy present degree of perfection thanks to the faculties thou wert able to develop in the sense-world as long as thou wert still confined to it. But now a new era is to begin, in which thy liberated powers must be applied to further work in the world of the senses. Hitherto thou hast sought only thine own release, but now, having thyself become free, thou canst go
p. 255
1.10 - THE FORMATION OF THE NOOSPHERE, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
But Above all it will be a state of active sympathy in which each
separate human element, breaking out of its insulated state under
1.11 - FAITH IN MAN, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
and ever higher? Above all, at that critical point
where instinct turned reflexively to thought, and
1.11 - The Change of Power, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
If we can catch that painful elf for it is pain itself just before it buries itself completely, it exhibits a whole daily, material and imperceptible mechanism. This is the great resistance to the change of power, the molehill trying to stay the law of Harmony. Therefore it is where the battle is taking place at this moment, in the microcosm and the macrocosm. It is like a caricature (or the more exact face) of all the polished and civilized activities of the brilliant elf of the higher levels: doubt, fear, avidity, self-centeredness, all the contractions, prehensions and apprehensions of the mental pseudopod. It is a minuscule and ridiculous functioning, and, if by chance we notice it, we shrug it off or attach no importance to it. But we are wrong. We look at everything from atop our mental arrogance, as if those trifles were inconsequential. But they have staggering consequences. We do not see it because we live in our logical and symmetrical clouds. But life grates; there is an immense, universal grating whose source lies in those ridiculous little grains of sand. At the level of matter, there are no little things, because everything is made of little things, and that absurd reaction of doubt or fear is the incalculable equivalent of the mental misjudgment that makes us shut the door on a brilliant opportunity. We are constantly shutting the door on Harmony, turning our backs on the miracle, locking out possibilities, and making ourselves sick into the bargain. For, at the material level, this Harmony does not flow in majestic symphonies through the great arteries of the spirit; it uses what it has. It percolates through minuscule channels, fragile filaments quivering within our material consciousness; it enters in droplets, spurts, discrete quanta that look like nothing a passing breath, a flicker of a smile, a wave of ease without reason which change everything. We do not notice the change because we live in our normal chaos, our usual suffocation, but the seeker, who has become a little clearer, begins to notice, to sense those minute changes of density, those sudden obstructions, those minuscule expansions, those air pockets in his material substance. He sees the almost instant effect of a tiny little emanation of doubt, an absurd fear or tensing up without apparent cause, a ridiculous and morbid imagination crossing his atmosphere. He discovers a thousand sly little pulsations, deceitful palpitations, dark impulses in the great material pond. He puts his finger on fear, the great, voracious and retractile Fear which covers the world like the protoplasm inside its gelatine membrane the slightest touch, the least breath of air, the tiniest ray of sun, and it contracts, shuts the door and rolls up into a ball in its membrane. The immediate reaction to everything is NO; then, sometimes, a yes blurted out, as if impelled by the same fear of missing something. He discovers the fantastic morbid and defeatist imagination of matter, as if, for matter, life represented a kind of dreadful invasion from which it had never quite recovered, a fall perhaps from the original bliss of the stone, an irruption of death into its peaceful routine. Everything is liable to bring catastrophe the great catastrophe of Life expectation of the worst, anticipation of the worst, almost a wish and call for the worst, so this tragedy of life may be stopped at last and everything return to the peace and beatific immobility of dust. He discovers how diseases break out, matter decays, substance ages the great difficulty of living, the contraction onto self, the suffocation inside, the hardening of all the little arteries through which a drop of all-curing harmony might have seeped in. He hears his fill of petty whining, small grudges, matter's wounded negations, and Above all Above all its despairing leitmotif: This is impossible, that is impossible.... For matter, everything is impossible, because the only sure possibility is the inviolable immobility of the stone. Because all movement of life and hope is still a stirring of death. And it shuts the door, turns off the light, refuses the miracle we all refuse the miracle. We are firmly seated atop our cancer, the doubters of the great immortal Harmony, the dwarves of the earth who believe in pain, believe in disease, believe in suffering, believe in death: This is impossible, impossible, impossible....
So the seeker learns of Harmony. He learns it step by step, by trial and error, tiny little errors that sow disease and confusion. At this stage, the experience no longer takes place in the intellect or heart; it takes place in the body. There is a minute play of sensations, as fleeting as must have been the first quiver of the radiolarian under the temperature changes in the Gulf Stream, and as laden with physical consequences as a storm over the lovely wheat fields of the mind or a typhoon over the murky seas of the vital. We are so dense and blind on our higher levels that we need to be hit over the head to understand that the man in front of us is angry and that murder is lurking in those eyes so transparent. But matter is refined; the more we experience it, the more we discover its incredible receptivity, working in both directions, alas. A hundred times or a thousand times, the seeker is confronted with those microtyphoons, those minute whirlwinds that abruptly overturn the whole equilibrium of the being, becloud everything, give a taste of ashes and despair to the slightest gesture, decompose the air he breathes and decompose everything an instantaneous general decomposition for one second, ten seconds. A hardening of everything. The seeker is suddenly overwhelmed with fatigue; he sees illness coming and it is indeed coming straight at him. Which illness? The Illness. And just behind, lying in wait, death. In one second, ten seconds, one goes straight to the point; one touches the thing. It is right there, irrefutable: the whole mechanism out in the open, like a sudden call of death. Yet, outside, everything is the same. The circumstances are the same, the gestures the same; the sun still shines and the body comes and goes as usual. But everything is changed. It is a flash-death, an instantaneous cholera. Then it vanishes, dissipates like a cloud, one hardly knows why. But if one gives in, one truly falls ill, breaks a leg or has a real accident. And the seeker starts learning the reason for those minuscule reversals of equilibrium. He tracks down a minuscule hell, which is perhaps the first seed of the great million-faced Evil, the first hardening of death's great blissful petrification. Everything is contained there, in a black spark. But the day we catch hold of that tiny poisonous vibration, we will have the secret of immortality, or at least that of the prolongation of life at will. We die because we give in, and we give in in thousands of little instances. The choice between death and immortality must be made again at every instant.
1.12 - Dhruva commences a course of religious austerities, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
Thus the sage Dhruva, having received a boon from Janārddana, the god of gods, and lord of the world, resides in an exalted station. Beholding his glory, Uśanas, the preceptor of the gods and demons, repeated these verses: "Wonderful is the efficacy of this penance, marvellous is its reward, that the seven Ṛṣis should be preceded by Dhruva. This too is the pious Sunīti, his parent, who is called Sūnritā[10]." Who can celebrate her greatness, who, having given birth to Dhruva, has become the asylum of the three worlds, enjoying to all future time an elevated station, a station eminent Above all? He who shall worthily describe the ascent into the sky of Dhruva, for ever shall be freed from all sin, and enjoy the heaven of Indra. Whatever be his dignity, whether upon earth or in heaven, he shall never fall from it, but shall long enjoy life, possessed of every blessing[11].
Footnotes and references:
1.12 - On lying., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
Let no one with right principles suppose that the sin of lying is a small matter, for the All-Holy Spirit pronounced the most awful sentence of all against it Above all sins. If Thou wilt destroy all who tell lies, as David says to God, what will they suffer who stitch an oath on to a lie?
I have seen some who, priding themselves on their skill in lying, and exciting laughter by their jests and twaddle, have pitiably destroyed in their hearers the habit of mourning.
1.12 - The Divine Work, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
the sum-total of all souls, - and Above all, my God the wicked,
my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species
1.12 - The Significance of Sacrifice, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Self who stands Above all the modes or qualities or workings of
Nature, nistraigun.ya. The Brahman is one but self-displayed in two aspects, the immutable Being and the creator and originator of works in the mutable becoming, atman, sarvabhutani; it is the immobile omnipresent Soul of things and it is the spiritual principle of the mobile working of things, Purusha poised in himself and Purusha active in Prakriti; it is aks.ara and ks.ara. In both of these aspects the Divine Being, Purushottama, manifests himself in the universe; the immutable Above all qualities is His poise of peace, self-possession, equality, samam brahma; from that proceeds His manifestation in the qualities of Prakriti and their universal workings; from the Purusha in Prakriti, from this
Brahman with qualities, proceed all the works1 of the universal energy, Karma, in man and in all existences; from that work proceeds the principle of sacrifice. Even the material interchange between gods and men proceeds upon this principle, as typified in the dependence of rain and its product food on this working and on them the physical birth of creatures. For all the working of Prakriti is in its true nature a sacrifice, yajna, with the Divine
1.12 - The Superconscient, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Along with its beauty, we are also discovering the limits of the illumined mind: illumined poetry produces streams of images and revelatory words (because vision, and even hearing, often open at this stage), almost an avalanche of luxuriant, sometimes incoherent images, as if the consciousness were hard put to contain the flood of light and unaccustomed intensity; it is overwhelmed. Enthusiasm easily changes into exhilaration, and if the rest of the being has not been sufficiently prepared and purified, any of the lower parts can seize hold of the descending light and force and use them for their own ends; this is a frequent snare. Whenever the lower parts of the being, especially the vital, seize upon the luminous flood, they harden it, dramatize it, distort it. There is still power, but compelling and hard while the essence of the illumined mind is joy. Here we could cite the names of many poets and creative geniuses. 193 Furthermore, the substance of the illumined mind is not truly transparent, but only translucent; its light is diffused, somewhat as if it could feel the truth everywhere without concretely touching it; hence the frequent instances of incoherence and vagueness. It is only the beginning of a new birth. Before going higher, more purification is necessary, and Above all more peace, more natural equilibrium, and more silence. The higher we ascend in consciousness, the sturdier the equilibrium required.
191 - Letters, 3rd Series, 124
1.13 - Gnostic Symbols of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
130 Proteus has much in common with Hermes: Above all, the gift of second sight
and the power of shape-shifting. In Faust (Part II, Act 5) he tells the Homuncu-
--
but Above all by the rationalistic hybris which is tearing our
consciousness from its transcendent roots and holding before
1.13 - SALVATION, DELIVERANCE, ENLIGHTENMENT, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
This seems sufficiently self-evident. But most of us take pleasure in being lazy, cannot be bothered to be constantly recollected and yet passionately desire to be saved from the results of sloth and unawareness. Consequently there has been a widespread wish for and belief in Saviours who will step into our lives, Above all at the hour of their termination, and, like Alexander, cut the Gordian knots which we have been too lazy to untie. But God is not mocked. The nature of things is such that the unitive knowledge of the Ground which is contingent upon the achievement of a total selflessness cannot possibly be realized, even with outside help, by those who are not yet selfless. The salvation obtained by belief in the saving power of Amida, say, or Jesus is not the total deliverance described in the Upanishads, the Buddhist scriptures and the writings of the Christian mystics. It is something different, not merely in degree, but in kind.
Talk as much philosophy as you please, worship as many gods as you like, observe all ceremonies, sing devoted praises to any number of divine beingsliberation never comes, even at the end of a hundred aeons, without the realization of the Oneness of Self.
1.13 - THE HUMAN REBOUND OF EVOLUTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
of the springs of energy which dictate this advance: Above all, col-
lective springs, in so far as he consciously realizes the value, bio-
1.13 - The Kings of Rome and Alba, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
attire the assimilation of the man to the god comes out Above all in
the eagle-topped sceptre, the oaken crown, and the reddened face.
1.14 - The Secret, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
If by chance psychoanalysts had the power to descend into the subconscient, not only would they not heal anything, not only would they risk setting in motion forces which, like the sorcerer's apprentice, they could not control, but even if they did have the power to master and to destroy these forces, they would very probably destroy the good along with the evil, thus irreparably mutilating our nature. For they do not possess knowledge. From their mental poise, they cannot see far enough into the future to discern the good that a certain evil may be preparing and the dynamic Force concealed behind the play of opposites. Another kind of power is needed in order to sort out this bizarre amalgam, and Above all another vision: You must know the whole before you can know the part and the highest before you can truly understand the lowest. That is the promise of the greater psychology awaiting its hour before which these poor gropings will disappear and come to nothing.
As we have said, there are numerous gradations and sub-gradations within the subconscient. We deliberately did not dwell on the description of these lower worlds; the seeker will experience them himself when the time comes. To give a specific mental form to these lower forces does not help to exorcise them, as some might imagine, but gives them an even greater hold on our consciousness. The mind is simply incapable of healing anything.
--
Something radically different is needed another type of consciousness. All the poets and creative geniuses have known these swings of consciousness. Even as he experienced his Illuminations, Rimbaud visited strange realms that struck him with "terror"; he, too, went through the law of dark inversion. But instead of being unconsciously tossed from one extreme to another, of ascending without knowing how and descending against his will, the integral seeker works methodically, consciously, without ever losing his balance, and, Above all, with a growing confidence in the Consciousness-Force, which never initiates more resistance than he can meet, and never unveils more light than he can bear. After living long enough from one crisis to the next, we will ultimately discern a pattern in the action of the Force, and will notice that each time we seem to leave the ascending curve or even lose something we had achieved, we ultimately retrieve the same realization, but on a higher, more expanded level, made richer by the part that our "fall" has added; had we not "fallen," this lower part would never have become integrated into our higher ones. Perhaps it was the same collective process that brought about Athens' fall, so that some old barbarians, too, might be exposed to Plato. The integral yoga does not follow a straight line rising higher and higher out of sight, toward a smaller and smaller point, but, according to Sri Aurobindo, a spiral that slowly and methodically annexes all the parts of our being in an ever vaster opening based upon an ever deeper foundation. Not only will we observe a pattern behind this Force, or rather this Consciousness-Force, but also regular cycles and a rhythm as certain as that of the tides and the moons. The more we progress, the wider the cycles, and the closer their relationship with the cosmic movement itself until the day when we can perceive in our own descents the periodical descents of consciousness on earth, and in our own difficulties all the turmoil, resistance and revolt of the earth. Eventually, everything will become so intimately interconnected that we will be able to read in the tiniest things, the most insignificant events of daily life or the objects nearby, the signs of vaster depressions that will sweep over all men and compel their ascent or descent within the same evolutionary wave.
Then we will understand that we are unfailingly being guided toward a Goal, that everything has a meaning, even the slightest thing nothing moves without moving everything and that we are on our way to a far greater adventure than we had ever imagined. Soon, a second paradox will strike us, which is perhaps the very same one.
--
The last steps of the descent take place beyond the subconscient, in our evolutionary past, in our former, prehistorical consciousness, at the level where, for the first time in the world, life emerged from what seemed to be death; that is, at the border between the material inconscient and the physical consciousness the witness and residue of that original birth in our body. The organs and cells of our body have their own type of highly organized, efficient consciousness, which knows how to choose, to receive or to reject, and which can be manipulated once we have reached a sufficient yogic development. If it were merely a question of improving life's present conditions, the ordinary yogic consciousness would be enough: extension of life at will, immunity against diseases, and even a lasting youth are but some of the frequent results of that discipline. But, as we have said, we seek to change life, not just to improve its facade. Beneath our present physical consciousness lies a physical subconscient, the product of life's evolution in Matter, which keeps a record of all the old habits of life, of which the worst is the habit of dying its reflexes, its fears, its contractions, and Above all its habits of closure, as if it had retained the memory of the many protective shells it had to build around itself in order to protect its growth. In the very depths of this physical subconscient, where every form of consciousness or memory seems to die out, one reaches the bedrock, the initial Shell, the underlying Death from which life wrenched itself free. It is something very hard and very vast, so vast and so hard that the Vedic rishis called it "the infinite rock." This is the Inconscient. It is a wall or perhaps a door.
It is the bottom, or perhaps merely a crust. Moreover, it may not be completely dead or unconscious, for it does not feel like something negatively inert, but like something positively negative, as it were, something that refuses, that says No to life:
--
At the same time, Sri Aurobindo was retrieving the lost Secret, that of the Veda and of all the more or less distorted traditions from Persia to Central America and the Rhine Valley, from Eleusis to the Cathars and from the Round Table to the Alchemists the ancient Secret of all the seekers of perfection. This is the quest for the Treasure in the depths of the cave; the battle against the subconscious forces (ogres, dwarves, or serpents); the legend of Apollo and the Python, Indra and the Serpent Vritta, Thor and the giants, Sigurd and Fafner; the solar myth of the Mayas, the Descent of Orpheus, the Transmutation. It is the serpent biting it own tail. And Above all, it is the secret of the Vedic rishis, who were probably the first to discover what they called "the great passage," mahas pathah, (II.24.6) the world of "the unbroken Light," Swar, within the rock of the Inconscient: "Our fathers by their words broke the strong and stubborn places, the Angiras seers252 shattered the mountain rock with their cry; they made in us a path to the Great Heaven, they discovered the Day and the sunworld," (Rig Veda I.71.2) they discovered "the Sun dwelling in the darkness." (III.39.5) They found "the treasure of heaven hidden in the secret cavern like the young of the Bird, within the infinite rock." (I.130.3)
Shadow and Light, Good and Evil have all prepared a divine birth in Matter: "Day and Night both suckle the divine Child." 253 Nothing is accursed, nothing is in vain. Night and Day are "two sisters, immortal, with a common Lover (the Sun) . . . common they, though different their forms." (I.113.2.3) At the end of the "pilgrimage" of ascent and descent, the seeker is "a son of the two Mothers (III.55.7): the son of Aditi, the white Mother254 of the superconscious infinite, and the son of Diti, the earthly Mother of "the dark infinite." He possesses "the two births," human and divine, "eternal and in one nest . . . as the Enjoyer of his two wives" (I.62.7): "The contents of the pregnant hill255 (came forth) for the supreme birth . . . a god opened the human doors." (V.45) "Then indeed, they awoke and saw all behind and wide around them, then, indeed, they held the ecstasy that is enjoyed in heaven. In all gated houses256 were all the gods." (Rig Veda IV.1.18)
1.14 - The Structure and Dynamics of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
of the quaternity, and Above all to the symbol mentioned in
16 Cf. Hurwitz, "Archetypische Motive in der chassidischen Mystik," ch. VI.
--
depicted over and over again, Above all in the Ripley "Scrowle"
and its variants. These should be understood as indirect at-
1.14 - The Succesion to the Kingdom in Ancient Latium, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
great Midsummer festival has been Above all a festival of lovers and
of fire; one of its principal features is the pairing of
1.14 - The Suprarational Beauty, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Religion is the seeking after the spiritual, the suprarational and therefore in this sphere the intellectual reason may well be an insufficient help and find itself, not only at the end but from the beginning, out of its province and condemned to tread either diffidently or else with a stumbling presumptuousness in the realm of a power and a light higher than its own. But in the other spheres of human consciousness and human activity it may be thought that it has the right to the sovereign place, since these move on the lower plane of the rational and the finite or belong to that border-land where the rational and the infrarational meet and the impulses and the instincts of man stand in need Above all of the light and the control of the reason. In its own sphere of finite knowledge, science, philosophy, the useful arts, its right, one would think, must be indisputable. But this does not turn out in the end to be true. Its province may be larger, its powers more ample, its action more justly self-confident, but in the end everywhere it finds itself standing between the two other powers of our being and fulfilling in greater or less degree the same function of an intermediary. On one side it is an enlightenernot always the chief enlightener and the corrector of our life-impulses and first mental seekings, on the other it is only one minister of the veiled Spirit and a preparer of the paths for the coming of its rule.
This is especially evident in the two realms which in the ordinary scale of our powers stand nearest to the reason and on either side of it, the aesthetic and the ethical being, the search for Beauty and the search for Good. Mans seeking after beauty reaches its most intense and satisfying expression in the great creative arts, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, but in its full extension there is no activity of his nature or his life from which it need or ought to be excluded,provided we understand beauty both in its widest and its truest sense. A complete and universal appreciation of beauty and the making entirely beautiful our whole life and being must surely be a necessary character of the perfect individual and the perfect society. But in its origin this seeking for beauty is not rational; it springs from the roots of our life, it is an instinct and an impulse, an instinct of aesthetic satisfaction and an impulse of aesthetic creation and enjoyment. Starting from the infrarational parts of our being, this instinct and impulse begin with much imperfection and impurity and with great crudities both in creation and in appreciation. It is here that the reason comes in to distinguish, to enlighten, to correct, to point out the deficiencies and the crudities, to lay down laws of aesthetics and to purify our appreciation and our creation by improved taste and right knowledge. While we are thus striving to learn and correct ourselves, it may seem to be the true law-giver both for the artist and the admirer and, though not the creator of our aesthetic instinct and impulse, yet the creator in us of an aesthetic conscience and its vigilant judge and guide. That which was an obscure and erratic activity, it makes self-conscious and rationally discriminative in its work and enjoyment.
1.14 - TURMOIL OR GENESIS?, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
the way for the ultimate Parousia, it is Above all Christ who invests
Himself with the whole reality of the Universe; but at the same
--
none that is adequate. But it is nevertheless true that, Above all if
they are taken separately, none of the propositions I have formu-
1.15 - Conclusion, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
merit special attention, Above all from the psychologist, but also
from thoughtful laymen. As numina, anima and animus work
--
shape of specific symbols, and its totality is discernible Above all
in the mandala and its countless variants. Historically, these
1.15 - In the Domain of the Spirit Beings, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
Depending on the grade of subtlety or density, there are innumerable spheres and intermediate spheres. To name them all here would be impossible. I will only mention those which are of importance for the practice of magic. Their graded density is called hierarchy. Before a magician plans to work on these spheres he must have a conception of their hierarchy, and must be well acquainted with the sphere in which he intends to work, first theoretically and later, of course, also practically. But, Above all, he must have a thorough comm and over the physical sphere before he proceeds to the more subtle one next to it. Each of these spheres of hierarchy have their particular influence on our physical world according to the laws of analogy. With regard to the planetary spheres astrologers have discovered a somehow workable synthesis, but unfortunately the astrologers of today uses this chiefly only for mantic purposes, and it is hardly known that astrology actually only gives a partial explanation of the influences of these spheres, of planets and zodiacal signs. The astrological part of the higher spheres will not be dealt with here, for it does not come within the scope of this book. The true magician, however, will find a much closer relation between the individual spheres, if he deals with astrology, and will notice that astrology shows the true influences of the relevant spheres on our physical world, in their causes and effects.
The grading of the spheres according to their grade of density and their qualities is called, in Quabbalah, the quabbalistic Tree of Life. The analogies and their practical application from the quabbalistic point of view will be dealt with by me in detail in my forthcoming book: "The Key to the True Quabbalah". This book is to rouse the readers interests in the spheres of the quabbalistic Tree of Life as far as they may serve magic purposes, that is as far as their beings are concerned. The spheres in their correct order are:
--
One might now ask why a magician uses an elemental, elementary, astral or physical being mentally, astrally or physically, for his operations in our world or sphere, or in another sphere, and why he does not prefer to work with the power he has himself acquired and so to cause the desired magical effect. He is, in fact, able to cause certain effects when operating in the mental sphere by elementals or volts, that is by electromagnetic fluids, and he is also able to generate a certain physical power by various operations with elementaries and to bring about in this way some physical effect. The difference in the procedure lies in the fact that the powers, beings, elementals, elementaries etc. generated by him cannot operate independently, since they possess no intellect; the beings of any other zone, however, are, because they are intelligent creatures, able to carry out jobs for which a certain degree of intelligence is necessary. In those cases where a magician can do without any such being in obtaining his goal, he will naturally desist from employing a being from another zone to fulfill his purposes. He will, Above all, evoke beings in case 1. he wants do demonstrate his authority over the beings and 2. in order to get full information on the zones from which the beings come.
Every experienced magician who leaves the physical world either with his mental or with his astral body to visit the various spheres of the earth-zone, or even to visit other zones, will realize that the beings of all zones, irrespective of their qualities and faculties, speak a universal language, called "metaphoricallanguage", i. e. the language of imagination. This is the reason why all beings can make themselves understood by another. Any average person may moreover experience this the moment he leaves his physical body, for he is then able to converse with any person amongst the dead, no matter to which nation he may have belonged before. If a magician whishes to say something in a sphere lying outside our physical world, that is if he wants to form ideas there, he will also do that by way of mouth, but no sounds will come out of his mouth; in place of sound vibrations pictures manifest themselves which then can be perceived by any being.
1.15 - On incorruptible purity and chastity to which the corruptible attain by toil and sweat., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
On these occasions1 the best aids for us are: sackcloth, ashes, all-night standing, hunger, moistening the tongue in moderation when parched with thirst, dwelling amongst the tombs, and Above all humility of heart; and if possible a spiritual father or a careful brother, an elder in spirit to help us. But I shall be surprised if anyone will be able to save his ship from the sea by himself.
One and the same sin often incurs a condemnation a hundred times greater for one person than for another, according to character, place, progress, and a good deal else.
1.15 - THE DIRECTIONS AND CONDITIONS OF THE FUTURE, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
health, and finally, Above all, conditions of synthesis.
a First Conditions of Survival. I am not thinking particularly of
--
famine and suffocation? Above all, how are we to ensure that the
maximum population, when it is reached, shall be composed only
1.15 - The Supramental Consciousness, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
The Supramental is, Above all, a power a stupendous power. It is the direct power of the Spirit in Matter. All consciousness is power,
and the higher we ascend, the greater the power, but also the farther away we are from the earth. Thus if we wish to apply our overmental power, say, to the affairs of this world, it must be brought down from one level to another and overcome the determinisms of all the intermediary levels before it can reach the depths, Matter. Finally,
1.15 - The Value of Philosophy, #The Problems of Philosophy, #Bertrand Russell, #Philosophy
Thus, to sum up our discussion of the value of philosophy; Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but Above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.
1.15 - The world overrun with trees; they are destroyed by the Pracetasas, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
The Pracetasas said, "We are desirous to hear the transcendental prayers, by inaudibly reciting which the pious Kaṇḍu propitiated Keśava." On which Soma repeated as follows: "'Viṣṇu is beyond the boundary of all things: he is the infinite: he is beyond that which is boundless: he is Above all that is above: he exists as finite truth: he is the object of the Veda; the limit of elemental being; unappreciable by the senses; possessed of illimitable might: he is the cause of cause; the cause of the cause of cause; the cause of finite cause; and in effects, he, both as every object and agent, preserves the universe: he is Brahma the lord; Brahma all beings; Brahma the progenitor of all beings; the imperishable: he is the eternal, undecaying, unborn Brahma, incapable of increase or diminution: Puruṣottama is the everlasting, untreated, immutable Brahma. May the imperfections of my nature be annihilated through his favour.' Reciting this eulogium, the essence of divine truth, and propitiating Keśava, Kaṇḍu obtained final emancipation.
"Who Māṛṣā was of old I will also relate to you, as the recital of her meritorious acts will be beneficial to you. She was the widow of a prince, and left childless at her husband's death: she therefore zealously worshipped Viṣṇu, who, being gratified by her adoration, appeared to her, and desired her to demand a boon; on which she revealed to him the wishes of her heart. 'I have been a widow, lord,' she exclaimed, 'even from my infancy, and my birth has been in vain: unfortunate have I been, and of little use, oh sovereign of the world. Now therefore I pray thee that in succeeding births I may have honourable husbands, and a son equal to a patriarch amongst men: may I be possessed of affluence and beauty: may I he pleasing in the sight of all: and may I be born out of the ordinary course. Grant these prayers, oh thou who art propitious to the devout.' Hṛṣikeśa, the god of gods, the supreme giver of all blessings, thus prayed to, raised her from her prostrate attitude, and said, 'In another life you shall have ten husbands of mighty prowess, and renowned for glorious acts; and you shall have a son magnanimous and valiant, distinguished by the rank of a patriarch, from whom the various races of men shall multiply, and by whose posterity the universe shall be filled. You, virtuous lady, shall be of marvellous birth, and you shall be endowed with grace and loveliness, delighting the hearts of men.' Thus having spoken, the deity disappeared, and the princess was accordingly afterwards born as Māṛṣā, who is given to you for a wife[4]."
1.17 - The Spiritus Familiaris or Serving Spirits, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
The attitude a genuine magician takes towards getting into contact with a head, i. e. a higher being, a higher intelligence, is quite different to that of a sorcerer or black-magician. The latter wants to get beings under his power without any special effort and without the appropriate preparatory operations and magical development, in order to make these being serve him and help him to realize all his desires. Unfortunately, a sorcerer is likely to forget that by doing so he is debiting his Karma and that he is doing this at the costs of his evolution, and Above all, to the costs of his magical development. Beings serving a sorcerer never work without reward. From the material point of view such services may only be regarded as loans. Actually, the sorcerer becomes the slave of the relevant being, for after their contract has expired, the sorcerer must, as already pointed 'out before, pay back everything. The beings are fully aware of this fact, and their devotion towards the magician, which is to ensure him that they are always willing to serve him and to fulfill any of his desires, often delude a sorcerer to the erroneous opinion that he has become master over the beings. His desires, his claims towards these beings increase during the course of the alliance, and the sorcerer eventually develops into a glutton. Only shortly before the expiration date of the contract, the sorcerer realizes what he has done and what Karmic responsibilities he has taken upon his shoulders. But at that point it is usually too late, and all advice and instructions to shake off the bondages of such a contract are, from the hermetic point of view, useless and impracticable, andin the eyes of a true magician sheer ridiculous. Negative effects that have once been set at work, no matter in which way, must, due to the law of cause and effect, have their due clear off and adjustment.
One might oppose that Divine Providence, in its aspects of love and charity, could, in some cases, make an exception. However, the genuine magician knows that causes are always followed up by the relevant effects, otherwise the Law of Karma, the law of retaliation, the rule of law of the whole universe, would be untrue, that is illusory. That this is not so, but that, on the contrary, everything takes place due to the most genuine laws with a most admirable precision need not be stressed here. Divine love and charity with all their other aspects such as benevolence etc. work up to the point where man realizes that he himself is the cause of the sorrows that have overcome him, and this knowledge enables him to carry his burden more easily. From the correct universal point of view Providence, in its aspects of love, benevolence etc., cannot further intervene. Every experienced magician, knowing the universal laws, finds this in order. Every genuine magician should therefore take heed not to conclude a contract which would entirely halt his personal magical development and evolution. A true initiate will not even be tempted to conclude contacts with high and good heads, no matter how great the advantages might be. To bind oneself to spirit beings and their spheres means losing the freedom of one's own thoughts and doings.
1.17 - The Transformation, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
believing in its laws and its smallness, then we will be saved and ready for a divine life. This is what Sri Aurobindo came to show us Above all else: there is no need to fly off to heaven to find the Spirit,
we are free, we are stronger than all the "laws," because God is within us. All we need to do is believe this, for faith hastens the world's fairy tale. That was the thing that saved me all through, I mean a perfect balance. First of all I believed that nothing was impossible and at the same time I could question everything. 361 One day, as he was again being urged to resume his political struggle, Sri Aurobindo promptly replied that what was needed was not a revolt against the British Government, which anyone could easily manage . . . [but] a revolt against the whole universal Nature.362
1.18 - Evocation, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
I shall give - from the hermetic point of view - a full description of everything absolutely necessary for a successful evocation, i. e. the actual magical connection with beings of any sphere. Above all, the magician or the person intending to busy himself with magical evocation should know that without the development of one's astral senses, especially those of clairvoyance and clairaudience, a successful evocation cannot be thought of. It would be the same as if a blind man wanted to follow an unknown street without a guide. Clairvoyance and clairaudience is the first condition for consciously getting into contact with a being by the help of active magic. If the magician does not care for this condition, or if a person dares to try an evocation without having his astral senses trained accordingly, he can be sure that he will, like all other operators, be disappointed and have no success at all. At the same time he is in danger of being degraded to a necromancer or sorcerer if, during an exalted state, he should have any partial success of whatever sort, regardless of the fact that his plans and intentions rest on good motives.
The magician must, under all conditions, be able to make use of his astral senses during his operation, because then he is able to control exactly the whole procedure and is not in danger of being deceived or of working without success. A magician whose astral senses are well developed knows at once whether the being involved is merely a creation of imagination or whether it is the being he wanted to appear from a certain sphere. An evocation, from the hermetic point of view, is therefore the conscious getting into contact with a certain being, not effected by passive intercourse - as described in "Initiation into Hermetics" in the chapter dealing with the conscious passive connection with beings - the magician being used as a medium, but outside of his body.
1.19 - ON THE PROBABLE EXISTENCE AHEAD OF US OF AN ULTRA-HUMAN, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
looked for at the end, if only as a limit. Above all it rejects dispersal
and dissolution and the circle from which there is no escape. The
1.2.11 - Patience and Perseverance, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
All I say is, don't allow the assailant to become a companion, don't give him the open door and the fireside seat. Above all don't drive away the incoming Divine with that dispiriting wet blanket of sadness and despair!
To put it more soberly, - accept once for all that this thing has to be done, that it is the only thing left for yourself or the earth. Outside are earthquakes and Hitlers and a collapsing civilisation and - generally speaking - the jackal in the flood?
1.21 - IDOLATRY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
As a piece of psychological analysis this is admirable. Its only defect is one of omission; for it neglects to take into account those influxes from the eternal order into the temporal, which are called grace or inspiration. Grace and inspiration are given when, and to the extent to which, a human being gives up self-will and abandons himself, moment by moment, through constant recollectedness and non-attachment, to the will of God. As well as the animal and spiritual graces, whose source is the divine Nature of Things, there are human pseudo-gracessuch as, for example, the accessions of strength and virtue that follow self-devotion to some form of political or moral idolatry. To distinguish the true grace from the false is often difficult; but as time and circumstances reveal the full extent of their consequences on the soul, discrimination becomes possible even to observers having no special gifts of insight. Where the grace is genuinely supernatural, an amelioration in one aspect of the total personality is not paid for by atrophy or deterioration elsewhere. The virtue which is accompanied and perfected by the love and knowledge of God is something quite different from the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees which, for Christ, was among the worst of moral evils. Hardness, fanaticism, uncharitableness and spiritual pridethese are the ordinary by-products of a course of stoical self-improvement by means of personal effort, either unassisted or, if assisted, seconded only by the pseudo-graces which are given when the individual devotes himself to the achievement of an end which is not his true end, when the goal is not God, but merely a magnified projection of his own favourite ideas or moral excellences. The idolatrous worship of ethical values in and for themselves defeats its own objectand defeats it not only because, as Arnold insists, there is a lack of all-round development, but also and Above all because even the highest forms of moral idolatry are God-eclipsing and therefore guarantee the idolater against the enlightening and liberating knowledge of Reality.
next chapter: 1.22 - EMOTIONALISM
1.23 - Improvising a Temple, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
But if circumstances deny you for the moment the means of carrying out this dification as the Ideal would have it, you can certainly do your best to create a fairly satisfactory Above all, workable substitute.
(By the way, note the moral aspect of a house, as displayed in our language. "Edification" "house-making": from Latin Aedes, "house". "Economy" "house-ruling": from the Greek "", "House" and "", "law.")
1.24 - Matter, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2:It seems indeed that the body is from the beginning the soul's great difficulty, its continual stumbling-block and rock of offence. Therefore the eager seeker of spiritual fulfilment has hurled his ban against the body and his world-disgust selects this world-principle Above all other things as an especial object of loathing. The body is the obscure burden that he cannot bear; its obstinate material grossness is the obsession that drives him for deliverance to the life of the ascetic. To get rid of it he has even gone so far as to deny its existence and the reality of the material universe. Most of the religions have put their curse upon Matter and have made the refusal or the resigned temporary endurance of the physical life the test of religious truth and of spirituality.
The older creeds, more patient, more broodingly profound, not touched with the torture and the feverish impatience of the soul under the burden of the Iron Age, did not make this formidable division; they acknowledged Earth the Mother and Heaven the
1.24 - The Killing of the Divine King, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
of millet and sesame. For their crops and Above all for their
pastures they depend on the regularity of the rains: in seasons of
1.25 - On the destroyer of the passions, most sublime humility, which is rooted in spiritual feeling., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
10. He who has taken humility as his bride is Above all gentle, kind, full of compunction, sympathetic, calm, bright, compliant, inoffensive, wide awake, not indolent and (why say more?) free from passion; for the Lord remembered us in our humility, and delivered us from our enemies,3 and our passions and impurities.
11. A humble monk will not meddle with mysteries, but a proud one will pry into judgments.4
1.25 - SPIRITUAL EXERCISES, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Consider that your life is a perpetual perishing, and lift up your mind to God Above all whenever the clock strikes, saying, God, I adore your eternal being; I am happy that my being should perish every moment, so that at every moment it may render homage to your eternity.
J.J.Olier
1.25 - The Knot of Matter, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
7:For the second fundamental opposition that Matter offers to Spirit, is this that it is the culmination of bondage to mechanic Law and opposes to all that seeks to liberate itself a colossal Inertia. Not that Matter itself is inert; it is rather an infinite motion, an inconceivable force, a limitless action, whose grandiose movements are a subject for our constant admiration. But while Spirit is free, master of itself and its works, not bound by them, creator of law and not its subject, this giant Matter is rigidly chained by a fixed and mechanical Law which is imposed on it, which it does not understand nor has ever conceived but works out inconsciently as a machine works and knows not who created it, by what process or to what end. And when Life awakes and seeks to impose itself on physical form and material force and to use all things at its own will and for its own need, when Mind awakes and seeks to know the who, the why, the how of itself and all things and Above all to use its knowledge for the imposition of its own freer law and self-guiding action upon things, material Nature seems to yield, even to approve and aid, though after a struggle, reluctantly and only up to a certain point. But beyond that point it presents an obstinate inertia, obstruction, negation and even persuades Life and Mind that they cannot go farther, cannot pursue to the end their partial victory. Life strives to enlarge and prolong itself and succeeds; but when it seeks utter wideness and immortality, it meets the iron obstruction of Matter and finds itself bound to narrowness and death. Mind seeks to aid life and to fulfil its own impulse to embrace all knowledge, to become all light, to possess truth and be truth, to enforce love and joy and be love and joy; but always there is the deviation and error and grossness of the material life-instincts and the denial and obstruction of the material sense and the physical instruments. Error ever pursues its knowledge, darkness is inseparably the companion and background of its light; truth is successfully sought and yet, when grasped, it ceases to be truth and the quest has to continue; love is there but it cannot satisfy itself, joy is there but it cannot justify itself, and each of them drags as if its chain or casts as if its shadow its own opposites, anger and hatred and indifference, satiety and grief and pain. The inertia with which Matter responds to the demands of the Mind and Life, prevents the conquest of the Ignorance and of the brute Force that is the power of the Ignorance.
8:And when we seek to know why this is so, we see that the success of this inertia and obstruction is due to a third power of Matter; for the third fundamental opposition which Matter offers to Spirit is this that it is the culmination of the principle of division and struggle. Indivisible indeed in reality, divisibility is its whole basis of action from which it seems forbidden ever to depart; for its only two methods of union are either the aggregation of units or an assimilation which involves the destruction of one unit by another; and both of these methods of union are a confession of eternal division, since even the first associates rather than unifies and by its very principle admits the constant possibility and therefore the ultimate necessity of dissociation, of dissolution. Both methods repose on death, one as a means, the other as a condition of life. And both presuppose as the condition of world-existence a constant struggle of the divided units with each other, each striving to maintain itself, to maintain its associations, to compel or destroy what resists it, to gather in and devour others as its food, but itself moved to revolt against and flee from compulsion, destruction and assimilation by devouring. When the vital principle manifests its activities in Matter, it finds there this basis only for all its activities and is compelled to bow itself to the yoke; it has to accept the law of death, desire and limitation and that constant struggle to devour, possess, dominate which we have seen to be the first aspect of Life. And when the mental principle manifests in Matter, it has to accept from the mould and material in which it works the same principle of limitation, of seeking without secure finding, the same constant association and dissociation of its gains and of the constituents of its works, so that the knowledge gained by man, the mental being, seems never to be final or free from doubt and denial and all his labour seems condemned to move in a rhythm of action and reaction and of making and unmaking, in cycles of creation and brief preservation and long destruction with no certain and assured progress.
1.26 - FESTIVAL AT ADHARS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
A little later M. was sitting at the Bathing-Ghat on the Ganges. The flood tide had just set in. As he listened to the waters lapping against the bank, many pictures of Sri Ramakrishna's divine life flitted before his mind: the Master's deep samdhi, his constant ecstasy, his joy in the love of God, his untiring discourse on spiritual life, his genuine love for the devotees, and, Above all, his childlike simplicity. Who was this man? Was it God who had embodied Himself on earth for the sake of His devotees?
Adhar and M. returned to the Master's room. Adhar had been to Chittagong, in East Bengal, on official duty. He was telling the Master about his visit to the Chandranath Hills and Sitakunda, sacred places of Chittagong.
1.26 - On discernment of thoughts, passions and virtues, #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
Some praise Above all the gift of miracle-working and the visible spiritual gifts, not knowing that there are many higher than this which are hidden and which therefore remain secure.
He who is perfectly purified sees the soul of his neighbour (although not the actual substance of the soul), and can tell its state. But he who progresses further can judge the state of the soul from the body.
--
Divine providence causes the sun to rise in us for our edification, and then for a time to set,3 and then He makes darkness His hiding place,4 and night falls, in which prowl the fierce young lions, which had previously left us and all the beasts of the forest of thorny passions, roaring to snatch the hope that is in us, and seeking from God their food of passions either in thought or in action. And again through the darkness of humility the sun rises upon us and the wild beasts gather together and lie down in their dens,5 that is to say in sensual hearts, but not in us. Then the demons say amongst themselves: The Lord has done great things for them. And we say to them: The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad6 but you are banished. Behold, the Lord rides on a swift cloud, no doubt the soul that is raised Above all earthly desire, and comes into Egypt, into the heart already darkened, and will shatter the idols of mans making,7 that is, vain thoughts of the mind.
If Christ, although omnipotent, as man fled bodily from Herod, then let the rash learn not to hurl themselves into temptations. For it is said: Let not thy foot be moved, nor him (the angel) who keeps thee slumber.8
1.26 - PERSEVERANCE AND REGULARITY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
To one of his spiritual children our dear father (St Franois de Sales) said, Be patient with everyone, but Above all with yourself. I mean, do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage. I am glad you make a fresh beginning daily; there is no better means of attaining to the spiritual life than by continually beginning again, and never thinking that we have done enough. How are we to be patient in bearing with our neighbours faults, if we are impatient in bearing with our own? He who is fretted by his own failings will not correct them; all profitable correction comes from a calm, peaceful mind.
Jean Pierre Camus
1.29 - Concerning heaven on earth, or godlike dispassion and perfection, and the resurrection of the soul before the general resurrection., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
11. He who has been granted such a state, while still in the flesh, always has God dwelling within him as his Guide in all his words, deeds and thoughts. Therefore, through illumination he apprehends the Lords will as a sort of inner voice. He is Above all human instruction and says: When shall I come and appear before the face of God?10 For I can no longer bear the force of love; I long for the immortal beauty which Thou hast given me in exchange for this clay.
1 Psalm xlvi, 10.
--
Blessed dispassion lifts the mind that is poor from earth to heaven, and raises the beggar from the dunghill of the passions. But love whose praise is Above all makes him sit with the princes, with the holy angels, and with the princes of the people of God.
1.32 - Expounds these words of the Paternoster Fiat voluntas tua sicut in coelo et in terra. Describes how much is accomplished by those who repeat these words with full resolution and how well, #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
and raise us Above all petty earthly things, and above ourselves, in order to prepare us to receive
great favours from Him, for His rewards for our service will not end with this life. So much does
1.32 - The Ninth Circle Traitors. The Frozen Lake of Cocytus. First Division, Caina Traitors to their Kindred. Camicion de' Pazzi. Second Division, Antenora Traitors to their Country. Dante questions Bocca degli, #The Divine Comedy, #Dante Alighieri, #Christianity
O rabble ill-begotten Above all,
Who're in the place to speak of which is hard,
1.34 - The Myth and Ritual of Attis, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
appear to have been carried out Above all at the sanctuary of the
Phrygian goddess on the Vatican Hill, at or near the spot where the
1.35 - The Tao 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
This achievement broke the back of my Sphinx. Having once reduced Lao Tze to Qabalistic form, it was easy to translate the result into the language of philosophy. I had already done much to create a new language based on English with the assistance of a few technical terms borrowed from Asia, and Above all by the use of a novel conception of the idea of Number and of algebraic and arithmetical procedure to convey the results of spiritual experience to intelligent students.
It is therefore not altogether without confidence that I present this translation of the Tao Teh King to the public. I hope and believe that careful study of the text, as elucidated by my commentary, will enable serious aspirants to the hidden Wisdom to understand (with fair accuracy) what Lao Tze taught. It must however be laid to heart that the essence of his system will inevitably elude intellectual apprehension, unless it be illuminated from above by actual living experience of the truth. Such experience is only to be attained by unswerving application to the practices which he advocates. Nor must the aspirant content himself with the mere attainment of spiritual enlightenment, however sublime. All such achievements are barren unless they be regarded as the means rather than the end of spiritual progress; allowed to infiltrate every detail of the life, not only of the spirit, but of the senses. The Tao can never be known until it interprets the most trivial actions of every day routine. It is a fatal mistake to discriminate between the spiritual importance of meditation and playing golf. To do so is to create an internal conflict. "Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt." He who knows the Tao knows it to be the source of all things soever; the most exalted spiritual ecstasy and the most trivial internal impression are from our point of view equally illusions, worthless masks, which hide, with grotesque painted pasteboard false and lifeless, the living face of truth. Yet, from another point of view, they are equally expressions of the ecstatic genius of truth natural images of the reaction between the essence of one's self and one's particular environment at the moment of their occurrence. They are equally tokens of the Tao by whom, in whom, and of whom, they are. To value them for themselves is to deny the Tao and to be lost in delusion. To despise them is to deny the omnipresence of the Tao, and to suffer the illusion of sorrow. To discriminate between them is to set up the accursed dyad, to surrender to the insanity of intellect, to overwhelm the intuition of truth, and to create civil war in the consciousness.
1.36 - Quo Stet Olympus - Where the Gods, Angels, etc. Live, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Simple enough. A nice flat earth: sun, moon, stars, planets, satellites hung up to dry, with occasional meteorites and comets jazzing about to vary the monotony; Above all that, this bright blue floor based upon Reckitts' and advertisements for the Riviera.
Just like that. And above that again, the Jew Jeweller's hashish dream of heaven: see the Apocalypse. A vulgarization of Baudelaire's still, shining, mirror world!
--- Overview of adv above_all
The adv above all has 2 senses (first 1 from tagged texts)
1. (5) above all, most importantly, most especially ::: (above and beyond all other consideration; "above all, you must be independent")
2. first and last, above all ::: (taking everything together; "she was first and last a scientist")
Wikipedia - Above All Else in the World -- 1941 film
Wikipedia - Above All Laws -- 1948 film
Wikipedia - Life, Above All -- 2010 film
Wikipedia - Prima scriptura -- Christian doctrine that canonized scripture is "first" or "above all" other sources of divine revelation
Wikipedia - The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things -- 2004 film by Asia Argento
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13069244.Above_All_Things
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selforum - above all conflicts and disagreements
Fame (1982 - 1987) - The Art School was always their dream.They want to dance, they want to sing, to play music, to act but above all they want to live their lives while they are still young and full of energy. Coco, Leroy, Danny, Jesse, Chris, and all the others try hard because they know that they've got a long way to...
All the Invisible Children (2005) ::: 7.5/10 -- 2h 4min | Drama | 3 March 2006 (Italy) -- Through the plights of seven different children, seven cruel destinies unfold, as the unknown innocents who share the same sensitivities and desires struggle for survival, understanding--and above all--love, in an apathetic grown-up world. Directors: Mehdi Charef, Emir Kusturica | 6 more credits Writers: Mehdi Charef (segment), Diego De Silva (story and screenplay) | 8 more credits
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004) ::: 6.4/10 -- R | 1h 37min | Drama | 19 January 2005 (France) -- Seven-year-old Jeremiah is pulled from his foster home and thrown into a troubled life on the road with his teenage mother, Sarah. Director: Asia Argento Writers: Laura Albert (short stories) (as J.T. LeRoy), Asia Argento (screenplay) | 1 more credit Stars:
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/One-Above-All_(Multiverse)
Fugou Keiji: Balance:Unlimited -- -- CloverWorks -- 11 eps -- Novel -- Mystery Comedy Police -- Fugou Keiji: Balance:Unlimited Fugou Keiji: Balance:Unlimited -- Daisuke Kanbe, a man of extraordinary wealth, is assigned to the Modern Crime Prevention Headquarters as a detective. It is there that he gets partnered with Haru Katou, a humane detective who values justice above all. The two are polar opposites, and their morals clash time and time again. Haru despises Daisuke for using monetary wealth to solve cases, as he believes that money isn't everything. The two will have to combine their efforts, however, to solve the mysteries that are coming their way. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 247,413 7.55
Inukami! -- -- Seven Arcs -- 26 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Ecchi Romance Shounen Supernatural -- Inukami! Inukami! -- Kawahira Keita is a descendant of a historic Inukami tamer family; however, because he lacked in its ability, he was forsaken by the family. One day, an Inukami named Youko came. She looked graceful, obedient, above all, beautiful. Soon he contracted with her, and she paid homage to him. However, she was a problematic Inukami that no one had been able to control. -- -- This is a slap stick comedy of an Inukami Tamer, Keita and an Inukami, Youko. Keita is a man of worldly passions, and he likes money and girls very much. On the other hand, Youko likes to destroy things and is very jealous. -- -- (Source: AnimeNfo) -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- TV - Apr 6, 2006 -- 63,310 7.27
Inukami! -- -- Seven Arcs -- 26 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Ecchi Romance Shounen Supernatural -- Inukami! Inukami! -- Kawahira Keita is a descendant of a historic Inukami tamer family; however, because he lacked in its ability, he was forsaken by the family. One day, an Inukami named Youko came. She looked graceful, obedient, above all, beautiful. Soon he contracted with her, and she paid homage to him. However, she was a problematic Inukami that no one had been able to control. -- -- This is a slap stick comedy of an Inukami Tamer, Keita and an Inukami, Youko. Keita is a man of worldly passions, and he likes money and girls very much. On the other hand, Youko likes to destroy things and is very jealous. -- -- (Source: AnimeNfo) -- TV - Apr 6, 2006 -- 63,310 7.27
Pretty Rhythm: Aurora Dream -- -- Tatsunoko Production -- 51 eps -- Game -- Slice of Life Sports Music Shoujo -- Pretty Rhythm: Aurora Dream Pretty Rhythm: Aurora Dream -- Prism Stars are performers on the new popular ice show, Prism Show. They are superidols whose techniques, singing and fashion sense are a cut above all others. Aira and Rizumu are two Prism Stars whose goal is to become the best, the Prism Queen; however, the road to success is bumpy. -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- 17,406 7.35
Seisai -- -- Y.O.U.C -- 2 eps -- Visual novel -- Dementia Fantasy Hentai Horror -- Seisai Seisai -- A horrible murder has been committed on the grounds of Nankai Academy. Professor Yuko, one of the school's most popular teachers, died when she was pushed off of the roof of one of the school's buildings. Her death has left her students with feelings of confusion, pain, and above all else... anger. Four of her male students, Masayoshi, Daisuke, Mitsuru and Shinya, are determined to uncover the truth. They soon discover an important clue: Professor Yuko's planner had been marked on the very night she was killed... marked with the names of seven girls. -- -- With this evidence, the boys begin their investigations... and they'll use any method required in order to find the murderer. Through rape, manipulation and torture, they uncover important details, but piecing the puzzle together won't be easy. And the longer their search draws on, the more they feel themselves being overtaken by their own dark desires... Will they ever find out the truth behind Yuko's death? -- -- (Source: ANN) -- OVA - Jan 10, 2003 -- 3,325 5.38
Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online -- -- Studio 3Hz -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Fantasy Game Military Sci-Fi -- Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online -- Clad in desert pink and the size of a mere child, the infamous "Pink Devil" mercilessly hunts down other players in the firearm-centered world of the virtual reality game Gun Gale Online. But in real life, this feared player killer is not quite who anyone would expect. -- -- A shy university student in Tokyo, Karen Kohiruimaki stands in stark contrast to her in-game avatar—in fact, she happens to stand above everyone else too, much to her dismay. Towering above all the people around her, Karen's insecurities over her height reach the point where she turns to the virtual world for an escape. Starting game after game in hopes of manifesting as a cute, short character, she finally obtains her ideal self in the world of Gun Gale Online. Overjoyed by her new persona, she pours her time into the game as LLENN, garnering her reputation as the legendary player killer. -- -- However, when one of LLENN's targets gets the best of her, she ends up meeting Pitohui, a skilled yet eccentric woman. Quickly becoming friends with Karen, Pitohui insists that LLENN participates in Squad Jam, a battle royale that pits teams against one another, fighting until only one remains. Thrust into the heated competition, LLENN must fight with all her wit and will if she hopes to shoot her way to the top. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 445,228 7.04
Above All
Above All Else in the World
Life, Above All
Love Above All
Morality Above All Else
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
The One Above All, the End of All That Is
This Above All (film)
You Above All
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