TERMS STARTING WITH
Attainment ::: Although the connotations of the word "attainment" are frowned upon, it is still a word commonly used to denote reaching, stabilizing, and abiding within certain advanced meditative states and stages and within certain initiatory experiences.
attain ::: 1. To gain as an objective; achieve; reach, arrive at; accomplish. 2. To arrive at, as by virtue of persistence or the passage of time; To reach in the course of development. attained.
attainability ::: n. --> The quality of being attainable; attainableness.
attainable ::: a. --> Capable of being attained or reached by efforts of the mind or body; capable of being compassed or accomplished by efforts directed to the object.
Obtainable.
attainableness ::: n. --> The quality of being attainable; attainability.
attainder ::: n. --> The act of attainting, or the state of being attainted; the extinction of the civil rights and capacities of a person, consequent upon sentence of death or outlawry; as, an act of attainder.
A stain or staining; state of being in dishonor or condemnation.
attained angelic rank when they got to Heaven. This, however, has been disputed: “the belief that the souls of the
attained ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Attain
attaining ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Attain
attainment ::: n. --> The act of attaining; the act of arriving at or reaching; hence, the act of obtaining by efforts.
That which is attained to, or obtained by exertion; acquirement; acquisition; (pl.), mental acquirements; knowledge; as, literary and scientific attainments.
attains directly to that higher status of being to which he aspires.
attaint ::: disgrace, corruption; taint; stain .
attainted ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Attaint
attainting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Attaint
attaintment ::: n. --> Attainder; attainture; conviction.
attainture ::: n. --> Attainder; disgrace.
attaint ::: v. t. --> To attain; to get act; to hit.
To find guilty; to convict; -- said esp. of a jury on trial for giving a false verdict.
To subject (a person) to the legal condition formerly resulting from a sentence of death or outlawry, pronounced in respect of treason or felony; to affect by attainder.
To accuse; to charge with a crime or a dishonorable act.
attain ::: v. t. --> To achieve or accomplish, that is, to reach by efforts; to gain; to compass; as, to attain rest.
To gain or obtain possession of; to acquire.
To get at the knowledge of; to ascertain.
To reach or come to, by progression or motion; to arrive at.
To overtake.
To reach in excellence or degree; to equal.
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. The expenditure of something, such as time or labour, necessary for the attainment of a goal. Also fig. **2. The price paid or required for acquiring, producing, or maintaining something, usually measured in money, time, or energy; expense or expenditure; outlay. 3. **Suffering or sacrifice; loss; penalty.
2. In its rational aspect, as developed especially by Plato and Aristotle, aristocracy is the rule of the best few, in a true, purposeful, law-abiding and constitutional sense. As a political ideal, it is a form of government by morally and intellectually superior men for the common good or in the general interests of the governed, but without participation of the latter. Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing the best men for directing the life of the community, and of setting in motion the process of training and selecting such models of human perfection, aristocracy becomes practically the rule of those who are thought to be the best. [Plato himself proposed his ideal State as "a model fixed in the heavens" for human imitation but not attainment; and in the Laws he offered a combination of monarchy and democracy as the best working form of government.] Though aristocracy is a type of government external to the governed, it is opposed to oligarchy (despotic) and to timocracy (militaristic). With monarchy and democracy, it exhausts the classification of the main forms of rational government.
2. In psychology, the act or process of exercising the mind, the faculty of connecting judgments; the power and fact of using reason; the thought-processes of discussion, debate, argumentation or inference; the manifestation of the discursive property of the mind; the actual use of arguments with a view to convince or persuade; the art and method or proving or demonstrating; the orderly development of thought with a view to, or the attainment of a conclusion believed to be valid. -- The origin, nature and value of reasoning are debated questions, with their answers ranging from spiritualism (reasoning as the exercise of a faculty of the soul) to materialism (reasoning as an epiphenomenon depending on the brain), with all the modern schools of psychology ordering themselves between them. A few points of agreement might be mentioned here: reasoning follows judgment and apprehension, whichever of the last two thought-processes comes first in our psychological development; reasoning proceeds according to four main types, namely deductive, inductive, presumptive and deceptive; reasoning assumes a belief in its own validity undisturbed by doubt, and implies various logical habits and methods which may be organized into a logical doctrine; reasoning requires a reference to some ultimate principles to justify its progress 3. In logic, Reasoning is the process of inference, it is the process of passing from certain propositions already known or assumed to be true, to another truth distinct from them but following from them; it is a discourse or argument which infers one proposition from another, or from a group of others having some common elements between them. The inference is necessary in the case of deductive reasoning; and contingent, probable or wrong, in the case of inductive, presumptive or deceptive reasoning respectively. -- There are various types of reasoning, and proper methods for each type. The definition, discussion, development and evaluation of these types and methods form an important branch of logic and its subdivisions. The details of the application of reasoning to the various sciences, form the subject of methodology. All these types are reducible to one or the other of the two fundamental processes or reasoning, namely deduction and induction. It must be added that the logical study of reasoning is normative logic does not analyze it simply in its natural development, but with a view to guide it towards coherence, validity or truth. -- T.G.
2. (theol.) that theory of religious knowledge which asserts that it is impossible for man to attain knowledge of God.
(4) If compaied with an end, the correlative is finally: e.g. eternal happiness is said to move man to act rightly not formally but finally, as in end to be attained.
a-avidya-siddhi ::: the perfection (siddhi) that is attainable under the conditions of vidya-avidya, where Knowledge is "inextricably intertwined with an original Ignorance".
Abhijna (Sanskrit) Abhijñā [from abhi towards + the verbal root jñā to know, have special knowledge of, mastery over; Pali abhiñña] Inner perception; in Buddhism the five or six transcendental powers, faculties, or superknowledges attained on reaching buddhahood. Gautama Buddha is said to have acquired the six abhijnas the night he attained enlightenment. Generally enumerated as: 1) divyachakshus (divine eye) instantaneous perception of whatever one wills to see; 2) divyasrotra (divine ear) instantaneous comprehension of all sounds on every plane; 3) riddhisakshatkriya, power of becoming visibly manifest at will, intuitive perception; 4) purvanivasajnana (power to know former existences) also called purvanivasanu-smritijnana (recollection of former existences); and 5) parachittajnana (knowledge of others’ thoughts) understanding of their minds and hearts.
Abhinivesa (Sanskrit) Abhiniveśa [from abhi towards + ni down + the verbal root viś to enter; to enter into completely] Application, intentness, devotion, tenacity, determination to effect a purpose or attain an object. In the Bhagavad-Gita, when used with manas (mind) and atman (self) it means to devote one’s attention to.
Abhyasa-yoga (Sanskrit) Abhyāsa-yoga [from abhi towards + the verbal root as to be, exist + yoga union from the verbal root yuj to join, yoke] Sometimes erroneously abhyasana. Repeated practice and application of yoga, meditation, or recollection; the effort of the mind to attain an unmodified condition of perfect serenity and quiet. One of the eight disciplines or requirements of yoga: persistent concentration of attention. When accompanied with physical postures, it is a form of hatha yoga, and practiced without the spiritual training of raja yoga, it has its dangers. As a system of mental concentration directed to impersonal, altruistic ends, it is beneficial. Krishna (BG 12:9-10) points out that abhyasa-yoga is not only useful for training in one life but, if performed for the sake of the Supreme, is likely to leave permanent helpful impulses in the soul which will aid it in future incarnations and lead it ultimately to union (yoga) with the divine.
accede ::: v. i. --> To approach; to come forward; -- opposed to recede.
To enter upon an office or dignity; to attain.
To become a party by associating one&
accomplishment ::: n. --> The act of accomplishing; entire performance; completion; fulfillment; as, the accomplishment of an enterprise, of a prophecy, etc.
That which completes, perfects, or equips thoroughly; acquirement; attainment; that which constitutes excellence of mind, or elegance of manners, acquired by education or training.
According to another interpretation of the notion of whole and of the part-whole principle, a whole is an object whose parts are mutually interdependent in the sense that a change affecting one of its parts will bring about changes in all of the other parts, and because of this interdependence the whole is said to be "more" than the sum of its parts. The part-whole principle then obviously is true simply by definition, and again, lacks explanatory value. Besides, if the above interdependence criterion for wholes is taken literally, then any object turns out to be a whole. What the concept of whole is actually meant to refer to, are specific types of interdependence as found in living organisms, etc., but then, again, an adequate description and explanation of those phenomena can be attained only by a study of their special regularities, not by a sweeping use of the vague concept of whole and of the unclear part-whole principle. (For the points referred to in the preceding remarks, see also Emergent Evolution, Gestalt, Holism, Mechanism, Vitalism.)
achieved ::: completed, accomplished; attained, won.
acquirability ::: n. --> The quality of being acquirable; attainableness.
acquirement ::: n. --> The act of acquiring, or that which is acquired; attainment.
Adept [from Latin adeptus from ad toward + apiscor to reach, attain] One who has attained; in theosophical literature, one who has attained mastery in the art and science of living, an initiate or mahatma.
adeption ::: a. --> An obtaining; attainment.
Adept: One who has attained to proficiency in any art or science. In occultism, one who has attained the stage of initiation and has become a Master of esoteric science and philosophy.
Advanced soul: In occult philosophy, a human being whose spiritual development has exceeded that attainable by his fellowmen.
agave ::: n. --> A genus of plants (order Amaryllidaceae) of which the chief species is the maguey or century plant (A. Americana), wrongly called Aloe. It is from ten to seventy years, according to climate, in attaining maturity, when it produces a gigantic flower stem, sometimes forty feet in height, and perishes. The fermented juice is the pulque of the Mexicans; distilled, it yields mescal. A strong thread and a tough paper are made from the leaves, and the wood has many uses.
Agnosticism: (Gr. agnostos, unknowing) 1. (epist.) that theory of knowledge which asserts that it is impossible for man to attain knowledge of a certain subject-matter.
Agnosticism: The belief that certain knowledge has not been attained, either in some particular field (usually the religious) or in any and all fields of supposed knowledge.
(a) Harmony; being "neither too weak nor too strong." "When the passions, such as joy, anger, grief, and pleasure, have not awakened, that is our central self, or moral being (chung). When these passions awaken and each and all attain due measure and degree, that is harmony, or the moral order (ho). Our central self or moral being is the great basis of existence, and harmony or moral order is the universal law in the world." See Chung.
All Indian doctrines orient themselves by the Vedas, accepting or rejecting their authority. In ranging from materialism to acosmism and nihilism, from physiologism to spiritualism, realism to idealism, monism to pluralism, atheism and pantheism, Hindus believe they have exhausted all possible philosophic attitudes (cf. darsana), which they feel supplement rather than exclude each other. A unnersal feature is the fusion of religion, metaphysics, ethics and psychology, due to the universal acceptance of a psycho-physicalism, further exemplified in the typical doctrines of karma and samsara (q.v.). Rigorous logic is nevertheless applied in theology where metaphvsics passes into eschatology (cf., e.g., is) and the generally accepted belief in the cyclic nature of the cosmos oscillating between srsti ("throwing out") and pralaya (dissolution) of the absolute reality (cf. abhasa), and in psychology, where epistemology seeks practical outlets in Yoga (q.v.). With a genius for abstraction, thinkers were and are almost invariably hedonistically motivated by the desire to overcome the evils of existence in the hope of attaining liberation (cf. moksa) and everlasting bliss (cf. ananda, nirvana). -- K.F.L.
Al-Mani ::: The One who prevents those from attaining things they do not deserve!
ambition ::: an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honour, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment. ambitions.
ambition ::: n. --> The act of going about to solicit or obtain an office, or any other object of desire; canvassing.
An eager, and sometimes an inordinate, desire for preferment, honor, superiority, power, or the attainment of something. ::: v. t. --> To seek after ambitiously or eagerly; to covet.
Analogic: (Gr. mystical) Usually employed as a noun in the plural, signifying an interpretation of Scripture pointing to a destiny to be hoped for and a goal to be attained; as an adjective it means, pertaining to the kind of interpretation described above. -- J.J.R.
Anastasis (Greek) Rising up; used in referring to the dead and to resurrection. However, this ancient mystical term was originally used for the rising of the initiant when, having completed the dread trials of initiation, he rose a new man, one who was reborn, or what in India was called a dvija (twice-born). Another significance belonging from earliest times to the cycle of initiation is that when a person through severe training, initiation, and a complete turning away from things of matter to things of spirit, had succeeded in becoming at one with his inner god at least on occasions, he was then considered to have arisen or to have become resurrected out of all the lower ranges of kosmic life, and to have attained self-conscious existence in the spirit. Having attained anastasis, he took his place in the hierarchy of light or compassion as one of the co-laborers with the gods.
and not by an opening of themselves to a superior Povver or by the way of surrender ; for the Impersonal is not something that guides and helps, but something to be attained, and it leaves each man to attain it according to the way an^ capacity of his naturc.
An examination of desire and will leads to the same conclusion. These, too, betoken a self which fulfills itself in attaining an ideal. This ideal can be found only in the Absolute, revealed now not only as an absolute mind but as an absolute moral person, enshrining goodness and beauty as well as truth -- that is as God. -- B.A.G.F.
Animal Kingdom One of the main divisions or life-waves of entities on earth, separated from the human kingdom by its lack of the emanated or evolved self-conscious mind, a faculty which can be acquired only by the aid of beings already having it — the manasaputras. The entities now pursuing their evolution in the animal kingdom will in a future imbodiment of the planetary chain become human in the same way, although a certain number of the highest animal stocks now living, such as the apes and possibly some of the monkeys, may attain incipient humanity before the end of the seventh round in the present planetary manvantara.
Antaryoga (Sanskrit) Antaryoga [from antar interior, within + yoga union from the verbal root yuj to join, unite] Interior union; a state of deep thought or abstraction signifying that high stage of inner spiritual and intellectual recollection in which all the superior part of a person’s constitution is gathered together and focused as it were into a single point of consciousness. It is involved in the attaining of the higher states of consciousness such as turiya-samadhi.
Aparavidya (Sanskrit) Aparāvidyā [from a not + parā supreme + vidyā knowledge from the verbal root vid to see, know, percieve] Nonsupreme knowledge; in Vedanta philosophy the lower wisdom of Brahman, relative knowledge acquired by the intellect and through the performance of ritual worship and duties, in contradistinction to paravidya (supreme wisdom), the transcendental knowledge of Brahman attainable by him who has achieved moksha (liberation) during life. This distinction between the exoteric and esoteric tradition and doctrine is found in practically all cultures.
Apnavana ::: [the name of a rsi]; the doer of works; he who acts, he who attains or acquires the seer-wisdom. [Ved.]
Arahant (Pali) Arahant [from the verbal root arh to be worthy; or from ari foe + the verbal root han to slay] The worthy one; enemy, slayer. One who has attained the highest state next to being a buddha, especially one who has freed himself from the asavas (Sanskrit asrava) — intoxication or bewilderment of mind or sense. The term arahant, like the Sanskrit arhat, is often popularly used for individuals of less exalted grade. See also ARHAT; ARAHATTA
Arcanum: An old term almost identical with occultism, its recent equivalent. Arcana were originally used to cover the sacred objects, such as the Playthings of Dionysus in the Eleusinian rites, and a cognate is ark, as in the Ark of the Covenant. Arcesilaus: (315-241 B.C.) Greek philosopher from Pitane in Aeolis. He succeeded Crates in the chair of the Platonic Academy and became the founder of the second or so-called middle academy. In opposition to both Stoicism and Epicureanism, he advocated a scepticism that was not so extreme as that of Pyrrho although he despaired of man's attaining truth. Suspended judgment was to him the best approach. -- L.E.D.
aretology ::: n. --> That part of moral philosophy which treats of virtue, its nature, and the means of attaining to it.
arrival ::: n. --> The act of arriving, or coming; the act of reaching a place from a distance, whether by water (as in its original sense) or by land.
The attainment or reaching of any object, by effort, or in natural course; as, our arrival at this conclusion was wholly unexpected.
The person or thing arriving or which has arrived; as, news brought by the last arrival.
Arudha (Sanskrit) Ārūḍha [from ā-ruh to mount, rise up] Mounted, ascended, raised up, attained; attainment. Used in compounds, such as indriyarudha (perceived, brought under the cognizance of the senses); yogarudha (absorbed in profound meditation, attainment of yoga or union).
Aryasatya (Sanskrit) Āryasatya [from ārya holy, noble from the verbal root ṛ to move, arise, attain + satya true, real from the verbal root as to be] Noble truth; in the plural, the four great truths of Buddhism — chatvari aryasatyani (Pali, chattari ariyasachchani): 1) duhkha — life is suffering; 2) samudaya — origin, cause, craving, egoistic desire (tanha) is the cause of suffering; 3) nirodha — destruction, extinction of desire brings cessation of suffering; and 4) aryashtangamarga — the eightfold path leads to extinction of suffering. See also ARIYASACHCHA (for Pali equivalents)
Aryashtangamarga (Sanskrit) Āryāṣṭāṅgamārga [from ārya holy, noble + aṣṭa eight + aṅga limb, division + mārga path, way from the verbal root mṛg to seek, strive to attain, investigate] Holy eight-limbed way; in Buddhism the Noble Eightfold Path enunciated by Gautama Buddha as the fourth of the Four Noble Truths (chattari aryasatyani). Consistent practice of aryashtangamarga leads the disciple ultimately to perfect wisdom, love, and liberation from samsara (the round of repetitive births and deaths). The Eightfold Path is enumerated as: 1) samyagdrishti (right insight); 2) samyaksamkalpa (right resolve); 3) samyagvach (right speech); 4) samyakkarmantra (right action); 5) samyagajiva (right living); 6) samyagvyayama (right exertion); 7) samyaksmriti (right recollection); and 8) samyaksamadhi (right concentration). See also ARIYA ATTHANGIKA MAGGA (for Pali equivalents)
Asana (Sanskrit) Āsana [from the verbal root as to sit quietly] One of the postures adopted by Hindu ascetics; five are usually enumerated, although nearly ninety have been noted. However, they are not of deep spiritual value or meaning: “Providing that the position of the body be comfortable so that the mind is least distracted, genuine meditation and spiritual and actual introspection can be readily and successfully attained by any earnest student without the slightest attention being paid to these various postures. A man may be sitting quietly in his arm-chair, or lying in his bed at night, or sitting or lying on the grass in a forest, and can more readily enter the inner worlds than by adopting and following any one or more of these various Asanas, which at the best are physiological aids of relatively small value” (OG 7).
Asana(Sanskrit) ::: A word derived from the verbal root as, signifying "to sit quietly." Asana, therefore,technically signifies one of the peculiar postures adopted by Hindu ascetics, mostly of the hatha yogaschool. Five of these postures are usually enumerated, but nearly ninety have been noted by students ofthe subject. A great deal of quasi-magical and mystical literature may be found devoted to these variouspostures and collateral topics, and their supposed or actual psychological value when assumed bydevotees; but, as a matter of fact, a great deal of this writing is superficial and has very little indeed to dowith the actual occult and esoteric training of genuine occultists. One is instinctively reminded of otherquasi-mystical practices, as, for instance, certain genuflections or postures followed in the worship of theChristian Church, to which particular values are sometimes ascribed by fanatic devotees.Providing that the position of the body be comfortable so that the mind is least distracted, genuinemeditation and spiritual and actual introspection can be readily and successfully attained by any earneststudent without the slightest attention being paid to these various postures. A man sitting quietly in hisarmchair, or lying in his bed at night, or sitting or lying on the grass in a forest, can more readily enterthe inner worlds than by adopting and following any one or more of these various asanas, which at thebest are physiological aids of relatively small value. (See also Samadhi)
As a noun, originally one who had fully attained his spiritual ideals. In Buddhism arhat (Pali arahant) is the title generally given to those of Gautama Buddha’s disciples who had progressed the farthest during his lifetime and immediately thereafter; more specifically to those who had attained nirvana, emancipation from earthly fetters and the attainment of full enlightenment. Arhat is broadly equivalent to the Egyptian hierophant, the Chaldean magus, and Hindu rishi, as well as being generally applicable to ascetics. On occasion it is used for the loftiest beings in a hierarchy: “The Arhats of the ‘fire-mist’ of the 7th run are but one remove from the Root-base of their Hierarchy — the highest on Earth, and our Terrestrial chain” (SD 1:207).
Ash-Shakur ::: The One who allows the proper use of His bestowals in order that He may increase them. The One who enables the due evaluation of resources such that more can be attained. This name triggers the name al-Karim.
Ashta-siddhis (Sanskrit) Aṣṭa-siddhi-s [from aṣṭa eight + siddhi supernormal powers] The eight supernormal powers or faculties innate in man but at present generally latent or undeveloped, although attainable when a person reaches the status of a buddha. See also IDDHI; SIDDHI
(a) Speculative philosophy is commonly considered to embrace metaphysics (see Metaphysics) and epistemology as its two coordinate branches or if the term metaphysics be extended to embrace the whole of speculative philosophy, then epistemology and ontology become the two main subdivisions of metaphysics in the wide sense. Whichever usage is adopted, epistemology as the philosophical theory of knowledge is one of the two main branches of philosophy. The question of the relative priority of epistemology and metaphysics (or ontology) has occasioned considerable controversy: the dominant view fostered by Descartes, Locke and Kant is that epistemology is the prior philosophical science, the investigation of the possibility and limits of knowledge being a necessary and indispensible preliminary to any metaphysical speculations regarding the nature of ultimate reality. On the other hand, strongly metaphysical thinkers like Spinoza and Hegel, and more recently S. Alexander and A. N. Whitehead, have first attacked the metaphvsical problems and adopted the view of knowledge consonant with their metaphysics. Between these two extremes is the view that epistemology and metaphysics are logically interdependent and that a metaphysically presuppositionless epistemology is as unattainable as an epistemologically presuppositionless metaphysics.
aspirant ::: a. --> Aspiring. ::: n. --> One who aspires; one who eagerly seeks some high position or object of attainment.
aspire ::: to have a fixed desire, longing, or ambition for something at present above one; to seek to attain, yearn. aspires, aspired, aspiring.
aspire ::: v. t. --> To desire with eagerness; to seek to attain something high or great; to pant; to long; -- followed by to or after, and rarely by at; as, to aspire to a crown; to aspire after immorality.
To rise; to ascend; to tower; to soar.
To aspire to; to long for; to try to reach; to mount to. ::: n.
Asrama(Sanskrit) ::: A word derived from the root sram, signifying "to make efforts," "to strive"; with the particlea, which in this case gives force to the verbal root sram. Asrama has at least two main significations. Thefirst is that of a college or school or a hermitage, an abode of ascetics, etc.; whereas the second meaningsignifies a period of effort or striving in the religious life or career of a Brahmana of olden days. Theseperiods of life in ancient times in Hindustan were four in number: the first, that of the student orbrahmacharin; second, the period of life called that of the grihastha or householder -- the period ofmarried existence when the Brahmana took his due part in the affairs of men, etc.; third, the vanaprastha,or period of monastic seclusion, usually passed in a vana, or wood or forest, for purposes of innerrecollection and spiritual meditation; and fourth, that of the bhikshu or religious mendicant, meaning onewho has completely renounced the distractions of worldly life and has turned his attention wholly tospiritual affairs.Brahmasrama. In modern esoteric or occult literature, the compound term Brahmasrama is occasionallyused to signify an initiation chamber or secret room or adytum where the initiant or neophyte is strivingor making efforts to attain union with Brahman or the inner god.
Astrology today is an impaired legacy from Greece and Rome through the medieval art, elaborated by the speculative industry of modern students; and that same medieval astrology was itself no more than a decayed scion of the ancient stock. Modern astrology is too often cultivated in a spirit which binds us to our personality or caters to frivolous curiosity. To the merest tyro, however, it soon becomes evident that the planets cause or indicate character and events; what use the individual makes of this knowledge depends on the motives with which it is sought. Anxiety about personal fate, the desire for influence and notoriety, the need for earning a living, or even knowledge for its own sake — such motives will qualify his attainments in proportion to the scope of the sphere to which he limits himself. As the old saying attests, the stars impel, they do not compel.
Asvattha(Sanskrit) ::: The mystical tree of knowledge, the mystical tree of kosmical life and being, represented asgrowing in a reversed position: the branches extending downwards and the roots upwards. The branchestypify the visible kosmical universe, the roots the invisible world of spirit.The universe among the ancients of many nations was portrayed or figurated under the symbol of a tree,of which the roots sprang from the divine heart of things, and the trunk and the branches and thebranchlets and the leaves were the various planes and worlds and spheres of the kosmos. The fruit of thiskosmic tree contained the seeds of future "trees," being the entities which had attained through evolutionthe end of their evolutionary journey, such as men and the gods -- themselves universes in the small, anddestined in the future to become kosmic entities when the cycling wheel of time shall have turnedthrough long aeons on its majestic round. In fact, every living thing, and so-called inanimate things also,are trees of life, with their roots above in the spiritual realms, with their trunks passing through theintermediate spheres, and their branches manifesting in the physical realms.
asya (dasya; dasyam) ::: (corresponding in July 1912 to the later tertiary dasya) the highest of three forms of dasya, that in which the "potential freedom" of double dasya disappears; this loss of apparent freedom of the will gives the "true freedom" that is attained only when "we surrender our conscious will and allow it to be made one with the will of the Eternal", for then, "living in the divine liberty, we shall no longer cling to this shackled so-called free-will, a puppet freedom ignorant, illusory, relative, bound to the error of its own inadequate vital motives and mental figures".
(a) The initial and inescapable problem with which the epistemologist is confronted is that of the very possibility of knowledge: Is genuine knowledge at all attainable? The natural dogmatism of the human mind is confronted with the sceptic's challenge: a challenge grounded on the relativity of the senses (sensory scepticism) and the contradictions into which the reason is often betrayed (rational scepticism). An alternative to both dogmatism and extreme scepticism is a tentative or methodological scepticism of which Descartes' systematic doubt, Locke's cautious empiricism and Kant's critical epistemology are instances. See Dogmatism; Scepticism; Criticism. Scepticism in modern epistemology is commonly associated with solipsism, since a scepticism regarding knowledge of the external world leads to solipsism and the ego-centric predicament. See Solipsism; Ego-centric predicament.
atma jnani. ::: a person who has attained Self-knowledge
Atmasamyama Yoga (Sanskrit) Ātmasaṃyama-yoga [from ātma self + saṃyama restraint + yoga union] The attaining of at-one-ment with the highest by means of self-restraint. The Bhagavad-Gita (ch 6) treats of atmasamyama yoga, or the quieting of the mind and the passions and desires of the personal self, in order to attain the complete realization of the true self or atman.
Atomism, psychological: See Psychological Atomism. Atonement: Religious act of expressing consciousness of one's sins, penitence, reconciliation, giving satisfaction. Specifically, a theological doctrine meaning the reconciliation between God and man who had sinned against God, hence given offense to Him. This was effected through the Incarnation of Christ, the Son of God, His sufferings and death on the cross, who consequently is the Saviour and Redeemer of the human race. This voluntary death and vicarious sacrifice constituted a full reparation for the sins of humanity and satisfied the debt to divine justice, thus making it again possible for men to attain eternal happiness in heaven. -- J.J.R.
Avapta (Sanskrit) Avāpta [from ava down, away + the verbal root āp to obtain] Attained, to obtain one’s aim or end; initiated.
Babel (Hebrew) Bābāh The inner meaning of the Tower of Babel, by which it was hoped that divinity might be reached or attained, is a house of initiation, a gate, portal, opening, or entrance to the divine. The physical tower was both the building set aside to house and protect the initiation chambers, together with the ceremonies that take place in them, and an architectural emblem to signify a raising up towards heaven. The tower may have either a divine or evil significance, either haughty pride and self-sufficiency or spiritual aspiration. Similar is the lightning-struck tower of the Tarot cards, and the Arabian Nights story of the man who built a palace completely except only for a roc’s egg to hang in the dome, and when the egg is thus hung, the whole palace collapses. The work of the black magician, building from below upwards, is impermanent and, when it strikes the sky, is blasted. If such a tower and system be followed by adepts of the left-hand path for ultimate and foredestined confusion, it is one thing; but if the tower and its inner mysteries be in the charge of adepts of the right-hand path, it is another. The concentration of the narrator in the Bible concerning the Tower of Babel seems to have been entirely upon its aspect of left-hand magic.
Bacon, Roger: (1214-1294) Franciscan. He recognized the significance of the deductive application of principles and the necessity for experimental verification of the results. He was keenly interested in mathematics. His most famous work was called Opus majus, a veritable encyclopaedia of the sciences of his day. -- L.E.D Baconian Method: The inductive method as advanced by Francis Bacon (1561-1626). The purpose of the method was to enable man to attain mastery over nature in order to exploit it for his benefit. The mind should pass from particular facts to a more general knowledge of forms, or generalized physical properties. They are laws according to which phenomena actually proceed. He demanded an exhaustive enumeration of positive instances of occurrences of phenomena, the recording of comparative instances, in which an event manifests itself with greater or lesser intensity, and the additional registration of negative instances. Then experiments should test the observations. See Mill's Methods. -- J.J.R.
Barth, Karl: (1886-1968) Swiss theologian, widely influential among current social pessimists. God, he holds, is wholly other than man, not apprehensible by man's reason nor attainable by human endeavor. Christianity is a revealed and supernatural religion. Man must trust God's plan of salvation or be doomed to utter ruin. God is the sole judge and his judgments are beyond man's attainments. The Barthian position is called "crisis theology" (crisis, the Greek word for judgment) and "dialectical theology" (because of the emphasis upon the contradict on between God and this world). For a summary of Barth's position see The Knowledge of God and the Service of God (1939). -- V.F.
attain ::: 1. To gain as an objective; achieve; reach, arrive at; accomplish. 2. To arrive at, as by virtue of persistence or the passage of time; To reach in the course of development. attained.
attainability ::: n. --> The quality of being attainable; attainableness.
attainable ::: a. --> Capable of being attained or reached by efforts of the mind or body; capable of being compassed or accomplished by efforts directed to the object.
Obtainable.
attainableness ::: n. --> The quality of being attainable; attainability.
attainder ::: n. --> The act of attainting, or the state of being attainted; the extinction of the civil rights and capacities of a person, consequent upon sentence of death or outlawry; as, an act of attainder.
A stain or staining; state of being in dishonor or condemnation.
attained ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Attain
attaining ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Attain
attainment ::: n. --> The act of attaining; the act of arriving at or reaching; hence, the act of obtaining by efforts.
That which is attained to, or obtained by exertion; acquirement; acquisition; (pl.), mental acquirements; knowledge; as, literary and scientific attainments.
attains directly to that higher status of being to which he aspires.
attaint ::: disgrace, corruption; taint; stain .
attainted ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Attaint
attainting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Attaint
attaintment ::: n. --> Attainder; attainture; conviction.
attainture ::: n. --> Attainder; disgrace.
attaint ::: v. t. --> To attain; to get act; to hit.
To find guilty; to convict; -- said esp. of a jury on trial for giving a false verdict.
To subject (a person) to the legal condition formerly resulting from a sentence of death or outlawry, pronounced in respect of treason or felony; to affect by attainder.
To accuse; to charge with a crime or a dishonorable act.
attain ::: v. t. --> To achieve or accomplish, that is, to reach by efforts; to gain; to compass; as, to attain rest.
To gain or obtain possession of; to acquire.
To get at the knowledge of; to ascertain.
To reach or come to, by progression or motion; to arrive at.
To overtake.
To reach in excellence or degree; to equal.
beatification ::: n. --> The act of beatifying, or the state of being beatified; esp., in the R. C. Church, the act or process of ascertaining and declaring that a deceased person is one of "the blessed," or has attained the second degree of sanctity, -- usually a stage in the process of canonization.
Bhakti: Sanskrit for devotion. Worship, faith, religious devotion as a way of spiritual attainment.
bhakti yogi. ::: the one who strives to attain union with God through the path of devotion
bhava samadhi. ::: superconscious state attained by devotees through intense divine emotion in which the devotee retains his ego and enjoys communion with the Self
Bhedabheda: (Skr. "different [yet] not different") A philosophy admitting the point of view of bheda (s.v.) as well as that of abheda (s.v.), depending on the mental and spiritual attainment of the person. -- K.F.L.
Bodhisattva: (Skr.) "Existence (sattva) in a state of wisdom (bodhi)", such as was attained by Gautama Buddha (s.v.); a Buddhist wise and holy man. -- K.F.L.
brahmaloka ::: world of the brahman, in which the soul is one with the infinite existence and yet in a sense still a soul able to enjoy differentiation in the oneness; the highest state of pure existence, consciousness and beatitude attainable by the soul without complete extinction in the Indefinable.
Brahmanism: The predominant form of philosophical, theological, and ethical speculation of India, sponsored by the Brahman caste which traces its doctrines back to the Vedas (q.v.) and Upanishads (q.v.) without ever having attained uniformity in regard to the main doctrines. -- K.F.L.
brahman. ::: the impersonal, non-dual, Final Reality; infinite consciousness; the eternal witness; the absolute Self of all beings; oneness; the supreme Reality that is one and indivisible, uncreated, infinite and eternal; witnessing awareness; all-pervading, all-embracing, changeless existence that is entirely complete within Itself; the Supreme state which is attained here in this life by clear Self-enquiry, which arises in the Heart when association with a Satguru is gained
brahmavidya. ::: science of Brahman; knowledge of Brahman, the supreme Reality; using reasoning to attain the absolute Truth
brontosaurus ::: n. --> A genus of American jurassic dinosaurs. A length of sixty feet is believed to have been attained by these reptiles.
(b) The knowledge that rises above distinctions, attainable only when the human mind, completely comprehends Heaven, nature and the moral law. (Chang Heng-Ch'u, 1020-1077). -- W.T.C.
Buddha: An enlightened and wise individual who has attained perfect wisdom. Specifically applied to Gautama Siddhartha, founder of Buddhism in the sixth century B.C.
"But our more difficult problem is to liberate the true Person and attain to a divine manhood which shall be the pure vessel of a divine force and the perfect instrument of a divine action. Step after step has to be firmly taken; difficulty after difficulty has to be entirely experienced and entirely mastered. Only the Divine Wisdom and Power can do this for us and it will do all if we yield to it in an entire faith and follow and assent to its workings with a constant courage and patience.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“But our more difficult problem is to liberate the true Person and attain to a divine manhood which shall be the pure vessel of a divine force and the perfect instrument of a divine action. Step after step has to be firmly taken; difficulty after difficulty has to be entirely experienced and entirely mastered. Only the Divine Wisdom and Power can do this for us and it will do all if we yield to it in an entire faith and follow and assent to its workings with a constant courage and patience.” The Synthesis of Yoga
::: "By self-realisation of Brahman as our self we find the force, the divine energy which lifts us beyond the limitation, weakness, darkness, sorrow, all-pervading death of our mortal existence; by the knowledge of the one Brahman in all beings and in all the various movement of the cosmos we attain beyond these things to the infinity, the omnipotent being, the omniscient light, the pure beatitude of that divine existence.” The Upanishads
“By self-realisation of Brahman as our self we find the force, the divine energy which lifts us beyond the limitation, weakness, darkness, sorrow, all-pervading death of our mortal existence; by the knowledge of the one Brahman in all beings and in all the various movement of the cosmos we attain beyond these things to the infinity, the omnipotent being, the omniscient light, the pure beatitude of that divine existence.” The Upanishads
calamite ::: n. --> A fossil plant of the coal formation, having the general form of plants of the modern Equiseta (the Horsetail or Scouring Rush family) but sometimes attaining the height of trees, and having the stem more or less woody within. See Acrogen, and Asterophyllite.
Chela(Cela) ::: An old Indian term. In archaic times more frequently spelled and pronounced cheta or cheda. Themeaning is "servant," a personal disciple attached to the service of a teacher from whom he receivesinstruction. The idea is closely similar to the Anglo-Saxon term leorning-cneht, meaning "learningservant," a name given in Anglo-Saxon translations of the Christian New Testament to the disciples ofJesus, his "chelas." It is, therefore, a word used in old mystical scriptures for a disciple, a pupil, a learneror hearer. The relationship of teacher and disciple is infinitely more sacred even than that of parent andchild; because, while the parents give the body to the incoming soul, the teacher brings forth that soulitself and teaches it to be and therefore to see, teaches it to know and to become what it is in its inmostbeing -- that is, a divine thing.The chela life or chela path is a beautiful one, full of joy to its very end, but also it calls forth and needseverything noble and high in the learner or disciple; for the powers or faculties of the higher self must bebrought into activity in order to attain and to hold those summits of intellectual and spiritual grandeurwhere the Masters themselves live. For that, masterhood, is the end of discipleship -- not, however, thatthis ideal should be set before us merely as an end to attain to as something of benefit for one's own self,because that very thought is a selfish one and therefore a stumbling in the path. It is for the individual'sbenefit, of course; yet the true idea is that everything and every faculty that is in the soul shall be broughtout in the service of all humanity, for this is the royal road, the great royal thoroughfare, of self-conquest.The more mystical meanings attached to this term chela can be given only to those who have irrevocablypledged themselves to the esoteric life.
chemistry ::: n. --> That branch of science which treats of the composition of substances, and of the changes which they undergo in consequence of alterations in the constitution of the molecules, which depend upon variations of the number, kind, or mode of arrangement, of the constituent atoms. These atoms are not assumed to be indivisible, but merely the finest grade of subdivision hitherto attained. Chemistry deals with the changes in the composition and constitution of molecules. See Atom, Molecule.
child ::: 1. A person between birth and full growth. 2. A baby or infant. 3. A person who has not attained maturity. 4. One who is childish or immature. 5. An individual regarded as strongly affected by another or by a specified time, place, or circumstance. 6. Any person or thing regarded as the product or result of particular agencies, influences, etc. Child, child"s, children, Children, children"s, child-god, Child-Godhead, child-heart, child-heart"s, child-laughter, child-soul, child-sovereign, child-thought, flame-child, foster-child, God-child, King-children.
Chit ::: Chit, the divine Consciousness, is not our mental selfawareness; that we shall find to be only a form, a lower and limited mode or movement. As we progress and awaken to the soul in us and things, we shall realise that there is a consciousness also in the plant, in the metal, in the atom, in electricity, in everything that belongs to physical nature; we shall find even that it is not really in all respects a lower or more limited mode than the mental, on the contrary it is in many "inanimate" forms more intense, rapid, poignant, though less evolved towards the surface. But this also, this consciousness of vital and physical Nature is, compared with Chit, a lower and th
refore a limited form, mode and movement. These lower modes of consciousness are the conscious-stuff of inferior planes in one indivisible existence. In ourselves also there is in our subconscious being an action which is precisely that of the "inanimate" physical Nature whence has been constituted the basis of our physical being, another which is that of plantlife, and another which is that of the lower animal creation around us. All these are so much dominated and conditioned by the thinking and reasoning conscious-being in us that we have no real awareness of these lower planes; we are unable to perceive in their own terms what these parts of us are doing, and receive it very imperfectly in the terms and values of the thinking and reasoning mind. Still we know well enough that there is an animal in us as well as that which is characteristically human,—something which is a creature of conscious instinct and impulse, not
reflective or rational, as well as that which turns back in thought and will on its experience, meets it from above with the light and force of a higher plane and to some degree controls, uses and modifies it. But the animal in man is only the head of our subhuman being; below it there is much that is also sub-animal and merely vital, much that acts by an instinct and impulse of which the constituting consciousness is withdrawn behind the surface. Below this sub-animal being, there is at a further depth the subvital. When we advance in that ultra-normal self-knowledge and experience which Yoga brings with it, we become aware that the body too has a consciousness of its own; it has habits, impulses, instincts, an inert yet effective will which differs from that of the rest of our being and can resist it and condition its effectiveness. Much of the struggle in our being is due to this composite existence and the interaction of these varied and heterogeneous planes on each other. For man here is the result of an evolution and contains in himself the whole of that evolution up from the merely physical and subvital conscious being to the mental creature which at the top he is. But this evolution is really a manifestation and just as we have in us these subnormal selves and subhuman planes, so are there in us above our mental being supernormal and superhuman planes. There Chit as the universal conscious-stuff of existence takes other poises, moves out in other modes, on other principles and by other faculties of action. There is above the mind, as the old Vedic sages discovered, a Truth-plane, a plane of self-luminous, self-effective Idea, which can be turned in light and force upon our mind, reason, sentiments, impulses, sensations and use and control them in the sense of the real Truth of things just as we turn our mental reason and will upon our sense-experience and animal nature to use and control them in the sense of our rational and moral perceptions. There is no seeking, but rather natural possession; no conflict or separation between will and reason, instinct and impulse, desire and experience, idea and reality, but all are in harmony, concomitant, mutually effective, unified in their origin, in their development and in their effectuation. But beyond this plane and attainable through it are others in which the very Chit itself becomes revealed, Chit the elemental origin and primal completeness of all this varied consciousness which is here used for various formation and experience. There will and knowledge and sensation and all the rest of our faculties, powers, modes of experience are not merely harmonious, concomitant, unified, but are one being of consciousness and power of consciousness. It is this Chit which modifies itself so as to become on the Truthplane the supermind, on the mental plane the mental reason, will, emotion, sensation, on the lower planes the vital or physical instincts, impulses, habits of an obscure force not in superficially conscious possession of itself. All is Chit because all is Sat; all is various movement of the original Consciousness because all is various movement of the original Being. When we find, see or know Chit, we find also that its essence is Ananda or delight of self-existence. To possess self is to possess self-bliss; not to possess self is to be in more or less obscure search of the delight of existence. Chit eternally possesses its self-bliss; and since Chit is the universal conscious-stuff of being, conscious universal being is also in possession of conscious self-bliss, master of the universal delight of existence. The Divine whether it manifests itself in All-Quality or in No-Quality, in Personality or Impersonality, in the One absorbing the Many or in the One manifesting its essential multiplicity, is always in possession of self-bliss and all-bliss because it is always Sachchidananda. For us also to know and possess our true Self in the essential and the universal is to discover the essential and the universal delight of existence, self-bliss and all-bliss. For the universal is only the pouring out of the essential existence, consciousness and delight; and wherever and in whatever form that manifests as existence, there the essential consciousness must be and th
refore there must be an essential delight.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 387 - 88 - 89
Chung yung: The Golden Mean. See Chung and i kuan. Centrality and harmony, a law "from whose operation we cannot for one instant in our existence escape", the central clue to man's moral being which unites him to the universal order (or to attain central harmony). (Early Confucianism.) The Universal and the Changeless which is the true principle of things and the eternal law of the universe. (Neo-Confucianism.)
cocoa palm ::: --> A palm tree producing the cocoanut (Cocos nucifera). It grows in nearly all tropical countries, attaining a height of sixty or eighty feet. The trunk is without branches, and has a tuft of leaves at the top, each being fifteen or twenty feet in length, and at the base of these the nuts hang in clusters; the cocoanut tree.
collapse ::: v. i. --> To fall together suddenly, as the sides of a hollow vessel; to close by falling or shrinking together; to have the sides or parts of (a thing) fall in together, or be crushed in together; as, a flue in the boiler of a steam engine sometimes collapses.
To fail suddenly and completely, like something hollow when subject to too much pressure; to undergo a collapse; as, Maximilian&
Communism: (Marxian) In its fullest sense, that stage of social development, which, following socialism (q.v.) is conceived to be characterized by an economy of abundance on a world wide scale in which the state as a repressive force (army, jails, police and the like) is considered unnecessary because irreconcilable class antagonisms will have disappeared, and it will be possible to apply the principle, "from each according to ability, to each according to need" (Marx "Gotha Program"). It is held that the release of productive potentialities resulting from socialized ownership of the means of production will create a general sufficiency of economic goods which in turn will afford the possibility of educational and cultural development for all, and that under such conditions people will learn to live in accordance with valued standards without the compulsion of physical force represented by a special apparatus of state power. It is considered that by intelligent planning, both economic and cultural, it will then be possible to eradicate the antagonism between town and country and the opposition between physical and mental labor. It is now considered in the U.S.S.R. that the principal features of communist society, with the exception of the "withering away" of the state, may be attained in one country of an otherwise capitalist world. Trotsky considered this a false version of Marxism. -- J.M.S.
comprehensor ::: n. --> One who comprehends; one who has attained to a full knowledge.
Concentration ::: Concentration is necessary, first, to turn the whole will and mind from the discursive divagation natural to them, following a dispersed movement of the thoughts, running after many branching desires, led away in the track of the senses and the outward mental response to phenomena: we have to fix the will and the thought on the eternal and real behind all, and this demands an immense effort, a one-pointed concentration. Secondly, it is necessary in order to break down the veil which is erected by our ordinary mentality between ourselves and the truth; for outer knowledge can be picked up by the way, by ordinary attention and reception, but the inner, hidden and higher truth can only be seized by an absolute concentration of the mind on its object, an absolute concentration of the will to attain it and, once attained, to hold it habitually and securely unite oneself with it. Concentration is indeed the first condition of any Yoga, but it is an all-receiving concentration that is the very nature of the integral Yoga.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 515
CONCENTRATION ::: Fixing the consciousness in one place or on one object and in a single condition.
A gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g. the Divine; there can also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point.
Concentration is necessary, first to turn the whole will and mind from the discursive divagation natural to them, following a dispersed movement of the thoughts, running after many-branching desires, led away in the track of the senses and the outward mental response to phenomena; we have to fix the will and the thought on the eternal and real behind all, and this demands an immense effort, a one-pointed concentration. Secondly, it is necessary in order to break down the veil which is erected by our ordinary mentality between ourselves and the truth; for outer knowledge can be picked up by the way, by ordinary attention and reception, but the inner, hidden and higher truth can only be seized by an absolute concentration of the mind on its object, an absolute concentration of the will to attain it and, once attained, to hold it habitually and securely unite oneself with it.
Centre of Concentration: The two main places where one can centre the consciousness for yoga are in the head and in the heart - the mind-centre and the soul-centre.
Brain concentration is always a tapasyā and necessarily brings a strain. It is only if one is lifted out of the brain mind altogether that the strain of mental concentration disappears.
At the top of the head or above it is the right place for yogic concentration in reading or thinking.
In whatever centre the concentration takes place, the yoga force generated extends to the others and produces concentration or workings there.
Modes of Concentration: There is no harm in concentrating sometimes in the heart and sometimes above the head. But concentration in either place does not mean keeping the attention fixed on a particular spot; you have to take your station of consciousness in either place and concentrate there not on the place, but on the Divine. This can be done with eyes shut or with eyes open, according as it best suits.
If one concentrates on a thought or a word, one has to dwell on the essential idea contained in the word with the aspiration to feel the thing which it expresses.
There is no method in this yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force to transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be.
Powers (three) of Concentration ::: By concentration on anything whatsoever we are able to know that thing, to make it deliver up its concealed secrets; we must use this power to know not things, but the one Thing-in-itself. By concentration again the whole will can be gathered up for the acquisition of that which is still ungrasped, still beyond us; this power, if it is sufficiently trained, sufficiently single-minded, sufficiently sincere, sure of itself, faithful to itself alone, absolute in faith, we can use for the acquisition of any object whatsoever; but we ought to use it not for the acquisition of the many objects which the world offers to us, but to grasp spiritually that one object worthy of pursuit which is also the one subject worthy of knowledge. By concentration of our whole being on one status of itself we can become whatever we choose ; we can become, for instance, even if we were before a mass of weaknesses and fears, a mass instead of strength and courage, or we can become all a great purity, holiness and peace or a single universal soul of Love ; but we ought, it is said, to use this power to become not even these things, high as they may be in comparison with what we now are, but rather to become that which is above all things and free from all action and attributes, the pure and absolute Being. All else, all other concentration can only be valuable for preparation, for previous steps, for a gradual training of the dissolute and self-dissipating thought, will and being towards their grand and unique object.
Stages in Concentration (Rajayogic) ::: that in which the object is seized, that in which it is held, that in which the mind is lost in the status which the object represents or to which the concentration leads.
Concentration and Meditation ::: Concentration means fixing the consciousness in one place or one object and in a single condition Meditation can be diffusive,e.g. thinking about the Divine, receiving impressions and discriminating, watching what goes on in the nature and acting upon it etc. Meditation is when the inner mind is looking at things to get the right knowledge.
vide Dhyāna.
Co-ordination and harmonisation of parts is absent in many ; it is a thing that has to be attained to or built up. Moreover at a certain stage in sSdhana there is almost always a disparity or opposition between the parts that are already turned towards the Truth and are capable of experience and others that are not and pull one down to a lower level. The opposition is not equally acute in all cases, but in one degree or another it is almost uni- versal. Co-ordinadon and univeisaUsation can be satisfactorily done only when this is overcome. Till then oscillations are inevitable.
Cournot, Antoine Augustin: (1801-1877) French mathematician, economist, and philosopher, is best known for his interest in probability. His philosophical writings, long neglected, reflect disagreement both with the positivism of his own day and with the earlier French rationalism. His place between the two is manifest in his doctrine that order and contingency, continuity and discontinuity, are equally real. This metaphysical position led him to conclude that man, though he cannot attain certain truth of nature, can by increasing the probable truth of his statements approach this truth. Cournot's mathematical investigations into probability and his mathematical treatment of economics thus harmonize with his metaphysics and epistemology. Main works: Exposition de la theorie des chances et des probabdites, 1843; Essai sur les fondements de la connaissance, 2 vols. 1851; Consid. sur les marches des idees, 1872; Materialisme, Vitalisme, Rationalism, 1875; Traite de l'Enchainement des idees fondamentales dans les sciences et dans l'histoire, 1881.
(c) The traditional problem of the origin of knowledge, viz. By what faculty or faculties of mind is knowledge attainable? It gave rise to the principal cleavage in modern epistemology between rationalism and empiricism (q.v.) though both occur in any thinker. The rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) rely primarily -- though not exclusively -- on reason as the source of genuine knowledge, and the empiricists (Locke, Berkeley and Hume) rely mainly on experience. A broadly conceived empiricism such as Locke's which acknowledges the authenticity of knowledge derived both from the inner sense (see Reflection; Introspection), and the outer senses, contrasts with that type of sensationalism (q.v.) which is empiricism restricted to the outer senses. Various attempts, the most notable of which is the critical philosophy of Kant, have been made to reconcile rationalism and empiricism by assigning to reason and experience their respective roles in the constitution of knowledge. Few historical or contemporary epistemologists would subscribe either to a rationalism or an empiricism of an exclusive and extreme sort.
culmination ::: n. --> The attainment of the highest point of altitude reached by a heavently body; passage across the meridian; transit.
Attainment or arrival at the highest pitch of glory, power, etc.
cumber ::: v. t. --> To rest upon as a troublesome or useless weight or load; to be burdensome or oppressive to; to hinder or embarrass in attaining an object, to obstruct or occupy uselessly; to embarrass; to trouble. ::: v. --> Trouble; embarrassment; distress.
Dasa-bhumi: Sanskrit for ten stages. In Buddhist terminology, the ten stages of the spiritual development of a Bodhisattva (q.v.) toward Buddhahood. Each school of Buddhism has its own dasa-bhumi, but the most widely accepted set in Mahayana Buddhism is that set forth in the Dasa-bhumi Sastra, viz.: (1) The Stage of Joy, in which the Bodhisattva develops his holy nature and discards wrong views; (2) the Stage of Purity, in which he attains the Perfection of Morality; (3) the Stage of Illumination, in which he attains the Perfection of Patience or Humility, and also the deepest introspective insight; (4) the Stage of Flaming Wisdom, in which he achieves the Perfection of Meditation and realizes the harmony of the Worldly Truth and the Supreme Truth; (5) the Stage of Presence, in which he achieves the Perfection of Wisdom; (7) the Stage of Far-going, in which he attains the Perfection of Expediency by going afar and to save all beings; (8) the Stage of Immovability, in which he attains the Perfection of Vow and realizes the principle that all specific characters of elements (dharmas) are unreal; (9) the Stage of Good Wisdom, in which he achieves the Perfection of Effort, attains the Ten Holy Powers, and preaches both to the redeemable and the unredeemable; (10) the Stage of the Cloud of the Law, in which he attains mastery of Perfect Knowledge and preaches the Law to save all creatures, “like the cloud drops rain over all.”
deal ::: n. --> A part or portion; a share; hence, an indefinite quantity, degree, or extent, degree, or extent; as, a deal of time and trouble; a deal of cold.
The process of dealing cards to the players; also, the portion disturbed.
Distribution; apportionment.
An arrangement to attain a desired result by a combination of interested parties; -- applied to stock speculations and political
dervish ::: lit., poor one; formal member of an order; murid who has attained a certain level of maturity
Dharana(Sanskrit) ::: A state in the practice of yoga as taught in Hindustan when the mind or percipient intelligenceis held with inflexible firmness, with fortitude of soul, and with indomitable resolution upon the object ofinvestigation to be attained through this form of yoga practice. (See also Samadhi)
Dhyana: (Skr.) Meditation or the full accord of thinker and thought without interference and without being merged as yet, the last but one stage in the attainment of the goals of Yoga (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
disappoint ::: v. t. --> To defeat of expectation or hope; to hinder from the attainment of that which was expected, hoped, or desired; to balk; as, a man is disappointed of his hopes or expectations, or his hopes, desires, intentions, expectations, or plans are disappointed; a bad season disappoints the farmer of his crops; a defeat disappoints an enemy of his spoil.
To frustrate; to fail; to hinder of result.
Discursive Cognition: (Lat. discurrere, to run about) Discursive, as opposed to intuitive cognition, is attained by a series of inferences rather than by direct insight. See Intuitive Cognition. -- L.W.
Divine in all and through that realisation attains to a universal oneness.
duhkham aptum ::: difficult to attain. [Gita 5.6]
duhkham avapyate ::: [is attained with difficulty]. [see the following]
duhkham dehavadbhir avapyate ::: [is attained with difficulty by embodied souls]. [Gita 12.5]
earthly life ::: Sri Aurobindo: "This earthly life need not be necessarily and for ever a wheel of half-joyous half-anguished effort; attainment may also be intended and the glory and joy of God made manifest upon earth.” The Life Divine
Elder brother: A member of the Great White Lodge (q.v.), a high initiate in occultism and esoteric sciences whose efforts and diligence have made him attain a higher degree of spiritual evolution than the ordinary student of occultism. Referred to in occult literature also as Adept, Great Initiate, Master, Master Occultist, Master of Wisdom, or Rishi.
Emergent Evolution: Generalization of emergent mentalism (q.v.) due to S. Alexander (q.v.), Space, Time and Deity. See Bergson's variation in L'evolution creatrice. See Holism. Emergent Mentalism: (Lat. emergere, to rise out) The theory of emergent evolutionism considered as an explanation of the genesis of mind or consciousness in the world. Mind is a novel quality emerging from the non-mental when the latter attains a certain complexity of organization. Cf. C. Lloyd Morgan, Emergent Evolution, Lect. I, II, Life, Mind, Spirit, Ch. V. -- L.W.
endeavor ::: v. t. --> To exert physical or intellectual strength for the attainment of; to use efforts to effect; to strive to achieve or reach; to try; to attempt. ::: v. i. --> To exert one&
End, (in Scholasticism): That object for the attainment of which the agent moves and acts. End which (finis qui): That good the agent intends to attain, e.g. health, which a sick man intends. End for whom (finis cui): Refers to the person or subject for whom the end which (finis qui) is procured, e.g. the sick man himself for whom health is procured.
escheat ::: n. --> The falling back or reversion of lands, by some casualty or accident, to the lord of the fee, in consequence of the extinction of the blood of the tenant, which may happen by his dying without heirs, and formerly might happen by corruption of blood, that is, by reason of a felony or attainder.
The reverting of real property to the State, as original and ultimate proprietor, by reason of a failure of persons legally entitled to hold the same.
Essence, (Scholastic): The essence of a thing is its nature considered independently of its existence. Also non-existent things and those which cannot exist at all have a proper essence. The definition details all properties making up the essence. It is doubtful whether we can give of a ny thing a truly essential definition with the one exception of man: man is a rational animal. Most of the definitions have to be content with naming accidental features, because we do not attain a direct knowledge of substances. Synonymously the term "quiddity" is used. The essence implies, in the case of corporeal beings, matter, but not as actually contained, since the essence is individualized by prime matter. But it is of the essence of material things to be material. Thus, Essence is not "form" properly speaking. See Distinction, Form, Individuation, Matter. -- R.A.
essential ::: a. --> Belonging to the essence, or that which makes an object, or class of objects, what it is.
Hence, really existing; existent.
Important in the highest degree; indispensable to the attainment of an object; indispensably necessary.
Containing the essence or characteristic portion of a substance, as of a plant; highly rectified; pure; hence, unmixed; as, an essential oil.
expense ::: something spent or used to attain a goal or accomplish a purpose.
Explanation: In general: the process, art, means or method of making a fact or a statement intelligible; the result and the expression of what is made intelligible; the meaning attributed to anything by one who makes it intelligible; a genetic description, causal development, systematic clarification, rational exposition, scientific interpretation, intelligible connection, ordered manifestation of the elements of a fact or a statement. A. More technically, the method of showing discursively that a phenomenon or a group of phenomena obeys a law, by means of causal relations or descriptive connections, or briefly, the methodical analysis of a phenomenon for the purpose of stating its cause. The process of explanation suggests the real preformation or potential presence of the consequent in the antecedent, so that the phenomenon considered may be evolved, developed, unrolled out of its conditioning antecedents. The process and the value of a scientific explanation involve the question of the relation between cause and law, as these two terms may be identified (Berkeley) or distinguished (Comte). Hence modern theories range between extreme idealism and logical positivism. Both these extremes seem to be unsatisfactory: the former would include too much into science, while the latter would embrace a part of it only, namely the knowledge of the scientific laws. Taking into account Hume's criticism of causality and Mill's reasons for accepting causality, Russell proposes what seems to be a middle course, namely that regular sequences suggest causal relations, that causal relations are one special class of scientific generalization, that is one-way sequences in time, and that causal relations as such should not be used in the advanced stages of scientific generalization, functional relations being sufficient in all cases. However satisfactory in methodology, this view may not cover all the implications of the problem. B. There are three specific types of causal explanation, and their results may be combined: genetic or in terms of the direct and immediate conditions or causes producing a phenomenon (formal and efficient cause); descriptive, or in terms of the material elements of the phenomenon (material cause); teleological, or in terms of the ultimate end to be attained (final cause), either in accordance with the nature of the event or with the intention of the agent. The real causes of a phenomenon cannot be identified always, because the natural process of change or becoming escapes complete rationalization. But the attempt to rationalize the real by causal explanation, need not be abandoned in favor of a limited genetic description (postulational or functional) of the laws which may account for the particular phenomenon.
explore ::: v. t. --> To seek for or after; to strive to attain by search; to look wisely and carefully for.
To search through or into; to penetrate or range over for discovery; to examine thoroughly; as, to explore new countries or seas; to explore the depths of science.
Extra-retinal vision: The faculty, claimed by many occultists and spiritualists to be attainable, of using the skin for seeing, instead of the eyes. It is claimed that this actually constitutes sight with the etheric body.
extreme ::: n. 1. The greatest or utmost degree or point. 2. Either of the two things situated at opposite ends of a range; extremes. adj. 3. Being in or attaining the greatest or highest degree; very intense.
facile ::: a. --> Easy to be done or performed: not difficult; performable or attainable with little labor.
Easy to be surmounted or removed; easily conquerable; readily mastered.
Easy of access or converse; mild; courteous; not haughty, austere, or distant; affable; complaisant.
Easily persuaded to good or bad; yielding; ductile to a fault; pliant; flexible.
Factual: See Meaning, Kinds of, 2. Faculty: (Scholastic) Medieval psychology distinguishes several faculties of the soul which are said to be really distinct from each other and from the substance of the soul. According to Aquinas the distinction is based on objects and operations. The faculties are conceived as accidents of the soul's substance, but as pertaining essentially to its nature, therefore "proper accidents". The soul operates by means of the faculties. Much misunderstood and deteriorated, this theory remained alive until recent times and is still maintained, in its original and pure form, by Neo-Scholasticism. A certain rapprochement to the older notion may he observed in the modern theory of "general factors". Most of the criticisms directed against the faculty-psychology are based on modern experimental and nominalistic approaches. The faculties listed by Aquinas are: The sensory faculties, which to operate need a bodily organ; The external senses, The internal senses, sensus communis, memory, imagination, vis aestimativa (in animals) or cogitativa (in man), The sensory appetites, subdivided in the concupiscible appetite aiming at the attainable good or fleeing the avoidable evil, the irascible appetite related to good and evil whose attainment or avoidance encounters obstacles. The vegetative faculties, comprising the achievements of nutrition, growth and procreation. While the sensory appetites are common sto man and animals, the vegetative are observed also in plants. The locomotive faculty, characteristic of animals and, therefore, also of man. The rational faculties, found with man alone; Intellect, whose proper object is the universal nature of things and whose achievements are abstraction, reasoning, judging, syllogistic thought, Rational Will, directed towards the good as such and relying in its operation on particulars on the co-operation of the appetites, just as intellect needs for the formation of its abstract notions the phantasm, derived from sense impressions and presented to the intellect by imagination. The vis cogitativa forms a link between rational universal will and particular strivings; it is therefore also called ratio particularis. Ch. A. Hart, The Thomisttc Theory of Mental Faculties, Washington, D. C, 1930. -- R.A.
Fellow of the Craft: In Freemasonry, an individual who has attained the second degree of initiation.
Fetish ::: A condition in which arousal and/or sexual gratification is attained through inanimate objects (shoes, pantyhose) or non-sexual body parts (feet, hair). Is considered a problem when the object is needed in order to obtain arousal or gratification and the individual can not can not complete a sexual act without this object present.
Formal. Or end by which (finis quo) is the actual attainment of the good itself, e.g. beatitude itself in the blessed.
four colour map theorem "mathematics, application" (Or "four colour theorem") The theorem stating that if the plane is divided into connected regions which are to be coloured so that no two adjacent regions have the same colour (as when colouring countries on a map of the world), it is never necessary to use more than four colours. The proof, due to Appel and Haken, attained notoriety by using a computer to check tens of thousands of cases and is thus not humanly checkable, even in principle. Some thought that this brought the philosophical status of the proof into doubt. There are now rumours of a simpler proof, not requiring the use of a computer. See also {chromatic number} (1995-03-25)
frustrate ::: a. --> Vain; ineffectual; useless; unprofitable; null; voil; nugatory; of no effect. ::: v. t. --> To bring to nothing; to prevent from attaining a purpose; to disappoint; to defeat; to baffle; as, to frustrate a plan, design, or attempt; to frustrate the will or purpose.
Gautama Buddha: (Skr. Gautama, a patronymic, meaning of the tribe of Gotama; Buddha, the enlightened one) The founder of Buddhism. born about 563 B.C. into a royal house at Kapilavastu. As Prince Siddhartha (Siddhattha) he had all worldly goods and pleasures at his disposal, married, had a son, but was so stirred by sights of disease, old age, and death glimpsed on stolen drives through the city that he renounced all when but 29 years of age, became a mendicant, sought instruction in reaching an existence free from these evils and tortures, fruitlessly however, till at the end of seven years of search while sitting under the Bodhi-tree, he became the Buddha, the Awakened One, and attained the true insight. Much that is legendary and reminds one of the Christian mythos surrounds Buddha's life as retold in an extensive literature which also knows of his former and future existences. Mara, the Evil One, tempted Buddha to enter nirvana (s.v.) directly, withholding thus knowledge of the path of salvation from the world; but the Buddha was firm and taught the rightful path without venturing too far into metaphysics, setting all the while an example of a pure and holy life devoted to the alleviation of suffering. At the age of 80, having been offered and thus compelled to partake of pork, he fell ill and in dying attained nirvana. -- K.F.L.
Globe ::: Every one of the physical globes that we see scattered over the fields of space is accompanied by six -really eleven -- invisible and superior globes, forming what in theosophy is called a chain. This is thecase with every sun or star, with every planet, and with every moon of every planet. It is likewise thecase with the nebulae and the comets: all are septiform entities in manifestation; all have a sevenfold -indeed twelvefold -- constitution, even as man has, who is a copy in the little of what the universe is inthe great. The seven manifested globes for purposes of convenience are enumerated as A, B, C, D, E, F,and G; but reference is sometimes made more mystically to the globes from "A to Z," here hinting at butnot specifying all the twelve globes of the chain.The life-waves circle around these globes in seven great cycles which are called rounds. Each life-wavefirst enters globe A, runs through its life cycle there, and then passes on to globe B. Finishing its cycle onglobe B, it passes on to globe C, and then to globe D, the lowest of the manifested seven. In our ownplanetary chain, globe D is our earth. Three globes precede it on the downward arc, and three globesfollow it on the ascending arc of evolution -- referring here to the manifested seven.The passing through or traversing of any one of these seven globes by the life-wave is a globe round; andduring any one globe round on a globe, seven root-races are born, attain their efflorescence, and thenpass away. (See also Round)
goal ::: n. --> The mark set to bound a race, and to or around which the constestants run, or from which they start to return to it again; the place at which a race or a journey is to end.
The final purpose or aim; the end to which a design tends, or which a person aims to reach or attain.
A base, station, or bound used in various games; in football, a line between two posts across which the ball must pass in order to score; also, the act of kicking the ball over the line between the goal
Gum's cr.padfiet ::: One can lia*c a Guru •■'/crK'f n tpiD- lual capacity (to onc\clf or to other Gunn) carry trp in h'-n tnjf) human imperfectiona and >cl, if ymi hue the faitS. ihf«rj;h attain to ■.p'mtual cspcticricc^. to ipnituai irafnatlfm. enm Srfo'r tlic Guru himveU.
Guru is the channel or the representative or the manifestation of the Divine, according to (be measure of his personality or his attainment ; but whatever he is, it is to the Divine that one opens in opening to him ; and if something is determined by the power of the channel, more is determined by the inherent and intrinsic attitude of the lecciving consciousness, an element that comes out in the surface mind as simple trust or direct uncondi- tional self-giving, and once that is there, the essential things can be gained even from one who seems to others than the disciple an inferior spiritual source, and the rest will grow up in the sadhaka of itself by the Grace of the Divine, even if the human being in the Guru cannot it.
Hedonistic Paradox: A paradox or apparent inconsistency in hedonistic theory arising from (1) the doctrine that since pleasure is the only good, one ought always to seek pleasure, and (2) the fact that whenever pleasure itself is the object sought it cannot be found. Human nature is such that pleasure normally arises as an accompaniment of satisfaction of desire for any end except when that end is pleasure itself. The way to attain pleasure is not to seek for it, but for something else which when found will have yielded pleasure through the finding. Likewise, one should not seek to avoid pain, but only actions which produce pain. -- A.J.B.
help ::: v. t. --> To furnish with strength or means for the successful performance of any action or the attainment of any object; to aid; to assist; as, to help a man in his work; to help one to remember; -- the following infinitive is commonly used without to; as, "Help me scale yon balcony."
To furnish with the means of deliverance from trouble; as, to help one in distress; to help one out of prison.
To furnish with relief, as in pain or disease; to be of
high-browed ::: of, pertaining to, or characteristic of one who possesses superior intellectual attainments or interests; intellectually superior.
His fundamental problem was the relation between sensibility and intelligibility. Being creates existence. The universal spirit becomes individual by its own creation. Thus, the source of individuality is not subjective but divine. And individuality returns to universality when it attains the state of intelligibility from the state of sensibility.
However insensible the person is of externals, he is conscious in some part of his composite nature, just as each principle of his being has its own range of awareness after death. Some people have brought back a more or less clear memory of a state of being transcending anything they had ever imagined on earth. Their first feeling is one of a delicious peace and liberation; then comes a mental clearness with majestic visions of perfect truth, and a realization of a self-existent “I” as a part of a universal whole. The spiritually-minded person may attain to an instant and complete buddhi-manasic vision of “things as they are.” Such a one, at the moment of recovery, is often vividly sensible of being aroused from a state of superior existence, but is unable to recall what it was. Again, any gleams of knowledge that do survive the transit may be misinterpreted by the brain-mind from its preconceived philosophical or religious ideas. The average person, however, brings back little if any remembrance of his experience.
Hsin chai: Chinese for fasting of the mind. A state of pure experience in which one has no intellectual knowledge, in which there is immediate presentation; the attainment of the mystical state of unity. (Chuang Tzu, between 399 and 295 B.C.)
Hsin chai: "Fasting of the mind" is a state of pure experience in which one has no intellectual knowledge, in which there is immediate presentation; the attainment of the mystical state of unity. (Chuang Tzu between 399 and 295 B.C.) -- H.H.
Huizinga, Johan: (1872) Professor of Philosophy at the University of Leyden, Holland. He has been a pronounced exponent of the philosophy of culture which he describes as a condition of society in which there is a harmonious balance of material and spiritual values and a harmonious ideal spurring the community's activities to a convergence of all efforts toward the attainment of that ideal. His best known work is Homo Ludens. -- L.E.D.
"Human speech is only a secondary expression and at its highest a shadow of the divine Word, of the seed-sounds, the satisfying rhythms, the revealing forms of sound that are the omniscient and omnipotent speech of the eternal Thinker, Harmonist, Creator. The highest inspired speech to which the human mind can attain, the word most unanalysably expressive of supreme truth, the most puissant syllable or mantra can only be its far-off representation.” The Upanishads
“Human speech is only a secondary expression and at its highest a shadow of the divine Word, of the seed-sounds, the satisfying rhythms, the revealing forms of sound that are the omniscient and omnipotent speech of the eternal Thinker, Harmonist, Creator. The highest inspired speech to which the human mind can attain, the word most unanalysably expressive of supreme truth, the most puissant syllable or mantra can only be its far-off representation.” The Upanishads
huso ::: n. --> A large European sturgeon (Acipenser huso), inhabiting the region of the Black and Caspian Seas. It sometimes attains a length of more than twelve feet, and a weight of two thousand pounds. Called also hausen.
The huchen, a large salmon.
Hu ::: Whether via revelation or through consciousness, HU is the inner essence of the reality of everything that is perceived... To such extent that, as the reflection of Akbariyyah, first awe then nothingness is experienced and, as such, the Reality of Hu can never be attained! Sight cannot reach HU! HU denotes absolute obscurity and incomprehension! As a matter of fact, all names, including Allah are mentioned in connection with HU in the Quran!
Hypothesis: In general, an assumption, a supposition, a conjecture, a postulate, a condition, an antecedent, a contingency, a possibility, a probability, a principle, a premiss, a ground or foundation, a tentative explanation, a probable cause, a theoretical situation, an academic question, a specific consideration, a conceded statement, a theory or view for debate or action, a likely relation, the conditioning of one thing by another. In logic, the conditional clause or antecedent in a hypothetical proposition. Also a thesis subordinate to a more general one. In methodology, a principle offered as a conditional explanation of a fact or a group of facts; or again, a provisional assumption about the ground of certain phenomena, used as a guiding norm in making observations and experiments until verified or disproved by subsequent evidence. A hypothesis is conditional or provisional, because it is based on probable and insufficient arguments or elements; yet, it is not an arbitrary opinion, but a justifiable assumption with some foundation in fact, this accounts for the expectation of some measure of agreement between the logical conclusion or implications drawn from a hypothesis, and the phenomena which are known or which may be determined by further tests. A scientific hypothesis must be proposed after the observations it must explain (a posteriori), compatible with established theories, reasonable and relevant, fruitful in its applications and controllable, general in terms and more fundamental than the statements it has to explain. A hypothesis is descriptive (forecasting the external circumstances of the event) or explanatory (offering causal accounts of the event). There are two kinds of explanatory hypotheses the hypothesis of law (or genetic hypothesis) which attempts to determine the manner in which the causes or conditions of a phenomenon operate and the hypothesis of cause (or causal hypothesis) which attempt to determine the causes or conditions for the production of the phenomenon. A working hypothesis is a preliminary assumption based on few, uncertain or obscure elements, which is used provisionally as a guiding norm in the investigation of certain phenomena. Often, the difference between a working hypothesis and a scientific hypothesis is one of degree; and in any case, a hypothesis is seldom verified completely with all its detailed implications. The Socratic Method of Hypothesis, as developed by Plato in the Phaedo particularly, consists in positing an assumption without questioning its value, for the purpose of determining and analyzing its consequences only when these are clearly debated and judged, the assumption itself is considered for justification or rejection. Usually, a real condition is taken as a ground for inferences, as the aim of the method is to attain knowledge or to favor action. Plato used more specially the word "hypothesis" for the assumptions of geometry (postulates and nominal definitions) Anstotle extended this use to cover the immediate principles of mathematics. It may be observed that the modern hypothetico-deductive method in logical and mathematical theories, is a development of the Socratic method stripped of its ontological implications and purposes.
Ideal: Pertaining to ideas (q.v.) Mental. Possessing the character of completely satisfying a desire or volition. A state of perfection with respect to a standard or goal of will or desire. A norm, perfect type, or goal, an object of desire or will, whether or not conceived as attainable.
Identity-philosophy: In general the term has been applied to any theory which failed to distinguish between spirit and matter, subject and object, regarding them as an undifferentiated unity; hence such a philosophy is a species of monism. In the history of philosophy it usually signifies the system which has been called Identitätsphilosophie by Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling who held that spirit and nature are fundamentally the same, namely, the Absolute. Neither the ego nor the non-ego are the ultimate principles of being; they are both relative concepts which are contained in something absolute. This is the supreme principle of Absolute Identity of the ideal and the real. Reasoning does not lead us to the Absolute which can only be attained by immediate intellectual intuition. In it we find the eternal concepts of things and from it we can derive everything else. We are obliged to conceive the Absolute Identity as the indifference of the ideal and the real. Of course, this is God in Whom all opposites are united. He is the unity of thought and being, the subjective and the objective, form and essence, the general and infinite, and the particular and finite. This teaching is similar to that of Spinoza. -- J.J.R.
(I) if he uses them during his sadhana solely to train him* self in possessing things without attachment or desire and leam to use them rightly, in harmony with the Divine Will, with a proper handling, a just organisation, arrangement and measure — or, (2) if he has already attained a true freedom from desire and attachment and is not in the least moved or affected in any way by loss or withholding or deprival.
Ila ::: [Ved.]: the goddess of the Truth-vision; a faculty of the rtam representing truth-vision or revelation; the highest Word, premier energy of the Truth-Consciousness; she who is the direct revealing vision in knowledge and becomes in that knowledge the spontaneous self attainment of the Truth of things in action, result and experience. [Puranas]: Mother of the Lunar dynasty.
Illumination: Source of contemplation, transfiguration of emotional life for the attainment of measure and harmony (Schleiermacher). -- L.V.
illuminati ::: v. t. --> Literally, those who are enlightened
Persons in the early church who had received baptism; in which ceremony a lighted taper was given them, as a symbol of the spiritual illumination they has received by that sacrament.
Members of a sect which sprung up in Spain about the year 1575. Their principal doctrine was, that, by means of prayer, they had attained to so perfect a state as to have no need of ordinances, sacraments, good works, etc.; -- called also Alumbrados,
Immortality ::: A term signifying continuous existence or being; but this understanding of the term is profoundlyillogical and contrary to nature, for there is nothing throughout nature's endless and multifarious realmsof being and existence which remains for two consecutive instants of time exactly the same.Consequently, immortality is a mere figment of the imagination, an illusory phantom of reality. When thestudent of the esoteric wisdom once realizes that continuous progress, i.e., continuous change inadvancement, is nature's fundamental procedure, he recognizes instantly that continuous remaining in anunchanging or immutable state of consciousness or being is not only impossible, but in the last analysis isthe last thing that is either desirable or comforting. Fancy continuing immortal in a state of imperfection such as we human beingsexemplify -- which is exactly what the usual acceptance of this term immortality means. The highest godin highest heaven, although seemingly immortal to us imperfect human beings, is nevertheless anevolving, growing, progressing entity in its own sublime realms or spheres, and therefore as the ages passleaves one condition or state to assume a succeeding condition or state of a nobler and higher type;precisely as the preceding condition or state had been the successor of another state before it.Continuous or unending immutability of any condition or state of an evolving entity is obviously animpossibility in nature; and when once pondered over it becomes clear that the ordinary acceptance ofimmortality involves an impossibility. All nature is an unending series of changes, which means all thehosts or multitudes of beings composing nature, for every individual unit of these hosts is growing,evolving, i.e., continuously changing, therefore never immortal. Immortality and evolution arecontradictions in terms. An evolving entity means a changing entity, signifying a continuous progresstowards better things; and evolution therefore is a succession of state of consciousness and being afteranother state of consciousness and being, and thus throughout duration. The Occidental idea of staticimmortality or even mutable immortality is thus seen to be both repellent and impossible.This doctrine is so difficult for the average Occidental easily to understand that it may be advisable onceand for all to point out without mincing of words that just as complete death, that is to say, entireannihilation of consciousness, is an impossibility in nature, just so is continuous and unchangingconsciousness in any one stage or phase of evolution likewise an impossibility, because progress ormovement or growth is continuous throughout eternity. There are, however, periods more or less long ofcontinuance in any stage or phase of consciousness that may be attained by an evolving entity; and thehigher the being is in evolution, the more its spiritual and intellectual faculties have been evolved orevoked, the longer do these periods of continuous individual, or perhaps personal, quasi-immortalitycontinue. There is, therefore, what may be called relative immortality, although this phrase is confessedlya misnomer.Master KH in The Mahatma Letters, on pages 128-30, uses the phrase ``panaeonic immortality" tosignify this same thing that I have just called relative immortality, an immortality -- falsely so called,however -- which lasts in the cases of certain highly evolved monadic egos for the entire period of amanvantara, but which of necessity ends with the succeeding pralaya of the solar system. Such a periodof time of continuous self-consciousness of so highly evolved a monadic entity is to us humans actually arelative immortality; but strictly and logically speaking it is no more immortality than is the ephemeralexistence of a butterfly. When the solar manvantara comes to an end and the solar pralaya begins, evensuch highly evolved monadic entities, full-blown gods, are swept out of manifested self-consciousexistence like the sere and dried leaves at the end of the autumn; and the divine entities thus passing outenter into still higher realms of superdivine activity, to reappear at the end of the pralaya and at the dawnof the next or succeeding solar manvantara.The entire matter is, therefore, a highly relative one. What seems immortal to us humans would seem tobe but as a wink of the eye to the vision of super-kosmic entities; while, on the other hand, the span ofthe average human life would seem to be immortal to a self-conscious entity inhabiting one of theelectrons of an atom of the human physical body.The thing to remember in this series of observations is the wondrous fact that consciousness frometernity to eternity is uninterrupted, although by the very nature of things undergoing continuous andunceasing change of phases in realization throughout endless duration. What men call unconsciousness ismerely a form of consciousness which is too subtle for our gross brain-minds to perceive or to sense or tograsp; and, secondly, strictly speaking, what men call death, whether of a universe or of their ownphysical bodies, is but the breaking up of worn-out vehicles and the transference of consciousness to ahigher plane. It is important to seize the spirit of this marvelous teaching, and not allow the imperfectbrain-mind to quibble over words, or to pause or hesitate at difficult terms.
impossible ::: a. --> Not possible; incapable of being done, of existing, etc.; unattainable in the nature of things, or by means at command; insuperably difficult under the circumstances; absurd or impracticable; not feasible. ::: n. --> An impossibility.
In Buddhist writings Aruna is the name of 1) a Kshattriya king who sired Sikhi Buddha; 2) a class of gods; 3) a naga or serpent-king; 4) a king of Potali in Assaka who, being victorious in battle against the Kalinga king, won the latter’s four daughters; and 5) a pleasure ground near Anupama where the Buddha Vessabhu, a week after attaining enlightenment, delivered his first discourse.
incantation Any particularly arbitrary or obscure command that one must mutter at a system to attain a desired result. Not used of passwords or other explicit security features. Especially used of tricks that are so poorly documented that they must be learned from a {wizard}. "This compiler normally locates initialised data in the data segment, but if you {mutter} the right incantation they will be forced into text space."
infant ::: n. --> A child in the first period of life, beginning at his birth; a young babe; sometimes, a child several years of age.
A person who is not of full age, or who has not attained the age of legal capacity; a person under the age of twenty-one years; a minor.
Same as Infante. ::: a.
inlaw ::: v. t. --> To clear of outlawry or attainder; to place under the protection of the law.
In respect to the field of ethics in general, Soviet philosophers have lately been developing the doctrine known as socialist or proletarian humanism. As distinguished from "bourgeois humanism", this term signifies that system of social institutions and personal values designed to insure that there be no underprivileged gioup or class de facto excluded from full participation in the good life conceived in terms of the educational and cultural development of the individual and the full enjoyment of the things of this world. Such objectives, it is held, are only possible of attainment in a classless society where there is economic security for all. The view taken is that the freedoms and liberties proclaimed by "bourgeois humanism" represented a great historical advance, but one that was, in general, limited in application to the emancipation of the bourgeoisie (q.v.) from the restrictions of feudalism while retaining and making use, to greater or lesser extent, of slavery, serfdom and a system of private capitalism invoking the precarious economic existence and cultural darkness of large proletarian masses. While it is held that there is an absolute light binding upon all, vaguely expressed in such formulations as, each for all and all for each, it is asserted that in class society, the position and class interest of one class may motivate it to oppose a genuine application of this right, whereas the class interest of another class may coincide with such an application. It is held that the proletariat is in this latter position, for its class interest as well as its moral obligation is considered to be in abolishing itself as a proletariat, which is taken to mean, abolishing classes generally.
INTEGRAL YOGA ::: This yoga accepts the value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine Supramental Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ānanda. But for that, the surrender of the mortal mind, life and body to the Higher Consciousnessis indispensable, since it is too difficult for the mortal human being to pass by its own effort beyond mind to a Supramental Consciousness in which the dynamism is no longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call to such a change should enter into this yoga.
Aim of the Integral Yoga ::: It is not merely to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.
Conditions of the Integral Yoga ::: This yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasyā needed too constant and intense.
Method in the Integral Yoga ::: To concentrate, preferably in the heart and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness. One can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is the beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power and Presence.
Integral method ::: The method we have to pursue is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform Our entire being into His, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the sādhaka of the sādhana* as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is used as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon that which we are in our entirety, produces its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.
In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sādhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for the weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It” makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills.” The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a Succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.
There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga.
Secondly, the process, being integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organised by our past evolution and without rejecting anything essential compels all to undergo a divine change. Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-progressive experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some elements or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefathers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.
Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in Nature, in the other it becomes swift and selfconscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.
Key-methods ::: The way to devotion and surrender. It is the psychic movement that brings the constant and pure devotion and the removal of the ego that makes it possible to surrender.
The way to knowledge. Meditation in the head by which there comes the opening above, the quietude or silence of the mind and the descent of peace etc. of the higher consciousness generally till it envelops the being and fills the body and begins to take up all the movements.
Yoga by works ::: Separation of the Purusha from the Prakriti, the inner silent being from the outer active one, so that one has two consciousnesses or a double consciousness, one behind watching and observing and finally controlling and changing the other which is active in front. The other way of beginning the yoga of works is by doing them for the Divine, for the Mother, and not for oneself, consecrating and dedicating them till one concretely feels the Divine Force taking up the activities and doing them for one.
Object of the Integral Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine’s sake alone, to be tuned in our nature into the nature of the Divine, and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine.
Principle of the Integral Yoga ::: The whole principle of Integral Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother all the transcendent light, power, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ānanda of the Supramental Divine.
Central purpose of the Integral Yoga ::: Transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life.
Fundamental realisations of the Integral Yoga ::: The psychic change so that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.
Results ::: First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures.
Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sāyujya mukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the sālokya mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda ; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sādharmya mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.
By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. In integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ānanda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ānanda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Sādhanā of the Integral Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by a self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.
The yoga does not proceed by upadeśa but by inner influence.
Integral Yoga and Gita ::: The Gita’s Yoga consists in the offering of one’s work as a sacrifice to the Divine, the conquest of desire, egoless and desireless action, bhakti for the Divine, an entering into the cosmic consciousness, the sense of unity with all creatures, oneness with the Divine. This yoga adds the bringing down of the supramental Light and Force (its ultimate aim) and the transformation of the nature.
Our yoga is not identical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita’s yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress ; or else we make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse.
Integral Yoga, Gita and Tantra ::: The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishvara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it.
The Tantric tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishvari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it.
This yoga insists on both the aspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfilment of the object of the yoga.
Integral Yoga and Hatha-Raja Yogas ::: For an integral yoga the special methods of Rajayoga and Hathayoga may be useful at times in certain stages of the progress, but are not indispensable. Their principal aims must be included in the integrality of the yoga; but they can be brought about by other means. For the methods of the integral yoga must be mainly spiritual, and dependence on physical methods or fixed psychic or psychophysical processes on a large scale would be the substitution of a lower for a higher action. Integral Yoga and Kundalini Yoga: There is a feeling of waves surging up, mounting to the head, which brings an outer unconsciousness and an inner waking. It is the ascending of the lower consciousness in the ādhāra to meet the greater consciousness above. It is a movement analogous to that on which so much stress is laid in the Tantric process, the awakening of the Kundalini, the Energy coiled up and latent in the body and its mounting through the spinal cord and the centres (cakras) and the Brahmarandhra to meet the Divine above. In our yoga it is not a specialised process, but a spontaneous upnish of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete motion, and on the other side a descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force into the body.
Integral Yoga and other Yogas ::: The old yogas reach Sachchidananda through the spiritualised mind and depart into the eternally static oneness of Sachchidananda or rather pure Sat (Existence), absolute and eternal or else a pure Non-exist- ence, absolute and eternal. Ours having realised Sachchidananda in the spiritualised mind plane proceeds to realise it in the Supramcntal plane.
The suprcfhe supra-cosmic Sachchidananda is above all. Supermind may be described as its power of self-awareness and W’orld- awareness, the world being known as within itself and not out- side. So to live consciously in the supreme Sachchidananda one must pass through the Supermind.
Distinction ::: The realisation of Self and of the Cosmic being (without which the realisation of the Self is incomplete) are essential steps in our yoga ; it is the end of other yogas, but it is, as it were, the beginning of outs, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic realisation can commence.
It is new as compared with the old yogas (1) Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into Heaven and Nir- vana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object.
If there is a descent in other yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent — the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new coosdousness attain- ed by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life ; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.
(2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic acbievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing of a Power of consciousness (the Supramental) not yet organised or active directly in earth-nature, even in the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.
(3) Because a method has been preconized for achieving this purpose which is as total and integral as the aim set before it, viz., the total and integral change of the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods, but only as a part action and present aid to others that are distinctive.
Integral Yoga and Patanjali Yoga ::: Cilia is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse etc.
It is these that in the Patanjali system have to be stilled altogether so that the consciousness may be immobile and go into Samadhi.
Our yoga has a different function. The movements of the ordinary consciousness have to be quieted and into the quietude there has to be brought down a higher consciousness and its powers which will transform the nature.
In the Greek, remission (of sins) meant sending away, the intent being that the disciples and the assembled believers together were able to work a change of heart in the sinner so that he would sin no more (James 5:16), not a remission of the karmic penalty due. Only much later was the power of remission taken over by the priest. Moreover, for a thousand years the formula used was “May Christ absolve thee,” superseded by “I absolve thee.” While clearly a priest may release one from the penalties imposed by his church, he cannot release anyone from the natural consequences of his acts; yet Christians have attached extreme importance to death-bed absolution by a priest. Such death-bed repentance had its origin in the fact that the last thoughts of a dying person color his afterdeath experiences, and even his next incarnation. But though well-wishers and people of high attainment can help with their counsel and example, they cannot set aside the laws of nature. Real absolution must be emancipation from error and wrongdoing, not an escape from the demands of justice or karma.
In Theology: Unless otherwise defined, the term refers to the Christian denomination which emphasizes the universal fatherhood of God and the final redemption and salvation of all. The doctrine is that of optimism in attaining an ultimate, ordered harmony and stands in opposition to traditional pessimism, to theories of damnation and election. Universalists look back to 1770 as an organized body, the date of the coming to America of John Murray. Unitarian thought (see Unitarianism) was early expressed by Hosea Ballou (1771-1852), one of the founders of Universalism. -- V.F.
In theosophy, used to express the peak of human evolutionary attainment on the earth-chain, the ever-living-human-Banyan or Wondrous Being (SD 1:207). Members of the hierarchy of Compassion under the Wondrous Being are referred to as tendrils descending from the heights to the lower planes of earth, these themselves aspiring to become like their spiritual superior.
Introception: (in Personalism) The coalescence of the world of objective values with his own substance by which a person attains reality. -- R.T.F.
Involution ::: The reverse process or procedure of evolution. As evolution means the unfolding, the unwrapping, therolling forth, of what already exists and is latent, so involution means the inwrapping, the infolding, theingoing of what previously exists or has been unfolded, etc. Involution and evolution never in anycircumstances can be even conceived of properly as operative the one apart from the other: every act ofevolution is an act of involution, and vice versa. To illustrate, as spirit and matter are fundamentally oneand yet eternally coactive and interactive, so involution and evolution are two names for two phases ofthe same procedure of growth, and are eternally coactive and interactive. As an example, the so-calleddescent of the monads into matter means an involution or involving or infolding of spiritual potenciesinto material vehicles which coincidently and contemporaneously, through the compelling urge of theinfolding energies, unfold their own latent capacities, unwrap them, roll them forth; and this is theevolution of matter. Thus what is the involution of spirit is contemporaneously and pari passu theevolution of matter. Contrariwise, on the ascending or luminous arc when the involved monadic essencesbegin to rise towards their primordial spiritual source they begin to unfold or unwrap themselves aspreviously on the descending arc they had infolded or inwrapped themselves. But this process ofunfolding or evolution of the monadic essences is contemporaneous with and pari passu with theinfolding and inwrapping, the involution, of the material energies and powers.Human birth and death are outstanding illustrations or examples of the same thing. The child is born, andas it grows to its full efflorescence of power it evolves or rolls forth certain inherent characteristics orenergies or faculties, all derived from the human being's svabhava or ego. Contrariwise, when the declineof human life begins, there is a slow infolding or inwrapping of these same facilities which thus seemgradually to diminish. These facilities and energies thus evolved forth in earth-life are the working of theinnate spiritual and intellectual and psychical characteristics impelling and compelling the vehicular orbody sides of the human constitution to express themselves as organs becoming more and more perfectas the child grows to maturity.After death the process is exactly the reverse. The material or vehicular side of the being grows less andless strong and powerful, more and more involved, and becoming with every step in the process moredormant. But contemporaneously and coincidently the distinctly spiritual and intellectual powers andfaculties themselves become released from the vehicles and begin to expand into ever largerefflorescence, attaining their maximum in the devachan. It is only the usual carelessness in accuratethinking that induces the idea that evolution is one distinct process acting alone, and that involution -about which by the way very little is heard -- is another process acting alone. The two, as said above, arethe two phases of activity of the evolving monads, and these phases exist contemporaneously at anymoment, each of the two phases continually acting and interacting with the other phase. They areinseparable.Just so with spirit and matter. Spirit is not something radically distinct from and utterly separate frommatter. The two are fundamentally one, and the two are eternally coactive and interactive.There are several terms in Sanskrit which correspond to what the theosophist means by evolution, butperhaps the best general term is pravritti, meaning to "revolve" or to "roll forwards," to unroll or tounwrap. Again, the reverse procedure or involution can probably best be expressed in Sanskrit by theterm nivritti, meaning "rolling backwards" or "inwrapping" or "infolding." A term which is frequentlyinterchangeable with evolution is emanation. (See also Evolution)
It is held that society has not accomplished many basic transformations peacefully, that fundamental changes in the economic system or the social superstructure, such as that from medieval serf-lord to modern worker-capitalist economy, have usually involved violence wherein the class struggle passes into the acute stage of revolution because the existing law articulates and the state power protects the obsolete forms and minority-interest classes which must be superseded. The evolution of capitalism is considered to have reached the point where the accelerating abundance of which its technics are capable is frustrated by economic relationships such as those involved in individual ownership of productive means, hiring and firing of workers in the light of private profits and socially unplanned production for a money market. It is held that only technics collectively owned and production socially planned can provide employment and abundance of goods for everyone. The view taken is that peaceful attainment of them is possible, but will probably be violently resisted by priveleged minorities, provoking a contest of force in which the working class majority will eventually triumph the world over.
It is here, when this foundation has been secured, that the practice of Asana and Pranayama come in and can then bear their perfect fruits. By itself the control of the mind and moral being only puts our normal consciousness into the right preliminary condition; it cannot bring about that evolution or manifestation of the higher psychic being which is necessary for the greater aims of Yoga. In order to bring about this manifestation the present nodus of the vital and physical body with the mental being has to be loosened and the way made clear for the ascent through the greater psychic being to the union with the superconscient Purusha. This can be done by Pranayama. Asana is used by the Rajayoga only in its easiest and most natural position, that naturally taken by the body when seated and gathered together, but with the back and head strictly erect and in a straight line, so that there may be no deflection of the spinal cord. The object of the latter rule is obviously connected with the theory of the six chakras and the circulation of the vital energy between the muladhara and the brahmarandhra. The Rajayogic Pranayama purifies and clears the nervous system; it enables us to circulate the vital energy equally through the body and direct it also where we will according to need, and thus maintain a perfect health and soundness of the body and the vital being; it gives us control of all the five habitual operations of the vital energy in the system and at the same time breaks down the habitual divisions by which only the ordinary mechanical processes of the vitality are possible to the normal life. It opens entirely the six centres of the psycho-physical system and brings into the waking consciousness the power of the awakened Shakti and the light of the unveiled Purusha on each of the ascending planes. Coupled with the use of the mantra it brings the divine energy into the body and prepares for and facilitates that concentration in Samadhi which is the crown of the Rajayogic method. Rajayogic concentration is divided into four stages; it commences with the drawing both of the mind and senses from outward things, proceeds to the holding of the one object of concentration to the exclusion of all other ideas and mental activities, then to the prolonged absorption of the mind in this object, finally, to the complete ingoing of the consciousness by which it is lost to all outward mental activity in the oneness of Samadhi. The real object of this mental discipline is to draw away the mind from the outward and the mental world into union with the divine Being. Th
refore in the first three stages use has to be made of some mental means or support by which the mind, accustomed to run about from object to object, shall fix on one alone, and that one must be something which represents the idea of the Divine. It is usually a name or a form or a mantra by which the thought can be fixed in the sole knowledge or adoration of the Lord. By this concentration on the idea the mind enters from the idea into its reality, into which it sinks silent, absorbed, unified. This is the traditional method. There are, however, others which are equally of a Rajayogic character, since they use the mental and psychical being as key. Some of them are directed rather to the quiescence of the mind than to its immediate absorption, as the discipline by which the mind is simply watched and allowed to exhaust its habit of vagrant thought in a purposeless running from which it feels all sanction, purpose and interest withdrawn, and that, more strenuous and rapidly effective, by which all outward-going thought is excluded and the mind forced to sink into itself where in its absolute quietude it can only
reflect the pure Being or pass away into its superconscient existence. The method differs, the object and the result are the same. Here, it might be supposed, the whole action and aim of Rajayoga must end. For its action is the stilling of the waves of consciousness, its manifold activities, cittavrtti, first, through a habitual replacing of the turbid rajasic activities by the quiet and luminous sattwic, then, by the stilling of all activities; and its object is to enter into silent communion of soul and unity with the Divine. As a matter of fact we find that the system of Rajayoga includes other objects,—such as the practice and use of occult powers,—some of which seem to be unconnected with and even inconsistent with its main purpose. These powers or siddhis are indeed frequently condemned as dangers and distractions which draw away the Yogin from his sole legitimate aim of divine union. On the way, th
refore, it would naturally seem as if they ought to be avoided; and once the goal is reached, it would seem that they are then frivolous and superfluous. But Rajayoga is a psychic science and it includes the attainment of all the higher states of consciousness and their powers by which the mental being rises towards the superconscient as well as its ultimate and supreme possibility of union with the Highest. Moreover, the Yogin, while in the body, is not always mentally inactive and sunk in Samadhi, and an account of the powers and states which are possible to him on the higher planes of his being is necessary to the completeness of the science. These powers and experiences belong, first, to the vital and mental planes above this physical in which we live, and are natural to the soul in the subtle body; as the dependence on the physical body decreases, these abnormal activities become possible and even manifest themselves without being sought for. They can be acquired and fixed by processes which the science gives, and their use then becomes subject to the will; or they can be allowed to develop of themselves and used only when they come, or when the Divine within moves us to use them; or else, even though thus naturally developing and acting, they may be rejected in a single-minded devotion to the one supreme goal of the Yoga. Secondly, there are fuller, greater powers belonging to the supramental planes which are the very powers of the Divine in his spiritual and supramentally ideative being. These cannot be acquired at all securely or integrally by personal effort, but can only come from above, or else can become natural to the man if and when he ascends beyond mind and lives in the spiritual being, power, consciousness and ideation. They then become, not abnormal and laboriously acquired siddhis, but simply the very nature and method of his action, if he still continues to be active in the world-existence.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 539-40-41-42
" . . . it is through self-giving or surrender of soul and nature to the Divine Being that we can attain to our highest self and supreme Reality, for it is the Divine Being who is that highest self and that supreme Reality, and we are self-existent and eternal only in his eternity and by his self-existence.” The Life Divine
“ . . . it is through self-giving or surrender of soul and nature to the Divine Being that we can attain to our highest self and supreme Reality, for it is the Divine Being who is that highest self and that supreme Reality, and we are self-existent and eternal only in his eternity and by his self-existence.” The Life Divine
::: "It may be said that perfection is attained, though it remains progressive, when the receptivity from below is equal to the force from above which wants to manifest.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
“It may be said that perfection is attained, though it remains progressive, when the receptivity from below is equal to the force from above which wants to manifest.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
Jagrat(Sanskrit) ::: The state of consciousness when awake, as opposed to svapna, the dreaming-sleeping state ofconsciousness, and different again from sushupti when the human consciousness is plunged intoprofound self-oblivion. The highest of all the states into which the consciousness may cast itself, or becast, is the turiya ("fourth"), which is the highest state of samadhi, and is almost a nirvanic condition.All these states or conditions of the consciousness are affections or phases of the constitution of man, andof beings constructed similarly to man. The waking state, or jagrat, is the state or condition ofconsciousness normal to the imbodied human being when not asleep. Svapna is the state ofconsciousness more or less freed from the sheath of the body and partially awake in the astral realms,higher or lower as the case may be. Sushupti is the state of self-oblivion into which the human being isplunged when the percipient consciousness enters into the purely manasic condition, which isself-oblivion for the relatively impotent brain-mind; whereas the turiya state, which is a practicalannihilation of the ordinary human consciousness, is an attainment of union with atma-buddhiovershadowing or working through the higher manas. Actually, therefore, it is becoming at one with themonadic essence.
Jainism: An Indian religion claiming great antiquity, the last of the great teachers (tirthankara) being Mahavira (6th cent. B.C.), embracing many philosophical elements of a pluralistic type of realism. It rejects Vedic (q.v.) authority and an absolute being, gods as well as men partaking of mortality, and holds the mythologically conceived world to be eternal and subject only to the fixed sequence of six ages, good and bad, but not periodic creation and destruction. There is an infinitude of indestructible individual souls or spiritual entities, each possessing by nature many properties inclusive of omniscience, unlimited energy and bliss which come to the fore upon attaining full independence. The non-spiritual substances are space and time, rest and motion, and matter composed of atoms and capable of being apprehended by the senses and combining to form the world of infinite variety. Matter also penetrates spiritual substance like a physician's pill, changing to karma and producing physical attachments. The good life consists in the acquisition of the three gems (triratna) of right faith (samyag-darsana), right knowledge (samyag-jnana), right conduct (samyag-caritra). Salvation, i.e., becoming a kevalin (cf. kevala), is an arduous task achieved in 14 stages of perfection, the last being bodiless existence in bliss and complete oblivion to the world and its ways. -- K.F.L.
Jainism: An Indian religion claiming great antiquity, the last of the great teachers (tirthankara) being Mahavira (6th century B.C.), embracing many philosophical elements of a pluralistic type of realism. It rejects Vedic (q.v.) authority and an absolute being, gods as well as men partaking of mortality, and holds the mythologically conceived world to be eternal and subject only to the fixed sequence of six ages, good and bad, but not periodic creation and destruction. There is an infinitude of indestructible individual souls or spiritual entities, each possessing by nature many properties inclusive of omniscience, unlimited energy and bliss which come to the fore upon attaining full independence. The non-spiritual substances are space and time, rest and motion, and matter composed of atoms and capable of being apprehended by the senses and combining to form the world of infinite variety. Matter also penetrates spiritual substances like a physician’s pill, changing to karma and producing physical attachments.
jayalabha ::: attainment of victory. jayalabha
Jhumur: “She (Savitri) has gone into this world of light not having really left her body. It is not an experience that is beyond the body. It is in the physical life that she has attained this plane, so topaz, a yellow colour, is the colour of the mind, stone is the consciousness in matter, so physical life, body, life, mind. Mother had told us I remember that a precious stone symbolises consciousness that is lodged in matter. It shows how blazing light is present even in the hardest matter. So you have the image of the physical light, like a kind of a wall, a barrier.”
Jivanmukta: A Sanskrit term, denoting one who has attained salvation while in this present life: all but a remainder of prarabdha karma has been neutralized and no new karma is accumulated in virtue of the person’s having gained insight, jnana (q.v.).
Jivanmukta(Sanskrit) ::: A highly mystical and philosophical word which means "a freed jiva," signifying a humanbeing, or an entity equivalent in evolutionary development to a human being, who has attained freedomor release as an individualized monad from the enthralling chains and attractions of the material spheres.A jivanmukta is not necessarily without body; and, as a matter of fact, the term is very frequentlyemployed to signify the loftiest class of initiates or Adepts who through evolution have risen above thebinding attractions or magnetism of the material spheres. The term is frequently used for a mahatma,whether imbodied or disimbodied, and also occasionally as a descriptive term for a nirvani -- one whohas reached nirvana during life. Were the nirvani "without body," the mystical and technical meaning ofjivanmukta would hardly apply. Consequently, jivanmukta may briefly be said to be a human being wholives in the highest portions of his constitution in full consciousness and power even during earth-life.
Jlvanmukta: (Skr.) One who has attained salvation while in this present life: all but a remainder of prarabdha karma (q.v.) has been neutralized and no new karma is accumulated in virtue of the person's having gained insight, jnana (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
karmanaiva hi samsiddhim asthita janakadayah ::: [it was indeed by works that Janaka and others attained to perfection]. [Gita 3.20]
karmayoga ::: the yoga of (desireless) works; to do the divine works as a means towards the divine birth before it is attained and an expression of it after it is attained.
Kempen, Thomas Hemerken van: (1380-1471) Also called Thomas a Kempis, was born at Kempen in Holland, received his early education and instruction in music at the monastery of the Brethren of the Common Life, at Deventer. He attended no university but attained a high degree of spiritual development. His Imitation of Christ is one of the most famous, and most used, books of Catholic spiritual meditation; it has been printed in nearly all languages and is found in innumerable editions. There seems to be no valid reason for questioning his authorship of the work. -- V.J.B.
Kevala: Sanskrit for alone. A predicate or synonym of the Absolute in its unitary, free, autonomous, all-inclusive and universal aspect. The condition or state of being absolute and independent is kevalatva; one who meditates or has attained personal experience of it, is a kevalin.
Kevala: (Skr. alone) A predicate or synonym of the Absolute in its unitary, free, autonomous, all-inclusive and universal aspect. The condition or state of being absolute and independent is kevalatva, one who meditates on or has attained personal experience of it, is a kevalin. -- K.F.L.
ladder ::: v. i. --> A frame usually portable, of wood, metal, or rope, for ascent and descent, consisting of two side pieces to which are fastened cross strips or rounds forming steps.
That which resembles a ladder in form or use; hence, that by means of which one attains to eminence.
Life-Wave ::: This is a term which means the collective hosts of monads, of which hosts there are seven or ten,according to the classification adopted. The monad is a spiritual ego, a consciousness-center, being in thespiritual realms of the universal life what the life-atoms are in the lower planes of form. These monadsand life-atoms collectively are the seven (or ten) life-waves -- these monads with the life-atoms in andthrough which they work; these life-atoms having remained, when the former planetary chain went intopralaya, in space as kosmic dust on the physical plane, and as corresponding life-atoms or life-specks ofdifferentiated matter on the intermediate planes above the physical. Out of the working of the monads asthey come down into matter -- or rather through and by the monadic rays permeating the lower planes ofmatter -- are the globes builded. The seven (or ten) life-waves or hosts of monads consist of monads inseven (or ten) degrees of advancement for each host.When the hosts of beings forming the life-wave -- the life-wave being composed of the entities derivedfrom a former but now dead planet, in our case the moon -- find that the time has arrived for them toenter upon their own particular evolutionary course, they cycle downwards as a life-wave along theplanetary chain that has been prepared for them by the three hosts of elementary beings, of the threeprimordial elementary worlds, the forerunners of the life-wave, yet integral parts of it. This life-wavepasses seven times in all around the seven spheres of our planetary chain, at first cycling down theshadowy arc through all the seven elements of the kosmos, gathering experience in each one of them;each particular entity of the life-wave, no matter what its grade or kind -- spiritual, psychic, astral,mental, divine -- advancing, until at the bottom of the arc, when the middle of the fourth round isattained, they feel the end of the downward impulse. Then begins the upward impulse, the reascent alongthe luminous arc upwards, towards the source from which the life-wave originally came.
Limiting Notion: The notion of the extreme applicability of an universal principle considered as a limit. Employed by Kant (1724-1804) in his Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, A 255, to indicate the theory that experience cannot attain to the noumenon. -- J.K.F.
longing ::: strong, persistent desire or craving, esp. for something unattainable or distant. longing"s, longings, longings".
magic ::: a. --> A comprehensive name for all of the pretended arts which claim to produce effects by the assistance of supernatural beings, or departed spirits, or by a mastery of secret forces in nature attained by a study of occult science, including enchantment, conjuration, witchcraft, sorcery, necromancy, incantation, etc.
Alt. of Magical
magnality ::: n. --> A great act or event; a great attainment.
Mahatma(Mahatman, Sanskrit) ::: "Great soul" or "great self" is the meaning of this compound word (maha, "great";atman, "self"). The mahatmas are perfected men, relatively speaking, known in theosophical literature asteachers, elder brothers, masters, sages, seers, and by other names. They are indeed the "elder brothers"of mankind. They are men, not spirits -- men who have evolved through self-devised efforts in individualevolution, always advancing forwards and upwards until they have now attained the lofty spiritual andintellectual human supremacy that now they hold. They were not so created by any extra-cosmic Deity,but they are men who have become what they are by means of inward spiritual striving, by spiritual andintellectual yearning, by aspiration to be greater and better, nobler and higher, just as every good man inhis own way so aspires. They are farther advanced along the path of evolution than the majority of menare. They possess knowledge of nature's secret processes, and of hid mysteries, which to the average manmay seem to be little short of the marvelous -- yet, after all, this mere fact is of relatively smallimportance in comparison with the far greater and more profoundly moving aspects of their nature andlifework.Especially are they called teachers because they are occupied in the noble duty of instructing mankind, ininspiring elevating thoughts, and in instilling impulses of forgetfulness of self into the hearts of men.Also are they sometimes called the guardians, because they are, in very truth, the guardians of the raceand of the records -- natural, racial, national -- of past ages, portions of which they give out from time totime as fragments of a now long-forgotten wisdom, when the world is ready to listen to them; and theydo this in order to advance the cause of truth and of genuine civilization founded on wisdom andbrotherhood.Never -- such is the teaching -- since the human race first attained self-consciousness has this order orassociation or society or brotherhood of exalted men been without its representatives on our earth.It was the mahatmas who founded the modern Theosophical Society through their envoy or messenger,H. P. Blavatsky, in New York in 1875.
Mahatma: Sanskrit for great soul. An adept of occult sciences and arts who has attained the highest degree of esoteric knowledge. In theosophical terminology, the name is applied to a class of great ones, “elder brothers,” “masters of wisdom and compassion,” living in India and Tibet, who, because of their sympathy for mankind, have renounced the privilege of continuing further their spiritual evolution, to help others who are less advanced than they themselves.
mantra&
Marga: Sanskrit for path; used in the sense of method or approach in the endeavor to attain spiritual enlightenment. (See bhakti-marga, jnana-marga, karma-marga.)
.Maruts ::: the Vedic storm-gods, "luminous and violent gods of the storm and the lightning", representing in the esoteric sense of the Veda "the powers of Thought which by the strong and apparently destructive motion of their progress break down that which is established and help to the attainment of new formations".
Materialism: A proposition about the existent or the real: that only matter (q.v.) is existent or real; that matter is the primordial or fundamental constituent of the universe; atomism; that only sensible entities, processes, or content are existent or real; that the universe is not governed by intelligence, purpose, or final causes; that everything is strictly caused by material (inanimate, non-mental, or having certain elementary physical powers) processes or entities (mechanism); that mental entities, processes, or events (though existent) are caused solely by material entities, processes, or events and themselves have no causal effect (epiphenomenalism); that nothing supernatural exists (naturalism); that nothing mental exists; a proposition about explanation of the existent or the real: that everything is explainable in terms of matter in motion or matter and energy or simply matter (depending upon conception of matter entertained); that all qualitative differences are reducible to quantitative differences; that the only objects science can investigate are the physical or material (that is, public, manipulable, non-mental, natural, or sensible); a proposition about values: that wealth, bodily satisfactions, sensuous pleasures, or the like are either the only or the greatest values man can seek or attain; a proposition about explanation of human history: that human actions and cultural change are determined solely or largely by economic factors (economic determinism or its approximation); an attitude, postulate, hypothesis, assertion, assumption, or tendency favoring any of the above propositions; a state of being limited by the physical environment or the material elements of culture and incapable of overcoming, transcending, or adjusting properly to them; preoccupation with or enslavement to lower or bodily (non-mental or non-spiritual) values. Confusion of epiphenomenalism or mechanism with other conceptions of materialism has caused considerable misunderstanding. -- M.T.K.
maximum ::: n. --> The greatest quantity or value attainable in a given case; or, the greatest value attained by a quantity which first increases and then begins to decrease; the highest point or degree; -- opposed to minimum. ::: a. --> Greatest in quantity or highest in degree attainable or
Mean: In general, that which in some way mediates or occupies a middle position among various things or between two extremes. Hence (especially in the plural) that through which an end is attained; in mathematics the word is used for any one of various notions of average; in ethics it represents moderation, temperance, prudence, the middle way. In mathematics: The arithmetic mean of two quantities is half their sum; the arithmetic mean of n quantities is the sum of the n quantities, divided by n. In the case of a function f(x) (say from real numbers to real numbers) the mean value of the function for the values x1, x2, . . . , xn of x is the arithmetic mean of f(x1), f(x2), . . . , f(xn). This notion is extended to the case of infinite sets of values of x by means of integration; thus the mean value of f(x) for values of x between a and b is ∫f(x)dx, with a and b as the limits of integration, divided by the difference between a and b. The geometric mean of or between, or the mean proportional between, two quantities is the (positive) square root of their product. Thus if b is the geometric mean between a and c, c is as many times greater (or less) than b as b is than a. The geometric mean of n quantities is the nth root of their product. The harmonic mean of two quantities is defined as the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of their reciprocals. Hence the harmonic mean of a and b is 2ab/(a + b). The weighted mean or weighted average of a set of n quantities, each of which is associated with a certain number as weight, is obtained by multiplying each quantity by the associated weight, adding these products together, and then dividing by the sum of the weights. As under A, this may be extended to the case of an infinite set of quantities by means of integration. (The weights have the role of estimates of relative importance of the various quantities, and if all the weights are equal the weighted mean reduces to the simple arithmetic mean.) In statistics, given a population (i.e., an aggregate of observed or observable quantities) and a variable x having the population as its range, we have: The mean value of x is the weighted mean of the values of x, with the probability (frequency ratio) of each value taken as its weight. In the case of a finite population this is the same as the simple arithmetic mean of the population, provided that, in calculating the arithmetic mean, each value of x is counted as many times over as it occurs in the set of observations constituting the population. In like manner, the mean value of a function f(x) of x is the weighted mean of the values of f(x), where the probability of each value of x is taken as the weight of the corresponding value of f(x). The mode of the population is the most probable (most frequent) value of x, provided there is one such. The median of the population is so chosen that the probability that x be less than the median (or the probability that x be greater than the median) is ½ (or as near ½ as possible). In the case of a finite population, if the values of x are arranged in order of magnitude --repeating any one value of x as many times over as it occurs in the set of observations constituting the population --then the middle term of this series, or the arithmetic mean of the two middle terms, is the median. --A.C. In cosmology, the fundamental means (arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic) were used by the Greeks in describing or actualizing the process of becoming in nature. The Pythagoreans and the Platonists in particular made considerable use of these means (see the Philebus and the Timaeus more especially). These ratios are among the basic elements used by Plato in his doctrine of the mixtures. With the appearance of the qualitative physics of Aristotle, the means lost their cosmological importance and were thereafter used chiefly in mathematics. The modern mathematical theories of the universe make use of the whole range of means analyzed by the calculus of probability, the theory of errors, the calculus of variations, and the statistical methods. In ethics, the 'Doctrine of the Mean' is the moral theory of moderation, the development of the virtues, the determination of the wise course in action, the practice of temperance and prudence, the choice of the middle way between extreme or conflicting decisions. It has been developed principally by the Chinese, the Indians and the Greeks; it was used with caution by the Christian moralists on account of their rigorous application of the moral law. In Chinese philosophy, the Doctrine of the Mean or of the Middle Way (the Chung Yung, literally 'Equilibrium and Harmony') involves the absence of immoderate pleasure, anger, sorrow or joy, and a conscious state in which those feelings have been stirred and act in their proper degree. This doctrine has been developed by Tzu Shu (V. C. B.C.), a grandson of Confucius who had already described the virtues of the 'superior man' according to his aphorism "Perfect is the virtue which is according to the mean". In matters of action, the superior man stands erect in the middle and strives to follow a course which does not incline on either side. In Buddhist philosophy, the System of the Middle Way or Madhyamaka is ascribed more particularly to Nagarjuna (II c. A.D.). The Buddha had given his revelation as a mean or middle way, because he repudiated the two extremes of an exaggerated ascetlsm and of an easy secular life. This principle is also applied to knowledge and action in general, with the purpose of striking a happy medium between contradictory judgments and motives. The final objective is the realization of the nirvana or the complete absence of desire by the gradual destruction of feelings and thoughts. But while orthodox Buddhism teaches the unreality of the individual (who is merely a mass of causes and effects following one another in unbroken succession), the Madhyamaka denies also the existence of these causes and effects in themselves. For this system, "Everything is void", with the legitimate conclusion that "Absolute truth is silence". Thus the perfect mean is realized. In Greek Ethics, the doctrine of the Right (Mean has been developed by Plato (Philebus) and Aristotle (Nic. Ethics II. 6-8) principally, on the Pythagorean analogy between the sound mind, the healthy body and the tuned string, which has inspired most of the Greek Moralists. Though it is known as the "Aristotelian Principle of the Mean", it is essentially a Platonic doctrine which is preformed in the Republic and the Statesman and expounded in the Philebus, where we are told that all good things in life belong to the class of the mixed (26 D). This doctrine states that in the application of intelligence to any kind of activity, the supreme wisdom is to know just where to stop, and to stop just there and nowhere else. Hence, the "right-mean" does not concern the quantitative measurement of magnitudes, but simply the qualitative comparison of values with respect to a standard which is the appropriate (prepon), the seasonable (kairos), the morally necessary (deon), or generally the moderate (metrion). The difference between these two kinds of metretics (metretike) is that the former is extrinsic and relative, while the latter is intrinsic and absolute. This explains the Platonic division of the sciences into two classes: those involving reference to relative quantities (mathematical or natural), and those requiring absolute values (ethics and aesthetics). The Aristotelian analysis of the "right mean" considers moral goodness as a fixed and habitual proportion in our appetitions and tempers, which can be reached by training them until they exhibit just the balance required by the right rule. This process of becoming good develops certain habits of virtues consisting in reasonable moderation where both excess and defect are avoided: the virtue of temperance (sophrosyne) is a typical example. In this sense, virtue occupies a middle position between extremes, and is said to be a mean; but it is not a static notion, as it leads to the development of a stable being, when man learns not to over-reach himself. This qualitative conception of the mean involves an adaptation of the agent, his conduct and his environment, similar to the harmony displayed in a work of art. Hence the aesthetic aspect of virtue, which is often overstressed by ancient and neo-pagan writers, at the expense of morality proper. The ethical idea of the mean, stripped of the qualifications added to it by its Christian interpreters, has influenced many positivistic systems of ethics, and especially pragmatism and behaviourism (e.g., A. Huxley's rule of Balanced Excesses). It is maintained that it is also involved in the dialectical systems, such as Hegelianism, where it would have an application in the whole dialectical process as such: thus, it would correspond to the synthetic phase which blends together the thesis and the antithesis by the meeting of the opposites. --T.G. Mean, Doctrine of the: In Aristotle's ethics, the doctrine that each of the moral virtues is an intermediate state between extremes of excess and defect. -- O.R.M.
meridian ::: a. --> Being at, or pertaining to, midday; belonging to, or passing through, the highest point attained by the sun in his diurnal course.
Pertaining to the highest point or culmination; as, meridian splendor.
Midday; noon.
Hence: The highest point, as of success, prosperity, or the like; culmination.
Method: (Gr. methodos, method) Any procedure employed to attain a certain end. Any knowing techniques employed in the process of acquiring knowledge of a given subject-matter. The science which formulates the rules of any procedure.
Michael ::: The force that guides to and enables the attainment of both physical and spiritual sustenance.
midshipman ::: n. --> Formerly, a kind of naval cadet, in a ship of war, whose business was to carry orders, messages, reports, etc., between the officers of the quarter-deck and those of the forecastle, and render other services as required.
In the English naval service, the second rank attained by a combatant officer after a term of service as naval cadet. Having served three and a half years in this rank, and passed an examination, he is eligible to promotion to the rank of lieutenant.
minor ::: a. --> Inferior in bulk, degree, importance, etc.; less; smaller; of little account; as, minor divisions of a body.
Less by a semitone in interval or difference of pitch; as, a minor third. ::: n. --> A person of either sex who has not attained the age at which
miscarriage ::: n. --> Unfortunate event or issue of an undertaking; failure to attain a desired result or reach a destination.
Ill conduct; evil or improper behavior; as, the failings and miscarriages of the righteous.
The act of bringing forth before the time; premature birth.
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.
Mukta: In Hindu mystic terminology, a person who has attained Moksha (q.v.).
mukta. ::: one who has attained spiritual liberation
Muqarraboon ::: Those who have attained the state of divine closeness.
mysticism ::: n. --> Obscurity of doctrine.
The doctrine of the Mystics, who professed a pure, sublime, and wholly disinterested devotion, and maintained that they had direct intercourse with the divine Spirit, and aquired a knowledge of God and of spiritual things unattainable by the natural intellect, and such as can not be analyzed or explained.
The doctrine that the ultimate elements or principles of knowledge or belief are gained by an act or process akin to feeling or
Nafs-i Ammara ::: Dominant Nafs; the first of seven main levels of nafs attained in the process of Sufi purification
Nafs-i Lawwama ::: Blaming Nafs; the second of seven main levels of nafs attained in the process of Sufi purification
Nafs-i Mardziyya ::: Satisfying Nafs; the sixth of seven main levels of nafs attained in the process of Sufi purification
Nafs-i Mulhama ::: Inspired Nafs; the third of seven main levels of nafs attained in the process of Sufi purification
Nafs-i Mutmaina ::: Tranquil Nafs; the fourth of seven main levels of nafs attained in the process of Sufi purification
Nafs-i Radziyya ::: Satisfied Nafs; the fifth of seven main levels of nafs attained in the process of Sufi purification
Nafs-i Safiyya ::: Purified Nafs; the seventh of seven main levels of nafs attained in the process of Sufi purification
Naturalism: Naturalism, challenging the cogency of the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments, holds that the universe requires no supernatural cause and government, but is self-existent, self-explanatory, self-operating, and self-directing, that the world-process is not teleological and anthropocentric, but purposeless, deterministic (except for possible tychistic events), and only incidentally productive of man; that human life, physical, mental, moral and spiritual, is an ordinary natural event attributable in all respects to the ordinary operations of nature; and that man's ethical values, compulsions, activities, and restraints can be justified on natural grounds, without recourse to supernatural sanctions, and his highest good pursued and attained under natural conditions, without expectation of a supernatural destiny. -- B.A.G.F.
Nature and kept within the narrow bounds of her normal ope- rations. Id the ancient tradition of Hatha Yoga it has always been supposed that this conquest could be pushed so far even as to conquer to a great extent the force of gravitation. By various subsidiary but elaborate processes the Hatha Yogin next contrives to keep the body free from all impurities and the ner- vous system unclogged for those exercises of respiration which are his most important instruments. These are called prana- yama, the control of the breath or vital power ; for breathing is the chief physical functioning of the vital forces. Prdnayaina, for the Hatha Yogin, serves a double purpose. First, it completes the perfection of the body. The vitality is liberated from many of the ordinary necessities of physical Nature ; robust health, prolonged youth, often an extraordinary longevity arc attained.
necessary ::: a. --> Such as must be; impossible to be otherwise; not to be avoided; inevitable.
Impossible to be otherwise, or to be dispensed with, without preventing the attainment of a desired result; indispensable; requiste; essential.
Acting from necessity or compulsion; involuntary; -- opposed to free; as, whether man is a necessary or a free agent is a question much discussed.
Nei sheng: A Chinese term used in referring to the man who attained to complete self-cultivation, sagehood. (Confucius.)
Nei sheng: Often used as referring to the man who attained to complete self-cultivation, sage-hood. (Confucius.) -- H.H.
Nei tan: Internal alchemy, as a means of nourishing life, attaining Tao and immortality, including an elaborate system of breathing technique, diet, and the art of preserving unity of thought (tsun i, tsun hsiang, tsun ssu). Also called t'ai hsi. For external alchemy, see Wai tan. (Taoist religion.) -- W.T.C.
Nirvana: In the Oriental philosophical doctrines, the absolute and final extinction of individuality, without loss of consciousness. In occult and esoteric philosophical terminology, the ultimate absolute existence and consciousness attained by the Ego of one who in his life achieved supreme perfection and holiness. It is defined as a condition in which all pain, suffering, mental anguish and, above all, samsara (q.v.) have ceased.
Nirvana(Sanskrit) ::: This is a compound: nir, "out," and vana, the past participle passive of the root va, "to blow,"literallly meaning "blown out." So badly has the significance of the ancient Indian thought (and even its language, the Sanskrit) been understood, that for many years erudite European scholars were discussingwhether being "blown out" meant actual entitative annihilation or not. But the being blown out refersonly to the lower principles in man.Nirvana is a very different thing from the "heavens." Nirvana is a state of utter bliss and complete,untrammeled consciousness, a state of absorption in pure kosmic Being, and is the wondrous destiny ofthose who have reached superhuman knowledge and purity and spiritual illumination. It really ispersonal-individual absorption into or rather identification with the Self -- the highest SELF. It is also thestate of the monadic entities in the period that intervenes between minor manvantaras or rounds of aplanetary chain; and more fully so between each seven-round period or Day of Brahma, and thesucceeding day or new kalpa of a planetary chain. At these last times, starting forth from the seventhsphere in the seventh round, the monadic entities will have progressed far beyond even the highest stateof devachan. Too pure and too far advanced even for such a condition as the devachanic felicity, they goto their appropriate sphere and condition, which latter is the nirvana following the end of the seventhround.Devachan and nirvana are not localities. They are states, states of the beings in those respective spiritualconditions. Devachan is the intermediate state; nirvana is the superspiritual state; and avichi, popularlycalled the lowest of the hells, is the nether pole of the spiritual condition. These three are states of beingshaving habitat in the lokas or talas, in the worlds of the kosmic egg.So far as the individual human being is concerned, the nirvanic state or condition may be attained to bygreat spiritual seers and sages, such as Gautama the Buddha, and even by men less progressed than he;because in these cases of the attaining of the nirvana even during a man's life on earth, the meaning isthat one so attaining has through evolution progressed so far along the path that all the lower personalpart of him is become thoroughly impersonalized, the personal has put on the garment of impersonality,and such a man thereafter lives in the nirvanic condition of the spiritual monad.As a concluding thought, it must be pointed out that nirvana, while the ultima thule of the perfection tobe attained by any human being, nevertheless stands less high in the estimate of mystics than thecondition of the bodhisattva. For the bodhisattva, although standing on the threshold of nirvana andseeing and understanding its ineffable glory and peace and rest, nevertheless retains his consciousness inthe worlds of men, in order to consecrate his vast faculties and powers to the service of all that is. Thebuddhas in their higher parts enter the nirvana, in other words, assume the dharmakaya state or vesture,whereas the bodhisattva assumes the nirmanakaya vesture, thereafter to become an ever-active andcompassionate and beneficent influence in the world. The buddha indeed may be said to act indirectlyand by long distance control, thus indeed helping the world diffusively or by diffusion; but thebodhisattva acts directly and positively and with a directing will in works of compassion, both for theworld and for individuals.
Nirvana: (Skr. blown out) The complete extinction of individuality, without loss of consciousness, in the beatific rejoining of the liberated with the metaphysical world-ground. A term used principally by Buddhists though denoting a state the attainment of which has been counselled from the Upanishads (q.v.) on as the summum bonum. It is invariably defined as a condition in which all pain, suffering, mental anguish and, above all, samsara (q.v.) have ceased. It is doubtful that complete extinction of life and consciousness or absolute annihilation is meant. -- K.F.L.
Nirvanee: He who has attained Nirvana (q.v.).
not arrived at or attained (a place, point in time, condition, quality, etc.).
Objectionable-C "abuse, humour, language" A hackish take on "{Objective C}". Objectionable-C uses a {Smalltalk}-like {syntax}, but lacks the flexibility of Smalltalk {method} calls, and (like many such efforts) comes frustratingly close to attaining the {Right Thing} without actually doing so. [{Jargon File}] (1995-02-15)
OBJECT. ::: The attainment of God is the true object of all human effort.
obtainment ::: n. --> The act or process of obtaining; attainment.
Om ::: A word considered very holy in the Brahmanical literature. It is a syllable of invocation, as well as ofbenediction and of affirmation, and its general usage (as elucidated in the literature treating of it, which israther voluminous, for this word Om has attained almost divine reverence on the part of vast numbers ofHindus) is that it should never be uttered aloud, or in the presence of an outsider, a foreigner, or anon-initiate, and it should be uttered in the silence of one's mind, in peace of heart, and in the intimacy ofone's "inner closet." There is strong reason to believe, however, that this syllable of invocation wasuttered, and uttered aloud in a monotone, by the disciples in the presence of their teacher. This word isalways placed at the beginning of any scripture or prayer that is considered of unusual sanctity.It is said that by prolonging the uttering of this word, both of the o and the m, with the mouth closed, thesound re-echoes in and arouses vibration in the skull, and affects, if the aspirations be pure, the differentnervous centers of the body for good.The Brahmanas say that it is an unholy thing to utter this word in any place which is unholy. It issometimes written Aum.
Overmind ::: Above the mind there are several levels of conscious of the Truth. But in between is what he has distinguished as the Overmind, the world of the cosmic Gods. Now it is this Overmind that has up to the present governed our world: it is the highest that man has been able to attain in illumined consciousness. It has been taken for the Supreme Divine and all those who have reached it have never for a moment doubted that they have touched the true Spirit. For, its splendours are so great to the ordinary human consciousness that it is absolutely dazzled into believing that here at last is the crowning reality. And yet the fact is that the Overmind is far below the true Divine. It is not the authentic home of the Truth. It is only the domain of the formateurs , all those creative powers and deities to whom men have bowed down since the beginning of history. And the reason why the true Divine has not manifested and transformed the earth-nature is precisely that the Overmind has been mistaken for the Supermind.being, among which the really divine world is what Sri Aurobindo has called the Supermind, the world. The cosmic Gods do not wholly live in the Truth-Consciousness: they are only in touch with it and represent, each of them, an aspect of its glories.
Oversoul ::: We might say then that there are three elements in the totality of our being: there is the submental and the subconscient which appears to us as if it were inconscient, comprising the material basis and a good part of our life and body; there is the subliminal, which comprises the inner being, taken in its entirety of inner mind, inner life, inner physical with the soul or psychic entity supporting them; there is this waking consciousness which the subliminal and the subconscient throw up on the surface, a wave of their secret surge. But even this is not an adequate account of what we are; for there is not only something deep within behind our normal self-awareness, but something also high above it: that too is ourselves, other than our surface mental personality, but not outside our true self; that too is a country of our spirit. For the subliminal proper is no more than the inner being on the level of the Knowledge-Ignorance, luminous, powerful and extended indeed beyond the poor conception of our waking mind, but still not the supreme or the whole sense of our being, not its ultimate mystery. We become aware, in a certain experience, of a range of being superconscient to all these three, aware too of something, a supreme highest Reality sustaining and exceeding them all, which humanity speaks of vaguely as Spirit, God, the Oversoul: from these superconscient ranges we have visitations and in our highest being we tend towards them and to that supreme Spirit. There is then in our total range of existence a superconscience as well as a subconscience and inconscience, overarching and perhaps enveloping our subliminal and our waking selves, but unknown to us, seemingly unattainable and incommunicable.
paramahaṁsa (paramahansa) ::: the liberated man; one of those who paramahamsa have attained "a particular grade of realisation" and "live in the cosmic consciousness in touch or union with the All", about whom it "is said that their vital behaves either like a child (Ramakrishna) or like a madman or like a demon or like something inert (cf. Jadabharata)".
param apnoti purusah ::: man attains to the Highest. [Gita 3.19]
paramartha. ::: the highest attainment, purpose or goal; the understanding of Final Reality; absolute Truth
Paroptic sense: The faculty, claimed by many occultists to be attainable, of “seeing” with the etheric body, instead of or without using the eyes.
Parsimony, Law of: Name given to various statements of a general regulative principle of economy of thought, or effort, in the use of means to attain a purpose, like that of William of Ockham (died about 1349), called Ockham's razor: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. It is interpreted in the sense that the least possible number of assumptions are to be made in the attempt to explain ascertained facts. It has been supposed that the same principle of simplicity prevails in the physical cosmos, since apparently nature employs the fewest possible means effectively to attain the ends which are intended. -- J.J.R.
peepul tree ::: --> A sacred tree (Ficus religiosa) of the Buddhists, a kind of fig tree which attains great size and venerable age. See Bo tree.
Percepts: The abbreviation for perceptual data. Perfectibility: The optimistic belief in the ability of man to attain an eventual complete realization of his moral possibilities. Opposed to the various philosophies and theologies of moral pessimism (e.g., the sinfulness and moral impotence of man, original sin, in Augustinianism, Lutheranism, Barthianism, et al.) -- V.F.
perfectionist ::: n. --> One pretending to perfection; esp., one pretending to moral perfection; one who believes that persons may and do attain to moral perfection and sinlessness in this life.
perfectionment ::: n. --> The act of bringing to perfection, or the state of having attained to perfection.
perfection ::: n. --> The quality or state of being perfect or complete, so that nothing requisite is wanting; entire development; consummate culture, skill, or moral excellence; the highest attainable state or degree of excellence; maturity; as, perfection in an art, in a science, or in a system; perfection in form or degree; fruits in perfection.
A quality, endowment, or acquirement completely excellent; an ideal faultlessness; especially, the divine attribute of complete excellence.
Perfection (Siddhi) ::: "Not by abstention from works does a man enjoy actionlessness, nor by mere renunciation (of works) does he attain to his perfection,"—to siddhi, the accomplishment of the aims of his self-discipline by Yoga.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 19, Page: 106
Phronesis: (Gr. phronesis) Practical wisdom, or knowledge of the proper ends of conduct and of the means of attaining them; distinguished by Aristotle both from theoretical knowledge or science, and from technical skill. See Aristotelianism. -- G.R.M.
pitryana (Pitriyan) ::: the road of the Fathers, supposed to lead to inferior worlds attained by the Fathers who still belong to the evolution in the Ignorance.
plan ::: n. 1. A systematic arrangement of elements or important parts; a configuration or outline. 2. A scheme, program, or method worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of an objective. plans, heart-plan, life-plan, time-plan, world-plan, vision-plans, world-plan. *v. 3. To formulate a scheme or program for the accomplishment, enactment, or attainment of. *plans, planned, planning.
Platonic Realism: See Realism. Platonism: The philosophy of Plato marks one of the high points in the development of Greek philosophical genius Platomsm is characterised by a partial contempt for sense knowledge and empirical studies, by a high regard for mathematics and its method, by a longing for another and better world, by a frankly spiritualistic view of life, by its use of a method of discussion involving an accumulation of ever more profound insights rather than the formal logic of Aristotle, and, above all, by an unswerving faith in the capacity of the human mind to attain absolute truth and to use this truth in the rational direction of human life and affairs.
Power of vision is sometimes inborn and habitual even with- out any effort of development, sometimes it wakes up of itself and becomes abundant or needs only a little practice to deve- . lop ; it is not necessarily a sign of spiritual attainment, but usually when by practice of yoga one begins to go inside or live within, the power of subtle vision awakes to a greater or less extent ; but this does not alwa^ happen easily, especially if one has been habituated to live mnch in the intelfect or in art out- ward vital consciousness.
prapya punyakrtam lokan usitva sasvatih samah ::: [having attained to the world of the righteous and having dwelt there for immemorial years]. [Gita 6.41]
Pratyahara: (Skr.) Withdrawal of the senses from external objects, one of the psycho-physical means for attaining the object of Yoga (q. v.). For the theory of the senses conceived as powers, see Indriya. -- K.F.L.
Probabilism: The doctrine of the ancient Skeptics that certainty is unattainable, and that probability is the only guide to belief and action, especially characteristic of the New Academy. See Petrce. -- G.R.M.
procurement ::: n. --> The act of procuring or obtaining; obtainment; attainment.
Efficient contrivance; management; agency.
Profound Virtue and Mysterious Power, through the cultivation of one's original nature and the returning to the character of Tao. Thus one "becomes identified with the Beginning, attains emptiness and vastness, and enters into mystic union with the Universe." (Chuang Tzu, between 399 and 295 B.C.) -- W.T.C
proposed ::: put forward as an aim to be adopted or an end to be attained.
prosperity ::: n. --> The state of being prosperous; advance or gain in anything good or desirable; successful progress in any business or enterprise; attainment of the object desired; good fortune; success; as, commercial prosperity; national prosperity.
Purani: “ The growth of the divine potentialities in man is spoken of in Veda as the growth of a Child. The Master takes the symbol straight and employs it thus: ‘where the God-child lies on the lap of Night and Dawn.’ The idea is that through the state of ignorance and through the state of awakening that is Dawn,—through the alterations of two—, the God-child in man attains its growth. Ignorance is not thus something anti-divine. It contributes to the growth of the Divine in man. This certainly reminds one of the hymn in the Veda which runs as follows: ‘Two are joined together, powers of truth, powers of May, they have built the child and given him birth and they nourish his growth’. (Rig Veda X, 5. 3). Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri: An Approach and a Study
pursue ::: 1. To follow in pursuit, to chase. 2. To seek or ‘hunt" after. 3. To follow in an effort to overtake or capture; chase. 4. To follow close upon; go with; attend. 5. To strive to gain; seek to attain or accomplish (an end, object, purpose, etc.). 6. To continue, carry on or participate in an activity; be involved in. pursues, pursued, pursuing.
pursuit ::: v. t. --> The act of following or going after; esp., a following with haste, either for sport or in hostility; chase; prosecution; as, the pursuit of game; the pursuit of an enemy.
A following with a view to reach, accomplish, or obtain; endeavor to attain to or gain; as, the pursuit of knowledge; the pursuit of happiness or pleasure.
Course of business or occupation; continued employment with a view to same end; as, mercantile pursuits; a literary pursuit.
Pyrrho of Elis: (c. 365-275 B.C.) A systematic skeptic who believed that it is impossible to know the true nature of things and that the wise man suspends his judgment on all matters and seeks to attain imperturbable happiness (ataraxy) by abstaining from all passion and curiosity. See Timon of Phlius, pupil of Pyrrho. -- R.B.W.
Rajayoga must cod. For its action is the stilling of the waves of consciousness, its manifold activities, cinovfUl, first, through a habitual replacing of the turbid rajaslc activities by the quiet and luminous sattwic, then, by the stilling of all activities, and its object is to enter into silent communion of soul and unity with the Divine. As a matter of fact we find that the system of Raja- yoga includes other objects, — such as the practice and use of occult powers, — some of which seem to be unconnected with and even inconsistent with its main purpose. These powers or siddhis arc indeed frequently condemned as dangers and dis- tractions wWch draw away the Yogin from his sole legitimate aim of divine union. On the way, therefore, it would naturally seem as if they ought to bfe* avoided; and once the goal is reached, it would seem that they are then frivolous and super- fluous. But Rajayoga is a psychic science and it includes the attainment of all the higher slates of consciousness and their powers by which the mental being rises towards the super- conscient as well as its ultimate and supreme possibility of union wnth the Highest. Moreover, the Yo^n, while in the body, is not always mentally inactive and sunk in Samadhi and an account of the powers and states which arc possible to him on the higher planes of his being is necessary to the completeness of the science.
R.bhus (Ribhus) ::: the name of three Vedic gods or demigods, the "arRbhus tisans of Immortality"; they "are represented as human beings who have attained to the condition of godhead by power of knowledge and perfection in their works" and act as "energies of formation and upward progress who assist the gods in the divinising of man".
reach ::: n. 1. Range of effective action, power, or capacity, area, sphere, scope. 2. The range of influence, power, jurisdiction, etc. reaches. v. 3. To stretch out or put forth (a body part); extend. 4. To arrive at or get to (a place, person, etc.) in the course of movement or action. 5. To arrive at; attain. 6. To make contact or communication with (someone). 7. To extend in influence or operation. reaches, reached, reaching.
reach ::: v. i. --> To retch.
To stretch out the hand.
To strain after something; to make efforts.
To extend in dimension, time, amount, action, influence, etc., so as to touch, attain to, or be equal to, something.
To sail on the wind, as from one point of tacking to another, or with the wind nearly abeam.
reattainment ::: n. --> The act of reattaining.
reattain ::: v. t. --> To attain again.
recure ::: v. t. --> To arrive at; to reach; to attain.
To recover; to regain; to repossess.
To restore, as from weariness, sickness; or the like; to repair.
To be a cure for; to remedy. ::: n.
regimen ::: n. --> Orderly government; system of order; adminisration.
Any regulation or remedy which is intended to produce beneficial effects by gradual operation
a systematic course of diet, etc., pursed with a view to improving or preserving the health, or for the purpose of attaining some particular effect, as a reduction of flesh; -- sometimes used synonymously with hygiene.
A syntactical relation between words, as when one depends
relapse ::: v. i. --> To slip or slide back, in a literal sense; to turn back.
To slide or turn back into a former state or practice; to fall back from some condition attained; -- generally in a bad sense, as from a state of convalescence or amended condition; as, to relapse into a stupor, into vice, or into barbarism; -- sometimes in a good sense; as, to relapse into slumber after being disturbed.
To fall from Christian faith into paganism, heresy, or
ripe ::: n. --> The bank of a river. ::: superl. --> Ready for reaping or gathering; having attained perfection; mature; -- said of fruits, seeds, etc.; as, ripe grain.
Advanced to the state of fitness for use; mellow; as, ripe cheese; ripe wine.
rising ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Rise ::: a. --> Attaining a higher place; taking, or moving in, an upward direction; appearing above the horizon; ascending; as, the rising moon.
Increasing in wealth, power, or distinction; as, a rising state; a rising character.
Sadhana: A Sanskrit term for spiritual effort or quest of enlightenment. In Tantric Buddhism, a ceremony by the performance of which the worshipper can render visible any god he desires and is enabled to obtain control of the deity. In Hinduism, the means through which the Hindu student of esoteric sciences attains to samadhi (q.v.).
sadhana chatushtaya. ::: the four-fold aids to spiritual practice &
sadhana. ::: spiritual discipline; spiritual practice performed for the purpose of preparing oneself for Self-realisation; the means by which liberation is attained &
sadhana ::: the practice of yoga; the practice by which perfection (siddhi) is attained; spiritual self-training and exercise.
saguna brahman. ::: the Absolute with qualities; manifest Brahman; the Absolute conceived as the creator, preserver and destroyer of the universe; the highest attainment which is eternal and undecaying
sahaja jnani. ::: a person who abides in his natural state, having attained Self-knowledge
Samadhi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths according as it draws farther and farther away from the normal or waking state and enters into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or call back the soul that has receded into them; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the system owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance in which the soul persisting for too long a time cannot return; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had inhabited it. Finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary phenomena of death, by an act of will,1 or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current (udana), opening for it a way through the mystic brahmarandhra in the head. By departure from life in the state of Samadhi he attains directly to that higher status of being to which he aspires.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 520-21
Samadhi(Sanskrit) ::: A compound word formed of sam, meaning "with" or "together"; a, meaning "towards"; andthe verbal root dha, signifying "to place," or "to bring"; hence samadhi, meaning "to direct towards,"generally signifies to combine the faculties of the mind with a direction towards an object. Hence, intensecontemplation or profound meditation, with the consciousness directed to the spiritual. It is the highestform of self-possession, in the sense of collecting all the faculties of the constitution towards reachingunion or quasi-union, long or short in time as the case may be, with the divine-spiritual. One whopossesses and is accustomed to use this power has complete, absolute control over all his faculties, andis, therefore, said to be "completely self- possessed." It is the highest state of yoga or "union."Samadhi, therefore, is a word of exceedingly mystical and profound significance implying the completeabstraction of the percipient consciousness from all worldly or exterior or even mental concerns orattributes, and its absorption into or, perhaps better, its becoming the pure unadulterate, undilutesuperconsciousness of the god within. In other words, samadhi is self-conscious union with the spiritualmonad of the human constitution. Samadhi is the eighth or final stage of genuine occult yoga, and can beattained at any time by the initiate without conscious recourse to the other phases or practices of yogaenumerated in Oriental works, and which other and inferior practices are often misleading, in some casesdistinctly injurious, and at the best mere props or aids in the attaining of complete mental abstractionfrom worldly concerns.The eight stages of yoga usually enumerated are the following: (1) yama, signifying "restraint" or"forbearance"; (2) niyama, religious observances of various kinds, such as watchings or fastings,prayings, penances, etc.; (3) asana (q.v.), postures of various kinds; (4) pranayama, various methods ofregulating the breath; (5) pratyahara, a word signifying "withdrawal," but technically and esoterically the"withdrawal" of the consciousness from sensual or sensuous concerns, or from external objects; (6)dharana (q.v.), firmness or steadiness or resolution in holding the mind set or concentrated on a topic orobject of thought, mental concentration; (7) dhyana (q.v.), abstract contemplation or meditation whenfreed from exterior distractions; and finally, (8) samadhi, complete collection of the consciousness and ofits faculties into oneness or union with the monadic essence.It may be observed, and should be carefully taken note of by the student, that when the initiate hasattained samadhi he becomes practically omniscient for the solar universe in which he dwells, becausehis consciousness is functioning at the time in the spiritual-causal worlds. All knowledge is then to himlike an open page because he is self-consciously conscious, to use a rather awkward phrase, of nature'sinner and spiritual realms, the reason being that his consciousness has become kosmic in its reaches.
Samadhi: Sanskrit for putting together. Profound meditation, absorption in the spirit. The final stage in the practice of Yoga, in which the individual becomes one with the object of meditation, thus attaining a condition of superconsciousness and unqualified blissfulness, which is called moksha.
samadhi. ::: transcendental awareness; the quiet state of blissful awareness; oneness; union with Brahman; the goal of all yogic practice, which is attained when the yogi constantly sees the supreme Self in his Heart; a direct but temporary absorption in the Self in which there is only the feeling "I am" and no thoughts; the state of superconsciousness where Reality is experienced attended with all-knowledge and joy &
saman (Sama) ::: the mantra of the divine ananda, the word of calm and harmonious attainment for the bringing of the divine desire of the spirit. [Ved.]
samsara. ::: repetitive history; worldly bondage; earthly suffering; the continuous round of birth and death to which the individual is subjected until it attains liberation; earthly suffering
Samsara: (Skr.) "Going about", the passage of the soul in the cycle of births and deaths, the round of existence, transmigration, a universally accepted dogma in India, early justified philosophically on the basis of karma (q.v.). and the nature of atman (q.v.), but its modus operandi variously explained. It is the object of practically every Indian philosophy to find a way to escape from samsara and attain moksa (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
Sanga: Sanskrit for attachment, especially to material things, or entanglement in earthly cares, considered an impediment to spiritual attainment or moksha (q.v.).
Sanga: (Skr. sticking to) Attachment, especially to material things, or entanglement in earthly cares, considered an impediment to spiritual attainment or moksa (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
sankhya &
Satchitananda: A Sanskrit term (literally being-consciousnessbliss) for the Divine State in which pure bliss is attained by knowledge and being the Self.
Sat-cit-ananda, saccidananda: (Skr.) "Being-awareness-bliss", a Vedantic (s.v.) definition of the highest, all-inclusive reality, also of the atman (q.v.) insofar as it has attained its full realization. -- K.F.L.
sattvaguna. :::the single principle which leads to happiness, sentience, unity and unification, symmetry, salvation and liberation; resistance to binding action and to both positive and negative space-time curvatures; facilitates the reflection of consciousness and is favourable for the attainment of liberation; it's effect is Brahmavichara &
sattvapatti. ::: purity of Heart; attaining Reality; the passage of the mind in Truth; a state of mind wherein the mind is full of purity and light; when the aspirant begins to feel the being of the real Self within him; the fourth stage in the path of Self-knowledge
Scepticism: (1) a proposition about the limitations of knowledge: that no knowledge at all or that no absolute, unquestionable, trustworthy, certain, complete, or perfect knowledge (or rationally justifiable belief) is attainable by man; or that such is not attainable by any knower, or that none of these kinds of knowledge, if attained, would be recognizable as such; or that no such knowledge is attainable about certain subjects, e g , questions about cxistence, ultimate reality, certain religious beliefs, or the existence or nature of certain entities (e.g., God, one's self, other selves, values, an external world, or causal connections); or that one or more or all of these types of knowledge is not attainable by certain methods or media, e g, reason, infeience, revelation, any non-empirical method, direct observation, or immediate experience (hence identification of scepticism variously with inti-rationalism, anti-supernaturalism, or doctrines of relativity of the senses or relativity of all knowledge);
Schleiermacher, Friedrich Ernst Daniel (1768-1834): Religion, in which Schleiermacher substitutes for a theology (regarded impossible because of the unknowableness of God) the feeling of absolute dependence, is sharply delineated from science as the product of reason in which nature may ultimately attain its unity. Schleiermacher, a romanticist, exhibits Fichtean and Schellingean influence, and transcends Kant by proclaiming an ideal realism. Nature, the totality of existence, is an organism, just as knowledge is a system. Through the unity of the real and the ideal, wisdom, residing with the Absolute as the final unity, arises and is ever striven for by man. A determinism is evident in religion where sin and grace provide two poles and sin is regarded partly avoidable, partly unreal, and in ethics where freedom is admitted only soteriologically as spontaneous acknowledgment of identity with the divine in the person of Christ. However, the right to uniqueness and individuality in which each attains his real nature, is stressed. An elaborate ethics is based on four goods: State, Society, School, and Church, to which accrue virtues and duties. An absolute good is lacking, except insofar as it lies in the complete unity of reason and nature. -- K.F.L.
scholar ::: n. --> One who attends a school; one who learns of a teacher; one under the tuition of a preceptor; a pupil; a disciple; a learner; a student.
One engaged in the pursuits of learning; a learned person; one versed in any branch, or in many branches, of knowledge; a person of high literary or scientific attainments; a savant.
A man of books.
In English universities, an undergraduate who belongs to
scholarship ::: n. --> The character and qualities of a scholar; attainments in science or literature; erudition; learning.
Literary education.
Maintenance for a scholar; a foundation for the support of a student.
Schopenhauer, Arthur: (1738-1860) Brilliant, manysided philosopher, at times caustic, who attained posthumously even popular acclaim. His principal work, The World as Will and Idea starts with the thesis that the world is my idea, a primary fact of consciousness implying the inseparableness of subject and object (refutation of materialism and subjectivism). The object underlies the principle of sufficient reason whose fourfold root Schopenhauer had investigated previously in his doctoral dissertation as that of becoming (causality), knowing, being, and acting (motivation). But the world is also obstinate, blind, impetuous will (the word taken in a larger than the dictionary meaning) which objectifies itself in progressive stages in the world of ideas beginning with the forces of nature (gravity, etc.) and terminating in the will to live and the products of its urges. As thing-in-itself, the will is one, though many in its phenomenal forms, space and time serving as principia individuationis. The closer to archetypal forms the ideas (Platonic influence) and the less revealing the will, the greater the possibility of pure contemplation in art in which Schopenhauer found greatest personal satisfaction. Propounding a determinism and a consequential pessimism (q.v.), Schopenhauer concurs with Kant in the intelligible character of freedom, makes compassion (Mitleid; see Pity) the foundation of ethics, and upholds the Buddhist ideal of desirelessness as a means for allaying the will. Having produced intelligence, the will has created the possibility of its own negation in a calm, ascetic, abstinent life.
sea elephant ::: --> A very large seal (Macrorhinus proboscideus) of the Antarctic seas, much hunted for its oil. It sometimes attains a length of thirty feet, and is remarkable for the prolongation of the nose of the adult male into an erectile elastic proboscis, about a foot in length. Another species of smaller size (M. angustirostris) occurs on the coast of Lower California, but is now nearly extinct.
self-conceited ::: a. --> Having an overweening opinion of one&
sequoia ::: n. --> A genus of coniferous trees, consisting of two species, Sequoia Washingtoniana, syn. S. gigantea, the "big tree" of California, and S. sempervirens, the redwood, both of which attain an immense height.
SEX. ::: The sex-impulse is certainly the greatest force in the vital plane ; if it can be sublimated and turned upwards, ojas is created which is a great help to the attainment of higher
Shivaism, Sivaism, Saivism: One of the major groups of Hinduism which has evolved, in addition to religious doctrines and observances, also philosophical systems of note, based upon certain Agamas (q.v.). Shiva, as one aspect of the trimurti (q.v.), has inspired cosmological speculations no less than psychological and logical ones. As philosophy it attained its greatest flower in the Kashmirian Trika (q.v.) -- K.F.L.
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.”
siddha. ::: one who has attained Self-realisation; one who has become Self; a seer of Truth; accomplished being; a perfected yogi; the one who has become Self or All; those without attachments or aversions
Siddhi ::: "Not by abstention from works does a man enjoy actionlessness, nor by mere renunciation (of works) does he attain to his perfection," — to siddhi, the accomplishment of the aims of his self-discipline by Yoga.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 19, Page: 106
siddhi. ::: realisation; attainment; accomplishment; achievement; mastery
Siddhi: Sanskrit for supernatural power. Specifically, the superhuman physical powers attained through Yoga.
Siddhi: (Skr.) Reaching of the aim, success, particularly the attainment of supernatural powers, such as clairvoyance, clairaudience, levitation, the penetration of matter, etc, claimed for the Yogin (q.v.) in the highest stage of the practice of Yoga (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
siddhis. :::supernatural powers attained through mantra, meditation, or other yogic practices; miracle
siddhi yoga. ::: yogic attainment which can only be attained and sustained by effort, and that when the effort lapses, the "attainment" disappears
"Sincerity means to lift all the movements of the being to the level of the highest consciousness and realisation already attained.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 14.
“Sincerity means to lift all the movements of the being to the level of the highest consciousness and realisation already attained.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 14.
SINCERITY. ::: SiDcezity means to lilt all the movements of the being to the level of the highest consciousness and realisation already attained.
Since the middle of the fourth root-race, no monads from the animal kingdom could any longer enter the human kingdom because from that time the earth started on its ascending arc of evolution. Nevertheless, the monads imbodied in the anthropoids will enter the very lowest and least evolved branchlets of the human kingdom during the fifth round. The monads now in anthropoid bodies will disappear from incarnation during the present fifth root-race to enter their inter-round paranirvana, remaining as astral monads until the next (fifth) round. A relatively few individuals among the anthropoids, because of having attained the most advanced degree of evolution in the anthropoid stock, will reach quasi-human status, although still in anthropoid bodies, before the fifth root-race has reached its end. Even these exceptional anthropoids will probably have died out before the fifth root-race is ended or by the early sixth root-race — a period several million years from now.
&
Socialism, Marxian: Early in their work, Marx and Engels called themselves communists (e.g., the "Communist Manifesto"). Later they found it more accurate, in view of the terminology of the day, to refer to themselves as socialists. During the war of 1914- '18, when socialists split into two camps, one supporting and the other opposing participation in the war, Lenin proposed for the latter group, which became the Third International, a return to the name communist, so far as a party designation was concerned, which proposal was adopted. Those who remained connected with the Second International retained the name socialist as a party designation. This split not only involved the problem of the war, but crystallized other fundamental divergences. For example, among "socialists", there was a widespread belief in gradualism -- the doctrine that the socialist society could be attained by piecemeal reform within the capitalist svstem and that no sudden change or contest of force need be anticipated. These beliefs were rejected by the "communists".
Socinians: Followers of the 16th century Italian, humanistic Christians, Socinus (Sotzzini), Laelius and Faustus. They advocated freedom of thought over against the orthodox expressions of Christianity. The Racovian Catechism (1605) states their method and doctrines. In general, they were anti-Trinitarians (see Trinitarianism), anti-Augustinian (opposing the doctrines or original sin, depravity, predestination), anti-Catholic institutionalism; their interpretation of Christianity was that it is a religion of the attainment of eternal life, Jesus being the revealer of God, and the Scriptures giving a supernatural revelation which is necessary and rationally defensible. A strong ethical note pervaded their theology. They opposed the view of sacramental mysteries. Although condemned by the Protestant churches, the Socinians exerted a tremendous influence even after their formal dissolution as a party. -- V.F.
Sophists: (5th Cent B.C.) Wandering teachers who came to Athens from foreign cities, and sought to popularize knowledge. They filled a need felt in Greece at this time for a general dissemination of that scientific knowledge which had previously been more or less privately cultivated in learned societies. Nowhere was this need more widespread than in Athens where a political career necessitated an acquaintance with the intellectual attainments of the race. The Sophists came to Athens to assist young men in achieving political success. Before long, this brought with it the subordination of purely theoretical learning to its practical usefulness, and the Sophists, far from teaching what is most likely to be true, instructed the youth in what is most likely to bear political fruit. Thus eloquent public appeal and the art of rhetoric soon took the place of pure science and philosophy. In this very desire, however, to persuade and refute, the problem presented itself as to whether among the various conflicting opinions which the Sophists had taught their pupils to defend and to oppose, there was anything of permanent value which could claim the assent of all men everywhere. This quest of the universal in knowledge and in conduct forms the basis of the Socratic Quest. -- M.F.
Specifically, naturalism usually refers to the doctrines and practices of the 19th century school of realism which arose as the literary analogue of positivism, and whose great masters were Flaubert, Zola, and de Maupassant. The fundamental dogma of the movement, as expressed by Zola in "Le Roman experimental" and "Les Romanciers naturalistes", states that naturalism is "the scientific mdhod applied to literature". Zola maintains that the task of the artist is to report and explain what happens in nature, art must aim at a literal transcript of reality, and the artist attains this by making an analytic study of character, motives, and behavior. Naturalism argues that all judgments of good and bad are conventional, with no real basis in nature, so art should seek to understand, not to approve or condemn. Human behavior is regarded as largely a function of environment and circumstances, and the novelist should exhibit these in detail, with no false idealizing of character, no glossing over of the ugly, and no appeal to supposed hidden forces. -- I.J.
Spiritual man: The term may be applied by many occult philosophies to designate a human being who has attained to the divine principle of wisdom and is therefore immune to the ills of the flesh.
Spiritual Transformation ::: What I mean by the spiritual transformation is something dynamic (not merely liberation of the self, or realization of the One which can very well be attained without any descent). It is a putting on of the spiritual consciousness dynamic as well as static in every part of the being down to the subconscient.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 35, Page: 174
sraddhavan labhate jnanam ::: the one who has faith attains to knowledge. [Gita 4.39]
Sri Aurobindo: "By attaining to the Unborn beyond all becoming we are liberated from this lower birth and death; by accepting the Becoming freely as the Divine, we invade mortality with the immortal beatitude and become luminous centres of its conscious self-expression in humanity.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The supernatural is that the nature of which we have not attained or do not yet know, or the means of which we have not yet conquered. The common taste for miracles is the sign that man"s ascent is not yet finished.” Essays Divine and Human
stature ::: 1. The natural height of a human or animal in an upright position. 2. Degree of development attained; level of achievement. thought-stature.
Stoic School: Founded by Zeno (of Citium, in Cyprus) in the year 308 B.C. in Athens. For Stoicism virtue alone is the only good and the virtuous man is the one who has attained happiness through knowledge, as Socrites had taught. The virtuous man thus finds happiness in himself and is independent of the external world which he has succeeded in overcoming by mastering himself, his passions and emotions. As for the Stoic conception of the universe as a whole, their doctrine is pantheistic. All things and all natural laws follow by a conscious determination from the basic World Reason, and it is this rational order by which, according to Stoicism, the wise man seeks to regulate his life as his highest duty. -- M.F.
strain ::: n. 1. A passage of melody, music, or songs as rendered or heard. 2. Kind, type or sort. strains. v. 3. To force to extreme effort, exert to the utmost (one"s limbs, organs, powers). 4. To make an extreme or excessive effort at or after some object of attainment. 5. Fig. To purify or refine by filtration. strains, strained, straining.
subtle vision ("s) ::: Sri Aurobindo: " This power of vision is sometimes inborn and habitual even without any effort of development, sometimes it wakes up of itself and becomes abundant or needs only a little practice to develop; it is not necessarily a sign of spiritual attainment, but usually when by practice of yoga one begins to go inside or live within, the power of subtle vision awakes to a greater or less extent; . . . .”*Letters on Yoga
"It is not necessary to have the mind quiet in order to see the lights — that depends only on the opening of the subtle vision in the centre which is in the forehead between the eyebrows. Many people get that as soon as they start sadhana. It can even be developed by effort and concentration without sadhana by some who have it to a small extent as an inborn faculty.” Letters on Yoga
"When the centres begin to open, inner experiences such as the seeing of light or images through the subtle vision in the forehead centre or psychic experiences and perceptions in the heart, become frequent — gradually one becomes aware of one"s inner being as separate from the outer, and what can be called a yogic consciousness with all its deeper movements develops in the place of the ordinary superficial mental and vital movements.” Letters on Yoga
Sufism: A classical development of mysticism and a reaction from the legalism and rigidity of orthodox Islam. Being a sect seeking to attain a nearer fellowship with God by scrupulous observation of the religious law, it represents an infiltration into Islam of the Christian-gnostic type of piety with its charismatic and ascetic features. Gained many of its converts from the heterodox Moslems in Persia. -- H.H.
Sufism ::: process of attaining closeness to the Creator through love, which is attained by purification of the nafs; tasawwuf
sukham aptum ::: [easy to attain]. [cf. Gita 5.6]
sukrtam u lokam ::: the other world to which those who do well the works of sacrifice attain. [Ved.]
summit ::: 1. The highest point or part, as of a hill, a line of travel, or any object; top; apex. 2. The highest state or degree; acme; zenith. 3. The highest point of attainment or aspiration. summits, summit-glories, crypt-summit, seer-summit. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as an adj.)
supernatural ::: “The supernatural is that the nature of which we have not attained or do not yet know, or the means of which we have not yet conquered. The common taste for miracles is the sign that man’s ascent is not yet finished.” Essays Divine and Human
tantalism ::: n. --> A punishment like that of Tantalus; a teasing or tormenting by the hope or near approach of good which is not attainable; tantalization.
Tantra(s)(Sanskrit) ::: A word literally meaning a "loom" or the warp or threads in a loom, and, by extension ofmeaning, signifying a rule or ritual for ceremonial rites. The Hindu Tantras are numerous works orreligious treatises teaching mystical and magical formulae or formularies for the attainment of magical orquasi-magical powers, and for the worship of the gods. They are mostly composed in the form of dialogsbetween Siva and his divine consort Durga, these two divinities being the peculiar objects of theadoration of the Tantrins.In many parts of India the authority of the Tantras seems almost to have superseded the clean andpoetical hymns of the Vedas.Most tantric works are supposed to contain five different subjects: (1) the manifestation or evolution ofthe universe; (2) its destruction; (3) the worship or adoration of the divinities; (4) the achievement orattainment of desired objects and especially of six superhuman faculties; (5) modes or methods of union,usually enumerated as four, with the supreme divinity of the kosmos by means of contemplativemeditation.Unfortunately, while there is much of interest in the tantric works, their tendency for long ages has beendistinctly towards what in occultism is known as sorcery or black magic. Some of the rites or ceremoniespracticed have to do with revolting details connected with sex.Durga, the consort of Siva, his sakti or energy, is worshiped by the Tantrins as a distinct personifiedfemale power.The origin of the Tantras unquestionably goes back to a very remote antiquity, and there seems to belittle doubt that these works, or their originals, were heirlooms handed down from originally debased ordegenerate Atlantean racial offshoots. There is, of course, a certain amount of profoundly philosophicaland mystical thought running through the more important tantric works, but the tantric worship in manycases is highly licentious and immoral.
Tantric: Adjective to Tantra (q.v.) Tao: The Way, principle, cosmic order, nature. "The Tao that can be expressed in words is not the eternal Tao." It is "vague and eluding," "deep and obscure," but "there is in it the form" and "the essence." "In it is reality." It "produced the One, the One produced the two, the two produced the three, and the three produced all things." Its "standard is the Natural." (Lao Tzu). "Tao has reality and evidence but no action nor form. It may be transmitted, but cannot be received. It may be attained, but cannot be seen. It is its own essence, and its own root." "Tao operates, and results follow." "Tao has no limit." "It is in the ant," "a tare," "a potsherd," "ordure." (Chuang Tzu, between 399 and 295 B.C.). The Confucian "Way;" the teachings of the sage; the moral order, the moral life, truth, the moral law; the moral principle. This means "the fulfillment of the law of our human nature." It is the path of man's moral life. "True manhood (jen) is that by which a man is to be a man. Generally speaking, it is the moral law" (Mencius, 371-289 B.C.). "To proceed according to benevolence and righteousness is called the Way." (Han Yu, 767-824). The Way, which means following the Reason of things, and also the Reason which is in everything and which everything obeys. (Neo-Confucianism). The Way or Moral Law in the cosmic sense, signifying "what is above the realm of corporeality," and the "successive movement of the active (yang) and the passive principles (yin)." In the latter sense as understood both in ancient Confucianism and in Neo-Confucianism, it is interchangeable with the Great Ultimate (T'ai Chi). Shao K'ang-chieh (1011-1077) said that "The Moral Law is the Great Ultimate." Chang Heng-ch'u (1022-1077) identified it with the Grand Harmony (Ta Ho) and said that "from the operation of the vital force (ch'i) there is the Way." This means that the Way is the principle of being as well as the sum total of the substance and functions of things. To Ch'eng I-ch'uan (1033-1107) "There is no Way independent of the active (yang) principle and the passive (yin) principle. Yet it is precisely the Way that determines the active and passive principles. These principles are the constituents of the vital force (ch'i), which is corporeal. On the other hand, the Way transcends corporeality." To Chu Hsi (1130-1200), the Way is "the Reason why things are as they are." Tai Tung-yuan (1723-1777) understood it to mean "the incessant transformation of the universe," and "the operation of things in the world, involving the constant flow of the vital force (ch'i) and change, and unceasing production and reproduction."
tat ::: that; "That which escapes definition or description and is yet not only real but attainable", a word used to indicate parabrahman as "something utterly Transcendent, something that is unnameable and mentally unknowable, a sheer Absolute". Since this Absolute "is in itself indefinable by reason, ineffable to the speech", it can only "be approached through experience", either "through an absolute negation of existence, as if it were itself a supreme Non-Existence, a mysterious infinite Nihil" (asat) or else "through an absolute affirmation of all the fundamentals of our own existence, . . . through an inexpressible absolute of being" (sat).
teneral ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or designating, a condition assumed by the imago of certain Neuroptera, after exclusion from the pupa. In this state the insect is soft, and has not fully attained its mature coloring.
The Agni- or Agneya-Purana is so named because Agni imparted to the sage Vasishtha the twofold knowledge of Brahman: that acquired through study of the “word,” the Vedas; and that higher apprehension attained through mystical contemplation (cf VP preface lviii; also 6:5).
The ethical teachings of the Bhagavad Gita (q.v.). of the various religio-philosophical groups, of the Buddhists and Jainas of Greater India, are high; but if such ideals have not been attained generally in practice, or even if repulsive and cruel rituals and linga worship are prevalent, such phenomena are understandable if we consider the 340 millions of teeming humanity within the fold of Hinduism, from aborigines to a Gandhi, Tagore, and Sir Raman. Treatises dealing with practical morality are very numerous. They may be classed into those of a purely religious leaning among which we might count all religio-philosophical literature of the Vedic and non-Vedic tradition, including drama and epic literature, and those that deal specifically with practices of the nature of self-culture (cf. Yoga), religious observances (sacrifice, priest-craft, rites, ceremonies, etc.), household affairs and duties (Grhyasutras), and the science of polity and government (Arthasastras). -- K.F.L..
The general superiority of theology in this system over the admittedly distinct discipline of philosophy, makes it impossible for unaided reason to solve certain problems which Thomism claims are quite within the province of the latter, e.g., the omnipotence of God, the immortality of the soul. Indeed the Scotist position on this latter question has been thought by some critics to come quite close to the double standard of truth of Averroes, (q.v.) namely, that which is true in theology may be false in philosophy. The univocal assertion of being in God and creatures; the doctrine of universal prime matter (q.v.) in all created substances, even angels, though characteristically there are three kinds of prime matter); the plurality of forms in substances (e.g., two in man) giving successive generic and specific determinations of the substance; all indicate the opposition of Scotistic metaphysics to that of Thomism despite the large body of ideas the two systems have in common. The denial of real distinction between the soul and its faculties; the superiority of will over intellect, the attainment of perfect happiness through a will act of love; the denial of the absolute unchangeableness of the natural law in view of its dependence on the will of God, acts being good because God commanded them; indicate the further rejection of St. Thomas who holds the opposite on each of these questions. However the opposition is not merely for itself but that of a voluntarist against an intellectualist. This has caused many students to point out the affinity of Duns Scotus with Immanuel Kant. (q.v.) But unlike the great German philosopher who relies entirely upon the supremacy of moral consciousness, Duns Scotus makes a constant appeal to revelation and its order of truth as above all philosophy. In his own age, which followed immediately upon the great constructive synthesis of Saints Albert, Bonaventure, and Thomas, this lesser light was less a philosopher because he and his School were incapable of powerful synthesis and so gave themselves to analysis and controversy. The principal Scotists were Francis of Mayron (d. 1327) and Antonio Andrea (d. 1320); and later John of Basoles, John Dumbleton, Walter Burleigh, Alexander of Alexandria, Lychetus of Brescia and Nicholas de Orbellis. The complete works with a life of Duns Scotus were published in 1639 by Luke Wadding (Lyons) and reprinted by Vives in 1891. (Paris) -- C.A.H.
The gunas affect every part of our natural being. They have indeed their strongest relative hold in the three different members of it, mind, life and body. Tamas, the principle of inertia, is strongest in material nature and in our physical being. The action of this principle is of two kinds, inertia of force and inertia of knowledge. Whatever is predominantly governed by Tamas, tends in its force to a sluggish inaction and immobility or else to a mechanical action which it does not possess, but is possessed by obscure forces which drive it in a mechanical round of energy; equally in its consciousness it turns to an inconscience or enveloped subconscience or to a reluctant, sluggish or in some way mechanical conscious action which does not possess the idea of its own energy, but is guided by an idea which seems external to it or at least concealed from its active awareness. Thus the principle of our body is in its nature inert, subconscient, incapable of anything but a mechanical and habitual self-guidance and action: though it has like everything else a principle of kinesis and a principle of equilibrium of its state and action, an inherent principle of response and a secret consciousness, the greatest portion of its rajasic motions are contributed by the lifepower and all the overt consciousness by the mental being. The principle of rajas has its strongest hold on the vital nature. It is the Life within us that is the strongest kinetic motor power, but the life-power in earthly beings is possessed by the force of desire, th
refore rajas turns always to action and desire; desire is the strongest human and animal initiator of most kinesis and action, predominant to such an extent that many consider it the father of all action and even the originator of our being. Moreover, rajas finding itself in a world of matter which starts from the principle of inconscience and a mechanical driven inertia, has to work against an immense contrary force; th
refore its whole action takes on the nature of an effort, a struggle, a besieged and an impeded conflict for possession which is distressed in its every step by a limiting incapacity, disappointment and suffering: even its gains are precarious and limited and marred by the reaction of the effort and an aftertaste of insufficiency and transience. The principle of sattwa has its strongest hold in the mind; not so much in the lower parts of the mind which are dominated by the rajasic life-power, but mostly in the intelligence and the will of the reason. Intelligence, reason, rational will are moved by the nature of their predominant principle towards a constant effort of assimilation, assimilation by knowledge, assimilation by a power of understanding will, a constant effort towards equilibrium, some stability, rule, harmony of the conflicting elements of natural happening and experience. This satisfaction it gets in various ways and in various degrees of acquisition. The attainment of assimilation, equilibrium and harmony brings with it always a relative but more or less intense and satisfying sense of ease, happiness, mastery, security, which is other than the troubled and vehement pleasures insecurely bestowed by the satisfaction of rajasic desire and passion. Light and happiness are the characteristics of the sattwic guna. The whole nature of the embodied living mental being is determined by these three gunas.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 684-685
The highest point or part, as of a hill, a line of travel, or any object; top; apex. 2. The highest state or degree; acme; zenith. 3. The highest point of attainment or aspiration. summits, summit-glories, crypt-summit, seer-summit. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as an adj.)
"The meaning of 'wu wei' is that there is no going in advance of nature. The meaning of 'wu pu wei' (there is nothing undone) is that, in following Tao, everything is done. The meaning of 'wu chih' (no governing) is that there is no interference with naturalness. And the phrase 'wu pu chih' (there is nothing that is not governed) is that the end is attained in accordance with the mutual fitness of things." (Huai-nan Tzu, 122 B.C.). -- W.T.C.
theosophy ::: n. --> Any system of philosophy or mysticism which proposes to attain intercourse with God and superior spirits, and consequent superhuman knowledge, by physical processes, as by the theurgic operations of some ancient Platonists, or by the chemical processes of the German fire philosophers; also, a direct, as distinguished from a revealed, knowledge of God, supposed to be attained by extraordinary illumination; especially, a direct insight into the processes of the divine mind, and the interior relations of the divine nature.
"The Unknowable, — not absolutely unknowable, but beyond mental knowledge, — can only be a higher degree in the intensity of being of that Something, a degree beyond the loftiest summit attainable by mental beings, and, if it were known as it must be known to itself, that discovery would not destroy entirely what is given us by our supreme possible knowledge but rather carry it to a higher fulfilment and larger truth of what it has already gained by self-vision and self-experience.” The Life Divine
“The Unknowable,—not absolutely unknowable, but beyond mental knowledge,—can only be a higher degree in the intensity of being of that Something, a degree beyond the loftiest summit attainable by mental beings, and, if it were known as it must be known to itself, that discovery would not destroy entirely what is given us by our supreme possible knowledge but rather carry it to a higher fulfilment and larger truth of what it has already gained by self-vision and self-experience.” The Life Divine
"The unknown is that which is beyond the known and though unknown is not unknowable if we can enlarge our faculties or attain to others that we do not yet possess.” The Upanishads*
“The unknown is that which is beyond the known and though unknown is not unknowable if we can enlarge our faculties or attain to others that we do not yet possess.” The Upanishads
“The will of man works in the ignorance by a partial light or more often flickerings of light which mislead as much as they illuminate. His mind is an ignorance striving to erect standards of knowledge, his will an ignorance striving to erect standards of right, and his whole mentality as a result very much a house divided against itself, idea in conflict with idea, the will often in conflict with the ideal of right or the intellectual knowledge. The will itself takes different shapes, the will of the intelligence, the wishes of the emotional mind, the desires and the passion of the vital being, the impulsions and blind or half-blind compulsions of the nervous and the subconscient nature, and all these make by no means a harmony, but at best a precarious concord among discords. The will of the mind and life is a stumbling about in search of right force, right Tapas which can wholly be attained in its true and complete light and direction only by oneness with the spiritual and supramental being.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“ This power of vision is sometimes inborn and habitual even without any effort of development, sometimes it wakes up of itself and becomes abundant or needs only a little practice to develop; it is not necessarily a sign of spiritual attainment, but usually when by practice of yoga one begins to go inside or live within, the power of subtle vision awakes to a greater or less extent; …”Letters on Yoga
To arrive at full possession of the powers of the dream-state, it is necessary first to exclude the attack of the sights, sounds etc. of the outer world upon the physical organs. It is quite possible indeed to be aware in the dream-trance of the outer physical world through the subtle senses which belong to the subtle body ; one may be aware of them just so far as one chooses and on a much wider scale than In the waking condition ; for the subtle senses have a far more powerful range than the gross physical organs, a range which may be made practically unlimited. But this awareness of the phj-sical world through the subtle senses is something quite different from our normal awareness of it through the physical organs ; the latter is incompatible with the settled state of trance, for the pressure of the physical senses breaks the Samadhi and calls back the mind to live in their normal field where alone they have power. But the subtle senses have power both upon their own planes and upon the physical world, though this is to them more remote than their own world of being. In Yoga various devices are used to seal up the doors of the physical sense, some of them physical devices ; but the one all-sufficient means is a force of concentration by which the mind is drawn inward to depths where the call of physical things can no longer easily attain to it. A second necessity is to get rid of the intervention of physical sleep. The ordinary habit of the mind when it goes in away from contact with physical things is to fall into the torpor of sleep or its dreams, and therefore when called in for the purposes of Samadhi, it gives or lends to give, at the first chance, by sheer force of habit, not the response demanded, but its usual response of ph)sical slumber. This habit of the mind has to be got rid of ; the mind has to Icam to be awake in the dream-stale, in possession of itself, not with the outgoing, but with an ingathered wakefulness in which, though immersed in itself, it exercises all its powers.
to ::: prep. --> The preposition to primarily indicates approach and arrival, motion made in the direction of a place or thing and attaining it, access; and also, motion or tendency without arrival; movement toward; -- opposed to from.
Hence, it indicates motion, course, or tendency toward a time, a state or condition, an aim, or anything capable of being regarded as a limit to a tendency, movement, or action; as, he is going to a trade; he is rising to wealth and honor.
touch ::: v. t. --> To come in contact with; to hit or strike lightly against; to extend the hand, foot, or the like, so as to reach or rest on.
To perceive by the sense of feeling.
To come to; to reach; to attain to.
To try; to prove, as with a touchstone.
To relate to; to concern; to affect.
To handle, speak of, or deal with; to treat of.
Transcendent, The ::: On the other side of the cosmic consciousness there is, attainable to us, a consciousness yet more transcendent,— transcendent not only of the ego, but of the Cosmos itself,—against which the universe seems to stand out like a petty picture against an immeasurable background. That supports the universal activity,—or perhaps only tolerates it; It embraces Life with Its vastness,—or else rejects it from Its infinitude.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 20
tuckahoe ::: n. --> A curious vegetable production of the Southern Atlantic United States, growing under ground like a truffle and often attaining immense size. The real nature is unknown. Called also Indian bread, and Indian loaf.
turiya &
unattainable ::: that cannot be attained or reached.
unattained ::: not attained or reached.
unborn ::: “By attaining to the Unborn beyond all becoming we are liberated from this lower birth and death; by accepting the Becoming freely as the Divine, we invade mortality with the immortal beatitude and become luminous centres of its conscious self-expression in humanity.” The Life Divine
Universe of discourse: See individual; and logic, formal, §§ 7, 8 Upadhi: (Skr. substitute, disguise) One of many conditions of body and mind obscuring the true state of man or his self which Indian philosophies try to remove for the attainment of moksa (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
Universe ::: The theosophical philosophy divides the universe into two general functional portions -- one theconsciousness side, the abode or dwelling place, and at the same time the aggregate, of all theself-conscious, thinking entities that the boundless universe contains; and the other, the material side ofnature, which is their schoolhouse, their home, and their playground too. This so-called material side is apractically infinite aggregate of monads or consciousness-centers passing through that particular phase oftheir evolutionary journey.This universe, therefore, is a vast aggregate of consciousnesscenters in both the two functional portionsof it; and these consciousness-centers theosophists call monads. They are entities conscious in differingdegrees, stretching along the boundless scale of the universal life; but in that particular phase whichpasses through what we humans call matter, those monads belonging to and forming that side of theuniverse, in the course of their long, long, evolutionary journey have not yet attained self-consciouspowers or faculties. And furthermore, what we call matter, in its last analysis is actually an aggregate ofthese monads manifesting in their physical expressions as life-atoms.The consciousness side of universal nature, which also consists of countless hosts of self-consciousentities, works in and through this other or material side; for these hosts of consciousnesses self-expressthemselves through this other or material function or side, through these other countless hosts of youngerand inferior and embryo entities, which are the life-atoms -- embryo gods. The universe is thereforeactually and literally imbodied consciousnesses.
upadhi. ::: "limited by"; limitation; external imposition; a term used in vedanta philosophy for any superimposition that gives a limited view of the true Reality and makes It appear as the relative, like the body of a man or animal is the upadhi of its spirit; one of many conditions of body and mind obscuring the true Self which needs to be removed for the attainment of liberation
Upadhi: Sanskrit for substitute, disguise. One of many conditions of body and mind obscuring the true state of man or his self which Indian philosophies try to remove for the attainment of moksha (q.v.). In occult terminology, this word is used in the sense of a “carrier of something lighter or subtler than itself”—for instance, the body is the upadhi of the spirit.
Utopian socialism: Given wide cuirency by the writings of Marx and Engels, this term signifies the socialist ideas of thinkcis like Owen, St. Simon and Fourier who protested against the sufferings of the masses under capitalism and who saw in social ownership of the means of production a remedy which would eliminate unemployment and afford economic security to all, but who at the same time felt that socialism could be attained by persuading the ruling classes to give up voluntarily their privileged positions and extensive holdings. Marx and Engels criticized such a conception of method and tactics as Utopian, naive, unhistorical, and opposed to it their own "scientific socialism". See Socialism, Marxian. -- J.M.S.
vain ::: superl. --> Having no real substance, value, or importance; empty; void; worthless; unsatisfying.
Destitute of forge or efficacy; effecting no purpose; fruitless; ineffectual; as, vain toil; a vain attempt.
Proud of petty things, or of trifling attainments; having a high opinion of one&
Vairagya: (Skr. ) Disgust, aversion, renunciation of worldly things, recommended for the attainment of moksa (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
vanity ::: n. --> The quality or state of being vain; want of substance to satisfy desire; emptiness; unsubstantialness; unrealness; falsity.
An inflation of mind upon slight grounds; empty pride inspired by an overweening conceit of one&
vaunt ::: v. i. --> To boast; to make a vain display of one&
Vedanta: The best known and most popular formulation of Hindu mystic philosophy, which teaches that the phenomenal world is mere illusion and has only seeming reality, as have also the apparent individual selves of the world, and there is but one self, Brahman-Atman; he who knows “that, soul art thou,” attains moksha and is released from the wheel of existence.
Vibhuta: Sanskrit for “manifestation of great power.” In Yoga, the eight supernatural, mystic powers which one can attain, viz. (1) the power of becoming as minute as an atom, (2) the power to become as light as cotton, (3) the power of reaching anywhere, even to the moon, (4) the power of having all wishes of whatever description realized, (5) the power to expand oneself into space, (6) the power to create, (7) the power to command all, and (8) the power of suppressing all desires.
victoria ::: n. --> A genus of aquatic plants named in honor of Queen Victoria. The Victoria regia is a native of Guiana and Brazil. Its large, spreading leaves are often over five feet in diameter, and have a rim from three to five inches high; its immense rose-white flowers sometimes attain a diameter of nearly two feet.
A kind of low four-wheeled pleasure carriage, with a calash top, designed for two persons and the driver who occupies a high seat in front.
vidvat sannyasa. ::: renunciation after the attainment of the knowledge of Reality; renunciation by the wise
Visistadvaita: (Skr.) "Qualified non-duality", the Vedantic (q.v.) doctrine of qualified monism advocated by Ramanuja (q.v.) which holds the Absolute to be personal, world and individuals to be real and distinct (visista), and salvation attainable only by grace of God earned through bhakti (q.v.). -- K.F.L.
vyakulata ::: excited passionate eagerness; the heart's eagerness for the attainment of the Divine.
Wai tan: External alchemy, as a means of nourishing life, attainingTao, and immortality, including transmutation of mercury into gold (also called chin tan), medicine, charms, magic, attempts at disappearance and change of bodily form. (Taoist religion). -- W.T.C.
Wang Yang-ming considered desire as an obstacle to the mind. The Neo-Confucians of the Ch'ing period, especially Tai Tung-yuan (1723-1777), however, argued that since desire is part of our nature, it has its rightful place, just as the vital force has its rightful place beside Reason. The main problem then would be to attain the harmony of human passion (ch'ing) and the originally good human nature (hsing). Thus Neo-Confucianism reasserted the principle of central harmony (chung yung), and central harmony is the Moral Law (tao). This Law finds expression in constant and orderly transformation, the realization of which is Reason. It will be seen that Neo-Confucianism is essentially compatible with western philosophy and science. It is to be expected, therefore, that both Neo-Confucianism and western thought will play a great role in any future philosophy in China. -- W.T.C
water thermometer ::: --> A thermometer filled with water instead of mercury, for ascertaining the precise temperature at which water attains its maximum density. This is about 39¡ Fahr., or 4¡ Centigrade; and from that point down to 32¡ Fahr., or 0¡ Centigrade, or the freezing point, it expands.
way ::: 1. A road, path, or highway affording passage from one place to another. Also fig. 2. Any line of passage or progression, esp. in a particular direction. 3. A direction or vicinity. 4. A course of life, action, or experience. 5. A prescribed course of life or conduct; also in pl. 6. A method, plan, or means for attaining a goal. 7. A method, plan, or means for attaining a goal. 8. Space for passing or advancing. 9. Characteristic or habitual manner. 10. Distance. ways, earth-ways, half-way, world-ways, Angel of the Way, evolving Way, heavenly Way, middle Way, shining upward Way, terrestrial Way, the Way.
What You See Is What You Get "jargon" (WYSIWYG) /wiz'ee-wig/ Describes a user interface for a document preparation system under which changes are represented by displaying a more-or-less accurate image of the way the document will finally appear, e.g. when printed. This is in contrast to one that uses more-or-less obscure commands that do not result in immediate visual feedback. True WYSIWYG in environments supporting multiple fonts or graphics is rarely-attained; there are variants of this term to express real-world manifestations including WYSIAWYG (What You See Is *Almost* What You Get) and WYSIMOLWYG (What You See Is More or Less What You Get). All these can be mildly derogatory, as they are often used to refer to dumbed-down {user-friendly} interfaces targeted at non-programmers; a hacker has no fear of obscure commands (compare {WYSIAYG}). On the other hand, {Emacs} was one of the very first WYSIWYG editors, replacing (actually, at first overlaying) the extremely obscure, command-based {TECO}. See also {WIMP}. (1999-03-03)
will, human ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The will of man works in the ignorance by a partial light or more often flickerings of light which mislead as much as they illuminate. His mind is an ignorance striving to erect standards of knowledge, his will an ignorance striving to erect standards of right, and his whole mentality as a result very much a house divided against itself, idea in conflict with idea, the will often in conflict with the ideal of right or the intellectual knowledge. The will itself takes different shapes, the will of the intelligence, the wishes of the emotional mind, the desires and the passion of the vital being, the impulsions and blind or half-blind compulsions of the nervous and the subconscient nature, and all these make by no means a harmony, but at best a precarious concord among discords. The will of the mind and life is a stumbling about in search of right force, right Tapas which can wholly be attained in its true and complete light and direction only by oneness with the spiritual and supramental being.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
yajnam brhantam asathe ::: [they attain to or enjoy a mighty sacrifice]. [Ved.]
yajna &
Yama: (Skr.) Restraint, particularly moral restraint as the first condition for attaining the object of Yoga (q.v.), including ahimsa (q.v.) and brahmacarya (q.v.), relinguishing theft and desire for gratuities. -- K.F.L.
yasah.prapti (yashahprapti) ::: the attainment of glory. yasahprapti
Yoga attains large results, but at an exorbitant price and to very little purpose.
Yoga(Sanskrit) ::: Literally "union," "conjunction," etc. In India it is the technical name for one of the sixDarsanas or schools of philosophy, and its foundation is ascribed to the sage Patanjali. The name Yogaitself describes the objective of this school, the attaining of union or at-one-ness with the divine-spiritualessence within a man. The yoga practices when properly understood through the instructions of genuineteachers -- who, by the way, never announce themselves as public lecturers or through books oradvertisements -- are supposed to induce certain ecstatic states leading to a clear perception of universaltruths, and the highest of these states is called samadhi.There are a number of minor forms of yoga practice and training such as the karma yoga, hatha yoga,bhakti yoga, raja yoga, jnana yoga, etc. Similar religious aspirations or practices likewise exist inOccidental countries, as, for instance, what is called salvation by works, somewhat equivalent to theHindu karma yoga or, again, salvation by faith -- or love, somewhat similar to the Hindu bhakti yoga;while both Orient and Occident have, each one, its various forms of ascetic practices which may begrouped under the term hatha yoga.No system of yoga should ever be practiced unless under the direct teaching of one who knows thedangers of meddling with the psychomental apparatus of the human constitution, for dangers lurk atevery step, and the meddler in these things is likely to bring disaster upon himself, both in matters ofhealth and as regards sane mental equilibrium. The higher branches of yoga, however, such as the rajayoga and jnana yoga, implying strict spiritual and intellectual discipline combined with a fervid love forall beings, are perfectly safe. It is, however, the ascetic practices, etc., and the teachings that go withthem, wherein lies the danger to the unwary, and they should be carefully avoided.
yogasiddhi (yogasiddhi; yoga-siddhi; yoga siddhi) ::: "the perfection that comes from the practice of Yoga"; the progressive or eventual attainment of perfection (siddhi) in yoga, especially in the yoga of selfperfection outlined in the sapta catus.t.aya, often not including karma or the effective half of the karma catus.t.aya.
Yoga: (Skr. "yoking") Restraining of the mind (see Manas), or, in Patanjali's (q.v.) phrase: citta vrtti nirodha, disciplining the activity of consciousness. The object of this universally recommended practice in India is the gaining of peace of mind and a deeper insight into the nature of reality. On psycho-physical assumptions, several aids are outlined in all works on Yoga, including moral preparation, breath-control, posture, and general toning up of the system. Karma or kriya Yoga is the attainment of Yoga ends primarily by doing, bhakti Yoga by devotion, jnana Yoga by mental or spiritual means. The Yogasutras (q.v.) teach eight paths: Moral restraint (see yama), self-culture (see niyama), posture (see asana), breath-control (see prandyama), control of the senses (see pratyahara), concentration (see dharana), meditation or complete surrender to the object of meditation (see samadhi). See Hathayoga. -- K.F.L.
Yoga Slddhl ; The perfection that comes from the practice ot yoga can be best attained by the combined working of four great instruments. There is, first, the knowledge of the truths, princi- ples, powers and processes that govern the realisation — sdstra.
Yogasutras: Famous work by Patanjali, on which Yoga is founded. It is essentially a mental discipline in eight stages (see: Yoga) for the attainment of spiritual freedom without neglecting physical and moral preparation.
Yogasutras: Famous work by Patanjali (q.v.) on which is founded Yoga, one of the great systems of Indian philosophy (q.v.). It is essentially a mental discipline in eight stages (see Yoga) for the attainment of spiritual freedom without neglecting physical and moral preparation. In philosophic outlook, the sutras (q.v.) and most commentaries on them are allied to the Sankhya (q.v.), yet not without having theistic leanings. -- K.F.L.
yogin ::: one who practises yoga; one who has attained yogasiddhi. yo . . . sami samim
Zen Buddhism: The Japanese “mediation school” of Buddhism, based on the theories of the “universality of Buddha-nature” and the possibility of “becoming a Buddha in this very body.” It teaches the way of attaining Buddhahood fundamentally by meditation.
KEYS (10k)
53 Sri Ramakrishna
17 Sri Aurobindo
8 Ramakrishna
6 Sri Sarada Devi
5 Sri Ramana Maharshi
5 Saint Thomas Aquinas
3 Swami Akhandananda
3 Sri Ramana Maharshi
3 Book of Golden Precepts
2 Yamamoto Tsunetomo
2 SWAMI YATISWARANANDA
2 SWAMI VIRESWARANANDA
2 Ramesh Balsekar
2 Philo
2 Manapurush Swami Shivananda
2 Attar of Nishapur
2 The Mother
2 Saint Augustine of Hippo
2 Dogen Zenji
2 Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
1 Zen Proverb
1 William James
1 Unknown
1 Udanavarga
1 The Lotus of Bliss
1 The Book of Golden Precepts
1 Tao Te Ching
1 Taigu Ryokan
1 SWAMI VIRAJANANDA
1 Swami Vijnanananda
1 SWAMI TRIGUNATITANANDA
1 Swami Sivananda
1 SWAMI BRAHMANANDA
1 Swami Adbhutananda
1 SWAMI ABHEDANANDA
1 Sri Ramakrishna: One has to realize the Supreme Self. One has to attain Self-knowledge. After that the body may remain or go. Till then the body has to be taken care of.
1 Sri Aurobindo?
1 Sri Anandamayi Ma
1 Shunryu Suzuki
1 Shankaracharya
1 Samuel Johnson
1 Saint John of the Cross
1 Saint Ignatius of Antioch
1 Saint Ambrose
1 Romans V. 3
1 Rilke
1 Rainer Maria Rilke
1 Rainer Maria Rilke
1 - Oracle of Sumiyoshi
1 Napoleon Hill
1 MOTHER MIRA
1 Mohyiddin in Arabi
1 Li-Ki
1 Laws of Manu
1 Laozi
1 Katha Upanishad II.24
1 Kaivalya Upanishad
1 John Wheeler
1 Inscriptions of Asoka
1 Hindu Saying
1 Gyothai
1 Gurdjieff
1 Gujarati Hymn [Gujarati an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat. "Death" refers to death of ego.]
1 Gospel of Thomas
1 G.I. Gurdjieff
1 Foshu-hing-tsan-king
1 Dhammapada
1 David A. Bhodan. See:
1 Confucius
1 Buddhist Texts
1 Buddhist Text
1 Buddha
1 Bhagavad Git. V. 16
1 Bhagavad Gita 11. 53
1 Asanga
1 Amma
1 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
1 Confucius
1 Aristotle
1 Aleister Crowley
1 Abul Qasim al-Qushayri (r)
1 A B Purani
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
28 Mahatma Gandhi
26 Sri Ramakrishna
24 Frederick Lenz
20 Anonymous
17 Sri Aurobindo
16 Swami Vivekananda
14 Samuel Johnson
14 Gautama Buddha
13 Friedrich Nietzsche
10 Sri Ramana Maharshi
10 Mehmet Murat ildan
10 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
8 Aristotle
7 Leo Tolstoy
7 Laozi
7 Lao Tzu
7 James Allen
7 Helen Keller
7 Charles Dickens
6 Sun Tzu
1:More important than any stage which you will attain is your sincerity, your right effort." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
2:He who holds on to the Lord, even when afflicted by sufferings, will certainly attain to Him. ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
3:Without intense desire, no one can attain the blessed state of God-Vision. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
4:All effort is due to the illusory desire on the part of an illusory individual, to attain an illusory goal. ~ Ramesh Balsekar, #KEYS
5:If you live one sixth of what is taught you, you will surely attain the goal. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
6:One immersed in worldliness one cannot attain to divine knowledge and see God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
7:When the mind merges in the Heart, it will attain perfection as peace. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
8:How few are they who can attain samadhi and rid themselves of this aham, this self! ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
9:To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world. ~ Aristotle, #KEYS
10:Words fail us when we seek, not to express Him who Is, but merely to attain to the expression of the powers that environ Him. ~ Philo, #KEYS
11:Creatures in themselves cannot attain the simplicity of God ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.25.3ad3)., #KEYS
12:When thou possessest knowledge thou shalt attain soon to peace. ~ Bhagavad Git. V. 16, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
13:Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.~ Dogen Zenji, #KEYS
14:If we attain something
it was there from the beginning of time.
If we lose something
it is hiding somewhere near us.
~ Taigu Ryokan,#KEYS
15:Thus, then now as ever, I enter the Path of Darkness, if haply so I may attain the Light.
~ Aleister Crowley,#KEYS
16:If you live one sixth of what is taught you, you will surely attain the goal. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
17:Let us make our minds pure, the rest will be easy; and we shall attain spiritual bliss comparable to nothing else in life. ~ Swami Vijnanananda, #KEYS
18:Remember, the Rishis of old gave up the world in order to attain God. This is the one thing needful. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
19:The true royalty is spiritual knowledge; put forth thy efforts to attain it. ~ Attar of Nishapur, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
20:What you are must always displease you, if you would attain to that which you are not. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
21:Each individual mind is bound to attain to freedom, and perfection through gradual experience; by going through the process of evolution. ~ SWAMI ABHEDANANDA, #KEYS
22:Through the shocks of difficulty and death
Man shall attain his godhead. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Prologue,#KEYS
23:Truth is not far away. It is nearer than near. There is no need to attain it, since not one of your steps leads away from it." ~ Dogen Zenji, #KEYS
24:There is nothing in the world that man's intelligence cannot attain, annihilate or accomplish. ~ Hindu Saying, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
25:Be master of thy soul, O seeker of eternal verities, if thou wouldst attain thy end. ~ Book of Golden Precepts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
26:Awake, arise; strive incessantly towards the knowledge so that thou mayst attain unto the peace. ~ Buddhist Text, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
27:Do Japa and meditation as you like, provided you keep your mind steadfast in the Lord. You will attain to your goal in this way. Why do you worry? ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
28:Be master of thy soul, O seeker of the eternal truths, if thou wouldst attain the goal. ~ Book of Golden Precepts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
29:All that is required is to cease regarding as real that which is unreal. That is all we need to attain wisdom. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
30:Be humble if thou wouldst attain to wisdom; be humbler still if thou hast attained to it ~ Book of Golden Precepts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
31:Never relax, for you will not attain to the possession of true spiritual delights if first you do not learn to deny your every desire. ~ Saint John of the Cross, [T5], #KEYS
32:Discrimination (viveka) and non-attachment (Vairaga) are the two purifying agents through which the worldly attain purity. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
33:Not by work, not by family, not by riches, but by renunciation great beings attain to immortality. ~ Kaivalya Upanishad, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
34:What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours—that is what you must be able to attain. ~ Rilke, #KEYS
35:It is difficult to attain samadhi. The ego of ours is so persistent! For this reason alone, one has to be born again and again. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
36:The necessary thing is after all but this; solitude, great inner solitude. Going into oneself for hours meeting no one - this one must be able to attain. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke , #KEYS
37:The more attachment to the world, the less likely is one to attain Jnana. The less attachment, more likely is one to attain Jnana. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
38:Those who have any wish to attain God and make progress should particularly guard themselves against the snares of lust and wealth. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
39:To attain to God with the mind is a great blessing, but to comprehend Him is impossible ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on John 1, lect. 5)., #KEYS
40:I must attain perfection in this life! I must find God with a single utterance!" By such violent love, the Lord is quickly attracted. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
41:The kripa-siddhas attain perfection through the manifest grace of God, they are like a poor man made wealthy by the kindness of a king. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
42:We know some things about God through faith which, because of their sublimity, demonstrative reason cannot attain ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ScG 3.40)., #KEYS
43:Words fail us when we seek, not to express Him who Is, but merely to attain to the expression of the powers that environ Him. ~ Philo, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
44:The Jnana-Yoga will attain Jnana and Bhakti. It will be given to him to realize Brahman and, the Lord willing, the personal God of Bhakti. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
45:Whoever performs devotional exercises with the belief that there is one God, is bound to attain Him, no matter what aspect He is worshiped ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
46:If you can attain devotion to the lotus-feet of the Lord, singing His glory, then you will not have to struggle long to control the senses. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
47:An ounce of practice is better than tons of theory. Practice Yoga, Religion and Philosophy in daily life and attain Self-realization. ~ Swami Sivananda, Light Power and Wisdom, Introduction, #KEYS
48:What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours ~ that is what you must be able to attain." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #KEYS
49:To conform one's conduct to one's talk is an eminent virtue; attain to that virtue and then you may speak of the duties of others. ~ Li-Ki, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
50:And yet, O the happiness of being man and of being able to recognise the way of the Truth and by following it to attain the goal. ~ Gyothai, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
51:If you are never parted from the aspiring resolve to attain awak- ening, wherever you are born-whether above, below, or on the same level-you will not forget the thought of awakening. ~ Asanga, #KEYS
52:Let me be fodder for wild beasts — that is how I can attain to God. I am God's wheat and I am being ground by the teeth of wild beasts to make a pure loaf for Christ. ~ Saint Ignatius of Antioch, #KEYS
53:One cannot be guileless without a great deal of spiritual discipline in previous births. A hypocritical and calculating mind can never attain God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
54:Tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope.-Only by hope can one attain to unhoped-for things. ~ Romans V. 3, 4, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
55:What offering should be made that we may attain to the Eternal? To find the Eternal thou must offer him thy body, thy mind and all thy possessions. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
56:When thy understanding shall stand immovable and unshakeable in concentration, then thou shalt attain to the divine Union. ~ Bhagavad Gita 11. 53, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
57:As Augustine says, to attain to God with the mind is a great blessing, but to comprehend Him is impossible ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Commentary on John 1, lect. 5)., #KEYS
58:Do not be proud of wealth, people, relations and friends, or youth. All these are snatched by time in the blink of an eye. Giving up this illusory world, know and attain the Supreme. ~ Shankaracharya, #KEYS
59:What is there in learning and scholarship? You can attain God by calling upon Him with a yearning heart. Knowledge of different kinds is not essential. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
60:The spiritual life is one of intense striving. In order to attain success, the aspirant should always be up and doing. The life of the seeker after Truth must be dynamic and creative. ~ SWAMI YATISWARANANDA, #KEYS
61:When a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain, and his virtue is not sufficient to enable him to hold, whatever he may have gained, he will lose again. ~ Confucius, Analects, 15:32, i, #KEYS
62:If the disciple has sincere faith in the Guru, it is easy for him to attain Divine knowledge and devotion. The one thing needful is faith in the Guru. When this is gained, everything is gained. ~ SWAMI BRAHMANANDA, #KEYS
63:What offering should be made that we may attain to the Eternal? To find the Eternal thou must offer him thy body, thy mind and all thy possessions. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
64:Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it. ~ Gurdjieff, #KEYS
65:You must practice tapasya. Only then can you attain the goal. It will avail you nothing even if you learn the texts of the scriptures by heart. You must swallow some. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
66:I strive to attain the happiness which does not pass away nor perish and which has not its source in riches or beauty nor depends upon them. ~ Foshu-hing-tsan-king, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
67:Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it. ~ G.I. Gurdjieff, #KEYS
68:O disciple, that which was not created dwells in thee. If thou wish to attain to it,...thou must strip thyself of thy dark robes of illusion. ~ The Book of Golden Precepts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
69:Q.: Sir, why does one take so much care of his body? ~ Sri Ramakrishna: One has to realize the Supreme Self. One has to attain Self-knowledge. After that the body may remain or go. Till then the body has to be taken care of., #KEYS
70:The overcoming of the sex instinct and impulse is indeed binding on all who would attain to self-mastery and lead the spiritual life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, The Divine Body, #KEYS
71:By practicing spiritual disciplines, you attain perfection by His grace. Of course some effort is necessary, but it ultimately ends in Realization of God and attainment of bliss. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
72:You speak of paths as if you were somewhere and the Self somewhere else and you had to go and attain it. But in fact the Self is here and now and you are it always." ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, (1879-1950), a Hindu sage, Wikipedia., #KEYS
73:We did for one instant attain to touch it... in a flash of the mind attained to touch the eternal Wisdom which abides over all. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, Confessions 9, 10, 23 (5th century) #KEYS
74:Whosoever recognises at all times his faults of omission and cleanses himself by observing the ways of purity in each one of his actions, shall attain to perfection. ~ Udanavarga, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
75:By virtue alone man cannot attain to the highest, but by virtue he can develop a first capacity for attaining to it, adhikāra. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Synthesis of Devotion and Knowledge, #KEYS
76:Those who wish to attain God and progress in religious devotion, should particularly guard themselves against the snares of lust and wealth. Otherwise they can never attain perfection. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
77:If India becomes an intellectual province of Europe, she will never attain to her natural greatness or fulfil the possibilities within her. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - II, Indian Resurgence and Europe, #KEYS
78:It is not sufficient for poetry to attain high intensities of word and rhythm; it must have, to fill them, an answering intensity of vision. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Poetic Vision and the Mantra, #KEYS
79:Be content with wherever and in whatever situation He places you. The goal is to call upon Him and to attain to Him. If you call upon Him, He will lead you by the hand. You will have no fear if you can depend on Him. ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
80:Chanting is no more holy than listening to the murmur of a stream, counting prayer beads no more sacred than simply breathing. . . . If you wish to attain oneness with the Tao, don't get caught up in spiritual superficialities. ~ Laozi, #KEYS
81:See that there is nothing you must do or attain in order to be what you already are. And then, upon SEEING THIS, if you feel compelled be a light unto another, and point the way. But first be a light unto yourself." ~ David A. Bhodan. See:, #KEYS
82:Not all can attain to the perfection of wisdom as Solomon or Daniel did, but the spirit of wisdom is poured out on all according to their capacity, that is, on all the faithful. If you believe, you have the spirit of wisdom. ~ Saint Ambrose, #KEYS
83:The more arduously one practices spiritual disciplines, the more quickly one will attain to God. Even if he doesn't practice any spiritual disciplines he will attain to Him at the last moment of his life-he will certainly. ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
84:Therefore regard attentively this ocean of impermanence, contemplate it even to its foundation and labour no more to attain but one sole thing,-the kingdom of the Permanent. ~ Buddhist Texts, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
85:One who has not ceased from evil living or is without peace or without concentration or whose mind has not been tranquillised, cannot attain to Him by the intelligence. ~ Katha Upanishad II.24, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
86:... happiness is daily experienced by everyone in sleep, when there is no mind. To attain that natural happiness one must know oneself. For that, Self-Enquiry, Who am I? is the chief means.
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,#KEYS
87:The nearer you come to God, the less you are disposed to questioning and reasoning. When you actually attain Him, when you behold Him as the Reality, then all noise, all disputations, come to an end. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
88:You are leading a householder's life. That is very good. It is like fighting from a fort. But one should spend some time in solitude and attain Knowledge. Then one can lead the life of a householder. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
89:Longing is the means of realizing Ātman. A man must strive to attain God with all his body, with all his mind, and with all his speech. By thinking day and night of God one acquires the nature of God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
90:It is by the Grace of the Divine and the aid of a Force greater than your own, not by personal capacity and worth that you can attain the goal of the sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Call and the Capacity, #KEYS
91:There are men in the world who labour to attain to spirituality and sages who are pure and perfect and can explain this life and the other of which they have themselves acquired the knowledge. ~ Unknown, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
92:Continue to pray without losing heart. Everything will happen in time. For how many cycles did the Munis and Rishis of old practice austerities to realize God, and do you believe you will attain to Him in a flash? Is it so easy to realize God? ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
93:Don't misunderstand the non-dual message and get into the 'nothing to do, nothing to attain' attitude. The point is to clarify who and what you are and resolve the roots of suffering. Sure, once this is clear, there is technically 'nothing to do'. ~ John Wheeler, #KEYS
94:Every creature who is moved to attain and perceive Him will be cast back by the splendour of His majesty, nor is there anyone who cranes his neck to see Him whose glance is not turned aside in amazement. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #KEYS
95:Love is a priceless thing, only to be won at the cost of death. Those who live to die, these attain; for they have shed all thoughts of self." ~ Gujarati Hymn [Gujarati an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat. "Death" refers to death of ego.], #KEYS
96:The truth is that you cannot attain God if you have even a trace of desire. Subtle is the way of dharma. If you are trying to thread a needle, you will not succeed if the thread has even a slight fiber sticking out. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
97:Without continence nothing great can be achieved. Without absolute continence, you can neither have perfect health, nor be able to do good to others, or attain realization. Continence is such a great power, so noble, so necessary for all. ~ SWAMI TRIGUNATITANANDA, #KEYS
98:No one can attain to truth by himself. Only by laying stone on stone with the cooperation of all, by the millions of generations from our forefather Adam to our own times, is that temple reared which is to be a worthy dwelling place of the Great God. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #KEYS
99:To an Earthkeeper, love is not a feeling or something your barter with. Love is the essence of who you are, and it radiates from you as a brilliant aura: You become love, practice fearlessness, and attain enlightenment." ~ Alberto Villoldo, Cuban-born psychologist., #KEYS
100:Let us follow in his paths by the guidance of the Gospel; then we shall deserve to see him who has called us into his kingdom. If we wish to attain a dwelling-place in his kingdom we shall not reach it unless we hasten there by our good deeds. ~ Rule of St. Benedict, #KEYS
101:An aspirant must control the dissipation of the mind. Conquest over the senses and the mind helps one to attain freedom from the charms and temptations of the world. Free from worldly distractions, nothing remains in the mind but the longing to know God. ~ SWAMI RAMA, #KEYS
102:I must attain God in this very life; yea, in three days I must find Him; nay, with a single utterance of His name I will draw Him to me" - with such violent Love the devotee can attract the Lord and realize Him quickly. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
103:Let the Sadhana be regular, continuous, unbroken, and earnest. Not only regularity, but also continuity in Sadhana and meditation is necessary if you want to attain Self-realization quickly. A spiritual stream once set going does not dry up. ~ Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #KEYS
104:What is the use of making pilgrimages if you can attain love of God remaining where you are? Pilgrimage becomes futile if it does not enable you to attain love of God. Love of God is the one essential and necessary thing. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
105:For each created thing there is not only a single logos, but a large number, according to the measure of each one. For the holy powers attain to the true logoi of the objects, but not unto the first, that which is known solely by Christ. ~ Evagrius of Pontus, Gnostikos 40, #KEYS
106:One cannot completely get rid of the six passions: lust, anger, greed, and the like. Therefore one should direct them to God. If you must have desire and greed, then you should desire love of God and be greedy to attain Him. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
107:It is far better to be an animal than to be a man making no effort to attain knowledge, for … the animals have no sin and have no need to expiate them." ~ Chandrashekhara Bharati III, (1892-1954 ) a significant spiritual figure in Hinduism during the 20th century, Wikipedia, #KEYS
108:The Cause of all things is the same as the End of all things. For God is the Beginning, i.e., the Cause, of all creatures and their End since from Him they receive their being and begin to be, and towards Him they are moved so that they may attain in Him their rest. ~ Maximus, #KEYS
109:As by God's gift, I find you with the zeal necessary to attain this end, and you on your part help me with your prayers. I will try to fan into flame the spark of divine love that is hidden within you, as far as I am able through the power of the Holy Spirit. ~ Basil the Great, #KEYS
110:Call on the Master devotedly; you will attain everything. I say, you are blessed; for you have been born in such an age. This is the time when you can see His divine sport. One can easily understand this divine play if he looks upon it with faith and devotion ~ Sri Sarada Devi, #KEYS
111:How rare is selflessness! Selfishness and self-advertisement are rampant everywhere! How little of the mind is given to God and how much of it to the world and its objects! Unless you have dispassion toward the world, you cannot attain knowledge or devotion. ~ Swami Turiyananda, #KEYS
112:May my actions, O Divine Mother, be fewer every day till I attain Thee. May I perform, without attachment to the results, only what action is absolutely necessary for me. May I have great love for Thee as I go on with my few duties. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
113:The Lord is within you, He is seated in your heart. Whatever you see, hear, taste & touch is God. Therefore hate not anybody, cheat not anybody, harm not anybody. Love & be one with all. You will soon attain eternal bliss, immortality, & perennial joy. ~ Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #KEYS
114:What is the goal of spiritual practices? It is to realize God, to attain Divine grace. The practices are meant to clear the heart of all the impurities brought there by lust & greed. Unless this is done, you can never reach your goal, however much you may try. ~ SWAMI BRAHMANANDA, #KEYS
115:Creatures are intrinsically structured to an other- directedness through which they yet attain to their own proper power (ST I, Q19, a2): they are thus internally ecstatic, a consequence of their being good and so interiorly propelled to communicating that good... ~ Graham McAleer, #KEYS
116:So long as one has not become-as simple as a child, one cannot expect the divine illumination. Forget all the knowledge of the world that you have acquired and become as ignorant as a child; then you shall attain to the divine wisdom. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
117:If a man chooses a certain Way and seems to have no particular talent for this Way, he can still become a master if he so chooses. By keeping at a particular form of study a man can attain perfection either in this life or the next (if a next life is believed in). ~ Miyamoto Musashi, #KEYS
118:Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings, and dislocations of bones; let cutting off of members; let shatterings of the whole body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ. ~ Saint Ignatius, #KEYS
119:Through the Spirit we become citizens of heaven, we are admitted to the company of the angels, we enter into eternal happiness and abide in God. Through the Spirit we acquire a likeness to God; indeed, we attain what is beyond our most sublime aspirations—we become God. ~ Saint Basil, #KEYS
120:To practice spiritual disciplines in a haphazard, lazy way means that there is not that earnest desire to attain God. Practice must be performed with eagerness, in a systematic, orderly manner. One must not be guided by mere emotion but use one's intellect as well ~ Swami Turiyananda, #KEYS
121:When the water of the fetid pool and the glorious Ganges shall appear to thy eyes as one, when the Sound of the flute and the clamour of this crowd shall have no longer any difference to thy ear, then shalt thou attain to the divine Wisdom, ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
122:Even if, in our spiritual practice, it appears we are trying to attain enlightenment, we are actually only expressing it. If we take up Zazen, for instance, then deep within we are doing so not to become Buddhas but to behave like the Buddhas we already are
~ Ken Wilber, No Boundary, Pg 145,#KEYS
123:God is always inside and also outside, telling us to shed fears and worries. 'You can't run away from Me,' says He. But I am ever inside you; seek and you shall find,The moment you attain complete mastery over your passions, you will get Me within you, effulgent and blissful ~ Swami Vijnanananda, #KEYS
124:If we surrender our conscious will and allow it to be made one with the will of the Eternal, then, and then only, shall we attain to a true freedom;
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [97],#KEYS
125:So long as one has not become-as simple as a child, one cannot expect the divine illumination. Forget all the knowledge of the world that you have acquired and become as ignorant as a child; then you shall attain to the divine wisdom. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
126:Strive to understand with that supreme intuition which will cause you to attain to divine knowledge and which is in harmony with the soul of eternal things, so that the mysteries of spiritual wisdom may be clearly revealed to you. ~ id. "Kitab-el-ikon", the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
127:When the water of the fetid pool and the glorious Ganges shall appear to thy eyes as one, when the Sound of the flute and the clamour of this crowd shall have no longer any difference to thy ear, then shalt thou attain to the divine Wisdom, ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
128:The man whose soul aspires to the Eternal cannot give thought to such silly questions as that of daivic food, that is to say, a simple vegetarian diet, and for him who does not desire to attain to the Eternal, beef is as good as daivic food. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
129:The obstacles met by the seeker after concentration are illness, langour, doubt, negligence, idleness, the domination of the senses, false perception, impotence to attain and instability in a state of meditation once attained. ~ Patanjali : Aphroisms I. 30, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
130:Innumerable are the ways that lead to God. There are the paths of jnāna, of karma, and of bhakti. If you are sincere, you will attain God in the end, whichever path you follow. Roughly speaking, there are three kinds of yoga: jnanayoga, karma yoga, and bhaktiyoga ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
131:our worth lies only in the measure of our effort to exceed ourselves, and to exceed ourselves is to attain the Divine. Human mediocrity is intolerable. We aspire for a knowledge truly knowing, for a power truly powerful, for a love that truly loves.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
132:Pray to God with a longing heart. He will surely listen to your prayer if it is sincere. Perhaps He will direct you to holy men with whom you can keep company; and that will help you on your spiritual path. Perhaps someone will tell you, 'Do this and you will attain God.' ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
133:If we walk in the path of true wisdom avoiding the two errors (asceticism and mortifications and the sensual life) we shall attain to the highest perfection. If religion consisted solely in mortifications and asceticism, it could never lead n.; to Peace. ~ Fo-sho-hing-san king, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
134:Having attained to that unalterable calm which nothing can trouble one can afterwards meditate and form an assured judgment on the essence of things; when one has meditated and formed a sure judgment on the essence of things, afterwards one can attain to the desired state of perfection. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
135:Having attained to that unalterable calm which nothing can trouble one can afterwards meditate and form an assured judgment on the essence of things; when one has meditated and formed a sure judgment on the essence of things, afterwards one can attain to the desired state of perfection. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
136:Man is in truth a compound of eternity and time. The more he is attached to temporal things and rests in them, the farther he grows from things eternal; they seem to him petty, just as great objects appear small when we see them from a distance, and he can never attain to real peace. ~ J. Tauler: Institutions, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
137:Only two kinds of people can attain "Self-Knowledge": those who are not encumbered at all with learning, that is to say, whose minds are not over-crowded with thoughts borrowed from others; and those who, after studying all the scriptures and sciences, have come to realize that they know nothing. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna., #KEYS
138:What is the true meaning of tapasya?
Tapasya is the discipline one imposes upon oneself to arrive at the discovery of the Divine.
Are tapasya and aspiration the same thing?
No, you cant do tapasya without aspiration. Aspiration is first, the will to attain something. Tapasya is the process there is indeed a process, a method. ~ The Mother, 1950-1951#KEYS
139:Whoever wishes to attain to the highest perfection of his being and to the vision of the supreme good, must have a knowledge of himself as of the things about him to the very core. It is only so that he can arrive at the supreme clarity. Therefore learn to know thyself, that is better for thee than to know all the powers of the creation. ~ Maitre Eckhart, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
140:541 - Canst thou see God in thy torturer and slayer even in thy moment of death or thy hours of torture? Canst thou see Him in that which thou art slaying, see and love even while thou slayest? Thou hast thy hand on the supreme knowledge. How shall he attain to Krishna who has never worshipped Kali?
All is the Divine and the Divine alone exists.
~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,#KEYS
141:The intellectual understanding is only the lower buddhi; there is another and a higher buddhi which is not intelligence but vision, is not understanding but rather an over-standings in knowledge, and does not seek knowledge and attain it in subjection to the data it observes but possesses already the truth and brings it out in the terms of a revelatory and intuitional thought.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
142:The soul of each man contains the potential divinity. Our aim must be to make apparent this divinity within us by subduing our inner and outer nature. Attain to him by works or by adoration, by physical mastery, by philosophy, by one, by several or by all of these methods and be free. That is the whole of religion. Doctrines, dogmas, rituals, books, temples, forms are only secondary details. ~ Vivekananda, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
143:It is impossible to lay down precise rules by which a man may attain to the knowledge and conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel; for that is the particular secret of each one of us; a secret not to be told or even divined by any other, whatever his grade. It is the Holy of Holies, whereof each man is his own High Priest, and none knoweth the Name of his brother's God, or the Rite that invokes Him. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, #KEYS
144:It is important to preserve the body's strength and health, for it is our best instrument. Take care that it is strong and healthy, you possess no better instrument. Imagine that it is as strong as steel and that thanks to it you travel over this ocean of life. The weak will never attain to liberation, put off all weakness, tell your body that it is robust, your intelligence that it is strong, have in yourself a boundless faith and hope ~ Vivekananda, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
145:But if we desire to make the most of the opportunity that this life gives us, if we wish to respond adequately to the call we have received and to attain to the goal we have glimpsed, not merely advance a little towards it, it is essential that there should be an entire self-giving. The secret of success in Yoga is to regard it not as one of the aims to be pursued in life, but as the one and only aim, not as an important part of life, but as the whole of life.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
146:For, as I take it, Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the great Men who have worked here. They were the leaders of men, these great ones; the modellers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do or attain; all things that we see standing accomplished in the world are properly the outer material result, the practical realisation and embodiment, of Thoughts that dwelt in the great Men sent into the world: the soul of the world's history, it may justly be considered, were the history of these.
~ Thomas Carlyle, 1966, p. 1,#KEYS
147:When a man is the Divine's enemy...
But after all, suppose there is one man in a million who has realised this consciousness in himself. It is possible he may have had an effect on those around him - and yet I took care to tell you that for this state to be perfectly realised, generally it is necessary to live in solitude, otherwise there are too many contradictory things, there are too many brutally material necessities which contradict it, for you to be able to attain that state absolutely perfectly. But if you do attain it absolutely perfectly, everything around you will necessarily become divine. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1956,#KEYS
148:[the third aid, the inner guide, guru :::
It is he who destroys our darkness by the resplendent light of his knowledge; that light becomes within us the increasing glory of his own self-revelation. He discloses progressively in us his own nature of freedom, bliss, love, power, immortal being. He sets above us his divine example as our ideal and transforms the lower existence into a reflection of that which it contemplates. By the inpouring of his own influence and presence into us he enables the individual being to attain to identity with the universal and transcendent.~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Four Aids, 61 [T1],#KEYS
149:Saichō's Prayer
So long as I have not attained the stage where my six faculties are pure, I will not venture out into the world.
So long as I have not realized the absolute, I will not acquire any special skills or arts (e.g. medicine, divination, calligraphy, etc.)
So long as I have not kept all the precepts purely, I will not participate in any lay donor's Buddhist meetings.
So long as I have not attained wisdom (lit. hannya 般若), I will not participate in worldly affairs unless it be to benefit others.
May any merit from my practice in the past, present and future be given not to me, but to all sentient beings so that they may attain supreme enlightenment. ~ Saichō,#KEYS
150:The ambition of every boy is to be an engine-driver. Some attain it, and remain there all their lives.
But in the majority of cases the Understanding grows faster than the Will, and long before the boy is in a position to attain his wish he has already forgotten it.
In other cases the Understanding never grows beyond a certain point, and the Will persists without intelligence.
The business man (for example) has wished for ease and comfort, and to this end goes daily to his office and slaves under a more cruel taskmaster than the meanest of the workmen in his pay; he decides to retire, and finds that life in empty. The end has been swallowed up in the means.
Only those are happy who have desired the unattainable. ~ Aleister Crowley, Book 4,#KEYS
151:But what Nature aims at for the mass in a slow evolution, Yoga effects for the individual by a rapid revolution. It works by a quickening of all her energies, a sublimation of all her faculties. While she develops the spiritual life with difficulty and has constantly to fall back from it for the sake of her lower realisations, the sublimated force, the concentrated method of Yoga can attain directly and carry with it the perfection of the mind and even, if she will, the perfection of the body. Nature seeks the Divine in her own symbols: Yoga goes beyond Nature to the Lord of Nature, beyond universe to the Transcendent and can return with the transcendent light and power, with the fiat of the Omnipotent.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions Of The Synthesis, The Threefold Life, 29,#KEYS
152:There are a vast amount of Buddhas already, and each one manifests countless forms simultaneously throughout all of the planes of cyclic existence for the benefit of all beings. However, at any given time, each individual being will have a stronger karmic connection with certain Buddhas, compared to other Buddhas.
Likewise, if you were a Buddha, since a huge number of beings throughout cyclic existence would have a stronger karmic connection with you during certain times, you would be able to benefit them much more directly than the many other Buddhas would be able to. Do not forget this.
The deeper you realise this, the greater your bodhicitta motivation becomes - in other words, the greater your compassionate wish to attain the enlightened state of a Buddha for the benefit of all beings, as soon as possible!
~ Chamtrul Rinpoche,#KEYS
153:It is to bring back all the scattered threads of consciousness to a single point, a single idea. Those who can attain a perfect attention succeed in everything they undertake; they will always make rapid progress. And this kind of concentration can be developed exactly like the muscles; one may follow different systems, different methods of training. Today we know that the most pitiful weakling, for example, can with discipline become as strong as anyone else. One should not have a will that flickers out like a candle. The will, the concentration must be cultivated; it is a question of method, of regular exercise. If you will, you can. But the thought Whats the use? must not come in to weaken the will. The idea that one is born with a certain character and can do nothing about it is a stupidity.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1950-1951,#KEYS
154:Calm, even if it seems at first only a negative thing, is so difficult to attain, that to have it at all must be regarded as a great step in advance.
"In reality, calm is not a negative thing, it is the very nature of the Sat-Purusha and the positive foundation of the divine consciousness. Whatever else is aspired for and gained, this must be kept. Even Knowledge, Power, Ananda, if they come and do not find this foundation, are unable to remain and have to withdraw until the divine purity and peace of the Sat-Purusha are permanently there.
"Aspire for the rest of the divine consciousness, but with a calm and deep aspiration. It can be ardent as well as calm, but not impatient, restless or full of rajasic eagerness.
"Only in the quiet mind and being can the supramental Truth build its true creation." ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1954,#KEYS
155:But if in passing from one domain to another we renounce what has already been given us from eagerness for our new attainment, if in reaching the mental life we cast away or belittle the physical life which is our basis, or if we reject the mental and physical in our attraction to the spiritual, we do not fulfil God integrally, nor satisfy the conditions of His selfmanifestation. We do not become perfect, but only shift the field of our imperfection or atmost attain a limited altitude. However high we may climb, even though it be to the Non-Being itself, we climb ill if we forget our base. Not to abandon the lower to itself, but to transfigure it in the light of the higher to which we have attained, is true divinity of nature. Brahman is integral and unifies many states of consciousness at a time; we also, manifesting the nature of Brahman, should become integral and all-embracing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, #KEYS
156:Therefore, we can attain the overmental consciousness in many different ways: through religious passion, through poetic, intellectual, artistic, or heroic zeal, or through anything that helps man to exceed himself. - Sri Aurobindo assigned a special place to art, which he considered one of the major means of spiritual progress. Unfortunately, artists and creators too often have a considerable ego standing in the way, which is their main difficulty. The religious man, who has worked to dissolve his ego, finds it easier, but he rarely attains universality through his own individual efforts, leaping instead beyond the individual without bothering to develop all the intermediate rungs of the personal consciousness, and when he reaches the top he no longer has a ladder to come down, or he does not want to come down, or there is no individual self left to express what he sees, or else his old individual self tries its best to express his new consciousness, provided he feels the need to express anything at all.
~ Satprem,#KEYS
157:[E]very man hath liberty to write, but few ability. Heretofore learning was graced by judicious scholars, but now noble sciences are vilified by base and illiterate scribblers, that either write for vain-glory, need, to get money, or as Parasites to flatter and collogue with some great men, they put out trifles, rubbish and trash. Among so many thousand Authors you shall scarce find one by reading of whom you shall be any whit better, but rather much worse; by which he is rather infected than any way perfected...
What a catalogue of new books this year, all his age (I say) have our Frankfurt Marts, our domestic Marts, brought out. Twice a year we stretch out wits out and set them to sale; after great toil we attain nothing...What a glut of books! Who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast Chaos and confusion of Books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning. For my part I am one of the number-one of the many-I do not deny it... ~ Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy,#KEYS
158:Embracing a different vocabulary, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has described a highly sought-after affective state called the flow state or flow experience. In such intrinsically motivating experiences, which can occur in any domain of activity, people report themselves as fully engaged with and absorbed by the object of their attention. In one sense, those "in flow" are not conscious of the experience at the moment; on reflection, however, such people feel that they have been fully alive, totally realized, and involved in a "peak experience." Individuals who regularly engage in creative activities often report that they seek such states; the prospect of such "periods of flow" can be so intense that individuals will exert considerable practice and effort, and even tolerate physical or psychological pain, in pursuit thereof. Committed writers may claim that they hate the time spent chained to their desks, but the thought that they would not have the opportunity to attain occasional periods of flow while writing proves devastating. ~ Howard Gardner, #KEYS
159:Attain The Way ::: If students of the way are mistaken about their own real Mind they will indulge in various achievements and practices, expecting to attain realization by such gradual practices. However, even after aeons of diligent searching they will not be able to attain the Way. These methods cannot be compared to the sudden elimination of conceptual thought in this moment; the certain knowledge that there is nothing at all which has absolute existence, nothing on which to lay hold, nothing on which to rely, nothing in which to abide, nothing subjective or objective. It is by preventing the rise of conceptual thought that you will realize Bodhi. When you do, you will just be realizing the Buddha who has always existed in your own Mind.
If students of the Way wish to become Buddhas, they don't need to study any doctrines. They need only learn how to avoid seeking for and attaching themselves to anything. Relinquishment of everything is the Dharma and they who understand this are Buddhas. Only know that the relinquishment of ALL delusions leaves no Dharma on which to lay hold. ~ Huang Po, Attain the Way,#KEYS
160:What do you think of the essence of Hell? Hell is when the depths come to you with all that you no longer are or are not yet capable of. Hell is when you can no longer attain what you could attain. Hell is when you must think and feel and do everything that you know you do not want. Hell is when you know that your having to is also a wanting to, and that you yourself are responsible for it. Hell is when you know that everything serious that you have planned with yourself is also laughable, that everything fine is also brutal, that everything good is also bad, that everything high is also low, and that everything pleasant is also shameful.
But the deepest Hell is when you realize that Hell is also no Hell, but a cheerful Heaven, not a Heaven in itself, but in this respect a Heaven, and in that respect a Hell.
That is the ambiguity of the God: he is born from a dark ambiguity and rises to a bright ambiguity. Unequivocalness is simplicity and leads to death. But ambiguity is the way of life. If the left foot does not move, then the right one does, and you move. The God wills this. ~ Carl Jung, The Red Book,#KEYS
161:You should not be tilted sideways, backwards, or forwards. You should be sitting straight up as if you were supporting the sky with your head. This is not just form or breathing. It expresses the key point of Buddhism. It is a perfect expression of your Buddha nature. If you want true understanding of Buddhism, you should practice this way.
These forms are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture itself is the purpose of our practice. When you have this posture, you have the right state of mind, so there is no need to try to attain some special state.
When you try to attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. When you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here. A Zen master would say, "Kill the Buddha!" Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature. Doing something is expressing our own nature. We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves. This is the fundamental teaching expressed in the forms we observe. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginners Mind,#KEYS
162:I accept, will not give up, and will practice each of the Three Jewels,
And will not let go of my guru or my yidam deity.
As the samaya of the Buddha, first among the Three Jewels,
I will apply myself to the true, essential reality.
As the samaya of sacred Dharma, second among the Three Jewels,
I will distill the very essence of all the vehicles' teachings.
As the samaya of the Sangha, the third and final Jewel,
I will look upon reality; I will behold pure awareness.
And as the samaya of the guru and the yidam deity,
I will take my very own mind, my pure mind, as a witness.
Generally speaking, the Three Jewels should be regarded as the ultimate place to take refuge. As was taught in the section on taking refuge, your mind should be focused one-pointedly, with all your hopes and trust placed in their care. The gurus are a lamp that dispels the darkness of ignorance.
As the guides who lead you along the path to liberation, they are your sole source of refuge and protection, from now until you attain enlightenment.
For these reasons, you should act with unwavering faith, pure view and devotion, and engage in the approach and accomplishment of the divine yidam deity. ~ Dzogchen Rinpoche III, Great Perfection Outer and Inner Preliminaries,#KEYS
163:Who does not understand should either learn, or be silent."
"Perspective is an Art Mathematical which demonstrates the manner and properties of all radiations direct, broken and reflected."
"Neither the circle without the line, nor the line without the point, can be artificially produced. It is, therefore, by virtue of the point and the Monad that all things commence to emerge in principle. That which is affected at the periphery, however large it may be, cannot in any way lack the support of the central point."
"Therefore, the central point which we see in the centre of the hieroglyphic Monad produces the Earth , round which the Sun , the Moon , and the other planets follow their respective paths. The Sun has the supreme dignity , and we represent him by a circle having a visible centre."
There is (gentle reader) nothing (the works of God only set apart) which so much beautifies and adorns the soul and mind of man as does knowledge of the good arts and sciences . Many arts there are which beautify the mind of man; but of all none do more garnish and beautify it than those arts which are called mathematical , unto the knowledge of which no man can attain, without perfect knowledge and instruction of the principles, grounds, and Elements of Geometry." ~ Dr. John Dee, The Hieroglyphic Monad,#KEYS
164:The Song Of View, Practice, And Action :::
Oh, my Guru! The Exemplar of the View, Practice, and Action,
Pray vouchsafe me your grace, and enable me
To be absorbed in the realm of Self-nature!
For the View, Practice, Action, and Accomplishment
There are three Key-points you should know:
All the manifestation, the Universe itself, is contained in the mind;
The nature of Mind is the realm of illumination
Which can neither be conceived nor touched.
These are the Key-points of the View.
Errant thoughts are liberated in the Dharmakaya;
The awareness, the illumination, is always blissful;
Meditate in a manner of non-doing and non-effort.
These are the Key-points of Practice.
In the action of naturalness
The Ten Virtues spontaneously grow;
All the Ten Vices are thus purified.
By corrections or remedies
The Illuminating Void is ne'er disturbed.
These are the Key-points of Action.
There is no Nivana to attain beyond;
There is no Samsara here to renounce;
Truly to know the Self-mind
It is to be the Buddha Himself.
These are the Key-points of Accomplishment.
Reduce inwardly the Three Key-points to One.
This One is the Void Nature of Being,
Which only a wondrous Guru
Can clearly illustrate.
Much activity is of no avail;
If one sees the Simultaneously Born Wisdom,
He reaches the goal.
For all practioners of Dharma
The preaching is a precious gem;
It is my direct experience from yogic meditation.
Think carefully and bear it in your minds,
Oh, my children and disciples. ~ Jetsun Milarepa,#KEYS
165:the omnipresent Trinity :::
In practice three conceptions are necessary before there can be any possibility of Yoga; there must be, as it were, three consenting parties to the effort,-God, Nature and the human soul or, in more abstract language, the Transcendental, the Universal and the Individual. If the individual and Nature are left to themselves, the one is bound to the other and unable to exceed appreciably her lingering march. Something transcendent is needed, free from her and greater, which will act upon us and her, attracting us upward to Itself and securing from her by good grace or by force her consent to the individual ascension. It is this truth which makes necessary to every philosophy of Yoga the conception of the Ishwara, Lord, supreme Soul or supreme Self, towards whom the effort is directed and who gives the illuminating touch and the strength to attain. Equally true is the complementary idea so often enforced by the Yoga of devotion that as the Transcendent is necessary to the individual and sought after by him, so also the individual is necessary in a sense to the Transcendent and sought after by It. If the Bhakta seeks and yearns after Bhagavan, Bhagavan also seeks and yearns after the Bhakta. There can be no Yoga of knowledge without a human seeker of the knowledge, the supreme subject of knowledge and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of knowledge; no Yoga of devotion without the human God-lover, the supreme object of love and delight and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of spiritual, emotional and aesthetic enjoyment; no Yoga of works without the human worker, the supreme Will, Master of all works and sacrifices, and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of power and action. However Monistic maybe our intellectual conception of the highest truth of things, in practice we are compelled to accept this omnipresent Trinity.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Introduction - The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Systems of Yoga,#KEYS
166:Accumulating Prostrations
Why Prostrate at All?
Why fling yourself full-length on an often filthy floor, then get up and do it again hundreds of thousands of times?
Prostrations are a very immediate method for taking refuge and one of the best available for destroying pride. They are an outer gesture of surrender to the truth of dharma, and an expression of our intention to give up and expose our pride.
So, as we take refuge, we prostrate to demonstrate our complete surrender by throwing ourselves at the feet of our guru and pressing the five points of our body — forehead, hands and knees — to the floor as many times as we can.
(In the Tibetan tradition there are two ways of doing prostrations: one is the full-length and the other the half-length prostration, and we usually accumulate the full-length version.)
Prostrations are said to bring a number of benefits, such as being reborn with an attractive appearance, or our words carry weight and are valued, or our influence over friends and colleagues is positive, or that we are able to manage those who work for us.
It is said that practitioners who accumulate prostrations will one day keep company with sublime beings and as a result become majestic, wealthy, attain a higher rebirth and eventually attain liberation.
For worldly beings, though, to contemplate all the spiritual benefits of prostrations and the amount of merit they accumulate is not necessarily the most effective way of motivating ourselves. The fact that prostrations are good for our health, on the other hand, is often just the incentive we need to get started.
It's true, doing prostrations for the sake of taking healthy exercise is a worldly motivation, but not one I would ever discourage.
In these degenerate times, absolutely anything that will inspire you to practise dharma has some value, so please go ahead and start your prostrations for the sake of the exercise. If you do, not only will you save money on your gym membership, you will build up muscle and a great deal of merit.
~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, Not for Happiness - A Guide to the So-Called Preliminary Practises, Shambhala Publications,#KEYS
167: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 may - and this is a more positive way - one 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 reality - perhaps of a not too distant future - a 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. People sleep, they forget, they take life easy - they forget, forget all the time.... But if we could remember... that we are at an exceptional hour, a unique time, that we have this immense good fortune, this invaluable privilege of being present at the birth of a new world, we could easily get rid of everything that impedes and hinders our progress.
So, the most important thing, it seems, is to remember this fact; even when one doesn't have the tangible experience, to have the certainty of it and faith in it; to remember always, to recall it constantly, to go to sleep with this idea, to wake up with this perception; to do all that one does with this great truth as the background, as a constant support, this great truth that we are witnessing the birth of a new world.
We can participate in it, we can become this new world. And truly, when one has such a marvellous opportunity, one should be ready to give up everything for its sake. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958, [T1],#KEYS
168:One thing is needful. -- To "give style" to one's character-- a great and rare art! It is practiced by those who survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye. Here a large mass of second nature has been added; there a piece of original nature has been removed -- both times through long practice and daily work at it. Here the ugly that could not be removed is concealed; there it has been reinterpreted and made sublime. Much that is vague and resisted shaping has been saved and exploited for distant views; it is meant to beckon toward the far and immeasurable. In the end, when the work is finished, it becomes evident how the constraint of a single taste governed and formed everything large and small. Whether this taste was good or bad is less important than one might suppose, if only it was a single taste!
It will be the strong and domineering natures that enjoy their finest gaiety in such constraint and perfection under a law of their own; the passion of their tremendous will relaxes in the face of all stylized nature, of all conquered and serving nature. Even when they have to build palaces and design gardens they demur at giving nature freedom.
Conversely, it is the weak characters without power over themselves that hate the constraint of style. They feel that if this bitter and evil constraint were imposed upon them they would be demeaned; they become slaves as soon as they serve; they hate to serve. Such spirits -- and they may be of the first rank -- are always out to shape and interpret their environment as free nature: wild, arbitrary, fantastic, disorderly, and surprising. And they are well advised because it is only in this way that they can give pleasure to themselves. For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself, whether it be by means of this or that poetry or art; only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is continually ready for revenge, and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight. For the sight of what is ugly makes one bad and gloomy. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, mod trans. Walter Kaufmann,#KEYS
169:The general characteristics and attributions of these Grades are indicated by their correspondences on the Tree of Life, as may be studied in detail in the Book 777.
Student. -- His business is to acquire a general intellectual knowledge of all systems of attainment, as declared in the prescribed books. (See curriculum in Appendix I.) {231}
Probationer. -- His principal business is to begin such practices as he my prefer, and to write a careful record of the same for one year.
Neophyte. -- Has to acquire perfect control of the Astral Plane.
Zelator. -- His main work is to achieve complete success in Asana and Pranayama. He also begins to study the formula of the Rosy Cross.
Practicus. -- Is expected to complete his intellectual training, and in particular to study the Qabalah.
Philosophus. -- Is expected to complete his moral training. He is tested in Devotion to the Order.
Dominus Liminis. -- Is expected to show mastery of Pratyahara and Dharana.
Adeptus (without). -- is expected to perform the Great Work and to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
Adeptus (within). -- Is admitted to the practice of the formula of the Rosy Cross on entering the College of the Holy Ghost.
Adeptus (Major). -- Obtains a general mastery of practical Magick, though without comprehension.
Adeptus (Exemptus). -- Completes in perfection all these matters. He then either ("a") becomes a Brother of the Left Hand Path or, ("b") is stripped of all his attainments and of himself as well, even of his Holy Guardian Angel, and becomes a babe of the Abyss, who, having transcended the Reason, does nothing but grow in the womb of its mother. It then finds itself a
Magister Templi. -- (Master of the Temple): whose functions are fully described in Liber 418, as is this whole initiation from Adeptus Exemptus. See also "Aha!". His principal business is to tend his "garden" of disciples, and to obtain a perfect understanding of the Universe. He is a Master of Samadhi. {232}
Magus. -- Attains to wisdom, declares his law (See Liber I, vel Magi) and is a Master of all Magick in its greatest and highest sense.
Ipsissimus. -- Is beyond all this and beyond all comprehension of those of lower degrees. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,#KEYS
170:But this is not always the manner of the commencement. The sadhaka is often led gradually and there is a long space between the first turning of the mind and the full assent of the nature to the thing towards which it turns. There may at first be only a vivid intellectual interest, a forcible attraction towards the idea and some imperfect form of practice. Or perhaps there is an effort not favoured by the whole nature, a decision or a turn imposed by an intellectual influence or dictated by personal affection and admiration for someone who is himself consecrated and devoted to the Highest. In such cases, a long period of preparation may be necessary before there comes the irrevocable consecration; and in some instances it may not come. There may be some advance, there may be a strong effort, even much purification and many experiences other than those that are central or supreme; but the life will either be spent in preparation or, a certain stage having been reached, the mind pushed by an insufficient driving-force may rest content at the limit of the effort possible to it. Or there may even be a recoil to the lower life, - what is called in the ordinary parlance of Yoga a fall from the path. This lapse happens because there is a defect at the very centre. The intellect has been interested, the heart attracted, the will has strung itself to the effort, but the whole nature has not been taken captive by the Divine. It has only acquiesced in the interest, the attraction or the endeavour. There has been an experiment, perhaps even an eager experiment, but not a total self-giving to an imperative need of the soul or to an unforsakable ideal. Even such imperfect Yoga has not been wasted; for no upward effort is made in vain. Even if it fails in the present or arrives only at some preparatory stage or preliminary realisation, it has yet determined the soul's future.
But if we desire to make the most of the opportunity that this life gives us, if we wish to respond adequately to the call we have received and to attain to the goal we have glimpsed, not merely advance a little towards it, it is essential that there should be an entire self-giving. The secret of success in Yoga is to regard it not as one of the aims to be pursued in life, but as the one and only aim, not as an important part of life, but as the whole of life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration,#KEYS
171:It is your birthday tomorrow?
Yes, Mother.
How old will you be?
Twenty-six, Mother.
I shall see you tomorrow and give you something special. You will see, I am not speaking of anything material- that, I shall give you a card and all that- but of something...You will see, tomorrow, now go home and prepare yourself quietly so that you may be ready to receive it.
Yes, Mother.
You know, my child, what "Bonne Fete" signifies, that is, the birthday we wish here?
Like that, I know what it means, Mother, but not the special significance you want to tell me.
Yes, it is truly a special day in one's life. It is one of those days in the year when the Supreme descends into us- or when we are face to face with the Eternal- one of those days when our soul comes in contact with the Eternal and, if we remain a little conscious, we can feel His Presence within us. If we make a little effort on this day, we accomplish the work of many lives as in a lightning flash. That is why I give so much importance to the birthday- because what one gains in one day is truly something incomparable. And it is for this that I also work to open the consciousness a little towards what is above so that one may come before the Eternal. My child, it is a very, very special day, for it is the day of decision, the day one can unite with the Supreme Consciousness. For the Lord lifts us on this day to the highest region possible so that our soul which is a portion of that Eternal Flame, may be united and identified with its Origin.
This day is truly an opportunity in life. One is so open and so receptive that one can assimilate all that is given. I can do many things, that is why it is important.
It is one of those days when the Lord Himself opens the doors wide for us. It is as though He were inviting us to rekindle more powerfully the flame of aspiration. It is one of those days which He gives us. We too, by our personal effort, could attain to this, but it would be long, hard and not so easy. And this- this is a real chance in life- the day of Grace.
It is an occult phenomenon that occurs invariably, without our knowledge, on this particular day of the year. The soul leaves behind the body and journeys up and up till it merges into the Source in order to replenish itself and absorb from the Supreme Its Power, Light and Ananda and comes down charged for a whole year to pass. Then again and again... it continues like this year after year. ~ The Mother, Sweet Mother, Mona Sarkar,#KEYS
172:What is the difference between meditation and concentration?
Meditation is a purely mental activity, it interests only the mental being. One can concentrate while meditating but this is a mental concentration; one can get a silence but it is a purely mental silence, and the other parts of the being are kept immobile and inactive so as not to disturb the meditation. You may pass twenty hours of the day in meditation and for the remaining four hours you will be an altogether ordinary man because only the mind has been occupied-the rest of the being, the vital and the physical, is kept under pressure so that it may not disturb. In meditation nothing is directly done for the other parts of the being.
Certainly this indirect action can have an effect, but... I have known in my life people whose capacity for meditation was remarkable but who, when not in meditation, were quite ordinary men, even at times ill-natured people, who would become furious if their meditation was disturbed. For they had learnt to master only their mind, not the rest of their being.
Concentration is a more active state. You may concentrate mentally, you may concentrate vitally, psychically, physically, and you may concentrate integrally. Concentration or the capacity to gather oneself at one point is more difficult than meditation. You may gather together one portion of your being or consciousness or you may gather together the whole of your consciousness or even fragments of it, that is, the concentration may be partial, total or integral, and in each case the result will be different.
If you have the capacity to concentrate, your meditation will be more interesting and easieR But one can meditate without concentrating. Many follow a chain of ideas in their meditation - it is meditation, not concentration.
Is it possible to distinguish the moment when one attains perfect concentration from the moment when, starting from this concentration, one opens oneself to the universal Energy?
Yes. You concentrate on something or simply you gather yourself together as much as is possible for you and when you attain a kind of perfection in concentration, if you can sustain this perfection for a sufficiently long time, then a door opens and you pass beyond the limit of your ordinary consciousness-you enter into a deeper and higher knowledge. Or you go within. Then you may experience a kind of dazzling light, an inner wonder, a beatitude, a complete knowledge, a total silence. There are, of course, many possibilities but the phenomenon is always the same.
To have this experience all depends upon your capacity to maintain your concentration sufficiently long at its highest point of perfection. ~ The Mother,#KEYS
173:the process of unification, the perfecting our one's instrumental being, the help one needs to reach the goal :::
If we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavor.
As you pursue this labor of purification and unification, you must at the same time take great care to perfect the external and instrumental part of your being. When the higher truth manifests, it must find in you a mind that is supple and rich enough to be able to give the idea that seeks to express itself a form of thought which preserves its force and clarity. This thought, again, when it seeks to clothe itself in words, must find in you a sufficient power of expression so that the words reveal the thought and do not deform it. And the formula in which you embody the truth should be manifested in all your feelings, all your acts of will, all your actions, in all movements of your being. Finally, these movements themselves should, by constant effort, attain their highest perfection. ... It is therefore of capital importance to become conscious of its presence in us [the psychic being], to concentrate on this presence until it becomes a living fact for us and we can identify ourselves with it.
In various times and places many methods have been prescribed for attaining this perfection and ultimately achieving this identification. Some methods are psychological, some religious, some even mechanical. In reality, everyone has to find the one which suits him best, and if one has an ardent and steadfast aspiration, a persistent and dynamic will, one is sure to meet, in one way or another - outwardly through reading and study, inwardly through concentration, meditation, revelation and experience - the help one needs to reach the goal. Only one thing is absolutely indispensable: the will to discover and to realize. This discovery and realization should be the primary preoccupation of our being, the pearl of great price which we must acquire at any cost. Whatever you do, whatever your occupations and activities, the will to find the truth of your being and to unite with it must be always living and present behind all that you do, all that you feel, all that you think.
~ The Mother, On Education, [T1],#KEYS
174:Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g., the Divine; there can be also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it. ... Of this true consciousness other than the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it and all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other ways.
That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward and in the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it begins to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head in only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental concentration is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the most desirable.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,#KEYS
175:Apotheosis ::: One of the most powerful and beloved of the Bodhisattvas of the Mahayana Buddhism of Tibet, China, and Japan is the Lotus Bearer, Avalokiteshvara, "The Lord Looking Down in Pity," so called because he regards with compassion all sentient creatures suffering the evils of existence. To him goes the millionfold repeated prayer of the prayer wheels and temple gongs of Tibet: Om mani padme hum, "The jewel is in the lotus." To him go perhaps more prayers per minute than to any single divinity known to man; for when, during his final life on earth as a human being, he shattered for himself the bounds of the last threshold (which moment opened to him the timelessness of the void beyond the frustrating mirage-enigmas of the named and bounded cosmos), he paused: he made a vow that before entering the void he would bring all creatures without exception to enlightenment; and since then he has permeated the whole texture of existence with the divine grace of his assisting presence, so that the least prayer addressed to him, throughout the vast spiritual empire of the Buddha, is graciously heard. Under differing forms he traverses the ten thousand worlds, and appears in the hour of need and prayer. He reveals himself in human form with two arms, in superhuman forms with four arms, or with six, or twelve, or a thousand, and he holds in one of his left hands the lotus of the world.
Like the Buddha himself, this godlike being is a pattern of the divine state to which the human hero attains who has gone beyond the last terrors of ignorance. "When the envelopment of consciousness has been annihilated, then he becomes free of all fear, beyond the reach of change." This is the release potential within us all, and which anyone can attain-through herohood; for, as we read: "All things are Buddha-things"; or again (and this is the other way of making the same statement) : "All beings are without self."
The world is filled and illumined by, but does not hold, the Bodhisattva ("he whose being is enlightenment"); rather, it is he who holds the world, the lotus. Pain and pleasure do not enclose him, he encloses them-and with profound repose. And since he is what all of us may be, his presence, his image, the mere naming of him, helps. "He wears a garland of eight thousand rays, in which is seen fully reflected a state of perfect beauty.
The color of his body is purple gold. His palms have the mixed color of five hundred lotuses, while each finger tip has eighty-four thousand signet-marks, and each mark eighty-four thousand colors; each color has eighty-four thousand rays which are soft and mild and shine over all things that exist. With these jewel hands he draws and embraces all beings. The halo surrounding his head is studded with five hundred Buddhas, miraculously transformed, each attended by five hundred Bodhisattvas, who are attended, in turn, by numberless gods. And when he puts his feet down to the ground, the flowers of diamonds and jewels that are scattered cover everything in all directions. The color of his face is gold. While in his towering crown of gems stands a Buddha, two hundred and fifty miles high." - Amitayur-Dhyana Sutra, 19; ibid., pp. 182-183. ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Apotheosis,#KEYS
176:Evil
Hasten towards the good, leave behind all evil thoughts, for to do good without enthusiasm is to have a mind which delights in evil.
If one does an evil action, he should not persist in it, he should not delight in it. For full of suffering is the accumulation of evil.
If one does a good action, he should persist in it and take delight in it. Full of happiness is the accumulation of good.
As long as his evil action has not yet ripened, an evildoer may experience contentment. But when it ripens, the wrong-doer knows unhappiness.
As long as his good action has not yet ripened, one who does good may experience unhappiness. But when it ripens, the good man knows happiness.
Do not treat evil lightly, saying, "That will not touch me." A jar is filled drop by drop; even so the fool fills himself little by little with wickedness.
Do not treat good lightly, saying, "That will not touch me." A jar is filled drop by drop; even so the sage fills himself little by little with goodness.
The merchant who is carrying many precious goods and who has but few companions, avoids dangerous roads; and a man who loves his life is wary of poison. Even so should one act regarding evil.
A hand that has no wound can carry poison with impunity; act likewise, for evil cannot touch the righteous man.
If you offend one who is pure, innocent and defenceless, the insult will fall back on you, as if you threw dust against the wind.
Some are reborn here on earth, evil-doers go to the worlds of Niraya,1 the just go to the heavenly worlds, but those who have freed themselves from all desire attain Nirvana.
Neither in the skies, nor in the depths of the ocean, nor in the rocky caves, nowhere upon earth does there exist a place where a man can find refuge from his evil actions.
Neither in the skies, nor in the depths of the ocean, nor in the rocky caves, nowhere upon earth does there exist a place where a man can hide from death.
People have the habit of dealing lightly with thoughts that come. And the atmosphere is full of thoughts of all kinds which do not in fact belong to anybody in particular, which move perpetually from one person to another, very freely, much too freely, because there are very few people who can keep their thoughts under control.
When you take up the Buddhist discipline to learn how to control your thoughts, you make very interesting discoveries. You try to observe your thoughts. Instead of letting them pass freely, sometimes even letting them enter your head and establish themselves in a quite inopportune way, you look at them, observe them and you realise with stupefaction that in the space of a few seconds there passes through the head a series of absolutely improbable thoughts that are altogether harmful.
...?
Conversion of the aim of life from the ego to the Divine: instead of seeking one's own satisfaction, to have the service of the Divine as the aim of life.
*
What you must know is exactly the thing you want to do in life. The time needed to learn it does not matter at all. For those who wish to live according to Truth, there is always something to learn and some progress to make. 2 October 1969 ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
177:In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal. Well, if it could always be, as it has been in the great period we are leaving, the faithful handmaid, severe, conscientious, clean-handed, luminous within its limits, a half-truth and not a reckless and presumptuous aberration.
A certain kind of Agnosticism is the final truth of all knowledge. For when we come to the end of whatever path, the universe appears as only a symbol or an appearance of an unknowable Reality which translates itself here into different systems of values, physical values, vital and sensational values, intellectual, ideal and spiritual values. The more That becomes real to us, the more it is seen to be always beyond defining thought and beyond formulating expression. "Mind attains not there, nor speech."3 And yet as it is possible to exaggerate, with the Illusionists, the unreality of the appearance, so it is possible to exaggerate the unknowableness of the Unknowable. When we speak of It as unknowable, we mean, really, that It escapes the grasp of our thought and speech, instruments which proceed always by the sense of difference and express by the way of definition; but if not knowable by thought, It is attainable by a supreme effort of consciousness. There is even a kind of Knowledge which is one with Identity and by which, in a sense, It can be known. Certainly, that Knowledge cannot be reproduced successfully in the terms of thought and speech, but when we have attained to it, the result is a revaluation of That in the symbols of our cosmic consciousness, not only in one but in all the ranges of symbols, which results in a revolution of our internal being and, through the internal, of our external life. Moreover, there is also a kind of Knowledge through which That does reveal itself by all these names and forms of phenomenal existence which to the ordinary intelligence only conceal It. It is this higher but not highest process of Knowledge to which we can attain by passing the limits of the materialistic formula and scrutinising Life, Mind and Supermind in the phenomena that are characteristic of them and not merely in those subordinate movements by which they link themselves to Matter.
The Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of development. We may choose not to develop them; where they are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is knowledge within the power of humanity. And since in man there is the inalienable impulse of Nature towards self-realisation, no struggle of the intellect to limit the action of our capacities within a determined area can for ever prevail. When we have proved Matter and realised its secret capacities, the very knowledge which has found its convenience in that temporary limitation, must cry to us, like the Vedic Restrainers, 'Forth now and push forward also in other fields.'
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
178:THE WAND
THE Magical Will is in its essence twofold, for it presupposes a beginning and an end; to will to be a thing is to admit that you are not that thing.
Hence to will anything but the supreme thing, is to wander still further from it - any will but that to give up the self to the Beloved is Black Magick - yet this surrender is so simple an act that to our complex minds it is the most difficult of all acts; and hence training is necessary. Further, the Self surrendered must not be less than the All-Self; one must not come before the altar of the Most High with an impure or an imperfect offering. As it is written in Liber LXV, "To await Thee is the end, not the beginning."
This training may lead through all sorts of complications, varying according to the nature of the student, and hence it may be necessary for him at any moment to will all sorts of things which to others might seem unconnected with the goal. Thus it is not "a priori" obvious why a billiard player should need a file.
Since, then, we may want "anything," let us see to it that our will is strong enough to obtain anything we want without loss of time.
It is therefore necessary to develop the will to its highest point, even though the last task but one is the total surrender of this will. Partial surrender of an imperfect will is of no account in Magick.
The will being a lever, a fulcrum is necessary; this fulcrum is the main aspiration of the student to attain. All wills which are not dependent upon this principal will are so many leakages; they are like fat to the athlete.
The majority of the people in this world are ataxic; they cannot coordinate their mental muscles to make a purposed movement. They have no real will, only a set of wishes, many of which contradict others. The victim wobbles from one to the other (and it is no less wobbling because the movements may occasionally be very violent) and at the end of life the movements cancel each other out. Nothing has been achieved; except the one thing of which the victim is not conscious: the destruction of his own character, the confirming of indecision. Such an one is torn limb from limb by Choronzon.
How then is the will to be trained? All these wishes, whims, caprices, inclinations, tendencies, appetites, must be detected, examined, judged by the standard of whether they help or hinder the main purpose, and treated accordingly.
Vigilance and courage are obviously required. I was about to add self-denial, in deference to conventional speech; but how could I call that self-denial which is merely denial of those things which hamper the self? It is not suicide to kill the germs of malaria in one's blood.
Now there are very great difficulties to be overcome in the training of the mind. Perhaps the greatest is forgetfulness, which is probably the worst form of what the Buddhists call ignorance. Special practices for training the memory may be of some use as a preliminary for persons whose memory is naturally poor. In any case the Magical Record prescribed for Probationers of the A.'.A.'. is useful and necessary.
Above all the practices of Liber III must be done again and again, for these practices develop not only vigilance but those inhibiting centres in the brain which are, according to some psychologists, the mainspring of the mechanism by which civilized man has raised himself above the savage.
So far it has been spoken, as it were, in the negative. Aaron's rod has become a serpent, and swallowed the serpents of the other Magicians; it is now necessary to turn it once more into a rod.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, The Wand,#KEYS
179: Sri Aurobindo writes here: "...Few and brief in their visits are the Bright Ones who are willing or permitted to succour." Why?
(1 "The Way", Cent. Vol. 17, p. 40.)
One must go and ask them! But there is a conclusion, the last sentences give a very clear explanation. It is said: "Nay, then, is immortality a plaything to be given lightly to a child, or the divine life a prize without effort or the crown for a weakling?" This comes back to the question why the adverse forces have the right to interfere, to harass you. But this is precisely the test necessary for your sincerity. If the way were very easy, everybody would start on the way, and if one could reach the goal without any obstacle and without any effort, everybody would reach the goal, and when one has come to the end, the situation would be the same as when one started, there would be no change. That is, the new world would be exactly what the old has been. It is truly not worth the trouble! Evidently a process of elimination is necessary so that only what is capable of manifesting the new life remains. This is the reason and there is no other, this is the best of reasons. And, you see, it is a tempering, it is the ordeal of fire, only that which can stand it remains absolutely pure; when everything has burnt down, there remains only the little ingot of pure gold. And it is like that. What puts things out very much in all this is the religious idea of fault, sin, redemption. But there is no arbitrary decision! On the contrary, for each one it is the best and most favourable conditions which are given. We were saying the other day that it is only his friends whom God treats with severity; you thought it was a joke, but it is true. It is only to those who are full of hope, who will pass through this purifying flame, that the conditions for attaining the maximum result are given. And the human mind is made in such a way that you may test this; when something extremely unpleasant happens to you, you may tell yourself, "Well, this proves I am worth the trouble of being given this difficulty, this proves there is something in me which can resist the difficulty", and you will notice that instead of tormenting yourself, you rejoice - you will be so happy and so strong that even the most unpleasant things will seem to you quite charming! This is a very easy experiment to make. Whatever the circumstance, if your mind is accustomed to look at it as something favourable, it will no longer be unpleasant for you. This is quite well known; as long as the mind refuses to accept a thing, struggles against it, tries to obstruct it, there are torments, difficulties, storms, inner struggles and all suffering. But the minute the mind says, "Good, this is what has to come, it is thus that it must happen", whatever happens, you are content. There are people who have acquired such control of their mind over their body that they feel nothing; I told you this the other day about certain mystics: if they think the suffering inflicted upon them is going to help them cross the stages in a moment and give them a sort of stepping stone to attain the Realisation, the goal they have put before them, union with the Divine, they no longer feel the suffering at all. Their body is as it were galvanised by the mental conception. This has happened very often, it is a very common experience among those who truly have enthusiasm. And after all, if one must for some reason or other leave one's body and take a new one, is it not better to make of one's death something magnificent, joyful, enthusiastic, than to make it a disgusting defeat? Those who cling on, who try by every possible means to delay the end even by a minute or two, who give you an example of frightful anguish, show that they are not conscious of their soul.... After all, it is perhaps a means, isn't it? One can change this accident into a means; if one is conscious one can make a beautiful thing of it, a very beautiful thing, as of everything. And note, those who do not fear it, who are not anxious, who can die without any sordidness are those who never think about it, who are not haunted all the time by this "horror" facing them which they must escape and which they try to push as far away from them as they can. These, when the occasion comes, can lift their head, smile and say, "Here I am."
It is they who have the will to make the best possible use of their life, it is they who say, "I shall remain here as long as it is necessary, to the last second, and I shall not lose one moment to realise my goal"; these, when the necessity comes, put up the best show. Why? - It is very simple, because they live in their ideal, the truth of their ideal; because that is the real thing for them, the very reason of their being, and in all things they can see this ideal, this reason of existence, and never do they come down into the sordidness of material life.
So, the conclusion:
One must never wish for death.
One must never will to die.
One must never be afraid to die.
And in all circumstances one must will to exceed oneself. ~ The Mother, Question and Answers, Volume-4, page no.353-355,#KEYS
180:Chapter LXXXII: Epistola Penultima: The Two Ways to Reality
Cara Soror,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
How very sensible of you, though I admit somewhat exacting!
You write-Will you tell me exactly why I should devote so much of my valuable time to subjects like Magick and Yoga.
That is all very well. But you ask me to put it in syllogistic form. I have no doubt this can be done, though the task seems somewhat complicated. I think I will leave it to you to construct your series of syllogisms yourself from the arguments of this letter.
In your main question the operative word is "valuable. Why, I ask, in my turn, should you consider your time valuable? It certainly is not valuable unless the universe has a meaning, and what is more, unless you know what that meaning is-at least roughly-it is millions to one that you will find yourself barking up the wrong tree.
First of all let us consider this question of the meaning of the universe. It is its own evidence to design, and that design intelligent design. There is no question of any moral significance-"one man's meat is another man's poison" and so on. But there can be no possible doubt about the existence of some kind of intelligence, and that kind is far superior to anything of which we know as human.
How then are we to explore, and finally to interpret this intelligence?
It seems to me that there are two ways and only two. Imagine for a moment that you are an orphan in charge of a guardian, inconceivably learned from your point of view.
Suppose therefore that you are puzzled by some problem suitable to your childish nature, your obvious and most simple way is to approach your guardian and ask him to enlighten you. It is clearly part of his function as guardian to do his best to help you. Very good, that is the first method, and close parallel with what we understand by the word Magick.
We are bothered by some difficulty about one of the elements-say Fire-it is therefore natural to evoke a Salamander to instruct you on the difficult point. But you must remember that your Holy Guardian Angel is not only far more fully instructed than yourself on every point that you can conceive, but you may go so far as to say that it is definitely his work, or part of his work; remembering always that he inhabits a sphere or plane which is entirely different from anything of which you are normally aware.
To attain to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel is consequently without doubt by far the simplest way by which you can yourself approach that higher order of being.
That, then, is a clearly intelligible method of procedure. We call it Magick.
It is of course possible to strengthen the link between him and yourself so that in course of time you became capable of moving and, generally speaking, operating on that plane which is his natural habitat.
There is however one other way, and one only, as far as I can see, of reaching this state.
It is at least theoretically possible to exalt the whole of your own consciousness until it becomes as free to move on that exalted plane as it is for him. You should note, by the way, that in this case the postulation of another being is not necessary. There is no way of refuting the solipsism if you feel like that. Personally I cannot accede to its axiom. The evidence for an external universe appears to me perfectly adequate.
Still there is no extra charge for thinking on those lines if you so wish.
I have paid a great deal of attention in the course of my life to the method of exalting the human consciousness in this way; and it is really quite legitimate to identify my teaching with that of the Yogis.
I must however point out that in the course of my instruction I have given continual warnings as to the dangers of this line of research. For one thing there is no means of checking your results in the ordinary scientific sense. It is always perfectly easy to find a subjective explanation of any phenomenon; and when one considers that the greatest of all the dangers in any line of research arise from egocentric vanity, I do not think I have exceeded my duty in anything that I have said to deter students from undertaking so dangerous a course as Yoga.
It is, of course, much safer if you are in a position to pursue in the Indian Jungles, provided that your health will stand the climate and also, I must say, unless you have a really sound teacher on whom you can safely rely. But then, if we once introduce a teacher, why not go to the Fountain-head and press towards the Knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel?
In any case your Indian teacher will ultimately direct you to seek guidance from that source, so it seems to me that you have gone to a great deal of extra trouble and incurred a great deal of unnecessary danger by not leaving yourself in the first place in the hands of the Holy Guardian Angel.
In any case there are the two methods which stand as alternatives. I do not know of any third one which can be of any use whatever. Logically, since you have asked me to be logical, there is certainly no third way; there is the external way of Magick, and the internal way of Yoga: there you have your alternatives, and there they cease.
Love is the law, love under will.
Fraternally,
666 ~ Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears,#KEYS
181:summary of the entire process of psychic awakening :::
You have asked what is the discipline to be followed in order to convert the mental seeking into a living spiritual experience. The first necessity is the practice of concentration of your consciousness within yourself. The ordinary human mind has an activity on the surface which veils the real Self. But there is another, a hidden consciousness within behind the surface one in which we can become aware of the real Self and of a larger deeper truth of nature, can realise the Self and liberate and transform the nature. To quiet the surface mind and begin to live within is the object of this concentration. Of this true consciousness other then the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it an d all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other way.
That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward to all that is above mind. After a time one feels the consciousness rising upward and it the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it behind to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head is only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental consciousness is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the more desirable.
The other side of the discipline is with regard to the activities of the nature, of the mind, of the life-self or vital, of the physical being. Here the principle is to accord the nature with the inner realisation so that one may not be divided into two discordant parts. There are here several disciplines or processes possible. One is to offer all the activities to the Divine and call for the inner guidance and the taking up of one's nature by a Higher Power. If there is the inward soul-opening, if the psychic being comes forward, then there is no great difficulty - there comes with it a psychic discrimination, a constant intimation, finally a governance which discloses and quietly and patiently removes all imperfections, bring the right mental and vital movements and reshapes the physical consciousness also. Another method is to stand back detached from the movements of the mind, life, physical being, to regard their activities as only a habitual formation of general Nature in the individual imposed on us by past workings, not as any part of our real being; in proportion as one succeeds in this, becomes detached, sees mind and its activities as not oneself, life and its activities as not oneself, the body and its activities as not oneself, one becomes aware of an inner Being within us - inner mental, inner vital, inner physical - silent, calm, unbound, unattached which reflects the true Self above and can be its direct representative; from this inner silent Being proceeds a rejection of all that is to be rejected, an acceptance only of what can be kept and transformed, an inmost Will to perfection or a call to the Divine Power to do at each step what is necessary for the change of the Nature. It can also open mind, life and body to the inmost psychic entity and its guiding influence or its direct guidance. In most cases these two methods emerge and work together and finally fuse into one. But one can being with either, the one that one feels most natural and easy to follow.
Finally, in all difficulties where personal effort is hampered, the help of the Teacher can intervene and bring above what is needed for the realisation or for the immediate step that is necessary.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, 6, {871},#KEYS
182:The Two Paths Of Yoga :::
14 April 1929 - What are the dangers of Yoga? Is it especially dangerous to the people of the West? Someone has said that Yoga may be suitable for the East, but it has the effect of unbalancing the Western mind.
Yoga is not more dangerous to the people of the West than to those of the East. Everything depends upon the spirit with which you approach it. Yoga does become dangerous if you want it for your own sake, to serve a personal end. It is not dangerous, on the contrary, it is safety and security itself, if you go to it with a sense of its sacredness, always remembering that the aim is to find the Divine.
Dangers and difficulties come in when people take up Yoga not for the sake of the Divine, but because they want to acquire power and under the guise of Yoga seek to satisfy some ambition. if you cannot get rid of ambition, do not touch the thing. It is fire that burns.
There are two paths of Yoga, one of tapasya (discipline), and the other of surrender. The path of tapasya is arduous. Here you rely solely upon yourself, you proceed by your own strength. You ascend and achieve according to the measure of your force. There is always the danger of falling down. And once you fall, you lie broken in the abyss and there is hardly a remedy. The other path, the path of surrender, is safe and sure. It is here, however, that the Western people find their difficulty. They have been taught to fear and avoid all that threatens their personal independence. They have imbibed with their mothers' milk the sense of individuality. And surrender means giving up all that. In other words, you may follow, as Ramakrishna says, either the path of the baby monkey or that of the baby cat. The baby monkey holds to its mother in order to be carried about and it must hold firm, otherwise if it loses its grip, it falls. On the other hand, the baby cat does not hold to its mother, but is held by the mother and has no fear nor responsibility; it has nothing to do but to let the mother hold it and cry ma ma.
If you take up this path of surrender fully and sincerely, there is no more danger or serious difficulty. The question is to be sincere. If you are not sincere, do not begin Yoga. If you were dealing in human affairs, then you could resort to deception; but in dealing with the Divine there is no possibility of deception anywhere. You can go on the Path safely when you are candid and open to the core and when your only end is to realise and attain the Divine and to be moved by the Divine. There is another danger; it is in connection with the sex impulses. Yoga in its process of purification will lay bare and throw up all hidden impulses and desires in you. And you must learn not to hide things nor leave them aside, you have to face them and conquer and remould them. The first effect of Yoga, however, is to take away the mental control, and the hungers that lie dormant are suddenly set free, they rush up and invade the being. So long as this mental control has not been replaced by the Divine control, there is a period of transition when your sincerity and surrender will be put to the test. The strength of such impulses as those of sex lies usually in the fact that people take too much notice of them; they protest too vehemently and endeavour to control them by coercion, hold them within and sit upon them. But the more you think of a thing and say, "I don't want it, I don't want it", the more you are bound to it. What you should do is to keep the thing away from you, to dissociate from it, take as little notice of it as possible and, even if you happen to think of it, remain indifferent and unconcerned. The impulses and desires that come up by the pressure of Yoga should be faced in a spirit of detachment and serenity, as something foreign to yourself or belonging to the outside world. They should be offered to the Divine, so that the Divine may take them up and transmute them. If you have once opened yourself to the Divine, if the power of the Divine has once come down into you and yet you try to keep to the old forces, you prepare troubles and difficulties and dangers for yourself. You must be vigilant and see that you do not use the Divine as a cloak for the satisfaction of your desires. There are many self-appointed Masters, who do nothing but that. And then when you are off the straight path and when you have a little knowledge and not much power, it happens that you are seized by beings or entities of a certain type, you become blind instruments in their hands and are devoured by them in the end. Wherever there is pretence, there is danger; you cannot deceive God. Do you come to God saying, "I want union with you" and in your heart meaning "I want powers and enjoyments"? Beware! You are heading straight towards the brink of the precipice. And yet it is so easy to avoid all catastrophe. Become like a child, give yourself up to the Mother, let her carry you, and there is no more danger for you.
This does not mean that you have not to face other kinds of difficulties or that you have not to fight and conquer any obstacles at all. Surrender does not ensure a smooth and unruffled and continuous progression. The reason is that your being is not yet one, nor your surrender absolute and complete. Only a part of you surrenders; and today it is one part and the next day it is another. The whole purpose of the Yoga is to gather all the divergent parts together and forge them into an undivided unity. Till then you cannot hope to be without difficulties - difficulties, for example, like doubt or depression or hesitation. The whole world is full of the poison. You take it in with every breath. If you exchange a few words with an undesirable man or even if such a man merely passes by you, you may catch the contagion from him. It is sufficient for you to come near a place where there is plague in order to be infected with its poison; you need not know at all that it is there. You can lose in a few minutes what it has taken you months to gain. So long as you belong to humanity and so long as you lead the ordinary life, it does not matter much if you mix with the people of the world; but if you want the divine life, you will have to be exceedingly careful about your company and your environment.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931,#KEYS
183:How to Meditate
Deep meditation is a mental procedure that utilizes the nature of the mind to systematically bring the mind to rest. If the mind is given the opportunity, it will go to rest with no effort. That is how the mind works.
Indeed, effort is opposed to the natural process of deep meditation. The mind always seeks the path of least resistance to express itself. Most of the time this is by making more and more thoughts. But it is also possible to create a situation in the mind that turns the path of least resistance into one leading to fewer and fewer thoughts. And, very soon, no thoughts at all. This is done by using a particular thought in a particular way. The thought is called a mantra.
For our practice of deep meditation, we will use the thought - I AM. This will be our mantra.
It is for the sound that we will use I AM, not for the meaning of it.
The meaning has an obvious significance in English, and I AM has a religious meaning in the English Bible as well. But we will not use I AM for the meaning - only for the sound. We can also spell it AYAM. No meaning there, is there? Only the sound. That is what we want. If your first language is not English, you may spell the sound phonetically in your own language if you wish. No matter how we spell it, it will be the same sound. The power of the sound ...I AM... is great when thought inside. But only if we use a particular procedure. Knowing this procedure is the key to successful meditation. It is very simple. So simple that we will devote many pages here to discussing how to keep it simple, because we all have a tendency to make things more complicated. Maintaining simplicity is the key to right meditation.
Here is the procedure of deep meditation: While sitting comfortably with eyes closed, we'll just relax. We will notice thoughts, streams of thoughts. That is fine. We just let them go by without minding them. After about a minute, we gently introduce the mantra, ...I AM...
We think the mantra in a repetition very easily inside. The speed of repetition may vary, and we do not mind it. We do not intone the mantra out loud. We do not deliberately locate the mantra in any particular part of the body. Whenever we realize we are not thinking the mantra inside anymore, we come back to it easily. This may happen many times in a sitting, or only once or twice. It doesn't matter. We follow this procedure of easily coming back to the mantra when we realize we are off it for the predetermined time of our meditation session. That's it.
Very simple.
Typically, the way we will find ourselves off the mantra will be in a stream of other thoughts. This is normal. The mind is a thought machine, remember? Making thoughts is what it does. But, if we are meditating, as soon as we realize we are off into a stream of thoughts, no matter how mundane or profound, we just easily go back to the mantra.
Like that. We don't make a struggle of it. The idea is not that we have to be on the mantra all the time. That is not the objective. The objective is to easily go back to it when we realize we are off it. We just favor the mantra with our attention when we notice we are not thinking it. If we are back into a stream of other thoughts five seconds later, we don't try and force the thoughts out. Thoughts are a normal part of the deep meditation process. We just ease back to the mantra again. We favor it.
Deep meditation is a going toward, not a pushing away from. We do that every single time with the mantra when we realize we are off it - just easily favoring it. It is a gentle persuasion. No struggle. No fuss. No iron willpower or mental heroics are necessary for this practice. All such efforts are away from the simplicity of deep meditation and will reduce its effectiveness.
As we do this simple process of deep meditation, we will at some point notice a change in the character of our inner experience. The mantra may become very refined and fuzzy. This is normal. It is perfectly all right to think the mantra in a very refined and fuzzy way if this is the easiest. It should always be easy - never a struggle. Other times, we may lose track of where we are for a while, having no mantra, or stream of thoughts either. This is fine too. When we realize we have been off somewhere, we just ease back to the mantra again. If we have been very settled with the mantra being barely recognizable, we can go back to that fuzzy level of it, if it is the easiest. As the mantra refines, we are riding it inward with our attention to progressively deeper levels of inner silence in the mind. So it is normal for the mantra to become very faint and fuzzy. We cannot force this to happen. It will happen naturally as our nervous system goes through its many cycles ofinner purification stimulated by deep meditation. When the mantra refines, we just go with it. And when the mantra does not refine, we just be with it at whatever level is easy. No struggle. There is no objective to attain, except to continue the simple procedure we are describing here.
When and Where to Meditate
How long and how often do we meditate? For most people, twenty minutes is the best duration for a meditation session. It is done twice per day, once before the morning meal and day's activity, and then again before the evening meal and evening's activity.
Try to avoid meditating right after eating or right before bed.
Before meal and activity is the ideal time. It will be most effective and refreshing then. Deep meditation is a preparation for activity, and our results over time will be best if we are active between our meditation sessions. Also, meditation is not a substitute for sleep. The ideal situation is a good balance between meditation, daily activity and normal sleep at night. If we do this, our inner experience will grow naturally over time, and our outer life will become enriched by our growing inner silence.
A word on how to sit in meditation: The first priority is comfort. It is not desirable to sit in a way that distracts us from the easy procedure of meditation. So sitting in a comfortable chair with back support is a good way to meditate. Later on, or if we are already familiar, there can be an advantage to sitting with legs crossed, also with back support. But always with comfort and least distraction being the priority. If, for whatever reason, crossed legs are not feasible for us, we will do just fine meditating in our comfortable chair. There will be no loss of the benefits.
Due to commitments we may have, the ideal routine of meditation sessions will not always be possible. That is okay. Do the best you can and do not stress over it. Due to circumstances beyond our control, sometimes the only time we will have to meditate will be right after a meal, or even later in the evening near bedtime. If meditating at these times causes a little disruption in our system, we will know it soon enough and make the necessary adjustments. The main thing is that we do our best to do two meditations every day, even if it is only a short session between our commitments. Later on, we will look at the options we have to make adjustments to address varying outer circumstances, as well as inner experiences that can come up.
Before we go on, you should try a meditation. Find a comfortable place to sit where you are not likely to be interrupted and do a short meditation, say ten minutes, and see how it goes. It is a toe in the water.
Make sure to take a couple of minutes at the end sitting easily without doing the procedure of meditation. Then open your eyes slowly. Then read on here.
As you will see, the simple procedure of deep meditation and it's resulting experiences will raise some questions. We will cover many of them here.
So, now we will move into the practical aspects of deep meditation - your own experiences and initial symptoms of the growth of your own inner silence. ~ Yogani, Deep Meditation,#KEYS
184:
Can a Yogi attain to a state of consciousness in which he can know all things, answer all questions, relating even to abstruse scientific problems, such as, for example, the theory of relativity?
Theoretically and in principle it is not impossible for a Yogi to know everything; all depends upon the Yogi.
But there is knowledge and knowledge. The Yogi does not know in the way of the mind. He does not know everything in the sense that he has access to all possible information or because he contains all the facts of the universe in his mind or because his consciousness is a sort of miraculous encyclopaedia. He knows by his capacity for a containing or dynamic identity with things and persons and forces. Or he knows because he lives in a plane of consciousness or is in contact with a consciousness in which there is the truth and the knowledge.
If you are in the true consciousness, the knowledge you have will also be of the truth. Then, too, you can know directly, by being one with what you know. If a problem is put before you, if you are asked what is to be done in a particular matter, you can then, by looking with enough attention and concentration, receive spontaneously the required knowledge and the true answer. It is not by any careful application of theory that you reach the knowledge or by working it out through a mental process. The scientific mind needs these methods to come to its conclusions. But the Yogi's knowledge is direct and immediate; it is not deductive. If an engineer has to find out the exact position for the building of an arch, the line of its curve and the size of its opening, he does it by calculation, collating and deducing from his information and data. But a Yogi needs none of these things; he looks, has the vision of the thing, sees that it is to be done in this way and not in another, and this seeing is his knowledge.
Although it may be true in a general way and in a certain sense that a Yogi can know all things and can answer all questions from his own field of vision and consciousness, yet it does not follow that there are no questions whatever of any kind to which he would not or could not answer. A Yogi who has the direct knowledge, the knowledge of the true truth of things, would not care or perhaps would find it difficult to answer questions that belong entirely to the domain of human mental constructions. It may be, he could not or would not wish to solve problems and difficulties you might put to him which touch only the illusion of things and their appearances. The working of his knowledge is not in the mind. If you put him some silly mental query of that character, he probably would not answer. The very common conception that you can put any ignorant question to him as to some super-schoolmaster or demand from him any kind of information past, present or future and that he is bound to answer, is a foolish idea. It is as inept as the expectation from the spiritual man of feats and miracles that would satisfy the vulgar external mind and leave it gaping with wonder.
Moreover, the term "Yogi" is very vague and wide. There are many types of Yogis, many lines or ranges of spiritual or occult endeavour and different heights of achievement, there are some whose powers do not extend beyond the mental level; there are others who have gone beyond it. Everything depends on the field or nature of their effort, the height to which they have arrived, the consciousness with which they have contact or into which they enter.
Do not scientists go sometimes beyond the mental plane? It is said that Einstein found his theory of relativity not through any process of reasoning, but through some kind of sudden inspiration. Has that inspiration anything to do with the Supermind?
The scientist who gets an inspiration revealing to him a new truth, receives it from the intuitive mind. The knowledge comes as a direct perception in the higher mental plane illumined by some other light still farther above. But all that has nothing to do with the action of Supermind and this higher mental level is far removed from the supramental plane. Men are too easily inclined to believe that they have climbed into regions quite divine when they have only gone above the average level. There are many stages between the ordinary human mind and the Supermind, many grades and many intervening planes. If an ordinary man were to get into direct contact even with one of these intermediate planes, he would be dazzled and blinded, would be crushed under the weight of the sense of immensity or would lose his balance; and yet it is not the Supermind.
Behind the common idea that a Yogi can know all things and answer all questions is the actual fact that there is a plane in the mind where the memory of everything is stored and remains always in existence. All mental movements that belong to the life of the earth are memorised and registered in this plane. Those who are capable of going there and care to take the trouble, can read in it and learn anything they choose. But this region must not be mistaken for the supramental levels. And yet to reach even there you must be able to silence the movements of the material or physical mind; you must be able to leave aside all your sensations and put a stop to your ordinary mental movements, whatever they are; you must get out of the vital; you must become free from the slavery of the body. Then only you can enter into that region and see. But if you are sufficiently interested to make this effort, you can arrive there and read what is written in the earth's memory.
Thus, if you go deep into silence, you can reach a level of consciousness on which it is not impossible for you to receive answers to all your questions. And if there is one who is consciously open to the plenary truth of the supermind, in constant contact with it, he can certainly answer any question that is worth an answer from the supramental Light. The queries put must come from some sense of the truth and reality behind things. There are many questions and much debated problems that are cobwebs woven of mere mental abstractions or move on the illusory surface of things. These do not pertain to real knowledge; they are a deformation of knowledge, their very substance is of the ignorance. Certainly the supramental knowledge may give an answer, its own answer, to the problems set by the mind's ignorance; but it is likely that it would not be at all satisfactory or perhaps even intelligible to those who ask from the mental level. You must not expect the supramental to work in the way of the mind or demand that the knowledge in truth should be capable of being pieced together with the half-knowledge in ignorance. The scheme of the mind is one thing, but Supermind is quite another and it would no longer be supramental if it adapted itself to the exigencies of the mental scheme. The two are incommensurable and cannot be put together.
When the consciousness has attained to supramental joys, does it no longer take interest in the things of the mind?
The supramental does not take interest in mental things in the same way as the mind. It takes its own interest in all the movements of the universe, but it is from a different point of view and with a different vision. The world presents to it an entirely different appearance; there is a reversal of outlook and everything is seen from there as other than what it seems to the mind and often even the opposite. Things have another meaning; their aspect, their motion and process, everything about them, are watched with other eyes. Everything here is followed by the supermind; the mind movements and not less the vital, the material movements, all the play of the universe have for it a very deep interest, but of another kind. It is about the same difference as that between the interest taken in a puppet-play by one who holds the strings and knows what the puppets are to do and the will that moves them and that they can do only what it moves them to do, and the interest taken by another who observes the play but sees only what is happening from moment to moment and knows nothing else. The one who follows the play and is outside its secret has a stronger, an eager and passionate interest in what will happen and he gives an excited attention to its unforeseen or dramatic events; the other, who holds the strings and moves the show, is unmoved and tranquil. There is a certain intensity of interest which comes from ignorance and is bound up with illusion, and that must disappear when you are out of the ignorance. The interest that human beings take in things founds itself on the illusion; if that were removed, they would have no interest at all in the play; they would find it dry and dull. That is why all this ignorance, all this illusion has lasted so long; it is because men like it, because they cling to it and its peculiar kind of appeal that it endures.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, 93?
,#KEYS
185:The Science of Living
To know oneself and to control oneself
AN AIMLESS life is always a miserable life.
Every one of you should have an aim. But do not forget that on the quality of your aim will depend the quality of your life.
Your aim should be high and wide, generous and disinterested; this will make your life precious to yourself and to others.
But whatever your ideal, it cannot be perfectly realised unless you have realised perfection in yourself.
To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their respective activities. You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the origin of the movements that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action. It is an assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. For man's nature, especially his mental nature, has a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation for everything he thinks, feels, says and does. It is only by observing these movements with great care, by bringing them, as it were, before the tribunal of our highest ideal, with a sincere will to submit to its judgment, that we can hope to form in ourselves a discernment that never errs. For if we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavour.
As you pursue this labour of purification and unification, you must at the same time take great care to perfect the external and instrumental part of your being. When the higher truth manifests, it must find in you a mind that is supple and rich enough to be able to give the idea that seeks to express itself a form of thought which preserves its force and clarity. This thought, again, when it seeks to clothe itself in words, must find in you a sufficient power of expression so that the words reveal the thought and do not deform it. And the formula in which you embody the truth should be manifested in all your feelings, all your acts of will, all your actions, in all the movements of your being. Finally, these movements themselves should, by constant effort, attain their highest perfection.
All this can be realised by means of a fourfold discipline, the general outline of which is given here. The four aspects of the discipline do not exclude each other, and can be followed at the same time; indeed, this is preferable. The starting-point is what can be called the psychic discipline. We give the name "psychic" to the psychological centre of our being, the seat within us of the highest truth of our existence, that which can know this truth and set it in movement. It is therefore of capital importance to become conscious of its presence in us, to concentrate on this presence until it becomes a living fact for us and we can identify ourselves with it.
In various times and places many methods have been prescribed for attaining this perception and ultimately achieving this identification. Some methods are psychological, some religious, some even mechanical. In reality, everyone has to find the one which suits him best, and if one has an ardent and steadfast aspiration, a persistent and dynamic will, one is sure to meet, in one way or another - outwardly through reading and study, inwardly through concentration, meditation, revelation and experience - the help one needs to reach the goal. Only one thing is absolutely indispensable: the will to discover and to realise. This discovery and realisation should be the primary preoccupation of our being, the pearl of great price which we must acquire at any cost. Whatever you do, whatever your occupations and activities, the will to find the truth of your being and to unite with it must be always living and present behind all that you do, all that you feel, all that you think.
To complement this movement of inner discovery, it would be good not to neglect the development of the mind. For the mental instrument can equally be a great help or a great hindrance. In its natural state the human mind is always limited in its vision, narrow in its understanding, rigid in its conceptions, and a constant effort is therefore needed to widen it, to make it more supple and profound. So it is very necessary to consider everything from as many points of view as possible. Towards this end, there is an exercise which gives great suppleness and elevation to the thought. It is as follows: a clearly formulated thesis is set; against it is opposed its antithesis, formulated with the same precision. Then by careful reflection the problem must be widened or transcended until a synthesis is found which unites the two contraries in a larger, higher and more comprehensive idea.
Many other exercises of the same kind can be undertaken; some have a beneficial effect on the character and so possess a double advantage: that of educating the mind and that of establishing control over the feelings and their consequences. For example, you must never allow your mind to judge things and people, for the mind is not an instrument of knowledge; it is incapable of finding knowledge, but it must be moved by knowledge. Knowledge belongs to a much higher domain than that of the human mind, far above the region of pure ideas. The mind has to be silent and attentive to receive knowledge from above and manifest it. For it is an instrument of formation, of organisation and action, and it is in these functions that it attains its full value and real usefulness.
There is another practice which can be very helpful to the progress of the consciousness. Whenever there is a disagreement on any matter, such as a decision to be taken, or an action to be carried out, one must never remain closed up in one's own conception or point of view. On the contrary, one must make an effort to understand the other's point of view, to put oneself in his place and, instead of quarrelling or even fighting, find the solution which can reasonably satisfy both parties; there always is one for men of goodwill.
Here we must mention the discipline of the vital. The vital being in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy and desperate depressions, of passions and revolts. It can set everything in motion, build and realise; but it can also destroy and mar everything. Thus it may be the most difficult part to discipline in the human being. It is a long and exacting labour requiring great patience and perfect sincerity, for without sincerity you will deceive yourself from the very outset, and all endeavour for progress will be in vain. With the collaboration of the vital no realisation seems impossible, no transformation impracticable. But the difficulty lies in securing this constant collaboration. The vital is a good worker, but most often it seeks its own satisfaction. If that is refused, totally or even partially, the vital gets vexed, sulks and goes on strike. Its energy disappears more or less completely and in its place leaves disgust for people and things, discouragement or revolt, depression and dissatisfaction. At such moments it is good to remain quiet and refuse to act; for these are the times when one does stupid things and in a few moments one can destroy or spoil the progress that has been made during months of regular effort. These crises are shorter and less dangerous for those who have established a contact with their psychic being which is sufficient to keep alive in them the flame of aspiration and the consciousness of the ideal to be realised. They can, with the help of this consciousness, deal with their vital as one deals with a rebellious child, with patience and perseverance, showing it the truth and light, endeavouring to convince it and awaken in it the goodwill which has been veiled for a time. By means of such patient intervention each crisis can be turned into a new progress, into one more step towards the goal. Progress may be slow, relapses may be frequent, but if a courageous will is maintained, one is sure to triumph one day and see all difficulties melt and vanish before the radiance of the truth-consciousness.
Lastly, by means of a rational and discerning physical education, we must make our body strong and supple enough to become a fit instrument in the material world for the truth-force which wants to manifest through us.
In fact, the body must not rule, it must obey. By its very nature it is a docile and faithful servant. Unfortunately, it rarely has the capacity of discernment it ought to have with regard to its masters, the mind and the vital. It obeys them blindly, at the cost of its own well-being. The mind with its dogmas, its rigid and arbitrary principles, the vital with its passions, its excesses and dissipations soon destroy the natural balance of the body and create in it fatigue, exhaustion and disease. It must be freed from this tyranny and this can be done only through a constant union with the psychic centre of the being. The body has a wonderful capacity of adaptation and endurance. It is able to do so many more things than one usually imagines. If, instead of the ignorant and despotic masters that now govern it, it is ruled by the central truth of the being, you will be amazed at what it is capable of doing. Calm and quiet, strong and poised, at every minute it will be able to put forth the effort that is demanded of it, for it will have learnt to find rest in action and to recuperate, through contact with the universal forces, the energies it expends consciously and usefully. In this sound and balanced life a new harmony will manifest in the body, reflecting the harmony of the higher regions, which will give it perfect proportions and ideal beauty of form. And this harmony will be progressive, for the truth of the being is never static; it is a perpetual unfolding of a growing perfection that is more and more total and comprehensive. As soon as the body has learnt to follow this movement of progressive harmony, it will be possible for it to escape, through a continuous process of transformation, from the necessity of disintegration and destruction. Thus the irrevocable law of death will no longer have any reason to exist.
When we reach this degree of perfection which is our goal, we shall perceive that the truth we seek is made up of four major aspects: Love, Knowledge, Power and Beauty. These four attributes of the Truth will express themselves spontaneously in our being. The psychic will be the vehicle of true and pure love, the mind will be the vehicle of infallible knowledge, the vital will manifest an invincible power and strength and the body will be the expression of a perfect beauty and harmony.
Bulletin, November 1950
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
186:The Supreme Discovery
IF WE want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life.
Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light.
This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages.
The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one. Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning?
The ancient traditions rightly said:
"Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one."
And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity.
Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him.
For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself?
It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not."
That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God."
This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life.
That is why I remind you of it today. For if we follow our path bearing this thought in our hearts like the rarest jewel, the most precious treasure, if we allow it to do its work of illumination and transfiguration within us, we shall know that it lives in the centre of all beings and all things, and in it we shall feel the marvellous oneness of the universe.
Then we shall understand the vanity and childishness of our meagre satisfactions, our foolish quarrels, our petty passions, our blind indignations. We shall see the dissolution of our little faults, the crumbling of the last entrenchments of our limited personality and our obtuse egoism. We shall feel ourselves being swept along by this sublime current of true spirituality which will deliver us from our narrow limits and bounds.
The individual Self and the universal Self are one; in every world, in every being, in every thing, in every atom is the Divine Presence, and man's mission is to manifest it.
In order to do that, he must become conscious of this Divine Presence within him. Some individuals must undergo a real apprenticeship in order to achieve this: their egoistic being is too all-absorbing, too rigid, too conservative, and their struggles against it are long and painful. Others, on the contrary, who are more impersonal, more plastic, more spiritualised, come easily into contact with the inexhaustible divine source of their being.But let us not forget that they too should devote themselves daily, constantly, to a methodical effort of adaptation and transformation, so that nothing within them may ever again obscure the radiance of that pure light.
But how greatly the standpoint changes once we attain this deeper consciousness! How understanding widens, how compassion grows!
On this a sage has said:
"I would like each one of us to come to the point where he perceives the inner God who dwells even in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him we would say, 'Arise, O resplendent Being, thou who art ever pure, who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, Almighty One, and manifest thy nature.'"
Let us live by this beautiful utterance and we shall see everything around us transformed as if by miracle.
This is the attitude of true, conscious and discerning love, the love which knows how to see behind appearances, understand in spite of words, and which, amid all obstacles, is in constant communion with the depths.
What value have our impulses and our desires, our anguish and our violence, our sufferings and our struggles, all these inner vicissitudes unduly dramatised by our unruly imagination - what value do they have before this great, this sublime and divine love bending over us from the innermost depths of our being, bearing with our weaknesses, rectifying our errors, healing our wounds, bathing our whole being with its regenerating streams?
For the inner Godhead never imposes herself, she neither demands nor threatens; she offers and gives herself, conceals and forgets herself in the heart of all beings and things; she never accuses, she neither judges nor curses nor condemns, but works unceasingly to perfect without constraint, to mend without reproach, to encourage without impatience, to enrich each one with all the wealth he can receive; she is the mother whose love bears fruit and nourishes, guards and protects, counsels and consoles; because she understands everything, she can endure everything, excuse and pardon everything, hope and prepare for everything; bearing everything within herself, she owns nothing that does not belong to all, and because she reigns over all, she is the servant of all; that is why all, great and small, who want to be kings with her and gods in her, become, like her, not despots but servitors among their brethren.
How beautiful is this humble role of servant, the role of all who have been revealers and heralds of the God who is within all, of the Divine Love that animates all things....
And until we can follow their example and become true servants even as they, let us allow ourselves to be penetrated and transformed by this Divine Love; let us offer Him, without reserve, this marvellous instrument, our physical organism. He shall make it yield its utmost on every plane of activity.
To achieve this total self-consecration, all means are good, all methods have their value. The one thing needful is to persevere in our will to attain this goal. For then everything we study, every action we perform, every human being we meet, all come to bring us an indication, a help, a light to guide us on the path.
Before I close, I shall add a few pages for those who have already made apparently fruitless efforts, for those who have encountered the pitfalls on the way and seen the measure of their weakness, for those who are in danger of losing their self-confidence and courage. These pages, intended to rekindle hope in the hearts of those who suffer, were written by a spiritual worker at a time when ordeals of every kind were sweeping down on him like purifying flames.
You who are weary, downcast and bruised, you who fall, who think perhaps that you are defeated, hear the voice of a friend. He knows your sorrows, he has shared them, he has suffered like you from the ills of the earth; like you he has crossed many deserts under the burden of the day, he has known thirst and hunger, solitude and abandonment, and the cruellest of all wants, the destitution of the heart. Alas! he has known too the hours of doubt, the errors, the faults, the failings, every weakness.
But he tells you: Courage! Hearken to the lesson that the rising sun brings to the earth with its first rays each morning. It is a lesson of hope, a message of solace.
You who weep, who suffer and tremble, who dare not expect an end to your ills, an issue to your pangs, behold: there is no night without dawn and the day is about to break when darkness is thickest; there is no mist that the sun does not dispel, no cloud that it does not gild, no tear that it will not dry one day, no storm that is not followed by its shining triumphant bow; there is no snow that it does not melt, nor winter that it does not change into radiant spring.
And for you too, there is no affliction which does not bring its measure of glory, no distress which cannot be transformed into joy, nor defeat into victory, nor downfall into higher ascension, nor solitude into radiating centre of life, nor discord into harmony - sometimes it is a misunderstanding between two minds that compels two hearts to open to mutual communion; lastly, there is no infinite weakness that cannot be changed into strength. And it is even in supreme weakness that almightiness chooses to reveal itself!
Listen, my little child, you who today feel so broken, so fallen perhaps, who have nothing left, nothing to cover your misery and foster your pride: never before have you been so great! How close to the summits is he who awakens in the depths, for the deeper the abyss, the more the heights reveal themselves!
Do you not know this, that the most sublime forces of the vasts seek to array themselves in the most opaque veils of Matter? Oh, the sublime nuptials of sovereign love with the obscurest plasticities, of the shadow's yearning with the most royal light!
If ordeal or fault has cast you down, if you have sunk into the nether depths of suffering, do not grieve - for there indeed the divine love and the supreme blessing can reach you! Because you have passed through the crucible of purifying sorrows, the glorious ascents are yours.
You are in the wilderness: then listen to the voices of the silence. The clamour of flattering words and outer applause has gladdened your ears, but the voices of the silence will gladden your soul and awaken within you the echo of the depths, the chant of divine harmonies!
You are walking in the depths of night: then gather the priceless treasures of the night. In bright sunshine, the ways of intelligence are lit, but in the white luminosities of the night lie the hidden paths of perfection, the secret of spiritual riches.
You are being stripped of everything: that is the way towards plenitude. When you have nothing left, everything will be given to you. Because for those who are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best.
Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory.
And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater.
Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night, and the night is filled with stars. He rages against the cosmic working, he assails the integrity of the empire of the sphere, shatters its harmony, divides and subdivides it, scatters its dust to the four winds of infinity, and lo! the dust is changed into a golden seed, fertilising the infinite and peopling it with worlds which now gravitate around their eternal centre in the larger orbit of space - so that even division creates a richer and deeper unity, and by multiplying the surfaces of the material universe, enlarges the empire that it set out to destroy.
Beautiful indeed was the song of the primordial sphere cradled in the bosom of immensity, but how much more beautiful and triumphant is the symphony of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the immense choir that fills the heavens with an eternal hymn of victory!
Hear again: no state was ever more precarious than that of man when he was separated on earth from his divine origin. Above him stretched the hostile borders of the usurper, and at his horizon's gates watched jailers armed with flaming swords. Then, since he could climb no more to the source of life, the source arose within him; since he could no more receive the light from above, the light shone forth at the very centre of his being; since he could commune no more with the transcendent love, that love offered itself in a holocaust and chose each terrestrial being, each human self as its dwelling-place and sanctuary.
That is how, in this despised and desolate but fruitful and blessed Matter, each atom contains a divine thought, each being carries within him the Divine Inhabitant. And if no being in all the universe is as frail as man, neither is any as divine as he!
In truth, in truth, in humiliation lies the cradle of glory! 28 April 1912 ~ The Mother, Words Of Long Ago, The Supreme Discovery,#KEYS
187:It does not matter if you do not understand it - Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see that something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you re-read them. This is what happens invariably. Always your experience is enriched, it is a revelation at each step.
But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open; then the words, rhythms, vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making any effort.
Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs. For him who wishes to follow this path, it is a concrete help as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds its solution herein; indeed there is everything that is necessary for doing the Yoga.
*He has crammed the whole universe in a single book.* It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection.
You know, before writing Savitri Sri Aurobindo said to me, *I am impelled to launch on a new adventure; I was hesitant in the beginning, but now I am decided. Still, I do not know how far I shall succeed. I pray for help.* And you know what it was? It was - before beginning, I warn you in advance - it was His way of speaking, so full of divine humility and modesty. He never... *asserted Himself*. And the day He actually began it, He told me: *I have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the Infinite.* And once having started, He wrote page after page without intermission, as though it were a thing already complete up there and He had only to transcribe it in ink down here on these pages.
In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended "en masse" from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with His genius only arranged the lines - in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and He has left them intact; He worked hard, untiringly, so that the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work He has created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. My child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works in Greek, Latin, English and of course French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything comparable with Savitri. All these literary works seems to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality - apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal He has created. I tell you once again there is nothing like in it the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, that is, the essential substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What He has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything.
It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.
My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all that is going to come is presented with the precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga.
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
These are experiences lived by Him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighborhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to breathe the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He crossed all these realms, went through the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like Him. He accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something that has never happened before, He is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown, so that we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is His whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga appears now for the first time in the earth-consciousness.
And I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The farther one advances on the path of Yoga, the more does one assimilate and the better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which He has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined, - it is not in the mind or through the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed.
And men have the audacity to compare it with the work of Virgil or Homer and to find it inferior. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. Men will know what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super-epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines He has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value - spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come into contact with it, the higher will you be uplifted. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be seen.
My child, every day you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as if Savitri were a being, a real guide. I tell you, whoever, wanting to practice Yoga, tries sincerely and feels the necessity for it, will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practice it anywhere. For him Savitri alone will be the guide, for all that he needs he will find Savitri. If he remains very quiet when before a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains very calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if lead by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity he will reach the final goal.
Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, living, it is all replete, packed with consciousness, it is the supreme knowledge above all human philosophies and religions. It is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, Tapasya, Sadhana, in its single body. Savitri has an extraordinary power, it gives out vibrations for him who can receive them, the true vibrations of each stage of consciousness. It is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth. My child, one must try to find the secret that Savitri represents, the prophetic message Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us. This is the work before you, it is hard but it is worth the trouble. - 5 November 1967
~ The Mother, Sweet Mother, The Mother to Mona Sarkar, [T0],#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:In true love, you attain freedom. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 2:Love can attain what the intellect cannot fathom. ~ meher-baba, @wisdomtrove 3:You would attain to the divine perfection. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 4:When we are centered in joy, we attain our wisdom. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 5:Do not be afraid of perfection - you will never attain it. ~ salvador-dali, @wisdomtrove 6:Controlling the mind is the way to attain internal harmony. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 7:Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 8:In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 9:Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 10:TEAMWORK: the fuel that allows common people attain uncommon results. ~ andrew-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 11:One who sets the entire army in motion to chase an advantage will not attain it. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 12:We attain freedom as we let go of whatever does not reflect our magnificence. ~ alan-cohen, @wisdomtrove 13:Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 14:The thing is not only to avoid error, but to attain immense masses of truth. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 15:Whenever we attain a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 16:In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 17:To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day. ~ lao-tzu, @wisdomtrove 18:I claim my heart's desire, and I choose my direction. I will attain my chosen goal. ~ alan-cohen, @wisdomtrove 19:It is the heart and not the brain, That to the highest doth attain. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 20:Until we realise ourselves as the Absolute, we cannot attain to deliverance. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 21:And as long as you're subject to birth and death, you'll never attain enlightenment. ~ bodhidharma, @wisdomtrove 22:Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. ~ dorothy-parker, @wisdomtrove 23:A happy life is impossible; the best that a man can attain is a heroic life. ~ arthur-schopenhauer, @wisdomtrove 24:Your sole purpose in life is to attain God-realization. All else is useless and worthless. ~ sivananda, @wisdomtrove 25:Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves with railing against it. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove 26:The Buddha is not a person but a (state of) realization to which anyone can attain. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 27:What you are must always displease you, if you would attain to that which you are not. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 28:Try to cultivate love of God. You are born as a human being only to attain divine love. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 29:To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 30:At night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, my books attain a collective dignity. ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove 31:I believe the greatest successes you will ever attain are still waiting for you on the road ahead. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove 32:Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment. ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 33:It is impossible to attain proper physical condition without being sound both mentally and morally. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove 34:Consciously or unconsciously, we are all striving for perfection. Every being must attain to it. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 35:Unless you expect the unexpected you will never find it, for it is hard to discover and hard to attain. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 36:Every soul is destined to be perfect, and every being, in the end, will attain the state of perfection. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 37:To attain real happiness, humans need to slow down the pursuit of pleasant sensations, not accelerate it. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 38:To attain true inner freedom, you must be able to objectively watch your problems instead of being lost in them. ~ michael-singer, @wisdomtrove 39:Eternity gives life to all and sustains all, transforms all on the wheel of dharma - until all attain perfection. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 40:I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 41:Without dancing you can never attain a perfectly graceful carriage, which is of the highest importance in life. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 42:If someone with the right conduct tries to attain to something that lies outside of it, is his goal not the right conduct. ~ plotinus, @wisdomtrove 43:Truth is not far away. It is nearer than near. There is no need to attain it, since not one of your steps leads away from it. ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 44:The art of choosing men is not nearly so difficult as the art of enabling those chosen to attain their full worth. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 45:How you spend your time is far more important than all the material possessions you may own or positions you may attain. ~ denis-waitley, @wisdomtrove 46:Simply by performing good actions and thinking good thoughts you will not attain enlightenment. It takes something more. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 47:Meet this transient world with neither grasping nor fear, trust the unfolding of life, and you will attain true serenity. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 48:No effort is required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration is needed to abandon everything else. ~ quentin-crisp, @wisdomtrove 49:It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite. ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 50:Those who attain any excellence commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often granted upon easier terms. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 51:To pace about, looking to obtain status, looking to attain & 52:There are just two questions to ask to attain success in business: First, "What business am I in?" Second, "How's business?" ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 53:If education is to develop human nature so that it may attain the object of its being, it must involve the exercise of judgment. ~ immanuel-kant, @wisdomtrove 54:It takes someone with a vision of the possibilities to attain new levels of experience. Someone with the courage to live his dreams. ~ les-brown, @wisdomtrove 55:Only in the human form is it possible for life to attain its final goal, which is to realize the all-pervading and infinite Divinity. ~ meher-baba, @wisdomtrove 56:Great men are the modelers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do and attain. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 57:It is a striving to attain the best. To throttle it would mean to stop all progress. Certain men do not need to compete. They are pioneers. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 58:If you yourself desire establishment, then help others to get establishment; if you yourself want success, then help others to attain success. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 59:To attain "success" without attaining positive self-esteem is to be condemned to feeling like an imposter anxiously awaiting exposure. ~ nathaniel-branden, @wisdomtrove 60:Without discontentment, without revolt, you can never attain harmony. It is a necessary stage, which must be gone through by everyone. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 61:Belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 62:When a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain, and his virtue is not sufficient to enable him to hold, whatever he may have gained, he will lose again. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 63:Mary means Star of the sea, for as mariners are guided to port by the ocean star, so Christians attain to glory through Mary's maternal intercession. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 64:A man of humanity is one who, in seeking to establish himself, finds a foothold for others and who, in desiring attaining himself, helps others to attain. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 65:Mary means Star of the sea, for as mariners are guided to port by the ocean star, so Christians attain to glory through Mary's maternal intercession. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 66:When you try to do one step forward to attain knowledge about the hidden truths, then do the same time three steps forward to perfect your character. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 67:How to attain peace? Detach yourself from all that makes your mind restless. Renounce all that disturbs its peace. If you want peace, deserve it. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 68:The goal of the human experience is to transform ourselves from being who long to attain power in the physical world to beings who are empowered from within. ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove 69:The necessary thing is after all but this; solitude, great inner solitude. Going into oneself for hours meeting no one - this one must be able to attain. ~ rainer-maria-rilke, @wisdomtrove 70:Every activity performed in public can attain an excellence never matched in privacy; for excellence, by definition, the presence of others is always required. ~ hannah-arendt, @wisdomtrove 71:The average individual spends many, many lifetimes meditating and seeking and chewing bubblegum and doing things like that to attain the experience of samadhi. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 72:It is possible to renounce everything and attain enlightenment. But most people don't want to renounce; they wish to run away from responsibility and hard work. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 73:One cannot attain divine knowledge till one gets rid of pride. Water does not stay on the top of a mound; but into low land it flows in torrents from all sides. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 74:To attain union is so impossibly difficult because it is impossible to become what you already are! Union is nothing other than knowledge of oneself as the Only One. ~ meher-baba, @wisdomtrove 75:Always remember that renunciation is the root idea. Unless one is initiated into this idea, not even Brahma and the World - gods have the power to attain Mukti ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 76:If we attach more importance to what other people believe than to what we know to be true - if we value belonging over being - we will not attain authenticity. ~ nathaniel-branden, @wisdomtrove 77:Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence. ~ vince-lombardi, @wisdomtrove 78:I don't want people to think that they can attain realization simply by listening to others or by reading books. They must practice what they read and hear. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 79:The goal of the human experience is to transform ourselves from being who long to attain power in the physical world to beings who are empowered from within. ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove 80:Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 81:H ow can one attain yoga? By completely renouncing attachment to worldly things. The mind must be pure and without blemish, like the telegraph wire that has no defect. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 82:Only those of tranquil minds, and none else, can attain abiding joy, by realizing within their souls the Being who manifests one essence in a multiplicity of forms. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove 83:What is necessary, after all, is only thing: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours—that is what you must be able to attain. ~ rainer-maria-rilke, @wisdomtrove 84:But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind. ~ bodhidharma, @wisdomtrove 85:What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It's close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 86:For a man to attain to an eminent degree in learning costs him time, watching, hunger, nakedness, dizziness in the head, weakness in the stomach, and other inconveniences. ~ miguel-de-cervantes, @wisdomtrove 87:It is only through love that we can attain to communion with God. All living knowledge of God rests upon this foundation: that we experience him in our lives as Will-to-love. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 88:Do not be proud of wealth, people, relations and friends, or youth. All these are snatched by time in the blink of an eye. Giving up this illusory world, know and attain the Supreme. ~ adi-shankara, @wisdomtrove 89:If you attain liberation do not feel that it matters or it is important. You had nothing to do with it. If you are bound by ignorance do not feel bad. You had nothing to do with it. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 90:Every aspect of you is perfect. There’s nothing to let go, nothing to forgive, nothing to attain. You already are everything you need to be. It can seem so complicated, but it’s not. ~ anita-moorjani, @wisdomtrove 91:Those who wish to attain God and progress in religious devotion, should particularly guard themselves against the snares of lust and wealth. Otherwise they can never attain perfection. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 92:I always stress condition with my basketball players. I don’t mean physical condition only. You cannot attain and maintain physical condition unless you are morally and mentally conditioned. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove 93:There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 94:Your success is not measured in terms of what all you obtained but in term of what you become, how you live and what actions you do. Upon this point reflect well and attain great happiness ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 95:Do your actions in the world, without forgetting that your find goal in life is to break free from all bondage and limitations. Always & 96:What is important in meditation is the quality of the mind and the heart.It is not what you achieve, or what you say you attain, but rather the quality of a mind that is innocent and vulnerable. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 97:If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing. ~ saint-augustine, @wisdomtrove 98:A man should demand much from himself, but little from others. When you meet a man of worth, think how you may attain to his excellence. When you meet an unworthy one, then look within and examine yourself. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 99:The method of not erring is sought by all the world. The logicians profess to guide it, the geometricians alone attain it, and apart from science, and the imitations of it, there are no true demonstrations. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 100:Being completely and totally present and at every single point of space and time, It is fully and completely present here and now, thus we can no more attain immanent Spirit then we could, say, attain our feet. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 101:So I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 102:The degree of success that you attain in all of your physical, mental and spiritual undertakings is dependent upon the strength and clarity of your finite mind and your ability to access your infinite mind. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 103:The meek man will attain a place of soul rest. As he walks on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him. The old struggle to defend himself is over. He has found the peace which meekness brings. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 104:The reason artists show so little interest In public freedom is because the freedom They've come to feel the need of is a kind No one can give them they can scarce attain The freedom of their own material... . ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove 105:Not only we can, but some have reached perfection; so no matter what finer bodies come, they could only be on the relative plane and could do no more than we, for to attain freedom is all that can be done. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 106:The Universe was created out of joy and this is why you find joy in the fleeting things of the world. Without joy, life is an ordeal. You must try to attain to that great Joy which has brought forth the world. ~ anandamayi-ma, @wisdomtrove 107:[Tibet] never sought any territory. All it wanted is the conquest of the soul, that people should attain a kind of inner sovereignty, inner independence, inner freedom. And inner strength to attain the absolute. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 108:If you love all things, you will also attain the divine mystery that is in all things. For then your ability to perceive the truth will grow every day, and your mind will open itself to an all-embracing love ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 109:We attain freedom as we let go of whatever does not reflect our magnificence. A bird cannot fly high or far with a stone tied to its back. But release the impediment, and we are free to soar to unprecedented heights. ~ alan-cohen, @wisdomtrove 110:The truth is that you cannot attain God if you have even a trace of desire. Subtle is the way of dharma. If you are trying to thread a needle, you will not succeed if the thread has even a slight fiber sticking out. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 111:I attain a different kind of beauty, achieve a symmetry by means of infinite discords, showing all the traces of the mind's passage through the world, achieve in the end some kind of whole made of shivering fragments. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 112:Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results. ~ andrew-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 113:What is material and what is not? When the world is the end and God is the means to attain that end, that is material. When God is the end and the world is only the means to attain that end, spirituality has begun. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 114:The Highest to which people can attain is wonder; and if the prime phenomenon makes them wonder, let them be content; nothing higher can it give them, and nothing further should they seek for behind it; there is the limit. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 115:The impression forces itself upon one that men measure by false standards, that everyone seeks power, success, riches for himself, and admires others who attain them, while undervaluing the truly precious thing in life. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 116:What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours-that is what you must be able to attain. To be solitary as you were when you were a child. ~ rainer-maria-rilke, @wisdomtrove 117:In Old Zen, the Zen Master would do literally anything to break down the concept of what the study was. He would present conflicting codes all the time, just to shake this fixation people had on how to attain liberation. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 118:If our emotional stability is based on what other people do or do not do, then we have no stability. If our emotional stability is based on love that is changeless and unalterable, then we attain the stability of God. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 119:Although my knowledge grows more and more, nevertheless I do not for that reason believe that it can ever be actually infinite, since it can never reach a point so high that it will be unable to attain any greater increase. ~ rene-descartes, @wisdomtrove 120:One cannot completely get rid of the six passions: lust, anger, greed, and the like. Therefore one should direct them to God. If you must have desire and greed, then you should desire love of God and be greedy to attain Him. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 121:American working men are principals in the three-member team of capital, management, labor. Never have they regarded themselves as a servile class that could attain freedom only through destruction of the industrial economy. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove 122:Advaita is the only system that gives us complete control over ourselves, takes off all dependence and its associated superstitions, thus making us brave to suffer, brave to do, and in the long run, attain to absolute freedom. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 123:To attain inner peace you must actually give your life, not just your possessions. When you at last give your life - bringing into alignment your beliefs and the way you live then, and only then, can you begin to find inner peace. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove 124:We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom. We cannot demand that anyone try to attain justice and freedom who has not had a chance to imagine them as attainable. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 125:In 1954, Pope Pius XI, of all people, sent some Vatican delegates on a trip to Libya with these written instructions: "Do NOT think that you are going among Infidels. Muslims attain salvation, too. The ways of Providence are infinite. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 126:After all, how can a society flourish, a country attain democracy and health, children grow into intelligent beings, sensitive to the needs of an ever more fragile and endangered planet, if half it's people are kept out of the driver's seat? ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 127:For reason's measurements, which attain unto temporal things, do not attain unto things that are free from time-just as hearing does not attain unto whatever is not-audible, even though these things exist and are unattainable by hearing. ~ nicholas-of-cusa, @wisdomtrove 128:a man can radically change his life and attain to a deeper meaning, a more perfect integration, a more complete fulfillment, a more total liberty of spirit than are possible in the routines of a purely active existence centered on money-making. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 129:You should stop searching for phrases and chasing after words. Take the backward step and turn the light inward. Your body-mind of itself will drop off and your original face will appear. If you want to attain just this, immediately practice just this. ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 130:Strengthen your mind and refuse to carry the burden of mental and moral weakness acquired in past years; burn them in the fires of your present divine resolutions and right activities. By this constructive attitude you will attain freedom. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 131:Even if we are occupied with important things and even if we attain honour or fall into misfortune, still let us remember how good it once was here, when we were all together united by a good and kind feeling which made us perhaps better than we are. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 132:The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated on achieving reform from within. ~ mahatma-gandhi, @wisdomtrove 133:You are already everything you may hope to attain, so no effort of the will is necessary – even for the mind to come back to the breath – and no attainment is possible. You are already it. It is already here. Here is already everywhere, and now is already always. ~ jon-kabat-zinn, @wisdomtrove 134:All to whom want is terrible, upon whatever principle, ought to think themselves obliged to learn the sage maxims of our parsimonious ancestors, and attain the salutary arts of contracting expense; for without economy none can be rich, and with it few can be poor. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 135:For years and years you enter into samadhi every day in order to attain liberation. Eternity fashions a new self which you find yourself with when you come out of samadhi. Each time you come out a little less, you might say, or your real self comes out a little more ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 136:To me it seems that to give happiness is a far nobler goal that to attain it: and that what we exist for is much more a matter of relations to others than a matter of individual progress: much more a matter of helping others to heaven than of getting there ourselves. ~ lewis-carroll, @wisdomtrove 137:I do believe 50 is the new 40 and 60 is the new 50. Hell, maybe 60 can be the new 40, I don't know. I believe that when we give ourselves permission, we can live with an excitement and heat and passion that most women in previous generations were unable to attain. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 138:Truth cannot be brought down; rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 139:Those that only take a nibble here and a nibble there will never attain anything ... Those who really want to be yogis must give up, once and for all, this nibbling at things. Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 140:I am, in fact, the complete anti-Messiah, and detest converts almost as much as I detest missionaries. My writings, such as they are, have had only one purpose: to attain for H. L. Mencken that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 141:The highest ideal man can form of his own powers, is that which he is destined to attain. Whatever the soul knows how to seek, it cannot fail to obtain. This is the law and the prophets. Knock and it shall be opened, seek and ye shall find. It is demonstrated; it is a maxim. ~ margaret-fuller, @wisdomtrove 142:You are not bound. You have got free will. You cannot change the experiences, the results of Prarabdha but you can change your future by right thinking and right action and thus make your will pure and irresistible. You can attain Self-realisatio n with the help of a dynamic will. ~ sivananda, @wisdomtrove 143:Man’s strength resides in his capacity and desire to elevate himself, so as to attain the good. To travel step by step toward the heights. And that is all he can do. To reach heaven and remain there is beyond his powers: Even Moses had to return to earth. Is it the same for evil? ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 144:Our words must be judged by our deeds; and in striving for a lofty ideal we must use practical methods; and if we cannot attain all at one leap, we must advance towards it step by step, reasonably content so long as we do actually make some progress in the right direction. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 145:To attain true inner freedom, you must be able to objectively watch your problems instead of being lost in them... Once you've made the commitment to free yourself of the scared person inside, you will notice that there is a clear decision point at which your growth takes place. ~ michael-singer, @wisdomtrove 146:For power can guarantee the interests of some men but it can never foster the good of man. Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all the others. Only love can attain and preserve the good of all. Any claim to build the security of all on force is a manifest imposture. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 147:If you have no share in the living Lord may God have mercy upon you! If you have no share in Christ's rising from the dead then you will not be raised up in the likeness of His glorified body. If you do not attain to that resurrection from among the dead then you must abide in death. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 148:The simplicity that all this presupposes is not easy to attain. I find that my life constantly threatens to become complex and divisive. A life of prayer is basically a very simple life. This simplicity, however, is the result of asceticism and effort: it is not a spontaneous simplicity. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 149:For power can guarantee the interests of some men but it can never foster the good of man. Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all the others. Only love can attain and preserve the good of all. Any claim to build the security of all on force is a manifest imposture. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 150:It is not a pumping-in from the outside that gives wisdom; it is the power and extent of your inner receptivity that determines how much you can attain of true knowledge, and how rapidly. You can quicken your evolution by awakening and increasing the receptive power of your brain cells. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove 151:Listening to the music while stretching her body close to its limit, she was able to attain a mysterious calm. She was simultaneously the torturer and the tortured, the forcer and the forced. This sense of inner-directed self-sufficiency was what she wanted most of all. It gave her deep solace. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 152:Obedience, fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real true freedom. I cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud and wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God's help I attain freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 153:Only two kinds of people can attain self-knowledge: those who are not encumbered at all with learning, that is to say, whose minds are not over-crowded with thoughts borrowed from others; and those who, after studying all the scriptures and sciences, have come to realise that they know nothing. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 154:Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere, and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles... Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 155:Evil is easily discovered; there is an infinite variety; good is almost unique. But some kinds of evil are almost as difficult to discover as that which we call good; and often particular evil of this class passes for good. It needs even a certain greatness of soul to attain to this, as to that which is good. ~ blaise-pascal, @wisdomtrove 156:I regard the Masonic institution as one of the means ordained by the Supreme Architect to enable mankind to work out the problem of destiny; to fight against, and overcome, the weaknesses and imperfections of his nature, and at last to attain to that true life of which death is the herald and the grave the portal. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 157:We lift ourselves by our thought, we climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always, everywhere - your ideal of what you long to attain - the ideal of health, efficiency, success. ~ orison-swett-marden, @wisdomtrove 158:No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 159:I recognized that there are some well-known, little understood, and seldom practiced laws that we must live by if we wish to find peace within or without. Included are the laws that evil can only be overcome by good; that only good means can attain a good end; that those who do unloving things hurt themselves spiritually. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove 160:Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. Three be the things I shall have till I die: Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye. ~ dorothy-parker, @wisdomtrove 161:The majority of people are ready to throw their aims and purposes overboard, and give up at the first sign of opposition or misfortune. A few carry on despite all opposition, until they attain their goal. There may be no heroic connotation to the word ‘persistence,’ but the quality is to the character of man what carbon is to steel. ~ napoleon-hill, @wisdomtrove 162:This little separate self must die. Then we shall find that we are in the Real, and that Real is God, and He is our own true nature, and He is always in us and with us. Let us live in Him and stand in Him. It is the only joyful state of existence. Life on the plane of the Spirit is the only life, and let us all try to attain to this realization. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 163:You cannot attain and maintain physical condition unless you are morally and mentally conditioned. And it is impossible to be in moral condition unless you are spiritually conditioned. I always told my players that our team condition depended on two factors / how hard they worked on the floor during practice and how well they behaved between practices. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove 164:If you persist in trying to attain what is never attained (It is Tao's gift), if you persist in making effort to obtain what effort cannot get, if you persist in reasoning about what cannot be understood, you will be destroyed by the very thing you seek. To know when to stop, to know when you can get no further by your own action, this is the right beginning! ~ zhuangzi, @wisdomtrove 165:No one can help us to achieve the intimate isolation by which we find our secret worlds, so mysterious, rich and full. If others intervene, it is destroyed. This degree of thought, which we attain by freeing ourselves from the external world, must be fed by the inner spirit, and our surroundings cannot influence us in any way other than to leave us in peace. ~ maria-montessori, @wisdomtrove 166:Money can help you to get medicines but not health. Money can help you to get soft pillows, but not sound sleep. Money can help you to get material comforts, but not eternal bliss. Money can help you to get ornaments, but not beauty. Money will help you to get an electric earphone, but not natural hearing. Attain the supreme wealth, wisdom; you will have everything. ~ sivananda, @wisdomtrove 167:God reveals Himself to a devotee who feels drawn to Him by the combined force of these three attractions: the attraction of worldly possessions for the worldly man, the child's attraction for its mother, and the husband's attraction for the chaste wife. If one feels drawn to Him by the combined force of these three attractions, then through it one can attain Him. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 168:We meditate not to attain enlightenment, because enlightenment is already in us. We don't need to search anywhere. We don't need to practice to obtain some high position. We can enjoy every moment. People talk about entering nirvana, but we are already there. Aimlessness and nirvana are one. We have everything we need to make the present moment the happiest in our life. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 169:It is the fate of most men who mingle with the world, and attain even the prime of life, to make many real friends, and lose them in the course of nature. It is the fate of all authors or chroniclers to create imaginary friends, and lose them in the course of art. Nor is this the full extent of their misfortunes; for they are required to furnish an account of them besides. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 170:One can attain the Knowledge of Brahman too by following the path of bhakti. God is all-powerful. He may give His devotee Brahmajnana [the knowledge of Brahman] also if He so wills. But the devotee generally doesn't seek the Knowledge of the Absolute. He would rather have the consciousness that God is the Master and he the servant, or that God is the Divine Mother and he the child. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 171:Those who think that wisdom is nothing other than that which is comprehensible by the understanding, that happiness is nothing else than what they can attain, are quite far from the true eternal and infinite wisdom. The highest wisdom consists in this, to know ... how That which is unattainable [by the intellect] may be reached or attained in a manner beyond [intellectual] attainment. ~ nicholas-of-cusa, @wisdomtrove 172:If you intend to study the mind, you must have systematic training; you must practice to bring the mind under your control, to attain to that consciousness from which you will be able to study the mind and remain unmoved by any of its wild gyrations. Otherwise the facts observed will not be reliable; they will not apply to all people and therefore will not be truly facts or data at all. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 173:But one thing this doctrine, so clean, so venerable, does not contain: it does nto contain the secret of what the Sublime One himself experienced, he alone among the hundreds of thousands. This is why I am continuing my wanderings not to seek another, better doctrine, because I know there is none, but to leave behind all the teachings and all teachers, and either attain my goal alone or die. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 174:Everyone strives to attain the Law,' answers the man, & 175:The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, no one fails entirely, but everyone says something true about the nature of all things, and while individually they contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed. ~ aristotle, @wisdomtrove 176:The right sustenance for the mind cannot be had from anything that is of this world and hence perishable, but solely from that which is Eternal. The taste of the Eternal will still the mind. The Universe was created out of joy and this is why you find joy in the fleeting things of the world. Without joy life is an ordeal. You must try to attain to that great Joy which has brought forth the world. ~ anandamayi-ma, @wisdomtrove 177:By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbour actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbour, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 178:One's own free unfettered choice, one's own caprice-however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy-is that very "most advantageous advantage" which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms... [an]will attain his object-that is, convince himself he is a man and not a piano-key! ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 179:I believe that I possess this value: to serve Jesus. I am less at peace than if my goal would be to attain a professorship and a good life, but I live. And that gives me the tremendous feeling of happiness, as if one would hear music. One feels uprooted, because one asks, what lies ahead, what decisions should I make-but more alive, happier than those anchored in life. To drift with released anchor. ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove 180:The true liberation of eroticism lies in accepting the fact that there are a million facets to it, a million forms of eroticism, a million objects of it, situations, atmospheres, and variations. We have, first of all, to dispense with guilt concerning its expansion, then remain open to it's surprises, varied expressions, and mingle it with dreams, fantasies, and emotion for it to attain its highest potency. ~ anais-nin, @wisdomtrove 181:When love is accompanied with deep intimacy, it raises us to the highest level of human experience. In this exalted space, we can surrender our egos, become vulnerable and know levels of joy and well-being unique among life experiences. We attain a glimpse of the rapture that can be ours. Boundaries are blurred, there are no limitations and we rejoice in union. We become one and, at the same time, both. ~ leo-buscaglia, @wisdomtrove 182:In the assemblies of the enlightened ones there have been many cases of mastering the Way bringing forth the heart of plants and trees; this is what awakening the mind for enlightenment is like. The fifth patriarch of Zen was once a pine-planting wayfarer; Rinzai worked on planting cedars and pines on Mount Obaku. . . . Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment. ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove 183:S ome people indulge in quarrels, saying, "One cannot attain anything unless one worships our Krishna," or "Nothing can be gained without the worship of Kali, our Divine Mother," or "One cannot be saved without accepting the Christian religion." This is pure dogmatism. The dogmatist says, "My religion alone is true, and the religions of others are false." This is a bad attitude. God can be reached by different paths." ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 184:The Noble Eight-Fold Path is the path of living in awareness. Mindfulness is the foundation. By practicing mindfulness, you can develop concentration, which enables you to attain understanding. Thanks to right concentration, you realize right awareness, thoughts, speech, action, livelihood and effort. The understanding which develops can liberate you from every shackle of suffering and give birth to true peace and joy. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 185:If, therefore, man has come into the world to search for God and, if he has found Him, to adhere to Him and to find repose in adhering to Him-man cannot search for Him and attain Him in this sensible and corporeal world, since God is spirit rather than body, and cannot be attained in intellectual abstraction, since one is able to conceive nothing similar to God, as he asserts-how can one, therefore, search for Him in order to find Him? ~ nicholas-of-cusa, @wisdomtrove 186:Further, if Spirit has any meaning at all, then it must be eternal, or without beginning or end. If Spirit had a beginning in time, then it would be strictly temporal, it would not be timeless and eternal. And this means, as regards your own awareness, that you cannot become enlightened. You cannot attain enlightenment. If you could attain enlightenment, then that state would have a beginning in time, and so it would not be true enlightenment. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 187:To dwell in the here and now does not mean you never think about the past or responsibly plan for the future. The idea is simply not to allow yourself to get lost in regrets about the past or worries about the future. If you are firmly grounded in the present moment, the past can be an object of inquiry, the object of your mindfulness and concentration. You can attain many insights by looking into the past. But you are still grounded in the present moment. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 188:I say then, that belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain. This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is taken for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 189:Heaven does nothing: its non-doing is its serenity. Earth does nothing: its non-doing is its rest. From the union of these two non-doings All actions proceed. All things are made. How vast, how invisible This coming-to-be! All things come from nowhere! How vast, how invisible No way to explain it! All beings in their perfection Are born of non-doing. Hence it is said: Heaven and earth do nothing Yet there is nothing they do not do. Where is the man who can attain To this non-doing? ~ zhuangzi, @wisdomtrove 190:There cannot be two almighty beings in this world. [Imagine having] two or three Gods; one will create the world, another says, "I will destroy the world." It [can] never happen. There must be one God. The soul attains to perfection; [it becomes] almost omnipotent [and] omniscient. This is the worshipper. Who is the worshipped? He, the Lord God Himself, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient, and so on. And above all, He is Love. How is [the soul] to attain this perfection? By worship. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 191:There is an inconvenience which attends all abstruse reasoning. that it may silence, without convincing an antagonist, and requires the same intense study to make us sensible of its force, that was at first requisite for its invention. When we leave our closet, and engage in the common affairs of life, its conclusions seem to vanish, like the phantoms of the night on the appearance of the morning; and 'tis difficult for us to retain even that conviction, which we had attain'd with difficulty. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 192:Those, however, who saw that one cannot attain wisdom and perennial intellectual life, unless it be given through the gift of grace, and that the goodness of the Almighty God is so great that He hears those who invoke His name, and they gain salvation, became humble, acknowledging that they are ignorant, and directed their life as the life of one desiring eternal wisdom. And that is the life of the virtuous, who proceed in the desire for the other life, which is commended by the saints. ~ nicholas-of-cusa, @wisdomtrove 193:The thought of both East and West (philosophies) can indeed be integrated into a higher truth. They show us that the West is correct in maintaining that life is about progress about evolving toward something higher. Yet the East is also correct in emphasizing that we must let go of control with the ego. We can't progress by using logic alone. We have to attain a fuller consciousness, an inner connection with God, because only then can our evolution toward something better be guided by a higher part of ourselves. ~ james-redfield, @wisdomtrove 194:You can lead a truly spiritual life while remaining a householder. You will be able to enjoy the bliss of the Self, but your mind has to be on God all the time. Then you can easily attain bliss. A mother bird will be thinking of the young ones in the nest, even when she is out looking for food. Similarly, you have to keep your mind on God, while engaged in all worldly actions. The important thing is to be completely dedicated to God or the Guru. Once you have that dedication, the goal will not be far away. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 195:The divine within you is stronger than anything that is without you. Therefore, be not afraid of anything. Rely on your own Inner Self, the Divinity within you. Tap the source through looking within. Improve yourself. Build your character. Purify the heart. Develop the divine virtues. Eradicate evil traits. Conquer all that is base in you. Endeavor to attain all that is worthy and noble. Make the lower nature the servant of the higher through discipline, Tapas, self-restraint and meditation. This is the beginning of your freedom. ~ sivananda, @wisdomtrove 196:It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an airport." Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (Murmansk airport is the only exception of this otherwise infallible rule), and architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 197:We cannot attain to the understanding of Scripture either by study or by the intellect. Your first duty is to begin by prayer. Entreat the Lord to grant you, of His great mercy, the true understanding of His Word. There is no other interpreter of the Word of God than the Author of this Word, as He Himself has said, "They shall be all taught of God" (John 6:45). Hope for nothing from your own labors, from your own understanding: trust solely in God, and in the influence of His Spirit. Believe this on the word of a man who has experience. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 198:It should be for satsang that we go to spiritual centers. By going there, people who are involved in the world can attain peace and concentration. The concentration gained when one goes there cannot be achieved if one sits at home. Even though the breeze blows everywhere, coolness will be felt more if we sit in the shade of a tree. In the same way, although God is all-pervading, this presence will clearly shine in certain places more than others. That is the greatness of satsang. Satsang is the best thing for spiritual advancement. ~ mata-amritanandamayi, @wisdomtrove 199:If you then become excessively focused on the goal, perhaps because you are seeking happiness, fulfilment, or a more complete sense of self in it, the Now is no longer honoured. It becomes reduced to a mere stepping stone to the future, with no intrinsic value. Your life’s journey is no longer an adventure, just an obsessive need to arrive, to attain, to ‘make it.’ You no longer see or smell the flowers by the wayside either, nor are you aware of the beauty and the miracle of life that unfolds all around you when you are present in the Now. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 200:There has been a controversy started of late, much better worth examination, concerning the general foundation of Morals; whether they be derived from Reason, or from Sentiment; whether we attain the knowledge of them by a chain of argument and induction, or by an immediate feeling and finer internal sense; whether, like all sound judgement of truth and falsehood, they should be the same to every rational intelligent being; or whether, like the perception of beauty and deformity, they be founded entirely on the particular fabric and constitution of the human species. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 201:Woe to the suicides! I believe that there can be none more miserable than they. Oh, there are some who remain proud and fierce even in hell, in spite of their certain knowledge and contemplation of the absolute truth; there are some fearful ones who have given themselves over to Satan and his proud spirit entirely. For such, hell is voluntary and ever consuming; they are tortured by their own choice. For they have cursed themselves, cursing God and life. And they will burn in the fire of their own wrath forever and yearn for death and annihilation. But they will not attain to death. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 202:The tranquility of the moments set apart will also affect everyday existence. In his whole being he will grow calmer; he will attain firm assurance in all his actions, and cease to be put out of countenance by all manner of incidents. By thus advancing he will gradually become more and more his own guide, and allow himself less and less to be led by circumstances and external influences. He will soon discover how great a source of strength is available to him in these moments thus set apart. He will begin no longer to get angry at things which formerly annoyed him; countless things he formerly feared cease to alarm him. He acquires a new outlook on life. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 203:Another aspect of the emotional pain that is an intrinsic part of the egoic mind is a deep- seated sense of lack or incompleteness, of not being whole... If it is unconscious, it will only be felt directly as an intense craving, wanting and needing. People will often enter into a compulsive pursuit of ego- gratification and things to identify with in order to fill this hole they feel within. So they strive after money, success, power, recognition, or a special relationship, basically so they can feel better about themselves, feel more complete. But even when they attain all these things, they soon find that the hole is still there, that is is bottomless. ~ eckhart-tolle, @wisdomtrove 204:Whoever seeks higher knowledge must create it for himself. He must instill it into his soul. It cannot be done by study; it can only be done through life. Whoever, therefore, wishes to become a student of higher knowledge must assiduously cultivate this inner life of devotion. Everywhere in his environment and his experiences he must seek motives of admiration and homage. If I meet a man and blame him for his shortcomings, I rob myself of power to attain higher knowledge; but if I try to enter lovingly into his merits, I gather such power. The student must continually be intent upon following this advice. The spiritually experienced know how much they owe to the circumstance that in face of all things they ever again turn to the good, and withhold adverse judgement. But this must not remain an external rule of life; rather it must take possession of our innermost soul. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 205:It was not without a deeper meaning that the divine Moses was commanded first to be himself purified, and then to separate himself from the impure; and after all this purification heard many voices of trumpets, and saw many lights shedding manifold pure beams: and that he was thereafter separated from the multitude and together with the elect priests came to the height of the divine ascents. Yet hereby he did not attain to the presence of God Himself; he saw not Him (for He cannot be looked upon), but the place where He was. This, I think, signifies that the divinest and most exalted of visible and intelligible things are, as it were, suggestions of those that are immediately beneath Him who is above all, whereby is indicated the presence of Him who passes all understanding, and stands, as it were, in that spot which is conceived by the intellect as the highest of His holy places; then that they who are free and untrammelled by all that is seen and all that sees enter into the true mystical darkness of ignorance, whence all perception of understanding is excluded, and abide in that which is intangible and invisible, being wholly absorbed in Him who is beyond all things, and belong no more to any, neither to themselves nor to another, but are united in their higher part to Him who is wholly unintelligible, and whom, by understanding nothing, they understand after a manner above all intelligence. ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Men must sweat to attain virtue. ~ Hesiod, #NFDB
2:No one alone can attain truth. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
3:In true love, you attain freedom. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
4:Attain the unattainable. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson, #NFDB
5:In true love, you attain freedom. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
6:If at last thou attain the desire of thy life, ~ Hafez, #NFDB
7:All that spirits desire, spirits attain. ~ Khalil Gibran, #NFDB
8:Painless thou shalt attain the close of pain. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
9:Resolutely train yourself to attain peace ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
10:If you want to attain peace, live peacefully ~ Gil Fronsdal, #NFDB
11:Resolutely train yourself to attain peace. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
12:Why don't more women attain enlightenment? ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
13:Why will we struggle to attain, and strive, ~ Madison Cawein, #NFDB
14:Attain utmost emptiness. Abide in steadfast stillness. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
15:Love can attain what the intellect cannot fathom. ~ Meher Baba, #NFDB
16:Simplicity is not so simple to attain. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
17:Those who attain the middle Dominate the whole. ~ Ming Dao Deng, #NFDB
18:By persistent labor man may attain to all excellence. ~ Demosthenes, #NFDB
19:Equality would be a heaven, if we could attain it. ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB
20:My happiness is marred only by my failure to attain it. ~ Mary Ruefle, #NFDB
21:The highest that a man can attain is to be able to do. ~ G I Gurdjieff, #NFDB
22:Fana, the merging in the ideal. In order to attain ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, #NFDB
23:You cannot attain to charity except through humility. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
24:You would attain to the divine perfection. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
25:The only people who attain power are those who crave it. ~ Erich Kastner, #NFDB
26:When we are centered in joy, we attain our wisdom. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
27:Set not thyself to attain much rest, but much patience. ~ Thomas a Kempis, #NFDB
28:Do not be afraid of perfection - you will never attain it. ~ Salvador Dali, #NFDB
29:Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain beauty. ~ Muriel Barbery, #NFDB
30:The fears of old age disturb us, yet how few attain it? ~ Jean de la Bruyere, #NFDB
31:When you attain to an egoless emptiness great creativity happens. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
32:Do not offend one power to attain the favor of another. ~ Megan Whalen Turner, #NFDB
33:Ordinary People Attain Extraordinary Success - You Can Too! ~ Ernie J Zelinski, #NFDB
34:If I can attain Heaven for a pice, why should you be envious? ~ Rudyard Kipling, #NFDB
35:Till old experience do attain To something like prophetic strain. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
36:I only want the extraordinary, and I work my ass off to attain it ~ Meghan March, #NFDB
37:One just soul can attain pardon for a thousand sinners. ~ Margaret Mary Alacoque, #NFDB
38:You'll never attain it unless you know the feeling. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
39:Anything you really want, you can attain, if you really go after it. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
40:Eating is the only form of professionalism most people ever attain. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
41:I do know that some Buddhists are able to attain peace of mind. ~ Martin Scorsese, #NFDB
42:Controlling the mind is the way to attain internal harmony. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi, #NFDB
43:I expect the best and with God's help will attain the best. ~ Norman Vincent Peale, #NFDB
44:We dread old age, which are not sure of being able to attain. ~ Jean de la Bruyere, #NFDB
45:If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it. ~ William James, #NFDB
46:Lucidity's task: to attain a correct despair, an Olympian ferocity. ~ Emile M Cioran, #NFDB
47:We strive for the best we can attain within the scope the world allows. ~ John Rawls, #NFDB
48:Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
49:If we restrict liberty to attain security we will lose them both. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
50:In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd. ~ Miguel de Cervantes, #NFDB
51:One doesn't have to be religious to lead a moral life or attain wisdom. ~ Allan Lokos, #NFDB
52:When thou possessest knowledge thou shalt attain soon to peace. ~ Bhagavad Git. V. 16, #NFDB
53:Few sons attain the praise Of their great sires and most their sires disgrace. ~ Homer, #NFDB
54:Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
55:TEAMWORK: the fuel that allows common people attain uncommon results. ~ Andrew Carnegie, #NFDB
56:While I AM sure of what I want, I'm equally unsure of how to attain it. ~ Siobhan Davis, #NFDB
57:Everything that is hard to attain is easily assailed by the generality of men. ~ Ptolemy, #NFDB
58:Fools may have the greatest repository of knowledge but will never attain Wisdom. ~ Caleb, #NFDB
59:No one can attain any degree of holiness without God working in his life, ~ Jerry Bridges, #NFDB
60:To attain the wisdom of every season, you must live all the seasons! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
61:To observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
62:One who sets the entire army in motion to chase an advantage will not attain it. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
63:Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
64:"To attain buddhahood we must scatter this life's aims and objects to the wind." ~ Milarepa, #NFDB
65:To attain knowledge, add things every day To attain wisdom, remove things every day ~ Laozi, #NFDB
66:To seize control over the laws of Mother Nature one must attain self-mastery. ~ Yehuda Berg, #NFDB
67:When the mind merges in the Heart, it will attain perfection as peace. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
68:The thing is not only to avoid error, but to attain immense masses of truth. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
69:To attain Buddhahood ... we must scatter this life's aims and objects to the wind. ~ Milarepa, #NFDB
70:To attain knowledge, add things everyday.To attain wisdom, remove things every day. ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
71:In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
72:To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, remove things every day. ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
73:Whenever we attain a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
74:Expect the best, not the worst, and you will attain your heart's desire. ~ Norman Vincent Peale, #NFDB
75:If you live one sixth of what is taught you, you will surely attain the goal. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
76:In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
77:...it is natural for man to try to attain power without recovering grace...(3) ~ Norman Maclean, #NFDB
78:No creature can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist. ~ Ananda Coomaraswamy, #NFDB
79:The painter who has no doubt about his own ability will attain very little. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB
80:...we can never attain a maximum love of God with only a minimum knowledge of God ~ Frank Sheed, #NFDB
81:You can practice to attain knowledge, but you can't practice to attain wisdom. ~ Herbie Hancock, #NFDB
82:If you live one sixth of what is taught you, you will surely attain the goal. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
83:It is the heart and not the brain, That to the highest doth attain. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
84:The purpose of battle is to attain the greatest heights within your own limits! ~ Yukito Kishiro, #NFDB
85:The purpose of battle is to attain the greatest heights within your own limits. ~ Yukito Kishiro, #NFDB
86:Until we realise ourselves as the Absolute, we cannot attain to deliverance. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
87:What signifies the ladder, provided one rise and attain the end? ~ Charles Augustin Sainte Beuve, #NFDB
88:And as long as you're subject to birth and death, you'll never attain enlightenment. ~ Bodhidharma, #NFDB
89:A thought can prompt. Words can stir. But it takes action to attain a dream. ~ Richelle E Goodrich, #NFDB
90:By attempting the impossible one can attain the highest level of the possible. ~ August Strindberg, #NFDB
91:In handling resources, strive to avoid disaster rather than to attain an optimum. ~ Butler Lampson, #NFDB
92:One should assiduously pursue perfection without ever claiming to attain it. ~ Nicolas Malebranche, #NFDB
93:There is a certain perfection in accident which we never consciously attain. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
94:It has never been given to a man to attain at once his happiness and his salvation. ~ Charles Peguy, #NFDB
95:It has pleased Nature so to make us that we attain happiness only by way of pain. ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
96:Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. ~ Dorothy Parker, #NFDB
97:A happy life is impossible; the best that a man can attain is a heroic life. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
98:People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day to day. ~ Rollo May, #NFDB
99:For when success a lover's toil attends,Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
100:Most do violence to their natural aptitude, and thus attain superiority in nothing. ~ Baltasar Gracian, #NFDB
101:Psychopaths only think of their own needs and how to manipulate others to attain them. ~ Melinda Leigh, #NFDB
102:Robots may gradually attain a degree of 'self-awareness' and consciousness of their own. ~ Michio Kaku, #NFDB
103:To attain our aim we should stop at nothing even if we must join forces with the devil. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
104:Your sole purpose in life is to attain God-realization. All else is useless and worthless. ~ Sivananda, #NFDB
105:Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who can't attain it in anything. ~ Eugene Delacroix, #NFDB
106:Every decision and action of humankind stems from a hope to attain Personal Freedom. ~ Brendon Burchard, #NFDB
107:No one is mocked with the yearning for that which they have no ability to attain. ~ Orison Swett Marden, #NFDB
108:Peace and joy are not things you attain at the end of life. They are the basis of your life. ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
109:The Buddha is not a person but a (state of) realization to which anyone can attain. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
110:The only thing you need to learn is that you already are what you are seeking to attain. ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
111:Those flimsy webs that break as soon as wrought, attain not to the dignity of thought. ~ William Cowper, #NFDB
112:Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. ~ Dorothy Parker,#NFDB
113:It occurred to me that eating is the only form of professionalism most people ever attain. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
114:The significance of a man is not in what he attains, but rather what he longs to attain. ~ Khalil Gibran, #NFDB
115:What you are must always displease you, if you would attain to that which you are not. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
116:An untamed mind is usually doing its level best to attain or to retain unhappiness. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
117:Be always displeased at what thou art, if thou desirest to attain to what thou art not. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
118:Death is not the worst thing; rather, when one who craves death cannot attain even that wish. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
119:For when success a lover's toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends ~ Alexander Pope,#NFDB
120:Humans seek connection above all else, and we are willing to destroy things to attain it. ~ Tarryn Fisher, #NFDB
121:In this effort to attain security, independence and privacy of course were suspect.... ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
122:Peace is not sought in order to provoke war, but war is waged in order to attain peace. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
123:The biggest challenge for a man is to attain the wisdom of 80 years of age in youth! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
124:The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
125:Try to cultivate love of God. You are born as a human being only to attain divine love. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
126:Appearance should never attain reality, And if nature conquers, then must art retire. ~ Friedrich Schiller, #NFDB
127:Life without stock is barely worth living, and you will never attain demi-glace without ~ Anthony Bourdain, #NFDB
128:Man does not attain the one-winged birds of our childhood’s tale, they must rise together. ~ Eileen Goudge, #NFDB
129:Unless you really understand others, you can hardly attain your own self-understanding. ~ Miyamoto Musashi, #NFDB
130:As much experience, education and awareness as one can attain is important for a comedian. ~ Shelley Berman, #NFDB
131:Ramanama is for the pure at heart and for those who want to attain purity and remain pure. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
132:To get the medium's magic to work for one's aims rather than against them is to attain literacy. ~ Alan Kay, #NFDB
133:We can never attain to perfection while we have an affection for any imperfection. ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #NFDB
134:If you cannot attain knowledge without torturing a dog, you must do without knowledge. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
135:Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.
~ Eug ne Delacroix,#NFDB
136:Be humble in order to attain enlightenment. Thus, after attaining it, be more humble still. ~ Samael Aun Weor, #NFDB
137:Humanity will ever seek but never attain perfection. Let us at least survive and go on trying. ~ Dora Russell, #NFDB
138:Literature is the only chance for a true liar to attain any sort of social acceptance. ~ Jos Eduardo Agualusa, #NFDB
139:No man, without trials and temptations, can attain a true understanding of the Holy Scriptures. ~ John Bunyan, #NFDB
140:Some day, when I have grown sufficiently, I shall attain that which I am destined to attain, ~ Rudolf Steiner, #NFDB
141:There is nothing in the world that man's intelligence cannot attain, annihilate or accomplish. ~ Hindu Saying, #NFDB
142:Be master of thy soul, O seeker of eternal verities, if thou wouldst attain thy end. ~ Book of Golden Precepts, #NFDB
143:Education is all about igniting young minds and enabling them to attain their fullest potential. ~ Nita Ambani, #NFDB
144:in order to make a man covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. ~ Dan Ariely, #NFDB
145:Be humble, if thou would'st attain to wisdom. Be humbler still, when wisdom thou hast mastered. ~ H P Blavatsky, #NFDB
146:Coming close to what you thought you wanted can help you attain what you never dreamed you could. ~ Sarah Lewis, #NFDB
147:In the religion of all nations a purity is hinted at, which, I fear, men never attain to. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
148:Is anarchism possible? The failure of attempts to attain freedom does not mean the cause is lost. ~ Johann Most, #NFDB
149:Thus, then now as ever, I enter the Path of Darkness, if haply so I may attain the Light.
~ Aleister Crowley,#NFDB
150:To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
151:Treats of how the soul may prepare itself in order to attain in a short time to Divine union. ~ Juan de la Cruz, #NFDB
152:We are told to "despair of nothing we would attain," as "unwearied diligence our point would gain ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
153:A good monk would know that contentment is easier to attain than happiness, and that it is enough. ~ Ruskin Bond, #NFDB
154:At night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, my books attain a collective dignity. ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
155:Awake, arise; strive incessantly towards the knowledge so that thou mayst attain unto the peace. ~ Buddhist Text, #NFDB
156:Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment. ~ Dogen, #NFDB
157:Be master of thy soul, O seeker of the eternal truths, if thou wouldst attain the goal. ~ Book of Golden Precepts, #NFDB
158:God is serious about holiness in the lives of His people, and He will discipline us to attain it. ~ Jerry Bridges, #NFDB
159:I have nothing to hide in art. The initial force alone can bring anyone to the end he must attain. ~ Paul Cezanne, #NFDB
160:in order to make a man covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.” H ~ Dan Ariely, #NFDB
161:Man is afraid to attain what he longs for, just as subconsciously he longs for what he is afraid of. ~ Ivan Kl ma, #NFDB
162:There is no being of any race who, if he finds the proper guide, cannot attain to virtue. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
163:Be humble if thou wouldst attain to wisdom; be humbler still if thou hast attained to it ~ Book of Golden Precepts, #NFDB
164:I do not think a similar goal, to attain fame, drove me when I was a child and young woman. ~ Shirley Geok lin Lim, #NFDB
165:Seattle is for people who love culture, but refuse to sacrifice their wild nature to attain it. ~ Kimberly Kinrade, #NFDB
166:The goal in life is not to attain some imaginary ideal; it is to find and fully use our own gifts. ~ Gay Hendricks, #NFDB
167:What you are must always displease you, if you would attain to that which you are not. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #NFDB
168:Man can only be what he sees himself to be, and only attain what he sees himself attaining. ~ Florence Scovel Shinn, #NFDB
169:The moment you realize yourself as the dreamer and the world as your own dream, you will attain salvation. ~ Asaram, #NFDB
170:The true royalty is spiritual knowledge; put forth thy efforts to attain it. ~ Farid-ud-din-attar, “Mantic utttair”, #NFDB
171:To attain peace, what one has to do is to seek that rhythm which is in the depth of our being. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, #NFDB
172:As early pioneers in the knowing, that when you lose your reason, you attain highest perfect knowing. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
173:Consciously or unconsciously, we are all striving for perfection. Every being must attain to it. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
174:Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. ~ James C Collins, #NFDB
175:I have made a vow to attain Enlightenment in the female form - no matter how many lifetimes it takes. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
176:The important thing in life is to have a great aim, and the determination to attain it. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
177:Unless you expect the unexpected you will never find it, for it is hard to discover and hard to attain. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
178:Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. ~ Paul David Tripp, #NFDB
179:He serves me somewhat darkly, now, I grant, Yet will he soon attain the light of reason. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
180:If knowledge were located in the Pleiades (a constellation of stars), the Persians would surely attain it ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
181:in order to make a man or boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
182:Through meditative techniques, one can free the mind of delusions and attain what we call enlightenment. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
183:To attain his dream, the warrior of light needs a strong will and an enormous capacity for acceptance. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
184:Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. EUGÈNE DELACROIX ~ Julia Cameron, #NFDB
185:Have big goals—but don’t tie your happiness to your goals. You must be happy before you attain them. ~ Vishen Lakhiani, #NFDB
186:It is sometimes easier to form a party than to attain by degrees the head of a party already formed. ~ Luc de Clapiers, #NFDB
187:Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.~ Dogen Zenji, #NFDB
188:A man does not attain the status of Galileo merely because he is persecuted; he must also be right. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
189:in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
190:Not by work, not by family, not by riches, but by renunciation great beings attain to immortality. ~ Kaivalya Upanishad, #NFDB
191:Surely you know bureaucracies always become voracious aristocracies after they attain commanding power. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
192:They were completely lacking in the sort of healthy skepticism needed to attain any degree of wisdom. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
193:Wisdom is the perfect good of the human mind; philosophy is the love of wisdom, and the endeavor to attain it. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
194:I'm not trying to find and attain some sense of righteousness in my lifestyle. I'm just trying to live right. ~ K I Hope, #NFDB
195:...that which is worth having - the good, fine, honorable, and noble things - are difficult to attain. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
196:To persist with a goal, you must treasure the dream more than the costs of sacrifice to attain it. ~ Richelle E Goodrich, #NFDB
197:for no man, without trials and temptations, can attain to the true understanding of the Holy Scriptures. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
198:There are few in the world who attain to the teaching without words, and the advantage arising from non-action. ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
199:The world’s way of pursuing riches is grasping and hoarding. You attain My riches by letting go and giving. ~ Sarah Young, #NFDB
200:They knew now that if there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
201:No man lives, can live, without having some object in view, and making efforts to attain that object. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
202:Affliction by that falsehood is the act of dying. To be free from that delusion is to attain Immortality. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
203:Commitment to a set of rules frees your play to attain a profundity and vigor otherwise impossible. ~ Stephen Nachmanovitch, #NFDB
204:Every soul is destined to be perfect, and every being, in the end, will attain the state of perfection. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
205:He began to have a dim feeling that, to attain his place in the world, he must be himself, and not another. ~ W E B Du Bois, #NFDB
206:In a weird kind of way, music has afforded me an idealism and perfectionism that I could never attain as me. ~ Billy Corgan, #NFDB
207:There is nothing you can ever do or attain that will get you closer to salvation than it is at this moment. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
208:Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life results in defeatism, low self-esteem or depression. ~ Theodore Kaczynski, #NFDB
209:For fanaticism is the only form of willpower that even the weak and insecure can be brought to attain. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
210:It is bad to want something that not even God could attain, especially when the impossibility becomes obvious. ~ Ernest Sosa, #NFDB
211:Kill the cow of your ego as quickly as you can, so that your inner spirit can come to life and attain true awareness. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
212:Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
213:The purpose of art is to raise people to a higher level of awareness than they would otherwise attain on their own. ~ Brassai, #NFDB
214:The way to attain the virtue of mercy lies in our constant awareness of being encompassed by mercy. ~ Dietrich von Hildebrand, #NFDB
215:But the secret counsel of God is something else. It is so deep and so high that no exploration can attain to it. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
216:Don’t be upset that you can’t attain constant happiness. It’s the quickest way to feel like a failure in life. ~ Tarryn Fisher, #NFDB
217:The object of the Gita appears to me to be that of showing the most excellent way to attain self-realization. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
218:Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest. ~ Emile Zola, #NFDB
219:Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest. ~ mile Zola, #NFDB
220:Great periods of poetry begin with an inordinate self-consciousness, and only gradually attain to the natural. ~ Mark Van Doren, #NFDB
221:There is an inanimate object which has a capacity to exasperate which no human being will ever attain: a piano. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
222:Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel in himself the force and will to inflict great pain? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
223:A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel. PROVERBS 1:5 ~ Stormie Omartian, #NFDB
224:Unless we base our sense of identity upon the truth of who we are, it is impossible to attain true happiness. ~ Brenda Shoshanna, #NFDB
225:"Find the cause of suffering and remove it. Then you can attain peace. Is that religion? No. It's reality." ~ Lama Chime Rinpoche, #NFDB
226:An honest public servant can't become rich in politics. He can only attain greatness and satisfaction by service. ~ Harry S Truman, #NFDB
227:Eternity gives life to all and sustains all, transforms all on the wheel of dharma - until all attain perfection. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
228:If you would attain to your highest, go look upon a flower;what the flower does willessly, that do willingly. ~ Friedrich Schiller, #NFDB
229:It is much more likely that you will attain liberation if you want liberation for others, than just for yourself. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
230:I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
231:More men will continue to attain enlightenment than women, unless women change their use of the second attention. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
232:Perhaps looking at the forensics of your past can catapult you forward in a way that merely dreaming can never attain! ~ T D Jakes, #NFDB
233:Striving for perfection is a good and worthwhile effort. Expecting to actually attain perfection can kill you. ~ Laurence Bergreen, #NFDB
234:The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free. ~ Baruch Spinoza, #NFDB
235:There Are But Two Tragedies in Life-One is One's Inability to attain One's Heart's Desire-The Other Is To Have It! ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
236:The things are mighty few on earth that wishes can attain. Whate'er we want of any worth, we've got to work to gain. ~ Edgar Guest, #NFDB
237:Dear Teens at Starbucks wearing 'Abstain from Sex 2 Attain Ur Goals' t-shirts: Doesn't it depend on what my goals are? ~ John Green, #NFDB
238:If one is too lazy to think, too vain to do a thing badly, too cowardly to admit it, one will never attain wisdom. ~ Cyril Connolly, #NFDB
239:I'm working hard every day to attain all of my goals. Winning the Super Bowl is obviously at the top of that list. ~ Chad Ochocinco, #NFDB
240:I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved, which a cow enjoys on giving milk. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
241:Man must get away from verbal forms to attain the consciousness, that which is there to be perceived at hand. ~ William S Burroughs, #NFDB
242:Through the shocks of difficulty and death
Man shall attain his godhead. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Prologue,#NFDB
243:To attain true inner freedom, you must be able to objectively watch your problems instead of being lost in them. ~ Michael A Singer, #NFDB
244:Without dancing you can never attain a perfectly graceful carriage, which is of the highest importance in life. ~ Benjamin Disraeli, #NFDB
245:All that is required is to cease regarding as real that which is unreal. That is all we need to attain wisdom. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
246:Animals cannot have any high thoughts; nor can the Angels or Devas attain to direct freedom without human birth. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
247:Mocking the wisdom that comes with age is a fit sport only for those who expect never to attain much of it themselves ~ Iain M Banks, #NFDB
248:St. Thomas mentions the three things necessary to attain any end, earthly or Heavenly: knowledge, love, and presence; ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
249:There's no place to go. There's nothing to attain. There's nothing to be reached. Love itself is all that you want. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
250:We cannot attain the presence of God because we’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
251:Whatever a man imagines he can attain, if he doesn't become too arrogant and encroach on the rights of the gods. ~ Charles Lindbergh, #NFDB
252:When the mind, through the quality of extreme purity, merges in the Heart, it will attain perfection as peace. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
253:If someone with the right conduct tries to attain to something that lies outside of it, is his goal not the right conduct. ~ Plotinus, #NFDB
254:Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth and the soul requires inward restfulness to attain its full height. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
255:The greatest height of heroism to which an individual, like a people, can attain is to know how to face ridicule. ~ Miguel de Unamuno, #NFDB
256:To attain that natural happiness one must know oneself. For that, Self-enquiry, 'Who am I?' is the chief means. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
257:To pace about, looking to obtain status, looking to attain 'importance' - I can think of nothing more ridiculous. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
258:To pace about, looking to obtain status, looking to attain 'importance' - I can think of nothing more ridiculous. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
259:Truth is not far away. It is nearer than near. There is no need to attain it, since not one of your steps leads away from it. ~ Dogen, #NFDB
260:We cannot attain the presence of God because we’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
261:Words fail us when we seek, not to express Him who Is, but merely to attain to the expression of the powers that environ Him. ~ Philo, #NFDB
262:Words fail us when we seek, not to express Him who Is, but merely to attain to the expression of the powers that environ Him. ~ Philo, #NFDB
263:Achievement happens when we pursue and attain what we want. Success comes when we are in clear pursuit of Why we want it. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
264:Birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain. ~ Douglas Coupland, #NFDB
265:Boys are marvellous creatures. Perhaps they will sink below the brutes; perhaps they will attain to a woman’s tenderness. ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
266:Let me attain no envied wealth, let me not plunder cities, neither be taken in turn, and face life in the power of another. ~ Aeschylus, #NFDB
267:The art of choosing men is not nearly so difficult as the art of enabling those chosen to attain their full worth. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte, #NFDB
268:The chains of habit. We work to attain an object, and the object gained, we find that what we miss is the daily toil. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
269:It is to what you see, to what you believe, to what you struggle incessantly to attain, that you will approximate. ~ Orison Swett Marden, #NFDB
270:Never shall a man attain to the perfect love of God who has not loved to perfection some creature in this world. ~ Marguerite de Navarre, #NFDB
271:Religion is nothing but a science to attain wisdom, understanding, to know what life is, and to live it in utter celebration. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
272:The fastest way to attain courage is to follow the chosen Way and be willing to abandon life itself for the sake of justice. ~ Mas Oyama, #NFDB
273:The ideal we serve and strive to attain could never be evolved from us were it not potentially involved in our nature. ~ Neville Goddard, #NFDB
274:We are this divine energy. It's not something we have to attain. We just have to realize it, to be present to it. ~ Marshall B Rosenberg, #NFDB
275:What we should be after death, we have to attain in life, i.e. holiness and bliss. Here on earth the Kingdom of God begins. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
276:When I wash my feet May all sentient beings Attain the power of supernatural feet With no hindrance to their practice. Of ~ Ruth Ozeki, #NFDB
277:achievement comes when you pursue and attain WHAT you want. Success comes when you are clear in pursuit of WHY you want it. ~ Simon Sinek, #NFDB
278:How much better to follow a straight course and attain a goal where the words "pleasant" and "honourable" have the same meaning! ~ Seneca, #NFDB
279:If you cannot attain salvation in this life, what proof is there that you can attain it in the life or lives to come? ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
280:My hunger is not for success, it is for excellence. Because when you attain excellence, success just naturally follows. ~ Mike Krzyzewski, #NFDB
281:Settler colonialism, as an institution or system, requires violence or the threat of violence to attain its goals. ~ Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, #NFDB
282:Simply by performing good actions and thinking good thoughts you will not attain enlightenment. It takes something more. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
283:Sometimes, when we cannot attain the freedom we are fighting for, we free ourselves b carving a new path to freedom. ~ Christina Westover, #NFDB
284:Use your gifts faithfully, and they shall be enlarged; practice what you know, and you shall attain to higher knowledge. ~ Matthew Arnold, #NFDB
285:Meet this transient world with neither grasping nor fear, trust the unfolding of life, and you will attain true serenity. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
286:Meet this transient world with neither grasping nor fear, trust the unfolding of life, and you will attain true serenity. ~ Krishna Dharma, #NFDB
287:No effort is required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration is needed to abandon everything else. ~ Quentin Crisp, #NFDB
288:The quest for precision is analogous to the quest for certainty and both - precision and certainty are impossible to attain. ~ Karl Popper, #NFDB
289:To conform one's conduct to one's talk is an eminent virtue; attain to that virtue and then you may speak of the duties of others. ~ Li-Ki, #NFDB
290:What rank did you attain?"
"Captain."
"Captain Lord Lucien!" she echoed, laughing harder. "Did you buy it or earn it? ~ Gaelen Foley,#NFDB
291:And yet, O the happiness of being man and of being able to recognise the way of the Truth and by following it to attain the goal. ~ Gyothai, #NFDB
292:Children did not abandon comics; comics, in their drive to attain respect and artistic accomplishment, abandoned children. ~ Michael Chabon, #NFDB
293:If, for example, you are miserly by nature, you will never go beyond a certain limit; only generous souls attain greatness. ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
294:If you put your best foot forward and if you overcome your fears, you will surely be able to attain the heights of success ~ Anamika Mishra, #NFDB
295:It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite. ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
296:It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
297:Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting. ~ Anne Shirley, #NFDB
298:Only the French, I thought, could attain orgasm by listening to themselves. It was self-inflicted oral sex. A DIY blowjob. ~ Stephen Clarke, #NFDB
299:The important thing in life is to have a great aim, and to possess the aptitude and perseverance to attain it. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
300:Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
301:To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation. ~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld, #NFDB
302:To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation. ~ Fran ois de La Rochefoucauld, #NFDB
303:It is by studying little things, that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible. ~ Gretchen Rubin, #NFDB
304:Someone else's idea of happiness was a lot easier to attain than a happiness I could not envision and didn't think I deserved. ~ Liza Palmer, #NFDB
305:There are just two questions to ask to attain success in business: First, "What business am I in?" Second, "How's business?" ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB
306:Whatever fame a novelist my attain, it's always kind of an anonymous one. I can go anywhere, and no one knows who I am. ~ Jonathan Kellerman, #NFDB
307:Happiness and Prosperity are now within our Reach; but to attain and preserve them must depend upon our own Wisdom and Virtue. ~ George Mason, #NFDB
308:I learned from Hussain how to be wronged and be a winner, I learnt from Hussain how to attain victory while being oppressed. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
309:It seemed to him that the hand was not able to attain to the perfection of art in carrying out the things which he imagined. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
310:I was trying to say something about Christianity, the idea that you have to be tortured to attain heaven. I didn't believe that. ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
311:This is what greed does to humans, Abel thinks. It makes them ignore the love they have in favor of what they can never attain. ~ Claudia Gray, #NFDB
312:It is not after we understand the truth that we attain enlightenment. To realize the truth is to live - to exist here and now. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
313:Mindfulness is the agent of our freedom. Through mindfulness we arrive at faith we grow in wisdom & we attain equanimity. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
314:The imagination is the vehicle of sensibility. Transported by the imagination, we attain life, life itself, which is absolute art. ~ Yves Klein, #NFDB
315:Tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope.—Only by hope can one attain to unhoped-for things. ~ Romans V. 3, 4, #NFDB
316:Where young boys plan for what they will achieve and attain, young girls plan for whom they will achieve and attain. ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman, #NFDB
317:You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since you are awareness there is no need to attain or cultivate it. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
318:If education is to develop human nature so that it may attain the object of its being, it must involve the exercise of judgment. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
319:What is there to attain? A thing remains to be attained if it is not already attained. But here, one's very being is THAT. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
320:Your leaders want you to have independence and ownership. Making,
executing, and communicating plans will help you attain both. ~ Chad Fowler,#NFDB
321:The person who wishes to attain human perfection should study logic first, next mathematics, then physics, and, lastly, metaphysics. ~ Maim nides, #NFDB
322:Those who would attain to any marked degree of excellence in a chosen pursuit must work, and work hard for it, prince or peasant. ~ Bayard Taylor, #NFDB
323:When thy understanding shall stand immovable and unshakeable in concentration, then thou shalt attain to the divine Union. ~ Bhagavad Gita 11. 53, #NFDB
324:Without courage we can never attain to true simplicity. Cowardice keeps us “double minded” —hesitating between the world and God. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
325:Only in the human form is it possible for life to attain its final goal, which is to realize the all-pervading and infinite Divinity. ~ Meher Baba, #NFDB
326:Some souls attain enlightenment. No one knows why. You could say it is individual inclination. I'm not convinced that's the case. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
327:strategies that fail to attain a state’s objectives will, in all probability, evolve or be abandoned” (Glenn 2009, 533). Ashley ~ C Christine Fair, #NFDB
328:Morality is the basis of all spirituality; if one is not morally pure, it is impossible to attain the highest spiritual fulfilment. ~ Wong Kiew Kit, #NFDB
329:(People) can never attain fulfillment, or sense of meaning, unless it is shared, unless it pertains to other human beings. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
330:Americas presidents tend to die young. Maybe it is in the nature of the men who reach such heights, or of the job once they attain it. ~ Nancy Gibbs, #NFDB
331:Hear the soundless sound, and see the formless form. At a glance, read your opponent’s mind, and attain victory without contention ~ Morihei Ueshiba, #NFDB
332:Homelessness is the actor's fate; physical incapacity to attain what is most required and desired by such a spirit as I am a slave to. ~ Edwin Booth, #NFDB
333:It's important to come to know that this is all there is. There isn't something to attain, there is only something to be. ~ Sharon Wegscheider Cruse, #NFDB
334:Man's natural life span, 75 to 90 years or so, has not increased. It is the number of us who manage to attain it that has increased. ~ Andrew Tobias, #NFDB
335:Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
336:92None of you [believers] will attain true piety unless you give out of what you cherish: whatever you give, God knows about it very well. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
337:Great men are the modelers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do and attain. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
338:I cannot attain the intensity that is unfolded before my senses. I have not the magnificent richness of colouring that animates nature. ~ Paul Cezanne, #NFDB
339:In that atrocious second I understood that desire can attain the darkest human terror and give an actual idea of hell and its horror. ~ Octave Mirbeau, #NFDB
340:one could not attain greater personal excellence without also paving the way for everyone else in society to attain it as well. ~ Christopher Phillips, #NFDB
341:We need a broad commitment to human rights across the board. We cannot attain that simply by protecting one oppressed group or the other. ~ Jill Stein, #NFDB
342:If we attain something
it was there from the beginning of time.
If we lose something
it is hiding somewhere near us.
~ Taigu Ryokan, 1758-1831,#NFDB
343:It is equally easy, initially, for either a man or a woman to attain enlightenment, what we would call liberation or self-realization. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
344:Only a soul full of despair can ever attain serenity and, to be in despair, you must have loved a good deal and still love the world. ~ Blaise Cendrars, #NFDB
345:Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results. ~ Andrew Carnegie, #NFDB
346:A situation in which a desired outcome or solution is impossible to attain because of a set of inherently illogical rules or conditions. ~ Joseph Heller, #NFDB
347:In that you're wrong. I choose, I adhere, I pursue, I commit, I attain. That - that, my errant friend - is an absolute."
- Hawk ~ Karen Marie Moning,#NFDB
348:In truth, to attain to interior peace, one must be willing to pass through the contrary to peace. Such is the teaching of the Sages. ~ Swami Brahmananda, #NFDB
349:It is a striving to attain the best. To throttle it would mean to stop all progress. Certain men do not need to compete. They are pioneers. ~ Henry Ford, #NFDB
350:Knowing is not enough. You must accept My blessings in order to attain a better life. You must embrace a higher level of consciousness. ~ Mary B Morrison, #NFDB
351:Not by refraining from action does man attain freedom from action. Not by mere renunciation does he attain supreme perfection. ~ Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa, #NFDB
352:Those who succeed have a clear, focused picture of their success. The level of success they attain matches the expansiveness of their dreams ~ Mark Allen, #NFDB
353:To attain happiness in another world we need only to believe something, while to secure it in this world we must do something. ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman, #NFDB
354:God . . . endowed [the human race] with capacity to attain to the inaccessible and invisible Supreme Good and behold it face to face . . . ~ Pope Paul III, #NFDB
355:If you yourself desire establishment, then help others to get establishment; if you yourself want success, then help others to attain success. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
356:Now, it's a fact well known to those who know it well that prophets of doom only attain popularity when they get the drinks in all around. ~ Robert Rankin, #NFDB
357:There is every reason to believe that our system will soon attain the highest degree of perfection of which human institutions are capable. ~ James Monroe, #NFDB
358:To attain "success" without attaining positive self-esteem is to be condemned to feeling like an imposter anxiously awaiting exposure. ~ Nathaniel Branden, #NFDB
359:When Poetry thus keeps its place as the handmaiden of piety, it shall attain not a poor perishable wreath, but a crown that fadeth not away. ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
360:Heaven is not a club we enter. Heaven is a state we attain, in accordance with our “capacity to receive” a blessed and sanctified nature. ~ Terryl L Givens, #NFDB
361:Holiness is not a merit by which we can attain communion with God, but a gift of Christ, which enables us to cling to him, and to follow him. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
362:I believe we are powerful but we don't use our minds to full capacity. Your mind is powerful enough to help you attain whatever you want. ~ Michael Jackson, #NFDB
363:The fantasy of "happiness" is pernicious because it is impossible to attain and may render us even more neurotic and attached to our wounds. ~ James Hollis, #NFDB
364:Without discontentment, without revolt, you can never attain harmony. It is a necessary stage, which must be gone through by everyone. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
365:I believe we are powerful, but we don't use our minds to full capacity. Your mind is powerful enough to help you attain whatever you want. ~ Michael Jackson, #NFDB
366:If God lets me live, I shall attain more than Mummy ever has done, I shall not remain insignificant, I shall work in the world and for mankind! ~ Anne Frank, #NFDB
367:My child, I bless you from my heart that you live long, attain devotion, and enjoy peace. Peace is the principal thing. One needs peace alone. ~ Sarada Devi, #NFDB
368:The discipline which I have imparted to you will lead you when I am gone. Practice mindfulness diligently, to attain the goal of awakening. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
369:What further concentration is needed, what added intensity must one's gaze attain, for the brain to enslave the visual image of a person? ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
370:The limitations that we can see of the sexual description of reality are very apparent. Very few men attain enlightenment, even fewer women. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
371:There's a whole kind of melancholy that you can only attain with reverb. That's an example of a technology introducing a whole new meaning. ~ Stephin Merritt, #NFDB
372:If your mind is fed only by the books, your wisdom will remain incomplete! Feed your mind with the streets as well to attain full wisdom! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
373:It seems that the inevitable fate of man is never attain complete freedom: princes everywhere tend to despotism and the people to servitude. ~ Jean Paul Marat, #NFDB
374:Richard Rohr reminds us that “we cannot attain the presence of God. We’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness. ~ David G Benner, #NFDB
375:There are infinite modes of expression in the world of art, and to insist that only by one road can the artist attain his ends is to limit him. ~ Jacob Epstein, #NFDB
376:A good man may make the best even of poverty and disease, and the other ills of life; but he can only attain happiness under the opposite conditions ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
377:Belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain. ~ David Hume, #NFDB
378:Never relax, for you will not attain to the possession of true spiritual delights if first you do not learn to deny your every desire. ~ Saint John of the Cross, #NFDB
379:So every creative act strives to attain an absolute status; it longs to create a world of beauty to triumph over chaos and convert it to order. ~ Rowan Williams, #NFDB
380:As long as you are trying to become, trying to get somewhere, trying to attain something, you are quite literally moving away from the Truth itself. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
381:Meditation is a journey without movement. In the external world you have to move in order to go ahead, in meditation you don't move, yet you attain. ~ Rama Swami, #NFDB
382:We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique. ~ Benjamin Jowett, #NFDB
383:You cannot attain everlasting peace of mind unless you stop seeing your mind as yourself and start seeing yourself as your mind’s guardian. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
384:All your scholarship would be in vain if at the same time you do not build your character and attain mastery over your thoughts and your actions. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
385:Endeavor to work as hard as possible to attain a new aim with each day that comes by. Don't go to bed until you have achieved something productive ~ Aliko Dangote, #NFDB
386:If one of them (your parents) or both of them attain old age in your life, say not "UF" to them, nor shout at them but address them in terms of honour ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
387:It concerns us to know the purposes we seek in life, for then, like archers aiming at a definite mark, we shall be more likely to attain what we want. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
388:Man is able, and has the duty, to reach the furthest point on the road he has chosen. Only by means of hope can we attain what is beyond hope. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis, #NFDB
389:Though man comes from the dust, sin is not a part of his nature. Man can overcome sin, and through repentance attain to at-one-ment with his Maker. ~ Joseph Hertz, #NFDB
390:Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed. ~ Mary Parker Follett, #NFDB
391:I strive to attain the happiness which does not pass away nor perish and which has not its source in riches or beauty nor depends upon them. ~ Foshu-hing-tsan-king, #NFDB
392:My wisdom consists in my having been many things and in many places in order to become one person—in order to be able to attain to one thing. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
393:All of us can attain to Christian virtue and holiness, no matter in what condition of life we live and no matter what our life work may be. ~ Saint Francis de Sales, #NFDB
394:Every man must form himself as a particular being, seeking, however, to attain that general idea of which all mankind are constituents. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
395:no matter the intervention, developing readers must spend substantial instructional time actually reading if they are to attain reading competence. ~ Donalyn Miller, #NFDB
396:No nation gains the power of judgment except it can pass judgment on itself. But to attain this great privilege takes a very long time. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
397:Nor deem the irrevocable Past
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,#NFDB
398:We are, or rather our natural desire to evade pain and to attain pleasure is, the primary reason we do or say every single thing we do or say. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
399:When a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain, and his virtue is not sufficient to enable him to hold, whatever he may have gained, he will lose again. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
400:Does any man ever attain his goal? Don’t goals always shift and change, become more difficult to pin down as you mature and gain wisdom?” “You’re ~ Catherine Coulter, #NFDB
401:He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly. ~ James Allen, #NFDB
402:He who would accomplish little need sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much. He who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly. ~ James Allen, #NFDB
403:Honesty consists of the unwillingness to lie to others; maturity, which is equally hard to attain, consists of the unwillingness to lie to oneself. ~ Sydney J Harris, #NFDB
404:Philosophic meditation is an accomplishment by which I attain Being and my own self, not impartial thinking which studies a subject with indifference. ~ Karl Jaspers, #NFDB
405:What offering should be made that we may attain to the Eternal? To find the Eternal thou must offer him thy body, thy mind and all thy possessions. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
406:A man of humanity is one who, in seeking to establish himself, finds a foothold for others and who, in desiring attaining himself, helps others to attain. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
407:What offering should be made that we may attain to the Eternal? To find the Eternal thou must offer him thy body, thy mind and all thy possessions. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
408:When you try to do one step forward to attain knowledge about the hidden truths, then do the same time three steps forward to perfect your character. ~ Rudolf Steiner, #NFDB
409:would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly. VISIONS ~ James Allen, #NFDB
410:Attain and maintain a reputation, for it is the usufruct of fame. A stiff climb, for it is the issue of excellence, as rare as mediocrity is common. ~ Baltasar Gracian, #NFDB
411:Never relax, for you will not attain to the possession of true spiritual delights if first you do not learn to deny your every desire. ~ Saint John of the Cross, [T5], #NFDB
412:The ideal you seek and hope to attain will not manifest itself, will not be realized by you, until you have imagined that you are already that ideal. ~ Neville Goddard, #NFDB
413:Above all else she mustn't think that using her body will help her attain her goal. Men use women who play seductively, and then they look down on them. ~ Dacia Maraini, #NFDB
414:An innocent bird is not innocent from the insect’s point of view! Only man can attain the rank of innocence through becoming a peaceful vegetarian! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
415:For fear of causing terror to living beings, Mahamati, let the Bodhisattva who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
416:May all beings attain happiness. May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings never be separated from joy. May all beings abide in equanimity. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
417:Now I begin to be a disciple. Let fire and cross, flocks of beasts, broken bones, dismemberment come upon me, so long as I attain to Jesus Christ. ~ Ignatius of Antioch, #NFDB
418:The more things we desire and the more we have to do to earn or attain those achievements, the less we actually enjoy our lives—and the less free we are. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
419:Chastity is the cement of civilization and progress. Without it there is no stability in society, and without it one cannot attain the Science of Life. ~ Mary Baker Eddy, #NFDB
420:Hold on to your hats, ladies!’ cried Jasper Dash. ‘You’re in for a wild ride! This futuristic buggy can attain speeds of up to thirty-five miles per hour! ~ M T Anderson, #NFDB
421:I believe that Brother Fidel Castro is one of the greatest revolutionaries in the history of the struggle of human beings to attain their human rights. ~ Louis Farrakhan, #NFDB
422:The engineer, and more generally the designer, is concerned with how things ought to be - how they ought to be in order to attain goals, and to function. ~ Herbert Simon, #NFDB
423:The home is the abiding place; in the home is reality; the home helps to attain Him Who is real. So stay where you are, and all things shall come to you in time. ~ Kabir, #NFDB
424:The obligation to earn one's bread presumes the right to do so. A society that denies this right cannot be justified, nor can it attain social peace. ~ Pope John Paul II, #NFDB
425:Through sex, mankind may attain the great spiritual illumination which will transform the world, which will light up the only path to earthly paradise. ~ Margaret Sanger, #NFDB
426:What manner of mind considers this holy estate [pregnancy] which women are privileged by the Almighty to attain as a slur upon the social conscience? ~ Grantly Dick Read, #NFDB
427:In the spiritual life, as in all organic processes, everyone has their optimum and it is just as harmful to go beyond it as not to attain it. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #NFDB
428:To dream is to desire, to desire is to long for, to long for is to want, and to want you must work to attain all you dream of, desire, long for and want. ~ Imania Margria, #NFDB
429:When I entered the sport of boxing I wanted to be one of the best and be undefeated. And I was able to attain that, not just one championship title, but four. ~ Laila Ali, #NFDB
430:Every man, woman and child holds the possibility of physical perfection; it rests with each of us to attain it by personal understanding and effort. ~ F Matthias Alexander, #NFDB
431:God can't force his children to become like him. It's something they have to want, a blessing they have to fight for and be willing to sacrifice to attain. ~ Chris Stewart, #NFDB
432:If you seek to change your life and attain enlightenment, you must deal with these questions. If there is no truth in this, then ignore these silly words. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
433:It is by means of these that we attain perfect love, through the grace and compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory through all the ages. Amen. ~ John Cassian, #NFDB
434:O disciple, that which was not created dwells in thee. If thou wish to attain to it,...thou must strip thyself of thy dark robes of illusion. ~ The Book of Golden Precepts, #NFDB
435:Tom had discovered a great law of human action, namely, that in order to make a man covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. ~ Dan Ariely, #NFDB
436:Even though a man may be unable to attain such a height of sanctity, he ought to desire it, so as to do at least in desire what he cannot carry out in effect. ~ Philip Neri, #NFDB
437:Mary means Star of the sea, for as mariners are guided to port by the ocean star, so Christians attain to glory through Mary's maternal intercession. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
438:The truth is that all of us attain the greatest success and happiness possible in this life whenever we use our native capacities to their greatest extent. ~ Smiley Blanton, #NFDB
439:Would he purge his soul from vileness
And attain to light and worth,
He must turn and cling for ever,
To his ancient Mother Earth. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,#NFDB
440:Any good person who is motivated to attain awareness of the whole truth should follow the Universal Way to calm his mind and harmonize it with all aspects of life. ~ Lao Tzu, #NFDB
441:A university should not be an island where academics attain higher and higher levels of knowledge without sharing any of this knowledge with its neighbours. ~ Muhammad Yunus, #NFDB
442:He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly. VISIONS ~ James Allen, #NFDB
443:Respice finem; that is to say, in all your actions, look often upon what you would have, as the thing that directs all your thoughts in the way to attain it. ~ Thomas Hobbes, #NFDB
444:The goal of the human experience is to transform ourselves from being who long to attain power in the physical world to beings who are empowered from within. ~ Caroline Myss, #NFDB
445:Truth is not to be found outside. No teacher, no scripture can give it to you. It is inside you and if you wish to attain it, seek your own company. Be with yourself. ~ Osho, #NFDB
446:When your mind has overcome the confusion of duality, you will attain the state of holy indifference to things you hear and things you have heard. ~ Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa, #NFDB
447:Everyone wants to feel special - attain a special status among their pears- but not too special. Most kids want to be special the same way their friends are ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
448:My child, I bless you from my heart that you live long, attain devotion, and enjoy peace. Peace is the principal thing. One needs peace alone. — ~ Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, #NFDB
449:The necessary thing is after all but this; solitude, great inner solitude. Going into oneself for hours meeting no one - this one must be able to attain. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
450:Civilization is not by means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
451:Every activity performed in public can attain an excellence never matched in privacy; for excellence, by definition, the presence of others is always required. ~ Hannah Arendt, #NFDB
452:for you cannot build anything without tearing something down, and even he ... all pleasures available freely (but what we attain with no effort we cannot value), ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
453:Note to self: It's hard to attain a state of no-mind when you're incredibly pumped up on tea and sugar and have to urinate every three and a half minutes. ~ Jordan Sonnenblick, #NFDB
454:When you attain the control of the internal direction of your attention, you will no longer stand in shallow water but will launch out into the deep of life. ~ Neville Goddard, #NFDB
455:Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
456:Do japa and meditation as you like, provided you keep your mind steadfast in the Lord. You will attain to your goal in this way. Why do you worry? ~ Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, #NFDB
457:Get your blood sugar well regulated, and nutritional ketosis will be easier to attain—and conversely, nutritional ketosis will help you regulate your blood sugar. ~ Jimmy Moore, #NFDB
458:I read a lot, almost anything and everything. I make an effort to use any knowledge I attain and express my opinions even at the risk of being wrong at times. ~ Malcolm Goodwin, #NFDB
459:The average individual spends many, many lifetimes meditating and seeking and chewing bubblegum and doing things like that to attain the experience of samadhi. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
460:The essential passions of the heart have found a better soil in which it may attain it's maturity; remain under less restraint and extended into it's natural state ~ David Hume, #NFDB
461:We can't search or attain well being, wealth, studying, justice or kindness usually. Action is all the time particular, concrete, individualized, distinctive. ~ Benjamin Jowett, #NFDB
462:When you attain my age you will understand one of life's great secrets: Luxury is best appreciated in small portions. When it becomes routine it loses its allure. ~ Ruth Reichl, #NFDB
463:It is possible to renounce everything and attain enlightenment. But most people don't want to renounce; they wish to run away from responsibility and hard work. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
464:No one will benefit from your failure. However, if you were able to reverse it and attain the goals and dreams you set for yourself—now, that would be something. ~ Grant Cardone, #NFDB
465:The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #NFDB
466:Truth is not to be found outside. No teacher, no scripture can give it to you. It is inside you and if you wish to attain it, seek your own company. Be with yourself. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
467:Until we dedicate time each day to developing ourselves into the person we need to be to create the life we want, success is always going to be a struggle to attain. ~ Hal Elrod, #NFDB
468:Within this circle of ideas, c, h, and G attain an exalted status. They are the enablers of profound principles of physics that couldn't make sense without them. ~ Frank Wilczek, #NFDB
469:Like a treasure found at home, enriching me without fatigue, you, my dear troublemaker, are the means by which a confused person like me will attain enlightenment. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
470:One cannot attain divine knowledge till one gets rid of pride. Water does not stay on the top of a mound; but into low land it flows in torrents from all sides. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
471:To attain union is so impossibly difficult because it is impossible to become what you already are! Union is nothing other than knowledge of oneself as the Only One. ~ Meher Baba, #NFDB
472:Whosoever recognises at all times his faults of omission and cleanses himself by observing the ways of purity in each one of his actions, shall attain to perfection. ~ Udanavarga, #NFDB
473:Always remember that renunciation is the root idea. Unless one is initiated into this idea, not even Brahma and the World - gods have the power to attain Mukti ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
474:Aspire higher to attain excellence in whatever you do. But be careful when you reach the peak, where the only way is the way downwards. Maintain your standard! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
475:If we attach more importance to what other people believe than to what we know to be true - if we value belonging over being - we will not attain authenticity. ~ Nathaniel Branden, #NFDB
476:It is always possible to be happy by ignoring the sufferings of the millions! People with high conscience can never attain this kind of insensitive happiness! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
477:Justice is the tolerable accommodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don't believe there is any royal road to attain such accommodation concretely. ~ Learned Hand, #NFDB
478:May I quickly attain complete enlightenment, and having attained the state of a buddha, may I guide all sentient beings to liberation and the awakened state itself. ~ Tulku Urgyen, #NFDB
479:Reincarnation is not what a lot of people think. Yes, we are eternal. No, everyone does not attain enlightenment; it's not necessary; life is smarter than we are. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
480:Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence. ~ Vince Lombardi, #NFDB
481:I don't want people to think that they can attain realization simply by listening to others or by reading books. They must practice what they read and hear. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
482:If we can develop the ability to be aware of the present moment, we can use the past as a guide for ordering our actions in the future, so that we may attain our goal. ~ S N Goenka, #NFDB
483:It is the condition of our present state to see more than we can attain; the exactest vigilance and caution can never maintain a single day of unmingled innocence. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
484:Can anyone attain liberation unless He helps? Have deep faith in Him. Know the Master to be your refuge, just as parents are to children in this world. ~ Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, #NFDB
485:It is, indeed, only in old age that intellectual men attain their sublime expression, whilst portraits of them in their youth show only the first traces of it. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
486:the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe! ~ Nikos Kazantzakis, #NFDB
487:And one day it hit me—the perfection imagined by socialist theory was impossible for human beings to attain. The philosophy was right but we were poor vessels for it. ~ Walter Mosley, #NFDB
488:No man wants to marry, Finnula. There are just some women they can’t have any other way, and so it is a sacrifice willingly made in order to attain a particularly choice— ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
489:The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. ~ W E B Du Bois, #NFDB
490:Women are degraded by the propensity to enjoy the present moment, and, at last, despise the freedom which they have not sufficient virtue to struggle to attain. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft, #NFDB
491:Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence. ~ Vince Lombardi Jr, #NFDB
492:The bargaining position of the victor always diminishes with time. Whatever is not exacted during the shock of defeat becomes increasingly difficult to attain later. ~ Henry Kissinger, #NFDB
493:Too many folk, women and men, love the person they wish to be, as if by loving that person, or being loved by that person, they could attain the importance they long for. ~ Robin Hobb, #NFDB
494:When you try to attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. When you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
495:Approaching directly to her heart you will attain a greater knowledge of her and be inflamed by a greater love for her than all human words together could teach you. ~ Maximilian Kolbe, #NFDB
496:As it is not possible to walk without feet or fly without wings, so it is impossible to attain the Kingdom of Heaven without the fulfillment of the commandments. ~ Theophan the Recluse, #NFDB
497:Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind. ~ Albert Schweitzer, #NFDB
498:Just as you must come through a woman's womb to attain physical birth, so must you come through Wisdom to achieve mental birth. And like childbirth, Wisdom often comes with pain. ~ RZA, #NFDB
499:We are the living graves of murdered beasts, slaughtered to satisfy our appetites. How can we hope in this world to attain the peace we say we are so anxious for? ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
500:And I will place within them as a guide My umpire conscience, whom if they will hear Light after light well used they shall attain, And to the end persisting, safe arrive. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
501:The obstacles that distract thought are disease, apathy, doubt, carelessness, indolence, dissipation, false vision, failure to attain a firm basis in yoga, and restlessness. ~ Patanjali, #NFDB
502:When a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain, and his virtue is not sufficient to enable him to hold, whatever he may have gained, he will lose again. ~ Confucius, Analects, 15:32, i, #NFDB
503:I read an awful lot in college - a lot of Dickens, a lot of 19th century American stuff, a lot of old mysteries. Maybe it's helped me attain a certain fluidity with my style. ~ Josh Lieb, #NFDB
504:Only those of tranquil minds, and none else, can attain abiding joy, by realizing within their souls the Being who manifests one essence in a multiplicity of forms. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, #NFDB
505:There’s a widely held view that by living an unhealthy lifestyle a writer can remove himself from the profane world and attain a kind of purity that has artistic value. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
506:We only attain the true idea of marriage when we consider it as a spiritual union--a union of immortal affections, of undying faculties, of an imperishable destiny. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin, #NFDB
507:What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours—that is what you must be able to attain. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
508:You attain aptness by judging while in good shape and in a good situation (good light, good distance, etc.), through the exercise of good barn-sorting epistemic competence. ~ Ernest Sosa, #NFDB
509:And yet, Sharko still felt an impalpable connection, the same diabolical will to attain and harvest two of the human body’s most precious organs: the brain and the eyes. ~ Franck Thilliez, #NFDB
510:A wise man will always be a Christian, because the perfection of wisdom is to know where lies tranquillity of mind and how to attain it, which Christianity teaches. ~ Walter Savage Landor, #NFDB
511:If you are looking at anything from one point, from one angle, you can never attain wisdom because wisdom is to see all the things from every point, from every angle! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
512:In the scriptures you will find the way to realize God. But after getting all the information about the path, you must begin to work, Only then can you attain your goal. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
513:This is going to be a hard task for you, first to attain and then to lose - because you can lose only something which you possess. If you don't possess it, how can you lose it? ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
514:To attain to the human form must always be a source of joy. And then to undergo continuous transitions, with only the infinite to look forward to: what incomparable bliss is that! ~ Laozi, #NFDB
515:A soul cannot seek close fellowship with God, or attain the abiding consciousness of waiting on Him all the day, without a very honest and entire surrender to all His will. ~ Andrew Murray, #NFDB
516:If a society does not wage a common struggle to attain a common goal with its women and men, scientifically there is no way for it to become civilized or developed. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, #NFDB
517:If your goal is to become financially secure, you’ll likely attain it…. But if your motive is to make money to spend money on the good life,… you’re never gonna make it. ~ Thomas J Stanley, #NFDB
518:Let us resolve: First, to attain the grace of silence; second, to deem all fault finding that does no good a sin; third, to practice the grade and virtue of praise. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe, #NFDB
519:persons who go through a great deal of trouble or pain to attain something tend to value it more highly than persons who attain the same thing with a minimum of effort. ~ Robert B Cialdini, #NFDB
520:But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind. ~ Bodhidharma, #NFDB
521:gripping.You can attain this degree of stillness only by letting go of everything in the entire universe except for this momentary experience of the breath happening silently. ~ Ajahn Brahm, #NFDB
522:Only when a man makes use of his power of self-awareness does he attain to the level of a person, to the level of freedom. At that moment he is living, not being lived. ~ Ernst F Schumacher, #NFDB
523:True poetry is truer than science, because it is synthetic, and seizes at once what the combination of all the sciences is able, at most, to attain as a final result. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel, #NFDB
524:What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It's close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
525:What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It’s close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
526:An ounce of practice is better than tons of theory. Practice Yoga, Religion and Philosophy in daily life and attain Self-realization. ~ Swami Sivananda, Light Power and Wisdom, Introduction, #NFDB
527:Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. ~ Dorothy Parker,#NFDB
528:The march of history is that of the human race obeying the mantra of the motivational triad—attempting to attain more pleasure, for less pain, with ever-greater efficiency. ~ Douglas J Lisle, #NFDB
529:Therefore regard attentively this ocean of impermanence, contemplate it even to its foundation and labour no more to attain but one sole thing,—the kingdom of the Permanent. ~ Buddhist Texts, #NFDB
530:Those who fail to distinguish the nonessential from the essential and the essential from the nonessential will, in feeding all wrong thoughts, fail to attain the essential. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
531:True and false fears let us refrain, Let us love nobly, and live, and add again Years and years unto years, till we attain To write threescore ; this is the second of our reign. ~ John Donne, #NFDB
532:I ask people to renounce mentally. I do not ask them to give up the world. If one lives in the world unattached and seeks God with sincerity, then one is able to attain Him. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
533:The goal of climbing big, dangerous mountains should be to attain some sort of spiritual and personal growth, but this won't happen if you compromise away the entire process. ~ Yvon Chouinard, #NFDB
534:Before you go further, let me tell you what a poem brings, first, you must know the secret, there is no poem to speak of, it is a way to attain a life without boundaries. ~ Juan Felipe Herrera, #NFDB
535:but you must see a new world before you can live in it. It is to what you see, to what you believe, to what you struggle incessantly to attain, that you will approximate. ~ Orison Swett Marden, #NFDB
536:Everything in the world of Matter is unreal; the only reality is in the world of Spirit. Emancipate yourselves from the tyranny of the former; strive to attain the latter. ~ Henry Steel Olcott, #NFDB
537:Now I begin to be a disciple. . . . Let fire and cross, flocks of beasts, broken bones, dismemberment, come upon me, so long as I attain to Jesus Christ. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH ~ Justo L Gonz lez, #NFDB
538:One who has not ceased from evil living or is without peace or without concentration or whose mind has not been tranquillised, cannot attain to Him by the intelligence. ~ Katha Upanishad II.24, #NFDB
539:Our efforts in chess attain only a hundredth of one percent of their rightful result... Our education, in all domains of endeavour, is frightfully wasteful of time and values. ~ Emanuel Lasker, #NFDB
540:The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB
541:Anything that could ever prevent me from achieving a goal, I put in a box, tape it up, throw it over my shoulder. You aim for a goal and attain it. Then you look to the next one. ~ Grant Achatz, #NFDB
542:For a man to attain to an eminent degree in learning costs him time, watching, hunger, nakedness, dizziness in the head, weakness in the stomach, and other inconveniences. ~ Miguel de Cervantes, #NFDB
543:How difficult it is for us to attain to reality...We always try to grab it: but it does not like to be grabbed. Only where it overwhelms man does
it surrender itself to him. ~ Muhammad Asad,#NFDB
544:If you are never parted from the aspiring resolve to attain awak- ening, wherever you are born-whether above, below, or on the same level-you will not forget the thought of awakening. ~ Asanga, #NFDB
545:ONE OF THE GREATEST EXPERIENCES IN LIFE IS ACHIEVING PERSONAL GOALS THAT OTHERS SAID WOULD BE, 'IMPOSSIBLE TO ATTAIN.' BE PROUD OF YOUR SUCCESS AND SHARE YOUR STORY WITH OTHERS. ~ Robert Cheeke, #NFDB
546:It is only through love that we can attain to communion with God. All living knowledge of God rests upon this foundation: that we experience him in our lives as Will-to-love. ~ Albert Schweitzer, #NFDB
547:Sorrow is so woven through us, so much a part of our souls, or at least any understanding of our souls that we are able to attain, that every experience is dyed with its color. ~ Christian Wiman, #NFDB
548:The irony of their impatience is that only by learning to wait, and by a willingness to accept the bad with the good, do we usually attain those things that are truly worthwhile. ~ Joshua Harris, #NFDB
549:Where there is no purity, there is no Unity. Without Unity you cannot attain Divinity. Then your life is just a waste. First purity, next Unity, then you realize your Divinity. ~ Sathya Sai Baba, #NFDB
550:Innumerable are the ways that lead to God. There are the paths of jnana, of karma, and of bhakti. If you are sincere, you will attain God in the end , whichever path you follow. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
551:In some small field each child should attain, within the limited range of its experience and observation, the power to draw a justly limited inference from observed facts. ~ Charles William Eliot, #NFDB
552:I want to be, if I can, as sure of the world--the real world--around me as is possible. Now, you can only attain that to a certain degree, but I want the greatest degree of control. ~ James Randi, #NFDB
553:It needs tremendous courage, patience, and trust to believe that one can find without effort, that one can attain without attaining, that one can arrive without stepping out of one’s house. ~ Osho, #NFDB
554:My time, the rank I attain, my outward appearance—all of these are secondary. For a runner like me, what’s really important is reaching the goal I set myself, under my own power. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
555:Someone who wants to attain enlightenment must be brave. He must rush into the crowd of enemies with a dagger. In the practice of Zen, enemies are our delusive thoughts and passions. ~ Yamada Koun, #NFDB
556:"The contemplation on nonattainment is very important. The object we wish to attain is already attained. We don't need to attain anything. We already have it. We already are it." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
557:…there’s no reason why something should lose its power simply because it turns out to have layers of complexity that were not initially available to us, which we slowly attain. ~ Robert M Sapolsky, #NFDB
558:Women do not help each other attain enlightenment because in the description of the world they've been given, unlike that of men, it's every woman for herself in order to survive. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
559:Do not be proud of wealth, people, relations and friends, or youth. All these are snatched by time in the blink of an eye. Giving up this illusory world, know and attain the Supreme. ~ Adi Shankara, #NFDB
560:God allows us to give rise to the practice of two beautiful virtues: perseverance, which leads us to attain the goal, and constancy, which helps us to overcome difficulties. ~ Saint Vincent de Paul, #NFDB
561:I don’t think man was meant to attain happiness so easily. Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
562:Somewhere in your make-up there lies sleeping, the seed of achievement which, if aroused and put into action, would carry you to heights, such as you may never have hoped to attain. ~ Napoleon Hill, #NFDB
563:The more you realize, the more you realize there is nothing to realize. The idea that there's somewhere we have got to get to, and something we have to attain, is our basic delusion. ~ Tenzin Palmo, #NFDB
564:Trump’s need to destroy everything that Obama achieved derives from the paranoid character’s hatred of goodness in others whose achievements he cannot attain, understand, or tolerate. ~ Bandy X Lee, #NFDB
565:If you attain liberation do not feel that it matters or it is important. You had nothing to do with it. If you are bound by ignorance do not feel bad. You had nothing to do with it. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
566:Only by understanding the wisdom of natural foods and their effects on the body, shall we attain mastery of disease and pain, which shall enable us to relieve the burden of mankind. ~ William Harvey, #NFDB
567:Our firm conviction that ours is a just cause and that we must find a peaceful way to attain our goals gave us the strength and the awareness of the limits beyond which we must not go. ~ Lech Walesa, #NFDB
568:Strive for originality in thought and action. Be first; Be different; And be daring. Only then will you make a significant difference in this world. You may even attain greatness. ~ Ernie J Zelinski, #NFDB
569:The overcoming of the sex instinct and impulse is indeed binding on all who would attain to self-mastery and lead the spiritual life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, The Divine Body, #NFDB
570:If you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain some wonderful power. Before you attain it, it is something wonderful, but after you attain it, it is nothing special. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
571:Illiteracy must be banished from the land if we shall attain that high destiny as the foremost of the enlightened nations of the world which, under Providence, we ought to achieve. ~ William McKinley, #NFDB
572:It is better to excel in any single art than to arrive only at mediocrity in several, so moderate skill in several is to be preferred where one cannot attain to perfection in any. ~ Pliny the Younger, #NFDB
573:To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
574:He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it, namely, that, in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
575:I think it is a pity to lose the romantic side of flying and simply to accept it as a common means of transport, although that end is what we have all ostensibly been striving to attain. ~ Amy Johnson, #NFDB
576:oppressed teaches us that the “state of emergency” in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. ~ Walter Benjamin, #NFDB
577:They led a life that she could not attain to—the outer life of 'telegrams and anger,' which had detonated when Helen and Paul had touched in June, and had detonated again the other week. ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
578:Those who endlessly praise the rank of martyrdom must first attain that rank! No invented rank is superior to the life! You stick to the life and let the fools stick to the death. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
579:It is easier for a political party to attain national ballot status in Russia today than it is for the Libertarian party or the Green party to get on the ballot in, say, Pennsylvania. ~ Justin Raimondo, #NFDB
580:Mother Ganges teaches us that if we want to attain the sea of our aspiration, we must persevere in our goal and never be discouraged by the inevitable obstacles that come on our path. ~ Radhanath Swami, #NFDB
581:No memories? What were we but memories governed by a form of intelligence, seeking to make our lives in some way memorable? Trying to attain dreams that would secure such remembrance? ~ L E Modesitt Jr, #NFDB
582:Open your grief-stricken heart to the Lord. Weep and sincerely pray, 'O Lord, draw me towards You; give me peace of mind.' By doing so constantly you, will gradually attain peace of mind. ~ Sarada Devi, #NFDB
583:The aim of Zen training is to attain the state of consciousness which occurs when the individual ego is emptied of itself and becomes identified with the infinite reality of all things. ~ Anne Bancroft, #NFDB
584:The method of not erring is sought by all the world. The logicians profess to guide it, the geometricians alone attain it, and apart from science, and the imitations of it, there are no ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
585:True and false fears let us refrain,
Let us love nobly, and live, and add again
Years and years unto years, till we attain
To write threescore: this is the second of our reign. ~ John Donne,#NFDB
586:All our efforts to attain immortality-by statesmanship, by conquest, by science or the arts-are equally vain in the long run, because the long run is longer than any of us can imagine. ~ Sydney J Harris, #NFDB
587:As women come to attain more leadership positions, this less obtrusive style of authority might begin to alter our perception of some of the dominance cues so long associated with power. ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
588:The poor prey on one another because their lives offer no hope and communicate the tragic message to these human beings that they have no possibility to attain a decent standard of living. ~ Thabo Mbeki, #NFDB
589:There are men in the world who labour to attain to spirituality and sages who are pure and perfect and can explain this life and the other of which they have themselves acquired the knowledge. ~ Unknown, #NFDB
590:the term of your time is circumscribed, and that unless you use it to attain calm of mind, time will be gone and you will be gone and the opportunity to use it will not be yours again. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
591:Those who wish to attain God and progress in religious devotion, should particularly guard themselves against the snares of lust and wealth. Otherwise they can never attain perfection. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
592:My cruel fate hath warr'd with me in vain
Life, glory, worth, and all unmeasur'd skill
Beauty and grace, themselves in me fulfill
That many I surpass, and to the best attain. ~ Benvenuto Cellini,#NFDB
593:Those who wish to attain God and progress in religious devotion, should particularly guard themselves against the snares of lust and wealth. Otherwise they can never attain perfection. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
594:By virtue alone man cannot attain to the highest, but by virtue he can develop a first capacity for attaining to it, adhikāra. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Synthesis of Devotion and Knowledge, #NFDB
595:The attainment of truth is then the function of both the intellectual parts of the soul. Therefore their respective virtues are those dispositions which will best qualify them to attain truth. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
596:The fact that she accomplishes nothing, that she is nothing, will make her impulses only the more passionate. Empty and unlimited, she seeks from within her nothingness to attain All. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #NFDB
597:You have developed the second attention much more than you realize and you use it more than you realize as a woman. That's why I feel women can attain enlightenment more easily than men. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
598:All your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be in vain, if at the same time you do not build your character, and attain mastery over your thoughts and actions. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
599:Artists of all sorts remain youthful for so long, and in many cases attain a grand old age. The explanation is that they live in an almost permanent condition of stimulation and excitement. ~ Egon Friedell, #NFDB
600:He brought it about that a people should attain happiness through tears, that the freedom of a nation, like that of a man, should be a monument built upon a pile, a foundation of dead bodies… ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
601:Consequently he who wishes to attain to human perfection, must therefore first study Logic, next the various branches of Mathematics in their proper order, then Physics, and lastly Metaphysics. ~ Maimonides, #NFDB
602:Do your actions in the world, without forgetting that your find goal in life is to break free from all bondage and limitations. Always 'remember that you have a higher goal to attain. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi, #NFDB
603:If India becomes an intellectual province of Europe, she will never attain to her natural greatness or fulfil the possibilities within her. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Bande Mataram - II, Indian Resurgence and Europe, #NFDB
604:It is not sufficient for poetry to attain high intensities of word and rhythm; it must have, to fill them, an answering intensity of vision. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Poetic Vision and the Mantra, #NFDB
605:Mapping out your own future in the form of images, phrases, and inspirational words that you are able to see every day will help reinforce your desires to attain what you set out to achieve. ~ Robert Cheeke, #NFDB
606:There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
607:a few were given the chance to attain human greatness even through their apparent worldly failure and death, an accomplishment which in ordinary circumstances they would never have achieved. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
608:In trying to practice religion, eighty percent of people turn cheats and about fifteen percent go mad; only the remaining five percent attain the immediate knowledge of the infinite Truth. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
609:Jehovah* is not slow concerning his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with you because he does not desire anyone to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
610:Nobody gives you respect in this life. You must take it, you must earn it, and then you must hold it sacred, because no matter how hard respect is to attain, it can be lost in an instant. ~ Jennifer A Nielsen, #NFDB
611:Your success is not measured in terms of what all you obtained but in term of what you become, how you live and what actions you do. Upon this point reflect well and attain great happiness ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
612:Sir, there is nothing too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great knowledge of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible. ~ Lucy Worsley, #NFDB
613:Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek. ~ Mario Andretti, #NFDB
614:You are not seeking to attain some future state. That is the fallacy of many spiritual seekers. They have an image of some state - enlightenment, or whatever they call it - they want to achieve. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
615:...[I]n any inquiry you are likely to attain more nearly to knowledge of your object in proportion to the care and accuracy with which you have prepared yourself to understand that object in itself[.] ~ Socrates, #NFDB
616:The more you realize, the more you realize there is nothing to realize,” she said. “The idea that there’s somewhere we have got to get to, and something we have to attain, is our basic delusion. ~ Michael Finkel, #NFDB
617:ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
618:[O]nly if every individual strives for truth can humanity attain a happier future; the atavisms in each of us that stand in the way of a friendlier destiny can only thus be rendered ineffective. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
619:Salvation is so great a thing, so glorious an attainment, that 'tis worth the while for a man to do his utmost every day during his whole life in the use of all proper means that he may attain. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
620:This lack of translation is a mental handicap that comes with being a human; and we will only start to attain wisdom or rationality when we make an effort to overcome and break through it. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
621:Time holds the final claim check for everything we gain or attain in this lifetime. All of our possessions, along with the people we love, are only loaned to us for a very short time by eternity. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
622:Human life is something that comes to us from beyond this world, and the purpose of our society is to cherish it and to enable the individual to attain the highest achievement of which he is capable ~ Harry Truman, #NFDB
623:The plant never lapses into mere arid functionalism; it fashions and shapes according to logic and suitability, and with its primeval force compels everything to attain the highest artistic form. ~ Karl Blossfeldt, #NFDB
624:Those who wish to attain God or make progress in their devotional practices should particularly guard themselves against the snares of lust and wealth. Otherwise they can never attain perfection. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
625:We have trained them to think of the Future as a promised land which favored heroes attain-not as something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
626:Books showed me there were possibilities in life, that there were actually people like me living in a world I could not only aspire to but attain. Reading gave me hope. For me, it was the open door. ~ Oprah Winfrey, #NFDB
627:... happiness is daily experienced by everyone in sleep, when there is no mind. To attain that natural happiness one must know oneself. For that, Self-Enquiry, Who am I? is the chief means.
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,#NFDB
628:men, walking almost always in paths beaten by others, and following by imitation their deeds, are yet unable to keep entirely to the ways of others or attain to the power of those they imitate. ~ Niccol Machiavelli, #NFDB
629:Human life is something that comes to us from beyond this world, and the purpose of our society is to cherish it and to enable the individual to attain the highest achievement of which he is capable ~ Harry S Truman, #NFDB
630:mistake to suppose that mere good will is, by itself, a sufficient guarantee that all our efforts will finally attain to a good result. Serious mistakes can be made, even with the greatest good will. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
631:St. Paul would say to the philosophers that God created man so that he would seek the Divine, try to attain the Divine. That is why all pre-Christian philosophy is theological at its summit. ~ Hans Urs von Balthasar, #NFDB
632:What is important in meditation is the quality of the mind and the heart.It is not what you achieve, or what you say you attain, but rather the quality of a mind that is innocent and vulnerable. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
633:10 h that I may know him and i the power of his resurrection, and j may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11that by any means possible I may k attain the resurrection from the dead. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
634:Every worthwhile accomplishment has a price tag attached to it. The question is always whether you are willing to pay the price to attain it - in hard work, sacrifice, patience, faith, and endurance. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
635:He could see in her face that she had found a freedom he did not have. Somehow this inflexible woman had become flexible, and she was beautiful in a way that he could not attain, though she was old. ~ Kathleen Winter, #NFDB
636:I hope you will attain enlightenment. I am here to tell you that you already have! But you don't know... The difference between the Buddha and us is the confidence in knowing that he was enlightened. ~ Sakyong Mipham, #NFDB
637:I would venture to affirm that a man cannot attain excellence if he satisfy the ignorant and not those of his own craft, and if he be not 'singular' or 'distant,' or whatever you like to call him. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB
638:If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
639:It's a level of strength and character that few of us can imagine; a grace under pressure that few of us will ever attain. It's why an Olympic gold medal would not have made us love or admire her more. ~ Peggy Fleming, #NFDB
640:The nearer you come to God, the less you are disposed to questioning and reasoning. When you actually attain Him, when you behold Him as the Reality, then all noise, all disputations, come to an end. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
641:A man should demand much from himself, but little from others. When you meet a man of worth, think how you may attain to his excellence. When you meet an unworthy one, then look within and examine yourself. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
642:Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it. ~ G I Gurdjieff, #NFDB
643:The many of us who attain what we may and forget those who help us along the line we've got to remember that there are so many others to pull along the way. The farther they go, the further we all go. ~ Jackie Robinson, #NFDB
644:There's a soft glow of light behind the curtains, a warmth, a happiness there that she knows she will never attain, no matter how much she aspires to it, no matter how much she's willing to do to get it. ~ Shari Lapena, #NFDB
645:But there is another reason for the high repute of mathematics: it is mathematics that offers the exact natural sciences a certain measure of security which, without mathematics, they could not attain. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
646:Success is secondary to impact. Success is a list of what you win, gain and attain - it may pass it may remain. Impact is the test; the hearts, minds and lives you touch, enhance and forever change... ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru, #NFDB
647:Ah, how skilful grows the hand That obeyeth Love’s command! It is the heart, and not the brain, That to the highest doth attain, And he who followeth Love’s behest Far excelleth all the rest! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
648:Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it. ~ G.I. Gurdjieff, #NFDB
649:I had always known what I wanted, and that was beauty... in every form... a beautiful house, beautiful man, a beautiful life and image. I was ambitious to get the money which would attain all that for me. ~ Joan Crawford, #NFDB
650:In the midst of all this great variety of subjects, an individual cannot attain to perfection in each, because it is scarcely in his power to take in and comprehend the general theories of them. ~ Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, #NFDB
651:Possibly, much of the flimsy piety of the present day arises from the ease with which men attain to peace and joy in these evangelistic days. We would not judge modern converts, but we certainly ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
652:The building of such a peace is a bold and solemn purpose. To proclaim it is easy. To serve it will be hard. And to attain it, we must be aware of its full meaning - and ready to pay its full price. ~ Dwight D Eisenhower, #NFDB
653:You don't discipline yourself to attain the feeling of love. You attain the feeling of love and then you want to discipline yourself because you love the discipline, because it brings more love. ~ Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, #NFDB
654:Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings ... let shatterings of the whole body; and let all the evil torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ. ~ Ignatius of Antioch, #NFDB
655:The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. ~ Walter Benjamin, #NFDB
656:A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it. ~ Niccol Machiavelli, #NFDB
657:No man lives, can live, without having some object in view, and making efforts to attain that object. But when object there is none, and hope is entirely fled, anguish often turns a man into a monster. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
658:The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
659:To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation. ~ Jane Addams, #NFDB
660:A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli, #NFDB
661:Being completely and totally present and at every single point of space and time, It is fully and completely present here and now, thus we can no more attain immanent Spirit then we could, say, attain our feet. ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
662:Every city is either vibrant these days or is working on a plan to attain vibrancy soon. The reason is simple: a city isn't successful - isn't even a city, really - unless it can lay claim to being 'vibrant.' ~ Thomas Frank, #NFDB
663:...it was born out of habits of mind produced by Christianity: that if you sacrificed yourself you would somehow attain the object of your desires. It was a knife of an idea, a cruel instrument of sacrifice... ~ Peter Carey, #NFDB
664:The degree of success that you attain in all of your physical, mental and spiritual undertakings is dependent upon the strength and clarity of your finite mind and your ability to access your infinite mind. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
665:But Christianity is a queer business! If at the outset we try to do anything, we get nothing; if we seek to attain something, we miss everything. For Christianity begins not with a big DO, but with a big DONE. ~ Watchman Nee, #NFDB
666:I have been an "Official" all my life, without the least turn for it. I never could attain a true official manner, which is highly artificial and handles trifles with ludicrously disproportionate gravity. ~ William Allingham, #NFDB
667:It is by the Grace of the Divine and the aid of a Force greater than your own, not by personal capacity and worth that you can attain the goal of the sadhana. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, The Call and the Capacity, #NFDB
668:Sir, there is nothing too little for so little creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great knowledge of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible. 16, July 1763. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
669:Where most men work for degrees after their names, we work for one before our names: 'St.' It's a much more difficult degree to attain. It takes a lifetime, and you don't get your diploma until you're dead. ~ Mother Angelica, #NFDB
670:I felt deep within me that the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!” - The Narrator. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis, #NFDB
671:Not only we can, but some have reached perfection; so no matter what finer bodies come, they could only be on the relative plane and could do no more than we, for to attain freedom is all that can be done. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
672:[Tibet] never sought any territory. All it wanted is the conquest of the soul, that people should attain a kind of inner sovereignty, inner independence, inner freedom. And inner strength to attain the absolute. ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
673:Every creature who is moved to attain and perceive Him will be cast back by the splendour of His majesty, nor is there anyone who cranes his neck to see Him whose glance is not turned aside in amazement. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #NFDB
674:I came into the world imbued with the will to find a meaning in things, my spirit filled with the desire to attain to the source of the world, and then I found that I was an object in the midst of other objects. ~ Frantz Fanon, #NFDB
675:If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #NFDB
676:So I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
677:The embryological record is almost always abbreviated in accordance with the tendency of nature (to be explained on the principle of survival of the fittest) to attain her needs by the easiest means. ~ Francis Maitland Balfour, #NFDB
678:There are few instances of the exercise of particular virtues which seem harder to attain to, or which appear more amiable and engaging in themselves, than those of moderation and the forgiveness of injuries. ~ Laurence Sterne, #NFDB
679:We shall probably never attain the power of measuring the velocity of nervous action; for we have not the opportunity of comparing its propagation through immense space, as we have in the case of light. ~ Johannes Peter Muller, #NFDB
680:You will never attain wisdom without walking on different streets, without talking to different people, without reading different books, in short, without meeting with the things different in every aspect! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
681:If you love all things, you will also attain the divine mystery that is in all things. For then your ability to perceive the truth will grow every day, and your mind will open itself to an all-embracing love ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
682:The pious and learned Jesuit, Suarez, Justus Lipsius, a devout and erudite theologian of Louvain, and many others have proved incontestably that devotion to our Blessed Lady is necessary to attain salvation. ~ Louis de Montfort, #NFDB
683:Used as kites, these rigid stable aeroplanes are superior to the very best cellular kites I can make; they are lighter, pull harder per square foot, attain a greater angle of elevation, and have fewer parts. ~ Lawrence Hargrave, #NFDB
684:The highest to which man can attain is wonder; and if the prime phenomenon makes him wonder, let him be content; nothing higher can it give him, and nothing further should he seek for behind it; here is the limit. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
685:The key to valuing something is to lose it and then realize how rare it was—after which you pray like mad to regain what you foolishly lost. The value of an item often depends upon how hard it is to attain. ~ Richelle E Goodrich, #NFDB
686:the species or nature with which we make our choices is fallen, sinful, selfish, and stupid; and we cannot by our own power attain the deepest and final end of our desires, union with God, eternal happiness. Thus, ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
687:Those who really desire to attain an independence, have only set their minds upon it, and adopt the proper means, as they do in regard to any other object which they wish to accomplish, and the thing is easily done. ~ P T Barnum, #NFDB
688:There are people who prefer to say ‘Yes’, and there are people who prefer to say ‘No’. Those who say ‘Yes’ are rewarded by the adventures they have, and those who say ‘No’ are rewarded by the safety they attain. ~ Keith Johnstone, #NFDB
689:Central depth of purple, Leaves more bright than rose, Who shall tell what brightest thought Out of darkness grows? Who, through what funereal pain, Souls to love and peace attain? - Leigh Hunt (James Henry Leigh Hunt ~ Leigh Hunt, #NFDB
690:The nearer you approach to God, the less you reason and argue. When you attain Him, then all sounds—all reasoning and disputing—come to an end. Then you go into samadhi—sleep—, into communion with God in silence. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
691:I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. ~ Galileo Galilei, #NFDB
692:The object attained by both good and bad methods is the same, but the way one tries to attain it turns the object into right or wrong. It is not the object which is wrong, it is the way one adopts to attain it. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, #NFDB
693:And at once he sacrificed everything to it, if it can be said we ever sacrifice anything save what we know we can never attain, or what some secret wisdom tells us it would be uncomfortable or saddening to possess. ~ Thornton Wilder, #NFDB
694:Hollow people have no faith. They are always in doubt. As long as you have not realized the Self, doubt doesn’t leave you.Pure love for God is devotion without any desires. You attain Him quickly through this love. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
695:Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #NFDB
696:There are two things that if you do them you will attain the good of this world and the hereafter; [They are] that you bear what you dislike if it is beloved to Allah and you leave what you like if it is disliked by Allah. ~ Ibn Hazm, #NFDB
697:The truth is that you cannot attain God if you have even a trace of desire. Subtle is the way of dharma. If you are trying to thread a needle, you will not succeed if the thread has even a slight fiber sticking out. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
698:I am eternally, devastatingly romantic, and I thought people would see it because 'romantic' doesn't mean 'sugary.' It's dark and tormented — the furor of passion, the despair of an idealism that you can't attain. ~ Catherine Breillat, #NFDB
699:I attain a different kind of beauty, achieve a symmetry by means of infinite discords, showing all the traces of the mind's passage through the world, achieve in the end some kind of whole made of shivering fragments. ~ Virginia Woolf, #NFDB
700:I believed in a return to Nature once. But how can we return to Nature when we have never been with her? Today, I believe that we must discover Nature. After many conquests we shall attain simplicity. It is our heritage. ~ E M Forster, #NFDB
701:Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results. ~ Andrew Carnegie, #NFDB
702:The truth is that you cannot attain God if you have even a trace of desire. Subtle is the way of dharma. If you are trying to thread a needle, you will not succeed if the thread has even a slight fiber sticking out. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
703:What is material and what is not? When the world is the end and God is the means to attain that end, that is material. When God is the end and the world is only the means to attain that end, spirituality has begun. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
704:Chanting is no more holy than listening to the murmur of a stream, counting prayer beads no more sacred than simply breathing. . . . If you wish to attain oneness with the Tao, don't get caught up in spiritual superficialities. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
705:He alone who walks strict and upright, and who, in matters of opinion, will be contented that others should be as free as himself and acquiesce when his opinion is freely overruled, will attain his object in the end. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
706:No man lives, or can live, without having some object in view, and without making efforts to attain that object. But when there is no such object and hope is entirely fled, anguish often turns a man into a monster. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
707:The Highest to which people can attain is wonder; and if the prime phenomenon makes them wonder, let them be content; nothing higher can it give them, and nothing further should they seek for behind it; there is the limit. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
708:The impression forces itself upon one that men measure by false standards, that everyone seeks power, success, riches for himself, and admires others who attain them, while undervaluing the truly precious thing in life. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
709:Vivekananda once remarked: In trying to practice religion, eighty percent of people turn cheats and about fifteen percent go mad; only the remaining five percent attain the immediate knowledge of the infinite Truth. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
710:It's interesting and somewhat dismaying how many people will look up to anyone who wins a multimillion-dollar lottery - but will deride anyone who has worked either hard or smart to attain prosperity and real success. ~ Ernie J Zelinski, #NFDB
711:What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours-that is what you must be able to attain. To be solitary as you were when you were a child. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
712:A man's heart must be very frivolous if the possession of fame rewards the labor to attain it. For the worst of reputation is that it is not palpable or present - we do not feel or see or taste it. ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton 1st Baron Lytton, #NFDB
713:In Old Zen, the Zen Master would do literally anything to break down the concept of what the study was. He would present conflicting codes all the time, just to shake this fixation people had on how to attain liberation. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
714:"I must attain God in this very life; yea, in three days I must find Him; nay, with a single utterance of His name I will draw Him to me" - with such violent Love the devotee can attract the Lord and realize Him quickly. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
715:In order to abide in the love of God it is essential for anger and 'hate' to attain their maximum intensity but be directed against the sin that lives in me, against the evil active in me - in me, not in my brother. ~ Silouan the Athonite, #NFDB
716:...[I]n order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain... Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and... Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
717:Let me learn your interests and share them, tell me of your hopes and together we will attain them, and desire for nothing because as long as you're mine, if you should call forth the stars, I'll bring them down to you. ~ Christi Caldwell, #NFDB
718:My desire for knowledge is intermittent, but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
719:To an Earthkeeper, love is not a feeling or something your barter with. Love is the essence of who you are, and it radiates from you as a brilliant aura: You become love, practice fearlessness, and attain enlightenment. ~ Alberto Villoldo, #NFDB
720:If our emotional stability is based on what other people do or do not do, then we have no stability. If our emotional stability is based on love that is changeless and unalterable, then we attain the stability of God. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
721:"I must attain God in this very life; yea, in three days I must find Him; nay, with a single utterance of His name I will draw Him to me" - with such violent Love the devotee can attract the Lord and realize Him quickly. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
722:The needed change within us is God's work, not ours. The demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside. We cannot attain or earn this righteousness of the kingdom of God: it is a grace that is given. ~ Richard J Foster, #NFDB
723:Why reach for something you can never fully attain? But it’s also a source of allure. Why not reach for it? The joy is in the pursuit more than the realization. In the end, mastery attracts precisely because mastery eludes. ~ Daniel H Pink, #NFDB
724:Although my knowledge grows more and more, nevertheless I do not for that reason believe that it can ever be actually infinite, since it can never reach a point so high that it will be unable to attain any greater increase. ~ Rene Descartes, #NFDB
725:The passionate man seeks possession; he seeks to attain being. The failure and the hell which he creates for himself have been described often enough. He causes certain rare treasures to appear in the world, but he also ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #NFDB
726:It seems strange, since the aspect of a woman is power and that her subtle physical body conducts light very well, that more women don't attain enlightenment than men. I would suggest that the reason this is so, is cultural. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
727:The impression forces itself upon one that men measure by false standards, that everyone seeks power, success, riches for himself, and admires others who attain them, while undervaluing the truly precious things in life. Sigmund ~ Tom Morris, #NFDB
728:The truth, in so far as a human being is able to attain such a thing, lies in a statement which it seems impossible to disprove. It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
729:Ultimately, your every desire—the desire for material things, relationships, career success, sexual gratification—is really the desire for the peace you experience for brief moments when you attain the object of your desire. ~ Stephan Bodian, #NFDB
730:In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these means, man can attain perfection. ~ Plato, #NFDB
731:One cannot completely get rid of the six passions: lust, anger, greed, and the like. Therefore one should direct them to God. If you must have desire and greed, then you should desire love of God and be greedy to attain Him. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
732:The proprietary advantage once enjoyed by companies who assembled teams under their own roofs and used them only on their own products has been surrendered in the rush to attain some semblance of “lean, efficient” flexibility. ~ Cory Doctorow, #NFDB
733:He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
734:May I never be chained by the lifestyle of a householder But attain Dharma wealth in the midst of ordained monks; Free of conceit, may I make offerings to the [Three] Jewels And look on all beings with [the eyes of] compassion. ~ Thupten Jinpa, #NFDB
735:One cannot completely get rid of the six passions: lust, anger, greed, and the like. Therefore one should direct them to God. If you must have desire and greed, then you should desire love of God and be greedy to attain Him. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
736:The object of man's worship, whatever it be, will naturally be his standard of perfection. He clothes it with every attribute, belonging, in his view, to a perfect character; and this character he himself endeavors to attain. ~ Simon Greenleaf, #NFDB
737:To attain the Grail you must become who you are, realize your unique potentiality, become a type unto yourself. For no one else exactly like you has ever lived before, and no one exactly like you will ever live in the future. ~ Keiron le Grice, #NFDB
738:Advaita is the only system that gives us complete control over ourselves, takes off all dependence and its associated superstitions, thus making us brave to suffer, brave to do, and in the long run, attain to absolute freedom. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
739:American working men are principals in the three-member team of capital, management, labor. Never have they regarded themselves as a servile class that could attain freedom only through destruction of the industrial economy. ~ Dwight D Eisenhower, #NFDB
740:If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
741:To attain the (big-picture) goal of gratifying work or lasting well-being, we must take positive action toward our desired result, not just negative action away from the condition we do not want (a fragmented solution at best). ~ Douglas N Graham, #NFDB
742:What's wrong with creative block? Might it not just be that periods--even extended ones--of productive hiatus are essential mechanisms of gestation designed to help us attain higher standards in our pursuit of creative excellence? ~ Alexi Murdoch, #NFDB
743:But here the Lord asks only two things of us: love for His Majesty and love for our neighbour. It is for these two virtues that we must strive, and if we attain them perfectly we are doing His will and so shall be united with Him. ~ Teresa of vila, #NFDB
744:If by worshipping stones one can find God, I shall worship a mountain. If by immersion in the water salvation be attained, the frogs who bathe continually would attain it. As the frogs, so are these men, again and again fall into the womb. ~ Kabir, #NFDB
745:If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it. Only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them exclusively, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly. ~ William James, #NFDB
746:I want people to make a lot more than $9. $9 is not enough. The problem is that if you can't do that by mandating it in the minimum wage laws. Minimum wage laws never worked in terms of helping the middle class attain more prosperity. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
747:Risk all. Let life be a play, a risk, a gamble. And when you can risk all you will attain to a sharpness in your being: your soul will be born. The Golden Flower can bloom in you only if you are courageous, daring. It blooms only in courage. ~ Osho, #NFDB
748:the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
749:When a juvenile offender commits a heinous crime, the State can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the State cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity. ~ Anthony Kennedy, #NFDB
750:He was always striving to attain it. The life that was so swiftly expanding within him, urged him continually toward the wall of light. The life that was within him knew that it was the one way out, the way he was predestined to tread. ~ Jack London, #NFDB
751:If you must have desire and greed, then you should desire love of God and be greedy to attain Him. If you must be conceited and egotistic, then feel conceited and egotistic thinking that you are the servant of God, the child of God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
752:If you wish to attain to true knowledge of the Scriptures, hasten to acquire first an unshakeable humility of heart. That alone will lead you, not to the knowledge that puffs up, but to that which enlightens, by the perfecting of love. ~ John Cassian, #NFDB
753:It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the phrase, 'as pretty as an airport.' Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
754:[P]leasure belongs to the category of events which cannot be brought about by direct intention; on the contrary, it is a mere side effect or by-product. Therefore the more one strives for pleasure, the less one is able to attain it. ~ Viktor E Frankl, #NFDB
755:The fundamental qualities for good execution of a plan is first; intelligence; then discernment and judgment, which enable one to recognize the best method as to attain it; the singleness of purpose; and, lastly, . . . stubborn will. ~ Ferdinand Foch, #NFDB
756:We are all one family in the world. Building a community that empowers everyone to attain their full potential through each of us respecting each other's dignity, rights and responsibilities makes the world a better place to live. ~ Pope John Paul II, #NFDB
757:How can we know the living God and attain to everlasting union with God? This is really the only question of life. Kreeft's dialogue with Aquinas shows us what it means--existentially, not solely academically--to learn from a saint. ~ Matthew Levering, #NFDB
758:Who loves you or who you love is not as significant as who you are. Too many folk, women and men, love the person they wish to be, as if by loving that person, or being loved by that person, they could attain the importance they long for. ~ Robin Hobb, #NFDB
759:As a father, my first priority is to help my sons set and attain personal goals so they will develop self-confidence and individual strength. Engaging in regular fitness activities with my children helps me fulfill those responsibilities. ~ Alan Thicke, #NFDB
760:Most of the people who have grabbed hold of climate change and greenhouse gases, pollution, oil dependency - they have another motive, and their motive is to attain the appearance of virtue without having actually done anything virtuous. ~ P J O Rourke, #NFDB
761:So long as one has not become-as simple as a child, one cannot expect the divine illumination. Forget all the knowledge of the world that you have acquired and become as ignorant as a child; then you shall attain to the divine wisdom. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
762:Strive to understand with that supreme intuition which will cause you to attain to divine knowledge and which is in harmony with the soul of eternal things, so that the mysteries of spiritual wisdom may be clearly revealed to you. ~ id. “Kitab-el-ikon”, #NFDB
763:We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom. We cannot demand that anyone try to attain justice and freedom who has not had a chance to imagine them as attainable. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
764:Never lose sight of the fact that all human felicity lies in man's imagination, and that he cannot think to attain it unless he heeds all his caprices. The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries. ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
765:No matter what our curriculum requires us to teach or how little class time we have, children must read a lot in order to attain even minimum levels of reading achievement. This requires a daily commitment to reading at school and home. ~ Donalyn Miller, #NFDB
766:So long as one has not become-as simple as a child, one cannot expect the divine illumination. Forget all the knowledge of the world that you have acquired and become as ignorant as a child; then you shall attain to the divine wisdom. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
767:... the belief in a superstratum of human beings ... is the most evil of all beliefs. For when you say, 'I am not as other men' -- you have lost the two most valuable qualities we have ever tried to attain: -- humility and brotherhood. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
768:Therefore, mobilize vigor to attain what is unattained, to master what is unmastered, to realize what is unrealized. In this way your taking to the spiritual life will not be barren, but fruitful and ever-growing. (Samyutta Nikaya II.29) How ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
769:But the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
770:In 1954, Pope Pius XI, of all people, sent some Vatican delegates on a trip to Libya with these written instructions: "Do NOT think that you are going among Infidels. Muslims attain salvation, too. The ways of Providence are infinite. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
771:If we suffer persecution and affliction in a right manner, we attain a larger measure of conformity to Christ, by a due improvement of one of these occasions, than we could have done merely by imitating his mercy, in abundance of good works. ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
772:The test of observance of Christ's teachings is our consciousness of our failure to attain an ideal perfection. The degree to which we draw near this perfection cannot be seen; all we can see is the extent of our deviation. LEO TOLSTOY The ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
773:We are not meditating to make anything go away, any more than we are meditating to attain some special state or feeling. Whether we are basically healthy at the moment or have a terminal illness, none of us knows how long we have to live. ~ Jon Kabat Zinn, #NFDB
774:When women finally get liberated, they'll do the same that men do--dog eat dog-- that's what our culture is.... Not cooperation but assassination. Women will cooperate until they attain certain goals. Then one will begin to destroy the other. ~ Alice Neel, #NFDB
775:After all, how can a society flourish, a country attain democracy and health, children grow into intelligent beings, sensitive to the needs of an ever more fragile and endangered planet, if half it's people are kept out of the driver's seat? ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
776:And even if we are occupied with most important things, if we attain to honor or fall into great misfortune- still let us remember how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us... ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
777:For reason's measurements, which attain unto temporal things, do not attain unto things that are free from time-just as hearing does not attain unto whatever is not-audible, even though these things exist and are unattainable by hearing. ~ Nicholas of Cusa, #NFDB
778:He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force; whose movements to action are not impeded, whose desires attain their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would avoid. ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
779:If you will but aspire
You will attain to all that you desire.
Before an atom of such need the Sun
Seems dim and mirky by comparison.
It is life's strength, the wings by which we fly
Beyond the further reaches of the sky. ~ Attar of Nishapur,#NFDB
780:None of the children of men can attain so great glory, power, and dominion in this world, but that in their imaginations and desires they can infinitely exceed what they do enjoy, like him who wept that he had not another world to conquer. They ~ John Owen, #NFDB
781:Regional dialects have to become national tongues before they can attain lasting glory. As with America, as with Australia. Scottish is different because Scotland considers itself to be a nation. Its language deserves a chapter to itself. ~ Anthony Burgess, #NFDB
782:Satire must not be a kind of superfluous ill will, but ill will from a higher point of view. Ridiculous man, divine God. Or else, hatred against the bogged-down vileness of average man as against the possible heights that humanity might attain. ~ Paul Klee, #NFDB
783:The eternal spiritual body, united with this eternal material body, then constituted a suitable home for eternal intelligence, whereby it might be able, under the law of evolution to attain the greatest conceivable knowledge and power. The ~ John A Widtsoe, #NFDB
784:The obstacles met by the seeker after concentration are illness, langour, doubt, negligence, idleness, the domination of the senses, false perception, impotence to attain and instability in a state of meditation once attained. ~ Patanjali : Aphroisms I. 30, #NFDB
785:The problem is we are left only with empathy - which is critical, if it can be developed - without substantive manifestations of that empathy. It's one thing to attain it intellectually, but it's another thing to do something about it. ~ Michael Eric Dyson, #NFDB
786:We tend to take a great deal for granted, because you feel like you're going to live forever. It's only if you lose a friend, or maybe have a near-death experience, [that] many events and people in your life suddenly attain real significance. ~ Brandon Lee, #NFDB
787:He saw that the key to liberation would be to break through ignorance and to enter deeply into the heart of reality and attain a direct experience of it. Such knowledge would not be the knowledge of the intellect, but of direct experience. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
788:When the water of the fetid pool and the glorious Ganges shall appear to thy eyes as one, when the Sound of the flute and the clamour of this crowd shall have no longer any difference to thy ear, then shalt thou attain to the divine Wisdom, ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
789:As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them; so would I learn to attain free fall and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.3 ~ Marcus J Borg, #NFDB
790:First of all, a man, whether seeking achievement on the athletic field or in business, must want to win. He must feel that the thing he is doing is worthwhile; so worthwhile that he is willing to pay the price of success to attain distinction. ~ Branch Rickey, #NFDB
791:Right now we have obtained a human rebirth and have the opportunity to attain enlightenment through Dharma practice, so if we waste this precious opportunity in meaningless activities there is no greater loss and no greater foolishness. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, #NFDB
792:The man whose soul aspires to the Eternal cannot give thought to such silly questions as that of daivic food, that is to say, a simple vegetarian diet, and for him who does not desire to attain to the Eternal, beef is as good as daivic food. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
793:we can search for and attain to only one being, that one which was given us, which is within us and which awaits its birth from ourselves. Each day I feel that I leave myself a little more, the better to go toward my encounter with myself. ~ Georgette Leblanc, #NFDB
794:When the water of the fetid pool and the glorious Ganges shall appear to thy eyes as one, when the Sound of the flute and the clamour of this crowd shall have no longer any difference to thy ear, then shalt thou attain to the divine Wisdom, ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
795:When you attain the highest wisdom, you will disappear physically because people will start seeing only your ideas and thinking about only your wisdom; you will die physically and you will turn into an empty chair full of universe simply! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
796:a man can radically change his life and attain to a deeper meaning, a more perfect integration, a more complete fulfillment, a more total liberty of spirit than are possible in the routines of a purely active existence centered on money-making. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
797:Human beings can attain a worthy and harmonious life only if they are able to rid themselves, within the limits of human nature, of the striving for the wish fulfillment of material kinds. The goal is to raise the spiritual values of society. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
798:I cannot help wondering sometimes what I might have become and might have done if I had lived in a country which had not circumscribed and handicapped me on account of my race, that had allowed me to reach any height I was able to attain. ~ Mary Church Terrell, #NFDB
799:If humans are to fully attain their destinies, so far as earthly development permits this; if they are to become truly whole, unbroken units, they must feel and know themselves to be one, not only with God and humanity, but also with nature. ~ Friedrich Frobel, #NFDB
800:In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these two means, man can attain perfection. —Plato ~ John J Ratey, #NFDB
801:You should stop searching for phrases and chasing after words. Take the backward step and turn the light inward. Your body-mind of itself will drop off and your original face will appear. If you want to attain just this, immediately practice just this. ~ Dogen, #NFDB
802:Many people strive for personal freedom throughout their adult lives, and never attain it. First, they become imprisoned a good portion of their lives by their jobs. Then, after they leave the work force, they become imprisoned by retirement. ~ Ernie J Zelinski, #NFDB
803:recipe for a dissatisfied adulthood is setting goals that are especially difficult to attain. Measured by life satisfaction 20 years later, the least promising goal that a young person could have was “becoming accomplished in a performing art. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
804:We glorify God to the degree that we externalize the internal existence of the living Christ. A life that glorifies God is not something we suddenly attain. As we spend time in the presence of God, His glory both transforms us and radiates from us. ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
805:Wisdom does not attain completeness except through the living of life; and discipline divorced from wisdom is not true discipline, but merely the meaningless following of custom, which is only a disguise for stupidity. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, The Religion of Man, #NFDB
806:But simplicity is not so simple to attain. Steve Jobs figured out that “you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.” The Arabs have an expression for trenchant prose: no skill to understand it, mastery to write it. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
807:He said, I suppose there are people who are purely moved by great art. I never met a painter who was. I'm not. All I think of when I see that picture is that it has the supreme mastery I have spent all my life trying to attain. And shall not. Ever. ~ John Fowles, #NFDB
808:It thou seek rest in this life, how wilt thou then attain to the everlasting rest? Dispose not thyself for much rest, but for great patience. Seek true peace--not in earth, but in heaven; not in men, nor in any other creature, but in God alone. ~ Thomas a Kempis, #NFDB
809:just as children have growing pains as their bodies work to attain maturity, as people’s souls deepen and gain resonance it’s the same thing. To be challenged, to stretch, to get stronger comes only with the hard stuff—loss, heartache, disappointment. ~ J R Ward, #NFDB
810:The AvowalAs swimmers dareto lie face to the skyand water bears them,as hawks rest upon airand air sustains them;so would I learn to attain freefall, and floatinto Creator Spirit's deep embrace,knowing no effort earnsthat all-surrounding grace. ~ Denise Levertov, #NFDB
811:It is spiritless to think that you cannot attain to that which you have seen and heard the masters attain. The masters are men. You are also a man. If you think that you will be inferior in doing something, you will be on that road very soon. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #NFDB
812:It was a sweet display of self-confidence, as he no longer felt the need to entertain me or to advertise his claim on my attentions. It goes to show that even a man who craves constant approval can attain self-assurance through a little hanky-panky. ~ Amor Towles, #NFDB
813:Strengthen your mind and refuse to carry the burden of mental and moral weakness acquired in past years; burn them in the fires of your present divine resolutions and right activities. By this constructive attitude you will attain freedom. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
814:We dream of having a clean house - but who dreams of actually doing the cleaning? We don't have to dream about doing the work, because doing the work is always within our grasp; the dream, in this sense, is to attain the goal without the work. ~ Marcus Buckingham, #NFDB
815:....Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination, resting solely on empirical grounds, and it is vain to expect that these should define an action by which one could attain the totality of a series of consequences which is really endless. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
816:No one can attain to truth by himself. Only by laying stone on stone with the cooperation of all, by the millions of generations from our forefather Adam to our own times, is that temple reared which is to be a worthy dwelling place of the Great God. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
817:One recipe for a dissatisfied adulthood is setting goals that are especially difficult to attain. Measured by life satisfaction 20 years later, the least promising goal that a young person could have was "becoming accomplished in a performing art ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
818:The fastest runners don't always win the race and the greatest heroes don't always win the battles. But just keep running and fighting if that's all you can do. Never lose faith. And one day, you just might attain all that you hoped for and... more. ~ Jos N Harris, #NFDB
819:Two identical things do not exist at all, so there is no need to be 'somebody.' You just be yourself, and suddenly you are unique, incomparable. That's why I say that this is a paradox: those who search fail, and those who don't bother, suddenly attain. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
820:I fear this is not the right exchange to attain virtue, to exchange pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains and fears for fears, the greater for the less like coins, but that the only valid currency for which all these things should be exchanged is wisdom. ~ Plato, #NFDB
821:No one can attain to truth by himself. Only by laying stone on stone with the cooperation of all, by the millions of generations from our forefather Adam to our own times, is that temple reared which is to be a worthy dwelling place of the Great God. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
822:When did he ever do something on the spur of the moment? He'd spent all his life focusing on something in the future, trying to attain it... He never thought about anything in the here and now, and enjoyed what he had at this exact moment in time. ~ Phaedra Patrick, #NFDB
823:The most perfect education ... is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart. Or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft, #NFDB
824:This preparatory sort of idealism is the one that, as I just suggested, Berkeley made prominent, and, after a fashion familiar. I must state it in my own way, although one in vain seeks to attain novelty in illustrating so frequently described a view. ~ Josiah Royce, #NFDB
825:And I pray thee, loving Jesus, that as Thou hast graciously given me to drink in with delight the words of Thy knowledge, so Thou wouldst mercifully grant me to attain one day to Thee, the fountain of all wisdom and to appear forever before Thy face. ~ Venerable Bede, #NFDB
826:Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
827:Intense dispassion is essential to attain God. You must renounce immediately what you think is an obstacle in your way to God. ‘Lust and greed’ are hurdles on the way. You must take your mind off them. It will not do to lack enthusiasm or diligence. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
828:103 One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand times a thousand men on the battlefield. 104–105 Be victorious over yourself and not over others. When you attain victory over yourself, not even the gods can turn it into defeat. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
829:Existence asserts itself as an absolute which must seek its justification within itself and not suppress itself. To attain this truth, man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #NFDB
830:If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and man's highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on this scrap of earth, but have lived and shall live ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
831:Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it; and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything, to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
832:The excitement of life is in the numinous experience wherein we are given to each other in that larger celebration of existence in which all things attain their highest expression, for the universe, by definition, is a single gorgeous celebratory event. ~ Thomas Berry, #NFDB
833:If we surrender our conscious will and allow it to be made one with the will of the Eternal, then, and then only, shall we attain to a true freedom;
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of the Gita, [97],#NFDB
834:I teach you both effort and effortlessness, because unless you attain to effortless-effort, unless you attain to active passivity, unless you attain to a singing-silence - they look paradoxical - unless you attain to an unmoving dance, you have not attained. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
835:Last night I dreamed that I came face to face with a picture I had done and forgotten, a forest done in simple movement, just forms of trees moving in space. That is the third time I have seen pictures in my dreams, a glint of what I am striving to attain. ~ Emily Carr, #NFDB
836:Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
837:Do you know what my ambition is in life? To be without ambition. As far back as I can remember I've been absolutely hag-ridden. I'd like to attain the state of mind that the Indians call Nirvana. That, for me, would happen if I were free of ambition. ~ Tallulah Bankhead, #NFDB
838:Even if we are occupied with important things and even if we attain honour or fall into misfortune, still let us remember how good it once was here, when we were all together united by a good and kind feeling which made us perhaps better than we are. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
839:If you persist in trying To attain what is never attained (It is Tao’s gift!) If you persist in making effort To obtain what effort cannot get; If you persist in reasoning About what cannot be understood, You will be destroyed By the very thing you seek. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
840:Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights, the Republic throve and grew. But as often happens when wealth and power pass beyond the admirable and attain the awesome, then appear those evil ones who have greed to match. ~ George Lucas, #NFDB
841:There are three kinds of minds: first those that attain insight and understanding of things by their own means, then those that recognize what is right when others explain it to them, and finally those that are capable of neither one nor the other. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli, #NFDB
842:But the challenge is always the same - whether each generation facing its own circumstances can summon the practical devotion to attain and retain that greatest good for the greatest number which this government of the people was created to ensure. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt, #NFDB
843:I think that ultimately we will attain much more depth of understanding of Scripture when we are able to study it in the company of a great number of scholars who all begin with the conviction that the Bible is completely true and absolutely authoritative. ~ Wayne Grudem, #NFDB
844:The full story of Nietzsche’s influence has never been told and cannot be told yet. Buber’s remark was not published until 1963; a letter in which Freud said of Nietzsche, “In my youth he signified a nobility which I could not attain,” was published ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
845:The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated on achieving reform from within. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
846:We might someday attain a relationship of mutual respect,” he said softly. First, I thought, I will see gods walking the earth. He went on. “For now I will have your obedience.” His ability to convey a world of threat in so few words was remarkable. ~ Megan Whalen Turner, #NFDB
847:103 One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand times a thousand men on the battlefield. 104–105 Be victorious over yourself and not over others. When you attain victory over yourself, not even the gods can turn it into defeat. 106 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
848:Thanks to the high standing which science has for so long attain and to the impartiality of the Nobel Prize Committee, the Nobel Prize for Physics is rightly considered everywhere as the highest reward within the reach of workers in Natural Philosophy. ~ Guglielmo Marconi, #NFDB
849:The trouble with being number one in the world - in anything- is that it takes a certain mentality to attain that position, and that is something of a driving, perfectionist attitude, so that once you do achieve number one, you don't relax and enjoy it. ~ Billie Jean King, #NFDB
850:True perfection consists in the love of God and of our neighbor, and the more perfect is our observance of these two commandments, the nearer to perfection we shall be. If we attain them perfectly we are doing His will and so shall be united with Him. ~ Padma Aon Prakasha, #NFDB
851:But simplicity is not so simple to attain. Steve Jobs figured out that “you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.” The Arabs have an expression for trenchant prose: no skill to understand it, mastery to write it. Heuristics ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
852:In the march towards Truth, anger, selfishness, hatred, etc., naturally give way, for otherwise Truth would be impossible to attain. A man who is swayed by passions may have good enough intentions, may be truthful in word, but he will never find the Truth. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
853:Joy is uncaused and arises from within as the joy of Being. It is an essential part of the inner state of peace, the state that has been called the peace of God. It is your natural state, not something that you need to work hard for or struggle to attain. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
854:With the latitude of unbounded scurrility, it is easy enough to attain the character of a wit, especially when it is considered how wonderfully pleasant it is to the generality of the public to see the folly of their acquaintance exposed by a third person. ~ Henry Fielding, #NFDB
855:Your greatest difficulty is with yourself; for you are your own stumbling-block. You do not know what you want. You are better at approving the right course than at following it out. You see where the true happiness lies, but you have not the courage to attain it. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
856:4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, s you know it altogether. 5 You t hem me in, behind and before, and u lay your hand upon me. 6 v Such knowledge is w too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
857:The latter are to lose their individuality and turn into something like cattle, and with this unlimited obedience attain, through a series of regenerations, a primordial innocence, something like the primordial paradise, although they will have to work. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
858:When you see deeply, as a real experience, with your own wisdom-eye, that all conditioned things are impermanent, your mind state changes. Your superficial understanding of impermanence becomes a deep understanding and you attain the stream-entry path. ~ Henepola Gunaratana, #NFDB
859:You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere, and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
860:So it is not a matter of whether it is possible to attain Buddhahood, or if it is possible to make a tile a jewel. But just to work, just to live in this world with this understanding is the most important point, and that is our practice. That is true zazen. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
861:...It's an unmeetable level of writing. But even if it's something I feel like I can't ever attain, it doesn't crush my spirit. I figured out early on that you gotta find your own strengths and hone them rather than trying to emulate something that impresses you. ~ Paul Banks, #NFDB
862:The word discipline has disappeared from our minds, our mouths, our pulpits, and our culture. We hardly know what discipline means in modern American society. And yet, there is no other way to attain godliness; discipline is the path to godliness. JAY ADAMS ~ Donald S Whitney, #NFDB
863:All of us attain the greatest success and happiness possible in this life whenever we use our native capacities to their fullest extent. ... And every life must be chalked up at least a partial failure when it does not succeed in reaching its inherent destiny. ~ Smiley Blanton, #NFDB
864:And may at last my weary age Find out the peaceful hermitage, The hairy gown and mossy cell, Where I may sit and rightly spell Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew, Till old experience to attain To something like prophetic strain. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
865:As the world has to attain the fulfilment of eternal life, to me it does not in the least matter what I am called -'Enlightened One', 'Son of God', or something else. To me, it has no purpose - as little as when the Buddha said, 'I am the Enlightened One'. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
866:First love is the only pure and happy one. If it goes wrong, nothing can replace it. Later loves can never attain to the same limpid perfection; though they may be as solid, as marble, they are streaked with veins of another colour, the dried blood of the past. ~ Maurice Druon, #NFDB
867:If we walk in the path of true wisdom avoiding the two errors (asceticism and mortifications and the sensual life) we shall attain to the highest perfection. If religion consisted solely in mortifications and asceticism, it could never lead n.; to Peace. ~ Fo-sho-hing-san king, #NFDB
868:We must set limits to our wishes, curb our desires, moderate our anger, always remembering that an individual can attain only an infinitesimal share in anything that is worth having; and that on the other hand, everyone must incur many of the ills of life ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
869:A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends. ~ Henry A Wallace, #NFDB
870:During the latency years, American children need experiences that promote academic talents, a sense of responsibility, and most important, a belief that they can attain the goals valued by self and community. They need reassurance that these goals are attainable. ~ Jerome Kagan, #NFDB
871:Judge God. He created the universe and made justice stem from injustices. He brought it about that a people should attain happiness through tears, that the freedom of a nation, like that of a man, should be a monument built upon a pile, a foundation of dead bodies… ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
872:It's time to update traditional public schools, charter schools, home schools, online schools and parochial schools. Let the dollars follow the child instead of forcing the child to follow the dollars, so that every child has the opportunity to attain an education. ~ Bobby Jindal, #NFDB
873:Lady with fair countenance! Understand that one who is not able to realise the Truth in his Heart by this knowledge of spiritual wisdom known as Kala Jnana, can never attain it even by studying countless crores ofsastras (scriptures) spread out like the sky. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
874:Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting. ~ L M Montgomery, #NFDB
875:All to whom want is terrible, upon whatever principle, ought to think themselves obliged to learn the sage maxims of our parsimonious ancestors, and attain the salutary arts of contracting expense; for without economy none can be rich, and with it few can be poor. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
876:Oh Thou that givest both the beginning and the completion, give Thou victory in the day of need so that what neither a man's burning wish nor his determined resolution may attain to, may be granted unto him in the sorrowing of repentance: to will only one thing. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
877:To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching. To attain it we must be able to guess what will interest; we must learn to read the childish soul as we might a piece of music. Then, by simply changing the key, we keep up the attraction and vary the song. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel, #NFDB
878:For years and years you enter into samadhi every day in order to attain liberation. Eternity fashions a new self which you find yourself with when you come out of samadhi. Each time you come out a little less, you might say, or your real self comes out a little more ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
879:If a man chooses a certain Way and seems to have no particular talent for this Way, he can still become a master if he so chooses. By keeping at a particular form of study a man can attain perfection either in this life or the next (if a next life is believed in). ~ Miyamoto Musashi, #NFDB
880:I know he is--sensitive--on some points, Detective, but you must bear in mind how hard it is for an honest man to do his work in relative obscurity, while dishonest men attain wealth and renown. That is why corruption is so pernicious. It breaks the will of good men. ~ Jed Rubenfeld, #NFDB
881:To me it seems that to give happiness is a far nobler goal that to attain it: and that what we exist for is much more a matter of relations to others than a matter of individual progress: much more a matter of helping others to heaven than of getting there ourselves. ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
882:Although we are moving in the right direction, one wonders how long it will take humanity to attain a consciousness of ourselves as human beings first and foremost. I only hope that the forces seeking to strangle us don’t bring about something unfortunate before then. ~ Sakyo Komatsu, #NFDB
883:If a man chooses a certain Way and seems to have no particular talent for this Way, he can still become a master if he so chooses. By keeping at a particular form of study a man can attain perfection either in this life or the next (if a next life is believed in). ~ Miyamoto Musashi, #NFDB
884:Whereas religions may serve a benign purpose by letting many people feel comfortable with the level of morality they themselves can attain, no religion holds its member to the high standards of moral responsibility that the secular world of science and medicine does! ~ Daniel Dennett, #NFDB
885:And even if we are occupied by most important things, if we attain to honour, or fall into great misfortune -- still let us remember how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us...better perhaps than we are. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
886:In your everyday life you always have opportunities for enlightenment. If you go to the rest room, there is a chance to attain enlightenment. When you cook, there is a chance to attain enlightenment. When you clean the floor, there is a chance to attain enlightenment. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
887:Stravinskys music, hard, cold, unsentimental, enormously brilliant and virtuous, was now the favorite of my postadolescence. In a different way it achieved the hard, cold, postwar flawlessness which I myself wanted to attain-but in an entirely different style, medium. ~ George Antheil, #NFDB
888:The will to power is the will to ecstasy is the will to surrender is the will to submit and, in extremis, to die. Or to put it another way, the rage to attain a freedom and happiness one's psyche cannot accept creates enormous anxiety and ends in self-punishing despair. ~ Ellen Willis, #NFDB
889:I do believe 50 is the new 40 and 60 is the new 50. Hell, maybe 60 can be the new 40, I don't know. I believe that when we give ourselves permission, we can live with an excitement and heat and passion that most women in previous generations were unable to attain. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
890:Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting. ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery, #NFDB
891:It is not by sin that we attain happiness, nor is it by virtue, nor is it by that kind of divine fire by which one makes great instinctive decisions and which is neither good not evil. It is by none of these things that one reaches happiness. One never reaches happiness. ~ Henri Barbusse, #NFDB
892:Meditation gives you an opportunity to come to know your invisible self. It allows you to empty yourself of the endless hyperactivity of your mind, and to attain calmness. It teaches you to be peaceful, to remove stress, to receive answers where confusion previously reigned. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
893:our worth lies only in the measure of our effort to exceed ourselves, and to exceed ourselves is to attain the Divine. Human mediocrity is intolerable. We aspire for a knowledge truly knowing, for a power truly powerful, for a love that truly loves.
~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#NFDB
894:St. Thomas thus detects a primary source of presumption in seeking genuinely good things, like human happiness on earth, as if we did not need divine grace to attain them; and in the hope that we can obtain God’s pardon and mercy without our confessing and repenting of sin. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
895:There are a few of us who have latched on to this silly idea that we can change the world. We will develop the power to ignore what is popular and do what is right. One person can attain the power to lead hundreds of thousands of people to the promised land of their dreams. ~ Andy Andrews, #NFDB
896:Those that only take a nibble here and a nibble there will never attain anything ... Those who really want to be yogis must give up, once and for all, this nibbling at things. Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
897:You are in the grip of a desire for martyrdom and self-sacrifice; conquer this desire as well, set aside your pages and your intention--and then you will overcome everything. You will put to shame all your pride and your demon! You will win, you will attain freedom... ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
898:If we practice the science of yoga, which is useful to the entire human community and which yields happiness both here and hereafter - if we practice it without fail, we will then attain physical, mental, and spiritual happiness, and our minds will flood towards the Self. ~ K Pattabhi Jois, #NFDB
899:It is but few who hear about the Self. Fewer still dedicate their lives to its Realization. Wonderful is the one Who speaks about the Self. Rare are they Who make it the supreme goal of their lives. Blessed are they who, through an illumined Teacher, attain to Self-realization. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
900:Let us not delude ourselves with the hope that the best is within the reach of all, or that emotion uniformed by thought can ever attain the highest level. All such optimisms seem to me dangerous to civilisation, and the outcome of a heart not yet sufficiently mortified. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
901:Nearly all of us have a deep rooted wish for peace-peace on earth; but we shall never attain the true peace-the peace of love, and not the uneasy equilibrium of fear-until we recognize the place of animals in the scheme of things and treat them accordingly. ~ Hugh Dowding 1st Baron Dowding, #NFDB
902:Serenity, regularity, absence of vanity,Sincerity, simplicity, veracity, equanimity, Fixity, non-irritability, adaptability, Humility, tenacity, integrity, nobility, magnanimity, charity, generosity, purity. Practise daily these eighteen "ities" You will soon attain immortality. ~ Socrates, #NFDB
903:This is a dream come true. HBO is the highest echelon in the world for a stand-up comedian to attain. Throughout my career I've trusted my instincts to lead me down the right path, and I am honored to work together with this network while contributing to the legacy that is HBO. ~ Dane Cook, #NFDB
904:As man is so constituted that it is utterly impossible for him to attain happiness save by seeking the happiness of others, so does it seem to be of the nature of things that individuals and classes can obtain their own just rights only by struggling for the rights of others. ~ Henry George, #NFDB
905:In all ten directions of the universe, there is only one truth. When we see clearly, the great teachings are the same. What can ever be lost? What can be attained? If we attain something, it was there from the beginning of time. If we lose something, it is hiding somewhere near us. ~ Ry kan, #NFDB
906:I think there is a serious corruption in the idea sold through advertising that you can attain spiritual peace through lifestyle and the notion of building your happiness from the outside-in by acquiring things . . . which if you think about it, is the essence of advertising ~ Edward Norton, #NFDB
907:It is not from choice that my life is music and nothing more, but when one is an artist what else can he be? When a whole lifetime is too short to attain the heights he wants to reach, how then can he devote any of the little time he has to things outside of his art? ~ Ignacy Jan Paderewski, #NFDB
908:Pray to God with a longing heart. He will surely listen to your prayer if it is sincere. Perhaps He will direct you to holy men with whom you can keep company; and that will help you on your spiritual path. Perhaps someone will tell you, 'Do this and you will attain God.' ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
909:College girls on the road! One-night stands! Lee felt like an Austro-Hungarian emperor attended on his deathbed by flappers. He felt them stealing his life—literally going back in time and taking, through their incoherent lifestyles, the little he had struggled so hard to attain. ~ Nell Zink, #NFDB
910:I am, in fact, the complete anti-Messiah, and detest converts almost as much as I detest missionaries. My writings, such as they are, have had only one purpose: to attain for H. L. Mencken that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
911:only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
912:Only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it wins the "treasure hard to attain." He alone has a genuine claim to self-confidence, for he has faced the dark ground of his self and thereby has gained himself. This experience gives him faith and trust. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
913:Freedom can reside only in a point of view, a way of looking upon the system of necessity.Surely this is the one freedom that we may attain to: not to be released from physical reality, but to understand reality and ourselves as part of it, and so be reconciled to what we are. ~ Roger Scruton, #NFDB
914:The highest ideal man can form of his own powers, is that which he is destined to attain. Whatever the soul knows how to seek, it cannot fail to obtain. This is the law and the prophets. Knock and it shall be opened, seek and ye shall find. It is demonstrated; it is a maxim. ~ Margaret Fuller, #NFDB
915:You are not bound. You have got free will. You cannot change the experiences, the results of Prarabdha but you can change your future by right thinking and right action and thus make your will pure and irresistible. You can attain Self-realisatio n with the help of a dynamic will. ~ Sivananda, #NFDB
916:Even if, in our spiritual practice, it appears we are trying to attain enlightenment, we are actually only expressing it. If we take up Zazen, for instance, then deep within we are doing so not to become Buddhas but to behave like the Buddhas we already are
~ Ken Wilber, No Boundary, Pg 145,#NFDB
917:Life is a problem. Not merely a premiss from which we start, but a goal towards which we proceed. It is an opportunity for us not merely to get, but to attain; not simply to have, but to be. Its standard of failure or success is not outward fortune, but inward possession. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin, #NFDB
918:Man’s strength resides in his capacity and desire to elevate himself, so as to attain the good. To travel step by step toward the heights. And that is all he can do. To reach heaven and remain there is beyond his powers: Even Moses had to return to earth. Is it the same for evil? ~ Elie Wiesel, #NFDB
919:Our words must be judged by our deeds; and in striving for a lofty ideal we must use practical methods; and if we cannot attain all at one leap, we must advance towards it step by step, reasonably content so long as we do actually make some progress in the right direction. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
920:Not merely by rules of conduct and religious observances, nor by much learning either, nor even by attainment of concentration, nor by sleeping alone, do I reach the happiness of freedom, to which no worldlings attain. If you have not put an end to compulsions, nurse your faith ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
921:When bathed in telomerase, skin cells divide indefinitely, far beyond the Hayflick limit.
.....
But it should be pointed out that telomerase has to be regulated very carefully, because cancer cells are also immortal and they use telomerase to attain that immortality. ~ Michio Kaku,#NFDB
922:From top to bottom of the ladder, greed is aroused without knowing where to find ultimate foothold. Nothing can calm it, since its goal is far beyond all it can attain. Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned. ~ Emile Durkheim, #NFDB
923:Realism gives me the impression of a mistake. Violence alone escapes the feeling of poverty of those realistic experiences. Only death and desire have the force that oppresses, that takes one's breath away. Only the extremism of desire and death enable one to attain the truth. ~ Georges Bataille, #NFDB
924:Immortality is attained in proportion as personal sense is overcome, whether here or hereafter. As we put off the personal ego and attain the consciousness of our real Self – the Reality of us, divine Consciousness – we attain immortality. And that can be achieved here and now. ~ Joel S Goldsmith, #NFDB
925:We are not obligated to provide everyone who comes to this country with a good life,” Morgan went on. “We are obligated to provide them with a chance to attain that life, through discipline and hard work. That chance is more than they have anywhere else. That is why they keep coming. ~ Caleb Carr, #NFDB
926:If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and man's highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on this scrap of earth, but have lived and shall live forever, there, in the Whole, ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
927:The risk pertinent to a particular attempt (and to its evaluation as an attempt of its sort) is the risk that the agent will fail to attain the end constitutive of that attempt. This risk of failure is coordinate with how likely or unlikely it may be that the agent will then succeed. ~ Ernest Sosa, #NFDB
928:To attain true inner freedom, you must be able to objectively watch your problems instead of being lost in them... Once you've made the commitment to free yourself of the scared person inside, you will notice that there is a clear decision point at which your growth takes place. ~ Michael A Singer, #NFDB
929:You obey, and you serve Allah—that is the test. If you submit to God’s will on earth, you will attain bliss in the Hereafter. The rule is strict and pure. My doubts severely diminished my chances for eternal bliss, but I found that I couldn’t ignore them. I had to resolve this. * ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali, #NFDB
930:He did not understand, he admitted to himself, how these elections worked. They seemed such a waste of effort to attain a dubious outcome. Better to know what is best for the people and give it to them by force, if necessary, until they are re-educated about their duties to the State. ~ Mark Berent, #NFDB
931:I know not how to defeat others, I only know how to win over myself. The real and most dangerous opponents we face in life are fear, anger, confusion, doubt and despair. If we overcome those enemies who attack from within , we can attain a sure victory over any attack from without. ~ Chris Bradford, #NFDB
932:It is not solely or chiefly in virtue of the divine image that man effectively resembles God, but in virtue of his consciousness of being an image and the movement whereby the soul, passing in a way through itself, avails itself of the factual resemblance in order to attain to God. ~ tienne Gilson, #NFDB
933:Don't think you can attain total awareness and whole enlightenment without proper discipline and practice. This is egomania. Appropriate rituals channel your emotions and life energy toward the light. Without the discipline to practice them, you will tumble constantly backward into darkness. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
934:Our Lord made me understand that the only true glory is that which lasts for ever; and that to attain it there is no necessity to do brilliant deeds, but rather to hide from the eyes of others, and even from oneself, so that "the left hand knows not what the right hand does."[1] ~ Saint Therese of Lisieux, #NFDB
935:Your life’s journey is no longer an adventure, just an obsessive need to arrive, to attain, to “make it.” You no longer see or smell the flowers by the wayside either, nor are you aware of the beauty and the miracle of life that unfolds all around you when you are present in the Now. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
936:Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. The time has arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and that protection. ~ Harry S Truman, #NFDB
937:point of existence is not to accumulate merit, but to attain wisdom. We have to ask ourselves—why do we do what we do? When we truly accept the answer, we break free from the cycle of births and deaths, and discover the realm beyond Swarga, Vaikuntha, where there is peace forever. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
938:Salvation is worth working for. It is worth a man's going round the world on his hands and knees, climbing its mountains, crossing its valleys, swimming its rivers, going through all manner of hardship in order to attain it. But we do not get it in that way. It is to him who believes. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
939:Attain complete emptiness,
Hold fast to stillness.
Understanding the ordinary:
Mind opens.
Mind opening leads to compassion,
Compassion to nobility,
Nobility to heavenliness,
Heavenliness to TAO.
TAO endures.
Your body dies.
There is no danger. ~ Lao Tzu,#NFDB
940:If you have no share in the living Lord may God have mercy upon you! If you have no share in Christ's rising from the dead then you will not be raised up in the likeness of His glorified body. If you do not attain to that resurrection from among the dead then you must abide in death. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
941:When your heart becomes the grave of your secrets, that desire of yours will be gained more quickly. The prophet said that anyone who keeps secret his inmost thought will soon attain the object of his desire. When seeds are buried in the earth, their inward secrets become the flourishing garden. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
942:The Pyrrhonian skeptics were docile citizens who followed customs and traditions whenever possible, but taught themselves to systematically doubt everything, and thus attain a level of serenity. But while conservative in their habits, they were rabid in their fight against dogma. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
943:The simplicity that all this presupposes is not easy to attain. I find that my life constantly threatens to become complex and divisive. A life of prayer is basically a very simple life. This simplicity, however, is the result of asceticism and effort: it is not a spontaneous simplicity. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
944:But he who has been earnest in the love of knowledge and of true wisdom, and has exercised his intellect more than any other part of him, must have thoughts immortal and divine. If he attain truth, and in so far as human nature is capable of sharing in immortality, he must altogether be immortal. ~ Plato, #NFDB
945:God freely created us so that we might know, love, and serve him in this life and be happy with him forever. God's purpose in creating us is to draw forth from us a response of love and service here on earth, so that we may attain our goal of everlasting happiness with him in heaven. ~ Ignatius of Loyola, #NFDB
946:Having attained to that unalterable calm which nothing can trouble one can afterwards meditate and form an assured judgment on the essence of things; when one has meditated and formed a sure judgment on the essence of things, afterwards one can attain to the desired state of perfection. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
947:Studies show that women seeking power tend to be punished for doing so, because it goes against cultural bias. Women are expected to be likeable and pliant. We are also trained to expect any success we attain to come to us through men - by pleasing men, as good employees, good partners. ~ Catherine Mayer, #NFDB
948:For power can guarantee the interests of some men but it can never foster the good of man. Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all the others. Only love can attain and preserve the good of all. Any claim to build the security of all on force is a manifest imposture. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
949:Having attained to that unalterable calm which nothing can trouble one can afterwards meditate and form an assured judgment on the essence of things; when one has meditated and formed a sure judgment on the essence of things, afterwards one can attain to the desired state of perfection. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
950:The Avowal
As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them;
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit's deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace. ~ Denise Levertov,#NFDB
951:The people who succeed are the ones who think through what they really want from the experience and then work incredibly hard, day after day, to attain their goals. They don’t just flop around like fish out of water. They have a vision, and they work their asses off to make it a reality. ~ Claire Thompson, #NFDB
952:Strive to attain to the greater virtues, but do not neglect the lesser ones. Do not make light of a fall even if it be the most venial of faults; rather, be quick to repair it by repentance, although many others may commit a large number of faults, slight and grievous, and remain unrepentant. ~ Saint Basil, #NFDB
953:There have been times when the Federal Reserve has restricted the money supply and raised interest rates to gain an end, which had much better been left to another Government agency or the Congress to attain. The country could have had lower interest rates without sacrificing anything else. ~ Wright Patman, #NFDB
954:2. Evolve and Be God: As we invoke the presence of Source, holding the focus through our mantras, we are drawing more and more proximity to the object of worship and gradually, we attain all the attributes we are invoking, i.e., we slowly evolve to be Angelic, invoking the presence of God/Source. ~ Nandhiji, #NFDB
955:first build upon a strong core of principles that are not open for continuous change; at the same time, be relentless in the quest for improvement and continuous self-renewal. This dialectic enables an individual to retain a rock-solid foundation and attain sustained growth for a lifetime. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
956:In excited conversation we have glimpses of the universe, hints of power native to the soul, far-darting lights and shadows of an Andes landscape, such as we can hardly attain in lone meditation. Here are oracles sometimes profusely given, to which the memory goes back in barren hours. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
957:The Essentials of Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill: “Mystics know that possessions dissipate the energy which they need for other and more real things; that they must give up ownership, the verb ‘to have,’ if they are to attain the freedom which they seek, and the fullness of the verb ‘to be. ~ Ian Morgan Cron, #NFDB
958:We have found that when men and women are left free to find the places for which they are best fitted, some few of them will indeed attain less exalted stations than under a regime of privilege; but the vast multitude will rise to a higher level, to wider horizons, to worthier attainments. ~ Calvin Coolidge, #NFDB
959:do you know why we have not the power to attain this Stoic ideal? It is because we refuse to believe in our power. Nay, of a surety, there is something else which plays a part: it is because we are in love with our vices; we uphold them and prefer to make excuses for them rather than shake them off. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
960:I shall add that only he who has decided to commit suicide can start a nuclear war in the hope of emerging a victor from it. No matter what the attacker might possess, no matter what method of unleashing nuclear war he chooses, he will not attain his aims. Retribution will inevitably ensue. ~ Leonid Brezhnev, #NFDB
961:Just as a physicist has to examine the telescope and galvanometer with which he is working; has to get a clear conception of what he can attain with them, and how they may deceive him; so, too, it seemed to me necessary to investigate likewise the capabilities of our power of thought. ~ Hermann von Helmholtz, #NFDB
962:If, however, a government refrains from regulations and allows matters to take their course, essential commodities soon attain a level of price out of the reach of all but the rich, the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent, and the fraud upon the public can be concealed no longer. ~ John Maynard Keynes, #NFDB
963:Man is in truth a compound of eternity and time. The more he is attached to temporal things and rests in them, the farther he grows from things eternal; they seem to him petty, just as great objects appear small when we see them from a distance, and he can never attain to real peace. ~ J. Tauler: Institutions, #NFDB
964:those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.[219] ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
965:Unchecked pride evolves into swagger, a hypnotizing mask of insecurity that can and does compromise our ability to make progress and attain power. Pride stands in the way of forgiveness and a strategic approach to navigating a chessboard rigged to prevent pawns from becoming kings and queens. ~ Jason Whitlock, #NFDB
966:Air forces offered the possibility of striking a the enemy's economic and moral centres without having first to achieve 'the destruction of the enemy's main forces on the battlefield'. Air-power might attain a direct end by indirect means - hopping over opposition instead of overthrowing it. ~ B H Liddell Hart, #NFDB
967:As a Buddhist, I was trained to be tolerant of everything except intolerance. I was brought up not only to develop the spirit of tolerance but also to cherish moral and spiritual qualities such as modesty, humility, compassion, and, most important, to attain a certain degree of emotional equilibrium. ~ U Thant, #NFDB
968:Get all you can without hunting your soul, your body, or your neighbor. Save all you can, cutting off every needless expense. Give all you can. Be glad to give, and ready to distribute; laying up in store for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come, that you may attain eternal life. ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
969:God freely created us so that we might know, love, and serve him in this life and be happy with him forever. God's purpose in creating us is to draw forth from us a response of love and service here on earth, so that we may attain our goal of everlasting happiness with him in heaven. ~ Saint Ignatius of Loyola, #NFDB
970:It is not a pumping-in from the outside that gives wisdom; it is the power and extent of your inner receptivity that determines how much you can attain of true knowledge, and how rapidly. You can quicken your evolution by awakening and increasing the receptive power of your brain cells. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
971:We can read all the Vedas, and yet will not realize anything, but when we practice their teachings, then we attain to that state which realizes what the scriptures say, which penetrates where neither reason nor perception nor inference can go, and where the testimony of others cannot avail. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
972:And this all fits very well with the modern way of thinking about stuff in which all you need to do, in order to attain a sense of personal accomplishment and earn the accolades of your peers, is to demonstrate an ability to slot new examples of things into the proper intellectual pigeon-holes. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
973:Listening to the music while stretching her body close to its limit, she was able to attain a mysterious calm. She was simultaneously the torturer and the tortured, the forcer and the forced. This sense of inner-directed self-sufficiency was what she wanted most of all. It gave her deep solace. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
974:Obedience, fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real true freedom. I cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud and wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God's help I attain freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
975:Only two kinds of people can attain self-knowledge: those who are not encumbered at all with learning, that is to say, whose minds are not over-crowded with thoughts borrowed from others; and those who, after studying all the scriptures and sciences, have come to realise that they know nothing. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
976:The people, which is surrounded by flatterers, has great difficulty in surmounting its inclinations, and whenever it is solicited to undergo a privation or any kind of inconvenience, even to attain an end which is sanctioned by its own rational conviction, it almost always refuses to comply at first. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
977:The very bad men come from the class of those who have power. And yet in that very class there may arise good men, and worthy of all admiration they are, for where there is great power to do wrong, to live and to die justly is a hard thing, and greatly to be praised, and few there are who attain to this. ~ Plato, #NFDB
978:Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
979:No one can be saved, and attain eternal joy, without all of the following: (1) a morally honest acceptance of the demands of virtue, (2) a serious effort to practice it, (3) an intellectually honest confession of failure, (4) repentance, and (5) at least an implicit faith and hope in God as Savior. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
980:Obedience, fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real true freedom. I cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud and wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God's help I attain freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
981:People say that practicing Zen is difficult, but there is a misunderstanding as to why. It is not difficult because it is hard to sit in the cross- legged position, or to attain enlightenment. It is difficult because it is hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
982:There will be sadness," Alia intoned. "I remind you that all things are but beginning, forever beginning. Worlds wait to be conquered. Some within the sound of my voice will attain exalted destinies. You will sneer at the past, forgetting what I tell you now: within all differences there is unity. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
983:To attain the purpose of life, it is necessary to do one’s duties, whether one lives in the world or outside it. The path of renunciation and the path of action, though two diverse ways, are equally helpful for attaining self-emancipation. One is the path of sacrifice, the other the path of conquest. ~ Swami Rama, #NFDB
984:Christ, too, will forgive, if only you attain to forgiving yourself...Oh, no, no, do not believe that I have spoken a blasphemy: even if you do not attain to reconciliation with yourself and forgiveness of yourself, even then He will forgive you for your intention and for your great suffering. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
985:The Avowal
As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.
~ Denise Levertov,#NFDB
986:To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. ~ Thurgood Marshall, #NFDB
987:Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
988:I can find nothing with which to compare the great beauty of a soul and its great capacity. In fact, however acute our intellects may be, they will no more be able to attain to a comprehension of this than to an understanding of God; for, as He Himself says, He created us in His image and likeness. ~ Teresa of vila, #NFDB
989:It is not only spirits who punish the evil, the soul brings itself to judgment: and also it is not right for those who endure for ever to attain everything in a short time: and also, there is need of human virtue. If punishment followed instantly upon sin, men would act justly from fear and have no virtue. ~ Sallust, #NFDB
990:I’ve always been the protagonist of my own story, but it’s interesting to think I could be a villain in somebody else’s. Somebody out there has tried to attain or achieve something, and I have stood in their way. To an extent, we’re each an encapsulation of both protagonist and antagonist, hero and villain. ~ Amerie, #NFDB
991:Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere, and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles... Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
992:For, not seeing the whole truth, they could not attain to perfect virtue. Some considering nature as incorrupt, others as incurable, they could not escape either pride or sloth, the two sources of all vice; since they cannot but either abandon themselves to it through cowardice, or escape it by pride. ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
993:I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances and does it. He does not beat about the bush for difficulties or excuses, but goes the shortest and most effectual way to work to attain his own ends, or to accomplish a useful object. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB
994:In the heroic effort of the individual to attain universality, in the attempt to transcend the curse of individuation and to become the one world-being, he suffers in his own person the primordial contradiction that is concealed in things, which means that he commits sacrilege and suffers. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
995:Most sane human beings who have managed to attain and retain fame each uses it to dramatically increase their name’s chances of being remembered until Jesus comes back, since their heart cannot do what they consciously or unconsciously lust for, that is to say, for it to beat until Jesus returns. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
996:No man is invincible, and therefore no man can fully understand that which would make him invincible. Even with complete and thorough study there is always the possibility of being defeated and although one may be expert in a particular form, mastery is something a man never stops seeking to attain. ~ Miyamoto Musashi, #NFDB
997:The chief end of our life is to live in communion with God. To this end the Son of God became incarnate, in order to return us to this divine communion, which was lost by the fall into sin. Through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we enter into communion with the Father and thus attain our purpose. ~ Theophan the Recluse, #NFDB
998:Through Yoga, anybody can attain; it's a God realisation; you just practise Yoga and if you really mean it, then you'll do it. There's Yogis that have done it to such a degree that they're God, they're like Christ and they can walk on the water and materialise bodies and they can do all those tricks. ~ George Harrison, #NFDB
999:Be bold. Find the courage to dream lofty dreams of what you wish to attain. Dream big and wide. Dreaming is healthy for our imagination to explore the unknown. Before our goals can materialize, a dream must be set in motion, it must feed our soul (subconscious) a belief that exists in the unknown future. ~ Machel Shull, #NFDB
1000:...I suddenly felt in myself all the weight of Europe: the weight of deliberate purpose in all our actions. I thought to myself, 'How difficult it is for us to attain to reality... We always try to grab it: but it does not like to be grabbed. Only where it overwhelms man does it surrender itself to him. ~ Muhammad Asad, #NFDB
1001:The air of fashion, which many young people are so eager to attain, always strikes me like the studied attitudes of some modern prints, copied with tasteless servility after the antigue; the soul is left out, and none of the parts are tied together by what may properly be termed character. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, #NFDB
1002:Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power. ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
1003:For me, in those days, the great question was: Does God exist? Or doesn't God exist? Can we, by an attitude of faith, attain to a sense of community and a better world? Or, if God doesn't exist, what do we do then? What does our world look like then? In none of this was there the least political colour. ~ Ingmar Bergman, #NFDB
1004:If ye realize the Emptiness of All Things, Compassion will raise within your heart;
If ye lose all differentiation between yourselves and others, fit to serve others ye will be;
And when in serving others ye shall win success, then shall ye meet with me;
And finding me, ye shall attain to Buddhahood. ~ Milarepa,#NFDB
1005:It's hard to put what it means into words. It's just a dream I had when I was a little kid. It's not every day [you] get to make your lifelong dream come true. The point of doing things in life is you pursue a goal, and you go after it, you reach it and you pick another one. But they're hard to attain. ~ Jonathan Horton, #NFDB
1006:It was then, in that cramped theater, that I suddenly realized how little difference there was between the far far right and the far far left, particularly what lengths they would go to in order to gain power, the only real contrast being what they might do with that power should they ever attain it. ~ Jared Yates Sexton, #NFDB
1007:Nuclear power generation has been given a thrust by the use of uranium-based fuel which US is set to supply to India if the deal comes through. However, there would be a requirement for ten-fold increase in nuclear power generation even to attain a reasonable degree of energy self-sufficiency for our country. ~ Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
1008:... when people freed themselves they usually forced change on everyone else. In fact, the first thing people sometimes did with their freedom was to find another version of the thing that had imprisoned them. Not changing, in other words, deprived them of what they'd gone to such trouble to attain (freedom). ~ Rachel Cusk, #NFDB
1009:Our outer world will always be a reflection of our inner world. Our level of success is always going to parallel our level of personal development. Until we dedicate time each day to developing ourselves into the person we need to be to create the life we want, success is always going to be a struggle to attain. ~ Hal Elrod, #NFDB
1010:These we should refuse to buy, if we were compelled to give in payment for them our houses or some attractive and profitable estate; but we are eager to attain them at the cost of anxiety, of danger, and of lost honour, personal freedom, and time; so true it is that each man regards nothing as cheaper than himself. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
1011:Evil is easily discovered; there is an infinite variety; good is almost unique. But some kinds of evil are almost as difficult to discover as that which we call good; and often particular evil of this class passes for good. It needs even a certain greatness of soul to attain to this, as to that which is good. ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
1012:Light is a great opportunity for the darkness to realize that there exists a different world than the world of darkness! You can attain wisdom only when you discover the worlds beyond your own world! For the darkness to be wise, it must know the light; for the light to be wise, it must know the darkness! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1013:Often people enter into things they have not the means to accomplish, with the result that they cheat others to attain their own ends. Then there is in all things the time factor to be taken into consideration; what at one time might be a failure, would perhaps at another time be a very great success. The ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1014:To attain the satisfactions of the mystic state without having to endure its rigours; to be the ecstatic follower of no god, the mystic or epopt* with no initiation; to pass the days meditating on a paradise you don’t believe in – all of this tastes good to the soul that knows what it means to know nothing. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
1015:God's Incarnation opens the way to man's deification. To be deified is, more specifically, to be “christified”: the divine likeness that we are called to attain is the likeness of Christ. It is through Jesus the God-man that we men are “ingodded”, “divinized”, made “sharers in the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). ~ Kallistos Ware, #NFDB
1016:Love is not something you do; love is someone you are. It is your True Self.8 Love is where you came from and love is where you’re going. It’s not something you can buy. It’s not something you can attain. It is the presence of God within you, called the Holy Spirit—or what some theologians name uncreated grace. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1017:Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. And the time has now arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and to help them get that protection. ~ Harry Truman, #NFDB
1018:You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since you are awareness there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All that you have to do is to give up being aware of other things, that is of the not-Self. If one gives up being aware of them then pure awareness alone remains, and that is the Self. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
1019:At heart they hate their horrid fates, and so wreak their poor spite on me who stand for everything they have not, and for all they most crave and never can attain. Let us pity them, my chieftain, for even though we die at their hands we can afford them pity, since we are greater than they and they know it ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs, #NFDB
1020:First come the wild and solitary, then those tied to a few in faithful friendship, next those who side with the manyto attain civil ends, and finally, in pursuit of particular ends of utilityor pleasure, the whollydissolute , who, amidst the great multitude of bodies, return to the first solitude of the soul. ~ Giambattista Vico, #NFDB
1021:I am simply saying that you should not lock your dreams onto a child or a man. Who loves you or who you love is not as significant as who you are. Too many folk, women and men, love the person they wish to be, as if by loving that person, or being loved by that person, they could attain the importance they long for. ~ Robin Hobb, #NFDB
1022:If you are living for an ideal and driving yourself as hard as you can to be perfect - at your job or as a mother or as a perfect wife - you lose the natural, slow rythmn of life. There's a rushing, trying to attain the ideal; the slower pace of the beat of the earth, the state where you simply are, is forgotten ~ Marion Woodman, #NFDB
1023:I think that all things which evoke discipline: study, and our duties to men and to the commonwealth, war, and personal hardship, and even the need for subsistence, ought to be greeted by us with profound gratitude, for only through them can we attain to the least detachment; and only so can we know peace. ~ J Robert Oppenheimer, #NFDB
1024:It now seems clear that a capacity to learn would be an integral feature of the core design of a system intended to attain general intelligence, not something to be tacked on later as an extension or an afterthought. The same holds for the ability to deal effectively with uncertainty and probabilistic information. ~ Nick Bostrom, #NFDB
1025:The sponge has no water; it cannot give water without first taking water! To attain wisdom, put your sponge in different lakes, different oceans, different rivers, put it under the rain, let it absorb as much different waters as possible and then squeeze the sponge so that others can get this enriched water! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1026:I take drugs just because in the 20th century in a technological age living in the city there are certain drugs you have to take just to keep yourself normal like a caveman. Just to bring yourself up or down, but to attain equilibrium you need to take certain drugs. They don't getcha high even, they just getcha normal. ~ Lou Reed, #NFDB
1027:There is a Possibility of freedom from suffering. By removing the causes of suffering, it is possible to attain a state of Liberation, a state free from suffering. According to Buddhist thought, the root causes of suffering are ignorance, craving, and hatred. These are called the ‘three poisons of the mind.’These ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
1028:The nation relies upon public discussion as one of the indispensable means to attain correct solutions to problems of social welfare. Curtailment of free speech limits this open discussion. Our whole history teaches that adjustment of social relations through reason is possible when free speech is maintained. ~ Stanley Forman Reed, #NFDB
1029:There is nothing intrinsic in the English language that made it attain such prominence. It is far from easy to learn. (A recent study found that it takes much longer for an infant to learn English than, for example, Spanish; the world would indeed have been better off if Spanish had become the universal language.) ~ Minae Mizumura, #NFDB
1030:What is it about a hand that seems quintessentially human? The answer must, at some level, be that the hand is a visible connection between us; it is a signature for who we are and what we can attain. Our ability to grasp, to build, and to make our thoughts real lies inside this complex of bones, nerves, and vessels. ~ Neil Shubin, #NFDB
1031:You do not attain to knowledge by remaining on the shore and watching the foaming waves, you must make the venture and cast yourself in, you must swim, alert and with all your force, even if a moment comes when you think you are losing consciousness; in this way, and in no other, do you reach anthropological insight. ~ Martin Buber, #NFDB
1032:According to my present theme the writer of imagination would attain closest to the conditions of music not when his words are dissassociated from natural objects and specified meanings but when they are liberated from the usual quality of that meaning by transportation into another medium, the imagination. ~ William Carlos Williams, #NFDB
1033:A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others. For men's minds, will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one, will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope, to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depressing another's fortune. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
1034:The Discipline of Perception (how we see and perceive the world around us) The Discipline of Action (the decisions and actions we take—and to what end) The Discipline of Will (how we deal with the things we cannot change, attain clear and convincing judgment, and come to a true understanding of our place in the world) ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
1035:The human heart is an idol factory that takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
1036:If you only notice human proceedings, you may observe that all who attain great power and riches, make use of either force or fraud; and what they have acquired either by deceit or violence, in order to conceal the disgraceful methods of attainment, they endeavor to sanctify with the false title of honest gains. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli, #NFDB
1037:The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, - this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost... He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American. ~ W E B Du Bois, #NFDB
1038:Thinking that you are good can make you bad. Talking about positive behavior can encourage negative behavior. Laozi is clearly on to something when he warns us that consciously trying to be righteous will, in fact, turn us into insufferable hypocrites and that anyone striving to attain virtue is destined to fail. ~ Edward Slingerland, #NFDB
1039:When our mind works freely without any hindrance, and is at liberty to 'come' or to 'go', we attain Samadhi of Prajna, or liberation. Such a state is called the function of 'thoughtlessness'. But to refrain from thinking of anything, so that all thoughts are suppressed, is to be Dharma-ridden, and this is an erroneous view. ~ Huineng, #NFDB
1040:Wouldst thou, my friend, mount up to the highest summit of wisdom,
Be not deterred by the fear, prudence thy course may deride
That shortsighted one sees but the bank that from thee is flying,
Not the one which ere long thou wilt attain with bold flight.
~ Friedrich Schiller, Wisdom And Prudence
,#NFDB
1041:I regard the Masonic institution as one of the means ordained by the Supreme Architect to enable mankind to work out the problem of destiny; to fight against, and overcome, the weaknesses and imperfections of his nature, and at last to attain to that true life of which death is the herald and the grave the portal. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
1042:Some critics may say Noonday was mad. He was not. Toweringly weird, yes--mad, no. He saw that in five years he would attain the Presidency of the University. Form there he could embark on a career leading straight to the White House, that High Seat of the Lie, open only to holders of the Third Degree of Falsehood. ~ William Kotzwinkle, #NFDB
1043:The first rule of all air combat is to see the opponent first. Like the hunter who stalks his prey and maneuvers himself unnoticed into the most favourable position for the kill, the fighter in the opening of a dogfight must detect the opponent as early as possible in order to attain a superior position for the attack. ~ Adolf Galland, #NFDB
1044:This human body is the greatest body in the universe, and a human being the greatest being. Man is higher than all animals, than all angels; none is greater than man. Even the Devas (gods) will have to come down again and attain to salvation through a human body. Man alone attains to perfection, not even the Devas. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1045:We lift ourselves by our thought, we climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always, everywhere - your ideal of what you long to attain - the ideal of health, efficiency, success. ~ Orison Swett Marden, #NFDB
1046:When our mind works freely without any hindrance, and is at liberty to 'come' or to 'go', we attain Samadhi of Prajna, or liberation. Such a state is called the function of 'thoughtlessness'. But to refrain from thinking of anything, so that all thoughts are suppressed, is to be Dharma-ridden, and this is an erroneous view. ~ Hui Neng, #NFDB
1047:As Edison is credited with saying, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." We all want to be successful, but most of us aren't willing to do what those who are successful did to attain it. We want success without sacrifice, but you can't have one without the other! ~ Thomas A Edison, #NFDB
1048:No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass. ~ George Washington, #NFDB
1049:Entropy production, in this context, is nothing else but the production of structure, implying at the same time more information and more confirmation. Immediately beyond the “chaos” of the instability threshold maximum entropy production is needed to attain a certain degree of confirmation. ~ Erich Jantsch, The Self-Organizing Universe, #NFDB
1050:It was a wise and useful provision of the ancients to transmit their thoughts to posterity by recording them in treatises, so that they should not be lost, but, being developed in succeeding generations through publications in books, should gradually attain in later times, to the highest refinement of learning. ~ Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, #NFDB
1051:The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, -- this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost... He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American... ~ W E B Du Bois, #NFDB
1052:By god the Buddhist means that from which the universe was born, the unborn of the Buddhist scriptures, and by soul that factor in the thing called man which moves towards enlightenment. Why need more be said of it, at any rate those who are not content with scholarship, but strive to attain that same enlightenment. ~ Christmas Humphreys, #NFDB
1053:By god the Buddhist means that from which the universe was born, the unborn of the Buddhist scriptures, and by soul that factor in the thing called man which moves towards enlightenment. Why need more be said of it, at any rate those who are not content with scholarship, but strive to attain that same enlightenment? ~ Christmas Humphreys, #NFDB
1054:MY GENES DONE GONE AND TRICKED MY BRAIN
BY MAKING FUCKING FEEL SO GREAT
THAT’S HOW THE LITTLE CREEPS ATTAIN
THEIR PLAN TO FUCKIN’ REPLICATE
BUT BRAIN’S GOT TRICKS ITSELF, YOU SEE
TO GET THE BANG BUT NOT THE BITE
I GOT THIS HERE VASECTOMY
MY GENES CAN FUCK THEMSELVES TONIGHT. ——THE R-SELECTORS, TRUNCLADE ~ Peter Watts,#NFDB
1055:I am afraid of falling, of fire, of torture and monsters and infestations of spiders and wild dogs and cancer and the End of the World (a proper one, without a sequel) and everything else I have imagined in the small hours between two and four, when unreasonable, improbable waking nightmares can attain solidity and bulk. I ~ Nick Harkaway, #NFDB
1056:It was a clever saying of Bion, the philosopher, that, just as the suitors, not being able to approach Penelope, consorted with her maid-servants, so also do those who are not able to attain to philosophy wear themselves to a shadow over the other kinds of education which have no value. ~ Plutarch, “The education of children,” Moralia, 7D, #NFDB
1057:Never allow yourself to dwell on your weaknesses, your failures, your unhappy condition. Hold firmly the ideal of your efficiency, your competency, your divinity, the conviction that you were made for health, success, and happiness, and struggle vigorously to attain that which will help you to realize this condition. ~ Orison Swett Marden, #NFDB
1058:Evil can be got very easily and exists in quantity: the road to her is very smooth, and she lives near by. But between us and virtue the gods have placed the sweat of our brows; the road to her is long and steep, and it is rough at first; but when a man has reached the top, then she is easy to attain, although before she was hard. ~ Hesiod, #NFDB
1059:I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
1060:I do not believe that every person, in every walk of life, can succeed in spite of any handicap. That would be perfection. But I do believe that what I was able to attain came to be because we put behind us (no matter how slowly) the dogmas of the past: to discover the truth of today; and perhaps the greatness of tomorrow. ~ Jackie Robinson, #NFDB
1061:My genes done gone and tricked my brain
By making fucking feel so great
That's how the little creeps attain
Their plan to fuckin' replicate
But brain's got tricks itself, you see
To get the bang but not the bite
I got this here vasectomy
My genes can fuck themselves tonight.
- The R-Selectors, Trunclade ~ Peter Watts,#NFDB
1062:The most basic inherent constraint is that neither time nor wisdom are free goods available in unlimited quantity. This means that in social processes, as in economic processes, it is not only impossible to attain perfection but irrational to seek perfection- or even to seek the best possible result in each separate instance. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
1063:You feel the strong desire to attain something desperately, but life after you get it, is different. There is a feeling of missing something. The desperation, the passion to accomplish is gone. You no longer have the motivation to push your limits. For a life to be lived with the greatest of enthusiasm, you need a want of something. ~ Praveer, #NFDB
1064:An incessant change of means to attain unalterable ends is always going on; we must take care not to let these sundry means undo eminence in the perspective of our minds; for, since the beginning, there has been an unending cycle of them, and for each its advocates have claimed adoption as the sole solution of successful war. ~ George S Patton, #NFDB
1065:exactly to those paths which others have taken, or attain to the virtues of those whom they would resemble, the wise man should always follow the roads that have been trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled, so that if he cannot reach their perfection, he may at least acquire something of its savour. ~ Niccol Machiavelli, #NFDB
1066:Only two kinds of people can attain "Self-Knowledge": those who are not encumbered at all with learning, that is to say, whose minds are not over-crowded with thoughts borrowed from others; and those who, after studying all the scriptures and sciences, have come to realize that they know nothing. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna., #NFDB
1067:She reaches into the unknown and claims his hand, clasping it as if he might evaporate into the night. She’s petrified. Not of the monstrosities prowling the island, but of the demon inside herself. The one about to rip apart her heart and mind to attain a selfish freedom. And it might all be a lie, placed there by the Society. ~ Laura Kreitzer, #NFDB
1068:We must have imagination, awakened by the uncertainty of being able to attain our object, to create a goal which hides our other goal from us, and by substituting for sensual pleasures the idea of penetrating into a life prevents us from recognizing that pleasure, from tasting it true savor, from restricting it to its own range. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
1069:When you stop looking forward to things, you get used to low expectations and you realise, what's the big deal about success anyway? If we're all to attain everything we've been conditioned to desire - wealth, fame, education, prestige, security - then those things will become so prevalent that they'll become meaningless. ~ Hilary Thayer Hamann, #NFDB
1070:Congress had passed several acts of dubious constitutionality. One made it difficult for foreigners to attain citizenship and allowed for deportation of immigrants deemed inimical to peace. Another, called the Sedition Act, criminalized the making of false or scandalous statements against the government or criticizing its leaders. ~ Jodi Daynard, #NFDB
1071:...it was always our view that in order to attain this [proletarian revolution] and the other far more important aims of the future social revolution, the working class must first take possession of the organised political power of the state and by its aid crush the resistance of the capitalist class and organise society anew. ~ Friedrich Engels, #NFDB
1072:Suddenly she hated them all because they were different from her, because they carried their losses with an air that she could never attain, would never wish to attain. She hated them, these smiling, light-footed strangers, these proud fools who took pride in something they had lost, seeming to be proud that they had lost it. ~ Margaret Mitchell, #NFDB
1073:Mother Ganges teaches us that if we want to attain the sea of our aspiration, we must persevere in our goal and never be discouraged by the inevitable obstacles that come on our path. All impediments are like rocks in the river of life. We should flow around them and never give up. With the Lord’s help, there is always a way. As ~ Radhanath Swami, #NFDB
1074:So many people work so hard, to achieve, attain, accumulate and cherish their fortunes. How many of us blissfully fill our days and nights being the Divine expression we are? This is the meaning of life. It is to be. As a result, all of your creations are a natural outflow from the Divine within your being. This is the joy of life. ~ Barbara Rose, #NFDB
1075:You can eliminate depression without making someone happy. You can cure anxiety without teaching someone optimism. You can return someone to work without improving their job performance. If all you strive for is diminishing the bad, you'll only attain the average and you'll miss out entirely on the opportunity to exceed the average. ~ Shawn Achor, #NFDB
1076:Tell me, Brother Gregory, in your opinion can a woman think as well as a man?"
"Properly speaking," he said in a learned voice, "a woman cannot think at all, or at least, think as we men know it. But the imitative ability is very greatly developed in women, so that by copying men, some may attain the appearance of thought. ~ Judith Merkle Riley,#NFDB
1077:Each person has the potential of making a positive impact on the world. It all depends on what you do with what you have. Success is not to be measured by the amount of money you possess or the position you attain but rather in how you use both. Position and money can be squandered or abused, but they can also be used to help others. ~ Gary Chapman, #NFDB
1078:Fashion sighs after trends. I want timeless elegance. Fashion has no time. I do. I say: Hello Lady, how can I help you? Fashion has no time to even ask such a question, because it is constantly concerned with finding out: What will come next? It is more about helping women to suffer less, to attain more freedom and independence. ~ Yohji Yamamoto, #NFDB
1079:When your intellect, once perverted by listening to all manner of arguments, is totally absorbed in the contemplation of God, you will then attain yoga. When a person is firmly established in samadhi — samadhi means fixing the mind on God — he is filled with ecstatic love and, therefore, can be completely indifferent to this world. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1080:German writings attain popularity through a great name, or through personalities, or through good connections, or through effort,or through moderate immorality, or through accomplished incomprehensibility, or through harmonious platitude, or through versatile boredom, or through constant striving after the absolute. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, #NFDB
1081:The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times - although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1082:Válmíki,(2)bird of charming song,(3) Who mounts on Poesy’s sublimest spray, And sweetly sings with accent clear and strong Ráma, aye Ráma, in his deathless lay. Where breathes the man can listen to the strain That flows in music from Válmíki’s tongue, Nor feel his feet the path of bliss attain When Ráma’s glory by the saint is sung! ~ Valmiki, #NFDB
1083:He knew full well, from his Spencer, that man can never attain ultimate knowledge of anything, and that the mystery of beauty was no less than that of life - nay, more that the fibres of beauty and life were intertwisted, and that he himself was but a bit of the same nonunderstandable fabric, twisted of sunshine and star-dust and wonder. ~ Jack London, #NFDB
1084:Nobody gives you respect in this life. You must take it, you must earn it, and then you must hold it sacred, because no matter how hard respect is to attain, it can be lost in an instant." I nodded my head toward the garrison. "Go get it, Roden. People won't follow a leader who doesn't know where he's going. Show them what you do. ~ Jennifer A Nielsen, #NFDB
1085:We watched him use his spoon to mold the mashed potatoes on his plate into the shape of a volcanic mountain. He poured gravy ever so carefully into the opening at the top. Then he set to work ridding his steak of fat, veins and other imperfections. It occurred to me that eating is the only form of professionalism most people ever attain. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
1086:Guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor, can never confer real happiness; the evil consequences of our crimes long survive their commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt the steps of the malefactor; while the paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace. ~ Walter Scott, #NFDB
1087:The main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses but rather with the approach to the numinous. But the fact that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy, and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experience you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1088:And Jesus said unto them, The sons of this world marry, and are given in marriage: but they that are accounted worthy to attain to that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: for neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1089:The obligation to earn one's bread by the sweat of one's brow also presumes the right to do so. A society in which this right is systematically denied, in which economic policies do not allow workers to reach satisfactory levels of employment, cannot be justified from an ethical point of view, nor can that society attain social peace. ~ Pope John Paul II, #NFDB
1090:To attain the rank of grand master of memory, you must be able to perform three seemingly superhuman feats. You have to memorize 1,000 digits in under an hour, the precise order of 10 shuffled decks of playing cards in the same amount of time, and one shuffled deck in less than two minutes. There are 36 grand masters of memory in the world. ~ Joshua Foer, #NFDB
1091:To suffer change can be no hurt; as no benefit it is, by change to attain to being. The age and time of the world is as it were a flood and swift current, consisting of the things that are brought to pass in the world. For as soon as anything hath appeared, and is passed away, another succeeds, and that also will presently out of sight. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1092:Whoever wishes to attain to the highest perfection of his being and to the vision of the supreme good, must have a knowledge of himself as of the things about him to the very core. It is only so that he can arrive at the supreme clarity. Therefore learn to know thyself, that is better for thee than to know all the powers of the creation. ~ Maitre Eckhart, #NFDB
1093:And Jesus said unto them, "The sons of this world marry, and are given in marriage: but they that are accounted worthy to attain to that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: for neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1094:At The Mermaid Caffeteria
TRUTH is enough for prose:
Calmly it goes
To tell just what it knows.
For verse, skill will sufficeDelicate, nice
Casting of verbal dice.
Poetry, men attain
By subtler pain
More flagrant in the brainAn honesty unfeigned,
A heart unchained,
A madness well restrained.
~ Christopher Morley,#NFDB
1095:Mortals prattle on about lonely impulses of delight and the gift of knowledge, and think that teaching is a trade like metalsmithing or healing or telling lies on television. It is not. It is the dissemination of power unto a new generation and nothing less. For her, as for you, lessons demand real risk in order to attain their true rewards. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
1096:The spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation in 1804, helped Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador attain liberty, and inspired our forefathers to shed their blood for the United States' independence, cannot die. Today, this spirit of solidarity must and will empower all of us to rebuild Haiti. ~ Jean Bertrand Aristide, #NFDB
1097:The vessel through which the Lord Jesus can reveal Himself in this generation is not the individual, but the body of Christ. True, “God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith” (12:3), but alone in isolation man can never fulfill God’s purpose. It requires a complete body of Christ to attain to the stature of Christ and to display His glory. ~ Watchman Nee, #NFDB
1098:1. The first is simply not to try to be clever. Innovations have to be handled by ordinary human beings, if they are to attain any size and importance at all, by morons or near-morons. Incompetence, after all, is the only thing in abundant and never-failing supply. Anything too clever, whether in design or execution, is almost bound to fail. ~ Peter F Drucker, #NFDB
1099:The idea is to keep reinventing yourself. Once you attain a certain status as an actor, your fans start expecting from you and you should be able to fulfill them. That's why I try to choose as many different kind of roles as I can so that my fans are not disappointed with me. It would also get boring for me as an actor to keep repeating myself. ~ Arjun Rampal, #NFDB
1100:Christ willed to suffer and be despised and do you dare complain of the same? Christ had adversaries and backbiters; and do you wish to have all men your friends and benefactors? When shall your patience attain her crown if no adversity befalls you? If you are willing to suffer naught that is against you, how will you be the friend of Christ? ~ Thomas a Kempis, #NFDB
1101:Meditation is not the construction of something foreign, it is not an effort to attain and then hold on to a particular experience. We may have a secret desire that through meditation we will accumulate a stockpile of magical experiences, or at least a mystical trophy or two, and then we will be able to proudly display them for others to see. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
1102:We are not at all to wonder [...] that we having but some few superficial ideas of things, discovered to us only by the senses from without, or by the mind, reflecting on what it experiments in itself within, have no knowledge beyond that, much less of the internal constitution, and true nature of things, being destitute of faculties to attain it. ~ John Locke, #NFDB
1103:It is unethical not to know. It is unethical not to think. It is unethical not to love. It is unethical not to live an impassioned life. It is unethical not to attain greatness. It is unethical to succumb to the fear of envy and the conspiracy of mediocrity. It is unethical not to self-bestow genius. It is unethical not to be the first monkey. ~ Yasuhiko Kimura, #NFDB
1104:Become aware, awake. Then you will see that everything comes and goes, all things come and pass. Life is a flux. Your consciousness is the only thing that is immovable, that is eternal. To attain it is freedom. To attain it is the goal of life. If you miss it you have missed your life and you have missed a tremendously great gift, a great opportunity. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1105:Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1106:For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself, whether it be by means of this or that poetry or art; only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is constantly ready for revenge, and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1107:Yet through virtuous living man is further ordained to a higher end, which consists in the enjoyment of God, as we have said above. Consequently, since society must have the same end as the individual man, it is not the ultimate end of an assembled multitude to live virtuously, but through virtuous living to attain to the possession of God. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
1108:tasmāt sarveṣu kāleṣu mām anusmara yudhya ca mayy arpita-mano-buddhir mām evaiṣyasy asaṁśayaḥ “Therefore, Arjuna, you should always think of Me in the form of Kṛṣṇa and at the same time continue your prescribed duty of fighting. With your activities dedicated to Me and your mind and intelligence fixed on Me, you will attain Me without doubt.” (Bg. 8.7) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1109:This little separate self must die. Then we shall find that we are in the Real, and that Real is God, and He is our own true nature, and He is always in us and with us. Let us live in Him and stand in Him. It is the only joyful state of existence. Life on the plane of the Spirit is the only life, and let us all try to attain to this realization. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1110:We must conclude that, being necessary to God by a necessity which is called "hypothetical", (that is, because God so willed it), the Blessed Virgin is all the more necessary for men to attain their final end. Consequently we must not place devotion to her on the same level as devotion to the other saints as if it were merely something optional. ~ Louis de Montfort, #NFDB
1111:You're not worried about anything, are you?" said Danglers. "It seems to me everything's going perfectly for you."
"That's exactly what worries me," replied Dantes. "I don't think man was meant to attain happiness so easily. Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it. ~ Alexandre Dumas,#NFDB
1112:Do not say that faith in Christ alone can save you, for this is not possible if you do not attain love for Him, which is demonstrated by deeds. As for mere faith: "The demons also believe and tremble" (James, 2:19). The action of love consists in heartfelt good deeds toward one's neighbor, magnanimity, patience, and sober use of things. ~ Saint Maximus the Confessor, #NFDB
1113:Jesus’ freedom is not the freedom of the liberal. It is the freedom of the Son, and thus the freedom of the truly devout person. As Son, Jesus brings a new freedom: not the freedom of someone with no obligations, but the freedom of someone totally united with the Father’s will, someone who helps mankind to attain the freedom of inner oneness with God. ~ Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1114:Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. ~ James C Collins, #NFDB
1115:The best way to create a purposeful life is to allow the soul's decision to precede the body's action. One does not do something in order to be compassionate, one is compassionate and, therefore, does certain things in certain ways. The actions of the body were meant to be reflections of a state of being, not attempts to attain a state of being. ~ Neale Donald Walsch, #NFDB
1116:The restless monkey breathes at the rate of 32 times a minute, in contrast to man’s average of 18 times. The elephant, tortoise, snake, and other creatures noted for their longevity have a respiratory rate that is less than man’s. The giant tortoise, for instance, which may attain the age of three hundred years, breathes only 4 times a minute. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
1117:You may be trying to attain power in this world, then you start trying to attain power in that world. First you want to attain wealth in this world, then you try to attain wealth in that world. But you remain the same, and the mind and the functioning and the whole scheme remains the same: Attain! Reach! This is the ego trip. The achieving mind is the ego. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1118:Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, or a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient Champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope, and a sock in the eye. ~ Dorothy Parker,#NFDB
1119:We will never come to the place of being holy enough for God to hear our prayer. Rather, we stand before the Lord pure, transparent and righteous because it is a gift He has given us through His Son. It is not something we can earn. We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. It is nothing we attain. It is only by grace that we are children of God. ~ K P Yohannan, #NFDB
1120:If any human being earnestly desire to push on to new discoveries instead of just retaining and using the old; to win victories over Nature as a worker rather than over hostile critics as a disputant; to attain, in fact, clear and demonstrative knowlegde instead of attractive and probable theory; we invite him as a true son of Science to join our ranks. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
1121:The great ideal of Mahayana Buddhism is to remain in this world, so tempting and full of snares, but at the same time attain this awareness of the Absolute which underlies it, thus remaining free while helping others to free themselves. Nagarjuna captures the essence of this state when he proclaims, There is no difference at all between samsara and nirvana; ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1122:The man who wants a garden fair, or small or very big, With flowers growing here and there, Must bend his back and dig. The things are mighty few on earth That wishes can attain. Whate'er we want of any worth We've got to work to gain. It matters not what goal you seek, It's secret here reposes: You've got to dig from week to week To get Results or Roses. ~ Edgar Guest, #NFDB
1123:For it was only via the idea of God that we were able to develop all our ideas about a unified self, reason, a unified law-governed cosmos, sovereignty, property, supervision (Providence) and management, long-term purposes and action to attain them and so on. God taught us everything, so that we are eternally grateful to God even as we now leave him behind. ~ Don Cupitt, #NFDB
1124:Humor is really one of the hardest things to define, very hard. And it's very ambiguous. You have it or you don't. You can't attain it. There are terrible forms of professional humor, the humorists' humor. That can be awful. It depresses me because it is artificial. You can't always be humorous, but a professional humorist must. That is a sad phenomenon. ~ Heinrich Boll, #NFDB
1125:The air they breathe, being a living element with both physical and psychical properties, carries a subtle vital energy. This in India is named by the Sanskrit word prana; in Tibet it is called sugs, in Aikido, Japan, ki, and in China, chi. By controlling its circulation throughout the body, man is able to attain spiritual enlightenment or illumination. ~ Frank Waters, #NFDB
1126:I am the one whom you sold, betrayed and dishonoured. I am the one whose fiancée you prostituted. I am the one on whom you trampled in order to attain a fortune. I am the one whose father you condemned to starvation, and the one who condemned you to starvation, but who none the less forgives you, because he himself needs forgiveness. I am Edmond Dantès! ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
1127:Teachers and students (leadership and people), co-intent on reality, are both Subjects, not only in the task of unveiling that reality, and thereby coming to know it critically, but in the task of re-creating that knowledge. As they attain this knowledge of reality through common reflection and action, they discover themselves as its permanent re-creators. ~ Paulo Freire, #NFDB
1128:Christ wishes to raise men up to heaven, and has given them all the means to attain this; whilst the Devil, who himself for his pride was cast down from heaven into the dominions of the air, wishes by every means to attach men to earthly,- sensual, transitory things, and, in order to attain this end, he employs the most powerful, most prodigious means. ~ John of Kronstadt, #NFDB
1129:What we designate modernity was not something natural or automatic. It involved a set of difficult-to-attain attributes—mass production, mass culture, mass politics—that the greatest powers mastered. Those states, in turn, forced other countries to attain modernity as well, or suffer the consequences, including defeat in war and possible colonial conquest. ~ Stephen Kotkin, #NFDB
1130:if the world will attain its utmost peace and stability;and contentions be limited, then the ideology, philosophy and mentality of people in the world should be shifted from the more you acquire the more valuable you are to the more you give the more important you are and with the mentality that giving is a sacred responsibility and not a competition ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
1131:Know your strongest Point— your pre-eminent gift; cultivate that and you will assist the rest. Every one would have excelled in something if he had known his strong point. Notice in what quality you surpass, and take charge of that. In some judgment excels, in others valour. Most do violence to their natural aptitude, and thus attain superiority in nothing. ~ Baltasar Graci n, #NFDB
1132:I do not try, Lord, to attain Your lofty heights, because my understanding is in no way equal to it. But I do desire to understand Your truth a little, that truth that my heart believes and loves. I do not seek to understand that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand. For I believe this also, that unless I believe, I shall not understand. ~ Anselm of Canterbury, #NFDB
1133:No one can help us to achieve the intimate isolation by which we find our secret worlds, so mysterious, rich and full. If others intervene, it is destroyed. This degree of thought, which we attain by freeing ourselves from the external world, must be fed by the inner spirit, and our surroundings cannot influence us in any way other than to leave us in peace. ~ Maria Montessori, #NFDB
1134:Paradoxically, the timid rumors circulating in Washington in favor of arming Ukraine are creating an incentive for Moscow to escalate the war now, to attain the desired territorial gains before it becomes too costly. Once Ukrainian forces possess, for instance, anti-armor weapons, Russia’s advantages decrease and the costs of its intervention increase dramatically. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1135:We can program ourselves to be the person we want to be, whatever the subject matter is, live in it by a mental physical program - a system of learning and doing. Studying all the greats in that field and becoming greater. I believe we are powerful, but we don't use our minds to full capacity. Your mind is powerful enough to help you attain whatever you want. ~ Michael Jackson, #NFDB
1136:Money can help you to get medicines but not health. Money can help you to get soft pillows, but not sound sleep. Money can help you to get material comforts, but not eternal bliss. Money can help you to get ornaments, but not beauty. Money will help you to get an electric earphone, but not natural hearing. Attain the supreme wealth, wisdom; you will have everything. ~ Sivananda, #NFDB
1137:New Rule: Apple's next device must be a computer that you control with your tongue. Thanks for eliminating the keyboard and the mouse, but pointing and pushing at things already seems too complicated and tiring. We're Americans--and until you free our hands from the computer entirely, we can never attain our ultimate goal: Web surfing while eating and masturbating. ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB
1138:The perspective of eternity is not a perspective from a certain place beyond the world, nor the point of view of a transcendent being; rather it is a certain form of thought and feeling that rational persons can adopt within the world ... Purity of heart, if one could attain it, would be to see clearly and to act with grace and self-command from this point of view. ~ John Rawls, #NFDB
1139:Strive to love your neighbor actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbor, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1140:We do not have to wait for future discoveries in connection with the powers of the human mind for evidence that the mind is the greatest force known to mankind. We know, now, that any idea, aim or purpose that is fixed in the mind and held there with a will to achieve or attain its physical or material equivalent, puts into motion powers that cannot be conquered. ~ Napoleon Hill, #NFDB
1141:We rightly confess, in our articles of belief, that there is a holy church; for it is invisible, dwelling in a place that none can attain unto, and therefore her holiness cannot be seen; for God doth so hide and cover her with infirmities, with errors, with divers forms of the cross and offences, that according to the judgment of reason, it is nowhere to be seen. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
1142:Don’t be upset that you can’t attain constant happiness. It’s the quickest way to feel like a failure in life. If each of our lives represented a page in a book, happiness would be the punctuation. It breaks up the parts that are too long. It closes off some things, divides others. But it’s brief—showing up when it’s needed and filling tired paragraphs with breaks. ~ Tarryn Fisher, #NFDB
1143:God reveals Himself to a devotee who feels drawn to Him by the combined force of these three attractions: the attraction of worldly possessions for the worldly man, the child's attraction for its mother, and the husband's attraction for the chaste wife. If one feels drawn to Him by the combined force of these three attractions, then through it one can attain Him. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
1144:Many people in Nixon’s camp had genuine faith in affirmative action. It wasn’t designed to fail, but it wasn’t designed to succeed, either; the intent behind it was not rooted in a desire to help black people attain equal standing in society. It was riot insurance. It was a financial incentive for blacks to stay in their own communities and out of the suburbs. (183) ~ Tanner Colby, #NFDB
1145:To be controlled by moods is to be a part of matter. If you keep your mind on the resolve to never lose your peace, then you can attain godliness.
Keep a secret chamber of silence within yourself, where you will not let moods, trials, battles or inharmony enter. Keep out all hatred, revengefulness and desires. In this chamber of peace God will visit you. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,#NFDB
1146:You’re worried about getting things successfully done in order to attain some degree of self-worth. Your soul is for sale; You most likely deceive yourself in order to convince yourself. Letting go equals failing, isn’t that right? And you forget outstandingly well, don’t you? You forget that It takes admirable courage not only to try but also to gracefully give up. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1147:At the beginning of this study on the conditions of suggestion, we have admitted that suggestion could not develop in sickly minds—that it demanded, in order to attain to its full power, minds relatively sane. We have just now demonstrated that it depended on a lack of synthesis, on a weakening of consciousness. Are not these two affirmations contradictory ? Not at all. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1148:When we become incorruptible and immortal, and attain to the blessed state of conformity with Christ, we will be ever with the Lord (as Scripture says), gaining fulfillment in the purest contemplations of His visible theophany which will illuminate us with its most brilliant rays, just as it illuminated the disciples at the time of the most divine Transfiguration. ~ Gregory Palamas, #NFDB
1149:I will make an attempt to attain freedom, the youthful soul says to itself; and is it to be hindered in this by the fact that two nations happen to hate and fight one another, or that two continents are separated by an ocean, or that all around it a religion is taught with did not yet exist a couple of thousand years ago. All that is not you, it says to itself. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1150:Mom said that people are interested in birds only in as much as they exhibit human behavior - greed and stupidity and anger - and by doing so they free us from the unique sorrow of being human...I told Mom my own theory of why we like birds - of how birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain. ~ Douglas Coupland, #NFDB
1151:All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not. In the same manner, all power, of whatever sort, is of itself desirable. A man would not submit to learn to hem a ruffle, of his wife, or his wife's maid; but if a mere wish could attain it, he would rather wish to be able to hem a ruffle. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
1152:Let us love nobly, and live, and add again
Years and years unto years, till we attain
To write threescore: this is the second of our reign
Love was as subtly catched, as a disease;
But being got it is a treasure sweet,
Which to defend is harder than to get:
And ought not be profaned on either part,
For though 'tis got by chance,'tis kept by art ~ John Donne,#NFDB
1153:One famous female Sufi mystic and religious teacher was Rabi-’ah al-’ Ada-wiyyah (712‒801), who after a girlhood in slavery fled to the desert, where she rejected all offers of marriage and devoted herself to prayer and scholarship. Although the most distinguished of women Sufis, Rabi-’ah was not unique, since Sufism gave all women the chance to attain a holy dignity ~ Rosalind Miles, #NFDB
1154:we have a theology that is Earth-centered and involves a tiny piece of space, and when we step back, when we attain a broader cosmic perspective, some of it seems very small in scale. And in fact a general problem with much of Western theology in my view is that the God portrayed is too small. It is a god of a tiny world and not a god of a galaxy, much less of a universe. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
1155:...what I learned was that also our ludicrously inconsequential lives, in which we could not attain anything of what we wanted, nothing, in which everything was beyond our abilities and power, had a part in this world, and thus also in the supreme, for books existed, you only had to read them, no one but myself could exclude me from them. You just had to reach up. ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd, #NFDB
1156:Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel in himself the force and will to inflict great pain? The ability to suffer is a small matter: in that line, weak women and even slaves often attain masterliness. But not to perish from internal distress and doubt when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry of it that is great, that belongs to greatness. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1157:There are two ways in which we may attain control over our activity. The first is confidence in the power of our own will; to know that if we have failed today, tomorrow we will not do so. The second is to have our eyes wide open, and to watch keenly our activity in all aspects of life. It is in the dark that we fall, but in the light we can see where we are going. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, #NFDB
1158:Whence can any cause be known but from its known effects? Whence can any hypothesis be proved but from the apparent phenomena? To establish one hypothesis upon another is building entirely in the air; and the utmost we ever attain by these conjectures and fictions is to ascertain the bare possibility of our opinion, but never can we, upon such terms, establish its reality. ~ David Hume, #NFDB
1159:Once we understand that our happiness is the result of our life experiences with the world, we will also understand the importance of taking care of both our external and internal world. We can’t be happy if our children are unhappy, our spouse is unfaithful or if our boss hates us. It is futile to focus just on internal changes and hope to attain long-lasting happiness. ~ Awdhesh Singh, #NFDB
1160:A man cannot rise any higher than this. The Immaculate is the highest degree of perfection and sanctity of a creature. No man will ever attain this celestial summit of grace, for the Mother of God is unique. However, he who gives himself without limits to the Immaculate will in a short time attain a very high degree of perfection and procure for God a very great glory. ~ Maximilian Kolbe, #NFDB
1161:To have one's race brutally treated for so many years, even after the end of slavery and segregation, people are going to rise up with violence to attain what they believe is rightfully theirs. The most important thing at this time is raising the awareness of everyone; people need to be educated everywhere about all aspects of racism and how it affects people still today. ~ Assata Shakur, #NFDB
1162:Inventory
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I’d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
~ Dorothy Parker,#NFDB
1163:541 - Canst thou see God in thy torturer and slayer even in thy moment of death or thy hours of torture? Canst thou see Him in that which thou art slaying, see and love even while thou slayest? Thou hast thy hand on the supreme knowledge. How shall he attain to Krishna who has never worshipped Kali?
All is the Divine and the Divine alone exists.
~ The Mother, On Thoughts And Aphorisms,#NFDB
1164:All of these riots around the globe are endangering the world. And mobs are always dangerous, destructive things that end society. Liberal policies promote mobs because liberals crawl on the mobs, the destruction wrought by the mobs to attain power. Tere's only one way to react to a mob to save civilized society, and that is to smash the mob. It is not to mollycoddle the mob. ~ Ann Coulter, #NFDB
1165:Inventory:
"Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye. ~ Dorothy Parker,#NFDB
1166:Individuals possessing moderate-sized brains easily find their proper sphere, and enjoy in it scope for all their energy. In ordinary circumstances they distinguish themselves, but they sink when difficulties accumulate around them. Persons with large brains, on the other hand, do not readily attain their appropriate place; common occurrences do not rouse or call them forth. ~ George Combe, #NFDB
1167:It is the fate of most men who mingle with the world, and attain even the prime of life, to make many real friends, and lose them in the course of nature. It is the fate of all authors or chroniclers to create imaginary friends, and lose them in the course of art. Nor is this the full extent of their misfortunes; for they are required to furnish an account of them besides. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1168:Meditation is the technique of inner conquest - and that is the real challenge. Those who have any guts should accept the inner challenge. It is easy to reach the moon, it is easy to reach Everest; it is far more difficult to reach your own centre. But the moment you reach it all ecstasy is yours, and forever and forever. You attain to a bliss which cannot be taken away from you. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1169:People who have no secrets from each other never want for a subject of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back, neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the abundance of their heart, without consideration they say just what they think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God. ~ Francois Fenelon, #NFDB
1170:The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy's cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him. ~ Miyamoto Musashi, #NFDB
1171:These small, everyday actions had their own value; the pressure of my daily habits would mold my future. These habits were little things on their own, but their combined weight was massive. I thought again of one of my favorite lines from Samuel Johnson: “It is by studying little things, that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible. ~ Gretchen Rubin, #NFDB
1172:If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here—and by “we” I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
1173:Everyone strives to attain the Law,' answers the man, 'how does it come about, then, that in all these years no one has come seeking admittance but me?' The doorkeeper perceives that the man is nearing his end and his hearing is failing, so he bellows in his ear: 'No one but you could gain admittance through this door, since this door was intended for you. I am now going to shut it. ~ Franz Kafka, #NFDB
1174:If this conviction had not been a strongly emotional one and if those searching for knowledge had not been inspired by Spinoza's Amor Dei Intellectualis, they would hardly have been capable of that untiring devotion which alone enables man to attain his greatest achievements. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1175:Never follow anybody else`s idea - that is very dangerous because you will become imitative. Always follow your own nature, self-nature; only then will you attain to freedom. It is better to die following one`s nature than to live following somebody`s else`s nature, because that will be a pseudo life. To die following one`s nature is beautiful, because that death too will be authentic. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1176:To emotionally accept impending disaster, to attain the gut-level understanding that the power elite will not respond rationally to the devastation of the ecosystem, is as difficult to accept as our own mortality. The most daunting existential struggle of our time is to ingest this awful truth-intellect ually and emotionally-and continue to resist the forces that are destroying us. ~ Chris Hedges, #NFDB
1177:Withdraw now from the invisible pounding and weaving of your ingrained ideas. If you want to be rid of this invisible turmoil, you must just sit through it and let go of everything. Attain fulfillment and illuminate thoroughly. Light and shadow altogether forgotten. Drop off your own skin, and the sense-dusts will be fully purified. The eye then readily discerns the brightness. ~ Hongzhi Zhengjue, #NFDB
1178:Justice requires lawyers who are prepared, witnesses who tell the truth, judges who know the law, and jurors who stay awake. Justice is the North Star, the burning bush, the holy virgin. It cannot be bought, sold, or mass produced. It is intangible, ineffable, and invisible, but if you are to spend your life in its pursuit, it is best to believe it exists, and that you can attain it. ~ Paul Levine, #NFDB
1179:men, walking almost always in paths beaten by others, and following by imitation their deeds, are yet unable to keep entirely to the ways of others or attain to the power of those they imitate. A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour of it. ~ Niccol Machiavelli, #NFDB
1180:Our problem is not that we desire happiness. No, our problem is that we continue to foolishly believe that we can attain it apart from him. We think that if we just try hard enough, the next time we'll get it right (whatever it is) and we'll be happy. Instead of pushing through to the true source of all joy and happiness, we sinfully believe the false promises of lesser gods. ~ Elyse M Fitzpatrick, #NFDB
1181:So pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
Th'eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:
But those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way;
Th'increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise! ~ Alexander Pope,#NFDB
1182:Brutes abstract not. -- If it may be doubted, whether beasts compound and enlarge their ideas, that way, to any degree; this, I think, I may be positive in, that the power of abstracting is not at all in them; and that the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to. ~ John Locke, #NFDB
1183:Let a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best use to put a fine person to is to drown him to save his board. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1184:The quality of any action of body, speech, and mind is primarily determined by the motivation. Thus any action done with positive motivation brings virtue and happiness and becomes a cause to attain Buddhahood in the long run. On the other hand, if a good or healthy motivation is missing, then even apparently spiritual practices could bring negative consequences in place of virtue. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
1185:To begin with clear and self-evident principles, to advance by timorous and sure steps, to review frequently our conclusions, and examine accurately all their consequences; though by these means we shall make both a slow and a short progress in our systems; are the only methods, by which we can ever hope to reach truth, and attain a proper stability and certainty in our determinations. ~ David Hume, #NFDB
1186:It is the desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us – but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multiform combinations among the things and thoughts of Time, to attain a portion of that Loveliness whose very elements, perhaps, appertain to eternity alone. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
1187:Look at me as an example. I don't have the best education or the best looks. Where I'm from in Nigeria is not entertainment driven, it's the northern part of Nigeria and over there they hardly pay attention to entertainment. I came out of that place to attain this level of success. I always say if I can get here with all of these imperfections then no one has the excuse to fail in life. ~ Ice Prince, #NFDB
1188:Only one person in many thousands seeks full God-knowledge. And of these, only one in many thousands truly gains it. Despite these odds, it is the intent of God that all beings are, in the fullness of time, destined to reach this degree of perfection. The rare ones who do attain this level of knowing become indistinguishable from Divinity (Me), and thus achieve liberation. ~ Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa, #NFDB
1189:The reason for which it is necessary for the soul, in order to attain to Divine union with God, to pass through this dark night of mortification of the desires and denial of pleasures in all things, is because all the affections which it has for creatures are pure darkness in the eyes of God, and, when the soul is clothed in these affections, it has no capacity for being enlightened ~ Juan de la Cruz, #NFDB
1190:The universe itself can never be the limit of our satisfaction. That is why the miser gathers more and more money, that is why the robber robs, the sinner sins, that is why you are learning philosophy. All have one purpose. There is no other purpose in life, save to reach this freedom. Consciously or unconsciously, we are all striving for perfection. Every being must attain to it. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1191:What more do we need to convince ourselves of the vital error hidden in the depths of any doctrine of isolation? The egocentric ideal of a future reserved for those who have managed to attain egoistically the extremity of ‘everyone for himself’ is false and against nature. No element could move and grow except with and by all the others with itself. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, #NFDB
1192:He who is anxious to attain a true understanding of holy Scripture, will discover the spiritual truths which are spoken by it to those who are called "spiritual," by comparing the meaning of what is addressed to those of weaker mind with what is announced to such as are of acuter understanding, both meanings being frequently found in the same passage by him who is capable of comprehending it. ~ Origen, #NFDB
1193:Men who suffer not, attain no perfection. The plant most pruned by the gardeners is that one which, when the summer comes, will have the most beautiful blossoms and the most abundant fruit. The laborer cuts up the earth with his plough, and from that earth comes the rich and plentiful harvest. The more a man is chastened, the greater is the harvest of spiritual virtues shown forth by him. ~ Abdu l Bah, #NFDB
1194:The dual substance of Christ - the yearning, so human, so superhuman, of man to attain God. [...] has always been a deep inscrutable mystery to me. [...] My principle anguish and source of all my joys and sorrows from my youth onward has been the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh. [...] And my soul is the arena where these two armies have clashed and met. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis, #NFDB
1195:The Future
'The worst is yet to come:'
So wail the doubters glum,
But here's the better view;
'My best I've yet to do.'
The worst some always fear;
To-morrow holds no cheer,
Yet farther on life's lane
Are joys you shall attain.
Go forward bravely, then,
And play your part as men,
For this is ever true:
'Our best we've yet to do.'
~ Edgar Albert Guest,#NFDB
1196:The saints have said, "Even suppose God, should forgive thee, after a wasted life, thou wilt not attain to the ranks of the righteous and must deplore thy loss; therefore keep a strict, watch over thy tongue, thine eye, and each of thy seven members, for each of these is, as it, were, a possible gate to hell. Say to thy flesh, 'If thou art rebellious, verily I will punish thee'; ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #NFDB
1197:I said I wasn’t sure: when people freed themselves they usually forced change on everyone else. But it didn’t necessarily follow that to stay free was to stay the same. In fact, the first thing people sometimes did with their freedom was to find another version of the thing that had imprisoned them. Not changing, in other words, deprived them of what they’d gone to such trouble to attain. ~ Rachel Cusk, #NFDB
1198:1You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. 2You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. 5You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. 6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1199:Consequently, the most perfect education, in my opinion, is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart; or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent. In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft, #NFDB
1200:Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times—although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1201:I realized that every moment in all our lives - past, present, future, known, unknown, and unknowable - exist simultaneously, as though outside of what we know as time. I became aware that I already was everything I was trying to attain, and I believe that's true for everyone. All things that we perceive as positive, negative, good, or bad are simply parts of the perfect, balanced Whole. ~ Anita Moorjani, #NFDB
1202:There is no secret to how to attain prosperity. The Universe supports and rewards us for taking risks on things that matter to the Universe. When we remember this, the mysteries about prosperity disappear, and prosperity stands explained. Prosperity will then manifest itself easily provided the Universe agrees that we are doing the right things in our lives to deserve this prosperity. ~ Ernie J Zelinski, #NFDB
1203:While drinking almost never interfered with his official duties, it haunted his career and trailed him everywhere, an infuriating, ever-present ghost he could not shake. It influenced how people perceived him and deserves close attention. As with so many problems in his life, Grant managed to attain mastery over alcohol in the long haul, a feat as impressive as any of his wartime victories. ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
1204:The soul of each man contains the potential divinity. Our aim must be to make apparent this divinity within us by subduing our inner and outer nature. Attain to him by works or by adoration, by physical mastery, by philosophy, by one, by several or by all of these methods and be free. That is the whole of religion. Doctrines, dogmas, rituals, books, temples, forms are only secondary details. ~ Vivekananda, #NFDB
1205:If you intend to study the mind, you must have systematic training; you must practice to bring the mind under your control, to attain to that consciousness from which you will be able to study the mind and remain unmoved by any of its wild gyrations. Otherwise the facts observed will not be reliable; they will not apply to all people and therefore will not be truly facts or data at all. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1206:In his laborious efforts to attain mountaintops, where the air is lighter and purer, the climber gains new strength of limb. In the endeavor to over come obstacles of the way, the soul trains itself to conquer difficulties; and the spectacle of the vast horizon, which from the highest crest offers itself on all sides to the eyes, raises his spirit to the Divine Author and Soverign of Nature. ~ Pope Pius XI, #NFDB
1207:But one thing this doctrine, so clean, so venerable, does not contain: it does nto contain the secret of what the Sublime One himself experienced, he alone among the hundreds of thousands. This is why I am continuing my wanderings not to seek another, better doctrine, because I know there is none, but to leave behind all the teachings and all teachers, and either attain my goal alone or die. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1208:God knows; I won't be an Oxford don anyhow. I'll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I'll be famous, and if not famous, I'll be notorious. Or perhaps I'll lead the life of pleasure for a time and then—who knows?—rest and do nothing. What does Plato say is the highest end that man can attain here below? To sit down and contemplate the good. Perhaps that will be the end of me too. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
1209:But if men will not forego all pre-imbibed opinions, prejudices, and conceptions of mind, however rivetted into them by traditions, custom, veneration of elders, and secular advantages, to hearken unto and receive whatever he shall speak unto them, and that with a humble, lowly frame of heart, they will never learn the truth, nor attain a “full assurance of understanding” in the mysteries of God. ~ John Owen, #NFDB
1210:The majority of people are ready to throw their aims and purposes overboard, and give up at the first sign of opposition or misfortune. A few carry on DESPITE all opposition, until they attain their goal. These few are the Fords, Carnegies, Rockefellers, and Edisons. There may be no heroic connotation to the word persistence, but the quality is to the character of man what carbon is to steel. ~ Napoleon Hill, #NFDB
1211:Then you will make a law that they shall have such an education as will enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking and answering questions? Yes, he said, you and I together will make it. Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the sciences, and is set over them; no other science can be placed higher—the nature of knowledge can no further go? I agree, he said. But to whom we ~ Plato, #NFDB
1212:In the West the whole Western tradition of religion and psychology propounds, preaches, persuades people to have strong egos - because unless you have a strong ego, how can you survive? Life is a struggle; if you are egoless you will be destroyed. Then who will resist? Who will fight? Who will compete? And life is a continuous competition. Western psychology says: Attain to the ego, be strong in it. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1213:I would like you to drop the ego, to dissolve, to disappear, because only then is there fulfillment. The ego knows only emptiness; it is always unfulfilled. By the very nature, by its very intrinsic nature, it cannot attain to fulfillment. When you are not, fulfillment is. Call it God, or give it a name Patanjali would like - samadhi - the attainment of the ultimate, but it comes when you disappear. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1214:The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, no one fails entirely, but everyone says something true about the nature of all things, and while individually they contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1215:The second type, the Dhamma-follower or Wisdom-follower, is a person whose primary vehicle on the path is a deep understanding of the Dhamma. He uses the intellect extensively. His reason leads him to the deep, wordless understanding that is true wisdom. He can attain the stream-entry path through penetrative insight alone, without attaining jhana. His insight allows him to destroy doubt. ~ Henepola Gunaratana, #NFDB
1216:As historian Richard Tarnas writes, “As the means by which human intelligence could attain universal understanding, the Logos was a divine revelatory principle, simultaneously operative within the human mind and the natural world.” And philosophers were tasked with uncovering this Logos; by doing so, they would be fulfilling both their own telos and discovering the telos of mankind more broadly.14 ~ Ben Shapiro, #NFDB
1217:In addition there is the fact that this girl's application in drawing seashells denotes in her a search for formal perfection which the world can and therefore must attain; I, on the contrary, have been convinced for some time that perfection is not produced except marginally and by chance; Therefore it deserves no interest at all, the true nature of things being revealed only in disintegration. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
1218:Autobiographical writings, essays, interviews, various other things... All the non-fiction prose I wanted to keep, that was the idea behind this collected volume, which came out about few years ago. I didn't think of Winter Journal, for example, as an autobiography, or a memoir. What it is is a literary work, composed of autobiographical fragments, but trying to attain, I hope, the effect of music. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
1219:Now God’s image is the perfect excellence of human nature which shone in Adam before his defection, but was subsequently so vitiated and almost blotted out that nothing remains after the ruin except what is confused, mutilated, and disease-ridden. Therefore in some part it now is manifest in the elect, in so far as they have been reborn in the spirit; but it will attain its full splendor in heaven. ~ John Calvin, #NFDB
1220:By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbour actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbour, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
1221:But here we may well ask what we are living for - if we are living to give up to the influence of environment, visible or invisible, or if we are living to attain such full control over the powers and talents that are within us, that we can not only control, modify and perfect environment, but also so perfectly control ourselves that we can become all that nature intends that we should become. ~ Christian D Larson, #NFDB
1222:By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbour actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbour, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1223:To attain peace among the nations in any dynamic or enduring form requires not simply political negotiation but a new mode of consciousness. The magnitude of this change is in the order of religious conversion or of spiritual rebirth rather than of treaty processes or even of inter-cultural understanding. Simply to recognize the basic nature and dimension of the issues we face is already an advance. ~ Thomas Berry, #NFDB
1224:Given its more substantial aim, a judgment is apt only if its constitutive alethic affirmation is not only apt but aptly apt. The subject must attain aptly not only the truth of his affirmation but also its aptness. And that in turn requires not only the proper operation of one's perception, memory, inference, etc., but also that one deploy such competences through competent epistemic risk assessment. ~ Ernest Sosa, #NFDB
1225:One's own free unfettered choice, one's own caprice-however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy-is that very "most advantageous advantage" which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms... [an]will attain his object-that is, convince himself he is a man and not a piano-key! ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
1226:Sorrow is so woven through us, so much a part of our souls, or at least any understanding of our souls that we are able to attain, that every experience is dyed with its color. This is why, even in moments of joy, part of that joy is the seams of ore that are our sorrow. They burn darkly and beautifully in the midst of joy, and they make joy the complete experience that it is. But they still burn. ~ Christian Wiman, #NFDB
1227:We often think that by removing all the difficulties of our life we shall more quickly reach our aim , but on the contrary, my dear sir , it is only in the midst of worldly cares that we can attain our three chief aims: (1) Self-knowledge— for man can only know himself by comparison, (2) Self-perfecting, which can only be attained by conflict, and (3) The attainment of the chief virtue— love of death. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1228:Sahasrara is not really a chakra; it’s a stage, a state, an outcome. It is your portal to infinite possibilities. You are no longer just one person struggling through life or trying to attain a goal. Instead, you become an embodiment of divinity, of the Goddess. The momentum, focus and power of your every thought grow in multiples of thousands. It’s like you have thousands of hands to assist you. Reaching ~ Om Swami, #NFDB
1229:You can solo-climb Everest without using oxygen or you can pay guides and Sherpas to carry your loads, put ladders across crevasses, lay in 6,000 feet of fixed ropes, and have one Sherpa pulling you and another pushing you. ... The goal of climbing big, dangerous mountains should be to attain some sort of spiritual and personal growth, but this won't happen if you compromise away the entire process. ~ Yvon Chouinard, #NFDB
1230:A young boy who has not fallen desperately in love has missed getting started in the world of feeling. At any age love is wrong only if it means nothing... You must be the criterion of any love...There's only one test... Does the love you feel make you a bigger and a stronger person?... (I)f any love makes you stronger and more determined to share, then it's much finer than most people ever attain. ~ James A Michener, #NFDB
1231:Do you know that the words meditation and medicine come from the same root? Meditation is a kind of medicine; its use is only for the time being. Once you have learned the quality, then you need not do any particular meditation, then the meditation has to spread all over your life. Only when you are meditative twenty-four hours a day then can you attain, then you have attained. Even sleeping is meditation. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1232:May obedience conquer disobedience within this house; may peace triumph here over discord; free-hearted giving over avarice, truthful speech over deceit, reverence over contempt. That our minds be delighted, and our souls uplifted, let our bodies be glorified as well; and 0 Light Divine, may we see Thee, and may we, approaching, come round about Thee, and attain unto Thine entire companionship! ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
1233:The intellectual understanding is only the lower buddhi; there is another and a higher buddhi which is not intelligence but vision, is not understanding but rather an over-standings in knowledge, and does not seek knowledge and attain it in subjection to the data it observes but possesses already the truth and brings it out in the terms of a revelatory and intuitional thought.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#NFDB
1234:The woman who fights against her father still has the possibility of leading an instinctive, feminine existence, because she rejects only what is alien to her. But when she fights against the mother she may, at the risk of injury to her instincts, attain to greater consciousness, because in repudiating the mother she repudiates all that is obscure, instinctive, ambiguous, and unconscious in her own nature. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1235:I believe that I possess this value: to serve Jesus. I am less at peace than if my goal would be to attain a professorship and a good life, but I live. And that gives me the tremendous feeling of happiness, as if one would hear music. One feels uprooted, because one asks, what lies ahead, what decisions should I make-but more alive, happier than those anchored in life. To drift with released anchor. ~ Albert Schweitzer, #NFDB
1236:The true liberation of eroticism lies in accepting the fact that there are a million facets to it, a million forms of eroticism, a million objects of it, situations, atmospheres, and variations. We have, first of all, to dispense with guilt concerning its expansion, then remain open to it's surprises, varied expressions, and mingle it with dreams, fantasies, and emotion for it to attain its highest potency. ~ Anais Nin, #NFDB
1237:When you’re bending reality, your vision is continuously pulling you forward—but it doesn’t feel like work. It feels like a game, a game you love to play. But at the same time, your happiness does not seem to be tied to that future vision. You’re feeling elated and happy right now, in this moment. You’re happy as you pursue your vision, not only when you attain it. You’re thus grounded in the present. ~ Vishen Lakhiani, #NFDB
1238:It goes without saying that I do not deny—unless I am a fool—that many actions called immoral ought to be avoided and resisted, or that many called moral ought to be done and encouraged—but I think the one should be encouraged and the other avoided for other reasons than hitherto. We have to learn to think differently—in order at last, perhaps very late on, to attain even more: to feel differently. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1239:We deem valuable whatever is likely to meet our needs or wishes (individual values) and whatever is likely to help protect or attain social goals (social values). However, this is not a dichotomy, for some individual values, such as truth, are needed to secure some social values, such as mutual trust, and some social values, such as peace, are required to pursue some individual values, such as good health. ~ Mario Bunge, #NFDB
1240:He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1241:When love is accompanied with deep intimacy, it raises us to the highest level of human experience. In this exalted space, we can surrender our egos, become vulnerable and know levels of joy and well-being unique among life experiences. We attain a glimpse of the rapture that can be ours. Boundaries are blurred, there are no limitations and we rejoice in union. We become one and, at the same time, both. ~ Leo F Buscaglia, #NFDB
1242:Keep ramping up your level of joy every day. There is no limit to the levels of joy you can reach. You will see change to the degree of joy that you can attain and maintain. The higher the joy you can create within you, the more spectacular the change, and the higher the joy, the faster the change. Your emanation of joy attracts more Joy. The law of attraction will continually send you more feelings of joy! ~ Rhonda Byrne, #NFDB
1243:Although some men who were easy with their words said that it was worth sacrificing one’s life for a night of love with such an arousing woman, the truth was that no one made any effort to do so. Perhaps, not only to attain her but also to conjure away her dangers, all that was needed was a feeling as primitive and as simple as that of love, but that was the only thing that did not occur to anyone. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
1244:Although some men who were easy with their words said that it was worth sacrificing one’s life for a night of love with such an arousing woman, the truth was that no one made any effort to do so. Perhaps, not only to attain her but also to conjure away her dangers, all that was needed was a feeling as primitive and as simple as that of love, but that was the only thing that did not occur to anyone. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez, #NFDB
1245:I do indeed disbelieve that we or any other mortal men can attain on a given day to absolutely incorrigible and unimprovable truth about such matters of fact as those with which religions deal. But I reject this dogmatic ideal not out of a perverse delight in intellectual instability. I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly. ~ William James, #NFDB
1246:He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1247:If the ego is to attain a condition of tranquillity in which to exercise discrimination, consciousness and the differentiated function must be as far removed as possible from the active field of emotional components. All differentiated functions are liable to be disturbed by them, but the disturbance is most evident in the case of thinking, which is by nature opposed to feeling and even more to emotionality. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
1248:Make no mistake about it,’ George W. Bush told the American people the day after the attacks. ‘We will win.’ We haven’t. The world is not less, but more, dangerous. It’s one thing to launch a war with certain goals and not to attain those goals. It’s another entirely to declare war and achieve the exact opposite of your stated intentions. If there is anything worse than losing a war, surely this is it? ~ Dominic Streatfeild, #NFDB
1249:...no one ever became excellent in any exercise whatsoever without beginning from his childhood to endure heat, cold, hunger, thirst, and other discomforts; wherefore those men are entirely deceived who think to be able, at their ease and with all the comforts of the world, to attain an honorable rank. It is not by sleeping but by waking and studying continually that progress is made. [on Luca Della Robbia] ~ Giorgio Vasari, #NFDB
1250:He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1251:In almost any subject, your passion for the subject will save you. If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it. If you wish to be good, you will be good. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich. If you wish to be learned, you will be learned. Only then you must really wish these things and wish them with exclusiveness and not wish one hundred other incompatible things just as strongly. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
1252:Objectivity is a false god, and the worship of this idol is particularly pernicious in disciplines like journalism and history. It is not possible to be objective----although of course it is possible to be honest. By pretending to attain to objectivity, a writer's fundamental faith commitments are not eliminated, but rather submerged----and they then come out in interesting and intellectually dishonest ways. ~ Douglas Wilson, #NFDB
1253:(On Ralph Waldo Emerson)I love all men who dive. Any fish can swim near the surface, but it takes a great whale to go down stairs five miles or more; and if he don't attain the bottom, why all the lead in Galena can't fashion the plummet that will. I'm not talking of Mr Emerson now -but of the whole corps of thought-divers, that have been diving and coming up again with bloodshot eyes since the world began. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1254:To-day we live so cowed under the bombardment of this intellectual artillery that hardly anyone can attain to the inward detachment that is required for a clear view of the monstrous drama. The will-to-power operating under a pure democratic disguise has finished off its masterpiece so well that the object's sense of freedom is actually flattered by the most thorough-going enslavement that has ever existed. ~ Oswald Spengler, #NFDB
1255:If it can't be decided in the affirmative, it will never be decided in the negative. You know that that is the peculiarity of your heart, and all its suffering is due to it. But thank the Creator who has given you a lofty heart capable of such suffering; of thinking and seeking higher things, for our dwelling is in the heavens. God grant that your heart will attain the answer on earth, and may God bless your path. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1256:There are some militarists who say: ‘We are not interested in politics but only in the profession of arms.’ It is vital that these simple-minded militarists be made to realize the relationship that exists between politics and military affairs. Military action is a method used to attain a political goal. While military affairs and political affairs are not identical, it is impossible to isolate one from the other. ~ Mao Zedong, #NFDB
1257:At the beginning these two things, the real and the imaginative life, are one and the same thing, because the infant at the beginning does not perceive objectively, but lives in a subjective state, being the creator of all. Gradually, in health the infant becomes able to perceive a world that is a not-me world, and to attain this state the infant must be cared for well enough at the time of absolute dependence. ~ D W Winnicott, #NFDB
1258:You think you betrayed me and one day I will kill you for it.
I’m not sure why I even bother talking. My eyes flashed with temper. I hated being transparent.
That you allied with Darroc to attain your goals did not betray me. I’d have done the same.
Then why are you so pissy?
That you fucked him will be forgiven once you fuck me. Another woman might run headlong toward absolution. ~ Karen Marie Moning,#NFDB
1259:Civilization does not engross all the virtues of humanity: she has not even her full share of them. They flourish in greater abundance and attain greater strength among many barbarous people. The hospitality of the wild Arab, the courage of the North American Indian, and the faithful friendships of some of the Polynesian nations, far surpass any thing of a similar kind among the polished communities of Europe. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1260:Almighty GOD, the giver of wisdom, without whose help resolutions are vain, without whose blessing study is ineffectual; enable me, if it be thy will, to attain such knowledge as may qualify me to direct the doubtful, and instruct the ignorant; to prevent wrongs and terminate contentions; and grant that I may use that knowledge which I shall attain, to thy glory and my own salvation, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen. ~ James Boswell, #NFDB
1261:It is impossible to lay down precise rules by which a man may attain to the knowledge and conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel; for that is the particular secret of each one of us; a secret not to be told or even divined by any other, whatever his grade. It is the Holy of Holies, whereof each man is his own High Priest, and none knoweth the Name of his brother's God, or the Rite that invokes Him. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, #NFDB
1262:The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage. ~ Rollo May, #NFDB
1263:For even if the end is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to preserve; though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states. These, then, are the ends at which our inquiry aims, since it is political science, in one sense of that term. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1264:In the assemblies of the enlightened ones there have been many cases of mastering the Way bringing forth the heart of plants and trees; this is what awakening the mind for enlightenment is like. The fifth patriarch of Zen was once a pine-planting wayfarer; Rinzai worked on planting cedars and pines on Mount Obaku. . . . Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment. ~ Dogen, #NFDB
1265:Science condemns itself to failure when, yielding to the infatuation of the serious, it aspires to attain being, to contain it, and to possess it; but it finds its truth if it considers itself as a free engagement of thought in the given, aiming, at each discovery, not at fusion with the thing, but at the possibility of new discoveries; what the mind then projects is the concrete accomplishment of its freedom. ~ Simone de Beauvoir, #NFDB
1266:The Noble Eight-Fold Path is the path of living in awareness. Mindfulness is the foundation. By practicing mindfulness, you can develop concentration, which enables you to attain understanding. Thanks to right concentration, you realize right awareness, thoughts, speech, action, livelihood and effort. The understanding which develops can liberate you from every shackle of suffering and give birth to true peace and joy. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
1267:The true bounds and limitations, whereby human knowledge is confined and circumscribed,... are three: the first, that we do not so place our felicity in knowledge, as we forget our mortality: the second, that we make application of our knowledge, to give ourselves repose and contentment, and not distates or repining: the third, that we do not presume by the contemplation of Nature to attain to the mysteries of God. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
1268:What is teaching but the art of planting and nurturing power?” Lea replied. “Mortals prattle on about lonely impulses of delight and the gift of knowledge, and think that teaching is a trade like metalsmithing or healing or telling lies on television. It is not. It is the dissemination of power unto a new generation and nothing less. For her, as for you, lessons demand real risk in order to attain their true rewards. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
1269:When we want a cup of tea our main wish is to drink tea, but to fulfill this wish we naturally develop the secondary wish to find a cup. In a similar way, the main wish of those who have great compassion is to protect all living beings from their suffering, but to fulfill this wish they know they must first attain Buddhahood themselves and so they naturally develop the secondary wish to attain enlightenment. ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, #NFDB
1270:We do not know whether it is good to live or to die. Therefore, we should not take delight in living, nor should we tremble at the thought of death. We should be equiminded towards death. This is the ideal. It may be long before we reach it, and only a few of us can attain it. Even then, we must keep it constantly in view, and the more difficult it seems of attainment, the greater should be the effort we put forth. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1271:Love to a woman is what the sun is to the world, it is her life, her animating principle, without which she must droop, and, if the plant be very tender, die. Except under its influence, a woman can never attain her full growth, never touch the height of her possibilities, or bloom into the plenitude of her moral beauty. A loveless marriage dwarfs our natures, a marriage where love is develops them to their utmost. ~ H Rider Haggard, #NFDB
1272:Whether or not enlightenment is a plausible goal for us is a vital question for our lives. If it is possible for us to attain such perfect enlightenment ourselves, our whole sense of meaning and our place in the universe immediately changes. To be open to the possibility is to be a spiritual seeker, no matter what our religion. Enlightenment is not meant to be an object of religious faith. It is an evolutionary goal. ~ Robert Thurman, #NFDB
1273:1. Mistargeting by setting objectives that are too low and don't allow for enough correct motivation. 2. Severely underestimating what it will take in terms of actions, resources, money, and energy to accomplish the target. 3. Spending too much time competing and not enough time dominating their sector. 4. Underestimating the amount of adversity they will need to overcome in order to actually attain their desired goal. ~ Grant Cardone, #NFDB
1274:If it can’t be decided in the affirmative, it will never be decided in the negative. You know that that is the peculiarity of your heart, and all its suffering is due to it. But thank the Creator who has given you a lofty heart capable of such suffering; of thinking and seeking higher things, for our dwelling is in the heavens. God grant that your heart will attain the answer on earth, and may God bless your path. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1275:Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
1276:To-day we live so cowed under the bombardment of this intellectual artillery(the media) that hardly anyone can attain to the inward detachment that is required for a clear view of the monstrous drama. The will-to-power operating under a pure democratic disguise has finished off its masterpiece so well that the object's sense of freedom is actually flattered by the most thorough-going enslavement that has ever existed ~ Oswald Spengler, #NFDB
1277:Others make a point of trying to attain the precision and poise they see in those who have the ability to choose from a great number of horses those with [...] qualities found in only a very small number of horses. This leads to a circumstance in which these imitators of such studied poise mortify the spirit of a noble horse, and remove from it all of the goodness of temperament Nature has given it. ~ Francois Robichon de La Gueriniere, #NFDB
1278:have faith in God, have faith in man, have faith in yourself, have faith in everything; and have faith in faith. When you have confidence in yourself you arouse everything that is stronger, greater and superior in yourself. In consequence, the more confidence you have in yourself, the more you will attain and accomplish. But the power of self-confidence is but an atom in comparison with the marvelous power of faith. ~ Christian D Larson, #NFDB
1279:Many psychologists ... thought by turning their attention to their own consciousness to be able to explain what happened when we were thnking. Or they sought to attain the same end by asking another person a question, by means of which certain processes of thought would be excited, and then by questioning the person about the introspection he had made. It is obvious ... that nothing can be discovered in such experiments. ~ Wilhelm Wundt, #NFDB
1280:We should be telling girls what they already know but rarely see affirmed: that the lives they lead inside their own self-contained bodies; the skills they attain through their own concentration and rigor, and the unique phase in their lives during which they may explore boys and eroticism at their own pace - these are magical. And they constitute the entrance point to a life cycle of a sexuality that should be held sacred. ~ Naomi Wolf, #NFDB
1281:Whereas happiness is the highest good, being a realization and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have little or none of it, the various qualities of men are clearly the reason why there are various kinds of states and many forms of government; for different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1282:And thus when by Poetry, or when by Music, the most entrancing of the poetic moods, we find ourselves melted into tears, we weep then, not... through excess of pleasure, but through a certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and forever, those divine and raptorous joys of which through the poem, or through the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, #NFDB
1283:While man exists in this mortal state he needs some of the things of the world; he must have food and clothing and provision for shelter; and beside these bare necessities he may righteously desire the facilities of education, the incidentals of advancing civilization, and the things that are conducive to refinement and culture; yet all of these are but aids to achievement, not the end to attain which man was made mortal. ~ James E Talmage, #NFDB
1284:I studiously avoided all so-called "holy men." I did so because I had to make do with my own truth, not accept from others what I could not attain on my own. I would have felt it as a theft had I attempted to learn from the holy men and to accept their truth for myself. Neither in Europe can I make any borrowings from the East, but must shape my life out of myself-out of what my inner being tells me, or what nature brings to me. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
1285:Lay down the thorn, boy king. Haven’t you earned a bit of rest? Aren’t you tired?'
He was. Saints, he was. He thought he had grown used to his scars, but he had never grasped how much of his will it would take to hide them. He had fought and sacrificed and bled. He had gone long days without rest and long nights without comfort. All for Ravka, all for an ideal he would never attain and a country that would never care. ~ Leigh Bardugo,#NFDB
1286:Life teaches you that you cannot attain real maturity until you are ready to accept this harsh knowledge, this limitation in yourself, and make the difficult adjustment. Either you must learn to allow someone else to meet the need, without bitterness or envy, and accept it; or somehow you must make yourself learn to meet it. If you refuse to accept the limitation in yourself, you will be unable to grow beyond this point. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt, #NFDB
1287:Premature Precision Both business and programmers are tempted to fall into the trap of premature precision. Business people want to know exactly what they are going to get before they authorize a project. Developers want to know exactly what they are supposed to deliver before they estimate the project. Both sides want a precision that simply cannot be achieved, and are often willing to waste a fortune trying to attain it. ~ Robert C Martin, #NFDB
1288:In 2015, 92 percent of all corn, 94 percent of all cotton, and 94 percent of all soybeans grown in the United States were genetically engineered in this way. The altered crops offer considerable environmental and economic advantages. By planting crops that have enhanced abilities to protect themselves against pests, farmers can attain higher yields while reducing their reliance on harsh chemical pesticides and herbicides. ~ Jennifer A Doudna, #NFDB
1289:Results and Roses
The man who wants a garden fair,
or small or very big,
With flowers growing here and there,
Must bend his back and dig.
The things are mighty few on earth
That wishes can attain.
Whate'er we want of any worth
We've got to work to gain.
It matters not what goal you seek,
It's secret here reposes:
You've got to dig from week to week
To get Results or Roses. ~ Edgar A Guest,#NFDB
1290:For the same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. The early difficulties in the way of spontaneous progress are so great, that there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler full of the spirit of improvement is warranted in the use of any expedients that will attain an end, perhaps otherwise unattainable. ~ John Stuart Mill, #NFDB
1291:She lives, Lord Buzzard—”
“Hawk.”
“Both birds of prey. What difference?”
“A buzzard is a scavenger. A hawk selects his kill as carefully as a falcon. Stalks it with the same unerring conviction. And fails as frequently—which is never.”
“Never,” Adam mused. “There are no absolutes, Lord Hawk.”
“In that you’re wrong. I choose, I adhere, I pursue, I commit, I attain. That—that, my errant friend—is an absolute. ~ Karen Marie Moning,#NFDB
1292:Your life will not be flat and dull even
though you know that your war will never be victorious. It is far flatter, Harry, to fight for something good
and ideal and to know all the time that you are bound to attain it. Are ideals attainable? Do we live to
abolish death? No--we live to fear it and then again to love it, and just for death's sake it is that our spark
of life glows for an hour now and then so brightly. ~ Hermann Hesse,#NFDB
1293:If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here-and by 'we' I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
1294:The anchor of meaning resides in an abyss, deeper than the reach of despair. Yet the abyss is not not infinite; its bottom may suddenly be discovered within the confines of a human heart or under the debris of might doubts. This may be the vocation of man: to say "Amen" to being and to the Author of being; to live in defiance of absurdity, notwithstanding futility and defeat; to attain faith in God even in spite of God. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
1295:Good is the enemy of great...
We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools.
We don't have great government, principally because we have good government.
Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so
easy to settle for a good life. The vast majority of companies never become
great, precisely because the vast majority become quite good-and that is
their main problem. ~ James C Collins,#NFDB
1296:We are often struck by the force and precision of style to which hard-working men, unpracticed in writing, easily attain when required to make the effort. As if plainness and vigor and sincerity, the ornaments of style, were better learned on the farm and in the workshop than in the schools. The sentences written by such rude hands are nervous and tough, like hardened thongs, the sinews of the deer, or the roots of the pine. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
1297:You're in the midst of a war: a battle between the limits of a crowd seeking the surrender of your dreams, and the power of your true vision to create and contribute. It is a fight between those who will tell you what you cannot do, and that part of you that knows...and has always known...that we are more than our environment; and that a dream, backed by an unrelenting will to attain it, is truly a reality with an imminent arrival. ~ Tony Robbins, #NFDB
1298:14. I say this in order to make it clear that the one who would go to God relying on natural ability and reasoning will not be very spiritual. There are some who think that by pure force and the activity of the senses, which of itself is lowly and no more than natural, they can reach the strength and height of the supernatural spirit. One does not attain to this peak without surpassing and leaving aside the activity of the senses. ~ Juan de la Cruz, #NFDB
1299:Every child has to disobey the father. Unless a child disobeys the father he never becomes mature. It is nothing, original, it is very simple and natural. It is very psychological. There comes an age when every child has to say NO to the parents. If he does not say no to the parents he will not have a spine; he will be spineless. If he cannot say no to the parents, he will be a slave his whole life. He will never attain to individuality. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1300:May all beings everywhere plagued with sufferings of body and mind quickly be freed from their illnesses. May those frightened cease to be afraid, and may those bound be free. May the powerless find power, and may people think of befriending each other. May those who find themselves in trackless, fearful wilderness- the children, the aged, the unprotected- be guarded by beneficent celestials, and may they swiftly attain Buddhahood. ~ Gautama Buddha, #NFDB
1301:You're in the midst of a war: a battle between the limits of a crowd seeking the surrender of your dreams, and the power of your true vision to create and contribute. It is a fight between those who will tell you what you cannot do, and that part of you that knows / and has always known / that we are more than our environment; and that a dream, backed by an unrelenting will to attain it, is truly a reality with an imminent arrival ~ Anthony Robbins, #NFDB
1302:Man doth seek a triple perfection: first a sensual, consisting in those things which very life itself requireth either as necessary supplements, or as beauties and ornaments thereof; then an intellectual, consisting in those things which none underneath man is either capable of or acquainted with; lastly a spiritual and divine, consisting in those things whereunto we tend by supernatural means here, but cannot here attain unto them. ~ Richard Hooker, #NFDB
1303:What I am talking about is more a sense of relaxing, opening, receiving, than trying to attain. Pure consciousness is not an attainment; you can’t get it; you can only be it. Recognize ‘it is like this’. It is natural and being at ease. You feel relaxed and at home here. All the problems of being a separate person, a personality, drop away here. So, as you begin to explore and investigate this, you will find the way out of suffering. ~ Ajahn Sumedho, #NFDB
1304:It is important to preserve the body’s strength and health, for it is our best instrument. Take care that it is strong and healthy, you possess no better instrument. Imagine that it is as strong as steel and that thanks to it you travel over this ocean of life. The weak will never attain to liberation, put off all weakness, tell your body that it is robust, your intelligence that it is strong, have in yourself a boundless faith and hope ~ Vivekananda, #NFDB
1305:It is one of the greatest problems. It will appear very paradoxical, but this is true - before you can lose your ego, you must attain it. Only a ripe fruit falls to the ground. Ripeness is all. An unripe ego cannot be thrown, cannot be destroyed. And if you struggle with an unripe ego to destroy and dissolve it, the whole effort is going to be a failure. Rather than destroying it, you will find it more strengthened, in new and subtle ways. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1306:It would be nice if everybody were a little bit more mindful of what kind of product you're putting out there. Nothing's for everybody. People are liked and disliked, but at least be mindful of what you're doing and what your message is, and trying to stay true to your authenticity and what you're trying to attain or what your goals are, and don't let anybody get in the way of that. At the same time, have a goal, and have a message. ~ Chelsea Handler, #NFDB
1307:Meditation is to attain to a no-mindness, to a state of no-thought. In that opening of no-thought, in that kind of space, suddenly you become pure, innocent, uncorrupted. You have never been like that before nobody has ever been like that before nobody is going to be like that again. Unique. And to know that is to realize one's self. To know that is to know all. If you have not known that, whatsoever else you know is just rubbish, garbage. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1308:If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here – and by ‘we’ I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life at all in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course. We enjoy not only the privilege of existence, but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a trick we have only just begun to grasp. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
1309:We hold these truths self-evident: That all men and women are created equal, though we do not live equal lives due to differences in will, motivation, effort, and habit. That we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, but that it is incumbent upon each of us to be vigilant and disciplined should we wish to attain such a vital, free, and happy life. ~ Brendon Burchard, #NFDB
1310:There are some militarists who say: ‘We are not interested in politics but only in the profession of arms.’ It is vital that these simple-minded militarists be made to realize the relationship that exists between politics and military affairs. Military action is a method used to attain a political goal. While military affairs and political affairs are not identical, it is impossible to isolate one from the other.” - Mao Zedong, Yu Chi Chan ~ Mao Zedong, #NFDB
1311:The East is the hearthside of America. Like any home, therefore, it has the defects of its virtues. Because it is a long-lived-inhouse, it bursts its seams, is inconvenient, needs constant refurbishing. And some of the family resources have been spent. To attain the privacy that grown-up people find so desirable, Easterners live a harder life than people elsewhere. Today it is we and not the frontiersman who must be rugged to survive. ~ Phyllis McGinley, #NFDB
1312:If, therefore, man has come into the world to search for God and, if he has found Him, to adhere to Him and to find repose in adhering to Him-man cannot search for Him and attain Him in this sensible and corporeal world, since God is spirit rather than body, and cannot be attained in intellectual abstraction, since one is able to conceive nothing similar to God, as he asserts-how can one, therefore, search for Him in order to find Him? ~ Nicholas of Cusa, #NFDB
1313:How, then,' I hear you ask, 'shall I attain my end, whether it be Christian love, socialism, or American democracy?' Your Christian love and your socialism and your American democracy are what you do each day, your manner of thinking each hour, of embracing your life companion and loving your child; they are your attitude of social responsibility towards your work, and your determination not to become like the crushers of life you so hate. ~ Wilhelm Reich, #NFDB
1314:I perfectly understand the particular attention which you pay to the question of nuclear energy, and fully realize the possible dangers and catastrophes which might result for mankind from an irresponsible attitude. In this field my wish is for Iran to put all her efforts towards the peaceful use of atomic energy. We shall continue to co-operate with all the nations of the world to attain this end in the interests of human society. ~ Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, #NFDB
1315:People give me looks of pity and ask me why I want to wallow in my disconnection from a very connected world. It is simple. The world seems way too connected to me now. It seems to be ruining the lives of teenagers and bringing out the bestial cruelty in those who can hide their vileness under the mask of some idiotic pseudonym. I like to sit alone and think about things. Solitude is as precious as coin silver and it takes labor to attain it. ~ Pat Conroy, #NFDB
1316:Further, if Spirit has any meaning at all, then it must be eternal, or without beginning or end. If Spirit had a beginning in time, then it would be strictly temporal, it would not be timeless and eternal. And this means, as regards your own awareness, that you cannot become enlightened. You cannot attain enlightenment. If you could attain enlightenment, then that state would have a beginning in time, and so it would not be true enlightenment. ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
1317:Not so Mrs. Proudie. This lady is habitually authoritative to all, but to her poor husband she is despotic. Successful as has been his career in the eyes of the world, it would seem that in the eyes of his wife he is never right. All hope of defending himself has long passed from him; indeed he rarely even attempts self-justification, and is aware that submission produces the nearest approach to peace which his own house can ever attain. ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB
1318:By itself the affirmation of life can only produce a partial and imperfect civilization. Only if it turns inward and becomes ethical can the will to progress attain the ability to distinguish the valuable from the worthless. We must therefore strive for a civilization that is not based on the accretion of science and power alone, but which cares most of all for the spiritual and ethical development of the individual and of humankind. How ~ Albert Schweitzer, #NFDB
1319:The purest evil that human efforts could attain, in other words, was probably achieved by those men who made their wills the same and who made their eyes see the world in the same way, men who went against the pattern of life's diversity, men whose spirits shattered the natural wall of the individual body, making nothing of this barrier, set up to guard against mutual corrosion, men whose spirit accomplished what flesh could never accomplish. ~ Yukio Mishima, #NFDB
1320:Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
1321:I am persuaded that I shall obtain the highest amount of present happiness, I shall do most for God’s glory and the good of man, and I shall have the fullest reward in eternity, but maintaining a conscience always washed in Christ’s blood, by being filled with the Holy Spirit at all times, and by attaining the most entire likeness to Christ in mind, will, and heart, that it is possible for a redeemed sinner to attain to in this world. ~ Robert Murray M Cheyne, #NFDB
1322:If we dedicate a certain amount of time each day to cultivating compassion or any other positive quality, we are likely to attain results, just like when we train the body... Meditation consists of familiarizing ourselves with a new way of being, of managing our thoughts and the way we perceive the world. Through the recent advances in neuroscience it is now possible to evaluate these methods and to verify their impact on the brain and body. ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
1323:You have the habit of walking slowly holding grudges and resentments. Ill-tempered and greedy, small-minded, and with so many attachments how do you expect to attain union? Leave this muddy water and seek clarity. Being so weak, you need all the help and the grace of God to overcome the waves and reach the shore to safety. Take shelter with those who need no shelter. Only on the horse of love can you go beyond the sun and moon to behold the Perfect One. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
1324:Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times—although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1325:that we cannot even realise the idea of equality, and here in England we have been taught to hate the word by the evil effects of those absurd attempts which have been made elsewhere to proclaim it as a fact accomplished by the scratch of a pen or by a chisel on a stone. We have been injured in that, because a good word signifying a grand idea has been driven out of the vocabulary of good men. Equality would be a heaven, if we could attain it. ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB
1326:If you persist in trying to attain what is never attained (It is Taos gift),
If you persist in making effort to obtain what effort cannot get,
If you persist in reasoning about what cannot be understood,
You will be destroyed by the very thing you seek.
To know when to stop,
To know when you can get no further by your own action,
This is the right beginning!
Chuang Tzu, Trans. T.Merton
~ Chuang Tzu, Surrendering
,#NFDB
1327:Once they knew that some changes were for the better, and others for the worse, and others again indifferent. We have largely removed this knowledge. For the descriptive adjective ‘unchanged’ we have substituted the emotional adjective ‘stagnant’. We have trained them to think of the Future as a promised land which favoured heroes attain—not as something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is, Your ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1328:We can so easily slip back from what we have struggled to attain, abruptly, into a life we never wanted; can find that we are trapped, as in a dream, and die there, without ever waking up. This can occur. Anyone who has lifted his blood into a years-long work may find that he can't sustain it, the force of gravity is irresistible, and it falls back, worthless. For somewhere there is an ancient enmity between our daily life and the great work. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
1329:We have traditionally thought of knowing in terms of subject and object and have struggled to attain objectivity by detaching our subjectivity. It can't be done, and one of the achievements of postmodernity is to demonstrate that. What we are called to, and what in the resurrection we are equipped for, is a knowing in which we are involved as subjects but as self-giving, not as self-seeking, subjects: in other words, a knowing that is a form of love. ~ N T Wright, #NFDB
1330:Protector, by your blessing and the mighty truth of the Rare and Supreme Three Roots, may all beings awaken from ignorance! While in the Bardo of Birth and Living, may beings first listen impartially to teachings, then cut through doubts about the meaning, and finally, take up the meaning that was understood. May they follow after the sacred ones who have come before, attain a fearless and confident death, and attain liberation free of the bardos! ~ Anyen Rinpoche, #NFDB
1331:Technical civilization is man’s conquest of space. It is a triumph frequently achieved by sacrificing an essential ingredient of existence, namely, time. In technical civilization, we expend time to gain space. To enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective. Yet to have more does not mean to be more. The power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the borderline of time. But time is the heart of existence. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
1332:The story of Hayy Ibn Yaqzān is a history of the progressive development, alone,
on an equatorial island of an individual human soul. What is the purpose of telling
such a story? Close to the surface as subject-problems posed by the premiss of Ibn
Tufayl’s book are the problems of educational philosophy: ‘What is education?’
‘What is personal development?’ ‘How does human growth take place?’ ‘How can
a man attain fulfillment? ~ Lenn Evan Goodman,#NFDB
1333:Whatever thought grips the mind at the time of death is the one which will propel it and decide for it the nature of its future birth. Thus if one wants to attain god after death, one has to think of him steadfastly... This is not as simple as it sounds, for at the time of death the mind automatically flies to the thought of an object (i.e. money, love) which has possessed it during its sojourn in the world. Thus one must think of god constantly. ~ Stephen Mitchell, #NFDB
1334:...he said:"To love, we need passion, but also respect. Once, someone told me that all you needed to build lasting happiness was a woman who admired and respected her man. But now, I know that's wrong. Happiness is much more difficult to attain. It's like crossing a suspension bridge; it's fragile, shaky, and there's no guardrail. You have to find your own equilibrium. And for that to happen, it has to rest on two centers of gravity, on both partners. ~ D ng Thu H ng, #NFDB
1335:He who is ever brooding over result often loses nerve in the performance of his duty. He becomes impatient and then gives vent to anger and begins to do unworthy things; he jumps from action to action never remaining faithful to any. He who broods over results is like a man given to objects of senses; he is ever distracted, he says goodbye to all scruples, everything is right in his estimation and he therefore resorts to means fair and foul to attain ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1336:In a world without fear of death... people will never attain the hope that is to be found from casting their fears aside and persevering through them. While it is true that people can continue to press forward through the simple act of living... That is in no way comparable to marching forward in the face of death while doing their damnedest to keep it at bay. That is why... that is why people have given that very march a unique and special name. Courage. ~ Tite Kubo, #NFDB
1337:Someone with a coherent philosophy of life will know what in life is worth attaining, and because this person has spent time trying to attain the thing in life he believed to be worth attaining, he has probably attained it, to the extent that it was possible for him to do so. Consequently, when it comes time for him to die, he will not feel cheated. To the contrary, he will, in the words of Musonius, “be set free from the fear of death.”2 Consider, ~ William B Irvine, #NFDB
1338:Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present. The acknowledgment of those virtues on which conscience congratulates us is a tribute that we can at any tine exact with confidence; but the celebration of those which we only feign, or desire without any vigorous endeavours to attain them, is received as a confession of sovereignty over regions never conquered, as a favourable decision of disputable claims, and is more welcome as more gratuitous. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
1339:To dwell in the here and now does not mean you never think about the past or responsibly plan for the future. The idea is simply not to allow yourself to get lost in regrets about the past or worries about the future. If you are firmly grounded in the present moment, the past can be an object of inquiry, the object of your mindfulness and concentration. You can attain many insights by looking into the past. But you are still grounded in the present moment. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
1340:Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws, moreover the former is never made a condition for the knowledge they teach, but there are always scrupulously careful to take into consideration the possibility that by reason both the agnostic and atheist may attain truth in their own way. Such tolerance may be surprising to religious believers in the West, but it is an integral part of Vedantic belief. ~ Romain Rolland, #NFDB
1341:In this valley, Love is represented by fire, Reason by smoke. When Love bursts into flame, Reason is forthwith dissipated like smoke. Reason cannot coexist with Love’s mania, for Love has nothing whatever to do with human Reason. If ever you attain a clear vision of the unseen world, then only will you be able to realize the source of Love. By the odour of Love every atom in the world is intoxicated. It owes its existence to the existence of Love. If ~ Attar of Nishapur, #NFDB
1342:A self that is only differentiated—not integrated—may attain great individual accomplishments, but risks being mired in self-centered egotism. By the same token, a person whose self is based exclusively on integration will be connected and secure, but lack autonomous individuality. Only when a person invests equal amounts of psychic energy in these two processes and avoids both selfishness and conformity is the self likely to reflect complexity. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1343:'Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord' (Heb. 12:14), Why did he say 'strive'? Because it is not possible for us to become holy and to be saints in an hour! We must therefore progress from modest beginnings toward holiness and purity. Even were we to spend a thousand years in this life we should never perfectly attain it. Rather we must always struggle for it every day, as if mere beginners. ~ Symeon the New Theologian, #NFDB
1344:this is not the right exchange to attain virtue, to exchange pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains and fears for fears, b the greater for the less like coins, but that the only valid currency for which all these things should be exchanged is wisdom. With this we have real courage and moderation and justice and, in a word, true virtue, with wisdom, whether pleasures and fears and all such things be present or absent. When these are exchanged for one another ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1345:This was Paul’s joy in suffering and shame: “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10–11). Notice how this affects your shameful past. It will still hurt at times, but shame will lose its power. The very event that made you an outcast is the one that gives you insight into the mind of Christ. ~ Edward T Welch, #NFDB
1346:What need is there to say more?
The childish work for their own benefit,
The Buddhas work for the benefit of others.
Just look at the difference between them.
If I do not exchange my happiness, for the suffering of others, I shall not attain the state of Buddhahood.
And even in Samsara I shall have no real joy.
The source of all misery in the world lies in thinking of oneself;
The source of all happiness lies in thinking of others. ~ ntideva,#NFDB
1347:Absolute equality, that which means a perfect balance of all the struggling forces in all the planes, can never be in this world. Before you attain that state, the world will have become quite unfit for any kind of life, and no one will be there. We find, therefore, that all these ideas of the millennium and of absolute equality are not only impossible but also that, if we try to carry them out, they will lead us surely enough to the day of destruction. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1348:Use the imagination to picture only what is good, what is beautiful, what is beneficial, what is ideal, and what you wish to realize. Mentally see yourself receiving what you deeply desire to receive. What you imagine, you will think, and what you think, you will become. Therefore, if you imagine only those things that are in harmony with what you wish to obtain or achieve, all your thinking will soon tend to produce what you want to attain or achieve. ~ Christian D Larson, #NFDB
1349:Because human beings do not have the capacity to attain knowledge of God on their own, the Imam becomes a continuous necessity for all societies and in every era. So in addition to the “fixed” number of Imams who succeeded Muhammad’s earthly authority, there must also exist an “ever-present” or “pre-existent” Imam who, as the eternal guardian of the Revelation, functions as “the Proof of God on Earth.” Thus, the first Imam was neither Muhammad nor Ali but Adam. ~ Reza Aslan, #NFDB
1350:To dwell in the here and now does not mean you never think about the past or responsibly plan for the future. The idea is simply not to allow yourself to get lost in regrets about the past or worries about the future. If you are firmly grounded in the present moment, the past can be an object of inquiry, the object of your mindfulness and concentration. You can attain many insights by looking into the past. But you are still grounded in the present moment. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
1351:You know that my refrigerator is never full, and it never will be because I live a mission-driven life, always on the hunt for the next challenge. That mindset is the reason I broke that record, finished Badwater, became a SEAL, rocked Ranger School, and on down the list. In my mind I’m that racehorse always chasing a carrot I’ll never catch, forever trying to prove myself to myself. And when you live that way and attain a goal, success feels anti-climactic. ~ David Goggins, #NFDB
1352:Let us admit that we have attended parties where for one brief night a republic of gratified desires was attained. Shall we not confess that the politics of that night have more reality and force for us than those of, say, the entire U.S. Government? Some of the "parties" we've mentioned lasted for two or three years. Is this something worth imagining, worth fighting for? Let us study invisibility, webworking, psychic nomadism--and who knows what we might attain? ~ Hakim Bey, #NFDB
1353:There is (gentle reader) nothing (the works of God only set apart) which so much beautifies and adorns the soul and mind of man as does knowledge of the good arts and sciences . Many arts there are which beautify the mind of man; but of all none do more garnish and beautify it than those arts which are called mathematical , unto the knowledge of which no man can attain, without perfect knowledge and instruction of the principles, grounds, and Elements of Geometry. ~ John Dee, #NFDB
1354:He who is ever brooding over result often loses nerve in the performance of his duty. He becomes impatient and then gives vent to anger and begins to do unworthy things; he jumps from action to action never remaining faithful to any. He who broods over results is like a man given to objects of senses; he is ever distracted, he says goodbye to all scruples, everything is right in his estimation and he therefore resorts to means fair and foul to attain his end. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1355:Man is not a machine, ... although man most certainly processes information, he does not necessarily process it in the way computers do. Computers and men are not species of the same genus. .... No other organism, and certainly no computer, can be made to confront genuine human problems in human terms. ... However much intelligence computers may attain, now or in the future, theirs must always be an intelligence alien to genuine human problems and concerns. ~ Joseph Weizenbaum, #NFDB
1356:Men who, in their hearts, really care no more for mankind than See-wise cared for the fish, lift their voices in shouts of a spurious humanity, in order to raise themselves to power, on the shoulders of an excited populace. Bloodshed, domestic violence, impracticable efforts to attain an impossible perfection, and all the evils of a civil conflict are forgotten or blindly attempted, in order to raise themselves in the arms of those they call the people. ~ James Fenimore Cooper, #NFDB
1357:Testosterone makes us more willing to do what it takes to attain and maintain status. And the key point is what it takes. Engineer social circumstances right, and boosting testosterone levels during a challenge would make people compete like crazy to do the most acts of random kindness. In our world riddled with male violence, the problem isn’t that testosterone can increase levels of aggression. The problem is the frequency with which we reward aggression. ~ Robert M Sapolsky, #NFDB
1358:A self that is only differentiated - not integrated - may attain great individual accomplishments, but risks being mired in self-centered egotism. By the same token, a person who self is based exclusively on integration will be well connected and secure, but lack autonomous individuality. Only when a person invests equal amounts of psychic energy in these two processes and avoids both selfishness and conformity is the self likely to reflect complexity. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1359:I say then, that belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain. This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is taken for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination. ~ David Hume, #NFDB
1360:Man is the namer; by this we recognize that through him pure language speaks. All nature, insofar as it communicates itself, communicates itself in language, and so finally in man. Hence, he is the lord of nature and can give names to things. Only through the linguistic being of things can he get beyond himself and attain knowledge of them-in the name. God's creation is completed when things receive their names from man, from whom in name language alone speaks. ~ Walter Benjamin, #NFDB
1361:You wouldn’t have to be insane to do these things. You’d just have to have a goal and be determined to attain it. Let’s get this straight, early on. What we’ve seen aboard Horkan’s Pride are not the symptoms of insanity; they are only evidence of great force of will. Evidence of planning and execution shorn of any socially imposed limitation. Any mental problems this person was suffering by journey’s end are going to be a result of that execution, not a cause. ~ Richard K Morgan, #NFDB
1362:The highest that man can attain in these matters,” said Goethe, “is wonder; if the primary phenomenon causes this, let him be satisfied; more it cannot bring; and he should forbear to seek for anything further behind it: here is the limit. But the sight of a prime phenomenon is generally not enough for people. They think they must go still further; and are thus like children, who, after peeping into a mirror, turn it round directly to see what is on the other side. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1363:It is a dreadful thing when you see religious people blundering out of one dishonor into another; they have not believed in the power of our Lord to make them blameless. The lives of some professing Christians are a series of stumbles; they are never quite down, and yet they are seldom on their feet. This is not a fit thing for a believer; he is invited to walk with God, and by faith he can attain to steady perseverance in holiness; and he ought to do so. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
1364:It is very difficult to attain Self abidance, but once it is attained it is retained effortlessly and never lost. It is a little like putting a rocket into space. A great effort and a great energy are necessary to escape the earth's gravitational field. If the rocket is not going fast enough, gravity will pull it back to earth. But once it has escaped the pull of gravity it can stay out in space quite effortlessly without falling back to earth. (From Annamalai Swami) ~ David Godman, #NFDB
1365:Suddenly, literature, politics, and analysis came together, and I began to think more inclusively about the emotional imprisonment of mind and spirit to which all human beings are heir. In the course of analytic time, it became apparent that -- with or without the burden of social justice -- the effort required to attain any semblance of inner freedom was extraordinary.
Great literature, I then realized, is a record not of the achievement, but of the effort. ~ Vivian Gornick,#NFDB
1366:Whosoever assumes a religious garb pleases not God even a bit. O ye men, understand this clearly in your minds, that God is attained not through showmanship. They who practice deceit, attain not Deliverance in the Hereafter. They do so only to accomplish the affairs of the world and even the kings worship them for their appearance! But through showmanship, God is attained not, howsoever one searches. He who subdues his mind alone recognizes the Transcendent God. ~ Guru Gobind Singh, #NFDB
1367:If the structure of the world with all its order and beauty is only an effect of matter left to its own universal laws of motion, and if the blind mechanics of the natural forces can evolve so glorious a product out of chaos, and can attain to such perfection of themselves, then the proof of the Divine Author which is drawn from the spectacle of the beauty of the universe wholly loses its force. Nature is thus sufficient for itself; the Divine government is unnecessary.… ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
1368:If you want to attain salvation, learn and keep in your heart all that the holy Church teaches and, receiving heavenly power from the mysteries of the Church, walk the path of Christ's commandments, under the direction of lawful pastors, and you will undoubtedly attain the Heavenly Kingdom and be saved. All of this is naturally necessary in the matter of salvation, necessary in it entirety and for all. Whoever rejects or neglects any part of it has no salvation. ~ Theophan the Recluse, #NFDB
1369:Tell me, I don't know much about martial arts... But what does it mean to be strong? Is it something you can attain only by lying to yourself? I'm sorry, but I think hiding your true self-- pretending to be different from what you are-- is a form of cowardice. Don't you think it's important to acknowledge who you are? Having the courage to be able to admit what you love... enjoying what you love... and being true to yourself-- isn't that also what it means to be strong? ~ Bisco Hatori, #NFDB
1370:When you are frightened by something, you have to relate with fear, explore why you are frightened, and develop some sense of conviction. You can actually look at fear. Then fear ceases to be the dominant situation that is going to defeat you. Fear can be conquered. You can be free from fear if you realize that fear is not the ogre. You can step on fear, and therefore, you can attain what is known as fearlessness. But that requires that, when you see fear, you smile. ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
1371:The tongue is a small member, but it does big things. A religious who does not keep silence will never attain holiness; that is, she will never become a saint. Let her not delude herself - unless it is the Spirit of God who is speaking through her, for then she must not keep silent. But, in order to hear the voice of God, one has to have silence in one's soul and to keep silence; not a gloomy silence but an interior silence; that is to say, recollection in God. ~ Mary Faustina Kowalska, #NFDB
1372:What do intellectuals and opinion makers get from big government? An increasing number of cushy jobs in the bureaucracy, or in the government-subsidized sector, staffing the welfare regulatory state, and apologizing for its policies, as well as propagandizing for them among the public. To put it bluntly, intellectuals, theorists, pundits, media elites, etc. get to live a life which they could not attain on the free market, but which they can gain at taxpayer expense. ~ Murray Rothbard, #NFDB
1373:Hamilton lent his opinion the erudition of a treatise and the warmth of a manifesto. The essence of it was that government must possess the means to attain ends for which it was established or the bonds of society would dissolve. To liberate the government from a restrictive reading of the Constitution, Hamilton refined the doctrine of “implied powers”—that is, that the government had the right to employ all means necessary to carry out powers mentioned in the Constitution. ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
1374:Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1375:Amongst democratic nations men easily attain a certain equality of conditions: they can never attain the equality they desire. It perpetually retires from before them, yet without hiding itself from their sight, and in retiring draws them on. At every moment they think they are about to grasp it; it escapes at every moment from their hold. They are near enough to see its charms, but too far off to enjoy them; and before they have fully tasted its delights they die. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, #NFDB
1376:When I have a difficult subject before me - when I find the road narrow, and can see no other way of teaching a well established truth except by pleasing one intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand fools - I prefer to address myself to the one man, and to take no notice whatever of the condemnation of the multitude; I prefer to extricate that intelligent man from his embarrassment and show him the cause of his perplexity, so that he may attain perfection and be at peace. ~ Maimonides, #NFDB
1377:As soon as an opinion becomes common it is sufficient reason for men to abandon it and to uphold the opposite opinion until that in its turn grows old, and they require to distinguish themselves by other things. Thus if they attain their goal in some art or science, we must expect them soon to cast it aside to acquire some fresh fame, and this is partly the reason why the most splendid ages degenerate so quickly, and, scarcely emerged from barbarism, plunge into it again. ~ Luc de Clapiers, #NFDB
1378:fundamental flaw of modern capitalism is that businesses promote bombastic people. As Cameron Anderson and Sébastien Brion of the University of California, Berkeley, showed experimentally, ‘In conditions where there is any ambiguity in competence and performance (which is common in organisations), overconfident individuals will be perceived as more competent by others, and attain higher levels of status, compared to individuals with more accurate self-perceptions of competence. ~ Nick Cohen, #NFDB
1379:Architecture of Time Technical civilization is man’s conquest of space. It is a triumph frequently achieved by sacrificing an essential ingredient of existence, namely, time. In technical civilization, we expend time to gain space. To enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective. Yet to have more does not mean to be more. The power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the borderline of time. But time is the heart of existence. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel, #NFDB
1380:People often ask me why my style is so simple. It is, in fact, deceptively simple, for no two sentences are alike. It is clarity that I am striving to attain, not simplicity. Of course, some people want literature to be difficult and there are writers who like to make their readers toil and sweat. They hope to be taken more seriously that way. I have always tried to achieve a prose that is easy and conversational. And those who think this is simple should try it for themselves. ~ Ruskin Bond, #NFDB
1381:Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1382:You must pray for yourself constantly. How could it be otherwise? We worship God by believing in Him, trusting Him, and loving Him wholeheartedly - and we can attain to that only through prayer. The sole object of our being here is that we may grow like Him - and we can do that only through prayer. The more we pray for ourselves the more power will our prayers have for any other purpose whatever; so praying for ourselves is the reverse of selfishness - it is truly glorifying God. ~ Emmet Fox, #NFDB
1383:Because of the anxiety inherent in being vulnerable and undefended in a new love relationship, an individual unconsciously attempts to merge and form a unit with the loved one. In forming a bond, the lover is able to alleviate anxiety and attain a false sense of security and safety by sustaining the illusion of being fused. The fantasy of being connected functions as a defense, for whenever this bond is broken, the underlying pain and fear of separation invariably surface. ~ Robert W Firestone, #NFDB
1384:Perhaps the main reason that Washington and Hamilton functioned so well together was that both men longed to see the thirteen states welded into a single, respected American nation. At the close of the war, Washington had circulated a letter to the thirteen governors, outlining four things America would need to attain greatness: consolidation of the states under a strong federal government, timely payment of its debts, creation of an army and a navy, and harmony among its people. ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
1385:They will begin by sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the city who are more than ten years old, and will take possession of their children, who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents; these they will train in their own habits and laws, I mean in the laws which we have given them: and in this way the State and constitution of which we were speaking will soonest and most easily attain happiness, and the nation which has such a constitution will gain most. Yes, ~ Plato, #NFDB
1386:Look here!' she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless hand. 'When he grew into the better understanding of what he had done, he saw it, and repented of it! I could sing to him, and talk to him, and show the ardour that I felt in all he did, and attain with labour to such knowledge as most interested him; and I attracted him. When he was freshest and truest, he loved me. Yes, he did! Many a time, when you were put off with a slight word, he has taken Me to his heart! ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1387:The greatest weapon against tyranny is a mind that refuses to submit to manipulation. If we want to be warriors for truth, soldiers for justice, and champions of freedom, we must first attain the discipline of happiness and a great capacity for living in love. Be the master of your own mind. Choose your demeanor at all times. Never meet a fellow person with force or coercion. Strive to live by reason. Smile because you’re alive. Remember, HAPPINESS is the ultimate act of defiance. ~ Adam Kokesh, #NFDB
1388:The human mind has absolute freedom within its true nature. You can attain your freedom intuitively. Do not work for freedom, rather allow the practice itself to be liberation. When you wish to rest, move your body slowly and stand up quietly. Practice this meditation in the morning or in the evening, or at any leisure time during the day. You will soon realize that your mental burdens are dropping away one by one, and that you are gaining an intuitive power hitherto unnoticed. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
1389:1. the Hindole Raga is heard only at dawn in the spring, to evoke the mood of universal love; 2. Deepaka Raga is played during the evening in summer, to arouse compassion; 3. Megha Raga is a melody for midday in the rainy season, to summon courage; 4. Bhairava Raga is played in the mornings of August, September, October, to achieve tranquillity; 5. Sri Raga is reserved for autumn twilights, to attain pure love; 6. Malkounsa Raga is heard at midnights in winter, for valor. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
1390:Provided they live a worthy life, both those who choose to dwell in the midst of noise and hubbub and those who dwell in monasteries, mountains and caves can achieve salvation. Solely because of their faith in Him God bestows great blessings on them. Hence those who because of their laziness have failed to attain salvation will have no excuse to offer on the day of judgment. For He who promised to grant us salvation simply on account of our faith in Him is not a liar. ~ Symeon the New Theologian, #NFDB
1391:Some shadowy, self-destructive, confused place no longer existed inside me. I was of a single, clear mind. There were goals, and there were methods to attain them. There were my chosen responsibilities and those things I was willing to do to honor them. There were the things I was willing to live with and the things I wasn’t willing to live without. There was a quiet, deep abiding love of myself—flaws and all, and I had plenty—and the world around me, and it had plenty, too. ~ Karen Marie Moning, #NFDB
1392:Balance is the key to my serenity. I attain balance by listening to my inner wisdom and to the wisdom of others. There is no situation in which I cannot find a point of balance. There is no circumstance in which I cannot find inner harmony. As I ask to be led into equilibrium and clarity, I will find that my answers come to me. I am wiser than I know, more capable of right action and attitudes than I yet believe. In every event, I seek the balance point of God's action through me. ~ Julia Cameron, #NFDB
1393:For how far in the future are you optimizing your organization? Are you mentoring solely to instruct or also to learn? Will you know if you’ve accomplished your organizational and personal goals? Are you measuring the things you need to be? Have you assigned a team to write up the company’s goals three to five years out? What will it take to redesign your management team’s schedule so you can mentor one another? How can you reward staff members who attain their measurable goals? ~ L David Marquet, #NFDB
1394:Many of us slog through life without conscious awareness or intention. We set ourselves a course and we barrel ahead, without stopping to ask whether this path is fulfilling our most important goals. That's partly because many of us believe that happiness is not possible in the here and now. We think we need to struggle now so that we will be happy in the future. So we postpone happiness and try to run into the future and attain the conditions of happiness that we don't have now. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
1395:There are some men who are counted great because they represent the actuality of their own age, and mirror it as it is. Such an one was Voltaire, of whom it was epigrammatically said: "he expressed everybody's thoughts better than anyone." But there are other men who attain greatness because they embody the potentiality of their own day and magically reflect the future. They express the thoughts which will be everybody's two or three centuries after them. Such as one was Descartes. ~ Thomas Huxley, #NFDB
1396:Does that shock you too? You know that my refrigerator is never full, and it never will be because I live a mission-driven life, always on the hunt for the next challenge. That mindset is the reason I broke that record, finished Badwater, became a SEAL, rocked Ranger School, and on down the list. In my mind I’m that racehorse always chasing a carrot I’ll never catch, forever trying to prove myself to myself. And when you live that way and attain a goal, success feels anti-climactic. ~ David Goggins, #NFDB
1397:People often ask me why my style is so simple. It is, in fact, deceptively simple, for no two sentences are alike. It is clarity that I am striving to attain, not simplicity.
Of course, some people want literature to be difficult and there are writers who like to make their readers toil and sweat. They hope to be taken more seriously that way. I have always tried to achieve a prose that is easy and conversational. And those who think this is simple should try it for themselves. ~ Ruskin Bond,#NFDB
1398:There cannot be two almighty beings in this world. [Imagine having] two or three Gods; one will create the world, another says, "I will destroy the world." It [can] never happen. There must be one God. The soul attains to perfection; [it becomes] almost omnipotent [and] omniscient. This is the worshipper. Who is the worshipped? He, the Lord God Himself, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient, and so on. And above all, He is Love. How is [the soul] to attain this perfection? By worship. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1399:One thing is certain: The power of belief, the power of thought, will move reality in the direction of what we believe and conceive of it. If you really believe you can do something, you can. This is a fact. When you clearly envision a victorious outcome, engrave it in your heart and are firmly convinced that you will attain it, your brain makes every effort to realize the mental image you have created. And then, through your unceasing efforts, that victory is finally made a reality. ~ Daisaku Ikeda, #NFDB
1400:According to the book of Genesis, the Creator gave man dominion over the whole wide earth. A mighty big present. But I am not interested in any such superroyal prerogatives. All I desire is dominion over myself—dominion over my thoughts; dominion over my fears; dominion over my mind and over my spirit. And the wonderful thing is that I know that I can attain this dominion to an astonishing degree, any time I want to, by merely controlling my actions—which in turn control my reactions. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
1401:But if we desire to make the most of the opportunity that this life gives us, if we wish to respond adequately to the call we have received and to attain to the goal we have glimpsed, not merely advance a little towards it, it is essential that there should be an entire self-giving. The secret of success in Yoga is to regard it not as one of the aims to be pursued in life, but as the one and only aim, not as an important part of life, but as the whole of life.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#NFDB
1402:My meditation techniques ARE dangerous. In fact there cannot be any meditation techniques which are not dangerous. If they are not dangerous, they are not meditation techniques, they are tricks. Just like Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. They are mental tricks. Just consolatory. No danger. At the most they can give you good sleep, that's all. If you miss, you don't miss anything, you remain the same. If you attain, you attain to good sleep, that's all. No danger involved. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1403:Using vile means to attain worthy ends makes the ends themselves vile. Let them ride on the backs of doctors and medical assistants, but why lie to the people? Why assure the people they are right in their ignorance and that their crude prejudices are sacred truth? Can any splendid future possibly justify this basr lie? Were I a politician, I could never make up my mind to shame my present for the sake of the future, even though I might be promised tons of bliss for a pinch of foul lying. ~ Anton Chekhov, #NFDB
1404:There is an inconvenience which attends all abstruse reasoning. that it may silence, without convincing an antagonist, and requires the same intense study to make us sensible of its force, that was at first requisite for its invention. When we leave our closet, and engage in the common affairs of life, its conclusions seem to vanish, like the phantoms of the night on the appearance of the morning; and 'tis difficult for us to retain even that conviction, which we had attain'd with difficulty. ~ David Hume, #NFDB
1405:Those, however, who saw that one cannot attain wisdom and perennial intellectual life, unless it be given through the gift of grace, and that the goodness of the Almighty God is so great that He hears those who invoke His name, and they gain salvation, became humble, acknowledging that they are ignorant, and directed their life as the life of one desiring eternal wisdom. And that is the life of the virtuous, who proceed in the desire for the other life, which is commended by the saints. ~ Nicholas of Cusa, #NFDB
1406:4. What he taught may be summed up in a few words, as the perfume of many roses may be distilled into a few drops of attar: Everything in the world of Matter is unreal; the only reality is in the world of Spirit. Emancipate yourselves from the tyranny of the former; strive to attain the latter. The Rev. Samuel Beal, in his Catena of Buḍḍhist Scriptures from the Chinese puts it differently. "The idea underlying the Buddhist religious system is," he says, "simply this: 'all is vanity'. ~ Henry Steel Olcott, #NFDB
1407:You no sooner attain the great void Than body and mind are lost together. Heaven and Hell -- a straw. The Buddha-realm, Pandemonium -- shambles. Listen: a nightingale strains her voice, serenading the snow. Look: a tortoise wearing a sword climbs the lampstand. Should you desire the great tranquility, Prepare to sweat white beads. [1506.jpg] -- from Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter, Translated by Lucien Stryk / Translated by Takashi Ikemoto
~ Hakuin, You no sooner attain the great void
,#NFDB
1408:Faith in God, then, is not at all the same as the kind of logical certainty that we attain in Euclidean geometry. God is not the conclusion to a process of reasoning, the solution to a mathematical problem. To believe in God is not to accept the possibility of his existence because it has been “proved” to us by some theoretical argument, but it is to put our trust in One whom we know and love. Faith is not the supposition that something might be true, but the assurance that someone is there. ~ Kallistos Ware, #NFDB
1409:Meditation means disidentification with the mind. It is a simple method, not something complex that only a few people can do. Just sit silently at any time, any moment, and watch. Close your eyes and watch what is going on. Just be a watcher. Don’t judge what is good, what is bad, this should not be, this should be… No judgment, you are simply a watcher. It takes a little time to attain pure watchfulness. And the moment you are a pure watcher, you will be surprised that the mind has disappeared. There ~ Osho, #NFDB
1410:Our bodies, speeches and minds need to be trained so that they will do anything we want. We can cry or laugh at once when we want to. Then it will be a natural response; we will cry when it is time to cry, and laugh when we should laugh. Do you understand? We can get angry when necessary; we can be gentle if we have to. We will completely become our own master. Then, no matter what we want to do, it will benefit the world. It is not difficult to attain this stage; all we need to do is to mediate. ~ Ching Hai, #NFDB
1411:Doesn't there, in fact, exist something that is dearer to almost every man than his own very best interests, or - not to violate logic - some best good ... which is more important and higher than any other good, and for the sake of which man is prepared if necessary to go against all the laws, against, that is, reason, honour, peace and quiet, prosperity - in short against all those fine and advantageous things - only to attain that primary, best good which is dearer to him than all else? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
1412:There is a true feminist movement in Buddhism that relates to the goddess Tārā. Following her cultivation of bodhicitta, the bodhisattva's motivation, she looked upon the situation of those striving towards full awakening and she felt that there were too few people who attained Buddhahood as women. So she vowed, 'I have developed bodhicitta as a woman. For all my lifetimes along the path I vow to be born as a woman, and in my final lifetime when I attain Buddhahood, then, too, I will be a woman.' ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
1413:But these were days of self-fulfillment, where settling for something that was not quite your first choice of a life seemed weak-willed and ignoble. Somewhere, surrendering to what seemed to be your fate had changed from being dignified to being a sign of your own cowardice. There were times when the pressure to achieve happiness felt almost oppressive, as if happiness were something that everyone should and could attain, and that any sort of compromise in its pursuit was somehow your fault. ~ Hanya Yanagihara, #NFDB
1414:My past experiences have proven to me that there are people who don't want you to know that they do not know. So they hide it through distraction in the form of criticizing other individuals. There are people who hold ill will toward others who have done the work and achieved the things that they have not, dreamers who never put forth the effort required to attain them in their own lives. My book is not for them. It's for you who realize that the thorns are worth the attainment of the rose. The ~ Raven Grimassi, #NFDB
1415:Everyone wants rather to be pleasing to women and that desire is not altogether, though it is very largely, a manifestation of vanity. But one cannot aim to be pleasing to women any more than one can aim to have taste, or beauty of expression, or happiness; for these things are not specific aims which one may learn to attain; they are descriptions of the adequacy of one's living. To try to be happy is to try to build a machine with no other specification than that it shall run noiselessly. ~ J Robert Oppenheimer, #NFDB
1416:Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence and a great glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and reputation in English society? Where is that Goshen of mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous egoism as God-given piety? ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
1417:To a realized master, death and rebirth is in every breath. Death is that of body consciousness, ego and limits of the mind. Rebirth is that of the cosmic mind of being the Spirit. In this realization is liberation.
When awake as liberated, each prayer and each moment of meditation is for humanity as there is no more individual ego or identity left. Such realized masters continually gift humanity with the grace of higher consciousness- so that each of us attain our fullest potential in goodness. ~ Nandhiji,#NFDB
1418:You know who it is? It's me in 10 years. So I turned 25. Ten years later, that same person comes to me and says, 'So, are you a hero?' And I was like, 'not even close. No, no, no.' She said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because my hero's me at 35.' So you see every day, every week, every month and every year of my life, my hero's always 10 years away. I'm never gonna be my hero. I'm not gonna attain that. I know I'm not, and that's just fine with me because that keeps me with somebody to keep on chasing. ~ Matthew McConaughey, #NFDB
1419:It is tempting to quit striving toward a goal when you have neither the time, the resources, the support, the means, nor perhaps the confidence in talent to reach the level of standing you wish to reach. But these are not reasons to quit. Move forward anyway. Try your best. Put what little you do have into accomplishing what you can, because along the way you may attain a portion of what you feel is lacking. And owning a portion of a dream is better than owning no dream at all. Never give up. ~ Richelle E Goodrich, #NFDB
1420:There is no art or science that is too difficult for industry to attain to; it is the gift of tongues, and makes a man understood and valued in all countries, and by all nations; it is the philosopher's stone, that turns all metals, and even stones, into gold, and suffers not want to break into its dwelling; it is the northwest passage, that brings the merchant's ships as soon to him as he can desire: in a word, it conquers all enemies, and makes fortune itself pay contribution. ~ Edward Hyde 1st Earl of Clarendon, #NFDB
1421:Transformation takes place the moment you apply your energy totally. Then you stand with your back to the world and face toward God. One flash of this experience and you are never the same again. Just a glimpse of it is enough to set your life on that journey.
So remember, drown yourself here completely – only then will something happen. If you will hold back even a little, all your effort will prove useless. Until the effort has become udyama – a total effort – you will not be able to attain to bhairava. ~ Osho,#NFDB
1422:If the ego is to attain a condition of tranquillity in which to exercise discrimination, consciousness and the differentiated function must be as far removed as possible from the active field of emotional components. All differentiated functions are liable to be disturbed by them, but the disturbance is most evident in the case of thinking, which is by nature opposed to feeling and even more to emotionality. More than any other function, differentiated thinking requires a “cool head” and “cold blood. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
1423:There are people who are never content, never appeased, forever dissatisfied—who continually look to what escapes them, convincing themselves that if only they could attain that one desire outside of reach they would be happy. It seems almost pointless to give to these people because their eyes immediately shift from the gift to stare miserably at the portion held back. Their wants, demands, expectations, appetites are never satiated, thus they refuse to be happy. And you cannot make them so. ~ Richelle E Goodrich, #NFDB
1424:I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called. I merely try to write as the character would write, and I never forget that the average man, from the fields, the streets, the bars, the offices and even the gutters of his country, has acquired a vividness of speech that goes beyond anything I could invent, and that if I stick to this heritage, this logos of the American countryside, I shall attain a maximum of effectiveness with very little effort. ~ James M Cain, #NFDB
1425:If I become overconfident I will recall my failures.
If I overindulge I will think of past hungers.
If I feel complacency I will remember my competition.
If I enjoy moments of greatness I will remember moments of shame.
If I feel all-powerful I will try to stop the wind.
If I attain great wealth I will remember one unfed mouth.
If I become overly proud I will remember a moment of weakness.
If I feel my skill is unmatched I will look at the stars.
Today I will be master of my emotions. ~ Og Mandino,#NFDB
1426:If you wish to attain to lasting happiness you must be ready to hate father, mother, even your own life and to take leave of all your possessions. How? Not by renouncing them or giving them up because what you give up violently you are forever bound to. But rather by seeing them for the nightmare they are; and then, whether you keep them or not, they will have lost their grip over you, their power to hurt you, and you will be out of your dream at last, out of your darkness, your fear, your unhappiness. ~ Anthony de Mello, #NFDB
1427:It is with art as with love: How can a man of the world,with all his distractions, keep the inwardness which an artist must possess if he hopes to attain perfection? That inwardness which the spectator must share if he is to understand the work as the artist wishes and hopes... Believe me, talents are like virtues; either you must love them for their own sake or renounce them altogether. And they are only recognized and rewarded when we have practised them in secret, like a dangerous mystery." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1428:My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before,—a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
1429:This belief in incarnation is a testimony of man’s lofty spiritual ambition. Man is not at peace with himself till he has become like unto God. The endeavour to reach this state is the supreme, the only ambition worth having. And this is self-realization. This self-realization is the subject of the Gita, as it is of all scriptures. But its author surely did not write it to establish that doctrine. The object of the Gita appears to me to be that of showing the most excellent way to attain self-realization. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1430:The testimony of the greatest humans who have ever lived is that the way to make the most of ourselves is by transcending ourselves. We must learn to move beyond self-centeredness to make room within ourselves for others. When you transcend yourself, the fact will be confirmed by the quality of your life. We will attain – even if only momentarily – a transparency and a radiance of being which results from living both within and beyond yourself. This is the promise and the excitement of self-understanding. ~ Don Richard Riso, #NFDB
1431:The text says that when the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he loved her. God was saying, 'I am the real bridegroom. I am the husband of the husbandless. I am the father of the fatherless.' This is the God who saves by grace. The gods of moralistic religions favor the successful and the overachievers. THe are the ones who climb the moral ladder up to heaven. But the God of the Bible is the one who comes down into this world to accomplish a salvation and give us a grace we could never attain ourselves. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
1432:I don’t understand this notion of ethnic pride. “Proud to be Irish,” “Puerto Rican pride,” “Black pride.” It seems to me that pride should be reserved for accomplishments; things you attain or achieve, not things that happen to you by chance. Being Irish isn’t a skill; it’s genetic. You wouldn’t say, “I’m proud to have brown hair,” or “I’m proud to be short and stocky.” So why the fuck should you say you’re proud to be Irish? I’m Irish, but I’m not particularly proud of it. Just glad! Goddamn glad to be Irish! ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
1433:The following is the basic series of mistakes people make when setting out to achieve goals: 1. Mistargeting by setting objectives that are too low and don't allow for enough correct motivation. 2. Severely underestimating what it will take in terms of actions, resources, money, and energy to accomplish the target. 3. Spending too much time competing and not enough time dominating their sector. 4. Underestimating the amount of adversity they will need to overcome in order to actually attain their desired goal. ~ Grant Cardone, #NFDB
1434:The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it. From this arises the changes in their fortunes; for as men desire, some to have more, some in fear of losing their acquisition, there ensues enmity and war, from which results the ruin of that province and the elevation of another. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli, #NFDB
1435:Yea, I thought it impossible that ever I should attain to so much goodness of heart, as to thank God that He had made me a man. Man indeed is the most noble by creation, of all creatures in the visible world; but by sin he has made himself the most ignoble. The beasts, birds, fishes, etc. I blessed their condition; for they had not a sinful nature; they were not obnoxious to the wrath of God; they were not to go to hell-fire after death; I could therefore have rejoiced, had my condition been as any of theirs. ~ John Bunyan, #NFDB
1436:To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten. The first 'second' is when you come out of the blocks. The next is when you look up and take your first few strides to attain gain position. By that time the race is actually about half over. The final 'second' - the longest slice of time in the world for an athlete - is that last half of the race, when you really bear down and see what you're made of. It seems to take an eternity, yet is all over before you can think what's happening. ~ Jesse Owens, #NFDB
1437:The thought of both East and West (philosophies) can indeed be integrated into a higher truth. They show us that the West is correct in maintaining that life is about progress about evolving toward something higher. Yet the East is also correct in emphasizing that we must let go of control with the ego. We can't progress by using logic alone. We have to attain a fuller consciousness, an inner connection with God, because only then can our evolution toward something better be guided by a higher part of ourselves. ~ James Redfield, #NFDB
1438:You can lead a truly spiritual life while remaining a householder. You will be able to enjoy the bliss of the Self, but your mind has to be on God all the time. Then you can easily attain bliss. A mother bird will be thinking of the young ones in the nest, even when she is out looking for food. Similarly, you have to keep your mind on God, while engaged in all worldly actions. The important thing is to be completely dedicated to God or the Guru. Once you have that dedication, the goal will not be far away. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi, #NFDB
1439:Jem said something then, in a language she didn’t understand. It sounded like “khalepa ta kala.”
She frowned at him. “That isn’t Latin?”
“Greek,” he said. “It has two meanings. It means that that which is worth having—the good, fine, honorable, and noble things—are difficult to attain.” He leaned forward, closer to her. She could smell the sweet scent of the drug on him, and the tang of his skin underneath. “It means something else as well.”
Tessa swallowed. “What’s that?”
“It means ‘beauty is harsh. ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
1440:Jem said something then, in a language she didn’t understand. It sounded like “khalepa ta kala.”
She frowned at him. “That isn’t Latin?”
“Greek,” he said. “It has two meanings. It means that that which is worth having—the good, fine, honorable, and noble things—are difficult to attain.” He leaned forward, closer to her. She could smell the sweet scent of the drug on him, and the tang of his skin underneath. “It means something else as well.”
Tessa swallowed. “What’s that?”
“It means ‘beauty is harsh’. ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
1441:What is enthusiasm but a passionate belief in what seems to be a high and holy aim, — an unselfish devotion to some noble cause, — a consecration of heart and mind and soul to the attainment of a great object? What is it but an earnest effort to attain the heights of spiritual and intellectual endeavor? What is it but the life, the force, the power, which makes individuals or nations capable of enduring much and waiting long, in the conviction that ultimately the thing they have at heart will be accomplished? ~ Orison Swett Marden, #NFDB
1442:The problems with willpower are many, but they may hardly be noticed by the person focused narrowly on success. First, there is little economy of means; in systems thinking terms, we act without leverage. We attain our goals, but the effort is enormous and we may find ourselves exhausted and wondering if it was worth it when we have succeeded. Ironically, people hooked on willpower may actually look for obstacles to overcome, dragons to slay, and enemies to vanquish--to remind themselves and others of their own prowess. ~ Peter Senge, #NFDB
1443:The terrifying part in meditation is when the ego is being threatened. At first there might be a lot of interest in ‘solving my problems so that I can attain nibbana, be free from suffering and be free from all the problems of my life’, but I found that as all that began to resolve itself, there was quite a lot of myself, my ego, that I really liked. And the thought of not being anything, of extinction, of cessation of the ego ― the ego that is based on becoming something, on reinforcing itself ― was very threatening. ~ Ajahn Sumedho, #NFDB
1444:SERA One of the most powerful tools in the influencing of human beings is praise. While we all disdain flattery, and its self-seeking motivation, the well-earned praise of someone we admire can lift the weight of a burdensome obligation and grant courage in dark hours. Withhold it, however, and you may drive a man nearly mad to attain the smallest morsel. This is the power that society wields. It shapes the destinies of empires. A little praise can end a war. Exposing a fault can start one. —Lady Corinne of Pavenham Sky ~ Jeff Wheeler, #NFDB
1445:A first attempt to recover the right of self government may fail, so may a second, a third, etc. But as a younger and more instructed race comes on, the sentiment becomes more and more intuitive, and a fourth, a fifth, or some subsequent one of the ever renewed attempts will ultimately succeed... To attain all this, however, rivers of blood must yet flow, and years of desolation pass over; yet the object is worth rivers of blood and years of desolation. For what inheritance so valuable can man leave to his posterity? ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
1446:Shah Fakir, Hindu Da Guru, Musalman Da Pir.” It means Guru Nanak Dev was a saintly person whom both, the Hindus and the Muslims, claimed as their own religious leader. Teachings: Guru Nanak Dev taught us that there is only one God, free from the bondage of birth and death. He is omnipresent and omnipotent. We should always remember God. Repetition of His Name is cure for all ailments. God is not to be degraded by making images of Him and worshipping them. To be one with God is the aim of life and to attain ~ Hazur Maharaj Sawan Singh, #NFDB
1447:The funeral was a vast, elaborate affair, befitting a monarch or head of state, in marked contrast to the essential simplicity of the man honored. The grandeur emphasized the central place that Grant had occupied in the Civil War and its aftermath. “Out of all the hubbub of the war,” wrote Walt Whitman, “Lincoln and Grant emerge, the towering majestic figures.”146 He thought they had lived exemplary lives that vindicated the American spirit, showing how people lifted from the lower ranks of society could attain greatness. ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
1448:Arabic is a subtle and sinuous language. Like all Semitic languages, it plays on words, taking a three-consonant root and building on it to create what sometimes seems an infinite number of meanings. Even the exact same word can have different connotations, depending on the context. Perhaps the best-known example is jihad, struggle, which can be either the inner striving to live the Islamic life and attain a higher level of spiritual consciousness, or the external armed confrontation with those seen as enemies of Islam. ~ Lesley Hazleton, #NFDB
1449:The suggested idea remains isolated, more or less completely separated from the other ideas; it can then develop and suppress all else, even foreign thoughts. At the beginning of this study on the conditions of suggestion, we have admitted that suggestion could not develop in sickly minds—that it demanded, in order to attain to its full power, minds relatively sane. We have just now demonstrated that it depended on a lack of synthesis, on a weakening of consciousness. Are not these two affirmations contradictory ? Not at all. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1450:Do you know the bodhisattva vow?” Ananda asked. Kade shook his head. “It’s from the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism,” Ananda said, “different than my own, but still beautiful. The most basic expression of it is ‘May I attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.’ It’s a pledge to keep being reborn into the material world of suffering, to put nirvana off indefinitely, until all beings in the universe have attained enlightenment and can also enter nirvana. It’s perhaps the ultimate vow of placing others before oneself. ~ Ramez Naam, #NFDB
1451:Just because you are struggling on a farm or in a factory, doing something against which your whole nature rebels, because there is no one to help you support your aged parents or an invalid brother or sister, do not conclude that your vision must perish. Keep pushing on as best you can, and affirming your divine power to attain your desire. Hundreds and thousands of poor boys and girls with poorer opportunities than yours have done immortal deeds because they had faith in their ideal and in their power to attain it. ~ Orison Swett Marden, #NFDB
1452:When we see that almost everything men devote their lives to attain, sparing no effort and encountering a thousand toils and dangers in the process, has, in the end, no further object than to raise themselves in the estimation of others; when we see that not only offices, titles, decorations, but also wealth, nay, even knowledge[1] and art, are striven for only to obtain, as the ultimate goal of all effort, greater respect from one's fellowmen,—is not this a lamentable proof of the extent to which human folly can go? ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
1453:For more than two generations, my family had never achieved their ambitions. Their talents were unappreciated and unused. They deserved better. They hadn't done anything wrong; they just had some bad breaks. Why was I succeeding? Why was I living my dreams? I wasn't more deserving than they were. I wasn't smarter or a better person. What was the difference between us that allowed me to attain so much in a short time? America. America was the difference. I had been born a citizen of the greatest nation in all of human history. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
1454:The chords in 'Light My Fire' are based on [John] Coltrane's version of this song. He just solos over A minor and B minor, which is exactly what we did. Coltrane had played with Miles on Kind of Blue and took the idea of modal soloing over one or two chords farther out than anybody. He was a real pioneer - he just kept evolving, going where no one had ever gone. He could always attain this state of ecstasy when he played. Live, there was so much energy, you couldn't believe it. He would play for hours. It was indescribable. ~ Robby Krieger, #NFDB
1455:To attain this end we must ensure a preponderance of virtue over vice, and must endeavour to secure that the honest man may, even in this world, receive a lasting reward for his virtue. But in these great endeavours we are gravely hampered by the political institutions of today. What is to be done in these circumstances? To favour revolutions, overthrow everything, repel force by force? … No! We are very far from that. Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy evil while men remain what they are, and ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1456:But to change all existence into a flow experience, it is not sufficient to learn merely how to control moment-by-moment states of consciousness. It is also necessary to have an overall context of goals for the events of everyday life to make senseTo create harmony in whatever one does is the last task that the flow theory presents to whose who wish to attain optimal experience; it is a task that involves transforming the entirety of life into a single flow activity, with unified goals that provide constant purpose. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1457:Growing up is a process that never ends. It isn't a point you attain so you can say, Hooray, I'm grown up. Some people never grow up. And nobody ever finishes growing. Or shouldn't. If you stop you might as well quit. What I have to tell you is that it never gets any easier. It goes right on being rough forever. But nothing that's easy is worth anything. You ought to have learned that by now. What happens as you keep on growing is that all of a sudden you realize that it's more exciting and beautiful than scary and awful. ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
1458:The divine within you is stronger than anything that is without you. Therefore, be not afraid of anything. Rely on your own Inner Self, the Divinity within you. Tap the source through looking within. Improve yourself. Build your character. Purify the heart. Develop the divine virtues. Eradicate evil traits. Conquer all that is base in you. Endeavor to attain all that is worthy and noble. Make the lower nature the servant of the higher through discipline, Tapas, self-restraint and meditation. This is the beginning of your freedom. ~ Sivananda, #NFDB
1459:You attain to knowledge by argument;
You attain a craft or skill by practice;
If voluntary poverty's your choice,
companionship's the way, not hand or tongue.
The knowledge of it passes soul to soul,
not by way of talk or reams of notes.
Its signs are writ upon the seeker's heart,
yet still the seeker cannot ken those signs
until his heart becomes exposed to light
Then God reveals His: Did We not expose? [Qur'an 94:1]
for We've exposed the chambers of your breast
and placed the exposition in your heart ~ Rumi,#NFDB
1460:If anyone feels offended by my words, I would respond that I speak them with affection and with the best of intentions, quite apart from any personal interest or political ideology. My words are not those of a foe or an opponent. I am interested only in helping those who are in thrall to an individualistic, indifferent and self-centred mentality to be freed from those unworthy chains and to attain a way of living and thinking which is more humane, noble and fruitful, and which will bring dignity to their presence on this earth. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
1461:It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an airport." Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (Murmansk airport is the only exception of this otherwise infallible rule), and architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1462:Although these words of hers confirmed in me my conviction that I was not handsome, they also confirmed in me an ambition to be just such a boy as she had indicated. Yet I had my moments of despair at my ugliness, for I thought that no human being with such a large nose, such thick lips, and such small grey eyes as mine could ever hope to attain happiness on this earth. I used to ask God to perform a miracle by changing me into a beauty, and would have given all that I possessed, or ever hoped to possess, to have a handsome face. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1463:What must it be like to live in Rush Limbaughs world? A world where when anyone other than conservative, white men attempts to do anything or enter any profession, be it business, politics, art or sports, the only reason theyre allowed entry or, incredibly, attain excellence is because the standard was lowered. Be they liberals, people of color, women, the poor or anyone with an accent.... Edgy, controversial, brilliant. What a way to shake up intelligent sports commentary. Hitler would have killed in talk radio. He was edgy, too. ~ Nancy Giles, #NFDB
1464:Despite the campaign rhetoric, the bureaucracies-big business and big government-are here to stay. The centralization effort cannot be checked. but it can be rationally directed towards our species goal: Space Migration, which in turn offers the only way to re-attain individual freedom of space-time and the small-group social structures which obviously best suit our nervous systems. It is another paradox of neuro-genetics that only in space habitats can humanity return to the village life and pastoral style for which we all long. ~ Timothy Leary, #NFDB
1465:Man's quest for knowledge is an expanding series whose limit is infinity, but philosophy seeks to attain that limit at one blow, by a short circuit providing the certainty of complete and inalterable truth. Science meanwhile advances at its gradual pace, often slowing to a crawl, and for periods it even walks in place, but eventually it reaches the various ultimate trenches dug by philosophical thought, and, quite heedless of the fact that it is not supposed to be able to cross those final barriers to the intellect, goes right on. ~ Stanislaw Lem, #NFDB
1466:And do you know why we have not the power to attain this Stoic ideal? It is because we refuse to believe in our power. Nay, of a surety, there is something else which plays a part: it is because we are in love with our vices; we uphold them and prefer to make excuses for them rather than shake them off. We mortals have been endowed with sufficient strength by nature, if only we use this strength, if only we concentrate our powers and rouse them all to help us or at least not to hinder us. The reason is unwillingness, the excuse, inability. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
1467:the doubts that colored such a large part of my thinking never applied to the larger picture but always the smaller, the one associated with my closer surroundings, friends, acquaintances, girls, who, I was convinced, always held a low opinion of me, considered me an idiot, which burned inside me, every day it burned inside me; however, as far as the larger picture was concerned, I never had any doubt that I could attain whatever I wanted, I knew I had it in me, because my yearnings were so strong and they never found any rest. ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd, #NFDB
1468:The individual case does not serve only to confirm a law from which practical predictions can be made. Its ideal is rather to understand the phenomenon itself in its unique and historical concreteness. However much experiential universals are involved, the aim is not to confirm and extend these universalized experiences in order to attain knowledge of a law—e.g., how men, peoples, and states evolve—but to understand how this man, this people, or this state is what it has become or, more generally, how it happened that it is so. ~ Hans Georg Gadamer, #NFDB
1469:More energy is needed to rise a millimetre above a neutron star's surface than to break completely free of Earth's gravity. A pen dropped from a height of one metre would impact with the energy of a ton of TNT (although the intense gravity on a neutron star's surface would actually, of course, squash any such objects instantly). A projectile would need to attain half the speed of light to escape its gravity; conversely, anything that fell freely onto a neutron star from a great height would impact at more than half the speed of light. ~ Martin J Rees, #NFDB
1470:To say that I have found the answer to all riddles of the soul would be inaccurate and presumptuous. But in the knowledge I have developed there must lie the answers to that riddle, to that enigma, to that problem - the human soul - for under my hands and others, was seen the best in man rehabilitated. I discovered that a human being is not his body and demonstrated that through Scientology an individual can attain certainty of his identity apart from that of the body. We cannot deal in the realm of the human soul and ignore the fact. ~ L Ron Hubbard, #NFDB
1471:A Parting
So good-bye!
This is where we end it, you and I.
Life's to live, you know, and death's to die;
So good-bye!
I was yours
For the love in life that loves while life endures,
For the earth-path that the Heaven-flight ensures
I was yours.
You were mine
For the moment that a garland takes to twine,
For the human hour that sorcery shews divine
You were mine.
All is over.
You and I no more are love and lover;
Nought's to seek now, gain, attain, discover.
All is over.
~ Edith Nesbit,#NFDB
1472:I mean those who cling to their own egos in their penances and external devotions, which such people regard as being of great importance. God have mercy on them, for they know little of the divine truth! Please people are called holy because of what they are seen to do, but inside they are asses, for they do not know the real meaning of divine truth . . . They are greatly esteemed by people who know no better . . . May they attain heaven because of their good intent, but that poverty, of which we now wish to speak, they know nothing. ~ Meister Eckhart, #NFDB
1473:Now although man is created for the possession of happiness, yet, having deviated from his true end, his nature has become deformed and is entirely repugnant to true beatitude. And on this account we are forced to submit to God this depraved nature of ours which fills our understanding with so many occupations, and causes us to deviate from the true path, in order that he may entirely consume it until nothing remains there but himself; otherwise the soul could never attain stability nor repose, for she was created for no other end. ~ Catherine of Genoa, #NFDB
1474:We cannot attain to the understanding of Scripture either by study or by the intellect. Your first duty is to begin by prayer. Entreat the Lord to grant you, of His great mercy, the true understanding of His Word. There is no other interpreter of the Word of God than the Author of this Word, as He Himself has said, "They shall be all taught of God" (John 6:45). Hope for nothing from your own labors, from your own understanding: trust solely in God, and in the influence of His Spirit. Believe this on the word of a man who has experience. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
1475:It should be for satsang that we go to spiritual centers. By going there, people who are involved in the world can attain peace and concentration. The concentration gained when one goes there cannot be achieved if one sits at home. Even though the breeze blows everywhere, coolness will be felt more if we sit in the shade of a tree. In the same way, although God is all-pervading, this presence will clearly shine in certain places more than others. That is the greatness of satsang. Satsang is the best thing for spiritual advancement. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi, #NFDB
1476:A sacred pride should grip us of not being satisfied with the mediocre but to strive (for we can do it, if we want to) with the exertion of all our strength to attain the highest. Let us scorn what is of this earth, let us ignore what is of heaven, let us leave absolutely everything worldly behind us in order to hasten to the abode out of this world, in the proximity of the sublime deity. We do not need to think of stepping back. Of being satisfied with second rank, let us strive for dignity and glory. To attain the highest. ~ Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, #NFDB
1477:The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world. The voice of the Rothschilds prevailed... Therefore they sent their emissaries into the field to exploit the question of slavery and to open an abyss between the two sections of the Union. ~ Otto von Bismarck, #NFDB
1478:The error of Socrates must be attributed to the false notion of unity from which he starts. Unity there should be, both of the family and of the state, but in some respects only. For there is a point at which a state may attain such a degree of unity as to be no longer a state, or at which, without actually ceasing to exist, it will become an inferior state, like harmony passing into unison, or rhythm which has been reduced to a single foot. The state, as I was saying, is a plurality which should be united and made into a community by education ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
1479:Christianity set itself the goal of fulfilling man’s unattainable desires, but for that very reason ignored his attainable desires. By promising man eternal life, it deprived him of temporal life, by teaching him to trust in God’s help it took away his trust in his own powers; by giving him faith in a better life in heaven, it destroyed his faith in a better life on earth and his striving to attain such a life. Christianity gave man what his imagination desires, but for that very reason failed to give him what he really and truly desires. ~ Ludwig Feuerbach, #NFDB
1480:He who devoutly strives to attain wisdom and is on his guard against the invisible powers, should pray that both natural discrimination - whose light is but limited - and the illuminating grace of the Spirit abide in him. The first by means of practice trains the flesh in virtue, the second illuminates the intellect so that it chooses above all else companionship with wisdom; and through wisdom it destroys the strongholds of evil and pulls down 'all the self-esteem that exalts itself against the knowledge of God' (II Cor. 10:5). ~ Saint Maximus the Confessor, #NFDB
1481:HOW
do you define a word without concrete meaning? To each his own, the saying goes, so
WHY
push to attain an ideal state of being that no two random people will agree is
WHERE
you want to be? Faultless. Finished. Incomparable. People can never be these, and anyway,
WHEN
did creating a flawless facade become a more vital goal than learning to love the person
WHO
lives inside your skin? The outside belongs to others. Only you should decide for you -
WHAT
is perfect. ~ Ellen Hopkins,#NFDB
1482:President Truman had a little sign on his desk. I’ve always admired its philosophy. It read: THE BUCK STOPS HERE. I’ve envied certain people, too, the great majority of my colleagues whose sole mission in life is to attain the goal of mediocrity. They sail into a safe harbor, button up and conveniently and quietly sort their paper clips, avoiding responsibility and decisions. I can’t explain, Nicole, why I was singled out and am unable to avoid conflict, but I can’t run or plug my ears or close my eyes or turn my back. I often envy those who can. ~ Leon Uris, #NFDB
1483:How do I describe him now? Where do I start? How do I distill the first impression created in those few distance seconds? How do I extract his finished portrait, composed of layer upon layer of color, back into the pale, hasty pencil sketch that my eyes drew the first time they landed on him? How can I use a mere few lines to paint the whole picture with all its breadth and depth? Is it even possible to attain that sort of scrutiny, that measure of lucidity, when the hands of loss keep touching the memory, staining it with their fingerprints? ~ Dorit Rabinyan, #NFDB
1484:One of the key paradoxes in Buddhism is that we need goals to be inspired, to grow, and to develop, even to become enlightened, but at the same time we must not get overly fixated or attached to these aspirations. If the goal is noble, your commitment to the goal should not be contingent on your ability to attain it, and in pursuit of our goal, we must release our rigid assumptions about how we must achieve it. Peace and equanimity come from letting go of our attachment to the goal and the method. That is the essence of acceptance. Reflecting ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
1485:To oscillate between drill exercises that strive to attain efficiency in outward doing without the use of intelligence, and an accumulation of knowledge that is supposed to be an ultimate end in itself, means that education accepts the present social conditions as final, and thereby takes upon itself the responsibility for perpetuating them. A reorganization of education so that learning takes place in connection with the intelligent carrying forward of purposeful activities is a slow work. It can be accomplished only piecemeal, a step at a time. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
1486:Therefore, if a great kingdom humbles itself before a small kingdom, it shall make that small kingdom its prize. And if a small kingdom humbles itself before a great kingdom, it shall win over that great kingdom. Thus the one humbles itself in order to attain, the other attains because it is humble. If the great kingdom has no further desire than to bring men together and to nourish them, the small kingdom will have no further desire than to enter the service of the other. But in order that both may have their desire, the great one must learn humility. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
1487:If one does not make human knowledge wholly dependent upon the original self-knowledge and consequent revelation of God to man, then man will have to seek knowledge within himself as the final reference point. Then he will have to seek an exhaustive understanding of reality. He will have to hold that if he cannot attain to such an exhaustive understanding of reality he has no true knowledge of anything at all. Either man must then know everything or he knows nothing. This is the dilemma that confronts every form of non-Christian epistemology ~ Cornelius Van Til, #NFDB
1488:Wisdom: People attain wisdom in large part by remembering what happened in the past. No generation can attain wisdom without studying and remembering the past. None of those who believed in the 1960's aphorism, ‘Never trust anyone over thirty,’ became a wise person. Without wisdom, all the good intentions in the world amount to nothing. Intending to do good without having wisdom is like intending to fly an airplane with no knowledge of airplanes or the laws of aerodynamics. Good intentions without wisdom lead to either nothing or to actual evil. ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
1489:You cannot attain jhana without a sense of peace and contentment with your life as it is. Striving to make your life radically other than it actually and presently is will interfere with steady movement toward jhana. Such striving is a form of living for the imagined future; jhana grows out of living in the now. You have to find your present conditions suitable and sufficient or you will always be yearning. You must be content with your food, clothing, and lodging. You need to find contentment in all the situations that arise in your life. ~ Henepola Gunaratana, #NFDB
1490:But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future—haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth—ready to break the Enemy’s commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other—dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present. It ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1491:If God gives you an abundant harvest of trials, it is a sign of great holiness which He desires you to attain. Do you want to become a great saint? Ask God to send you many sufferings. The flame of Divine Love never rises higher than when fed with the wood of the Cross, which the infinite charity of the Savior used to finish His sacrifice. All the pleasures of the world are nothing compared with the sweetness found in the gall and vinegar offered to Jesus Christ. That is, hard and painful things endured for Jesus Christ and with Jesus Christ. ~ Ignatius of Loyola, #NFDB
1492:If I cannot narrate a life of adventurous and daring exploits, fortunately I have no heavy crimes to confess: and, if I do not rise in the estimation of the reader for acts of gallantry and devotion in my country's cause, at least I may claim the merit of zealous and persevering continuance in my vocation. We are all of us variously gifted from Above, and he who is content to walk, instead of to run, on his allotted path through life, although he may not so rapidly attain the goal, has the advantage of not being out of breath upon his arrival. ~ Frederick Marryat, #NFDB
1493:It is said that it is far more difficult to hold and maintain leadership (liberty) than it is to attain it. Success is a ruthless competitor for it flatters and nourishes our weaknesses and lulls us into complacency. We bask in the sunshine of accomplishment and lose the spirit of humility which helps us visualize all the factors which have contributed to our success. We are apt to forget that we are only one of a team, that in unity there is strength and that we are strong only as long as each unit in our organization functions with precision. ~ Samuel J Tilden, #NFDB
1494:My soul is callous, it is impassive... I put any sentiment whatever at defiance to attain it, with the exception of pleasure. I am mistress of that soul's movements and affections, of its desires, of its impulsions; with me, everything is under the unchallenged control of mind; and there's worse yet... for my mind is appalling. But I am not complaining, I cherish my vices, I abhor virtue; I am the sworn enemy of all religions, of all gods and godlings, I fear neither the ills of life nor what follows death; and when you're like me, you're happy. ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
1495:The true believer also becomes part of the system in concrete terms, because his psychic energy will be focused and shaped by the goals and rules of his belief. But the true believer is not really interacting with the belief system; he usually lets his psychic energy be absorbed by it. From this submission nothing new can come; consciousness may attain a welcome order, but it will be an order imposed rather than achieved. At best the self of the true believer resembles a crystal: strong and beautifully symmetrical, but very slow to grow. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1496:You can be an artist without visual images, a reader without eyes, a mass of erudition with a bad elementary memory. In almost any subject your passion for the subject will save you. If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich; if you wish to be learned, you will be learned; if you wish to be good, you will be good. Only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them with exclusiveness, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly. ~ William James, #NFDB
1497:To the Parcae"
A single summer grant me, great powers, and
a single autumn for fully ripened song
that, sated with the sweetness of my
playing, my heart may more willingly die.
The soul that, living, did not attain its divine
right cannot repose in the nether world.
But once what I am bent on, what is
holy, my poetry, is accomplished:
Be welcome then, stillness of the shadows’ world!
I shall be satisfied though my lyre will not
accompany me down there. Once I
lived like the gods, and more is not needed. ~ Friedrich H lderlin,#NFDB
1498:If God gives you an abundant harvest of trials, it is a sign of great holiness which He desires you to attain. Do you want to become a great saint? Ask God to send you many sufferings. The flame of Divine Love never rises higher than when fed with the wood of the Cross, which the infinite charity of the Savior used to finish His sacrifice. All the pleasures of the world are nothing compared with the sweetness found in the gall and vinegar offered to Jesus Christ. That is, hard and painful things endured for Jesus Christ and with Jesus Christ. ~ Saint Ignatius of Loyola, #NFDB
1499:The third share follows upon the effort to acquire whatever is possible of those attributes, to imitate them and be adorned with their good qualities, for in this way man becomes 'lordly'-that is, close to the Lord most high, and so becomes a companion to the heavenly host [al-mala' al-a'la] of angels, for they are on the carpet of proximity [to God]. Indeed, whoever aims at a likeness to their qualities will attain something of their closeness to the extent that he acquires some of their attributes which bring them closer to the Truth most high. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #NFDB
1500:Whenever learners or those beyond learning awaken the mind, for the first time they plant one buddha-nature. Working with the four elements and five clusters, if they practice sincerely they attain enlightenment. Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment. This is because the four elements and five clusters and plants, trees, fences and walls are fellow students; because they are of the same essence, because they are the same mind and the same life, because they are the same body and the same mechanism. ~ Dogen, #NFDB
552 Integral Yoga
117 Occultism
99 Yoga
97 Poetry
91 Christianity
63 Philosophy
43 Psychology
28 Fiction
25 Science
22 Hinduism
8 Theosophy
8 Buddhism
7 Sufism
6 Integral Theory
6 Baha i Faith
5 Mythology
3 Taoism
3 Kabbalah
3 Education
2 Philsophy
1 Thelema
1 Mysticism
1 Cybernetics
1 Alchemy
396 Sri Aurobindo
211 The Mother
175 Nolini Kanta Gupta
79 Satprem
55 Sri Ramakrishna
55 Aleister Crowley
40 Carl Jung
37 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
28 Saint Augustine of Hippo
26 H P Lovecraft
24 Swami Vivekananda
19 James George Frazer
18 Plotinus
18 A B Purani
16 Saint Teresa of Avila
15 Saint John of Climacus
15 Aldous Huxley
14 Rudolf Steiner
14 Robert Browning
12 Vyasa
12 Plato
12 Friedrich Nietzsche
11 William Wordsworth
11 Swami Krishnananda
10 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
7 Sri Ramana Maharshi
7 Anonymous
6 Friedrich Schiller
6 Baha u llah
5 Thubten Chodron
5 Jordan Peterson
5 Bokar Rinpoche
5 Alice Bailey
5 Al-Ghazali
4 Walt Whitman
4 Patanjali
4 Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia
4 Franz Bardon
3 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
3 Peter J Carroll
3 Percy Bysshe Shelley
3 Paul Richard
3 Joseph Campbell
3 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
3 Jetsun Milarepa
3 Jalaluddin Rumi
3 Edgar Allan Poe
3 Chuang Tzu
2 R Buckminster Fuller
2 Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 Ovid
2 Nirodbaran
2 Moses de Leon
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Lucretius
2 Kabir
2 John Keats
2 Henry David Thoreau
2 George Van Vrekhem
2 Aristotle
94 The Synthesis Of Yoga
63 Record of Yoga
53 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
37 The Life Divine
35 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
29 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
28 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
27 Magick Without Tears
26 Lovecraft - Poems
25 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
25 Liber ABA
25 Letters On Yoga II
24 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
23 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
22 Letters On Yoga IV
20 Prayers And Meditations
20 City of God
19 The Golden Bough
19 Essays On The Gita
19 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
18 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
18 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
18 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
17 Mysterium Coniunctionis
16 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
15 The Perennial Philosophy
15 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
15 The Future of Man
14 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
14 Essays Divine And Human
14 Browning - Poems
14 Agenda Vol 02
13 Questions And Answers 1954
13 Agenda Vol 03
12 Vishnu Purana
12 The Secret Of The Veda
12 Questions And Answers 1956
11 Wordsworth - Poems
11 The Study and Practice of Yoga
11 Talks
11 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
10 The Way of Perfection
10 The Human Cycle
10 Raja-Yoga
10 Let Me Explain
10 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
10 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
10 Bhakti-Yoga
10 Amrita Gita
9 Twilight of the Idols
9 The Practice of Psycho therapy
9 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
9 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
9 Questions And Answers 1955
9 Kena and Other Upanishads
9 Isha Upanishad
8 Vedic and Philological Studies
8 The Bible
8 Agenda Vol 04
7 The Blue Cliff Records
7 Questions And Answers 1953
7 Hymn of the Universe
7 Agenda Vol 01
7 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
6 Words Of Long Ago
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 Schiller - Poems
6 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
6 Letters On Yoga I
5 Words Of The Mother II
5 The Phenomenon of Man
5 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
5 The Divine Comedy
5 The Alchemy of Happiness
5 Tara - The Feminine Divine
5 Some Answers From The Mother
5 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
5 Maps of Meaning
5 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
5 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
5 Aion
5 Agenda Vol 13
5 Agenda Vol 12
4 Whitman - Poems
4 The Red Book Liber Novus
4 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
4 Savitri
4 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
4 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
4 On the Way to Supermanhood
4 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
4 Dark Night of the Soul
3 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
3 Theosophy
3 The Lotus Sutra
3 The Integral Yoga
3 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
3 The Gateless Gate
3 The Book of Certitude
3 Shelley - Poems
3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
3 Milarepa - Poems
3 Liber Null
3 Letters On Yoga III
3 General Principles of Kabbalah
3 Crowley - Poems
3 Collected Poems
3 Chuang Tzu - Poems
3 Agenda Vol 11
3 Agenda Vol 06
3 Agenda Vol 05
2 Walden
2 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
2 The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma
2 The Problems of Philosophy
2 The Practice of Magical Evocation
2 Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking
2 Symposium
2 Rumi - Poems
2 Preparing for the Miraculous
2 Poetics
2 Poe - Poems
2 On Education
2 Of The Nature Of Things
2 Metamorphoses
2 Letters On Poetry And Art
2 Keats - Poems
2 Initiation Into Hermetics
2 Faust
2 Emerson - Poems
2 Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin
2 Anonymous - Poems
2 Agenda Vol 09
2 5.1.01 - Ilion
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Mysticism is not only a science but also, and in a greater degree, an art. To approach it merely as a science, as the modern mind attempts to do, is to move towards futility, if not to land in positive disaster. Sufficient stress is not laid on this aspect of the matter, although the very crux of the situation lies here. The mystic domain has to be apprehended not merely by the true mind and understanding but by the right temperament and character. Mysticism is not merely an object of knowledge, a problem for inquiry and solution, it is an end, an ideal that has to be achieved, a life that has to be lived. The mystics themselves have declared long ago with no uncertain or faltering voice: this cannot be attained by intelligence or much learning, it can be seized only by a purified and clear temperament.
The warning seems to have fallen, in the modern age, on unheeding ears. For the modern mind, being pre-eminently and uncompromisingly scientific, can entertain no doubt as to the perfect competency of science and the scientific method to seize and unveil any secret of Nature. If, it is argued, mysticism is a secret, if there is at all a truth and reality in it, then it is and must be amenable to the rules and regulations of science; for science is the revealer of Nature's secrecies.
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Zen
My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all that is going to come is presented with the precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga.
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The central secret of the transfigured consciousness lies, as we have already indicated, in the mystic rite or law of Sacrifice. It is the one basic, fundamental, universal Law that upholds and explains the cosmic movement, conformity to which brings to the thrice-bound human being release and freedom. Sacrifice consists essentially of two elements or processes: (i) The offering or self giving of the lower reality to the higher, and, as a consequence, an answering movement of (ii) the descent of the higher into the lower. The lower offered to the higher means the lower sublimated and integrated into the higher; and the descent of the higher into the lower means the incarnation of the former and the fulfilment of the latter. The Gita elaborates the same idea when it says that by Sacrifice men increase the gods and the gods increase men and by so increasing each other they attain the supreme Good. Nothing is, nothing is done, for its own sake, for an egocentric satisfaction; all, even movements relating to food and to sex should be dedicated to the Cosmic BeingVisva Purusha and that alone received which comes from Him.
VII. The Cosmic and the Transcendental
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Now, this is the All, the Universal. One has to realise it and possess in one's consciousness. And that can be done only in one way: one has to identify oneself with it, be one with it, become it. Thus by losing one's individuality one lives the life universal; the small lean separate life is enlarged and moulded in the rhythm of the Rich and the Vast. It is thus that man shares in the consciousness and energy that inspire and move and sustain the cosmos. The Upanishad most emphatically enjoins that one must not decry this cosmic godhead or deny any of its elements, not even such as are a taboo to the puritan mind. It is in and through an unimpaired global consciousness that one attains the All-Life and lives uninterruptedly and perennially: Sarvamanveti jyok jvati.
Still the Upanishad says this is not the final end. There is yet a higher status of reality and consciousness to which one has to rise. For beyond the Cosmos lies the Transcendent. The Upanishad expresses this truth and experience in various symbols. The cosmic reality, we have seen, is often conceived as a septenary, a unity of seven elements, principles and worlds. Further to give it its full complex value, it is considered not as a simple septet, but a threefold heptad the whole gamut, as it were, consisting of 21 notes or syllables. The Upanishad says, this number does not exhaust the entire range; I for there is yet a 22nd place. This is the world beyond the Sun, griefless and deathless, the supreme Selfhood. The Veda I also sometimes speaks of the integral reality as being represented by the number 100 which is 99 + I; in other words, 99 represents the cosmic or universal, the unity being the reality beyond, the Transcendent.
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Man, however, is an epitome of creation. He embraces and incarnates the entire gamut of consciousness and comprises in him all beings from the highest Divinity to the lowest jinn or elf. And yet each human being in his true personality is a lineal descendant of one or other typal aspect or original Personality of the one supreme Reality; and his individual character is all the more pronounced and well-defined the more organised and developed is the being. The psychic being in man is thus a direct descent, an immediate emanation along a definite line of devolution of the supreme consciousness. We may now understand and explain easily why one chooses a particular Ishta, an ideal god, what is the drive that pushes one to become a worshipper of Siva or Vishnu or any other deity. It is not any rational understanding, a weighing of pros and cons and then a resultant conclusion that leads one to choose a path of religion or spirituality. It is the soul's natural call to the God, the type of being and consciousness of which it is a spark, from which it has descended, it is the secret affinity the spiritual blood-relation as it were that determines the choice and adherence. And it is this that we name Faith. And the exclusiveness and violence and bitterness which attend such adherence and which go "by the "name of partisanship, sectarianism, fanaticism etc., a;e a deformation in the ignorance on the physico-vital plane of the secret loyalty to one's source and origin. Of course, the pattern or law is not so simple and rigid, but it gives a token or typal pattern. For it must not be forgotten that the supreme source or the original is one and indivisible and in the highest integration consciousness is global and not exclusive. And the human being that attains such a status is not bound or wholly limited to one particular formation: its personality is based on the truth of impersonality. And yet the two can go together: an individual can be impersonal in consciousness and yet personal in becoming and true to type.
The number of gods depends on the level of consciousness on which we stand. On this material plane there are as many gods as there are bodies or individual forms (adhar). And on the supreme height there is only one God without a second. In between there are gradations of types and sub-types whose number and function vary according to the aspect of consciousness that reveals itself.
00.05 - A Vedic Conception of the Poet, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
'Kavi' is an invariable epithet of the gods. The Vedas mean by this attribute to bring out a most fundamental character, an inalienable dharma of the heavenly host. All the gods are poets; and a human being can become a poet only in so far as he attains to the nature and status of a god. Who is then a kavi? The Poet is he who by his poetic power raises forms of beauty in heavenkavi kavitv divi rpam sajat.1Thus the essence of poetic power is to fashion divine Beauty, to reveal heavenly forms. What is this Heaven whose forms the Poet discovers and embodies? HeavenDyaushas a very definite connotation in the Veda. It means the luminous or divine Mind 2the mind purified of its obscurity and limitations, due to subjection to the external senses, thus opening to the higher Light, receiving and recording faithfully the deeper and vaster movements and vibrations of the Truth, giving them a form, a perfect body of the right thought and the right word. Indra is the lord of this world and he can be approached only with an enkindled intelligence, ddhay man,3a faultless understanding, sumedh. He is the supreme Artisan of the poetic power,Tash, the maker of perfect forms, surpa ktnum.4 All the gods turn towards Indra and become gods and poets, attain their Great Names of Supreme Beauty.5 Indra is also the master of the senses, indriyas, who are his hosts. It is through this mind and the senses that the poetic creation has to be manifested. The mind spreads out wide the Poet's weaving;6 the poet is the priest who calls down and works out the right thinking in the sacrificial labour of creation.7 But that creation is made in and through the inner mind and the inner senses that are alive to the subtle formation of a vaster knowledge.8 The poet envisages the golden forms fashioned out of the very profundity of the consciousness.9 For the substance, the material on which the Poet works, is Truth. The seat of the Truth the poets guard, they uphold the supreme secret Names.10 The poet has the expressive utterance, the creative word; the poet is a poet by his poetic creation-the shape faultlessly wrought out that unveils and holds the Truth.11The form of beauty is the body of the Truth.
The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune consciousness forms his personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara. He has the direct vision, the luminous intelligence, the immediate perception.12 A subtle and profound and penetrating consciousness is his,nigam, pracetas; his is the eye of the Sun,srya caku.13 He secures an increased being through his effulgent understanding.14 In the second place, the Poet is not only Seer but Doer; he is knower as well as creator. He has a dynamic knowledge and his vision itself is power, ncak;15 he is the Seer-Will,kavikratu.16 He has the blazing radiance of the Sun and is supremely potent in his self-Iuminousness.17 The Sun is the light and the energy of the Truth. Even like the Sun the Poet gives birth to the Truth, srya satyasava, satyya satyaprasavya. But the Poet as Power is not only the revealer or creator,savit, he is also the builder or fashioner,ta, and he is the organiser,vedh is personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara, of the Truth.18 As Savita he manifests the Truth, as Tashta he gives a perfected body and form to the Truth, and as Vedha he maintains the Truth in its dynamic working. The effective marshalling and organisation of the Truth is what is called Ritam, the Right; it is also called Dharma,19 the Law or the Rhythm, the ordered movement and invincible execution of the Truth. The Poet pursues the Path of the Right;20 it is he who lays out the Path for the march of the Truth, the progress of the Sacrifice.21 He is like a fast steed well-yoked, pressing forward;22 he is the charger that moves straight and unswerving and carries us beyond 23into the world of felicity.
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
For example, Keser is called "The Admirable or the Hidden Intelligence; it is the Primal Glory, for no created being can attain to its essence." This seems perfectly all right; the meaning at first sight seems to fit the significance of Keser as the first emanation from Ain Soph. But there are half a dozen other similar attri butions that would have served equally well. For instance, it could have been called the "Occult Intelligence" usually attri buted to the seventh Path or Sephirah, for surely Keser is secret in a way to be said of no other Sephirah. And what about the "Absolute or Perfect Intelligence." That would have been even more explicit and appropriate, being applicable to Keser far more than to any other of the Paths. Similarly, there is one attri buted to the 16th Path and called "The Eternal or Triumphant Intelligence," so-called because it is the pleasure of the Glory, beyond which is no Glory like to it, and it is called also the Paradise prepared for the Righteous." Any of these several would have done equally well. Much is true of so many of the other attri butions in this particular area-that is the so-called Intelligences of the Sepher Yetzirah. I do not think that their use or current arbitrary usage stands up to serious examination or criticism.
A good many attri butions in other symbolic areas, I feel are subject to the same criticism. The Egyptian Gods have been used with a good deal of carelessness, and without sufficient explanation of motives in assigning them as I did. In a recent edition of Crowley's masterpiece Liber 777 (which au fond is less a reflection of Crowley's mind as a recent critic claimed than a tabulation of some of the material given piecemeal in the Golden Dawn knowledge lectures), he gives for the first time brief explanations of the motives for his attri butions. I too should have been far more explicit in the explanations I used in the case of some of the Gods whose names were used many times, most inadequately, where several paths were concerned. While it is true that the religious coloring of the Egyptian Gods differed from time to time during Egypt's turbulent history, nonetheless a word or two about just that one single point could have served a useful purpose.
000 - Humans in Universe, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
prime reason for humanity's failure to exercise its option to attain universally
sustainable physical success on this planet. The prime barrier to humanity's
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favorably comprehend and to exercise its option to attain universal physical
success, thereby eliminating forevermore all world politics and competition for the
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Born in an orthodox brahmin family, Sri Ramakrishna knew the formalities of worship, its rites and rituals. The innumerable gods and goddesses of the Hindu religion are the human aspects of the indescribable and incomprehensible Spirit, as conceived by the finite human mind. They understand and appreciate human love and emotion, help men to realize their secular and spiritual ideals, and ultimately enable men to attain liberation from the miseries of phenomenal life. The Source of light, intelligence, wisdom, and strength is the One alone from whom comes the fulfilment of desire. Yet, as long as a man is bound by his human limitations, he cannot but worship God through human forms. He must use human symbols. Therefore Hinduism asks the devotees to look on God as the ideal father, the ideal mother, the ideal husband, the ideal son, or the ideal friend. But the name ultimately leads to the Nameless, the form to the Formless, the word to the Silence, the emotion to the serene realization of Peace in Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. The gods gradually merge in the one God. But until that realization is achieved, the devotee cannot dissociate human factors from his worship. Therefore the Deity is bathed and clothed and decked with ornaments. He is fed and put to sleep. He is propitiated with hymns, songs, and prayers. And there are appropriate rites connected with all these functions. For instance, to secure for himself external purity, the priest bathes himself in holy water and puts on a holy cloth. He purifies the mind and the sense-organs by appropriate meditations. He fortifies the place of worship against evil forces by drawing around it circles of fire and water. He awakens the different spiritual centres of the body and invokes the Supreme Spirit in his heart. Then he transfers the Supreme Spirit to the image before him and worships the image, regarding it no longer as clay or stone, but as the embodiment of Spirit, throbbing with Life and Consciousness. After the worship the Supreme Spirit is recalled from the image to Its true sanctuary, the heart of the priest. The real devotee knows the absurdity of worshipping the Transcendental Reality with material articles — clothing That which pervades the whole universe and the beyond, putting on a pedestal That which cannot be limited by space, feeding That which is disembodied and incorporeal, singing before That whose glory the music of the spheres tries vainly to proclaim. But through these rites the devotee aspires to go ultimately beyond rites and rituals, forms and names, words and praise, and to realize God as the All-pervading Consciousness.
Hindu priests are thoroughly acquainted with the rites of worship, but few of them are aware of their underlying significance. They move their hands and limbs mechanically, in obedience to the letter of the scriptures, and repeat the holy mantras like parrots. But from the very beginning the inner meaning of these rites was revealed to Sri Ramakrishna. As he sat facing the image, a strange transformation came over his mind. While going through the prescribed ceremonies, he would actually find himself encircled by a wall of fire protecting him and the place of worship from unspiritual vibrations, or he would feel the rising of the mystic Kundalini through the different centres of the body. The glow on his face, his deep absorption, and the intense atmosphere of the temple impressed everyone who saw him worship the Deity.
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The marriage ceremony was duly performed. Such early marriage in India is in the nature of a betrothal, the marriage being consummated when the girl attains puberty. But in this case the marriage remained for ever unconsummated. Sri Ramakrishna lived at Kamarpukur about a year and a half and then returned to Dakshineswar.
Hardly had he crossed the threshold of the Kali temple when he found himself again in the whirlwind. His madness reappeared tenfold. The same meditation and prayer, the same ecstatic moods, the same burning sensation, the same weeping, the same sleeplessness, the same indifference to the body and the outside world, the same divine delirium. He subjected himself to fresh disciplines in order to eradicate greed and lust, the two great impediments to spiritual progress. With a rupee in one hand and some earth in the other, he would reflect on the comparative value of these two for the realization of God, and finding them equally worthless he would toss them, with equal indifference, into the Ganges. Women he regarded as the manifestations of the Divine Mother. Never even in a dream did he feel the impulses of lust. And to root out of his mind the idea of caste superiority, he cleaned a pariahs house with his long and neglected hair. When he would sit in meditation, birds would perch on his head and peck in his hair for grains of food. Snakes would crawl over his body, and neither would be aware of the other. Sleep left him altogether. Day and night, visions flitted before him. He saw the sannyasi who had previously killed the "sinner" in him again coming out of his body, threatening him with the trident, and ordering him to concentrate on God. Or the same sannyasi would visit distant places, following a luminous path, and bring him reports of what was happening there. Sri Ramakrishna used to say later that in the case of an advanced devotee the mind itself becomes the guru, living and moving like an embodied being.
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The love of Radha is the precursor of the resplendent vision of Sri Krishna, and Sri Ramakrishna soon experienced that vision. The enchanting ing form of Krishna appeared to him and merged in his person. He became Krishna; he totally forgot his own individuality and the world; he saw Krishna in himself and in the universe. Thus he attained to the fulfilment of the worship of the Personal God. He drank from the fountain of Immortal Bliss. The agony of his heart vanished forever. He realized Amrita, Immortality, beyond the shadow of death.
One day, listening to a recitation of the Bhagavata on the verandah of the Radhakanta temple, he fell into a divine mood and saw the enchanting form of Krishna. He perceived the luminous rays issuing from Krishna's Lotus Feet in the form of a stout rope, which touched first the Bhagavata and then his own chest, connecting all three — God, the scripture, and the devotee. "After this vision", he used to say, "I came to realize that Bhagavan, Bhakta, and Bhagavata — God, Devotee, and Scripture — are in reality one and the same."
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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?
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. 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 asked the disciple to withdraw his mind from all objects of the relative world, including the gods and goddesses, and to concentrate on the Absolute. But the task was not easy even for Sri Ramakrishna. He found it impossible to take his mind beyond Kali, the Divine Mother of the Universe. "After the initiation", Sri Ramakrishna once said, describing the event, "Nangta began to teach me the various conclusions of the Advaita Vedanta and asked me to withdraw the mind completely from all objects and dive deep into the Atman. But in spite of all my attempts I could not altogether cross the realm of name and form and bring my mind to the unconditioned state. I had no difficulty in taking the mind from all the objects of the world. But the radiant and too familiar figure of the Blissful Mother, the Embodiment of the essence of Pure Consciousness, appeared before me as a living reality. Her bewitching smile prevented me from passing into the Great Beyond. Again and again I tried, but She stood in my way every time. In despair I said to Nangta: 'It is hopeless. I cannot raise my mind to the unconditioned state and come face to face with Atman.' He grew excited and sharply said: 'What? You can't do it? But you have to.' He cast his eyes around. Finding a piece of glass he took it up and stuck it between my eyebrows. 'Concentrate the mind on this point!' he thundered. Then with stern determination I again sat to meditate. As soon as the gracious form of the Divine Mother appeared before me, I used my discrimination as a sword and with it clove Her in two. The last barrier fell. My spirit at once soared beyond the relative plane and I lost myself in samadhi."
Sri Ramakrishna remained completely absorbed in samadhi for three days. "Is it really true?" Totapuri cried out in astonishment. "Is it possible that he has attained in a single day what it took me forty years of strenuous practice to achieve? Great God! It is nothing short of a miracle!" With the help of Totapuri, Sri Ramakrishna's mind finally came down to the relative plane.
Totapuri, a monk of the most orthodox type, never stayed at a place more than three days. But he remained at Dakshineswar eleven months. He too had something to learn.
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The party entered holy Benares by boat along the Ganges. When Sri Ramakrishna's eyes fell on this city of Siva, where had accumulated for ages the devotion and piety of countless worshippers, he saw it to be made of gold, as the scriptures declare. He was visibly moved. During his stay in the city he treated every particle of its earth with utmost respect. At the Manikarnika Ghat, the great cremation ground of the city, he actually saw Siva, with ash-covered body and tawny matted hair, serenely approaching each funeral pyre and breathing into the ears of the corpses the mantra of liberation; and then the Divine Mother removing from the dead their bonds. Thus he realized the significance of the scriptural statement that anyone dying in Benares attains salvation through the grace of Siva. He paid a visit to Trailanga Swami, the celebrated monk, whom he later declared to be a real paramahamsa, a veritable image of Siva.
Sri Ramakrishna visited Allahabad, at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jamuna, and then proceeded to Vrindavan and Mathura, hallowed by the legends, songs, and dramas about Krishna and the gopis. Here he had numerous visions and his heart overflowed with divine emotion. He wept and said: "O Krishna! Everything here is as it was in the olden days. You alone are absent." He visited the great woman saint, Gangamayi, regarded by Vaishnava devotees as the reincarnation of an intimate attendant of Radha. She was sixty years old and had frequent trances. She spoke of Sri Ramakrishna as an incarnation of Radha. With great difficulty he was persuaded to leave her.
--
Totapuri, coming to know of the Master's marriage, had once remarked: "What does it matter? He alone is firmly established in the Knowledge of Brahman who can adhere to his spirit of discrimination and renunciation even while living with his wife. He alone has attained the supreme illumination who can look on man and woman alike as Brahman. A man with the idea of sex may be a good aspirant, but he is still far from the goal." Sri Ramakrishna and his wife lived together at Dakshineswar, but their minds always soared above the worldly plane. A few months after Sarada Devi's arrival Sri Ramakrishna arranged, on an auspicious day, a special worship of Kali, the Divine Mother. Instead of an image of the Deity, he placed on the seat the living image, Sarada Devi herself. The worshipper and the worshipped went into deep samadhi and in the transcendental plane their souls were united. After several hours Sri Ramakrishna came down again to the relative plane, sang a hymn to the Great Goddess, and surrendered, at the feet of the living image, himself, his rosary, and the fruit of his life-long sadhana. This is known in Tantra as the Shorasi Puja, the "Adoration of Woman". Sri Ramakrishna realized the significance of the great statement of the Upanishad: "O Lord, Thou art the woman. Thou art the man; Thou art the boy. Thou art the girl; Thou art the old, tottering on their crutches. Thou pervadest the universe in its multiple forms."
By his marriage Sri Ramakrishna admitted the great value of marriage in man's spiritual evolution, and by adhering to his monastic vows he demonstrated the imperative necessity of self-control, purity, and continence, in the realization of God. By this unique spiritual relationship with his wife he proved that husband and wife can live together as spiritual companions. Thus his life is a synthesis of the ways of life of the householder and the monk.
--
In the nirvikalpa samadhi Sri Ramakrishna had realized that Brahman alone is real and the world illusory. By keeping his mind six months on the plane of the non-dual Brahman, he had attained to the state of the vijnani, the knower of Truth in a special and very rich sense, who sees Brahman not only in himself and in the transcendental Absolute, but in everything of the world. In this state of vijnana, sometimes, bereft of body-consciousness, he would regard himself as one with Brahman; sometimes, conscious of the dual world, he would regard himself as God's devotee, servant, or child. In order to enable the Master to work for the welfare of humanity, the Divine Mother had kept in him a trace of ego, which he described — according to his mood — as the "ego of Knowledge", the "ego of Devotion", the "ego of a child", or the "ego of a servant". In any case this ego of the Master, consumed by the fire of the Knowledge of Brahman, was an appearance only, like a burnt string. He often referred to this ego as the "ripe ego" in contrast with the ego of the bound soul, which he described as the "unripe" or "green" ego. The ego of the bound soul identifies itself with the body, relatives, possessions, and the world; but the "ripe ego", illumined by Divine Knowledge, knows the body, relatives, possessions, and the world to be unreal and establishes a relationship of love with God alone. Through this "ripe ego" Sri Ramakrishna dealt with the world and his wife. One day, while stroking his feet, Sarada Devi asked the Master, "What do you think of me?" Quick came the answer: "The Mother who is worshipped in the temple is the mother who has given birth to my body and is now living in the nahabat, and it is She again who is stroking my feet at this moment. Indeed, I always look on you as the personification of the Blissful Mother Kali."
Sarada Devi, in the company of her husband, had rare spiritual experiences. She said: "I have no words to describe my wonderful exaltation of spirit as I watched him in his different moods. Under the influence of divine emotion he would sometimes talk on abstruse subjects, sometimes laugh, sometimes weep, and sometimes become perfectly motionless in samadhi. This would continue throughout the night. There was such an extraordinary divine presence in him that now and then I would shake with fear and wonder how the night would pass. Months went by in this way. Then one day he discovered that I had to keep awake the whole night lest, during my sleep, he should go into samadhi — for it might happen at any moment —, and so he asked me to sleep in the nahabat."
--
In 1878 a schism divided Keshab's Samaj. Some of his influential followers accused him of infringing the Brahmo principles by marrying his daughter to a wealthy man before she had attained the marriageable age approved by the Samaj. This group seceded and established the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Keshab remaining the leader of the Navavidhan. Keshab now began to be drawn more and more toward the Christ ideal, though under the influence of Sri Ramakrishna his devotion to the Divine Mother also deepened. His mental oscillation between Christ and the Divine Mother of Hinduism found no position of rest. In Bengal and some other parts of India the Brahmo movement took the form of unitarian Christianity, scoffed at Hindu rituals, and preached a crusade against image worship. Influenced by Western culture, it declared the supremacy of reason, advocated the ideals of the French Revolution, abolished the caste-system among its own members, stood for the emancipation of women, agitated for the abolition of early marriage, sanctioned the remarriage of widows, and encouraged various educational and social-reform movements. The immediate effect of the Brahmo movement in Bengal was the checking of the proselytizing activities of the Christian missionaries. It also raised Indian culture in the estimation of its English masters. But it was an intellectual and eclectic religious ferment born of the necessity of the time. Unlike Hinduism, it was not founded on the deep inner experiences of sages and prophets. Its influence was confined to a comparatively few educated men and women of the country, and the vast masses of the Hindus remained outside it. It sounded monotonously only one of the notes in the rich gamut of the Eternal Religion of the Hindus.
--- ARYA SAMAJ
--
But during his third visit Narendra fared no better. This time, at the Master's touch, he lost consciousness entirely. While he was still in that state, Sri Ramakrishna questioned him concerning his spiritual antecedents and whereabouts, his mission in this world, and the duration of his mortal life. The answers confirmed what the Master himself had known and inferred. Among other things, he came to know that Narendra was a sage who had already attained perfection, and that the day he learnt his real nature he would give up his body in yoga, by an act of will.
A few more meetings completely removed from Narendra's mind the last traces of the notion that Sri Ramakrishna might be a monomaniac or wily hypnotist. His integrity, purity, renunciation, and unselfishness were beyond question. But Narendra could not accept a man, an imperfect mortal, as his guru. As a member of the Brahmo Samaj, he could not believe that a human intermediary was necessary between man and God. Moreover, he openly laughed at Sri Ramakrishna's visions as hallucinations. Yet in the secret chamber of his heart he bore a great love for the Master.
--
Sarat's soul longed for the all-embracing realization of the Godhead. When the Master inquired whether there was any particular form of God he wished to see, the boy replied that he would like to see God in all the living beings of the world. "But", the Master demurred, "that is the last word in realization. One cannot have it at the very outset." Sarat stated calmly: "I won't be satisfied with anything short of that. I shall trudge on along the path till I attain that blessed state." Sri Ramakrishna was very much pleased.
--- HARINATH
--
Subodh visited the Master in 1885. At the very first meeting Sri Ramakrishna said to him: "You will succeed. Mother says so. Those whom She sends here will certainly attain spirituality." During the second meeting the Master wrote something on Subodh's tongue, stroked his body from the navel to the throat, and said, "Awake, Mother! Awake." He asked the boy to meditate. At once Subodh's latent spirituality was awakened. He felt a current rushing along the spinal column to the brain. Joy filled his soul.
--- SARADA AND TULASI
--
supernatural cause to a natural phenomenon. They believed that the Master's body, a material thing, was subject, like all other material things, to physical laws. Growth, development, decay, and death were laws of nature to which the Master's body could not but respond. But though holding differing views, they all believed that it was to him alone that they must look for the attainment of their spiritual goal.
In spite of the physician's efforts and the prayers and nursing of the devotees, the illness rapidly progressed. The pain sometimes appeared to be unbearable. The Master lived only on liquid food, and his frail body was becoming a mere skeleton. Yet his face always radiated joy, and he continued to welcome the visitors pouring in to receive his blessing. When certain zealous devotees tried to keep the visitors away, they were told by Girish, "You cannot succeed in it; he has been born for this very purpose — to sacrifice himself for the redemption of others."
--
Narendra, consumed with a terrific fever for realization, complained to the Master that all the others had attained peace and that he alone was dissatisfied. The Master asked what he wanted. Narendra begged for samadhi, so that he might altogether forget the world for three or four days at a time. "You are a fool", the Master rebuked him. "There is a state even higher than that. Isn't it you who sing, 'All that exists art Thou'? First of all settle your family affairs and then come to me. You will experience a state even higher than samadhi."
The Master did not hide the fact that he wished to make Narendra his spiritual heir. Narendra was to continue the work after Sri Ramakrishna's passing. Sri Ramakrishna said to him: "I leave these young men in your charge. See that they develop their spirituality and do not return home." One day he asked the boys, in preparation for a monastic life, to beg their food from door to door without thought of caste. They hailed the Master's order and went out with begging-bowls. A few days later he gave the ochre cloth of the sannyasi to each of them, including Girish, who was now second to none in his spirit of renunciation. Thus the Master himself laid the foundation of the future Ramakrishna Order of monks.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
they have attained. If it were not so, they would be
called "six" in its bad sense of mere intellect.
--
perfection is easily attained soon ceases to amuse,
although in the beginning its fascination is so violent.
--
Paragraph 5 expresses the wish of the Guru that his Chela may attain safely
to binah, the Mother.
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Sri Mahendra Nath Gupta, familiary known to the readers of the Gospel by his pen name M., and to the devotees as Master Mahashay, was born on the 14th of July, 1854 as the son of Madhusudan Gupta, an officer of the Calcutta High Court, and his wife, Swarnamayi Devi. He had a brilliant scholastic career at Hare School and the Presidency College at Calcutta. The range of his studies included the best that both occidental and oriental learning had to offer. English literature, history, economics, western philosophy and law on the one hand, and Sanskrit literature and grammar, Darsanas, Puranas, Smritis, Jainism, Buddhism, astrology and Ayurveda on the other were the subjects in which he attained considerable proficiency.
He was an educationist all his life both in a spiritual and in a secular sense. After he passed out of College, he took up work as headmaster in a number of schools in succession Narail High School, City School, Ripon College School, Metropolitan School, Aryan School, Oriental School, Oriental Seminary and Model School. The causes of his migration from school to school were that he could not get on with some of the managements on grounds of principles and that often his spiritual mood drew him away to places of pilgrimage for long periods. He worked with some of the most noted public men of the time like Iswar Chandra Vidysgar and Surendranath Banerjee. The latter appointed him as a professor in the City and Ripon Colleges where he taught subjects like English, philosophy, history and economics. In his later days he took over the Morton School, and he spent his time in the staircase room of the third floor of it, administering the school and preaching the message of the Master. He was much respected in educational circles where he was usually referred to as Rector Mahashay. A teacher who had worked under him writes thus in warm appreciation of his teaching methods: "Only when I worked with him in school could I appreciate what a great educationist he was. He would come down to the level of his students when teaching, though he himself was so learned, so talented. Ordinarily teachers confine their instruction to what is given in books without much thought as to whether the student can accept it or not. But M., would first of all gauge how much the student could take in and by what means. He would employ aids to teaching like maps, pictures and diagrams, so that his students could learn by seeing. Thirty years ago (from 1953) when the question of imparting education through the medium of the mother tongue was being discussed, M. had already employed Bengali as the medium of instruction in the Morton School." (M The Apostle and the Evangelist by Swami Nityatmananda Part I. P. 15.)
0.01 - I - Sri Aurobindos personality, his outer retirement - outside contacts after 1910 - spiritual personalities- Vibhutis and Avatars - transformtion of human personality, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The question which Arjuna asks Sri Krishna in the Gita (second chapter) occurs pertinently to many about all spiritual personalities: "What is the language of one whose understanding is poised? How does he speak, how sit, how walk?" Men want to know the outer signs of the inner attainment, the way in which a spiritual person differs outwardly from other men. But all the tests which the Gita enumerates are inner and therefore invisible to the outer view. It is true also that the inner or the spiritual is the essential and the outer derives its value and form from the inner. But the transformation about which Sri Aurobindo writes in his books has to take place in nature, because according to him the divine Reality has to manifest itself in nature. So, all the parts of nature including the physical and the external are to be transformed. In his own case the very physical became the transparent mould of the Spirit as a result of his intense Sadhana. This is borne out by the impression created on the minds of sensitive outsiders like Sj. K. M. Munshi who was deeply impressed by his radiating presence when he met him after nearly forty years.
The Evening Talks collected here may afford to the outside world a glimpse of his external personality and give the seeker some idea of its richness, its many-sidedness, its uniqueness. One can also form some notion of Sri Aurobindo's personality from the books in which the height, the universal sweep and clear vision of his integral ideal and thought can be seen. His writings are, in a sense, the best representative of his mental personality. The versatile nature of his genius, the penetrating power of his intellect, his extraordinary power of expression, his intense sincerity, his utter singleness of purpose all these can be easily felt by any earnest student of his works. He may discover even in the realm of mind that Sri Aurobindo brings the unlimited into the limited. Another side of his dynamic personality is represented by the Ashram as an institution. But the outer, if one may use the phrase, the human side of his personality, is unknown to the outside world because from 1910 to 1950 a span of forty years he led a life of outer retirement. No doubt, many knew about his staying at Pondicherry and practising some kind of very special Yoga to the mystery of which they had no access. To some, perhaps, he was living a life of enviable solitude enjoying the luxury of a spiritual endeavour. Many regretted his retirement as a great loss to the world because they could not see any external activity on his part which could be regarded as 'public', 'altruistic' or 'beneficial'. Even some of his admirers thought that he was after some kind of personal salvation which would have very little significance for mankind in general. His outward non-participation in public life was construed by many as lack of love for humanity.
--
This period of outer retirement was one of intense Sadhana and of intellectual activity it was also one during which he acted on external events, though he was not dedicated outwardly to a public cause. About his own retirement he writes: "But this did not mean, as most people supposed, that he [Sri Aurobindo] had retired into some height of spiritual experience devoid of any further interest in the world or in the fate of India. It could not mean that, for the very principle of his Yoga was not only to realise the Divine and attain to a complete spiritual consciousness, but also to take all life and all world activity into the scope of this spiritual consciousness and action and to base life on the Spirit and give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened, whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of those who have advanced in yoga that besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter, there are other forces and powers that can and do act from behind and from above; there is also a spiritual dynamic power which can be possessed by those who are advanced in spiritual consciousness, though all do not care to possess or, possessing, to use it and this power is greater than any other and more effective. It was this force which, as soon as he attained to it, he used at first only in a limited field of personal work, but afterwards in a constant action upon the world forces."[1]
Twice he found it necessary to go out of his way to make public pronouncements on important world-issues, which shows distinctly that renunciation of life is not a part of his Yoga. "The first was in relation to the Second World War. At the beginning he did not actively concern himself with it, but when it appeared as if Hitler would crush all the forces opposed to him and Nazism dominate the world, he began to intervene."[2]
--
The gospel of the Supermind which Sri Aurobindo brought to man envisages a new level of consciousness beyond Mind. When this level is attained it imposes a complete and radical reintegration of the human personality. Sri Aurobindo was not merely the exponent but the embodiment of the new, dynamic truth of the Supermind. While exploring and sounding the tremendous possibilities of human personality in his intense spiritual Sadhana, he has shown us that practically there are no limits to its expansion and ascent. It can reach in its growth what appears to man at present as a 'divine' status. It goes without saying that this attainment is not an easy task; there are conditions to be fulfilled for the transformation from the human to the divine.
The Gita in its chapters on the Vibhuti and the Avatar takes in general the same position. It shows that the present formula of our nature, and therefore the mental personality of man, is not final. A Vibhuti embodies in a human manifestation a certain divine quality and thus demonstrates the possibility of overcoming the limits of ordinary human personality. The Vibhuti the embodiment of a divine quality or power, and the Avatar the divine incarnation, are not to be looked upon as supraphysical miracles thrown at humanity without regard to the process of evolution; they are, in fact, indications of human possibility, a sign that points to the goal of evolution.
0.01 - Life and Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the right view both of life and of Yoga all life is either consciously or subconsciously a Yoga. For we mean by this term a methodised effort towards self-perfection by the expression of the secret potentialities latent in the being and - highest condition of victory in that effort - a union of the human individual with the universal and transcendent Existence we see partially expressed in man and in the Cosmos. But all life, when we look behind its appearances, is a vast Yoga of Nature who attempts in the conscious and the subconscious to realise her perfection in an ever-increasing expression of her yet unrealised potentialities and to unite herself with her own divine reality. In man, her thinker, she for the first time upon this Earth devises selfconscious means and willed arrangements of activity by which this great purpose may be more swiftly and puissantly attained.
Yoga, as Swami Vivekananda has said, may be regarded as a means of compressing one's evolution into a single life or a few years or even a few months of bodily existence. A given system of Yoga, then, can be no more than a selection or a compression, into narrower but more energetic forms of intensity, of the general methods which are already being used loosely, largely, in a leisurely movement, with a profuser apparent waste of material and energy but with a more complete combination by the great
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
We perceive, then, these three steps in Nature, a bodily life which is the basis of our existence here in the material world, a mental life into which we emerge and by which we raise the bodily to higher uses and enlarge it into a greater completeness, and a divine existence which is at once the goal of the other two and returns upon them to liberate them into their highest possibilities. Regarding none of them as either beyond our reach or below our nature and the destruction of none of them as essential to the ultimate attainment, we accept this liberation and fulfilment as part at least and a large and important part of the aim of Yoga.
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
small, and it is only by identification with the Divine Consciousness that one can attain and preserve the true unchanging
happiness.
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The characteristic law of Spirit is self-existent perfection and immutable infinity. It possesses always and in its own right the immortality which is the aim of Life and the perfection which is the goal of Mind. The attainment of the eternal and the realisation of that which is the same in all things and beyond all things, equally blissful in universe and outside it, untouched by the imperfections and limitations of the forms and activities in which it dwells, are the glory of the spiritual life.
In each of these forms Nature acts both individually and collectively; for the Eternal affirms Himself equally in the single form and in the group-existence, whether family, clan and nation or groupings dependent on less physical principles or the supreme group of all, our collective humanity. Man also may seek his own individual good from any or all of these spheres of activity, or identify himself in them with the collectivity and live for it, or, rising to a truer perception of this complex universe, harmonise the individual realisation with the collective aim. For as it is the right relation of the soul with the Supreme, while it is in the universe, neither to assert egoistically its separate being nor to blot itself out in the Indefinable, but to realise its unity with the Divine and the world and unite them in the individual, so the right relation of the individual with the collectivity is neither to pursue egoistically his own material or mental progress or spiritual salvation without regard to his fellows, nor for the sake of the community to suppress or maim his proper development, but to sum up in himself all its best and completest possibilities and pour them out by thought, action and all other means on his surroundings so that the whole race may approach nearer to the attainment of its supreme personalities.
It follows that the object of the material life must be to fulfil, above all things, the vital aim of Nature. The whole aim of the material man is to live, to pass from birth to death with as much comfort or enjoyment as may be on the way, but anyhow to live.
--
Mind finds fully its force and action only when it casts itself upon life and accepts equally its possibilities and its resistances as the means of a greater self-perfection. In the struggle with the difficulties of the material world the ethical development of the individual is firmly shaped and the great schools of conduct are formed; by contact with the facts of life Art attains to vitality, Thought assures its abstractions, the generalisations of the philosopher base themselves on a stable foundation of science and experience.
This mixing with life may, however, be pursued for the sake of the individual mind and with an entire indifference to the forms of the material existence or the uplifting of the race. This indifference is seen at its highest in the Epicurean discipline and is not entirely absent from the Stoic; and even altruism does the works of compassion more often for its own sake than for the sake of the world it helps. But this too is a limited fulfilment. The progressive mind is seen at its noblest when it strives to elevate the whole race to its own level whether by sowing broadcast the image of its own thought and fulfilment or by changing the material life of the race into fresh forms, religious, intellectual, social or political, intended to represent more nearly that ideal of truth, beauty, justice, righteousness with which the man's own soul is illumined. Failure in such a field matters little; for the mere attempt is dynamic and creative. The struggle of Mind to elevate life is the promise and condition of the conquest of life by that which is higher even than Mind.
--
But if Progress also is one of the chief terms of worldexistence and a progressive manifestation of the Divine the true sense of Nature, this limitation also is invalid. It is possible for the spiritual life in the world, and it is its real mission, to change the material life into its own image, the image of the Divine. Therefore, besides the great solitaries who have sought and attained their self-liberation, we have the great spiritual teachers who have also liberated others and, supreme of all, the great dynamic souls who, feeling themselves stronger in the might of the Spirit than all the forces of the material life banded together, have thrown themselves upon the world, grappled with it in a loving wrestle and striven to compel its consent to its own transfiguration. Ordinarily, the effort is concentrated on a mental and moral change in humanity, but it may extend itself also to the alteration of the forms of our life and its institutions so that they too may be a better mould for the inpourings of the Spirit. These attempts have been the supreme landmarks in the progressive development of human ideals and the divine preparation of the race. Every one of them, whatever its outward results, has left Earth more capable of Heaven and quickened in its tardy movements the evolutionary Yoga of Nature.
In India, for the last thousand years and more, the spiritual life and the material have existed side by side to the exclusion of the progressive mind. Spirituality has made terms for itself with Matter by renouncing the attempt at general progress. It has obtained from society the right of free spiritual development for all who assume some distinctive symbol, such as the garb of the Sannyasin, the recognition of that life as man's goal and those who live it as worthy of an absolute reverence, and the casting of society itself into such a religious mould that its most customary acts should be accompanied by a formal reminder of the spiritual symbolism of life and its ultimate destination. On the other hand, there was conceded to society the right of inertia and immobile self-conservation. The concession destroyed much of the value of the terms. The religious mould being fixed, the formal reminder tended to become a routine and to lose its living sense. The constant attempts to change the mould by new sects and religions ended only in a new routine or a modification of the old; for the saving element of the free and active mind had been exiled. The material life, handed over to the Ignorance, the purposeless and endless duality, became a leaden and dolorous yoke from which flight was the only escape.
--
But what Nature aims at for the mass in a slow evolution, Yoga effects for the individual by a rapid revolution. It works by a quickening of all her energies, a sublimation of all her faculties. While she develops the spiritual life with difficulty and has constantly to fall back from it for the sake of her lower realisations, the sublimated force, the concentrated method of Yoga can attain directly and carry with it the perfection of the mind and even, if she will, the perfection of the body. Nature seeks the Divine in her own symbols: Yoga goes beyond Nature to the Lord of Nature, beyond universe to the Transcendent and can return with the transcendent light and power, with the fiat of the Omnipotent.
But their aim is one in the end. The generalisation of Yoga in humanity must be the last victory of Nature over her own delays and concealments. Even as now by the progressive mind in Science she seeks to make all mankind fit for the full development of the mental life, so by Yoga must she inevitably seek to make all mankind fit for the higher evolution, the second birth, the spiritual existence. And as the mental life uses and perfects the material, so will the spiritual use and perfect the material and the mental existence as the instruments of a divine self-expression.
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yet it is always through something which she has formed in her evolution that Nature thus overpasses her evolution. It is the individual heart that by sublimating its highest and purest emotions attains to the transcendent Bliss or the ineffable Nirvana, the individual mind that by converting its ordinary functionings into a knowledge beyond mentality knows its oneness with the
Ineffable and merges its separate existence in that transcendent unity. And always it is the individual, the Self conditioned in its experience by Nature and working through her formations, that attains to the Self unconditioned, free and transcendent.
In practice three conceptions are necessary before there can be any possibility of Yoga; there must be, as it were, three consenting parties to the effort, - God, Nature and the human soul or, in more abstract language, the Transcendental, the Universal
--
It is this truth which makes necessary to every philosophy of Yoga the conception of the Ishwara, Lord, supreme Soul or supreme Self, towards whom the effort is directed and who gives the illuminating touch and the strength to attain. Equally true is the complementary idea so often enforced by the Yoga of devotion that as the Transcendent is necessary to the individual and sought after by him, so also the individual is necessary in a sense to the Transcendent and sought after by It. If the
Bhakta seeks and yearns after Bhagavan, Bhagavan also seeks and yearns after the Bhakta.1 There can be no Yoga of knowledge without a human seeker of the knowledge, the supreme subject of knowledge and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of knowledge; no Yoga of devotion without the human God-lover, the supreme object of love and delight and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of spiritual, emotional and aesthetic enjoyment; no Yoga of works without the human worker, the supreme Will, Master of all works and sacrifices, and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of power and action. However Monistic may be our intellectual conception of the highest truth of things, in practice we are compelled to accept this omnipresent Trinity.
--
Nature and kept within the narrow bounds of her normal operations. In the ancient tradition of Hathayoga it has always been supposed that this conquest could be pushed so far even as to conquer to a great extent the force of gravitation. By various subsidiary but elaborate processes the Hathayogin next contrives to keep the body free from all impurities and the nervous system unclogged for those exercises of respiration which are his most important instruments. These are called pran.ayama, the control of the breath or vital power; for breathing is the chief physical functioning of the vital forces. Pranayama, for the Hathayogin, serves a double purpose. First, it completes the perfection of the body. The vitality is liberated from many of the ordinary necessities of physical Nature; robust health, prolonged youth, often an extraordinary longevity are attained.
On the other hand, Pranayama awakens the coiled-up serpent of the Pranic dynamism in the vital sheath and opens to the Yogin fields of consciousness, ranges of experience, abnormal faculties denied to the ordinary human life while it puissantly intensifies such normal powers and faculties as he already possesses.
--
The results of Hathayoga are thus striking to the eye and impose easily on the vulgar or physical mind. And yet at the end we may ask what we have gained at the end of all this stupendous labour. The object of physical Nature, the preservation of the mere physical life, its highest perfection, even in a certain sense the capacity of a greater enjoyment of physical living have been carried out on an abnormal scale. But the weakness of Hathayoga is that its laborious and difficult processes make so great a demand on the time and energy and impose so complete a severance from the ordinary life of men that the utilisation of its results for the life of the world becomes either impracticable or is extraordinarily restricted. If in return for this loss we gain another life in another world within, the mental, the dynamic, these results could have been acquired through other systems, through Rajayoga, through Tantra, by much less laborious methods and held on much less exacting terms. On the other hand the physical results, increased vitality, prolonged youth, health, longevity are of small avail if they must be held by us as misers of ourselves, apart from the common life, for their own sake, not utilised, not thrown into the common sum of the world's activities. Hathayoga attains large results, but at an exorbitant price and to very little purpose.
Rajayoga takes a higher flight. It aims at the liberation and perfection not of the bodily, but of the mental being, the control of the emotional and sensational life, the mastery of the whole apparatus of thought and consciousness. It fixes its eyes on the citta, that stuff of mental consciousness in which all these activities arise, and it seeks, even as Hathayoga with its physical material, first to purify and to tranquillise. The normal state of man is a condition of trouble and disorder, a kingdom either at war with itself or badly governed; for the lord, the Purusha, is subjected to his ministers, the faculties, subjected even to his subjects, the instruments of sensation, emotion, action, enjoyment. Swarajya, self-rule, must be substituted for this subjection.
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
the Divine is the one thing needful and it includes or leads up to all the rest; towards this sole good we have to drive and this attained, all the rest that the divine Will chooses for us, all necessary form and manifestation, will be added.
The synthesis we propose cannot, then, be arrived at either by combination in mass or by successive practice. It must therefore be effected by neglecting the forms and outsides of the
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We have in this central Tantric conception one side of the truth, the worship of the Energy, the Shakti, as the sole effective force for all attainment. We get the other extreme in the Vedantic conception of the Shakti as a power of Illusion and in the search after the silent inactive Purusha as the means of liberation from the deceptions created by the active Energy. But in the integral conception the Conscious Soul is the Lord, the Nature-Soul is his executive Energy. Purusha is of the nature of Sat, the being of conscious self-existence pure and infinite; Shakti or Prakriti is of the nature of Chit, - it is power of the Purusha's self-conscious existence, pure and infinite. The relation of the two exists between the poles of rest and action. When the Energy is absorbed
44
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Sadhana, the practice by which perfection, siddhi, is attained; sadhaka, the Yogin who seeks by that practice the siddhi.
46
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By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the
Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.
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functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ananda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ananda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.
Perfection includes perfection of mind and body, so that the highest results of Rajayoga and Hathayoga should be contained in the widest formula of the synthesis finally to be effected by mankind. At any rate a full development of the general mental and physical faculties and experiences attainable by humanity through Yoga must be included in the scope of the integral method. Nor would these have any raison d'etre unless employed for an integral mental and physical life. Such a mental and physical life would be in its nature a translation of the spiritual existence into its right mental and physical values. Thus we would arrive at a synthesis of the three degrees of Nature and of the three modes of human existence which she has evolved or is evolving. We would include in the scope of our liberated being and perfected modes of activity the material life, our base, and the mental life, our intermediate instrument.
Nor would the integrality to which we aspire be real or even possible, if it were confined to the individual. Since our divine perfection embraces the realisation of ourselves in being, in life and in love through others as well as through ourselves, the extension of our liberty and of its results in others would be the inevitable outcome as well as the broadest utility of our liberation and perfection. And the constant and inherent attempt of such an extension would be towards its increasing and ultimately complete generalisation in mankind.
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
that by himself, and with the ordinary aid of grace, man cannot attain to that
degree of purgation which is essential to his transformation in God. He needs
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ascent of the Mount on whose summit the soul attains to transforming union.
Chapters xii and xiii detail with great exactness the benefits that the soul receives
0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
means of attaining the union you desire.
My one hope is to progress as much as I can, so that my
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that one can attain the true Union.
It is in your soul that the calmness can be found and it is by contagion that it spreads through your being. It is not steady because
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Without perseverance one never attains anything.
Because a thing is difficult it does not mean that one should give
0.07 - DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
Exposition of the stanzas describing the method followed by the soul in its journey upon the spiritual road to the attainment of the perfect union of love with God, to the extent that is possible in this life. Likewise are described the properties belonging to the soul that has attained to the said perfection, according as they are contained in the same stanzas.
PROLOGUE
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IN this first stanza the soul relates the way and manner which it followed in going forth, as to its affection, from itself and from all things, and in dying to them all and to itself, by means of true mortification, in order to attain to living the sweet and delectable life of love with God; and it says that this going forth from itself and from all things was a 'dark night,' by which, as will be explained hereafter, is here understood purgative contemplation, which causes passively in the soul the negation of itself and of all things referred to above.
2. And this going forth it says here that it was able to accomplish in the strength and ardour which love for its Spouse gave to it for that purpose in the dark contemplation aforementioned. Herein it extols the great happiness which it found in journeying to God through this night with such signal success that none of the three enemies, which are world, devil and flesh (who are they that ever impede this road), could hinder it; inasmuch as the aforementioned night of purgative20 contemplation lulled to sleep and mortified, in the house of its sensuality, all the passions and desires with respect to their mischievous desires and motions. The line, then, says:
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are many ways to attain self-realisation, and each one
must choose the way that comes to him most naturally.
01.01 - The New Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The New Humanity will be something in the mould that we give to the gods. It will supply the link that we see missing between gods and men; it will be the race of embodied gods. Man will attain that thing which has been his first desire and earliest dream, for which he coveted the gods Immortality, amritatwam. The mortalities that cut and divide, limit and bind man make him the sorrowful being he is. These are due to his ignorance and weakness and egoism. These are due to his soul itself. It is the soul that requires change, a new birth, as Christ demanded. Ours is a little soul that has severed itself from the larger and mightier self that it is. And therefore does it die every moment and even while living is afraid to live and so lives poorly and miserably. But the age is now upon us when the god-like soul anointed with its immortal royalties is ready to emerge and claim our salutation.
The breath and the surge of the new creation cannot be mistaken. The question that confronts us today is no longer whether the New Man, the Super-humanity, will come or if at all, when; but the question we have to answer is who among us are ready to be its receptacle, its instrument and embodiment.
01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This has been the highest consummation, the supreme goal which the purest spiritual experience and the deepest aspiration of the human consciousness generally sought to attain. But in this view, the world or creation or Nature came in the end to be looked upon as fundamentally a product of Ignorance: ignorance and suffering and incapacity and death were declared to be the very hallmark of things terrestrial. The Light that dwells above and beyond can be made to shed for a while some kind of lustre upon the mortal darkness but never altogether to remove or change itto live in the full light, to be in and of the Light means to pass beyond. Not that there have not been other strands and types of spiritual experiences and aspirations, but the one we are considering has always struck the major chord and dominated and drowned all the rest.
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.
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An organ in the human being has been especially developed to become the effective instrument of this accelerated Yogic process the self-consciousness which I referred to as being the distinctive characteristic of man is a function of this organ. It is his soul, his psychic being; originally it is the spark of the Divine Consciousness which came down and became involved in Matter and has been endeavouring ever since to release itself through the upward march of evolution. It is this which presses on continually as the stimulus to the evolutionary movement; and in man it has attained sufficient growth and power and has come so far to the front from behind the veil that it can now lead and mould his external consciousness. It is also the channel through which the Divine Consciousness can flow down into the inferior levels of human nature. It is the being no bigger than the thumb ever seated within the heart, spoken of in the Upanishads. It is likewise the basis of true individuality and personal identity. It is again the reflection or expression in evolutionary Nature of one's essential selfjivtman that is above, an eternal portion of the Divine, one with the Divine and yet not dissolved and lost in it. The psychic being is thus on the one hand in direct contact with the Divine and the higher consciousness, and on the other it is the secret upholder and controller' (bhart, antarymin) of the inferior consciousness, the hidden nucleus round which the body and the life and the mind of the individual are built up and organised.
The first decisive step in Yoga is taken when one becomes conscious of the psychic being, or, looked at from the other side, when the psychic being comes forward and takes possession of the external being, begins to initiate and influence the movements of the mind and life and body and gradually free them from the ordinary round of ignorant nature. The awakening of the psychic being means, as I have said, not only a deepening and heightening of the consciousness and its release from the obscurity and limitation of the inferior Prakriti, confined to the lower threefold status, into what is behind and beyond; it means also a return of the deeper and higher consciousness upon the lower hemisphere and a consequent purification and illumination and regeneration of the latter. Finally, when the psychic being is in full self-possession and power, it can be the vehicle of the direct supramental consciousness which will then be able to act freely and absolutely for the entire transformation of the external nature, its transfiguration into a perfect body of the Truth-consciousness in a word, its divinisation.
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Now, with regard to the time that the present stage of evolution is likely to take for its fulfilment, one can presume that since or if the specific urge and stress has manifested and come up to the front, this very fact would show that the problem has become a problem of actuality, and even that it can be dealt with as if it had to be solved now or never. We have said that in man, with man's self-consciousness or the consciousness of the psychic being as the instrument, evolution has attained the capacity of a swift and concentrated process, which is the process of Yoga; the process will become swifter and more concentrated, the more that instrument grows and gathers power and is infused with the divine afflatus. In fact, evolution has been such a process of gradual acceleration in tempo from the very beginning. The earliest stage, for example, the stage of dead Matter, of the play of the mere chemical forces was a very, very long one; it took millions and millions of years to come to the point when the manifestation of life became possible. But the period of elementary life, as manifested in the plant world that followed, although it too lasted a good many millions of years, was much briefer than the preceding periodit ended with the advent of the first animal form. The age of animal life, again, has been very much shorter than that of the plant life before man came upon earth. And man is already more than a million or two years oldit is fully time that a higher order of being should be created out of him.
The Dhammapada, I. 1
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The heart and its urges, the vital and its surges, the physical impulsesit is these of which the poets sang in their infinite variations. But the mind proper, that is to say, the higher reflective ideative mind, was not given the right of citizenship in the domain of poetry. I am not forgetting the so-called Metaphysicals. The element of metaphysics among the Metaphysicals has already been called into question. There is here, no doubt, some theology, a good dose of mental cleverness or conceit, but a modern intellectual or rather rational intelligence is something other, something more than that. Even the metaphysics that was commandeered here had more or less a decorative value, it could not be taken into the pith and substance of poetic truth and beauty. It was a decoration, but not unoften a drag. I referred to the Upanishads, but these strike quite a different, almost an opposite line in this connection. They are in a sense truly metaphysical: they bypass the mind and the mental powers, get hold of a higher mode of consciousness, make a direct contact with truth and beauty and reality. It was Buddha's credit to have forged this missing link in man's spiritual consciousness, to have brought into play the power of the rational intellect and used it in support of the spiritual experience. That is not to say that he was the very first person, the originator who initiated the movement; but at least this seems to be true that in him and his au thentic followers the movement came to the forefront of human consciousness and attained the proportions of a major member of man's psychological constitution. We may remember here that Socrates, who started a similar movement of rationalisation in his own way in Europe, was almost a contemporary of the Buddha.
Poetry as an expression of thought-power, poetry weighted with intelligence and rationalised knowledge that seems to me to be the end and drive, the secret sense of all the mystery of modern technique. The combination is risky, but not impossible. In the spiritual domain the Gita achieved this miracle to a considerable degree. Still, the power of intelligence and reason shown by Vyasa is of a special order: it is a sublimated function of the faculty, something aloof and other-worldly"introvert", a modern mind would term it that is to say, something a priori, standing in its own au thenticity and self-sufficiency. A modern intelligence would be more scientific, let us use the word, more matter-of-fact and sense-based: the mental light should not be confined in its ivory tower, however high that may be, but brought down and placed at the service of our perception and appreciation and explanation of things human and terrestrial; made immanent in the mundane and the ephemeral, as they are commonly called. This is not an impossibility. Sri Aurobindo seems to have done the thing. In him we find the three terms of human consciousness arriving at an absolute fusion and his poetry is a wonderful example of that fusion. The three terms are the spiritual, the intellectual or philosophical and the physical or sensational. The intellectual, or more generally, the mental, is the intermediary, the Paraclete, as he himself will call it later on in a poem9 magnificently exemplifying the point we are trying to make out the agent who negotiates, bridges and harmonises the two other firmaments usually supposed to be antagonistic and incompatible.
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is not merely by addressing the beloved as your goddess that you can attain this mysticism; the Elizabethan did that in merry abundance,ad nauseam.A finer temper, a more delicate touch, a more subtle sensitiveness and a kind of artistic wizardry are necessary to tune the body into a rhythm of the spirit. The other line of mysticism is common enough, viz., to express the spirit in terms and rhythms of the flesh. Tagore did that liberally, the Vaishnava poets did nothing but that, the Song of Solomon is an exquisite example of that procedure. There is here, however, a difference in degrees which is an interesting feature worth noting. Thus in Tagore the reference to the spirit is evident, that is the major or central chord; the earthly and the sensuous are meant as the name and form, as the body to render concrete, living and vibrant, near and intimate what otherwise would perhaps be vague and abstract, afar, aloof. But this mundane or human appearance has a value in so far as it is a support, a pointer or symbol of the spiritual import. And the mysticism lies precisely in the play of the two, a hide-and-seek between them. On the other hand, as I said, the greater portion of Vaishnava poetry, like a precious and beautiful casket, no doubt, hides the spiritual import: not the pure significance but the sign and symbol are luxuriously elaborated, they are placed in the foreground in all magnificence: as if it was their very purpose to conceal the real meaning. When the Vaishnava poet says,
O love, what more shall I, shall Radha speak,
01.03 - Sri Aurobindo and his School, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
European science is conquering Nature in a way. It has attained to a certain kind and measure, in some fields a great measure, of control and conquest; but however great or striking it may be in its own province, it does not touch man in his more intimate reality and does not bring about any true change in his destiny or his being. For the most vital part of nature is the region of the life-forces, the powers of disease and age and death, of strife and greed and lustall the instincts of the brute in man, all the dark aboriginal forces, the forces of ignorance that form the very groundwork of man's nature and his society. And then, as we rise next to the world of the mind, we find a twilight region where falsehood masquerades as truth, where prejudices move as realities, where notions rule as ideals.
This is the present nature of man, with its threefold nexus of mind and life and body, that stands there to be fought and conquered. This is the inferior nature, of which the ancients spoke, that holds man down inexorably to a lower dharma, imperfect mode of life the life that is and has been the human order till today. No amount of ceaseless action, however selflessly done, can move this wheel of Nature even by a hair's breadth away from the path that it has carved out from of old. Human nature and human society have been built up and are run by the forces of this inferior nature, and whatever shuffling and reshuffling we may make in its apparent factors and elements, the general scheme and fundamental form of life will never change. To displace earth (and to conquer nature means nothing less than that) and give it another orbit, one must find a fulcrum outside earth.
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All this may be good and necessary, but there is the danger of leaving altogether out of account the one thing needful. We must then pause and turn back, look behind the apparent impulsion that effectuates to the Will that drives, behind the ideas and ideals of the mind to the soul that informs and inspires; we must carry ourselves up the stream and concentrate upon the original source, the creative intuition that lies hidden somewhere. And then only all the new stirrings that we feel in our heartour urges and ideals and visions will attain an effective clarity, an unshaken purpose and an inevitable achievement.
That is to say, the change has been in the soul of man himself, the being has veered round and taken a new orientation. It is this which one must envisage, recognise and consciously possess, in order that one may best fulfil the call of the age. But what we are doing instead is to observe the mere external signs and symbols and symptoms, to fix upon the distant quiverings, the echoes on the outermost rim, which are not always faithful representations, but very often distorted images of the truth and life at the centre and source and matrix. We must know that if there has been going on a redistribution and new-marshalling of forces, it is because the fiat has come from the Etat Major.
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This then is the mantra of the new ageLife with Intuition as its guide and not Reason and mechanical efficiency, not Man but Superman. The right mantra has been found, the principle itself is irreproachable. But the interpretation, the application, does not seem to have been always happy. For, Nietzsche's conception of the Superman is full of obvious lacunae. If we have so long been adoring the intellectual man, Nietzsche asks us, on the other hand, to deify the vital man. According to him the superman is he who has (1) the supreme sense of the ego, (2) the sovereign will to power and (3) who lives dangerously. All this means an Asura, that is to say, one who has, it may be, dominion over his animal and vital impulsions in order, of course, that he may best gratify them but who has not purified them. Purification does not necessarily mean, annihilation but it does mean sublimation and transformation. So if you have to transcend man, you have to transcend egoism also. For a conscious egoism is the very characteristic of man and by increasing your sense of egoism you do not supersede man but simply aggrandise your humanity, fashion it on a larger, a titanic scale. And then the will to power is not the only will that requires fulfilment, there is also the will to knowledge and the will to love. In man these three fundamental constitutive elements coexist, although they do it, more often than not, at the expense of each other and in a state of continual disharmony. The superman, if he is to be the man "who has surmounted himself", must embody a poise of being in which all the three find a fusion and harmonya perfect synthesis. Again, to live dangerously may be heroic, but it is not divine. To live dangerously means to have eternal opponents, that is to say, to live ever on the same level with the forces you want to dominate. To have the sense that one has to fight and control means that one is not as yet the sovereign lord, for one has to strive and strain and attain. The supreme lord is he who is perfectly equanimous with himself and with the world. He has not to batter things into a shape in order to create. He creates means, he manifests. He wills and he achieves"God said 'let there be light' and there was light."
As a matter of fact, the superman is not, as Nietzsche thinks him to be, the highest embodiment of the biological force of Nature, not even as modified and refined by the aesthetic and aristocratic virtues of which the higher reaches of humanity seem capable. For that is after all humanity only accentuated in certain other fundamentally human modes of existence. It does not carry far enough the process of surmounting. In reality it is not a surmounting but a new channelling. Instead of the ethical and intellectual man, we get the vital and aesthetic man. It may be a change but not a transfiguration.
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The absolute passivity is attainable, perhaps, only by the Yogi. And in this sense the supreme poet is a Yogi, for in his consciousness the higher, deeper, subtler or other modes of experiences pass through and are recorded with the minimum aberration or diffraction.
But the Yogi is a wholly conscious being; a perfect Yogi is he who possesses a conscious and willed control over his instruments, he silences them, as and when he likes, and makes them convey and express with as little deviation as possible truths and realities from the Beyond. Now the question is, is it possible for the poet also to do something like that, to consciously create and not to be a mere unconscious or helpless channel? Conscious artistry, as we have said, means to be conscious on two levels of consciousness at the same time, to be at home in both equally and simultaneously. The general experience, however, is that of "one at a time": if the artist dwells more in the one, the other retires into the background to the same measure. If he is in the over-consciousness, he is only half-conscious in his brain consciousness, or even not conscious at allhe does not know how he has created, the sources or process of his creative activity, he is quite oblivious of them" gone through them all as if per saltum. Such seems to have been the case with the primitives, as they are called, the elemental poetsShakespeare and Homer and Valmiki. In some others, who come very near to them in poetic genius, yet not quite on a par, the instrumental intelligence is strong and active, it helps in its own way but in helping circumscribes and limits the original impulsion. The art here becomes consciously artistic, but loses something of the initial freshness and spontaneity: it gains in correctness, polish and elegance and has now a style in lieu of Nature's own naturalness. I am thinking of Virgil and Milton and Kalidasa. Dante's place is perhaps somewhere in between. Lower in the rung where the mental medium occupies a still more preponderant place we have intellectual poetry, poetry of the later classical age whose representatives are Pope and Dryden. We can go farther down and land in the domain of versificationalthough here, too, there can be a good amount of beauty in shape of ingenuity, cleverness and conceit: Voltaire and Delille are of this order in French poetry.
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The consciously purposive activity of the poetic consciousness in fact, of all artistic consciousness has shown itself with a clear and unambiguous emphasis in two directions. First of all with regard to the subject-matter: the old-world poets took things as they were, as they were obvious to the eye, things of human nature and things of physical Nature, and without questioning dealt with them in the beauty of their normal form and function. The modern mentality has turned away from the normal and the obvious: it does not accept and admit the "given" as the final and definitive norm of things. It wishes to discover and establish other norms, it strives to bring about changes in the nature and condition of things, envisage the shape of things to come, work for a brave new world. The poet of today, in spite of all his effort to remain a pure poet, in spite of Housman's advocacy of nonsense and not-sense being the essence of true Art, is almost invariably at heart an incorrigible prophet. In revolt against the old and established order of truths and customs, against all that is normally considered as beautiful,ideals and emotions and activities of man or aspects and scenes and movements of Natureagainst God or spiritual life, the modern poet turns deliberately to the ugly and the macabre, the meaningless, the insignificant and the triflingtins and teas, bone and dust and dustbin, hammer and sicklehe is still a prophet, a violent one, an iconoclast, but one who has his own icon, a terribly jealous being, that seeks to pull down the past, erase it, to break and batter and knead the elements in order to fashion out of them something conforming to his heart's desire. There is also the class who have the vision and found the truth and its solace, who are prophets, angelic and divine, messengers and harbingers of a new beauty that is to dawn upon earth. And yet there are others in whom the two strains mingle or approach in a strange way. All this means that the artist is far from being a mere receiver, a mechanical executor, a passive unconscious instrument, but that he is supremely' conscious and master of his faculties and implements. This fact is doubly reinforced when we find how much he is preoccupied with the technical aspect of his craft. The richness and variety of patterns that can be given to the poetic form know no bounds today. A few major rhythms were sufficient for the ancients to give full expression to their poetic inflatus. For they cared more for some major virtues, the basic and fundamental qualitiessuch as truth, sublimity, nobility, forcefulness, purity, simplicity, clarity, straightforwardness; they were more preoccupied with what they had to say and they wanted, no doubt, to say it beautifully and powerfully; but the modus operandi was not such a passion or obsession with them, it had not attained that almost absolute value for itself which modern craftsmanship gives it. As technology in practical life has become a thing of overwhelming importance to man today, become, in the Shakespearean phrase, his "be-all and end-all", even so the same spirit has invaded and pervaded his aesthetics too. The subtleties, variations and refinements, the revolutions, reversals and inventions which the modern poet has ushered and takes delight in, for their own sake, I repeat, for their intrinsic interest, not for the sake of the subject which they have to embody and clothe, have never been dream by Aristotle, the supreme legislator among the ancients, nor by Horace, the almost incomparable craftsman among the ancients in the domain of poetry. Man has become, to be sure, a self-conscious creator to the pith of his bone.
Such a stage in human evolution, the advent of Homo Faber, has been a necessity; it has to serve a purpose and it has done admirably its work. Only we have to put it in its proper place. The salvation of an extremely self-conscious age lies in an exceeding and not in a further enhancement or an exclusive concentration of the self-consciousness, nor, of course, in a falling back into the original unconsciousness. It is this shift in the poise of consciousness that has been presaged and prepared by the conscious, the scientific artists of today. Their task is to forge an instrument for a type of poetic or artistic creation completely new, unfamiliar, almost revolutionary which the older mould would find it impossible to render adequately. The yearning of the human consciousness was not to rest satisfied with the familiar and the ordinary, the pressure was for the discovery of other strands, secret stores of truth and reality and beauty. The first discovery was that of the great Unconscious, the dark and mysterious and all-powerful subconscient. Many of our poets and artists have been influenced by this power, some even sought to enter into that region and become its denizens. But artistic inspiration is an emanation of Light; whatever may be the field of its play, it can have its origin only in the higher spheres, if it is to be truly beautiful and not merely curious and scientific.
01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Communism takes man not as ego or the vital creature; it turns him upside downurdhomulo' vaksakhah and establishes him upon his soul, his inner godhead. Thus established the individual soul finds and fulfils the divine law that by increasing itself it increases others and by increasing others it increases itself and thus by increasing one another they attain the supreme good. Unless man goes beyond himself and reaches this self, this godhead above, he will not find any real poise, will always swing between individualism and collectivism, he will remain always boundbound either in his freedom or in his bondage.
A commune is a group of individuals having a common self and a common life-intuition. A common self presupposes the realisation by each individual of his deepest being the self which is at once distinct from and instinct with other selves; a common life-intuition presupposes the awakening of each individual to his inmost creative urge, which, pure and true and vast as it is, fulfils itself in and through other creative urges.
--
The individual who leads a severely individual life from the very beginning, whose outlook of the world has been fashioned by that conception, can hardly, if at all, enter at the end the communal life. He must perforce be either a vagabond or a recluse: But the recluse is not an integral man, nor the vagabond an ideal personality. The individual need not be too chaste and shy to associate with others and to give and take as freely and fully as he can. Individuality is not necessarily curtailed or mutilated in this process, but there is this other greater possibility of its getting enlarged and enhanced. Rather it is when you shut yourself up in your own self, that you stick to only one line of your personality, to a single phase of your self and thus limit and diminish yourself; the breadth and height and depth of your self, the cubic completeness of your personality you can attain only through a multiple and variegated stress by which you come in contact with the world and things.
So first the individual and then the commune is not the natural nor the ideal principle. On the other hand, first the commune and then the individual would appear to be an equally defective principle. For first a commune means an organisation, its laws and rules and regulations, its injunctions and prohibitions; all which signifies or comes to signify that every individual is not free to enter its fold and that whoever enters must know how to dovetail himself therein and thus crush down the very life-power whose enhancement and efflorescence is sought. First a commune means necessarily a creed, a dogma, a set form of being and living indelibly marked out from beforehand. The individual has there no choice of finding and developing the particular creed or dogma or mode of being and living, from out of his own self, along his particular line of natural growth; all that is imposed upon him and he has to accept and make it his own by trial and effort and self-torture. Even if the commune be a contractual association, the members having joined together in a common cause to a common end, by voluntarily sacrificing a portion of their personal choice and freedom, even then it is not the ideal thing; the collective soul will be diminished in exact proportion as each individual soul has had to be diminished, be that voluntary or otherwise. That commune is plenary and entire which ensures plenitude and entirety to each of its individuals.
01.06 - Vivekananda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Such is Vivekananda, the embodiment of Fearlessnessabh, the Upanishadic word, the mantra, he was so fond of. The life and vision of Vivekananda can be indeed summed up in the mighty phrase of the Upanishads, nyam tm balahnena labhya. 'This soul no weakling can attain.' Strength! More strength! Strength evermore! One remembers the motto of Danton, the famous leader in the French Revolution:De l'audance, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!
The gospel of strength that Vivekananda spread was very characteristic of the man. For it is not mere physical or nervous bravery, although that too is indispensable, and it is something more than moral courage. In the speeches referred to, the subject-matter (as well as the manner to a large extent) is philosophical, metaphysical, even abstract in outlook and treatment: they are not a call to arms, like the French National Anthem, for example; they are not merely an ethical exhortation, a moral lesson either. They speak of the inner spirit, the divine in man, the supreme realities that lie beyond. And yet the words are permeated through and through with a vibration life-giving and heroic-not so much in the explicit and apparent meaning as in the style and manner and atmosphere: it is catching, even or precisely when he refers, for example, to these passages in the Vedas and the Upanishads, magnificent in their poetic beauty, sublime in their spiritual truth,nec plus ultra, one can say, in the grand style supreme:
--
"Man is higher than all animals, than all angels: none is greater than man. Even the Devas will have to come down again and attain to salvation though a human body. Man alone attains to perfection, not even the Devas." Indeed, men are gods upon earth, come down here below to perfect themselves and perfect the worldonly, they have to be conscious of themselves. They do not know what they are, they have to be actually and sovereignly what they are really and potentially. This then is the life-work of everyone:
"First, let us be Gods, and then help others to be Gods.
01.07 - The Bases of Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The French Revolution wanted to remould human society and its ideal was liberty, equality and fraternity. It pulled down the old machinery and set up a new one in its stead. And the result? "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" remained always in effect a cry in the wilderness. Another wave of idealism is now running over the earth and the Bolshevists are its most fiercely practical exponents. Instead of dealing merely with the political machinery, the Socialistic Revolution tries to break and remake, above all, the social machinery. But judged from the results as yet attained and the tendencies at work, few are the reasons to hope but many to fear the worst. Even education does not seem to promise us anything better. Which nation was better educatedin the sense we understood and still commonly understand the wordthan Germany?
And yet we have no hesitation today to call them Huns and Barbarians. That education is not giving us the right thing is proved further by the fact that we are constantly changing our programmes and curriculums, everyday remodelling old institutions and founding new ones. Even a revolution in the educational system will not bring about the desired millennium, so long as we lay so much stress upon the system and not upon man himself. And finally, look to all the religions of the worldwe have enough of creeds and dogmas, of sermons and mantras, of churches and templesand yet human life and society do not seem to be any the more worthy for it.
--
The Divine Nature only can permanently reform the vital nature that is ours. Neither laws and institutions, which are the results of that vital nature, nor ideas and ideals which are often a mere revolt from and more often an auxiliary to it, can comm and the power to regenerate society. If it is thought improbable for any group of men to attain to that God Nature, then there is hardly any hope for mankind. But improbable or probable, that is the only way which man has to try and test, and there is none other.
***
01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Yet even here the process of control and transformation does not end. And we now come to the Fifth Line, the real and intimate path of yoga. Conscious control gives us a natural mastery over the instinctive impulses which are relieved of their dark tamas and attain a purified rhythm. We do not seek to hide or repress or combat them, but surpass them and play with them as the artist does with his material. Something of this katharsis, this aestheticism of the primitive impulses was achieved by the ancient Greeks. Even then the primitive impulses remain primitive all the same; they fulfil, no doubt, a real and healthy function in the scheme of life, but still in their fundamental nature they continue the animal in man. And even when Conscious Control means the utter elimination and annihilation of the primal instinctswhich, however, does not seem to be a probable eventualityeven then, we say, the basic problem remains unsolved; for the urge of nature towards the release and a transformation of the instincts does not find satisfaction, the question is merely put aside.
Yoga, then, comes at this stage and offers the solution in its power of what we may call Transubstantiation. That is to say, here the mere form is not changed, nor the functions restrained, regulated and purified, but the very substance of the instincts is transmuted. The power of conscious control is a power of the human will, i.e. of an individual personal will and therefore necessarily limited both in intent and extent. It is a power complementary to the power of Nature, it may guide and fashion the latter according to a new pattern, but cannot change the basic substance, the stuff of Nature. To that end yoga seeks a power that transcends the human will, brings into play the supernal puissance of a Divine Will.
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This then, it seems to us, is the immediate problem that Nature has set before herself. She is now at the parting of the ways. She has done with man as an essentially human being, she has brought out the fundamental possibilities of humanity and perfected it, so far as perfection may be attained within the cadre by which she chose to limit herself; she is now looking forward to another kind of experiment the evolving of another life, another being out of her entrails, that will be greater than the humanity we know today, that will be superior even to the supreme that has yet been actualised.
Nature has marched from the unconscious to the sub-conscious, from the sub-conscious to the conscious and from the conscious to the self-conscious; she has to rise yet again from the self-conscious to the super-conscious. The mineral gave place to the plant, the plant gave place to the animal and the animal gave place to man; let man give place to and bring out the divine.
01.09 - William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Viewed in this light, Blake's memorable mantra attains a deeper and more momentous significance. For it is not merely Earth the senses and life and Matter that are to be uplifted and affianced to Heaven, but all that remains hidden within the bowels of the Earth, the subterranean regions of man's consciousness, the slimy viscous undergrowths, the darkest horrors and monstrosities that man and nature hide in their subconscient and inconscient dungeons of material existence, all these have to be laid bare to the solar gaze of Heaven, burnt or transmuted as demanded by the law of that Supreme Will. That is the Hell that has to be recognised, not rejected and thrown away, but taken up purified and transubstantiated into the body of Heaven itself. The hand of the Highest Heaven must extend and touch the Lowest of the lowest elements, transmute it and set it in its rightful place of honour. A mortal body reconstituted into an immemorial fossil, a lump of coal revivified into a flashing carat of diamond-that shows something of the process underlying the nuptials of which we are speaking.
The Life Divine
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
means of attaining liberation, that is to say, union with the Truth.
29 September 1963
--
common and combined aspiration to attain the Divine, and in
perfect sincerity to let each bring to the other, as far as possible,
what the other needs to attain that goal.
10 June 1964
--
But to attain the supreme goal of yoga, one must abandon all
ties, whatever they may be. And good habits are also a tie which
--
in order to attain some perfection, to make progress, for all sorts
of reasons.
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The truth behind a credal religion is the aspiration towards the realization of the Divine, some ultimate reality that gives a permanent meaning and value to the human life, to the existence lodged in this 'sphere of sorrow' here below. Credal paraphernalia were necessary to express or buttress this core of spiritual truth when mankind, in the mass, had not attained a certain level of enlightenment in the mind and a certain degree of development in its life-relations. The modern age is modern precisely because it had attained to a necessary extent this mental enlightenment and this life development. So the scheme or scaffolding that was required in the past is no longer unavoidable and can have either no reality at all or only a modified utility.
A modern people is a composite entity, especially with regard to its religious affiliation. Not religion, but culture is the basis of modern collective life, national or social. Culture includes in its grain that fineness of temperament which appreciates all truths behind all forms, even when there is a personal allegiance to one particular form.
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A modern Neo-Brahmin, Aldous Huxley, has given a solution of the problem in his now famous Shakespearean apothegm, "Time must have a stop". That is an old-world solution rediscovered by the modern mind in and through the ravages of Time's storm and stress. It means, salvation lies, after all, beyond the flow of Time, one must free oneself from the vicious and unending circle of mortal and mundane life. As the Rajayogi controls and holds his breath, stills all life-movement and realises a dead-stop of consciousness (Samadhi), even so one must control and stop all secular movements in oneself and attain a timeless stillness and vacancy in which alone the true spiritual light and life can descend and manifest. That is the age-long and ancient solution to which the Neo-Brahmin as well the Neo-Christian adheres.
Eliot seems to demur, however, and does not go to that extreme length. He wishes to go beyond, but to find out the source and matrix of the here below. As I said, he seeks a synthesis and not a mere transcendence: the transcendence is indeed a part of the synthesis, the other part is furnished by an immanence. He does not cut away altogether from Time, but reaches its outermost limit, its rim, its summit, where it stops, not altogether annihilated, but held in suspended animation. That is the "still point" to which he refers in the following lines:
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(1) Never forget the goal that one wants to attain.
(2) Never allow any part of the being or any of its movements to contradict one's aspiration.
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I dont know to whom I was mentioning this today (I think it was for a Birthday3 No, I dont know now. It was to someone who told me he was 18 years old. I said that between the ages of 18 and 20, I had attained a constant and conscious union with the Divine Presence and that I had done this ALL ALONE, without ANYONES help, not even books. When a little later I chanced upon Vivekanandas Raja Yoga, it really seemed so wonderful to me that someone could explain something to me! And it helped me realize in only a few months what would have otherwise taken years.
I met a man (I was perhaps 20 or 21 at the time), an Indian who had come to Europe and who told me of the Gita. There was a French translation of it (a rather poor one, I must say) which he advised me to read, and then he gave me the key (HIS key, it was his key). He said, Read the Gita (this translation of the Gita which really wasnt worth much but it was the only one available at the timein those days I wouldnt have understood anything in other languages; and besides, the English translations were just as bad and well, Sri Aurobindo hadnt done his yet!). He said, Read the Gita knowing that Krishna is the symbol of the immanent God, the God within. That was all. Read it with THAT knowledgewith the knowledge that Krishna represents the immanent God, the God within you. Well, within a month, the whole thing was done!
0 1958-08-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
When I think of the time the hatha yogis devote to the work on the bodythey do nothing but that; they do nothing but that all the time, until they have attained a certain point. This is in fact the reason why Sri Aurobindo wanted none of it: he found that it took a lot of time for a rather meager result.
***
0 1958-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The quality of the consciousness itself seems to change. It is not something higher than the summit we can attain here, it is not one MORE rung, not that. Here, we have reached the end, the summit, but its the quality that is different. The quality, in the sense that a fullness, a richness, a power is there (this is a translation, you see, in our way), but there is a something that that eludes us. It is truly a new reversal of consciousness.
When we begin living the spiritual life, a reversal of consciousness takes place which for us is the proof that we have entered the spiritual life; well, yet another occurs when we enter the supramental world.
0 1959-10-06 - Sri Aurobindos abode, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo gave me two days of thistotal bliss. But all the same, by the end of the second day I realized that I could not continue to remain there, for the work was not advancing. The work must be done in the body; the realization must be attained here in this physical world, for otherwise it is not complete. So I withdrew from that world and set to work here again.
And yet, it would take little, very little, to pass from this world to the other, or for the other to become the real world. A little click would be enough, or rather a little reversal in the inner attitude. How should I put it? It is imperceptible to the ordinary consciousness; a very little inner shift would be enough, a change in quality.
0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo and I had discussed the matter in 1914 (quite a long time ago), for we had seen two possibilities: what we are now doing, or to withdraw into solitude and isolation until we had not only attained the Supermind, but begun the material transformation as well. And Sri Aurobindo rightfully said that we could not isolate ourselves, for as you progress, you become more and more universalized, and consequently you take the burden upon yourself2 in any case.
And life itself has responded by bringing people forward to form a nucleus. Of course, we clearly saw that this would make the work a bit more complex and difficult (it gives me a heavy responsibility, an enormous material work), but from the overall point of view for the Workits indispensable and even inevitable. And in any case, as we were later able to verify, each one represents simultaneously a possibility and a special difficulty to resolve. I have even said, I believe, that each one here is an impossibility.3
0 1960-10-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Im just now finishing the Yoga of Self-Perfection When we see what human life is and, even in the best of cases, what it represents in the way of imbecility, stupidity, narrowness, meanness (not to mention ignorance because that is too flagrant) and even those who believe themselves to have generous heart, for example, or liberal ideas, a desire to do good! Each time the consciousness orients itself in one direction to attain some result, everything that was in existence (not just ones personal existence, but this sort of collectivity of existences that each being represents), everything that is contrary to this effort immediately presents itself in its crudest light.
It happened this morning while I was walking back and forth in my room. I had finished my japa I had to stop and hold my head in my hands to keep from bursting into tears. No, it is too dreadful, I said to myself; and to think that we want Perfection!
0 1960-12-17, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But to work to change it before having attained a perfect equanimity is impossible. Thats what I have learned during these last years.
And for every detail, its the same. First, May Thy Will be done; then, afterwards, The Will of tomorrow and then those things will disappear. But first, one must accept.
0 1961-01-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If one always remained in this state of consciousness, keeping alive the flame of Agni, the flame of purification and progress, then after some time, not only could one prevent these movements from taking an active form in oneself and becoming expressed physically, but one could act upon the very nature of the movement and transform it. Needless to say, however, that unless one has attained a very high degree of realization it is virtually impossible to keep this state of consciousness for long. Almost immediately one falls back into the egoistic consciousness of the separate self, and all the difficulties return: disgust, the revolt against certain things and the horror they create in us, and so on.
It is probableeven certain that until one is completely transformed these movements of disgust and revolt are necessary to make one do WITHIN ONESELF what is needed to slam the door on them. For after all, the point is to not let them manifest.
0 1961-01-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
53The quarrels of religious sects are like the disputing of pots, which shall be alone allowed to hold the immortalizing nectar. Let them dispute, but the thing for us is to get at the nectar in whatever pot and attain immortality.
What is this nectar of immortality?
0 1961-02-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And its absolutely truetrue at each stage, on all levels. Whatever level you have attained, even the very highest, if you concentrate on that [the body], it is finished! And all the difficulties begin, you know, with that very concentration that tries to draw down Light and Poweryogic concentration itself.
So it would seem that if one wants to use his individuality, his body, to transform the whole that is, if one wants to use his bodily presence to act upon the universal corporeal substance theres no end to it. No end to the difficulties, no end to the battle BATTLE!
0 1961-03-17, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We tend to apply the word natural to all spontaneous manifestation not resulting from a choice or a preconceived decision that is, with no intrusion of mental activity. Thats why a man with an only slightly mentalized vital spontaneity seems more natural to us in his simplicity. But this naturalness bears a close resemblance to the animals and is quite low on the human evolutionary scale. Man will not recapture this spontaneity free of mental intrusion until he attains the supramental level, until he goes beyond the mind and emerges into the higher Truth.
Up to that point, all his modes of being are naturally natural! But with the minds intrusion, evolution was, if not falsified, then deformed, because by its very nature the mind was open to perversion and it became perverted almost from the start (or to be more exact, it was perverted by the asuric forces). And what appears unnatural to us now is this state of perversion. At any rate, its a deformation.
0 1961-03-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Several times in my life I have met with the particular phenomenon of having an absolutely exceptional and unique experience and at the same time feeling that a part of my being was unaware of it! I would tell myself, if I hadnt been both here and there at the same moment (Mother indicates two different levels in her consciousness), I might have had all these experiences and never known it! And this happened not just once but many times. Some were utterly unique, like certain ancient Vedic experiencesutterly unique. When I recounted them to Sri Aurobindo, he told me, Oh, its extremely rare! Some people try all their lives to attain that. And it happened to me not just once but often: the experience took place there (gesture above) and something up there knew, and yet there was something down here that would never have known if the other hadnt (same gesture). Nevertheless the total experience was there.
Its very difficult to explain, its extremely subtle.
0 1961-03-27, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It gave me the impression you get in outer life: all the pieces more or less dovetail but with no inner unitytheres not ONE thing, not one, that is true, essentially and always true. We know it is like that outwardly, of course; but I have always felt that with people who have an inner life, one could attain a kind of identity of vibration and knowledge but no!
Very well, I said, if thats how it is..
0 1961-04-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Those who say that are simpletons and dont even know what theyre talking about! It is enough to read everything Sri Aurobindo has written to know that it is IMPOSSIBLE (underlined) to found a religion upon his writings, since for each problem, for each question, he presents all aspects and, while demonstrating the truth contained in each approach, he explains that to attain the Truth a synthesis must be effected, overpassing all mental notions and emerging in a transcendence beyond thought.
Your second question, therefore, makes no sense! Furthermore, if you had read what appeared in the last Bulletin,1 you could never have asked it.
0 1961-07-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats not how it is, mon petit! This is precisely how the modern Western attitude has become twisted compared to the ancient attitude, the attitudeit isnt exactly ancientof the Gita. Its extremely difficult for the Western mind to comprehend vividly and concretely that ALL is the Divine. It is so impregnated with the Christian spirit, with the idea of a Creator the creation on one side and God on the other! Upon reflection, one rejects this, but it has entered into our sensations and feelings, and sospontaneously, instinctively, almost subconsciouslyone credits God with all one considers to be the best, the most beautiful, and especially with what one wishes to attain, to realize. (Each individual, of course, changes the content of his God according to his own consciousness, but its always what he considers to be the best.) And just as instinctively, spontaneously and subconsciously, one is shocked by the idea that things one doesnt like or doesnt approve of or which dont seem to be the best, could also be God.
I am putting this purposely into rather childish terms so that it will be clearly understood. But this is the way it is. I am sure of it because I have observed it in myself for a VERY long time, and I had to. Due to the whole subconscious formation of childhoodenvironment, education, and so forthwe have to DRUM into this (Mother touches her body) the consciousness of Unity : the absolute, EXCLUSIVE unity of the Divineexclusive in the sense that nothing exists apart from this Unity, even the things which seem most repulsive.
0 1961-07-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Onlythere is an only in all thisif there were a more liberal proportion between the refreshing (if I may say so) freedom of solitude and the necessity for collective work, there would probably be fewer difficulties. Towards the end of the first year after I retired upstairs3 (perhaps even before, but anyway, some time after I began doing japa while walking), I recall having such sessions up there! Had there been a personal goal, this goal was clearly attained; it is indescribable, absolutely beyond all imaginable or expressible splendor.
And that was when I received the Command from the Supreme, who was right here, this close (Mother presses her face). He told me, This is what is promised. Now the Work must be done.
0 1961-07-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It isnt difficult to conceive of an individual in the solitude of the Himalayas or in a virgin forest beginning to create around himself his miniature supramental worldthis is easy to imagine. But the same thing would be necessary: he would need to have attained such perfection that his power would act automatically to prevent any outside intrusion.
Because such beings would automatically become the target of outside attacks?
--
There are stories like this, you know, about people who lived in an ideal solitude, and its not at all impossible to imagine. When one is in contact with this Power, when it is within you, you can see that such things are childs play! It even reaches the point where there is the possibility of changing certain things, of influencing vibrations and forms in the surrounding environment by contagion, so that automatically they begin to be supramentalized. All that is possible but confined to the individual scale. While if we take the example of what is happening here, where the individual remains right in the midst of all this chaos. Thats the difficulty! Doesnt this very fact make a certain perfection in realization impossible to attain? But the other case, the individual isolated in the forest, is always the same thingan example giving no proof that the rest will be able to follow; while whats happening here should already have a much broader radiating influence. At some point this has to happenit MUST happen. But the problem still remains: can it happen simultaneously with or even before the supramentalization of the single individual?
(silence)
--
Pralaya: The destruction of a universe at the end of a cycle. According to Hindu cosmology, the formation of each universe begins with an 'age of truth' (satya-yuga) which slowly degenerates, like the stars, till there is no truth left at all; it becomes a 'dark age'(kali-yuga) like ours, and ends with a cataclysm. Then a new universe is reborn out of this cataclysm and the cycle begins again. There is a correspondence here with a modern cosmological theory according to which a phase of contraction, of galaxies collapsing upon themselves, follows a phase of expansion and precedes a new explosion ('Big Bang') of the 'primal egg'and so on, in a recurring and apparently endless and aimless series of cosmic births which, like our own human births, develop, attain some sort of 'summit,' then collapse, always to begin again. According to Theon, our present universe is the seventh but where is the 'beginning'?
Note that modern astronomy is divided between the theory of endless phases of contraction-explosion-expansion, and the theory of a universe in infinite expansion starting with a 'Big Bang,' which seems quite as catastrophic, since the universe is then plunging at vertiginous speed into an increasingly cold, empty, and fatal infinity, like a bullet released from all restraints of gravity, until... until what? According to astronomers, an exact measurement of the quantity of matter in a cubic meter of the present universe (one atom for every 400 liters of space) should enable us to decide between these two theories and learn which way it will be best for us to die. If there is more than one atom per 400 liters of space, this quantity of matter will create sufficient gravitation to halt the present expansion of galaxies and induce a contraction, ending with an explosion within an infinitesimal space. If there is less than one atom per 400 liters of space, the quantity of matter and thus the gravitational effect will be insufficient to retain the galaxies within their invisible net, and everything will spin off endlesslyunless we discover, with Mother, a third position, that of a 'progressive equilibrium,' in which the quantity of matter in the universe proves in fact to be a quantity of consciousness, whose contraction or expansion will be regulated by the laws of consciousness.
0 1961-08-05, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then comes what Theon called the nervous sub-level, which lies between this subtle physical and the vital. And it acts as a protection: if it is stable, harmonious and strong, it protects youit protects you even physicallyfrom contagious diseases, for instance, and even from accidents. I experienced it when I was living at Val-de-Grce. It was the year I resolved to attain union with the psychic being and I was concentrated on this from morning to night and night to morning. Every day I spent some time in the Luxembourg Gardens. They were right near the house, but to get there I had to go all the way down Rue du Val-de-Grce and cross Boulevard Saint Michel, where there were streetcars, automobiles, buses the whole circus. I would remain in my concentration the whole time, and once, while crossing the boulevard, I felt a shock about this far from my body [slightly more than arms length], so spontaneously I jumped backjust enough for the streetcar to pass by. I hadnt heard anything; I was totally absorbed, and without that warning I would surely have been run over; instead, I jumped back just in time, and the streetcar sped by. I understood then that this nervous sheath was something entirely concrete, because what I had felt was not an idea of danger but a shocka material SHOCK.
So its true that as long as this envelope is strong and undamaged, you are protected. But for instance, if you are over-tired or worried or flusteredanything that brings disorder into the atmosphere seems to make holes in this envelope, and all kinds of things can enter.
0 1961-09-30, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I had a clear vision of the two kinds of opposites in nature (not only in nature but in life) which almost everyone carries within himself: one is the possibility of realization, the other is the path chosen to attain it. There is always (its probably inevitable) the stormy path of struggle, and then there is the sunlit path. After much study and observation, I have had a sort of spiritual ambition (if it can be called that) to bring to the world a sunlit path, to eliminate the necessity for struggle and suffering: something that aspires to replace this present phase of universal evolution with a less painful phase.
It greatly interested me when I read your letter. I was looking at why you have so many difficulties; twice in your note you wrote that it [writing] is a suffering. You have very often written this word, very often spoken it, and it seems dominant in one aspect of your beingwhile in the other is the glory of a supreme joy, the very stuff of the future realization.
0 1961-12-16, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And if I tell that to people, they go wide-eyed. It makes no sense to themto even have the idea of a perfection existing somewhere, an attainable perfection, is already quite a lot for them! So I wrote:
We thirst for perfection, not this human perfection which is the perfection of the ego and bars the way to the divine Perfection, but that ONE perfection which has the power to manifest upon Earth the eternal Truth.1
0 1961-12-23, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because there comes a time when one perceives the entire universe in such a total and comprehensive way that, in truth, it is impossible to remove anything from it without disturbing everything. And going a couple of steps further, one knows for certain that things which shock us as contradictions of the Divine are simply things out of place. Each thing must be exactly in its place, and whats more, be supple enough, plastic enough, to admit into a harmonious, progressive organization all the new elements constantly being added to the manifest universe. The universe is in a perpetual movement of internal reorganization, and at the same time its growing: its becoming more and more complex, more and more complete, more and more integralindefinitely. And as the new elements manifest, the whole reorganization must be built on a new basis, and thus there isnt a second when ALL is not in perpetual movement. And when the movement is in accord with the divine order, its harmonious, so perfectly harmonious that its almost imperceptible. Now, if you descend from this consciousness towards a more external consciousness, you begin naturally to have a very precise feeling of what helps you attain the true consciousness and what bars the way or pulls you backwards or even fights against your progress. And so the perspective changes and you are obliged to say: this is divine or a help towards the Divine; and that goes against the Divine, its the Divines enemy. But this is a pragmatic standpoint, geared to action, to movement in material lifebecause you havent yet attained the consciousness surpassing all that; because you havent reached that inner perfection where you no longer have to fight, since you have gone beyond the field or the time or the utility of struggle. But before reaching that state in your consciousness and action, there is necessarily struggle; and if there is struggle, there is choice; and to choose, you need discrimination.
(Mother remains silent)
0 1962-01-12 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That was the idea: for a few beings to first attain, here in this physical world, a level of realization giving them the power to materialize a supramental being.
I once told you I put a body on a vital being7but I couldnt have made that body material; it would have been impossible: something is lacking. Something is lacking. Even if it were made visible, it would probably not be possible to make it permanentat the slightest opportunity, it would dematerialize. What we cant get is that permanence.
0 1962-01-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
91If Life alone were and not death, there could be no immortality; if love were alone and not cruelty, joy would be only a tepid and ephemeral rapture; if reason were alone and not ignorance, our highest attainment would not exceed a limited rationality and worldly wisdom.
92Death transformed becomes Life that is Immortality; Cruelty trans. figured becomes Love that is intolerable ecstasy; Ignorance transmuted becomes Light that leaps beyond wisdom and knowledge.
0 1962-02-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In Sri Aurobindo's play, Andromeda, daughter of the King of Syria, is condemned by her own people to be devoured by Poseidon, the Sea-god, for some impiety she had committed against him. The story is actually about the passage of a half-primitive tribe, living in terror of the old dark and cruel gods, to a more evolved and sunlit stage. Perseus, son of Diana and Zeus, and protected by Pallas Athene, goddess of wisdom and intelligence, comes to deliver Andromeda from the rock she is chained to (the rock symbolizes the Inconscient for the Rishis), and founds the religion of Athene, "... the Omnipotent / Made from His being to lead and discipline / The immortal spirit of man, till it attain / To order and magnificent mastery / Of all his outward world" (in the words of Sri Aurobindo). It is the force of progress pitted against the old priests of the old religions, symbolized by the cruel and ambitious Polydaon. Here Mother is scrutinizing an old problem"Always the same problem"that she must have encountered in many existences (Egypt included) and would encounter again eleven years later: the acceptance of the death she is forced into as the Supreme's Will, and then this "love of Life" she twice mentions here.
***
0 1962-02-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have had hundreds and hundreds of experiences like thatinformed just at the last moment (not one second too soon)and in very different circumstances. Once in Paris I was crossing the Boulevard Saint Michel (I had resolved to attain union with the psychic presence, the inner Divine, within a certain number of months, and these were the last weeks I was thinking of nothing but that, engrossed in that alone). I lived near the Luxembourg Gardens and was going there for a stroll, to sit in the gardens that eveningstill indrawn. I came to a kind of intersectionnot a very sensible place to cross when youre interiorized! So, in that state, I started to cross when all of a sudden I had a shock, as if something had hit me, and I instinctively jumped back. As I jumped back a streetcar rushed by. I had felt the streetcar at a little more than arms length. It had touched my aura, the protective aura (that aura was very strong at the time I was deep into occultism and knew how to maintain it). My protective aura was touched, and it literally threw me backwards, just like a physical shock. Accompanied by the drivers insults!
I leapt back just in time, and the streetcar passed by.
0 1962-03-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
My feeling is that if you try to hurry, to rush, to speed things up a little, it jams, it becomes like stoneit turns to stone again. It took the stone a long time to become a man. So I dont want that. You cant get too impatientits not even impatience, but pressure. Beyond a certain pressure, it turns to stone. So I understand people who attain realization and, blissfully enjoying it, kick the whole thing out: Fine, Ill do without it!
Thats what has always happened.
0 1962-06-02, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are boxes that can only be opened in a certain way, and if you dont know the way. Some cupboards are like that, too. Its not obvious. It really is a trick, but even more than a trick, a kind of very subtle little mechanism. Like being just on the verge of attaining something, and suddenlyah! You know youve got it!
***
0 1962-06-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I remember reading something by Sri Aurobindo, I think, about certain philosophical or spiritual theories which held that there was only one Soul, or one Purusha (I dont remember what he called it); this Soul had the entire experience of the distortion of the universe, and this same Soul was also experiencing the Return. And it was pointed out with indisputable logic that if there really is but ONE Soul, then from the moment mastery is attainedregardless of whether it is by an individual or a world, a god or an ant the moment the power to change the distortion into the Truth exists, its all over and done with! The change automatically comes into force.
But then it was noted that some people did accomplish this Returnsince they lived it and described it but all the same, everything else continues to exist, to coexist. Therefore.
0 1962-06-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You see, the trouble is hes a man whose principles and education prevent him from believing in progress and transformation. He believes that if you fulfill the conditions you get the siddhi,3 and thats the end of it the goal is reached. He had already attained his goal before meeting us, and then he could have kept his distance, but he became intimately connected with something full of all kinds of difficulties (which we neither ignore nor call for), but its essentially a Power for progressan awesome force for progress. Well, when I saw that, I wondered, How can he possibly bear it? I thought he would keep his distance and not enter the atmosphere, but he did try to enterhe linked up with certain people, and particularly when he started meditating with me (he asked for it, not me), suddenly something responded. And that triggered the conflict in him. One part of his being has gone along with the Movement, while the other is left strandeddoesnt budge. That created a gap.
Of course, one has to be in a terribly superficial consciousness to react the way he did. He had a rather deep contact with you, and there were moments when he understood very well who you arehe knows, he told me so. Consequently, had he truly been in a yogic state, then even if you had done something tactless or wrong, he would have just smiled! He would have said, Oh, hes just impetuous, but I dont mind.
0 1962-07-21, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I shall write and tell you afterwards what this way of yoga is. Or if you come here I shall speak to you about it. In this matter the spoken word is better than the written. At present I can only say that its root-principle is to make a harmony and unity of complete knowledge, complete works and complete Bhakti [Devotion], to raise all this above the mind and give it its complete perfection on the supramental level of Vijnana [Gnosis]. This was the defect of the old yoga the mind and the Spirit it knew, and it was satisfied with the experience of the Spirit in the mind. But the mind can grasp only the divided and partial; it cannot wholly seize the infinite and indivisible. The minds means to reach the infinite are Sannyasa [Renunciation], Moksha [Liberation] and Nirvana, and it has no others. One man or another may indeed attain this featureless Moksha, but what is the gain? The Brahman, the Self, God are ever present. What God wants in man is to embody Himself here in the individual and in the community, to realize God in life.
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.
--
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.
People now talk of spiritualizing politics. Its result will be, if there be any permanent result, some kind of Indianized Bolshevism. Even to that kind of work I have no objection. Let each man do according to his inspiration. But that is not the real thing. If one pours the spiritual power into all these impure forms the water of the Causal ocean into raw vesselsei ther the raw vessels will break and the water will be spilt and lost or the spiritual power will evaporate and only the impure form remain. In all fields it is the same. I can give the spiritual power but that power will be expended in making the image of an ape and setting it up in the temple of Shiva. If the ape is endowed with life and made powerful, he may play the part of the devotee Hanuman and do much work for Rama,2 so long as that life and that power remain. But what we want in the Temple of India is not Hanuman, but the god, the avatar, Rama himself.
0 1962-07-25, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So I had all this preparation. And I am giving you these details simply to tell you it all began with consciousness (I knew very well what consciousness was, even before I had any word or idea to explain it), consciousness and its forceits force of action, its force of execution. Next, a detailed study and thorough development of the vital. After that, mental development taken to its uppermost limit, where you can juggle with all ideas; a developmental stage where its already understood that all ideas are true and that theres a synthesis to be made, and that beyond the synthesis lies something luminous and true. And behind it all, a continual consciousness. Such was my state when I came here: Id had a world of experiences and had already attained conscious union with the Divine above and withinall of it consciously realized, carefully noted and so forthwhen I came to Sri Aurobindo.
From the standpoint of shakti, this is the normal course: consciousness, vital, mental and spiritual.
0 1962-08-14, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A few days later, Mother remarked with a kind of admiration: "It's almost a miracle for such people to admit that someone is doing something entirely new! That's the great problem with those who have attained some realization, they shut the door: 'Now we have realized what the Forefa thers said, and that's enough.' So to find a man who knows nothing outwardly and who FELT that we wanted to do something never done before ... I found that extremely interesting. It means he has an opening, an opening above, higher than the ordinary spiritual atmosphere."
***
0 1962-10-30, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I met another Chinese a few years ago, a man with a spiritual life. He came to meet me and talked for an hour about China. It made me understand China externally as if I had been born and lived my whole life there. I saw they were people who have attained the summit of the intellect, and who have a creative powerinventors. He told me, No people in the world could understand Sri Aurobindo intellectually as well as the Chinese. And it was luminously true. The highest intellectual comprehension, really at its peak.
Its another story when it comes to doing yoga. Although that must depend entirely on the individual. The Chinese dont have the same spiritual intensity you find rooted in the Indian characterits something completely different. Here, spiritual life is real, concrete, tangibletotally real. For the Chinese it all happens at the top of the head.
0 1962-11-10, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother listens to Satprem read a chapter from his manuscript entitled "Under the Sign of the Gods," in which he speaks of the overmind's inadequacy for attaining the plenitude of evolution, Afterwards, Mother tells what she saw while he was reading.)
Theres a kind of cadence.
0 1963-03-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
84The supernatural is that the nature of which we have not attained or do not yet know, or the means of which we have not yet conquered. The common taste for miracles is the sign that mans ascent is not yet finished.
85It is rationality and prudence to distrust the supernatural; but to believe in it is also a sort of wisdom.
0 1963-03-13, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They are the ones who want to attain Nirvana. And this too was a dream!
(Mother looks further)
0 1963-03-27, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
and to attain it, the first requisite,
what men need today,
0 1963-05-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
91If life alone were and not death, there could be no immortality; if love were alone and not cruelty, joy would be only a tepid and ephemeral rapture; if reason were alone and not ignorance, our highest attainment would not exceed a limited rationality and worldly wisdom.
92Death transformed becomes Life that is Immortality; Cruelty transfigured becomes Love that is intolerable ecstasy; Ignorance transmuted becomes Light that leaps beyond wisdom and knowledge.
0 1963-07-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Some people (or if you like, some beings, or forces, or consciousnesses) in order to progress need to give themselves, to merge, and in total self-annihilation, they attain Realization; for others the path is diametrically opposite: its a growth, a domination, an expansion which assumes fantastic proportions until the separation disappearsit can no longer exist.
Some prefer this path, others prefer that one but when we reach the end, it will all meet.
0 1963-07-17, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It requires no preparation, it isnt something you have to attain: its ALWAYS there. Only, it also stems from the fact that I am not here (thats so clear, so clear, it needs no reflection or observation, its such a well-established fact) I am not here for anything, anything whatsoever, any satisfaction of any sort, on any level, any pointnone of that exists any more, that has no more reality, no more existence. The only thing I still FEEL is a sort of not an aspiration, not a will, not an adherence or enthusiasm, but something that is maybe its more like a power: to do the Lords Work. At the same time, I feel the Lord you understand, He isnt in front of me or outside of me! Thats not it, He is everywhere and He is everywhere and I am everywhere with Him. But what holds these cells together in a permanent form is that something which is at once the will and power (and something more than both) to do the Lords work. It contains something which probably is translated in peoples consciousnesses as Bliss, Ananda (I must say its an aspect of the problem I am not concerned with). Something like the intensity of a superlove as yet unmanifestits impossible to say.
Some time ago I made a discovery of that kind: someone asked me if there was any difference between Ananda and Love; I said, No. Then he said to me, But then how is it that some people feel Ananda while others feel Love? I answered him, Yes! Those who feel Ananda are those who like to receive, who have the capacity to receive, and those who feel Love are those who have the capacity to give. But its the same thing: you receive it as Ananda, you give it as Love.
0 1963-07-31, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And I was told something this morning (I think it was this morning, or in the night, I dont remember); it was said to the body, not to me. The body was told that it would go on till complete purification, and that AT THAT POINT it will have the choice between continuing its work or You see, once it has attained complete purification from the cellular point of view (not what people call physical purity, thats not it), from the point of view of the divine Influence, which means that each cell will be under the exclusive influence of the Supreme (thats the work under way now), the body was told that that work would be done, and once it was completed, the body ITSELF, entirely under the Supremes influence, would decide whether it wants to continue or be dissolved. It was very interesting, because dissolution means a scattering, but to scatter (thats easy to understand) is a way to SPREAD the consciousness over a very large area. So the cells will be given the choice either to act in that way (gesture of diffusion) or to act in agglomeration (Mother makes a fist).
(silence)
0 1963-08-13a, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the first place, we should say that each realm has an energy of its own. But what people generally feel as energy is vital energy; and vital energy (hem!) is vital! Therefore to say that those who withdraw withdraw all their energies and consciousness into the psychic to attain Nirvana is nonsense!
There is a nirvana behind the vital, a nirvana behind the psychic, a nirvana behind the mind; there is a nirvana on every level, even behind the physicalits death. And those who withdraw, who try to attain Nirvana, NEVER go into the psychic the psychic is something essentially linked to divine manifestation, not to divine nonintervention, not to Nirvana.
All that is fit for the wastepaper basket!1
0 1964-08-05, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(D., a disciple, sent Mother an eighteenth-century account by a Japanese monk of the Zen Buddhist sect describing a method called "Introspection," which enables one to overcome cold and hunger and attain physical immortality. Mother reads a few pages, then gives up.)
[Herms magazine, Spring 1963.]
0 1964-09-16, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
104In all the lakhs of ochre-clad Sannyasins,3 how many are perfect? It is the few attainments and the many approximations that justify an ideal.
105There have been hundreds of perfect Sannyasins, because Sannyasa had been widely preached and numerously practiced; let it be the same with the ideal freedom and we shall have hundreds of Janakas.
0 1964-11-12, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And all of a sudden, I saw thats not it at all! When they have the experience, at the time of the experience, it is the thing ITSELF, the perfection ITSELF that has been reached, and they are in a state of perfection; and it is because they COME OUT of it that they feel they have to slowly prepare themselves for the result. I dont know if I am expressing myself clearly, but my notation was like this: perfection is there, always, coexisting with imperfectionperfection and imperfection are coexistent, always, and not only simultaneous, but in the SAME PLACE (Mother presses her two hands together), I dont know how to put itcoexistent. Which means that at any second and in any conditions, you can attain perfection: it isnt something that has to be gained little by little, through successive progress; perfection is THERE, and YOU change states, from the state of imperfection to the state of perfection; and it is the capacity to remain in that state of perfection that grows for some reason or other and gives you the feeling that you must prepare yourself or transform yourself.
That was very real and very concrete.
--
with the imperfection and attainable
at each and any moment.
Yes, it isnt something that becomes: perfection is an absolute state that can be attained at any moment.
And then, the conclusion is very interesting (Mother looks for another scrap of paper). You remember, I told you that for the body consciousness, the problem that remains hard to solve is that notion (to me, it has become just a notion, it isnt a truth), of the preexistence of all things: of the state in which each thing IS, even in its unfolding. You understand, it would be as if all the POINTS of the unfolding were preexistent.
--
Mother is perhaps referring to the following passage of The Hour of God: "The experiment of human life on an earth is not now for the first time enacted. It has been conducted a million times before and the long drama will again a million times be repeated. In all that we do now, our dreams, our discoveries, our swift or difficult attainments we profit subconsciously by the experience of innumerable precursors and our labour will be fecund in planets unknown to us and in worlds yet uncreated...."
XVII.149
0 1965-02-19, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In other words, the Highest you can attain in your aspiration and in your invocation the purest, the highest. The purest, I mean, to be exclusively under the influence of the Supreme. So I wrote:
the supreme invocation
--
With the first word, you invoke the Supreme in all that you can attain and all that you will attain, indefinitely. The word has to be progressive.
The second word represents:
--
Perfect surrender in all the states of being. That comes progressively, it comes through years of repetition, but thats what the word must represent when it is said: total self-giving to this Supreme, who naturally is beyond all conception. Perfect surrender, that is, spontaneous surrender, which requires neither effort nor anythinga surrender that must be perfectly spontaneous. This, too, is something that is attained little by little; thats why I said that the mantra is progressive, in the sense that it grows more and more perfect.
The third word represents:
0 1965-03-03, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
109All things seem hard to man that are above his attained level and they are hard to his unaided effort; but they become at once easy and simple when God in man takes up the contract.
Its perfect. There is nothing to say.
0 1965-05-05, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a growing sense of a Power thats beginning to be limitless. But that state is in fact linked with those difficulties [heart or circulatory troubles]. And, you know, I dont make any decisions, I dont do anything [to attain that state]: I am like this (immobile gesture, palms open to the Heights), in something that feels as if it could be eternally like that. But within it, I perceive waves, movements (and sometimes concentrations, when it has to do with world events) that have a stupendous power.
We just have to keep still and, well, well see what will happen anyway.
0 1967-05-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This remedyits good for all earth lifeis to attain and open up to the consciousness of Harmonynot mental or vital harmony, but the essential harmony, the principle of harmony.
Its always the same remedy. Its wonderfully effective if one can apply it, but that is difficult because the human consciousness is very unstable, in constant change. That change is what gives man the sense of life and movement. Its absolutely stupid, but thats how it is!
0 1968-01-12, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a key in the relationship between man and woman, but not in their sexual relations. The so-called left-hand Tantrics (of the Vama Marga) are to true Tantrism what Boccaccios tales are to Christianity, or what the sodden Roman Bacchus is to Dionysos of the Greek mysteries. I know Tantrism, to say the least. As for the Cathars, whom I hold in the highest esteem, it would be doing them little honor to believe that they followed a sort of yoga of sexuality. Through my own experience I have often had the feeling of reliving the Cathars experience, and I see plainly that if some of them attempted to mix sexual relations into the true relationship between man and woman, they soon realized their error. It is a dead-end road, or rather its only end is to show you that it leads you nowhere forward. The Cathars were too sincere and conscious men to persist in a burdening experience. For ultimately, and that is the crux of the matter, the sexual experience in its very nature (whether or not there is backward flow or whatever its mode) automatically fastens you again to the old animal vibrations there is nothing you can do about it: however much love you may put into it, the very function is tied to millennia of animality. It is as if you wanted to plunge into a swamp without stirring up any mudit cannot be done, the milieu is like that. And when one knows how much transparency, clarification and inner stillness it takes to slowly rise to a higher consciousness, or to allow a higher light to enter our waters without being instantly darkened, one fails to see how sexual activity can help you attain that still limpidity in which things can start happening??? The union, the oneness of two beings, the true and complete meeting of two beings does not take place at that level or through those means. That is all I can say. But I have seen that in the silent tranquillity of two beings who have the same aspiration, who have overcome the difficult transition, something quite unique slowly takes place, of which one can have no inkling as long as one is still stuck in the struggles of the flesh, to use a preachers language! I think the Cathars experience begins after that transition. After it, the man-woman couple assumes its true meaning, its effectiveness, if I may say so. Sex is only a first mode of meeting, the first device invented by Nature to break the shell of individual egosafterwards, one grows and discovers something else, not through inhibition or repression, but because something different and infinitely richer takes over. Those who are so eager to preserve sex and to mystify it in order to move on to the second stage of evolution are very much like children clinging to their scootersit isnt more serious than that. There is nothing in it to do a yoga with, nothing also to be indignant about or raise ones eyebrows at. So I have nothing to criticize, I am merely observing and putting things in their place. All depends on the stage one has reached. As for those who want to use sex for such and such a sublime or not-so-sublime reason, well, let them have their experience. As Mother told me on the very same subject no later than yesterday, To tell the truth, the Lord makes use of everything. One is always on the way towards something. One is always on the way, through any means, but what is necessary is, as much as possible, to keep ones lucidity and not to deceive oneself.
I will try to find one or two passages from Sri Aurobindo to give you his point of view.
0 1968-07-20, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
3) What is the meaning, on the practical level of the Yoga, of Sri Aurobindos recommendation to go through You in order to attain Realization?
Did he say one had to go through the Mother?
0 1970-06-06, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
534The rejection of falsehood by the mind seeking after truth is one of the chief causes why mind cannot attain to the settled, rounded and perfect truth; not to escape falsehood is the effort of divine mind, but to seize the truth which lies masked behind even the most grotesque or far-wandering error.
(Mother comments:) Sri Aurobindo calls divine mind the prototype of the mental function that is totally and perfectly surrendered to the Divine and functions under the divine inspiration alone.
0 1970-06-10, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
540Canst thou see God in thy torturer and slayer even in thy moment of death or thy hours of torture? Canst thou see Him in that which thou art slaying, see and love even while thou slayest? Thou hast thy hand on the supreme knowledge. How shall he attain to Krishna who has never worshipped Kali?
You answer:
0 1970-07-22, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
T. is convinced of this and also declares that Ramalingam had attained the complete supramentalization of the body.
We didnt say that!
0 1971-03-04, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Perhaps Aurovillians have not yet attained the level of consciousness expected of them.
***
0 1971-03-10, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As there is a category of facts to which our senses are our best available but very imperfect guides, as there is a category of truths which we seek by the keen but still imperfect light of our reason, so according to the mystic, there is a category of more subtle truths which surpass the reach both of the senses and the reason but can be ascertained by an inner direct knowledge and direct experience. These truths are supersensuous, but not the less real for that: they have immense results upon the consciousness changing its substance and movement, bringing especially deep peace and abiding joy, a great light of vision and knowledge, a possibility of the overcoming of the lower animal nature, vistas of a spiritual self-development which without them do not exist. A new outlook on things arises which brings with it, if fully pursued into its consequences, a great liberation, inner harmony, unificationmany other possibilities besides. These things have been experienced, it is true, by a small minority of the human race, but still there has been a host of independent witnesses to them in all times, climes and conditions and numbered among them are some of the greatest intelligences of the past, some of the worlds most remarkable figures. Must these possibilities be immediately condemned as chimeras because they are not only beyond the average man in the street but also not easily seizable even by many cultivated intellects or because their method is more difficult than that of the ordinary sense or reason? If there is any truth in them, is not this possibility opened by them worth pursuing as disclosing a highest range of self-discovery and world discovery by the human soul? At its best, taken as true, it must be thatat its lowest taken as only a possibility, as all things attained by man have been only a possibility in their earlier stages, it is a great and may well be a most fruitful adventure.
Sri Aurobindo
0 1971-04-07, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Human blindness is such that many people expect to attain the Truth while keeping the habit of lying.
At least 4 or 5 people around me are lyinglying to me! Just these last few days.
0 1971-04-17, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the other hemisphere, there is an intensity and a plenitude which result in a power different from the one here. How can I explain it? One cannot. The quality of the consciousness itself seems to change. It is not something higher than the summit we can attain here, it is not one MORE rung. Here, we have reached the end, the summit, but its the quality that is different. The quality, in the sense that there is a plenitude, a richness, a power (this is all a translation, you see, in our language), but there is a something that that eludes us. It is truly a new reversal of consciousness.
When we begin living the spiritual life, a reversal of consciousness takes place which for us is the proof that we have entered the spiritual life; well, yet another one occurs when we enter the supramental world.
0 1971-07-10, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Let me say it in a very down-to-earth way: for example, take a supramental being having the supramental consciousness, if his body gets cancer, it will remain cancer, you follow? He may not feel anything, but only if he detaches himself from his body; whereas, for the transformation to be genuine, the body ALSO has to attain a harmony aboveabove all illnesses and accidents.
It is the only part. The other parts of the being can be transformed, can transform their consciousness while remaining what they are but the physical body needs to change.
0 1972-01-08, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In my consciousness it is like a transitional condition (not a final condition, a transitional one) required to attain immortality. Thats what it is. There is something something to be found. But what, I dont know.
(long silence Mother shakes her head as if at a loss)
0 1972-01-12, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The result of creation is a detailed multiplication of consciousness. When the vision of the whole and the vision of all the details join together within an active consciousness, the creation will have attained its progressive perfection.
Progressive means (expanding gesture). No word, no image can convey the experience. It was a real comprehension, a real vision of the thing. This (Mother points to her note) seems hollow in comparison. To use a very childlike metaphor, its as if the creation unfolded on a screen, were projected on a screen. Or rather, the Supreme Consciousness is projecting itself on a sort of infinite screen.
0 1972-02-23, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
To waste time seeking the gratification of ones petty desires is sheer folly. True happiness can be attained only by finding the Divine.
There were others after this one.1
0 1972-04-26, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, its so interesting. So interesting. Since childhood, I have always endeavored, as it were, to attain total indifferencenothing is annoying, nothing is pleasant. Since childhood, I recall a consciousness striving for (thats what Sri Aurobindo meant) for indifference. Interesting! It makes me understand why he said that it was I who could attempt the transition between human consciousness and supramental consciousness. He said that. He said it to me and he says it here (its written among Nirods things). Now I understand why.
Ah, I understand!
0 1972-07-22, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes. But what is to be done, then? Should one withdraw in that Consciousness, seek to attain it and, well, just let the material world unfold as it can with the fakers and liars, or else.
Thats what I am myself brought to do now.
--
I know in any case that the letter I wrote you was really Sri Aurobindo insisting on the need to attain that Consciousness, and he told me you were ready for it. He told me that.
Then should I withdraw from action, Mother?
02.01 - Metaphysical Thought and the Supreme Truth, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Indian position. Even those who see that mental Thought must be overpassed and admit a supramental "Other", do not seem to escape from the feeling that it must be through mental Thought, sublimating and transmuting itself, that this other Truth must be reached and made to take the place of the mental limitation and ignorance. And again Western thought has ceased to be dynamic; it has sought after a theory of things, not after realisation. It was still dynamic amongst the ancient Greeks, but for moral and aesthetic rather than spiritual ends. Later on, it became yet more purely intellectual and academic; it became intellectual speculation only without any practical ways and means for the attainment of the Truth by spiritual experiment, spiritual discovery, a spiritual transformation. If there were not this difference, there would be no reason for seekers like yourself to turn to the East for guidance; for in the purely intellectual field, the Western thinkers are as competent as any Eastern sage.
It is the spiritual way, the road that leads beyond the intellectual levels, the passage from the outer being to the inmost Self, which has been lost by the over-intellectuality of the mind of Europe.
02.01 - Our Ideal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
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.
To the regard of one line of experience, Matter seems opposed to Spirit only so far as the actual and outer formulation of Matter is concerned: even then the opposition is only apparent and relative. This is the very crux of the problem. For, to such a regard Spirit becomes Matter also, it is also Matterannam brahma eva. Spirit is consciousness, cit; and Matter, it is said, is unconsciousness, acit. But unconsciousness need not be and is not, in our view, the absolute negation or utter absence of consciousness, it is only an involved or involute consciousness. If consciousness is wakefulness, unconsciousness is nothing more than forgetfulness: it is only an abeyance or suspension of consciousness, not annihilation.
--
We will try to understand the nature of sublimation and transformation by analogy and illustration. Mind, for example, we know, is an instrument which by itself is incapable of attaining to the knowledge of the Spirit or the consciousness of the Truth. As it is constituted at present, it is not only not capable of that knowledge and consciousness, but is an obstacle to them. Its vibrations and formulations disturb and vitiate the higher rhythm. That is why it is repeated so often in the Upanishads:
Nai tarkena matirapney1
02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Evolution, which means the return movement of consciousness, consists, in its apparent and outward aspect, of two processes, or rather two parallel lines in a single process. First, there is the line of sublimation, that is to say, the lower purifies and modifies itself into the higher; the denser, the obscurer, the baser mode of consciousness is led into and becomes the finer, the clearer, the nobler mode. Thus it is that Matter rises into Life, Life into Psyche and Mind, Mind into Overmind and Supermind. Now this sublimation is not simply a process of refinement or elimination, something in the nature of our old Indian nivtti or pratyhra, or what Plotinus called epistrophe (a turning back, withdrawal or reabsorption): it includes and is attended by the process of integration also. That is to say, as the lower rises into the higher, the lower does not cease to exist thereby, it exists but lifted up into the higher, infused and modified by the higher. Thus when Matter yields Life, Matter is not destroyed: it means Life has appeared in Matter and exists in and through Matter and Matter thereby has attained a new mode and constitution, for it is no longer merely a bundle of chemical or mechanical reactions, it is instinct with life, it has become organic matter. Even so, when Lire arrives at Mind, it is not dissolved into Mind but both Life and Matter are taken up by the mental stuff, life becomes dynamic sentience and Matter is transformed into the grey substance of the brain. Matter thus has passed through a first transformation in Life and a second transformation in Mind; it awaits other transformations on other levels beyond Mind. Likewise, Life has passed through a first transformation in Mind and there are stages in this transformation. In the plant, Life is in its original pristine mode; in the animal, it has become sentient and centralised round a rudimentary desire-soul; in man, life-force is taken up by the higher mind and intelligence giving birth to idealism and ambition, dynamisms of a forward-looking purposive will.
We have, till now, spoken of the evolution of consciousness as a movement of ascension, consisting of a double process of sublimation and integration. But ascension itself is only one line of a yet another larger double process. For along with the visible movement of ascent, there is a hidden movement of descent. The ascent represents the pressure from below, the force of buoyancy exerted by the involved and secreted consciousness. But the mere drive from below is not sufficient all by itself to bring out or establish the higher status. The higher status itself has to descend in order to be manifest. The urge from below is an aspiration, a yearning to move ever upward and forward; but the precise goal, the status to be arrived at is not given there. The more or less vague and groping surge from below is canalised, if assumes a definite figure and shape, assumes a local habitation and a name when the higher descends at the crucial moment, takes the lower at its peak-tide and fixes upon it its own norm and form. We have said that all the levels of consciousness have been createdloosened outby a first Descent; but in the line of the first Descent the only level that stands in front at the outset is Matter all the other levels are created no doubt but remain invisible in the background, behind the gross veil of Matter. Each status stands confined, as it were, to its own region and bides its time when each will be summoned to concretise itself in Matter. Thus Life was already there on the plane of Life even when it did not manifest itself in Matter, when mere Matter, dead Matter was the only apparent reality on the material plane. When Matter was stirred and churned sufficiently so as to reach a certain tension and saturation, when it was raised to a certain degree of maturity, as it were, then Life appeared: Life appeared, not because that was the inevitable and unavoidable result of the churning, but because Life descended from its own level to the level of Matter and took Matter up in its embrace. The churning, the development in Matter was only the occasion, the condition precedent. For, however much one may shake or churn Matter, whatever change one may create in it by a shuffling and reshuffling of its elements, one can never produce Life by that alone. A new and unforeseen factor makes its appearance, precisely because it comes from elsewhere. It is true all the planes are imbedded, submerged, involved in the complex of Matter; but, in point of fact, all planes are involved in every other plane. The appearance or manifestation of a new plane is certainly prepared, made ready to the last the last but onedegree by the urge of the inner, the latent mode of consciousness that is to be; still the actualisation, the bursting forth happens only when the thing that has to manifest itself descends, the actual form and pattern can be imprinted and established by that alone. Thus, again, when Life attains a certain level of growth and maturity, a certain tension and orientationa definite vector, so to say, in the mathematical languagewhen it has, for example, sufficiently organised itself as a vehicle of the psychic element of consciousness, then it buds forth into Mind, but only when the Mind has descended upon it and into it. As in the previous stage, here also Life cannot produce Mind, cannot develop into Mind by any amount of mechanical or chemical operations within itself, by any amount of permutation and combination or commutation and culture of its constituent elements, unless it is seized on by Mind itself. After the Mind, the next higher grade of consciousness shall come by the same method and process, viz. first by an uplifting of the mental consciousnessa certain widening and deepening and katharsis of the mental consciousness and then by a descent, gradual or sudden, of the level or levels that lie above it.
This, then, is the nature of creation and its process. First, there is an Involution, a gradual foreshorteninga disintegration and concretisation, an exclusive concentration and self-oblivion of consciousness by which the various levels of diminishing consciousness are brought forth from the plenary light of the one supreme Spirit, all the levels down to the complete eclipse in the unconsciousness of the multiple and disintegrate Matter. Next, there is an Evolution, that is to say, embodiment in Matter of all these successive states, appearing one by one from the down most to the topmost; Matter incarnates, all other states contri bute to the incarnation and uphold it, the higher always transforming the lower in a new degree of consciousness.
--
We say that at the lowest level of involution, in Matter, where consciousness has zero magnitude, there is no personality or individuality. It is all a mechanical play of clashing particles that constantly fly apart or come together according to the force or the resultant of forces that act upon them. An individuality means a bounded form as its basis of reaction and a form that tends to persist and grow by assimilation; it means a centre of a definite manner and pattern of reaction. Individuality, in its literal sense, designates that which cannot be divided (in + dividus). Division is only another name for death for the particular entity. Even in the case of cell-division or self-division of some lower organisms, in the first instance the original living entity disappears and, secondly, the succeeding: entities, created by division, always re-form themselves again into integral wholes. A material particle, on the other hand, is divisible ad infinitum. We have been able to divide even an atom (which means also that which cannot be divided) to such an extent as to reduce it to a mere charge of energy, nay, we have sublimated it to a geometrical point. Individualisation starts with the coming of life. It is a ganglion of life-force round which a particular system of action and reaction weaves itself. The characteristic of individuality is that each one is unique, each relates itself to others and to the environment in its own way, each expresses itself, puts forth its energy, receives impacts from outside in a manner that distinguishes it from others. It is true this character of individuality is not very pronounced in the earlier or rudimentary forms of life. Still it is there: it grows and develops slowly along the ladder of evolution. Only in the higher animals it attains a clear and definite norm and form.
In man something else or something more happens. For man is not merely an individual, he is also a personality. He is the outcome of a twofold growth and revelation. He has outgrown the vital and climbed into Mind, and he has dived into the Heart and touched his inner soul, his true psychic centre. It is this soul that is the source of his personality.
--
Thus we have three characteristics of the human personality accruing from the psychic consciousness that supports and inspires it:(1) self-consciousness: an animal acts, feels and even knows, but man knows that he acts, knows that he feels, knows even that he knows. This phenomenon of consciousness turning round upon itself is the hallmark of the human being; (2) a conscious will holding together and harmonising, fashioning and integrating the whole external nature evolved till now; (3) a purposive drive, a deliberate and voluntary orientation towards a higher and ever higher status of individualisation and personalisation,not only a horizontal movement seeking to embrace and organise the normal, the already attained level of consciousness, but also a vertical movement seeking to raise the level, attain altogether a new poise of higher organisation.
These characters, it is true, are not clear and pronounced, do not lie in front, at the beginning of the human personality. The normal human person has his psyche very much behind; but it is still there as antarymin, as the secret Inner Controller. And whatever the vagaries of the outer instruments or their slavery to the mode of Ignorance, in and through all that, it is this Inner Guide that holds the reins and drives upward in the end.
02.02 - Rishi Dirghatama, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
About the Word, the mystery which Dirghatama unveils is an extraordinary revelationso curious, so illuminating. In later times many lines of spiritual discipline have adopted his scheme and spread it far and wide. Dirghatama himself was an uncommon wizard of words. The truths he saw and clothed in mantras have attained, as I have already said, general celebrity. He says: "The Word is off our categories. It has four stations or levels or gradations." The Rishi continues: "Three of them are unmanifested, unbodied; only the fourth one is manifest and bodied, on the tongue of man." This terminology embodying a fundamental principle has had many commentaries and explanations. Of these the most well-known is that given by the Tantras. They have named the fourfold words as (1) par, supreme; (2) payant, the seeing one; (3) madhyam, the middle one or the one within and (4) vaikhar, the articulate word. In modern language we may say that the first one is the self-vibration of the Supreme Being or Consciousness; the second is the vibration of the higher-mind or the pure intelligence; the third is the vibration of the inner heart; and the fourth the vibration of physical sound, of voice. In philosophical terms of current English we may name these as (1) revelatory, (2) intuitive, (3) inspirational and (4) vocal.
Now in conclusion I will just speak of the fundamental vision of the rishi. His entire realisation, the whole Veda of his life, he has, it appears, pressed into one single k We have heard it said that the entire range of all scriptures is epitomised in the Gita and the Gita' itself is epitomised in one slokasarvadharmn parityajya... Even so we may say that Rishi Dirghatama has summarised his experience, at least the fundamental basic one, and put it into a sutra. It is the famous k with which he opens his long hymn to Surya:
02.02 - The Kingdom of Subtle Matter, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Unsullied by the attaint of mortal thought
Abide in that pellucid atmosphere.
--
It has a tact our touch cannot attain,
A purity of sense we never feel;
02.02 - The Message of the Atomic Bomb, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That word is a warning that unless man changes, becomes master of himself, he cannot be truly master of the world. He cannot comm and the forces he has unleashed unless he has comm and over his own nature. The external immensity, the bloated mass that his physical attainments are, unless armoured and animated by an inner growth, will crash by its own weight. The mammoth, the mastodon, the huge pachyderms, in spite of, rather because of their inordinately one-sided growth could not stand the demand of life and perished. Likewise man will not possess the world but the world will engulf and devour him in its aboriginal hunger of unconsciousness, if he does not take a right-about turn and declare his conversion. The Frankenstein that man has raised can no longer be met by merely human devicesreason and morals but by a higher discovery and initiation.
The Bomb has shaken the physical atmosphere of the earth as no other engine has done. It has shaken the moral atmosphere too not in a lesser degree. Reason and moral sense could not move man, so Fear has been sent by the Divine Grace. Dante said that God created Hell in his mood of infinite love and justice that seems to be the inevitable gate through which one has to pass to arrive at the Divine. We are indeed in hell today upon earth, a worse can hardly be tolerated.
02.03 - An Aspect of Emergent Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The principle of Avatarhood stands justified in this scheme as a necessary and inevitable element in the terrestrial evolutionary movement. An Avatar embodies a new emergent property: he incarnates a new principle of being and consciousness, he manifestsunfolds from below or brings down from above upon eartha higher and deeper principle of organisation. He is the nucleus round which the new organisation crystallises. A Rama comes and human society attains a new status: against a mainly vitalistic and egoistic organisation whose defender and protagonist is Ravana, is set up an ideal of sattwic humanity. A Krishna appears and human consciousness is lifted, potentially at least, to a still higher level of spiritual possibility. The Avatar following, rather tracing, in his upward movement the central line of the evolutionary nisus, cuts a path, as it were, in the virgin forest of a realm of consciousness still unknown and foreign to human steps. As the Avatar presses and passes on, the way is cleared for other, ordinary human beings to come up and naturalise themselves in a new country promising a higher destiny which He discovers and conquers for them.
Now at this point we reach the crux of the problem, the supreme secretrahasyam uttamamas the Gita would say. For the apex of the pyramid, the crown of evolution, the consummation of the central line of emergence would then be nothing less than the manifestation, the terrestrial incarnation of the Supreme Divine. The Deity thus fully emerged would embody the truth and play of creation in its widest scope and highest elevation; it would mean the utter fulfilment of human destiny and terrestrial Purpose.
02.04 - The Right of Absolute Freedom, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Within the nation all communities must be ready to give and take and settle down amicably. Within humanity too all nations must live the same principle. The days of free competition must be considered as gone for good; instead the rule of collaboration and co-operation has to be adopted (even between past enemies and rivals). In mutual aid and self-limitation lie also the growth and fulfilment of each collective individuality. That is the great Law of Sacrifice enunciated ages ago by Sri Krishna in the Gita"By increasing each other all will attain the Summum Bonum."
***
02.06 - The Integral Yoga and Other Yogas, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
From where did you get this singular attitude towards the old Yogas and Yogis? Is the wisdom of the Vedanta and Tantra a small and trifling thing? Have then the sadhaks of this Asram attained to self-realisation and are they liberated Jivan-muktas, free from ego and ignorance? If not, why then do you say, "it is not a very difficult stage", "their goal is not high", "is it such a long process?"
I have said that this Yoga was "new" because it aims at the integrality of the Divine in this world and not only beyond it and at a supramental realisation. But how does that justify a superior contempt for the spiritual realisation which is as much the aim of this Yoga as of any other?
--
Tantric sadhanas, the effort after a complete physical siddhi by certain schools of Yoga, etc. etc. I have alluded to these things myself and have put forth the view that the spiritual past of the race has been a preparation of Nature not merely for attaining to the Divine beyond this world, but also for this very step forward which the evolution of the earth-consciousness has still to make.
I do not therefore care in the least, - even though these ideals were, up to some extent parallel, yet not identical with mine,
--
(1) Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into a Heaven or a Nirvana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object. If there is a descent in other Yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent - the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is indispensable, but what is decisive, what is finally aimed at is the resulting descent. It is the descent of the new consciousness attained by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.
(2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sole sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic achievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing in of a Power of consciousness
--
The Vedic Rishis never attained to the supermind for the earth or perhaps did not even make the attempt. They tried to rise individually to the supramental plane, but they did not bring it down and make it a permanent part of the earthconsciousness. Even there are verses of the Upanishad in which it is hinted that it is impossible to pass through the gates of the Sun (the symbol of the supermind) and yet retain an earthly body. It was because of this failure that the spiritual effort of
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.
--
Truth Purusha (supramental) and the Bliss Purusha; it says that one has to draw the physical self up into the vital, the vital into the mental, the mental into the Truth Self, the Truth Self into the Bliss Self and so attain perfection. But in this Yoga we become aware not only of this taking up but of a pouring down of the powers of the higher Self, so that there comes in the possibility of a descent of the Supramental Self and nature to dominate and change our present nature and turn it from nature of Ignorance into nature of Truth-Knowledge (and through the supramental into nature of Ananda) - this is the third or supramental transformation. It does not always go in this order, for with many the spiritual descent begins first in an imperfect way before the psychic is in front and in charge, but the psychic development has to be attained before a perfect and unhampered spiritual descent can take place, and the last or supramental change is impossible so long as the two first have not become full and complete. That's the whole matter, put as briefly as possible.
02.06 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Almost she nears what never can be attained;
She shuts eternity into an hour
02.09 - Two Mystic Poems in Modern French, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The king will understand that the higher consciousness must come down and touch and kiss the bleak earth-consciousness. The spirit must embrace the cold bare earth. Then only the human soul, the king free of his ego, will attain peace and felicity.
Here is the second poem. I follow the same principle I do not give a translation but, as I said, an explanatory paraphrase, and I conclude by a short comment.
02.10 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Apt to conceive, unable to attain,
It drew its concept-maps and vision-plans
02.12 - Mysticism in Bengali Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That has no second to its self, that has attained
absolute fixity.
02.12 - The Ideals of Human Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now out of this complex of forces and ideals, what seems to stand out clearly is this: (i) the family unit remains for practical purposes,whatever breaking or modification affects its outward forms, the thing seems to be a permanent feature of life organization; (ii) the nation too has attained a firm stability and inviolability; it refuses to be broken or dissolved and in any larger aggregate that is formed this one has to be integrated intact as a living unit. The other types of aggregates seem to be more in the nature of experiments and temporary necessities; when they have served their purpose they fade and disappear or are thrown into the background and persist as vestigial remains. It seems to us that the clan, the tribe, the race are such formations. Regionalism, Imperialism (political, economic or religious) are also not stable aggregates.
Still it is difficult to say as yet what would be the exact form of the intermediate grouping between the nation and humanity at large, even if a grouping of nations appear to be a necessity as an intermediate stage, whether such groupings or commonwealths are going to be a permanent feature or whether the nation will finally remain the ultimate unit and humanity will consist of such free equal nations, independent units, all together forming a unified whole.
02.13 - On Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is the thing in human society which makes it valuable, worthy of humanity, gives it a place of honour and the right to live and continue to live? It is its culture and civilisation, as everyone knows. Greece or Rome, China or India did not attain, at least according to modern conceptions, a high stage in economic evolution: the production and distribution of wealth, the classification and organization of producers and consumers, their relation and functions were, in many respects, what is called primitive. An American of today would laugh at their uncouth simplicity. And yet America has to bow down to those creators of other values that are truly valuable. And the values are the creations of the great poets, artists, philosophers, law-givers; sages and seers. It is they who made the glory that was Greece or Rome or China or India or Egypt. Indeed they are the builders of Culture, culture which is the inner life of a civilisation. The decline of culture and civilisation means precisely the displacement of the "cultured" man by the economic man. In the present age when economic values have been grossly exaggerated holding the entire social fabric in its stifling grip, the culture spirit has been pushed into the background and made subservient to economic and other cruder forces. That was what Julien Benda, the famous French critic and moralist, once stigmatised as "La Trahison des Clercs"; only, the "clercs" did not voluntarily betray, but circumstanced as they were they could do no better. The process reached its climaxperhaps one should say the very nadirin the Nazi experiment and something of it still continues in the Russian dispensation. There the intellectuals or the intelligentsia are totally harnessed to the political machine, their capacities are prostituted in the service of a socio-economic plan. Poets and artists and thinkers are made to be protagonists and propagandists of the new order. It is a significant sign of the times how almost the whole body of scientists the entire Brain Trust of mankind today, one might sayhave been mobilised for the fabrication of the Atom Bomb. Otherwise they cannot subsist, they lose all economic status.
In the older order, however, a kindlier treatment was meted out to this class, this class of the creators of values. They had patrons who looked after their physical well-being. They had the necessary freedom and leisure to follow their own bent and urge of creativity. Kings and princes, the court and the nobility, in spite of all the evils ascribed to them, and often very justly, have nevertheless been the nursery of art and culture, of all the art and culture of the ancient times. One remembers Shakespeare reading or enacting his drama before the Great Queen, or the poignant scene of Leonardo dying in the arms of Francis the First. Those were the truly great classical ages, and art or man's creative genius hardly ever rose to that height ever since. The downward curve started with the advent and growth of the bourgeoisie when the artist or the creative genius lost their supporters and had to earn their own living by the sweat of their brow. Indeed the greatest tragedies of frustration because of want and privation, occur, not as much among the "lowest" classes who are usually considered as the poorest and the most miserable in society, but in that section from where come the intellectuals, "men of light and leading," to use the epithet they are honoured with. For very few of this group are free to follow their inner trend and urge, but have either to coerce and suppress them or stultify them in the service of lesser alien duties, which mean "forced labour." The punishment for refusing to be drawn away and to falsify oneself is not unoften the withdrawal of the bare necessities of life, in certain cases sheer destitution. A Keats wasting his energies in a work that has no relation to his inner life and light, or a Madhusudan dying in a hospital as a pauper, are examples significant of the nature of the social structure man lives in.
02.14 - Panacea of Isms, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Again, Nationalism is also not the summum bonum of collective living. The nation has emerged out of the family and the tribe as a greater unit of the human aggregate. But this does not mean that it is the last word on the subject, that larger units are not to be found or formed. In the present-day juncture it is nationalism that has become a stumbling-block to a fairer solution of human problems. For example, India, Egypt, Ireland, even Poland, whatever may be the justifying reasons, are almost exclusively, chauvinistically, nationalistic. They believe that the attainment of their free, unfettered, separate national existence first will automatically bring in its train all ideal results that have been postponed till now. They do not see, however, that in the actual circumstances an international solution has the greater chance of bringing about a happier solution for the nation too, and not the other way round. The more significant urge today is towards this greater aggregationPan-America, Pan-Russia, Pan-Arabia, a Western European Block and an Eastern European Block are movements that have been thrown up because of 'a greater necessity in human life and its evolution. Man's stupidity, his failure to grasp the situation, his incapacity to march with Nature, his tendency always to fall back, to return to the outdated past may delay or cause a turn or twist in this healthy movement, but it cannot be permanently thwarted or denied for long. Churchill's memorable call to France, on the eve of her debacle, to join and form with Britain a single national union, however sentimental or even ludicrous it may appear to some, is; as we see it, the cry of humanity itself to transcend the modern barriers of nationhood and rise to a higher status of solidarity and collective consciousness.
Internationalism
03.01 - Humanism and Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The fact of the matter is that here we enter a domain inwhich the notion of egoism or selfishness has no raison dtre. It is only when one has transcended not only selfishness but egoism and sense of individuality that one becomes ready to enter the glory and beatitude of the Self, or Brahman or Shunyam. One may actually and irrevocably pass beyond, or one may return from there (or from the brink of it) to work in and on the worldout of compassion or in obedience to a special call or a higher Will or because of some other thing; but this second course does not mean that one has attained a higher status of being. We may consider it more human, but it is not necessarily a superior realisation. It is a matter of choice of vocation only, to use a mundane phraseology. The Personal and the Impersonal are two co-ordinates of the same supreme Realitysome choose (or are chosen by) the one and others choose (or are chosen by) the other, perhaps as the integral Play or the inscrutable Plan demands and determines, but neither is intrinsically superior to the otheralthough, as I have already said, from an interested human standpoint, one may seem more immediately profitable or nearer than the other; but from that standpoint there may be other truths that are still more practically useful, still closer to the earthly texture of humanity.
The humanism, known to Europe generally, both in its profane and religious aspects, is all "humantoo human" as Nietzsche pronounced it; it was for this reason that the Promethean prophet conjured man to transcend his humanity anyhow, and rise to a superior status of culture and civilisation, of being and consciousness as we would say.
03.01 - The Evolution of Consciousness, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Life, of conscious mind first in animal life and then fully in conscious and thinking man, the highest present achievement of evolutionary Nature. The achievement of mental being is at present her highest and tends to be regarded as her final work; but it is possible to conceive a still further step of the evolution: Nature may have in view beyond the imperfect mind of man a consciousness that passes out of the mind's ignorance and possesses truth as its inherent right and nature. There is a truth-consciousness as it is called in the Veda, a supermind, as I have termed it, possessing Knowledge, not having to seek after it and constantly miss it. In one of the Upanishads a being of knowledge is stated to be the next step above the mental being; into that the soul has to rise and through it to attain the perfect bliss of spiritual existence. If that could be achieved as the next evolutionary step of Nature here, then she would be fulfilled and we could conceive of the perfection of life even here, its attainment of a full spiritual living even in this body or it may be in a perfected body. We could even speak of a divine life on earth; our human dream of perfectibility would be accomplished and at the same time the aspiration to a heaven on earth common to several religions and spiritual seers and thinkers.
The ascent of the human soul to the supreme Spirit is that soul's highest aim and necessity, for that is the supreme reality; but there can be too the descent of the Spirit and its powers into the world and that would justify the existence of the material world also, give a meaning, a divine purpose to the creation and solve its riddle. East and West could be reconciled in the pursuit of the highest and largest ideal, Spirit embrace Matter and Matter find its own true reality and the hidden Reality in all things in the Spirit.
03.01 - The New Year Initiation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We have said that this is not our path. The divine grace is a factwithout that nothing is possible. From one point of view, the divine grace is unconditioned. But it does not follow that the precedent of Jagai-Madhai is the invariable law of spiritual life. The law is rather this that the field must be ready, the being and the consciousness must get into a certain mould, attain certain order and disposition so that the descent of the Divine Grace, its manifestation and play may be possible. For, just as the divine grace is true, so it is equally true that the individual is essentially one with the Divine, sin and ignorance are his external sloughs, identity with the Divine is his natural right. We, therefore, Jay equal stress on this hidden aspect of man, on the freedom of his will, on his personal effort which is the determining factor of his destiny. For in the field of ignorance or half-knowledge, in the nether hemisphere of his consciousness, it is this power that directly builds up that ordered state of the being with whose support the divine grace can actualise itself and give a material shape to the integral fulfilment.
Hence the Mother gives the direction that though external lapses may be natural to our external nature, now that our inner consciousness has awakened, the vision and the earnestness to see and recognise our mistakes have developedassuming that this much of development has taken place in uswe must awake to the situation and be on the alert, we must bring such control to bear upon our vital impulses, upon our nervous centres as will prevent, for good and all, errors and stupidities from upsurging again and invading our physical self and our field of action. When we have reached this stage, we have acquired the capacity to ascend to another level of consciousness. It is then that we can lay the foundations of a new order in the worldit is then that along with the purification, the achievement will begin to take on a material form.
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The scope of this New Year Prayer does not limit itself only to our individual sadhanait embraces also the collective consciousness which is specially the field of its application. It is the muffled voice of entire humanity in its secret aspiration that is given expression here. It is by the power of this mantra, protected by this invulnerable armour,if we choose to accept it as such,that the collective life of man will attain its fulfilment. We have often stated that the outstanding feature of the modern world is that it has become a Kurukshetra of Gods and Titans. It is no doubt an eternal truth of creation, this conflict between the divine and the anti-divine, and it has been going on in the heart of humanity since its advent upon earth. In the inner life of the world this is a fact of the utmost importance, its most significant principle and mystery. Still it must be said that never in the annals of the physical world has this truth taken such momentous proportions as in the grim present. It is pregnant with all good and evil that may make or mar human destiny in the near future. Whether man will transcend his half-animal state and rise to the full height of his manhood, nay even to the godhead in him, or descend back to the level of his gross brute naturethis is the problem of problems which is being dealt with and solved in the course of the mighty holocaust of the present World War.
In her last year's message1 the Mother gave a clear warning that we must have no more hesitation, that we must renounce one side, free ourselves from all its influence and embrace the other side without hesitation, without reservation. At the decisive moment in the life of the world and of mankind, one must definitely, irrevocably choose one's loyalty. It will not do to say, like the over-wise and the over-liberal, that both sides the Allies and the Axis Powersare equalequally right or equally wrong and that we can afford to be outside or above the prejudices or interests of either. There is no room today for a neutral. He who pretends to be a neutral is an enemy to the cause of truth. Whoever is Dot with us is against us.
03.02 - Yogic Initiation and Aptitude, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Nor can one attain the Spirit by discussion and disputation, nor by a varied learning nor even by the power of intelligence.3
Shankara, at the very outset of his commentary on the Sutras, in explaining the very first words, speaks of a fourfold sadhana to acquire fitnessfitness, we may take it, for understanding the Sutras and the commentary and naturally for attaining the Brahman. It seems therefore to be an absolute condition that one must first acquire fitness, develop the right and adequate capacity before one should think of spiritual initiation.
The question, however, can be raised the moderns do raise it and naturally in the present age of science and universal educationwhy should not all men equally have the right to spiritual sadhana? If spirituality is the highest truth for man, his greatest good, his supreme ideal, then to deny it to anyone on the ground, for example, of his not being of the right caste, class, creed, or sex, to keep anyone at a distance on such or similar grounds is unreasonable, unjust, reprehensible. These notions, however, are born of a sentimental or idealistic or charitable disposition, but unfortunately they do not stand the impact of the realities of life. If you simply claim a thing or even if you possess a lawful right to a worthy object, you do not acquire thereby the capacity to enjoy it. Were it so, there would be no such thing as mal-assimilation. In the domain of spiritual sadhana there are any number of cases of defective metabolism. Those that have fallen, strayed from the Path, become deranged or even have had to leave the body, make up a casualty list that is not small. They were misfits, they came by their fate, because they encroached upon a thing they were not actually entitled to, they were dragged into a secret, a mystery to which their being was insensible.
03.03 - Arjuna or the Ideal Disciple, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To say this is to miss the whole nature of discipleship, at least as it is conceived in the Gita. A disciple is not a bundle of qualifications and attainments, however high or considerable they may be. A disciple is first and foremost an aspiring soul. He may not have high qualities to his credit; on the contrary, he may have what one calls serious defects, but even that would not matter if he possessed the one thing needful, the unescapable urge of the soul, the undying fire in the secret heart. Yudhishthira may have attained a high status of sttvic nature; but the highest spiritual status, the Gita says, lies beyond the three Gunas. He is the fittest person for this spiritual life who has abandoned all dharmasprinciples of conduct, modes of living and taken refuge in the Lord alone, made the Lord's will the sole and sufficient law of life. Even though to outward regard such a person be full of sins, the Lord promises to deliver him from all that. It is the soul's love for the Divine given unconditionally and without reserve that can best purify the dross of the inferior nature and render one worthy of the Divine Grace.
Such was Arjuna's capacity; herein lay his strength, his spiritual superiority. It was because he could be so intimate with the Divine as to call him his friend and companion and playmate and speak to him in familiar and homely termseven though he felt contrition for having in this way perhaps slighted the Lord and not paid sufficient regard towards him. Yet this turn of his soul and nature points to the straightness and simplicity and candidness that were there and it was this that helped to call in the Divine and the Divine choice to fall upon him.
03.04 - The Body Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The human frame is a miracle of creation. It would not be far wrong to say that the whole trend of physical evolution has been to bring out this morphological marvel. It has not been a very easy task for Nature to raise a living creature from its original crawling crouching slouching horizontal position to the standing vertical position which is so normal and natural to the human body. Man has proportionately a larger cranium with a greater and heavier content of the grey substance in comparison with the (vertebral) column upon which it is set, his legs too have to carry a heavier burden. And yet how easy and graceful his erect posture! It is a balancing feat worthy of the cleverest rope-dancer. Look at a bear or even at a chimpanzee standing and moving on its hind legs; what an uncouth, ungainly gait, forced and ill at ease! He is more natural and at home in the prone horizontal position. The bird was perhaps an attempt at change of position from the horizontal to the vertical: the frame here attained an angular incline (cf. tiryak, as the bird is called in Sanskrit), but to maintain even that position it was not possible to increase or enlarge the head. It is not idly that Hamlet exclaims:
What a piece of work is a man!... how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable!... the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!1
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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.
The spirit, the pure self in man is formless; but his soul the spirit cast into the evolutionary mould in manifestationhas a form: it possesses a personal identity of its own. Each soul or Psyche is a contoured consciousness, as it were: it is not a vague indefinite charge of consciousness, but consciousness having magnitude and dimensions. And the physical body is a visible formula, a graph of that magnitude, an imagea faithful image or shadow thrown upon the wall of this cave of earthly life,of a reality above and outside, as Plato conceived the phenomenon. And the human appearance too is an extension or projection of an inner and essential reality which brings out or takes up that configuration when fronting the soul in its evolutionary march through terrestrial life. A mystic poet says:
03.04 - The Other Aspect of European Culture, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Nor is it a fact that Europe is and has been merely profane and materialistic in her outlook and attainment. The godless and mechanistic civilisation which is rampant today in Europe is a distemper of comparatively recent growth. Its farthest limit does not go beyond the sixteenth or the fifteenth century when the first seeds were sown by the Humanists of the Renaissance. It sprouted with the rationalists of the eighteenth century and the French Revolution cleared the ground for its free and untrammelled growth. But only in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries has it reached such vast and disconcerting proportions as to swallow all Europe's other motives and velleities and to appear as the only form of her life-expression. But in the earlier centuries, those that preceded the New Enlightenment, Europe had a different conception of culture and civilisation, she possessed almost another soul. The long period that is known as the mediaeval age was not after all so dark and unregenerate as it has been the familiar custom to represent it. Christian Europe the Europe of cathedrals and monasteries, of saints and sages, of St. Francis and St. Teresa, of Boehme and Bernard, of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, had an enlightenment all her own, which was real and living and dynamic, possessing a far-extending and deeply penetrating influence; in as much as it was this that called into being and fashioned the more abiding forces, which underlie Europe's cultural life and social institutions, although latterly "fallen on evil days and on evil tongues".
Even the still more ancient Grco-Latin Europe which was not, to a general and apparent view, quite spiritual or other-worldly, was yet not so exclusively materialistic and profane as modern Europe. Classical culture was rationalistic, without doubt; but that rationalism was the function of a sublimated intelligence and a refined sensibility and served as a vehicle for a Higher Perceptiona ratiocinative and ultra-logical mind, like that of Socrates, could yet be so passive and upgazing as to receive and obey the commandments of a Dmon; whereas the rationalism, which is in vogue today and to which orthodox Scientism has affixed its royal sign manual, is the product of mere brain-power, vigorous but crude, of an intellect shut up in its self-complacent cunningness, obfuscated by its infinite but shallow inquisitiveness.
03.04 - Towardsa New Ideology, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And India is pre-eminently fitted to discover this pattern of spiritual values and demonstrate how our normal lifeindividual and collectivecan be moulded and built according to that pattern. It has been India's special concern throughout the millenaries of her history to know and master the one thing needful (tamevaikam jnatha tmnam any vaco vimucatha), knowing which one knows all (tasmin vijte sarvam vijtam). She has made countless experiments in that line and has attained countless achievements. Her resurgence can be justified and can be inevitable only if she secures the poise and position which will enable her to impart to the world this master secret of life, this art of a supreme savoir vivre. A new India in the old way of the nations of the world, one more among the already too many has neither sense nor necessity. Indeed, it would be the denial of what her soul demands and expects to be achieved and done.
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03.05 - The Spiritual Genius of India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is not so much a question of concrete realisation, of attainment and achievement arrived at by the Indian people in their work-a-day life, but primarily and above all a question of ultimate valuation, of what they hold as the supreme ideal, of what they cherish in their heart of hearts, and of the extent to which that standard has obtained general currency among them. It is not a fact with which we are concerned, but the force behind the fact, and the special nature and purpose of that force. It is the power that we discover in the general atmosphere, or that emerges in the stress and rhythm of the cultural life of the people, in the level of its inner consciousness, in the expression of its highest and most wide-spread aspirations, in the particular stamp of its soul.
The psychological atmosphere in India is of a luminous tenuity. Here, it appears, the veil between this world and the other has so thinned away that the two meet and interpenetrate easily and freely; immersed in one, you can at the same time ba the in the other. Owing to the cumulative effect of the sadhana of her saints and sages who appeared in countless number down countless ages, or, perhaps, owing to the grace of a descent into her consciousness, or some immanence there, of the breath and light of a Superior World, India has developed and possesses, already prepared, a magnetic field, a luminous zone of spiritual consciousness; and to enter into it the Indian has only to turn aside, to go round a corner, to take one step forward. However thick and hard the crust of the Ignorance may lie upon the Indian soul, once that soul awakes and is upon the path, it finds itself on a familiar ground; it is in a domain which it has the impression of having frequented often and anon and for long.
03.06 - Divine Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The fact of the matter is that here we enter a domain in which the notion of egoism or selfishness has no raison d'tre. It is only when one has transcended not only selfishness, but egoism and all sense of individuality that one becomes ready to step into the glory and beatitude of the Self or Brahman or unyam. One may actually and irrevocably pass beyond, or one may return from there (or from the brink of it) to work in and on the worldout of compassion, or in obedience to a special call or a higher Will, or because of some other thing; but this second course does not mean that one has attained a higher status of being. We may consider it more human, but it is not necessarily a superior realisation. It is a matter of choice of vocation only, to use a mundane figure. The Personal and the Impersonal are two co-ordinates of the same supreme Realitysome choose (or are chosen by) one and others choose (or chosen by) the other, perhaps as the integral Play or the inscrutable Plan demands and determines, but neither is intrinsically superior to the other.
The humanism with which Europe is familiar, both in its profane and religious aspects, would look, from an IndianVedanticstandpoint, all 'human, too human'; it was a European who declared it so. It was for this reason that the Promethean prophet conjured man to transcend his humanity anyhow and rise to a superior status of culture and civilisationof being and consciousness, as we would say.
03.07 - Brahmacharya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We do not speak of Brahmacharya in relation to a child. The discipline can be taken up only when the body and the consciousness have attained a certain degree of growth and development. A child grows in the full free play of its life movements: the care or attention of others should weigh upon it as lightly as possible, maintaining only an atmosphere of happy influence and protection. The transition from the stage of free play to conscious control is marked in Indian society by the ceremony of upanayana, the first approach or initiation: it is the beginning of the life of Brahmacharya.
It must be understood that this discipline is not merely for those who wish to follow a religious or spiritual life, but for all without exception. Brahmacharya is the first ashrama, order or stage of life with which one begins one's organisation of life; one has to pass through it to others leading to greater and higher degrees of fulfilment. It forms the foundation, prepares the necessary ground upon which the life structure can safely be raised and maintained. It is the secret fund of strength, the source of pure energies that vitalises life, enhances its values, makes it worth living.
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In our days there has been this unhappy division between the student and the aspirant. In the student life, life and study are things apart. One may be a good student, study very seriously and attain considerable eminence in intellectual achievement, and yet in life one may remain quite the ordinary man with very normal reactions. Along with the brain we do not endeavour to educate the life instincts and body impulses. This portion of our nature we leave all alone and do not dare or care to handle it consciously. Sometimes we call that freedom; but it is more slavery than freedom, slavery to our commonplace animal nature. Because one follows one's impulses and instincts freely, without let or hindrance one feels as if he were free. Far from it.
This hiatus in our nature, the separation between intellectual culture and life movement has to be healed up; human personality must be made a unified whole. The training given under Brahmacharya will be of immense help in that direction. The deeper purpose, however, of this discipline is not merely a unification of the personality, but a heightening also, lifting it to a level of consciousness from where it can envisage its spiritual destiny and seek to realise it.
03.09 - Art and Katharsis, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Whatever is ugly and gross, all the ills and evils of life that is to say, what appears as such to our external mind and senseswhen they have passed through the crucible of the poet's consciousness undergoes a sea-change and puts on an otherworldly beauty and value. We know of the alchemy of poetic transformation that was so characteristic of Wordsworth's manner and to which the poet was never tired of referring, how the physical and brute natureeven a most insignificant and meaningless and unshapely object in it attains a spiritual sense and beauty when the poet takes it up and treasures it in his tranquil and luminous and in-gathered consciousness, his "inward eye". A crude feeling, a raw passion, a tumult of the senses, in the same way, sifted through the poetic perception, becomes something that opens magic casements, glimpses the silence of the farthest Hebrides, wafts us into the bliss of the invisible and the beyond.
The voice of Art is sweetly persuasivekntsmmita, as the Sanskrit rhetoricians say-it is the voice of the beloved, not that of the school-master. The education of Poetry is like the education of Nature: the poet said of the child that grew in sun and shower
03.10 - Hamlet: A Crisis of the Evolving Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In Macbeth we move up one step farther; human consciousness attains here a higher level. Something of the mental being enters into the purely vital creature: instead of the Eater, the man with the mere stomach, we have here the Ruler, the Tyrant, the human being with its will and its arms that execute the will: the dominating motive is no longer hunger and greed and cruelty for cruelty's sake, but power and position and lordship, and the driving force, not blind passion and dark furysheer unconsciousness but deliberate resolution, foreseeing calculation and steady purposiveness; the Rakshasa gives place to the Asura. The Asura is the incarnation of conscious egotism, the will to dominate, to be the sole master and monarch; he is the self-aggrandising vaulting ambition. He does not seek to possess things for their own sake, not so much to enjoy them as to hold them as symbols of his royalty, of his personal worth and majesty. In Macbeth we have the world of the Asuraa creation of the mode of rajas.
Hamlet is the third stage; it is a vision of sattva-guna and a creation attempted by that vision. The human consciousness that was imprisoned in the vital mind, is released here into the higher or pure mind. The soul escapes from its sheath of sheer hunger and desire and egoism and self-aggrandisementyearns for light, more light. Lear is a dark mass of unconsciousness, crude and violent, even like the naked and raging elements into whose arms he is thrown; Macbeth is the beginning of consciousness in which one is conscious of one's own self alone, and keenly and deliberately attached to it,here light has dawned, but a lurid light. Hamlet is consciousness that is seeking to transcend the barrier of the little self and its narrow and vulgar appetites and impulses. Man here comes into touch with something that is impersonal, other-regarding, afar; he has grown interests that are not merely mundane, utilitarian, pragmatic, self-centred, but abstract, metaphysical, beyond the individual's own and immediate concern: he has now ideals and aspirationshe is a seeker of the true, the good, the beautiful. He has been initiated into the divinedaivanature. Culture, refinement, sensibility, understandingall the graces of a truly rational being make Hamlet the very flower of an evolving humanity.
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In Hamlet we have a dreamer, an ardent optimist, a young enthusiast who has lived so long in his own rosy world, in his tour d'ivoire, and thought that that was the only world, even the world as it is outside. Also in the simplicity of his faith he dedicated all his love and admiration, all his yearning for a sweet and glorious ideal, to a child of common humanity who appeared to him to be an emblem and promise of Realisation. Alas, the promise had not attained the strength and force that would lead inevitably to maturity and fruition, the child was yet too loyal to its origin to cut away from its moorings and soar with him.
The crisis then is the revelation to the aspiring dream-lifted soul that the original and aboriginal humanity that seemed to have been traversed and transcended and left far behind is not wholly obliterated; indeed it is still there in its stark reality. The light and air and space and colour of the high dreaml and are reared upon dark and dingy abysses, "this brave oerhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire" is none other than" a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours 2 . All the wisdom and culture and virtue and apparent beauty in human nature cannot prevent a man from becoming an arrant knave and a woman from being a whore, even if she were one's own mother.
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The human soul, as represented in Hamlet, has evolved so far as to stand on a summit from where it can contemplate the entire creation. It has attained a kind of universal consciousness and has the vision of a global movement of natureeven as Arjuna had of the Lord's universal body, and like him is awed and overwhelmeda harsh world, in which one draws one's breath in pain. But this is a mental summit, and the contradiction that is revealed here can be resolved only by passing beyond into a higher domain of consciousness.
The angelic Cordelia is a ray that has strayed down from some higher region, to evolve hereafter, not for immediate fruition and fulfilment. It is the Light that shines always even in this naughty world, a spark of the Grace that still relieves the blight that mars an otherwise sinful earth. She is the symbol of a promise or prophecy that will justify itself sometime in the future, but for the moment the burden of the gloom is too much upon her and she is engulfed in it and sacrificed.
03.11 - The Language Problem and India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
French and English being given the place of honour, now the question is with regard to the vernacular of those who do not speak either of these languages. We have to distinguish two categories of languages: national and international. French and English being considered international languages par excellence, the others remain as national languages, but their importance need not be minimised thereby. First of all, along with the two major international languages, there may be a few others that can be called secondary or subsidiary international languages according as they grow and acquire a higher status. Thus Russian, or an Asiatic, even an Indian language may attain that position, because of wide extension or inherent value of popularity or for some other reason. Indeed, a national language cultivated and enriched by its nationals can force itself on the world's attention and fairly become a world language. Tagore was able to give that kind of world importance to the Bengali language.
It may be questioned whether too many languages are not imposed on us in this way and whether it will not mean in the end a Babel and inefficiency. It need not be so and it is not going to be so. We must remember the age we are in, its composite structure, its polyphonic nature. In the ancient and mediaeval ages, the ages of separatism and exclusiveness of clans and tribes and regions, even in the later age of the states and nations, the individual group-consciousness was strong and sedulously fostered. Languages and literature grew and developed more or less independently and with equal vigour, although always through some kind of give and take. But the modern world has been made so inextricably one, ease of communication and free interchange have obliterated the separating boundaries, not only geographical but psychological. The modern consciousness has so developed and is so circumstanced that one can very easily be bi-lingual or even trilingual: indeed one has to be so, speaking and writing with equal felicity not only one's mother tongue but one or more adopted tongues. Modern culture means that.
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But this is judging the present or the future by the past. Mankind is no longer exclusively or even mainly national inits outlook; it cannot remain so if it is to progress, to take the next step in evolution. We say if mankind overpasses the nationalistic stage and attains something of the international consciousness and disposition, it would be possible and even natural for a few at least among the educated to express themselves in and through the wider world language, not merely as an instrument of business deal, but as a vehicle of literary and aesthetic creation.
There are certain externalsocial and politicalcircumstances in existence today and will be more and more in evidence perhaps with the lapse of time which tend to corroborate and streng then that possibility. A language learnt for commercial or diplomatic transaction cannot remain limited to that function. Those who intend merely to learn may end very probably by cultivating it. And then it has been suggested that in the march of evolution towards world unity, there is likely to be an intermediate stage or rung where nations with special affinities or common interests will group together forming larger collectivities: there will be free associations of free nations, the Commonwealth as it has been termed. If India is to link herself specially to the English-speaking group, the English language will not cease to be an acquaintance but continue to be or develop into a very good friend.
03.12 - TagorePoet and Seer, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A great literature seems to have almost invariably a great name attached to it, one name by which it is known and recognised as great. It is the name of the man who releases the inmost potency of that literature, and who marks at the same time the height to which its creative genius has attained or perhaps can ever attain. Homer and Virgil, Dante and Shakespeare, Goe the and Camoens, Firdausi in Persian and Kalidasa in classical Sanskrit, are such namesnumina, each being the presiding deity, the godhead born full-armed out of the poetic consciousness of the race to which he belongs. Even in the case of France whose language and literature are more a democratic and collective and less an individualistic creation, even there one single Name can be pointed out as the life and soul, the very cream of the characteristic poetic genius of the nation. I am, of course, referring to Racine, Racine who, in spite of Moliere and Corneille and Hugo, stands as the most representative French poet, the embodiment of French resthesis par excellence.
Such a great name is Rabindranath Tagore in Bengali literature. We need not forget Bankim Chandra, nor even Madhusudan: still one can safely declare that if Bengali language and literature belonged to any single person as its supreme liberator and fosterer savitand pit is Rabindranath. It was he who lifted that language and literature from what had been after all a provincial and parochial status into the domain of the international and universal. Through him a thing of local value was metamorphosed definitively into a thing of world value.
03.13 - Human Destiny, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The continuance and maintenance of an innocent baby animality in man shown in his physical features has been termed reversion to type or fetalisation. Some declare that for man at least it is a sign of weakness, a possible incapacity to face squarely the blows of life and nature. This is due to culture and refinement that makes one sensitive but weak. There have been races in the past that attained cultural effeminacy the Egyptians for example and could not last, last long enough to withstand the impact of less cultured, less refined, but more vigorous races. The Grco-Roman succeeded the Egyptian, but they too in their turn were overwhelmed by the onslaught of ruder races, the Nordic barbarians, and gave way and perished. And once more, in the modern age, do we not see the repetition of a similar drama? The more cultured, the more refined, the older races seem to have paid heavily for their culture and refinement by being more and more delicate and weak and thus being slowly pushed to the wall by newer races built with heavier and coarser gram.
But that perhaps is not the real truth of the matter. It may be considered in a somewhat different perspective. We say cultures, races, species die not because they become too refined, delicate, effeminate, but rather because they develop on a single track; they become lop-sided, specialised, rigid, fossilised, as we have already said. Circumstances change, the environment brings up new conditions and if the previous form continues in its groove and does not know how to react adequately to the demand, is petrified and unchanging, then it breaks and is thrown away as a thing of the dead past.
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On a comparatively shorter view of the human evolution we observe as, for example, Spengler has shown, a serial or serials of the rise and fall of races and nations and cultures. Is that a mere repetition, more or less of the same or very similar facts of life, or is there a running thread that points to a growth, at least a movement towards some goal or purpose to attain and fulfil? The present cycle of humanity, which we may call and is usually called the historic age, dates from the early Egyptians and, in India, from the ancestral Vedic sages (prve pitra). On a longer outlook, what has been the nature of man's curve of life since then to the present day? Races and cultures have risen and have perished, but they have been pursuing one line, moving towards one direction the growth of homo fabricus the term coined by NietzscheMan the artisan. Man has become man through the discovery and use of toolsfrom tools of stone to tools of iron, that marks his growth from primitiveness to civilisation. And the degree of civilisation, the distance he has travelled from his origins is measured precisely by the development of his tools in respect of precision, variety, efficiency, serviceability. Viewed from that standpoint the modern man has travelled indeed very far and has civilised himself consummately. For the tools have become the whole man; man has lost his human element and almost become a machine. A machine cannot run indefinitely, it has got to stop when life is not there. So it is often prognosticated now that man is at the end of his career. He is soon going to be a thing of the past, an extinct racelike one of the prehistoric species that died out because they could not change with the circumstances of life, because they became unchanging, hard and brittle, soto say, and fell to pieces, or otherwise they continued to exist but in a degraded, a mere vegetative form.
But, as we have said, man seems to have yet retained his youthfulness. He always just falls short of the perfect perfection, that is to say, in any single form or expression of life. Life did become stereotyped, mechanised, and therefore fossilised, more or less, in Egypt of the later Dynasties; in India too life did not become less inert and vegetative during two long periods, once just preceding the advent of the Buddha,.
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Greece and Rome may be taken to represent two types of culture. And accordingly we can distinguish two types of elevation or crest-formation of human consciousness one of light, the other of power. In certain movements one feels the intrusion, the expression of light, that is to say, the play of intelligence, understanding, knowledge, a fresh outlook and consideration of the world and things, a revaluation in other terms and categories of a new consciousness. The greatest, at least, the most representative movement of this kind is that of the Renaissance. It was really a New Illumination: a flood of light poured upon the mind and intellect and understanding of the period. There was a brightness, a brilliance, a happy agility and keenness in the movements of the brain. A largeness of vision, a curious sensibility, a wide and alert consciousness: these are some of the fundamental characteristics of this remarkable New Birth. It is the birth of what has been known as the scientific outlook, in the- broadest sense: it is the threshold of the modern epoch of humanity. All the modern European languages leaped into maturity, as it were, each attaining its definitive form and full-blooded individuality. Art and literature flooded in their magnificent creativeness all nations and peoples of the whole continent. The Romantic Revival, starting somewhere about the beginning of the nineteenth century, is another outstanding example of a similar phenomenon, of the descent of light into human consciousness. The light that descended into human consciousness at the time of the Renaissance captured the higher mind and intelligence the Ray touched as it were the frontal lobe of the brain; the later descent touched the heart, the feelings and emotive sensibility, it evoked more vibrant, living and powerful perceptions, created varied and dynamic sense-complexes, new idealisms and aspirations. The manifestation of Power, the descent or inrush of forcemighty and terriblehas been well recognised and experienced in the great French Revolution. A violence came out from somewhere and seized man and society: man was thrown out of his gear, society broken to pieces. There came a change in the very character and even nature of man: and society had to be built upon other foundations. The past was gone. Divasa gatah. Something very similar has happened again more recently, in Russia. The French Revolution brought in the bourgeois culture, the Russian Revolution has rung in the Proletariate.
In modern India, the movement that led her up to Independence was at a crucial moment a mighty evocation of both Light and Power. It had not perhaps initially the magnitude, the manifest scope or scale of either the Renaissance or the Great Revolutions we mention. But it carried a deeper import, its echo far-reaching into the future of humanity. For it meant nothing less than the spiritual awakening of India and therefore the spiritual regeneration of the whole world: it is the harbinger of the new epoch in human civilisation.
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This movement of extension, looked at from the standpoint of intensiveness, is also a movement of devolution, of reclamation. The Brahminic stage represents culture that is knowledge; it touches the mind, it is the brain that is the recipient and instrument of the Light. The Kshatriya comes into the field when the light, the vibration of awakening, from the mind comes down into the vital energies, from the brain to the heart region. The Vaishya spirit has taken up man still at a lower region, the lower vital: the economic man that has his gaze fixed upon his stomach and entrails. Lastly, the final stage is reached when physical work, bodily labour, material service have attained supreme importance and are considered almost as the only values worth the name for a human being. To walk and work firmly upon Earth the Light needs a strong pair of feet. Therefore, the Veda says, Padbhym sudro ajyata, out of the feet of the Cosmic Godhead the Sudra was born.
That is how man has become and is becoming integrally consciousconscious in and of all parts of his being. He is awakening and opening to the light that descends from above: indeed the true light, the light of truth is something transcendent and it is that that comes down and slowly inhabits the world and possesses humanity. Its progress marks the steps of evolution. It means the gradual enlightening and illumining of the various layers of our being, the different strands of consciousness from the higher to the lower, from the less dense to the more dense, from mind to the body. It means also in the same process a canalisation, materialisation and fixing upon earth and in the physical being of the increasing powers of the Light.
04.02 - Human Progress, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the first age, which is by far the longest period, a period of slow and difficult preparation, man had his first lessons in a conscious and victorious dealing with Nature. The day when he first started chipping a stone was a red-letter day for him; for, by that very gesture be began shredding his purely animal vesture. And when he not only chipped but succeeded in grinding and polishing a piece of stone, he moved up one step further and acquired definitely his humanity. Again, ages afterwards when his hand could wield and manipulate as it liked not only a stone but a metal, his skill and dexterity showed a development unique in its kind, establishing and fixing man's manhood as a new emergent factor. In this phase also there was a first period of training and experiment, the period of craftsmanship in bronze; with the age of iron, man's arms and fingers attained a special deftness and a conscious control directed from a cranium centre which has become by now a model of rich growth and complex structure and marvellous organisation. The impetus towards more and more efficiency in the making and handling of tools has not ceased: the craftsmanship in iron soon led to the discovery of steel and steel industry. The temper and structure of steel are symbolic and symptomatic of the temper and structure of the brain that commands the weaponstrong, supple, resistant, resilient, capable of fineness and sharpness and trenchancy to an extraordinary degree.
This growing fineness and efficiency of the tool has served naturally to develop and enrich man's external possession and dominion. But this increasing power and dominion over Nature is not the most important consequence involved; it is only indicative of still greater values, something momentous, something subjective, pregnant with far-reaching possibilities. For the physical change is nothing compared with the psychological change, the change in the consciousness. In taking up his tool to chip a stone man has started hewing out and moulding entire Nature: he has become endowed with the sense of independence and agency. An animal is a part and parcel of Nature, has no life and movement apart from the life and movement of Natureeven like Wordsworth's child of Nature
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It can be mentioned here that there can be a knowledge of ends without a corresponding knowledge of means, even there can be a control over ends without a preliminary control over meansperhaps not to perfection, but to a sufficient degree of practical utility. Much of the knowledgeespecially secular and scientificin ancient times was of this order; what we mean to say is that the knowledge was more instinctive or intuitive than rational or intellectual. In that knowledge the result only, the end that it to say, was the chief aim and concern, the means for attaining the end was, one cannot perhaps say, ignored, but slurred or slipped over as it were: the process was thus involved or understood, not expressed or detailed out. Thus we know of some mathematical problems to which correct solutions were given of which the process is not extant or lost as some say. Our suggestion is that there was in fact very little of the process as we know it now the solution was reached per saltum, that is to say, somehow, in the same manner as we find it happening even today in child prodigies.
One can point out however that even before the modern scientific age, there was an epoch of pure intellectual activity, as represented, for example, by scholasticism. The formal intellectualism which was the gift of the Greek sophists or the Mimansakas and grammarians in ancient India has to be recognised as a pure mental movement, freed from all life value or biological bias. What then is the difference? What is the new characteristic element brought in by the modern scientific intellectualism?
04.03 - The Eternal East and West, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Such an individual will not be like the blind leading the blind, one ego, .in its half-light, with its small narrow mental formation imposing its ignorant and ineffective will upon others in the same state of consciousness, but, as I have said, a universalised individual, who has identified himself with all and everyone in his being and consciousness, who has also at the same time transcended himself and others and attained a supreme unitary consciousness and being. It is such a person who is called the leader of human or terrestrial evolution and they who are of the same make are the pioneers who shall build heaven upon earth.
Towards that consummation, these two great world currents, East and West, are moving carrying each its own truth and contri buting to the realisation of the integral truth that is to take body here below.
04.04 - A Global Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The aggregates are meant to express, apart from the growing unity, a diversity of achievements in the collective consciousness marking and enriching that unity. The highest, the largest aggregate attained at the present moment is as I have said, that of the nation, the lower and lesser aggregates have been subsumed under it. The principle of integration in its graded course is precisely this that the new unity absorbs the lesser units as its components, some find their place in it in a transmuted form and functionthose that are of use in the new dispositiono thers that had truth only for the past disappear or remain as vestiges of an extinct reality. The clan and the tribe have practically disappeared as living realities; the family has been maintaining itself still as a functioning unit, but it has considerably changed its features and in recent times it has been undergoing revolutionary transmutations. The rigours of the system prevailing in the old world have all but gone, they have been reduced to the minimum; the system has become more or less a mere outline, the substance and the details have become very vague and fluid. It may come out with quite a new connotation in the not very distant future. The nation, then, as the living unit of aggregation today, is on the move again towards a yet more enlarged aggregate. Empire was a blind and violent attempt at this greater aggregation. The Commonwealth of more recent times was a conscious, deliberate and healthier endeavour towards the same goal. The various trials with regard to a league of nations is also a conscious and deliberate, although somewhat groping experiment in the same line.
Man's attempt to surpass himself and establish a superhuman race is a conscious and deliberate process and the attempt can be successful only through such an willed discipline, sdhan. In the same way, a supranational human unity will be possible as a parallel eventuality to the same process of individual discipline.
04.04 - Evolution of the Spiritual Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, the tradition in the domain of spiritual discipline seems to have been always to realise once again what has already been realised by others, to rediscover what has already been discovered, to re-establish ancient truths. Others have gone before on the Path, we have only to follow. The teaching, the realisation is handed down uninterruptedly through millenniums from Master to disciple. In other words, the idea is that the fundamental spiritual realisation remains the same always and everywhere: the name and the form only vary according to the age and the surroundings. The one reality is called variously, says the Veda. Who can say when was the first dawn! The present dawn has followed the track of the infinite series that has gone by and is the first of the I infinite series that is to come. So sings Rishi Kanwa. For the core of spiritual realisation is to possess the consciousness, attain the status of the Spirit. This Spirit may be called God by the theist or Nihil by the Negativist or Brahman (the One) by the Positivist (spiritual). But the essential experience of a cosmic and transcendental reality does not differ very much. So it is declared that there is only one goal and aim, and there are, at the most, certain broad principles, clear pathways which one has to follow if one is to move in the right direction, advance smoothly and attain infallibly: but these have been well marked out, surveyed and charted and do not admit of serious alterations and deviations. The spiritual aspiration is a very definite and unitary movement and its fulfilment is also a definite and invariable status of the consciousness. The spiritual is a typal domain, one may say, there is no room here for sudden unforeseen variation or growth or evolution.
Is it so in fact? For, if one admits and accepts the evolutionary character of human nature and consciousness, the outlook becomes somewhat different. According to this view, human civilisation is seen as moving through progressive stages: man at the outset was centrally lodged in and occupied with his body consciousness, he was an annamaya purua; then he raised himself and centred in the vital consciousness and so became fundamentally a prnamaya purua; next he climbed into the mental consciousness and became a maomaya purua; from that level again he has been attempting to go further beyond. On each plane the normal life is planned according to the central character, the lawdharmaof that plane. One can have the religious or spiritual experience on each of these planes, representing various degrees of growth and evolution according to the plane to which it is attached. It is therefore that the Tantra refers to three gradations of spiritual seekers and accordingly three types or lines of spiritual discipline: the animal (pau bhva), the heroic (vra bhva) and the godly or divine (deva bhva). The classification is not merely typal but also hierarchical and evolutionary in character.
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This means to say that with the knowledge that is given us today, one can determine more or less definitely the altitudes to which the various spiritual realisations of the past rose and one can see also the degrees or graded stages of the evolution of the spiritual consciousness. A broad landmark can be noted here which concerns us at the present moment. The spiritual consciousness has been rising to higher and higher peaks and possessing them one after another. At the present moment we are at a crisis, at a crucial crossing. The spiritual consciousness attained till now and securely held in human possession (in man's inner nature) is confined to the highest level of the mind with some infiltration from the Overmind and through that, as a springing board, a leap into an indefinite, almost a blank Beyond. Now the time is come and the conditions are ready for the spiritual consciousness in humanity to arrive at the status above the Overmind to the Supermind, and make that a living reality and build in and through that its normal consciousness.
A progressive revelation of higher and higher and more integral states of the spiritual consciousness in and through the realisations of mystics and sages and seersdivine men of all ages, such is the process of evolution that marks the life of man upon earth. This spiritual evolution, however, may not be obviously visible in the external life and character of man: it has been a phenomenon more in his inner being and consciousness, an occult phenomenon. Hence there has intervened a veil, wall of separation between the two. The veil has not been rent precisely because the very highest spiritual potential has not been reached and brought into play. The call of the present age is just to do away with this veil, make of human nature a unified, a streamlined entity, a complete incarnation of the spiritual consciousness in the fullness of its own nature at its source and origin.
04.05 - The Freedom and the Force of the Spirit, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But the true secret of the power to control and guide Nature's dispensation lies along a different line, not along the line of the normal activity of the mental and vital and physical consciousness. Body and life and mind belong after all, at least are closely affiliated, to one's environmental consciousness; they are indeed part of the circumstances in which one is born and lives and moves. It is when one bypasses them or passes through them beyond into one's soul, into one's true being and divine personality that one at last crosses mortality and attains immortalitymtyum trtv. . .amtam anute.3
Milton: Paradise Lost. Bk. 1. 253
04.05 - The Immortal Nation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A nation or people then possesses or is composed of several souls or several layers of an oversoul. Even like the individual it has a physical soul, that is to say, a body consciousness, a vital soul, a mental soul and finally the true or inmost soul, the oversoul. When one lives in any of the inferior souls, one has precarious and disintegrated lifewhe ther it is a nation or an individual. It is only when one is conscious of one's inmost self, then only the person or the people can attain some kind of immortality, the power of rejuvenation in those external parts the mental, vital and physical that make up the terrestrial life and that are ever subject to decline, decay and death.
A nation, however, that has achieved something, created something, made a strong formation in the mental or in the vital world may die physically, but the formation, the creation, the achievement remains and continues to be alive in the terrestrial atmosphere, in the general consciousness of man. Ancient Greece is dead, Augustan Rome is gone, but the mind of light that Greece brought into play, the cast of social character that Rome established are among the permanent acquisitions of human culture and civilisation. They have gone into the making of the warp and woof of the standard human life today. Apart, however, from this general survival, could there be a reappearance of the very soul of a nation in another nation, in the same way as an individual soul reincarnates itself in another individual body? That question is asked, as sometimes it has been suggested, from certain significant and striking similarities, that ancient Greece incarnated in modern France and that there is a Roman stamp in the British nation. The possibility may not be altogether ruled out of court. But still it must be understood that the two phenomena are not quite identical, there is a difference in nature and kind. Rebirth in the sense of reincarnation is especially an individual phenomenon, the individual forming a divine centre, a focus of consciousness which the group is not; the group is more a field and a frame for the individual in spite of a conscious existence of its own.
04.06 - Evolution of the Spiritual Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, the tradition in the domain of spiritual discipline seems to have been always to realise once again what has already been realised by others, to rediscover what has already been discovered, to re-establish ancient truths. Others have gone before on the Path, we have only to follow. The teaching, the realisation is handed down uninterruptedly through millenniums from Master to disciple. In other words, the idea is that the fundamental spiritual realisation remains the same always and everywhere: the name and the form only vary according to the age and the surroundings. The one Reality is called variously, says the Veda. Who can say when was the first dawn! The present dawn has followed the track of the infinite series that has gone by and is the first of the infinite series that is to come. So sings Rishi Kanwa. For the core of spiritual realisation is to possess the consciousness, attain the status of the Spirit. This Spirit may be called God by the theist or Nihil by the Negativist or Brahman (the One) by the Positivist (spiritual). But the essential experience, of a cosmic and transcendental reality, does not differ very much. So it is declared that there is only one goal and aim, and there are, at the most, certain broad principles, clear pathways which one has to follow if one is to move in the right direction, advance smoothly and attain infallibly: but these have been well marked out, surveyed and charted and do not admit of serious alterations and deviations. The spiritual aspiration is a very definite and unitary movement and its fulfilment is also a definite and invariable status of the consciousness. The spiritual is a type domain, one may say, there is no room here for sudden unforeseen variation or growth or evolution.
Is it so in fact? For if one admits and accepts the evolutionary character of human nature and consciousness, the outlook becomes somewhat different. According to this view, human civilisation is seen as moving through progressive stages: man at the outset was centrally lodged in and occupied with his body consciousness, he was an annamaya purua; then he raised himself and was centred in the vital consciousness and so became fundamentally a pramaya purua ; next the climbed into the mental consciousness and became the manomaya purua; from that level again he has been attempting to go further beyond. On each plane the normal life is planned' according to the central character, the lawdharmaof that plane. One can have the religious or spiritual experience on each of these planes, representing various degrees of grow and evolution according to the plane to which it is attached. It is therefore that the Tantra refers to three gradations of spiritual seekers and accordingly three types or lines of spiritual discipline: the animal (pau bhva) the heroic (Vra bhva) and the godly or divine (deva bhva). The classification is not merely typal but also hierarchical and evolutionary in character.
--
This means that with the knowledge that is given us today one can determine more or less definitely the altitudes to which the various spiritual realisations of the past rose and one can see also the degrees or graded stages of the evolution of the spiritual consciousness. A broad landmark can be noted here which concerns us at the present moment. The spiritual consciousness has been rising to higher and higher peaks and possessing them one after another. At the present moment we are at a crisis, at a crucial crossing. The spiritual consciousness attained till now and securely held in human possession (in man's inner nature) is confined to the highest level of the mind with some infiltration from the Overmind and through that, as a springing board, a leap into an indefinite, almost a blank Beyond. Now the time is come and the conditions are ready for the spiritual consciousness in humanity to arrive at the status above the Overmind, the Supermind, and make that a living reality and build in and through that its normal consciousness.
A progressive revelation of higher and higher and more integral states of the spiritual consciousness in and through the realisations of mystics and sages and seersdivine menof all ages, such is the process of evolution that marks the life of man upon earth. This spiritual evolution, however, may not be obviously visible in the external life and character of man: it has been a phenomenon more in his inner being and consciousness, an occult phenomenon. Hence there has intervened a veil, a wall of separation between the two. The veil has not been rent precisely because the very highest spiritual potential has not been reached and brought into play. The call of the present age is just to do away with this veil, make of human nature a unified, a streamlined entity, a complete incarnation of the spiritual consciousness in the fullness of its own nature at its source and origin.
04.09 - Values Higher and Lower, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The crucial problem however lies, in a sense, in the way that the goal is to be reached, in the modus operandi. How is the higher status, whatever it is, to be brought down, made effective, be established here on earth and in life. Ideals there have been always and many; evidently we do not know how to go about the business and actualise what is thought and dreamed. About the new ideal too, suggestions have been made with regard to the path to be followed to reach it and are being tried and tested. Some say a life of inner or ethical discipline, conscious effort on the part of each Individual for his own sake is needed: the higher reality must be reached first by a few individuals, it cannot be attained by 'mass action. Others declare that personal effort will not lead very far; if there is to be a great or fundamental change in human nature, it is the Divine Grace alone that can bring it about. The surpassing of man is a miracle and only the supreme magician as an Avatara can do it. Others, again, are not prone to believe in a physical Incarnationsomewhat difficult usually for a European mind but would accept subtler forces or even superior beings, other than the human category, as aids and agents in the working out of the great future.
It is India's great achievement and speciality that she has found the way the way to all truly high fulfilment. It is Yoga and the Yogic consciousness. Yoga is the science and art of discovering the higher truths, indeed, the highest reality and of living there, not a midway moral elevation only. In its integral view it combines all the three processes mentioned above. The Yogic consciousness seeks to lift the consciousness as high as possible, in fact, to the very highestit literally means union or identity (with the highest Reality, Spirit or God). Thus it has the true perception or vision of the forces that act in and upon the world and the powers that decide and is in union with them. The Yogic consciousness and power is also embodied in the Divine Incarnation for he is Yogeshwara: and in India it is accepted as a commonplace that God descends in a human shape, whenever there is a great crisis and man needs salvaging and salvation. God comes then with all his angels, with the divine host to battle for him and with him to establish the Dharma.
05.01 - Man and the Gods, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The purpose of man's existence upon earth is the growth of his consciousness. Each human being is a soul, a psyche, a spark from the Spirit sent down into Matter, a ray from the Divine Light descended upon earth and housed in a physical body. The spark, the ray is to attain the amplitude and splendour of its original form in the divine consciousness, to express that plenitude here below. This original, the archetype of each and every individual embodied upon earth is the central being, Jivatman. At the beginning the individual soul in terrestrial evolution is just a tiny particle of consciousness: it evolves, that is to say, grows and increases in stature and potency, through a series of lives upon this earth, each life bringing its quota of experience that serves to tend the flame. When the soul has thus grown and finally reached its optimum, and is in union with its original and archetype in the fullness of self-expression, what next? What is its destiny thereafter, how does it live or move henceforward?
Three courses are open to the perfected and completely developed soul. First, it may remain, contented with its fullness, self-gathered and self-sufficient, dwelling in its own domain the psychic world and enjoying the even, equal, undisturbed felicity and beatitude of union with the Divine. This status may perhaps not be chosen by many or for a long time. The second line that the Psyche can adopt is to come down or remain upon earth and take a share in the fulfilment of the Divine Purpose in the world. That purpose is the transformation of the physical, making the material an embodiment of the divine Light and Power and Bliss and Immortality. A third development also may take place; this is not strictly speaking normal, not the logical and inevitable happening in the course of things, nor does it depend wholly upon any personal choice of the psychic being, so to say. It occurs when the force of a higher destiny operates, for a special work and at a special time. It is when the psychic being is contacted with, made to identify itself with, a godhead under a higher dispensation, when, in a word, a divinity descends into a human soul.
--
As the human aspiration is to reach out towards divinity, the gods too at times are not satisfied with their closed divine status. They lean down to help humanity, to bring it up into their consciousness; but also they seek this contact and unification for their own sake, for a change and transformation in themselves; they may seek to rise further in a higher status of consciousness or they may wish to participate in the earthly travail, in the human endeavour. In either case the channel lies through the human consciousness. In the Vedas the gods always look to men, almost depend upon them for their own fulfilment and enrichment. Men ask the gods for wealth and plentymaterial as well as spiritual the gods too ask from men the sacrifice, the sacrifice that pours out the substance of the human reality upon which they feed and grow. The Gita speaks of the same covenant the interchange of gifts between the two, each increasing the other and both attaining the highest good.
Our dark destinies move under vast laws that nothing diverts, nothing softens. Thou canst not have sudden clemencies that disturb the world, O God, Spirit tranquil!Victor Hugo, A Villequier.
05.01 - Of Love and Aspiration, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Divine love has an element of detachment which human love has not; and yet Divine love can be as passionate as human love, nay, Divine love has an intensity which human love carowt attain.
Itis the element of detachment which intensifies love, because it is this which purifies love.
05.02 - Gods Labour, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, it has been said, begins where other yogas end. Other yogas end by the attainment of the Brahman or some form or mode of it or something akin to it, which means the transcendent Reality, the supreme status of the Spirit beyond name and form, beyond all particular manifestation. It is the final realisation of the soul in its upward ascent, the nee plus ultra. Sri Aurobindo's Yoga takes that poise for granted and upon it bases its own development and structure. In other words, it works for the descent of the Spirit upon the level from which the Spirit worked up. The Mystery of the descent is the whole characteristic secret of this Yoga.
The general idea of a descent of the Spirit, that is to say, the Divine, the conception of avatra and avataraais, of course, not new. But here there is a difference. Avatara or Avatarana in the older disciplines was more or less an intervention of God as God, the working of a Force come specifically in the midst of the world circumstances, maintaining still its divine transcendental character, to work out a given problem, accomplish a special mission and then, when the work is done, retire to its own status. It is, as it were, a weapon of flame and light hurled into the earthly frayeven like the discus of Vishnu and having accomplished its mission, going back into the hand of the thrower, its fount and origin. The task of the Avatara was usually bhbhra-haraa, lightening earth's load: it means removing the sinful and preserving the virtuous, re-establishing the reign of Law. Esoterically, he also embodied the Way to spiritual fulfilment. There was no question of saving humanityit was more serving than savingby transfiguring it, giving it a new body and life and mind, nor was there any idea of raising the level of earth-consciousness.
05.03 - Bypaths of Souls Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Reverting to the original question with which we started, we can say now that the birth of a soul is not like the birth of a living being or organism, that is to say, it does not happen at a given point of time. A soul is truly aja, unborn; it was always there imbedded as the element of secret consciousness in the bosom of the inconscient material Nature. Only it grew out, manifested itself, attaining gradually an individuality and an integrated personality. Neither can it be said that all souls originally, that is to say, at the very beginning of their evolutionary course, were of the same magnitude, equal in all respects. As we know the ultimate material particles the atoms of the different elements or their constituents, protons, etc.have not all the same mass or charge, even so the spiritual elements too have not the same potency or vibration: they are of varying sizes and strengths. The stress of the evolutionary urge in life expressed itself in multiple and varied figures and dispositions, variation being an inherent virtue of the stress. And the development too follows a chequered line: the direction, the tempo, the degree, the manner of the march all differ according to the case, each spark is or tends to be unique and sui generisand even erratic perhapsin its behaviour, like its physical counterpart, the indeterminate and indeterminable material particle. And yet all move towards a heightening, enlarging, deepening of the consciousness rivers flowing and broadening out in their meandering course to the sea: what was unformed, rudimentary, scarcely distinguishable from out of a homogeneous mass, detaches itself gradually, shapes itself into an organised individual entity and finally the fully conscious personality. But, as I have said, the growth does not follow a single one-track straight line: there can be a fusion of souls, the descent and integration of a being or soul from another level of consciousness into a developing soul or psychic element from out of Nature. In this sense then there can be a birth of souls too. The astronomers speak of novae, new stars that suddenly flare out in the sky, as if from nowhereeven though they or their elements were existent before the phenomenon happened. Souls too can come to birth in an analogous way. That is to say, it is due to a special descent of a formed being or consciousness into the human vehicle. The conception of the "twice-born caste" may be remembered in this connection. There is a physical birth and there is a spiritual birth: the latter takes place when the being on the physical plane, yet wholly belonging to evolving Nature, suddenly (it usually happens suddenly) opens and receives into itself a higher principle and becomes a conscious personality.
The soul in Nature grows along a definite line and the descent also of higher principles overarching that soul happens also in the same line connecting it with its archetype in the supreme status. This we may call the major line of development through various avataras one after another: but apart from this there may also be subsidiary formations that are its emanations or are added to it from elsewhere either temporarily or even permanently. The soul can put out derivative or ancillary emanations, parts of its being and consciousness, a mental or vital or even a subtle physical movement or formation which can take a body creating a temporary, a transient personality or enter into another's body and another personality in order to go through a necessary experience and gather an element needed for the growth of its being and consciousness. One can recall here the famous story of Shankaracharya Who entered into the body of a king (just dead, made him alive and lead the life of the king) in order to experience love and enjoyment, things of which, being a Sannyasi, he was innocent. Similarly one can take into one-self such parts and elements from others which he wishes to utilise for his growth and evolution. It is said that a man with low carnal instincts and impulses becomes an animal of that type in his next life. But perhaps it is truer to say that a part only the vital part of animal appetiteenters into or takes shape in an animal: the soul itself, the true or the whole being of the person, once become human, does not revert to animalhood. The animal portion in man that refuses to be taken up and integrated, sublimated into the higher human consciousness has to be satisfied and exhausted, as much as possible, in the animal way.
--
The soul in its inner consciousness knows all its evolutionary formations, remembers those of the past and foresees those of the future, when needed, and even determines them essentially. The mind ruling one incarnation cannot recall other incarnations, for it is a product of that incarnation and is meant to guide and control it; physical memory is a function of the brain in the particular body that the soul inhabits for the time. The soul carries a deeper reminiscence which is part and parcel of the self-consciousness inherent in its nature. The physical memory too can partake of this inner reminiscence if it is purified, illumined and organised around the soul as its instrument of expression. Indeed, although the journey of the soul essentially and originally is the flight of the spirit to the Spirit, yet the final consummation is towards an increasing integration of all the external instruments from the highest to the lowest, from the subtlest to the grossest into a harmonised organised whole, reflecting and embodying the Spirit in its purity and totality. The mind, the life and the body too attain a perfectly unified individuality that is the expression of the soul's truth-consciousness and escaping disruption and dissolution partake ultimately of the inherent immortality of the spiritual being.
***
05.04 - The Immortal Person, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Finally, it is the turn of the body to become individualised, personalised, that is to say, when it takes up the disposition and configurationof the psychic person and individual. The first stage is that of a subtle body individualised, a radiant form of etherealised elements consisting of the concentrated light particles of the divine consciousness of the Psyche. This too is an immortalisation of the personal identity which can be achieved and is achieved by the gnostic man who is to come, who will wholly psychicise and divinise his personality. The second stage is the reorganisation and individualisation of the material sheath itself. The very cells of the body are impregnated with the radiant substance of the supreme spiritual consciousness; they live the life of the spiritual individual, the personal divine embodied in the individual. When the whole process is gone through and the work clone, the individual body, physically too, shares in and attains the immortality of the soul. The body is firm enough to maintain its physical identity and yet plastic enough to change in the manner and to the degree demanded of it at any time.
In the process of making the body personal and divine and immortal, death or what appears as such may be a needed operation. It is no longer an ineluctable destiny forced upon you, but an instrument which you use consciously for a definite purpose. It is a mystic or occult work (kriy:) which we can try to understand by an analogy. The evolution of the ideal or divine man, the assumption of the mortal by the immortal involves a twofold operation: rejection and integration. Rejection means throwing out the elements that belong exclusively to the lower grade and cannot be taken up and incorporated into the higher; while integration means taking up and absorbing utilisable elements of the lower into the higher. This double process goes on on all the levels, on the mental, on the vital, on the subtle physical and even on the physical level. At a certain stage or in a concentrated process of alchemy the process of rejection may demand a mode of reshuffling and redisposition which physically appears like death, but it is inevitably followed or accompanied by the process of integration or recreation.
05.04 - The Measure of Time, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is when things are arranged in this manner, the right thing in the right place, that divine perfection, the Realisation in the material, is attained. And for this consummation to come about, the process that is followed is a greater and greater infiltration of higher and higher forces into the field of disorder, of our normal life and consciousness. The time taken simply indicates that the process is being worked out; it is an expression of the rhythm of procedure. But to the Divine; the Supreme Consciousness that works, time itself has no separate meaning or intrinsic value; for it a thousand or a million years do not mean more than what is one moment for us. Indeed, the slowness of time simply marks the steps of events in the lower ranges of creation: as we rise higher and higher, forces from there come down into the lower field, and the tempo of events quickens; finally, when the highest peak is attained and its forces descend and intervene in the ordering of the lowest levels, then the change, the arrangement that is being worked out, is accomplished immediately and without delay: the time lag is abolished altogether. Time may be compared to a kind of elastic bond connecting the highest and the lowest and running through the intermediate zones. It contracts as one moves upward and is telescoped, as it were, at the top.
***
05.05 - In Quest of Reality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This faculty of direct knowledge, however, is not such a rare thing as it may appear to be. Indeed if we step outside the circumscribed limits of pure science instances crowd upon us, even in our normal life, which would compel one to conclude that the rational and sensory process is only a fringe and a very small part of a much greater and wider form of knowing. Poets and artists, we all know, are familiar only with that form: without intuition and inspiration they are nothing. Apart from that, modern inquiries and observations have established beyond doubt certain facts of extra-sensory, suprarational perceptionof clairvoyance and clairaudience, of prophecy, of vision into the future as well as into the past. Not only these unorthodox faculties of knowledge, but dynamic powers that almost negate or flout the usual laws of science have been demonstrated to exist and can be and are used by man. The Indian yogic discipline speaks of the eight siddhis, super-natural powers attained by the Yogi when he learns to control nature by the force of his consciousness. Once upon a time these facts were challenged as facts in the scientific world, but it is too late now in the day to deny them their right of existence. Only Science, to maintain its scientific prestige, usually tries to explain such phenomena in the material way, but with no great success. In the end she seems to say these freaks do not come within her purview and she is not concerned with them. However, that is not for us also the subject for discussion for the moment.
The first point then we seek to make out is that even from a rigid positivist stand a form of knowledge that is not strictly positivist has to be accepted. Next, if we come to the content of the knowledge that is being gained, it is found one is being slowly and inevitably led into a world which is also hardly positivistic. We have in our study of the physical world come in close contact with two disconcerting facts or two ends of one fact the infinitely small and the infinitely large. They have disturbed considerably the normal view of things, the view that dominated Science till yesterday. The laws that hold good for the ordinary sensible magnitudes fail totally, in the case of the infinite magnitudes (whether big or small). In the infinite we begin squaring the circle.
05.05 - Of Some Supreme Mysteries, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To go beyond all the dharmas of this threefold Lower Nature, attain to the Truth-Consciousness of the Fourth Status, incarnate in all that we are, know, will, feel and do the Law or Dharma of the Spirit and of the Spirit alone, is what we mean by Spirituality.
***
--- Overview of verb attain
The verb attain has 4 senses (first 2 from tagged texts)
1. (16) achieve, accomplish, attain, reach ::: (to gain with effort; "she achieved her goal despite setbacks")
2. (6) reach, hit, attain ::: (reach a point in time, or a certain state or level; "The thermometer hit 100 degrees"; "This car can reach a speed of 140 miles per hour")
3. fall upon, strike, come upon, light upon, chance upon, come across, chance on, happen upon, attain, discover ::: (find unexpectedly; "the archeologists chanced upon an old tomb"; "she struck a goldmine"; "The hikers finally struck the main path to the lake")
4. reach, make, attain, hit, arrive at, gain ::: (reach a destination, either real or abstract; "We hit Detroit by noon"; "The water reached the doorstep"; "We barely made it to the finish line"; "I have to hit the MAC machine before the weekend starts")
--- Grep of noun attain
attainability
attainableness
attainder
attainment
Wikipedia - Absolute zero -- The lowest attainable temperature
Wikipedia - Acinteyya -- Four issues that should not be thought about, since this distracts from practice, and hinders the attainment of liberation
Wikipedia - Act of Attainder
Wikipedia - Attainder -- Penalty of loss of life, property and titles following a serious capital crime
Wikipedia - Bill of Attainder
Wikipedia - Bill of attainder -- Legislative act declaring a particular person guilty
Wikipedia - Bodhisattva -- Any person who is on the path towards Buddhahood but has not yet attained it
Wikipedia - Coiling -- A method for storing rope or cable in compact yet easily attainable form
Wikipedia - Demigod -- A minor deity, the offspring of a god and a human, or a figure who has attained divine status after death
Wikipedia - Educational attainment in the United States
Wikipedia - Educational attainment
Wikipedia - Eusociality -- Highest level of animal sociality a species can attain
Wikipedia - Forecast attainment -- Statistical forecasting technique
Wikipedia - Franco Battaini -- Italian motorcycle racer
Wikipedia - Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni -- Italian author, educator and politician
Wikipedia - List of countries by secondary education attainment -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of U.S. states and territories by educational attainment -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - Old-growth forest -- Forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance
Wikipedia - Parliament of Devils -- Parliament of November 1459 summoned to pass bills of attainder for high treason against Yorkist nobles
Wikipedia - Pierre Attaingnant -- French music printer
Wikipedia - Potential temperature -- The temperature that a fluid would attain if adiabatically brought to a standard reference pressure
Wikipedia - Professional services -- Services created by applying specialized abilities attained through experience and tertiary education
Wikipedia - Sage (philosophy) -- Someone who has attained wisdom
Wikipedia - Siddhashila -- Area in Jain cosmology where the Jains believe people who have become arihants and tirthankaras go after they die and attain moksha
Wikipedia - Walter Brattain
Wikipedia - Walter Houser Brattain -- American physicist
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16114862-unattainable
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18513755-attainment
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22841566-fulfillment-and-attainment
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23202995-attaining-your-desires
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24675679-the-wisdom-of-genevieve-behrend-attaining-your-desires-how-to-live-life
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24967505-unattainable
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25458391-a-young-girl-s-primer-or-how-to-attain-to-the-leisure-class
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29862561-how-to-attain-the-love-of-allah
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43866646-unattainable
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6620104-attaining-your-desires
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6790927-on-attaining-buddhahood-in-this-lifetime
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7018034-how-to-attain-enlightenment
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Consecrated_life_(Catholic_Church)#Canonical_recognition_attained_in_modern_times
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Only_those_who_have_loved_shall_attain_the_Lord
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Outline_of_Buddhism#Attainment_of_Enlightenment
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Satori#Attaining_satori
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Talk:Theravada_Levels_of_attainment
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Theravada_Levels_of_attainment
Kheper - note_on_attaining_nonduality -- 27
Integral World - The Guru Transparency, Why Inner Attainment shouldn't be equated with Outer Knowledge, David Lane
selforum - blank verse has attained in hand of sri
selforum - you have not yet attained lived
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Attaining
Gundam Wing (1995 - 1996) - it is the year after colony 195. war is beginning between colonies in space and Earth. five young men fight to attain peace and freedom for all.
Downtown (1999 - 2000) - lex - Alex is smart, skeptical, and intentionally un-hip, but can't seem to overcome his self-conscious nature. His shyness and lack of confidence keep him from getting what he wants: a girlfriend, a better job, and a more exciting life. Alex tends to develop frustrating crushes on unattainable wome...
The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything(2008) - George, Sedgwick, and Elliot are three cabin boys who are working on a pirate-themed dinner. They want to live their dreams of being great heroes but feel they are unattainable. After the receive a prophetic vision from an old man, they realize adventure is ahead for them. They soon wind up teleport...
https://android.fandom.com/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_Attain
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Hall_of_Attainment
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Brattain_crewmember_001
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Brattain_crewmember_002
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Brattain_crewmember_003
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Brattain_crewmembers_000
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Brattain_officer_001
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Brattain_scientist_001
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Brattain_scientist_002
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Brattain_unnamed_000
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Captain's_log,_USS_Brattain
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ferengi_Attainment_Ceremony
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Brattain
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Brattain_personnel
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Attainted
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Brattain
https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Attainment
Absolute Duo -- -- 8bit -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Harem Supernatural Romance Ecchi School -- Absolute Duo Absolute Duo -- Individuals who can materialize weapons from their soul are called "Blazers," and they attend Kouryou Academy High School in order to harness their abilities. Each student is required to partner with another, in the hopes that one day, the pair can attain the power of Absolute Duo. -- -- Tooru Kokonoe hopes to attend this academy in order to gain power after his sister and friends were slain by a mysterious man. However, at the opening ceremony, he is forced to duel against the person sitting next to him, with the loser being expelled. As Tooru prepares to give the match his all, it is not a weapon that manifests from his soul, but a shield, an irregularity which catches the attention of a foreign student named Julie Sigtuna. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 442,092 6.49
Accel World -- -- Sunrise -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Game Sci-Fi Romance School -- Accel World Accel World -- Haruyuki Arita is an overweight, bullied middle schooler who finds solace in playing online games. But his life takes a drastic turn one day, when he finds that all his high scores have been topped by Kuroyukihime, the popular vice president of the student council. She then invites him to the student lounge and introduces him to "Brain Burst," a program which allows the users to accelerate their brain waves to the point where time seems to stop. Brain Burst also functions as an augmented reality fighting game, and in order to get more points to accelerate, users must win duels against other players. However, if a user loses all their points, they will also lose access to Brain Burst forever. -- -- Kuroyukihime explains that she chose to show Haruyuki the program because she needs his help. She wants to meet the creator of Brain Burst and uncover the reason of why it was created, but that's easier said than done; to do so, she must defeat the "Six Kings of Pure Color," powerful faction leaders within the game, and reach level 10, the highest level attainable. After the girl helps Haruyuki overcome the bullies that torment him, he vows to help her realize her goal, and so begins the duo's fight to reach the top. -- -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- 612,411 7.30
Aria the OVA: Arietta -- -- Hal Film Maker -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Slice of Life Fantasy Shounen -- Aria the OVA: Arietta Aria the OVA: Arietta -- Akari Mizunashi dreams of life after attaining her goal of becoming a Prima Undine, but upon waking realizes that she might not actually have the confidence to run Aria Company on her own. Wary of the future, she seeks advice from her mentor Alicia Florence—one of the three great "Water Fairies" of Neo-Venezia. -- -- Much to Akari's surprise, Alicia reveals her own struggles of the past, but also shares the steps she took in overcoming her self-doubt of running the company and taking on an apprentice. Finding solace in her teacher's words, Akari prepares to embrace whatever trials she must overcome on her path toward achieving her dreams. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Nozomi Entertainment -- OVA - Sep 21, 2007 -- 31,683 8.02
Enen no Shouboutai: Ni no Shou -- -- David Production -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Action Supernatural Shounen -- Enen no Shouboutai: Ni no Shou Enen no Shouboutai: Ni no Shou -- After his confrontation in the Nether with his younger brother Shou, Shinra Kusakabe's resolve to become a hero that saves lives from the flame terror strengthens. Finding a way to turn the Infernals back into people, unraveling the mystery of the Evangelist and Adolla Burst, and saving his mother and Shou—these are the goals Shinra has in mind. However, he has come to realize that attaining these goals will not be easy, especially with the imminent danger the Evangelist poses. -- -- The Evangelist's plan is clear: to gather the eight pillars—the individuals who possess Adolla Burst—and sacrifice them to recreate the Great Cataclysm from 250 years ago. Having been revealed by the First Pillar that the birth of a new pillar is approaching, Shinra is determined to protect his fellow pillars from the Evangelist. Thus, the fiery battle between the Special Fire Force and the Evangelist ignites. Together with the Special Fire Force, Shinra's fight continues as he uncovers the truth about the Great Cataclysm and the nature of Adolla Bursts, as well as the mysteries behind human combustion. -- -- 402,357 7.75
Enen no Shouboutai: Ni no Shou -- -- David Production -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Action Supernatural Shounen -- Enen no Shouboutai: Ni no Shou Enen no Shouboutai: Ni no Shou -- After his confrontation in the Nether with his younger brother Shou, Shinra Kusakabe's resolve to become a hero that saves lives from the flame terror strengthens. Finding a way to turn the Infernals back into people, unraveling the mystery of the Evangelist and Adolla Burst, and saving his mother and Shou—these are the goals Shinra has in mind. However, he has come to realize that attaining these goals will not be easy, especially with the imminent danger the Evangelist poses. -- -- The Evangelist's plan is clear: to gather the eight pillars—the individuals who possess Adolla Burst—and sacrifice them to recreate the Great Cataclysm from 250 years ago. Having been revealed by the First Pillar that the birth of a new pillar is approaching, Shinra is determined to protect his fellow pillars from the Evangelist. Thus, the fiery battle between the Special Fire Force and the Evangelist ignites. Together with the Special Fire Force, Shinra's fight continues as he uncovers the truth about the Great Cataclysm and the nature of Adolla Bursts, as well as the mysteries behind human combustion. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 402,357 7.75
Ginga Tetsudou 999 -- -- Toei Animation -- 113 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Space Drama -- Ginga Tetsudou 999 Ginga Tetsudou 999 -- In the distant future, humanity has found a way to live forever by purchasing mechanical bodies, but this way to immortality is extraordinarily expensive. An impoverished boy, Tetsurou Hoshino, desires to purchase a pass on the Galaxy Express 999—a train that travels throughout the universe—because it is said that at the end of the line, those aboard can obtain a mechanical body for free. When Tetsurou's mother is gunned down by the villainous machine-man hybrid Count Mecha, however, all seems lost. -- -- Tetsurou is then saved from certain death by the mysterious Maetel, a tall woman with blonde hair and a striking resemblance to his mother. She gives him a pass to the Galaxy Express under one condition: that they travel together. Thus, Tetsurou begins his journey across the universe to many unique planets and thrilling adventures, in hopes of being able to attain that which he most desires. -- -- 26,416 7.80
Ginga Tetsudou 999 -- -- Toei Animation -- 113 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Space Drama -- Ginga Tetsudou 999 Ginga Tetsudou 999 -- In the distant future, humanity has found a way to live forever by purchasing mechanical bodies, but this way to immortality is extraordinarily expensive. An impoverished boy, Tetsurou Hoshino, desires to purchase a pass on the Galaxy Express 999—a train that travels throughout the universe—because it is said that at the end of the line, those aboard can obtain a mechanical body for free. When Tetsurou's mother is gunned down by the villainous machine-man hybrid Count Mecha, however, all seems lost. -- -- Tetsurou is then saved from certain death by the mysterious Maetel, a tall woman with blonde hair and a striking resemblance to his mother. She gives him a pass to the Galaxy Express under one condition: that they travel together. Thus, Tetsurou begins his journey across the universe to many unique planets and thrilling adventures, in hopes of being able to attain that which he most desires. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- 26,416 7.80
Grancrest Senki -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Drama Fantasy Romance -- Grancrest Senki Grancrest Senki -- The continent of Atlatan once again finds itself devoured by the flames of war after a horrific event known as the Great Hall Tragedy. What was supposed to be a joyful occasion that would establish peace between the Fantasia Union and the Factory Alliance, the marriage of Sir Alexis Douse and Lady Marrine Kreische, was instead a tragedy. As the bride and groom walked down the aisle, the ceremony was suddenly interrupted by a powerful convergence of "Chaos," a dark energy from another dimension that corrupts the land and brings forth monsters and demons into the world. From within that energy appeared the Demon Lord of Diabolos, an evil being who instantly murdered the archdukes of both factions, shattering any hope for peace between them. -- -- Having failed to prevent this disaster, Siluca Meletes, an Alliance mage, is traveling through the Chaos-infested countryside to study under a master magician. When she is intercepted by a group of soldiers working with the Federation, Siluca is rescued by Theo Cornaro, a young warrior carrying a mysterious "Crest," a magical symbol that gives its wielder the ability to banish Chaos. Bearing no allegiance to a specific domain, Theo hopes to attain the rank of Lord so that he can liberate his home town of Sistina from its tyrannical ruler and the Chaos spreading within it. Impressed by his noble goal, Siluca enters into a magical contract with Theo, and the two embark on a journey to restore balance to their war-torn land. -- -- 221,418 7.24
Grancrest Senki -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Drama Fantasy Romance -- Grancrest Senki Grancrest Senki -- The continent of Atlatan once again finds itself devoured by the flames of war after a horrific event known as the Great Hall Tragedy. What was supposed to be a joyful occasion that would establish peace between the Fantasia Union and the Factory Alliance, the marriage of Sir Alexis Douse and Lady Marrine Kreische, was instead a tragedy. As the bride and groom walked down the aisle, the ceremony was suddenly interrupted by a powerful convergence of "Chaos," a dark energy from another dimension that corrupts the land and brings forth monsters and demons into the world. From within that energy appeared the Demon Lord of Diabolos, an evil being who instantly murdered the archdukes of both factions, shattering any hope for peace between them. -- -- Having failed to prevent this disaster, Siluca Meletes, an Alliance mage, is traveling through the Chaos-infested countryside to study under a master magician. When she is intercepted by a group of soldiers working with the Federation, Siluca is rescued by Theo Cornaro, a young warrior carrying a mysterious "Crest," a magical symbol that gives its wielder the ability to banish Chaos. Bearing no allegiance to a specific domain, Theo hopes to attain the rank of Lord so that he can liberate his home town of Sistina from its tyrannical ruler and the Chaos spreading within it. Impressed by his noble goal, Siluca enters into a magical contract with Theo, and the two embark on a journey to restore balance to their war-torn land. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 221,418 7.24
Haikyuu!!: Karasuno Koukou vs. Shiratorizawa Gakuen Koukou -- -- Production I.G -- 10 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Sports Drama School Shounen -- Haikyuu!!: Karasuno Koukou vs. Shiratorizawa Gakuen Koukou Haikyuu!!: Karasuno Koukou vs. Shiratorizawa Gakuen Koukou -- After the victory against Aoba Jousai High, Karasuno High School, once called “a fallen powerhouse, a crow that can’t fly,” has finally reached the climax of the heated Spring tournament. Now, to advance to nationals, the Karasuno team has to defeat the powerhouse Shiratorizawa Academy. Karasuno’s greatest hurdle is their adversary’s ace, Wakatoshi Ushijima, the number one player in the Miyagi Prefecture, and one of the country’s top three aces. -- -- Only the strongest team will make it to the national tournament. Since this match is the third-year players’ last chance to qualify for nationals, Karasuno has to use everything they learned during the training camp and prior matches to attain victory. Filled with restlessness and excitement, both teams are determined to come out on top in the third season of Haikyuu!!. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 795,159 8.84
Hibike! Euphonium 2 -- -- Kyoto Animation -- 13 eps -- Novel -- Music Drama School -- Hibike! Euphonium 2 Hibike! Euphonium 2 -- Following their success in the qualifying round for the Kansai regional competition, the members of the Kitauji High School concert band set their sights on the next upcoming performance. Utilizing their summer break to the utmost, the band participates in a camp where they are instructed by their band advisor Noboru Taki and his friends who make their living as professional musicians. -- -- Kumiko Oumae and her friends remain determined to attain gold at the Kansai competition, but trouble arises when a student who once quit the band shows interest in rejoining and sparks unpleasant memories for the second-year members. Kumiko also learns about her teacher's surprising past and the motivation behind his desire to lead the band to victory. Reaching nationals will require hard work, and the adamant conviction in each student's commitment to the band will be put to the test. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Ponycan USA -- 170,795 8.29
Hibike! Euphonium Movie 2: Todoketai Melody -- -- Kyoto Animation -- 1 ep -- Novel -- Drama Music School -- Hibike! Euphonium Movie 2: Todoketai Melody Hibike! Euphonium Movie 2: Todoketai Melody -- Following their success in the qualifying round for the Kansai regional competition, the members of the Kitauji High School concert band set their sights on the next upcoming performance. Utilizing their summer break to the utmost, the band participates in a camp where they are instructed by their band advisor Noboru Taki and his friends who make their living as professional musicians. -- -- Kumiko Oumae and her friends remain determined to attain gold at the Kansai competition, but trouble arises when a student who once quit the band shows interest in rejoining and sparks unpleasant memories for the second-year members. Kumiko also learns about her teacher's surprising past and the motivation behind his desire to lead the band to victory. Reaching nationals will require hard work, and the adamant conviction in each student's commitment to the band will be put to the test. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Eleven Arts -- Movie - Sep 30, 2017 -- 20,503 7.74
Hunter x Hunter (2011) -- -- Madhouse -- 148 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Fantasy Shounen Super Power -- Hunter x Hunter (2011) Hunter x Hunter (2011) -- Hunter x Hunter is set in a world where Hunters exist to perform all manner of dangerous tasks like capturing criminals and bravely searching for lost treasures in uncharted territories. Twelve-year-old Gon Freecss is determined to become the best Hunter possible in hopes of finding his father, who was a Hunter himself and had long ago abandoned his young son. However, Gon soon realizes the path to achieving his goals is far more challenging than he could have ever imagined. -- -- Along the way to becoming an official Hunter, Gon befriends the lively doctor-in-training Leorio, vengeful Kurapika, and rebellious ex-assassin Killua. To attain their own goals and desires, together the four of them take the Hunter Exam, notorious for its low success rate and high probability of death. Throughout their journey, Gon and his friends embark on an adventure that puts them through many hardships and struggles. They will meet a plethora of monsters, creatures, and characters—all while learning what being a Hunter truly means. -- -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- 1,828,803 9.08
Hunter x Hunter -- -- Nippon Animation -- 62 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Super Power Fantasy Shounen -- Hunter x Hunter Hunter x Hunter -- Hunters are specialized in a wide variety of fields, ranging from treasure hunting to cooking. They have access to otherwise unavailable funds and information that allow them to pursue their dreams and interests. However, being a hunter is a special privilege, only attained by taking a deadly exam with an extremely low success rate. -- -- Gon Freecss, a 12-year-old boy with the hope of finding his missing father, sets out on a quest to take the Hunter Exam. Along the way, he picks up three companions who also aim to take the dangerous test: the revenge-seeking Kurapika, aspiring doctor Leorio Paladiknight, and a mischievous child the same age as Gon, Killua Zoldyck. -- -- Hunter x Hunter is a classic shounen that follows the story of four aspiring hunters as they embark on a perilous adventure, fighting for their dreams while defying the odds. -- -- 436,333 8.41
Hunter x Hunter -- -- Nippon Animation -- 62 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Super Power Fantasy Shounen -- Hunter x Hunter Hunter x Hunter -- Hunters are specialized in a wide variety of fields, ranging from treasure hunting to cooking. They have access to otherwise unavailable funds and information that allow them to pursue their dreams and interests. However, being a hunter is a special privilege, only attained by taking a deadly exam with an extremely low success rate. -- -- Gon Freecss, a 12-year-old boy with the hope of finding his missing father, sets out on a quest to take the Hunter Exam. Along the way, he picks up three companions who also aim to take the dangerous test: the revenge-seeking Kurapika, aspiring doctor Leorio Paladiknight, and a mischievous child the same age as Gon, Killua Zoldyck. -- -- Hunter x Hunter is a classic shounen that follows the story of four aspiring hunters as they embark on a perilous adventure, fighting for their dreams while defying the odds. -- -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- 436,333 8.41
Itazura na Kiss -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 25 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Romance Shoujo -- Itazura na Kiss Itazura na Kiss -- When her newly-built home is razed to the ground by an earthquake, low-achieving, clumsy, and troublesome third-year high school student Kotoko Aihara is forced to share a roof with the school's—and possibly Japan's—smartest student, Naoki Irie. Kotoko is not actually a complete stranger to Irie-kun; unfortunately, a single love letter that she tried to give him in the past has already sealed her fate as far as he is concerned. Throw in some quirky friends and a meddlesome mother, and Kotoko might not even have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the older Irie boy's heart. Yet Kotoko remains optimistic that, because she now lives in his house, her unattainable crush on the genius since the beginning of high school has never been more within reach. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- 235,854 7.50
Magi: Sinbad no Bouken -- -- Lay-duce -- 5 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Fantasy Magic Shounen -- Magi: Sinbad no Bouken Magi: Sinbad no Bouken -- Not so long ago, mysterious structures called Dungeons began appearing all over the world. No one knows what they are or how they came to be, but adventurers and armies around the world instantly took interest in them. Thousands set out to explore the Dungeons, but so far, not a single person has returned. -- -- In a Parthevian port, a young boy is about to make a name for himself. Sinbad is good-natured, strong, and craving adventure. A kind deed leads to his meeting with Yunan, an enigmatic traveler who is far more powerful than his frivolous personality lets on. Yunan instructs Sinbad to attain the "power of the king" and change the world—by conquering a Dungeon. The eager boy readily accepts, setting out on the grand adventure he so craved. -- -- Taking place 15 years before the events of the original series, Magi: Sinbad no Bouken chronicles Sinbad's youth as a Dungeon conqueror. Along the way, the budding adventurer and merchant will have to face many obstacles, but anything is possible with the power of a king. -- -- OVA - May 14, 2014 -- 105,576 7.83
Monster -- -- Madhouse -- 74 eps -- Manga -- Drama Horror Mystery Police Psychological Seinen Thriller -- Monster Monster -- Dr. Kenzou Tenma, an elite neurosurgeon recently engaged to his hospital director's daughter, is well on his way to ascending the hospital hierarchy. That is until one night, a seemingly small event changes Dr. Tenma's life forever. While preparing to perform surgery on someone, he gets a call from the hospital director telling him to switch patients and instead perform life-saving brain surgery on a famous performer. His fellow doctors, fiancée, and the hospital director applaud his accomplishment; but because of the switch, a poor immigrant worker is dead, causing Dr. Tenma to have a crisis of conscience. -- -- So when a similar situation arises, Dr. Tenma stands his ground and chooses to perform surgery on the young boy Johan Liebert instead of the town's mayor. Unfortunately, this choice leads to serious ramifications for Dr. Tenma—losing his social standing being one of them. However, with the mysterious death of the director and two other doctors, Dr. Tenma's position is restored. With no evidence to convict him, he is released and goes on to attain the position of hospital director. -- -- Nine years later when Dr. Tenma saves the life of a criminal, his past comes back to haunt him—once again, he comes face to face with the monster he operated on. He must now embark on a quest of pursuit to make amends for the havoc spread by the one he saved. -- -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- 657,585 8.77
Natsume Yuujinchou -- -- Brain's Base -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Demons Supernatural Drama Shoujo -- Natsume Yuujinchou Natsume Yuujinchou -- While most fifteen-year-old boys, in one way or another, harbor secrets that are related to girls, Takashi Natsume has a peculiar and terrifying secret involving youkai: for as long as he can remember, he has been constantly chased by these spirits. Natsume soon discovers that his deceased grandmother Reiko had passed on to him the Yuujinchou, or "Book of Friends," which contains the names of the spirits whom she brought under her control. Now in Natsume's possession, the book gives Reiko's grandson this power as well, which is why these enraged beings now haunt him in hopes of somehow attaining their freedom. -- -- Without parents and a loving home, and constantly being hunted by hostile, merciless youkai, Natsume is looking for solace—a place where he belongs. However, his only companion is a self-proclaimed bodyguard named Madara. Fondly referred to as Nyanko-sensei, Madara is a mysterious, pint-sized feline spirit who has his own reasons for sticking with the boy. -- -- Based on the critically acclaimed manga by Yuki Midorikawa, Natsume Yuujinchou is an unconventional and supernatural slice-of-life series that follows Natsume as he, with his infamous protector Madara, endeavors to free the spirits bound by his grandmother's contract. -- -- -- Licensor: -- NIS America, Inc. -- 424,103 8.33
One Piece Movie 1 -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Adventure Comedy Super Power Fantasy Shounen -- One Piece Movie 1 One Piece Movie 1 -- Woonan is the legendary Great Gold Pirate, earning the nickname after accumulating about 1/3 of the gold available in the world. Even after his disappearance, the tales of his gold being stashed away in a remote island continue to persist, a juicy target that other pirates lust for. -- -- One of the pirates going to great lengths to attain the treasure is El Drago. He and his crew have hunted down Woonan's former crew members one by one, and along the way, they find the map that will take them to the hidden island. -- -- The map is not all they come across; they also manage to come into contact with the straw hat pirates. After a short battle, Luffy and company are robbed and separated from one another. Now they must find a way to make it to the island before El Drago does and take the legendary treasure for themselves. -- Movie - Mar 4, 2000 -- 85,703 7.10
The God of High School -- -- MAPPA -- 13 eps -- Web manga -- Action Sci-Fi Adventure Comedy Supernatural Martial Arts Fantasy -- The God of High School The God of High School -- The "God of High School" tournament has begun, seeking out the greatest fighter among Korean high school students! All martial arts styles, weapons, means, and methods of attaining victory are permitted. The prize? One wish for anything desired by the winner. -- -- Taekwondo expert Jin Mo-Ri is invited to participate in the competition. There he befriends karate specialist Han Dae-Wi and swordswoman Yu Mi-Ra, who both have entered for their own personal reasons. Mo-Ri knows that no opponent will be the same and that the matches will be the most ruthless he has ever fought in his life. But instead of being worried, this prospect excites him beyond belief. -- -- A secret lies beneath the facade of a transparent test of combat prowess the tournament claims to be—one that has Korean political candidate Park Mu-Jin watching every fight with expectant, hungry eyes. Mo-Ri, Dae-Wi, and Mi-Ra are about to discover what it really means to become the God of High School. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Crunchyroll -- 536,956 7.05
Vampire Hunter -- -- Madhouse -- 4 eps -- Game -- Action Adventure Supernatural Drama Vampire Fantasy -- Vampire Hunter Vampire Hunter -- The world is a dark, brooding place populated by humans, but ruled in reality by powerful beings known as the Darkstalkers, and there is constant conflict between them as they try to determine who is the most powerful of them all. Zombies, vampires, werewolves - all of them compete in contests of strength and sheer will to attain their own personal goals. -- -- All of this becomes moot when a race of Aztec robots called the Huitzil decide that humanity isn't worth saving, and start waging war on the world, while in the sky, a solar god from outer space plots the conquest of Earth. And the Darkstalkers must become unwilling allies in order to save the world. -- -- (Source: AnimeNfo) -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media, VIZ Media -- OVA - Mar 21, 1997 -- 14,746 6.62
Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne! -- -- Project No.9 -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Fantasy -- Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne! Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne! -- Having stood out from others most of her life due to her exceptional character, Misato Kurihara has lived without neither the joy of having close friends nor the experience of having a regular life. However, after a sudden death, she was transported to a divine realm to be reincarnated—and granted one wish to top it off. Thinking about the ordinary life that she had always wanted, she wished to be born as a normal person, with abilities that are average for the world she will resurrect in. -- -- Reborn as Adele von Ascham—the daughter of a noble—she possesses magic powers completely exceeding what one would label average. Still desiring to carry out the life she wanted, she leaves her home and enrolls at a hunter school in a faraway kingdom using "Mile" as an alias. However, try as she might to hide her overpowering potential, attaining her goal will be difficult—especially when facing against the crazy situations that ensue! -- -- 116,130 6.84
Yuri Kuma Arashi -- -- SILVER LINK. -- 12 eps -- Original -- Psychological Drama Fantasy School Seinen Shoujo Ai -- Yuri Kuma Arashi Yuri Kuma Arashi -- In the past, humanoid bears coexisted with humans. However, a meteor shower that fell onto Earth had a strange effect on bears throughout the world: they suddenly became violent and hungry for human flesh, spurring an endless cycle of bloodshed in which bear ate man and man shot bear, forgetting the lively relationship they once had. The "Wall of Severance" was thus built, separating the two civilizations and keeping peace. -- -- Kureha Tsubaki and Sumika Izumino are two lovers attending Arashigaoka Academy, who, upon the arrival of two bears that have sneaked through the Wall of Severance and infiltrated the academy, find their relationship under a grave threat. The hungering yet affectionate bears, Ginko Yurishiro and Lulu Yurigasaki, seem to see the bear-hating Kureha as more than just another meal, and in getting closer to her, trigger an unraveling of secrets that Kureha may not be able to bear. -- -- When their relationships provoke the Invisible Storm, a group that keeps order within the ideological school, the girls must stand on trial with their love, embarking on a journey of self-discovery en route to attaining true love's "promised kiss." -- -- 86,301 7.07
Yuri Kuma Arashi -- -- SILVER LINK. -- 12 eps -- Original -- Psychological Drama Fantasy School Seinen Shoujo Ai -- Yuri Kuma Arashi Yuri Kuma Arashi -- In the past, humanoid bears coexisted with humans. However, a meteor shower that fell onto Earth had a strange effect on bears throughout the world: they suddenly became violent and hungry for human flesh, spurring an endless cycle of bloodshed in which bear ate man and man shot bear, forgetting the lively relationship they once had. The "Wall of Severance" was thus built, separating the two civilizations and keeping peace. -- -- Kureha Tsubaki and Sumika Izumino are two lovers attending Arashigaoka Academy, who, upon the arrival of two bears that have sneaked through the Wall of Severance and infiltrated the academy, find their relationship under a grave threat. The hungering yet affectionate bears, Ginko Yurishiro and Lulu Yurigasaki, seem to see the bear-hating Kureha as more than just another meal, and in getting closer to her, trigger an unraveling of secrets that Kureha may not be able to bear. -- -- When their relationships provoke the Invisible Storm, a group that keeps order within the ideological school, the girls must stand on trial with their love, embarking on a journey of self-discovery en route to attaining true love's "promised kiss." -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 86,301 7.07
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