TERMS STARTING WITH
Maya, are extraordinarily skilful ; the reason is an insufficient guide and often turns traitor ; vital desire is always with us tempting to follow any alluring call. This is the reason why in this yoga we insist so much on what we call samarpaifa — rather inadequately rendered by the English word surrender. If the heart centre is fully opened and the psychic is always in control, then there is no question ; all is safe. But the psychic can at any moment be veiled by a lower upsurge. It is only a few who are exempt from these dangers and it is precisely those to whom surrender is easily possible. The guidance of one who is himself, by identity or represents the Divine is in this difficult endeavour imperative and indispensable.
Maya: A Sanskrit term, approximately meaning illusion. In Hinduism and other occult and esoteric philosophies, the cosmic force which produces the phenomena of material existence and permits them to be perceived. All that is finite and subject to change and decay, all that is not eternal and unchangeable, is considered as maya. There is but one reality, Brahman-atman, the Universal Spirit.
Maya ::: A Sanskrit term that refers to several Buddhist concepts and philosophies depending on the source and time period. It generally translates as "illusion" or "magic show" and is used to depict the phenomenal world as being devoid of fundamentally true substance. This is due to the causal emanation of it from noumenal reality.
Maya ::: “Maya in its original sense meant a comprehending and containing consciousness capable of embracing, measuring and limiting and therefore formative; it is that which outlines, measures out, moulds forms in the formless, psychologises and seems to make knowable the Unknowable, geometrises and seems to make measurable the limitless. Later the word came from its original sense of knowledge, skill, intelligence to acquire a pejorative sense of cunning, fraud or illusion, and it is in the figure of an enchantment or illusion that it is used by the philosophical systems.” The Life Divine
Mayamohajala: The jugglery or deception set by infatuation of Maya.
Mayamoha (Sanskrit) Māyāmoha The intoxication of illusion; the form assumed by Vishnu in order to deceive ascetic daityas who were becoming too holy through austerities and hence too dangerous in power, according to the Vishnu-Purana.
Mayan Hahochmah, and other works on the
Mayasabalabrahma: Another name for Sagun Brahman or Isvara (the Brahman conjoined with attributes, enwrapped in and coloured with Maya).
Mayasabha (Sanskrit) Māyāsabhā [from māyā illusion + sabhā assembly] An assemblage of illusions; one of the wonderful gifts given to the Pandavas in the Mahabharata by Mayasura.
Maya (Sanskrit) Māyā [from the verbal root mā to measure, form] Illusion, the non-eternal; in Brahmanical philosophy, the fabrication by the human mind of ideas derived from interior and exterior impressions, as it tries to interpret and understand the universe. While the exterior world exists — or it could not be illusory — we do not see clearly and as they actually are that which our mind and senses present to us. A traditional Vedantic illustration says that at twilight a person sees a coiled rope on the ground and springs aside, thinking it is a snake; the rope is there, but no snake.
Maya(Sanskrit) ::: The word comes from the root ma, meaning "to measure," and by a figure of speech it alsocomes to mean "to effect," "to form," and hence "to limit." There is an English word mete, meaning "tomeasure out," from the same IndoEuropean root. It is found in the Anglo-Saxon as the root met, in theGreek as med, and it is found in the Latin also in the same form.Ages ago in the wonderful Brahmanical philosophy maya was understood very differently from what it isnow usually understood to be. As a technical term, maya has come to mean the fabrication by man's mindof ideas derived from interior and exterior impressions, hence the illusory aspect of man's thoughts as heconsiders and tries to interpret and understand life and his surroundings; and thence was derived thesense which it technically bears, "illusion." It does not mean that the exterior world is nonexistent; if itwere, it obviously could not be illusory. It exists, but is not. It is "measured out" or is "limited," or itstands out to the human spirit as a mirage. In other words, we do not see clearly and plainly and in theirreality the vision and the visions which our mind and senses present to the inner life and eye.The familiar illustrations of maya in the Vedanta, which is the highest form that the Brahmanicalteachings have taken and which is so near to our own teaching in many respects, were such as follows: Aman at eventide sees a coiled rope on the ground, and springs aside, thinking it a serpent. The rope isthere, but no serpent. The second illustration is what is called the "horns of the hare." The animal calledthe hare has no horns, but when it also is seen at eventide, its long ears seem to project from its head insuch fashion that it appears even to the seeing eye as being a creature with horns. The hare has no horns,but there is then in the mind an illusory belief that an animal with horns exists there.That is what maya means: not that a thing seen does not exist, but that we are blinded and our mindperverted by our own thoughts and our own imperfections, and do not as yet arrive at the realinterpretation and meaning of the world or of the universe around us. By ascending inwardly, by risingup, by inner aspiration, by an elevation of soul, we can reach upwards or rather inwards towards thatplane where truth abides in fullness.H. P. Blavatsky says on page 631 of the first volume of The Secret Doctrine:Esoteric philosophy, teaching an objective Idealism -- though it regards the objectiveUniverse and all in it as Maya, temporary illusion -- draws a practical distinction betweencollective illusion, Mahamaya, from the purely metaphysical standpoint, and the objectiverelations in it between various conscious Egos so long as this illusion lasts.The teaching is that maya is thus called from the action of mulaprakriti or root-nature, the coordinateprinciple of that other line of coactive consciousness which we call parabrahman. From the momentwhen manifestation begins, it acts dualistically, that is to say that everything in nature from that pointonwards is crossed by pairs of opposites, such as long and short, high and low, night and day, good andevil, consciousness and nonconsciousness, etc., and that all these things are essentially mayic or illusory-- real while they last, but the lasting is not eternal. It is through and by these pairs of opposites that theself-conscious soul learns truth. It might be said, in conclusion, that another and very convenient way ofconsidering maya is to understand it to mean "limitation," "restriction," and therefore imperfect cognitionand recognition of reality. The imperfect mind does not see perfect truth. It labors under an illusioncorresponding with its own imperfections, under a maya, a limitation. Magical practices are frequentlycalled maya in the ancient Hindu books.
Maya: (Skr.) The power of obscuring or state producing error and illusion; the "veil" covering reality, the experience of manifoldness when only the One is real; natura naturans; appearance or phenomenon, as opposed to reality and noumenon. A condition generally acknowledged in Indian philosophy and popular Hindu thinking due to the ascendency of the Vedanta (q.v.) which can be overcome principally by knowledge or insight. See Jnana. -- K.F.L.
Maya ::: Sri Aurobindo: “Maya in its original sense meant a comprehending and containing consciousness capable of embracing, measuring and limiting and therefore formative; it is that which outlines, measures out, moulds forms in the formless, psychologises and seems to make knowable the Unknowable, geometrises and seems to make measurable the limitless. Later the word came from its original sense of knowledge, skill, intelligence to acquire a pejorative sense of cunning, fraud or illusion, and it is in the figure of an enchantment or illusion that it is used by the philosophical systems.” The Life Divine
Mayasura (Sanskrit) Māyāsura The asura mentioned in the Mahabharata, who presented the Pandava brothers with a gift of a bundle of wonderful things.
Maya (S) World of illusions, referring to creation as we observe it through out limited senses. More or less comparable to ‘the world of names and forms’ from the terminology of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Maya: The illusive power of Brahman; the veiling and the projecting power of the universe.
Mayavada: Also known as Mithyavada; theory of illusion; doctrine of the phenomenal character of the universe.
Mayavi, Mayavin (Sanskrit) Māyāvin [from māyā illusion] Illusory; frequently anglicized as mayavic.
Mayavi: Master-magician; great juggler; Brahman.
Mayavi-rupa (Sanskrit) Māyāvi-rūpa [from māyāvin illusory from māyā illusion + rūpa form] Illusory body or thought-body, a higher astral-mental form. The projection of thought-consciousness-will power to any distant place while the physical body is left “entranced.” It is the whole man except the sthula-sarira (physical body), the linga-sarira (the astral or model-body) and prana. This projection can assume any form at the will of the adept. This body is called illusory because when it has accomplished its purpose, it is withdrawn and thus disappears. Synonymous with protean soul, the medieval German doppelganger, and the Tibetan hpho-wa.
Mayavi-Rupa(Sanskrit) ::: This is a compound of two words: mayavi, the adjectival form of the word maya, hence"illusory"; rupa, "form"; the mayavi-rupa or thought-body, or illusory-body, a higher astral-mental form.The mayavi can assume all forms or any form, at the will of an Adept. A synonymous philosophical termis protean soul. In Germany medieval mystics called it the doppelganger. There is a very mystical factconnected with the mayavi-rupa: the Adept is enabled to project his consciousness in the mayavi-rupa towhat would seem to the uninitiated incredible distances, while the physical body is left, as it were,intranced. In Tibet this power of projecting the mayavi-rupa is called hpho-wa.
Maya 摩耶. See MĀYĀ
maya duratyaya ::: maya hard to overcome. [Gita 7.14]
mayah ::: see under maya
maya ::: (in the Veda) "originally a formative power of knowledge, maya the true magic of the supreme Mage, the divine Magician, but . . . also used for the adverse formative power of a lower knowledge, the deceit, illusion and deluding magic of the Rakshasa"; measuring and limiting consciousness, "a selective faculty of knowledge commissioned to shape finite appearance out of the infinite Reality" (brahman); the power of phenomenal creation by which "out of the supreme being in which all is all without barrier of separative consciousness emerges the phenomenal being in which all is in each and each is in all for the play of existence with existence, consciousness with consciousness, force with force, delight with delight"; illusion, "a bewildering partial consciousness which loses hold of the complete reality, lives in the phenomenon of mobile Nature [prakr.ti] and has no sight of the Spirit [purus.a] of which she is the active Power".
mayaivaite nihatah purvameva nimittamatram bhava savyasacin ::: by Me and none other already even are they slain, do thou become the occasion only, O Savyasacin. [Gita 11.33]
maya nihatah purvam eva ::: already have they been slain by Me. [see the preceding]
maya ::: n. --> The name for the doctrine of the unreality of matter, called, in English, idealism; hence, nothingness; vanity; illusion.
maya-sakti (maya-shakti) ::: force of maya. maya-sakti
mayas ::: Bliss, beatitude, felicity. [Ved.]
mayas ::: bliss; the world of ananda.
maya ::: signified originally in the Veda the comprehensive and creative knowledge, wisdom that is from of old, afterwards taken in its second and derivative sense, cunning, magic, illusion; phenomenal consciousness, the power of self-illusion in brahman. ::: mayabhih [instrumental plural], by (his) workings of knowledge. ::: mayah[plural], forms of knowledge.
MAYA (Skt) Illusion. Particularly in the sense that the perception of reality is supposed to be illusory because matter would not be real. The doctrine of maya is not part of esoterics but is a misconception of esoteric teaching. (K 4.7.2, 7.2.13f; P
2.62.7ff)
maya ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Maya in its original sense meant a comprehending and containing consciousness capable of embracing, measuring and limiting and therefore formative; it is that which outlines, measures out, moulds forms in the formless, psychologises and seems to make knowable the Unknowable, geometrises and seems to make measurable the limitless. Later the word came from its original sense of knowledge, skill, intelligence to acquire a pejorative sense of cunning, fraud or illusion, and it is in the figure of an enchantment or illusion that it is used by the philosophical systems.” *The Life Divine
maya. ::: "that which is not"; "that which does not exist"; the superimposition without beginning; the illusion; the illusive power of Brahman that makes the false appearance of the unreal world appear to be real; illusory creation; the veiling and the projecting power of the universe; time and space; doubt; the sense-world of manifold phenomena which conceals the unity of absolute being &
mayavada ::: [the doctrine which holds that the world is maya, i.e. an illusion].
mayavadin ::: [one who professes the mayavada].
mayavadin ::: one who says that the world is an illusion; illusionist. mayavadin
mayavin ::: weaver of illusions. mayavin
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. Sthūla-śarīra Annamaya-kośa Sthūlopādhi
2. Prāṇa Prāṇamaya-kośa
4. Kāma-rūpa [Kāma] Manomaya-kośa Sūkṣmopādhi
6. Spiritual Soul [Buddhi] Ānandamaya-kośa Kāraṇopādhi
. a (anandamaya purusha) ::: "the Bliss-Self of the spirit"; the supreme and universal Soul, "the one and yet innumerable Personality, the infinite Godhead, the self-aware and self-unfolding Purusha", whose essential nature is ananda, a "transcendent Bliss, unimaginable and inexpressible by the mind and speech"; also called ananda purus.a. anandamaya sagun anandamaya saguna
. a (ananda purusha; ananda-purusha) ::: the "supreme bliss Soul", the aspect of the divine Personality (purus.a) corresponding to the impersonal anandaṁ brahma; same as anandamaya purus.a.
. a (annamaya purusha) ::: "the physical conscious being", the purus.a "as a soul in body, which puts forth life as its activity
"A basis can be created for a subjective illusion-consciousness which is yet part of Being, if we accept in the sense of an illusory subjective world-awareness the account of sleep and dream creation given to us in the Upanishads. For the affirmation there is that Brahman as Self is fourfold; the Self is Brahman and all that is is the Brahman, but all that is is the Self seen by the Self in four states of its being. In the pure self-status neither consciousness nor unconsciousness as we conceive it can be affirmed about Brahman; it is a state of superconscience absorbed in its self-existence, in a self-silence or a self-ecstasy, or else it is the status of a free Superconscient containing or basing everything but involved in nothing. But there is also a luminous status of sleep-self, a massed consciousness which is the origin of cosmic existence; this state of deep sleep in which yet there is the presence of an omnipotent Intelligence is the seed state or causal condition from which emerges the cosmos; — this and the dream-self which is the continent of all subtle, subjective or supraphysical experience, and the self of waking which is the support of all physical experience, can be taken as the whole field of Maya.” The Life Divine
“A basis can be created for a subjective illusion-consciousness which is yet part of Being, if we accept in the sense of an illusory subjective world-awareness the account of sleep and dream creation given to us in the Upanishads. For the affirmation there is that Brahman as Self is fourfold; the Self is Brahman and all that is is the Brahman, but all that is is the Self seen by the Self in four states of its being. In the pure self-status neither consciousness nor unconsciousness as we conceive it can be affirmed about Brahman; it is a state of superconscience absorbed in its self-existence, in a self-silence or a self-ecstasy, or else it is the status of a free Superconscient containing or basing everything but involved in nothing. But there is also a luminous status of sleep-self, a massed consciousness which is the origin of cosmic existence; this state of deep sleep in which yet there is the presence of an omnipotent Intelligence is the seed state or causal condition from which emerges the cosmos;—this and the dream-self which is the continent of all subtle, subjective or supraphysical experience, and the self of waking which is the support of all physical experience, can be taken as the whole field of Maya.” The Life Divine
Abhidina (Sanskrit) Abhiḍīna [from abhi towards + ḍīna flight from the verbal root ḍī to fly] One of the siddhis (occult powers) of a buddha; similar to khechara (skywalker, one who has the power of projecting his mayavi-rupa whither he will in the lower ranges of the cosmos), but on a more sublime scale. It is the power to transcend the limitations of the lower quaternary of the cosmos and to “fly” or ascend self-consciously into the spiritual planes of the universe and function there in full self-possession, with complete control of circumstances and time. One of the most mystical and least known teachings of esoteric Buddhism, it is closely connected with samma-sambodhi and nirvana.
Acosmism: The doctrine that the external, physical world is non-existent, unreal, a mere appearance (maya) of the Supreme Being, who is the only reality.
ADEVI MAYA. ::: An undivine Maya; that which creates false mental forms and appearances.
adevi maya ::: undivine maya. [Ved.] ::: adevir mayah [plural], formations of a dark and false creative knowledge.
Adisakti (Sanskrit) Ādiśakti [from ādi first + śakti power, energy] Primeval power; the divine force or direct energic emanation from mulaprakriti, hence the feminine aspect or clothing of any spiritually formative potency. Personified in the Hindu pantheon as the consort of a divinity, every divinity having its own sakti or formative power-substance. Also a name for maya, significant because illusion begins with manifestation (SD 1:10).
ADVAITA. :::One Existence; the One without a second; non-dual, absolute and indivisible unity; Monism.
People are apt to speak of the Advaita as if it were identical with Mayavada monism, just as they speak of Vedanta as if it were identical with Advaita only; that is not the case. There are several forms of Indian philosophy which base themselves upon the One Reality, but they admit also the reality of the world, the reality of the Many, the reality of the differences of the Many as well as the sameness of the One (bhedābheda). But the Many exist in the One and by the One, the differences are variations in manifestation of that which is fundamentally ever the same. This we actually see in the universal law of existence where oneness is always the basis with an endless multiplicity and difference in the oneness; as for instance there is one mankind but many kinds of man, one thing called leaf or flower, but many forms, patterns, colours of leaf and flower. Through this we can look back into one of the fundamental secrets of existence, the secret which is contained in the one reality itself. The oneness of the Infinite is not something limited, fettered to its unity; it is capable of an infinite multiplicity. The Supreme Reality is an Absolute not limited by either oneness or multiplicity but simultaneously capable of both; for both are its aspects, although the oneness is fundamental and the multiplicity depends upon the oneness.
Wide Realistic Advaita.
Advaita (Sanskrit) Advaita [from a not + dvaita dual from dvi two] Nondual; the Advaita or nondualistic form of Vedanta [from veda knowledge + anta end] expounded by Sankaracharya teaches the oneness of Brahman or the paramatman of the universe with the human spirit-soul or jivatman, and the identity of spirit and matter; also that the divine spirit of the universe is the all-efficient, all-productive cause of the periodic coming into being, continuance, and dissolutions of the universe; and that this divine cosmic spirit is the ultimate truth and sole reality — hence the term advaita (without a second). All else is maya, in proportion to its distance from the divine source.
Advaita: Sanskrit for non-dualism. The Vedantic doctrine of monism advocated by Samkara, which contends that only the Ultimate Principle (Brahman) has any actual existence, and that all phenomenal existence is an illusion (maya).
Advaita: (Skr. "non-duality") The Vedantic (q.v.) doctrine of monism advocated by Sankara (q.v.) which holds the Absolute to be personal in relation to the world, especially the philosophically untutored, but supra-personal in itself (cf. nirguna, saguna); the world and the individual to be only relatively, or phenomenally, real; and salvation to consist in insight or jnana (q.v.) after dispelling the maya (q.v.) of separateness from the divine. -- K.F.L.
. a (eka anandamaya purusha) ::: the one allblissful Spirit.
Agasti, Agastya (Sanskrit) Agasti, Agastya [from aga mountain + the verbal root as to throw, cast off] Mountain-thrower; a celebrated muni and the reputed author of a number of hymns in the Rig-Veda; he also appears in the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Agastya is said to have been born in a water jar, to have been of short stature, to have swallowed the ocean, and compelled the Vindhya Mountain to prostrate itself before him. Hence his name: mountain-thrower.
Agneyastra (Sanskrit) Āgneyāstra [from āgneya fiery weapon from agni fire + astra missile weapon, arrow] Fiery weapon; one of the magic weapons used by some of the gods and heroes of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. The Vishnu-Purana (3:8) recounts that the agneyastra was given by the sage Aurva to his disciple King Sagara. A magic weapon said to have been “wielded by the adept-race (the fourth), the Atlanteans” (TG 9), and to have been built of “seven elements” (SD 2:629). It can signify a weapon of fiery character used in physical warfare, or on a cosmic scale can denote the employment of a force of nature by an intelligent being either for offensive or defensive purposes. In archaic thought fire, in its abstract sense, is almost equivalent to spirit, and permeates the sevenfold nature of the universe.
agnimaya ::: fiery; pertaining to the bhūta of agni1; (rūpa or lipi) composed of or containing the akashic material called agni or "fire".1 agnimaya varn varna
Agniratha (Sanskrit) Agniratha [from agni fire + ratha chariot from the verbal root ṛ to go] Fire-chariot; archaic flying vehicles, allegorized in the Ramayana and ancient works on magic. “This vibratory Force, which, when aimed at an army from an Agni Rath fixed on a flying vessel, . . . reduced to ashes 100,000 men and elephants, as easily as it would a dead rat” (SD 1:563).
"A Godhead is seated in the heart of every man and is the Lord of this mysterious action of Nature. And though this Spirit of the universe, this One who is all, seems to be turning us on the wheel of the world as if mounted on a machine by the force of Maya, shaping us in our ignorance as the potter shapes a pot, as the weaver a fabric, by some skilful mechanical principle, yet is this spirit our own greatest self and it is according to the real idea, the truth of ourselves, that which is growing in us and finding always new and more adequate forms in birth after birth, in our animal and human and divine life, in that which we were, that which we are, that which we shall be, — it is in accordance with this inner soul-truth that, as our opened eyes will discover, we are progressively shaped by this spirit within us in its all-wise omnipotence.” *Essays on the Gita
“A Godhead is seated in the heart of every man and is the Lord of this mysterious action of Nature. And though this Spirit of the universe, this One who is all, seems to be turning us on the wheel of the world as if mounted on a machine by the force of Maya, shaping us in our ignorance as the potter shapes a pot, as the weaver a fabric, by some skilful mechanical principle, yet is this spirit our own greatest self and it is according to the real idea, the truth of ourselves, that which is growing in us and finding always new and more adequate forms in birth after birth, in our animal and human and divine life, in that which we were, that which we are, that which we shall be,—it is in accordance with this inner soul-truth that, as our opened eyes will discover, we are progressively shaped by this spirit within us in its all-wise omnipotence.” Essays on the Gita
Ahamkara (Sanskrit) Ahaṃkāra [from aham ego, I + kāra maker, doer from the verbal root kṛ to do] I-maker; conception of egoity or I-am-I-ness. In its lower aspect, the egoistical and mayavi principle, born of avidya (ignorance), which produces the notion of the personal ego as being different from the universal self. In Sankhya philosophy ahamkara is the third emanation: from prakriti (primal nature or substance) issues mahat (the great), standing for universal mind, which in turn produces ahamkara, selfhood, individuality; from ahamkara come forth the five tanmatras, the subtle forms of the elements or principles and “the two series of sense organs” (Samkhya-Sutra 1:61).
Ahammana (Sanskrit) Ahaṃmāna [from aham ego + māna from the verbal root man to think, reflect upon] Egoism, self-illusion; hence spiritual ignorance, the maya produced by reflecting upon or imagining one’s “I” as of primary importance. “When soul is associated with prakriti, it is vitiated by egotism [ahammana] and the rest, and assumes the qualities of grosser nature, although essentially distinct from them, and incorruptible [avyaya]” (VP 6:7).
Aham (Sanskrit) Aham Ego, I, conception of one’s individuality; the basis and psychologically the magic agent which is the root of ahamkara, the organ or faculty which produces in human beings the sense of egoity or individuality on whatever plane. While this faculty is perhaps the most powerful agent in the forward drive of evolutionary unfoldment, it is, nevertheless, but an illusory manifestation within the individual of paramatman, the supreme self of the hierarchy. The individuality, which is a characteristic of the monad, is not likewise merely maya, any more than human egoity manifesting is the full expression of the cosmic paramatman. The first cosmic Logos or paramatman is as creative of multitudes of children monads as is a human being, or indeed any other entity on its own plane. Every such child-monad is identic in substance, intelligence, and consciousness with parabrahman, and yet each is an eternal individual. As the Buddhist metaphor suggests, the sea of cosmic life is divided into incomputable hosts of drops of spirit called monads, each of which is predestined to undertake through long eons its cosmic pilgrimage in evolutionary unfoldment, finally to return and merge into the cosmic sea which gave it birth — “the dew-drop slips into the shining Sea” (Light of Asia).
Ahankara(Sanskrit) ::: A compound word: aham, "I"; kara, "maker" or "doer," from the verb-root kri, "to do," "tomake"; egoism, personality. The egoistical and mayavi principle in man, born of the ignorance or avidyawhich produces the notion of the "I" as being different from the universal One-Self.
Aima (Aramaic) ’Immā’ or ’Īmmā’. The great mother; corresponding in the Qabbalah to ’Abba’ (father) and having the metaphorical significance of the beginning or foundation of anything. Binah (understanding, intelligence), the third Sephirah, is termed the Heavenly Mother (’Imma’ ‘illa’ah): “the ‘woman with child’ of Revelation (xii.) was Aime, the great mother, or Binah, the third Sephiroth, ‘whose name is Jehovah’; and the ‘Dragon,’ who seeks to devour her coming child (the Universe), is the Dragon of absolute Wisdom — that Wisdom which, recognising the non-separateness of the Universe and everything in it from the Absolute All, sees in it no better than the great Illusion, Mahamaya, hence the cause of misery and suffering” (SD 2:384n).
aisvarya (chinmay aishwarya) ::: same as cinmayaisvarya. cinmayaisvarya
aisvaryam (aishwaryam; aisvaryam) ::: see aisvarya. aisvaryam aisvaryamaya aisvaryamaya tr trataka
Aithihya (Sanskrit) Aitihya [from iti thus, in this manner + ha emphatic particle] Thus indeed it was; traditional instructions, tradition. Closely similar to itihasa, a name applied to semi-legendary and epic accounts; also to the Mahabharata and Ramayana. As the instructors of certain schools in handing on teaching (especially oral teaching delivered with “mouth to ear”) invariably commenced an installment with the phrase “iti maya srutam” or “iti ha maya srutam” (truly thus have I heard), such instruction came to be called aitihya or aitiha. The adjectival form aitihasika also means what is communicated or derived from tradition, ancient legend, or heroic history.
Aksha (Sanskrit) Akṣa [from the verbal root akṣ to reach, pass through, pervade] An axle, axis, wheel, car; a die for gambling, a cube; rarely, inner knowledge, as the axis or pivot of life. As a neuter noun, either an organ or an object of sense perception. In the Ramayana, Aksha (akshakumara) was one of the three sons of Ravana, king of the demons, and was slain by Hanuman in Lanka.
aladr.s.t.i (trikaldrishti) ::: same as vivekamaya trikaladr.s.t.i.
aladr.s.t.i (vijnanamaya trikaldrishti) ::: time-vision in the vijñana.
aladr.s.t.i (vijnana trikaldrishti) ::: same as vijñanamaya trikaladr.s.t.i. vij ñanavan
ala-kisora-bhava (bala-kishora-bhava; bala-kishore-bhava) ::: the young boy aspect (of the lilamaya Kr.s.n.a).
Alaya-vijnana (Sanskrit) Ālaya-vijñāna [from ālaya abode, dwelling from ā-lī to settle upon, come close to + vijñāna discernment, knowledge from vi-jñā to distinguish, know, understand] Abode of discriminative knowledge; the cognizing or discerning faculty, the mental power of making distinctions, hence the higher reasoning. When used mystically as “a receptacle or treasury of knowledge or wisdom,” it corresponds very closely to the Vedantic vijnanamaya-kosa, the “thought-made sheath” of the human constitution, the higher manas or reincarnating ego.
Also a materialistic philosopher whose doctrines are said to be imbodied in the Barhaspatya-sutras; a “denier of all but matter, who if he could come back to life, would put shame to all the ‘Free thinkers’ and ‘Agnostics’ of the day. He lived before the Ramayanic period, but his teachings and school have survived to this day, and he has even now followers, who are mostly to be found in Bengal” (ibid.).
. a (manomaya purusha) ::: "the Soul on the mental level", the purus.a as a mental being "in whose nature the clarity and luminous power of the mind acts in its own right independent of any limitation or oppression by the vital or corporeal instruments"; the "Spirit poised in mind" which "becomes the mental self of a mental world and dwells there in the reign of its own pure and luminous mental Nature".
. amaya ::: full of infinite qualities (anantagun.a); the "Godhead, the spirit manifested in Nature" who "appears in a sea of infinite quality" expressing his "absolute capacity of boundlessly varied selfrevelation"; Kr.s.n.a seen in the second degree of the third intensity of Kr.s.n.adarsana, a kind of vision of the divine Personality corresponding to anantaṁ brahma in the impersonal brahmadarsana. ananta-j ñana
amaya svapna siddhi (nidramaya swapna siddhi) ::: perfection of svapnasamadhi during sleep.
amaya tapas ::: will-power full of faith in its own fulfilment.
amaya ::: the supreme Reality and the power of its "infinite consciousness to comprehend, contain in itself and measure out . . . Name and Shape out of the vast illimitable Truth of infinite existence", the duality of brahman and maya in its highest "biune" form. par parajayananda
amaya upalabdhi ::: realisation of the lilamaya sagun.a or lilamaya isvara / purus.a in brahmadarsana.
Amrita (Sanskrit) Amṛta [from a not + mṛta dead from the verbal root mṛ to die] Immortality; the water of life or immortality, the ambrosial drink or spiritual food of the gods. According to the Puranas, Ramayana, and Mahabharata, amrita is the elixir of life produced during the contest between the devas and asuras when churning the “milky sea” (the waters of life). It has been stolen many times, but as often recovered, and it is still preserved carefully in devaloka.
ana (ananda-vijnana; ananda vijnana) ::: the principle of ananda reflected in the plane of vijñana. ananda-vij ananda-vij ñanamaya
ana ::: intelligence; "the consciousness which holds an image of things before it as an object with which it has to enter into relations and to possess by apprehension and a combined analytic and synthetic cognition"; a subordinate operation of vijñana which "by its power of projecting, confronting, apprehending knowledge" is the "parent of that awareness by distinction which is the process of the Mind". praj ñanamaya anamaya vij ñana
anamaya anandamaya isvara (vijnanamaya anandamaya ishwara) ::: the all-knowing and all-blissful Lord.
anamaya ::: full of knowledge. j ñanamaya anamaya saguna
anamaya ::: having the nature of revelatory vijñana.
an.amaya jagat (pranamay jagat) ::: the vital world; same as pran.ajagat. pr pranamaya an.amaya purus purusa
anamaya tapas ::: tapas on the plane of vijñana, "that which fulfils what the knowledge sees"; same as ideal tapas.
an.amaya tapas ::: vital power, "unquiet, full of desire or effort", same as nervous tapas. pranan pr
anamaya thought ::: thought elevated to the plane of vijñana.
anamaya ::: (van.i) expressing the delight and wisdom of the vijñanamaya anandamaya isvara.
anamaya (vijnanamaya; vijnanamay) ::: supra-intellectual; having the nature of vijñana, the principle that links saccidananda to mind, life and matter and is revealed through the faculties of smr.ti, sruti and dr.s.t.i; expressing the principle of vijñana involved in or subordinated to the principle of another plane, such as the physical or mental. The terms ideal, gnostic and supramental are almost interchangeable with vijñanamaya in the Record of Yoga up to 1920; in 1927, the word vijñanamaya does not occur, while "supramental" and "gnostic" refer to planes higher than ideality.
anamayi ::: feminine of vijñanamaya.
anam ::: see vijñana. vij ñanamaya
anandamaya ::: 1. [full of ananda], joyous. ::: 2. [ =anandamaya purusa].
anandamaya (anandamaya; anandamay) ::: full of or consisting of anandamaya ananda; joyous, delightful, blissful, beatific; characterized by an equal delight (sama ananda) in all experiences; having the nature of pure ananda of saccidananda, or of the principle of ananda involved in or subordinated to the principle of another plane, such as the physical, mental, etc.; ("the Anandamaya") the All-Blissful, short for anandamaya isvara or anandamaya purus.a; the third degree of . 14 the third intensity of Kr.s.n.adarsana, a kind of vision of the divine Personality corresponding to anandaṁ brahma in the impersonal brahmadarsana.
anandamaya asat (anandamay asat) ::: non-being (asat) conceived as anandamaya "some inexpressible Beatitude [ananda] . . . into which even the notion of self-existence seems to be swallowed up"; "a pure causeless eternal Bliss so intense that we are that alone", experienced when the mind, in approaching saccidananda, dwells exclusively "on the aspect of delight, Ananda, and existence [sat] and consciousness [cit] then seem to disappear into a bliss without basis of self-possessing awareness or constituent being".
anandamaya asura ::: the sadhyadeva (mind raised to the plane of anandamaya ananda) of the asura type, who evolves in the eleventh and twelfth manvantaras of the sixth pratikalpa.
anandamaya avesa ::: [a blissful avesa].
anandamaya brahmamaya ::: consisting of anandaṁ brahma anandamaya anandamaya isvara anandamaya
anandamaya ::: fear turned into delight.
anandamaya isvara (Anandamaya Ishwara) ::: [the Lord whose substance is ananda], the Lord of existence and works and the Spirit of bliss.
anandamaya ::: joyless; the opposite of anandamaya. nir nirananda ananda ssanti
Anandamayakosa (Sanskrit) Ānandamayakośa [from ānanda bliss, joy + maya built of, formed of from the verbal root mā to measure, form + kośa sheath] Bliss-built sheath; in the Vedantic classification, the first of the panchakosa (five sheaths) of the human constitution which enclose the divine monad (atman); it corresponds to the spiritual soul (buddhi). Anandamayakosa is sometimes mystically referred to as the sheath of the sun. See also KOSA
ananda maya kosha. ::: the sheath of bliss; the causal body; dreamless sleep; the borderline of the Self
anandamaya lilamaya ::: (brahman or isvara) full of ananda exanandamaya pressed in the lila of the world; short for anandamaya lilamaya sagun.a or anandamaya lilamaya Kr.s.n.a. anandamaya lil anandamaya lilamaya amaya Kr Krsna
anandamaya namaskara ::: [a blissful salutation].
anandamaya nati ::: ecstatic submission; the highest form of nati anandamaya which comes when one learns "to take delight in all things even as the Lord takes delight in them", becoming "capable of receiving all contacts with a blissful equality, because we feel in them the touch of the imperishable Love and Delight, the happiness absolute that hides . ever in the heart of things".
anandamaya purusa (Anandamaya Purusha) ::: Bliss-Self; the all-blissful being or all-enjoying and all-productive soul; an infinite "I Am" of Bliss.
anandaṁ (brahma) ::: brahman as Knowledge and Bliss, the last two elements of the brahma catus.t.aya. j ñanamaya
ananda ::: the sanmaya level of the plane of ananda.
ananda ::: the tapomaya level of the ananda plane.
anandavan.i (anandavani; ananda vani) ::: beatific voice: van.i originating on the ananda plane or expressing the delight of the anandamaya isvara. ananda-vij ananda-vij ñana
Ananga (Sanskrit) Anaṅga [from an not + aṅga limb, member, division] Without limbs or parts; hence bodiless, incorporeal. Name of the god Kama (Kamadeva) because as Puranic legend has it he was made bodiless by a flash from Siva’s third eye when attempting to disturb Siva’s life of austerity (cf also Ramayana, Balakanda 23). Siva is the patron of esotericists, and what is represented by the Eye of Siva “mystically, must be acquired by the ascetic before he becomes an adept” (SD 2:282, 615). By extension, precisely because ananga means without limbs or parts, it is a graphic and suggestive title of all spiritual potencies, qualities, or attributes; also a title of akasa, the sky or cosmic ether, and of manas (mind). Thus not only is the god Kama bodiless, but every distinct portion of the human spiritual nature is equally so.
anantagun.a (anantaguna; ananta guna; anantagunam) ::: "the infinite anantaguna qualities of the spirit" of which "Nature is only the power in being and the development in action"; brahman as "an Infinite teeming with innumerable qualities, properties, features"; capable of infinite qualities; same as anantagun.amaya.
anantagun.am ::: see anantagun.a. anantagunam anantagun anantagunamaya
An apparition of another kind which, though rare, is genuine and authentic, is due to a dying person’s intense thought of another, making him for a brief moment objective to the latter. It may be due to an intense will to see or to appear to the other person, or it may be a more automatic projection of the mayavi-rupa of the dying one. These last cases, however, must be distinguished in quality from the adept’s consciously exercised power to project his higher astral-mental form to any distance in his mayavi-rupa. “The rays of thought have the same potentiality for producing forms in the astral atmosphere as the sunrays have with regard to a lens. Every thought so evolved with energy from the brain creates nolens volens a shape” (BCW 10:224).
ana ::: (samadhi) with experiences on the plane of vijñana; same as vijñanamaya. savij ñana ana samadhi
ana thought ::: same as vijñanamaya thought. vij ñana ana trik trikaladrsti
ana ::: vijñana of a predominantly revelatory character; same as revelatory logistis or full revelatory ideality. revelatory vij ñanamaya
And still we can recognise at once in the Overmind the original cosmic Maya, not a Maya of Ignorance but a Maya of Knowledge, yet a Power which has made the Ignorance possible, even inevitable. For if each principle loosed into action must follow its independent line and carry out its complete consequences, the principle of separation must also be allowed its complete course and arrive at its absolute consequence; this is Overmind in its descent reaches a line which divides the cosmic Truth from the cosmic Ignorance; it is the line at which it becomes possible for Consciousness-Force, emphasising the separateness of each independent movement created by Overmind and hiding or darkening their unity, to divide Mind by an exclusive concentration from the overmental source. There has already been a similar separation of Overmind from its supramental source, but with a transparency in the veil which allows a conscious transmission and maintains a certain luminous kinship; but here the veil is opaque and the transmission of the Overmind motives to the Mind is occult and obscure. Mind separated acts as if it were an independent principle, and each mental being, each basic mental idea, power, force stands similarly on its separate self; if it communicates with or combines or contacts others, it is not with the catholic universality of the overmind movement, on a basis of underlying oneness, but as independent units joining to form a separate constructed whole. It is by this movement that we pass from the cosmic Truth into the cosmic Ignorance. The cosmic Mind on this level, no doubt, comprehends its own unity, but it is not aware of its own source and foundation in the Spirit or can only comprehend it by the intelligence, not in any enduring experience; it acts in itself as if by its own right and works out what it receives as material without direct communication with the source from which it receives it. Its units also act in ignorance of each other and of the cosmic whole except for the knowledge that they can get by contact and communication,—the basic sense of identity and the mutual penetration and understanding that comes from it are no longer there. All the actions of this Mind Energy proceed on the opposite basis of the Ignorance and its divisions and, although they are the results of a certain conscious knowledge, it is a partial knowledge, not a true and integral self-knowledge, nor a true and integral world-knowledge. This character persists in Life and in subtle Matter and reappears in the gross material universe which arises from the final lapse into the Inconscience. …
“And though this Spirit of the universe, this One who is all, seems to be turning us on the wheel of the world as if mounted on a machine by the force of Maya, shaping us in our ignorance as the potter shapes a pot, as the weaver a fabric, by some skilful mechanical principle, yet is this spirit our own greatest self and it is according to the real idea, the truth of ourselves, that which is growing in us and finding always new and more adequate forms in birth after birth, in our animal and human and divine life, in that which we were, that which we are, that which we shall be,—it is in accordance with this inner soul-truth that, as our opened eyes will discover, we are progressively shaped by this spirit within us in its all-wise omnipotence.” Essays on the Gita
Anjana (Sanskrit) Añjanā [feminine of añjana] The mother of Hanumat or Hanuman, the celebrated monkey god of the Ramayana, who is therefore called Anjaneya (son of Anjana). In her previous birth she was a goddess, but due to a curse was born as a monkey in the Himalayas. The birth of her son, Hanuman, lifted the curse and after a period Anjana ascended to svarga (heaven).
aṅmaya ::: same as effulgent vaṅmaya.
aṅmaya ::: same as refulgent vaṅmaya.
aṅmaya ::: the movement of vaṅmaya thought in which the thought comes "as speech self-born out of the truth and complete in its own right and carrying in itself its own vision and knowledge". egoistic d dasya
aṅmaya ::: the movement of vaṅmaya thought in which the thought-perception aids itself "by a suggestive inward speech that attends it to bring out its whole significance".
ANNAKOSA. ::: Sheath of the material consciousness.
annam ::: Matter. annamaya
puruṣa ::: physical conscious being; physical consciousness in man; materialised soul.
annamaya atma ::: [material self.]
annamaya-citta (annamaya-chitta) ::: the "pervading and possessing action of consciousness" (citta) in the body. annamaya purus purusa
Annamayakosa (Sanskrit) Annamayakośa [from anna food + maya from the verbal root mā to measure, delimit + kośa sheath, treasury] Food-built sheath; according to the Vedantic classification of the human constitution, the fifth and grossest of the panchakosa (five sheaths) which enclose the atman (divine monad), corresponding to the sthula-sarira (physical body) in the sevenfold theosophical division.
annamayam jagat ::: gross material world.
annamaya ::: physical; composed of or pertaining to anna1. annamaya atman
annamaya purusa ::: soul in body; physical conscious being; material being.
APANA. ::: ANNAKOSA. ::: Sheath of the material consciousness.
annam ::: Matter. annamaya
puruṣa ::: physical conscious being; physical consciousness in man; materialised soul.
Aparinamin (Sanskrit) Apariṇāmin [from a not + pari around, about + the verbal root nam to bend, turn, change] Unchanging; used in connection with Purusha and prakriti or pradhana, when regarded in their fundamental essence of continuous spiritual substance. In the Puranas, for example, Purusha (spirit per se) is called both avyaya (imperishable, undecaying) and aparinamin (immutable, unchanging); while prahana or prakriti (matter in its elemental state) is vyaya (perishable) and parinamin (subject to change) (cf VP 1:2; SD 1:582). However, when Purusha and prakriti are regarded from the standpoint of the periods of manifestation, their aspects become mayavi (illusory), and hence in their interblending actions subject to the modifications of manvantaric evolution.
Apparition. See GHOST; MAYAVI-RUPA
. a (pranamaya purusha) ::: "the vital conscious being", the purus.a "as a soul of life, self-identified with a great movement of becoming in Time, which puts forth body as a form or basic senseimage and mind as a conscious activity of life-experience"; it "is capable of looking beyond the duration and limits of the physical body, of feeling an eternity of life behind and in front, an identity with a universal Life-being, but does not look beyond a constant vital becoming in Time". pr pranamaya
Apsaras (Sanskrit) Apsaras [from ap water + saras flowing from the verbal root sṛ to flow, glide, blow (as of wind)] Moving in the waters; a class of feminine divinities known as celestial water nymphs, whose location is commonly placed in the sky between the clouds rather than in the waters of earth, although they are often described as visiting earth. These fairy-like wives of the gandharvas (celestial musicians) can change their shape at will, often appearing as aquatic birds. In Manu they are held to be the creations of the seven manus, but in the Puranas and the Ramayana their origin is attributed to the churning of the cosmic waters, and it is said that neither gods nor asuras would have them for wives. Since mythologically they were common to all, they are called Sumadatmajas (self-willed pleasurers) — 35 million of them, of whom Kama, god of love, is lord and king. One of their roles is to act as temptresses to those too ardent for divine status. Only the individual who can withstand the perfumed entreaties of the apsarasas is worthy of full enlightenment. In the Yajur-Veda the apsarasas are called sunbeams because of their connection with the gandharva who personifies the sun.
aran.a-indriya ::: the causal (vijñanamaya) sense-faculty; the "supramental sense" which "is independent of the body and the physical life and outer mind and it is above too the inner mind and its experiences".
arayan.a ::: Narayan.a seen in relation to the cosmic game or lila as an aspect of the "divine Anandamaya personality" at play in the world.
articulate thought ::: same as vaṅmaya thought.
Aruna (Sanskrit) Aruṇa [from the verbal root ṛ to move, rise, tend towards] Reddish-brown, ruddy (the color of morning as opposed to the darkness of night); dawn personified, sometimes represented as the charioteer of the sun. In the Ramayana, Aruna is the father of the fabulous bird Jatayu, king of the vultures, slain by Ravana. In the Vishnu-Purana, Aruna is one of the two sons of Kasyapa by Vinata; called Suparna, he is “king of the feathered tribes, and the remorseless enemy of the serpent race” (1:21).
Aryabhata (Sanskrit) Āryabhaṭa An ancient Hindu writer on algebra and astronomy, born in Kusuma-Pura (modern Patma). His most famous astrological work is the Arya-Siddhanta. “The earliest Hindu algebraic and astronomer with the exception of Asura-Maya” (TG 32).
asa (bhumaya akasha) ::: the akasa of bhū; the physical ether.
asa (jyotirmaya prakasha) ::: illumined clarity.K
asamaya tapas (prakashamaya tapas) ::: luminous force. prakritic d dasya
. a ::: same as anandamaya sagun.a brahman. anandamaya saguna anandamaya
a ::: same as tamomaya nidra. tamasic ty tyaga
asinata ::: udasinata due to a predominance of sattva: "a high intellectual indifference seated above the disturbances to which our nature is prone", a "philosophic equality" that can come "with the perception of the world either as an illusion [maya] or a play [lila] and of all things as being equal in the Brahman".
"As long as we live in the ignorant seeming, we are the ego and are subject to the modes of Nature. Enslaved to appearances, bound to the dualities, tossed between good and evil, sin and virtue, grief and joy, pain and pleasure, good fortune and ill fortune, success and failure, we follow helplessly the iron or gilt and iron round of the wheel of Maya.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
“As long as we live in the ignorant seeming, we are the ego and are subject to the modes of Nature. Enslaved to appearances, bound to the dualities, tossed between good and evil, sin and virtue, grief and joy, pain and pleasure, good fortune and ill fortune, success and failure, we follow helplessly the iron or gilt and iron round of the wheel of Maya.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Astral Body Generally equivalent to the Sanskrit linga-sarira, the ethereal model-body, usually invisible to our physical eyes, upon which the physical body (sthula-sarira) is modeled. There are three ethereal forms or bodies which might properly be called astral bodies: 1) mayavi-rupa — the illusory form-body of thought and substance projected by high initiates; 2) linga-sarira — the model- or pattern-body, the second principle of the human constitution; and 3) kama-rupa — the phantom or spook which is seen occasionally in the vicinity of graves or which occasionally materializes at seances.
Astra (Sanskrit) Astra Missile, weapon; in the war between the Pandavas and Kurus in the Mahabharata, in addition to the regular weapons (astras), others are mentioned: mantra-astras (weapons made powerful by mantras); divya-astra (weapons received from higher beings); and agneyastras (weapons of fire). Likewise racial remnants of the earlier Atlanteans (commonly called Rakshasas) employed the power of hallucination (maya); this is also described in the Ramayana. See also ASHTAR
a ::: supra-intellectual (vijñanamaya) faith.
“Asuramaya is said to have lived (see the tradition of Jhana-bhaskara) in Romaka-pura in the West: because the name is an allusion to the land and cradle of the ‘Sweat-born’ of the Third Race. That land or continent had disappeared ages before Asuramaya lived, since he was an Atlantean; but he was a direct descendant of the Wise Race, the Race that never dies. Many are the legends concerning this hero, the pupil of Surya (the Sun-God) himself, as the Indian accounts allege” (SD 2:67).
Asuramaya (Sanskrit) Asuramaya Also Mayāsura, Mayeśvara. Legendary astronomer spoken of in Sanskrit literature as versed in magic, astronomy, and military science. “In the old Stanzas Pesh-Hun is credited with having calculated and recorded all the astronomical and cosmic cycles to come, and with having taught the Science to the first gazers at the starry vault. And it is Asuramaya, who is said to have based all his astronomical works upon those records, to have determined the duration of all the past geological and cosmical periods, and the length of all the cycles to come, till the end of this life-cycle, or the end of the seventh Race. . . .
asus.e mayas (dasushe mayas) ::: bliss for the giver (of the sacrifice).[R . g Veda 1.93.1]
Asvamedha (Sanskrit) Aśvamedha [from aśva horse + medha the sacrifice of an animal, oblation] The horse sacrifice; an ancient Brahmanical ceremony, going back to the Vedic period. Its greatest prominence occurred during the era described in the Asvamedhika-parva of the Mahabharata. Kings alone were permitted to perform the sacrifice, and the proponent was considered for the time being a king of kings. A horse of particular color, selected and consecrated by ceremonies, was permitted to wander wherever it wished for a year. The king performing the sacrifice, or his representative, followed the horse with an armed escort, and every ruler of the region so entered was obligated to submit to the entering king or do battle with him. If the liberator of the horse proved successful in subjugating all the rulers encountered, he returned followed by the vanquished kings (if unsuccessful he was derided and the ceremony relinquished) and the concluding sacrifice, either actual or figurative, was performed with great celebration. The Asvamedha also is mentioned in the Ramayana.
at.aka (aishwaryamaya tratak) ::: trat.aka (concentration of the vision) brought about by aisvarya (exercise of will).
a ::: the world as a rapturous game of the anandamaya isvara / purus.a.
atmamayaya ::: by self-maya. [Gita 4.6]
Atmanam Atmana Pasya (Sanskrit) Ātmānam ātmanā paśya [from ātman self + the verbal root paś to see] See the self by the self; a favorite phrase used in Vedanta philosophy, especially by Sankaracharya. In its highest interpretation it refers to Avalokitesvara which is “in one sense ‘the divine Self perceived or seen by Self,’ the Atman or seventh principle ridded of its mayavic distinction from its Universal Source — which becomes the object of perception for, and by the individuality centred in Buddhi, the sixth principle, — something that happens only in the highest state of Samadhi. This is applying it to the microcosm” (ML 343).
atra ::: golden lid. [Īsa Upanis.ad 15]. maya p
. a-udasinata-nati (anandamaya titiksha-udasinatanati) ::: joyous endurance-indifference-submission; anandamaya nati unified with titiks.a and udasinata. anandamaya vvani anandamaya
. a-udasinata-nati (titiksha-udasinata-nati) ::: see anandamaya titiks.a-udasinata-nati. titiks.a, udasinata, natih. iti samata (titiksha, udasinata, natih iti titiksa,
Aufklärung: In general, this German word and its English equivalent Enlightenment denote the self-emancipation of man from mere authority, prejudice, convention and tradition, with an insistence on freer thinking about problems uncritically referred to these other agencies. According to Kant's famous definition "Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority, which is the incapacity of using one's understanding without the direction of another. This state of minority is caused when its source lies not in the lack of understanding, but in the lack of determination and courage to use it without the assistance of another" (Was ist Aufklärung? 1784). In its historical perspective, the Aufklärung refers to the cultural atmosphere and contrlbutions of the 18th century, especially in Germany, France and England [which affected also American thought with B. Franklin, T. Paine and the leaders of the Revolution]. It crystallized tendencies emphasized by the Renaissance, and quickened by modern scepticism and empiricism, and by the great scientific discoveries of the 17th century. This movement, which was represented by men of varying tendencies, gave an impetus to general learning, a more popular philosophy, empirical science, scriptural criticism, social and political thought. More especially, the word Aufklärung is applied to the German contributions to 18th century culture. In philosophy, its principal representatives are G. E. Lessing (1729-81) who believed in free speech and in a methodical criticism of religion, without being a free-thinker; H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768) who expounded a naturalistic philosophy and denied the supernatural origin of Christianity; Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86) who endeavoured to mitigate prejudices and developed a popular common-sense philosophy; Chr. Wolff (1679-1754), J. A. Eberhard (1739-1809) who followed the Leibnizian rationalism and criticized unsuccessfully Kant and Fichte; and J. G. Herder (1744-1803) who was best as an interpreter of others, but whose intuitional suggestions have borne fruit in the organic correlation of the sciences, and in questions of language in relation to human nature and to national character. The works of Kant and Goethe mark the culmination of the German Enlightenment. Cf. J. G. Hibben, Philosophy of the Enlightenment, 1910. --T.G. Augustinianism: The thought of St. Augustine of Hippo, and of his followers. Born in 354 at Tagaste in N. Africa, A. studied rhetoric in Carthage, taught that subject there and in Rome and Milan. Attracted successively to Manicheanism, Scepticism, and Neo-Platontsm, A. eventually found intellectual and moral peace with his conversion to Christianity in his thirty-fourth year. Returning to Africa, he established numerous monasteries, became a priest in 391, Bishop of Hippo in 395. Augustine wrote much: On Free Choice, Confessions, Literal Commentary on Genesis, On the Trinity, and City of God, are his most noted works. He died in 430. St. Augustine's characteristic method, an inward empiricism which has little in common with later variants, starts from things without, proceeds within to the self, and moves upwards to God. These three poles of the Augustinian dialectic are polarized by his doctrine of moderate illuminism. An ontological illumination is required to explain the metaphysical structure of things. The truth of judgment demands a noetic illumination. A moral illumination is necessary in the order of willing; and so, too, an lllumination of art in the aesthetic order. Other illuminations which transcend the natural order do not come within the scope of philosophy; they provide the wisdoms of theology and mysticism. Every being is illuminated ontologically by number, form, unity and its derivatives, and order. A thing is what it is, in so far as it is more or less flooded by the light of these ontological constituents. Sensation is necessary in order to know material substances. There is certainly an action of the external object on the body and a corresponding passion of the body, but, as the soul is superior to the body and can suffer nothing from its inferior, sensation must be an action, not a passion, of the soul. Sensation takes place only when the observing soul, dynamically on guard throughout the body, is vitally attentive to the changes suffered by the body. However, an adequate basis for the knowledge of intellectual truth is not found in sensation alone. In order to know, for example, that a body is multiple, the idea of unity must be present already, otherwise its multiplicity could not be recognized. If numbers are not drawn in by the bodily senses which perceive only the contingent and passing, is the mind the source of the unchanging and necessary truth of numbers? The mind of man is also contingent and mutable, and cannot give what it does not possess. As ideas are not innate, nor remembered from a previous existence of the soul, they can be accounted for only by an immutable source higher than the soul. In so far as man is endowed with an intellect, he is a being naturally illuminated by God, Who may be compared to an intelligible sun. The human intellect does not create the laws of thought; it finds them and submits to them. The immediate intuition of these normative rules does not carry any content, thus any trace of ontologism is avoided. Things have forms because they have numbers, and they have being in so far as they possess form. The sufficient explanation of all formable, and hence changeable, things is an immutable and eternal form which is unrestricted in time and space. The forms or ideas of all things actually existing in the world are in the things themselves (as rationes seminales) and in the Divine Mind (as rationes aeternae). Nothing could exist without unity, for to be is no other than to be one. There is a unity proper to each level of being, a unity of the material individual and species, of the soul, and of that union of souls in the love of the same good, which union constitutes the city. Order, also, is ontologically imbibed by all beings. To tend to being is to tend to order; order secures being, disorder leads to non-being. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal each to its own place and integrates an ensemble of parts in accordance with an end. Hence, peace is defined as the tranquillity of order. Just as things have their being from their forms, the order of parts, and their numerical relations, so too their beauty is not something superadded, but the shining out of all their intelligible co-ingredients. S. Aurelii Augustini, Opera Omnia, Migne, PL 32-47; (a critical edition of some works will be found in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna). Gilson, E., Introd. a l'etude de s. Augustin, (Paris, 1931) contains very good bibliography up to 1927, pp. 309-331. Pope, H., St. Augustine of Hippo, (London, 1937). Chapman, E., St. Augustine's Philos. of Beauty, (N. Y., 1939). Figgis, J. N., The Political Aspects of St. Augustine's "City of God", (London, 1921). --E.C. Authenticity: In a general sense, genuineness, truth according to its title. It involves sometimes a direct and personal characteristic (Whitehead speaks of "authentic feelings"). This word also refers to problems of fundamental criticism involving title, tradition, authorship and evidence. These problems are vital in theology, and basic in scholarship with regard to the interpretation of texts and doctrines. --T.G. Authoritarianism: That theory of knowledge which maintains that the truth of any proposition is determined by the fact of its having been asserted by a certain esteemed individual or group of individuals. Cf. H. Newman, Grammar of Assent; C. S. Peirce, "Fixation of Belief," in Chance, Love and Logic, ed. M. R. Cohen. --A.C.B. Autistic thinking: Absorption in fanciful or wishful thinking without proper control by objective or factual material; day dreaming; undisciplined imagination. --A.C.B. Automaton Theory: Theory that a living organism may be considered a mere machine. See Automatism. Automatism: (Gr. automatos, self-moving) (a) In metaphysics: Theory that animal and human organisms are automata, that is to say, are machines governed by the laws of physics and mechanics. Automatism, as propounded by Descartes, considered the lower animals to be pure automata (Letter to Henry More, 1649) and man a machine controlled by a rational soul (Treatise on Man). Pure automatism for man as well as animals is advocated by La Mettrie (Man, a Machine, 1748). During the Nineteenth century, automatism, combined with epiphenomenalism, was advanced by Hodgson, Huxley and Clifford. (Cf. W. James, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, ch. V.) Behaviorism, of the extreme sort, is the most recent version of automatism (See Behaviorism). (b) In psychology: Psychological automatism is the performance of apparently purposeful actions, like automatic writing without the superintendence of the conscious mind. L. C. Rosenfield, From Beast Machine to Man Machine, N. Y., 1941. --L.W. Automatism, Conscious: The automatism of Hodgson, Huxley, and Clifford which considers man a machine to which mind or consciousness is superadded; the mind of man is, however, causally ineffectual. See Automatism; Epiphenomenalism. --L.W. Autonomy: (Gr. autonomia, independence) Freedom consisting in self-determination and independence of all external constraint. See Freedom. Kant defines autonomy of the will as subjection of the will to its own law, the categorical imperative, in contrast to heteronomy, its subjection to a law or end outside the rational will. (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, § 2.) --L.W. Autonomy of ethics: A doctrine, usually propounded by intuitionists, that ethics is not a part of, and cannot be derived from, either metaphysics or any of the natural or social sciences. See Intuitionism, Metaphysical ethics, Naturalistic ethics. --W.K.F. Autonomy of the will: (in Kant's ethics) The freedom of the rational will to legislate to itself, which constitutes the basis for the autonomy of the moral law. --P.A.S. Autonymy: In the terminology introduced by Carnap, a word (phrase, symbol, expression) is autonymous if it is used as a name for itself --for the geometric shape, sound, etc. which it exemplifies, or for the word as a historical and grammatical unit. Autonymy is thus the same as the Scholastic suppositio matertalis (q. v.), although the viewpoint is different. --A.C. Autotelic: (from Gr. autos, self, and telos, end) Said of any absorbing activity engaged in for its own sake (cf. German Selbstzweck), such as higher mathematics, chess, etc. In aesthetics, applied to creative art and play which lack any conscious reference to the accomplishment of something useful. In the view of some, it may constitute something beneficent in itself of which the person following his art impulse (q.v.) or playing is unaware, thus approaching a heterotelic (q.v.) conception. --K.F.L. Avenarius, Richard: (1843-1896) German philosopher who expressed his thought in an elaborate and novel terminology in the hope of constructing a symbolic language for philosophy, like that of mathematics --the consequence of his Spinoza studies. As the most influential apostle of pure experience, the posltivistic motive reaches in him an extreme position. Insisting on the biologic and economic function of thought, he thought the true method of science is to cure speculative excesses by a return to pure experience devoid of all assumptions. Philosophy is the scientific effort to exclude from knowledge all ideas not included in the given. Its task is to expel all extraneous elements in the given. His uncritical use of the category of the given and the nominalistic view that logical relations are created rather than discovered by thought, leads him to banish not only animism but also all of the categories, substance, causality, etc., as inventions of the mind. Explaining the evolution and devolution of the problematization and deproblematization of numerous ideas, and aiming to give the natural history of problems, Avenarius sought to show physiologically, psychologically and historically under what conditions they emerge, are challenged and are solved. He hypothesized a System C, a bodily and central nervous system upon which consciousness depends. R-values are the stimuli received from the world of objects. E-values are the statements of experience. The brain changes that continually oscillate about an ideal point of balance are termed Vitalerhaltungsmaximum. The E-values are differentiated into elements, to which the sense-perceptions or the content of experience belong, and characters, to which belongs everything which psychology describes as feelings and attitudes. Avenarius describes in symbolic form a series of states from balance to balance, termed vital series, all describing a series of changes in System C. Inequalities in the vital balance give rise to vital differences. According to his theory there are two vital series. It assumes a series of brain changes because parallel series of conscious states can be observed. The independent vital series are physical, and the dependent vital series are psychological. The two together are practically covariants. In the case of a process as a dependent vital series three stages can be noted: first, the appearance of the problem, expressed as strain, restlessness, desire, fear, doubt, pain, repentance, delusion; the second, the continued effort and struggle to solve the problem; and finally, the appearance of the solution, characterized by abating anxiety, a feeling of triumph and enjoyment. Corresponding to these three stages of the dependent series are three stages of the independent series: the appearance of the vital difference and a departure from balance in the System C, the continuance with an approximate vital difference, and lastly, the reduction of the vital difference to zero, the return to stability. By making room for dependent and independent experiences, he showed that physics regards experience as independent of the experiencing indlvidual, and psychology views experience as dependent upon the individual. He greatly influenced Mach and James (q.v.). See Avenarius, Empirio-criticism, Experience, pure. Main works: Kritik der reinen Erfahrung; Der menschliche Weltbegriff. --H.H. Averroes: (Mohammed ibn Roshd) Known to the Scholastics as The Commentator, and mentioned as the author of il gran commento by Dante (Inf. IV. 68) he was born 1126 at Cordova (Spain), studied theology, law, medicine, mathematics, and philosophy, became after having been judge in Sevilla and Cordova, physician to the khalifah Jaqub Jusuf, and charged with writing a commentary on the works of Aristotle. Al-mansur, Jusuf's successor, deprived him of his place because of accusations of unorthodoxy. He died 1198 in Morocco. Averroes is not so much an original philosopher as the author of a minute commentary on the whole works of Aristotle. His procedure was imitated later by Aquinas. In his interpretation of Aristotelian metaphysics Averroes teaches the coeternity of a universe created ex nihilo. This doctrine formed together with the notion of a numerical unity of the active intellect became one of the controversial points in the discussions between the followers of Albert-Thomas and the Latin Averroists. Averroes assumed that man possesses only a disposition for receiving the intellect coming from without; he identifies this disposition with the possible intellect which thus is not truly intellectual by nature. The notion of one intellect common to all men does away with the doctrine of personal immortality. Another doctrine which probably was emphasized more by the Latin Averroists (and by the adversaries among Averroes' contemporaries) is the famous statement about "two-fold truth", viz. that a proposition may be theologically true and philosophically false and vice versa. Averroes taught that religion expresses the (higher) philosophical truth by means of religious imagery; the "two-truth notion" came apparently into the Latin text through a misinterpretation on the part of the translators. The works of Averroes were one of the main sources of medieval Aristotelianlsm, before and even after the original texts had been translated. The interpretation the Latin Averroists found in their texts of the "Commentator" spread in spite of opposition and condemnation. See Averroism, Latin. Averroes, Opera, Venetiis, 1553. M. Horten, Die Metaphysik des Averroes, 1912. P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme Latin, 2d ed., Louvain, 1911. --R.A. Averroism, Latin: The commentaries on Aristotle written by Averroes (Ibn Roshd) in the 12th century became known to the Western scholars in translations by Michael Scottus, Hermannus Alemannus, and others at the beginning of the 13th century. Many works of Aristotle were also known first by such translations from Arabian texts, though there existed translations from the Greek originals at the same time (Grabmann). The Averroistic interpretation of Aristotle was held to be the true one by many; but already Albert the Great pointed out several notions which he felt to be incompatible with the principles of Christian philosophy, although he relied for the rest on the "Commentator" and apparently hardly used any other text. Aquinas, basing his studies mostly on a translation from the Greek texts, procured for him by William of Moerbecke, criticized the Averroistic interpretation in many points. But the teachings of the Commentator became the foundation for a whole school of philosophers, represented first by the Faculty of Arts at Paris. The most prominent of these scholars was Siger of Brabant. The philosophy of these men was condemned on March 7th, 1277 by Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris, after a first condemnation of Aristotelianism in 1210 had gradually come to be neglected. The 219 theses condemned in 1277, however, contain also some of Aquinas which later were generally recognized an orthodox. The Averroistic propositions which aroused the criticism of the ecclesiastic authorities and which had been opposed with great energy by Albert and Thomas refer mostly to the following points: The co-eternity of the created word; the numerical identity of the intellect in all men, the so-called two-fold-truth theory stating that a proposition may be philosophically true although theologically false. Regarding the first point Thomas argued that there is no philosophical proof, either for the co-eternity or against it; creation is an article of faith. The unity of intellect was rejected as incompatible with the true notion of person and with personal immortality. It is doubtful whether Averroes himself held the two-truths theory; it was, however, taught by the Latin Averroists who, notwithstanding the opposition of the Church and the Thomistic philosophers, gained a great influence and soon dominated many universities, especially in Italy. Thomas and his followers were convinced that they interpreted Aristotle correctly and that the Averroists were wrong; one has, however, to admit that certain passages in Aristotle allow for the Averroistic interpretation, especially in regard to the theory of intellect. Lit.: P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme Latin au XIIIe Siecle, 2d. ed. Louvain, 1911; M. Grabmann, Forschungen über die lateinischen Aristotelesübersetzungen des XIII. Jahrhunderts, Münster 1916 (Beitr. z. Gesch. Phil. d. MA. Vol. 17, H. 5-6). --R.A. Avesta: See Zendavesta. Avicehron: (or Avencebrol, Salomon ibn Gabirol) The first Jewish philosopher in Spain, born in Malaga 1020, died about 1070, poet, philosopher, and moralist. His main work, Fons vitae, became influential and was much quoted by the Scholastics. It has been preserved only in the Latin translation by Gundissalinus. His doctrine of a spiritual substance individualizing also the pure spirits or separate forms was opposed by Aquinas already in his first treatise De ente, but found favor with the medieval Augustinians also later in the 13th century. He also teaches the necessity of a mediator between God and the created world; such a mediator he finds in the Divine Will proceeding from God and creating, conserving, and moving the world. His cosmogony shows a definitely Neo-Platonic shade and assumes a series of emanations. Cl. Baeumker, Avencebrolis Fons vitae. Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Philos. d. MA. 1892-1895, Vol. I. Joh. Wittman, Die Stellung des hl. Thomas von Aquino zu Avencebrol, ibid. 1900. Vol. III. --R.A. Avicenna: (Abu Ali al Hosain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina) Born 980 in the country of Bocchara, began to write in young years, left more than 100 works, taught in Ispahan, was physician to several Persian princes, and died at Hamadan in 1037. His fame as physician survived his influence as philosopher in the Occident. His medical works were printed still in the 17th century. His philosophy is contained in 18 vols. of a comprehensive encyclopedia, following the tradition of Al Kindi and Al Farabi. Logic, Physics, Mathematics and Metaphysics form the parts of this work. His philosophy is Aristotelian with noticeable Neo-Platonic influences. His doctrine of the universal existing ante res in God, in rebus as the universal nature of the particulars, and post res in the human mind by way of abstraction became a fundamental thesis of medieval Aristotelianism. He sharply distinguished between the logical and the ontological universal, denying to the latter the true nature of form in the composite. The principle of individuation is matter, eternally existent. Latin translations attributed to Avicenna the notion that existence is an accident to essence (see e.g. Guilelmus Parisiensis, De Universo). The process adopted by Avicenna was one of paraphrasis of the Aristotelian texts with many original thoughts interspersed. His works were translated into Latin by Dominicus Gundissalinus (Gondisalvi) with the assistance of Avendeath ibn Daud. This translation started, when it became more generally known, the "revival of Aristotle" at the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century. Albert the Great and Aquinas professed, notwithstanding their critical attitude, a great admiration for Avicenna whom the Arabs used to call the "third Aristotle". But in the Orient, Avicenna's influence declined soon, overcome by the opposition of the orthodox theologians. Avicenna, Opera, Venetiis, 1495; l508; 1546. M. Horten, Das Buch der Genesung der Seele, eine philosophische Enzyklopaedie Avicenna's; XIII. Teil: Die Metaphysik. Halle a. S. 1907-1909. R. de Vaux, Notes et textes sur l'Avicennisme Latin, Bibl. Thomiste XX, Paris, 1934. --R.A. Avidya: (Skr.) Nescience; ignorance; the state of mind unaware of true reality; an equivalent of maya (q.v.); also a condition of pure awareness prior to the universal process of evolution through gradual differentiation into the elements and factors of knowledge. --K.F.L. Avyakta: (Skr.) "Unmanifest", descriptive of or standing for brahman (q.v.) in one of its or "his" aspects, symbolizing the superabundance of the creative principle, or designating the condition of the universe not yet become phenomenal (aja, unborn). --K.F.L. Awareness: Consciousness considered in its aspect of act; an act of attentive awareness such as the sensing of a color patch or the feeling of pain is distinguished from the content attended to, the sensed color patch, the felt pain. The psychologlcal theory of intentional act was advanced by F. Brentano (Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte) and received its epistemological development by Meinong, Husserl, Moore, Laird and Broad. See Intentionalism. --L.W. Axiological: (Ger. axiologisch) In Husserl: Of or pertaining to value or theory of value (the latter term understood as including disvalue and value-indifference). --D.C. Axiological ethics: Any ethics which makes the theory of obligation entirely dependent on the theory of value, by making the determination of the rightness of an action wholly dependent on a consideration of the value or goodness of something, e.g. the action itself, its motive, or its consequences, actual or probable. Opposed to deontological ethics. See also teleological ethics. --W.K.F. Axiologic Realism: In metaphysics, theory that value as well as logic, qualities as well as relations, have their being and exist external to the mind and independently of it. Applicable to the philosophy of many though not all realists in the history of philosophy, from Plato to G. E. Moore, A. N. Whitehead, and N, Hartmann. --J.K.F. Axiology: (Gr. axios, of like value, worthy, and logos, account, reason, theory). Modern term for theory of value (the desired, preferred, good), investigation of its nature, criteria, and metaphysical status. Had its rise in Plato's theory of Forms or Ideas (Idea of the Good); was developed in Aristotle's Organon, Ethics, Poetics, and Metaphysics (Book Lambda). Stoics and Epicureans investigated the summum bonum. Christian philosophy (St. Thomas) built on Aristotle's identification of highest value with final cause in God as "a living being, eternal, most good." In modern thought, apart from scholasticism and the system of Spinoza (Ethica, 1677), in which values are metaphysically grounded, the various values were investigated in separate sciences, until Kant's Critiques, in which the relations of knowledge to moral, aesthetic, and religious values were examined. In Hegel's idealism, morality, art, religion, and philosophy were made the capstone of his dialectic. R. H. Lotze "sought in that which should be the ground of that which is" (Metaphysik, 1879). Nineteenth century evolutionary theory, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics subjected value experience to empirical analysis, and stress was again laid on the diversity and relativity of value phenomena rather than on their unity and metaphysical nature. F. Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra (1883-1885) and Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887) aroused new interest in the nature of value. F. Brentano, Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (1889), identified value with love. In the twentieth century the term axiology was apparently first applied by Paul Lapie (Logique de la volonte, 1902) and E. von Hartmann (Grundriss der Axiologie, 1908). Stimulated by Ehrenfels (System der Werttheorie, 1897), Meinong (Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie, 1894-1899), and Simmel (Philosophie des Geldes, 1900). W. M. Urban wrote the first systematic treatment of axiology in English (Valuation, 1909), phenomenological in method under J. M. Baldwin's influence. Meanwhile H. Münsterberg wrote a neo-Fichtean system of values (The Eternal Values, 1909). Among important recent contributions are: B. Bosanquet, The Principle of Individuality and Value (1912), a free reinterpretation of Hegelianism; W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God (1918, 1921), defending a metaphysical theism; S. Alexander, Space, Time, and Deity (1920), realistic and naturalistic; N. Hartmann, Ethik (1926), detailed analysis of types and laws of value; R. B. Perry's magnum opus, General Theory of Value (1926), "its meaning and basic principles construed in terms of interest"; and J. Laird, The Idea of Value (1929), noteworthy for historical exposition. A naturalistic theory has been developed by J. Dewey (Theory of Valuation, 1939), for which "not only is science itself a value . . . but it is the supreme means of the valid determination of all valuations." A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936) expounds the view of logical positivism that value is "nonsense." J. Hessen, Wertphilosophie (1937), provides an account of recent German axiology from a neo-scholastic standpoint. The problems of axiology fall into four main groups, namely, those concerning (1) the nature of value, (2) the types of value, (3) the criterion of value, and (4) the metaphysical status of value. (1) The nature of value experience. Is valuation fulfillment of desire (voluntarism: Spinoza, Ehrenfels), pleasure (hedonism: Epicurus, Bentham, Meinong), interest (Perry), preference (Martineau), pure rational will (formalism: Stoics, Kant, Royce), apprehension of tertiary qualities (Santayana), synoptic experience of the unity of personality (personalism: T. H. Green, Bowne), any experience that contributes to enhanced life (evolutionism: Nietzsche), or "the relation of things as means to the end or consequence actually reached" (pragmatism, instrumentalism: Dewey). (2) The types of value. Most axiologists distinguish between intrinsic (consummatory) values (ends), prized for their own sake, and instrumental (contributory) values (means), which are causes (whether as economic goods or as natural events) of intrinsic values. Most intrinsic values are also instrumental to further value experience; some instrumental values are neutral or even disvaluable intrinsically. Commonly recognized as intrinsic values are the (morally) good, the true, the beautiful, and the holy. Values of play, of work, of association, and of bodily well-being are also acknowledged. Some (with Montague) question whether the true is properly to be regarded as a value, since some truth is disvaluable, some neutral; but love of truth, regardless of consequences, seems to establish the value of truth. There is disagreement about whether the holy (religious value) is a unique type (Schleiermacher, Otto), or an attitude toward other values (Kant, Höffding), or a combination of the two (Hocking). There is also disagreement about whether the variety of values is irreducible (pluralism) or whether all values are rationally related in a hierarchy or system (Plato, Hegel, Sorley), in which values interpenetrate or coalesce into a total experience. (3) The criterion of value. The standard for testing values is influenced by both psychological and logical theory. Hedonists find the standard in the quantity of pleasure derived by the individual (Aristippus) or society (Bentham). Intuitionists appeal to an ultimate insight into preference (Martineau, Brentano). Some idealists recognize an objective system of rational norms or ideals as criterion (Plato, Windelband), while others lay more stress on rational wholeness and coherence (Hegel, Bosanquet, Paton) or inclusiveness (T. H. Green). Naturalists find biological survival or adjustment (Dewey) to be the standard. Despite differences, there is much in common in the results of the application of these criteria. (4) The metaphysical status of value. What is the relation of values to the facts investigated by natural science (Koehler), of Sein to Sollen (Lotze, Rickert), of human experience of value to reality independent of man (Hegel, Pringle-Pattlson, Spaulding)? There are three main answers: subjectivism (value is entirely dependent on and relative to human experience of it: so most hedonists, naturalists, positivists); logical objectivism (values are logical essences or subsistences, independent of their being known, yet with no existential status or action in reality); metaphysical objectivism (values --or norms or ideals --are integral, objective, and active constituents of the metaphysically real: so theists, absolutists, and certain realists and naturalists like S. Alexander and Wieman). --E.S.B. Axiom: See Mathematics. Axiomatic method: That method of constructing a deductive system consisting of deducing by specified rules all statements of the system save a given few from those given few, which are regarded as axioms or postulates of the system. See Mathematics. --C.A.B. Ayam atma brahma: (Skr.) "This self is brahman", famous quotation from Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 2.5.19, one of many alluding to the central theme of the Upanishads, i.e., the identity of the human and divine or cosmic. --K.F.L.
avegamaya ::: enthusiastic. avegamaya avegamaya sraddha avegamaya
avegamaya tejas ::: enthusiastic energy avegamaya
avesamaya (aveshamaya) ::: inspired; enthusiastic. avesamaya avic avicara ara samadhi
avidyamaya ::: [maya of the Ignorance].
Avidya(Sanskrit) ::: A compound word: a, "not"; vidya, "knowledge"; hence nonknowledge, ignorance -- perhaps abetter translation would be nescience -- ignorance or rather lack of knowledge of reality, produced byillusion or maya.
aya ::: (c. 1931, in the diagram on page 1360) overmind in its fundamental power of measuring and limiting consciousness (maya), regarded as the essential form of overmind proper (see overmind system); "the original cosmic Maya, not a Maya of Ignorance but a Maya of Knowledge, yet a Power which has made the Ignorance possible, even inevitable".
Ayodhya (Sanskrit) Ayodhyā The ancient city founded by Ikshvaku, the founder of the solar race (suryavansa); also the capital of Rama, hero of the Ramayana. It is now believed to be the modern city of Oude on the Sarayu River.
bala-Kr.s.n.a (bala-Krishna; bala Krishna) ::: the boy Kr.s.n.a, "the divine bala-Krsna Child" at play in the worlds in "the free infinity of the self-delight of Sachchidananda"; Kr.s.n.a as the lilamaya purus.a in a condition of balabhava.
bhavitavyam ::: that which is to be. bhaya anandamaya
bhūrmaya ::: physical.
bhuvarmaya ::: consisting of the energy of bhuvar; vital.
bhuvarmaya tapas ::: same as bhuvar tapas.
bhuvarmayi ::: vital (feminine of bhuvarmaya). bhuvarmayi bhuvar of bh bhu
Maya, are extraordinarily skilful ; the reason is an insufficient guide and often turns traitor ; vital desire is always with us tempting to follow any alluring call. This is the reason why in this yoga we insist so much on what we call samarpaifa — rather inadequately rendered by the English word surrender. If the heart centre is fully opened and the psychic is always in control, then there is no question ; all is safe. But the psychic can at any moment be veiled by a lower upsurge. It is only a few who are exempt from these dangers and it is precisely those to whom surrender is easily possible. The guidance of one who is himself, by identity or represents the Divine is in this difficult endeavour imperative and indispensable.
Maya: A Sanskrit term, approximately meaning illusion. In Hinduism and other occult and esoteric philosophies, the cosmic force which produces the phenomena of material existence and permits them to be perceived. All that is finite and subject to change and decay, all that is not eternal and unchangeable, is considered as maya. There is but one reality, Brahman-atman, the Universal Spirit.
Maya ::: “Maya in its original sense meant a comprehending and containing consciousness capable of embracing, measuring and limiting and therefore formative; it is that which outlines, measures out, moulds forms in the formless, psychologises and seems to make knowable the Unknowable, geometrises and seems to make measurable the limitless. Later the word came from its original sense of knowledge, skill, intelligence to acquire a pejorative sense of cunning, fraud or illusion, and it is in the figure of an enchantment or illusion that it is used by the philosophical systems.” The Life Divine
::: "Maya is the supreme and universal consciousness and force of the Eternal and Infinite and, being by its very nature unbound and illimitable, it can put forth many states of consciousness at a time, many dispositions of its Force, without ceasing to be the same consciousness-force for ever. It is at once transcendental, universal and individual; it is the supreme supracosmic Being that is aware of itself as All-Being, as the Cosmic Self, as the Consciousness-Force of cosmic Nature, and at the same time experiences itself as the individual being and consciousness in all existences.” The Life Divine
“Maya is the supreme and universal consciousness and force of the Eternal and Infinite and, being by its very nature unbound and illimitable, it can put forth many states of consciousness at a time, many dispositions of its Force, without ceasing to be the same consciousness-force for ever. It is at once transcendental, universal and individual; it is the supreme supracosmic Being that is aware of itself as All-Being, as the Cosmic Self, as the Consciousness-Force of cosmic Nature, and at the same time experiences itself as the individual being and consciousness in all existences.” The Life Divine
“Maya is the supreme and universal consciousness and force of the Eternal and Infinite and, being by its very natureunbound and illimitable, it can put forth many states of consciousness at a time, many dispositions of its Force, without ceasing to be the same consciousness-force for ever. It is at once transcendental, universal and individual; it is the supreme supracosmic Being that is aware of itself as All-Being, as the Cosmic Self, as the Consciousness-Force of cosmic Nature, and at the same time experiences itself as the individual being and consciousness in all existences.” The Life Divine
Mayamoha (Sanskrit) Māyāmoha The intoxication of illusion; the form assumed by Vishnu in order to deceive ascetic daityas who were becoming too holy through austerities and hence too dangerous in power, according to the Vishnu-Purana.
“Maya or illusion is an element which enters into all finite things, for everything that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality, since the appearance which the hidden noumenon assumes for any observer depends upon his power of cognition. . . . Nothing is permanent except the one hidden absolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities. The existences belonging to every plane of being, up to the highest Dhyan-Chohans, are, in degree, of the nature of shadows cast by a magic lantern on a colourless screen; but all things are relatively real, for the cogniser is also a reflection, and the things cognised are therefore as real to him as himself. Whatever reality things possess must be looked for in them before or after they have passed like a flash through the material world; but we cannot cognise any such existence directly, so long as we have sense-instruments which bring only material existence into the field of our consciousness. Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached ‘reality’; but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya” (SD 1:39-40).
Mayasabha (Sanskrit) Māyāsabhā [from māyā illusion + sabhā assembly] An assemblage of illusions; one of the wonderful gifts given to the Pandavas in the Mahabharata by Mayasura.
Maya (Sanskrit) Māyā [from the verbal root mā to measure, form] Illusion, the non-eternal; in Brahmanical philosophy, the fabrication by the human mind of ideas derived from interior and exterior impressions, as it tries to interpret and understand the universe. While the exterior world exists — or it could not be illusory — we do not see clearly and as they actually are that which our mind and senses present to us. A traditional Vedantic illustration says that at twilight a person sees a coiled rope on the ground and springs aside, thinking it is a snake; the rope is there, but no snake.
Maya(Sanskrit) ::: The word comes from the root ma, meaning "to measure," and by a figure of speech it alsocomes to mean "to effect," "to form," and hence "to limit." There is an English word mete, meaning "tomeasure out," from the same IndoEuropean root. It is found in the Anglo-Saxon as the root met, in theGreek as med, and it is found in the Latin also in the same form.Ages ago in the wonderful Brahmanical philosophy maya was understood very differently from what it isnow usually understood to be. As a technical term, maya has come to mean the fabrication by man's mindof ideas derived from interior and exterior impressions, hence the illusory aspect of man's thoughts as heconsiders and tries to interpret and understand life and his surroundings; and thence was derived thesense which it technically bears, "illusion." It does not mean that the exterior world is nonexistent; if itwere, it obviously could not be illusory. It exists, but is not. It is "measured out" or is "limited," or itstands out to the human spirit as a mirage. In other words, we do not see clearly and plainly and in theirreality the vision and the visions which our mind and senses present to the inner life and eye.The familiar illustrations of maya in the Vedanta, which is the highest form that the Brahmanicalteachings have taken and which is so near to our own teaching in many respects, were such as follows: Aman at eventide sees a coiled rope on the ground, and springs aside, thinking it a serpent. The rope isthere, but no serpent. The second illustration is what is called the "horns of the hare." The animal calledthe hare has no horns, but when it also is seen at eventide, its long ears seem to project from its head insuch fashion that it appears even to the seeing eye as being a creature with horns. The hare has no horns,but there is then in the mind an illusory belief that an animal with horns exists there.That is what maya means: not that a thing seen does not exist, but that we are blinded and our mindperverted by our own thoughts and our own imperfections, and do not as yet arrive at the realinterpretation and meaning of the world or of the universe around us. By ascending inwardly, by risingup, by inner aspiration, by an elevation of soul, we can reach upwards or rather inwards towards thatplane where truth abides in fullness.H. P. Blavatsky says on page 631 of the first volume of The Secret Doctrine:Esoteric philosophy, teaching an objective Idealism -- though it regards the objectiveUniverse and all in it as Maya, temporary illusion -- draws a practical distinction betweencollective illusion, Mahamaya, from the purely metaphysical standpoint, and the objectiverelations in it between various conscious Egos so long as this illusion lasts.The teaching is that maya is thus called from the action of mulaprakriti or root-nature, the coordinateprinciple of that other line of coactive consciousness which we call parabrahman. From the momentwhen manifestation begins, it acts dualistically, that is to say that everything in nature from that pointonwards is crossed by pairs of opposites, such as long and short, high and low, night and day, good andevil, consciousness and nonconsciousness, etc., and that all these things are essentially mayic or illusory-- real while they last, but the lasting is not eternal. It is through and by these pairs of opposites that theself-conscious soul learns truth. It might be said, in conclusion, that another and very convenient way ofconsidering maya is to understand it to mean "limitation," "restriction," and therefore imperfect cognitionand recognition of reality. The imperfect mind does not see perfect truth. It labors under an illusioncorresponding with its own imperfections, under a maya, a limitation. Magical practices are frequentlycalled maya in the ancient Hindu books.
Maya: (Skr.) The power of obscuring or state producing error and illusion; the "veil" covering reality, the experience of manifoldness when only the One is real; natura naturans; appearance or phenomenon, as opposed to reality and noumenon. A condition generally acknowledged in Indian philosophy and popular Hindu thinking due to the ascendency of the Vedanta (q.v.) which can be overcome principally by knowledge or insight. See Jnana. -- K.F.L.
Maya ::: Sri Aurobindo: “Maya in its original sense meant a comprehending and containing consciousness capable of embracing, measuring and limiting and therefore formative; it is that which outlines, measures out, moulds forms in the formless, psychologises and seems to make knowable the Unknowable, geometrises and seems to make measurable the limitless. Later the word came from its original sense of knowledge, skill, intelligence to acquire a pejorative sense of cunning, fraud or illusion, and it is in the figure of an enchantment or illusion that it is used by the philosophical systems.” The Life Divine
Maya"s.
Mayasura (Sanskrit) Māyāsura The asura mentioned in the Mahabharata, who presented the Pandava brothers with a gift of a bundle of wonderful things.
Mayavi, Mayavin (Sanskrit) Māyāvin [from māyā illusion] Illusory; frequently anglicized as mayavic.
Mayavi-rupa (Sanskrit) Māyāvi-rūpa [from māyāvin illusory from māyā illusion + rūpa form] Illusory body or thought-body, a higher astral-mental form. The projection of thought-consciousness-will power to any distant place while the physical body is left “entranced.” It is the whole man except the sthula-sarira (physical body), the linga-sarira (the astral or model-body) and prana. This projection can assume any form at the will of the adept. This body is called illusory because when it has accomplished its purpose, it is withdrawn and thus disappears. Synonymous with protean soul, the medieval German doppelganger, and the Tibetan hpho-wa.
Mayavi-Rupa(Sanskrit) ::: This is a compound of two words: mayavi, the adjectival form of the word maya, hence"illusory"; rupa, "form"; the mayavi-rupa or thought-body, or illusory-body, a higher astral-mental form.The mayavi can assume all forms or any form, at the will of an Adept. A synonymous philosophical termis protean soul. In Germany medieval mystics called it the doppelganger. There is a very mystical factconnected with the mayavi-rupa: the Adept is enabled to project his consciousness in the mayavi-rupa towhat would seem to the uninitiated incredible distances, while the physical body is left, as it were,intranced. In Tibet this power of projecting the mayavi-rupa is called hpho-wa.
brahmamaya ::: consisting of brahman. brahmamaya isvara
brahmamaya&
Brother(s) of the Shadow ::: A term given in occultism and especially in modern esotericism to individuals, whether men or women,who follow the path of the shadows, the left-hand path. The term "shadow" is a technical expression andsignifies more than appears on the surface: i.e., the expression is not to be understood of individuals wholive in actual physical obscurity or actual physical shadows, which literalism would be simply absurd;but applies to those who follow the path of matter, which from time immemorial in the esoteric schoolsin both Orient and Occident has frequently been called shadow or shadows. The term originally arose,without doubt, in the philosophical conception of the word maya, for in early Oriental esotericism maya,and more especially maha-maya, was a term applied in one of its many philosophical meanings to thatwhich was contrary to and, indeed, in one sense a reflection of, light. Just as spirit may be considered tobe pure energy, and matter, although essentially crystallized spirit, may be looked upon as the shadowworld or vehicular world in which the energy or spirit or pure light works, just so is maya, as the garmentor expression or sakti of the divine energy, the vehicle or shadow of the divine side of nature, in otherwords its negative or nether pole, as light is the upper or positive pole.The Brothers of the Shadow are therefore those who, being essentially of the nature of matter,instinctively choose and follow the path along which they are most strongly drawn, that is, the path ofmatter or of the shadows. When it is recollected that matter is but a generalizing term, and that what thisterm comprises actually includes an almost infinite number of degrees of increasing ethereality from thegrossest physical substance, or absolute matter, up to the most ethereal or spiritualized substance, weimmediately see the subtle logic of this technical term -- shadows or, more fully, the Path of theShadows, hence the Brothers of the Shadow.They are the so-called black magicians of the Occident, and stand in sharp and notable contrast with thewhite magicians or the Sons of Light who follow the pathway of self-renunciation, self-sacrifice,self-conquest, perfect self-control, and an expansion of the heart and mind and consciousness in love andservice for all that lives. (See also Right-hand Path)The existence and aims of the Brothers of the Shadow are essentially selfish. It is commonly, buterroneously, supposed that the Brothers of the Shadow are men and women always of unpleasant ordispleasing personal appearance, and no greater error than this could possibly be made. Multitudes ofhuman beings are unconsciously treading the path of the shadows and, in comparison with thesemultitudes, it is relatively only a few who self-consciously lead and guide with subtle and nefastintelligence this army of unsuspecting victims of maya. The Brothers of the Shadow are often highlyintellectual men and women, frequently individuals with apparent great personal charm, and to theordinary observer, judging from their conversation and daily works, are fully as well able to "quotescripture" as are the Angels of Light!
Budha (Sanskrit) Budha [from the verbal root budh to awake] As an adjective, intelligent, wise, clever, fully awake; hence a wise or instructed person, a sage. In mythology, Budha is represented as the son of Tara (or Rohini), the wife of Brihaspati (the planet Jupiter). Tara was carried off by Soma (the Moon), which led to the Tarakamaya — the war in svarga (heaven) — between the gods and asuras (the latter siding with Soma against the divinities). The gods were victorious and Tara was returned to Brihaspati, but the parentage of the son she gave birth to was claimed both by Brihapati and Soma: he was so beautiful he was named Budha (cf SD 2:498-9). Upon Brahma’s demand, Tara admitted that Budha was the offspring of Soma. Budha became the god of wisdom and the husband of Ila (or Ida), daughter of Manu Vaivasvata, and in one sense stands for esoteric wisdom.
(b) Vijñāna (Intellect) Vijñānamaya-kośa
caitanyamaya (chaitanyamaya) ::: having the nature of caitanya, the principle of pure consciousness (cit) that is the second aspect of saccidananda; expressing the principle of caitanya or cit contained in the principle of any other plane, such as the physical.
Calendar A formal table of time measures based on the motions of the heavenly bodies. Where esoteric knowledge is intact, these cyclic motions and the periods they mark are inseparably connected with all other parts of the esoteric system. Nowadays, the original calendars having been lost and reconstructed for purely civil or ecclesiastical purposes, they have no other significance. But formerly they likewise indicated the courses of cosmic evolution and the succession of human races. The Surya-Siddhanta gives the number of revolutions of the planets in 4,320,000 years, among other such data; and the work itself claims to be the result of observation over an immensely long period, based on a knowledge of the mathematics underlying the cosmic and terrestrial cycles. This calendar or astronomical-astrological work claims to be the original production of the Atlantean astronomer and magician Asuramaya.
camamaya ::: see samamaya.
çama ::: see sama. cama çamamaya
candramaya (chandramaya) ::: full of the light of candra1; having the nature of intuitive mind.
çarira -) ::: physical perfection, consisting of the siddhi of the sarira catus.t.aya: "a perfection of the body as the outer instrument of a complete divine living on earth . . . effected by bringing in the law of the gnostic Purusha, vijñanamaya purus.a, and of that into which it opens, the Anandamaya, into the physical consciousness", leading to "a divinising of the law of the body".
catus.t.aya (yoga chatushtaya) ::: the quaternary of yoga; another name for the siddhi catus.t.aya. yog yogagnimaya agnimaya sarira
Celestial Body Taken from Coleridge, who divined that in the human celestial body must be stored the memory of all preexistent experiences of the soul. The phrase is said to mean the thought-vehicle of the monad in devachan, through which functions the manasic ego (Key 137). The range of stored memory of experiences varies in extent according to the degree of sublimity of the different vestures. Ancient mysticism taught that the self has several vestures, each of which may be called a body or sheath through which the monad acts and by which it comes in contact with the particular worlds in which it may be functioning. “There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial” (1 Cor 15:40). For instance, the Vedantic classification of the kosas (sheaths of atman) gives annamayakosa (physical body), pranamayakosa (vital-astral body), manomayakosa (psychological or lower manasic body), vijnanamayakosa (higher manasic body), and anandamayakosa (buddhic body). In the Taraka Raja-Yoga system are the following upadhis or vehicles of atman: sthulopadhi (gross vehicle), sukshmopadhi (subtile vehicle), and karanopadhi (causal vehicle or self).
cha) ::: faith in the Divine and in the power within oneself. sraddhamaya sraddh
chayamaya ::: brilliant shadowy rūpa; chayamaya mixed with an element of tejas.
chayamaya (chhayamaya; chhayamay; chayamaya; chayamay) ::: chayamaya shadowy; (rūpa or lipi) composed of or containing chaya. ch chayamaya ayamaya rupa
chayamaya tejas (chhayamaya tejas) ::: shadowy brilliance; tejas chayamaya ....44 mixed with an element of chaya.
chayamaya tejomaya (chhayamaya tejomaya) ::: shadowy-brilliant rūpa; tejomaya mixed with an element of chaya.
chayamayi (chhayamayi) ::: shadowy (feminine of chayamaya, agreeing with implied dr.s.t.i, "vision"); the shadowy vision of the underworld.
chinmaya, etc. ::: see cinmaya, etc. chinmaya
chinmaya. ::: full of consciousness; formed of consciousness
Chronos (Greek) Time; in Orphism, Phanes (or Eros), Chaos, and Chronos constitute a triad which, emanating from the Unknowable, reproduces the worlds; essentially one, it acts on the plane of maya as three distinct things. Chronos was identified with the titan Kronos, who dethroned Ouranos and succeeded him as ruler of the world, himself being succeeded by Zeus. Kronos devours his own children, which is symbolic of time which both brings forth and destroys events.
ciated with visions in a shadowy (chayamaya) dimness; "the subconscient below the Earth ::: the Earth being the conscious physical plane", a domain where what has been rejected from the surface nature often takes refuge.
cinmaya (chinmaya; chinmay) ::: consisting of pure consciousness (cit). cinmaya aisvarya
cinmaya ::: [composed of consciousness]; transcendental.
cinmaya deha ::: [cinmaya body], spiritualised conscious body.
cinmayaisvarya (chinmayaishwarya) ::: aisvarya with full divine consciousness, "free from all element of struggle, in which force and pressure will only be present to stress the energy of fulfilment and not for overcoming resistance".
Connected with one of the skandhas, Sakkayaditthi together with attavada, “both of which (in the case of the fifth principle the soul) lead to the maya of heresy and belief in the efficacy of vain rites and ceremonies; in prayers and intercession” (ML 111).
daivi hyesa gunamayi mama maya ::: this is My divine maya of the gunas. [Gita 7.14]
darsana (lilamaya darshana) ::: the vision of the lilamaya isvara / purus.a in all, a form of darsana in which one is "aware of the whole world as the expression, play or Lila of an infinite divine personality". lilamaya lil amaya isvara
darshana) ::: vision of the lilamaya isvara, by which the manifestation is seen as a "play of the Lord who is in His being all delight". lilamaya lil amaya Kr Krsna
DBC "language, parallel" A {data-parallel} {bit-serial} {C} based on {MPL}. SRC, Bowie MD. E-mail: "maya@super.org". (1995-05-01)
dhūmramaya ::: smoky; (rūpa or lipi) composed of or containing dhūma.
discriminative ::: involving the faculty of intuitive discrimination (viveka); same as vivekamaya.
Diti (Sanskrit) Diti As Aditi [from a not + diti] is cosmic space in general, so Diti is cosmically what may be called the first sheath or integument of Aditi. If Aditi is generalized space, Diti becomes the more or less divine spatial extent of a cosmic unit, such as a universe, solar system, etc.; but the significance of Diti points directly to lofty spirit. “Diti . . . is the sixth principle of metaphysical nature, the Buddhi of Akasa. Diti, the mother of the Maruts, is one of her terrestrial forms, made to represent, at one and the same time, the divine Soul in the ascetic, and the divine aspirations of mystic Humanity toward deliverance from the webs of Maya, and final bliss in consequence” (SD 2:613-14).
Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jlva in the lower nature.
Dondampai-denpa (Tibetan) don dam pa’i bden pa (don-dam-pe den-pa) Absolute or universal truth or reality, equivalent to the Sanskrit paramarthasatya; hence in the individual being, the highest spiritual perception and self-consciousness. The opposite of this term is kundzabchi-denpa (kun rdzob kyi bden pa, kun-dzob-kyi den-pa — illusion-creating appearance), samvritti-satya in Sanskrit — the origin of illusion or maya.
Doppelganger (German) Double-goer; usually, a species of real phantom, seen before, after, or at the time of the death of an individual, and serving as a notification or warning of the death. In some cases the double seen is that of the seer himself, though this is not the true doppelganger. The doppelganger is most often the mayavi-rupa which can be seen at even immense distances from the individual whose presentation it is, yet the term doppelganger can likewise incorrectly be applied to the very occasional projections of the astral body which, however, can at no time wander far from its physical frame. The true doppelganger or mayavi-rupa, whether seen or unseen, falls into two classes, without counting the rare cases involving the linga-sarira mentioned above: the mayavi-rupa projected by hpho-wa, by will and with the consciousness of the ego; and the occasional automatic or involuntary projections of the mayavi-rupa due to intense concentration of the mind upon something or someone.
Double. See DOPPELGANGER; MAYAVI-RUPA; LINGA-SARIRA; CHHAYA
drishtimaya ::: see dr.s.t.imaya.
dr.s.t.imaya (drishtimaya) ::: having the nature of dr.s.t.i; revelatory. drstimaya
dynamic ::: same as tapomaya; (in 1919) having the nature of dynamic gnosis or pragmatic ideality, which gives "the tapas of the future, the will at work now and hereafter for effectuation".
effleure seulement pendant le quart d"un second [French] ::: touches lightly for just a quarter of a second. effulgent vvanmaya
Egoity I-am-I-ness, ahamkara; human egoity is dual, but egoity really should mean individuality, not personality. The characteristic or swabhava of individuality is egoity or the essential root of I-am-I-ness, while the characteristic or swabhava of the personality is egoism, the faint shadow of egoity drunken with the sense of its own exclusive importance in the world. Further, both egoity and egoism are sharply distinguished from essential selfhood; paradoxically, the stronger the idea of essential selfhood in the human being, the less is there of egoity, and the least there is of egoism, for even egoity is a reflection, albeit high, of spiritual selfhood, which recognizes its oneness with the All. Thus ego is defined as I-am-I, consciousness recognizing its own mayavi existence as a separate entity, hence often called reflected consciousness. Essential selfhood is the characteristic of atman in the human constitution; egoity arises in the conjunction of atma-buddhi with manas; whereas personality or egoism is the faint reflection of the latter working in and through the lower manas, kama, and prana.
Ego(Latin) ::: A word meaning "I." In theosophical writings the ego is that which says "I am I" -- indirect orreflected consciousness, consciousness reflected back upon itself as it were, and thus recognizing its ownmayavi existence as a "separate" entity. On this fact is based the one genuine "heresy" that occultismrecognizes: the heresy of separateness.The seat of the human ego is the intermediate duad -- manas-kama: part aspiring upwards, which is thereincarnating ego; and part attracted below, which is the ordinary or astral human ego. The consciousnessis immortal in the reincarnating ego, and temporary or mortal in the lower or astral human ego.Consider the hierarchy of the human being's constitution to grow from the immanent Self: this last is theseed of egoity on the seven (or perhaps better, six) planes of matter or manifestation. On each one ofthese seven planes (or six), the immanent Self or paramatman develops or evolves a sheath or garment,the upper ones spun of spirit, and the lower ones spun of "shadow" or matter. Now each such sheath orgarment is a "soul"; and between the self and such a soul -- any soul -- is the ego.Thus atman is the divine monad, giving birth to the divine ego, which latter evolves forth the monadicenvelope or divine soul; jivatman, the spiritual monad, has its child which is the spiritual ego, which inturn evolves forth the spiritual soul or individual; and the combination of these three considered as a unitis buddhi; bhutatman, the human ego -- the higher human soul, including the lower buddhi and highermanas; pranatman, the personal ego -- the lower human soul, or man. It includes manas, kama, andprana; and finally the beast ego -- the vital-astral soul: kama and prana.
Fakir: The term, properly, designates a Moslem mendicant ascetic and miracle-worker of India. It is often, incorrectly, applied to Hindu ascetics, too. According to Yogi Ramacharaka (in The Philosophies and Religions of Indian), “the secret of the fakir’s power generally consists in his ability to produce a mental illusion, or Maya, whereby the senses of the bystanders are deluded and the people made to appear to witness things that have no basis in fact. Another class of effects is produced by the control of Prana (or Vital Force) by the concentrated Will of the performer, so that heavy objects are moved around in defiance of the law of gravitation, and even the human body at times being floated about in the air ...”
falsehood ::: “It [falsehood] is created by an Asuric (hostile) power which intervenes in this creation and is not only separated from the Truth and therefore limited in knowledge and open to error, but in revolt against the Truth or in the habit of seizing the Truth only to pervert it. This Power, the dark Asuric Shakti or Rakshasic Maya, puts forward its own perverted consciousness as true knowledge and its wilful distortions or reversals of the Truth as the verity of things. It is the powers and personalities of this perverted and perverting consciousness that we call hostile beings, hostile forces. Whenever these perversions created by them out of the stuff of the Ignorance are put forward as the Truth of things, that is the Falsehood, in the yogic sense, …” Letters on Yoga
Gahambars In Zoroastrianism, the six periods, or the periodical evolution of the world. These include Maidyoizaremaya when the heavens were formed; Maidyoisema when water originated; Paitishahya when earth solidified; Ayathrima when vegetation arose; Maidyairya when animal life appeared; and Hamaspathaedaya when man appeared. A seventh cycle is supposed to come after a certain cycle, after which the Persian Messiah will appear, seated on a Horse. (BCW 3:462)
Garuda (Sanskrit) Garuḍa In Hindu mythology a gigantic half-man and half-bird, born from an egg brought forth by Vinata, wife of Kasyapa, the self-born sprung from time and one of the seven emanators of the world. Symbol of the great cycle or manvantara, Garuda is also an emblem of the sun and the solar cycle. He is made coeternal with Vishnu as one aspect or manifestation of Vishnu himself, who therefore is often described as riding on Garuda as Vishnu in space and time. Garuda’s son is Jatayu who in the Ramayana rushed to rescue Sita when she was carried off by Ravana, the Rakshasa king of Lanka, but was slain in the ensuing conflict.
Gnostic Being ::: In the supra-intellectual consciousness, dominated by the Truth or causal Idea (called in Veda Satyam, Ritam, Brihat, the True, the Right, the Vast), Atman becomes the ideal being or great Soul, vijnanamaya purusa or mahat atman.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 17, Page: 33
gnostic ::: (in 1919) same as vijñanamaya or ideal; (c. 1927-28) having the nature of gnosis, in various senses according to the date; sometimes regarded as higher than supramental.
Great War. See TARAKAMAYA
gunamaya. ::: full of qualities or attributes
Gupta-maya (Sanskrit) Gupta-māyā [from gupta secret + māyā illusion] Secret illusion; the art used by Hindu street “magicians” to make mango trees appear to grow rapidly, to allow a boy to climb a rope fastened in the clouds, etc. Blavatsky holds that such phenomena arise from the psychological power of the “magician” to project a fascination or glamour on the spectators. (BCW 12:321, 326)
Habel (Hebrew) Hebel [from the verbal root hābal to breathe, blow, be vain, transitory, impermanent, fade away] Breath, mist, vapor, emptiness; whatever is illusory, non-enduring, corresponding to the Sanskrit concept of maya; translated in Ecclesiastes (1:2) as “vanity.” (FSO 105)
Hamsa ::: Synnbol of the being; it regains its original puritj' as it rises until it becomes luminous in the Highest Truth ; goose or ordinary hamsa usually refers to the manomaya piirufa.
Hanuman or Hanumat (Sanskrit) Hanumān, Hanumat Monkey-god of the Ramayana. The son of Pavana, god of the winds, or spirit, Hanuman is fabled to have assumed any form at will, wielded rocks, removed mountains, mounted the air, seized the clouds, and to have rivaled Garuda in swiftness of flight. According to the epic, Hanuman and his host of semi-human monkey-beings became the allies of Rama, the avatara of Vishnu, in his war with the Rakshasa-king of Lanka, Ravana, who had carried off Rama’s wife, the beautiful Sita. As advisor to Rama and leader of his army, Hanuman showed unparalleled audacity, wit, and wisdom, thereby accomplishing great feats.
hasyam ::: see hasya. hasyam h hasyamaya asyamaya ananda
He is in his essential nature a mental being encased in body and enmeshed in the life activities, manu, manomaya purusa. He is more than a thinking, willing and feeling result of the mechanism of the physical or an understanding nexus of the vital forces.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 13, Page: 398
highest revelatory tapas ::: tapas acting in the full revelatory ideality; same as decisive seer tapas. hiran hiranmaya patra
hiranmaya patra ::: golden lid. [cf. Isa 15]
Hpho-wa (Tibetan) ’pho-ba (pho-wa) Also Fo-wa. The changing of one’s place, the moving of one’s self; applied especially to the occult exercise of the inner power by which one is enabled to transfer his consciousness to any desired place on earth, or even to heavenly bodies, while the physical body is left entranced. This occult power was well known among the ancients and is still well known today among those who are acquainted with certain occult laws, and in theosophical writings is called projection of the mayavi-rupa.
ideal ::: having the nature of ideality; same as vijñanamaya.
ideal tapas ::: tapas in the ideality, "working by the swabhava" (essential nature of things), same as vijñanamaya tapas.
ideal thought ::: thought elevated to the plane of ideality; same as vijñanamaya thought, especially in the form of perceptive thought. ideal trik trikaladrsti
If we consider the hierarchy of the human constitution to grow from the immanent or permanent self, regarding this as the very seed of essential egoity, then a mayavi ego will be formed on each of the planes of matter and therefore on all the planes or layers of the human constitution; the seed of egoity manifesting itself in each successive vehicle and thus producing there an ego, permanent or impermanent according to its distance from the permanent self. diagram
Illusion: An illusion of sense is an erroneous perception arising from a misinterpretation of data of sense because they are produced under unusual conditions of perception, physical, physiological or psychological. Illusion contrasts with hallucination in which the sensuous ingredients are totally absent. In occult terminology, illusion is a synonym for maya (q.v.), and thus applicable to everything finite.
Illusionism: The view that the spatial-temporal external world is merely a veil of maya, a phantasmagoria. Not only is everything illusion, deception, appearance, but existence itself has no real value. (Schopenhauer.) -- H.H.
Illusion Positive unreality, or that which is wholly and completely deceptive without basis in reality; as such some philosophers consider it to be rooted in the human mind itself, subjective or interior rather than external or objective. As thus understood, illusion falls far short of the significance of the Sanskrit maya, for which it is used as a translation. For the sense of maya is that of appearance rising out of reality, not something opposed to reality. It is evident that, if the universe can be said to exist at all, we must allow that illusion in the sense of maya has existence, a relative or temporary reality, for it obviously originates from and shadows forth the reality within and behind it. It is not that reality itself, but its multiform appearances. To say that the world in which we live, and all the people and beings and things in it, are an illusion, does not mean that all this is an empty dream; it means that what is so real to us, as long as we are conscious on this plane, will be seen as a maya or deceptive appearance from our viewpoint when we become conscious on a higher and more inclusive plane. See also MAYA
Indian Aesthetics: Art in India is one of the most diversified subjects. Sanskrit silpa included all crafts, fine art, architecture and ornament, dancing, acting, music and even coquetry. Behind all these endeavors is a deeprooted sense of absolute values derived from Indian philosophy (q.v.) which teaches the incarnation of the divine (Krsna, Shiva, Buddha), the transitoriness of life (cf. samsara), the symbolism and conditional nature of the phenomenal (cf. maya). Love of splendour and exaggerated greatness, dating back to Vedic (q.v.) times mingled with a grand simplicity in the conception of ultimate being and a keen perception and nature observation. The latter is illustrated in examples of verisimilous execution in sculpture and painting, the detailed description in a wealth of drama and story material, and the universal love of simile. With an urge for expression associated itself the metaphysical in its practical and seemingly other-worldly aspects and, aided perhaps by the exigencies of climate, yielded the grotesque as illustrated by the cave temples of Ellora and Elephanta, the apparent barbarism of female ornament covering up all organic beauty, the exaggerated, symbol-laden representations of divine and thereanthropic beings, a music with minute subdivisions of scale, and the like. As Indian philosophy is dominated by a monistic, Vedantic (q.v.) outlook, so in Indian esthetics we can notice the prevalence of an introvert unitary, soul-centric, self-integrating tendency that treats the empirical suggestively and by way of simile, trying to stylize the natural in form, behavior, and expression. The popular belief in the immanence as well as transcendence of the Absolute precludes thus the possibility of a complete naturalism or imitation. The whole range of Indian art therefore demands a sharing and re-creation of absolute values glimpsed by the artist and professedly communicated imperfectly. Rules and discussions of the various aspects of art may be found in the Silpa-sastras, while theoretical treatments are available in such works as the Dasarupa in dramatics, the Nrtya-sastras in dancing, the Sukranitisara in the relation of art to state craft, etc. Periods and influences of Indian art, such as the Buddhist, Kushan, Gupta, etc., may be consulted in any history of Indian art. -- K.F.L.
Initiation ::: In olden times there were seven -- and even ten -- degrees of initiation. Of these seven degrees, threeconsisted of teachings alone, which formed the preparation, the discipline, spiritual and mental andpsychic and physical -- what the Greeks called the katharsis or "cleansing." When the disciple wasconsidered sufficiently cleansed, purified, disciplined, quiet mentally, tranquil spiritually, then he wastaken into the fourth degree, which likewise consisted partly of teaching, but also in part of directpersonal introduction by the old mystical processes into the structure and operations of the universe, bywhich means truth was gained by first-hand personal experience. In other words, to speak in plain terms,his spirit-soul, his individual consciousness, was assisted to pass into other planes and realms of being,and to know and to understand by the sheer process of becoming them. A man, a mind, an understanding,can grasp and see, and thereby know, only those things which the individual entity itself is.After the fourth degree, there followed the fifth and the sixth and the seventh initiations, each in turn, andthese consisted of teachings also; but more and more as the disciple progressed -- and he was helped inthis development more and more largely as he advanced farther -- there was evolved forth in him thepower and faculties still farther and more deeply to penetrate beyond the veils of maya or illusion; until,having passed the seventh or last initiation of all of the manifest initiations, if we may call them that, hebecame one of those individuals whom theosophists call the mahatmas.
In its feminine form, aja signifies maya (illusion) and hence prakriti (evolving nature).
Interestingly, the Kolarians count by 20 rather than by 10, the same method employed by the Mayas in Central America.
In The Mahatma Letters attavada is termed “the doctrine of Self,” and with sakkayaditthi leads “to the maya of heresy and belief in the efficacy of vain rites and ceremonies; in prayers and intercession” (ML 111).
ishwara maya. ::: the illusory appearance produced by Reality
isvara (anandamaya ishwara) ::: "the all-blissful Lord", the isvara as the anandamaya purus.a, "the Lord of existence and works and Spirit of bliss". anandamaya Kr anandamaya Krsna
isvara (brahmamaya ishwara) ::: the isvara with brahman as his impersonal aspect.
isvara (lilamaya ishwara) ::: the Lord of the cosmic lila, "the mighty Lord of Nature, who . . . enjoys with his universal delight this play of her figures of his own being"; the isvara as "our Playmate in the great world-game who has disguised himself throughout as friend and enemy, helper and opponent and, in all relations and in all workings that affect us, has led our steps towards our perfection and our release". lil lilamaya amaya isvaradarsana isvaradarsana (lilamaya ishwaradarshan; lilamaya ishwara
It corresponds to the Angels of the Presence or archangels, the Zoroastrian Ferouer, and even the mayavi-rupa.
It observes and distinguishes the different elements of our appa- rent or phenomenal being and rejecting identification with each of them arrives at their exclusion and separation in one common term as constituents of Prakrit!, of phenomenal Nature, crea- tions of Maya, the phenomenal consciousness. So it is able to arrive at its right ideotiflcadon with the pure and unique Self which is not mutable or perishable, not determinable by any phenomenon or combination of phenomena. From this point the path, as ordinarily followed, leads to the rejection of the phenomenal worlds from the consciousness as an illusion and the final immergence without return of the individual soul in the supreme.
jaganmaya. ::: the mystery of the world appearance
jalamaya (jalamaya; jalamay) ::: watery; liquid; consisting of or relating to jala.
jamayah ::: kindred, brothers. [Ved.]
Jambu-dvipa (Sanskrit) Jambu-dvīpa [from jambu rose-apple tree (a gigantic tree said to flourish on Mount Meru) + dvīpa continent, continental island] The middle of the seven dvipas or continents enumerated in the geography of the Puranas and the Mahabharata, which relate that Mount Meru rises from the center of Jambu-dvipa. This dvipa was divided into nine varshas (parts or divisions): 1) Bharata, or India situated south of the Himalayas, the southernmost division; 2) Kimpurusha; 3) Hari-varsha; 4) Ila-vrita, the central varsha containing Mount Meru; 5) Ramyaka; 6) Hiran-maya; 7) Uttara-Kuru; 8) Bhadrasva, east of Ila-vrita; 9) Ketu-mala, west of the central varsha. Each varsha was apportioned to one of his nine sons by Agnidhra, king of Jambu-dvipa.
janaloka ::: the world (loka) of the "creative delight of existence", the plane of ananda, also called anandaloka, where the "soul may dwell . . . in the principle of infinite self-existent delight and be aware .82 of the divine Ananda creating out of its self-existence by its energy whatever harmony of being". janamaya dr drsti
janma karma ca me divyam ::: My divine birth and work. [see the following] ::: janma karma ca me divyam evam yo vetti tattvatah ::: tyaktva deham punarjanma naiti mam eti sorjuna, ::: He who knoweth thus in its right principles My divine birth and My divine work, when he abandons his body, comes not to rebirth, he comes to Me, O Arjuna. [Gita 4.9] ::: vitaragabhayakrodha manmaya mam upasritah ::: bahavo jnanatapasa puta madbhavam agatah ::: Delivered from liking and fear and wrath, full of Me, taking refuge in Me, many purified by austerity of knowledge have arrived at My nature of being. [Gita 4.10]
Jatayu (Sanskrit) Jaṭāyu King of the vultures, steed of Vishnu and other gods, son of Aruna and Syeni according to the Mahabharata; or son of Garuda according to the Ramayana. Jatayu promised his aid to Rama, and when the demon-king Ravana was carrying off Rama’s wife Sita, the king of birds gave pursuit, but was mortally wounded after a furious battle with Ravana. In the Puranas, when Rama’s father, King Dasaratha, went to the ecliptic to recover Sita from Sani (Saturn), his chariot was consumed by a glance from Sani’s eye, but Jatayu caught the falling king and saved him.
Jhana (Pali) Jhāna Meditation in wisdom, equivalent to Sanskrit dhyana. This experience was originally divided into four states: the mystic, with his mind free from sensuous and worldly ideas, concentrates his thoughts on some special subject such as the impermanence or mayavi character of all exterior things; uplifted above attention to externals and ordinary reasoning he experiences keen joy and quiet ease both of body and mind; the bliss passes away and he becomes suffused with a sense of inner completeness, in its higher stages approaching cosmic ranges; he becomes aware permanently of purest lucidity of intellect and perfect equanimity.
Jnana Bhaskara (Sanskrit) Jñāna-bhāskara The sum of knowledge; a Sanskrit medical work; also “a work on Asuramaya, the Atlantean astronomer and magician, and other prehistoric legends” (TG 165).
Jnana Yoga ::: The Path of Knowledge aims at the realisation of the unique and supreme Self. It proceeds by the method of intellectual
reflection, vicara, to right discrimination, viveka. It observes and distinguishes the different elements of our apparent or phenomenal being and rejecting identification with each of them arrives at their exclusion and separation in one common term as constituents of Prakriti, of phenomenal Nature, creations of Maya, the phenomenal consciousness. So it is able to arrive at its right identification with the pure and unique Self which is not mutable or perishable, not determinable by any phenomenon or combination of phenomena. From this point the path, as ordinarily followed, leads to the rejection of the phenomenal worlds from the consciousness as an illusion and the final immergence without return of the individual soul in the Supreme. But this exclusive consummation is not the sole or inevitable result of the Path of Knowledge. For, followed more largely and with a less individual aim, the method of Knowledge may lead to an active conquest of the cosmic existence for the Divine no less than to a transcendence. The point of this departure is the realisation of the supreme Self not only in one’s own being but in all beings and, finally, the realisation of even the phenomenal aspects of the world as a play of the divine consciousness and not something entirely alien to its true nature. And on the basis of this realisation a yet further enlargement is possible, the conversion of all forms of knowledge, however mundane, into activities of the divine consciousness utilisable for the perception of the one and unique Object of knowledge both in itself and through the play of its forms and symbols. Such a method might well lead to the elevation of the whole range of human intellect and perception to the divine level, to its spiritualisation and to the justification of the cosmic travail of knowledge in humanity.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 38-39
“Just as milliards of bright sparks dance on the waters of an ocean above which one and the same moon is shining, so our evanescent personalities — the illusive envelopes of the immortal monad-ego — twinkle and dance on the waves of Maya. They last and appear, as the thousands of sparks produced by the moon-beams, only so long as the Queen of the Night radiates her lustre on the running waters of life: the period of a Manvantara; and then they disappear, the beams — symbols of our eternal Spiritual Egos — alone surviving, re-merged in, and being, as they were before, one with the Mother-Source” (SD 1:237).
jyotika (jyotik) ::: same as jyotirmaya.
jyoti maya. ::: full of effulgence
jyotirmaya brahman ::: [brahman full of light].
jyotirmaya deha ::: radiant or luminous body.
jyotirmaya ::: [full of light], radiant, luminous.
jyotirmaya (jyotirmaya; jyotirmay) ::: luminous; full of light of vijñana; (rūpa or lipi) composed of jyoti(h.).
jyotirmaya lipi (jyotirmaya lipi) ::: lipi composed of jyoti(h.).
Kalikr.s.n.a (Kalikrishna; Kali krishna) ::: (also called Kr.s.n.akali) the Kalikrsna union of Kali and Kr.s.n.a, whether seen in the perception (darsana) of the external world or experienced in oneself in a spiritual realisation which is the basis of karma and kama1, where Kali as prakr.ti "take[s] up the whole nature into the law of her higher divine truth and act[s] in that law offering up the universal enjoyment of her action and being to the Anandamaya Ishwara" (Kr.s.n.a), while the individual soul (jiva) is "the channel of this action and offering".
Kanya (Sanskrit) Kanyā Virgin; the sixth zodiacal sign, Virgo, which may represent mahamaya or sakti. The saktis or six primary forces in nature (parasakti, jnanasakti, ichchhasakti, kriyasakti, kundalinisakti, and mantrikasakti) together are represented by the astral light, called the heavenly or celestial Virgin by Kabalists and Hermetic philosophers.
Kapila is also one of the three secret kumaras who are the progenitors of the true spiritual self in the physical human being. In many of the old writings Kapila is also symbolic of cosmic spirit, or of the individual spiritual self who represents the highest state reached on earth. Hence the Puranas and the Ramayana relate that Sagara’s 60,000 sons were reduced to ashes by a mere glance of Kapila’s eye. This allegory symbolizes the personifications of human emotions, both passional and mental, being completely reduced to inactivity by the spiritual wisdom and purity of the sage — here the personification of wisdom itself.
Kapilaksha (Sanskrit) Kapilākṣa Kapila’s eye; an allegorical name for certain spiritual and intellectual powers evoking vibratory forces which neutralize and bend to their will all the lower human mentations and emotions. In the Puranas, Ramayana, and other Hindu works, the sage Kapila’s very glance made a mountain of ashes of King Sagara’s 60,000 sons, who were the personifications of the human mental and emotional attributes.
Kapilavastu (Sanskrit) Kapilavastu [from kapila yellow, golden + vastu substance] Golden substance; the birthplace of Gautama Buddha, the capital of his father, King Suddhodana. Mystically the birthplace of the inner buddha within each person, the home of our individual Father in heaven, and cosmically applying to our spiritual alliance in and with the sun — here called Kapilavastu. The whole legend of the Buddha’s life may be mystically interpreted through studying the symbolic meaning of the various names used there, because whatever actual historical fact may have been imbodied in these various names of his birth and later career, the names themselves were chosen likewise to portray his mystical birth. Thus his mother is called Mayadevi (goddess of illusion) or Mahamaya (great illusion), as every initiate, buddhas included, in a mystical sense is born from and out of cosmic illusion into the supernal truth of buddhahood.
karan.a (karana; karanam) ::: cause; causal; "the Causal Idea which, by supporting and secretly guiding the confused activities of Mind, Life and Body ensures and compels the right arrangement of the Universe", same as vijñana or vijñanamaya; (especially in Bengali) consecrated wine, used in Tantric rituals. k karana-indriya
Karanopadhi(Sanskrit) ::: A compound meaning the "causal instrument" or "instrumental cause" in the long series ofreimbodiments to which human and other reimbodying entities are subject. Upadhi, the second elementof this compound, is often translated as "vehicle"; but while this definition is accurate enough for popularpurposes, it fails to set forth the essential meaning of the word which is rather "disguise," or certainnatural properties or constitutional characteristics supposed to be the disguises or clothings or masks inand through which the spiritual monad of man works, bringing about the repetitive manifestations uponearth of certain functions and powers of this monad, and, indeed, upon the other globes of the planetarychain; and, furthermore, intimately connected with the peregrinations of the monad through the variousspheres and realms of the solar kosmos. In one sense of the word, therefore, karanopadhi is almostinterchangeable with the thoughts set forth under the term maya, or the illusory disguises through whichspirit works, or rather through which spiritual monadic entities work and manifest themselves.Karanopadhi, as briefly explained under the term "causal body," is dual in meaning. The first and moreeasily understood meaning of this term shows that the cause bringing about reimbodiment is avidya,nescience rather than ignorance; because when a reimbodying entity through repeated reimbodiments inthe spheres of matter has freed itself from the entangling chains of the latter, and has risen intoself-conscious recognition of its own divine powers, it thereby shakes off the chains or disguises of mayaand becomes what is called a jivanmukta. It is only imperfect souls, or rather monadic souls, speaking ina general way, which are obliged by nature's cyclic operations and laws to undergo the repetitivereimbodiments on earth and elsewhere in order that the lessons of self-conquest and mastery over all theplanes of nature may be achieved. As the entity advances in wisdom and knowledge, and in the acquiringof self-conscious sympathy for all that is, in other words, as it grows more and more like unto itsdivine-spiritual counterpart, the less is it subject to avidya. It is, in a sense, the seeds of kama-manas leftin the fabric or being of the reincarnating entity, which act as the karana or reproducing cause, orinstrumental cause, of such entity's reincarnations on earth.The higher karanopadhi, however, although in operation similar to the lower karanopadhi, orkarana-sarira just described, nevertheless belongs to the spiritual-intellectual part of man's constitution,and is the reproductive energy inherent in the spiritual monad bringing about its re-emergence after thesolar pralaya into the new activities and new series of imbodiments which open with the dawn of thesolar manvantara following upon the solar pralaya just ended. This latter karanopadhi or karana-sarira,therefore, is directly related to the element-principle in man's constitution called buddhi -- a veil, as itwere, drawn over the face or around the being of the monadic essence, much as prakriti surroundsPurusha, or pradhana surrounds Brahman, or mulaprakriti surrounds and is the veil or disguise or sakti ofparabrahman. Hence, in the case of man, this karanopadhi or causal disguise or vehicle corresponds in ageneral way to the buddhi-manas, or spiritual soul, in which the spiritual monad works and manifestsitself.It should be said in passing that the doctrine concerning the functions and operations of buddhi in thehuman constitution is extremely recondite, because in buddhi lie the causal impulses or urges bringingabout the building of the constitution of man, and which, when the latter is completed, and when formingman as a septenary entity, express themselves as the various strata or qualities of the auric egg.Finally, the karana-sarira, the karanopadhi or causal body, is the vehicular instrumental form orinstrumental body-form, produced by the working of what is perhaps the most mysterious principle orelement, mystically speaking, in the constitution not only of man, but of the universe -- the verymysterious spiritual bija.The karanopadhi, the karana-sarira or causal body, is explained with minor differences of meaning invarious works of Hindu philosophy; but all such works must be studied with the light thrown upon themby the great wisdom-teaching of the archaic ages, esoteric theosophy. The student otherwise runs everyrisk of being led astray.I might add that the sushupti state or condition, which is that of deep dreamless sleep, involving entireinsensibility of the human consciousness to all exterior impressions, is a phase of consciousness throughwhich the adept must pass, although consciously pass in his case, before reaching the highest state ofsamadhi, which is the turiya state. According to the Vedanta philosophy, the turiya (meaning "fourth") isthe fourth state of consciousness into which the full adept can self-consciously enter and wherein hebecomes one with the kosmic Brahman. The Vedantists likewise speak of the anandamaya-kosa, whichthey describe as being the innermost disguise or frame or vehicle surrounding the atmic consciousness.Thus we see that the anandamaya-kosa and the karana-sarira, or karanopadhi, and the buddhi inconjunction with the manasic ego, are virtually identical.The author has been at some pains to set forth and briefly to develop the various phases of occult andesoteric theosophical thought given in this article, because of the many and various misunderstandingsand misconceptions concerning the nature, characteristics, and functions of the karana-sarira or causalbody.
Karanopadhi (Sanskrit) Kāraṇopādhi [from kāraṇa cause + upādhi base, vehicle, disguise] Causal instrument, or instrumental cause in the long series of reimbodiments to which reimbodying entities are subject. An upadhi is certain natural properties or constitutional characteristics supposed to be the disguises, clothing, or masks in and through which the spiritual monad works, bringing about the repetitive manifestations upon the earth-chain of certain of its functions and powers, and intimately connected with the peregrinations of the monad through the various spheres of the solar kosmos. In one sense, therefore, karanopadhi is almost interchangeable with maya or the illusory disguises through which spiritual monadic entities work and manifest themselves.
Kesarin (Sanskrit) Keśarin also Kesarin, Keśarī. Having a mane; a variant name of Anjana, the naga or initiate who was the mother of Hanuman, the monkey-god of the Ramayana. Hanuman’s father, the wind god (Pavana or Vayu), is at times also called Kesarin.
Khaba or Khaibit (Egyptian) Khaba or Khaibit. Shade, shadow; many of the deities are represented with two bodies, one often termed the thought-body, corresponding to the mayavi-rupa. There were other Egyptian terms for the mayavi-rupa. Blavatsky made khaba equivalent in the human constitution to the spiritual soul or buddhi, whereas Massey made it equivalent to astral body or linga-sarira (SD 2:632-3). See also KA
Khe-Chara(Khecara, Sanskrit) ::: "Ether-goer" or sometimes rendered as "sky-walker." The name used in the mysticaland philosophical literature of Hindustan to signify one of the siddhis or psychospiritual powers thatbelong to yogis of advanced grade, or to initiates. It is, in fact, nothing more than what in Tibet is calledhpho-wa, the projection of the mayavi-rupa to any part of the earth's surface or, indeed, farther than that,and the doing of this at will.
Khechara (Sanskrit) Khecara [from kha blue ether, heaven, sky + cara wanderer, goer] He who wanders in the spatial blue, or he who wanders along the roads of heaven. One who can leave his physical body and go to other places in his mayavi-rupa; “the body of the Yogi becomes as one formed of the wind; as ‘a cloud from which limbs have sprouted out,’ after which — ‘he (the Yogi) beholds the things beyond the seas and stars; he hears the language of the Devas and comprehends it, and perceives what is passing in the mind of the ant’ ” (Jnanesvari q in VS 77). Equivalent to the Tibetan hpho-wa and Sanskrit khaga.
Kosa: Sanskrit for sheath. One of the envelopes of the soul or self concealing its real nature, which is pure consciousness. The Vedanta knows three: the anandamaya, vijnanamaya, and annamaya kosas, i.e., the sheaths of pleasure, intellect, and food, composing respectively the karana, suksma, and sthula sharira, meaning the causal, subtle, and gross frame or body.
Kosa: (Skr.) "Sheath", one of the envelopes of the soul or self concealing its real nature, which is pure consciousness. The Vedanta knows three: the anandamaya, vijnanamaya, and annamaya koias, i.e., the sheaths of pleasure, intellect, and food, composing respectively the karana, suksma, and sthula larira, meaning the causal, subtile, and gross frame or body. -- K.F.L.
Kratudvish (Sanskrit) Kratudviṣ In Hindu mythology, an enemy of all ritualistic and ceremonial worship and exoteric sham; the spiritual beings which represented, in their human aspect, the adepts of esoteric wisdom in opposition to the multitude who followed exoteric and popular religious forms, mummeries, and sacrifices. The kratusvishas were often called the asuras, daityas, danavas, kinnaras, etc., who fought against Brihaspati, the prototype of exoteric and ritualistic worship in the Tarakamaya (war in heaven). All the kratudvishas are represented as being yogis and ascetics of great spiritual and intellectual power.
Krisasva (Sanskrit) Kṛśāśva Having lean horses; allegorical name of the father of the agneyastra, the magical weapons and missiles of Brahma which are spoken of in the Ramayana as weapons endued with life and elemental intelligence.
"Krishna is the Anandamaya; he supports the evolution through the overmind leading it towards the Ananda.” Letters on Yoga
“Krishna is the Anandamaya; he supports the evolution through the overmind leading it towards the Ananda.” Letters on Yoga
Kr.s.n.a (Krishna) ::: the eighth avatara of Vis.n.u in the Hindu tradition, regarded by Sri Aurobindo as an embodiment of "the complete divine manhood" and as the avatara who opened the possibility of overmind in the evolution of consciousness on earth; a name of the universal Deity (deva) and supreme Being (purus.ottama) who is the fourfold isvara and also "the Destroyer, Preserver, Creator in one" (Rudra2,Vis.n.u, Brahma), manifesting "through the Vishnu aspect as his frontal appearance"; "the Ishwara taking delight in the world" (anandamaya isvara or lilamaya purus.a), realisation of oneness with whom is the first part of the karma catus.t.aya, seen in all things and beings in the several intensities and degrees of Kr.s.n.adarsana.
Kwei Shen, Kuei Shen (Chinese) “Man is a product of the beneficial operation of Heaven and Earth, or of the copulation of the Yin and the Yang, and the union of a kwei with a shen; he consists of the finest breath which the five elements contain” (Li yun 3). The mayavi-rupa, which is the combination by the power of thought (or the inner kriyasakti) of the manasic faculty with a tenuous astral garment. The mayavi-rupa, however, is more often made to contain the complete human being minus the lowest triad (body, physical vitality, and linga-sarira); thus only in one sense does the mayavi-rupa correspond with the kwei shen. In the lower parts of the human constitution, it becomes vehicular rather than related to active self-consciousness, and can signify the vital body or linga-sarira.
Lanka (Sanskrit) Laṅkā The ancient name of the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The third root-race ended its career in that part of a continent which later became the Lanka of the Atlanteans. In the Ramayana it is described as of gigantic extent and magnificence, “with seven broad moats and seven stupendous walls of stone and metal.” Its foundation is attributed to Visvakarman, who built it for Kuvera, the king of the demons, from whom it was taken by Ravana, the great foe of Rama, hero of the Ramayana. The Bhagavata-Purana shows Lanka or Ceylon as primarily the summit of Mount Meru, which was broken off by Vayu, god of the wind, and hurled into the ocean.
Life-Atoms ::: The physical body is composed essentially of energy, of energies rather, in the forms that are spoken ofin modern physical science as electrons and protons. These are in constant movement; they areincessantly active, and are what theosophists call the imbodiments or manifestations of life-atoms. Theselife-atoms are inbuilt into man's body during the physical life which he leads on earth, although they arenot derivative from outside, but spring forth from within himself -- at least a great majority of them aresuch. This is equivalent to saying that they compose both his physical as well as his intermediate nature,which latter is obviously higher than the physical.When the man dies -- that is to say, when the physical body dies -- its elements pass, each and all, intotheir respective and appropriate spheres: some into the soil, to which those that go there are drawn bymagnetic affinity, an affinity impressed upon their life-energies by the man when alive, whoseovershadowing will and desires, whose overlordship and power, gave them that direction. Others passinto the vegetation from the same reason that the former are impelled to the mineral kingdom; others passinto the various beasts with which they have, at the man's death, magnetic affinity, psychic affinity moreaccurately, an affinity which the man has impressed upon them by his desires and various impulses; andthose which take this path go to form the interior or intermediate apparatus of the beasts into which theypass. So much for the course pursued by the life-atoms of the man's lowest principles.But there are other life-atoms belonging to him. There are life-atoms, in fact, belonging to the sphere ofeach one of the seven principles of man's constitution. This means that there are life-atoms belonging tohis intermediate nature and to his spiritual nature and to all grades intermediate between these two higherparts of him. And in all cases, as the monad "ascends" or "rises" through the spheres, as he goes step bystep higher on his wonderful postmortem journey, on each such step he discards or casts off thelife-atoms belonging to each one of these steps or stages of the journey. With each step, he leaves behindthe more material of these life-atoms until, when he has reached the culmination of his wonderfulpostmortem peregrination, he is, as Paul of the Christians said, living in "a spiritual body" -- that is tosay, he has become a spiritual energy, a monad.Nature permits no absolute standing still for anything, anywhere. All things are full of life, full of energy,full of movement; they are both energy and matter, both spirit and substance; and these two arefundamentally one -- phases of the underlying reality, of which we see but the maya or illusory forms.The life-atoms are actually the offspring or the off-throwings of the interior principles of man'sconstitution. It is obvious that the life-atoms which ensoul the physical atoms in man's body are asnumerous as the atoms which they ensoul; and there are almost countless hosts of them, decillions upondecillions of them, in practically incomputable numbers. Each one of these life-atoms is a being which isliving, moving, growing, never standing still -- evolving towards a sublime destiny which ultimatelybecomes divinity.
lilamaya ananda brahman ::: anandaṁ brahma seen as expressing its universal delight through the lila of the world. lil lilamaya amaya darsana
lilamaya para purus.a (lilamaya para purusha) ::: the supreme lilalilamaya maya purus.a, often referred to as lilamaya Kr.s.n.a. lil lilamaya amaya purusa
lilamaya ::: playful; enjoying the cosmic game; pertaining to the lila; lilamaya (sagun.a brahman) perceived as pouring out the delight of existence .... (ananda) into the play of the world; ("the Lilamaya") short for lilamaya isvara or lilamaya purus.a, the Lord or Soul of bliss who "can play with the manifestation without being imbued with the Ignorance".
lilamaya ::: [playful].
lilamaya sagun.a ::: sagun.a brahman perceived in relation to the lilamaya world-play or lila with a sense of "the lilamaya personality of the Brahman".
Lobha (Sanskrit) Lobha [from the verbal root lubh to desire greatly] Covetousness, avarice, stupidity; in Hindu mythology a god, the son of Pushti and Maya, equivalent to the Latin Cupido, from which comes the modern European Cupid. In this connection Lobha is said to be a son of Brahma generated by the latter in an evil moment.
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madiramaya (madiramaya; madiramay) ::: consisting of madira. madiramaya
Mahamara (Sanskrit) Mahāmāra [from mahā great + māra death from the verbal root mṛ to die] The great destroyer; the king of the maras (temptations), and often called the Great Ensnarer. This character is usually represented “with a crown in which shines a jewel of such lustre that it blinds those who look at it, this lustre referring of course to the fascination exercised by vice upon certain natures” (VS 76). It is due to the power of maya or seductive illusion that mahamara or the different maras possess their sway over sentient beings.
Mahamaya (Sanskrit) Mahāmāyā [from mahā great + māyā illusion] The great illusion; the manifested universe in its totality. “Esoteric philosophy, teaching an objective Idealism — though it regards the objective Universe and all in it as Maya, temporary illusion — draws a practical distinction between collective illusion, Mahamaya, from the purely metaphysical stand-point, and the objective relations in it between various conscious Egos so long as this illusion lasts” (SD 1:631). The belief in the separateness of the universe, and everything in it, from the absolute divine All is one of the greatest delusions of mahamaya.
mahamaya. :::"the great illusion"; "the grand illusion"
mahamaya ::: [the great maya].
mahamaya ::: the vast power of "comprehending, measuring, formmahamaya ing Knowledge [maya] . . . in the undivided being" of Aditi; "the Consciousness-Puissance of the Eternal [brahman], timeless and illimitable beyond the universe, but spread out here under a mask of bright and dark opposites for the miracle of the slow manifestation of the Divine in Mind and Life and Matter".
Mahasabha (Sanskrit) Mahāsabhā [from mahā great + sabhā assembly, gathering, collection, bundle] The bundle of wonderful (mayavi or illusionary) things given to the Pandavas by Mayasura, the architect of the daityas who was versed in magic, astronomy, and military science.
Mahasunya or Mahasunyata (Sanskrit) Mahāśūnya, Mahāśūnyatā [from mahā great + śūnyatā emptiness] The great void; when considered in its positive aspect, boundless space, including all the spaces of space, and therefore the universe and all that is in it considered from the spiritual and divine standpoints, which to intelligences living in lower realms seem to be the great Void. When considered from its negative aspect, cosmic illusion (mahamaya) because the entire boundless objective universe with all its visible or invisible planes is, from the standpoint of the divine-spiritual, unreal and illusive, i.e., impermanent and transitory, although lasting spans which to human comprehension might seem almost an eternity. Thus both the positive and negative significances are based upon the fundamental idea of the utter reality of the divine-spiritual, and the unreality, impermanence, and fleeting character of all that is objective.
manah.kosa (manahkosha; manah-kosha) ::: the sheath (kosa) commanahkosa posed of mental substance, "the mental sheath or subtle body in which our true mental being [manomaya purus.a] lives". m manapamanabodha
maṅgalamaya ::: fortunate, favourable. mangalamaya ma mangala
Manifestation ::: A generalizing term signifying not only the beginning but the continuance of organized kosmic activity,the latter including the various minor activities within itself. First there is of course always the Boundlessin all its infinite planes and worlds or spheres, aggregatively symbolized by the circle; then parabrahman,or the kosmic life-consciousness activity, and mulaprakriti its other pole, signifying root-natureespecially in its substantial aspects. Then the next stage lower, Brahman and its veil pradhana; thenBrahma-prakriti or Purusha-prakriti (prakriti being also maya); the manifested universe appearingthrough and by this last, Brahma-prakriti, "father-mother." In other words, the second Logos orfather-mother is the producing cause of manifestation through their son which, in a planetary chain, is theprimordial or the originating manu, called Svayambhuva.When manifestation opens, prakriti becomes or rather is maya; and Brahma, the father, is the spirit of theconsciousness, or the individuality. These two, Brahma and prakriti, are really one, yet they are also thetwo aspects of the one life-ray acting and reacting upon itself, much as a man himself can say, "I am I."He has the faculty of self-analysis or self-division. All of us know it, we can feel it in ourselves -- oneside of us, in our thoughts, can be called the prakriti or the material element, or the mayavi element, orthe element of illusion; and the other is the spirit, the individuality, the god within.The student should note carefully that manifestation is but a generalizing term, comprehensive thereforeof a vast number of different and differing kinds of evolving planes or realms. For instance, there ismanifestation on the divine plane; there is manifestation also on the spiritual plane; and similarly so onall the descending stages of the ladder or stair of life. There are universes whose "physical" plane isutterly invisible to us, so high is it; and there are other universes in the contrary direction, so far beneathour present physical plane that their ethereal ranges of manifestation are likewise invisible to us.
manmaya mam upasritah ::: [they who are full of Me and take refuge in Me]. [Gita 4.10]
Manomaya-kosa (Sanskrit) Manomaya-kośa [from manas mind + maya built of, formed of from the verbal root mā to measure, form, with the idea of illusory manifestation + kosa sheath] The sheath formed of mind, the human soul; according to the Vedantic classification of the human principles, the third of the pancha-kosa (five sheaths) which enclose the divine monad or atman. Manomaya-kosa corresponds with the lower manas combined with kama, and therefore has a closer affinity with the fourth principle, kama, than with the sixth or buddhi.
manomaya ::: [ =manomayapurusa].
manomaya ::: mental; mental activity; the mental being; the mental plane.
manomaya purusa (Manomaya Purusha) ::: mental Person, the mental being.
manomaya (purusa) prana-sarira-neta ::: the mental Being, leader of the life and the body. [Mund. 2.2.8]
manomayi ::: mental (feminine of manomaya). manomayi
Matter In the widest sense, the negative pole of the one universal life regarded as a duality. The manifested One, considered as a unit, is called the manifested Logos; and as a duad it becomes spirit-matter or life. Matter is thus co-eternal with spirit, forming the vehicular or passive aspect of every plane. It is equivalent to prakriti (or sakti, maya, or pradhana), and just as there are seven, ten, or twelve prakritis, so there are seven, ten, or twelve matters: the root-essence of all the series is what the Hindus called mulaprakriti (root-nature). Equivalently, matter may also be defined as the illusory aggregate of veils surrounding the fundamental essence of the universe.
mauna &
maya duratyaya ::: maya hard to overcome. [Gita 7.14]
mayah ::: see under maya
maya ::: (in the Veda) "originally a formative power of knowledge, maya the true magic of the supreme Mage, the divine Magician, but . . . also used for the adverse formative power of a lower knowledge, the deceit, illusion and deluding magic of the Rakshasa"; measuring and limiting consciousness, "a selective faculty of knowledge commissioned to shape finite appearance out of the infinite Reality" (brahman); the power of phenomenal creation by which "out of the supreme being in which all is all without barrier of separative consciousness emerges the phenomenal being in which all is in each and each is in all for the play of existence with existence, consciousness with consciousness, force with force, delight with delight"; illusion, "a bewildering partial consciousness which loses hold of the complete reality, lives in the phenomenon of mobile Nature [prakr.ti] and has no sight of the Spirit [purus.a] of which she is the active Power".
mayaivaite nihatah purvameva nimittamatram bhava savyasacin ::: by Me and none other already even are they slain, do thou become the occasion only, O Savyasacin. [Gita 11.33]
maya nihatah purvam eva ::: already have they been slain by Me. [see the preceding]
maya ::: n. --> The name for the doctrine of the unreality of matter, called, in English, idealism; hence, nothingness; vanity; illusion.
maya-sakti (maya-shakti) ::: force of maya. maya-sakti
mayas ::: Bliss, beatitude, felicity. [Ved.]
mayas ::: bliss; the world of ananda.
maya ::: signified originally in the Veda the comprehensive and creative knowledge, wisdom that is from of old, afterwards taken in its second and derivative sense, cunning, magic, illusion; phenomenal consciousness, the power of self-illusion in brahman. ::: mayabhih [instrumental plural], by (his) workings of knowledge. ::: mayah[plural], forms of knowledge.
maya ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Maya in its original sense meant a comprehending and containing consciousness capable of embracing, measuring and limiting and therefore formative; it is that which outlines, measures out, moulds forms in the formless, psychologises and seems to make knowable the Unknowable, geometrises and seems to make measurable the limitless. Later the word came from its original sense of knowledge, skill, intelligence to acquire a pejorative sense of cunning, fraud or illusion, and it is in the figure of an enchantment or illusion that it is used by the philosophical systems.” *The Life Divine
maya. ::: "that which is not"; "that which does not exist"; the superimposition without beginning; the illusion; the illusive power of Brahman that makes the false appearance of the unreal world appear to be real; illusory creation; the veiling and the projecting power of the universe; time and space; doubt; the sense-world of manifold phenomena which conceals the unity of absolute being &
mayavada ::: [the doctrine which holds that the world is maya, i.e. an illusion].
mayavadin ::: [one who professes the mayavada].
mayavadin ::: one who says that the world is an illusion; illusionist. mayavadin
mayavin ::: weaver of illusions. mayavin
mayobhuvah ::: those who bring or carry in their being the felicity [mayas]. [Ved]
mental tapas ::: mental will-power, whose working takes the form of "perceptions realising themselves if vijnanamaya, acting as forces, if pranamaya"; same as intellectual tapas.
Moha (Sanskrit) Moha Bewilderment, perplexity, folly, delusion, error. In philosophy, delusion of mind, preventing the discernment of truth and leading to the belief in the reality of unreal worldly objects; closely similar to maya, but with an emphasis placed on the activity of the deceiving mind.
Mohism: See Mo chia and Chinese philosophy. Moksa: (Skr.) Liberation, salvation from the effects of karma (q.v.) and resulting samsara (q.v.). Theoretically, good karma as little as evil karma can bring about liberation from the state of existence looked upon pessimistically. Thus, Indian philosophy early found a solution in knowledge (vidyd, jnana) which, disclosing the essential oneness of all in the metaphysical world-ground, declares the phenomenal world as maya (q.v.). Liberation is then equivalent to identification of oneself with the ultimate reality, eternal, changeless, blissful, or in a state of complete indifference either with or without loss of consciousness, but at any rate beyond good and evil, pleasure and pain. Divine grace is also recognized by some religious systems as effecting moksa. No generalization is possible regarding the many theories of moksa, its nature, or the mode of attaining it. See Nirvana, Samadhi, Prasada. -- K.F.L.
Mortal mind: In Christian Science, “that self-contradictory consciousness with which the individual mortal man identifies himself, unless by education and religious craving for metaphysical completeness he recognizes its fallacious character. It has a certain resemblance to Maya (q.v.). Christian Science explains that mortal mind consciousness is an erroneous point of view, and asserts that all imperfection, evil, physical objectivity seen as matter, are misrepresentations of a metaphysically perfect universe. Mortal mind stands in opposition to the ethical nature of the metaphysical universe.” (H. W. Steiger.)
Mother Nature The productive and generative powers of cosmic spirit, considered from the human standpoint as a feminine agent in universal nature, and hence often called the Great Mother, the Immaculate Virgin, space, the cosmic deep, mula-maya or root-maya, etc. The first stage of manifestation is the representation of the plain or empty disk, cosmic infinitude; the second stage is the First Logos or the disk with the central point; and the third stage, to which Mother Nature refers, is the disk with the horizontal diameter, or the Second or Manifest-Unmanifest Logos.
“Multitudes of human beings are unconsciously treading the Path of the Shadows, and in comparison with these multitudes it is relatively only a few who self-consciously lead and guide with subtle and wicked intelligence this army of unsuspecting victims of Maya. The Brothers of the Shadow are often highly intellectual men and women, frequently individuals with apparent great personal charm, and to the ordinary observer, judging from their conversation and daily works, are fully as well able to ‘quote scripture’ as are the Angels of Light!” (OG 22).
naham prakasah sarvasya yogamayasamavrtah ::: I am not revealed to any and every being, enveloped in the maya of My yoga. [Gita 7.25]
nati ::: resignation, submission; the "equal acceptance by the soul" of "all things as the play of the all-Blissful Lord, the Will of the supreme self and Ishwara", the third stage of passive / negative samata, whose highest form is anandamaya nati.
nervous tapas ::: vital power, whose action is characterised by "the play of forces, action & reaction, resistance etc"; same as pran.amaya tapas.
nidramaya ::: of the nature of sleep; (samadhi) under the hold of sleep.
nirananda ::: "undelight", the absence or contrary of ananda. nirananda nir niranandamaya
Nirguna: Sanskrit for “devoid of qualities” (guna), predicated as early as the Upanishads (q.v.) of the Absolute as its in-itself aspect (cf. saguna). The highest reality is conceived to be of such fullness, such transcendence that it has no part in the manifold of the phenomenal which is mere maya (q.v.) in Sankara’s philosophy in so far as it is esoteric.
Nirguna: (Skr.) "Devoid of qualities" (cf. guna), predicated as early as the Upanishads (q.v.) of the Absolute as its in-it-self aspect (cf. saguna). The highest reality is conceived to be of such fulness, such transcendence that it has no part in the manifold of the phenomenal which is mere maya (q.v.) in Sankara's (q.v.) philosophy in so far as it is esoteric. -- K.F.L.
Nirira Namastaka The ability of a high adept to produce from within his focus of consciousness or to exteriorize from it a substitute on a lower plane, which thereafter functions in all respects as would the full inner spiritual person were he present in the vehicle in which the substitute is acting. It is the same power but on a higher plane which enables the adept to transfer his mayavi-rupa to different parts of the earth, and to act in it; a power which in Tibetan is called hpho-wa.
Nirvana (Sanskrit) Nirvāṇa [from nir out, away + vāṇa blown from the verbal root vā to blow] Blown out, blown away; the monad’s freeing itself of the chains of all its inferior parts, so it can enter into relatively perfect wisdom and peace. It thus is, for the time, living in its own spiritual essence, a jivanmukta. One in this state understands essences exactly as they are, because the consciousness has for the time being become co-extensive and co-vibrational with the cosmic monad. He is free from the trammels of all the worlds of maya which he has thus far passed through.
original T2 ::: trikaladr.s.t.i-tapassiddhi with non-telepathic trikaladr.s.t.i as the first element. original vvanmaya
Orion (Greek) A handsome giant and mighty hunter of Boeotia, who was placed among the stars. The constellation Orion was regarded as a giant not only in Greece but in Syria, Arabia, and Palestine; in Ireland and among the Mayas it is a warrior; in Egypt it is identified with Horus, the young sun, in the solar boat; and in Babylonia with Merodach, or Nimrod the mighty hunter.
Outside of mere mental images, often projected into quasi-objectivity by unconscious will-force, all phantoms originate in the astral light surrounding our earth and permeating it far more intimately than does the earth’s air or atmosphere. Consequently, phantoms are of many and various kinds. The word is likewise used, although inaccurately, to signify the appearance to a living human being of the mayavi-rupa (thought-projection body) of an adept, the reason being that whether merely astral intrusions or mayavi-rupa, both are appearances and therefore logically classified as phantoms.
overmind logos ::: (c. 1931, in the diagram on page 1360) the logos or universal reason in its highest form on the plane of overmind below formative maya (see overmind system), described as "determinative of relations" in the worlds derived from it.
overmind system ::: a term used on 29 October 1927 (when the word "overmind" first occurs) for what earlier in that year had consisted of a series of planes, divisible into four groups, rising from supramentality to gnostic supermind. In 1933, Sri Aurobindo wrote that the overmind "can for convenience be divided into four planes", which he called mental overmind, intuitive overmind or overmind intuition, true overmind, and supramental overmind or overmind gnosis, "but there are many layers in each and each of these can be regarded as a plane in itself". In the diagram of overmind gradations on page 1360 (c. 1931), mental overmind seems to be missing, but overmind logos is listed between intuitive overmind and formative maya, the latter evidently designating the principal plane of true overmind. Overmind logos may represent mental overmind; its position in the diagram could be explained if its highest level is assumed to be a form of mental overmind taken up into true overmind and constituting a plane of overmind proper, like the supramentalised mind in overmind of 1927-28.P
Panchakosa (Sanskrit) Pañcakośa [from pañca five + kośa sheath] Five sheaths; according to the Vedantic classification of human principles there are five sheaths which enclose the divine monad or atman, which makes the sixth. The highest is the anandamaya-kosa, closely corresponding to the spiritual soul or buddhi; second is the vijnanamaya-kosa, the higher manas; third, the manomaya-kosa, lower manas with kama, making the human soul; fourth, the pranamaya-kosa, the vital-astral soul or prana and linga-sarira; and fifth, the annamaya-kosa, the physical body or sthula-sarira.
parabrahman ::: the supreme Reality (brahman), "absolute and ineffable . . . beyond all cosmic being", from which "originate both the mobile and the immobile, the mutable and the immutable, the action and the silence"; it "is not Being [sat] or Non-Being [asat], but something of which Being & Non-Being are primary symbols". As it is "indescribable by any name or definite conception", it is referred to by the neuter pronoun tat, That, in order "to speak of this Unknowable in the most comprehensive and general way . . . ; but this neuter does not exclude the aspect of universal and transcendent Personality". parabrahman-mah parabrahman-mahamaya
para maya ::: [the supreme maya]; higher divine Nature.
parinami nitya. ::: changing permanent; changing eternal; maya
Pavana (Sanskrit) Pavana [from the verbal root pū to purify] The purifier; often used for the wind. Pavana, as the god of wind, is said to be the father of Hanumat or Hanuman, the monkey king who becomes Rama’s helper in the Ramayana.
perceptive thought ::: thought that comes as silent perception "without the aid of any suggestive or developing word", a form of jñana distinguished from vaṅmaya thought. personal d dasya
physical self ::: the physical conscious being; the material being; annamaya purusa.
Plenum (Latin) Full, fullness, as opposed to void or so-called empty space; the plenitude of fullness of matter in space which in fact forms space. Space in this sense is a plenum or pleroma, not a vacuum; yet philosophically, because of the nature of mahamaya, all manifested existence is illusory and hence empty in the mystical sense. Therefore those great systems of thought which have remained most faithful to the ancient wisdom, such as Northern Buddhism, speak of space and all the vast variety of existence as sunyata (the void).
Popol Vuh (Quiche) An ancient scripture of the Mayas. The manuscript which has come down to our day was discovered by Ximenez, a Dominican missionary in the 17th century, near Guatemala City, and translated by him into Spanish. Later, Brasseur de Bourbourg translated the manuscript from the original Quiche into French. But this manuscript was written or dictated by a native in the Quiche tongue and is not the original, for as the writer himself says in his preface: “This is the beginning of the ancient history of the country here called Quiche . . . We will publish it in the world of Christendom, because this National Book, the Popol Vuh, is seen no more, . . . This is the first book written in times of old, but it is hidden from the sight of him who sees and thinks.”
Powers undivine in their nature present themselves as the Sup- reme Lord or as the Divine Mother and claim the being’s service and surrender. 1C these (hiags are accepted, there will be an extremely disastrous consequence. If indeed there is the assent of the sSdhaka to the Divine working alone and the submission or surrender to that guidance, then all can go smoothly. This assent and a rejection of all egoistic force or forces that appeal to the ego are the safeguard throughout the sadhana. But the ways of nature are full of snares, the disguises of the ego are innumerable, the ilfusions of the Powers of Darkness, Rakshasi Maya, are e.ttraordinariIy skilful ; the reason is an insulBdent guide and often turns traitor; vital desire is ahvays with us tempting to follow any alluring call. This is the reason why in this Yoga we insist so much on what we call samarpana — rather inade- quately rendered by the Engikh word surrender. If the heart centre is fully opened and the psychic is always in control, then there is no question ; all fe Safe. But the psychic can at any moment be veiled by a lower upsurge. It is only a few who arc exempt from these dangers and it is precisely those to whom surrender is easily possible. The guidance of one who is himself
pradhana. ::: the potential but unmanifest ingredients of the material world; prakriti; the chief; the root base of all elements; undifferentiated matter; the material cause of the world in the Sankhya philosophy, corresponding to maya in vedanta &
prakasamaya (prakashamaya; prakashamay) ::: full of prakasa; radiprakasamaya ant; luminous; (rūpa or lipi) composed of prakasa. prak prakasamaya asamaya samas
Prakriti(Sanskrit) ::: A compound consisting of the prepositional prefix pra, meaning "forwards" or "progression,"and kriti, a noun-form from the verbal root kri, "to make" or "to do." Therefore prakriti means literally"production" or "bringing forth," "originating," and by an extension of meaning it also signifies theprimordial or original state or condition or form of anything: primary, original substance. The root orparent of prakriti is mula-prakriti or root of prakriti. Prakriti is to be considered with vikriti -- vikritisignifying change or an alteration of some kind, or a production or evolution from the prakriti whichprecedes it.As an illustration, the chemical elements hydrogen and oxygen combine in the proportion H2O,producing thus a substance known in its most common form as water; but this same H2O can appear asice as well as vapor-gas; hence the vapor, the water, and the ice may be called the vikritis of the originalprakriti which is the originating hydrogen and oxygen. The illustration is perhaps not a very good one butis suggestive.In common usage prakriti may be called nature in general, as the great producer of entities or things, andthrough this nature acts the ever-active Brahma or Purusha. Purusha, therefore, is spirit, and prakriti is itsproductive veil or sheath. Essentially or fundamentally the two are one, and whatever prakriti throughand by the influence of Purusha produces is the multitudinous and multiform vikritis which make theimmense variety and diversity in the universe around us.In one or more of the Hindu philosophies, prakriti is the same as sakti, and therefore prakriti and sakti arevirtually interchangeable with maya or maha-maya or so-called illusion. Prakriti is often spoken of asmatter, but this is inexact although a very common usage; matter is rather the "productions" or phasesthat prakriti brings about, the vikritis. In the Indian Sankhya philosophy pradhana is virtually identicalwith prakriti, and both are often used to signify the producing element from and out of which all illusorymaterial manifestations or appearances are evolved.
prakrtim svam adhisthaya ... atmamayaya ::: standing upon My own nature ... by My self-maya. [Gita 4.6]
Pranamaya-kosa (Sanskrit) Prāṇamaya-kośa [from prāṇa life, breath + maya built of, formed of from the verbal root mā to measure, form, with a consequent idea of illusion + kośa sheath] The sheath formed of life or breath, the vital-astral soul. According to the Vedantic classification of the human constitution, the fourth of the panchakosa (five sheaths) which enclose the atman or divine monad. It corresponds to prana and linga-sarira in the sevenfold human division.
pran.amaya (pranamaya; pranamay) ::: consisting of pran.a; nervous, pranamaya vital; the vital plane. pr pranamaya
pranamaya purusa ::: soul in life; the (true) vital being.
Pranamaya Purusha ::: In the vital or nervous consciousness Atman becomes the vital or dynamic being, pranamaya purusa.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 17, Page: 33
pranic tapas ::: same as pran.amaya tapas.
Prapti (Sanskrit) Prāpti [from pra-āp to attain] One of the eight superhuman faculties (siddhis) of raja yoga; the power of transporting oneself from one place to another instantaneously, by the force of will, not in the physical body, but in the inner self by means of the mayavi-rupa. In Tibet one of the phases of hpho-wa is that which allows the adept through the mayavi-rupa to appear elsewhere in the world at his wish.
prayas ::: delight; the outflowing of mayas as the delight and pleasure of the soul in all objects and beings. [Ved.]
premamaya ::: full of love; of the nature of premananda.
premamaya virodha ::: loving opposition.
Prevision Foresight, seeing an event with the inner eye before or at the time of its occurrence. As the inner eye is independent of the time sequence on which our physical eyes and minds act, it is aware of things which to our physical perceptions belong to the future. Hence, if a contact is established between our consciousness and this inner sense, we may obtain a picture of events which have not yet come into the present. Events on the physical plane are the effects of causes which are preparing on invisible planes. The effect follows the cause — not infallibly, but with varying degrees of probability. Theosophy teaches an objective idealism, that while the universe in its phenomenal or manifested attributes is a product of maya, yet for all beings within such universe and subject to the sway of maya, events, manifestations, and similar things which occur are relatively real to their consciousness. Thus to the eye of the spirit — the awakened eye of Siva as it is called in the Orient — all events whatsoever, past, present, or future, appear as in an eternal Now, a shadow cast up from the waves of maya to the consciousness of the said seeing eye, and it is this underlying fact which gives the power of prevision, true premonition, foresight, etc. See also PROPHECY; PREMONITION
prithivimaya ::: see pr.thivimaya
pr.thivimaya (prithivimaya) ::: composed of earth; consisting of the prthivimaya bhūta called pr.thivi1. prthu pr pajah
Purdue Compiler-Construction Tool Set "tool" (PCCTS) A highly integrated {lexical analser generator} and {parser generator} by Terence J. Parr "parrt@acm.org", Will E. Cohen and Henry G. Dietz "hankd@ecn.purdue.edu", both of {Purdue University}. ANTLR (ANother Tool for Language Recognition) corresponds to YACC and DLG (DFA-based Lexical analyser Generator) functions like {LEX}. PCCTS has many additional features which make it easier to use for a wide range of translation problems. PCCTS {grammars} contain specifications for lexical and syntactic analysis with selective {backtracking} ("infinite lookahead"), {semantic predicates}, intermediate-form construction and error reporting. Rules may employ {Extended BNF} (EBNF) grammar constructs and may define parameters, return values, and have {local variables}. Languages described in PCCTS are recognised via {LLk} parsers constructed in pure, human-readable, {C} code. Selective backtracking is available to handle non-LL(k) constructs. PCCTS {parsers} may be compiled with a {C++} compiler. PCCTS also includes the {SORCERER} tree parser generator. {(ftp://marvin.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/pccts/1.10)}. {UK FTP (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/ computing/programming/languages/tools/pccts/)}. {Macintosh FTP (ftp://maya.dei.unipd.it/pub/mac/)}. Mailing list: pccts-users-request@ahpcrc.umn.edu ("subscribe pccts-users your_name" in the message body). E-mail: Terence J. Parr "parrt@acm.org", Roberto Avanzi "mocenigo@maya.dei.unipd.it" (Mac port). (2000-10-30)
purus.a (lilamaya purusha) ::: the purus.a as the enjoyer and master of the lila: "the Soul of things eternally young, perpetually inexhaustible, creating and re-creating Himself in Himself for the sheer
Purusa: (Skr.) "Man", a symbol for the world in the Veda (q.v.). One of the two cardinal principles of the Sankhya (q.v.) and Yoga (q.v.), representing pure spirituality, consciousness, and self. Various theories prevail in Indian philosophy, some semi-physical, others psycho-physical, or logical, taking the term to denote a real self or an entity produced by maya (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
Purusha is there on all the planes ::: there is a mental Purusha, manomaya, leader of the life and body, as the Upanishad puts it, a vital, a physical Purusha ; there is the psychic being or
Pyrrhonism The philosophy of Pyrrho, the Greek Skeptic (c. 365-275 BC); also a general name for philosophic doubt. Pyrrho left no writings, but lives in those of his pupil Timon. His doctrine was that we can know nothing about reality by the use of our senses or mental faculties; against every statement its opposite may be maintained with equal justice; hence it is necessary to preserve a balanced judgment, the result of which is imperturbability, a tranquil acceptance of the events of life. The moral attitude thus engendered is somewhat like that of the Epicureans and Stoics, which has often been wrongly described as a self-centered indifference, bent upon the happiness of the individual, but this is only the negative aspect of the doctrine. His teachings approximate those of the Sankhya philosophy, and of some later philosophers — as in the doctrine of maya, that all is illusion save the divine. Whether Pyrrho himself stopped short at a suspense of judgment, or whether his teachings were imperfectly handed down by his followers, may be questioned. The ardent desire for knowledge may result in that illumination by which we becomes aware of the deceptive character of our faculties and the illusory nature of the images they create; but if our skepticism is merely the result of an intellectual disillusionment, unaccompanied by any inward vision, the result is usually selfish indifference bringing about a lapse into mere sensuality.
Quaternary A group of four; the number four, fourfold. Many quaternary groupings may be made. The septenate is divisible into three and four, usually as the higher triad and the lower quaternary; here the quaternary is terrestrial as opposed to celestial, mortal as opposed to immortal, material as opposed to spiritual. It is seen in the four lower human principles, the four lower cosmic elements, the fourfold shapes in physical bodies, etc. It is the square of the number 2; the first of the regular polyhedra is the tetrahedron or triangular pyramid, having four sides and four corners. The septenate may otherwise be regarded as two triangles and a central point, as in Solomon’s seal; and this gives two quaternaries, a higher and a lower, by adding the point to either of the triangles. These two quaternaries are also called the higher and lower — or celestial and terrestrial — tetraktys. The higher group is given in Platonism as: to agathon, nous, psyche, and hyle; and the lower group is the four cosmic elements of fire, earth, air, and water. The lower tetraktys is said to be the root of illusion or mahamaya, and this is what the Tetragrammaton, or four-lettered name, becomes in materialized Judaism.
raksasi maya (Rakshasi Maya) ::: illusion of the powers of darkness.
Rama, the hero of the Ramayana, is born in the Suryavansa, while Gautama Buddha belonged to the Chandravansa (TG 314).
Ramayana: A great epic poem of India, ascribed to Valmiki, describing the doings of Rama and his wife Sita, in about 24,000 verses divided into seven books; the first and the last are believed to be comparatively modern additions, but the date of the original books is probably the third or fourth century B.C.; Rama’s character is described as that of a perfect man, who bears suffering and self-denial with superhuman patience.
Ramayana; an ardent devotee of Rama, he is considered as the perfect servant of God
ramayana ::: n. --> The more ancient of the two great epic poems in Sanskrit. The hero and heroine are Rama and his wife Sita.
Ramayana: (Skr.) An epic poem, ascribed to Valmiki, celebrating in about 24,000 verses the doings of Rama and his wife Sita and containing ethical and philosophic speculations. -- K.F.L.
ramayana. ::: the great hindu epic poem by Valmiki describing the life of Rama and his consort
Ramayana ::: [the life-story of Rama, a celebrated epic poem by Valmiki whose central incident is the abduction of Rama's wife sita by Ravana, king of the raksasas, and her subsequent recovery by Rama and his allies].
rasmayah. (suryasya rashmayah) ::: the rays of sūrya1, beams of the "radiating light-stuff of the consciousness of the eternal Existence", of which "each ray is a truth". ssurya
raudrananda ::: fierce or violent delight; a form of sarirananda assoraudrananda ciated with the conversion of suffering into ananda. It arises "when this human being, imprisoned in matter, subjected to mind, emerges from his subjection, conquers his mind and delivers himself utterly in his body, realising his true anandamaya self in every part of the adhara", so that "physical pain itself, the hardest thing for material man to bear, changes its nature in experience" and becomes a kind of physical ananda.
Reality as Isbu’ara tt'ills, governs and possesses Its world of manifestation created and kept in motion and acUon by Its own conscious force which is variously termed as Maya, Prakriti and
Relativity ::: The modern scientific doctrine of relativity, despite its restrictions and mathematical limitations, isextremely suggestive because it introduces metaphysics into physics, does away with purely speculativeideas that certain things are absolute in a purely relative universe, and brings us back to an examinationof nature as nature is and not as mathematical theorists have hitherto tacitly taken it to be. The doctrine ofrelativity in its essential idea of relations rather than absolutes is true; but this does not mean that wenecessarily accept Einstein's or his followers' deductions. These latter may or may not be true, and timewill show. In any case, relativity is not what it is often misunderstood to be -- the naked doctrine that"everything is relative," which would mean that there is nothing fundamental or basic or real anywhere,whence other things flow forth; in other words, that there is no positively real or fundamental divine andspiritual background of being. The relativity theory is an adumbration, a reaching out for, a groping after,a very, very old theosophical doctrine -- the doctrine of maya.The manner in which theosophy teaches the conception of relativity is that while the universe is a relativeuniverse and all its parts are therefore relative -- each to each, and each to all, and all to each -- yet thereis a deathless reality behind, which forms the substratum or the truth of things, out of which thephenomenal in all its myriad relative manifestations flows. And there is a way, a road, a path, by whichmen may reach this reality behind, because it is in man as his inmost essence and therefore primal origin.In each one is fundamentally this reality of which we are all in search. Each one is the path that leads toit, for it is the heart of the universe.In a sense still more metaphysical, even the heart of a universe may be said to exist relatively inconnection with other universes with their hearts. It would be quite erroneous to suppose that there is oneAbsolute Reality in the old-fashioned European sense, and that all relative manifestations flow forth fromit, and that these relative manifestations although derived from this Absolute Reality are without links ofunion or origin with an Absolute even still more essential and fundamental and vaster. Once theconception of boundless infinitude is grasped, the percipient intelligence immediately realizes that it issimply hopeless, indeed impossible, to postulate ends, absolute Absolutes, as the divine ultima thule. Nomatter how vast and kosmic an Absolute may be, there are in sheer frontierless infinitude alwaysinnumerable other Absolutes equal to or greater than it.
rogamaya ::: diseased, unhealthy.
Romakapura (Sanskrit) Romakapura [from romaka hairy + pura city, fortified town] City of hairy ones; in the Surya-Siddhanta (1:6; 12:39), the birth place of Asuramaya, the putative author of the Surya-Siddhanta itself, who states that he received the knowledge which the scripture contains by dictation from the sun. It is stated to have been told to Asuramaya when but little of the krita yuga was left, making the work’s age at least 2,200,000 years. The “fact of ‘Romaka-pura in the West’ being named as the birth-place of this hero of the archaic ages, is the more interesting because it is so very suggestive of the esoteric teaching about the ‘Sweat-born’ Races, the men born from the pores of their parents. ‘Romakupas’ means ‘hair-pores’ in Sanskrit” (SD 2:68). Romakapura therefore has a vague allusion to the land and cradle of the sweat-born of the third root-race, but more particularly in this case to the early days of Atlantis. The figure of 2,200,000 years ago brings Asuramaya and his work into the first part of the present fifth root-race.
rūpa (chhayamaya rupa) ::: rūpa composed of chaya.
rūpa ::: rūpa composed of tejas. tejomaya varna
sagun.a ::: anandamaya sagun.a brahman in its lilamaya aspect, seen as the source of the cosmic play.
sagun.a brahman ::: sagun.a brahman perceived as full of the universal delight that is the nature of anandaṁ brahma. anandamaya titiks anandamaya titiksa-udasinata-nati
samamaya (shamamaya, çamamaya) ::: full of sama; peaceful.
samas (prakashamaya çamas) ::: luminous peace; samas full of prakasa, without tapas. prak prakasamaya
Samaya (Sanskrit) Samaya [from sam together + the verbal root i (aya) to go] A coming together, meeting together, a compact, treaty, agreement. Also convention, law, rule, practice, precept, doctrine. In a religious sense, a regular ritualistic observance or religious obligation, combined with the accompanying precepts or instruction.
samomaya (shamomaya) ::: full of samas; peaceful. samomaya
Samvriti (Sanskrit) Saṃvṛti [prefix sam + the verbal root vṛt to enclose; to cover, to involve] The holding of “false conception,” because the percipient ego is enclosed or covered or involved with material energies and powers. Samvriti hence may be called the origin of all illusion or maya. “One has to acquire true Self-Consciousness in order to understand Samvriti or the ‘origin of delusion’.” (SD 1:44n)
sanmaya ::: [composed of pure existence (sat)].
sanmaya ::: having the nature of sat, the principle of pure existence that is the first aspect of saccidananda; expressing the principle of sat contained in the principle of any other plane, such as the physical or ... the ananda plane (see next).
Sanskrit, on the other hand, “was really the sacred language of the Brahmanas and held more or less private or secret by them. The Sanskrit even in those ancient times was the vehicle for the archaic Wisdom-teachings of the Aryan peoples of India, such as the Vedas, and the Puranas, and the Upanishads, and the great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. But Pali was one of several other languages of culture in ancient India, all which were of so-called Prakrit character, although very little is known about these other literary languages. Pali has survived to the present time because . . . it became the linguistic vehicle in which were enshrined the teachings of Buddhism, i.e., of Southern Buddhism, much as Latin has survived because enshrining the teachings of early medieval Christianity. Just as there were in ancient Italy many other Italic tongues, each one having its literary or cultured form, and likewise its popular idiom, so was it in ancient India.
santimaya (shantimaya) ::: peaceful. santimaya
santimaya Siva (Shantimaya Shiva) ::: [Siva full of peace].
sarira (prana sharira) ::: the "vital body" which belongs to the vital soul (pran.amaya purus.a), a body "composed of a substance much subtler than physical matter . . . a substance surcharged with conscious energy"; it "penetrates and envelops the physical and is sensitive to impacts of another kind, to the play of the vital forces around us and coming in on us from the universe . . . or else from the vital planes and worlds which are behind the material universe".
sarira (yogagnimaya sharira) ::: a body filled with the fiery energy generated by yoga. [Śvetasvatara Upanis.ad 2.12]
sarvamaya ::: Kr.s.n.a seen "as the All, not only in the unique essence of things, but in the manifold form of things", the first degree of the third intensity of Kr.s.n.adarsana, a kind of vision of the divine Personality corresponding to sarvaṁ brahma in the impersonal brahmadarsana. sarva sarvam
satyadharma ::: the law of the Truth; knowledge in action. satyadharm satyadharmaya aya dr drstaye
satya manomaya ::: true mental.
Shaktism, Saktism: The philosophy, supported by liturgy and ritual of various degrees of purity, of the believers in the Tantra (q.v.). It explains Brahma as absolute spirit which, on becoming Shiva and Shakti, the male and female principles, produces through maya (q.v.) from itself as the One in a series of 36 tattvas (q.v.) the Many, a process which at the end of the world is made to retrogress and again progress periodically. -- K.F.L.
shana; Krishnadarshan) ::: the vision of Kr.s.n.a, the para purus.a or purus.ottama, seen in relation to the world as the transcendent and universal anandamaya purus.a and isvara who is "not only the origin and spiritual container, but the spiritual inhabitant in all forces, in all things and in all beings, and not only the inhabitant but . . . himself all energies and forces, all things and all beings", a form of darsana regarded as the highest bhava of brahmadarsana or as . a distinct darsana related to isvaradarsana. The three intensities of Kr.s.n.adarsana in human beings (applicable with modifications to all things and beings) are described in the entry of 30 May 1915 as (1) "Krishna seen behind the human mask" (distinguished from the preliminary stage, "Krishna sensed behind the disguise"), (2)"Krishna seen in the human being", and (3) "The human being seen in Krishna" (with three degrees of the third intensity, the vision of sarvamaya, anantagun.amaya and anandamaya Kr.s.n.a), leading to the consummation: "The human being = Krishna".
SHANKARA. ::: The Shanlcara knowledge is only one side of the TniUi ; it is the knowledge of the Supreme as realised by the spiritual Mind through the static silence of the pure Exist- ence. It was because he went by this side only 'that Shankara was unable to accept or explain the origin of the universe except as illusion, a creation of Maya. Unless one realises the Supreme on the dynamic as well as the static side, one cannot experience the true ori^n of things and the equal reality of the active
Shruti: “Vijnana maya purusha. The angel who holds and brings forth the occult mysteries of life, the mysterious truths of existence, the occult laws of Nature, the level of being. Hiranyagarbha, the golden embryo is also the Angel of mysterious ecstasies. He is also the man who has attained the state of Vijnana where he is now Mind, Life, Matter.”
&
. s.n.a (anandamaya Krishna) ::: Kr.s.n.a as the anandamaya isvara / purus.a, the deva of whom ananda is "the subtle body and being"; Kr.s.n.a seen in the highest form (third degree of the third intensity) of Kr.s.n.adarsana. anandamaya lil anandamaya lila
. s.n.a (anandamaya lilamaya Krishna) ::: Kr.s.n.a as the anandamaya and the lilamaya, taking divine delight in the cosmic game. anandamaya lil anandamaya lilamaya amaya saguna
. s.n.a (lilamaya Krishna) ::: Kr.s.n.a as the lilamaya isvara / purus.a, "the eternal Child frolicing in the Universe, the Playmate,Lover, Master, Teacher and Friend of all His creations", he "who draws all of us to him by his love, compels all of us by his masteries and plays his eternal play of joy and strength and beauty in the manifold world". lil lilamaya amaya N Narayana
Some parallels from other religions are the luminous San-tusita (Bodhisat) appearing to Maya and announcing the coming birth of Gautama Buddha; the Hindu legend that there would be born the son of the Virgin (Krishna), the date of whose death marked the beginning of kali yuga; and in Egypt where scenes of an annunciation appear in the temple of Luxor.
speech-thought ::: same as vaṅmaya thought.
Sri Aurobindo: "And though this Spirit of the universe, this One who is all, seems to be turning us on the wheel of the world as if mounted on a machine by the force of Maya, shaping us in our ignorance as the potter shapes a pot, as the weaver a fabric, by some skilful mechanical principle, yet is this spirit our own greatest self and it is according to the real idea, the truth of ourselves, that which is growing in us and finding always new and more adequate forms in birth after birth, in our animal and human and divine life, in that which we were, that which we are, that which we shall be, — it is in accordance with this inner soul-truth that, as our opened eyes will discover, we are progressively shaped by this spirit within us in its all-wise omnipotence.” *Essays on the Gita
*Sri Aurobindo: "It [falsehood] is created by an Asuric (hostile) power which intervenes in this creation and is not only separated from the Truth and therefore limited in knowledge and open to error, but in revolt against the Truth or in the habit of seizing the Truth only to pervert it. This Power, the dark Asuric Shakti or Rakshasic Maya, puts forward its own perverted consciousness as true knowledge and its wilful distortions or reversals of the Truth as the verity of things. It is the powers and personalities of this perverted and perverting consciousness that we call hostile beings, hostile forces. Whenever these perversions created by them out of the stuff of the Ignorance are put forward as the Truth of things, that is the Falsehood, in the yogic sense, . . . .” Letters on Yoga
. s.t.aye (satyadharmaya drishtaye) ::: for the law of the Truth, for sight. [Īsa Upanis.ad 15]
. s.t.i (janamaya drishti) ::: vision on the plane of jana or ananda. janm janmantara antara dr drsti
Subjective idealism denies the existence of objective reality altogether, except perhaps as illusory, as for instance in the views of Berkeley. Objective idealism, such as the system of Schelling, recognizes the existence of objective worlds while regarding the ideal world as the primary production and paramount: the external world has a relative and temporary or mayavi reality. This latter view is the only strictly logical one; for if we annihilate the object, we must thereby annihilate the subject also, these two terms having no meaning except relatively to each other. In any theory of knowledge, there must be knower and thing known; and the latter is objective to the former. Absolute idealism logically is as unthinkable as is absolute materialism. See also MAYA
Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya …
supramental ::: (before 1920) same as vijñanamaya or ideal (sometimes restricted to the lower levels of vijñana); (in 1926-27 before 29October 1927) having the nature of supermind and related planes as defined before the introduction of the term overmind and the elevation of "supermind" above "overmind", sometimes applied especially to the planes below supreme supermind; ("the supramental" in some entries of January 1927) the next plane of consciousness above supramentality; (after 29 October 1927) expressing the working of supermind (in the latest sense) on its own plane or in the overmind, where "supramental" movements are sometimes regarded as higher than supramentalised and lower than gnostic.
sūryamaya ::: full of the light of sūrya1; same as vijñanamaya. suryamaya Surya S
suryasya rasmayah ::: the rays of the sun (of knowledge) .
svapnamaya sus.upti (swapnamaya sushupti) ::: same as svapnasus.upti.
svapnamaya (swapnamaya) ::: having the nature of svapna (in the sense of dream or svapnasamadhi); dreamlike; pertaining to the planes of subliminal consciousness associated with the dream-state.
Syntax-Case "language" A {macro} system for {Scheme} by R. Kent Dybvig "dyb@cs.indiana.edu". It is superior to the low-level system described in the Revised^4 Report ({R4RS}). Pattern variables are ordinary identifiers with essentially the same status as lexical variable names and {macro} {keywords}. The {syntax} is modified to recognise and handle references to pattern variables. Version 2.1 works with {Chez Scheme} and the {Macintosh} port runs under {MacGambit} 2.0 {(ftp://iuvax.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme/syntax-case.tar.Z)}. {Macintosh (ftp://maya.dei.unipd.it/pub/mac/gambit/)}. ["Syntactic Abstraction in Scheme", Robert Hieb, R. Kent Dybvig and Carl Bruggeman IUCS TR
taijasa ::: full of tejas; same as tejomaya.
tamogun.a ::: the gun.a of tamas. tamoguna tamomaya nidr nidra
tapomaya ::: [composed of tapas].
tapomaya ::: consisting of or relating to tapas in any form (mental, ideal, etc.); volitional; dynamic. tapomaya ananda
Tara’s abduction gave rise to the Tarakamaya — the first war in heaven. The earth was shaken to its very center and turned to Brahma requesting him to restore Tara to her husband, which request was granted. Soma had for his allies the Daityas and Danavas, whose leader is Usanas (Venus) and Rudra (Siva), while the gods who sided with Brihaspati were led by Indra.
Taurus (The Bull): The second sign of the zodiac. Its symbol represents the head and horns of a bull. The sacred Apis was presumed to be the incarnation of the god Osiris—hence a symbol of a sepulchre or tomb. The Sun’s entry into Taurus was celebrated as a Feast of Maya (Maia)—our May Day—the Sun represented by a white bull with a golden disc between his horns, followed by a procession of virgins, exemplifying the fecundity of Nature in Spring. The Sun is in Taurus annually from April 21 to May 20. Astrologically it is in the second thirty-degree arc from the Spring Equinox, from 30° to 60° along the Ecliptic. It is the “fixed” quality of the element Earth, conferring external will power that, ordinarily passive, and negative, becomes obstinate and unbending when aroused. Negative, nocturnal, cold, dry and melancholy. Ruler: Venus. Exaltation: Moon. Detriment: Mars. Fall: Uranus. Symbolic interpretation. The head and horns of a bull; the sacred Apis in whom the god Osiris was incarnate; a sepulchre or tomb.
tejomaya lipi ::: lipi composed of tejas. tejomaya rupa
tejomaya (tejomaya; tejomay) ::: fiery; fierily brilliant; pertaining to the bhūta of tejas; (rūpa or lipi) composed of or containing the akashic material called tejas. tejomaya chayamaya
tejonama ::: namadr.s.t.i of tejomaya lipi. tejonama
tejorekha ::: tejomaya rūpa resembling a drawing. tejorekha telepathic dr drsti
thanmaya nishta. :::the state of absolutely being That in truth
The Mayas of Yucatan had a calendar system, deciphered at least in part, that extended far back into the past. In this calendar we find not only the familiar cycles of the lunation and of the solar year, but others such as the synodical revolution of Venus, and exact periods of 250, 280, or 360 days. The Egyptians in their calendar time-measurements used three different years, one of which was a year of 365 days, adapted to the Julian year by a Sothic period of 1460 years. The lunar year of 12 lunations is one of immense antiquity, and formerly of almost universal usage, frequently combined with the solar year; and the lunar year is still used, with various systems of intercalation to adapt it to the tropical year. As to such periods as 280 and 260 days, one may wonder whether these numbers were merely used as convenient for computation, or whether they rest on actual cycles not recognized by modern astronomy. The 280 is evidently connected with the human gestation and prenatal period. The position of the equinoctal point in relation to the stellar zodiac is often referred to as an indication of the dates of ancient events; and cycles of successive conjunctions of all or most of the planets are frequently mentioned in the archaic literatures of different peoples.
“The chronology and computations of the Brahmin Initiates are based upon the Zodiacal records of India, and the works of the above-mentioned astronomer and magician — Asuramaya. The Atlantean zodiacal records cannot err, as they were compiled under the guidance of those who first taught astronomy, among other things, to mankind” (SD 2:49).
The ego is that which says “I am I”; it is indirect or reflected consciousness, consciousness recognizing its own mayavi existence as a separate entity. It is not the permanent self or the atma-buddhi-manas considered as an indissoluble triad; for all egos in the human constitution are reflections of the permanent spiritual selfhood. This means that there are innumerable egos of the same kind — “myself” and other similar myselves — also that there are egos of different kinds.
::: "The Lord of Beings is that which is conscious in the conscious being, but he is also the Conscious in inconscient things, the One who is master and in control of the many that are passive in the hands of Force-Nature. He is the Timeless and Time; he is Space and all that is in Space; he is Causality and the cause and the effect: He is the thinker and his thought, the warrior and his courage, the gambler and his dice-throw. All realities and all aspects and all semblances are the Brahman; Brahman is the Absolute, the transcendent and incommunicable, the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos, the Cosmic Self that upholds all beings, but It is too the self of each individual: the soul or psychic entity is an eternal portion of the Ishwara; it is his supreme Nature or Consciousness-Force that has become the living being in a world of living beings. The Brahman alone is, and because of It all are, for all are the Brahman; this Reality is the reality of everything that we see in Self and Nature. Brahman, the Ishwara, is all this by his Yoga-Maya, by the power of his Consciousness-Force put out in self-manifestation: he is the Conscious Being, Soul, Spirit, Purusha, and it is by his Nature, the force of his conscious self-existence that he is all things; he is the Ishwara, the omniscient and omnipotent All-ruler, and it is by his Shakti, his conscious Power, that he manifests himself in Time and governs the universe.” The Life Divine*
“The Lord of Beings is that which is conscious in the conscious being, but he is also the Conscious in inconscient things, the One who is master and in control of the many that are passive in the hands of Force-Nature. He is the Timeless and Time; he is Space and all that is in Space; he is Causality and the cause and the effect: He is the thinker and his thought, the warrior and his courage, the gambler and his dice-throw. All realities and all aspects and all semblances are the Brahman; Brahman is the Absolute, the transcendent and incommunicable, the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos, the Cosmic Self that upholds all beings, but It is too the self of each individual: the soul or psychic entity is an eternal portion of the Ishwara; it is his supreme Nature or Consciousness-Force that has become the living being in a world of living beings. The Brahman alone is, and because of It all are, for all are the Brahman; this Reality is the reality of everything that we see in Self and Nature. Brahman, the Ishwara, is all this by his Yoga-Maya, by the power of his Consciousness-Force put out in self-manifestation: he is the Conscious Being, Soul, Spirit, Purusha, and it is by his Nature, the force of his conscious self-existence that he is all things; he is the Ishwara, the omniscient and omnipotent All-ruler, and it is by his Shakti, his conscious Power, that he manifests himself in Time and governs the universe.” The Life Divine
The lower karanopadhi or cause bringing about reimbodiment is avidya (nescience). When a reimbodying entity through repeated reimbodiments in material spheres rises into self-conscious recognition of its own divine powers, it shakes off the disguises of maya and becomes a jivanmukta. As an entity grows more and more like its divine-spiritual counterpart, it is less subject to avidya. “It is, in a sense, the seeds of Kama-manas left in the fabric or being of the reincarnating entity, which act as the karana or reproducing cause, or instrumental cause, of such entity’s reincarnations on earth” (OG 78).
.. this being we are is or can be whatever it has the faith and will to be – for faith is only will aiming at a higher truth – and cease to set limits to our possibility… - Sri Aurobindo ::: .Falsehood ::: Falsehood, on the other hand, is not this Avidya, but an extreme result of it. It is created by an Asuric power which intervenes in this creation and is not only separated from the Truth and th
refore limited in knowledge and open to error, but in revolt against the Truth or in the habit of seizing the Truth only to pervert it. This Power, the dark Asuric Shakti or Rakshasic Maya, puts forward its own perverted consciousness as true knowledge and its wilful distortions or reversals of the Truth as the verity of things. It is the powers and personalities of this perverted and perverting consciousness that we call hostile beings, hostile forces. Whenever these perversions created by them out of the stuff of the Ignorance are put forward as the truth of things, that is the Falsehood, in the Yogic sense, mithya, moha.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 35, Page: 103
Though sometimes used as an equivalent for avidya, maya is properly applicable only to prakriti, which is doomed to disappear at the time of pralaya. It is thus prakriti and its productions or changes (vikaras) which, by reacting against the operations of the consciousness of a perceiving being, casts the perceiver into the bonds of illusions, out of which the deluded being has to strive in order to free himself from the maya with which he is surrounded.
thought-expression ::: same as vaṅmaya thought.
Though there are seven human principles, there are but three distinct upadhis, in each of which the atman may work independently of the rest. These three upadhis can be separated by an adept without killing himself, but he cannot separate the seven principles from each other without destroying his constitution. According to the Taraka-Raja-Yoga, these three upadhis are karanopadhi, sukshmopadhi, and sthulopadhi. Karanopadhi corresponds to the anandamaya-kosa of the Vedantic classification and to the sushupti or deep dreamless sleeping state. The avatara doctrine is closely connected with these various human upadhis.
thought ::: often equivalent to vijñanamaya thought or to jñana as the first member of the vijñana catus.t.aya; it usually includes both perceptive thought and vaṅmaya (articulate) thought, but sometimes refers specifically to one or the other of these (most often the first).
thought-speech ::: same as vaṅmaya.
Thought Transference ::: The power of transferring one's thoughts without a word -- voiceless speech. This is no psychical power.Its psychical aspect, commonly called thought transference or telepathy, is but a feeble manifestation of atruly sublime power, and is illusory, because it is but a reflected light of the real spiritual power within.True thought transference is a spiritual faculty. Having this spiritual power you can transfer your thoughtand your consciousness and your will to any part of the earth -- and actually be there, see what goes on,know what is happening there. No merely psychical power will ever enable you to do that. In Tibet thispower is called by the generalizing name hpho-wa. Having this power your conscious and percipientinner self can pass through stone walls as easily as the electric current runs along or through the copperwire. (See also Mayavi-Rupa)
Thus maya means that our minds are blinded and perverted by our own preconceptions and imperfections, and so does not interpret the world as it is.
" To become ourselves by exceeding ourselves, — so we may turn the inspired phrases of a half-blind seer who knew not the self of which he spoke, — is the difficult and dangerous necessity, the cross surmounted by an invisible crown which is imposed on us, the riddle of the true nature of his being proposed to man by the dark Sphinx of the Inconscience below and from within and above by the luminous veiled Sphinx of the infinite Consciousness and eternal Wisdom confronting him as an inscrutable divine Maya. To exceed ego and be our true self, to be aware of our real being, to possess it, to possess a real delight of being, is therefore the ultimate meaning of our life here; it is the concealed sense of our individual and terrestrial existence.” The Life Divine*
“ To become ourselves by exceeding ourselves,—so we may turn the inspired phrases of a half-blind seer who knew not the self of which he spoke,—is the difficult and dangerous necessity, the cross surmounted by an invisible crown which is imposed on us, the riddle of the true nature of his being proposed to man by the dark Sphinx of the Inconscience below and from within and above by the luminous veiled Sphinx of the infinite Consciousness and eternal Wisdom confronting him as an inscrutable divine Maya. To exceed ego and be our true self, to be aware of our real being, to possess it, to possess a real delight of being, is therefore the ultimate meaning of our life here; it is the concealed sense of our individual and terrestrial existence.” The Life Divine
“To become ourselves by exceeding ourselves,—so we may turn the inspired phrases of a half-blind seer who knew not the self of which he spoke,—is the difficult and dangerous necessity, the cross surmounted by an invisible crown which is imposed on us, the riddle of the true nature of his being proposed to man by the dark Sphinx of the Inconscience below and from within and above by the luminous veiled Sphinx of the infinite Consciousness and eternal Wisdom confronting him as an inscrutable divine Maya. To exceed ego and be our true self, to be aware of our real being, to possess it, to possess a real delight of being, is therefore the ultimate meaning of our life here; it is the concealed sense of our individual and terrestrial existence.” The Life Divine
traigun.yamayi ::: feminine of traigun.yamaya. traigunyamayi traigun traigunyamayi prakrti
traigunyamayi maya ::: the lower prakrti [maya] of the three gunas.
traigun.ya ::: "the threefold mode of Nature", consisting of sattva, traigunya rajas and tamas in their "interlocked and mutually limited play"; same as trigun.a. traigun traigunyamaya
Truth ; and, if you allow pride and arrogance and ostentation of power to creep in and hold you, you will surely fall into error and into the power of rajasic Maya ond Avidya. Our object is not to get powen, but to ascend towards the divine Truth-
Twenty generations later, another king of the same name reigned at Videha, famed for his good works, knowledge, and sanctity, also called Siradhvaja (he of the plow-banner) for, as related in the Ramayana, when the king was preparing the ground for a sacrifice for obtaining offspring, a maiden, Sita, sprang up ready formed from the furrow which he had made with his plow. Through his righteous life he became a Brahmin and one of the Rajarshis — referred to in the Bagavad-Gita (ch 3). It is also related that he and his preceptor-adviser, Yajnavalkya, prepared the way for the Buddha.
::: "Two are joined together, powers of Truth, powers of Maya, — they have built the Child and given him birth and they nourish his growth.” The Life Divine
“Two are joined together, powers of Truth, powers of Maya,—they have built the Child and given him birth and they nourish his growth.” The Life Divine
Upanishad(Sanskrit) ::: A compound, composed of upa "according to," "together with," ni "down," and the verbal rootsad, "to sit," which becomes shad by Sanskrit grammar when preceded by the particle ni: the entirecompound thus signifying "following upon or according to the teachings which were received when wewere sitting down." The figure here is that of pupils sitting in the Oriental style at the feet of the teacher,who taught them the secret wisdom or rahasya, in private and in forms and manners of expression thatlater were written and promulgated according to those teachings and after that style.The Upanishads are examples of literary works in which the rahasya -- a Sanskrit word meaning"esoteric doctrine" or "mystery" -- is imbodied. The Upanishads belong to the Vedic cycle and areregarded by orthodox Brahmans as a portion of the sruti or "revelation." It was from these wonderfulquasi-esoteric and very mystical works that was later developed the highly philosophical and profoundsystem called the Vedanta. The Upanishads are usually reckoned today as one hundred and fifty innumber, though probably only a score are now complete without evident marks of literary change oradulteration in the way of excision or interpolation.The topics treated of in the Upanishads are highly transcendental, recondite, and abstruse, and in orderproperly to understand the Upanishadic teaching one should have constantly in mind the master-keys thattheosophy puts into the hand of the student. The origin of the universe, the nature of the divinities, therelations between soul and ego, the connections of spiritual and material beings, the liberation of theevolving entity from the chains of maya, and kosmological questions, are all dealt with, mostly in asuccinct and cryptic form. The Upanishads, finally, may be called the exoteric theosophical works ofHindustan, but contain a vast amount of genuine esoteric information.
ūrya tapas ::: will-power (tapas) illumined by sūrya1; same as vijñanamaya tapas.
valmiki. ::: the first poet of India, author of the Ramayana and the Yoga Vasistha
vangmaya ::: see vaṅmaya.
vaṅmaya (vangmaya) ::: (thought) expressed in vak; short for vaṅvanmaya maya thought.
vaṅmaya (vangmaya) thought ::: thought expressing itself "in the form vanmaya of an inward speech" (vak) without the "separate character" of van.i; a form of jñana defined as "the revelation of truth through right and perfect vak in the thought", regarded as a special power of sruti and distinguished from perceptive thought. It has two movements: the . effulgent (or original), which is "vak leaping forth from the ideality with the ideation contained in it", and the refulgent (or derivative), which expresses a previous ideation or proceeds "from a silent indefinite ideation to which it gives form and expression".
varn.amaya (varnamaya; varnamay) ::: coloured; (rūpa or lipi) comvarnamaya posed of varn.a.
vayumaya ::: gaseous; consisting of or relating to vayu1. vayumaya
vidya-avidyamayi maya ::: [maya composed of Knowledge and Ignorance].
vidyamaya ::: [the maya of the Knowledge].
vidyunmaya ::: filled with lightning.
vijnanamaya ::: [composed of or full of vijnana], gnostic.
vijnanamaya purusa ::: the gnostic purusa; the Spirit poised in gnosis.
Vishnu as the supporter of life is the source of one line of avataras so often spoken of in Hindu legends. These ten avataras of Vishnu are: 1) Matsya the fish; 2) Kurma the tortoise; 3) Varaha the boar; 4) Narasimha the man-lion (last of animal stage); 5) Vamana the dwarf (first step toward the human form); 6) Parasu-Rama, Rama with the axe (a hero); 7) Rama-chandra, the hero of the Ramayana; 8) Krishna, son of Devaki; 9) Gautama Buddha; and 10) Kalki, the avatara who is to appear at the end of the kali yuga mounted on a white horse, inaugurating a new reign of righteousness on earth. A horse has from immemorial time been a symbol of the spiritual as well as vital energies of the inner solar orb. Hence, when the next avatara is said to come riding a white horse, the meaning is that he comes infilled with the solar light or splendor — an avatara or manifestation of a spiritual and intellectual solar energy which will carry all before it on earth.
visvamaya ::: universal.
Vital Being ::: In the vital or nervous consciousness Atman becomes the vital or dynamic being, pranamaya purusa.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 17, Page: 33
vivekamaya ::: having the nature of viveka. vivekamaya trik trikaladrsti
viveka (viveka; vivek) ::: intuitive discrimination, one of the two components of smr.ti, a faculty of jñana; its function is "to seize on our thoughts & intuitions, arrange them, separate their intellectual from their vijnanamaya elements, correct their false extensions, false limitations, misapplications & assign them their right application, right extension, right limitation".
"We are ignorant also of the superconscient, that which we ordinarily call spirit or oversoul; yet this we find to be our highest and widest self, Sachchidananda creating and governing all that we are and become by His divine Maya.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga*
“We are ignorant also of the superconscient, that which we ordinarily call spirit or oversoul; yet this we find to be our highest and widest self, Sachchidananda creating and governing all that we are and become by His divine Maya.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
We are ignorant also of the superconscient, that which we ordinarily call spirit or oversoul; yet this we find to be our highest and widest self, Sachchidananda creating and governing all that we are and become by His divine Maya.
What we call Ignorance is not really anything else than a power of the one divine Knowledge-Will or Maya; it is the capacity of the One Consciousness similarly to regulate, to hold back, measure, relate in a particular way the action of its Knowledge.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 515
When a ray from mahat expresses itself as the human manas (or even as the manasic attribute of the finite gods), it then because of surrounding maya involves the quality of egoity or aham-ship. Thus it is said that the great Tree of Life has parabrahman as its seed, mahat as its trunk, and ahamkara as its spreading branches.
. yamaya ::: having the nature of any mode or combination of modes of the traigun.ya.
yantrarudhani mayaya ::: mounted on a machine by his maya. [Gita 18.61] ::: yantrarudham [accusative singular, neuter] mayaya ::: yantrarudhani [accusative plural, neuter (as in the Gita) ] mayaya ::: yantrarudho [nominative singular, masculine] mayaya
yogamaya ::: power of the Godhead's spiritual consciousness, the power of His Consciousness-Force put out in self-manifestation.
yoga maya. ::: the power to veil the nature of something and to create an illusory appearance; the power of manifestation
KEYS (10k)
33 Sri Aurobindo
28 Sri Ramakrishna
13 Maya Angelou
4 Swami Chinmayananda
3 Ramayana
3 Sri Ramana Maharshi
2 Swami Akhandananda
2 Sri Sarada Devi
2 Swami Vivekananda
1 to say that I don't write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears
1 Swami Ramakrishnananda
1 SWAMI RAMA
1 Sri Ramakrishna
1 Ramakrishna
1 no place at all.
1 Hymns of Guru Nanak
1 H P Blavatsky
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
566 Maya Angelou
295 Maya Banks
149 Mehmet Murat ildan
44 Maya Lin
38 Anonymous
28 Chinmayananda Saraswati
21 Vladimir Mayakovsky
17 Shilpi Somaya Gowda
15 Maya Rodale
8 Sri Aurobindo
8 O uz Atay
8 Maya Tiwari
8 Emayatzy E Corinealdi
7 Maya Soetoro Ng
6 Sabahattin Ali
6 Rik Mayall
6 Richard Bach
6 Maya Harris
6 Devdutt Pattanaik
6 Ahmet mit
1:All great achievements require time.
~ Maya Angelou,#KEYS
2:Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud." ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
3:The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
4:Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
5:It is all mind or maya [illusion]. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
6:A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
7:Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
8:The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
9:Force is a self-expression of Existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Maya, #KEYS
10:Maya is like magic and we have to see the magician. But then the path beyond Maya is through Maya. ~ Swami Akhandananda, #KEYS
11:Precious jewel, you glow, you shine, reflecting all the good things in the world. Just look at yourself." ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
12:When a Saviour comes, he carries thousands easily across the ocean of Maya. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
13:God plays invisible in the heart of man, being screened by Maya from human view. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
14:We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
15:Avidya-Maya consists of lust, anger, avarice, inordinate attachment, pride and envy. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
16:If you want to see God, you must first put away the film of Maya from off your eyes. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
17:Maya gives rise to the seed of "I" and "mine" and serves to keep beings chained to the world. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
18:I am convinced that most people do not grow up … our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
19:The worldy soul can burst through the meshes of Maya by the wings of discrimination and renunciation. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
20:Maya makes people so utterly blind that they cannot get out of her meshes even when the way lies open. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
21:By doing the right thing one may take refuge in Vidya-Maya (sattva) and by Vidya-Maya one may reach God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
22:Maya is of two kinds, one leading towards God, Vidya-Maya, the other leading away from God, Avidya-Maya. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
23:Continue to plant a kiss of concern on the cheek of the sick and the aged and infirm and count that actions as natural and to be expected. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
24:Deluded by ignorance, you become attached to sense objects and go deeper and deeper into the abyss of Maya. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
25:Division of consciousness is the basis of the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya, #KEYS
26:Surrender to the Feet of the Guru is the real mantra, in which there will be no fear of Maya's delusion. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
27:A pure intuition is a rare occurrence in our mental activity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya, #KEYS
28:If I could give you one thought, it would be to lift someone up. Lift a stranger up…The very idea of lifting someone up will lift you, as well." ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
29:The Mother showed me that all this is verily maya. She alone is, real, and all else is the splendour of Her maya. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
30:Mind as we know it is a power of the Ignorance seeking for Truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya, #KEYS
31:Surrender to the Feet of the Guru is the real mantra, in which there will be no fear of Maya's delusion.
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, [T5],#KEYS
32:Maya, the mythical goddess, sprang from the One, and her womb brought forth three acceptable disciples of the One: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. ~ Hymns of Guru Nanak, eka mai, #KEYS
33:Form is delimitation—Name and Shape out of the vast illimitable Truth of infinite existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Maya, #KEYS
34:The divine Maya comprehends Vidya as well as Avidya, the Knowledge as well as the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Mind and Supermind, #KEYS
35:One who is totally devoid of Maya will not live more than twenty-one days. So long as one has a body, one must have some Maya. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
36:There is the screen of Maya between the jiva and the Atman, and as soon as this is removed, the meeting of the two takes place. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
37:To lose personality is necessary if we are to gain universality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
38:What is magic to our finite reason is the logic of the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
39:If you can detect and find out the universal illusion of Maya, it will fly away from you just as a thief runs away when found out. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
40:So long as one has a body, they must have some Maya, however little it may be, to enable them to carry on the functions of a body. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
41:The jiva (soul), possessed by the spirit of Maya (illusion), on realizing that it is self-deluded, becomes at once free from Maya. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
42:The insignificant veil of Maya prevents us from seeing the omnipresent and all-witnessing Sachchidananda: existence-knowledge-bliss. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
43:Our way of knowing must be appropriate to that which is to be known. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
44:To realise the Self is to realise the eternal freedom of the Spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
45:Consciousness has no standing-place if there is none who is conscious. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
46:As on the troubled surface of a lake the moon is reflected in broken images, in Maya the mental reflection of God is partial and broken. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
47:The idea of self is the Maya of the soul. It is our egotism that shuts out the light. When this "I" is gone, all difficulty will vanish. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
48:The Master used to say, 'Don't jump into the ocean of Maya, for you may be eaten up by sharks and crocodiles.' But why should you worry? You have the Master with you. ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
49:As on the troubled surface of a lake, the moon is reflected in broken images, in Maya the mental reflection of God is partial and broken. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
50:Maya is attachment and love towards one's own relations. Daya is love extending equally to all beings and comes from the knowledge of God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
51:Absolute completeness is not feasible in the finite because it is alien to the self-conception of the finite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Maya, #KEYS
52:As the cloud covers the sun, so Maya hides the Deity. When the cloud moves away, the sun is seen again; when Maya is removed, God becomes manifest. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
53:A free power of self-variation must be natural to a consciousness that is infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
54:Knowledge waits seated beyond mind and intellectual reasoning, throned in the luminous vast of illimitable self-vision. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Maya, #KEYS
55:Time observation and Time movement are relative, but Time itself is real and eternal. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
56:Mind is Maya, sat-asat: there is a field of embrace of the true and the false, the existent and the non-existent, ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Master of the Work, #KEYS
57:All forces are to us invisible,—but they are not invisible to the spiritual vision of the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
58:GIRISH: "If a man is so strongly tied hand and foot, then what is his way?"
MASTER: "He has nothing to fear if God Himself, as the guru, cuts the chain of maya." ~ Sri Ramakrishna,#KEYS
59:The witness silence of the Spirit is there in the very grain of all the voices and workings of Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
60:As the water of the ocean is now calm and next agitated into waves, so are Brahman and Maya. The ocean in the tranquil state is Brahman, and in the turbulent state, Maya. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
61:You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
62:Peeling off the layers of ego, emotions, and embedded thought patterns is not so easy. On account of maya, one is not conscious of the real Self. A seeker must start the search in earnest and begin digging. ~ SWAMI RAMA, #KEYS
63:The mystery of things is the true truth of things; the intellectual presentation is only truth in representation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
64:We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. You only are free when you realize you belong no place ~ you belong every place ~ no place at all. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
65:The Divine is formless and nameless, but by that very reason capable of manifesting all possible names and shapes of being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
66:The world expresses a foreseen Truth, obeys a predetermining Will, realises an original formative self-vision,—it is the growing image of a divine creation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Maya, #KEYS
67:Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Maya. Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies. Be not afraid. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
68:He sees in all things strangely fashioned here
The unwelcome jest of a deceiving Force,
A parable of Maya and her might. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 02.05,#KEYS
69:It is the one Infinite that appears to us as the many finite: the creation adds nothing to the Infinite; it remains after creation what it was before. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
70:The Divine is free and not bound by laws of any making, but still he acts by laws and processes because they are the expression of the truth of things. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
71:The snake itself is not affected by the poison in its fangs ; but when it bites, the poison kills the creature bitten. Likewise Maya is in the Lord but does not affect Him, while the same Maya deludes the whole world. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
72:Your eyes are blindfolded; because there is the cloud of Maya before you. Your mind is dirty. Wash it, cleanse it - this is Sadhana. Faith and conviction of mind will grow according to your surroundings. That is why the company of holy men is necessary. ~ Swami Akhandananda, #KEYS
73:Maya is a veil of the Absolute;
A Truth occult has made this mighty world:
The Eternal's wisdom and self-knowledge act
In ignorant Mind and in the body's steps. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Dream Twilight of the Ideal,#KEYS
74:I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool~and I'm not any of those~to say that I don't write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues. ~ Maya Angelou, #KEYS
75:The charm of Maya is so irresistible, it is only when God is gracious to us that we can lift the veil and get a little glimpse of Him. All Maya is localized in ego. Take away the ego and the whole structure of Maya will fall. Then you will realize a state of perfect calmness ~ Swami Ramakrishnananda, #KEYS
76:The soiled mirror reflects never the sunbeams, and the unclean and impure heart which is subjected to Maya, can never perceive the glory of the Eternal. But the pure in heart sees the Eternal, even as the clear mirror reflects the sun. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
77:Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Maya. Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies. Be not afraid. Think not how many times you fail. Never mind. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #KEYS
78:The finite is a frontal aspect and a self-determination of the Infinite; no finite can exist in itself and by itself, it exists by the Infinite and because it is of one essence with the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
79:Intuition is born of a direct awareness while intellect is an indirect action of a knowledge which constructs itself with difficulty out of the unknown from signs and indications and gathered data. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
80:Perhaps the world is an error of our sight,
A trick repeated in each flash of sense,
An unreal mind hallucinates the soul
With a stress-vision of false reality,
Or a dance of Maya veils the void Unborn. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Triple Soul-Forces#KEYS
81:Nothing changes yet all changes, all her workings and creations would in this play collapse into disintegration and chaos; there would be nothing to hold her disparate movements and creations together. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
82:This maya, that is to say, the ego, is like a cloud. The sun cannot be seen on account of a thin patch of cloud; when that disappears one sees the sun. If by the grace of the guru one's ego vanishes, then one sees God. The jiva is nothing but the embodiment of Satchidananda ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
83:In its fundamental truth the original status of Time behind all its variations is nothing else than the eternity of the Eternal, just as the fundamental truth of Space, the original sense of its reality, is the infinity of the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #KEYS
84:For the Ignorance is still in reality a knowledge seeking for itself behind the original mask of Inconscience; it misses and finds; its results, natural and even inevitable on their own line, are the true consequence of the lapse,—in a way, even, the right working of the recovery from the lapse. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya, #KEYS
85:A man forgets God if he is entangled in the world of maya through a woman. It is the Mother of the Universe who has assumed the form of maya, the form of woman. One who knows this rightly does not feel like leading the life of maya in the world. But he who truly realizes that all women are manifestations of the Divine Mother may lead a spiritual life in the world. Without realizing God one cannot truly know what a woman is. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
86:A man will cherish the illusion that he is the doer as long as he has not seen God, as long as he has not touched the Philosopher's Stone. So long will he know the distinction between his good and bad actions. This awareness of distinction is due to God's maya; and it is necessary for the purpose of running His illusory world. But a man can realize God if he takes shelter under His vidyamaya and follows the path of righteousness. He who knows God and realizes Him is able to go beyond maya. He who firmly believes that God alone is the Doer and he himself a mere instrument is a jivanmukta, a free soul though living in a body. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
87: The purpose of creation, is lila. The concept of lila escapes all the traditional difficulties in assigning purpose to the creator. Lila is a purpose-less purpose, a natural outflow, a spontaneous self-manifestation of the Divine. The concept of lila, again, emphasizes the role of delight in creation. The concept of Prakriti and Maya fail to explain the bliss aspect of Divine. If the world is manifestation of the Force of Satcitananda, the deployment of its existence and consciousness, its purpose can be nothing but delight. This is the meaning of delight. Lila, the play, the child's joy, the poet's joy, the actor's joy, the mechanician's joy of the soul of things eternally young, perpetually inexhaustible, creating and recreating Himself in Himself for the sheer bliss of that self-creation, of that self-representation, Himself the play, Himself the player, Himself the playground ~ Sri Aurobindo, Philosophy of Social Development, pp-39-40 #KEYS
88:If we regard the Powers of the Reality as so many Godheads, we can say that the Overmind releases a million Godheads into action, each empowered to create its own world, each world capable of relation, communication and interplay with the others.
There are in the Veda different formulations of the nature of the Gods: it is said they are all one Existence to which the sages give different names; yet each God is worshipped as if he by himself is that Existence, one who is all the other Gods together or contains them in his being; and yet again each is a separate Deity acting sometimes in unison with companion deities, sometimes separately, sometimes even in apparent opposition to other Godheads of the same Existence. In the Supermind all this would be held together as a harmonised play of the one Existence; in the Overmind each of these three conditions could be a separate action or basis of action and have its own principle of development and consequences and yet each keep the power to combine with the others in a more composite harmony. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Supermind Mind and the Overmind Maya,#KEYS
89:Some young men who had come with an introduction from the Ramakrishna Mission at Madras asked Bhagavan, "Which is the proper path for us to follow?"
Bhagavan: When you speak of a path, where are you now? and where do you want to go? If these are known, then we can talk of the path. Know first where you are and what you are. There is nothing to be reached. You are always as you really are. But you don't realise it. That is all.
A little while after, one of the visitors asked Bhagavan, "I am now following the path of japa. Is that all right?"
Bhagavan: Yes. It is quite good. You can continue in that. The gentleman who asked about creation said, "I never thought I was going to have the good fortune of visiting Bhagavan. But circumstances have brought me here and I find in his presence, without any effort on my part, I am having santi. Apparently, getting peace does not depend on our effort.
It seems to come only as the result of grace!" Bhagavan was silent. Meanwhile, another visitor remarked, "No. Our effort is also necessary, though no one can do without grace." After some time, Bhagavan remarked, "Mantra japa, after a time, leads to a stage when you become Mantra maya i.e., you become that whose name you have been repeating or chanting.
First you repeat the mantra by mouth; later you do it mentally.
First, you do this dhyana with breaks. Later, you do it without any break. At that stage you realise you do dhyana without any effort on your part, that dhyana is your real nature. Till then, effort is necessary." ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Day By Day,#KEYS
90:In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature.
In Yoga also it is the Divine who is the Sadhaka and the Sadhana; it is his Shakti with her light, power, knowledge, consciousness, Ananda, acting upon the adhara and, when it is opened to her, pouring into it with these divine forces that makes the Sadhana possible. But so long as the lower nature is active the personal effort of the Sadhaka remains necessary.
The personal effort required is a triple labour of aspiration, rejection and surrender, -
an aspiration vigilant, constant, unceasing - the mind's will, the heart's seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature;
rejection of the movements of the lower nature - rejection of the mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind, - rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the Truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being, - rejection of the physical nature's stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, tamas, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing always more divine;
surrender of oneself and all one is and has and every plane of the consciousness and every movement to the Divine and the Shakti.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother,#KEYS
91:If we accept the Vedic image of the Sun of Truth, - an image which in this experience becomes a reality, - we may compare the action of the Higher Mind to a composed and steady sunshine, the energy of the Illumined Mind beyond it to an outpouring of massive lightnings of flaming sun-stuff. Still beyond can be met a yet greater power of the Truth-Force, an intimate and exact Truth-vision, Truth-thought, Truth-sense, Truth-feeling, Truth-action, to which we can give in a special sense the name of Intuition; for though we have applied that word for want of a better to any supra-intellectual direct way of knowing, yet what we actually know as intuition is only one special movement of self-existent knowledge. This new range is its origin; it imparts to our intuitions something of its own distinct character and is very clearly an intermediary of a greater Truth-Light with which our mind cannot directly communicate. At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, - not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality. This then is the occult link we were looking for; this is the Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Supermind Mind and the Overmind Maya, 293, #KEYS
92:When a corner of Maya, the illusion of individual life, is lifted before the eyes of a man in such sort that he no longer makes any egoistic difference between his own person and other men, that he takes as much interest in the sufferings of others as in his own and that he becomes succourable to the point of devotion, ready to sacrifice himself for the salvation of others, then that man is able to recognise himself in all beings, considers as his own the infinite sufferings of all that lives and must thus appropriate to himself the sorrow of the world. No distress is alien to him. All the torments which he sees and can so rarely soften, all the torments of which he hears, those even which it is impossible for him to conceive, strike his spirit as if he were himself the victim. Insensible to the alternations of weal and woe which succeed each other in his destiny, delivered from all egoism, he penetrates the veils of the individual illusion : all that lives, all that suffers is equally near to his heart. He conceives the totality of things, their essence, their eternal flux, the vain efforts, the internal struggles and sufferings without end ; he sees to whatever side he turns his gaze man who suffers, the animal who suffers and a world that is eternally passing away. He unites himself henceforth to the sorrows of the world as closely as the egoist to his own person. How can he having such a knowledge of the world affirm by incessant desires his will to live, attach himself more and more to life and clutch it to him always more closely ? The man seduced by the illusion of individual life, a slave of his egoism, sees only the things that touch him personally and draws from them incessantly renewed motives to desire and to will : on the contrary one who penetrates the essence of things and dominates their totality, elevates himself to a state of voluntary renunciation, resignation and true tranquillity. ~ Schopenhauer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
93:Jnana Yoga, the Path of Knowledge; :::
The Path of Knowledge aims at the realisation of the unique and supreme Self. It proceeds by the method of intellectual reflection, vicara ¯, to right discrimination, viveka. It observes and distinguishes the different elements of our apparent or phenomenal being and rejecting identification with each of them arrives at their exclusion and separation in one common term as constituents of Prakriti, of phenomenal Nature, creations of Maya, the phenomenal consciousness. So it is able to arrive at its right identification with the pure and unique Self which is not mutable or perishable, not determinable by any phenomenon or combination of phenomena. From this point the path, as ordinarily followed, leads to the rejection of the phenomenal worlds from the consciousness as an illusion and the final immergence without return of the individual soul in the Supreme. But this exclusive consummation is not the sole or inevitable result of the Path of Knowledge. For, followed more largely and with a less individual aim, the method of Knowledge may lead to an active conquest of the cosmic existence for the Divine no less than to a transcendence. The point of this departure is the realisation of the supreme Self not only in one's own being but in all beings and, finally, the realisation of even the phenomenal aspects of the world as a play of the divine consciousness and not something entirely alien to its true nature. And on the basis of this realisation a yet further enlargement is possible, the conversion of all forms of knowledge, however mundane, into activities of the divine consciousness utilisable for the perception of the one and unique Object of knowledge both in itself and through the play of its forms and symbols. Such a method might well lead to the elevation of the whole range of human intellect and perception to the divine level, to its spiritualisation and to the justification of the cosmic travail of knowledge in humanity.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Systems Of Yoga, 38,#KEYS
94:The object of spiritual knowledge is the Supreme, the Divine, the Infinite and the Absolute. This Supreme has its relations to our individual being and its relations to the universe and it transcends both the soul and the universe. Neither the universe nor the individual are what they seem to be, for the report of them which our mind and our senses give us, is, so long as they are unenlightened by a faculty of higher supramental and suprasensuous knowledge, a false report, an imperfect construction, an attenuated and erroneous figure. And yet that which the universe and the individual seem to be is still a figure of what they really are, a figure that points beyond itself to the reality behind it. Truth proceeds by a correction of the values our mind and senses give us, and first by the action of a higher intelligence that enlightens and sets right as far as may be the conclusions of the ignorant sense-mind and limited physical intelligence; that is the method of all human knowledge and science. But beyond it there is a knowledge, a Truth-Consciousness, that exceeds our intellect and brings us into the true light of which it is a refracted ray.
There the abstract terms of pure reason and the constructions .of the mind disappear or are converted into concrete soul-vision and the tremendous actuality of spiritual experience. This knowledge can turn away to the absolute Eternal and lose vision of the soul and the universe; but it can too see that existence from that Eternal. When that is done, we find that the ignorance of the mind and the senses and all the apparent futilities of human life were not an useless excursion of the conscious being, an otiose blunder. Here they were planned as a rough ground for the self-expression of the Soul that comes from the Infinite, a material foundation for its self-unfolding and self-possessing in the terms of the universe. It is true that in themselves they and all that is here have no significance, and to build separate significances for them is to live in an illusion, Maya; but they have a supreme significance in the Supreme, an absolute Power in the Absolute and it is that that assigns to them and refers to that Truth their present relative values. This is the all-uniting experience that is the foundation of the deepest integral and most intimate self-knowledge and world-knowledge
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge, 293, 11457,#KEYS
95:If we look at this picture of the Self-Existence and its works as a unitary unlimited whole of vision, it stands together and imposes itself by its convincing totality: but to the analysis of the logical intellect it offers an abundance of difficulties, such as all attempts to erect a logical system out of a perception of an illimitable Existence must necessarily create; for any such endeavour must either effect consistency by an arbitrary sectioning of the complex truth of things or else by its comprehensiveness become logically untenable. For we see that the Indeterminable determines itself as infinite and finite, the Immutable admits a constant mutability and endless differences, the One becomes an innumerable multitude, the Impersonal creates or supports personality, is itself a Person; the Self has a nature and is yet other than its nature; Being turns into becoming and yet it is always itself and other than its becomings; the Universal individualises itself and the Individual universalises himself; Brahman is at once void of qualities and capable of infinite qualities, the Lord and Doer of works, yet a non-doer and a silent witness of the workings of Nature. If we look carefully at these workings of Nature, once we put aside the veil of familiarity and our unthinking acquiescence in the process of things as natural because so they always happen, we discover that all she does in whole or in parts is a miracle, an act of some incomprehensible magic. The being of the Self-existence and the world that has appeared in it are, each of them and both together, a suprarational mystery. There seems to us to be a reason in things because the processes of the physical finite are consistent to our view and their law determinable, but this reason in things, when closely examined, seems to stumble at every moment against the irrational or infrarational and the suprarational: the consistency, the determinability of process seems to lessen rather than increase as we pass from matter to life and from life to mentality; if the finite consents to some extent to look as if it were rational, the infinitesimal refuses to be bound by the same laws and the infinite is unseizable. As for the action of the universe and its significance, it escapes us altogether; if Self, God or Spirit there be, his dealings with the world and us are incomprehensible, offer no clue that we can follow. God and Nature and even ourselves move in a mysterious way which is only partially and at points intelligible, but as a whole escapes our comprehension. All the works of Maya look like the production of a suprarational magical Power which arranges things according to its wisdom or its phantasy, but a wisdom which is not ours and a phantasy which baffles our imagination. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 2.02, #KEYS
96:The supreme Truth aspect which thus manifests itself to us is an eternal and infinite and absolute self-existence, self-awareness, self-delight of being; this bounds all things and secretly supports and pervades all things. This Self-existence reveals itself again in three terms of its essential nature,-self, conscious being or spirit, and God or the Divine Being. The Indian terms are more satisfactory,-Brahman the Reality is Atman, Purusha, Ishwara; for these terms grew from a root of Intuition and, while they have a comprehensive preciseness, are capable of a plastic application which avoids both vagueness in the use and the rigid snare of a too limiting intellectual concept. The Supreme Brahman is that which in Western metaphysics is called the Absolute: but Brahman is at the same time the omnipresent Reality in which all that is relative exists as its forms or its movements; this is an Absolute which takes all relativities in its embrace. [...] Brahman is the Consciousness that knows itself in all that exists; Brahman is the force that sustains the power of God and Titan and Demon, the Force that acts in man and animal and the forms and energies of Nature; Brahman is the Ananda, the secret Bliss of existence which is the ether of our being and without which none could breathe or live. Brahman is the inner Soul in all; it has taken a form in correspondence with each created form which it inhabits. The Lord of Beings is that which is conscious in the conscious being, but he is also the Conscious in inconscient things, the One who is master and in control of the many that are passive in the hands of Force-Nature. He is the Timeless and Time; He is Space and all that is in Space; He is Causality and the cause and the effect: He is the thinker and his thought, the warrior and his courage, the gambler and his dice-throw. All realities and all aspects and all semblances are the Brahman; Brahman is the Absolute, the Transcendent and incommunicable, the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos, the Cosmic Self that upholds all beings, but It is too the self of each individual: the soul or psychic entity is an eternal portion of the Ishwara; it is his supreme Nature or Consciousness-Force that has become the living being in a world of living beings. The Brahman alone is, and because of It all are, for all are the Brahman; this Reality is the reality of everything that we see in Self and Nature. Brahman, the Ishwara, is all this by his Yoga-Maya, by the power of his Consciousness-Force put out in self-manifestation: he is the Conscious Being, Soul, Spirit, Purusha, and it is by his Nature, the force of his conscious self-existence that he is all things; he is the Ishwara, the omniscient and omnipotent All-ruler, and it is by his Shakti, his conscious Power, that he manifests himself in Time and governs the universe. These and similar statements taken together are all-comprehensive: it is possible for the mind to cut and select, to build a closed system and explain away all that does not fit within it; but it is on the complete and many-sided statement that we must take our stand if we have to acquire an integral knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Book 02: The Knowledge and the Ignorance - The Spiritual Evolution, Part I, The Infinite Consciousness and the Ignorance Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti [336-337],#KEYS
97:The Teachings of Some Modern Indian Yogis
Ramana Maharshi
According to Brunton's description of the sadhana he (Brunton) practised under the Maharshi's instructions,1 it is the Overself one has to seek within, but he describes the Overself in a way that is at once the Psychic Being, the Atman and the Ishwara. So it is a little difficult to know what is the exact reading.
*
The methods described in the account [of Ramana Maharshi's technique of self-realisation] are the well-established methods of Jnanayoga - (1) one-pointed concentration followed by thought-suspension, (2) the method of distinguishing or finding out the true self by separating it from mind, life, body (this I have seen described by him [Brunton] more at length in another book) and coming to the pure I behind; this also can disappear into the Impersonal Self. The usual result is a merging in the Atman or Brahman - which is what one would suppose is meant by the Overself, for it is that which is the real Overself. This Brahman or Atman is everywhere, all is in it, it is in all, but it is in all not as an individual being in each but is the same in all - as the Ether is in all. When the merging into the Overself is complete, there is no ego, no distinguishable I, or any formed separative person or personality. All is ekakara - an indivisible and undistinguishable Oneness either free from all formations or carrying all formations in it without being affected - for one can realise it in either way. There is a realisation in which all beings are moving in the one Self and this Self is there stable in all beings; there is another more complete and thoroughgoing in which not only is it so but all are vividly realised as the Self, the Brahman, the Divine. In the former, it is possible to dismiss all beings as creations of Maya, leaving the one Self alone as true - in the other it is easier to regard them as real manifestations of the Self, not as illusions. But one can also regard all beings as souls, independent realities in an eternal Nature dependent upon the One Divine. These are the characteristic realisations of the Overself familiar to the Vedanta. But on the other hand you say that this Overself is realised by the Maharshi as lodged in the heart-centre, and it is described by Brunton as something concealed which when it manifests appears as the real Thinker, source of all action, but now guiding thought and action in the Truth. Now the first description applies to the Purusha in the heart, described by the Gita as the Ishwara situated in the heart and by the Upanishads as the Purusha Antaratma; the second could apply also to the mental Purusha, manomayah. pran.asarı̄ra neta of the Upanishads, the mental Being or Purusha who leads the life and the body. So your question is one which on the data I cannot easily answer. His Overself may be a combination of all these experiences, without any distinction being made or thought necessary between the various aspects. There are a thousand ways of approaching and realising the Divine and each way has its own experiences which have their own truth and stand really on a basis, one in essence but complex in aspects, common to all, but not expressed in the same way by all. There is not much use in discussing these variations; the important thing is to follow one's own way well and thoroughly. In this Yoga, one can realise the psychic being as a portion of the Divine seated in the heart with the Divine supporting it there - this psychic being takes charge of the sadhana and turns the ......
1 The correspondent sent to Sri Aurobindo two paragraphs from Paul Brunton's book A Message from Arunachala (London: Rider & Co., n.d. [1936], pp. 205 - 7). - Ed. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
98:STAGE TWO: THE CHONYID
The Chonyid is the period of the appearance of the peaceful and wrathful deities-that is to say, the subtle realm, the Sambhogakaya. When the Clear Light of the causal realm is resisted and contracted against, then that Reality is transformed into the primordial seed forms of the peaceful deities (ishtadevas of the subtle sphere), and these in turn, if resisted and denied, are transformed into the wrathful deities.
The peaceful deities appear first: through seven successive substages, there appear various forms of the tathagatas, dakinis, and vidyadharas, all accompanied by the most dazzlingly brilliant colors and aweinspiring suprahuman sounds. One after another, the divine visions, lights, and subtle luminous sounds cascade through awareness. They are presented, given, to the individual openly, freely, fully, and completely: visions of God in almost painful intensity and brilliance.
How the individual handles these divine visions and sounds (nada) is of the utmost significance, because each divine scenario is accompanied by a much less intense vision, by a region of relative dullness and blunted illuminations. These concomitant dull and blunted visions represent the first glimmerings of the world of samsara, of the six realms of egoic grasping, of the dim world of duality and fragmentation and primitive forms of low-level unity.
According to the Thotrol. most individuals simply recoil in the face of these divine illuminations- they contract into less intense and more manageable forms of experience. Fleeing divine illumination, they glide towards the fragmented-and thus less intense-realm of duality and multiplicity. But it's not just that they recoil against divinity-it is that they are attracted to the lower realms, drawn to them, and find satisfaction in them. The Thotrol says they are actually "attracted to the impure lights." As we have put it, these lower realms are substitute gratifications. The individual thinks that they are just what he wants, these lower realms of denseness. But just because these realms are indeed dimmer and less intense, they eventually prove to be worlds without bliss, without illumination, shot through with pain and suffering. How ironic: as a substitute for God, individuals create and latch onto Hell, known as samsara, maya, dismay. In Christian theology it is said that the flames of Hell are God's love (Agape) denied.
Thus the message is repeated over and over again in the Chonyid stage: abide in the lights of the Five Wisdoms and subtle tathagatas, look not at the duller lights of samsara. of the six realms, of safe illusions and egoic dullness. As but one example:
Thereupon, because of the power of bad karma, the glorious blue light of the Wisdom of the Dharmadhatu will produce in thee fear and terror, and thou wilt wish to flee from it. Thou wilt begat a fondness for the dull white light of the devas [one of the lower realms].
At this stage, thou must not be awed by the divine blue light which will appear shining, dazzling, and glorious; and be not startled by it. That is the light of the Tathagata called the Light of the Wisdom of the Dharmadhatu.
Be not fond of the dull white light of the devas. Be not attached to it; be not weak. If thou be attached to it, thou wilt wander into the abodes of the devas and be drawn into the whirl of the Six Lokas.
The point is this: ''If thou are frightened by the pure radiances of Wisdom and attracted by the impure lights of the Six Lokas [lower realms], then thou wilt assume a body in any of the Six Lokas and suffer samsaric miseries; and thou wilt never be emancipated from the Ocean of Samsara, wherein thou wilt be whirled round and round and made to taste the sufferings thereof."
But here is what is happening: in effect, we are seeing the primal and original form of the Atman project in its negative and contracting aspects. In this second stage (the Chonyid), there is already some sort of boundary in awareness, there is already some sort of subject-object duality superimposed upon the original Wholeness and Oneness of the Chikhai Dharmakaya. So now there is boundary-and wherever there is boundary, there is the Atman project. ~ Ken Wilber, The Atman Project, 129,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Love recognizes no barriers. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 2:Poetry gave me back my voice. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 3:Everybody is worth everything. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 4:It’s yours. This is your life. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 5:I've had rainbows in my clouds. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 6:Take up the battle. Take it up. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 7:We are here to love each other. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 8:We are more alike than unalike. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 9:Don't bring negative to my door. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 10:I know why the caged bird sings. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 11:We have it in us to be splendid. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 12:At our best, we are all teachers. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 13:I live in an atmosphere of music. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 14:Tell the truth and not the facts. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 15:The future is plump with promise. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 16:Ain't nothin' to it, but to do it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 17:When we know better, we do better. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 18:There is no place where God is not. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 19:Forgive yourself - no one else will. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 20:The most important thing is to DARE. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 21:We are only as blind as we want to be. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 22:Anger is like fire. It burns all clean. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 23:I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 24:If you have, give. If you learn, teach. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 25:Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 26:Yet it is only love which sets us free. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 27:Age is nothing; waking up is everything. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 28:Every journey begins with a single step. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 29:I keep on dying, Because I love to live. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 30:I try to see every day as a celebration. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 31:Live as though life was created for you. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 32:No one has ever become poor from giving. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 33:We need much less than we think we need. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 34:Life sometimes gives you a second chance. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 35:Don't face the day until you've faced God. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 36:I wouldn't trade anything for my story now. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 37:Life loves the person who dares to live it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 38:Dare to let your dreams reach beyond you... ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 39:Don't trust people who don't laugh. I don't. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 40:Give yourself time just to be with yourself. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 41:Living well is an art that can be developed. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 42:Poetry is music written for the human voice. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 43:Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 44:Everyone grows old but not everyone grows up. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 45:Having courage does not mean we are unafraid. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 46:No not me go find someone else to bring down. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 47:Success is loving life and daring to live it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 48:You think you may not be heard. Speak anyway. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 49:I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 50:The honorary duty of a human being is to love. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 51:To those who are given much, much is expected. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 52:Determine to live life with flair and laughter. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 53:I created myself. I have taught myself so much. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 54:A joyful spirit is evidence of a grateful heart. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 55:I believe that every person is born with talent. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 56:People will never forget how you made them feel. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 57:A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 58:I am a child of God. I always carry that with me. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 59:If I have a monument in this world, it is my son. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 60:A single fantasy can transform a million realities. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 61:I know that I've been guided by God. I am obedient. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 62:Step off the road. Build yourself a brand new path. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 63:Be present in all things and thankful for all things. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 64:I always felt, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 65:I did what I knew.. when I knew better, I did better. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 66:I keep hitting the escape button, but I am still here! ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 67:Spirit is an invisible force made visible in all life. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 68:We must be warriors in the struggle against ignorance. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 69:You can never be great at anything unless you love it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 70:You want me to do something... tell me I can't do it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 71:I don't trust any revolution where love is not allowed. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 72:I'm not a writer who teaches. I'm a teacher who writes. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 73:Intelligence always had a pornographic influence on me. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 74:Be courageous, but not foolhardy. Walk proud as you are. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 75:My encouragement to you is to go tomorrow to the library. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 76:Whom anger chains, can ever pass thro' Maya's gates. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 77:Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 78:If you're for the right thing, you do it without thinking. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 79:We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 80:A woman in harmony with her Spirit is like a river flowing. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 81:Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 82:I am overwhelmed by the grace and persistence of my people. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 83:I have risked everything to tell the truth. Tell the truth. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 84:Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 85:My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 86:This is a wonderful day; I have never seen this one before. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 87:You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 88:All knowledge is spendable currency, depending on the market. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 89:Life is a gift, and I try to respond with grace and courtesy. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 90:There is an intimate laughter to be found only among friends. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 91:Troubles are a blessing that force you to change, to believe. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 92:Without courage you cannot practice any of the other virtues. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 93:Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 94:The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 95:We are all human; therefore, nothing human can be alien to us. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 96:Alone, all alone Nobody, but nobody Can make it out here alone. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 97:Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space. Invite one to stay. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 98:The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 99:We can only know where we're going if we know where we've been. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 100:The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 101:Do not be wedded forever to fear, yoked eternally to brutishness. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 102:The best candy-shop a child can be left alone in, is the library. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 103:When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 104:You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 105:Hope does not take away your problems. It can lift you above them. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 106:Lord keep Your arm around my shoulder and Your hand over my mouth. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 107:No sun outlasts its sunset but will rise again and bring the dawn. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 108:There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 109:When was the last time anyone ever told you how important you are? ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 110:Writing and cookery are just two different means of communication. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 111:I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 112:In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 113:The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 114:When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 115:Because of our routines we forget that life is an ongoing adventure. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 116:Christians already? It seems to me that it takes a lifetime of work. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 117:If men are God's gift to women, then God must really love gag gifts. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 118:If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 119:It’s not where your dreams take you, its where you take your dreams. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 120:Love is many things. It is varied. One thing love is not, is unsure. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 121:Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 122:Space-time-causation, or name-and-form, is what is called Maya. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 123:Just as hope rings through laughter, it can also shine through tears. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 124:Nathaniel Hawthorne once said that easy reading is damn hard writing. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 125:To those who have given up on love: I say, "Trust life a little bit." ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 126:Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 127:I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 128:I know for sure that love saves me and that it is here to save us all. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 129:Something made greater by ourselves and in turn that makes us greater. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 130:Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 131:Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 132:Jealousy is conceived only in insecurity and must be nourished in fear. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 133:Life loves the liver of it. You must live and life will be good to you. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 134:Life offers us tickets to places which we have not knowingly asked for. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 135:Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 136:I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 137:One of the saddest things in the world is to see a cynical young person. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 138:Rainbows are people whose lives are bright, shining examples for others. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 139:They who have health have hope; and they who have hope, have everything. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 140:When women take care of their health, they become their own best friend. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 141:Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 142:I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 143:Listen to yourself and in that quietude, you might hear the voice of God. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 144:Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 145:Hatred is the ballast of the rock which lies upon our necks and underfoot. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 146:If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me? ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 147:She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 148:The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 149:If we lose love and self-respect for each other, this is how we finally die. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 150:The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 151:A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretence. No truth seems true. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 152:One must know not just how to accept a gift, but with what grace to share it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 153:How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes! ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 154:I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 155:I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 156:Making a decision to write was a lot like deciding to jump into a frozen lake. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 157:No one comes from the earth like grass. We come like trees. We all have roots. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 158:Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible, and live long lives. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 159:Don't hesitate to learn the most painful aspects of our history, understand it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 160:If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 161:I want all my senses engaged. Let me absorb the world's variety and uniqueness. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 162:We need to haunt the house of history and listen anew to the ancestors' wisdom. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 163:Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 164:If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 165:I had to trust life and believe that life loved the person who dared to live it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 166:It is Maya that makes you feel, This man is inferior and the other man is superior. ~ sivananda, @wisdomtrove 167:Let the brain go to work, let it meet the heart and you will be able to forgive. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 168:The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 169:Would you deny your son or your daughter the ecstasy of finding someone to love? ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 170:If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 171:Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: & 172:When I passed forty, I dropped pretence, 'cause men like women who got some sense. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 173:When I write, I tend to twist my hair. Something for my small mind to do, I guess. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 174:You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 175:I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 176:Love liberates. It doesn't just hold - that's ego. Love liberates. It doesn't bind. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 177:Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 178:The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 179:There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 180:This is my life. it is my one time to be me. i want to experience every good thing. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 181:You have to have courage to love somebody. Because you risk everything. Everything. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 182:Be certain that you do not die without having done something wonderful for humanity. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 183:Be loving and be strong. Be fierce and be kind. And don't give in and don't give up. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 184:It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 185:Living a life is like constructing a building: if you start wrong, you'll end wrong. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 186:The Magician. Interview with Maya Jaggi, www.theguardian.com. December 17, 2005. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 187:A wise woman wishes to be no one's enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 188:If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 189:I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 190:I'm just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 191:Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 192:Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 193:Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 194:I loved it. And for a long time, I would think of myself, of my whole body, as an ear. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 195:I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 196:It's true. I can do anything and do it well because God loves me. It still humbles me. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 197:If you're going to live, leave a legacy. Make a mark on the world that can't be erased. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 198:My son is the best thing that ever happened to me. And through me - to a lot of people. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 199:The problem I have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don't know my story. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 200:To make a difference is not a matter of accident... People CHOOSE to make a difference. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 201:I think a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 202:My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 203:If our children are to approve of themselves, they must see that we approve of ourselves. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 204:I've learned that making a & 205:I long for the time when all human history is taught as one history, because it really is. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 206:I think that that's the wisest thing - to prevent illness before we try to cure something. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 207:You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 208:We all have that possibility, that potential and that promise of seeing beyond the seeming. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 209:I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 210:Look what you've already come through! Don't deny it. Say I'm stronger than I thought I was. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 211:No human being can be more human than another human being. I liberate you from my ignorance. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 212:Some of us are timid. We think we have something to lose so we don't try for that next hill. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 213:When we find someone who is brave, fun, intelligent, and loving, we have to thank the universe. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 214:You can see in others what they don't see in themselves and what the world doesn't see in them. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 215:Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 216:I'm a feminist. I've been a female for a long time now. It'd be stupid not to be on my own side. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 217:It is the worst thing you can do, women, is whine, .. I mean the worst. Don't complain, protest. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 218:Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 219:The question is not how to survive, but how to thrive with passion, compassion, humor and style. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 220:Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 221:When things were very bad his soul just crawled behind his heart and curled up and went to sleep. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 222:You build your & 223:Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise. Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear, I rise. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 224:The truth brings the past into the present and prepares us for the future. That's what truth does. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 225:Time itself is an individual gift. It is wise to cherish it carefully and give it away generously. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 226:Anything that works against you can also work for you once you understand the Principle of Reverse. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 227:I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 228:Just like moons and suns, With certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 229:No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 230:I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 231:When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness... all the good things. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 232:You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 233:It is only out of ignorance that people are cruel, because they really don't think it will come back. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 234:The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 235:Look heavenward and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud. Peace. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 236:The thorn from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned pricks more deeply and draws more blood. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 237:I am capable of what every other human is capable of. This is one of the great lessons of war and life. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 238:If you do not like anything, alter it. If you cannot change it, adjust your mindset. Will not complain. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 239:I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 240:I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 241:This is what I am learning, at 82 years old: the main thing is to be in love with the search for truth. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 242:Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It's very clear. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 243:I encourage you to live with life. Be courageous, adventurous. Give us a tomorrow, more than we deserve. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 244:I thought if I could face the worst danger voluntarily, and triumph, I would forever have power over it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 245:Precious jewel, you glow, you shine, reflecting all the good things in the world. Just look at yourself. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 246:Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 247:Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 248:A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 249:Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 250:History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 251:There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 252:To know and not to do is in fact not to know. We need to be active instruments against evil. We need to do. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 253:At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 254:In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 255:We need Joy as we need air. We need Love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 256:Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 257:A person is the product of their dreams. So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 258:The root cause of all the problems we have in the world today is ignorance of course. But most, polarization. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 259:I'm here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I'm at, then I go forward to the next place. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 260:The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 261:You don't need another person, place or thing to make you whole. God already did that. Your job is to know it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 262:Every day I awaken I am grateful. My intent is to be totally present in that day. And laugh as much as possible. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 263:I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine... before she realizes she's reading. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 264:It's very important to know the neighbor next door and the people down the street and the people in another race. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 265:I want to thank you, Lord, for life and all that's in it. Thank you for the day and for the hour, and the minute. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 266:I am serious, so I laugh a lot. You need to laugh. You don't laugh enough. I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 267:Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 268:I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 269:The area where we are the greatest is the area in which we inspire, encourage and connect with another human being. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 270:We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 271:Every day offers you 10,000 reasons to cry, but if you can find just one reason to laugh then you will be all right. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 272:Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 273:Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 274:I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 275:I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 276:Thank you, always say thank you; it's the greatest gift you can give someone; because thank you is what you say to God. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 277:The woman who truly intends to live a good life is already living phenomenally since intent is part of the achievement. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 278:Being free is being able to accept people for what they are, and not try to understand all they are or be what they are. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 279:In spite of everything that was done to me and my race, in spite of the adversity and the bitter moments, again we rise. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 280:Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 281:The happy heart runs with the river, floats on the air, lifts to the music, soars with the eagle, hopes with the prayer. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 282:We are not our brother’s keeper we are our brother and we are our sister. We must look past complexion and see community. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 283:Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 284:My mother is so full of joy and life. I am her child. And that is better than being the child of anyone else in the world. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 285:Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion alone will destroy its walls. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 286:We need language to tell us who we are, how we feel, what we're capable of- to explain the pains and glory of our existence. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 287:It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman Phenomenally. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 288:Stand up straight and realize who you are, that you tower over your circumstances. You are a child of God. Stand up straight. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 289:All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 290:Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 291:Each time a dancer moves devoutly, or a composer faithfully searches the silence for the veiled melodies, eternity is engaged. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 292:Light and shadow are opposite sides of the same coin. We can illuminate our paths or darken our way. It is a matter of choice. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 293:My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 294:When I'm writing, I write. And then it's as if the muse is convinced that I'm serious and says, & 295:God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us - in the dreariest and most dreaded moments - can see a possibility of hope. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 296:In all my work, I try to say - & 297:I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 298:I work very hard, and I play very hard. I'm grateful for life. And I live it - I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 299:I don't know how much longer I'll be around. I'll probably be writing when the Lord says, & 300:My grandmother told me that every good thing I do helps some human being in the world. I believed her 50 years ago and still do. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 301:Remember, people will judge you by your actions not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold but so does a hard-boiled egg. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 302:Each child belongs to all of us and they will bring us a tomorrow in direct relation to the responsibility we have shown to them. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 303:I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 304:The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 305:We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 306:Whenever I'm around some who is modest, I think, & 307:You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still like dust, I'll rise. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 308:It's hard because people think they have something to lose and the truth is they have everything to gain in trying to love somebody. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 309:Never, never let a person know you're frightened. And a group of them ... absolutely never. Fear brings out the worst in everybody. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 310:The most difficult thing in the world, it seems to me, is to realize that I am a child of God; to keep that in my mind all the time. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 311:Don't get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that - if you dare. But get older because it's fun! ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 312:It is sad but true that sometimes we need tragedy to help us to see how human we are and how we are more alike than we are different. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 313:My greatest blessing has been the birth of my son. My next greatest blessing has been my ability to turn people into children of mine. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 314:Take the blinders from your vision, take the padding from your ears and confess you've heard me crying and admit you've seen my tears. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 315:There's something which impels us to show our inner souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 316:A woman who is convinced that she deserves to accept only the best challenges herself to give the best. Then she is living phenomenally. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 317:My life has been one great big joke, a dance that's walked a song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 318:Courage allows the successful woman to fail - and to learn powerful lessons from the failure - so that in the end, she didn't fail at all. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 319:It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 320:I want to be representative of my race-the human race. I have a chance to show how kind we can be, how intelligent and generous we can be. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 321:You only are free when you realize you belong no place - you belong every place - no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 322:Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you're the funniest person you've ever heard of. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 323:I am a woman phenomenally, phenomenal woman that is your grandmother, that is your mother, that is your sister, that is you and that is me. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 324:My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 325:When I say, & 326:Continue to be bold, courageous. Try to choose the wisest thing and once you've chosen the wisest thing go out and try to achieve it. Be it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 327:separation has not even a shadow of truth in reality, and that Maya, or ignorance and illusion, causes us to see the One as Many. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove 328:Though I do manage to mumble around in about seven or eight languages, English remains the most beautiful of languages. It will do anything. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 329:My life has been long, and believing that life loves the liver of it, I have dared to try many things, sometimes trembling, but daring still. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 330:Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 331:You forgive yourself for every failure because you are trying to do the right thing. God knows that and you know it. Nobody else may know it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 332:Courage - you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn't want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 333:What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 334:I am convinced that words are things, and we simply don't have the machinery to measure what they are. I believe that words are tangible things. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 335:To be angry is very good. It burns out things and leaves nutrients in the soil. You should always be ready to be angry at injustice and cruelty. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 336:Love life. Engage in it. Give it all you've got. Love it with a passion because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 337:The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 338:Some people cannot see a good thing when it is right here, right now. Others can sense a good thing coming when it is days, months, or miles away. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 339:You rose into my life like a promised sunrise, brightening my days with the light in your eyes. I've never been so strong. Now I'm where I belong. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 340:I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I'm a human being, too. And I'm on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 341:My hope is that we develop enough courage to develop courage. To try to have, try to learn to treat each other fairly, with generosity and kindness. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 342:Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 343:There is something more - the spirit, or the soul. I think that that quality encourages our courtesy and care and our minds. And mercy, and identity. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 344:While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 345:Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 346:Open your eyes to the beauty around you, open your mind to the wonders of life, open your heart to those who love you, and always be true to yourself. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 347:First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least good is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 348:If you are going down a road and don't like what's in front of you, and look behind you and don't like what you see, get off the road. Create a new path! ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 349:In the flush of love's light, we dare be brave. And suddenly we see that love costs all we are, and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 350:Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows me to survive, and better than that, to thrive with passion, compassion, and style. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 351:When I try to describe myself to God I say, & 352:I think the more we know the better we are. I mean not just facts. The more we know about each other, the closer we are to learn something about ourselves. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 353:The sadness of the women's movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 354:We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 355:Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 356:The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 357:Eating is so intimate. It's very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you're inviting a person into your life. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 358:If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you will look forward, do so prayerfully. But the wisest course would be to be present in the present gratefully. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 359:I do not think of myself as unusually creative. I think we all come from the creator, each human being streaming with the glory. So, each one of us is creative. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 360:Human beings love poetry. They don't even know it sometimes... whether they're the songs of Bono, or the songs of Justin Bieber... they're listening to poetry. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 361:If you want what you're saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody's life. Your own, first. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 362:Difficult is a far cry from impossible. The distance between these two lies hope. Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Invite one to stay. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 363:I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 364:Modesty is a learned affectation. It's no good. Humility is great, because humility says, & 365:The difference between charity and philanthropy is the distance of the soul... To be philanthropic is to give something, to be charitable is to give one's own heart. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 366:The nice thing about HOPE is that you can give it to someone else, someone who needs it even more than you do, and you will find you have not given yours away at all. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 367:You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, the encountering may be the very experience which creates the vitality and the power to endure. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 368:We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 369:You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. Please remember that your difficulties do not define you. They simply strengthen your ability to overcome. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 370:Laugh as often as possible. You must. Because the world will offer you every reason to weep. So as often as possible, you laugh. That, I think, is part of the Great Love. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 371:Having courage does not mean that we are unafraid. Having courage and showing courage mean we face our fears. We are able to say, & 372:Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 373:A Woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 374:I do not trust people who don't love themselves and yet tell me, & 375:If I wanted to write, I had to be willing to develop a kind of concentration found mostly in people awaiting execution. I had to learn technique and surrender my ignorance. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 376:We may act sophisticated and worldly, but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 377:It's amazing. I can do anything. And do it well. Any good thing, I can do it. That's why I am who I am, yes, because God loves me, and I'm amazed at it. I'm grateful for it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 378:I read the Bible to myself; I'll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 379:I thank God I'm myself and for the life I'm given to live and for friends and lovers and beloveds, and I thank God for knowing that all those people have already paid for me. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 380:You can only accomplish what I really love. Do not take the money as a goal. Instead, pursue the things you passionate about, and do good to others cannot take my eyes off you. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 381:You can't forgive without loving. And I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, & 382:Try to be all you can be to be the best human being you can be. Try to be that in your church, in your temple. Try to be that in your classroom. Do it because it is right to do. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 383:Strong women- precious jewels all- their humanness is evident in their accessibility. We are able to enter into the spirit of these women and rejoice in their warmth and courage. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 384:The truth is you never can leave home. You take it with you everywhere you go. It's under your skin. It moves the tongue or slows it, colors the thinking, impedes upon the logic. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 385:A s fishes playing in a pond covered over with reeds and scum cannot be seen from outside, so God plays in the heart of a man invisibly, being screened by Maya from human view. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 386:I believe in living a poetic life, an art full life. Everything we do from the way we raise our children to the way we welcome our friends is part of a large canvas we are creating. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 387:I know that when I pray, something wonderful happens. Not just to the person or persons for whom I'm praying, but also something wonderful happens to me. I'm grateful that I'm heard. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 388:I know that you that you may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. If you accept that you have been defeated, you give power to the force that is trying to defeat you. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 389:And one of my absolute favorite quotes of all-time, one that I've adopted as one of my greatest life mottos: Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: "I'm with you kid. Let's go." ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 390:I am a very religious person, so it is the presence of God, the constant unwavering, unrelenting presence of God which continues to help me to keep a character which I am proud to show. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 391:I am never proud to participate in violence, yet I know that each of us must care enough for ourselves that we can be ready and able to come to our own defence when and wherever needed. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 392:Don't let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don't whine. You can be brought low, that's OK, but don't be reduced by them. Just say, & 393:When teachers or people in authority put me down or in one way or another tried to make me feel less than equal to what they thought I should be - my mother was on my side. It was amazing. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 394:Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn't accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else's insistence or someone else's whim or convenience. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 395:I'm happy to be a writer - of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn't a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 396:Each of us has a responsibility for being alive: one responsibility to creation, of which we are a part, another to the creator a debt we repay by trying to extend our areas of comprehension. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 397:When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 398:As soon as you know the voice and understand what it is, the whole scene changes. The same world which was the ghastly battlefield of maya is now changed into something good and beautiful. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 399:I try to live what I consider a "poetic existence." That means I take responsibility for the air I breathe and the space I take up. I try to be immediate, to be totally present for all my work. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 400:It is important that we learn humility, which says there was someone else before me who paid for me. My responsibility is to prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who is yet to come. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 401:Once you appreciate one of your blessings, one of your senses, your sense of hearing, then you begin to respect the sense of seeing and touching and tasting, you learn to respect all the senses. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 402:I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 403:We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 404:All my work, my life, everything I do is about survival, not just bare, awful, plodding survival, but survival with grace and faith. While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 405:My mom was a terrible parent of young children. And thank God - I thank God every time I think of it - I was sent to my paternal grandmother. Ah, but my mother was a great parent of a young adult. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 406:When it looks like the sun isn't going to shine any more, God puts a rainbow in the clouds. Each one of us has the possibility, the responsibility, the probability to be the rainbow in the clouds. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 407:When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, & 408:We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay - and rise! ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 409:Encouragement to all women is - let us try to offer help before we have to offer therapy. That is to say, let's see if we can't prevent being ill by trying to offer a love of prevention before illness. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 410:You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 411:It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody. You are relieved of carrying that burden of resentment. You really are lighter. You feel lighter. You just drop that. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 412:Education is a process that goes on 'til death. The moment you see someone who knows she has found the one true way, and can call all the others false, then you know you're in the company of an ignoramus. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 413:I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and I rose. I didn't run away - I rose right where I'd been knocked down. And then that's how you get to know yourself. You say, hmm, I can get up! ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 414:One of the problems we have as writers is we don't take ourselves seriously while writing; being serious is setting aside a time and saying if it comes, good; if it doesn't come, good, I'll just sit here. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 415:And if a person is religious, I think it's good, it helps you a bit. But if you're not, at least you can have the sense that there is a condition inside you which looks at the stars with amazement and awe. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 416:Love liberates. Love - not sentimentality, not mush - but true love gives you enough courage that you can say to somebody, "Don't do that, baby." And the person will know you're not preaching but teaching. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 417:Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 418:You can't be consistently fair, consistently generous, consistently just, or consistently merciful. You can be anything erratically, but to be that thing time after time after time, you have to have courage. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 419:Home is a refuge not only from the world, but a refuge from my worries, my troubles, my concerns. I like beautiful things around me. I like to be beautiful because it delights my eyes and my soul is lifted up. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 420:I'm very, very serious - I'm serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 421:Everything, from the intellect down to the gross physical body, is the effect of Maya. Understand that all these and Maya itself are not the [absolute] Self, and are therefore unreal, like a mirage in the desert. ~ adi-shankara, @wisdomtrove 422:Happiness is a chance to talk to a friend, to hear good music, to have a good glass of wine. Happiness is a chance to be myself and to find people with whom I agree or who I don't agree but I can learn something. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 423:If somebody is really trying to take your head off with a baseball bat - I don't know how long you're supposed to stand there and turn the other cheek, so he or she can get a better angle at taking your head off. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 424:All of us knows, not what is expedient, not what is going to make us popular, not what the policy is, or the company policy - but in truth each of us knows what is the right thing to do. And that's how I am guided. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 425:Love builds up the broken wall and straightens the crooked path. Love keeps the stars in the firmament and imposes rhythm on the ocean tides. Each of us is created of it and I suspect each of us was created for it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 426:The idea of overcoming is always fascinating to me. It's fascinating because few of us realize how much energy we have expended just to be here today. I don't think we give ourselves enough credit for the overcoming. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 427:Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it's right, it's easy. It's the other way round, too. If it's slovenly written, then it's hard to read. It doesn't give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 428:Someone was hurt before you, wronged before you, hungry before you, frightened before you, beaten before you, humiliated before you, raped before you... yet, someone survived... You can do anything you choose to do. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 429:If you were the President of the United States or the Queen of England - you couldn't have a person who would be more protective than my mother was for me. Which meant really that I could dare to do all sorts of things. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 430:I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one's skin, at the extreme corners of one's eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 431:I promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it. And to use the eloquence which my language affords me. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 432:Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it empowers us to develop courage; to trust that courage and build bridges with it; to trust those bridges and cross over them so we can attempt to reach each other. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 433:You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, & 434:I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, & 435:This is the work of N√¢ma-Rupa - name and form. Everything that has form, everything that calls up an idea in your mind, is within Maya; for everything that is bound by the laws of time, space, and causation is within Maya. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 436:For a person who grew up in the '30s and '40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, & 437:It's still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 438:I could fall in love with a sumo wrestler if he told stories and made me laugh. Obviously, it would be easier if someone was African-American and lived next door and went to the same church. Because then I wouldn't have to translate. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 439:Putting down on paper what you have to say is an important part of writing, but the words and ideas have to be shaped and cleaned, cleaned as severely as a dog cleans a bone, cleaned until there's not a shred of anything superfluous. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 440:Watch and see with what endless variety of beautiful forms He plays the play of his maya with Himself alone. The lila of the all pervading One goes on and on in this way in infinite diversity. He is without beginning and without end. ~ anandamayi-ma, @wisdomtrove 441:What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 442:On Saturday afternoons when all the things are done in the house and there's no real work to be done, I play Bach and Chopin and turn it up real loudly and get a good bottle of chardonnay and sit out on my deck and look out at the garden. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 443:Love heals. Heals and liberates. I use the word love, not meaning sentimentality, but a condition so strong that it may be that which holds the stars in their heavenly positions and that which causes the blood to flow orderly in our veins. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 444:Of all the needs (there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be hope and a hope of wholeness, is the unshaking need for an unshakable God. My pretty Black brother was my Kingdom Come. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 445:If a person - any human being - is told often enough, "You are nothing. You are nothing. You account for nothing. You count for nothing. You are less than a human being. I have no visibility of you", the person finally begins to believe it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 446:Love is a condition so powerful; it may be that which pulls the stars in the firmament. It may be that which pushes and urges the blood in the veins. Courage: you have to have courage to love somebody because you risk everything-everything. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 447:Each time I write a book, every time I face that yellow pad, the challenge is so great. I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 448:I'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they're stones that don't matter. As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 449:Maya is neither real nor unreal, nor both together; She is neither identical with Brahman nor different from Him, nor both; She is neither differentiated nor undifferentiated, nor both. She is most wonderful and cannot be described in words. ~ adi-shankara, @wisdomtrove 450:When the storyteller tells the truth, she reminds us that human beings are more alike than unalike... A story is what it's like to be a human being-to be knocked down and to miraculously arise. Each one of us has arisen, awakened. We do rise. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 451:If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 452:The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you're wrinkled. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 453:I'm working at trying to be a Christian, and that's serious business. It's like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy: it's serious business. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 454:Laugh and dare to try to love somebody, starting with yourself. You must love yourself first, of course, and you must protect yourself so that nobody overrides you, overrules you, or steps on you. Just say, & 455:Every one is as much bound in thought, word, deed, and mind, as a piece of stone or this table. That I talk to you now is as rigorous in causation as that you listen to me. There is no freedom until you go beyond Maya. That is the real freedom of the soul. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 456:I've still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, & 457:When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 458:If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 459:I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool - and I'm not any of those - to say that I don't write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So, I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 460:The writer has to take the most used, most familiar objects - nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs - ball them together and make them bounce, turn them a certain way and make people get into a romantic mood; and another way, into a bellicose mood. I'm most happy to be a writer. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 461:I’m grateful for being here, for being able to think, for being able to see, for being able to taste, for appreciating love – for knowing that it exists in a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, and yet love exists. I’m grateful to know that it exists. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 462:During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 463:I have great respect for the past. If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going. I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment. I'm here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I'm at, then I go forward to the next place. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 464:There is a spirit in all music, the spirit has the ability to conjure up thoughts even pictures of something that happened, or you wished would happen or you anticipate happening. Music has the ability to create ideas in you and me. It has the ability to encourage us to be creative. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 465:I've always written. There's a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother's papers were destroyed. I'd written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 466:Brahman is the only Reality, ever pure, ever illumined, ever free, beyond the limits of time, space, and causation. Though apparently divided by names and forms through the inscrutable power of maya, that enchantress who makes the impossible possible, Brahman is really One and undivided. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 467:The truth is very important. No matter how negative it is, it is imperative that you learn the truth, not necessarily the facts. I mean, that, that can come, but facts can stand in front of the truth and almost obscure the truth. It is imperative that students learn the truth of our history. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 468:Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I'll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, & 469:What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,’... . And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 470:I love living. I love that I'm alive to love my age. There are many people who went to bed just as I did yesterday evening and didn't wake this morning. I love and feel very blessed that I did. I love, too, that I know a little more today than I did yesterday, or I simply know it more profoundly. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 471:You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn't do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 472:The Oriental thinks everything in the sense-perceptible world is & 473:The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on calm and amiable seas. The challenging days of my existence may or may not be bright and promising. Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 474:This Maya is everywhere. It is terrible. Yet we have to work through it. The man who says that he will work when the world has become all good and then he will enjoy bliss is as likely to succeed as the man who sits beside the Ganga and says, "I will ford the river when all the water has run into the ocean." ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 475:To injure another creates bondage and hides the truth. Negative virtues are not enough; we have to conquer Maya, and then she will follow us. We only deserve things when they cease to bind us. When the bondage ceases, really and truly, all things come to us. Only those who want nothing are masters of nature. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 476:We are all creative, but by the time we are three of four years old, someone has knocked the creativity out of us. Some people shut up the kids who start to tell stories. Kids dance in their cribs, but someone will insist they sit still. By the time the creative people are ten or twelve, they want to be like everyone else. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 477:Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin - find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 478:By love I don't mean indulgence. I do not mean sentimentality. And in this instance, I don't even mean romance. I mean that condition that allowed humans to dream of God. That condition that allowed the "dumb" to write spirituals and Russian songs and Irish lilts. That is love, and it's so much larger than anything I can conceive. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 479:God has revealed to me that only the Paramatman, whom the Vedas describe as the Pure Soul, is as immutable as Mount Sumeru, unattached, and beyond pain and pleasure. There is much confusion in this world of His maya. One can by no means say that & 480:Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself. We must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 481:Spirit vibrated into matter; hence, both Spirit and matter exist. Matter, however, does not exist in the way that it appears to us. It exists as we see it owing to the delusive force of maya, which makes the indivisible Spirit seem finite and divisible to all appearances. Matter has existence in the same delusive way as does a mirage in the desert. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 482:There is a world of difference between facts and the truth. You can have so many facts that you don't deal with the truth. You never get to the truth. You have the places where, the people who, the times when, the reasons why, the methods how - blah blah. And never get to the human truth. The human truth is as elusive as the air. And as important as the air. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 483:Your soul has a special mission. Your soul is supremely conscious of it. Maya, illusion or forgetfulness, makes you feel that you are finite, weak and helpless. This is not true. You are not the body. You are not the senses. You are not the mind. These are all limited. You are the soul, which is unlimited. Your soul is infinitely powerful. Your soul defies all time and space. ~ sri-chinmoy, @wisdomtrove 484:Food served is always more than just food served. That is to say, it is more than just fuel for the body. Depending upon who has prepared the food and who has served it and with what spirit, it can uplift the - and around the world, in every culture, food is used to flirt, to be coy, a raise in the employment or to search for employment. It can bring warring factions together. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 485:The inferior devotee says, "God exists, but He is very far off, up there in heaven." The mediocre devotee says, "God exists is in all beings as life and consciousness." The superior devotee says, "it is God Himself who has become everything; whatever I see is only a form of God. it is He alone who has become maya, the universe, and all living beings. Nothing exists but God." ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 486:I have forgiven myself; I'll make a change. Once that forgiveness has taken place you can console yourself with the knowledge that a diamond is the result of extreme pressure. Less pressure is crystal, less than that is coal, less than that is fossilized leaves or plain dirt. Pressure can change you into something quite precious, quite wonderful, quote beautiful and extremely hard. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 487:All people in the world - who are not hermits or mutes - speak words. They speak different languages, but they speak words. They say, "How are you" or "I'm not feeling well" all over the world. These common words - these common elements that we have between us - the writer has to take some verbs and nouns and pronouns and adjectives and adverbs and arrange them in a way that sound fresh. ~ maya-angelou, @wisdomtrove 488:Our self (Soul) is maya (an illusion) where it is merely individual and finite, where it considers its separateness as absolute; it is satyam (truth) where it recognizes its essence in the universal and infinite, in the Supreme Self, in paramatman (God). This is what Christ means when he says, "Before Abraham was, I am" (i.e. before Abraham was God, who is the same that is in my soul - I am That.) ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove 489:God is without form, without quality as well as with form and quality. Watch and see with what endless variety of beautiful forms He plays the play of his maya with Himself alone. The lila of the all pervading One goes on and on in this way in infinite diversity. He is without beginning and without end. He is the whole and also the part. The whole and part together make up real Perfection. Sri Anandamayi Ma ~ anandamayi-ma, @wisdomtrove 490:When a seeker merges in the beatitude of samadbi, he does not perceive time and space or name and form, the offspring of maya. Whatever -is within the domain of maya is unreal. Give it up. Destroy the prison house of name and form arid rush out of it with the strength of a lion. Dive deep in search of the Self and realize It through samadhi, You will find the world of name and form vanishing into void, and the puny ego dissolving in Brahman-Consciousness. You will realize your identity with Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 491:When I think of the Supreme Being as inactive neither creating nor preserving nor destroying-, I call Him Brahman or Purusha, the Impersonal God. When I think of Him as active-creating, preserving, destroying-, I call Him Shakti or Maya or Prakriti, the Personal God. But the distinction between them does not mean a difference. The Personal and the Impersonal are the same thing, like milk and its whiteness, the diamond and its lustre, the snake and its wriggling motion. Iit is impossible to conceive of the one without the other. The Divine Mother and Brahman are one. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:That shit stops now. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
2:To girls' night out! ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
3:When we come to it ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
4:Ask me again. Please. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
5:Beer, if you have it. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
6:Don't love me, Angel. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
7:Her questioning would ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
8:I feel safe with you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
9:I'll never leave you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
10:No changing your mind. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
11:Don't want to lose you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
12:G'night, Van. Love you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
13:Love costs all we are ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
14:We're inevitable, Josie ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
15:Freedom is never free. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
16:I want forever with you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
17:You're a hard-core cynic ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
18:Because they weren't you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
19:I don't like being alone. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
20:I love you, Serena. Stay. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
21:I'm not too proud to beg. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
22:Lift up your eyes upon ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
23:You want to be dominated. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
24:I love how you look at me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
25:I wish you we're my daddy. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
26:My heart is in your hands. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
27:No other man will have you ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
28:Buy now at Amazon! Dolmarehn ~ Tara Maya, #NFDB
29:could order what she needed ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
30:I won't leave her. I can't. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
31:Laugh as much as you can. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
32:Stubborn, hardheaded woman. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
33:sunlight when Maya exited ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
34:A mother's love liberates. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
35:I love you. God, I love you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
36:Being a woman is hard work. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
37:For God’s sake, don’t hug me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
38:I don't want you to leave me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
39:Life loves the liver of it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
40:Preach it, I say preach it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
41:Therefore we pledge to bind ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
42:We, unaccustomed to courage ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
43:Whining is just unbecoming. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
44:Facts can obscure the truth. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
45:Have enough courage to love. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
46:I'll never let you fall, baby. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
47:I'm not wearing any underwear. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
48:Love recognizes no barriers. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
49:Maybe I think you're worth it. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
50:To fly, we must have resistance. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
51:Cut the sarcasm or I'll cut you ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
52:Poetry gave me back my voice. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
53:Rose okay with closing tonight? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
54:The way back is always shorter. ~ Maya Deren, #NFDB
55:You're what happened, Ash. You. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
56:But still, like air, I'll rise ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
57:Everybody is worth everything. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
58:Flattery will get you everywhere ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
59:Look for the beauty in things. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
60:The truth will lead me to all. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
61:To fly we have to have resistance. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
62:When in doubt, call for back-up. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
63:You aren’t going anywhere, lass. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
64:At our best, we're all teachers ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
65:But no one ever took care of you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
66:God, but she loved it. His tongue ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
67:He's no stranger to pretty words. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
68:I've had rainbows in my clouds. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
69:Oh Cole, I've missed you so much. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
70:Part of the pleasure is the pain. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
71:We are more alike than unalike. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
72:You are what you eat and read. ~ Maya Corrigan, #NFDB
73:At our best, we are all teachers ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
74:Don't bring negative to my door. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
75:He felt strangled by helplessness. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
76:I know why the caged bird sings. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
77:I like to know what's happening. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
78:I'll survive. I've done it before. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
79:Just shooting you straight, Josie. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
80:Nothing will work unless you do. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
81:This stinks like a roadkill skunk. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
82:We are here to love each other. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
83:We have it in us to be splendid. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
84:Don't let the man bring you down. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
85:Embrace the pleasure. Reach for it. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
86:I live in an atmosphere of music. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
87:I’m not going to hurt you, damn it. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
88:Inscribed on the temple of Apollo ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
89:Pink is you. Definitely your color. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
90:Shakespeare must be a black girl. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
91:Tell the truth and not the facts. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
92:The future is plump with promise. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
93:What a gift he'd been given in Mia. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
94:You're really good with your hands. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
95:Ain't nothin' to it, but to do it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
96:Effective action is always unjust. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
97:I'd give you the world if you asked. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
98:If it ain't broke, then don't fix it ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
99:I have great respect for the past. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
100:I just want to hold you for a while. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
101:The desire to reach hearts is wise ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
102:When we know better, we do better. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
103:better, she couldn’t control the wash ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
104:I come as one, but stand as 10,000. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
105:I feel beautiful when you look at me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
106:There is no place where God is not. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
107:We love you. We want you to marry us. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
108:When you know better you do better. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
109:All great acheivements require time. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
110:All great achievements require time. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
111:Faith is the evidence of the unseen. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
112:Forgive yourself - no one else will. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
113:He hated being the object of scrutiny. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
114:The most important thing is to DARE. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
115:Everything costs and costs the earth. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
116:Faith and optimism come from love. ~ Maya Soetoro Ng, #NFDB
117:I'm more concerned with what you think. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
118:Nothing good is ever easy. Or worth it. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
119:Tell me again. Tell me you'll marry me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
120:You can have all the cupcakes you want. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
121:Achievement brings its own anticlimax. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
122:All writing is an act of translation. ~ Maya Jasanoff, #NFDB
123:I'm not stubborn. My way is just better. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
124:She won't be alone. I'm not leaving her. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
125:Then it's too bad I don't belong to you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
126:We are only as blind as we want to be. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
127:You're beautiful just as you are, Lyric. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
128:All great achievements require time.
~ Maya Angelou,#NFDB
129:Anger is like fire. It burns all clean. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
130:Be the rainbow in someone else's cloud. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
131:Don't push me away. I'm attracted to you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
132:I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
133:If you have, give. If you learn, teach. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
134:I keep on dying, Because I love to live ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
135:I love you. You will always have my love. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
136:Let's just say I'm use to getting my way. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
137:My mother raised me, and then freed me. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
138:Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
139:Yet it is only love which sets us free. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
140:You never get over the fear of writing. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
141:Age is nothing; waking up is everything. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
142:All God's children need traveling shoes. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
143:All my work is much more peaceful than I am. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
144:Care? He didn't care. He loved her. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
145:Every journey begins with a single step. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
146:I am the dream and the hope of the slave ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
147:I try to see every day as a celebration. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
148:Live as though life was created for you. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
149:No one has ever become poor from giving. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
150:Things are rarely as random as they appear ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
151:We need much less than we think we need. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
152:A societies needs determines their ethics ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
153:Don’t let me go Jace. I’m lost without you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
154:I sustain myself with the love of family. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
155:It is all mind or maya [illusion]. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
156:Life sometimes gives you a second chance. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
157:Love made her patient. It made her hopeful. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
158:Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
159:When I wake up, I'm going to kick your ass. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
160:Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
161:Don't face the day until you've faced God. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
162:If I have my way, you'll have her no longer. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
163:Out of the huts of history's shame I rise. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
164:When you learn, teach, when you get, give. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
165:Dare to let your dreams reach beyond you... ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
166:I can't let you go again. I won't let you go. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
167:I wouldn't trade anything for my story now. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
168:Life loves the person who dares to live it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
169:Life works however the hell you make it work. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
170:Poetry helps my soul escape its encasement. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
171:Right or not, you're pissing me the fuck off. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
172:Competitions are what you do as a good exercise. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
173:Don't trust people who don't laugh. I don't. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
174:Every memorial in its time has a different goal. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
175:Give yourself time just to be with yourself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
176:Hope is born again in the faces of children. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
177:I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
178:Living well is an art that can be developed. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
179:No not me go find someone else to bring down ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
180:Oh, the holiness of being the injured party. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
181:Poetry is music written for the human voice. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
182:Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
183:The needs of a society determine its ethics. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
184:Books make dangerous devils out of women. ~ Yxta Maya Murray, #NFDB
185:Everyone grows old but not everyone grows up. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
186:Having courage does not mean we are unafraid. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
187:I know when I’ve been given my marching orders. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
188:Live life as if it were created just for you. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
189:Reid Kingsley. Maya Markowitz. August Pullman. ~ R J Palacio, #NFDB
190:Success is loving life and daring to live it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
191:The music was my friend, my lover, my family. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
192:war is not just a victory or loss ... People die. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
193:You think you may not be heard. Speak anyway. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
194:You want to ditch this place and go get a beer? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
195:How do you know what I want? You've never asked. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
196:I know something better is on the road for me. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
197:I’ll take that as my cue to mind my own business ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
198:I love you, Faith. Lord knows I've tried not to. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
199:I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
200:Love required sacrifices that were hard to make. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
201:No one can take the place of a friend, no one. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
202:Raising kids is like nailing Jell-O to a tree. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
203:Tell me, warrior, how soon can we do this again? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
204:The honorary duty of a human being is to love. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
205:To those who are given much, much is expected. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
206:Warmth isn't what minimalists are thought to have. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
207:Amazing what happens when you just ask, isn't it? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
208:But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
209:Determine to live life with flair and laughter. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
210:I don't particularly want to get my heart broken. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
211:It is simple. If you want to stay, then don't go. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
212:She'll be just like me and drive her daddy crazy. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
213:To grow up is to stop putting blame on parents. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
214:Use your freedom to experiment with visual ideas. ~ Maya Deren, #NFDB
215:You don’t kiss the correct way,” she blurted out. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
216:A joyful spirit is evidence of a grateful heart. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
217:Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it! ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
218:Be wary when a naked person offers you his shirt ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
219:Don't let anybody raise you. You've been raised. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
220:Don't you know Micah? I've always belonged to you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
221:Every Day you should reach out and touch someone ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
222:Guilt is bullshit. I don't want it. Don't need it. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
223:I became the kind of parent my mother was to me. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
224:I believe that every person is born with talent. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
225:I just want you to see you the way that I see you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
226:My love for her is stronger than my hatred of you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
227:Never said it would be easy. Nothing good ever is. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
228:Oh, I want you. I want you so goddamn much I ache. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
229:People will never forget how you made them feel. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
230:The role of art in society differs for every artist. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
231:Y’all dropped the ball and you should be shamed. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
232:A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
233:Anyone could be savage. Everywhere could go dark ~ Maya Jasanoff, #NFDB
234:I am a child of God. I always carry that with me. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
235:If I have a monument in this world, it is my son. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
236:I want you. God, I want you. But only if it's real. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
237:I won’t let it happen again. I protect what’s mine. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
238:You know, Julie, someday a man's going to tame you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
239:Don’t ever give up hope. Sometimes it’s all we have. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
240:I can't let her go. Not when I've finally found her. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
241:I’ll take your body, but I want your heart, Maya. ~ Meredith Wild, #NFDB
242:“I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.” ~ ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
243:Nobody can enjoy unless we all enjoy, truly enjoy. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
244:She's mine. They're mine. And I protect what's mine. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
245:You're afraid that I'm different from everyone else. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
246:A single fantasy can transform a million realities. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
247:Don't ask questions you don't want the answer, Micah. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
248:Don't care about me. Save your love for someone else. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
249:Hope was such a gift and a curse all rolled into one. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
250:I know that I've been guided by God. I am obedient. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
251:In diversity there is beauty and there is strength. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
252:In that moment, she realized that she loved this man. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
253:I won't lie to you, Josie. So becareful what you ask. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
254:Math, it's a puzzle to me. I love figuring out puzzles. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
255:Nothing can dim the light which shines from within. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
256:Step off the road. Build yourself a brand new path. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
257:The dread of futility has been my life-long plague. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
258:I did what I knew.. when I knew better, I did better ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
259:It's no way to live, in fear of living in case of pain ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
260:Yea, kinda hard to be mad when he says shit like that. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
261:Be present in all things and thankful for all things. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
262:I always felt, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
263:I keep hitting the escape button but I am still here! ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
264:I like sleeping in the cold, with covers up to my ears. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
265:Seeing you happy is the best gift I could ever ask for. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
266:That's all I need. You loving me. Nothing else matters. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
267:We must be warriors in the struggle against ignorance ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
268:You want me to do something... tell me I can't do it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
269:All science is a charted ignorance and belongs to Maya. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
270:He was better than any drug, any remedy for her illness. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
271:I'd be a dumbass if I didn't plan for every contingency. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
272:Spirit is an invisible force made visible in all life. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
273:You can never be great at anything unless you love it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
274:You can't get too high for somebody to bring you down. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
275:You're adorable when you blush, and you do it so easily. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
276:And make no mistake, Julie. We are having a relationship. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
277:I am a Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, that's me. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
278:I don't trust any revolution where love is not allowed. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
279:I loved school. I studied like crazy. I was a Class A nerd. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
280:I make my pictures for what Hollywood spends on lipstick. ~ Maya Deren, #NFDB
281:Intelligence always had a pornographic influence on me. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
282:The zoo lady, whose name is Maya, is here again. ~ Katherine Applegate, #NFDB
283:Because you're making a habit out of running away from me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
284:Be courageous, but not foolhardy. Walk proud as you are. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
285:I didn't have anyone to play with so I made up my own world. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
286:If you don't remember history accurately, how can you learn? ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
287:I really can’t stomach you when you get all philosophical. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
288:[Her] idea of a fair trade--her lentils for your caviar. ~ Maya Corrigan, #NFDB
289:I do not think you can find a reason for everything you make. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
290:My encouragement to you is to go tomorrow to the library. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
291:Recognizing your illness is the first step in your recovery ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
292:Whom anger chains, can ever pass thro' Maya's gates. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
293:Hell, yea, I want something. I want you to stop avoiding me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
294:Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
295:I am a good bitch on wheels when given the right motivation. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
296:If you're for the right thing, you do it without thinking. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
297:I have risked everything to tell the truth. Tell the truth ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
298:I'm so exhausted and yet I feel like I'll never sleep again. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
299:I want to be right for you, Connor. I want it so bad I ache. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
300:My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
301:Perhaps I’m tired of waiting for something I may never find. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
302:Sometimes, a gal just can't have too many men.
Maya ~ Cynthia Eden,#NFDB
303:We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
304:Women been gittin' pregnant ever since Eve ate that apple. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
305:You don't want me. How could you? You know nothing about me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
306:You make me want. You make me want things I've never wanted. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
307:And I have soldier dolls! My uncle Garrett bough them for me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
308:Anger will give you strength, where fear will make you weak. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
309:A Woman in Harmony with her Spirit is like a river flowing. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
310:Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
311:How can I possibly resist you when you say such pretty words? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
312:I am overwhelmed by the grace and persistence of my people. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
313:I note the obvious differences between each sort and type, ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
314:I take it back. You're not stupid. But damn, you are insane. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
315:I've always wanted to be psychoanalyzed in a den of iniquity. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
316:Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
317:This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
318:When people show you who they are, believe them. —MAYA ANGELOU ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
319:You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
320:Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
321:I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
322:I want you, Jensen. I've been so lonely and empty without you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
323:I wasn't a pretty girl. I was six feet tall at 15, you know. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
324:There is an intimate laughter to be found only among friends ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
325:You have five minutes or I decorate the tarmac with my brains. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
326:All knowledge is spendable currency, depending on the market. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
327:Cut the sarcasm. It makes you sound like an even bigger asshole ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
328:For the most part things never get built the way they were drawn. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
329:It's funny, as you live through something you're not aware of it. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
330:Life is a gift, and i try to respond with grace and courtesy. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
331:Life is a glorious banquet, a limitless and delicious buffet. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
332:Original thinking migrates each day in search of nourishment. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
333:Through the centuries, we faced down death by daring to hope. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
334:Troubles are a blessing that force you to change, to believe. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
335:When would he learn that women never stayed where you put them? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
336:Without courage you cannot practice any of the other virtues. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
337:As soon as healing takes place, go out and heal somebody else. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
338:But love isn’t about causing pain for the person you care about, ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
339:Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
340:His gut told him this was a clusterfuck beyond all clusterfucks. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
341:I cannot allow another man to take what I already consider mine. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
342:The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
343:We are all human; therefore, nothing human can be alien to us. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
344:Alone, all alone Nobody, but nobody Can make it out here alone. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
345:Her mind exploded with whoa and what the fuck and oh, yes please. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
346:Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space. Invite one to stay. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
347:I never want you to know another day without my love, Angel girl. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
348:The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
349:We can only know where we're going if we know where we've been. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
350:Yo no soy cabezota. Mi forma de hacer las cosas siempre es mejor. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
351:If funkytown was a trailerpark, this guy would be a double-wide. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
352:No. You show her how very much you love her by not letting her go. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
353:The best candy shop a child can be left alone in, is the library ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
354:The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
355:The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
356:Wealthy old woman + devious imagination - restraint = Aunt Agatha ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
357:And that makes Mia sad. But it's okay. She'll have Bethany. And me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
358:As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
359:As what-the-fuck moments went, this one was one of the bigger ones. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
360:Cooking certain dishes, like roast pork, reminds me of my mother. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
361:Do not be wedded forever to fear, yoked eternally to brutishness. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
362:I don't want to ever give someone that kind of power to destroy me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
363:If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
364:I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
365:Love liberates. It doesn't just hold, that's ego. Love liberates. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
366:Myth is the facts of the mind made manifest in a fiction of matter. ~ Maya Deren, #NFDB
367:When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
368:When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
369:Without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
370:You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
371:At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
372:Decide what makes you happy and damn what anyone else thinks or says ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
373:Glory falls around us as we sob a dirge of desolation on the Cross ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
374:His heart was in the right place even if he went about it all wrong. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
375:Hope does not take away your problems. It can lift you above them. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
376:If there’s something you want to say, say it. I’m not a mind reader. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
377:If you're asking me if I have blood on my hands then yeah, no doubt. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
378:I'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
379:Lord keep Your arm around my shoulder and Your hand over my mouth. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
380:Medic, geek, badass ex-military guy? Is there anything you can't do? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
381:There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
382:When are you going to stop running from them, Regina? From yourself? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
383:When was the last time anyone ever told you how important you are? ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
384:With strong basics, everything else will fall into place.” The ~ Maya Thiagarajan, #NFDB
385:Words are just words. The evidence is in how you act, how you react. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
386:Writing and cookery are just two different means of communication. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
387:Damn, but the man was sexy in a disdainful, you-annoy-me kind of way. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
388:If you fainted, I would catch you, my Lady Scandalous,” he murmured. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
389:I'll remember the things you said to me and I'll cherish them always. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
390:I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
391:I need to be with him. I don't want him to think I left. He needs me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
392:In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
393:Its not where your dreams take you, its where you take your dreams. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
394:Just because I am wheelchair-bound doesn't mean I don't get around. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
395:Let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
396:No sun outlasts its sunset, but will rise again and bring the dawn. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
397:Some of your teachers are actually closer in age to you than you think. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
398:The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
399:When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
400:You're not going to lose me. Never that. I'm always going to be here. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
401:Because of our routines we forget that life is an ongoing adventure. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
402:Christians already? It seems to me that it takes a lifetime of work. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
403:If men are God's gift to women, then God must really love gag gifts. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
404:If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
405:Love is many things. It is varied. One thing love is not, is unsure. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
406:Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
407:Space-time-causation, or name-and-form, is what is called Maya. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
408:There was something nice about a man who was absorbed by a good book. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
409:To those who have given up on love: I say, "Trust life a little bit. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
410:We are loved by Love itself. There is nothing good that we can't do. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
411:Emotional attachment to Maya is totally painful, this is a bad bargain. ~ Guru Nanak, #NFDB
412:I get up in the morning, and I'm reluctant to turn on the television. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
413:I'm a writer and writers either have good memories or nothing at all. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
414:Just as hope rings through laughter, it can also shine through tears. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
415:Nathaniel Hawthorne once said that easy reading is damn hard writing. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
416:So who wants to go witness the greatest takedown ever known to mankind? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
417:The funny thing about dreams is that every now and then they come true. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
418:Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
419:You may not get what you paid for, but you will pay for what you get. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
420:I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
421:I know for sure that love saves me and that it is here to save us all. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
422:I'm going to take a shower, I want you naked and in bed when I get back. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
423:I want babies too," he said huskily. "Daughters as beautiful as you are. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
424:One of these days, you're going to quit running every time we get close. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
425:Something made greater by ourselves and in turn that makes us greater. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
426:The first step in becoming smarter was to admit what a dumbass you were. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
427:There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
428:There’s always a choice. It’s what you do with that choice that matters. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
429:And I don’t throw tantrums. I just voice my displeasure in a loud manner. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
430:Bastard had the bad manners to die before we were through talking to him. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
431:Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
432:Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
433:Education helps one case cease being intimidated by strange situations. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
434:Goodbye, Ash. You were the best-and worst-thing that ever happened to me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
435:jealousy is conceived only in insecurity and must be nourished in fear. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
436:Life loves the liver of it. You must live and life will be good to you. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
437:Life offers us tickets to places which we have not knowingly asked for. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
438:Prepare yourself so that you can be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
439:Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
440:We grow despite the horror that we feed upon our own tomorrow. We grow. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
441:When women take care of their health they become their own best friend. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
442:You can only become great at something you are willing to sacrifice for ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
443:An English gentleman is someone who knows exactly when to stop being one. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
444:But you can't hide from me, Lyric. I'm learning you. I want to learn more. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
445:I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
446:I'm young as morning and fresh as dew. Everybody loves me and so do you. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
447:I write because I am a Black woman, listening attentively to her people. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
448:Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
449:Maybe I didn't always know what I was missing, but it was you. Always you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
450:One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
451:One of the saddest things in the world is to see a cynical young person. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
452:Rainbows are people whose lives are bright, shining examples for others. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
453:They who have health have hope; and they who have hope, have everything. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
454:We are missing Michael. But we do know we had him, and we are the world. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
455:When you learn, teach. When you get, give. Maya Angelou taught me that. ~ Oprah Winfrey, #NFDB
456:Being a parent, I'm acutely aware of how hard it is to get good childcare. ~ Maya Harris, #NFDB
457:Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
458:I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
459:I thought if war did not include killing, I'd like to see one every year. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
460:I want to go to school. College. Get a degree. I want to make a difference. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
461:Mother's life flowed radiant. Flourescent-tipped waves on incoming tides. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
462:My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim. ~ Maya Soetoro Ng, #NFDB
463:Now that we're finally alone, you're going to listen to what I have to say. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
464:Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
465:There will never be another woman that completes the other half of my soul. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
466:The woman who survives intact and happy must be at once tender and tough. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
467: Wasting time is a stupid thing to do in this big ol' ugly world. ~ Rochelle Maya Callen, #NFDB
468:Whining lets the brute know there's a victim for him in the neighborhood! ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
469:And in all things "Spirit is an invisible force made visible in all life." ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
470:Damn shame when grown men are reduced to a bunch of pussies by their mother. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
471:Girlfriends' code. What's discussed with girlfriends stays with girlfriends. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
472:Hatred is the ballast of the rock which lies upon our necks and underfoot. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
473:If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me? ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
474:I'm interested in music that happens now and that relates to our lives now. ~ Maya Beiser, #NFDB
475:I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
476:It simply isn’t a woman’s nature to be silent for prolonged periods of time. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
477:I've been patient. I've let you run. But I'm not letting you run any longer. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
478:I want to be a good human being. I'm doing my best, and I'm working at it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
479:Prométeme que siempre te vas a querer a ti misma como te quiero yo, Maya ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
480:The best comfort food will always be greens, cornbread, and fried chicken. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
481:You were made for me, Eden. Just as I was made for you. We fit. We just fit. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
482:I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
483:It's not ugly. It's a mark of courage. Of survival. I think you're beautiful. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
484:Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: 'I'm with you kid. Let's go.' ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
485:She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
486:The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
487:the sting of Maya’s betrayal has salted the sting of an earlier betrayal. ~ Thrity Umrigar, #NFDB
488:Force is a self-expression of Existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Maya, #NFDB
489:If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
490:I’m thinking,” he said. To bed or not to bed his wife? That was the question. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
491:Never whine. Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the neighborhood. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
492:The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
493:The world that is perceived through any measuring scale is called maya. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
494:You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
495:A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
496:History is like therapy for the present, it makes it talk about its parents. ~ Maya Jasanoff, #NFDB
497:I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life'. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
498:No amount of saying ‘I love you’ and ‘I trust you’ makes it true when it isn’t. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
499:One must know not just how to accept a gift, but with what grace to share it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
500:One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
501:Pull himself together? This was a man who looked permanently cemented together. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
502:Well, I’ll be damned,” he said in an awed tone. “Never thought I’d see the day. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
503:You can't really know where you are going until you know where you have been. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
504:And maybe that’s was her biggest crime of all. Making him fall in love with her. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
505:Besides, what you need is a swift kick in the ass. If you want a hug, go see Ma. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
506:Each of us has the power and responsibility to become a rainbow in the clouds. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
507:How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes! ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
508:I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
509:I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
510:I'm too much of a 'do it my own way and fuck the rest of the world' kind of guy. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
511:I speak a number of languages, but none are more beautiful to me than English. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
512:I've lived many places on the planet, and I still have friends in many places. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
513:“Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ‘I’m with you kid. Let’s go.” ~ ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
514:Making a decision to write was a lot like deciding to jump into a frozen lake. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
515:No one comes from the earth like grass. We come like trees. We all have roots. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
516:One isn't born with courage. One develops it by doing small courageous things. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
517:Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible, and live long lives. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
518:Don't hesitate to learn the most painful aspects of our history, understand it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
519:Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
520:If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
521:I'm timid, apparently I look like hell and have as many issues as People magazine ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
522:In which they are alone now and there doesn’t seem to be anyone around. Sometime ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
523:It doesn’t matter. I love you. That’s it. That’s all. I hope to hell it’s enough. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
524:It's only in hindsight that you realize what indeed your childhood was really like. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
525:I want all my senses engaged. Let me absorb the world's variety and uniqueness. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
526:We do the best we can with what we know, and when we know better, we do better. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
527:We need to haunt the house of history and listen anew to the ancestors' wisdom. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
528:Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
529:Evil genius! I so admire that in a person. Usually I'm the evil bitch of the group ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
530:If more Africans had eaten missionaries, the continent would be in better shape. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
531:If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
532:If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
533:I had to trust life and believe that life loved the person who dared to live it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
534:Inch by inch, they chipped away until soon there would be nothing left to salvage. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
535:I've learned that forgiving is one of the greatest gifts that I can give myself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
536:Let the brain go to work, let it meet the heart and you will be able to forgive. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
537:Now tell me you love me again. Tell me you're not going to run from me ever again. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
538:Only equals make friends, every other relationship is contrived and off balance. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
539:She had as much personality as a pit bull and the pit bull was probably friendlier ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
540:The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
541:The only thing I’m sure of is that I’ve waited entirely too damn long to have you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
542:True friendship has no boundaries. No parameters. And certainly has no conditions. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
543:Would you deny your son or your daughter the ecstasy of finding someone to love? ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
544:All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
545:If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
546:I would not ever have her feel as though I needed more than what she could give me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
547:Let me love you. Let me show you how good it can be with someone who cares for you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
548:The face of Truth is hidden behind the golden veil of maya, says the Upanishad. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
549:When I passed forty I dropped pretense, 'cause men like women who got some sense. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
550:Don’t you understand? This is your chance to escape who you are, become who you want. ~ Tara Maya, #NFDB
551:If you don’t stay away from her I’ll rearrange that pretty face of yours.
- Simon ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
552:There’s always a series of events that lead up to that one moment where all is lost. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
553:When I write, I tend to twist my hair. Something for my small mind to do, I guess. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
554:You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
555:And you’ll go to bed knowing you are mine and that you belong, heart and soul, to me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
556:Children come into the world with a lot of personality already imbedded in them. ~ Maya Soetoro Ng, #NFDB
557:I cannot force a design; I do not see this process as being under my conscious control. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
558:I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
559:I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
560:Love liberates. It doesn't just hold - that's ego. Love liberates. It doesn't bind. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
561:Nature does not hurry, yet
everything is accomplished. —Lao Tzu (571–531 BC) ~ Maya Thiagarajan,#NFDB
562:Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
563:The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
564:The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.” —MAYA ANGELOU ~ Chris Guillebeau, #NFDB
565:There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
566:This is my life. it is my one time to be me. i want to experience every good thing. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
567:When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
568:You have to have courage to love somebody. Because you risk everything. Everything. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
569:Your life is much more important that you can imagine... it is your first treasure. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
570:Ahh, you’re a man used to getting his own way.”
“Always,” he said in a husky growl. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
571:Be certain that you do not die without having done something wonderful for humanity. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
572:Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
573:I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That's art to me. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
574:It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
575:I've always been yours, Micah. But now you're mine. And I'm never going to let you go. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
576:Living a life is like constructing a building: if you start wrong, you'll end wrong. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
577:Nothing worth having is ever easy. And you don't get things without fighting for them. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
578:novels, like racists, tend to be the same wherever you turn,” writes William Giraldi, ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
579:The world had taken a deep breath and was having doubts about continuing to revolve. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
580:A wise woman wishes to be no one's enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
581:God, you have a beautiful laugh, and your smile. Jesus, it knocks the breath out of me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
582:If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
583:If you have a song to sing, who are you not to open your mouth and sing to the world? ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
584:I'm glad to hear that what belongs to me can't be swayed by the pretty words of others. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
585:I'm just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
586:I'm not in a hurry to do a lot of projects. I am very resolved in each project I take on. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
587:Laugh...It's the sweetest thing one can do for oneself and one's fellow human beings. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
588:Life was sweet. Even when it was bad, there was always the hope of better...the future. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
589:Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
590:Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
591:Sometimes, you must play by the rules. If only so one can break them more effectively. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
592:Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
593:structure of creation. Nature herself is maya; natural science must perforce ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
594:When people show you who you are, believe them. It was my favorite Maya Angelou quote, ~ Linsey Hall, #NFDB
595:As if he conveyed by actions what he could never say in words. Would never say in words. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
596:Bully, she muttered.
When it comes to you, baby, I don't mind being labeled a bully. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
597:I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
598:It's true. I can do anything and do it well because God loves me. It still humbles me. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
599:Like I am struck by my own brilliance?” “I was going to say maniacal,” Harriet replied. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
600:No. I don’t regret it. It wasn’t the right thing to do, but I don’t regret it.
- Toni ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
601:The trouble for the thief is not how to steal the chief’s bugle, but where to blow it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
602:To make a difference is not a matter of accident...People CHOOSE to make a difference. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
603:You need to worry less about what everyone else thinks and focus on what makes you happy ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
604:And you look beautiful without it, but I want you to feel just as beautiful as I see you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
605:A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
606:If you're going to live, leave a legacy. Make a mark on the world that can't be erased. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
607:My son is the best thing that ever happened to me. And through me - to a lot of people. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
608:The definition of a modern approach to war is the acknowledgement of individual lives lost. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
609:The problem I have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don't know my story. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
610:This is hard...
Never said it would be easy. Nothing good ever is.' -- Josie & Ash ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
611:Tragedy, no matter how sad, becomes boring to those not caught in its addictive caress. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
612:You couldn't put me in a social group setting. I'm probably a terrible anarchist deep down. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
613:Courage is the most important of all the virtues, without it, you can practice no other. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
614:Dr. [Martin Luther] King was a human being. He had a sense of humor which was wonderful. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
615:I think a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
616:Let choice whisper in your ear and love murmur in your heart. Be ready. Here comes life. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
617:Meanness is the one thing I do get upset about on those rare occasions when I see it. ~ Maya Soetoro Ng, #NFDB
618:My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
619:Wasn't that the way of the world, though? Only the strong survived, and the weak perished. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
620:If our children are to approve of themselves, they must see that we approve of ourselves. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
621:In an unfamiliar culture, it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions, or lessons. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
622:She’d made it a game. Hide-and-seek, Rambo style. The most epic game of hide-and-seek ever. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
623:Exchange love for hate...Thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
624:I am not competing with anyone other than myself. I want to be excellent at whatever I do. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
625:I have no modesty. Modesty is a learned affectation. It's like decal stuck up on a person. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
626:I long for the time when all human history is taught as one history, because it really is. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
627:I think that that's the wisest thing - to prevent illness before we try to cure something. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
628:Most people don't grow up. It's too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
629:My pride had been starched by a family who assumed unlimited authority in its own affairs. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
630:Nothing is ever guaranteed, and all that came before doesn't predicate what you might do next. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
631:So permanent that you'll never doubt how much I love you and how much I want to be with you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
632:You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
633:... I firmly believe that a woman can be whatever she wants to be if she sets her mind to it. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
634:It is Maya that makes you feel, “This man is inferior and the other man is superior. ~ Sivananda Saraswati, #NFDB
635:It means beginning the journey from the psychological – maya – to the existential – Shi-va. And ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
636:Look what you've already come through! Don't deny it. Say I'm stronger than I thought I was ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
637:No matter what she heard, how could she think it? I love her, damnit. How could she not know? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
638:We all have that possibility, that potential and that promise of seeing beyond the seeming. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
639:When we decide to be happy we accept the responsibility to bring happiness to someone else. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
640:You build your 'COURAGE MUSCLE' daily, by being courageous in little things. Just do right. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
641:Elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our history as the abolition of slavery. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
642:Government that's not particularly caring and is hands off is not particularly inspiring. ~ Maya Soetoro Ng, #NFDB
643:I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
644:I'm grateful to be of use. I will not be misused or abused, but I will be of use to anybody. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
645:No human being can be more human than another human being. I liberate you from my ignorance. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
646:Pretty Women Wonder Where My Secret Lies, Im Not Cute Or Built To Fit A Fashion Models Size. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
647:Some of us are timid. We think we have something to lose so we don't try for that next hill. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
648:All thanks to an impish, golden-haired, blue-eyed angel and a Tupperware container of cupcakes. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
649:Forever. Mine. With me. Wherever life takes us. I want my life to be with you. Marry me, Maren. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
650:I can live with my husband risking his life because that's who he is and I wouldn't change him. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
651:If I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in people's hands - and, I hope, in their heart. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
652:I know this woman.”
“Who the hell is she?”
He stared both his brothers down. “She’s mine. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
653:One must learn to care for oneself first, so that one can then dare to care for someone else. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
654:Sometimes forgiveness is the
hardest thing to give, but the most cherished thing to receive. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
655:As Maya Angelou said, ‘I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better. ~ Susan Mallery, #NFDB
656:Being physically close to extreme power causes one to experience a giddiness, an intoxication. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
657:Girls’ night out was sacred, and that meant nothing with a penis was going to be within ten feet ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
658:Let me tell so much truth. I want to tell the truth in my work. The truth will lead me to all. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
659:Nothing hurts more than realizing they meant everything to you, but you meant nothing to them. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
660:Palate properly whetted, I spelunked for her clitoris, tasting Bourgogne Rouge and Maya's body. ~ Rex Pickett, #NFDB
661:Take a day to heal from the lies you've told yourself and the ones that have been told to you. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
662:The intensity with which young people live demands that they "blank out" as often as possible. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
663:Today, the first & last of every Tree/ Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
664:Continue. Be loving and be strong. Be fierce and be kind. And don't give in and don't give up.' ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
665:Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
666:He was so incredibly beautiful, and she'd ached to be able to touch and explore him from day one. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
667:If you ever wake up and see the light and decide you want me back? You're going to have to crawl. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
668:I guess what they say is true. Anything the government wants to hide, they stick it in New Mexico ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
669:Language. I loved it. And for a long time I would think of myself, of my whole body, as an ear. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
670:Oh, I think it's a damn good time because you can't escape me. You can't run. You can't avoid me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
671:...she was brilliant and that only brilliant people worried about not being brilliant any longer. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
672:We understand each other, Jensen. Who else would ever understand us and love us as much as we do? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
673:When we find someone who is brave, fun, intelligent, and loving, we have to thank the universe. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
674:Whether you are happy or whether you are sad, it is wise to remember you are really in process. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
675:You can see in others what they don't see in themselves and what the world doesn't see in them. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
676:All riddles are blues, / And all blues are sad, / And I'm only mentioning / Some blues I've had. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
677:Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
678:But a woman will only go so long putting her heart on the line without getting anything in return. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
679:He had never dealt with such fury as what built within him. It raged like an out-of-control storm. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
680:If we forget what used to be, then we’ve lost an ability to really be sensitive to our surroundings. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
681:I'm a feminist. I've been a female for a long time now. It'd be stupid not to be on my own side. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
682:It is the worst thing you can do, women, is whine, .. I mean the worst. Don't complain, protest. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
683:Jesus has to be crying up there somewhere. Or laughing hysterically. I can't figure out which one. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
684:Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
685:She'd been willing and able to submit because she'd been strong enough to come to him as an equal. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
686:The question is not how to survive, but how to thrive with passion, compassion, humor and style. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
687:When things were very bad his soul just crawled behind his heart and curled up and went to sleep ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
688:Because of technological breakthroughs, the society will need fewer and fewer unskilled laborers. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
689:Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
690:En los negocios, el mayor poder que puedes tener es el de estar dispuesto a renunciar a un acuerdo. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
691:The purring kitten on her shoulder and the beauty of the day rinsed away her gloom on the walk home. ~ Tara Maya, #NFDB
692:The truth brings the past into the present and prepares us for the future. That's what truth does ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
693:Always in the black spirituals there's that promise that things are going to be better, by and by. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
694:I'm interested in women's health because I'm a woman. I'd be a darn fool not to be on my own side. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
695:It may in fact be utterly impossible to be successful without helping others to become successful. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
696:Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise. Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear, I rise. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
697:She just laughed. The empty basket bounced on her back as she ran. The fae followed Dindi in a cloud. ~ Tara Maya, #NFDB
698:She's not just any woman. I don't know, man. She hits buttons that a woman have never pushed for me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
699:Still, when it looked like the sun wasn't going to shine anymore, God put a rainbow in the clouds. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
700:Taking the leap felt appropriate. Only it wasn’t just a short hop. It was a full plunge off a cliff. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
701:Time itself is an individual gift. It is wise to cherish it carefully and give it away generously. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
702:Anything that works against you can also work for you once you understand the Principle of Reverse. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
703:I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
704:I encourage courtesy. To accept nothing less than courtesy, and to give nothing less than courtesy. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
705:Just like moons and suns, With certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
706:Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
707:No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
708:When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness... all the good things. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
709:You'll never have to beg me for anything, my love. If you ask me for the moon, I'll fetch it for you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
710:I admire people who dare to take the language, English, and understand it and understand the melody. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
711:If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. —Maya Angelou ~ Aleatha Romig, #NFDB
712:I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
713:She's my second chance, one I tried to throw away so many times it's a wonder she never gave up on me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
714:Some artists want to confront. Some want to invoke thought. They're all necessary and they're all valid. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
715:The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
716:The only way you could disappoint me is by giving up on us, because all I ever want you to be is mine. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
717:The world that you perceive is actually a delusion (maya) based on your chosen measuring scale. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
718:You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
719:It is only out of ignorance that people are cruel, because they really don't think it will come back. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
720:[Librarians] study their field with as much determination and as much delight as open-heart surgeons. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
721:Maya wasn’t keen on that happening either. She still couldn’t believe she’d pulled a Cyrano de Bergerac. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
722:Moderation in all things. And even moderation in moderation. Don't get too much moderation, you know? ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
723:Shelter Network's programs and services are a rainbow in the clouds for homeless children and adults. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
724:The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
725:The only way you can be a mark is if you want something for nothing. If you're greedy, you're set up. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
726:There are only a few really high-profile archaeological cultures in the world: Egypt and the Maya. ~ Douglas Preston, #NFDB
727:You can never separate yourself from who you are. You bring your whole self to everything that you do. ~ Maya Harris, #NFDB
728:"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them" ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
729:Fantasies were safe. It was a break from reality. A chance to act on desires for a short period of time. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
730:If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” ~ Maya Angelou ~ Helene Segura, #NFDB
731:I’ve got a magic charm That I keep up my sleeve, I can walk the ocean floor And never have to breathe. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
732:Look heavenward and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud. Peace. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
733:Love is a sliver of sunlight peeking through the darkness; a whisper of hope when all is lost. ~ Rochelle Maya Callen, #NFDB
734:The thorn from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned pricks more deeply and draws more blood. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
735:You don't have to tell everything you know, but let what you do say be the truth as you understand it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
736:A leader sees greatness in other people. He nor she can be much of a leader if all she sees is herself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
737:Es una verdad universal que cuando una mujer dice que ha estado pensando, el hombre tiene que preocuparse ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
738:Falling in love is the easy part. It's everything else that happens afterward that's hard and takes work. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
739:Grace is like a lake of drinkable water right outside your door. But you stay inside and die of thirst. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
740:I am capable of what every other human is capable of. This is one of the great lessons of war and life. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
741:I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
742:I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
743:It terrified me to have an idea that was solely mine to be no longer a part of my mind, but totally public. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
744:This is what I am learning, at 82 years old: the main thing is to be in love with the search for truth. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
745:Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It's very clear. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
746:We are not just flesh and blood. And our hungers are not going to be set aside as just flesh and blood. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
747:Do you know how impossible it is to ignore that woman? I'd have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to notice. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
748:How do you maybe hit someone?” Michael drawled.
“Okay, so I decked him. At the time he deserved it. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
749:I encourage you to live with life. Be courageous, adventurous. Give us a tomorrow, more than we deserve. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
750:If you do not like anything, alter it. If you can not change it, adjust your mindset. Will not complain. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
751:I think path in spirituality chooses us. I doubt seriously that we really have much choice in the matter. ~ Maya Tiwari, #NFDB
752:I thought if I could face the worst danger voluntarily, and triumph, I would forever have power over it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
753:My parents are both college professors, and it made me want to question authority, standards and traditions. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
754:Precious jewel, you glow, you shine, reflecting all the good things in the world. Just look at yourself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
755:Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
756:Sometimes second chances are the very best chances,” she whispered. “Because this time we’ll get it right. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
757:The nature of the mind is to jump all over the place, and it does, that's why meditation is so important. ~ Maya Tiwari, #NFDB
758:Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
759:I answer the heroic question, 'Death, where is thy sting?' with 'It is in my heart and mind and memories. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
760:I'm a descendant of someone bought and sold, and brought in 1619 in what was to become the United States. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
761:I will write on the pages of history what I want them to say. I will be myself. I will speak my own name. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
762:Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
763:Like I'm all powerful. Like I'm the only man. Like if you ever look at another man like that, I'd kill him. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
764:Try to live your life in a way that you will not regret years of useless virtue and inertia and timidity. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
765:A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
766:If I interrupted violence, by all means I'll step back. Always nice to see bloodshed first thing in the a.m. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
767:In a magazine, one can get - from cover to cover - 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
768:It’s okay to expect more from the people around you. That doesn’t make you unreasonable. It makes you smart. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
769:It's wonderful when music is intellectually stimulating. But ultimately it has to be a visceral experience. ~ Maya Beiser, #NFDB
770:Lack of faith in the divine within makes us seek solace outside, in property (kshetra, maya). Because ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
771:Maya Angelou once observed, “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
772:On this platform of peace, we can create a language to translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
773:To me, I think the core values that will help create the world that we're striving to live in are constant. ~ Maya Harris, #NFDB
774:Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
775:History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
776:If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. —Maya Angelou JOHN ~ Aleatha Romig, #NFDB
777:I think we ought to give ourselves more time. We should be more patient with ourselves and with each other. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
778:I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
779:On the day of your birth, the Creator filled countless storehouses, set aside for your use and yours alone. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
780:Right about now, he’d like to have a stamp that said “Mine, stay the hell away” to put right on her forehead. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
781:Said to Mairin;
"There's little decency to good loving" Maddie said. "If 'tis decent, it isn't much fun"! ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
782:Sometimes I think creativity is magic; it's not a matter of finding an idea, but allowing the idea to find you. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
783:Tell me what you need."
"You," she said simply, that one word tearing to the very heart of him. "Just you. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
784:There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
785:This was the story of her life. Men explained things to her that she not only knew, but knew far more about. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
786:To know and not to do is in fact not to know. We need to be active instruments against evil. We need to do. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
787:At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
788:Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
789:If you keep gathering those reins, lass,
you and the horse are going to end up back
where you came from. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
790:In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
791:It's very hard for adults to maintain respect and romance so that a love affair can be sustained over years. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
792:She knew he would like taking it off; he tended to prefer her dresses on the floor rather than on her person. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
793:Sleep, Maya," he murmured softly.
"Sleep, my love, and I promise that I will come looking for you. ~ Sara Humphreys,#NFDB
794:Some crushes just never went away. They built, instead, into something permanent, obsessive and all consuming. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
795:We need Joy as we need air. We need Love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
796:Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
797:You need the activism. You need people who are organized and willing to bring light to injustices in society. ~ Maya Harris, #NFDB
798:A person is the product of their dreams. So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
799:I went to law school because I understood what the power of the law is to make a difference in people's lives. ~ Maya Harris, #NFDB
800:Pero el corazón no siempre hacía caso y esta era una de las cosas sobre las que podría no tener control alguno. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
801:The root cause of all the problems we have in the world today is ignorance of course. But most, polarization. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
802:...trying to prove some stupid point to himself that he didn't need her.
It was such a lie. He did need her. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
803:Until we eliminate the mentality of violence, we will not find the harmony within ourselves we're looking for. ~ Maya Tiwari, #NFDB
804:Have a purpose to your life: Purpose does not mean having a job...You can have a job and still be unfulfilled. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
805:He wanted to tie her to him in ways she'd never escape. But they'd be the most loving, silken ties in the world. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
806:If I'm here, I'll be trying to be a better human being, a better writer, a better friend and a better beloved. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
807:I'm here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I'm at, then I go forward to the next place. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
808:It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
809:The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
810:The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you - black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
811:We need to not be in denial about what we've done, what we've come through. It will help us if we all do that. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
812:Whoa, wait a minute, Coletrane. Are you proposing to me?”
“Well I would if you’d let me finish,” he grumbled. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
813:You don't need another person, place or thing to make you whole. God already did that. Your job is to know it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
814:Everyone must live, and everyone must express themselves, and must express themselves in the way of their karma. ~ Maya Tiwari, #NFDB
815:People don't always remember what you say or even what you do, but they always remember how you make them feel. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
816:She sure hadn’t when she had run from Mason Bardwell’s home in the dead of night. On their wedding night at that. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
817:Slow down, my lady. You’re going to injure yourself!”
“Not myself,” she muttered. “Your laird,
more likely. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
818:Sometimes you have to stop thinking. Sometimes you shut down completely. I think that's true in any creative field. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
819:Surrender to the Feet of the Guru is the real mantra, in which there will be no fear of Maya’s delusion. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
820:To fly, we have to have resistance. It's all about turbulence. Reacting to images of wave patterns in fluid motion. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
821:Attraction doesn’t follow a set of rules, you know. But I know that I don’t look at the others like I look at you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
822:Every day I awaken I am grateful. My intent is to be totally present in that day. And laugh as much as possible. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
823:I love the song 'I Hope You Dance' by Lee Ann Womack. I was going to write that song, but someone beat me to it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
824:I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine ... before she realizes she's reading. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
825:Methinks marriage has made my brother soft,” Alaric replied. “ ’Tis a shame when a puny lass has to save his arse. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
826:Our lives are given meaning by our actions-accomplishments made while we are "here" that extend beyond our own time. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
827:Some critics will write 'Maya Angelou is a natural writer' - which is right after being a natural heart surgeon. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
828:You are the sum total of everything you've seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot- it's all right there. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
829:You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. —Maya Angelou ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
830:In a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, love exists. I’m grateful to know that it exists. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
831:It's very important to know the neighbor next door and the people down the street and the people in another race. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
832:I want to thank you, Lord, for life and all that's in it. Thank you for the day and for the hour, and the minute. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
833:My lady, I don’t simply care for her. I love her. She is my entire life. Without her, I am nothing. I have nothing. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
834:Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
835:Creativity or talent, like electricity, is something I don't understand but something I'm able to harness and use. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
836:Division of consciousness is the basis of the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya, #NFDB
837:I am serious, so I laugh a lot. You need to laugh. You don't laugh enough. I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
838:Maya, Indian goddess of illusions. Siren of shipwrecked sailors. If only you lactated Pinot Noir, you’d be perfect. ~ Rex Pickett, #NFDB
839:The devil lives in our mistakes, the lord lives in our rights. Who lives in our ignorance, and who wins after all? ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
840:We were unusually brought up; there was no gender differentiation. I was never thought of as any less than my brother. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
841:Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
842:When will your wedding be?"
"We haven't set a date yet."
"What of your dress?"
"I'm sure I shall wear one. ~ Maya Rodale,#NFDB
843:Whining is not only graceless, but it can be dangerous. It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
844:But a real vision, a real change, isn’t safe,” Maya said. “You don’t pay a workshop fee for it, you pay with your life. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
845:I was always a rebel in the sense that I always wanted to go my own road and do something that nobody else has done. ~ Maya Beiser, #NFDB
846:I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
847:Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
848:People are too busy putting things under microscopes and so forth. Creativity is greater than the sum of its parts. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
849:She absorbed too much of the world around her and it affected her. That wasn’t something she could change, could she? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
850:That's a powerful way to love, when you accept your children, however they emerge, with all their peculiarities. ~ Maya Soetoro Ng, #NFDB
851:The area where we are the greatest is the area in which we inspire, encourage and connect with another human being. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
852:We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
853:We need to remember that we are all created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
854:You really can't function as a celebrity. Entertainers are celebrities. I'm an architect. I'm an artist. I make things. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
855:Every day offers you 10,000 reasons to cry, but if you can find just one reason to laugh then you will be all right. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
856:If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” ~ Helene Segura Maya Angelou ~ Helene Segura, #NFDB
857:I'm as much interested in the form-making as well as getting you to think about what we're doing to the world around us. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
858:I think a nap or a rest overnight is great. But who needs three days of rest? Please! The second day, you might die. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
859:I've tried doing this your way. I've tried being patient, understanding, gentle even. This time we're doing it my way. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
860:I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
861:The Mother showed me that all this is verily maya. She alone is, real, and all else is the splendour of Her maya. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
862:You have to let the viewers come away with their own conclusions. If you dictate what they should think, you've lost it. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
863:Don’t come complaining to me about anything, unless they are actively trying to murder you. Past attempts don’t count. ~ Maya Hughes, #NFDB
864:Here we
are, a man and a woman, both wanting the
same things, and yet, you aren’t attracted to
me. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
865:I went through withdrawal when I got out of graduate school. It's what you learn, what you think. That's all that counts. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
866:I won't hurt you, Lyric. I don't want you to be afraid. I want you to know what it feels like to have someone love you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
867:Listen to some good poetry. You see? It keeps us from thinking we are only what our blatant appetites describe us as. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
868:Take a month and show some kindness for the folks who thought that blindness was an illness that affected eyes alone. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
869:This is the time to remember that I’m the protagonist in my own story, facing every challenge with grace and wit. ~ Maya Van Wagenen, #NFDB
870:Those who have something to say accept the fact that that's lonely. One already knows that there will be adversaries. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
871:You never once looked away from your food. It was as if you were afraid it was going to get up and walk off your plate. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
872:I love a Hebrew National hot dog with an ice-cold Corona - no lime. If the phone rings, I won't answer until I'm done. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
873:I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
874:I'm well aware that you're a man used to getting your way. But this time, I'm afraid you're destined for disappointment. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
875:I want to create endless possibilities with this cello. I become the medium through which the music is being channeled. ~ Maya Beiser, #NFDB
876:A pure intuition is a rare occurrence in our mental activity. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya, #NFDB
877:Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
878:Done and done,” P.J. said curtly. “Both front towers are clear. Giddy up, cowboys. Let’s rope the goat and get back home. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
879:Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
880:I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
881:I love you so much, Eden. You're a miracle. My miracle. A gift I never dreamed of receiving. I'm so damn grateful for it. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
882:I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
883:I was always making things. Even though art was what I did every day, it didn't even occur to me that I would be an artist. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
884:Thank you, always say thank you; it's the greatest gift you can give someone; because thank you is what you say to God. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
885:The woman who truly intends to live a good life is already living phenomenally since intent is part of the achievement. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
886:Wait just a goddamn minute, Josie. We're not finished. No way in fuck I'm giving up that easy. You're worth fighting for. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
887:When I say 'I am a Christian', I'm not shouting 'I'm saved'. I'm whispering 'I get lost'. That is why I chose this way. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
888:Being free is being able to accept people for what they are, and not try to understand all they are or be what they are. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
889:But from a distance. I would have left you whole and wholly for the delectation of those who wanted more and cared less. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
890:Her name is Maya Rudolph! She is a goddamn baby champion and she pushed her cuties out Little House on the Prairie style! ~ Amy Poehler, #NFDB
891:If you happen to fall in love with someone in another race, it's more difficult, because you have to translate yourself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
892:In spite of everything that was done to me and my race, in spite of the adversity and the bitter moments, again we rise. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
893:I think we have systematically and critically harmed ourselves and many young people by advising them not to try things. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
894:Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
895:My heart is so heavy when I see the reality of the Indian reservation and as an American, I know I am, too, responsible. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
896:Surrender to the Feet of the Guru is the real mantra, in which there will be no fear of Maya's delusion.
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, [T5],#NFDB
897:The happy heart runs with the river, floats on the air, lifts to the music, soars with the eagle, hopes with the prayer. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
898:The idea is to write so that people hear it, and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.” ~Maya Angelou ~ C S Lakin, #NFDB
899:The only thing that mattered was what you were to do in life, and it wasn't about money. It was about teaching, or learning. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
900:When I'm writing, I write. And then it's as if the muse is convinced that I'm serious and says, 'Okay. Okay. I'll come.' ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
901:A good friend will bail you out when you land in jail, but a very good friend will be sitting beside you in that jail cell. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
902:Don't hide from me, honey. You're so beautiful. You take my breath away. Never hide from me. You're too beautiful for that. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
903:Graeme leaned down and pressed his lips to Eveline’s cool forehead. “Come back to me,” he whispered. “I’m waiting, Eveline. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
904:In all my work, I try to say - 'You may be given a load of sour lemons, why not try to make a dozen lemon meringue pies?' ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
905:I've been waiting my whole life for you, Eve. For this. For you. For this moment. You're mine and I'm never letting you go. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
906:I would love her and care for her all of my days,” Bowen said quietly. “There is no other man who would ever love her more. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
907:Make your yearbook picture memorable because, as my science teacher says, “Your grandkids have to laugh at something. ~ Maya Van Wagenen, #NFDB
908:The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my feet without ceasing into the camp of the righteous and into the tents of the free. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
909:The hope, the hope that lives in the breast of the black American, is just so tremendous that it overwhelms me sometimes. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
910:We are not our brother’s keeper we are our brother and we are our sister. We must look past complexion and see community. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
911:While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man's humanity to man. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
912:You dwell in whitened castles with deep and poisoned moats and cannot hear the curses which fill your children's throats. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
913:A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but a woman called by a devaluing name will only be weakened by the misnomer. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
914:I don't know how much longer I'll be around. I'll probably be writing when the Lord says, 'Maya, Maya Angelou, it's time.' ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
915:In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most Black children didn't really, absolutely know what whites looked like. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
916:Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
917:“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
918:My mother is so full of joy and life. I am her child. And that is better than being the child of anyone else in the world. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
919:Suffering comes from not understanding or a full potential or full powers within ourselves to heal, to nurture, to nourish. ~ Maya Tiwari, #NFDB
920:To Christianize cannot be the same as to Westernize. —Vitalino Simalox (Maya) Ecclesia semper reformanda. —Martin Luther ~ Philip Jenkins, #NFDB
921:Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
922:He smiled again as he settles more firmly against her and pulled her into his arms. Yeah, he wanted her, but this was...nice. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
923:History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced With courage, need not be lived again. —MAYA ANGELOU ~ James W Loewen, #NFDB
924:I don't think there's such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
925:It's my brothers"-Nathan croaked
"I don't give a fuck if they're your sisters"- Swanson said "I'll kiss them just the same ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
926:Mind as we know it is a power of the Ignorance seeking for Truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya, #NFDB
927:Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion alone will destroy its walls. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
928:She’d have to treat the interview more like risotto than instant rice, adding ingredients gradually while stirring gently. ~ Maya Corrigan, #NFDB
929:She exists, Damon. There are women out there who crave what we can give them. Once you taste it, you can’t ever let go of it, ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
930:She was tattooed on every part of his body. Deeper, in his heart, his very soul. A permanent brand that would never wear off. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
931:Well look at that. He’s got the Rockwell genes.” Maya’s father gloated loudly over what Maya assumed was his third leg. ~ Melisa M Hamling, #NFDB
932:A woman who's survived all you've survived doesn't cry. She holds her head up and dares the world around her to fuck with her. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
933:Ayurvedic medicine is ancient, and its resurgence is necessary because we do need the proper balance in our medical approach. ~ Maya Tiwari, #NFDB
934:Death is so close, always, a breath away, so perhaps it was wise to introduce children to that concept at an early age. Maya ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
935:Each individual has to burn out his own karma and escape from the chains of maya (illusion), reincarnation, and all that. ~ George Harrison, #NFDB
936:History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced With courage, need not be lived again. —MAYA ANGELOU1 ~ James W Loewen, #NFDB
937:It's a wonderful thing to know that there is something to know there is something greater than I am, and that is God itself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
938:That depends. Are you going to call me an ass again?"
"That depends. Are you going to act like one?" -Ashton and Maya ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
939:We need language to tell us who we are, how we feel, what we're capable of- to explain the pains and glory of our existence. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
940:Whenever I'm around some who is modest, I think, 'Run like hell and all of fire.' You don't want modesty, you want humility. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
941:You can't control my feelings, Hancock. You control my fate, yes. My ultimate destiny. My life even. But you can't control me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
942:Each time a dancer moves devoutly or a composer faithfully searches the silence for the veiled melodies, eternity is engaged. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
943:Government should exist in order to help fortify the country and make those who are in need better able to meet their own. ~ Maya Soetoro Ng, #NFDB
944:It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman Phenomenally. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
945:Maya was crying and she couldn't say anything, not because she didn't know what to say, but because there was too much of it. ~ Robin Benway, #NFDB
946:My grandfather, on my father's side, helped to draft one of the first constitutions of China. He was a fairly well-known scholar. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
947:My work is to be honest. My work is to try to think clearly, then have the courage to make sure that what I say is the truth. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
948:Stand up straight and realize who you are, that you tower over your circumstances. You are a child of God. Stand up straight. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
949:To be human is to be challenged to be more divine. Not even to try to meet such a challenge is the biggest defeat imaginable. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
950:To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
951:When I was very little, we would get letters from China, in Chinese, and they' be censored. We were a very insular little family. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
952:You know what? Fuck you man. Cant believe you’d come in here like this, especially after all we had to say in the office today. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
953:A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. Often attributed to Maya Angelou in error. ~ Joan Walsh Anglund, #NFDB
954:All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
955:Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
956:English women made it harder to get them naked than Tahitian women, but he was a practiced bloke at such important life skills. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
957:I do hope that young men and women will start to think for themselves and start to take responsibility for their own thoughts. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
958:I don’t want to disappoint you. I don’t want to let you down. And I don’t want to embarrass you in front of the people you love. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
959:Light and shadow are opposite sides of the same coin. We can illuminate our paths or darken our way. It is a matter of choice. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
960:My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
961:Sophie, honey, stop looking at me like that,” Garrett said gruffly. “You’ll have me convinced I’m going to die.”
“You’re not? ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
962:Come back to me so I can tell you I love you. So I can tell you I love you every single day of our lives from this point forward. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
963:God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us - in the dreariest and most dreaded moments - can see a possibility of hope. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
964:I think when we don't know what to do it's wise to do nothing. Sit down quietly; quiet our hearts and minds and breathe deeply. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
965:It is a no-fail, incontrovertible reality: If you get, give. If you learn, teach. You can't do anything with that except do it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
966:I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
967:I work very hard, and I play very hard. I'm grateful for life. And I live it - I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
968:Just like moons and like suns,With the certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still, I'll rise. ~ Maya Angelou#poetry #poetrylovers, #NFDB
969:Boys have outdoor plumbing. Girls have indoor plumbing. If we tried to pee standing up, it would just dribble down our legs. ~ Maya Van Wagenen, #NFDB
970:But if I lost you, it would devastate me as nothing else has or ever could. You have so much power over me and that’s frightening. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
971:Form is delimitation—Name and Shape out of the vast illimitable Truth of infinite existence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Maya, #NFDB
972:I have had the opportunity to meet men and women working in the sex trade in my travels to Mexico's northern and southern borders. ~ Maya Goded, #NFDB
973:I resented you for inserting yourself so fully into my life, and then one day I realized I couldn't imagine my life without you... ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
974:I've never had a dislike for men. I've been badly treated by some. But I've been loved greatly by some. I married a lot of them. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
975:My grandmother told me that every good thing I do helps some human being in the world. I believed her 50 years ago and still do. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
976:Not that she really wanted to mess with a pregnant woman. There was too much similarity between them and pit bulls for her liking. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
977:Remember, people will judge you by your actions not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold but so does a hard-boiled egg. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
978:The process I go through in the art and the architecture, I actually want it to be almost childlike. Sometimes I think it's magical. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
979:Each child belongs to all of us and they will bring us a tomorrow in direct relation to the responsibility we have shown to them. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
980:I am convinced that most people do not grow up ... our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
981:I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
982:Our parents decided not to teach us Chinese. It was an era when they felt we would be better off if we didn't have that complication. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
983:Don’t take her from me,” he whispered fiercely, hoping the words wrenched from the depths of his soul somehow made it to God’s ears. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
984:History, despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” —Maya Angelou ~ Katherine Lowry Logan, #NFDB
985:I am capable of what every other human is
capable of. This is one of the great
lessons of war and life.”
—Maya Angelou ~ Gavin de Becker,#NFDB
986:Like I'm beautiful. Like I'm the only woman who's ever affected you this way. Like in a room full of other women, you'd only see me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
987:Listen carefully to what country people call mother wit. In those homely sayings are couched the collective wisdom of generations. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
988:She figured if people were dumb enough to believe that crap, they didn’t deserve the truth. They probably wouldn’t believe it anyway ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
989:The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
990:Tis a well-known fact that a man is either skilled in matters of loving or matters of war. ’Tis obvious that fighting is your skill. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
991:We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
992:You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still like dust, I'll rise. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
993:I don't deserve your love or your shine, but I want it because with you I can feel the sun. I don't want to go back to those shadows. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
994:Never, never let a person know you're frightened. And a group of them ... absolutely never. Fear brings out the worst in everybody. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
995:People feel guilty. And guilt is stymieing. Guilt immobilizes. Guilt closes the air ducts and the veins, and makes people ignorant. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
996:Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable. — Maya Angelou ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
997:She’s told me on multiple occasions that I don’t have to always stay the person I was, that I can change and be whoever I want to be. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
998:The divine Maya comprehends Vidya as well as Avidya, the Knowledge as well as the Ignorance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Mind and Supermind, #NFDB
999:We are the victims of the world's most comprehensive robbery. Life demands a balance. It's all right if we do a little robbing now. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1000:If I'm going to a new country, I try to learn something about the language and the culture, so I don't just go bumbling over things. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1001:It's hard because people think they have something to lose and the truth is they have everything to gain in trying to love somebody. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1002:My dad was dean of fine arts at the university. I was casting bronzes in the school foundry. I was using the university as a playground. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1003:People trying to separate people rather than bring us together... please. You don't just see it in America. It's all over the world. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1004:The most difficult thing in the world, it seems to me, is to realize that I am a child of God; to keep that in my mind all the time. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1005:the power of maya: that which deludes you to be unhappy can be overpowered by another delusion that causes greater unhappiness. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
1006:To me, the American Dream is being able to follow your own personal calling. To be able to do what you want to do is incredible freedom. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1007:We are growing up. We are growing up! Out of the idiocies - the ignorances of racism and sexism and ageism and all those ignorances. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1008:When I forgive other people, I let them go, I free them from my ignorance. And as soon as I do, I feel lighter, brighter and better. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1009:Don't get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that - if you dare. But get older because it's fun! ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1010:I might have it at six-fifteen a.m. just as soon as I get in, but usually it's about eleven o'clock when I'll have a glass of sherry. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1011:Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope. —Maya Angelou ~ Marie Force, #NFDB
1012:Take the blinders from your vision take the padding from your ears and confess you've heard me crying and admit you've seen my tears. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1013:He walked hesitantly toward her and then wrapped his arms around her in a gentle hug.
“You just looked like you needed one,” he said. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1014:I have heard it said that winter, too, will pass, that spring is a sign that summer is due at last. See, all we have to do is hang on. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1015:I know that so many women don't have a choice. They could lose their job if they say, 'I need to leave because I don't have childcare.' ~ Maya Harris, #NFDB
1016:I suggest that the great art belongs to all people, all the time--that indeed it is made for the people, by the people, to the people. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1017:It's wonderful that whenever Patsy Cline's name is mentioned, people's voices fall and they become right sentimental. And, rightly so. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1018:My greatest blessing has been the birth of my son. My next greatest blessing has been my ability to turn people into children of mine. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1019:Someone could drag me to hell, and I’d crawl back to you, Maya, for a chance to make right everything that was ever wrong between us. ~ Meredith Wild, #NFDB
1020:The children to whom we read simple stories may or may not show gratitude, but each boon we give strengthens the pillars of the world. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1021:The human being has enormous resources in the power to heal. And in those resources lie things that we ourselves need to clear or feel. ~ Maya Tiwari, #NFDB
1022:There's something which impels us to show our inner souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1023:At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1024:Courage, I don't think anybody is born with courage. I think you may be born with a flair to braggadocio, you know. That's not courage. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1025:I’ll have your fathers make something special,” Holly said serenely. “If it turns out we don’t like him, I’ll cook the next meal for him. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1026:It’s not a crime to want someone to love you or to be in love or to want a relationship. Isn’t it what we all want at the end of the day? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1027:My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1028:There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
(NOT Maya Angelou, NOT I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) ~ Zora Neale Hurston,#NFDB
1029:To lose personality is necessary if we are to gain universality. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #NFDB
1030:What is magic to our finite reason is the logic of the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #NFDB
1031:When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one - it's the first blow in a suicidal movement. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1032:You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise! ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1033:A woman who is convinced that she deserves to accept only the best challenges herself to give the best. Then she is living phenomenally. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1034:God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us—in the dreariest and most dreaded moments—can see a possibility of hope. —Maya Angelou ~ Marie Force, #NFDB
1035:I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass. —Maya Angelou ~ HeatherAsh Amara, #NFDB
1036:People can change... no matter where they come from, no matter where they think they ought to go, people can make their own way. ~ Rochelle Maya Callen, #NFDB
1037:The arrogant man probably thought his path to heaven was already assured, and that he acted in accordance to God’s will just by breathing. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1038:We must create a climate where people agree that human beings are more alike than unalike. The only way to do that is through education. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1039:When we look at things as simple as food, it's not about just nourishment and sustaining our life, it is really the seed of our ancestor. ~ Maya Tiwari, #NFDB
1040:Art is very tricky because it's what you do for yourself. It's much harder for me to make those works than the monuments or the architecture. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1041:In order to win, we pay with energy and effort and discipline. If we lose, we pay in disappointment, discontent, and lack of fulfillment. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1042:It is sad but true that sometimes we need the tragedy to help us to see how human we are and how we are more alike than we are different. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1043:I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1044:My life has been one great big joke, a dance that's walked a song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1045:Tell me something Micah, If you found a naked woman tied to your bed what would you think? That I have been a very good boy in a pass life. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1046:The human heart is so delicate and sensitive that it always needs some tangible encouragement to prevent it from faltering in its labour. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1047:And what more could I possibly ask as an artist than that your most precious visions, however rare, assume sometimes the forms of my images. ~ Maya Deren, #NFDB
1048:Continue to plant a kiss of concern on the cheek of the sick and the aged and infirm and count that actions as natural and to be expected. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1049:Courage allows the successful woman to fail - and to learn powerful lessons from the failure - so that in the end, she didn't fail at all. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1050:I don't want you to ever be touched by the gray areas I'm immersed in, baby. I want you clean. I want you to shine, just like you always do. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1051:If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain. —Maya Angelou, author and poet Have ~ Marci Shimoff, #NFDB
1052:It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1053:I want to be representative of my race-the human race. I have a chance to show how kind we can be, how intelligent and generous we can be. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1054:She was a possessive thing in bed. She considered his body her territory and she had no compunction about laying claim whenever he got near. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1055:You only are free when you realize you belong no place - you belong every place - no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1056:Zane isn’t for me,” she said firmly.
Maya laughed. “That sounds really good, but I can’t help wondering who you’re trying to convince. ~ Susan Mallery,#NFDB
1057:Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you're the funniest person you've ever heard of. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1058:I am a woman phenomenally, phenomenal woman that is your grandmother, that is your mother, that is your sister, that is you and that is me. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1059:I saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial not as an object placed into the earth but as a cut in the earth that has then been polished, like a geode. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1060:Live by the three 'F' rule: If they don't fuck you, feed you or finance you, they don't matter. - Maya Josephs, Prima of the Ridgeville Pride ~ Celia Kyle, #NFDB
1061:My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1062:Now pray to God – pray sincerely – only this prayer: “O Lord, I don’t want the glories of Your world-bewitching Maya, I want You alone!” ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
1063:Our way of knowing must be appropriate to that which is to be known. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #NFDB
1064:There is a kind of strength that is almost frightening in Black women. It's as if a steel rod runs right through the head down to the feet. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1065:To realise the Self is to realise the eternal freedom of the Spirit. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #NFDB
1066:All Greencloaks spoke to their spirit animals, but Maya was holding what appeared to be an intense one-sided conversation with an amphibian! ~ Shannon Hale, #NFDB
1067:Continue to be bold, courageous. Try to choose the wisest thing and once you've chosen the wisest thing go out and try to achieve it. Be it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1068:He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style. We had him whether we know who he was or did not know, he was ours and we were his. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1069:I agreed a long time ago, I would not live at any cost. If I am moved or forced away from what I think is the right thing, I will not do it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1070:I have need of a friend. There is one and only one who will give the air from his failing lungs for my body's mend. And that one is my love. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1071:I loved logic, math, computer programming. I loved systems and logic approaches. And so I just figured architecture is this perfect combination. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1072:In the course of time one does not feel even the existence of God. After attaining enlightenment one sees that gods and deities are all Maya. ~ Sarada Devi, #NFDB
1073:Money and power can liberate only if they are used to do so. They can imprison and inhibit more finally than barred windows and iron chains. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1074:Well, 'I'm sorry' is just a thing to say, you see. I'm trying not to be so apologetic and obsequious all the time. It's just such a habit ... ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
1075:when someone rebuilds your trust, that break hurts even more because not only are you hurt and betrayed, they also make you feel like a fool. ~ Maya Hughes, #NFDB
1076:Consciousness has no standing-place if there is none who is conscious. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #NFDB
1077:My life has been long, and believing that life loves the liver of it, I have dared to try many things, sometimes trembling, but daring still. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1078:Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1079:The Maya created a vibrant and brilliant society that, in the end, failed to adjust to a changing environment and the needs of its people; ~ Douglas Preston, #NFDB
1080:We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1081:You forgive yourself for every failure because you are trying to do the right thing. God knows that and you know it. Nobody else may know it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1082:You're scared of the way I make you feel because you don't want to feel anything. Man up and tell me you don't want me, but don't make excuses. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1083:How we are using up our home, how we are living and polluting the planet is frightening. It was evident when I was a child. It's more evident now. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1084:I had to see you this night. One more time before I say my vows tomorrow. Once spoken, I’ll never break them. I’d not betray my wife or my clan. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1085:Some things are inevitable, Kylie. You and I are inevitable. No matter how much you fight it. NO matter how much you deny it. We are inevitable. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1086:words of a man were meaningless. But actions spoke volumes, and it was always through deeds that the true measure of a man could be ascertained. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1087:Yeah, it's you. It suits you. I wanted something to match your eyes, but I also wanted something that reflected your personality. Your vibrancy. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1088:You might encounter defeats but you must never be defeated... Love a lot. Laugh a lot at the silliest things and be very serious... love life. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1089:As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1090:Boobs,” she mumbled around a second slice of pizza. “Boobs are huge now. I hate it. I feel like I’m incubating aliens and they’re ready to hatch. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1091:Courage - you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn't want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1092:Everybody in the world wants the same thing...to be needed...a job that he/she can do well...to love somebody...Everybody...There's no mystery. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1093:Try, start always at home. This is my encouragement to all writers, start at home. All virtues and vices begin at home, and then spread abroad. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1094:What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1095:You hold your head up. You submitting to me doesn't mean you're anything less...the very last thing I want is for you to be some mindless puppet. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1096:Holy shit,' Ash murmured.
'Oh, it gets worse.'
Ash lifted an eyebrow.
'Yeah, apparently when I decide to be an asshole, I go all the way. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1097:I am convinced that words are things, and we simply don't have the machinery to measure what they are. I believe that words are tangible things. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1098:If we can't face death, we'll never overcome it. You have to look it straight in the eye. Then you can turn around and walk back out into the light. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1099:I've read everything Thomas Wolfe ever wrote; my brother and I memorized whole chapters of 'You Can't Go Home Again' and 'Look Homeward, Angel.' ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1100:Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, "I'm going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that's tough. I am going to snow anyway." ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1101:To be angry is very good. It burns out things and leaves nutrients in the soil. You should always be ready to be angry at injustice and cruelty. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1102:Absolute completeness is not feasible in the finite because it is alien to the self-conception of the finite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Maya, #NFDB
1103:Black women have not historically stood in the pulpit, but that doesn't undermine the fact that they built the churches and maintain the pulpits. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1104:I think throughout my life I've had an appreciation for how all of these things have to come together in order to realize and then sustain change. ~ Maya Harris, #NFDB
1105:I would welcome a friendship with Lynne Hinton. I would welcome an invitation to sit down at her table, but mostly I would welcome her next book. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1106:Looking at someone else’s relationship for the answers was like reading about a romance novel hero and expecting to find a carbon copy in real life ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1107:Love life. Engage in it. Give it all you've got. Love it with a passion because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1108:The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1109:With eyes covered with the film of Maya, you complain that you cannot see God. If you wish to see Him, remove the film of Maya from your eyes. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
1110:I believe that quality level is determined primarily by the actual design of the product itself, not by quality control in the production process. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1111:I need your dominance, your strength. Your control. I need that structure. It centers me. It reminds me that I have a place in this world. With you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1112:Most of all, I want you to know without a doubt that I've got your back. And your front. And your sides. I've got all of you and I'm not letting go. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1113:now I know the power of maya: that which deludes you to be unhappy can be overpowered by another delusion that causes greater unhappiness. Oh ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
1114:Out of the corner of his eye Wycliff saw the little maid’s cheeks turn pink. He’d forgotten how adorably prudish and modest English women could be. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
1115:Some people cannot see a good thing when it is right here, right now. Others can sense a good thing coming when it is days, months, or miles away. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1116:You rose into my life like a promised sunrise, brightening my days with the light in your eyes. I've never been so strong. Now I'm where I belong. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1117:Beneath the skin, beyond the differing features and into the true heart of being, fundamentally, we are more alike, my friend, than we are unalike. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1118:I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I'm a human being, too. And I'm on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1119:Never be afraid to tell me anything,” he whispered against her hair. “No matter how ashamed you might feel. I’ll never judge you, Rachel. I love you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1120:When I try to describe myself to God I say, 'Lord, remember me? Black? Female? Six-foot tall? The writer?' And I almost always get God's attention. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1121:He called after me, “How old am I, Maya?”
I turned. “How the hell should I know? Whatever you’ve told the school, I’m sure it’s a lie anyway. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
1122:I absolutely do believe that we need to not be so myopic. We ought to throw open widely the windows on the world in order to learn more about it. ~ Maya Soetoro Ng, #NFDB
1123:I'm not supposed to be afraid of anything, you know? I'm a confident woman. I own my own business. But he...he makes me want things I've never wanted. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1124:It was a requirement by the veterans to list the 57,000 names. We're reaching a time that we'll acknowledge the individual in a war on a national level. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1125:My hope is that we develop enough courage to develop courage. To try to have, try to learn to treat each other fairly, with generosity and kindness. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1126:Oh no. Hell no. I'm not asking Ma for one of her bras. That's just...wrong."... "Your woman. You do it."..." You go. We'll pay for your therapy later. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1127:Sometimes it was better not to ever live the fantasy. Because when reality descended, it outlined in stark detail just how much the real world sucked. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1128:We spend precious hours fearing the inevitable. It would be wise to use that time adoring our families, cherishing our friends and living our lives. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1129:You may not remember what a person said to you, you may not remember what a person did to you, but you will never forget how a person made you feel! ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1130:I am in any way glorifying or simplifying prostitution. The reality of prostitutes around the world is so complex. I've tried to focus on the humanity. ~ Maya Goded, #NFDB
1131:I don't think modesty is a very good virtue, if it is a virtue at all. A modest person will drop the modesty in a minute. It's a learned affectation. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1132:If it helps you. I forgive you. But i have learned in recent weekd that seeking forgiveness from others is meaningless unless you can forgive yourself. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1133:If you're a human being, you can attempt to do what other human beings have done. We don't understand talent any more than we understand electricity. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1134:...I want a woman completely devoted to me and my needs. In return, I would take care of her and provide for her every need. But I would be in control. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1135:I was probably the first kid in my high school to go to Yale. I applied almost as a lark. Then, when I got there, I was the dumbest person in your class. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1136:Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1137:Lottie tilted her head to one side and looked Maya up and down. "You're a little bit of a thing, but I hear you're good at stirring up big trouble. ~ Sara Humphreys, #NFDB
1138:Real popularity is taking the time to love others, reaching out, and never being afraid to be the first one dancing. REMEMBER THE GIRL IN PEARLS. ~ Maya Van Wagenen, #NFDB
1139:There is something more - the spirit, or the soul. I think that that quality encourages our courtesy and care and our minds. And mercy, and identity. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1140:While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1141:As the cloud covers the sun, so Maya hides the Deity. When the cloud moves away, the sun is seen again; when Maya is removed, God becomes manifest. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
1142:Every morning, after a few sips of coffee and a bit of small talk, each of us retreats with our books, and travels centuries away from this place. ~ Yxta Maya Murray, #NFDB
1143:I never have written every day. When I'm writing a book, I write Monday through Friday. I always try to take Saturday and pretend to have some sanity. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1144:In order to be profoundly dishonest, a person must have one of two qualities: either he is unscrupulously ambitious, or he is unswervingly egocentric. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1145:Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1146:“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor and some style.” ~ ~ Maya Angelou #thriving, #NFDB
1147:Open your eyes to the beauty around you, open your mind to the wonders of life, open your heart to those who love you, and always be true to yourself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1148:She wanted to rock his entire universe. Wanted to firmly implant in his mind that he’d never want to allow another man to touch her—anyone to touch her. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1149:Some lessons you learned by the book. Others you learned from cold hard experience. The latter may not be the best way to learn, but it damn well stuck. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1150:There is an innate innocence in the concious Vata personality. A delicate, sensitive, and aware nature reveals the graceful Vata component of any type. ~ Maya Tiwari, #NFDB
1151:To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1152:First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1153:I like to think of my work as creating a private conversation with each person, no matter how public each work is and no matter how many people are present ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1154:Maya and I are going out for dinner.”
His dad blinked at me, like he hadn’t seen me there. Then he scowled. No awkward joking for me these days. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
1155:Suffering is there because there's something we're not understanding about our full divinity, and there are so many ways we could go into understanding. ~ Maya Tiwari, #NFDB
1156:The American fear of killing a child’s love of learning by drilling her too much does not exist in Singapore, and I suspect this fear is unfounded. ~ Maya Thiagarajan, #NFDB
1157:You'll always be home with me. And home for me is wherever you are. No matter where life takes us, as long as we're together, it's all I'll ever ask for. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1158:I looked at you and knew what was missing in my life. What I wanted in my life. I've never stopped loving you, Ren. I can't make it any simpler than that. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1159:You'll call me Damon. I see no need for dramatic titles. I, on the other hand will call you beautiful, lover, mine. I'll call you mine." (Damon to Serena) ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1160:A lot of my works deal with a passage, which is about time. I don't see anything that I do as a static object in space. It has to exist as a journey in time. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1161:Growing up, I thought I was white. It didn't occur to me I was Asian-American until I was studying abroad in Denmark and there was a little bit of prejudice. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1162:If you are going down a road and don't like what's in front of you, and look behind you and don't like what you see, get off the road. Create a new path! ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1163:I love you Micah. You may not want it. You may not need it. But you'll always have it. It doesn't come with any strings or expectations. It's given freely. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1164:It’s good to have obstacles and difficulties, and to fail and have things not go the way you want. And then have to figure out how to keep moving forward. ~ Maya Forbes, #NFDB
1165:It's so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I've never been much of a measurer. But to write a book, you have to measure everything. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1166:Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows me to survive, and better than that, to thrive with passion, compassion, and style. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1167:She was too well acquainted with the way things work in real life. Real life sucked. But it was real. It was unapologetic. It made no excuses. It just was. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1168:Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence neither speed up nor slow down add to nor diminish it is an imponderably valuable gift. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1169:You’ve given me reason to really live and not just exist anymore. I don’t think you realize just how much you’ve changed me in a very short period of time. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1170:A free power of self-variation must be natural to a consciousness that is infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #NFDB
1171:I’ve made myself as vulnerable as a man can make himself to a woman. It’s the same as if I just handed you a knife and offered you my balls, for God’s sake. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1172:OK, it was black, it was below grade, I was female, Asian American, young, too young to have served. Yet I think none of the opposition in that sense hurt me. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1173:Reality has changed chameleonlike before my eyes so many times that I have learned, or am learning, to trust almost anything except what appears to be so. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1174:The book is a body and your mind will mold to its individual curves much in the way it will to any other lover-- at least, until it buckles beyond us. ~ Yxta Maya Murray, #NFDB
1175:It is imperative that young white men and women study the black American history. It is imperative that blacks and whites study the Asian American history. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1176:It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care, 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1177:Knowledge waits seated beyond mind and intellectual reasoning, throned in the luminous vast of illimitable self-vision. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Maya, #NFDB
1178:She may not be a mighty warrior, but one thing she’d learned after observing her mother, was that if anything could fell a warrior, it was a determined woman ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1179:The sadness of the women's movement is that they don't allow the necessity of love. See, I don't personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1180:We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1181:Won't it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1182:a husband's partiality for his wife got the better of his partiality for Truth. The face of truth is hidden behind the golden veil of maya, says the Upanishad. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1183:He did and said all the right things. Things that went straight to her heart, and worse, they inspired the one thing that she'd given up along time ago. Hope. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1184:I think I know that I deserve better. And so I try for better. I'm never so put off that I would ever walk out of a place not having tried the best I could. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1185:I think the more we know the better we are. I mean not just facts. The more we know about each other, the closer we are to learn something about our selves. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1186:Jade is my everything: my wings, my roots, my sky. I am in love with her.
And she tried to kill me.
Now that is some messed up shit right now. ~ Rochelle Maya Callen,#NFDB
1187:Martin Luther King was a human being with a brilliant mind, a powerful heart, and insight, and courage and also with a sense of humor. So he was accessible. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1188:That's the biggest gift I can give anybody: 'Wake up, be aware of who you are, what you're doing and what you can do to prevent yourself from becoming ill.' ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1189:There are no laws, no boundaries on feelings.We can love each other as much and as deeply as we want.No one, Maya, no one can ever take that away from us. ~ Tabitha Suzuma, #NFDB
1190:Time observation and Time movement are relative, but Time itself is real and eternal. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #NFDB
1191:When you finish college, you don’t suddenly have thousands of dollars a year to spend elsewhere - in fact, you have to find a way to pay back your loans. ~ Maya MacGuineas, #NFDB
1192:You knew she was the one. I mean, the moment you saw her.
Yeah. Kind of a cross between an 'I'm fucked' and a being struck by lightning sort of thing. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1193:Can you be happy here, lass?” She smiled and turned her gaze to the beautiful land covered in green and budding flowers. “I am happy wherever you are, husband. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1194:Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1195:My goal is to strip things down so that you need just the right amount of words or shape to convey what you need to convey. I like editing. I like it very tight. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1196:The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1197:Eating is so intimate. It's very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you're inviting a person into your life. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1198:If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you will look forward, do so prayerfully. But the wisest course would be to be present in the present gratefully. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1199:I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way (s)he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1200:The world is entering another dark age. After 1985, the Maya will be so thick that it will be difficult to advance spiritually without a strong foundation. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1201:Those of us who submitted or surrendered our ideas and dreams and identities to the 'leaders' must take back our rights, our identities, our responsibilities. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1202:Human beings love poetry. They don't even know it sometimes... whether they're the songs of Bono, or the songs of Justin Bieber... they're listening to poetry. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1203:I do not think of myself as unusually creative. I think we all come from the creator, each human being streaming with the glory. So each one of us is creative. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1204:Modesty is a learned affectation. It's no good. Humility is great, because humility says, 'There was someone before me. I'm following in somebody's footsteps.' ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1205:Our stories come from our lives and from the playwright's pen, the mind of the actor, the roles we create, the artistry of life itself and the quest for peace. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1206:Steele was in typical form. What she wouldn’t give to shake him up. Just once. She wondered if anything ever ruffled him. Caught him off guard. Or surprised him. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1207:The more we are cleansed of conflicts, all sorts of conflicts, the easier it is for us to use our energy in a way that attracts the immutable healing of it all. ~ Maya Tiwari, #NFDB
1208:Doesn’t matter,” he said solemnly. “Men as a species are wrong. We’re better off admitting it up front, taking our punishment and then hoping for good makeup sex. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1209:I can't apologize for reacting the way I did, but I can guarantee you it will happen again. You seem to have the knack for getting under my skin like no one else. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1210:What was it about this woman that inspired such an overwhelming response in him? Maybe he'd never know. Maybe this was what happened when you met your other half. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1211:You think I hate you, but that's not true, Rusty, and if you ever actually lowered your hackles around me you'd realize that I only want to make sure you're safe. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1212:I know I’m asking a lot, but I need for you to be able to ignore me when I’m pissed and saying shit that hurts you. I’ll try like hell not to do it, but I know me. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1213:I think a number of the leaders are, whether you like it or not, in the hip-hop generation. And when they understand enough, they'll do wonders. I count on them. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1214:You really need to love something or someone in order to work hard enough to be very successful. You have to believe in something and have a certain optimism. ~ Maya Soetoro Ng, #NFDB
1215:I'm tempted to shove one of my romance novels up your ass"- P.J. said sharply
"But I love my books too much to desecrate them like that. I'll settle for my boot. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1216:Mind is Maya, sat-asat: there is a field of embrace of the true and the false, the existent and the non-existent, ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Master of the Work, #NFDB
1217:You should be having more fun in high school, exploring things because you want to explore them and learning because you love learning-not worrying about competition. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1218:As Maya Angelou, American author, poet, and self-described Renaissance Woman, wrote, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. ~ L R Knost, #NFDB
1219:Difficult is a far cry from impossible. The distance between these two lies hope. Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Invite one to stay. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1220:I had very few friends. We always ate dinner with our parents. We didn't want to go out. American adolescence was a lot wilder than I would have felt comfortable with. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1221:I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” —Maya Angelou Anthony ~ Aleatha Romig, #NFDB
1222:I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1223:The caged bird sings with a fearful trill, of things unknown, but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1224:Eyes,” he snapped. “On me, Mia. Always on me. You don’t come with your eyes closed. I want to see everything you have when I’m inside you. You don’t ever shut me out. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1225:Had I not had my grandmother, who dared to be my rainbow in the clouds, I would have been just another sexually abused barefoot black girl on the roads of Arkansas. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1226:I want to be aware of how I treat others, not thinking too highly of myself to be a servant in a culture which tries to place me on a throne that only God should sit. ~ Maya Moore, #NFDB
1227:I was a rebel and I wanted to do something that nobody else did, and nobody else played the cello. Also, I was also a small kid and I liked the fact that it was big. ~ Maya Beiser, #NFDB
1228:Mostly, what I have learned so far about aging, despite the creakiness of one's bones and cragginess of one's once-silken skin, is this: Do it. By all means, do it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1229:She was Maya’s kid. Little Maya. He hadn’t thought of her in years. She’d betrayed him, betrayed the family, when she’d run away to America with her sailor man. ~ Lynn Raye Harris, #NFDB
1230:When I'm writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1231:Having courage does not mean that we are unafraid. Having courage and showing courage mean we face our fears. We are able to say, 'I have fallen, but I will get up.' ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1232:I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me, 'I love you.' ... There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1233:The difference between charity and philanthropy is the distance of the soul... To be philanthropic is to give something, to be charitable is to give one's own heart. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1234:I do not trust people who don't love themselves and yet tell me, 'I love you.' There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1235:If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1236:I'm the man who loves you more than anyone else will ever love you. I'm the man who wants to be with you and will do everything I can to keep you from every being hurt. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1237:In the immortal words of Maya Angelou … people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will
never forget how you made them feel. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1238:I probably have fundamentally antisocial tendencies. I never took one extracurricular activity. I just failed utterly at that level. Part of me still rebels against that. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1239:The nice thing about HOPE is that you can give it to someone else, someone who needs it even more than you do, and you will find you have not given yours away at all. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1240:You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, the encountering may be the very experience which creates the vitality and the power to endure. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1241:Before the spread of alphabetic writing, systems making much use of logograms were more common and included Egyptian hieroglyphs, Maya glyphs, and Sumerian cuneiform. ~ Jared Diamond, #NFDB
1242:Have you ever been torn between two impossibilities and knew in your heart that no matter which way you went or which path you chose that you were doomed to unhappiness? ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1243:I'm just saying it's not time for that either. We need to focus and having Maya moon over Rafe is making everyone uncomfortable." Rafe grinned. "Doesn't bother me. ~ Kelley Armstrong, #NFDB
1244:The world is intertwined and we therefore have to be gentle in the way that we treat one another and the Earth, so that our impact on others is benevolent and good. ~ Maya Soetoro Ng, #NFDB
1245:We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1246:You’re going to have time to get bored, Maya. Take advantage of it to write down the monumental stupidities you’ve committed, see if you can come to grips with them, ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
1247:Caelen?”
“Aye, lass?”
“You were right.”
“What was I right about?”
“Kissing. ’Tis a most wondrous thing.”
She could sense his smile. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1248:He was a simple man who had no inferiority complex about his lack of education, and even more amazing no superiority complex because he had succeeded despite that lack. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1249:I want him to burn for me, to not be able to go a day without touching me, holding me, caressing me. He’ll be an excellent lover. I want a man who knows how to please me, ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1250:Jealousy in romance is like salt in food. A little can enhance the savor, but too much can spoil the pleasure and, under certain circumstances, can be life-threatening. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1251:Not everything you do is going to be a masterpiece, but you get art there and you try and sometimes it really happens. The other times you’re just stretching your soul. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1252:se había emocionado muchísimo cuando le regaló un lector nuevo —la última versión— además de una colección entera digital de sus libros favoritos ya metidos en el lector. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1253:You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. Please remember that your difficulties do not define you. They simply strengthen your ability to overcome. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1254:I believe everything is energy. I believe that the meal you serve yourself, you prepare, is energy. And if you serve it to your family, it's your gift of energy to them. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1255:I need help," she said breathlessly. "Can you zip me up?"
"This has got to qualify me for sainthood," Silas muttered. "A man can only take so much, for fuck's sake. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1256:Yes, Alex. You. That's what I want."
"I'm kind of hating that we're on the phone right now."
"Really?"
"That's a throw-you-over-my-shoulder thing to say, Maya. ~ Erin Nicholas,#NFDB
1257:All forces are to us invisible,—but they are not invisible to the spiritual vision of the Infinite. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #NFDB
1258:He sees in all things strangely fashioned here
The unwelcome jest of a deceiving Force,
A parable of Maya and her might. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Godheads of the Little Life,#NFDB
1259:Hillary [Clinton] has a really broad approach to engaging people around policy precisely because she understands that there are so many different dimensions to each issue. ~ Maya Harris, #NFDB
1260:If creativity is about connecting the dots, you need to have solid dots in the first place or you will have nothing to connect. So a grasp of the basics is necessary. ~ Maya Thiagarajan, #NFDB
1261:If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1262:I'm just saying it's not time for that either. We need to focus and having Maya moon over Rafe is making everyone uncomfortable."
Rafe grinned. "Doesn't bother me. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
1263:Laugh as often as possible. You must. Because the world will offer you every reason to weep. So as often as possible, you laugh. That, I think, is part of the Great Love. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1264:My favorite film is "Meshes in the Afternoon," a short avant garde film directed by Maya Deren. This was the first film that I saw that was actually directed by a woman. ~ Chris Hegedus, #NFDB
1265:You can't forgive without loving. And I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, 'I forgive. I'm finished with it.' ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1266:Your eyes are green, too,” she muttered.
Alaric’s scowl turned into a look of concern.
“Are you sure you didn’t suffer a blow
to the head you didn’t tell me about? ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1267:You’ve found out something else. Something about you, not me.”
“Does your new bag of tricks include mind reading?”
He laughed. “Only when it comes to you, Maya. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
1268:A Woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1269:GIRISH: "If a man is so strongly tied hand and foot, then what is his way?"
MASTER: "He has nothing to fear if God Himself, as the guru, cuts the chain of maya." ~ Sri Ramakrishna,#NFDB
1270:know, Maya.” “Thank you, Ryan. Namaste.” She touched his cheek, feeling happy tears burning her eyes. She had never in a million years thought things would happen this way. ~ Selena Kitt, #NFDB
1271:Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1272:There is a place in you that you must keep inviolate, a place that you must keep clean. A place where you say to any intruder, "Back up, don't you know I'm a child of God. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1273:We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1274:Betty's lesson is much deeper than I ever expected:I wanted popularity; I wanted other people to like me. But it turns out most people are wanting to be discovered too. ~ Maya Van Wagenen, #NFDB
1275:I can’t be Pollyanna all the time. There is a certain risk in what we do. We have the power to make someone’s dream come true, but we also have the power to crush it forever. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1276:If I wanted to write, I had to be willing to develop a kind of concentration found mostly in people awaiting execution. I had to learn technique and surrender my ignorance. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1277:I'm a religious woman. And I feel I have responsibility. I have no modesty at all. I'm even afraid of it - it's a learned affectation and it's just stuck on me like decals. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1278:I think you know I want you, Josie. I certainly haven't made it a secret. But you also need to think about all I would take. I take a lot. I give more, but I take everything. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1279:It's amazing. I can do anything. And do it well. Any good thing, I can do it. That's why I am who I am, yes, because God loves me and I'm amazed at it. I'm grateful for it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1280:One song bled into another and they remained locked together, neither willing to break the intimacy that surrounded them, concealing them in the small space the two occupied. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1281:So maybe my need of you is greater than your need of me. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do everything in my power to make you need me every bit as much as I need you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1282:There was a multitude of sexual scenarios, from a
simple one-on-one couple fucking like bunnies to an
outright orgy with no less than eight people joined like
LEGOs. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1283:We agreed that great men and women should be forced to live as long as possible. The reverence they enjoyed was a life sentence, which they could neither revoke nor modify. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1284:You can't control everything. You can't control how someone feels about you. Or what makes them tick. You can only control how you react, how you act, how you think and feel. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1285:And in spite of herself, Maya sniffed the Christmassy scent of them, and felt her spirits rise. “Smells good, doesn’t it?” Caleb asked. “Smells like a memory in the making, ~ Maggie Shayne, #NFDB
1286:As the water of the ocean is now calm and next agitated into waves, so are Brahman and Maya. The ocean in the tranquil state is Brahman, and in the turbulent state, Maya. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
1287:At the moment you're suffering from what we call Maya. Maya is illusion. Maya is a Sanskrit word that suggests that we have forgotten. We've forgotten the purpose of life. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1288:Remember, Maya: the things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life. ~ Gabrielle Zevin, #NFDB
1289:Ritie, don't worry 'cause you ain't pretty. Plenty pretty women I seen digging ditches or worse. You smart. I swear to God, I rather you have a good mind than a cute behind. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1290:There is a lot of ignorance, and I don't mean intellectual ignorance. I mean people think that if you get something, it will take away from what I have. It's just ignorance. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1291:There were worse things than death, as she'd discovered. Sometimes living took far more courage. Facing another day. Enduring. Those things took strength. Far more than dying. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1292:The witness silence of the Spirit is there in the very grain of all the voices and workings of Nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #NFDB
1293:When I was building the Vietnam Memorial, I never once asked the veterans what it was like in the war, because from my point of view, you don't pry into other people's business. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1294:I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning I found sand in my shoe and a seashell in my pocket. Was I only dreaming? ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1295:I read the Bible to myself; I'll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1296:It's very painful to love someone who is wrestling with either an addiction or a mental illness because you want the best for them. And it seems so hard, and it's frustrating. ~ Maya Forbes, #NFDB
1297:The people I know who suffer from mental illness, sometimes they do connect you to what it is to be really human. There's a vulnerability there, there's something very potent. ~ Maya Forbes, #NFDB
1298:Bold words, befitting the mistress of the Montgomery clan,” Graeme said in approval. “Come, wife. Let’s go home. I have a need to show my lass just how much her laird loves her. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1299:I do like to have guns around. I don't like to carry them. But I like - if somebody is going to come into my house and I have not put out the welcome mat, I want to stop them. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1300:I know people for whom the search for how to be well has been a positive journey. It's empowering to face your issues and try and take care of yourself. It can be positive too. ~ Maya Forbes, #NFDB
1301:I left science, then I went into art, but I approach things very analytically. I choose to pursue both art and architecture as completely separate fields rather than merging them. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1302:The only two places you stand on receiving lines are funerals and weddings. There was probably something poignant in that fact, but Maya couldn’t imagine what it could be. She ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
1303:There's no doubt you balance me, Maren. I have fun when I'm with you and you make me laugh. You give that to me. That makes you very special and what you offer me very precious. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1304:You can't use up creativity, creative thinking builds on itself and increases the creativity of the thinker...You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1305:Callie was his. He’d made mistakes. Mistakes that had cost them both more than he could ever imagine. But she was his, and he had every intention of reasserting his claim on her. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1306:Got one,” P.J. called. “Motherfucker is ball-less and singing soprano.”
“Jesus, that woman is vicious,” Joe muttered.
“That’s our girl,” Renshaw called back smugly. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1307:I always say I'm no different than a 19th-century landscape painter, it's just that we have these incredible tools to look at the Earth and look at the world around us differently. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1308:I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Micah said.
“I’ve already stopped looking,” Damon said quietly. “It’s kind of hard to look for something you’ve stopped believing in. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1309:I really enjoyed hanging out with some of the teachers. This one chemistry teacher, she liked hanging out. I liked making explosives. We would stay after school and blow things up. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1310:Sikhs are warriors, she remembered telling a very young Maya, whose eyes glowed with this knowledge, frightening Kulwinder. ‘But girls must act like girls,’ she had added. ~ Balli Kaur Jaswal, #NFDB
1311:There is an amazing something in the American psyche which speaks about courage, and it says, 'Yes I can,' ... Yes, we will overcome it all because we have the spirit to do so. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1312:You can only accomplish what I really love. Do not take the money as a goal. Instead, pursue the things you passionate about, and do good to others can not take my eyes off you ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1313:Try to be all you can be to be the best human being you can be. Try to be that in your church, in your temple. Try to be that in your classroom. Do it because it is right to do. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1314:You need people who are shaping and advocating for the actual policies and structural changes that need to occur in order to address those issues. That's where the politics and t ~ Maya Harris, #NFDB
1315:Dear Maya,
Life is an illusion.
And as it turns out, so is death.
What is real?
What remains when we all fade away?
Two things: Love. Forgiveness.
Don't forget ~ Cathy Ostlere,#NFDB
1316:If it is true that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, isn't it also true a society is only as healthy as its sickest citizen and only as wealthy as its most deprived? ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1317:If we live long enough, we may even get over war. I imagine a time when somebody will mention the word war and everyone in the room will start to laugh. And what do you mean war? ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1318:In this world of Maya, which is averse to the Lord, full of trials and tribulations, only patience, humility and respect for others are our friends for Hari bhajana. ~ Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, #NFDB
1319:I think that the notion of justice and the issues and values that I understood growing up and [have] continued to embrace throughout my life and into my career have been the same. ~ Maya Harris, #NFDB
1320:It would be pretty impossible for us to separate our personal and professional lives, because so much of what we do comes from how we were raised and what we share and who we are. ~ Maya Harris, #NFDB
1321:Strong women- precious jewels all- their humanness is evident in their accessibility. We are able to enter into the spirit of these women and rejoice in their warmth and courage. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1322:The breezes of the West African night were intimate and shy, licking the hair, sweeping through cotton dresses with unseemly intimacy, then disappearing into the utter blackness. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1323:The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints identified the Maya as one of the lost tribes of Israel, the Lamanites, as chronicled in The Book of Mormon, published in 1830. ~ Douglas Preston, #NFDB
1324:The truth is you never can leave home. You take it with you everywhere you go. It's under your skin. It moves the tongue or slows it, colors the thinking, impedes upon the logic. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1325:They say he’s something of a Romeo.”
“Romeo?” I sputtered a laugh. “Seriously?”
“You know what I mean, Maya. He likes girls.”
“Which, all things considered, is good. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
1326:I love you,” she whispered. “I told myself I wouldn’t make it hard, that I’d never breathe those words. But ’tis harder for me to go without saying them. I need to give them to you. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1327:I started studying what the nature of a monument is and what a monument should be. And for the World War III memorial I designed a futile, almost terrifying passage that ends nowhere. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1328:Bad things happen to good people all the time. It sucks. It's not fair but then much of life isn't fair. It's how you live that matters. It's how you deal with the bumps in the road. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1329:Don't let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don't whine. You can be brought low, that's OK, but don't be reduced by them. Just say, 'That's life.' ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1330:Of all the subjects I have photographed, the most controversial and the one that has moved me the most has to be the prostitutes who are getting on in years. They are true survivors. ~ Maya Goded, #NFDB
1331:Sometimes, a society can see its end approaching from afar and still not be able to adapt, like the Maya; at other times, the curtain drops without warning and the show is over. ~ Douglas Preston, #NFDB
1332:There are some nights when sleep plays coy, aloof and disdainful. And all the wiles that I employ to win its service to my side are useless as wounded pride, and much more painful. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1333:At what point in her life had she decided she didn’t deserve better than this?
It was a startling discovery. The blinders had come off.
Why was she putting up with this? ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1334:I believe in living a poetic life, an art full life. Everything we do from the way we raise our children to the way we welcome our friends is part of a large canvas we are creating. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1335:Never run out on me again. No matter what happens, you stay and fight. Yell at me, argue, throw something at me, whatever you want to do, but never walk away from me. Promise me that. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1336:The Master used to say, 'Don't jump into the ocean of Maya, for you may be eaten up by sharks and crocodiles.' But why should you worry? You have the Master with you. ~ Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, #NFDB
1337:You have to deal with what you encounter. But you must not be reduced. And so a way not to be reduced is don't whine! Don't let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1338:You’ve got some kind of hold over her, and I don’t like it.”
Rafe leaned over and whispered. “It’s a love spell I picked up from a witch over in Nanaimo. But don’t tell Maya. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
1339:I know that when I pray, something wonderful happens. Not just to the person or persons for whom I'm praying, but also something wonderful happens to me. I'm grateful that I'm heard. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1340:It’s always been what I am. And let me tell you this right now. If this is what you want. If this is what you need. Then I’m going to be the only damn man you offer your submission to. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1341:Maya dice que nada desaparece para siempre, que incluso las paredes conservan los pensamientos y las acciones de lo que ocurre en su interior. Todo
queda grabado, capa sobre capa. ~ Rani Manicka,#NFDB
1342:She sat down on the bed next to Crispen,
and he snuggled into the crook of her arm.
“I’m getting you dirty,” he whispered.
“I don’t care.”
“What are we going to do, Mairin? ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1343:There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside yo.
—Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks On the Road
(NOT Maya Angelou, NOT I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) ~ Zora Neale Hurston,#NFDB
1344:Am I the only one around here who thinks Maya has a hidden Y chromosome?” Hayley said.
“If she does, she’s hiding it pretty good,” Corey said, giving me a lascivious once-over. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
1345:I know that you that you may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. If you accept that you have been defeated, you give power to the force that is trying to defeat you. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1346:My intention has been to encourage viewers to face their prejudices about prostitution, sex and aging while reflecting on the complex and varied forms that love and loneliness can take. ~ Maya Goded, #NFDB
1347:The laird wasn’t uppermost on her mind
this morning. Sleep was.
Another giggle raced around the room,
and Mairin realized that once again, she’d
given voice to her thoughts. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1348:The left-hand path adept seeks to liberate him/herself from passive subjection to the illusory nature of Maya, thus freeing the consciousness from the binds of self-created delusion. ~ Zeena Schreck, #NFDB
1349:And one of my absolute favorite quotes of all-time, one that I've adopted as one of my greatest life mottos: Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: "I'm with you kid. Let's go." ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1350:That's what you want to do? Then nothing beats a trial but a failure. Give it everything you've got. I've told you many times, 'Cant do is like Dont Care.' Neither of them have a home. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1351:The mystery of things is the true truth of things; the intellectual presentation is only truth in representation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #NFDB
1352:I am a very religious person, so it is the presence of God, the constant unwavering, unrelenting presence of God which continues to help me to keep a character which I am proud to show. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1353:I am never proud to participate in violence, yet I know that each of us must care enough for ourselves that we can be ready and able to come to our own defence when and wherever needed. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1354:She looked angelic in sleep, dark lashes resting against pale cheeks. Her blond hair was tousled and in disarray and spread out. Over his pillow. He frowned. She'd even stolen his pillow. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1355:The dream is so thick; the Maya is so thick. There's no magic as long as there's all this thought. So the first condition for the practice of higher magic is the stopping of thought. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1356:Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented. So, to be bodacious enough to invent ourselves is wise. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1357:Even though I build buildings and I pursue my architecture, I pursue it as an artist. I deliberately keep a tiny studio. I don't want to be an architectural firm. I want to remain an artist. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1358:Fact: Eileen had brought that nanny cam into her house. Maya tried to let that go, but the suspicion buzzed in her ear. She could quiet it, but it wouldn’t go away, not completely. “What ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
1359:I'm getting the impression that women, in any form, scare you."
He shrugged. "They're the more violent species. And unpredictable. I'd rather take on a wild boar. You can't shoot women. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1360:So did I hear right?” he said. “Race to the top? Winner gets a kiss?”
“Maya’s done seven climbs in a row,” Daniel said. “You can race me.”
“But I don’t want to kiss you. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
1361:That’s my cat,” Dindi said. “Don’t chase him off, he might get lost.” “He terrified my chipmunk!” “I’m sure he meant no harm,” Dindi said. “He just wanted to eat an arm or two. Maybe a leg. ~ Tara Maya, #NFDB
1362:When people see the laughing face, even if they're jealous of it, their burden is lightened. But do it first for yourself. Laugh and dare to try to love somebody, starting with yourself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1363:Architecture is like a mythical fantastic. It has to be experienced. It can't be described. We can draw it up and we can make models of it, but it can only be experienced as a complete whole. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1364:I'm a positive thinker and actor. I look at a glass; a negative person sees the glass and says: too bad it's half empty... I look at the same glass and say: Hallelujah!! It's half full!!! ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1365:We can be better, we can be wiser, we can be more kind. Yes we have to change. We have to grow up and stop acting like 10 years old. Yes there is much to do, much to see, much to go into. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1366:If the budget that you're talking about isn't a good one, then it's better not to pass a budget. Most people in the country will never notice whether we pass a budget resolution or not. ~ Maya MacGuineas, #NFDB
1367:Our librarian, Ms. Corbeil, is one of a kind. She welcomes all Social Outcasts and talks to us like we’re adults and worthy of her attention, something many of us don’t get very often. ~ Maya Van Wagenen, #NFDB
1368:The guru is a tremendous tradition because is a guide, it's a guide to life, and we can guide energetically, we can guide in our thought, we can have a prayer that travels wonderful things. ~ Maya Tiwari, #NFDB
1369:When teachers or people in authority put me down or in one way or another tried to make me feel less than equal to what they thought I should be - my mother was on my side. It was amazing. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1370:Every day. I have to show you every day what you'll mean to me. That's on me. And we'll get there. This-- you-- are important to me. I'm going to make sure you know that at all times.' -- Ash ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1371:Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn't accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else's insistence or someone else's whim or convenience. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1372:I deliberately did not read anything about the Vietnam War because I felt the politics of the war eclipsed what happened to the veterans. The politics were irrelevant to what this memorial was. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1373:I'm happy to be a writer - of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn't a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1374:I'm considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I've never been bored in my life. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1375:"She is the great illusionist, the seductress, who draws him into life with her Maya- and not only into life's reasonable and useful aspects, but into its frightful paradoxes and ambivalences." ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1376:She said nothing the entire time she was with you? Let nothing slip? Think, Alaric. The had to have said something. It simply isn't a woman's nature to be silent for prolonged periods of time. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1377:When you do nothing you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1378:You care for my daughter.”
“My love for her is stronger than my hatred of you. ’Tis why I’ll not raise arms against you today. Instead I ask your aid in the battle against the McHughs. ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1379:Each of us has a responsibility for being alive: one responsibility to creation, of which we are a part, another to the creator a debt we repay by trying to extend our areas of comprehension. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1380:Her curiosity would be the end of them both. “Chess. They are playing chess,” he said, his voice oddly husky. “Chess? I think you meant chest. Yes, he has his hand on her chest,” she murmured. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
1381:I'm a serious aficionada of country music - Reba McEntire, Toby Keith, Montgomery Gentry. I've even written some songs. They haven't done anything of mine yet. But it's only a matter of time. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1382:Maya wrapped one leg around him, writhing against him as she threaded her fingers through his hair and held him to her, urging him on.
"Never stop touching me that way," Maya rasped. ~ Sara Humphreys,#NFDB
1383:There's something beautiful about the fact that Obama was not just elected, but elected decisively across racial, and socio-economic and cultural groups and that we all celebrated in his win. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1384:What gets frustrating for some people is the fact that you might get very high, but you find yourself pulled down again. There are forces of illusion or maya that cause us to make mistakes. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1385:When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, 'Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so can I.' ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1386:You have to have a government that does give both money and energy to function in a leadership role modeling giving for the people. Government is supposed to lead by example in many cases. ~ Maya Soetoro Ng, #NFDB
1387:I love you, Eveline," he whispered, though he knew she could not hear him. "Somehow, I'll make you hear me and you'll know that I love you as fiercely as it's possible for a man to love a woman. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1388:I'm grateful to be an American. I am grateful that we can be angry at the terrorist assault and at the same time be intelligent enough not to hold a grudge against every Arab and every Muslim. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1389:Sunday, if I'm lucky, I'll go to church or listen to some good spiritual advice on the television or on the radio. I take three or four baths to try to cleanse myself, so I'm fresh for Monday. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1390:The world expresses a foreseen Truth, obeys a predetermining Will, realises an original formative self-vision,—it is the growing image of a divine creation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Divine Maya, #NFDB
1391:As soon as you know the voice and understand what it is, the whole scene changes. The same world which was the ghastly battlefield of maya is now changed into something good and beautiful. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1392:Growing up at my grandmother's table, she always had rice. She might do something as exotic as potatoes or spaghetti, but there was still always rice, just in case you needed a little rice fix. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1393:Human beings are more alike than unalike, and what is true anywhere is true everywhere, yet I encourage travel to as many destinations as possible for the sake of education as well as pleasure. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1394:I try to live what I consider a "poetic existence." That means I take responsibility for the air I breathe and the space I take up. I try to be immediate, to be totally present for all my work. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1395:Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, Into your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1396:It is important that we learn humility, which says there was someone else before me who paid for me. My responsibility is to prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who is yet to come. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1397:Once you appreciate one of your blessings, one of your senses, your sense of hearing, then you begin to respect the sense of seeing and touching and tasting, you learn to respect all the senses. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1398:The Divine is formless and nameless, but by that very reason capable of manifesting all possible names and shapes of being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #NFDB
1399:Vulnerability, like he had the power to hurt
her or pleasure her in a way no other man
could. For the first time, he was uncomfortable with the idea of having complete power over her ~ Maya Banks,#NFDB
1400:An artist fights to retain the integrity of a work so that it remains a strong, clear vision. Art is and should be the act of an individual willing to say something new, something not quite familiar. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1401:But the truth was far deeper. The truth was every single color in a rainbow spectrum, and Maya didn’t have the words to say what she felt. So she didn’t say anything. It was just easier that way. ~ Robin Benway, #NFDB
1402:Get away from me, you sick fuck!"
"I'm not the one who kidnapped you, so save it. Either you want the water and aspirin or you can eat shit and die, your choice."
Lyonette groaned. "Maya. ~ Dot Hutchison,#NFDB
1403:I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1404:If we are honest and fair, then we are known by that. If we are not, alas, we are known by that as well. What we want to do is do right, but you have to say it, you have to show it, and not stop. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1405:In the Gita, maya becomes the creative power of the Godhead, the primal creative energy that makes unity appear as the world of innumerable separate things with “name and form.” Later ~ Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa, #NFDB
1406:My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1407:Now, after years of observation and enough courage to admit what I have observed, I try to plant peace if I do not want discord; to plant loyalty and honesty if I want to avoid betrayal and lies. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1408:The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1409:We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1410:All my work, my life, everything I do is about survival, not just bare, awful, plodding survival, but survival with grace and faith. While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1411:I believe what I have to say is important, and I believe the people coming to hear me are important, and so the occasion of itself alone has an importance, which forces me to stare down my nerves. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1412:Once upon a time, when she still believed that somewhere, out there, was a man who would love her. Once upon a time, when young girl’s dreams came true and happily ever after was just within reach. ~ Maya Rodale, #NFDB
1413:When it looks like the sun isn't going to shine any more, God puts a rainbow in the clouds. Each one of us has the possibility, the responsibility, the probability to be the rainbow in the clouds. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1414:When you make a movie, it's a movie, and things change based on who you put in the movie. And so it's, you know, obviously not exactly your life, but I feel that I did learn a lot about my parents. ~ Maya Forbes, #NFDB
1415:Anyone of us can be a rainbow in somebody's clouds. I want the University of Cincinnati to be a rainbow in the clouds. The University of Cincinnati is really a possibility of hope; it is a rainbow. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1416:In art or architecture your project is only done when you say it's done. If you want to rip it apart at the eleventh hour and start all over again, you never finish. I was one of those crazy creatures. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1417:It is better to control oneself, if one can, and not hit back. But on certain occasions, it is imperative to defend oneself. I don't think it's fair to ask anybody not to defend herself or himself. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1418:Jesus,” he muttered. “The world’s most beautiful woman thinks I’m beautiful and I’m telling her we can’t get involved. I either need my head examined or need to make sure my balls are still attached. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1419:To me it meant, just looking at it from a Maya point of view, it meant that Paul Miles is always moving laterally in his life. And she just wants him to take a couple of steps forward, you know? ~ Virginia Madsen, #NFDB
1420:He found himself playing the love-sick fool vying for a crumb of attention or approval from Genevieve. Anything to make her smile. Make her happy. He'd give her the damn moon if that was what it took. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1421:I like to go back and read poems that I wrote fifty years ago, twenty years ago, and sometimes they surprise me - I didn't know I knew that then. Or maybe I didn't know it then, and I know more now. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1422:Let us live so we do not regret years of inertia and ignorance, so when we die we can say all of our energy was dedicated to the noble liberation of the human mind and spirit, beginning with my own. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1423:No popularity exists when tragedy strikes. All that's left are human hearts and love and ache. We all love each other, deep down, and when we see another soul in pain we can't help but hurt too. ~ Maya Van Wagenen, #NFDB
1424:One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1425:She very nearly reached for his hand, but curled her fingers into a fist instead. He wouldn’t appreciate her pity, and how did you pity a man who’d survived hell? You didn’t pity him. You admired him. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1426:We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay - and rise! ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1427:Dean, Maya’s just a little girl. She has a lot of energy and needs,” his mother went on. “We just can’t give that to her. You’re young and Silver Bell Falls is a wonderful place for her to grow up. ~ Samantha Chase, #NFDB
1428:Hope for the best, be prepared for the worse. Life is shocking, but you must never appear to be shocked. For no matter how bad it is it could be worse and no matter how good it is it could be better. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1429:I care, I really fucking care, but it is out of my control. I can’t stay away and even if she wanted me to, which she doesn’t, I’d still show up at her door every chance I get. Maya is mine now. Mine. ~ Ember Chase, #NFDB
1430:I have a feeling that I make a very good friend, and I'm a good mother, and a good sister, and a good citizen. I am involved in life itself - all of it. And I have a lot of energy and a lot of nerve. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1431:In a long meter hymn, a singer - they call it 'lays out a line.' And then the whole church joins in in repeating that line. And they form a wall of harmony so tight, you can't wedge a pin between it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1432:Twas such a useless thing. And so unnecessary. Many had suffered for the actions of a few. Wasn't that always the way of things? The collective suffered for the actions of an inept, ineffectual leader. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1433:I know that I'm not the easiest person to live with. The challenge I put on myself is so great that the person I live with feels himself challenged. I bring a lot to bear, and I don't know how not to. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1434:-[...] No puedes controlarlo todo. No puedes controlar lo que una persona siente por ti, o lo que les hace enfadarse. Sólo puedes controlar cómo tú reaccionas, cómo tú actúas, cómo piensas o te sientes. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1435:For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1436:I am an English major in school with an emphasis in creative writing. I think hearing Maya Angelou speak at school last year was one of the best moments Stanford, at least, intellectually, had to offer. ~ Fred Savage, #NFDB
1437:I begin by imagining an artwork verbally. I try to describe in writing what the project is, what it is trying to do. I need to understand the artwork without giving it a specific materiality or solid form. ~ Maya Lin, #NFDB
1438:The first diagnostic question follows from the late writer Maya Angelou’s assertion that “at the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel. ~ Robert I Sutton, #NFDB
1439:You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1440:I have been exploring [Mexico City's] La Merced, [a public market famous for prostitution,] on and off for the last 23 years. The prostitutes and their world have been the main subjects of my photographs. ~ Maya Goded, #NFDB
1441:I'm very blessed that I have a healthy temper. I can become quite angry and burning in anger, but I have never been bitter. Bitterness is a corrosive, terrible acid. It just eats you and makes you sick. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1442:When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. People know themselves much better than you do. That's why it's important to stop expecting them to be something other than who they are ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1443:Genevieve burst into laughter and hugged him fiercely, because otherwise she would cry. Not because she was unhappy but because joy crowded every inch of her heart and soul. She was about to burst with it. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1444:(Sam) "We need to focus and having Maya moon over Rafe us making everyone uncomfortable."
Rafe grinned. "Doesn't bother me."
"Because your ego really needs the encouragement." ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
1445:Was he demanding? Hell yes, but he wasn’t selfish. He took. He was ruthless in his demands. But he gave her back so much. Not just materially but emotionally, though he’d likely deny he did any such thing. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1446:What stands out to me most about Maya Angelou is not what she has done or written or spoken; it's how she lived her life. She moved through the world with unshakable calm, confidence and a fierce grace. ~ Oprah Winfrey, #NFDB
1447:You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1448:Adam laughed. “Son, in time you’ll understand that every man has to have a girly conversation with his woman whether he wants to or not. His survival depends on his willingness to accept it with good grace. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1449:alien to him, gripped him by the balls, freezing his insides. He rubbed at his chest in an effort to alleviate the discomfort and closed his eyes, trying to rid himself of the images the threat had invoked. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1450:Education is a process that goes on 'til death. The moment you see someone who knows she has found the one true way, and can call all the others false, then you know you're in the company of an ignoramus. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1451:I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and I rose. I didn't run away - I rose right where I'd been knocked down. And then that's how you get to know yourself. You say, hmm, I can get up! ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1452:I do not need to know all things. I remind myself that it is sufficient that I know what I know and know that without believing that I will always know what I know or that what I know will always be true. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1453:I love you,” he said fiercely. “ ’Tis not true that I kept a part of my heart locked away from you. You own all of it, lass. You’ve always owned it. I didn’t give it to you. You took it from the very start. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1454:One of the problems we have as writers is we don't take ourselves seriously while writing; being serious is setting aside a time and saying if it comes, good; if it doesn't come, good, I'll just sit here. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1455:And if a person is religious, I think it's good, it helps you a bit. But if you're not, at least you can have the sense that there is a condition inside you which looks at the stars with amazement and awe. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1456:I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.
(Popular misquote of "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.") ~ Maya Angelou,#NFDB
1457:Love liberates. Love - not sentimentality, not mush - but true love gives you enough courage that you can say to somebody, "Don't do that, baby." And the person will know you're not preaching but teaching. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1458:My people had used music to soothe slavery's torment or to propitiate God, or to describe the sweetness of love and the distress of lovelessness, but I knew no race could sing and dance its way to freedom. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1459:Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1460:We cry in our own rooms, remembering a man who will never be here again.The house creaks. Maybe it feels the weight of our grief, maybe the floorboards are buckling because the burden is too heavy. ~ Rochelle Maya Callen, #NFDB
1461:We really are 15 countries, and it's remarkable that each of us thinks we represent the real America. The Midwesterner in Kansas, the black American in Durham - both are certain they are the real American. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1462:You may be pretty or plain, heavy or thin, gay or straight, poor or rich. But remember this: In an election, every voice is equally powerful -- don't underestimate your vote. Voting is the great equalizer. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1463:Being a parent has become incredibly important to me. I never knew how much I would be altered by my children. I would like to be remembered by them in much the way I remember my mom: as loving and kind. ~ Maya Soetoro Ng, #NFDB
1464:Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1465:I love you, Cole. I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like you were second best or that I didn't love you or that God forbid, you were a substitute for Lucas and that any man could give me what I want and need. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1466:Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1467:Lying, thinkingLast nightHow to find my soul a homeWhere water is not thirstyAnd bread loaf is not stoneI came up with one thingAnd I don't believe I'm wrongThat nobody,But nobodyCan make it out here alone. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1468:The task of cinema or any other art form is not to translate hidden messages of the unconscious soul into art but to experiment with the effects contemporary technical devices have on nerves, minds, or souls. ~ Maya Deren, #NFDB
1469:We will sometimes have defeats in life but you can have defeats without being defeated, you could fail without being a failure. When you see failure and defeats as merely part of the process to get to when. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1470:I'm really saddened by the attempts to separate and polarize. This is a time when we have hungry people, people out of work, and people out of spirit. This is a time where we need to uplift, not to separate. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1471:I thought, "why don't we be innovative and create something nobody had ever done before?" It was a huge hit and we immediately did a sequel with Chris Rock, Morgan Freeman, Tina Turner and Maya Angelou. ~ Henry Louis Gates, #NFDB
1472:Never forget that family is the most important thing. No matter how far your life takes you away, your family is always here. And if you’re nothing else in this world, you’re a Kelly, and that makes you loved. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1473:You can't be consistently fair, consistently generous, consistently just, or consistently merciful. You can be anything erratically, but to be that thing time after time after time, you have to have courage. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1474:As a nurse, we have the opportunity to heal the heart, mind, soul and body of our patients, their families and ourselves. They may not remember your name but they will never forget the way you made them feel. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1475:I never expected anyone to take care of me, but in my wildest dreams and juvenile yearnings, I wanted the house with the picket fence from June Allyson movies. I knew that was yearning like one yearns to fly. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1476:It was the problem with creating a web of lies and deceit. It spiraled out of control until it took on a life of its own, and she was helpless to correct it. In too deep. She’d been trapped by her own solution. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1477:want your obedience. I expect it—no, I demand it. I don’t relish nor will I enjoy the idea of punishing you. So if you seek to bait me so that you enjoy the thrill of discipline, you’re sure to be disappointed. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1478:Home is a refuge not only from the world, but a refuge from my worries, my troubles, my concerns. I like beautiful things around me. I like to be beautiful because it delights my eyes and my soul is lifted up. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1479:If you think my hard-on has nothing to do with you, then you’re deluded.” Her mouth gaped open as he pushed past her and stalked from the room. “Ooo-kay,” she murmured. Not what she’d expected him to say at all. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1480:It's good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for awhile their ignorances, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1481:A glacier rattles in the cupboard, the desert sighs in the bed, and the crack in the teacup opens a door to the land of the dead. The Maya call this Xibalba (Shibalba), the road to the dimension of the dead. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1482:I decided that I wanted to explore all kinds of music with my cello, not just the Western classical tradition. I just wanted to try and expand my vocabulary and bring that different kind of music to my audience. ~ Maya Beiser, #NFDB
1483:Like most Maya rulers, Chak Tok Ich’aak spent a lot of his time luxuriating in his court while dwarf servants attended to his whims and musicians played conch shells and wooden trumpets in the background. But ~ Charles C Mann, #NFDB
1484:O Mother, I pray only that I may have pure love for Thy Lotus Feet, love that seeks no return. And Mother, do not delude me with Thy world-bewitching maya. I seek Thy protection. I have taken refuge in Thee. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
1485:She touched a part of him he’d thought was inaccessible. A part that had been jealously guarded for years. And she’d gotten there with no effort whatsoever. She’d walked into his life and heart like she belonged. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1486:Ayurveda is not just about nutrition or herbology, it has a unique tool for diagnosis, diagnosis of understanding the human constitution is different from person to person. Each one has a unique metabolic system. ~ Maya Tiwari, #NFDB
1487:He kissed her as though he were starved for her. Like he'd been held away from her and had finally broken free. It was the kind of kiss that lived only in her fantasies. No one had ever made her feel so..consumed. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1488:I couldn't help smiling back. Maya had decided opinions and didn't keep them to herself. "Jones had his chance, and he blew it. There's an old Navajo
saying that I think applies here: 'You snooze, you lose.' ~ Allyson James,#NFDB
1489:Men love a submissive woman, Damon said simply. Even when they say the don't. There's just something about a beautiful, soft woman looking to them to protect and take care of them that inspires a man to greatness. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1490:My biggest challenge was moving from photography to film without losing my way of working - which is very intimate and learning to collaborate with more people, since photography for me is a very solitary process. ~ Maya Goded, #NFDB
1491:Happiness is a chance to talk to a friend, to hear good music, to have a good glass of wine. Happiness is a chance to be myself and to find people with whom I agree or who I don't agree but I can learn something. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1492:If somebody is really trying to take your head off with a baseball bat - I don't know how long you're supposed to stand there and turn the other cheek, so he or she can get a better angle at taking your head off. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1493:If you have done the best you can do and if you have gotten all you could extract from something, you have given all you had to give, then the time has come when you can do no more than say thank you and move on. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1494:I married a man once and we had been married over a year before I found he preferred potatoes. I said, "I didn't know you loved potatoes." And he said that until he was about 13, he thought rice was potato seeds. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1495:When we cast our bread upon the waters we can presume that someone downstream whose face we will never know will benefit from our action, as we who are downstream from another will profit from the grantor's gift. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1496:Maya is a veil of the Absolute;
A Truth occult has made this mighty world:
The Eternal’s wisdom and self-knowledge act
In ignorant Mind and in the body’s steps. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Dream Twilight of the Ideal,#NFDB
1497:Most men bought a flashy sports car, had an affair or hooked up with a girl barely out of school in their midlife crisis. Apparently he did bizarre things like fall in love and throw away a multimillion-dollar deal. ~ Maya Banks, #NFDB
1498:All of us knows, not what is expedient, not what is going to make us popular, not what the policy is, or the company policy - but in truth each of us knows what is the right thing to do. And that's how I am guided. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1499:In all the institutions I try to be present and accountable for all I do and leave undone. I know that eventually I shall have to be present and accountable n the presence of God. I do not wish to be found wanting. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
1500:Love builds up the broken wall and straightens the crooked path. Love keeps the stars in the firmament and imposes rhythm on the ocean tides. Each of us is created of it and I suspect each of us was created for it. ~ Maya Angelou, #NFDB
99 Integral Yoga
29 Yoga
14 Poetry
6 Mysticism
5 Occultism
4 Psychology
4 Philosophy
2 Sufism
2 Hinduism
1 Thelema
1 Integral Theory
1 Fiction
1 Christianity
145 Sri Aurobindo
45 Nolini Kanta Gupta
24 Sri Ramakrishna
11 The Mother
10 A B Purani
5 Sri Ramana Maharshi
5 Satprem
4 Rabindranath Tagore
4 Carl Jung
3 Swami Vivekananda
3 George Van Vrekhem
2 Vyasa
2 Swami Krishnananda
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Kabir
2 Aleister Crowley
32 The Synthesis Of Yoga
25 The Life Divine
23 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
14 Essays On The Gita
10 Talks
10 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
9 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
8 Letters On Yoga II
8 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
7 Isha Upanishad
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
6 Letters On Yoga IV
6 Letters On Yoga I
6 Essays Divine And Human
6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
5 The Secret Of The Veda
5 The Secret Doctrine
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
4 Tagore - Poems
4 Savitri
4 Record of Yoga
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
3 Preparing for the Miraculous
2 Vishnu Purana
2 Vedic and Philological Studies
2 The Study and Practice of Yoga
2 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
2 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
2 Songs of Kabir
2 Questions And Answers 1956
2 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
2 Kena and Other Upanishads
2 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
2 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The third in the line of ascension is the region of Varuna and the Adityas, that is to say, of the large Mind and its lightsperhaps it can be connected with Tantric Ajnachakra. The fourth is the domain of Soma and the Marutsthis seems to be the inner heart, the fount of delight and keen and sweeping aspirations the Anahata of the Tantras. The fifth is the region of the crown of the head, the domain of Brahma and the Sadhyas: it is the Overmind status from where comes the descending inflatus, the creative Maya of Brahma. And when you go beyond, you pass into the ultimate status of the Sun, the reality absolute, the Transcendent which is indescribable, unseizable, indeterminate, indeterminable, incommensurable; and once there, one never returns, neverna ca punarvartate na ca punarvartate.
VIII. How Many Gods?
--
The third boon is the secret of secrets, for it is the knowledge and realisation of Transcendence that is sought here. Beyond the individual lies the universal; is there anything beyond the universal? The release of the individual into the cosmic existence gives him the griefless life eternal: can the cosmos be rolled up and flung into something beyond? What would be the nature of that thing? What is there outside creation, outside manifestation, outside Maya, to use a latter day term? Is there existence or non-existence (utter dissolution or extinctionDeath in his supreme and absolute status)? King Yama did not choose to answer immediately and even endeavoured to dissuade Nachiketas from pursuing the question over which people were confounded, as he said. Evidently it was a much discussed problem in those days. Buddha was asked the same question and he evaded it, saying that the pragmatic man should attend to practical and immediate realities and not, waste time and energy in discussing things ultimate and beyond that have hardly any relation to the present and the actual.
But Yama did answer and unveil the mystery and impart the supreme secret knowledge the knowledge of the Transcendent Brahman: it is out of the transcendent reality that the immanent deity takes his birth. Hence the Divine Fire, the Lord of creation and the Inner Mastersarvabhtntartm, antarymis called brahmajam, born of the Brahman. Yama teaches the process of transcendence. Apart from the knowledge and experience first of the individual and then of the cosmic Brahman, there is a definite line along which the human consciousness (or unconsciousness, as it is at present) is to ascend and evolve. The first step is to learn to distinguish between the Good and the Pleasurable (reya and preya). The line of pleasure leads to the external, the superficial, the false: while the other path leads towards the inner and the higher truth. So the second step is the gradual withdrawal of the consciousness from the physical and the sensual and even the mental preoccupation and focussing it upon what is certain and permanent. In the midst of the death-ridden consciousness in the heart of all that is unstable and fleetingone has to look for Agni, the eternal godhead, the Immortal in mortality, the Timeless in time through whom lies the passage to Immortality beyond Time.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
KALI AND Maya
TOTAPURI'S LESSON
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According to the Tantra, the Ultimate Reality is Chit, or Consciousness, which is identical with Sat, or Being, and with Ananda, or Bliss. This Ultimate Reality, Satchidananda, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute, is identical with the Reality preached in the Vedas. And man is identical with this Reality; but under the influence of Maya, or illusion, he has forgotten his true nature. He takes to be real a merely apparent world of subject and object, and this error is the cause of his bondage and suffering. The goal of spiritual discipline is the rediscovery of his true identity with the divine Reality.
For the achievement of this goal the Vedanta prescribes an austere negative method of discrimination and renunciation, which can be followed by only a few individuals endowed with sharp intelligence and unshakable will-power. But Tantra takes into consideration the natural weakness of human beings, their lower appetites, and their love for the concrete. It combines philosophy with rituals, meditation with ceremonies, renunciation with enjoyment. The underlying purpose is gradually to train the aspirant to meditate on his identity with the Ultimate.
--
He saw in a vision the Ultimate Cause of the universe as a huge luminous triangle giving birth every moment to an infinite number of worlds. He heard the Anahata Sabda, the great sound Om, of which the innumerable sounds of the universe are only so many echoes. He acquired the eight supernatural powers of yoga, which make a man almost omnipotent, and these he spurned as of no value whatsoever to the Spirit. He had a vision of the divine Maya, the inscrutable Power of God, by which the universe is created and sustained, and into which it is finally absorbed. In this vision he saw a woman of exquisite beauty, about to become a mother, emerging from the Ganges and slowly approaching the Panchavati. Presently she gave birth to a child and began to nurse it tenderly. A moment later she assumed a terrible aspect, seized the child with her grim jaws, and crushed it. Swallowing it, she re-entered the waters of the Ganges.
But the most remarkable experience during this period was the awakening of the Kundalini Sakti, the "Serpent Power". He actually saw the Power, at first lying asleep at the bottom of the spinal column, then waking up and ascending along the mystic Sushumna canal and through its six centres, or lotuses, to the Sahasrara, the thousand-petalled lotus in the top of the head. He further saw that as the Kundalini went upward the different lotuses bloomed. And this phenomenon was accompanied by visions and trances. Later on he described to his disciples and devotees the various movements of the Kundalini: the fishlike, birdlike, monkeylike, and so on. The awaken- ing of the Kundalini is the beginning of spiritual consciousness, and its union with Siva in the Sahasrara, ending in samadhi, is the consummation of the Tantrik disciplines.
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Totapuri was the bearer of a philosophy new to Sri Ramakrishna, the non-dualistic Vedanta philosophy, whose conclusions Totapuri had experienced in his own life. This ancient Hindu system designates the Ultimate Reality as Brahman, also described as Satchidananda, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Brahman is the only Real Existence. In It there is no time, no space, no causality, no multiplicity. But through Maya, Its inscrutable Power, time, space, and causality are created and the One appears to break into the many. The eternal Spirit appears as a manifold of individuals endowed with form and subject to the conditions of time. The Immortal becomes a victim of birth and death. The Changeless undergoes change. The sinless Pure Soul, hypnotized by Its own Maya, experiences the joys of heaven and the pains of hell. But these experiences based on the duality of the subject-object relationship are unreal. Even the vision of a Personal God
is, ultimately speaking, as illusory as the experience of any other object. Man attains his liberation, therefore, by piercing the veil of Maya and rediscovering his total identity with Brahman. Knowing himself to be one with the Universal Spirit, he realizes ineffable Peace. Only then does he go beyond the fiction of birth and death; only then does he become immortal. 'And this is the ultimate goal of all religions — to dehypnotize the soul now hypnotized by its own ignorance.
The path of the Vedantic discipline is the path of negation, "neti", in which, by stern determination, all that is unreal is both negated and renounced. It is the path of jnana, knowledge, the direct method of realizing the Absolute. After the negation of everything relative, including the discriminating ego itself, the aspirant merges in the One without a Second, in the bliss of nirvikalpa samadhi, where subject and object are alike dissolved. The soul goes beyond the realm of thought. The domain of duality is transcended. Maya is left behind with all its changes and modifications. The Real Man towers above the delusions of creation, preservation, and destruction. An avalanche of indescribable Bliss sweeps away all relative ideas of pain and pleasure, good and evil. There shines in the heart the glory of the Eternal Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Knower, knowledge, and known are dissolved in the Ocean of one eternal Consciousness; love, lover, and beloved merge in the unbounded Sea of supreme Felicity; birth, growth, and death vanish in infinite Existence. All doubts and misgivings are quelled for ever; the oscillations of the mind are stopped; the momentum of past actions is exhausted. Breaking down the ridge-pole of the tabernacle in which the soul has made its abode for untold ages, stilling the body, calming the mind, drowning the ego, the sweet joy of Brahman wells up in that superconscious state. Space disappears into nothingness, time is swallowed in eternity, and causation becomes a dream of the past. Only Existence is. Ah! Who can describe what the soul then feels in its communion with the Self?
Even when man descends from this dizzy height, he is devoid of ideas of "I" and "mine"; he looks on the body as a mere shadow, an outer sheath encasing the soul. He does not dwell on the past, takes no thought for the future, and looks with indifference on the present. He surveys everything in the world with an eye of equality; he is no longer touched by the infinite variety of phenomena; he no longer reacts to pleasure and pain. He remains unmoved whether he — that is to say, his body — is worshipped by the good or tormented by the wicked; for he realizes that it is the one Brahman that manifests Itself through everything. The impact of such an experience devastates the body and mind. Consciousness becomes blasted, as it were, with an excess of Light. In the Vedanta books it is said that after the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi the body drops off like a dry leaf. Only those who are born with a special mission for the world can return
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"Brahman", he said, "is the only Reality, ever pure, ever illumined, ever free, beyond the limits of time, space, and causation. Though apparently divided by names and forms through the inscrutable power of Maya, that enchantress who makes the impossible possible, Brahman is really One and undivided. When a seeker merges in the beatitude of samadhi, he does not perceive time and space or name and form, the offspring of Maya. Whatever is within the domain of Maya is unreal. Give it up. Destroy the prison-house of name and form and rush out of it with the strength of a lion. Dive deep in search of the Self and realize It through samadhi. You will find the world of name and form vanishing into void, and the puny ego dissolving in Brahman-Consciousness. You will realize your identity with Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute." Quoting the Upanishad, Totapuri said: "That knowledge is shallow by which one sees or hears or knows another
. What is shallow is worthless and can never give real felicity. But the Knowledge by which one does not see another or hear another or know another, which is beyond duality, is great, and through such Knowledge one attains the Infinite Bliss. How can the mind and senses grasp That which shines in the heart of all as the Eternal Subject?"
--
Totapuri had no idea of the struggles of ordinary men in the toils of passion and desire. Having maintained all through life the guilelessness of a child, he laughed at the idea of a man's being led astray by the senses. He was convinced that the world was Maya and had only to be denounced to vanish for ever. A born non-dualist, he had no faith in a Personal God. He did not believe in the terrible aspect of Kali, much less in Her benign aspect. Music and the chanting of God's holy name were to him only so much nonsense. He ridiculed the spending of emotion on the worship of a Personal God.
--- KALI AND Maya
Sri Ramakrishna, on the other hand, though fully aware, like his guru, that the world is an illusory appearance, instead of slighting Maya, like an orthodox monist, acknowledged its power in the relative life. He was all love and reverence for Maya, perceiving in it a mysterious and majestic expression of Divinity. To him Maya itself was God, for everything was God. It was one of the faces of Brahman. What he had realized on the heights of the transcendental plane, he also found here below, everywhere about him, under the mysterious garb of names and forms. And this garb was a perfectly transparent sheath, through which he recognized the glory of the Divine Immanence. Maya, the mighty weaver of the garb, is none other than Kali, the Divine Mother. She is the primordial Divine Energy, Sakti, and She can no more be distinguished from the Supreme Brahman than can the power of burning be distinguished from fire. She projects the world and again withdraws it. She spins it as the spider spins its web. She is the Mother of the Universe, identical with the Brahman of Vedanta, and with the Atman of Yoga. As eternal Lawgiver, She makes and unmakes laws; it is by Her imperious will that karma yields its fruit. She ensnares men with illusion and again releases them from bondage with a look of Her benign eyes. She is the supreme Mistress of the cosmic play, and all objects, animate and inanimate, dance by Her will. Even those who realize the Absolute in nirvikalpa samadhi are under Her jurisdiction as long as they still live on the relative plane.
Thus, after nirvikalpa samadhi, Sri Ramakrishna realized Maya in an altogether new role. The binding aspect of Kali vanished from before his vision. She no longer obscured his understanding. The world became the glorious manifestation of the Divine Mother. Maya became Brahman. The Transcendental Itself broke through the Immanent. Sri Ramakrishna discovered that Maya operates in the relative world in two ways, and he termed these "avidya Maya" and "vidya Maya". Avidya Maya represents the dark forces of creation: sensuous desires, evil passions, greed, lust, cruelty, and so on. It sustains the world system on the lower planes. It is responsible for the round of man's birth and death. It must be fought and vanquished. But vidya Maya is the higher force of creation: the spiritual virtues, the enlightening qualities, kindness, purity, love, devotion. Vidya Maya elevates man to the higher planes of consciousness. With the help of vidya Maya the devotee rids himself of avidya Maya; he then becomes Mayatita, free of Maya. The two aspects of Maya are the two forces of creation, the two powers of Kali; and She stands beyond them both. She is like the effulgent sun, bringing into existence and shining through and standing behind the clouds of different colours and shapes, conjuring up wonderful forms in the blue autumn heaven.
The Divine Mother asked Sri Ramakrishna not to be lost in the featureless Absolute but to remain, in bhavamukha, on the threshold of relative consciousness, the border line between the Absolute and the Relative. He was to keep himself at the "sixth centre" of Tantra, from which he could see not only the glory of the seventh, but also the divine manifestations of the Kundalini in the lower centres. He gently oscillated back and forth across the dividing line. Ecstatic devotion to the Divine Mother alternated with serene absorption in the Ocean of Absolute Unity. He thus bridged the gulf between the Personal and the Impersonal, the immanent and the transcendent aspects of Reality. This is a unique experience in the recorded spiritual history of the world.
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From Sri Ramakrishna Totapuri had to learn the significance of Kali, the Great Fact of the relative world, and of Maya, Her indescribable Power.
One day, when guru and disciple were engaged in an animated discussion about Vedanta, a servant of the temple garden came there and took a coal from the sacred fire that had been lighted by the great ascetic. He wanted it to light his tobacco. Totapuri flew into a rage and was about to beat the man. Sri Ramakrishna rocked with laughter. "What a shame!" he cried. "You are explaining to me the reality of Brahman and the illusoriness of the world; yet now you have so far forgotten yourself as to be about to beat a man in a fit of passion. The power of Maya is indeed inscrutable!" Totapuri was embarrassed.
About this time Totapuri was suddenly laid up with a severe attack of dysentery. On account of this miserable illness he found it impossible to meditate. One night the pain became excruciating. He could no longer concentrate on Brahman. The body stood in the way. He became incensed with its demands. A free soul, he did not at all care for the body. So he determined to drown it in the Ganges. Thereupon he walked into the river. But, lo! He walks to the other bank." (This version of the incident is taken from the biography of Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Saradananda, one of the Master's direct disciples.) Is there not enough water in the Ganges? Standing dumbfounded on the other bank he looks back across the water. The trees, the temples, the houses, are silhouetted against the sky. Suddenly, in one dazzling moment, he sees on all sides the presence of the Divine Mother. She is in everything; She is everything. She is in the water; She is on land. She is the body; She is the mind. She is pain; She is comfort. She is knowledge; She is ignorance. She is life; She is death. She is everything that one sees, hears, or imagines. She turns "yea" into "nay", and "nay" into "yea". Without Her grace no embodied being can go beyond Her realm. Man has no free will. He is not even free to die. Yet, again, beyond the body and mind She resides in Her Transcendental, Absolute aspect. She is the Brahman that Totapuri had been worshipping all his life.
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"When I think of the Supreme Being as inactive — neither creating nor preserving nor destroying —, I call Him Brahman or Purusha, the Impersonal God. When I think of Him as active — creating, preserving, and destroying —, I call Him Sakti or Maya or Prakriti, the Personal God. But the distinction between them does not mean a difference. The Personal and the Impersonal are the same thing, like milk and its whiteness, the diamond and its lustre, the snake and its wriggling motion. It is impossible to conceive of the one without the other. The Divine Mother and Brahman are one."
After the departure of Totapuri, Sri Ramakrishna remained for six months in a state of absolute identity with Brahman. "For six months at a stretch", he said, "I remained in that state from which ordinary men can never return; generally the body falls off, after three weeks, like a sere leaf. I was not conscious of day and night. Flies would enter my mouth and nostrils just as they do a dead body's, but I did not feel them. My hair became matted with dust."
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
it, appears difficult; but this is a glamour cast by Maya. It is a compendium
of
--
But all this is a glamour cast by Maya; the real meaning of the prose of this
chapter is as follows:
--
But all this is again only a glamour of Maya, as previously observed in the
text (Chapter 31). All this is true and false, and it is true and false to say
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But in order that we may be wisely guided in our effort, we must know, first, the general principle and purpose underlying this separative impulse and, next, the particular utilities upon which the method of each school of Yoga is founded. For the general principle we must interrogate the universal workings of Nature herself, recognising in her no merely specious and illusive activity of a distorting Maya, but the cosmic energy and working of God Himself in His universal being formulating and inspired by a vast, an infinite and yet a minutely selective
Wisdom, prajna prasr.ta puran. of the Upanishad, Wisdom that went forth from the Eternal since the beginning. For the particular utilities we must cast a penetrative eye on the different methods of Yoga and distinguish among the mass of their details the governing idea which they serve and the radical force which gives birth and energy to their processes of effectuation.
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But the initial illusory consciousness of the Overmind need not at all lead to the static Brahmic consciousness or Sunyam alone. As a matter of fact, there is in this particular processes of consciousness a hiatus between the two, between Maya and Brahman, as though one has to leap from the one into the other somehow. This hiatus is filled up in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga by the principle of Supermind, not synthetic-analytic2 in knowledge like Overmind and the highest mental intelligence, but inescapably unitarian even in the utmost diversity. Supermind is the Truth-consciousness at once static and dynamic, self-existent and creative: in Supermind the Brahmic consciousness Sachchidanandais ever self-aware and ever manifested and embodied in fundamental truth-powers and truth-forms for the play of creation; it is the plane where the One breaks out into the Many and the Many still remain one, being and knowing themselves to be but various self-expressions of the One; it develops the spiritual archetypes, the divine names and forms of all individualisations of an evolving existence.
SRI AUROBINDO
01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, it would be interesting to compare and contrast the Eastern and Western approach to Divine Love, the Christian and the Vaishnava, for example. Indian spirituality, whatever its outer form or credal formulation, has always a background of utter unity. This unity, again, is threefold or triune and is expressed in those great Upanishadic phrases,mahvkyas,(1) the transcendental unity: the One alone exists, there is nothing else than theOneekamevdvityam; (2) the cosmic unity: all existence is one, whatever exists is that One, thereare no separate existences:sarvam khalvidam brahma neha nnsti kincaa; (3) That One is I, you too are that One:so' ham, tattvamasi; this may be called the individual unity. As I have said, all spiritual experiences in India, of whatever school or line, take for granted or are fundamentally based upon this sense of absolute unity or identity. Schools of dualism or pluralism, who do not apparently admit in their tenets this extreme monism, are still permeated in many ways with that sense and in some form or other take cognizance of the truth of it. The Christian doctrine too says indeed, 'I and my Father in Heaven are one', but this is not identity, but union; besides, the human soul is not admitted into this identity, nor the world soul. The world, we have seen, according to the Christian discipline has to be altogether abandoned, negatived, as we go inward and upward towards our spiritual status reflecting the divine image in the divine company. It is a complete rejection, a cutting off and casting away of world and life. One extreme Vedantic path seems to follow a similar line, but there it is not really rejection, but a resolution, not the rejection of what is totally foreign and extraneous, but a resolution of the external into its inner and inmost substance, of the effect into its original cause. Brahman is in the world, Brahman is the world: the world has unrolled itself out of the Brahmansi, pravttiit has to be rolled back into its, cause and substance if it is to regain its pure nature (that is the process of nivitti). Likewise, the individual being in the world, "I", is the transcendent being itself and when it withdraws, it withdraws itself and the whole world with it and merges into the Absolute. Even the Maya of the Mayavadin, although it is viewed as something not inherent in Brahman but superimposed upon Brahman, still, has been accepted as a peculiar power of Brahman itself. The Christian doctrine keeps the individual being separate practically, as an associate or at the most as an image of God. The love for one's neighbour, charity, which the Christian discipline enjoins is one's love for one's kind, because of affinity of nature and quality: it does not dissolve the two into an integral unity and absolute identity, where we love because we are one, because we are the One. The highest culmination of love, the very basis of love, according to the Indian conception, is a transcendence of love, love trans-muted into Bliss. The Upanishad says, where one has become the utter unity, who loves whom? To explain further our point, we take two examples referred to in the book we are considering. The true Christian, it is said, loves the sinner too, he is permitted to dislike sin, for he has to reject it, but he must separate from sin the sinner and love him. Why? Because the sinner too can change and become his brother in spirit, one loves the sinner because there is the possibility of his changing and becoming a true Christian. It is why the orthodox Christian, even such an enlightened and holy person as this mediaeval Canon, considers the non-Christian, the non-baptised as impure and potentially and fundamentally sinners. That is also why the Church, the physical organisation, is worshipped as Christ's very body and outside the Church lies the pagan world which has neither religion nor true spirituality nor salvation. Of course, all this may be symbolic and it is symbolic in a sense. If Christianity is taken to mean true spirituality, and the Church is equated with the collective embodiment of that spirituality, all that is claimed on their behalf stands justified. But that is an ideal, a hypothetical standpoint and can hardly be borne out by facts. However, to come back to our subject, let us ow take the second example. Of Christ himself, it is said, he not only did not dislike or had any aversion for Judas, but that he positively loved the traitor with a true and sincere love. He knew that the man would betray him and even when he was betraying and had betrayed, the Son of Man continued to love him. It was no make-believe or sham or pretence. It was genuine, as genuine as anything can be. Now, why did he love his enemy? Because, it is said, the enemy is suffered by God to do the misdeed: he has been allowed to test the faith of the faithful, he too has his utility, he too is God's servant. And who knows even a Judas would not change in the end? Many who come to scoff do remain to pray. But it can be asked, 'Does God love Satan too in the same way?' The Indian conception which is basically Vedantic is different. There is only one reality, one truth which is viewed differently. Whether a thing is considered good or evil or neutral, essentially and truly, it is that One and nothing else. God's own self is everywhere and the sage makes no difference between the Brahmin and the cow and the elephant. It is his own self he finds in every person and every objectsarvabhtsthitam yo mm bhajati ekatvamsthitah"he has taken his stand upon oneness and loves Me in all beings."2
This will elucidate another point of difference between the Christian's and the Vaishnava's love of God, for both are characterised by an extreme intensity and sweetness and exquisiteness of that divine feeling. This Christian's, however, is the union of the soul in its absolute purity and simplicity and "privacy" with her lord and master; the soul is shred here of all earthly vesture and goes innocent and naked into the embrace of her Beloved. The Vaishnava feeling is richer and seems to possess more amplitude; it is more concrete and less ethereal. The Vaishnava in his passionate yearning seeks to carry as it were the whole world with him to his Lord: for he sees and feels Him not only in the inmost chamber of his soul, but meets Him also in and I through his senses and in and through the world and its objects around. In psychological terms one can say that the Christian realisation, at its very source, is that of the inmost soul, what we call the "psychic being" pure and simple, referred to in the book we are considering; as: "His sweet privy voice... stirreth thine heart full stilly." Whereas the Vaishnava reaches out to his Lord with his outer heart too aflame with passion; not only his inmost being but his vital being also seeks the Divine. This bears upon the occult story of man's spiritual evolution upon earth. The Divine Grace descends from the highest into the deepest and from the deepest to the outer ranges of human nature, so that the whole of it may be illumined and transformed and one day man can embody in his earthly life the integral manifestation of God, the perfect Epiphany. Each religion, each line of spiritual discipline takes up one limb of manone level or mode of his being and consciousness purifies it and suffuses it with the spiritual and divine consciousness, so that in the end the whole of man, in his integral living, is recast and remoulded: each discipline is in charge of one thread as it were, all together weave the warp and woof in the evolution of the perfect pattern of a spiritualised and divinised humanity.
01.10 - Principle and Personality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The world is full of ikons and archons; we cannot escape them, even if we try the world itself being a great ikon and as great an archon. Those who swear by principles, swear always by some personality or other, if not by a living creature then by a lifeless book, if not by Religion then by Science, if not by the East then by the West, if not by Buddha or Christ then by Bentham or Voltaire. Only they do it unwittingly they change one set of personalities for another and believe they have rejected them all. The veils of Maya are a thousand-fold tangle and you think you have entirely escaped her when you have only run away from one fold to fall into another. The wise do not attempt to reject and negate Maya, but consciously accept herfreedom lies in a knowing affirmation. So we too have accepted and affirmed an icon, but we have done it consciously and knowingly; we are not bound by our idol, we see the truth of it, and we serve and utilise it as best as we may.
***
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
However, coming to historical times, we see wave after wave of the most heterogeneous and disparate elementsSakas and Huns and Greeks, each bringing its quota of exotic materialenter into the oceanic Indian life and culture, lose their separate foreign identity and become part and parcel of the common whole. Even so,a single unitary body was formed out of such varied and shifting materialsnot in the political, but in a socio-religious sense. For a catholic religious spirit, not being solely doctrinal and personal, admitted and embraced in its supple and wide texture almost an infinite variety of approaches to the Divine, of forms and norms of apprehending the Beyond. It has been called Hinduism: it is a vast synthesis of multiple affiliations. It expresses the characteristic genius of India and hence Hinduism and Indianism came to be looked upon as synonymous terms. And the same could be defined also as Vedic religion and culture, for its invariable basis the bed-rock on which it stood firm and erectwas the Vedas, the Knowledge seen by the sages. But there had already risen a voice of dissidence and discord that of Buddha, not so much, perhaps, of Buddha as of Buddhism. The Buddhistic enlightenment and discipline did not admit the supreme authority of the Vedas; it sought other bases of truth and reality. It was a great denial; and it meant and worked for a vital schism. The denial of the Vedas by itself, perhaps, would not be serious, but it became so, as it was symptomatic of a deeper divergence. Denying the Vedas, the Buddhistic spirit denied life. It was quite a new thing in the Indian consciousness and spiritual discipline. And it left such a stamp there that even today it stands as the dominant character of the Indian outlook. However, India's synthetic genius rose to the occasion and knew how to bridge the chasm, close up the fissure, and present again a body whole and entire. Buddha became one of the Avataras: the discipline of Nirvana and Maya was reserved as the last duty to be performed at the end of life, as the culmination of a full-length span of action and achievement; the way to Moksha lay through Dharma and Artha and Kama, Sannyasa had to be built upon Brahmacharya and Garhasthya. The integral ideal was epitomized by Kalidasa in his famous lines about the character of the Raghus:
They devoted themselves to study in their boyhood, in youth they pursued the objects of life; when old they took to spiritual austerities, and in the end they died united with the higher consciousness.
--
And still this was not the lastit could not be the lastanti thesis that had to be synthetized. The dialectical movement led to a more serious and fiercer contradiction. The Buddhistic schism was after all a division brought about from within: it could be said that the two terms of the antinomy belonged to the same genus and were commensurable. The idea or experience of Asat and Maya was not unknown to the Upanishads, only it had not there the exclusive stress which the later developments gave it. Hence quite a different, an altogether foreign body was imported into what was or had come to be a homogeneous entity, and in a considerable mass.
Unlike the previous irruptions that merged and were lost in the general life and consciousness, Islam entered as a leaven that maintained its integrity and revolutionized Indian life and culture by infusing into its tone a Semitic accent. After the Islamic impact India could not be what she was beforea change became inevitable even in the major note. It was a psychological cataclysm almost on a par with the geological one that formed her body; but the spirit behind which created the body was working automatically, inexorably towards the greater and more difficult synthesis demanded by the situation. Only the thing is to be done now consciously, not through an unconscious process of laissez-faire as on the inferior stages of evolution in the past. And that is the true genesis of the present conflict.
History abounds in instances of racial and cultural immixture. Indeed, all major human groupings of today are invariably composite formations. Excepting, perhaps, some primitiveaboriginal tribes there are no pure races existent. The Briton, the Dane, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Norman have combined to form the British; a Frenchman has a Gaul, a Roman, a Frank in him; and a Spaniard's blood would show an Iberian, a Latin, a Gothic, a Moorish element in it. And much more than a people, a culture in modern times has been a veritable cockpit of multifarious and even incongruous elements. There are instances also in which a perfect fusion could not be accomplished, and one element had to be rejected or crushed out. The complete disappearance of the Aztecs and Mayas in South America, the decadence of the Red Indians in North America, of the Negroes in Africa as a result of a fierce clash with European peoples and European culture illustrate the point.
Nature, on the whole, has solved the problem of blood fusion and mental fusion of different peoples, although on a smaller scale. India today presents the problem on a larger scale and on a higher or deeper level. The demand is for a spiritual fusion and unity. Strange to say, although the Spirit is the true bed-rock of unitysince, at bottom, it means identityit is on this plane that mankind has not yet been able to really meet and coalesce. India's genius has been precisely working in the line of a perfect solution of this supreme problem.
0 1962-07-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The old way of yoga failed to bring about the harmony or unity of Spirit and life: it instead dismissed the world as Maya [Illusion] or a transient Play. The result has been loss of life-power and the degeneration of India. As was said in the Gita, These peoples would perish if I did not do worksthese peoples of India have truly gone down to ruin. A few sannyasins and bairagis [renunciants] to be saintly and perfect and liberated, a few bhaktas [lovers of God] to dance in a mad ecstasy of love and sweet emotion and Ananda [Bliss], and a whole race to become lifeless, void of intelligence, sunk in deep tamas [inertia]is this the effect of true spirituality? No, we must first attain all the partial experiences possible on the mental level and flood the mind with spiritual delight and illumine it with spiritual light, but afterwards we must rise above. If we cannot rise above, to the supramental level, that is, it is hardly possible to know the worlds final secret and the problem it raises remains unsolved. There, the ignorance which creates a duality of opposition between the Spirit and Matter, between truth of spirit and truth of life, disappears. There one need no longer call the world Maya. The world is the eternal Play of God, the eternal manifestation of the Self. Then it becomes possible to fully know and fully realize Godto do what is said in the Gita, To know Me integrally. The physical body, the life, the mind and understanding, the supermind and the Ananda these are the spirits five levels. The higher man rises on this ascent the nearer he comes to the state of that highest perfection open to his spiritual evolution. Rising to the Supermind, it becomes easy to rise to the Ananda. One attains a firm foundation in the condition of the indivisible and infinite Ananda, not only in the timeless Parabrahman [Absolute] but in the body, in life, in the world. The integral being, the integral consciousness, the integral Ananda blossoms out and takes form in life. This is the central clue of my yoga, its fundamental principle.
This is no easy change to make. After these fifteen years I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the Supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when this siddhi will be complete, then I am absolutely certain that through me God will give to others the siddhi of the Supermind with less effort. Then my real work will begin. I am not impatient for success in the work. What is to happen will happen in Gods appointed time. I have no hasty or disorderly impulse to rush into the field of work in the strength of the little ego. Even if I did not succeed in my work I would not be shaken. This work is not mine but Gods. I will listen to no other call; when God moves me then I will move.
I know very well that Bengal is not really ready. The spiritual flood which has come is for the most part a new form of the old. It is not the real transformation. However this too was needed. Bengal has been awakening in itself the old yogas and exhausting their samskaras [old habitual tendencies], extracting their essence and with it fertilizing the soil. At first it was the time of VedantaAdwaita, Sannyasa, Shankaras Maya and the rest. It is now the turn of Vaishnava DharmaLila, love, the intoxication of emotional experience. All this is very old, unfitted for the new age and will not endure for such excitement has no capacity to last. But the merit of the Vaishnava Bhava [emotional enthusiasm] is that it keeps a connexion between God and the world and gives a meaning to life; but since it is a partial bhava the whole connexion, the full meaning is not there. The tendency to create sects which you have noticed was inevitable. The nature of the mind is to take a part and call it the whole and exclude all other parts. The Siddha [illuminated being] who brings the bhava, although he leans on its partial aspect, yet keeps some knowledge of the integral whole, even though he may not be able to give it form. But his disciples do not get that knowledge precisely because it is not in a form. They are tying up their little bundles, let them. The bundles will open of themselves when God manifests himself fully. These things are the signs of incompleteness and immaturity. I am not disturbed by them. Let the force of spirituality play in the country in whatever way and in as many sects as may be. Afterwards we shall see. This is the infancy or the embryonic condition of the new age. It is a first hint, not even the beginning.
The peculiarity of this yoga is that until there is siddhi above the foundation does not become perfect. Those who have been following my course had kept many of the old samskaras; some of them have dropped away, but others still remain. There was the samskara of Sannyasa, even the wish to create an Aravinda Math [Sri Aurobindo monastery]. Now the intellect has recognized that Sannyasa is not what is wanted, but the stamp of the old idea has not yet been effaced from the prana [breath, life energy]. And so there was next this talk of remaining in the midst of the world, as a man of worldly activities and yet a man of renunciation. The necessity of renouncing desire has been understood, but the harmony of renunciation of desire with enjoyment of Ananda has not been rightly seized by the mind. And they took up my Yoga because it was very natural to the Bengali temperament, not so much from the side of Knowledge as from the side of Bhakti and Karma [Works]. A little knowledge has come in, but the greater part has escaped; the mist of sentimentalism has not been dissipated, the groove of the sattwic bhava [religious fervor] has not been broken. There is still the ego. I am not in haste, I allow each to develop according to his nature. I do not want to fashion all in the same mould. That which is fundamental will indeed be one in all, but it will express itself in many forms. Everybody grows, forms from within. I do not want to build from outside. The basis is there, the rest will come.
--
You may say, what need is there of a Samgha? Let me be free and live in every vessel; let all become one without form and let whatever must be happen in the midst of that vast formlessness. There is a truth there, but only one side of the truth. Our business is not with the formless Spirit alone; we have also to direct the movement of life. And there can be no effective movement of life without form. It is the Formless that has taken form and that assumption of name and form is not a caprice of Maya. Form is there because it is indispensable. We do not want to rule out any activity of the world as beyond our province. Politics, industry, society, poetry, literature, art will all remain, but we must give them a new soul and a new form.
Why have I left politics? Because the politics of the country is not a genuine thing belonging to India. It is an importation from Europe and an imitation. At one time there was a need of it. We also have done politics of the European kind. If we had not done it, the country would not have risen and we too would not have gained experience and attained full development. There is still some need of it, not so much in Bengal as in the other provinces of India. But the time has come to stop the shadow from extending and to seize on the reality. We must get to the true soul of India and in its image fashion all works.
0 1969-12-17, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Certainly, when the Supramental does touch earth with a sufficient force to dig itself in into the earth consciousness, there will be no more chance of any success or survival for the Asuric Maya.
(On Himself, 26.472)
0 1970-06-17, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Certainly, when the Supramental does touch earth with a sufficient force to dig itself into the earth consciousness, there will be no more chance of any success or survival for the Asuric Maya.
18 October 1934
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The Asuric Maya, is it the whole present Falsehood?
Yes. Right now you feel (gesture of struggling). Its a truly extraordinary moment but not exactly very pleasant! Things resist as they can.
02.01 - Our Ideal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now to the first question. It is usually contended that the ideal is an impossibility, a chimera, since it involves on the face of it a self-contradiction. For, is not divinity the very opposite of humanity, immortality that of mortality and Matter that of the Spirit? These pairs, all of them, are formed of two mutually exclusive terms. This is what Mayavada posits. But need it be necessarily and inevitably so? What is affirmed is after all a postulate and one can start from other postulates as well. The truth, of course, is that all theories or views of existence are centrally formulations of an experience; and each experience has its own postulate.
To begin with, we refuse to admit or recognise that there is or is bound to be a contradiction or opposition between Matter and Spirit, between body and soul or between the human and the divine. We start with an experience, a realisation which declares the essential unity and identity of the duality. That is the thing that has to be posited first clear and nett. The question next arises how the two are one and identical; this demands some clarification. For, is it meant that they are one and the same in the sense that Zeus and Jupiter are the same or that water and H2O are the same? Apart from any barren theorising, is it not a universal and eternal and invariable experience that to attain to the Divine one must leave behind the human, to become the immortal one must cease to be a mortal and to live in the Spirit one has to deny Matter? The real answer, however, is that it is so and it is not so. The dilemma is not so trenchant as it has been made out to be.
02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The next steps, farther down or away, arrive when the drive towards differentiation and multiplication gathers momentum becomes accentuated, and separation and isolation increase in degree and emphasis. The lines of individuation fall more and more apart from each other, tending to form closed circles, each confining more and more exclusively to itself, stressing its own particular and special value and function, in contradistinction to or even against other lines. Thus the descent or fall from the Supermind leads, in the first instance, to the creation or appearance of the Overmind. It is the level of consciousness where the perfect balance of the One and the Many is disturbed and the emphasis begins to be laid on the many. The source of incompatibility between the two just starts here as if Many is notOne and One is not Many. It is the beginning of Ignorance, Avidya, Maya. Still in the higher hemisphere of the Overmind, the sense of unity is yet maintained, although there is no longer the sense of absolute identity of the two; they are experienced as complementaries, both form a harmony, a harmony as of different and distinct but conjoint notes. The Many has come forward, yet the unity is also there supporting it-the unity is an immanent godhead, controlling the patent reality of the Many. It is in the lower hemisphere of the Overmind that unity is thrown into the background half-submerged, flickering, and the principle of multiplicity comes forward with all insistence. Division and rivalry are the characteristic marks of its organisation. Yet the unity does not disappear altogether, only it remains very much inactive, like a sleeping partner. It is not directly perceived and envisaged, not immediately felt but is evoked as reminiscence. The Supermind, then, is the first crystallisation of the Infinite into individual centres, in the Overmind these centres at the outset become more exclusively individualised and then jealously self-centred.
The next step of Descent is the Mind where the original unity and identity and harmony are disrupted to a yet greater degree, almost completely. The self-delimitation of consciousness which is proper to the Supermind and even to the Overmind, at least in its higher domainsgives way to self-limitation, to intolerant egoism and solipsism. The consciousness withdraws from its high and wide sweep, narrows down to introvert orbits. The sense of unity in the mind is, at most, a thing of idealism and imagination; it is an abstract notion, a supposition and a deduction. Here we enter into the very arcana of Maya, the rightful possession of Ignorance. The individualities here have become totally isolated and independent and mutually conflicting lines of movement. Hence the natural incapacity of mind, as it is said, to comprehend more than one object simultaneously. The Super mind and, less absolutely, the Overmind have a global and integral outlook: they can take in each one in its purview all at once the total assemblage of things, they differentiate but do not divide the Supermind not at all, the Overmind not categorically. The Mind has not this synthetic view, it proceeds analytically. It observes its object by division, taking the parts piecemeal, dismantling them, separating them, and attending to each one at a time. And when it observes it fixes itself on one point, withdrawing its attention from all the rest. If it bas to arrive at a synthesis, it can only do so by collating, aggregating and summing. Mental consciousness is thus narrowly one pointed: and in narrowing itself, being farther away from the source it becomes obscurer, more and more outward gazing (parci khni) and superficial. The One Absolute in its downward march towards multiplicity, fragmentation and partiality loses also gradually its subtlety, its suppleness, its refinement, becomes more and more obtuse, crude, rigid and dense.
Between the Overmind and the Mind proper, varying according to the degree of immixture of the two, according to the degree of descent and of emergence of one and the other respectively, there are several levels of consciousness of which three main ones have been named and described by Sri Aurobindo. The first one nearest to the Overmind and the least contaminated by the Mind is pure Intuition; next, the intermediary one is called the Illumined Mind, and last comes the Higher Mind. They are all powers of the Overmind functioning in the Mind. The higher ranges are always more direct, intense, synthetic, dynamic than the lower ones where consciousness is slower, duller, more uncertain, more disintegrated. The lower the consciousness descends the more veiled it becomes, losing more and more the directness, the sureness, the intensity and force and the synthetic unity native to the highest ranges of our consciousness and being.
02.05 - The Godheads of the Little Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A parable of Maya and her might.
44.15
02.06 - The Integral Yoga and Other Yogas, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
India culminated in Mayavada. Our Yoga is a double movement of ascent and descent; one rises to higher and higher levels of consciousness, but at the same time one brings down their power not only into mind and life, but in the end even into the body.
And the highest of these levels, the one at which it aims is the supermind. Only when that can be brought down is a divine transformation possible in the earth-consciousness.
03.04 - The Body Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Vaishnavism sees the Divine as a human person, the human person par excellence. Krishna's body is a radiant form of consciousness (cin Maya), no doubt, but it is as definite, determinate, and concrete as the physical body, it is the physical itself but in its true substance. And its exquisiteness consists in its being human in form. The Vedantin's Maya does not touch it, it is beyond the illusory consciousness. For they say Goloka stands above Brahmaloka.
The Christian conception of God-man is also extremely beautiful and full of meaning. God became man: He sent down upon earth his own and only Son to live among men as man. This indeed is His supreme Grace, His illimitable love for mankind. It is thus, in the words of the Offertory, that He miraculously created the dignity of human substance, holding Himself worthy to partake of our humanity. This carnal sinful body has been sanctified by the Christ having assumed it. In and through Himhis divine consciousness it has been strained and purified, uplifted and redeemed. He has anointed it and given it a place in Heaven even by the side of the Father. Again, Marysymbolising the earth or body consciousness, as Christian mystics themselves declarewas herself taken up bodily into the heavenly abode. The body celestial is this very physical human body cleared of its dross and filled with the divine substance. This could have been so precisely because it was originally the projection, the very image of God here below in the world of Matter. The mystery of Transubstantiation repeats and confirms the same symbology. The bread and wine of our secular body become the flesh and blood of the God-Man's body. The human frame is, as it were, woven into the very fabric of God's own truth and substance. The human form is inherent in the Divine's own personality. Is it mere anthropomorphism to say like this? We know the adage that the lion were he self-conscious and creative, would paint God as a super-lion, that is to say, in his own image. Well, the difference is precisely here, that the lion is not self-conscious and creative. Man createsnot man the mere imaginative artist but man the seer, the Rishihe expresses and embodies, represents faithfully the truth that he sees, the truth that he is. It is because of this conscious personality, referred to in the parable of the Aitareya Upanishad,-that God has chosen the human form to inhabit.
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The Divine means the All: whatever there is (manifest or beyond) is within Him and is Himself. Man too who is within that Divine is the Divine in a special way; for he is a replica or epitome of the Divine containing or embodying the threefold status and movement of the Divine the Transcendent, the Cosmic and the Individual. He is co-extensive with the Divine. Only, the Divine is conscious, supremely conscious, while Man is unconscious or at best half-conscious. God has made himself the world and its creatures, the transcendental has become the material cosmos, true; but God has made himself Man in a special sense and for a special purpose. Man is not a fabrication of the Lower Maya, a formation thrown up in the evolutionary course by a temporary idea in the Cosmic Mind and developed through the play of forces; on the other hand, it is a typal reality, a Real-Ideaa formation of the original truth-consciousness, the Divine's own transcendental existence. Man is the figure of the Divine Person. The Impersonal become or viewed as the Personal takes up the human aspect, the human, that is to say, as its original prototype in the superconscience.
The conception of a personal immortality the impersonal is naturally always immortal, there is no problem thereof a physical immortality even attains a significant value looked at from this standpoint. The urge for immortality is not merely a wish to continue indefinitely an earthly life, because of its pleasures or because of an unreasoning attachment; it means regaining and establishing the immortal body that one has or that one is essentially and potentially. The body seeks to be immortal, for it contains and secretly is its immortal Formal Cause (to make use of an Aristotelian term). The materialisation of an immortal being and figure of being that is the consummation demanded of human life on earth.
03.05 - Some Conceptions and Misconceptions, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is to be added that the limitation in Ignorance is after all apparent; that does not mean it is unreal or illusory, in the sense of Mayavada. Here is the distinction: Mayavada holds all formation as my, illusory, makes no difference between limitation and delimitation: according to it, all delimitation is ignorant and illusory limitation; none has real or essential existence. In Sri Aurobindo's view limitation is real, as also delimitation: only the former is a temporary reality, it is the latter itself but under certain conditions. Again, Mayavada speaks of the Brahman, the Absolute or Transcendent as the sole and true reality: it is the Stable, the Unmoving, the utter Unity cancelling, negating all movement and multiplicity. Sri Aurobindo views the highest reality as dynamic also, permeating the multiplicity and becoming the multiplicity, becoming or existing as the multiplicity in a movement of Knowledge, becoming and appearing also at first in a movement and mode of Ignorance as the material multiplicity but gradually transmuting this ignorant multiplicity into a movement and embodiment of Knowledge. For the Knowledge was always there in and behind the Ignorance, secretly informing and guiding, moulding and transforming it.
Thus, for example, we would not say pain is an illusion, because Ananda is the root of all and is the All. We say pain is also a reality: it is a temporary and localised form of Ananda, Ananda muted and deformed, under certain stresses and conditions. Ananda is there always but not away and aloof from pain; it is not the opposite or the negation of pain. Nor is pain a superimposition, as something foreign, upon Ananda, so that when it passes away, like a cloud, Ananda appears automatically in its full glory. We consider pain as a formation of Ananda, it is the first result of an effort of consciousness to hold Ananda in and through a form, but it need not and cannot be the last consummation.
In fact, the Mayavadin ascribes true reality (pramrthika) to the transcendental alone; even when that reality is spoken of as within and behind and not merely beyond the world and the individual, he takes it to mean as something away and aloof from the appearances, unmixed and untouched by these, and hence practically transcendent. Sri Aurobindo gives full and independent value to each of these triple states which, united and fused together, form the true and total reality. The transcendent reality is also immanent in the cosmos as the World-Power and the World-Consciousness and the creative Delight: it is also resident in the individual as the individual godheadantarymin the conscious Energy that informs, inspires, drives and directs all local formations towards a divine fulfilment in time and in this physical domain. In this view nothing is illusoryeven though some may be temporary they are all contri butory to thy Divine End and take their place there in a transfigured form and rhythm. We are here far from being such stuffs as dreams are made of.
One must not forget, however, that the principle of exclusive concentration cannot be isolated I from the total action of consciousness and viewed as functioning by itself at any time. We isolated it for logical comprehension. In actuality it is integrated with the whole nisus of consciousness and operates in conjunction with and as part of the total drive. That total drive at one point results in the multiple realities of Matter. When the element of limitation in the physical plane is ascribed to the exclusiveness of a stress in consciousness, it should not be forgotten that the act is, as it were, a joint and several responsibility of the whole consciousness in its multiple functioning. And the reverse movement is also likewise a global act: there too the force that withdraws, ascends or eliminates cannot be isolated from the other force that reaffirms, re-establishes, reintegrates,the principle of exclusiveness (like that of pain) is not proved to be illusory and non-existent, but reappears in its own essential nature as a principle of centring or canalisation of consciousness.
03.08 - The Spiritual Outlook, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The spiritual consciousness dawns precisely with the rejection of this monomania, this obsession of one-track mentality. It means, in other words, nothing les than coming out of the shell of one's egoism. To be able thus to come out of oneself, enter into others' consciousness, see things as others see them, that is the great initiation, the true beginning of the life of the spirit. For the Spirit is the truth of all things: all things, even what appears evil and reprehensible, exist and have their play because of a core of truth and force of truth in each. Mind and mind's external consciousness and practical drive compel one to take to a single line of perception and action and that which is more or less superficial and immediately necessary. But it is only when one withdraws from the drive' of Maya and gets behind, gets behind all opposing views and standpoints and tries to see what is the underlying truth that seeks to manifest in each that one enters the gateway of the spiritual consciousness.
The spiritual consciousness is global, not in the sense that it is eclectic, that is to say, the sum-total of all the superficial views, but in the sense that it experiences the one dynamic truth that underlies all and which manifests its varying powers and potentials in various objects and forces, expressing itself in multiple standpoints and modes and angles of vision.
03.09 - Buddhism and Hinduism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet Mayavada even while it reigned supreme, was never the be-all and end-all of the inner Indian spirit. Always there was along with it the other strain; in the background, driven underground its presence is felt persistently. The Shunyam, the Asat, the Akshara Brahman could never totally obliterate the Sat Purusha, the Purushottama or the Mahashakti. The Line of the Everlasting Yes was kept living and vibrant in the Tantric discipline, for example, although at times it also suffered a change under the compelling impact of the Great Negation.
III
03.14 - Mater Dolorosa, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Some believers in God or in the Spirit admit that it is so. The world is the creation of another being, a not-God, a not-Spiritwhe ther Maya or Ahriman or the Great Evil. One has simply to forget the world, abandon earthly existence altogether as a nightmare. Peace, felicity one can possess and enjoy but not here in this vale of tears, anityam asukham lokam imam, but elsewhere beyond.
Is that the whole truth? We, for ourselves, do not subscribe to this view. Truth is a very complex entity, the universe a mingled strain. It is not a matter of merely sinners and innocents that we have to deal with. The problem is deeper and more fundamental. The whole question is, where, in which world, on which level of consciousness do we stand, and, what is more crucial, how much of that consciousness is dynamic and effective in normal life. If we are in the ordinary consciousness and live wholly with that consciousness, it is inevitable that, being in the midst of Nature's current, we should be buffeted along, the good and the evil, as we conceive them to be, befalling us indiscriminately. Or, again, if we happen to live in part or even mainly in an inner or higher consciousness, more or less in a mood of withdrawal from the current of life allowing the life movements to happen as they list, then too we remain, in fact, creatures and playthings of Nature and we must not wonder if, externally, suffering becomes the badge of our tribe.
05.02 - Gods Labour, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A great mystery of existence, its central rub is the presence of Evil. All spiritual, generally all human endeavour has to face and answer this Sphinx. As he answers, so will be his fate. He cannot rise up even if he wishes, earth cannot progress even when there is the occasion, because of this besetting obstacle. It has many names and many forms. It is Sin or Satan in Christianity; Buddhism calls it Mara. In India it is generally known as Maya. Grief and sorrow, weakness and want, disease and death are its external and ubiquitous forms. It is a force of gravitation, as graphically named by a modern Christian mystic, that pulls man down, fixes him upon earth with its iron law of mortality, never allowing him to mount high and soar in the spiritual heavens. It has also been called the Wheel of Karma or the cycle of Ignorance. And the aim of all spiritual seekers has been to rise out of itsome-how, by force of tapasy, energy of concentrated will or divine Gracego through or by-pass and escape into the Beyond. This is the path of ascent I referred to at the outset. In this view it is taken for granted that this creation is transient and empty of happinessanityam asukham (Gita)it is anatta, empty of self or consciousness (Buddha) and it will be always so. The only way to deal with it, the way of the wise, is to discard it and pass over.
Sri Aurobindo's view is different. He says Evil can be and has to be conquered here itself, here upon this earth and in this body-the ancients also said, ihaiva tairjitah, they have conquered even here, prkariravimokat, before leaving the body. You have to face Evil full-square and conquer it, conquer it not in the sense that you simply rise above it so that it no longer touches you, but that you remain where you are in the very field of Evil and drive it out from there completely, erase and annihilate it where it was reigning supreme. Hence God has to come down from his heaven and dwell here upon earth and among men and in the conditions of mortality, show thus by his living and labour that this earthly earth can be transformed into a heavenly earth and this human body into a "body divine".
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The Divine incarnates, as an individual in the concrete material actuality, this double aspect of the utter truth and reality. There are, what may be called, intermediary incarnations, some representing powersaspects of the Divinein the higher mental or overmental levels of consciousness, others those of the inner heart, yet others again those of the dynamic vital consciousness. But the integral Divine, he who unites and reconciles in his body the highest height and the lowest depth, who has effectuated in him something like the "marriage of Heaven and Hell" is an event of the futureeven perhaps of the immediate future. The descent into hell is an image that has been made very familiar to man, but all its implications have not been sounded. For what we were made familiar with was more or less an image of hell, not hell itself, a region or experience in the vital (may be even in the mental): real hell is not the mass of desires or weaknesses of the flesh, not "living flesh", but dead Matter whose other name is Inconscience. In the older disciplines the central or key truth, the heart of reality where the higher and the lowerBrahman and Maya, the Absolute and the Contingency, the One and the Many, God and the Worldmet and united in harmony was bypassed: one shot from below right into the supreme Absolute; the matrix of truth-creation was ignored. Even so, at the other end, the reality of brute matter was not given sufficient weight, the spiritual light disdained to reach it (vijigupsate).
The integral Divine not merely suffers (as in the Christian tradition) a body material, He accepts it in his supernal delight, for it is his own being and substance: it is He in essence and it will become He in actuality. When he comes into the world, it is not as though it were a foreign country; he comes to his own,only he seeks to rebuild it on another scale, the scale of unity and infinity, instead of the present scale of separativism and finiteness. He comes among men not simply because he is' moved by human miseries; he is no extra-terrestrial person, a bigger human being, but is himself this earth, this world, all these miseries; he is woven into the fabric of the universe, he is the warp and woof that constitute creation. It is not a mere movement of sympathy or benevolence that actuates him, it is a total and absolute identification that is the ground and motive of his activity. When he assumes the frame of mortality, it is not that something outside and totally incongruous is entering into him, it is part and parcel of himself, it is himself in one of his functions and phases. Consequently, his work in and upon the material world and life may be viewed as that of self-purification and self-illumination, self-discipline and selfrealisation. Also, the horrors of material existence, being part of the cosmic play and portion of his infinity, naturally find shelter in the individual divine incarnation, are encompassed in his human embodiment. It is the energy of his own consciousness that brought out or developed even this erring earth from within it: that same energy is now available, stored up in the individual formation, for the recreation of that earth. The advent and acceptance of material existence meant, as a kind of necessity in a given scheme of divine manifestation, the appearance and play of Evil, the negation of the very divinity. Absolute Consciousness brought forth absolute unconsciousness the inconscientbecause of its own self-pressure, a play of an increasingly exclusive concentration and rigid objectivisation. That same consciousness repeats its story in the individual incarnation: it plunges into the material life and matter and identifies itself with Evil. But it is then like a pressed or tightened spring; it works at its highest potential. In other words, the Divine in the body now works to divinise the body itself, to make of the negation a concrete affirmation. The inconscient will be embodied consciousness.
05.05 - Of Some Supreme Mysteries, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Of Beauty and Ananda The Birth of Maya
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Towards The LightOf Some Supreme Mysteries
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Of Beauty and Ananda The Birth of Maya
05.06 - The Birth of Maya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:05.06 - The Birth of Maya
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
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Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Towards The LightThe Birth of Maya
The Birth of Maya
The divine is All-Light, All-Bliss, All-Power-in himself, in his essence and true being, always and for ever.
05.07 - The Observer and the Observed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now, there are four positions possible with regard to the world and reality, depending on the relation between the observer and the observed, the subject and the object. They are:(I) subjective, (2) objective, (3) subjective objective and (4) objective subjective. The first two are extreme positions, one holding the subject as the sole or absolute reality, the object being a pure fabrication of its will and idea, an illusion, and the other considering the object as the true reality, the subject being an outcome, an epiphenomenon of the object itself, an illusion after all. The first leads to radical or as it is called monistic spirituality the type of which is Mayavada: the second is the highway of materialism, the various avataras of which are Marxism, Pragmatism, Behaviourism etc. In between lie the other two intermediate positions according to the stress or value given to either of the two extremes. The first of the intermediates is the position held generally by the idealists, by many schools of spirituality: it is a major Vedantic position. It says that the outside world, the object, is not an illusion, a mere fabrication of the mind or consciousness of the subject, but that it exists and is as real as the subject: it is dovetailed into the subject which is a kind of linchpin, holding together and even energising the object. The object can further be considered as an expression or embodiment of the subject. Both the subject and the object are made of the same stuff of consciousness the ultimate reality being consciousness. The subject is the consciousness turned on itself and the object is consciousness turned outside or going abroad. This is pre-eminently the Upanishadic position. In Europe, Kant holds a key position in this line: and on the whole, idealists from Plato to Bradley and Bosanquet can be said more or less to belong to this category. The second intermediate position views the subject as imbedded into the object, not the object into the subject as in the first one: the subject itself is part of the object something like its self-regarding or self-recording function. In Europe apart possibly from some of the early Greek thinkers (Anaxagoras or Democritus, for example), coming to more recent times, we can say that line runs fairly well-represented from Leibnitz to Bergson. In India the Sankhyas and the Vaisheshikas move towards and approach the position; the Tantriks make a still more near approach.
Once again, to repeat in other terms the distinction which may sometimes appear to carry no difference. First, the subjective objective in which the subject assumes the preponderant position, not denying or minimising the reality of the object. The external world, in this view, is a movement in and of the consciousness of a universal subject. It is subjective in the sense that it is essentially a function of the subject and does not exist apart from it or outside it; it is objective in the sense that it exists really and is not a figment or imaginative construction of any individual consciousness, although it exists in and through the individual consciousness in so far as that consciousness is universalised, is one with the universal consciousness (or the transcendental, the two can be taken together in the present connection). Instead of the Kantian transcendental idealism we can name it transcendental realism.
05.18 - Man to be Surpassed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The limitation of such a human ideal is for us evident. We demand a total surpassing of man, although that does not mean a rejection of man. Unless human life is built upon foundations quite other than what they are now, we say there can be no permanent or radical remedy to the ills it suffers from. Hence we are for utter transcendence; for, the highest height it is possible for the consciousness to reach and the being to dwell in, even the experience of Brahman or un-mitigated Absolute of the Mayavadin or the Zero, Shunyam of the Buddhist not excluded. Since it is there that the true foundations of creation lie hidden and it is from there that a new world has to be recreated, a new humanity reshaped. The very stuff of human nature has to be changed, not only what is considered as bad in it but what is valued as good also. For beyond good and evil is Nature Divine. Man has to find out this divine nature and dissolve his human nature into that, remould it, reshape it in that pattern. So long as human consciousness remains too human, it will be always branded with the bar sinister of all earthly things. Man has to grow into the immortal seated within mortality, into the light that shines inviolate on the other side of the darkness we live in. That immortality, that light one has to bring down here on earth and in ourselves, and out of it build a new earth and a new human self and life.
***
05.19 - Lone to the Lone, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The quintessence of spirituality is said to consist in, as has been described in the famous phrase of the Alexandrine mystic philosopher Plotinus, the flight of the lone to the lone. God is a solitary and the other solitary is the soul: so when one solitary mingles with the supreme solitary, the result is utter solitariness, which is spirituality at its apex, its highest height. The world, in this view, is an excrescence, an epiphenomenon Illusion, Maya. God is the transcendent Reality, above and beyond all manifestation, negating all multiplicities and relativities of creation: He is indivisible, single, absolute unityekamevdvityam, kevalamneha nnsti kincana. The human being too is not in reality the individual person bounded within a body, life and mind formation, standing in reciprocal relations with such other formations; his inner core of truth and substance is a unitary centre of consciousness anguthamitra purua,which is aloof and apart from his apparent and assumed personality and has no dealings with such personalities. God has no updhi, phenomenal qualification, neither has the soul of man. Therefore in his spiritual aspiration, man has to divest himself of all the outer growths that cover and bury his soul: with the clear unmixed vision of his pure soul he has to look straight into the face of the Divine Transcendent, shredded too of its cosmic vesture, and rise from the station of ignorance, this level ground of clay to which it is pinned, and soar and fly and merge into the pure reality of the pure Spirit. Therefore it is said, naked we come into the vale of tears and naked we have to go back to our home. Or in terms of another imagery, it is the pure pouring into the pure, the full mixing into the full.
Some mystics and philosophers recently come into vogue (inspired or encouraged by the Christian or the Buddhist way of Realisation) have emphasised this outlook. But it has also been counterbalanced by another way of spiritual growth and fulfilment: we may call it the modern way, for it has been a pronounced characteristic of the modern consciousness. We referred in our previous essay to the Existentialist who has attracted so much attention in these days, the linchpin of whose philosophy is the value of the individual person, especially the individual personal in relation to each other. Kierkegaard, the Danish mystic, from whom this school is supposed to originate, speaks of the Absolute as the Single One that excludes and annuls all "others", the crowd. He lays especial emphasis upon complete solitariness and total renunciation as the very condition, sine qua non, of the soul's spiritual journey and yet characterises the singlenessof the one in terms that make of it an essential whole, an integer. Man must isolate himself from his phenomenal being, certainlyas the neti netiformula enjoins but also he must first find or become his real self, realise his true individuality before he can reach God, the Divine Self, identify himself with the Transcendent. It is only a freely and truly formed individual being that can give itself to the Divine or become one with it. This true individuality is indeed a solitary being away and apart from the crowd of personalities that surround itit has been called by the Indian mystics, the Purusha in the heart, no bigger than the thumb, the Dwarf Godhead (Vmana).
07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Or a dance of Maya veils the void Unborn.
Even if a greater consciousness I could reach,
07.06 - Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I am Maya and the universe is my cheat.
I lay waste human happiness with my breath
--
A manufactured lie of Maya's make,
Its life a dream seen by the sleeping Void.
09.17 - Health in the Ashram, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now it is precisely this ego-view that vitiates one's approach to life and existence. In the true and the most ancient tradition of spirituality, the world was never looked upon as Maya or illusion, it was the ego that was considered as an illusion and the generator of illusions. It is the ego and ego's view that puts us in a wrong relation with the world and the consequences are all the falsehoods and miseries. Be egoless, do not contaminate your perception or your movement with the ego's touch, you will see the world changed and transformed.
If you had faith, if you had less of the egoistic demands and shrinkings, you would see how beautifully Nature collaborates with you.
10.01 - The Dream Twilight of the Ideal, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To some brilliant Maya that conceived her soul.
This most she must absolve with endless pangs,
--
But Maya is a veil of the Absolute;
A Truth occult has made this mighty world:
10.02 - Beyond Vedanta, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Tantra comes next in the scale. Tantra does not consider Prakriti as absolutely separate from Purusha and opposite in character. Prakriti is not unconsciousness (Achit); it is instinct with consciousness. Indeed Prakriti as conceived by Sankhya or Mayavada is only a lower formulation, an inferior aspect of the higher Prakriti which is one with the higher Purusha, Purushottama. Tantra worships the higher Prakriti as Parashakti, the Divine Mother who holds in herself the supreme Purusha. The world is created and exists not by the power of Maya but by the formative power of the Mother, which was the original meaning of the word ' Maya', the Divine Maya. The Divine Mother creates the world and maintains the world in the Delight of her Conscious Existence. She is the Supreme Consciousness (Chinmayee), she is the Power of Delight (Hladini Shakti).
The whole bifurcation between Tantra and Vedanta hinges upon one point. The Vedanta overlooked one term of the Truth and missed thereby a whole world of experience and reality. The central term of Vedanta is taken as Consciousness, Consciousness pure and simple. It omitted the fact that Consciousness is also Energy. That Chit is Tapas is the central principle in Tantra. The exclusive stress on Chit, Pure Consciousness, led to the realisation of the Pure Purusha as mere Witness, Observer, a passive consciousness. Subsequently it was also added that the Purusha is not merely a Witness, (sk), but the Upholder (bhart), even Enjoyer (bhokt) of the world and creation; finally it was added also that the Purusha may be a creator also (kart), but all this is somewhat outside the pale of orthodox Vedanta, Mayavada. Tantra equated Consciousness with Energy; for it Conscious Energy or Consciousness-Energy is the indivisible Mother-Reality.
The Vedanta ends in Ananda, it is a static unitary Ananda. The Tantra posits a dynamic Ananda, a dual Ananda between Ishwara and Ishwari, Shiva and Shakti. The Vaishnava takes a further step and transmutes Ananda into Love, a terrestrial humanised love.
10.04 - Transfiguration, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Brahman, the supreme Reality, is said to be of the same nature and its relation to the world is also of the same kind. Brahman is not there because the world is there. Brahman is not realised through a long process of negating experiences; it is not the sum of all negations, it is an immediate and absolute realisation. When the vision of the world- Maya is not there, Brahman stands self-revealed in its absoluteness, then one realises that Brahman only exists, has existed and will exist; there is no Maya, it not only does not exist, it never existed. Brahman alone is there always.
That is what the Upanishad also says. This experience cannot be acquired by mental knowledge and argumentation or study of books. Only when it reveals its own body then one stands before it face to face.
--
In this way we come very far from the Supreme Brahman, the Mayavadin's inane Unity. The Puranic multiplicity is perhaps a corrective of the Vedantin's empty Absolute.
The Vedantin's negation of the world for the realisation of the Brahman, the Supreme Consciousness, is an effective way so far as it goes but it does not really negate the world. One only turns one's back to the world and says, "It is not there". We face the Sun and cast our shadow behind. The real solution is not to cut away or wipe off the shadow but instead of an obscure formulation, to make of it a luminous radiant image. The world is not abolished or eclipsed by the Sun but IS made luminous, in every particle a radiant and glorious body.
10.07 - The World is One, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The sense of separated and isolated existence, the feeling of a closed system that one assumes in opposition to others is the Maya of which the Vedanta speaks. It is real so long as it is taken to be real. But it possesses no inherent or absolute reality. A re-orientation or a remodelling of the individual self is the way towards re-establishing in the forefront, the background unity. Egoism, as it happens to be now, is the broken-up and scattered unity. Polarisation means precisely re-ordering and re-orienting the dispersal movement of ignorance and bringing into a new purposeful existence the unity that already exists.
Laser: Light amplifications due to the stimulated emission of Radiation.
10.10 - A Poem, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This is not the idea of the Buddha Maya-free slow
Mahabir is also the greatest ascetic
10.18 - Short Notes - 1- The Sense of Earthly Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Ignorance is usually equated with innocence. A child is ignorant, therefore he is innocent. Although it is said that ignorance of law is no excuse. Spiritually however, ignorance does not mean innocence. Ignorance or unconsciousness or inconsciencedifferent degrees of the same thing that is to say lack of consciousness, mean, at bottom, falsehood. It is through the ignorance that Maya, the great illusion, was born. Ignorance is false apprehension, it begins with the sense of separation, "I am other than the Divine." That is how Jiva is born in or through the ignorance. The world is separate from the Divine. That is how Matter is born as or in inconscience. And the creation appears as evil. This sense of separation is a falsehood for in reality nothing is separate from the supreme Consciousness, all is That.
To regain the Truth-sense, to move upward in the cycle of ignorance and falsehood towards this Truth-sense is the world-labour and also human labour.
1.01 - Our Demand and Need from the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The thought of the Gita is not pure Monism although it sees in one unchanging, pure, eternal Self the foundation of all cosmic existence, nor Mayavada although it speaks of the
Maya of the three modes of Prakriti omnipresent in the created world; nor is it qualified Monism although it places in the One his eternal supreme Prakriti manifested in the form of the Jiva and lays most stress on dwelling in God rather than dissolution as the supreme state of spiritual consciousness; nor is it
1.020 - The World and Our World, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
What is an individual, which we call the percipient? It is an abstracted group of characters, tentatively isolated from a larger set or group of characters to which these former really belong an act that has been perpetrated mysteriously for the purpose of playing a drama, we may say. We have falsely isolated ourselves. Even that isolation is not a real isolation, because a mere abstraction of a few characters from a group of larger characters cannot be regarded as real. It is only a closing of one's eyes to certain existent conditions. We can ignore the presence of things and conditions which are not conducive to our present purpose, but why this purpose itself has arisen is a very difficult thing to answer. This is Maya, as they call it, a peculiar jugglery that has been projected by no one. Neither can we say that God created it, nor can we say that we created it. It is somewhere; and how it has come, neither can we say, nor can anyone else say. The inscrutability of the relationship between the individual and the cosmic, the difficulty in ascertaining the connection between appearance and reality this is called Maya. To put it in more plain terms, the relationship between the subject and the object is itself difficult to understand.
We cannot understand what our connection is with anything at all, and so we are in a helpless condition. Therefore we cannot even control the mind, because controlling the mind is an adjustment of the modifications of the mind in respect of the object of its cognition, and the object of its cognition is not properly understood because of its unintelligible character. Everything then becomes difficult, and our efforts become a source of failure in the end. Success does not seem to be forthcoming, because it is not clear to us what is the right direction that we have to take.
1.02.2.1 - Brahman - Oneness of God and the World, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
workings of Prakriti. Maya, signifying originally in the Veda comprehensive and creative
knowledge, Wisdom that is from of old; afterwards taken in its second and derivative
--
ancient sense that the word Maya is used in the Upanishads, where, indeed, it occurs
but rarely.
1.02.3.1 - The Lord, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
of whom Prakriti or Maya is the executive Puissance, the Shakti.
The Isha Upanishad, having declared the Brahman as the
--
modes of its Force of consciousness, its Prakriti or Maya, -
intensive in self-absorption, diffusive in self-extension. The intensive mode is proper to the pure and silent Brahman; the
1.02.3.2 - Knowledge and Ignorance, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
the consciousness of Unity and the consciousness of Multiplicity. They are the two aspects of the Maya, the formative
self-conception of the Eternal.
1.02.9 - Conclusion and Summary, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
the Mayavada. Birth, they would say, is a play of ignorance, it cannot subsist along with
entire knowledge.
1.02 - IN THE COMPANY OF DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "That is His will, His play. In His Maya there exists avidy as well as vidy.
Darkness is needed too. It reveals all the more the glory of light. There is no doubt that anger, lust, and greed are evils. Why, then, has God created them? In order to create saints. A man becomes a saint by conquering the senses. Is there anything impossible for a man who has subdued his passions? He can even realize God, through His grace.
1.02 - Karmayoga, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Moreover the word Vedanta is usually identified with the strict Monism and the peculiar theory of Maya established by the lofty and ascetic intellect of Shankara. But it is the Upanishads themselves and not Shankara's writings, the text and not the commentary, that are the authoritative Scripture of the
Vedantin. Shankara's, great and temporarily satisfying as it was, is still only one synthesis and interpretation of the Upanishads.
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
reason that the Buddhists believe that everything is Maya, or illusion:38 the motivational significance of
ongoing events is clearly determined by the nature of the goal towards which behavior is devoted. That
1.02 - Prayer of Parashara to Vishnu, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
[3]: Jagan Maya, made up, or consisting substantially of the world. Maya is an affix denoting 'made' or 'consisting of,' as Kāṣṭha Maya, 'made of wood.' The world is therefore not regarded by the Pauranics as an emanation or an illusion, but as consubstantial with its first cause.
[4]: Aṇīyānsam aṇīyasām, 'the most atomic of the atomic;' alluding to the atomic theory of the Nyāya or logical school.
1.02 - SADHANA PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
Thus with us all in this Maya, this dream world, where it is all
misery, weeping, and crying, where a few golden balls are
1.02 - Self-Consecration, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
8:The difficulty of the task has led naturally to the pursuit of easy and trenchant solutions; it has generated and fixed deeply' the tendency of religions and of schools of Yoga to separate the life of the world from the inner life. The powers of this world and their actual activities, it is felt, either do not belong to God at all or are for some obscure and puzzling cause, Maya or another, a dark contradiction of the divine Truth. And on their own opposite side the powers of the Truth and their ideal activities are seen to belong to quite another plane of consciousness than that, obscure, ignorant and perverse in its impulses and forces, on which the life of the earth is founded. There appears at once the antinomy of a bright and pure kingdom of God and a dark and impure kingdom of the devil; we feel the opposition of our crawling earthly birth and life to an exalted spiritual God-consciousness; we become readily convinced of the incompatibility of life's subjection to Maya with the soul's concentration in pure Brahman existence. The easiest way is to turn away from all that belongs to the one and to retreat by a naked and precipitous ascent into the other. Thus arises the attraction and, it would seem, the necessity of the principle of exclusive concentration which plays so prominent a part in the specialised schools of Yoga; for by that concentration we can arrive through an uncompromising renunciation of the world at an entire self-consecration to the One on whom we concentrate. It is no longer incumbent on us to compel all the lower activities to the difficult recognition of a new and higher spiritualised life and train them to be its agents or executive powers. It is enough to kill or quiet them and keep at most the few energies necessary, on one side, for the maintenance of the body and, on the other, for communion with the Divine.
9:The very aim and conception of an integral Yoga debars us from adopting this simple and strenuous high-pitched process. The hope of an integral transformation forbids us to take a short cut or to make ourselves light for the race by throwing away our impediments. For we have set out to conquer all ourselves and the world for God; we are determined to give him our becoming as well as our being and not merely to bring the pure and naked spirit as a bare offering to a remote and secret Divinity in a distant heaven or abolish all we are in a holocaust to an immobile Absolute. The Divine that we adore is not only a remote extracosmic Reality, but a half-veiled Manifestation present and near to us here in the universe. Life is the field of a divine manifestation not yet complete: here, in life, on earth, in the body, -- ihaiva, as the Upanishads insist, -- we have to unveil the Godhead; here we must make its transcendent greatness, light and sweetness real to our consciousness, here possess and, as far as may be, express it. Life then we must accept in our Yoga in order utterly to transmute it; we are forbidden to shrink from the difficulties that this acceptance may add to our struggle. Our compensation is that even if the path is more rugged, the effort more complex and bafflingly arduous, yet after a point we gain an immense advantage. For once our minds are reasonably fixed in the central vision and our wills are on the whole converted to the single pursuit. Life becomes our helper. Intent, vigilant, integrally conscious, we can take every detail of its forms and every incident of its movements as food for the sacrificial Fire within us. Victorious in the struggle, we can compel Earth herself to be an aid towards our perfection and can enrich our realisation with the booty torn from the powers that oppose us.
1.02 - Shakti and Personal Effort, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1:In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature.
2:In Yoga also it is the Divine who is the Sadhaka and the Sadhana; it is his Shakti with her light, power, knowledge, consciousness, Ananda, acting upon the adhara and, when it is opened to her, pouring into it with these divine forces that makes the Sadhana possible. But so long as the lower nature is active the personal effort of the Sadhaka remains necessary.
1.02 - The Divine Teacher, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But all this, though of considerable historical importance, has none whatever for our present purpose. We are concerned only with the figure of the divine Teacher as it is presented to us in the Gita and with the Power for which it there stands in the spiritual illumination of the human being. The Gita accepts the human Avatarhood; for the Lord speaks of the repeated, the constant5 manifestation of the Divine in humanity, when He the eternal Unborn assumes by his Maya, by the power of the infinite Consciousness to clo the itself apparently in finite forms, the conditions of becoming which we call birth. But it is not this upon which stress is laid, but on the transcendent, the cosmic and the internal Divine; it is on the Source of all things and the
Master of all and on the Godhead secret in man. It is this internal divinity who is meant when the Gita speaks of the doer of violent
1.02 - The Eternal Law, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Shankara (788-820 A.D.), mystic and poet, theorist of Mayavada or the doctrine of illusionism, which supplanted Buddhism in India.
play of the three gunas, which rock us endlessly from light to dark,
1.02 - The Two Negations 1 - The Materialist Denial, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
3:If we assert only pure Spirit and a mechanical unintelligent substance or energy, calling one God or Soul and the other Nature, the inevitable end will be that we shall either deny God or else turn from Nature. For both Thought and Life, a choice then becomes imperative. Thought comes to deny the one as an illusion of the imagination or the other as an illusion of the senses; Life comes to fix on the immaterial and flee from itself in a disgust or a self-forgetting ecstasy, or else to deny its own immortality and take its orientation away from God and towards the animal. Purusha and Prakriti, the passively luminous Soul of the Sankhyas and their mechanically active Energy, have nothing in common, not even their opposite modes of inertia; their antinomies can only be resolved by the cessation of the inertly driven Activity into the immutable Repose upon which it has been casting in vain the sterile procession of its images. Shankara's wordless, inactive Self and his Maya of many names and forms are equally disparate and irreconcilable entities; their rigid antagonism can terminate only by the dissolution of the multitudinous illusion into the sole Truth of an eternal Silence.
4:The materialist has an easier field; it is possible for him by denying Spirit to arrive at a more readily convincing simplicity of statement, a real Monism, the Monism of Matter or else of Force. But in this rigidity of statement it is impossible for him to persist permanently. He too ends by positing an unknowable as inert, as remote from the known universe as the passive Purusha or the silent Atman. It serves no purpose but to put off by a vague concession the inexorable demands of Thought or to stand as an excuse for refusing to extend the limits of inquiry. Therefore, in these barren contradictions the human mind cannot rest satisfied. It must seek always a complete affirmation; it can find it only by a luminous reconciliation. To reach that reconciliation it must traverse the degrees which our inner consciousness imposes on us and, whether by objective method of analysis applied to Life and Mind as to Matter or by subjective synthesis and illumination, arrive at the repose of the ultimate unity without denying the energy of the expressive multiplicity. Only in such a complete and catholic affirmation can all the multiform and apparently contradictory data of existence be harmonised and the manifold conflicting forces which govern our thought and life discover the central Truth which they are here to symbolise and variously fulfil. Then only can our Thought, having attained a true centre, ceasing to wander in circles, work like the Brahman of the Upanishad, fixed and stable even in its play and its worldwide coursing, and our life, knowing its aim, serve it with a serene and settled joy and light as well as with a rhythmically discursive energy.
10.31 - The Mystery of The Five Senses, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Well, that is one way of procedure in dealing with the senses. When you consider that the senses always pull you out, they always entice you to run after the sweet perishable goods of the world, invite you to the enjoyment of pleasure and pain, to air the dualities of a life of ignorance normally lived upon earth, then indeed the senses become terribly suspect. But this need not be so. The senses instead of being tempters leading you out into the ignorance may verily be inspirers calling you, guiding you inward. Instead of opening out on the world of Maya they may open out on the world of light and truth.
How can that happen? The clue is given in one of the Upanishads. The Kena Upanishad says: This eye does not really see, there is an eye behind that sees, and so on with the other senses. Even this mind does not know, there is a mind of the mind that knows. That is the crucial point. With the eye of the eye one must see, with the hearing of an inner car one must hear, and one must know by the mind of the mind. Instead of opening these windows and doors outward they should be opened inward, turned round about as it were like the flare of a lighthouse. Then instead of being instruments of illusory knowledge or Maya as now, they become instruments of real knowledge, receptacles or transmitters of the truth and reality behind and above.
Indeed we say habitually, when speaking of spiritual realisation, that one sees the truth, one has to see the truth: to know the truth, to know the reality is taken to mean to see the truth, to see the reality, and what does this signify? It signifies what one sees is the light, the light that emanates from truth, the form that the Truth takes, the radiant substance that is the Truth. This then is the special character or gift of this organ, the organ of sight, the eye. One sees the physical light, of course, but one sees also the supraphysical light. It is, as the Upanishad says, the eye of the eye, the third eye in the language of the occultists. What we say about the eye may be equally said in respect of the other sense-organs. Take hearing, for example. By the ear we hear the noises of the world, its deafening cries and no doubt at times also some earthly music. But when the ear is turned inward, we listen to unearthly things Indeed we know how stone-deaf Beethoven heard some of those harmonies of supreme beauty that are now the cherished possessions of humanity. This inner ear is able to take you by a process of regression to the very source of all sound and utterance, from where springs the anhata vk, the undictated voice, the nda-brahman, the original sound-seed, the primary vibration. So the ear gives that hearing which reveals to you a special aspect of the Divine: the vibratory rhythm of the being, that matrix of all utterance, of all speech that mark the material expression of consciousness. Next we come to the third sense, that of smell, Well, the nose is not a despicable organ, in any way; it is as important as any other more aristocratic sense-organ, as the eye or the ear. It is the gate to the perfumed atmosphere of the reality. Even like a flower, as a lotus for example, the truth is colourful, beautiful, shapely, radiant to the eye; to the nostrils it is exhilarating perfume, it distils all around a divine scent that sanctifies, elevates the whole being. After the third sense we come to the fourth, the tongue. The mouth gives you the taste of the truth and you find that the Truth is sweetness, the delicious nectar of the gods: for the truth is also soma, the surpreme rasa, amta, immortality itself. Here is Aswapathy's experience of the thing in Savitri:
10.35 - The Moral and the Spiritual, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Indian spiritual consciousness considers the secular distinction of good and evil as otiose: both are Maya, there must neither be attachment to the Good, nor repulsion from Evil, the two, dwandwas, belong to the same category of relativity, that is, unreality.
Indian artists and poets were steeped in that tradition, wholly inspired by that spirit. Orthodox morality often wonders, is even shocked at the frankness, the daring nonchalance in Indian art creations ,a familiar prudery would call it shamelessness and even vulgarity, but to the Indian view, 'the Brahmin and the cow and the elephant' are of equal value and merit. The movement conventional morality calls 'libidinous' has a nobler name in Indian tradition: it is dirasa, the first or primary delight of existence. As I have said, the modern consciousness finds it a horror and is therefore all the more fascinated by it and dives into it head foremost.
10.37 - The Golden Bridge, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The recoil from the normal, the rich and lush physico-mental expression of human consciousness and experience has been so radical and complete that it has catapulted us into an opposite extreme of bareness and nudity, at the most into a world of pure signs and symbols of notches and blotches, the disjointed mimics and inarticulate groans of a deaf and dumb man. The process of abstraction has gone so far that it has now been reduced to an absurdity. It has its parallel in the movement that led man away from the world of Maya to the Transcendent featureless Brahman. In either case the reason is that the link that joins the two ends could not be founda living truth that is of the Transcendent, yet denying not, but affirming in a new manner the mayic existence. That is because man till now sought to create from a level of consciousness, by a force of consciousness that is not adequate to the task; for it belongs still to the mental region, to this inferior hemisphere although at present it seems to be the acme and topmost hemisphere in the scale. It is not an extension or intensification of the mind and its capacities that will solve the problem: a radical change in the very nature of the mind, a reversal of the mental consciousnessa turning of it inside out as it were, an opening out and up is needed to discover the true source of the Light. Therefore it has been said that man must transcend himself, find a new status in the other hemisphere. In fact there is a domain, a status of being and consciousness, a master-force which when revealed and made active will remould inevitably and spontaneously human creation and expression as a reality embodying the Highest. It is the world of Idea-Force which Sri Aurobindo has named Supermind: it is beyond the mind, even the highest mind: it is the typal concentration of the Supreme Consciousness. It is the fulcrum for the Supreme Consciousness to create and express a new formulation of the Truth in the world of matter. The mind, the highest mind, in its attempt to grasp the Supreme Reality is prone to reject, annul and efface the Cosmic Reality. The Supermind has no need to do that. It links the two ends in a supreme and miraculous synthesis negating neither, giving the full value to each, for the two are united, concentrated in its substance. Thus is found the golden bridge uniting earth and heaven.
The physical mind, with its satellite, the human speech, must indeed be rescued from the thraldom of the animal life, the life of the ordinary senses. They should be put under the regimen of the new consciousness, the status of the Idea-Force. The action of that consciousness will create its own norm and pattern adequate for expressing and embodying suprasensuous realities. It will not have to depend upon allegories and parables, symbols and signs seized from ordinary life. What exactly this will be is difficult to say at present. Evidently there is likely to be an intermediary creationa passage leading from the sensuous to the supra-sensuous, the higher not totally rejecting the lower or primitive formula, the lower not altogether englobing and swallowing the higher.
1.03 - Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of The Gita, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Enslaved to appearances, bound to the dualities, tossed between good and evil, sin and virtue, grief and joy, pain and pleasure, good fortune and ill fortune, success and failure, we follow helplessly the iron or gilt and iron round of the wheel of Maya. At best we have only the poor relative freedom which by us is ignorantly called free-will. But that is at bottom illusory, since it is the modes of Nature that express themselves through our personal will; it is force of Nature, grasping us, ungrasped by us that determines what we shall will and how we shall will it. Nature, not an independent ego, chooses what object we shall seek, whether by reasoned will or unreflecting impulse, at any moment of our existence. If, on the contrary, we live in the unifying reality of the Brahman, then we go beyond the ego and overstep Nature.
For then we get back to our true self and become the spirit; in the spirit we are above the impulsion of Nature, superior to her modes and forces. Attaining to a perfect equality in the soul, mind and heart, we realise our true self of oneness, one with all beings, one too with That which expresses itself in them and in all that we see and experience. This equality and this oneness are the indispensable twin foundation we must lay down for a divine being, a divine consciousness, a divine action. Not one with all, we are not spiritual, not divine. Not equal-souled to all things, happenings and creatures, we cannot see spiritually, cannot know divinely, cannot feel divinely towards others. The Supreme Power, the one Eternal and Infinite is equal to all things and to all beings; and because it is equal, it can act with an absolute wisdom according to the truth of its works and its force and according to the truth of each thing and of every creature.
1.03 - The Sephiros, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
1 bought Divine, which is Chokmah. Binah is Maya, the universal power of Illusion, Kwan Yin of Chinese Budd- hism, the Ym of Taoism, the goddess Kali of the orthodox
Hindu religions and the Great Sea wherefrom we are sprung.
1.03 - The Syzygy - Anima and Animus, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
it the "Spinning Woman" x - Maya, who creates illusion by her
dancing. Had we not long since known it from the symbolism
--
who draws him into life with her Maya- and not only into life's
reasonable and useful aspects, but into its frightful paradoxes
1.03 - The Two Negations 2 - The Refusal of the Ascetic, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
9:If we push the materialist conclusion far enough, we arrive at an insignificance and unreality in the life of the individual and the race which leaves us, logically, the option between either a feverish effort of the individual to snatch what he may from a transient existence, to "live his life", as it is said, or a dispassionate and objectless service of the race and the individual, knowing well that the latter is a transient fiction of the nervous mentality and the former only a little more long-lived collective form of the same regular nervous spasm of Matter. We work or enjoy under the impulsion of a material energy which deceives us with the brief delusion of life or with the nobler delusion of an ethical aim and a mental consummation. Materialism like spiritual Monism arrives at a Maya that is and yet is not, - is, for it is present and compelling, is not, for it is phenomenal and transitory in its works. At the other end, if we stress too much the unreality of the objective world, we arrive by a different road at similar but still more trenchant conclusions, - the fictitious character of the individual ego, the unreality and purposelessness of human existence, the return into the Non-Being or the relationless Absolute as the sole rational escape from the meaningless tangle of phenomenal life.
10:And yet the question cannot be solved by logic arguing on the data of our ordinary physical existence; for in those data there is always a hiatus of experience which renders all argument inconclusive. We have, normally, neither any definitive experience of a cosmic mind or supermind not bound up with the life of the individual body, nor, on the other hand, any firm limit of experience which would justify us in supposing that our subjective self really depends upon the physical frame and can neither survive it nor enlarge itself beyond the individual body. Only by an extension of the field of our consciousness or an unhoped-for increase in our instruments of knowledge can the ancient quarrel be decided.
1.03 - VISIT TO VIDYASAGAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "Brahman is beyond vidy and avidy, knowledge and ignorance. It is beyond Maya, the illusion of duality.
"The world consists of the illusory duality of knowledge and ignorance. It contains knowledge and devotion, and also attachment to 'Woman and gold'; righteousness and unrighteousness; good and evil. But Brahman is unattached to these. Good and evil apply to the jiva, the individual soul, as do righteousness and unrighteousness; but Brahman is not at all affected by them.
1.04 - ADVICE TO HOUSEHOLDERS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
When the music was over, Sri Ramakrishna held Narendra in his arms a long time and said, "You have made us so happy today!" The flood-gate of the Master's heart was open so wide, that night, that he could hardly contain himself for joy. It was eight o'clock in the evening. Intoxicated with divine love, he paced the long verandah north of his room. Now and then he could be heard talking to the Divine Mother. Suddenly he said in an excited voice, "What can you do to me?" Was the Master hinting that Maya was helpless before him, since he had the Divine Mother for his support?
Narendra, M., and Priya were going to spend the night at the temple garden. This pleased the Master highly, especially since Narendra would be with him. The Holy Mother, who was living in the nahabat, had prepared the supper. Surendra bore the greater part of the Master's expenses. The meal was ready, and the plates were set out on the southeast verandah of the Masters room.
1.04 - Reality Omnipresent, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
13:If we thus accept a positive basis for our harmony - and on what other can harmony be founded? - the various conceptual formulations of the Unknowable, each of them representing a truth beyond conception, must be understood as far as possible in their relation to each other and in their effect upon life, not separately, not exclusively, not so affirmed as to destroy or unduly diminish all other affirmations. The real Monism, the true Adwaita, is that which admits all things as the one Brahman and does not seek to bisect Its existence into two incompatible entities, an eternal Truth and an eternal Falsehood, Brahman and not-Brahman, Self and not-Self, a real Self and an unreal, yet perpetual Maya. If it be true that the Self alone exists, it must be also true that all is the Self. And if this Self, God or Brahman is no helpless state, no bounded power, no limited personality, but the self-conscient All, there must be some good and inherent reason in it for the manifestation, to discover which we must proceed on the hypothesis of some potency, some wisdom, some truth of being in all that is manifested. The discord and apparent evil of the world must in their sphere be admitted, but not accepted as our conquerors. The deepest instinct of humanity seeks always and seeks wisely wisdom as the last word of the universal manifestation, not an eternal mockery and illusion, - a secret and finally triumphant good, not an all-creative and invincible evil, - an ultimate victory and fulfilment, not the disappointed recoil of the soul from its great adventure.
14:For we cannot suppose that the sole Entity is compelled by something outside or other than Itself, since no such thing exists. Nor can we suppose that It submits unwillingly to something partial within Itself which is hostile to its whole Being, denied by It and yet too strong for It; for this would be only to erect in other language the same contradiction of an All and something other than the All. Even if we say that the universe exists merely because the Self in its absolute impartiality tolerates all things alike, viewing with indifference all actualities and all possibilities, yet is there something that wills the manifestation and supports it, and this cannot be something other than the All. Brahman is indivisible in all things and whatever is willed in the world has been ultimately willed by the Brahman. It is only our relative consciousness, alarmed or baffled by the phenomena of evil, ignorance and pain in the cosmos, that seeks to deliver the Brahman from responsibility for Itself and its workings by erecting some opposite principle, Maya or Mara, conscious Devil or self-existent principle of evil. There is one Lord and Self and the many are only His representations and becomings.
15:If then the world is a dream or an illusion or a mistake, it is a dream originated and willed by the Self in its totality and not only originated and willed, but supported and perpetually entertained. Moreover, it is a dream existing in a Reality and the stuff of which it is made is that Reality, for Brahman must be the material of the world as well as its base and continent. If the gold of which the vessel is made is real, how shall we suppose that the vessel itself is a mirage? We see that these words, dream, illusion, are tricks of speech, habits of our relative consciousness; they represent a certain truth, even a great truth, but they also misrepresent it. Just as Non-Being turns out to be other than mere nullity, so the cosmic Dream turns out to be other than mere phantasm and hallucination of the mind. Phenomenon is not phantasm; phenomenon is the substantial form of a Truth.
1.04 - The Core of the Teaching, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Prakriti that acts, foundation of the one, master of the other, the Lord of whom all is the manifestation, who even in our present subjection to Maya sits in the heart of His creatures governing the works of Prakriti, He by whom the armies on the field of Kurukshetra have already been slain while yet they live and who uses Arjuna only as an instrument or immediate occasion of this great slaughter. Prakriti is only His executive force. The disciple has to rise beyond this Force and its three modes or gun.as; he has to become trigun.atta. Not to her has he to surrender his actions, over which he has no longer any claim or "right", but into the being of the Supreme. Reposing his mind and understanding, heart and will in Him, with selfknowledge, with God-knowledge, with world-knowledge, with a perfect equality, a perfect devotion, an absolute self-giving, he has to do works as an offering to the Master of all selfenergisings and all sacrifice. Identified in will, conscious with that consciousness, That shall decide and initiate the action. This is the solution which the Divine Teacher offers to the disciple.
What the great, the supreme word of the Gita is, its mahavakya, we have not to seek; for the Gita itself declares it in its last utterance, the crowning note of the great diapason.
1.04 - The Sacrifice the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And yet there is not only in him or before him this eternal self-aware Existence, this spiritual Consciousness, this infinity of self-illumined Force, this timeless and endless Beatitude. There is too, constant also to his experience, this universe in measurable Space and Time, some kind perhaps of boundless finite, and in it all is transient, limited, fragmentary, plural, ignorant, exposed to disharmony and suffering, seeking vaguely for some unrealised yet inherent harmony of oneness, unconscious or half-conscious or, even when most conscious, still tied to the original Ignorance and Inconscience. He is not always in a trance of peace or bliss and, even if he were, it would be no solution, for he knows that this would still be going on outside him and yet within some larger self of him as if for ever. At times these two states of his spirit seem to exist for him alternately according to his state of consciousness; at others they are there as two parts of his being, disparate and to be reconciled, two halves, an upper and a lower or an inner and an outer half of his existence. He finds soon that this separation in his consciousness has an immense liberative power; for by it he is no longer bound to the Ignorance, the Inconscience; it no longer appears to him the very nature of himself and things but an illusion which can be overcome or at least a temporary wrong self-experience, Maya. It is tempting to regard it as only a contradiction of the Divine, an incomprehensible mystery-play, masque or travesty of the Infinite and so it irresistibly seems to his experience at times, on one side the luminous verity of Brahman, on the other a dark illusion of Maya. But something in him will not allow him to cut existence thus permanently in two and, looking more closely, he discovers that in this half-light or darkness too is the Eternalit is the Brahman who is here with this face of Maya.
This is the beginning of a growing spiritual experience which reveals to him more and more that what seemed to him dark incomprehensible Maya was all the time no other than the Consciousness-Puissance of the Eternal, timeless and illimitable beyond the universe, but spread out here under a mask of bright and dark opposites for the miracle of the slow manifestation of the Divine in Mind and Life and Matter. All the Timeless presses towards the play in Time; all in Time turns upon and around the timeless Spirit. If the separate experience was liberative, this unitive experience is dynamic and effective. For he now not only feels himself to be in his soul-substance part of the Eternal, in his essential self and spirit entirely one with the Eternal, but in his active nature an instrumentation of its omniscient and omnipotent Consciousness-Puissance. However bounded and relative its present play in him, he can open to a greater and greater consciousness and power of it and to that expansion there seems to be no assignable limit. A level spiritual and supramental of that Consciousness-Puissance seems even to reveal itself above him and lean to enter into contact, where there are not these trammels and limits, and its powers too are pressing upon the play in Time with the promise of a greater descent and a less disguised or no longer disguised manifestation of the Eternal. The once conflicting but now biune duality of Brahman- Maya stands revealed to him as the first great dynamic aspect of the Self of all selves, the Master of existence, the Lord of the world-sacrifice and of his sacrifice.
On another line of approach another Duality presents itself to the experience of the seeker. On one side he becomes aware of a witness recipient observing experiencing Consciousness which does not appear to act but for which all these activities inside and outside us seem to be undertaken and continue. On the other side he is aware at the same time of an executive Force or an energy of Process which is seen to constitute, drive and guide all conceivable activities and to create a myriad forms visible to us and invisible and use them as stable supports for its incessant flux of action and creation. Entering exclusively into the witness consciousness he becomes silent, untouched, immobile; he sees that he has till now passively reflected and appropriated to himself the movements of Nature and it is by this reflection that they acquired from the witness soul within him what seemed a spiritual value and significance. But now he has withdrawn that ascription or mirroring identification; he is conscious only of his silent self and aloof from all that is in motion around it; all activities are outside him and at once they cease to be intimately real; they appear now mechanical, detachable, endable. Entering exclusively into the kinetic movement, he has an opposite self-awareness; he seems to his own perception a mass of activities, a formation and result of forces; if there is an active consciousness, even some kind of kinetic being in the midst of it all, yet there is no longer a free soul in it anywhere. These two different and opposite states of being alternate in him or else stand simultaneously over against each other; one silent in the inner being observes but is unmoved and does not participate; the other active in some outer or surface self pursues its habitual movements. He has entered into an intense separative perception of the great duality, Soul-Nature, Purusha-Prakriti.
--
For the Ishwari Shakti, divine Conscious-Force and World-Mother, becomes a mediatrix between the eternal One and the manifested Many. On one side, by the play of the energies which she brings from the One, she manifests the multiple Divine in the universe, involving and evolving its endless appearances out of her revealing substance; on the other by the reascending current of the same energies she leads back all towards That from which they have issued so that the soul in its evolutionary manifestation may more and more return towards the Divinity there or here put on its divine character. There is not in her, although she devises a cosmic mechanism, the character of an inconscient mechanical Executrix which we find in the first physiognomy of Prakriti, the Nature-Force; neither is there that sense of an Unreality, creatrix of illusions or semi-illusions, which is attached to our first view of Maya. It is at once clear to the experiencing soul that here is a conscious Power of one substance and nature with the Supreme from whom she came. If she seems to have plunged us into the Ignorance and Inconscience in pursuance of a plan we cannot yet interpret, if her forces present themselves as all these ambiguous forces of the universe, yet it becomes visible before long that she is working for the development of the Divine Consciousness in us and that she stands above drawing us to her own higher entity, revealing to us more and more the very essence of the Divine Knowledge, Will and Ananda. Even in the movements of the Ignorance the soul of the seeker becomes aware of her conscious guidance supporting his steps and leading them slowly or swiftly, straight or by many detours out of the darkness into the light of a greater consciousness, out of mortality into immortality, out of evil and suffering towards a highest good and felicity of which as yet his human mind can form only a faint image. Thus her power is at once liberative and dynamic, creative, effective,creative not only of things as they are, but of things that are to be; for, eliminating the twisted and tangled movements of his lower consciousness made of the stuff of the Ignorance, it rebuilds and new-makes his soul and nature into the substance and forces of a higher divine Nature.
In this Duality too there is possible a separative experience. At one pole of it the seeker may be conscious only of the Master of Existence putting forth on him His energies of knowledge, power and bliss to liberate and divinise; the Shakti may appear to him only an impersonal Force expressive of these things or an attribute of the Ishwara. At the other pole he may encounter the World-Mother, creatrix of the universe, putting forth the Gods and the worlds and all things and existences out of her spirit-substance. Or even if he sees both aspects, it may be with an unequal separating vision, subordinating one to the other, regarding the Shakti only as a means for approaching the Ishwara. There results a one-sided tendency or a lack of balance, a power of effectuation not perfectly supported or a light of revelation not perfectly dynamic. It is when a complete union of the two sides of the Duality is effected and rules his consciousness that he begins to open to a fuller power that will draw him altogether out of the confused clash of Ideas and Forces here into a higher Truth and enable the descent of that Truth to illumine and deliver and act sovereignly upon this world of Ignorance. He has begun to lay his hand on the integral secret which in its fullness can be grasped only when he overpasses the double term that reigns here of Knowledge inextricably intertwined with an original Ignorance and crosses the border where spiritual mind disappears into supramental Gnosis. It is through this third and most dynamic dual aspect of the One that the seeker begins with the most integral completeness to enter into the deepest secret of the being of the Lord of the Sacrifice.
1.05 - 2010 and 1956 - Doomsday?, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
fourth 5,125 year-long cycle or sun in the Mayan Long
Count calendar will end on that day.
--
writes: All the so-called Mayan prophecies about 2012
are nothing more than wildly speculative extrapolations,
--
ars of Maya hieroglyphs. Carlos Barrios, a Mayan anthro-
pologist who has extensively enquired about the predic-
--
2012. This is nothing but imagination. The Mayas are not
happy with this interpretation. The world is not going to
--
seriously. The interpretation of the Mayan long-count cal-
endar is not the only prediction of an imminent best or dir-
--
the Mayan calendars, as a given. This date will, according to
him, mark a total breakdown of all life-systems on the planet
--
states: The completion of [the fourth Mayan] cycle in 2012
is the beginning of nothing less than an evolutionary jump
1.057 - The Four Manifestations of Ignorance, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Space, time, cause mean one and the same thing they are three aspects of a single phenomenon. It is the principle of externality, if one would like to call it so. The principle of externality is what is called Maya in Vedantic language the appearance, as philosophers put it a peculiar thing which nobody can understand. Something is there, and no one can know how it is there, or why it is there. This is the principle of externality which manifests itself as what we call space-time-causal relationship, etc. This feature of externality gets mixed up with the being of Consciousness, and then we have an externalised personality; that is the individuality of ours. This is the I am-ness we are speaking of.
Thus, our very existence is a false existence; this is what is made out by this sutra. If our existence is itself illegal, untenable, unfounded and irrational, how can anything that we do on the basis of this individuality be right? So it is no wonder that we are suffering in this world. Ignorance has produced this peculiar sense of individuality, asmita this feeling of oneself being different from others. The subject is cut off from the object; and each thing in this world has an asmita of its own. There is an affirming principle working in every item of creation. Because of this confirmed feeling of the sense of individual being, there is a further urge arising from this sense of individual being namely, a necessity felt to connect oneself with others. If I am different from you, what is my relationship with you? This question arises.
1.05 - Adam Kadmon, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Maya-
Chakra
--
Manas, which, together with Atma-Buddhi, is the god of a high and noble rank, who incarnates in the brute forms of the early races of mankind in order to endow them with mind. The Manasaputras have both Solar and Mercurial connections. The Vedantists call this principle the Vijnana- Mayakosa, the Sheath of Knowledge ; and its correspond- ing Chakra in the Yogas is the Yisuddhi, said to be located in the subtle body on the spine at a point opposite to the larynx.
This trinity of the original spiritual Monad, its Creative vehicle, and Intuition, form a synthetic integral Unity which philosophically may be denominated the Transcen- dental Ego. It is a Unity in a unique manner, and its attri butes are summed up in the three Hindu hypostases, more true, perhaps, of the Sephiros than the parts of man, of Sat, Chit, Ananda ; Absolute Being, Wisdom, and Bliss.
1.05 - The Destiny of the Individual, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
13:It is so that ascetic philosophy tends to conceive it. But individual salvation can have no real sense if existence in the cosmos is itself an illusion. In the Monistic view the individual soul is one with the Supreme, its sense of separateness an ignorance, escape from the sense of separateness and identity with the Supreme its salvation. But who then profits by this escape? Not the supreme Self, for it is supposed to be always and inalienably free, still, silent, pure. Not the world, for that remains constantly in the bondage and is not freed by the escape of any individual soul from the universal Illusion. It is the individual soul itself which effects its supreme good by escaping from the sorrow and the division into the peace and the bliss. There would seem then to be some kind of reality of the individual soul as distinct from the world and from the Supreme even in the event of freedom and illumination. But for the Illusionist the individual soul is an illusion and non-existent except in the inexplicable mystery of Maya. Therefore we arrive at the escape of an illusory nonexistent soul from an illusory non-existent bondage in an illusory non-existent world as the supreme good which that non-existent soul has to pursue! For this is the last word of the Knowledge, "There is none bound, none freed, none seeking to be free." Vidya turns out to be as much a part of the Phenomenal as Avidya; Maya meets us even in our escape and laughs at the triumphant logic which seemed to cut the knot of her mystery.
14:These things, it is said, cannot be explained; they are the initial and insoluble miracle. They are for us a practical fact and have to be accepted. We have to escape by a confusion out of a confusion. The individual soul can only cut the knot of ego by a supreme act of egoism, an exclusive attachment to its own individual salvation which amounts to an absolute assertion of its separate existence in Maya. We are led to regard other souls as if they were figments of our mind and their salvation unimportant, our soul alone as if it were entirely real and its salvation the one thing that matters. I come to regard my personal escape from bondage as real while other souls who are equally myself remain behind in the bondage!
15:It is only when we put aside all irreconcilable antinomy between Self and the world that things fall into their place by a less paradoxical logic. We must accept the many-sidedness of the manifestation even while we assert the unity of the Manifested. And is not this after all the truth that pursues us wherever we cast our eyes, unless seeing we choose not to see? Is not this after all the perfectly natural and simple mystery of Conscious Being that It is bound neither by Its unity nor by Its multiplicity? It is "absolute" in the sense of being entirely free to include and arrange in Its own way all possible terms of Its self-expression. There is none bound, none freed, none seeking to be free, - for always That is a perfect freedom. It is so free that It is not even bound by Its liberty. It can play at being bound without incurring a real bondage. Its chain is a self-imposed convention, Its limitation in the ego a transitional device that It uses in order to repeat Its transcendence and universality in the scheme of the individual Brahman.
16:The Transcendent, the Supracosmic is absolute and free in Itself beyond Time and Space and beyond the conceptual opposites of finite and infinite. But in cosmos It uses Its liberty of self-formation, Its Maya, to make a scheme of Itself in the complementary terms of unity and multiplicity, and this multiple unity It establishes in the three conditions of the subconscient, the conscient and the superconscient. For actually we see that the Many objectivised in form in our material universe start with a subconscious unity which expresses itself openly enough in cosmic action and cosmic substance, but of which they are not themselves superficially aware. In the conscient the ego becomes the superficial point at which the awareness of unity can emerge; but it applies its perception of unity to the form and surface action and, failing to take account of all that operates behind, fails also to realise that it is not only one in itself but one with others. This limitation of the universal "I" in the divided egosense constitutes our imperfect individualised personality. But when the ego transcends the personal consciousness, it begins to include and be overpowered by that which is to us superconscious; it becomes aware of the cosmic unity and enters into the Transcendent Self which here cosmos expresses by a multiple oneness.
17:The liberation of the individual soul is therefore the keynote of the definitive divine action; it is the primary divine necessity and the pivot on which all else turns. It is the point of Light at which the intended complete self-manifestation in the Many begins to emerge. But the liberated soul extends its perception of unity horizontally as well as vertically. Its unity with the transcendent One is incomplete without its unity with the cosmic Many. And that lateral unity translates itself by a multiplication, a reproduction of its own liberated state at other points in the Multiplicity. The divine soul reproduces itself in similar liberated souls as the animal reproduces itself in similar bodies. Therefore, whenever even a single soul is liberated, there is a tendency to an extension and even to an outburst of the same divine self-consciousness in other individual souls of our terrestrial humanity and, - who knows? - perhaps even beyond the terrestrial consciousness. Where shall we fix the limit of that extension? Is it altogether a legend which says of the Buddha that as he stood on the threshold of Nirvana, of the Non-Being, his soul turned back and took the vow never to make the irrevocable crossing so long as there was a single being upon earth undelivered from the knot of the suffering, from the bondage of the ego?
1.05 - THE MASTER AND KESHAB, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The Master continued: "Bondage and liberation are both of Her making. By Her Maya worldly people become entangled in 'woman and gold', and again, through Her grace they attain their liberation. She is called Saviour, and the remover of the bondage that binds one to the world."
Divine Mother's sport
--
High up they soar on the wind of hope, held fast by Maya's string.
Their frames are human skeletons, their sails of the three gunas made;
--
The Master continued: "Men are deluded through Her Maya and have become attached to the world.
Says Ramprasad: Thou hast bestowed on me this mind, And with a knowing wink of Thine eye
1.06 - Agni and the Truth, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The state of immortality thus attained is conceived as a state of felicity or bliss founded on a perfect Truth and Right, satyam r.tam. We must, I think, understand in this sense the verse that follows. "The good (happiness) which thou wilt create for the giver, that is that truth of thee, O Agni." In other words, the essence of this truth, which is the nature of Agni, is the freedom from evil, the state of perfect good and happiness which the Ritam carries in itself and which is sure to be created in the mortal when he offers the sacrifice by the action of Agni as the divine priest. Bhadram means anything good, auspicious, happy and by itself need not carry any deep significance. But we find it in the Veda used, like r.tam, in a special sense. It is described in one of the hymns (V.82) as the opposite of the evil dream (duh.s.vapnyam), the false consciousness of that which is not the Ritam, and of duritam, false going, which means all evil and suffering. Bhadram is therefore equivalent to suvitam, right going, which means all good and felicity belonging to the state of the Truth, the Ritam. It is Mayas, the felicity, and the gods who represent the Truthconsciousness are described as mayobhuvah., those who bring or carry in their being the felicity. Thus every part of the Veda, if properly understood, throws light upon every other part. It is only when we are misled by its veils that we find in it an incoherence.
In the next verse there seems to be stated the condition of the effective sacrifice. It is the continual resort day by day, in the night and in the light, of the thought in the human being with submission, adoration, self-surrender, to the divine Will and Wisdom represented by Agni. Night and Day, Naktos.asa, are also symbolical, like all the other gods in the Veda, and the sense seems to be that in all states of consciousness, whether
1.06 - Man in the Universe, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
19:On the other hand, we have hazarded the suggestion that since all is one Reality, this inferior negation also, this other contradiction or non-existence of Sachchidananda is none other than Sachchidananda itself. It is capable of being conceived by the intellect, perceived in the vision, even received through the sensations as verily that which it seems to deny, and such would it always be to our conscious experience if things were not falsified by some great fundamental error, some possessing and compelling Ignorance, Maya or Avidya. In this sense a solution might be sought, not perhaps a satisfying metaphysical solution for the logical mind, - for we are standing on the border-line of the unknowable, the ineffable and straining our eyes beyond, - but a sufficient basis in experience for the practice of the divine life.
20:To do this we must dare to go below the clear surfaces of things on which the mind loves to dwell, to tempt the vast and obscure, to penetrate the unfathomable depths of consciousness and identify ourselves with states of being that are not our own. Human language is a poor help in such a search, but at least we may find in it some symbols and figures, return with some just expressible hints which will help the light of the soul and throw upon the mind some reflection of the ineffable design.
1.06 - THE MASTER WITH THE BRAHMO DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "Yes, they say there is something like that. How can we understand the ways of God through our small intellects? Many people have spoken about reincarnation; therefore I cannot disbelieve it. As Bhishma lay dying on his bed of arrows, the Pandava brothers and Krishna stood around him. They saw tears flowing from the eyes of the great hero. Arjuna said to Krishna: 'Friend, how surprising it is! Even such a man as our grandsire Bhishma-truthful, self-restrained, supremely wise, and one of the eight Vasus-weeps, through Maya, at the hour of death.' Sri Krishna asked Bhishma about it.
Bhishma replied: 'O Krishna, You know very well that this is not the cause of my grief. I am thinking that there is no end to the Pandavas' sufferings, though God Himself is their charioteer.7 A thought like this makes me feel that I have understood nothing of the ways of God, and so I weep.' "
--
MASTER: "Remember that daya, compassion, and Maya, attachment, are two different things. Attachment means the feeling of 'my-ness' toward one's relatives. It is the love one feels for one's parents, one's brother, one's sister, one's wife and children.
Compassion is the love one feels for all beings of the world. It is an attitude of equality.
If you see anywhere an instance of compassion, as in Vidyasagar, know that it is due to the grace of God. Through compassion one serves all beings. Maya also comes from God. Through Maya God makes one serve one's relatives. But one thing should be remembered: Maya keeps us in ignorance and entangles us in the world, whereas daya makes our hearts pure and gradually unties our bonds.
"God cannot be realized without purity of heart. One receives the grace of God by subduing the passions-lust, anger, and greed. Then one sees God. I tried many things in order to conquer lust.
1.07 - Jnana Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
12. There is only one Reality or Truth. That is Brahman or Atman. All appearances are unreal. They are the effects of Maya, the illusory power of Brahman.
13. Behold the one Immortal Atman in all names and forms. This alone is correct perception.
1.07 - THE MASTER AND VIJAY GOSWAMI, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"This world is like a fishing-net. Men are the fish, and God, whose Maya has created this world, is the fisherman. When the fish are entangled in the net, some of them try to tear through its meshes in order to get their liberation. They are like the men striving after liberation. But by no means all of them escape. Only a few jump out of the net with a loud splash, and then people say, 'Ah! There goes a big one!' In like manner, three or four men attain liberation. Again, some fish are so careful by nature that they are never caught in the net; some beings of the everperfect class, like Narada, are never entangled in the meshes of worldliness. Most of the fish are trapped; but they are not conscious of the net and of their imminent death. No sooner are they entangled than they run headlong, net and all, trying to hide themselves in the mud. They don't make the least effort to get free. On the contrary, they go deeper and deeper into the mud. These fish are like the bound men. They are still inside the net, but they think they are quite safe there. A bound creature is immersed in worldliness, in 'woman and gold', having gone deep into the mire of degradation. But still he believes he is quite happy and secure. The liberated, and the seekers after liberation, look on the world as a deep well. They do not enjoy it. Therefore, after the attainment of Knowledge, the realization of God, some give up their bodies. But such a thing is rare indeed.
Worldly-minded forget their lessons
--
MASTER: "How is it ever possible for one man to liberate another from the bondage of the world? God alone, the Creator of this world-bewitching Maya, can save men from Maya. There is no other refuge but that great Teacher, Satchidananda. How is it ever possible for men who have not realized God or received His command, and who are not streng thened with divine strength, to save others from the prison-house of the world?
"One day as I was passing the Panchavati on my way to the pine-grove, I heard a bullfrog croaking. I thought it must have been seized by a snake. After some time, as I was coming back, I could still hear its terrified croaking. I looked to see what was the matter, and found that a water-snake had seized it. The snake could neither swallow it nor give it up. So there was no end to the frog's suffering. I thought that had it been seized by a cobra it would have been silenced after three croaks at the most. As it was only a water-snake, both of them had to go through this agony. A man's ego is destroyed after three croaks, as it were, if he gets into the clutches of a real teacher.
--
"This Maya, that is to say, the ego, is like a cloud. The sun cannot be seen on account of a thin patch of cloud; when that disappears one sees the sun. If by the grace of the guru one's ego vanishes, then one sees God.
"Rama, who is God Himself, was only two and a half cubits ahead of Lakshmana. But Lakshmana couldn't see Him because Sita stood between them. Lakshmana may be compared to the jiva, and Sita to Maya. Man cannot see God on account of the barrier of Maya. Just look: I am creating a barrier in front of my face with this towel. Now you can't see me, even though I am so near. Likewise, God is the nearest of all, but we cannot see Him on account of this covering of Maya.
Maya creates upadhis
"The jiva is nothing but the embodiment of Satchidananda. But since Maya, or ego, has created various upadhis, he has forgotten his real Self.
"Each upadhi changes man's nature. If he wears a fine black-bordered cloth, you will at once find him humming Nidhu Babu's love-songs. Then playing-cards and a walking-stick follow. If even a sickly man puts on high boots, he begins to whistle and climbs the stairs like an Englishman, jumping from one step to another. If a man but holds a pen in his hand, he scribbles on any paper he can get hold of-such is the power of the pen!
--
"When one has such love and attachment for God, one doesn't feel the attraction of Maya to wife, children, relatives, and friends. One retains only compassion for them. To such a man the world appears a strange land, a place where he has merely to perform his duties. It is like a man's having his real home in the country, but coming to Calcutta for work; he has to rent a house in Calcutta for the sake of his duties. When one develops love of God, one completely gets rid of one's attachment to the world and worldly wisdom.
"One cannot see God if one has even the slightest trace of worldliness. Match-sticks, if damp, won't strike fire though you rub a thousand of them against the match-box. You only waste a heap of sticks. The mind soaked in worldliness is such a damp match-stick. Once Sri Radha said to her friends that she saw Krishna everywhere-both within and without. The friends answered: 'Why, we don't see Him at all. Are you delirious?'
--
"Hanuman once said to Rama: 'O Rama, I have taken refuge in Thee. Bless me that I may have pure devotion to Thy Lotus Feet and that I may not be caught in the spell of Thy world-bewitching Maya.'
"Once a dying bullfrog said to Rama: 'O Rama, when caught by a snake I cry for Your protection. But now I am about to die, struck by Your arrow. Hence I am silent.'
1.08 - THE MASTERS BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
He said to the devotees: "God alone exists, and all else is unreal. The Divine Mother has kept all deluded by Her Maya. Look at men. Most of them are entangled in worldliness.
They suffer so much, but still they have the same attachment to 'woman and gold'. The camel eats thorny shrubs, and blood gushes from its mouth; still it will eat thorns. While suffering pain at the time of delivery, a woman says, 'Ah! I shall never go to my husb and again.' But afterwards she forgets.
--
MASTER: "Beware, holy man! Go there once in a great while, but not frequently; otherwise you will slip from the ideal. Maya is nothing but 'woman and gold'. A holy man must live away from woman. All sink there. 'Even Brahma and Vishnu struggle for life in that whirlpool.' "
Nityagopal listened to these words attentively.
--
Only then will his description of the Queen be correct. Sages like Bharadvaja adored Rama and said: 'O Rama, You are nothing but the Indivisible Satchidananda. You have appeared before us as a human being, but You look like a man because You have shrouded Yourself with Your own Maya.' These rishis were great devotees of Rama: and had supreme love for God."
Master's different spiritual moods
1.09 - ADVICE TO THE BRAHMOS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Ensnared in Maya, I am all but dead.
Compassionate Lord! Revive my fainting soul
--
"It is Maya that deludes. Only a few become spiritually awakened and are not deluded by the spell of Maya. They do not come under the control of 'woman and gold'.
Two classes of perfect souls
"There are two classes of perfect souls: those who attain perfection through spiritual practice, and those who attain it through the grace of God. Some farmers irrigate their fields with great labour. Only then can they grow crops. But there are some who do not have to irrigate at all; their fields are flooded by rain. They don't have to go to the trouble of drawing water. One must practise spiritual discipline laboriously, in order to avoid the clutches of Maya. Those who attain liberation through the grace of God do not have to labour. But they are few indeed.
The everperfect
--
MASTER: "Everything depends on the will of God. The world is His play. He has created all these different things-great and small, strong and weak, good and bad, virtuous and vicious. This is all His Maya, His sport. You must have observed that all the trees in a garden are not of the same kind.
"As long as a man has not realized God, he thinks he is free. It is God Himself who keeps this error in man. Otherwise sin would have multiplied. Man would not have been afraid of sin, and there would have been no punishment for it.
1.09 - Saraswati and Her Consorts, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
bring to birth for man the Bliss, Mayas. I have already insisted on the constant relation, as conceived by the Vedic seers, between the Truth and the Bliss or Ananda. It is by the dawning of the true or infinite consciousness in man that he arrives out of this evil dream of pain and suffering, this divided creation into the Bliss, the happy state variously described in Veda by the words bhadram, Mayas (love and bliss), svasti (the good state of existence, right being) and by others less technically used such as varyam, rayih., rayah.. For the Vedic Rishi Truth is the passage and the antechamber, the Bliss of the divine existence is the goal, or else Truth is the foundation, Bliss the supreme result.
Such, then, is the character of Saraswati as a psychological principle, her peculiar function and her relation to her most immediate connections among the gods. How far do these shed any light on her relations as the Vedic river to her six sister streams?
1.10 - Conscious Force, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
8:The answer most approved by the ancient Indian mind was that Force is inherent in Existence. Shiva and Kali, Brahman and Shakti are one and not two who are separable. Force inherent in existence may be at rest or it may be in motion, but when it is at rest, it exists none the less and is not abolished, diminished or in any way essentially altered. This reply is so entirely rational and in accordance with the nature of things that we need not hesitate to accept it. For it is impossible, because contradictory of reason, to suppose that Force is a thing alien to the one and infinite existence and entered into it from outside or was non-existent and arose in it at some point in Time. Even the Illusionist theory must admit that Maya, the power of self-illusion in Brahman, is potentially eternal in eternal Being and then the sole question is its manifestation or non-manifestation. The Sankhya also asserts the eternal coexistence of Prakriti and Purusha, Nature and Conscious-Soul, and the alternative states of rest or equilibrium of Prakriti and movement or disturbance of equilibrium.
9:But since Force is thus inherent in existence and it is the nature of Force to have this double or alternative potentiality of rest and movement, that is to say, of self-concentration in Force and self-diffusion in Force, the question of the how of the movement, its possibility, initiating impulsion or impelling cause does not arise. For we can easily, then, conceive that this potentiality must translate itself either as an alternative rhythm of rest and movement succeeding each other in Time or else as an eternal self-concentration of Force in immutable existence with a superficial play of movement, change and formation like the rising and falling of waves on the surface of the ocean. And this superficial play - we are necessarily speaking in inadequate images - may be either coeval with the self-concentration and itself also eternal or it may begin and end in Time and be resumed by a sort of constant rhythm; it is then not eternal in continuity but eternal in recurrence.
--
11:But if we suppose or find Existence to be conscious Being, the problem arises. We may indeed suppose a conscious Being which is subject to its nature of Force, compelled by it and without option as to whether it shall manifest in the universe or remain unmanifest. Such is the cosmic God of the Tantriks and the Mayavadins who is subject to Shakti or Maya, Purusha involved in Maya or controlled by Shakti. But it is obvious that such a God is not the supreme infinite Existence with which we have started. Admittedly, it is only a formulation of Brahman in the cosmos by the Brahman which is itself logically anterior to Shakti or Maya and takes her back into its transcendental being when she ceases from her works. In a conscious existence which is absolute, independent of its formations, not determined by its works, we must suppose an inherent freedom to manifest or not to manifest the potentiality of movement. A Brahman compelled by Prakriti is not Brahman, but an inert Infinite with an active content in it more powerful than the continent, a conscious holder of Force of whom his Force is master. If we say that it is compelled by itself as Force, by its own nature, we do not get rid of the contradiction, the evasion of our first postulate. We have got back to an Existence which is really nothing but Force, Force at rest or in movement, absolute Force perhaps, but not absolute Being.
12:It is then necessary to examine into the relation between Force and Consciousness. But what do we mean by the latter term? Ordinarily we mean by it our first obvious idea of a mental waking consciousness such as is possessed by the human being during the major part of his bodily existence, when he is not asleep, stunned or otherwise deprived of his physical and superficial methods of sensation. In this sense it is plain enough that consciousness is the exception and not the rule in the order of the material universe. We ourselves do not always possess it. But this vulgar and shallow idea of the nature of consciousness, though it still colours our ordinary thought and associations, must now definitely disappear out of philosophical thinking. For we know that there is something in us which is conscious when we sleep, when we are stunned or drugged or in a swoon, in all apparently unconscious states of our physical being. Not only so, but we may now be sure that the old thinkers were right when they declared that even in our waking state what we call then our consciousness is only a small selection from our entire conscious being. It is a superficies, it is not even the whole of our mentality. Behind it, much vaster than it, there is a subliminal or subconscient mind which is the greater part of ourselves and contains heights and profundities which no man has yet measured or fathomed. This knowledge gives us a starting-point for the true science of Force and its workings; it delivers us definitely from circumscription by the material and from the illusion of the obvious.
1.10 - THE MASTER WITH THE BRAHMO DEVOTEES (II), #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Further, the mango grows and ripens on account of the covering skin. You throwaway the skin when the mango is fully ripe and ready to be eaten. It is possible for a man to attain gradually to the Knowledge of Brahman because of the covering skin of Maya.
Maya in its aspects of vidy and avidy may be likened to the skin of the mango. Both are necessary."
--
"Under the spell of God's Maya man forgets his true nature. He forgets that he is heir to the infinite glories of his Father. This divine Maya is made up of three gunas. And all three are robbers; for they rob man of all his treasures and make him forget his true nature. The three gunas are sattva, rajas, and tamas. Of these, sattva alone points the way to God. But even sattva cannot take a man to God.
Parable of the three robbers
--
Even the Incarnations of God accept the help of Maya to fulfil their mission on earth.
Therefore they worship the Primal Energy. Don't you see how bitterly Rama wept for Sita? 'Brahman weeps, ensnared in the meshes of Maya.'
"Vishnu incarnated Himself as a sow in order to kill the demon Hiranyaksha. After killing the demon, the sow remained quite happy with her young ones. Forgetting her real nature, she was suckling them very contentedly. The gods in heaven could not persuade Vishnu to relinquish His sow's body and return to the celestial regions. He was absorbed in the happiness of His beast form. After consulting among themselves, the gods sent iva to the sow. iva asked the sow, 'Why have you forgotten yourself?' Vishnu replied through the sow's body, 'Why, I am quite happy here.' Thereupon with a stroke of his trident iva destroyed the sow's body, and Vishnu went back to heaven."
1.10 - The Methods and the Means, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
The mentally weak also cannot succeed in attaining the Atman. The person who aspires to be a Bhakta must be cheerful. In the Western world the idea of a religious man is that he never smiles, that a dark cloud must always hang over his face, which, again, must be long drawn with the jaws almost collapsed. People with emaciated bodies and long faces are fit subjects for the physician, they are not Yogis. It is the cheerful mind that is persevering. It is the strong mind that hews its way through a thousand difficulties. And this, the hardest task of all, the cutting of our way out of the net of Maya, is the work reserved only for giant wills.
Yet at the same time excessive mirth should be avoided (Anuddharsha). Excessive mirth makes us unfit for serious thought. It also fritters away the energies of the mind in vain. The stronger the will, the less the yielding to the sway of the emotions. Excessive hilarity is quite as objectionable as too much of sad seriousness, and all religious realisation is possible only when the mind is in a steady, peaceful condition of harmonious equilibrium.
1.10 - Theodicy - Nature Makes No Mistakes, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
principle, Maya or Mara, conscious Devil or self-existent
principle of evil. There is one Lord and Self and the many
--
also called the Great Mother, or known as Maya, Prakriti,
Lila. 20 World is the play of the Mother of things moved to
1.10 - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If this traditionlet us call it mystic or esoteric for want of a less abused wordwas already formed at the time of the Brahmanas and Upanishads, when and how did it originally arise? Two possibilities present themselves. The tradition may have grown up gradually in the period between the Vedic hymns and the exegetical writings or else the esoteric sense may have already existed in the Veda itself and descended in a stream of tradition to the later mystics, developing, modifying itself, substituting new terms for oldas is the way of traditions. The former is, practically, the European theory.We are told that this spiritual revolution, this movement away from ritual Nature-worship to Brahmavada, begun in the seed in the later Vedic hymns, is found in a more developed state in the Upanishads & culminated in Buddha. In these writings and in the Brahmanas some record can be found of the speculations by which the development was managed. If it prove to be so, if these ancient writings are really the result of progressive intellectual speculation departing from crude & imperfect beginnings of philosophic thought, the European theory justifies itself to the reason and can no longer easily be disputed. But is this the true character of the Upanishads? It seems to me that in most of their dealings with our religions and our philosophical literature European scholars have erred by imposing their own familiar ideas and the limits of their own mentality on the history of an alien mentality and an alien development. Nowhere has this error been more evident than in the failure to realise the true nature of the Upanishads. In India we have never developed, but only affirmed thought by philosophical speculation, because we have never attached to the mere intellectual idea the amazingly exaggerated value which Europe has attached to it, but regarded it only as a test of the logical value to be attached to particular intellectual statements of truth. That is not truth to us which is merely well & justly thought out & can be justified by ratiocinative argument; only that is truth which has been lived & seen in the inner experience. We meditate not to get ideas, but in order to experience, to realise. When we speak of the Jnani, the knower, we do not mean a competent and logical thinker full of wise or of brilliant ideas, but a soul which has seen and lived & spoken in himself with the living truth. Ratiocination is freely used by the later philosophers, but only for the justification against opponents of the ideas already formed by their own meditation or the meditation of others, Rishis, gurus, ancient Vedantins; it is not itself a sufficient means towards the discovery of truth, but at best a help. The ideas of our great thinkers are not mere intellectual statements or even happy or great intuitions; they are based upon spiritual experiences formalised by the intellect into a philosophy. Shankaras passionate advocacy of the idea of Maya as an explanation of life was not merely the ardour of a great metaphysician enamoured of a beautiful idea or a perfect theory of life, but the passion of a man with a deep & vast spiritual experience which he believed to be the sole means of human salvation. Therefore philosophy in India, instead of tending as in Europe to ignore or combat religion, has always been itself deeply religious. In Europe Buddha and Shankara would have become the heads of metaphysical schools & ranked with Kant or Hegel or Nietzsche1 as strong intellectual influences; in India they became, inevitably, the founders of great religious sects, immense moral & spiritual forces;inevitably because Europe has made thought its highest & noblest aim, while India seeks not after thought but soul-vision and inner experience and even in the realm of ideas believes that they can & ought to be seen & lived inwardly rather than merely thought and allowed indirectly to influence outward action. This has been the mentality of our race for ages.Was the mentality of our Vedic forefa thers entirely different from our own? Was it, as Western scholars seem to insist, a European mentality, the mentality of incursive Western savages, (it is Sergis estimate of the Aryans), changed afterwards by the contact with the cultured & reflective Dravidians into something new and strange, rationality changing to mysticism, materialism to a metaphysical spirituality? If so, the change had already been effected when the Upanishads were written. We speak of the discussions in the Upanishads; but in all truth the twelve Upanishads contain not a single genuine discussion. Only once in that not inconsiderable mass of literature, is there something of the nature of logical argument brought to the support of a philosophical truth. The nature of debate or logical reasoning is absent from the mentality of the Upanishadic thinkers. The grand question they always asked each other was not What hast thou thought out in this matter? or What are thy reasonings & conclusions? but What dost thou know? What hast thou seen in thyself? The Vedantic like the Vedic Rishi is a drashta & srota, not a manota, a kavi, not a manishi. There is question, there is answer; but solely for the comparison of inner knowledge & experience; never for ratiocinative argument, for disputation, for the battles of the logician. Always, knowledge, spiritual vision, experience are what is demanded; and often a questioner is turned back because he is not yet prepared in soul to realise the knowledge of the master. For all knowledge is within us and needs only to be awakened by the fit touch which opens the eyes of the soul or by the powerful revealing word.We find throughout the Vedic era always the same method, always the same theory of knowledge; they persist indeed in India to the present day and later habits of metaphysical debate unknown to the Vedic Brahmavadins have never been able to dethrone them from their primaeval supremacy. Let a man present never so finely reasoned a system of metaphysical philosophy, few will turn to hear, none leave his labour to receive, but let a man say as in the old Vedantic times I have experienced, my soul has seen, & hundreds in India will yet leave all to share in this new light of the eternal Truth.
concrete visualisation & passion for his ideas & experiences which mark off the religious from the merely philosophical mind.
1.11 - The Kalki Avatar, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
the Avatar. ... In both cases Maya is the means of the crea-
tion or manifestation, but in the divine birth the Avatar is
1.11 - The Master of the Work, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For here in the world, though the gnosis is there secretly behind existence, what acts is not the gnosis but a magic of Knowledge-Ignorance, an incalculable yet apparently mechanical overmind Maya. The Divine appears to us here in one view as an equal, inactive and impersonal Witness Spirit, an immobile consenting Purusha not bound by quality or Space or Time, whose support or sanction is given impartially to the play of all action and energies which the transcendent Will has once permitted and authorised to fulfil themselves in the cosmos. This Witness Spirit, this immobile Self in things, seems to will nothing and determine nothing; yet we become aware that his very passivity, his silent presence compels all things to travel even in their ignorance towards a divine goal and attracts through division towards a yet unrealised oneness. Yet no supreme infallible Divine Will seems to be there, only a widely deployed Cosmic Energy of a mechanical executive Process, prakriti. This is one side of the cosmic Self; the other presents itself as a universal Divine, one in being, multiple in personality and power, who conveys to us, when we enter into the consciousness of his universal forces, a sense of infinite quality and will and act and a world-wide knowledge and a one yet innumerable delight; for through him we become one with all existences not only in their essence but in their play of action, see ourself in all and all in ourself, perceive all knowledge and thought and feeling as motions of the one Mind and Heart, all energy and action as kinetics of the one Will m power, all Matter and form as particles of the one Body, all personalities as projections of the one Person, all egos as deformations of the one and sole real "I" in existence. In him we no longer stand separate, but lose our active ego in the universal movement, even as by the Witness who is without qualities and for ever unattached and unentangled, we lose our static ego in the universal peace.
And yet there remains a contradiction between these two terms, the aloof divine Silence and the all-embracing divine Action, which we may heal in ourselves in a certain manner, in a certain high degree which seems to us complete, yet is not complete because it cannot altogether transform and conquer. A universal Peace, Light, Power, Bliss is ours, but its effective expression is not that of the Truth-Consciousness, the divine Gnosis, but still, though wonderfully freed, uplifted and illumined, supports only the present self-expression of the Cosmic Spirit and does not transform, as would a transcendental Descent, the ambiguous symbols and veiled mysteries of a world of Ignorance. Ourselves are free, but the earth-consciousness remains in bondage; only a further transcendental ascent and descent can entirely heal the contradiction and transform and deliver.
--
For Mind is Maya, sat-asat: there is a field of embrace of the true and the false, the existent and the non-existent, and it is in that ambiguous field that Mind seems to reign; but even in its own reign it is in truth a diminished consciousness, it is not part of the original and supremely originating power of the Eternal. Even if Mind is able to reflect some image of essential Truth in its substance, yet the dynamic force and action of Truth appears in it always broken and divided. All Mind can do is to piece together the fragments or deduce a unity; truth of Mind is only a half-truth or a portion of a puzzle. Mental knowledge is always relative, partial and inconclusive, and its outgoing action and creation come out still more confused in its steps or precise only in narrow limits and by imperfect piecings together. Even in this diminished consciousness the Divine manifests as a Spirit in Mind, just as he moves as a Spirit in Life or dwells still more obscurely as a Spirit in Matter; but not here is his full dynamic revelation, not here the perfect identities of the Eternal. Only when we cross the border into a larger luminous consciousness and self-aware substance where divine Truth is a native and not a stranger, will there be revealed to us the Master of our existence in the imperishable integral truth of his being and his powers and his workings. Only there, too, will his works in us assume the flawless movement of his unfailing supramental purpose.
But that is the end of a long and difficult journey, and the Master of works does not wait till then to meet the seeker on the path of Yoga and put his secret or half-shown Hand upon him and upon his inner life and actions. Already he was there in the world as the Originator and Receiver of works behind the dense veils of the Inconscient, disguised in force of Life, visible to the Mind through symbol godheads and figures. It may well be in these disguises that he first meets the soul destined to the way of the integral Yoga. Or even, wearing still vaguer masks, he may be conceived by us as an Ideal or mentalised as an abstract Power of Love, Good, Beauty or Knowledge; or, as we turn our feet towards the Way, he may come to us veiled as the call of Humanity or a Will in things that drives towards the deliverance of the world from the grasp of Darkness and Falsehood and Death and Suffering-the great quaternary of the Ignorance. Then, after we have entered the path, he envelops us with his wide and mighty liberating Impersonality or moves near to us with the face and form of a personal Godhead. In and around us we feel a Power that upholds and protects and cherishes; we hear a Voice that guides; a conscious Will greater than ourselves rules us; an imperative Force moves our thought and actions and our very body; an ever-widening Consciousness assimilates ours, a living Light of Knowledge lights all within, or a Beatitude invades us; a Mightiness presses from above, concrete, massive and overpowering, and penetrates and pours itself into the very stuff of our nature; a Peace sits there, a Light, a Bliss, a Strength, a Greatness. Or there are relations, personal, intimate as life itself, sweet as love, encompassing like the sky, deep like deep waters. A Friend walks at our side; a Lover is with us in our heart's secrecy; a Master of the Work and the Ordeal points our way; a Creator of things uses us as his instrument; we are in the arms of the eternal Mother All these more seizable aspects in which the Ineffable meets us are truths and not mere helpful symbols or useful imaginations; but as we progress, their first imperfect formulations in our experience yield to a larger vision of the one Truth that is behind them. At each step their mere mental masks are shed and they acquire a larger, a profounder, a more intimate significance. At last on the supramental borders all these Godheads combine their sacred forms and, without at all ceasing to be, coalesce together. On this path the Divine Aspects have not revealed themselves only in order to be cast away, they are not temporary spiritual conveniences or compromises with an illusory Consciousness or dream-figures mysteriously cast upon us by the incommunicable superconscience of the Absolute; on the contrary, their power increases and their absoluteness reveals itself as they draw near to the Truth from which they issue.
For that now superconscient Transcendence is a Power as well as an Existence. The supramental Transcendence is not a vacant Wonder, but an inexpressible which contains for ever all essential things that have issued from it; it holds them there in their supreme everlasting reality and their own characteristic absolutes. The diminution, division, degradation that create here the sense of an unsatisfactory puzzle, a mystery of Maya, themselves diminish and fall from us in, our ascension, and the Divine Powers assume their real forms and appear more and more as the terms of a Truth in process of realisation here. A soul of the Divine is here slowly awaking out of its involution and concealment in the material Inconscience. The Master of our works is not a Master of illusions, but a supreme Reality who is working out his self-expressive realities delivered slowly from the cocoons of the Ignorance in which for the purposes of an evolutionary manifestation they were allowed for a while to slumber. For the supramental Transcendence is not a thing absolutely apart and unconnected with our present existence. It is a greater Light out of which all this has come for the adventure of the Soul lapsing into the Inconscience and emerging out of it, and, while that adventure proceeds, it waits superconstient above our minds till it can become conscious in us. Hereafter it will unveil itself and by the unveiling reveal to us all the significance of our own being and our works; for it will disclose the Divine whose fuller manifestation in the world will release and accomplish that covert significance.
In that disclosure the Transcendent Divine will be more and more made known to us as the supreme Existence and the Perfect Source of all that we are; but equally we shall see him as a Master of works and creation prepared to pour out more and more of himself into the field of his manifestation. The cosmic consciousness and its action will appear no longer as a huge regulated Chance, but as a field of the manifestation; there the Divine is seen as a presiding and pervading Cosmic Spirit who receives all out of the Transcendence and develops what descends into forms that are now an opaque disguise or a baffling half-disguise, but destined to be a transparent revelation. The individual consciousness will recover its true sense and action; for it is the form of a Soul sent out from the Supreme and, in spite of all appearances, a nucleus or nebula in which the Divine Mother Force is at work for the victorious embodiment of the timeless and formless Divine in Time and Matter. This will reveal itself slowly to our vision and experience as the will of the Master of works and as their own ultimate significance, which alone gives to world-creation and to our own action in the world a light and a meaning. To recognise that and to strive towards its effectuation is the whole burden of the Way of Divine Works in the integral Yoga.
1.11 - WITH THE DEVOTEES AT DAKSHINEWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "The song speaks of the Kundalini's passing through the six centres. God is both within and without. From within He creates the various states of mind. After passing through the six centres, the jiva goes beyond the realm of Maya and becomes united with the Supreme Soul. This is the vision of God.
"One cannot see God unless Maya steps aside from the door. Rma, Lakshmana, and Sita were walking together. Rma was in front, Sita walked in the middle, and Lakshmana followed them. But Lakshmana could not see Rma because Sita was between them. In like manner, man cannot see God because Maya is between them.
(To Mani Mallick) But Maya steps aside from the door when God shows His grace to the devotee. When the visitor stands before the door, the door-keeper says to the master, 'Sir, comm and us, and we shall let him pass.'
"There are two schools of thought: the Vednta and the Purana. According to the Vednta this world is a 'framework of illusion', that is to say, it is all illusory, like a dream. But according to the Purana, the books of devotion, God Himself has become the twenty-four cosmic principles. Worship God both within and without.
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Ramprasad sang in one of his songs, 'This world is a framework of illusion.' Another devotee gave the reply, 'This very world is a mansion of mirth.' As the saying goes, 'The devotee of Kali, free while living, is full of Eternal Bliss.' The bhakta sees that He who is God has also become Maya. Again, He Himself has become the universe and all its living beings. The bhakta sees God, Maya, the universe, and the living beings as one. Some devotees see everything as Rma: it is Rma alone who has become everything. Some see everything as Radha and Krishna. To them it is Krishna alone who has become the twenty-four cosmic principles. It is like seeing everything green through green glasses.
"But the Bhakti scriptures admit that the manifestations of Power are different in different beings. It is Rma who has become everything, no doubt; but He manifests Himself more in some than in others. There is one kind of manifestation of Rma in the Incarnation of God, and another in men. Even the Incarnations are conscious of the body. Embodiment is due to Maya. Rma wept for Sita. But the Incarnation of God puts a bondage over His eyes by His own will, like children playing blindman's buff. The children stop playing when their mother calls them. It is quite different, however, with the ordinary man. The cloth his eyes are bandaged with is fastened to his back with screws, as it were. There are eight fetters. Shame, hatred, fear, caste, lineage, good conduct, grief, and secretiveness-these are the eight fetters. And they cannot be unfastened without the help of a guru.
Earnestness in spiritual life extolled
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MASTER: "The paramahamsa realizes that all these-good and bad, virtue and vice, real and unreal-are only the glories of God's Maya. But these are very deep thoughts. One realizing this cannot keep an organization together or anything like that."
TANTRIK: "But the law of karma exists, doesn't it?"
1.1.2 - Commentary, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
in a later language, not so much the creator of Maya as himself
a creation of Maya? Do not both Lord and cosmos disappear
when we go beyond all cosmos? And is it not beyond all cosmos
1.12 - Delight of Existence - The Solution, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2:As we look at these three aspects of essential Being, one in reality, triune to our mental view, separable only in appearance, in the phenomena of the divided consciousness, we are able to put in their right place the divergent formulae of the old philosophies so that they unite and become one, ceasing from their agelong controversy. For if we regard world-existence only in its appearances and only in its relation to pure, infinite, indivisible, immutable Existence, we are entitled to regard it, describe it and realise it as Maya. Maya in its original sense meant a comprehending and containing consciousness capable of embracing, measuring and limiting and therefore formative; it is that which outlines, measures out, moulds forms in the formless, psychologises and seems to make knowable the Unknowable, geometrises and seems to make measurable the limitless. Later the word came from its original sense of knowledge, skill, intelligence to acquire a pejorative sense of cunning, fraud or illusion, and it is in the figure of an enchantment or illusion that it is used by the philosophical systems.
3:World is Maya. World is not unreal in the sense that it has no sort of existence; for even if it were only a dream of the Self, still it would exist in It as a dream, real to It in the present even while ultimately unreal. Nor ought we to say that world is unreal in the sense that it has no kind of eternal existence; for although particular worlds and particular forms may or do dissolve physically and return mentally from the consciousness of manifestation into the non-manifestation, yet Form in itself, World in itself are eternal. From the non-manifestation they return inevitably into manifestation; they have an eternal recurrence if not an eternal persistence, an eternal immutability in sum and foundation along with an eternal mutability in aspect and apparition. Nor have we any surety that there ever was or ever will be a period in Time when no form of universe, no play of being is represented to itself in the eternal Conscious-Being, but only an intuitive perception that the world that we know can and does appear from That and return into It perpetually.
4:Still world is Maya because it is not the essential truth of infinite existence, but only a creation of self-conscious being, - not a creation in the void, not a creation in nothing and out of nothing, but in the eternal Truth and out of the eternal Truth of that Self-being; its continent, origin and substance are the essential, real Existence, its forms are mutable formations of That to Its own conscious perception, determined by Its own creative conscious-force. They are capable of manifestation, capable of non-manifestation, capable of other-manifestation. We may, if we choose, call them therefore illusions of the infinite consciousness, thus audaciously flinging back a shadow of our mental sense of subjection to error and incapacity upon that which, being greater than Mind, is beyond subjection to falsehood and illusion. But seeing that the essence and substance of Existence is not a lie and that all errors and deformations of our divided consciousness represent some truth of the indivisible self-conscious Existence, we can only say that the world is not essential truth of That, but phenomenal truth of Its free multiplicity and infinite superficial mutability and not truth of Its fundamental and immutable Unity.
5:If, on the other hand, we look at world-existence in relation to consciousness only and to force of consciousness, we may regard, describe and realise it as a movement of Force obeying some secret will or else some necessity imposed on it by the very existence of the Consciousness that possesses or regards it. It is then the play of Prakriti, the executive Force, to satisfy Purusha, the regarding and enjoying Conscious-Being or it is the play of Purusha reflected in the movements of Force and with them identifying himself. World, then, is the play of the Mother of things moved to cast Herself for ever into infinite forms and avid of eternally outpouring experiences.
6:Again if we look at World-Existence rather in its relation to the self-delight of eternally existent being, we may regard, describe and realise it as Lila, the play, the child's joy, the poet's joy, the actor's joy, the mechanician's joy of the Soul of things eternally young, perpetually inexhaustible, creating and re-creating Himself in Himself for the sheer bliss of that selfcreation, of that self-representation, - Himself the play, Himself the player, Himself the playground. These three generalisations of the play of existence in its relation to the eternal and stable, the immutable Sachchidananda, starting from the three conceptions of Maya, Prakriti and Lila and representing themselves in our philosophical systems as mutually contradictory philosophies, are in reality perfectly consistent with each other, complementary and necessary in their totality to an integral view of life and the world. The world of which we are a part is in its most obvious view a movement of Force; but that Force, when we penetrate its appearances, proves to be a constant and yet always mutable rhythm of creative consciousness casting up, projecting in itself phenomenal truths of its own infinite and eternal being; and this rhythm is in its essence, cause and purpose a play of the infinite delight of being ever busy with its own innumerable self-representations. This triple or triune view must be the starting-point for all our understanding of the universe.
7:Since, then, eternal and immutable delight of being moving out into infinite and variable delight of becoming is the root of the whole matter, we have to conceive one indivisible conscious Being behind all our experiences supporting them by its inalienable delight and effecting by its movement the variations of pleasure, pain and neutral indifference in our sensational existence. That is our real self; the mental being subject to the triple vibration can only be a representation of our real self put in front for the purposes of that sensational experience of things which is the first rhythm of our divided consciousness in its response and reaction to the multiple contacts of the universe. It is an imperfect response, a tangled and discordant rhythm preparing and preluding the full and unified play of the conscious Being in us; it is not the true and perfect symphony that may be ours if we can once enter into sympathy with the One in all variations and attune ourselves to the absolute and universal diapason.
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14:This elimination is possible because pain and pleasure themselves are currents, one imperfect, the other perverse, but still currents of the delight of existence. The reason for this imperfection and this perversion is the self-division of the being in his consciousness by measuring and limiting Maya and in consequence an egoistic and piecemeal instead of a universal reception of contacts by the individual. For the universal soul all things and all contacts of things carry in them an essence of delight best described by the Sanskrit aesthetic term, rasa, which means at once sap or essence of a thing and its taste. It is because we do not seek the essence of the thing in its contact with us, but look only to the manner in which it affects our desires and fears, our cravings and shrinkings that grief and pain, imperfect and transient pleasure or indifference, that is to say, blank inability to seize the essence, are the forms taken by the Rasa. If we could be entirely disinterested in mind and heart and impose that detachment on the nervous being, the progressive elimination of these imperfect and perverse forms of Rasa would be possible and the true essential taste of the inalienable delight of existence in all its variations would be within our reach. We attain to something of this capacity for variable but universal delight in the aesthetic reception of things as represented by Art and Poetry, so that we enjoy there the Rasa or taste of the sorrowful, the terrible, even the horrible or repellent;2 and the reason is because we are detached, disinterested, not thinking of ourselves or of self-defence (jugupsa), but only of the thing and its essence. Certainly, this aesthetic reception of contacts is not a precise image or reflection of the pure delight which is supramental and supra-aesthetic; for the latter would eliminate sorrow, terror, horror and disgust with their cause while the former admits them: but it represents partially and imperfectly one stage of the progressive delight of the universal Soul in things in its manifestation and it admits us in one part of our nature to that detachment from egoistic sensation and that universal attitude through which the one Soul sees harmony and beauty where we divided beings experience rather chaos and discord. The full liberation can come to us only by a similar liberation in all our parts, the universal aesthesis, the universal standpoint of knowledge, the universal detachment from all things and yet sympathy with all in our nervous and emotional being.
15:Since the nature of suffering is a failure of the consciousforce in us to meet the shocks of existence and a consequent shrinking and contraction and its root is an inequality of that receptive and possessing force due to our self-limitation by egoism consequent on the ignorance of our true Self, of Sachchidananda, the elimination of suffering must first proceed by the substitution of titiks.a, the facing, enduring and conquest of all shocks of existence for jugupsa, the shrinking and contraction: by this endurance and conquest we proceed to an equality which may be either an equal indifference to all contacts or an equal gladness in all contacts; and this equality again must find a firm foundation in the substitution of the Sachchidananda consciousness which is All-Bliss for the ego-consciousness which enjoys and suffers. The Sachchidananda consciousness may be transcendent of the universe and aloof from it, and to this state of distant Bliss the path is equal indifference; it is the path of the ascetic. Or the Sachchidananda consciousness may be at once transcendent and universal; and to this state of present and all-embracing Bliss the path is surrender and loss of the ego in the universal and possession of an all-pervading equal delight; it is the path of the ancient Vedic sages. But neutrality to the imperfect touches of pleasure and the perverse touches of pain is the first direct and natural result of the soul's self-discipline and the conversion to equal delight can, usually, come only afterwards. The direct transformation of the triple vibration into Ananda is possible, but less easy to the human being.
16:Such then is the view of the universe which arises out of the integral Vedantic affirmation. An infinite, indivisible existence all-blissful in its pure self-consciousness moves out of its fundamental purity into the varied play of Force that is consciousness, into the movement of Prakriti which is the play of Maya. The delight of its existence is at first self-gathered, absorbed, subconscious in the basis of the physical universe; then emergent in a great mass of neutral movement which is not yet what we call sensation; then further emergent with the growth of mind and ego in the triple vibration of pain, pleasure and indifference originating from the limitation of the force of consciousness in the form and from its exposure to shocks of the universal Force which it finds alien to it and out of harmony with its own measure and standard; finally, the conscious emergence of the full Sachchidananda in its creations by universality, by equality, by self-possession and conquest of Nature. This is the course and movement of the world.
17:If it then be asked why the One Existence should take delight in such a movement, the answer lies in the fact that all possibilities are inherent in Its infinity and that the delight of existence - in its mutable becoming, not in its immutable being, - lies precisely in the variable realisation of its possibilities. And the possibility worked out here in the universe of which we are a part, begins from the concealment of Sachchidananda in that which seems to be its own opposite and its self-finding even amid the terms of that opposite. Infinite being loses itself in the appearance of non-being and emerges in the appearance of a finite Soul; infinite consciousness loses itself in the appearance of a vast indeterminate inconscience and emerges in the appearance of a superficial limited consciousness; infinite selfsustaining Force loses itself in the appearance of a chaos of atoms and emerges in the appearance of the insecure balance of a world; infinite Delight loses itself in the appearance of an insensible Matter and emerges in the appearance of a discordant rhythm of varied pain, pleasure and neutral feeling, love, hatred and indifference; infinite unity loses itself in the appearance of a chaos of multiplicity and emerges in a discord of forces and beings which seek to recover unity by possessing, dissolving and devouring each other. In this creation the real Sachchidananda has to emerge. Man, the individual, has to become and to live as a universal being; his limited mental consciousness has to widen to the superconscient unity in which each embraces all; his narrow heart has to learn the infinite embrace and replace its lusts and discords by universal love and his restricted vital being to become equal to the whole shock of the universe upon it and capable of universal delight; his very physical being has to know itself as no separate entity but as one with and sustaining in itself the whole flow of the indivisible Force that is all things; his whole nature has to reproduce in the individual the unity, the harmony, the oneness-in-all of the supreme Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.
1.12 - THE FESTIVAL AT PNIHTI, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Regaining partial consciousness, he said to Navadvip: "Yoga and bhoga. You goswamis have both. Now your only duty is to call on God and pray to Him sincerely: 'O God, I don't want the glories of Thy world-bewitching Maya. I want Thee alone!' God dwells in all beings, undoubtedly. That being the case, who may be called His devotee? He who dwells in God, he who has merged his mind and life and innermost soul in God."
The Master returned to the sense plane. Referring to his samdhi, he said to Navadvip: "Some say that this state of mine is a disease. I say to them, 'How can one become unconscious by thinking of Him whose Consciousness has made the whole world conscious?' "
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Maya is the cause of ignorance MASTER: "God has covered all with His Maya. He doesn't let us know anything. Maya is 'woman and gold'. He who puts Maya aside to see God, can see Him. Once, when I was explaining God's actions to someone, God suddenly showed me the lake at Kamarpukur.
I saw a man removing the green scum and drinking the water. The water was clear as crystal. God revealed to me that Satchidananda is covered by the scum of Maya. He who puts the green scum aside can drink the water.
"Let me tell you a very secret experience. Once I had entered the wood near the pine-grove, and was sitting there, when I had a vision of something like the hidden door of a chamber. I couldn't see the inside of the chamber. I tried to bore a hole in the door with a nail-knife, but did not succeed. As I bored, the earth fell back into the hole and filled it. Then suddenly I made a very big opening."
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M: "You said the other day to Navadvip Goswami:'O God, I want Thee. Please do not delude me with Thy world-bewitching Maya. I want to realize Thee.' "
MASTER: "Yes, one should be able to say that from one's innermost soul."
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MASTER: "One attains the Absolute by going beyond the universe and its created beings conjured up by Maya. By passing beyond the Nada one goes into samdhi. By repeating 'Om' one goes beyond the Nada and attains samdhi."
Adhar served Sri Ramakrishna with fruits and sweets. The Master left for Jadu Mallick's house.
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The superior devotee says: 'It is God Himself who has become everything; whatever I see is only a form of God. It is He alone who has become Maya, the universe, and all living beings. Nothing exists but God.' "
VAISHNAVA: "Does anyone ever attain that state of mind?"
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"The activities that Vidyasagar is engaged in are good. Charity is very noble. There is a great deal of difference between daya, compassion, and Maya, attachment. Daya is good, but not Maya. Maya is love for one's relatives-one's wife, children, brother, sister, nephew, father, and mother. But daya is the same love for all created beings without any distinction."
M: "Is daya also a bondage?"
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"It is extremely difficult to go beyond the three gunas. One cannot reach that state without having realized God. Man dwells in the realm of Maya. Maya does not permit him to see God. It has made him a victim of ignorance.
Man's inordinate attachment
"Once Hriday brought a bull-calf here. I saw, one day, that he had tied it with a rope in the garden, so that it might graze there. I asked him, 'Hriday, why do you tie the calf there every day?' 'Uncle,' he said, 'I am going to send this calf to our village. When it grows strong I shall yoke it to the plough.' As soon as I heard these words I was stunned to think: 'How inscrutable is the play of the divine Maya! Kamarpukur and Sihore are so far away from Calcutta! This poor calf must go all that way. Then it will grow, and at length it will be yoked to the plough. This is indeed the world! This is indeed Maya!' I fell down unconscious. Only after a long time did I regain consciousness."
It was three or four o'clock in the afternoon. M. found Sri Ramakrishna seated on the couch in an abstracted mood. After some time he heard him talking to the Divine Mother. The Master said, "O Mother, why hast Thou given him only a particle?"
1.13 - Dawn and the Truth, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Dawn as the bringer of delight we find constantly in the Veda and Vasishtha gives a very positive expression to it in VII.81.3, ya vahasi puru sparham ratnam na dasus.e Mayah., "thou who bearest to the giver the beatitude as a manifold and desirable ecstasy."
A common Vedic word is the word sunr.ta which Sayana interprets as "pleasant and true speech"; but it seems to have often the more general sense of "happy truths". Dawn is sometimes described as r.tavar, full of the Truth, sometimes as sunr.tavar.
1.13 - The Divine Maya, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
object:1.13 - The Divine Maya
class:chapter
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0:By the Names of the Lord and hers they shaped and measured the force of the Mother of Light; wearing might after might of that Force as a robe the lords of Maya shaped out Form in this Being.
The Masters of Maya shaped all by His Maya; the Fathers who have divine vision set Him within as a child that is to be born. Rig Veda.1
1:EXISTENCE that acts and creates by the power and from the pure delight of its conscious being is the reality that we are, the self of all our modes and moods, the cause, object and goal of all our doing, becoming and creating. As the poet, artist or musician when he creates does really nothing but develop some potentiality in his unmanifested self into a form of manifestation and as the thinker, statesman, mechanist only bring out into a shape of things that which lay hidden in themselves, was themselves, is still themselves when it is cast into form, so is it with the world and the Eternal. All creation or becoming is nothing but this self-manifestation. Out of the seed there evolves that which is already in the seed, pre-existent in being, predestined in its will to become, prearranged in the delight of becoming. The original plasm held in itself in force of being the resultant organism. For it is always that secret, burdened, self-knowing force which labours under its own irresistible impulse to manifest the form of itself with which it is charged. Only, the individual who creates or develops out of himself, makes a distinction between himself, the force that works in him and the material in which he works. In reality the force is himself, the individualised consciousness which it instrumentalises is himself, the material which it uses is himself, the resultant form is himself. In other words it is one existence, one force, one delight of being which concentrates itself at various points, says of each "This is I" and works in it by a various play of self-force for a various play of self-formation.
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9:This power was known to the Vedic seers by the name of Maya. Maya meant for them the power of infinite consciousness to comprehend, contain in itself and measure out, that is to say, to form - for form is delimitation - Name and Shape out of the vast illimitable Truth of infinite existence. It is by Maya that static truth of essential being becomes ordered truth of active being - or, to put it in more metaphysical language, out of the supreme being in which all is all without barrier of separative consciousness emerges the phenomenal being in which all is in each and each is in all for the play of existence with existence, consciousness with consciousness, force with force, delight with delight. This play of all in each and each in all is concealed at first from us by the mental play or the illusion of Maya which persuades each that he is in all but not all in him and that he is in all as a separated being not as a being always inseparably one with the rest of existence. Afterwards we have to emerge from this error into the supramental play or the truth of Maya where the "each" and the "all" coexist in the inseparable unity of the one truth and the multiple symbol. The lower, present and deluding mental Maya has first to be embraced, then to be overcome; for it is God's play with division and darkness and limitation, desire and strife and suffering in which He subjects Himself to the Force that has come out of Himself and by her obscure suffers Himself to be obscured. That other Maya concealed by this mental has to be overpassed, then embraced; for it is God's play of the infinities of existence, the splendours of knowledge, the glories of force mastered and the ecstasies of love illimitable where He emerges out of the hold of Force, holds her instead and fulfils in her illumined that for which she went out from Him at the first.
10:This distinction between the lower and the higher Maya is the link in thought and in cosmic Fact which the pessimistic and illusionist philosophies miss or neglect. To them the mental Maya, or perhaps an Overmind, is the creatrix of the world, and a world created by mental Maya would indeed be an inexplicable paradox and a fixed yet floating nightmare of conscious existence which could neither be classed as an illusion nor as a reality. We have to see that the mind is only an intermediate term between the creative governing knowledge and the soul imprisoned in its works. Sachchidananda, involved by one of His lower movements in the self-oblivious absorption of Force that is lost in the form of her own workings, returns towards Himself out of the self-oblivion; Mind is only one of His instruments in the descent and the ascent. It is an instrument of the descending creation, not the secret creatrix, - a transitional stage in the ascent, not our high original source and the consummate term of cosmic existence.
11:The philosophies which recognise Mind alone as the creator of the worlds or accept an original principle with Mind as the only mediator between it and the forms of the universe, may be divided into the purely noumenal and the idealistic. The purely noumenal recognise in the cosmos only the work of Mind, Thought, Idea: but Idea may be purely arbitrary and have no essential relation to any real Truth of existence; such Truth, if it exists, may be regarded as a mere Absolute aloof from all relations and irreconcilable with a world of relations. The idealistic interpretation supposes a relation between the Truth behind and the conceptive phenomenon in front, a relation which is not merely that of an antinomy and opposition. The view I am presenting goes farther in idealism; it sees the creative Idea as Real-Idea, that is to say, a power of Conscious Force expressive of real being, born out of real being and partaking of its nature and neither a child of the Void nor a weaver of fictions. It is conscious Reality throwing itself into mutable forms of its own imperishable and immutable substance. The world is therefore not a figment of conception in the universal Mind, but a conscious birth of that which is beyond Mind into forms of itself. A Truth of conscious being supports these forms and expresses itself in them, and the knowledge corresponding to the truth thus expressed reigns as a supramental Truth-consciousness organising real ideas in a perfect harmony before they are cast into the mental-vital-material mould. Mind, Life and Body are an inferior consciousness and a partial expression which strives to arrive in the mould of a various evolution at that superior expression of itself already existent to the Beyond-Mind. That which is in the Beyond-Mind is the ideal which in its own conditions it is labouring to realise.
1.13 - THE MASTER AND M., #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
(To M.) "You see, I am very much depressed today. Hriday has written me that he is very ill. Why should I feel dejected about it? Is it because of Maya or daya?"
M. could not find suitable words for a reply, and remained silent.
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MASTER: "Do you know what Maya is? It is attachment to relatives-parents, brother and sister, wife and children, nephew and niece. Daya means love for all created beings.
Now what is this, my feeling about Hriday? Is it Maya or daya? But Hriday did so much for me: he served me whole-heartedly and nursed me when I was ill. But later he tormented me also. The torment became so unbearable that once I was about to commit suicide by jumping into the Ganges from the top of the embankment. But he did much to serve me. Now my mind will be at rest if he gets some money. But whom shall I ask for it? Who likes to speak about such things to our rich visitors?"
At two or three o'clock in the afternoon Adhar Sen and Balarm arrived. After saluting Sri Ramakrishna, they sat on the floor and asked him if he was well. The Master said, "Yes, I am well physically, but a little troubled in mind." He did not refer to Hriday and his troubles.
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(To Captain and the other devotees) "Attri bute to yourselves the bliss of God-Consciousness; then you too will experience ineffable joy. The bliss of God-Consciousness always exists in you. It is only hidden by the veiling and projecting power of Maya. The less you are attached to the world, the more you love God."
CAPTAIN: "The farther you proceed toward your home in Calcutta, the farther you leave Benares behind. Again, the farther you proceed toward Benares, the farther behind you leave your home."
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"People practise various Tantrik disciplines to acquire supernatural powers. How mean such people are! Krishna said to Arjuna, 'Friend, by acquiring one of the eight siddhis you may add a little to your power, but you will not be able to realize Me.' One cannot get rid of Maya as long as one exercises supernatural powers. And Maya begets egotism.
"Body and wealth are impermanent. Why go to so much trouble for their sakes? Just think of the plight of the hathayogis. Their attention is fixed on one ideal only-longevity. They do not aim at the realization of God at all. They practise such exercises as washing out the intestines, drinking milk through a tube, and the like, with that one aim in view.
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Rma, please do not delude us with Your world-bewitching Maya.' "
ISHAN: "What is this Maya?"
MASTER: "Whatever you see, think, or hear is Maya. In a word, 'woman and gold' is the covering of Maya.
"There is no harm in chewing betel-leaf, eating fish, smoking, or rubbing the body with oil. What will one achieve by renouncing only these things? The one thing needful is the renunciation of 'woman and gold'. That renunciation is the real and supreme renunciation. Householders should go into solitude now and then, to practise spiritual discipline in order to cultivate devotion to God; they should renounce mentally. But the sannyasi should renounce both mentally and physically.
1.14 - INSTRUCTION TO VAISHNAVS AND BRHMOS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Once a Vedantic monk came here. He used to dance at the sight of a cloud. He would go into an ecstasy of joy over a rain-storm. He would get very angry if, anyone went near him when he meditated. One day I came to him while he was meditating, and that made him very cross. He discriminated constantly, 'Brahman alone is real and the world is illusory.' Since the appearance of diversity is due to Maya, he walked about with a prism from a chandelier in his hand. One sees different colours through the prism; in reality there is no such thing as colour. Likewise, nothing exists, in reality, except Brahman. But there is an appearance of the manifold because of Maya, egoism. He would not look at an object more than once, lest he should be deluded by Maya and attachment. He would discriminate, while taking his bath, at the sight of birds flying in the. sky. He knew grammar. He stayed here for three days. One day he heard the sound of a flute near the embankment and said that a man who had realized Brahman would go into samdhi at such a sound."
While talking about the monk, the Master showed his devotees the manners and movements of a paramahamsa: the gait of a child, face beaming with laughter, eyes swimming in joy, and body completely naked. Then he again took his seat on the small couch and poured out his soul-enthralling words.
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Mother, how many things people say about Thee! But I don't understand any of them. I don't know anything, Mother. I have taken refuge at Thy feet. I have sought protection in Thee. O Mother, I pray only that I may have pure love for Thy Lotus Feet, love that seeks no return. And Mother, do not delude me with Thy world-bewitching Maya. I seek Thy protection. I have taken refuge in Thee."
The evening worship in the temples was over. Sri Ramakrishna was again seated in his room with M.
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"Again, when God changes the state of my mind, when He brings my mind down to the plane of the Relative, I perceive that it is He who has become all these-the Creator, Maya, the living beings, and the universe.
"Again, sometimes He shows me that He has created the universe and all living beings.
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"You are leading a householder's life. Why should you be afraid of the world? When Rma said to Dasaratha that He was going to renounce the world, it worried His father, and the king sought counsel of Vasishtha. Vasishtha said to Rma: 'Rma, why should You give up the world? Reason with me; Is this world outside God? What is there to renounce and what is there to accept? Nothing whatever exists but God. It is Brahman alone that appears as Isvara, Maya, living beings, and the universe.' "
BALARM'S FATHER: "It is very difficult, sir."
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Trapped in the subtle snare of Maya as you are, Do not forget the Mother's name.
Only a day or two men honour you on earth
1.14 - The Principle of Divine Works, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To exalt oneself out of the lower imperfect Prakriti, traigun.yamay Maya, into unity with the divine being, consciousness and nature,1 madbhavam agatah., is the object of the Yoga. But when this object is fulfilled, when the man is in the Brahmic status and sees no longer with the false egoistic vision himself and the world, but sees all beings in the Self, in God, and the
Self in all beings, God in all beings, what shall be the action,
1.14 - The Secret, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
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)
1.15 - LAST VISIT TO KESHAB, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "Yes, it is unreal as long as one has not realized God. Through ignorance man forgets God and speaks always of 'I' and 'mine'. He sinks down and down, entangled in Maya, deluded by 'woman and gold'. Maya robs him of his knowledge to such an extent that he cannot find the way of escape, though such a way exists.
"Listen to a song:
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NEIGHBOUR: "Then why should one call the world Maya?"
God and the world
MASTER: "As long as one has not realized God, one should renounce the world, following the process of 'Neti, neti.' But he who has attained God knows that it is God who has become all this. Then he sees that God, Maya, living beings, and the universe form one whole. God includes the universe and its living beings. Suppose you have separated the shell, flesh, and seeds of a bel-fruit and someone asks you the weight of the fruit. Will you leave aside the shell and the seeds, and weigh only the flesh? Not at all. To know the real weight of the fruit, you must weigh the whole of it-the shell, the flesh, and the seeds. Only then can you tell its real weight. The shell may be likened to the universe, and the seeds to living beings. While one is engaged in discrimination one says to oneself that the universe and the living beings are non-Self and unsubstantial. At that time one thinks of the flesh alone as the substance, and the shell and seeds as unsubstantial. But after discrimination is over, one feels that all three parts of the fruit together form a unity. Then one further realizes that the stuff that has produced the flesh of the fruit has also produced the shell and seeds. To know the real nature of the bel-fruit one must know all three.
"It is the process of evolution and involution. The world, after its dissolution, remains involved in God; and God, at the time of creation, evolves as the world. Butter goes with buttermilk, and buttermilk goes with butter. If there is a thing called buttermilk, then butter also exists; and if there is a thing called butter, then buttermilk also exists.
1.15 - The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Science, a power of will, an intelligence at work; but that power is the power of will and intelligence of the Self, Spirit or Godhead within it, it is not the separate, self-derived will or idea of the mechanical cell or atom. This universal will and intelligence, involved, develops its powers from form to form, and on earth at least it is in man that it draws nearest to the full divine and there first becomes, even in the outward intelligence in the form, obscurely conscious of its divinity. But still there too there is a limitation, there is that imperfection of the manifestation which prevents the lower forms from having the self-knowledge of their identity with the Divine. For in each limited being the limitation of the phenomenal action is accompanied by a limitation also of the phenomenal consciousness which defines the nature of the being and makes the inner difference between creature and creature. The Divine works behind indeed and governs its special manifestation through this outer and imperfect consciousness and will, but is itself secret in the cavern, guhayam, as the Veda puts it, or as the Gita expresses it, "In the heart of all existences the Lord abides turning all existences as if mounted on a machine by Maya." This secret working of the Lord hidden in the heart from the egoistic nature-consciousness through which he works, is God's universal method with creatures. Why then should we
154
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The Gita explains the ordinary imperfect action of the creature by its subjection to the mechanism of Prakriti and its limitation by the self-representations of Maya. These two terms are only complementary aspects of one and the same effective force of divine consciousness. Maya is not essentially illusion, - the element or appearance of illusion only enters in by the ignorance of the lower Prakriti, Maya of the three modes of Nature,
- it is the divine consciousness in its power of various selfrepresentation of its being, while Prakriti is the effective force of that consciousness which operates to work out each such self-representation according to its own law and fundamental idea, svabhava and svadharma, in its own proper quality and particular force of working, gun.a-karma. "Leaning - pressing down upon my own Nature (Prakriti) I create (loose forth into various being) all this multitude of existences, all helplessly subject to the control of Nature." Those who know not the Divine lodged in the human body, are ignorant of it because they are grossly subject to this mechanism of Prakriti, helplessly subject to its mental limitations and acquiescent in them, and dwell in an Asuric nature that deludes with desire and bewilders with egoism the will and the intelligence, mohinm prakr.tim sritah..
For the Purushottama within is not readily manifest to any and every being; he conceals himself in a thick cloud of darkness or a bright cloud of light, utterly he envelops and wraps himself in his Yoga Maya.1 "All this world," says the Gita, "because it is bewildered by the three states of being determined by the modes of Nature, fails to recognise me, for this my divine Maya of the modes of Nature is hard to get beyond; those cross beyond it who approach Me; but those who dwell in the Asuric nature of being, have their knowledge reft from them by Maya." In
naham prakasah. sarvasya yoga Maya-samavr.tah..
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other words, there is the inherent consciousness of the divine in all, for in all the Divine dwells; but he dwells there covered by his Maya and the essential self-knowledge of beings is reft from them, turned into the error of egoism by the action of Maya, the action of the mechanism of Prakriti. Still by drawing back from the mechanism of Nature to her inner and secret Master man can become conscious of the indwelling Divinity.
Now it is notable that with a slight but important variation of language the Gita describes in the same way both the action of the Divine in bringing about the ordinary birth of creatures and his action in his birth as the Avatar. "Leaning upon my own
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"Standing upon my own Nature," it says here, "I am born by my self- Maya, prakr.tim svam adhis.t.haya . . . atma Mayaya, I loose forth myself, atmanam sr.jami." The action implied in the word avas.t.abhya is a forceful downward pressure by which the object controlled is overcome, oppressed, blocked or limited in its movement or working and becomes helplessly subject to the controlling power, avasam vasat; Nature in this action becomes mechanical and its multitude of creatures are held helpless in the mechanism, not lords of their own action. On the contrary the action implied in the word adhis.t.haya is a dwelling in, but also a standing upon and over the Nature, a conscious control and government by the indwelling Godhead, adhis.t.hatr devata, in which the Purusha is not helplessly driven by the Prakriti through ignorance, but rather the Prakriti is full of the light and the will of the Purusha. Therefore in the normal birth that which is loosed forth, - created, as we say, - is the multitude of creatures or becomings, bhutagramam; in the divine birth that which is loosed forth, self-created, is the self-conscious self-existent being, atmanam; for the Vedantic distinction between atma and bhutani is that which is made in European philosophy between the Being and its becomings. In both cases Maya is the means of the creation or manifestation, but in the divine birth it is by self- Maya, atma Mayaya, not the involution in the lower Maya
156
1.15 - The Supreme Truth-Consciousness, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
7:This Supermind in its conscious vision not only contains all the forms of itself which its conscious force creates, but it pervades them as an indwelling Presence and a self-revealing Light. It is present, even though concealed, in every form and force of the universe; it is that which determines sovereignly and spontaneously form, force and functioning; it limits the variations it compels; it gathers, disperses, modifies the energy which it uses; and all this is done in accord with the first laws2 that its self-knowledge has fixed in the very birth of the form, at the very starting-point of the force. It is seated within everything as the Lord in the heart of all existences, - he who turns them as on an engine by the power of his Maya;3 it is within them and embraces them as the divine Seer who variously disposed and ordained objects, each rightly according to the thing that it is, from years sempiternal.4
8:Each thing in Nature, therefore, whether animate or inanimate, mentally self-conscious or not self-conscious, is governed in its being and in its operations by an indwelling Vision and Power, to us subconscient or inconscient because we are not conscious of it, but not inconscient to itself, rather profoundly and universally conscient. Therefore each thing seems to do the works of intelligence, even without possessing intelligence, because it obeys, whether subconsciously as in the plant and animal or half-consciously as in man, the real-idea of the divine Supermind within it. But it is not a mental Intelligence that informs and governs all things; it is a self-aware Truth of being in which self-knowledge is inseparable from self-existence: it is this Truth-consciousness which has not to think out things but works them out with knowledge according to the impeccable self-vision and the inevitable force of a sole and self-fulfilling Existence. Mental intelligence thinks out because it is merely a reflecting force of consciousness which does not know, but seeks to know; it follows in Time step by step the working of a knowledge higher than itself, a knowledge that exists always, one and whole, that holds Time in its grasp, that sees past, present and future in a single regard.
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16:First of all, the Knower holds himself concentrated in knowledge as subject and regards his Force of consciousness as if continually proceeding from him into the form of himself, continually working in it, continually drawing back into himself, continually issuing forth again. From this single act of selfmodification proceed all the practical distinctions upon which the relative view and the relative action of the universe is based. A practical distinction has been created between the Knower, Knowledge and the Known, between the Lord, His force and the children and works of the Force, between the Enjoyer, the Enjoyment and the Enjoyed, between the Self, Maya and the becomings of the Self.
17:Secondly, this conscious Soul concentrated in knowledge, this Purusha observing and governing the Force that has gone forth from him, his Shakti or Prakriti, repeats himself in every form of himself. He accompanies, as it were, his Force of consciousness into its works and reproduces there the act of selfdivision from which this apprehending consciousness is born. In each form this Soul dwells with his Nature and observes himself in other forms from that artificial and practical centre of consciousness. In all it is the same Soul, the same divine Being; the multiplication of centres is only a practical act of consciousness intended to institute a play of difference, of mutuality, mutual knowledge, mutual shock of force, mutual enjoyment, a difference based upon essential unity, a unity realised on a practical basis of difference.
1.16 - The Process of Avatarhood, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He is ignorant because there is upon the eyes of his soul and all its organs the seal of that Nature, Prakriti, Maya, by which he has been put forth into manifestation out of God's eternal being; she has minted him like a coin out of the precious metal of the divine substance, but overlaid with a strong coating of the alloy of her phenomenal qualities, stamped with her own stamp and mark of animal humanity, and although the secret sign of the Godhead is there, it is at first indistinguishable and always with difficulty decipherable, not to be really discovered except by that initiation into the mystery of our own being which distinguishes a Godward from an earthward humanity.
In the Avatar, the divinely-born Man, the real substance shines
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Avatarhood. The Lord stands in the heart, says the Gita, - by which it means of course the heart of the subtle being, the nodus of the emotions, sensations, mental consciousness, where the individual Purusha also is seated, - but he stands there veiled, enveloped by his Maya. But above, on a plane within us but now superconscient to us, called heaven by the ancient mystics, the
Lord and the Jiva stand together revealed as of one essence of being, the Father and the Son of certain symbolisms, the Divine
--
Maya, into the lower or human nature. This seems to be the inner doctrine of the Christian incarnation; in its Trinity the Father is above in this inner Heaven; the Son or supreme Prakriti become
Jiva of the Gita descends as the divine Man upon earth, in the mortal body; the Holy Spirit, pure Self, Brahmic consciousness is that which makes them one and that also in which they communicate; for we hear of the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus and it is the same descent which brings down the powers of the higher consciousness into the simple humanity of the Apostles.
1.16 - The Triple Status of Supermind, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1:BEFORE we pass to this easier understanding of the world we inhabit from the standpoint of an apprehending Truthconsciousness which sees things as would an individual soul freed from the limitations of mentality and admitted to participate in the action of the Divine Supermind, we must pause and resume briefly what we have realised or can yet realise of the consciousness of the Lord, the Ishwara as He develops the world by His Maya out of the original concentrated unity of His being.
2:We have started with the assertion of all existence as one Being whose essential nature is Consciousness, one Consciousness whose active nature is Force or Will; and this Being is Delight, this Consciousness is Delight, this Force or Will is Delight. Eternal and inalienable Bliss of Existence, Bliss of Consciousness, Bliss of Force or Will whether concentrated in itself and at rest or active and creative, this is God and this is ourselves in our essential, our non-phenomenal being. Concentrated in itself, it possesses or rather is the essential, eternal, inalienable Bliss; active and creative, it possesses or rather becomes the delight of the play of existence, the play of consciousness, the play of force and will. That play is the universe and that delight is the sole cause, motive and object of cosmic existence. The Divine Consciousness possesses that play and delight eternally and inalienably; our essential being, our real self which is concealed from us by the false self or mental ego, also enjoys that play and delight eternally and inalienably and cannot indeed do otherwise since it is one in being with the Divine Consciousness. If we aspire therefore to a divine life, we cannot attain to it by any other way than by unveiling this veiled self in us, by mounting from our present status in the false self or mental ego to a higher status in the true self, the Atman, by entering into that unity with the Divine Consciousness which something superconscient in us always enjoys, - otherwise we could not exist, - but which our conscious mentality has forfeited.
1.16 - WITH THE DEVOTEES AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"'Woman and gold' alone is Maya. If Maya is once recognized, it feels ashamed of itself and takes to flight. A man put on a tiger skin and tried to frighten another man. But the latter said: 'Ah! I have recognized you! You are our Hare.' At that the man dressed in the skin went away smiling to frighten someone else.
Women as embodiments of the Divine Mother
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M. went walking alone in the Panchavati and other places in the temple garden. He thought about the Master's assurance that God can be easily realized, and about his exhortation to lead a life of intense renunciation, and his saying that Maya, when recognized, takes to flight.
Image worship
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I have done unnumbered wrongs, and aimlessly I roam about, Misled by Maya's spell, bereft of wisdom's light, Comfortless as a mother cow whose calf has wandered far away.
MASTER: "But why? Why should I live like a 'bird imprisoned in a cage'? Fie! For shame!"
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MASTER: "As the saying goes: 'In my mother's womb I was in a state of yoga; coming into the world, I have eaten its clay. The midwife has cut one shackle, the navel cord; but how shall I cut the shackle of Maya?'
"Woman and gold"
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M: "What can a man achieve unless he gets rid of Maya? What will a man gain by merely being a sannyasi, if he cannot subdue Maya?"
Both remained silent a few minutes.
1.17 - God, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
It is evident that true initiation knows neither a mystic nor a magic path. There is only one initiation linking both conceptions, in opposition to most of the mystic and spiritual schools which are dealing with the very highest problems, through meditation or other spiritual exercises, without having gone through the first steps at first. This would be very similar to somebody starting with the university studies without having gone through the elementary classes first. The results of such a onesided training, in some cases, are disastrous, sometimes even drastic, according to the individual talents. Generally the error is to be found in the fact that most of the matter comes from the Orient, where the material as well as the astral world is regarded as Maya (illusion), and consequently little attention is paid to it. It is impossible to point out the details, for this would overstep the frame of this book. Sticking to a carefully planned, step-by-step development, there will be neither a mishap nor a failure nor bad consequences, for the simple reason that ripening takes place slowly but surely. It is quite an individual matter whether the adept will choose as his idea of God, Christ, Buddha, Brahma, Allah, or someone else. All depends on the idea, in the initiation.
The pure mystic wishes to approach his God only in the all-embracing love. The yogi, too, walks toward one single aspect of God. The bhakti- yogi keeps to the road of love and devotion, the raja and hatha yogi choose the path of self-control or volition, the jnana yogi will follow that of wisdom and cognition.
1.17 - The Divine Soul, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2:What then would be the existence of a divine soul, not descended into the ignorance by the fall of Spirit into Matter and the eclipse of soul by material Nature? What would be its consciousness, living in the original Truth of things, in the inalienable unity, in the world of its own infinite being, like the Divine Existence itself, but able by the play of the Divine Maya and by the distinction of the comprehending and apprehending Truth-Consciousness to enjoy also difference from God at the same time as unity with Him and to embrace difference and yet oneness with other divine souls in the infinite play of the self-multiplied Identical?
3:Obviously, the existence of such a soul would be always selfcontained in the conscious play of Sachchidananda. It would be pure and infinite self-existence in its being; in its becoming it would be a free play of immortal life uninvaded by death and birth and change of body because unclouded by ignorance and not involved in the darkness of our material being. It would be a pure and unlimited consciousness in its energy, poised in an eternal and luminous tranquillity as its foundation, yet able to play freely with forms of knowledge and forms of conscious power, tranquil, unaffected by the stumblings of mental error and the misprisions of our striving will because it never departs from truth and oneness, never falls from the inherent light and the natural harmony of its divine existence. It would be, finally, a pure and inalienable delight in its eternal self-experience and in Time a free variation of bliss unaffected by our perversions of dislike, hatred, discontent and suffering because undivided in being, unbaffled by erring self-will, unperverted by the ignorant stimulus of desire.
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12:In its relations with its supreme Self, with God, the divine soul will have this sense of the oneness of the transcendent and universal Divine with its own being. It will enjoy that oneness of God with itself in its own individuality and with its other selves in the universality. Its relations of knowledge will be the play of the divine omniscience, for God is Knowledge, and what is ignorance with us will be there only the holding back of knowledge in the repose of conscious self-awareness so that certain forms of that self-awareness may be brought forward into activity of Light. Its relations of will will be there the play of the divine omnipotence, for God is Force, Will and Power, and what with us is weakness and incapacity will be the holding back of will in tranquil concentrated force so that certain forms of divine conscious-force may realise themselves brought forward into form of Power. Its relations of love and delight will be the play of the divine ecstasy, for God is Love and Delight, and what with us would be denial of love and delight will be the holding back of joy in the still sea of Bliss so that certain forms of divine union and enjoyment may be brought in front in an active upwelling of waves of the Bliss. So also all its becoming will be formation of the divine being in response to these activities and what is with us cessation, death, annihilation will be only rest, transition or holding back of the joyous creative Maya in the eternal being of Sachchidananda. At the same time this oneness will not preclude relations of the divine soul with God, with its supreme Self, founded on the joy of difference separating itself from unity to enjoy that unity otherwise; it will not annul the possibility of any of those exquisite forms of God-enjoyment which are the highest rapture of the God-lover in his clasp of the Divine.
13:But what will be the conditions in which and by which this nature of the life of the divine soul will realise itself? All experience in relation proceeds through certain forces of being formulating themselves by an instrumentation to which we give the name of properties, qualities, activities, faculties. As, for instance, Mind throws itself into various forms of mind-power, such as judgment, observation, memory, sympathy, proper to its own being, so must the Truth-consciousness or Supermind effect the relations of soul with soul by forces, faculties, functionings proper to supramental being; otherwise there would be no play of differentiation. What these functionings are, we shall see when we come to consider the psychological conditions of the divine Life; at present we are only considering its metaphysical foundations, its essential nature and principles. Suffice it at present to observe that the absence or abolition of separatist egoism and of effective division in consciousness is the one essential condition of the divine Life, and therefore their presence in us is that which constitutes our mortality and our fall from the Divine. This is our "original sin", or rather let us say in a more philosophical language, the deviation from the Truth and Right of the Spirit, from its oneness, integrality and harmony that was the necessary condition for the great plunge into the Ignorance which is the soul's adventure in the world and from which was born our suffering and aspiring humanity.
1.17 - The Seven-Headed Thought, Swar and the Dashagwas, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Chit-Tapas and Ananda; their base is Swar of the Veda, Mahar of the Upanishads and Puranas, the world of Truth.4 These four together make the fourfold fourth world and are described in the Rig Veda as the four supreme and secret seats, the source of the "four upper rivers". Sometimes, however, this upper world seems to be divided into two, Swar the base, Mayas or the divine beatitude the summit, so that there are five worlds or births of the ascending soul. The three other rivers are the three lower powers of being and supply the principles of the three lower worlds.
This secret well of honey is drunk by all those who are able to see Swar and they pour out its billowing fountain of sweetness in manifold streams together, tam eva visve papire svardr.so bahu sakam sisicur utsam udrin.am. These many streams poured out together are the seven rivers poured down the hill by Indra after slaying Vritra, the rivers or streams of the Truth, r.tasya dharah.; and they represent, according to our theory, the seven principles of conscious being in their divine fulfilment in the Truth and
1.18 - M. AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"There are both vidy and avidy in this world of Maya. Who may be called a paramahamsa? He who, like a swan, can take the milk from a mixture of milk and water, leaving aside the water. He who, like an ant, can take the sugar from a mixture of sugar and sand, leaving aside the sand."
It was evening. The Master stopped at Ram's house on his way to Dakshineswar. He was taken to the drawing-room and there he engaged in conversation with Mahendra Goswami. Mahendra belonged to the Vaishnava sect and was Ram's neighbour. Sri Ramakrishna was fond of him.
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"I assume the attitude of a child. To me every woman is my mother. The divine Maya, seeing this attitude in an aspirant, moves away from his path out of sheer shame.
"The attitude of 'hero' is extremely difficult. The Saktas and the Bauls among the Vaishnavas follow it, but it is very hard to keep one's spiritual life pure in that attitude.
1.18 - Mind and Supermind, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2:In fact, we have striven to arrive at some conception of that supreme infinite being, conscious-force and self-delight of which our world is a creation and our mentality a perverse figure; we have tried to give ourselves an idea of what this divine Maya may be, this Truth-consciousness, this Real-Idea by which the conscious force of the transcendent and universal Existence conceives, forms and governs the universe, the order, the cosmos of its manifested delight of being. But we have not studied the connections of these four great and divine terms with the three others with which our human experience is alone familiar, - mind, life and body. We have not scrutinised this other and apparently undivine Maya which is the root of all our striving and suffering or seen how precisely it develops out of the divine reality or the divine Maya. And till we have done this, till we have woven the missing cords of connection, our world is still unexplained to us and the doubt of a possible unification between that higher existence and this lower life has still a basis. We know that our world has come forth from Sachchidananda and subsists in His being; we conceive that He dwells in it as the Enjoyer and Knower, Lord and Self; we have seen that our dual terms of sensation, mind, force, being can only be representations of His delight, His conscious force, His divine existence. But it would seem that they are actually so much the opposite of what He really and supernally is that we cannot while dwelling in the cause of these opposites, cannot while contained in the lower triple term of existence attain to the divine living. We must either exalt this lower being into that higher status or exchange body for that pure existence, life for that pure condition of conscious-force, sensation and mentality for that pure delight and knowledge which live in the truth of the spiritual reality. And must not this mean that we abandon all earthly or limited mental existence for something which is its opposite, - either for some pure state of the Spirit or else for some world of the Truth of things, if such exists, or other worlds, if such exist, of divine Bliss, divine Energy, divine Being? In that case the perfection of humanity is elsewhere than in humanity itself; the summit of its earthly evolution can only be a fine apex of dissolving mentality whence it takes the great leap either into formless being or into worlds beyond the reach of embodied Mind.
3:But in reality all that we call undivine can only be an action of the four divine principles themselves, such action of them as was necessary to create this universe of forms. Those forms have been created not outside but in the divine existence, consciousforce and bliss, not outside but in and as a part of the working of the divine Real-Idea. There is therefore no reason to suppose that there cannot be any real play of the higher divine consciousness in a world of forms or that forms and their immediate supports, mental consciousness, energy of vital force and formal substance, must necessarily distort that which they represent. It is possible, even probable that mind, body and life are to be found in their pure forms in the divine Truth itself, are there in fact as subordinate activities of its consciousness and part of the complete instrumentation by which the supreme Force always works. Mind, life and body must then be capable of divinity; their form and working in that short period out of possibly only one cycle of the terrestrial evolution which Science reveals to us, need not represent all the potential workings of these three principles in the living body. They work as they do because they are by some means separated in consciousness from the divine Truth from which they proceed. Were this separation once abrogated by the expanding energy of the Divine in humanity, their present functioning might well be converted, would indeed naturally be converted by a supreme evolution and progression into that purer working which they have in the Truth-consciousness.
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7:This essential faculty and the essential limitation that accompanies it are the truth of Mind and fix its real nature and action, svabhava and svadharma; here is the mark of the divine fiat assigning it its office in the complete instrumentation of the supreme Maya, - the office determined by that which it is in its very birth from the eternal self-conception of the Self-existent. That office is to translate always infinity into the terms of the finite, to measure off, limit, depiece. Actually it does this in our consciousness to the exclusion of all true sense of the Infinite; therefore Mind is the nodus of the great Ignorance, because it is that which originally divides and distributes, and it has even been mistaken for the cause of the universe and for the whole of the divine Maya. But the divine Maya comprehends Vidya as well as Avidya, the Knowledge as well as the Ignorance. For it is obvious that since the finite is only an appearance of the Infinite, a result of its action, a play of its conception and cannot exist except by it, in it, with it as a background, itself form of that stuff and action of that force, there must be an original consciousness which contains and views both at the same time and is intimately conscious of all the relations of the one with the other. In that consciousness there is no ignorance, because the infinite is known and the finite is not separated from it as an independent reality; but still there is a subordinate process of delimitation, - otherwise no world could exist, - a process by which the ever dividing and reuniting consciousness of Mind, the ever divergent and convergent action of Life and the infinitely divided and self-aggregating substance of Matter come, all by one principle and original act, into phenomenal being. This subordinate process of the eternal Seer and Thinker, perfectly luminous, perfectly aware of Himself and all, knowing well what He does, conscious of the infinite in the finite which He is creating, may be called the divine Mind. And it is obvious that it must be a subordinate and not really a separate working of the Real-Idea, of the Supermind, and must operate through what we have described as the apprehending movement of the Truth-consciousness.
8:That apprehending consciousness, the Prajnana, places, as we have seen, the working of the indivisible All, active and formative, as a process and object of creative knowledge before the consciousness of the same All, originative and cognisant as the possessor and witness of its own working, - somewhat as a poet views the creations of his own consciousness placed before him in it as if they were things other than the creator and his creative force, yet all the time they are really no more than the play of self-formation of his own being in itself and are indivisible there from their creator. Thus Prajnana makes the fundamental division which leads to all the rest, the division of the Purusha, the conscious soul who knows and sees and by his vision creates and ordains, and the Prakriti, the Force-Soul or Nature-Soul which is his knowledge and his vision, his creation and his allordaining power. Both are one Being, one existence, and the forms seen and created are multiple forms of that Being which are placed by Him as knowledge before Himself as knower, by Himself as Force before Himself as Creator. The last action of this apprehending consciousness takes place when the Purusha pervading the conscious extension of his being, present at every point of himself as well as in his totality, inhabiting every form, regards the whole as if separately, from each of the standpoints he has taken; he views and governs the relations of each soulform of himself with other soul-forms from the standpoint of will and knowledge appropriate to each particular form.
1.19 - Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
5:But we see that here Mind is manifested in a specialisation of Force to which we give the name of Life. What then is Life? and what relation has it to Supermind, to this supreme trinity of Sachchidananda active in creation by means of the Real-Idea or Truth-consciousness? From what principle in the Trinity does it take its birth? or by what necessity, divine or undivine, of the Truth or the illusion, does it come into being? Life is an evil, rings down the centuries the ancient cry, a delusion, a delirium, an insanity from which we have to flee into the repose of eternal being. Is it so? and why then is it so? Why has the Eternal wantonly inflicted this evil, brought this delirium or insanity upon Himself or else upon the creatures brought into being by His terrible all-deluding Maya? Or is it rather some divine principle that thus expresses itself, some power of the Delight of eternal being that had to express and has thus thrown itself into Time and Space in this constant outburst of the million and million forms of life which people the countless worlds of the universe?
6:When we study this Life as it manifests itself upon earth with Matter as its basis, we observe that essentially it is a form of the one cosmic Energy, a dynamic movement or current of it positive and negative, a constant act or play of the Force which builds up forms, energises them by a continual stream of stimulation and maintains them by an unceasing process of disintegration and renewal of their substance. This would tend to show that the natural opposition we make between death and life is an error of our mentality, one of those false oppositions - false to inner truth though valid in surface practical experience - which, deceived by appearances, it is constantly bringing into the universal unity. Death has no reality except as a process of life. Disintegration of substance and renewal of substance, maintenance of form and change of form are the constant process of life; death is merely a rapid disintegration subservient to life's necessity of change and variation of formal experience. Even in the death of the body there is no cessation of Life, only the material of one form of life is broken up to serve as material for other forms of life. Similarly we may be sure, in the uniform law of Nature, that if there is in the bodily form a mental or psychic energy, that also is not destroyed but only breaks out from one form to assume others by some process of metempsychosis or new ensouling of body. All renews itself, nothing perishes.
1.19 - THE MASTER AND HIS INJURED ARM, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "To perpetuate His creation. It is His will, His Maya. He has deluded man with 'woman and gold'."
DEVOTEE: "Why has He deluded us? Why has He so willed?"
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Process of negation and affirmation & God Himself has become everything MASTER: "God alone is the Master, and again, He is the Servant. This attitude indicates Perfect Knowledge. At first one discriminates, 'Not this, not this', and feels that God alone is real and all else is illusory. Afterwards the same person finds that it is God Himself who has become all this-the universe, Maya, and the living beings. First negation and then affirmation. This is the view held by the Puranas. A vilwa-fruit, for instance, includes flesh, seeds, and shell. You get the flesh by discarding the shell and seeds. But if you want to know the weight of the fruit, you cannot find it if you discard the shell and seeds. Just so, one should attain Sarchidananda by negating the universe and its living beings. But after the attainment of Satchidananda one finds that Satchidananda Itself has become the universe and the living beings. It is of one substance that the flesh and the shell and seeds are made, just like butter and buttermilk.
The world does not exist apart from God
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MASTER: "It is said in the scriptures that only those who have been charitable in their former births get money in this life. But to tell you the truth, this world is God's Maya.
And there are many confusing things in this realm of Maya. One cannot comprehend them.
God's ways are inscrutable
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The Pandavas said to Krishna: 'Krishna, how amazing this is! Our grandsire Bhishma is one of the eight Vasus. Another man as wise as he is not to be found. Yet even he is bewildered by Maya and weeps at death.' 'But', said Krishna, 'Bhishma isn't weeping on that account. You may ask him about it.' When asked, Bhishma said: 'O Krishna, I am unable to understand anything of the ways of God; God Himself is the constant companion of the Pandavas, and still they have no end of trouble. That is why I weep.
When I reflect on this, I realize that one cannot understand anything of God's ways.'
"God has revealed to me that only the Paramatman, whom the Vedas describe as the Pure Soul, is as immutable as Mount Sumeru, unattached, and beyond pain and pleasure. There is much confusion in this world of His Maya. One can by no means say that 'this' will come after 'that' or 'this' will produce 'that'."
SURENDRA (smiling): "If by giving away money in a. previous birth one gets wealth in this life, then we should all give away money now."
1.2.01 - The Call and the Capacity, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
You will find that the obstinate spiritual difficulty disappears in the end like a mirage. It belongs to the Maya and, where the inner call is sincere, cannot hold even the outer consciousness always: its apparent solidity will dissolve.
Turning towards the Divine
1.20 - Equality and Knowledge, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
too rise beyond good and evil; we act in that purity, stainlessly, with an equal and single purpose of fulfilling the welfare of all existences, ks.n.a-kalmas.ah. sarvabhuta-hite ratah.. The Lord in our hearts is in the ignorance also the cause of our actions, but through his Maya, through the egoism of our lower nature which creates the tangled web of our actions and brings back upon our egoism the recoil of their tangled reactions affecting us inwardly as sin and virtue, affecting us outwardly as suffering and pleasure, evil fortune and good fortune, the great chain of
Karma. When we are freed by knowledge, the Lord, no longer hidden in our hearts, but manifest as our supreme self, takes up our works and uses us as faultless instruments, nimitta-matram, for the helping of the world. Such is the intimate union between knowledge and equality; knowledge here in the buddhi reflected as equality in the temperament; above, on a higher plane of consciousness, knowledge as the light of the Being, equality as the stuff of the Nature.
1.21 - Families of the Daityas, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
[11]: Two names of note, found in the Vāyu, are omitted by the Viṣṇu; that of Puloman, the father of Śacī, the wife of Indra, and mother of Jayanta; and Maya, the father of Vajrakāmā and Mahodarī.
[12]: The Bhāgavata says the Paulomas were killed by Arjuna, who therefore, the commentator observes, were the same as the Nivāta Kavacas: but the Mahābhārata describes the destruction of the Nivāta Kavacas and of the Paulomas and Kālakeyas as the successive exploits of Arjuna. Vana P. 8. I. 633. The story is narrated in detail only in the Mahābhārata, which is consequently prior to all the Purāṇas in which the allusion occurs. According to that work, the Nivāta Kavacas were Dānavas, to the number of thirty millions, residing in the depths of the sea; and the Paulomas and Kālakañjas were the children of two Daitya dames, Pulomā and Kālakā, inhabiting Hiranyapura, the golden city, floating in the air.
1.22 - The Problem of Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Lord is seated in the heart of all beings turning all beings mounted upon a machine by his Maya. Gita.2
He who knows the Truth, the Knowledge, the Infinity that is Brahman shall enjoy with the all-wise Brahman all objects of desire. Taittiriya Upanishad.3
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8:This is what the old wisdom meant when it said that man imagines himself to be the doer of the work by his free will, but in reality Nature determines all his works and even the wise are compelled to follow their own Nature. But since Nature is the creative force of consciousness of the Being within us who is masked by His own inverse movement and apparent denial of Himself, they called that inverse creative movement of His consciousness the Maya or Illusion-Power of the Lord and said that all existences are turned as upon a machine through His Maya by the Lord seated within the heart of all existences. It is evident then that only by man so far exceeding mind as to become one in self-awareness with the Lord can he become master of his own being. And since this is not possible in the inconscience or in the subconscient itself, since profit cannot come by plunging down into our depths back towards the Inconscient, it can only be by going inward where the Lord is seated and by ascending into that which is still superconscient to us, into the Supermind, that this unity can be wholly established. For there in the higher and divine Maya is the conscious knowledge, in its law and truth, of that which works in the subconscient by the lower Maya under the conditions of the Denial which seeks to become the Affirmation. For this lower Nature works out what is willed and known in that higher Nature. The Illusion-Power of the divine knowledge in the world which creates appearances is governed by the Truth-Power of the same knowledge which knows the truth behind the appearances and keeps ready for us the Affirmation towards which they are working. The partial and apparent Man here will find there the perfect and real Man capable of an entirely self-aware being by his full unity with that Self-existent who is the omniscient lord of His own cosmic evolution and procession.
9:The second difficulty is that man is separated in his mind, his life, his body from the universal and therefore, even as he does not know himself, is equally and even more incapable of knowing his fellow-creatures. He forms by inferences, theories, observations and a certain imperfect capacity of sympathy a rough mental construction about them; but this is not knowledge. Knowledge can only come by conscious identity, for that is the only true knowledge, - existence aware of itself. We know what we are so far as we are consciously aware of ourself, the rest is hidden; so also we can come really to know that with which we become one in our consciousness, but only so far as we can become one with it. If the means of knowledge are indirect and imperfect, the knowledge attained will also be indirect and imperfect. It will enable us to work out with a certain precarious clumsiness but still perfectly enough from our mental standpoint certain limited practical aims, necessities, conveniences, a certain imperfect and insecure harmony of our relations with that which we know; but only by a conscious unity with it can we arrive at a perfect relation. Therefore we must arrive at a conscious unity with our fellow-beings and not merely at the sympathy created by love or the understanding created by mental knowledge, which will always be the knowledge of their superficial existence and therefore imperfect in itself and subject to denial and frustration by the uprush of the unknown and unmastered from the subconscient or the subliminal in them and us. But this conscious oneness can only be established by entering into that in which we are one with them, the universal; and the fullness of the universal exists consciently only in that which is superconscient to us, in the Supermind: for here in our normal being the greater part of it is subconscient and therefore in this normal poise of mind, life and body it cannot be possessed. The lower conscious nature is bound down to ego in all its activities, chained triply to the stake of differentiated individuality. The Supermind alone commands unity in diversity.
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12:Man, in proportion as he develops into a self-conscious and truly thinking being, becomes acutely aware of all this discord and disparateness in his parts and he seeks to arrive at a harmony of his mind, life and body, a harmony of his knowledge and will and emotion, a harmony of all his members. Sometimes this desire stops short at the attainment of a workable compromise which will bring with it a relative peace; but compromise can only be a halt on the way, since the Deity within will not be satisfied eventually with less than a perfect harmony combining in itself the integral development of our many-sided potentialities. Less than this would be an evasion of the problem, not its solution, or else only a temporary solution provided as a resting-place for the soul in its continual self-enlargement and ascension. Such a perfect harmony would demand as essential terms a perfect mentality, a perfect play of vital force, a perfect physical existence. But where in the radically imperfect shall we find the principle and power of perfection? Mind rooted in division and limitation cannot provide it to us, nor can life and the body which are the energy and the frame of dividing and limiting mind. The principle and power of perfection are there in the subconscient but wrapped up in the tegument or veil of the lower Maya, a mute premonition emerging as an unrealised ideal; in the superconscient they await, open, eternally realised, but still separated from us by the veil of our self-ignorance. It is above, then, and not either in our present poise nor below it that we must seek for the reconciling power and knowledge.
13:Equally, man, as he develops, becomes acutely aware of the discord and ignorance that governs his relations with the world, acutely intolerant of it, more and more set upon finding a principle of harmony, peace, joy and unity. This too can only come to him from above. For only by developing a mind which shall have knowledge of the mind of others as of itself, free from our mutual ignorance and misunderstanding, a will that feels and makes itself one with the will of others, an emotional heart that contains the emotions of others as its own, a life-force that senses the energies of others and accepts them for its own and seeks to fulfil them as its own, and a body that is not a wall of imprisonment and defence against the world, - but all this under the law of a Light and Truth that shall transcend the aberrations and errors, the much sin and falsehood of our and others' minds, wills, emotions, life-energies, - only so can the life of man spiritually and practically become one with that of his fellow-beings and the individual recover his own universal self. The subconscient has this life of the All and the superconscient has it, but under conditions which necessitate our motion upwards. For not towards the Godhead concealed in the "inconscient ocean where darkness is wrapped within darkness",4 but towards the Godhead seated in the sea of eternal light,5 in the highest ether of our being, is the original impetus which has carried upward the evolving soul to the type of our humanity.
1.240 - 1.300 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Drishtim jnanamayim kritva, Brahma Mayam pasyet jagat - Make your outlook right. The Creator knows how to take care of His Creation.
D.: What is the best thing to do for ensuring the future?
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M.: Avidya is like Maya [she who is not is Maya (illusion)]. Similarly that which is not is ignorance. Therefore the question does not arise. Nevertheless, the question is asked. Then ask, "Whose is the avidya? Avidya is ignorance. It implies subject and object. Become the subject and there will be no object.
D.: What is avidya?
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D.: Can you help me to get rid of Maya?
M.: What is Maya?
D.: Attachment to the world.
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M.: What is it then that raises the question of Maya just now?
D.: The mind was not in sleep. The world and the attachment to it are of the mind.
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If the Real Nature is known these exist not. If you realise the Self the possessions are not perceived. That is getting rid of Maya.
Maya is not objective, that it could be got rid of in any other way.
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Explaining Maya of Vedanta and swatantra of Pratyabhijna
(independence of recognition), Sri Bhagavan said:
The Vedantins say that Maya is the sakti of illusion premised in Siva.
Maya has no independent existence. Having brought out the illusion of the world as real, she continues to play upon the ignorance of the victims. When the reality of her not being is found, she disappears.
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So also the world cannot have an independent existence. Swatantra becomes eventually an attribute of the Supreme. Sri Sankara says that the Absolute is without attri butes and that Maya is not and has no real being. What is the difference between the two? Both agree that the display is not real. The images of the mirror cannot in any way be real. The world does not exist in reality (vastutah).
Both schools mean the same thing. Their ultimate aim is to realise the Absolute Consciousness. The unreality of the cosmos is implied in Recognition (Pratyabhijna), whereas it is explicit in Vedanta. If the world be taken as chit (consciousness), it is always real. Vedanta says that there is no nana (diversity), meaning that it is all the same Reality.
1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Drishtim jnanamayim kritva, Brahma Mayam pasyet jagat Make your outlook right. The Creator knows how to take care of His Creation.
D.: What is the best thing to do for ensuring the future?
--
M.: Avidya is like Maya [she who is not is Maya (illusion)]. Similarly that which is not is ignorance. Therefore the question does not arise. Nevertheless, the question is asked. Then ask, Whose is the avidya? Avidya is ignorance. It implies subject and object. Become the subject and there will be no object.
D.: What is avidya?
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D.: Can you help me to get rid of Maya?
M.: What is Maya?
D.: Attachment to the world.
--
M.: What is it then that raises the question of Maya just now?
D.: The mind was not in sleep. The world and the attachment to it are of the mind.
--
If the Real Nature is known these exist not. If you realise the Self the possessions are not perceived. That is getting rid of Maya.
Maya is not objective, that it could be got rid of in any other way.
--
Explaining Maya of Vedanta and swatantra of Pratyabhijna
(independence of recognition), Sri Bhagavan said:
The Vedantins say that Maya is the sakti of illusion premised in Siva.
Maya has no independent existence. Having brought out the illusion of the world as real, she continues to play upon the ignorance of the victims. When the reality of her not being is found, she disappears.
--
So also the world cannot have an independent existence. Swatantra becomes eventually an attribute of the Supreme. Sri Sankara says that the Absolute is without attri butes and that Maya is not and has no real being. What is the difference between the two? Both agree that the display is not real. The images of the mirror cannot in any way be real. The world does not exist in reality (vastutah).
Both schools mean the same thing. Their ultimate aim is to realise the Absolute Consciousness. The unreality of the cosmos is implied in Recognition (Pratyabhijna), whereas it is explicit in Vedanta. If the world be taken as chit (consciousness), it is always real. Vedanta says that there is no nana (diversity), meaning that it is all the same Reality.
--
If pure, how is He to be experienced by means of the impure I? A man says I slept happily. Happiness was his experience. If not, how could he speak of what he had not experienced? How did he experience happiness in sleep, if the Self was pure? Who is it that speaks of that experience now? The speaker is the vijnanatma (ignorant self) and he speaks of prajnanatma (pure self). How can that hold? Was this vijnanatma present in sleep? His present statement of the experience of happiness in sleep makes one infer his existence in sleep. How then did he remain? Surely not as in the waking state. He was there very subtle. Exceedingly subtle vijnanatma experiences the happy prajnanatma by means of Maya mode. It is like the rays of the moon seen below the branches, twigs and leaves of a tree.
The subtle vijnanatma seems apparently a stranger to the obvious vijnanatma of the present moment. Why should we infer his existence in sleep? Should we not deny the experience of happiness and be done with this inference? No. The fact of the experience of happiness cannot be denied, for everyone courts sleep and prepares a nice bed for the enjoyment of sound sleep.
--
M.: The tantriks and others of the kind condemn Sri Sankaras philosophy as Maya vada without understanding him aright. What does he say?
He says: (1) Brahman is real; (2) the universe is a myth; (3) Brahman is the universe. He does not stop at the second statement but continues to supplement it with the third. What does it signify? The Universe is conceived to be apart from Brahman and that perception is wrong.
--
M.: We call it Mayakarana as opposed to the antahkarana to which we are accustomed in our other states. The same instruments are called differently in the different states, even as the anandatman of sleep is termed the vijnanatman of the wakeful state.
D.: Please furnish me with an illustration for the Mayakarana experiencing the ananda.
M.: How can you say I slept happily? The experience is there to prove your happiness. There cannot be the remembrance in the wakeful state in the absence of the experience in the sleep state.
--
Light diffused through darkness. This darkness is otherwise known as the Original Ignorance (Original Sin). The Light passing through it is called Reflected Light. The Reflected Light on its own merits is commonly known as the Pure Mind or Isvara or God. Isvara is well-known to be unified with Maya: in other words the Reflected
Light is Isvara.
--
Darkness (mula avidya). With the mind outgoing and deriving experiences from its modes in the waking and dream states, and indrawn in sleep, experiencing with modes of Maya, a unique power regulates all activities of the individuals and of the universe. All these are only phenomena passing through the Reflected Light on the substratum of the Self-radiant Being.
Just as a rope-snake cannot be seen in broad daylight, nor rope itself in thick darkness, so also the world appears neither in the samadhi state of Self-shining pure Being or in deep sleep, swoon, etc. Only in Reflected Light (Light mixed with Darkness or knowledge soiled by Ignorance) can the world, not independent of its Source, seem to rise up, flourish and be resolved. Its diversity too cannot be exclusive of the Reality, the original Source. Here a play is going on in which the One Single Being becomes manifold is objectified and then
--
There are three outlooks possible:(1) The Vyavaharika: The man sees the world in all its variety, surmises the creator and believes in himself as the subject. All these are thus reduced to the three fundamentals, jagat, jiva and Isvara. He learns the existence of the creator and tries to reach him in order to gain immortality. If one is thus released from bondage, there are all other individuals existing as before who should work out their own salvation. He more or less admits the One Reality underlying all these phenomena. The phenomena are due to the play of Maya. Maya is the sakti of Isvara or the activity of Reality. Thus, existence of different souls, objects, etc., do not clash with the advaitic point of view.
(2) The Pratibhasika: The jagat, jiva and Isvara are all cognised by the seer only. They do not have any existence independent of
--
D.: In the Vyavaharika, above mentioned, how does Maya come in?
M.: Maya is only Isvara-Sakti or the activity of Reality.
D.: Why does it become active?
--
D.: This is not Mayavada.
M.: The mind is Maya. Reality lies beyond the mind. So long as the mind functions there is duality, Maya, etc. Once it is transcended the Reality shines forth. Although it is said to shine forth Selfeffulgence is the Self.
D.: It is Sat-chit-ananda.
1.28 - Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
object:1.28 - Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya
class:chapter
--
13:And still we can recognise at once in the Overmind the original cosmic Maya, not a Maya of Ignorance but a Maya of Knowledge, yet a Power which has made the Ignorance possible, even inevitable. For if each principle loosed into action must follow its independent line and carry out its complete consequences, the principle of separation must also be allowed its complete course and arrive at its absolute consequence; this is the inevitable descent, facilis descensus, which Consciousness, once it admits the separative principle, follows till it enters by obscuring infinitesimal fragmentation, tucchyena,5 into the material Inconscience, - the Inconscient Ocean of the Rig Veda, - and if the One is born from that by its own greatness, it is still at first concealed by a fragmentary separative existence and consciousness which is ours and in which we have to piece things together to arrive at a whole. In that slow and difficult emergence a certain semblance of truth is given to the dictum of Heraclitus that War is the father of all things; for each idea, force, separate consciousness, living being by the very necessity of its ignorance enters into collision with others and tries to live and grow and fulfil itself by independent self-assertion, not by harmony with the rest of existence. Yet there is still the unknown underlying Oneness which compels us to strive slowly towards some form of harmony, of interdependence, of concording of discords, of a difficult unity. But it is only by the evolution in us of the concealed superconscient powers of cosmic Truth and of the Reality in which they are one that the harmony and unity we strive for can be dynamically realised in the very fibre of our being and all its self-expression and not merely in imperfect attempts, incomplete constructions, ever-changing approximations. The higher ranges of spiritual Mind have to open upon our being and consciousness and also that which is beyond even spiritual Mind must appear in us if we are to fulfil the divine possibility of our birth into cosmic existence.
14:Overmind in its descent reaches a line which divides the cosmic Truth from the cosmic Ignorance; it is the line at which it becomes possible for Consciousness-Force, emphasising the separateness of each independent movement created by Overmind and hiding or darkening their unity, to divide Mind by an exclusive concentration from the overmental source. There has already been a similar separation of Overmind from its supramental source, but with a transparency in the veil which allows a conscious transmission and maintains a certain luminous kinship; but here the veil is opaque and the transmission of the Overmind motives to the Mind is occult and obscure. Mind separated acts as if it were an independent principle, and each mental being, each basic mental idea, power, force stands similarly on its separate self; if it communicates or combines with or contacts others, it is not with the catholic universality of the Overmind movement, on a basis of underlying oneness, but as independent units joining to form a separate constructed whole. It is by this movement that we pass from the cosmic Truth into the cosmic Ignorance. The cosmic Mind on this level, no doubt, comprehends its own unity, but it is not aware of its own source and foundation in the Spirit or can only comprehend it by the intelligence, not in any enduring experience; it acts in itself as if by its own right and works out what it receives as material without direct communication with the source from which it receives it. Its units also act in ignorance of each other and of the cosmic whole except for the knowledge that they can get by contact and communication, - the basic sense of identity and the mutual penetration and understanding that comes from it are no longer there. All the actions of this Mind Energy proceed on the opposite basis of the Ignorance and its divisions and, although they are the results of a certain conscious knowledge, it is a partial knowledge, not a true and integral self-knowledge, nor a true and integral world-knowledge. This character persists in Life and in subtle Matter and reappears in the gross material universe which arises from the final lapse into the Inconscience.
1.300 - 1.400 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
If pure, how is He to be experienced by means of the impure 'I'? A man says "I slept happily". Happiness was his experience. If not, how could he speak of what he had not experienced? How did he experience happiness in sleep, if the Self was pure? Who is it that speaks of that experience now? The speaker is the vijnanatma (ignorant self) and he speaks of prajnanatma (pure self). How can that hold? Was this vijnanatma present in sleep? His present statement of the experience of happiness in sleep makes one infer his existence in sleep. How then did he remain? Surely not as in the waking state. He was there very subtle. Exceedingly subtle vijnanatma experiences the happy prajnanatma by means of Maya mode. It is like the rays of the moon seen below the branches, twigs and leaves of a tree.
The subtle vijnanatma seems apparently a stranger to the obvious vijnanatma of the present moment. Why should we infer his existence in sleep? Should we not deny the experience of happiness and be done with this inference? No. The fact of the experience of happiness cannot be denied, for everyone courts sleep and prepares a nice bed for the enjoyment of sound sleep.
--
M.: The tantriks and others of the kind condemn Sri Sankara's philosophy as Maya vada without understanding him aright. What does he say?
He says: (1) Brahman is real; (2) the universe is a myth; (3) Brahman is the universe. He does not stop at the second statement but continues to supplement it with the third. What does it signify? The Universe is conceived to be apart from Brahman and that perception is wrong.
--
M.: We call it Mayakarana as opposed to the antahkarana to which we are accustomed in our other states. The same instruments are called differently in the different states, even as the anandatman of sleep is termed the vijnanatman of the wakeful state.
D.: Please furnish me with an illustration for the Mayakarana experiencing the ananda.
M.: How can you say "I slept happily"? The experience is there to prove your happiness. There cannot be the remembrance in the wakeful state in the absence of the experience in the sleep state.
--
Light diffused through darkness. This darkness is otherwise known as the Original Ignorance (Original Sin). The Light passing through it is called Reflected Light. The Reflected Light on its own merits is commonly known as the Pure Mind or Isvara or God. Isvara is well-known to be unified with Maya: in other words the Reflected
Light is Isvara.
--
Darkness (mula avidya). With the mind outgoing and deriving experiences from its modes in the waking and dream states, and indrawn in sleep, experiencing with modes of Maya, a unique power regulates all activities of the individuals and of the universe. All these are only phenomena passing through the Reflected Light on the substratum of the Self-radiant Being.
Just as a rope-snake cannot be seen in broad daylight, nor rope itself in thick darkness, so also the world appears neither in the samadhi state of Self-shining pure Being or in deep sleep, swoon, etc. Only in Reflected Light (Light mixed with Darkness or knowledge soiled by Ignorance) can the world, not independent of its Source, seem to rise up, flourish and be resolved. Its diversity too cannot be exclusive of the Reality, the original Source. Here a play is going on in which the One Single Being becomes manifold is objectified and then
--
There are three outlooks possible:(1) The Vyavaharika: The man sees the world in all its variety, surmises the creator and believes in himself as the subject. All these are thus reduced to the three fundamentals, jagat, jiva and Isvara. He learns the existence of the creator and tries to reach him in order to gain immortality. If one is thus released from bondage, there are all other individuals existing as before who should work out their own salvation. He more or less admits the One Reality underlying all these phenomena. The phenomena are due to the play of Maya. Maya is the sakti of Isvara or the activity of Reality. Thus, existence of different souls, objects, etc., do not clash with the advaitic point of view.
(2) The Pratibhasika: The jagat, jiva and Isvara are all cognised by the seer only. They do not have any existence independent of
--
D.: In the Vyavaharika, above mentioned, how does Maya come in?
M.: Maya is only Isvara-Sakti or the activity of Reality.
D.: Why does it become active?
13.05 - A Dream Of Surreal Science, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The ancient Rishis of India knew better. They have never been for compromising for lesser truths. They said: Seek the one inalienable invariable Truth, leave all the rest aside, concentrate on that one thing alone. Even, they added, the rest is Maya, illusion, unreal, false.
They were terribly radical, iconoclasts. Cut away, they said, this world, this humanity, this nature. Go beyond into the transcendent. First enter and establish yourself there. That is the Supreme God, that is the own home of Truth. Cling to that unshakable status, thereafter only you can know of other things, then only you will know what to reject, what to accept, otherwise you will live in a glimmering mid-world of half-truths.
13.07 - The Inter-Zone, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As they proceeded, they mounted higher and higher regions of being. And a change was coming on visibly on Savitri. Death was explaining to her that happiness on earth or in earthly life is not the supremely desirable thing. The supreme desirable thing is to discard the Maya of earthly life, that vale of tears and rise into the very source, the origin of creation, the infinite peace and silence. As Death was receding towards that ultimate Nothingness, the Divinity that Savitri was, the mighty Godhead that took a human shape, manifested itself more and more shedding all around her a great effulgence, a mighty power. She had entered into Death's own lair and identified herself with Death's self which is the Divine Himself. In that great burning Light Death was consumed and dissolved.
The dire universal shadow disappeared
1.3.1.02 - The Object of Our Yoga, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
God created the world in Himself through Maya; but the
Vedic meaning of Maya is not illusion, it is wisdom, knowledge, capacity, wide extension in consciousness. Prajna prasrita purani. Omnipotent Wisdom created the world, it is not the organised blunder of some Infinite Dreamer; omniscient Power manifests or conceals it in Itself or Its own delight, it is not a bondage imposed by His own ignorance on the free and absolute
Brahman.
1.3.2.01 - I. The Entire Purpose of Yoga, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
By Yoga we can rise out of falsehood into truth, out of weakness into force, out of pain and grief into bliss, out of bondage into freedom, out of death into immortality, out of darkness into light, out of confusion into purity, out of imperfection into perfection, out of self-division into unity, out of Maya into God.
All other utilisation of Yoga is for special and fragmentary advantages not always worth pursuing. Only that which aims at possessing the fullness of God is purna Yoga; the sadhaka of the
1.400 - 1.450 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
D.: This is not Mayavada.
M.: The mind is Maya. Reality lies beyond the mind. So long as the mind functions there is duality, Maya, etc. Once it is transcended the Reality shines forth. Although it is said to shine forth Selfeffulgence is the Self.
D.: It is Sat-chit-ananda.
--
D.: Rama asks: "Brahman being Pure, how can Maya arise from Him and veil Him also? "Vasishta replies: "In pure mind associated with strong dispassion this question will not arise." Of course in advaita
(non-dualistic) philosophy there can be no place for jiva, Isvara and Maya. Oneself sinking into the Self, the vasanas (tendencies) will entirely disappear, leaving no room for such a question.
M.: The answers will be according to the capacity of the seeker. It is said in the second chapter of Gita that no one is born or dies: but in the fourth chapter Sri Krishna says that numerous incarnations of His and of Arjuna had taken place, all known to Him but not to
--
M.: As is the effect so is the cause. As is the tree so is its seed. The whole tree is contained in the seed which later manifests as the tree. The expanded tree must have a substratum which we call Maya. As a matter of truth there is neither seed nor tree. There is only Being.
D.: Vasanakshaya (total end of all predispositions) - Mano nasa
--
D.: They say that Sakti creates the world. Is the knowledge of unreality due to the unveiling of Maya?
M.: All admit Sakti's creation. What is the nature of the Creatrix?
14.02 - Occult Experiences, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Another French poet speaks of a similar experience. He speaks of it in a jocular way, in a funny way. He says that this inner self sees things in a quite different way than the external being does. Sometimes it does quite the opposite. While the physical eye says 'It is this', the other says 'No, it is that'. Different values and perceptions what we see externally is only Maya. There is only a rope, but you see a snake there that is Maya.
He is a modern French poet, Supervielle. The poem is amusing:
1.4.02 - The Divine Force, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Energy - a material Energy it used to be called, but it is now doubted whether Matter, scientifically speaking, exists except as a phenomenon of Energy. All the world, according to Vedanta, is a play of a power of a spiritual entity, the power of an original consciousness, whether it be Maya or Shakti, and the result an illusion or real. In the world so far as man is concerned we are aware only of mind energy, life energy, energy in matter; but it is supposed that there is a spiritual energy or force also behind them from which they originate. All things, in either case, are the results of a Shakti, energy or force. There is no action without a Force or Energy doing the action and bringing about its consequence. Farther, anything that has no Force in it is either something dead or something unreal or something inert and without consequence. If there is no such thing as spiritual consciousness, there can be no reality of Yoga, and if there is no
Yoga force, spiritual force, Yoga Shakti, then also there can be no effectivity in Yoga. A Yoga consciousness or spiritual consciousness which has no power or force in it, may not be dead or unreal but it is evidently something inert and without effect or consequence. Equally a man who sets out to be a Yogi or Guru and has no spiritual consciousness or no power in his spiritual consciousness - a Yoga force or spiritual force - is making a false claim and is either a charlatan or a self-deluded imbecile; still more is he so if having no spiritual force he claims to have made a path others can follow. If Yoga is a reality, if spirituality is anything better than a delusion, there must be such a thing as
1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
D.: Rama asks: Brahman being Pure, how can Maya arise from Him and veil Him also? Vasishta replies: In pure mind associated with strong dispassion this question will not arise. Of course in advaita
(non-dualistic) philosophy there can be no place for jiva, Isvara and Maya. Oneself sinking into the Self, the vasanas (tendencies) will entirely disappear, leaving no room for such a question.
M.: The answers will be according to the capacity of the seeker. It is said in the second chapter of Gita that no one is born or dies: but in the fourth chapter Sri Krishna says that numerous incarnations of His and of Arjuna had taken place, all known to Him but not to
--
M.: As is the effect so is the cause. As is the tree so is its seed. The whole tree is contained in the seed which later manifests as the tree. The expanded tree must have a substratum which we call Maya. As a matter of truth there is neither seed nor tree. There is only Being.
D.: Vasanakshaya (total end of all predispositions) - Mano nasa
--
D.: They say that Sakti creates the world. Is the knowledge of unreality due to the unveiling of Maya?
M.: All admit Saktis creation. What is the nature of the Creatrix?
--
D.: The avatars are said to be more glorious than the self-realised jnanis. Maya does not affect them from birth; divine powers are manifest; new religions are started; and so on.
M.:
--
D.: The mind again is Maya, I suppose.
M.: What is Maya? The knowledge that the mind is divorced from the
Reality is Maya. The mind is in Reality only and not apart. This knowledge is the elimination of Maya.
Further conversation led to the question if the mind was identical with the brain. Sri Bhagavan said: The mind is only a force operating on the brain. You are now here and awake. The thoughts of the world and the surroundings are in the brain within the body. When you dream you create another self who sees the world of dream creation and the surroundings just as you do now. The dream visions are in the dream brain which is again in the dream body. That is different from your present body. You
--
Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi proclaimed by Vedanta, get fully released in the Brahmaloka from the causal Maya at the dissolution of the body.
That alone which shines as the tiny Akasa void of sorrow, in the lotus heart, the tiny seat of the spotless Supreme in the (inner) core of the body is worthy of worship.
--
Once Sri Bhagavan said, Desire constitutes Maya, and desirelessness is God.
Talk 538.
--
Jiva is not independent of Isvara; nor ignorance of Maya. Only on waking up from sleep, the man perceives the body and the world, but not in sleep.
On the strength of the present knowledge he understands that he remained in deep sleep also. Therefore in sleep jiva must be concluded to be in pure state in which the body and the world are not perceived.
--
(4) Maya
(Causal Ignorance adjunct to Isvara) Ignorance adjunct to
--
M.: Immanence can only be with Maya. It is the Knowledge of Being along with Maya; from this subtle conceit Hiranyagarbha; from the latter the gross conceit virat. Chit-atma is Pure Being only.
13th December, 1938
--
D.: There is nothing real. Everything is temporary. Everything is Maya.
M.: On what does Maya appear?
D.: Now I see you; it is all Maya.
M.: If everything is Maya, how does any question arise?
D.: Why should there be reincarnation?
--
discards the names and forms as being Maya. But I cannot readily
appreciate it because a tree means the trunk, branches, leaves, etc.
I cannot dismiss the leaves as Maya. Again the Vedanta also says
that the whole is Brahman as illustrated by gold and ornaments of
1.450 - 1.500 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
D.: The avatars are said to be more glorious than the self-realised jnanis. Maya does not affect them from birth; divine powers are manifest; new religions are started; and so on.
M.:
--
D.: The mind again is Maya, I suppose.
M.: What is Maya? The knowledge that the mind is divorced from the
Reality is Maya. The mind is in Reality only and not apart. This knowledge is the elimination of Maya.
Further conversation led to the question if the mind was identical with the brain. Sri Bhagavan said: The mind is only a force operating on the brain. You are now here and awake. The thoughts of the world and the surroundings are in the brain within the body. When you dream you create another self who sees the world of dream creation and the surroundings just as you do now. The dream visions are in the dream brain which is again in the dream body. That is different from your present body. You
15.09 - One Day More, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Not merely creation, but destruction also happens in the same way. The destruction first occurs in the subtle world and as a consequence inevitably takes place the physical destruction. Sri Krishna in the Gita tells Arjuna: All these troops ranged against you have already been killed by me, you have only to be just the instrument or the excuse: Mayavat nihatah purvameva.
Savitri is coming back to earth to her normal life. She has done her final conquest. And the whole world of the new conquest, the embodied Life Divine within her, she enters the earth-life, but with the veil drawn upon herself and her achievement. The 'one day more' is yet to be done, the 'one day' made of material matter. She is not to disclose herself till that one day is done. The curtain is down now but behind lies the whole edifice she has built up, in its entire unflawed beauty and fulfilment. At present outwardly we see before us the arena of a grey dangerous world, as of old. The curtain will surely roll up and reveal what it hides, slowly or perhaps a shell may burst open all on a sudden and bring forth the new life full and entire. . . How will it happen... the Revelation, the Epiphany? The event will show. In the meantime, the New Creation, a "greater dawn" she holds within herself.
1.550 - 1.600 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Jiva is not independent of Isvara; nor ignorance of Maya. Only on waking up from sleep, the man perceives the body and the world, but not in sleep.
On the strength of the present knowledge he understands that he remained in deep sleep also. Therefore in sleep jiva must be concluded to be in pure state in which the body and the world are not perceived.
--
(4) Maya
(Causal Ignorance adjunct to Isvara) Ignorance adjunct to
--
M.: Immanence can only be with Maya. It is the Knowledge of Being along with Maya; from this subtle conceit Hiranyagarbha; from the latter the gross conceit virat. Chit-atma is Pure Being only.
13th December, 1938
1951-04-28 - Personal effort - tamas, laziness - Static and dynamic power - Stupidity - psychic and intelligence - Philosophies- different languages - Theories of Creation - Surrender of ones being and ones work, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Divine is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya.5
Yes, he is veiled by the consciousness of material Nature. There is the consciousness in its origin which does not veil the Divine but expresses him. There is the consciousness in its outer form which veils him. Some say this is willed, that it is to allow the game to be played; that the Divine hides himself behind material Nature to compel all conscious beings to find Him. That is an opinion people say many things.
1954-07-14 - The Divine and the Shakti - Personal effort - Speaking and thinking - Doubt - Self-giving, consecration and surrender - Mothers use of flowers - Ornaments and protection, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What does Yoga Maya mean?
Yoga Maya? Maya, I dont know in what see he takes it, whether it is as the most external manifestation. Does he speak of Yoga Maya?
(A child reads the last part of the phrase) he is veiled by his Yoga May
--
The complete sentence is: "In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature."
"In Yoga also it is the Divine who is the Sadhaka and the Sadhana."
1955-12-14 - Rejection of life as illusion in the old Yogas - Fighting the adverse forces - Universal and individual being - Three stages in Integral Yoga - How to feel the Divine Presence constantly, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The powers of this world and their actual activities, it is felt, either do not belong to God at all or are for some obscure and puzzling cause, Maya or another, a dark contradiction of the divine Truth.
It is a certain attitude which produces this. He says it earlier, doesnt he? He explains it. There is an attitude in which all material things appear to be not only not the expression of the Divine but incapable of becoming that and essentially opposed to the spiritual life. And so there is only one solutionit was that of the old Yogas, you know the total rejection of life as not being able to participate in the spiritual life at all, the rejection of material life. This is what he explains. He says that with this attitude, thats how one looks at life. He does not say that it is like that; he says that one looks at it, considers it like that; that it is the attitude of those who have completely separated life from the spirit, and who say that life is an illusion, a falsification, and that it is incapable of expressing the Divine.
1956-02-08 - Forces of Nature expressing a higher Will - Illusion of separate personality - One dynamic force which moves all things - Linear and spherical thinking - Common ideal of life, microscopic, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo writes: As long as we live in the ignorant seeming, we are the ego and are subject to the modes of Nature. Enslaved to appearances, bound to the dualities, tossed between good and evil, sin and virtue, grief and joy, pain and pleasure, good fortune and ill fortune, success and failure, we follow helplessly the iron round of the wheel of Maya.
The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 88
1956-03-28 - The starting-point of spiritual experience - The boundless finite - The Timeless and Time - Mental explanation not enough - Changing knowledge into experience - Sat-Chit-Tapas-Ananda, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo speaks of a first realisation where one sees on the one hand the eternal Existence, Brahman, and on the other the existence of the world, Maya, as two contradictions; then there is another realisation, the supramental, and he says, The once conflicting but now biune duality of Brahman- Maya stands revealed to him as the first great dynamic aspect of the Self of all selves.
The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 113
1957-07-24 - The involved supermind - The new world and the old - Will for progress indispensable, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At the basis of this collaboration there is necessarily the will to change, no longer to be what one is, for things to be no longer what they are. There are several ways of reaching it, and all the methods are good when they succeed! One may be deeply disgusted with what exists and wish ardently to come out of all this and attain something else; one Mayand this is a more positive wayone may feel within oneself the touch, the approach of something positively beautiful and true, and willingly drop all the rest so that nothing may burden the journey to this new beauty and truth.
What is indispensable in every case is the ardent will for progress, the willing and joyful renunciation of all that hampers the advance: to throw far away from oneself all that prevents one from going forward, and to set out into the unknown with the ardent faith that this is the truth of tomorrow, inevitable, which must necessarily come, which nothing, nobody, no bad will, even that of Nature, can prevent from becoming a realityperhaps of a not too distant futurea reality which is being worked out now and which those who know how to change, how not to be weighed down by old habits, will surely have the good fortune not only to see but to realise.
1970 04 01, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
431The philosophers who reject the world as Maya, are very wise and austere and holy; but I cannot help thinking sometimes that they are also just a little stupid and allow God to cheat them too easily.
432For my part, I think I have a right to insist on God giving Himself to me in the world as well as out of it. Why did He make it at all, if He wanted to escape that obligation?
433The Mayavadin talks of my Personal God as a dream and prefers to dream of Impersonal Being; the Buddhist puts that aside too as a fiction and prefers to dream of Nirvana and the bliss of nothingness. Thus all the dreamers are busy reviling each others visions and parading their own as the panacea. What the soul utterly rejoices in, is for thought the ultimate reality.
434Beyond Personality the Mayavadin sees indefinable Existence; I followed him there and found my Krishna beyond in indefinable Personality.
As always, this is Sri Aurobindos wonderful way of making clear to us the inanity of human assertions by which each one arrogantly denies anything that is not his own discovery or his own personal experience.
1970 06 06, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
538The obstinate pertinacity with which we cling to our meagre, fragmentary, night-besieged and grief-besieged individual existence even while the unbroken bliss of our universal life calls to us, is one of the most amazing of Gods mysteries. It is only equalled by the infinite blindness with which we cast a shadow of our ego over the whole world and call that the universal being. These two darknesses are the very essence and potency of Maya.
Until, tired of the ignorance and stupidity of the ego, we lay ourselves at the feet of the Lord and ask Him to become the sole master.
1f.lovecraft - The Curse of Yig, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
curiously like those of the Aztecs and Mayas.
Yigs chief trait was a relentless devotion to his childrena devotion
1.kbr - Poem 2, #Songs of Kabir, #Kabir, #Sufism
He Himself is Brahma, creature, and Maya.
He Himself is the manifold form, the infinite space;
1.kbr - Tell me Brother, #Songs of Kabir, #Kabir, #Sufism
TELL me, Brother, how can I renounce Maya?
When I gave up the tying of ribbons, still I tied my garment about me:
--
When the mind is detached and casts Maya away, still it clings to the letter.
Kabr says, "Listen to me, dear Sadhu! the true path is rarely found."
1.nmdv - He is the One in many, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass Original Language Hindi He is the One in many, countless are His shapes and forms. He pervades all that exists; wherever I look, He is there. But very few perceive this reality, for Maya ever enchants us with her multiple reflections of color and alluring beauty. Everything is Gobind, Gobind is everything. Nothing that exists is without Gobind: the one thread strings innumerable beads -- Prabhu Himself is the thread, the threader, the threaded. River and waves, foam and bubbles have all their being within water itself. This play of things is the sport of Parbhama. The One cannot be thought different from the other. Hope is a lie and desire a mere dream -- yet both are construed as actual reality. But when my guru gave me his holy wisdom, I awoke from my dream and my heart yielded. Namdeva says, Behold Hari's creation; ponder upon it with all your heart, and you will see that in every pore, in every living thing, there is only the one Murari. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass
1.rmpsd - In the worlds busy market-place, O Shyama, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
held fast by Maya's string.
Their frames are human skeletons,
1.rt - Gitanjali, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
That I should make much of myself and turn it on all sides, thus casting coloured shadows on thy radiance - such is thy Maya.
Thou settest a barrier in thine own being and then callest thy severed self in myriad notes. This thy self-separation has taken body in me.
--
He it is who weaves the web of this Maya in evanescent hues of gold and silver, blue and green, and lets peep out through the folds his feet, at whose touch I forget myself.
Days come and ages pass, and it is ever he who moves my heart in many a name, in many a guise, in many a rapture of joy and of sorrow.
1.rt - Innermost One, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
He it is who weaves the web of this Maya
in evanescent hues of gold and silver, blue and green,
1.rt - Maya, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
object:1.rt - Maya
author class:Rabindranath Tagore
--
-such is thy Maya.
Thou settest a barrier in thine own being
1.rt - Ungrateful Sorrow, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
" Everything is Maya(2)".
Angrily I replied:
1.srd - Krishna Awakes, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Krishna awake, for the day has dawned: large, deep and lotus-like, your eyes are as in the love-shaped lake a pair of swans even a million Kamadevas cannot vie with the bewitching beauty of your face; the sun rises in the east, a crimson ball the night is going and the moonlight pales the lamps turn dim and the stars fade out as though the bright radiance of wisdom's rays dispels the pleasures that the senses tire, and the light of hope chases away the murky darkness of despair and doubt. Listen, the birds sing aloud with glee O sweet child, life of my life, my sole wealth, O darling boy, bards and minstrels sing your praises, saying 'victory! victory!' Clusters of lotuses burst into bloom the bumblebees humming with sweet sound leave the lotuses; as though the devout renouncing worldly ties, in your love drowned chant your name as they go about. Hearing his mother's words with love drenched the Lord of Mercy arose from his bed; the world's woes vanished, Maya's net was rent. Says Suradasa, 'Seeing his lotus face delusion fled; all doubts and dualities were destroyed and I found in Govinda eternal joy.
1.sv - Song of the Sanyasin, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Wake up the note! the song that had its birth Far off, where worldly taint could never reach, In mountain caves and glades of forest deep, Whose calm no sigh for lust or wealth or fame Could ever dare to break; where rolled the stream Of knowledge, truth, and bliss that follows both. Sing high that note, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Strike off thy fetters! Bonds that bind thee down, Of shining gold, or darker, baser ore; Love, hate -- good, bad -- and all the dual throng, Know, slave is slave, caressed or whipped, not free; For fetters, though of gold, are not less strong to bind; Then off with them, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Let darkness go; the will-o'-the-wisp that leads With blinking light to pile more gloom on gloom. This thirst for life, for ever quench; it drags From birth to death, and death to birth, the soul. He conquers all who conquers self. Know this And never yield, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" "Who sows must reap," they say, "and cause must bring The sure effect; good, good; bad, bad; and none Escape the law. But whoso wears a form Must wear the chain." Too true; but far beyond Both name and form is Atman, ever free. Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om! " They know not truth who dream such vacant dreams As father, mother, children, wife, and friend. The sexless Self! whose father He? whose child? Whose friend, whose foe is He who is but One? The Self is all in all, none else exists; And thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" There is but One -- The Free -- The Knower -- Self! Without a name, without a form or stain. In Him is Maya dreaming all this dream. The witness, He appears as nature, soul. Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Where seekest thou? That freedom, friend, this world Nor that can give. In books and temples vain Thy search. Thine only is the hand that holds The rope that drags thee on. Then cease lament, Let go thy hold, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Say, "Peace to all: From me no danger be To aught that lives. In those that dwell on high. In those that lowly creep, I am the Self in all! All life both here and there, do I renounce, All heavens and earths and hells, all hopes and fears." Thus cut thy bonds, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Heed then no more how body lives or goes, Its task is done. Let Karma float it down; Let one put garlands on, another kick This frame; say naught. No praise or blame can be Where praiser praised, and blamer blamed are one. Thus be thou calm, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Truth never comes where lust and fame and greed Of gain reside. No man who thinks of woman As his wife can ever perfect be; Nor he who owns the least of things, nor he Whom anger chains, can ever pass thro' Maya's gates. So, give these up, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Have thou no home. What home can hold thee, friend? The sky thy roof, the grass thy bed; and food What chance may bring, well cooked or ill, judge not. No food or drink can taint that noble Self Which knows Itself. Like rolling river free Thou ever be, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Few only know the truth. The rest will hate And laugh at thee, great one; but pay no heed. Go thou, the free, from place to place, and help Them out of darkness, Maya's veil. Without The fear of pain or search for pleasure, go Beyond them both, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" Thus, day by day, till Karma's powers spent Release the soul for ever. No more is birth, Nor I, nor thou, nor God, nor man. The "I" Has All become, the All is "I" and Bliss. Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say -- "Om Tat Sat, Om!" <
1.whitman - Are You The New Person, Drawn Toward Me?, #Whitman - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all Maya, illusion?
20.01 - Charyapada - Old Bengali Mystic Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed Kanhu has slain Maya and become Kapali.
XII
--
the mazes of Maya:
Touch and taste and smell shall remain as they are,
--
Here also the woman-singer, filled with the divine afflatus, intones her inexpressible experiences. Her individual consciousness is identified with the universal Mother consciousness. And as such while she casts her glance into herself, into the depth of her womb, she finds the entire universe there and it comes out in a burst. But she notes that the first creation is only a world of the mere senses, the world of desires and it was not what she wanted. Therefore she severed the life-line that held itas though the umbilical cordby a stroke of the concentrated luminous energy that her consciousness was. So the wrong manifestation, the false world (of Maya and Mara) dissolved and disappeared. And in its stead the true, the world of truth that is the voidwas firmly established, never to move or change. The process is a difficult path and only a heroic soul can go through it.
This poem presents a simpler allegory and expresses a more familiar experience of the spiritual life.
2.01 - Indeterminates, Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And yet the universe exists. What then is it that creates this contradiction, is able to effect the impossible, bring this insoluble riddle of self-division into existence? A Power of some kind it must be, and since the Absolute is the sole reality, the one origin of all things, this Power must proceed from it, must have some relation with it, a connection, a dependence. For if it is quite other than the supreme Reality, a cosmic Imagination imposing its determinations on the eternal blank of the Indeterminable, then the sole existence of an absolute Parabrahman is no longer admissible; there is then a dualism at the source of things not substantially different from the Sankhya dualism of Soul and Nature. If it is a Power, the sole Power indeed, of the Absolute, we have this logical impossibility that the existence of the Supreme Being and the Power of his existence are entirely opposite to each other, two supreme contradictories; for Brahman is free from all possibility of relations and determinations, but Maya is a creative Imagination imposing these very things upon It, an originator of relations and determinations of which Brahman must necessarily be the supporter and witness, - to the logical reason an inadmissible formula. If it is accepted, it can only be as a suprarational mystery, something neither real nor unreal, inexplicable in its nature, anirvacanya. But the difficulties are so great that it can be accepted only if it imposes itself irresistibly as the inevitable ultimate, the end and summit of metaphysical inquiry and spiritual experience. For even if all things are illusory creations, they must have at least a subjective existence and they can exist nowhere except in the consciousness of the Sole Existence; they are then subjective determinations of the Indeterminable. If, on the contrary, the determinations of this Power are real creations, out of what are they determined, what is their substance? It is not possible that they are made out of a Nothing, a Non-Existence other than the Absolute; for that will erect a new dualism, a great positive Zero over against the greater indeterminable x we have supposed to be the one Reality. It is evident therefore that the Reality cannot be a rigid Indeterminable. Whatever is created must be of it and in it, and what is of the substance of the utterly Real must itself be real: a vast baseless negation of reality purporting to be real cannot be the sole outcome of the eternal Truth, the Infinite Existence. It is perfectly understandable that the Absolute is and must be indeterminable in the sense that it cannot be limited by any determination or any sum of possible determinations, but not in the sense that it is incapable of self-determination.
The Supreme Existence cannot be incapable of creating true self-determinations of its being, incapable of upholding a real self-creation or manifestation in its self-existent infinite.
2.01 - Isha Upanishad All that is world in the Universe, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
two & explains their apparent separation by Maya, Illusion
or Ignorance, in other words by the theory that the Indivisible
2.01 - On Books, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
In a way, you can say that everything exists in consciousness, even space, etc. In fact, everything exists in consciousness and it exists nowhere outside of it. Then you come to Shankara's position: Everything, therefore, is Maya illusion. That is the most logical conclusion unless you admit, like the materialists, that everything comes from Matter.
Disciple: Well, the conventional idea is that.
--
As to destiny, what do you mean by destiny? It is a word and men are easily deceived by words. Is destiny a working of inert, blind, material forces? In that case, there is no room for choice, you have to end by accepting Shankara's Mayavada, or else rank materialism.
But if you mean by destiny that there is a will at work in the universe then a choice in action becomes possible.
--
Sri Aurobindo: Most probably. In the Vishnu Purana, Buddha is regarded as an Avatar of Vishnu who came to deceive the Asuras. He is not referred to by name but is called Mayamoha. The reference to Buddha is very clear; it repeats "Buddhyaswa! Buddhyaswa." This Purana is a fine work.
18 JANUARY 1939
--
Sri Aurobindo: The question remains: either it is a conception or an entity. If it is a conception only, then your observations can also be only conceptions, that is to say, they happen in you only. Then you come to Mayavada: nothing but you exist.
Disciple: The latest idea is that space is curved.
--
Malkani's contention seemed to be: 1. That Sri Aurobindo had tried to answer Shankara in some of the chapters in The Life Divine. 2. That Mayavada is true if one grants its premises, etc.
Sri Aurobindo: I am not answering Shankara's Mayavada in particular in The Life Divine. I had to examine the stand taken up by all those thinkers who consider the world an illusion for various reasons. I have examined their grounds.
As to Mayavada being true, each philosophy is true on its own basis. So is Mayavada if you accept its premises. In my examination I was trying to see whether there was anything in any of the possible positions of Mayavada which would make it obligatory on the human mind to accept it. I find that there is no such obligation, at least I don't find any on my mind. What I say amounts to that.
Besides, the position of Mayavada has been taken by many even in Europe, and the Christian religion took a similar position even before Shankara. It considers this world as almost unreal.
"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of the Spirit." This world is a mistranslation of the world of the Spirit. They also make a distinction between Soul and Spirit. They maintain that this world is necessary for the Soul, but another world belongs to the Spirit.
2.01 - The Object of Knowledge, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
8:The object of spiritual knowledge is the Supreme, the Divine, the Infinite and the Absolute. This Supreme has its relations to our individual being and its relations to the universe and it transcends both the soul and the universe. Neither the universe nor the individual are what they seem to be, for the report of them which our mind and our senses give us, is, so long as they are unenlightened by a faculty of higher supramental and suprasensuous knowledge, a false report, an imperfect construction, an attenuated and erroneous figure. And yet that which the universe and the individual seem to be is still a figure of what they really are, a figure that points beyond itself to the reality behind it. Truth proceeds by a correction of the values our mind and senses give us, and first by the action of a higher intelligence that enlightens and sets right as far as may be the conclusions of the ignorant sense-mind and limited physical intelligence; that is the method of all human knowledge and science. But beyond it there is a knowledge, a Truth-Consciousness, that exceeds our intellect and brings us into the true light of which it is a refracted ray. There the abstract terms of pure reason and the constructions of the mind disappear or are converted into concrete soul-vision and the tremendous actuality of spiritual experience. This knowledge can turn away to the absolute Eternal and lose vision of the soul and the universe; but it can too see that existence from that Eternal. When that is done, we find that the ignorance of the mind and the senses and all the apparent futilities of human life were not an useless excursion of the conscious being, an otiose blunder. Here they were planned as a rough ground for the self-expression of the Soul that comes from the Infinite, a material foundation for its self-unfolding and self-possessing in the terms of the universe. It is true that in themselves they and all that is here have no significance, and to build separate significances for them is to live in an illusion, Maya; but they have a supreme significance in the Supreme, an absolute Power in the Absolute and it is that that assigns to them and refers to that Truth their present relative values. This is the all-uniting experience that is the foundation of the deepest integral and most intimate self-knowledge and world-knowledge.
9:In relation to the individual the Supreme is our own true and highest self, that which ultimately we are in our essence, that of which we are in our manifested nature. A spiritual knowledge, moved to arrive at the true Self in us, must reject, as the traditional way of knowledge rejects, all misleading appearances. It must discover that the body is not our self, our foundation of existence; it is a sensible form of the Infinite. The experience of Matter as the world's sole foundation and the physical brain and nerves and cells and molecules as the one truth of all things in us, the ponderous inadequate basis of materialism, is a delusion, a half-view taken for the whole, the dark bottom or shadow of things misconceived as the luminous substance, the effective figure of zero for the Integer. The materialist idea mistakes a creation for the creative Power, a means of expression for That which is expressed and expresses. Matter and our physical brain and nerves and body are the field and foundation for one action of a vital force that serves to connect the Self with the form of its works and maintains them by its direct dynamis. The material movements are an exterior notation by which the soul represents its perceptions of certain truths of the Infinite and makes them effective in the terms of Substance. These things are a language, a notation, a hieroglyphic, a system of symbols, not themselves the deepest truest sense of the things they intimate.
--- Overview of noun maya
The noun maya has 2 senses (no senses from tagged texts)
1. Mayan, Maya ::: (a member of an American Indian people of Yucatan and Belize and Guatemala who had a culture (which reached its peak between AD 300 and 900) characterized by outstanding architecture and pottery and astronomy; "Mayans had a system of writing and an accurate calendar")
2. Maya, Mayan, Mayan language ::: (a family of American Indian languages spoken by Maya)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun maya
2 senses of maya
Sense 1
Mayan, Maya
=> Indian, American Indian, Red Indian
=> Amerindian, Native American
=> person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
=> organism, being
=> living thing, animate thing
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
=> causal agent, cause, causal agency
=> physical entity
=> entity
=> person of color, person of colour
=> person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
=> organism, being
=> living thing, animate thing
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
=> causal agent, cause, causal agency
=> physical entity
=> entity
Sense 2
Maya, Mayan, Mayan language
=> Amerind, Amerindian language, American-Indian language, American Indian, Indian
=> natural language, tongue
=> language, linguistic communication
=> communication
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun maya
2 senses of maya
Sense 1
Mayan, Maya
=> Cakchiquel
=> Kekchi
=> Mam
=> Quiche
=> Yucatec, Yucateco
Sense 2
Maya, Mayan, Mayan language
=> Kekchi
=> Mam
=> Yucatec, Yucateco
=> Quiche
=> Cakchiquel
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun maya
2 senses of maya
Sense 1
Mayan, Maya
=> Indian, American Indian, Red Indian
Sense 2
Maya, Mayan, Mayan language
=> Amerind, Amerindian language, American-Indian language, American Indian, Indian
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun maya
2 senses of maya
Sense 1
Mayan, Maya
-> Indian, American Indian, Red Indian
=> Algonquian, Algonquin
=> Anasazi
=> Athapaskan, Athapascan, Athabaskan, Athabascan
=> Mayan, Maya
=> Nahuatl
=> Olmec
=> Zapotec, Zapotecan
=> Plains Indian, Buffalo Indian
=> Chickasaw
=> Coeur d'Alene
=> Creek
=> Haida
=> Hokan, Hoka
=> Iroquois
=> Muskhogean, Muskogean
=> Penutian
=> Pueblo
=> Redskin, Injun, red man
=> Salish
=> Shoshone, Shoshoni
=> Taracahitian
=> Tlingit
=> Wakashan
=> Aleut, Aleutian
=> Eskimo, Esquimau, Inuit
=> Paleo-American, Paleo-Amerind, Paleo-Indian
=> sannup
=> squaw
Sense 2
Maya, Mayan, Mayan language
-> Amerind, Amerindian language, American-Indian language, American Indian, Indian
=> Algonquian, Algonquin, Algonquian language
=> Atakapa, Atakapan, Attacapa, Attacapan
=> Athapaskan, Athapascan, Athabaskan, Athabascan, Athapaskan language
=> Muskhogean, Muskhogean language, Muskogean, Muskogean language
=> Na-Dene
=> Mosan
=> Caddo, Caddoan, Caddoan language
=> Iroquoian, Iroquois, Iroquoian language
=> Quechua, Quechuan, Quechuan language, Kechua, Kechuan
=> Maraco, Maracan language
=> Tupi-Guarani, Tupi-Guarani language
=> Arawak, Arawakan
=> Carib, Caribbean language
=> Uto-Aztecan, Uto-Aztecan language
=> Maya, Mayan, Mayan language
=> Siouan, Siouan language
=> Tanoan, Tanoan language
=> Hokan, Hoka
=> Penutian
--- Grep of noun maya
maya
maya lin
mayaca
mayacaceae
mayakovski
mayan
mayan language
mayapple
mayas